SGA Story: Guardians of Pegasus part 3
TITLE: Guardians of Pegasus.
FANDOM: Stargate Atlantis
PAIRING: John Shepard/Rodney McKay
WORD COUNT: 2525
RATING: R
WARNINGS: Vampires. Work in progress. Possible spoilers for Rising pt 1.
Summary:
John sees the Stargate for the first time and gets a second chance to convince Rodney that he's not a monster.
Notes:
Thank you to my betas who've helped make this a better story, my loyal cheerleaders and everyone who has commented on the story so far.
I have one more chapter mostly complete, which should go up at the weekend, if not before. There will be at least two more chapters, which I'm currently working on, and hope to send to beta soon. I will put more accurate word counts up when I figure out how to do them on the tablet.
Part 3 Cheyenne Mountain
John Sheppard had learned about Stargates as a child, from bedtime stories about Grandpa Jack and the great exodus from Pegasus. He used to believe that his mom had made the stories up, but now here he was, standing next to his grandfather, watching as the wormhole event horizon burst out from the gate like a thrown bucket of water and snapped back into place like the smooth rippled surface of a pond. John was just here to watch this time, but he would soon be travelling though the gate himself. He had spent the last couple of days at Cheyenne Mountain getting his security clearance authorized, collecting his new uniforms and learning his way round the base. The scientists in Antarctica had not been happy to have their pet ATA gene taken away from them so soon, but O'Neill had insisted that John should get some gate travel time before Atlantis. If everything had gone according to plan, John would have joined the SGC months ago, so he needed to make up for lost time. Jack was also hoping that given enough space, McKay would get over his anger that John would be joining the Atlantis Expedition.
John watched as SG3 walked up the ramp and stepped into the undulating blue curtain to disappear from view.
“Pretty cool huh?” said O’Neill, standing off to one side.
“And you do this all the time?” asked John, awestruck. “What’s it like?”
“You’ll find out tomorrow when you go out with SG12.” the general answered with a smug grin. “They’re a good team. Lt Ford is going to Atlantis too, so it’s a good chance for you to work together.”
“I hope it works out.” John said thoughtfully. “I could do with a few allies on this trip.”
“Don‘t mind Sumner.” O’Neill reassured him. “I know he comes across a bit by the book, but he’s a good guy, always got your six.”
“I hope you’re right.” John said, “because I get the impression he doesn’t like me much, but I’m more worried about Dr McKay.”
“Yeah, that’s going to be a problem,” the general admitted. “Of all the people on the expedition you could have pissed off, why did it have to be the Chief Science officer?”
“Sorry?” Sheppard apologized, a sheepish look on his face.
“He’ll come round eventually, but I see a lot of groveling and playing light switch in your future.” O’Neill joked.
V ----- V
Rodney was dreading meeting up with John Sheppard at the SGC, but when he arrived it turned out that Sheppard was on a mission with SG12. Rodney was sure O’Neill had planned it on purpose, but he did not have time to think about it. As CSO he had scientists to shout at, equipment to organize for transport and a ZPM to interface with the gate. By the evening of the third day he was exhausted, sleep deprived and Sheppard was the last thing on his mind. Rodney was taking a much needed break to grab a sandwich and a mug of coffee in the SGC canteen, when someone nudged his open laptop with a tray.
“Mind if I join you?” asked a familiar voice.
Rodney looked up from his ZPM power flow calculations to see Sheppard dressed in a dark blue Air Force uniform with the SG12 patch on his shoulder. He had a hopeful expression on his face and Rodney could not help noticing how hot he looked in the uniform. He squashed that thought ruthlessly because he was not going to let himself fall for the Major’s boyish charms.
“Go away, I’m busy.” Rodney snapped. Sheppard ignored him and sat down.
“Look, McKay, I think we need to talk.” he began.
“No we don’t. I need to finish these power calculations and you need to find someone else to bother.” Rodney reached out and grabbed his coffee mug, took a swig and returned to his work.
“Please Rodney.” Sheppard drawled.
Rodney looked up from his laptop to see puppy dog eyes staring back at him.
“Look, if I let you say whatever it is you want to say, will you go away and leave me in peace?” he asked.
“Sure.” Sheppard said, with a smile that nearly took McKay’s breath away. “Look, I just wanted to say I’m really sorry for what happened in D.C. I totally misread the situation and I promise that I won’t, well, you know again. If that’s what you want?”
“What I want is for you to stay away from me, unless we need to work together in a professional capacity.” Rodney said.
Sheppard looked stricken, like Rodney had kicked his puppy.
“For gods sake,” he said, “You didn’t think we were going to be friends, or something?”
“Um, yes?” Sheppard said, tentatively. “Look, I know I messed up pretty bad, but maybe we could start again, clean slate? If we can’t get back home from Atlantis, we’re going to be stuck with each other for a long time and personally I’d rather be friends.”
Rodney was not sure why he even considered it, because it was not like Sheppard had given him any reason to trust the man. Maybe he was just tired of feeling angry all the time, or perhaps it was because he knew Sheppard was right about one thing, life on Atlantis would be a lot easier if they could at least be civil to one another. Or maybe it was just because he had been lonely for so long now that an offer of friendship, even from a vampire, was not something he could easily reject.
“I know I’m probably going to regret this, but fine, you can have your clean slate. Just don’t mess up again, OK?”
“Cool” said Sheppard, his face lighting up with another brilliant smile and Rodney knew that he was going to end up regretting this.
V ----- V
“Watcha doing, Rodney?” Sheppard drawled, leaning against the door frame in a now familiar slouch.
Rodney looked up from the strange looking device that he was working on and suppressed a smile. Unlike the other scientists in the mountain, Rodney rarely had to ask Sheppard to turn on the ancient tech, but Sheppard had developed a habit of turning up in Rodney’s lab, usually at meal times. At first Rodney was annoyed by the way Sheppard kept dragging him to the mess for meals, but he had started to become accustomed to it.
“It’s one of the Naquada generators we’re bringing to Atlantis with us.” he explained. “I’m just checking the power output to make sure it’s working properly.”
“Didn‘t you check those already?” Sheppard asked, one eyebrow raised.
“Yes, of course we did.” Rodney replied, “but we’re leaving tomorrow, and we might be depending on these generators for our very survival, so I would like to be sure they actually work.”
Sheppard walked across the room and leaned one hip against the desk, provocatively. Rodney noticed that he had dressed in civilian clothes, a soft black button up shirt and snug fitting worn black jeans.
“Rodney, it’s our last night on Earth. Isn’t there something else you’d rather be doing?”
“Like what?” asked Rodney, hastily suppressing a fantasy of Sheppard doing dirty, dirty things to him.
“Like coming out for a drink with me.” Sheppard said, hopefully.
“Yes, because the last time we did that worked out so well.” Rodney snarked.
“But Rodney, you promised.” Sheppard whined.
“Really, because I don’t seem to remember that,” Rodney snapped, “and don’t look at me with those puppy dog eyes, it isn’t going to work.”
“Oh, but you did Rodney,” said Sheppard with a mischievous grin. “You said you’d be my friend, and friends go for drinks with other friends.”
“That so doesn’t count as a promise.” Rodney said, but he was already packing up his tools, with a resigned expression on his face. “I suppose I could spare a couple of hours from my busy schedule for a drink with a friend, just no funny business, OK?”
“I promise I won’t bite.” Sheppard said with a grin.
V ----- V
The bar that John chose was popular with staff from the mountain and Rodney was reassured to see a number of familiar faces. They found a quiet booth to sit down and John offered to buy the first round of drinks. Shortly after they arrived, the guys from SG12 spotted them and ended up sitting at their table. Normally, Rodney would not waste his time on a bunch of marine grunts, but their presence was safe and familiar. They ended up talking about the relative merits of hockey verses football and Sergeant Miller from SG12 told Rodney amusing stories about Sheppard’s off world antics.
By the time the SG12 guys moved on, Rodney had relaxed and dropped his guard, and the conversation had moved on to movies.
“I can’t believe you don’t like Back To The Future.” John argued.
“Oh please, the science in that movie is so wrong, I don‘t know where to begin.” Rodney said, only to contradict himself by making several pointed comments about scientific inaccuracies.
“You like horror movies.” Sheppard pointed out.
“Yes well that’s different,” Rodney disagreed. “At least your average horror movie isn’t pretending to be anything other than fantasy. I mean who actually believes in ghosts, were-wolfs or vamp….. Oh.” He blushed and his eyes didn't quite meet Sheppard’s.
They sit in silence for a while, nursing their drinks. In the end it was Sheppard who spoke first.
“I really hate those vampire movies.” he said. “They put ideas into people‘s heads, make them think we‘re monsters or something.”
Rodney looked up at John and saw a naked, hurt expression on his face. Unsure what to say, he reached out to place his hand over John‘s, but something stopped him. He pulled his hand back and turned his head to hide his blush.
“See, even you think I’m a monster.” John said, in a quiet, hurt voice.
“No, no, I don’t, it’s just, well the whole biting thing, well it’s a bit….”
“Scary?” John answered, softly.
“Well yeah.” Rodney admits.
“You know, I’m just a regular person really, just like everybody else.” John said, ignoring Rodney’s grunt of disagreement. “No, it’s true. I had a pretty normal childhood. Played football, climbed trees, read comics, watched TV. I didn’t even need to bite someone until I hit puberty.” He picked up his beer and took a swig.
“What was that like?” asked Rodney, curiously.
“You sure you want to hear this?” John asked, staring at Rodney intently.
Rodney swallowed nervously. “I think I need to know.”
“OK then. My first time, I was just fourteen. My dad had given me the talk, but I hadn’t been prepared for how overwhelming the urge would be. I was making out with this girl and, well, I lost control, bit down too hard. She got scared and pushed me away. I managed to pass it off as a hickey, but she never talked to me again.”
“After that it got easier. People tend not to see things they know are impossible and I learned not to take enough blood from any one person to draw attention to myself. Mostly, people just thought I was this slightly weird Goth kid. Then I made the mistake of telling someone the truth. Guy came after me with a stake, tried to kill me.” John paused for a moment, staring at his drink. “My dad had to move house, enroll me in a new school. After that, well I just stopped trusting people.”
With a rare burst of intuition, Rodney realized what John wasn‘t saying. “The guy, he was going to be your companion, wasn’t he?”
John did not answer, just looked down at the table and fiddled with his glass.
“You never tried again did you?” he asked.
“No, not until now.” John answered with a soft smile.
“Oh god.” Rodney exclaimed, his eyes opening wide in surprise. “Is that what you were, you know, back in Washington?”
“Yeah.” John whispered, blushing slightly.
“That’s really flattering, especially when you look like...” Rodney waved his hands towards John in a way that might have meant he thought John was hot, “but the whole biting thing, just no.”
John did a valiant job of hiding his disappointment. “It’s OK buddy. I’m not trying to rush you into anything you’re not ready for. We still cool?”
“You’re cool.” said Rodney with a wry smile. “I’m fine.”
This entry was originally posted at http://mckaysmonkey.dreamwidth.org/3254.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
FANDOM: Stargate Atlantis
PAIRING: John Shepard/Rodney McKay
WORD COUNT: 2525
RATING: R
WARNINGS: Vampires. Work in progress. Possible spoilers for Rising pt 1.
Summary:
John sees the Stargate for the first time and gets a second chance to convince Rodney that he's not a monster.
Notes:
Thank you to my betas who've helped make this a better story, my loyal cheerleaders and everyone who has commented on the story so far.
I have one more chapter mostly complete, which should go up at the weekend, if not before. There will be at least two more chapters, which I'm currently working on, and hope to send to beta soon. I will put more accurate word counts up when I figure out how to do them on the tablet.
Part 3 Cheyenne Mountain
John Sheppard had learned about Stargates as a child, from bedtime stories about Grandpa Jack and the great exodus from Pegasus. He used to believe that his mom had made the stories up, but now here he was, standing next to his grandfather, watching as the wormhole event horizon burst out from the gate like a thrown bucket of water and snapped back into place like the smooth rippled surface of a pond. John was just here to watch this time, but he would soon be travelling though the gate himself. He had spent the last couple of days at Cheyenne Mountain getting his security clearance authorized, collecting his new uniforms and learning his way round the base. The scientists in Antarctica had not been happy to have their pet ATA gene taken away from them so soon, but O'Neill had insisted that John should get some gate travel time before Atlantis. If everything had gone according to plan, John would have joined the SGC months ago, so he needed to make up for lost time. Jack was also hoping that given enough space, McKay would get over his anger that John would be joining the Atlantis Expedition.
John watched as SG3 walked up the ramp and stepped into the undulating blue curtain to disappear from view.
“Pretty cool huh?” said O’Neill, standing off to one side.
“And you do this all the time?” asked John, awestruck. “What’s it like?”
“You’ll find out tomorrow when you go out with SG12.” the general answered with a smug grin. “They’re a good team. Lt Ford is going to Atlantis too, so it’s a good chance for you to work together.”
“I hope it works out.” John said thoughtfully. “I could do with a few allies on this trip.”
“Don‘t mind Sumner.” O’Neill reassured him. “I know he comes across a bit by the book, but he’s a good guy, always got your six.”
“I hope you’re right.” John said, “because I get the impression he doesn’t like me much, but I’m more worried about Dr McKay.”
“Yeah, that’s going to be a problem,” the general admitted. “Of all the people on the expedition you could have pissed off, why did it have to be the Chief Science officer?”
“Sorry?” Sheppard apologized, a sheepish look on his face.
“He’ll come round eventually, but I see a lot of groveling and playing light switch in your future.” O’Neill joked.
V ----- V
Rodney was dreading meeting up with John Sheppard at the SGC, but when he arrived it turned out that Sheppard was on a mission with SG12. Rodney was sure O’Neill had planned it on purpose, but he did not have time to think about it. As CSO he had scientists to shout at, equipment to organize for transport and a ZPM to interface with the gate. By the evening of the third day he was exhausted, sleep deprived and Sheppard was the last thing on his mind. Rodney was taking a much needed break to grab a sandwich and a mug of coffee in the SGC canteen, when someone nudged his open laptop with a tray.
“Mind if I join you?” asked a familiar voice.
Rodney looked up from his ZPM power flow calculations to see Sheppard dressed in a dark blue Air Force uniform with the SG12 patch on his shoulder. He had a hopeful expression on his face and Rodney could not help noticing how hot he looked in the uniform. He squashed that thought ruthlessly because he was not going to let himself fall for the Major’s boyish charms.
“Go away, I’m busy.” Rodney snapped. Sheppard ignored him and sat down.
“Look, McKay, I think we need to talk.” he began.
“No we don’t. I need to finish these power calculations and you need to find someone else to bother.” Rodney reached out and grabbed his coffee mug, took a swig and returned to his work.
“Please Rodney.” Sheppard drawled.
Rodney looked up from his laptop to see puppy dog eyes staring back at him.
“Look, if I let you say whatever it is you want to say, will you go away and leave me in peace?” he asked.
“Sure.” Sheppard said, with a smile that nearly took McKay’s breath away. “Look, I just wanted to say I’m really sorry for what happened in D.C. I totally misread the situation and I promise that I won’t, well, you know again. If that’s what you want?”
“What I want is for you to stay away from me, unless we need to work together in a professional capacity.” Rodney said.
Sheppard looked stricken, like Rodney had kicked his puppy.
“For gods sake,” he said, “You didn’t think we were going to be friends, or something?”
“Um, yes?” Sheppard said, tentatively. “Look, I know I messed up pretty bad, but maybe we could start again, clean slate? If we can’t get back home from Atlantis, we’re going to be stuck with each other for a long time and personally I’d rather be friends.”
Rodney was not sure why he even considered it, because it was not like Sheppard had given him any reason to trust the man. Maybe he was just tired of feeling angry all the time, or perhaps it was because he knew Sheppard was right about one thing, life on Atlantis would be a lot easier if they could at least be civil to one another. Or maybe it was just because he had been lonely for so long now that an offer of friendship, even from a vampire, was not something he could easily reject.
“I know I’m probably going to regret this, but fine, you can have your clean slate. Just don’t mess up again, OK?”
“Cool” said Sheppard, his face lighting up with another brilliant smile and Rodney knew that he was going to end up regretting this.
V ----- V
“Watcha doing, Rodney?” Sheppard drawled, leaning against the door frame in a now familiar slouch.
Rodney looked up from the strange looking device that he was working on and suppressed a smile. Unlike the other scientists in the mountain, Rodney rarely had to ask Sheppard to turn on the ancient tech, but Sheppard had developed a habit of turning up in Rodney’s lab, usually at meal times. At first Rodney was annoyed by the way Sheppard kept dragging him to the mess for meals, but he had started to become accustomed to it.
“It’s one of the Naquada generators we’re bringing to Atlantis with us.” he explained. “I’m just checking the power output to make sure it’s working properly.”
“Didn‘t you check those already?” Sheppard asked, one eyebrow raised.
“Yes, of course we did.” Rodney replied, “but we’re leaving tomorrow, and we might be depending on these generators for our very survival, so I would like to be sure they actually work.”
Sheppard walked across the room and leaned one hip against the desk, provocatively. Rodney noticed that he had dressed in civilian clothes, a soft black button up shirt and snug fitting worn black jeans.
“Rodney, it’s our last night on Earth. Isn’t there something else you’d rather be doing?”
“Like what?” asked Rodney, hastily suppressing a fantasy of Sheppard doing dirty, dirty things to him.
“Like coming out for a drink with me.” Sheppard said, hopefully.
“Yes, because the last time we did that worked out so well.” Rodney snarked.
“But Rodney, you promised.” Sheppard whined.
“Really, because I don’t seem to remember that,” Rodney snapped, “and don’t look at me with those puppy dog eyes, it isn’t going to work.”
“Oh, but you did Rodney,” said Sheppard with a mischievous grin. “You said you’d be my friend, and friends go for drinks with other friends.”
“That so doesn’t count as a promise.” Rodney said, but he was already packing up his tools, with a resigned expression on his face. “I suppose I could spare a couple of hours from my busy schedule for a drink with a friend, just no funny business, OK?”
“I promise I won’t bite.” Sheppard said with a grin.
V ----- V
The bar that John chose was popular with staff from the mountain and Rodney was reassured to see a number of familiar faces. They found a quiet booth to sit down and John offered to buy the first round of drinks. Shortly after they arrived, the guys from SG12 spotted them and ended up sitting at their table. Normally, Rodney would not waste his time on a bunch of marine grunts, but their presence was safe and familiar. They ended up talking about the relative merits of hockey verses football and Sergeant Miller from SG12 told Rodney amusing stories about Sheppard’s off world antics.
By the time the SG12 guys moved on, Rodney had relaxed and dropped his guard, and the conversation had moved on to movies.
“I can’t believe you don’t like Back To The Future.” John argued.
“Oh please, the science in that movie is so wrong, I don‘t know where to begin.” Rodney said, only to contradict himself by making several pointed comments about scientific inaccuracies.
“You like horror movies.” Sheppard pointed out.
“Yes well that’s different,” Rodney disagreed. “At least your average horror movie isn’t pretending to be anything other than fantasy. I mean who actually believes in ghosts, were-wolfs or vamp….. Oh.” He blushed and his eyes didn't quite meet Sheppard’s.
They sit in silence for a while, nursing their drinks. In the end it was Sheppard who spoke first.
“I really hate those vampire movies.” he said. “They put ideas into people‘s heads, make them think we‘re monsters or something.”
Rodney looked up at John and saw a naked, hurt expression on his face. Unsure what to say, he reached out to place his hand over John‘s, but something stopped him. He pulled his hand back and turned his head to hide his blush.
“See, even you think I’m a monster.” John said, in a quiet, hurt voice.
“No, no, I don’t, it’s just, well the whole biting thing, well it’s a bit….”
“Scary?” John answered, softly.
“Well yeah.” Rodney admits.
“You know, I’m just a regular person really, just like everybody else.” John said, ignoring Rodney’s grunt of disagreement. “No, it’s true. I had a pretty normal childhood. Played football, climbed trees, read comics, watched TV. I didn’t even need to bite someone until I hit puberty.” He picked up his beer and took a swig.
“What was that like?” asked Rodney, curiously.
“You sure you want to hear this?” John asked, staring at Rodney intently.
Rodney swallowed nervously. “I think I need to know.”
“OK then. My first time, I was just fourteen. My dad had given me the talk, but I hadn’t been prepared for how overwhelming the urge would be. I was making out with this girl and, well, I lost control, bit down too hard. She got scared and pushed me away. I managed to pass it off as a hickey, but she never talked to me again.”
“After that it got easier. People tend not to see things they know are impossible and I learned not to take enough blood from any one person to draw attention to myself. Mostly, people just thought I was this slightly weird Goth kid. Then I made the mistake of telling someone the truth. Guy came after me with a stake, tried to kill me.” John paused for a moment, staring at his drink. “My dad had to move house, enroll me in a new school. After that, well I just stopped trusting people.”
With a rare burst of intuition, Rodney realized what John wasn‘t saying. “The guy, he was going to be your companion, wasn’t he?”
John did not answer, just looked down at the table and fiddled with his glass.
“You never tried again did you?” he asked.
“No, not until now.” John answered with a soft smile.
“Oh god.” Rodney exclaimed, his eyes opening wide in surprise. “Is that what you were, you know, back in Washington?”
“Yeah.” John whispered, blushing slightly.
“That’s really flattering, especially when you look like...” Rodney waved his hands towards John in a way that might have meant he thought John was hot, “but the whole biting thing, just no.”
John did a valiant job of hiding his disappointment. “It’s OK buddy. I’m not trying to rush you into anything you’re not ready for. We still cool?”
“You’re cool.” said Rodney with a wry smile. “I’m fine.”
This entry was originally posted at http://mckaysmonkey.dreamwidth.org/3254.html. Please comment there using OpenID.