TEAM WAR: Dead Letter, "The Color of His Heartbeat"
Title: The Color of His Heartbeat
Author: sonadorita ( interview)
Team: War
Prompt: Dead Letter
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Can be interpreted as death!fic
Summary: After a tragic explosion, Rodney is caught between believing in alien tales and doubting his own sanity.
Author's Notes: Big thanks go to neevebrody for putting up with my poor grammar skills and for patience when I was about to panic, and to lavvyan who made me go back and rewrite the whole story literally hours before the deadline. You are the best!
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There was one mission report Rodney had never finished. He hoped that in the flood of reports washing over the SGC's bureaucratic desks every day, no one would notice that one was missing, simply waiting until Woolsey stopped bugging him about it.
Naturally, he could lie about what happened on P8C-444, but as easy as saying lies out loud might be, his fingers just weren't able to fix them on paper. He wasn’t prepared for an admission of his own fallibility, his own insanity.
*
Negotiation talks with the natives on P8C-444 were surprisingly hard. The friendly people on a level of development of the early 19th century invited John’s team to their High Castle, the most important building of state and religion and treated them with the highest respect. They served the Lanteans their best food, which was a vast variety of all kinds of fruits - including, to Rodney's delight, not a single citrus fruit as these were luckily forbidden by their religion - the most delicious hotpot Rodney had ever eaten in his entire life, and tremendously delicate poultry.
However, they had a rather unpleasant law that required the execution of everyone, including strangers, who ventured to shorten the name of their planet. Rodney secretly vowed to never laugh about alien planet names again when he heard their term for P8C-444: “Sacred Globe of the High Sun That is Born From the Morning Sky and Will be Taken by the Evening Fires in the West Where the Daughter of the Night Dwells”. They wouldn't even let “Sacred Globe” pass and were this close to strangling Rodney when he dared to call their stupid globe “P8C-444”. Only John's promise of at least a dozen bottles of Athosian wine kept them from killing Rodney right on the spot.
Rodney couldn't wait to get home into his labs, where he merely needed to yell a few numbers and letters and everyone would understand him. He was so eager to go back to Atlantis that he even missed the end of the talks.
“We shall part as friends and allies,” the Priest of the High Castle - who naturally had a much longer title Rodney hadn't bothered to remember - said triumphantly, his young voice of barely twenty years worth of experience chirping through the hall. If he noticed how the entire team from Atlantis took a collective deep breath of relief, he didn't show it. “May the High Sun shine your ways, friends from Atlantis.”
“And yours,” Teyla said. Rodney smiled as John crumbled his cheat sheet with the planet's name in his hand.
“Before you go, I will offer you a special gift from the High Sun,” the boyish priest announced when they had all risen from the table. “It can only be granted two persons in addition to me at a time, so Colonel John Sheppard of the city of Atlantis and Doctor Rodney McKay of the city of Atlantis, I ask you to follow me first.”
Rodney exchanged a quick, slightly panicked glance with John - was this something that involved reciting the planet's name at least a hundred times? Or any other sacred title they didn't know anything about yet?
The priest led them to a small chamber lit only by an orange glow radiating from a device in the middle of the room.
“John!” Rodney whispered, trying, without much success or effort, to keep his words from the priest. “That looks like a ZP--”
“It is the Golden Orb of the High Sun,” the priest interrupted him in a light scolding tone. The ZPM, if it even was one, was hidden in a metal case, but thin openings carved at regular intervals into the shell let light through. “It will look into your heart and fulfill your deepest wish.”
Although he was keeping his mouth shut, John's eyes were bright with laughter, reflecting the golden light of the, well, whatever it was. The sight almost distracted Rodney from his quest to get his hands on the thing to examine it.
“Okay,” John drawled tentatively, taking a step back - also back from the priest, who had, accidentally or not, inched awfully close and was almost brushing John's side. Captured entirely by the sacred device in the middle of the room, the priest probably didn't notice, but Rodney was glaring pretty hard at this little boy who thought he could have everything just because he was a high priest of a planet with a pathetically long name. “And how does it--”
The loud bang of an explosion ripped Rodney's vision apart, his ears turning deaf immediately. The force of the blast slammed him against a wall and pinned him there by what felt like a wave of burning hot air. Pain shot through various parts of his body, and as he opened his eyes, he saw pieces of rock and wood flying right at him, spiraling down from the high ceiling and the walls.
“John!” he shouted, feeling only the vibration of his voice in his chest, hearing nothing. With growing panic he noticed something warm running down his forehead; if his brain was damaged he would come back and kick these aliens' asses - if he ever made it back to Atlantis at all, his right leg pressed immovably between two thick wooden pillars. And that scent, he really didn't like that scent--
“John, where are--” His voice faltered, as smoke filled his mouth and nose, and breathing quickly became harder and excruciating. Coughing, Rodney realized that the light allowing him to actually see the rubble he was buried under wasn't radiating from the Golden Orb of the High Fucking Sun but from the fire that was rapidly spreading across what was left of the chamber.
Rodney managed to think that this really didn't look good before a sharp arrow of pain pierced his head and the world went black.
*
Apart from a ridiculously long title, the Priest of the High Sun also had a lot of enviers, such as the Kah, the lower class in the two-caste system of P8C-444. Over the course of hundreds of years, they had been oppressed and exploited, until they decided that it was about time to turn the tide and replace the Priest with one of their own people. For years they had been preparing for the one massive attack that would finally kill the Priest and his closest confidantes and allow the Kah to usurp the power over the planet.
That big assault just happened to coincide with the visit of John's team. It was the Kah's bomb that exploded in the High Castle, their fires that burned the building down to the foundation. By the time the Lantean recovery team arrived in the newborn kingdom of the Kah, the ashes of the victims had already been spread into the fierce wind blowing across their country.
Afterwards the Kah claimed they were terribly sorry a Lantean had been killed during the raid, too, but weren’t exactly keen on starting trading relations with the people that had allied with their enemies.
*
When Rodney woke up again, he felt disorientated for only the shortest amount of time before the events on P8C-444 returned to his memory. He could still remember everything up to the point where something hit his head, so he must be dead, Rodney concluded, as amnesia or memory loss usually followed a hit on the head. He blinked, seeing nothing but blinding white light, and closed his eyes again. So, the tales of the bright light at the end of the tunnel were true after all, only he'd been spared the tunnel.
“He's awake, Doctor,” a mellifluous female voice said somewhere, followed by steps and a soft rattle. “His heart rate has increased significantly and I think he was moving his eyes.”
“Rodney, can you hear me?” another woman said; Rodney recognized the voice, only he forced the knowledge down, pretending he didn't know her, because that would mean she'd be dead as well. She hadn't even been on the planet.
“I can,” Rodney said. “Why are you dead, Jennifer? Did something happen on Atlantis?”
There was a brief pause before Dr. Keller answered. “I'm alive and kicking just like you, Rodney.”
So she was in denial? Rodney slowly pried his eyes open; taking a moment to adjust to the bright light following the darkness of, well, dying. The infirmary materialized in front of him, a nurse whose face seemed faintly familiar, and Jennifer's, looking incontestably alive.
Laughing dryly, Rodney threw a gaze at the IV running though his arm; he was probably high on some meds that made his thinking a little slower than usual. “Of course,” he said. “How long have I been out?”
“Several hours,” Jennifer told him. “Don't worry, everything is fine, you didn't suffer from any serious injuries, only a light concussion and you’ll probably have bruises tomorrow morning. Fortunately, Ronon carried you out of the building in time. How much can you remember?”
“Everything,” Rodney said. Jennifer's eyebrows shot up. “Up to the explosion, me almost dying in a fire and-- how is John?” He didn't care how worried he sounded, Jennifer probably knew about them anyway.
Jennifer flinched, her face growing visibly pale. The nurse quietly slipped back through the curtain. “Rodney,” Jennifer started, grasping his IV-free hand, holding it tight even as Rodney tried to pull out.
“What, is he in a coma? Did he acquire fourth degree burns and is beyond recognition now? Did he lose a leg? Or two? Or his arms? He won’t get thrown out of Atlantis, will he; I mean he’s been part of the expedition from day one, there are few people on the base with as much experience and knowledge as he acquired. Surely we’ll find another job for him, even if it’s not shooting the bad guys anymore; if he tries hard enough, he’s actually very fast doing math that is, well, basic for my caliber, but advanced for more ordinary persons.” There was a pain in his chest he couldn't quite define, his mouth blabbering aimlessly on as if he could prolong the moment just a little longer.
“Rodney.”
He wanted to shut his eyes so he wouldn't have to see the sadness and the pity in Jennifer's eyes, wanted to flee into the darkness again so he wouldn't feel her tight grip. He knew that grip from the movies. It was the grip of Bad News, the grip of Your Grandmother Died, the grip of Your Father Had an Accident, the grip of
“John didn't make it. He's dead.”
*
Jennifer took Rodney through another series of tests and provided a battery of meds before releasing him from the infirmary. Rodney knew at least half of the pills were supposed to keep him calm, keep him from panicking or overreacting. She had wanted him to stay in the ward where she and Dr. Heightmeyer's replacement - he couldn’t remember his name to save his life, it was something long and Spanish - could watch over him.
“I just magically survived an explosion and still don't have the Nobels I deserve, I'm not going to commit suicide,” he told her, and although she didn't seem entirely convinced, she allowed Teyla to take him to his quarters.
Ronon was there, too, sitting at the foot of the bed Rodney now possessed all alone. When he lay down, it took Rodney a while to notice that he was resting at the left edge, as always, to leave space for John on the right side, only now John wouldn't come and fill the bed with his warmth.
Teyla lit candles and said meaningful words, turning her head to the side so Rodney and Ronon wouldn't see her tears, and Ronon was just the rock he always had been, only he looked strangely crumbled.
All Rodney could feel was numbness. He blamed Jennifer's pills.
*
Rodney was alone in his quarters for the first time one night later. He was almost scared to death when a warm hand touched his out of nowhere, and John's voice said, “Don't freak out now, Rodney.”
Rodney felt his heart miss a beat, standing thunderstruck right there on the way from the bathroom to his bed, not even daring to blink. The hand, which was clearly John's - he could tell by the roughness of the skin and the length of the fingers and the careful, yet determined touch - loosened the grip and let go entirely. For a second or two Rodney could simply pretend that there had only been a noise outside the door, or his bed had creaked, and the sensation on his hand had only been warm water he hadn't dried off.
Then John said gently, as if he was standing right in front of him, “It's me. You can't see me, but I'm here.”
The drugs. He was still taking them, probably they had some side effects nobody had known of. Or the hours he'd gone without coffee that day were finally showing, he was pretty tired after all, probably he was just fantasizing. His body telling him that he needed sleep.
“I'm entirely, perfectly sane,” Rodney said, every word breaking into tiny, quivering shards the moment they left his lips. In fact, he'd never sounded less sane. “Totally, irrevocably sane.”
With two determined steps, he crossed the distance to his bed, stepping through the air that had been filled with John's voice a moment earlier. Part of him expected to run into him, but he didn't. He couldn't, because John wasn't real.
“Just the lack of sleep,” Rodney muttered, crawling beneath the blanket. “Perfectly sane.”
“Don't worry, nothing's wrong with your sanity,” John chuckled from somewhere next to his bed, startling Rodney so badly he dug his fingernails into his palms. Later he would notice the thin drops of blood, but now he couldn't care less about the pain.
“My sanity is--” Rodney found himself replying immediately, cutting himself short because he was not going to talk to a hallucination. He wasn't two miles beneath the sea; wasn't just experiencing some pre-death fata morgana. This was different.
“I'm sorry about scaring you,” John said, sounding just like him, mocking tone covering a layer of genuine worry. “It's kind of strange for me, too. Especially since you're the only one who can hear me - no really, I've tried. Also, sorry for taking so long 'til the reveal, but I didn't want you to water your pants down in the infirmary, and then you spent time with Teyla and Ronon and today you were surrounded by your colleagues all the time... you have no idea how hard it's to catch you with--”
“Shut the hell up now!” Rodney yelled in his best I'm-the-boss voice, only panic seeped through it like it was some damn sieve. And fuck, he'd just addressed an illusion. A moment later, he was on his feet again, feeling strangely exposed - but he wasn't going to face (or not face, in this case) a figment of his imagination, a projection, whatever this psycho-shit was, lying in his bed. He had to keep some dignity.
He paused just to test what was happening, and with relief, he heard nothing but silence. Taking a deep breath, he walked back to the bathroom and splashed some water onto his face, to get rid of the thin layer of sweat that had suddenly spread on his forehead. Maybe he should take another sleeping pill before going back to bed. Jennifer had babbled some mumbo-jumbo about sleep difficulties after experiencing the death of a loved one, and that stuff would hopefully allow him to phase out within minutes.
Calming himself with this prospect of falling asleep quickly and undisturbed, he dried his face and put the towel back. He lingered another moment, staring at his sleep-deprived figure in the mirror.
Then he heard John's even breath and panic rolled over him like a train to County Insanity.
He was here.
John was here.
“He's dead,” Rodney grunted fiercely, opening the small cabinet next to the mirror, searching for the blue package with the pills.
“Rodney, I'm not dead,” John muttered quietly, much nearer to him this time, and John's hand closed around his wrist as Rodney stood unmoving. Gently, he pushed it down to Rodney's side again, the touch so real he believed it was real when he closed his eyes to blink. “Please, let me explain everything to you, I have--”
With a sudden move, Rodney flung around, feeling John's body stumble backwards when he pushed him away. “Back off,” Rodney hissed, searching the empty air for a trace of something that would tell him he wasn't going crazy. Then again, he couldn't trust his eyes either. “You're dead, you're not here. You died in the fire, Teyla saw your-- saw your twisted head--” The words hurt, uttered by Rodney for the first time. “And then your body burned to ashes with everything else in the castle.”
“Dammit, Rodney,” John cursed from the floor. “No need to hit me like that. And I'm not dead.”
“The burial ceremony is tomorrow - shouldn’t that give you a subtle hint?” Rodney was taken aback by how shrill his voice sounded, echoing back from the tiled walls. “I'm just... grieving...” he muttered to himself, heading for the door.
Suddenly John's body was between him and the exit, his hands tightly gripping Rodney's arms, his warm chest pressed against Rodney's. Through two layers of clothes, Rodney could feel a heartbeat that wasn't his own.
“You're not grieving, Rodney,” John said calmly. “I mean, you probably are, but I'm actually--”
“Take your hands off me, bastard!” Rodney spat out, realizing that this was kind of like yelling at himself. He wriggled out of John's grip and pushed past him. “You're a delusion, imagination, nothing more, I know you died!” Every additional word he shouted in his fantasy's direction felt like he was losing another bit of his sanity. He wondered how much would be left when the night was over.
“Please, just listen to me!” John pleaded, following him out of the bathroom. Rodney collapsed on the edge of his mattress, burying his face in his palms. Maybe if he asked a nurse for some earplugs, he could block out the voice at least, maybe his strange not-vision of John would just leave him and not touch him again-- “The room the High Priest led us into, it truly was a gift, or rather granted them - I don't know who built it, the Ancients probably - the Golden Orb or whatever they called it wasn't a ZPM but a small machine that would grant everyone inside a wish. Apparently it was able to operate on us seconds before the explosion.”
Rodney shook his head as if he could make the hallucination go away; covering his ears with his hands, but John simply spoke up.
“Our last thoughts before the bang were transformed into wishes - I know all of this because the priest's final wish was that I would know about this and carry word of the gift of the Golden Sun or whatever into other worlds, but, well, he didn't take into consideration I might turn into nothing but air for everyone except you.”
“How practical,” Rodney snorted. “I'm the only one going crazy.”
“You're not going crazy,” John insisted, more forceful this time. “Rodney, can you remember what you thought just before the explosion?”
Rodney pulled up his legs and bent into a fetal position and started humming a random tune. This probably qualified as crazy. He didn't care. If John would just--
“Come on, Rodney!” John sounded like he was losing his patience. “Did you think, 'I wish John was invisible'? 'I wish nobody could see John'?” He paused, but Rodney kept humming, louder now. He recognized the song as one of Johnny Cash's now, and quickly switched to a Wagner piece he'd practiced as a kid. Playing that one had been one of the few times when his piano lessons had been any fun.
There was the rustling of clothes, and suddenly John was in front of him, shaking his shoulders. “Rodney! Remember! Did you wish you had me all to yourself? Listen to me!”
“I don't know, okay?” Rodney yelled, feeling John wince briefly. So a ghost could be startled, too. “I cannot remember!”
“It must have been something like that,” John muttered, his hands still resting on Rodney's shoulders. Slowly, John's fingers stretched and caressed Rodney gently, running down his biceps to the crook of his elbow and back. Rodney closed his eyes in an effort to will him gone, but achieved the opposite - there was no difference now, between the John he used to know and the John touching him so softly. It was as if John had never died.
And if he was right?
“I really cannot remember,” Rodney whispered, feeling John's body warmth coming closer. “I wish I could... I wish... I wish...” His voice broke as John's hot, familiar breath tingled across his nose and cheeks, the memories crushing Rodney. “John...”
What the hell, he thought, reaching out with his arms until he got hold of John. He pulled him closer with one hand, fondling John's warm neck with the other, his thumb stroking across the sensitive spot on John's throat. John moaned quietly, so familiar, so real, and Rodney bent forward, missing John's lips just a few inches. He trailed his kisses across John's cheek to his mouth, groaning lightly as John's tongue darted out and their lips locked together.
John had never been more real.
Hands caressed his back and held him tight as Rodney drew the kiss out, the familiarity of the scent and the senses hurting and calming him at the same time, putting all his need and his loss into the words his mouth silently spoke.
It was Rodney himself who finally broke the kiss, when he thought that looking back to this night one day, his pain would break him. With deep regret, he opened his eyes. Although the scent and the touches remained the same, in front of him was nothing but thin air. An unknown pain slowly spread in his abdomen, pressing the air out of his lungs and the blood out of his heart.
This was sadness, then.
“John,” he whispered, barely audible.
“I'm right here, Rodney,” John whispered back. “I won't go.”
“Yeah,” Rodney muttered, staring at the wall across from him. He swallowed and rose, feeling how John let go of him. If not for his warm presence, he wouldn't even notice anymore he was there. With slow, but resolute movements, Rodney changed into his grey uniform and slipped into his shoes.
“Where are you going?” John asked, but Rodney refused to answer, leaving the quarters without a further word. On the way down to the infirmary, John kept repeating the same question over and over, even trying to yank him back once; however, Rodney knew that for the sake of his sanity, he couldn't continue this any longer.
When he entered the infirmary, Jennifer had left already.
“Hey, Dr. McKay, what's wrong?” Dr. Koizumi asked.
“I'm having... visions,” Rodney croaked. “I think I need the strongest sleeping pills you've got.”
John sighed quietly next to him. “Oh, Rodney.”
*
“And you are sure I don't have a brain tumor,” Rodney said, rising from the examination table. It was the third time he asked, but Jennifer placated him and skimmed the scans again.
“There's not the slightest evidence,” she reassured him softly, gesturing over the 3D-projection of his brain. “Everything looks entirely normal.”
“And if the tumor hides somewhere?” Rodney doubted, pointing at a spot on the screen that looked a bit darker than the rest. “Maybe the scans just can't pick it up?”
“Rodney, I assure you there is no tumor hiding in your brain,” Jennifer said, putting emphasis on every word of the sentence. “Look, the flu is going around and I really got my hands full down here--”
“And what if the concussion has side effects?” Rodney mused. “Is that possible?”
“What kind of side effects are we talking about?” Jennifer sighed, visibly annoyed, glancing nervously at her watch.
“Well... what side effects are common for a concussion?”
“Rodney!” She managed to roll her eyes and glare at him at the same time, pulled back the curtain and turned to leave.
“Jennifer, wait!” Rodney called, and she twirled around with a “what now” expression on her face he would expect from annoyed parents scolding their child. He took a breath and said in a hurry, “I can hear John.”
A frown appeared on Jennifer's face as she stepped closer again. Rodney darted a glance sideways where the curtain was partly open, but couldn't see anyone in hearing range. With a shaky gesture, Rodney waved Jennifer closer to him.
“I can feel him, too,” he whispered. “When I close my eyes, it's as if - as if he's there.”
The hard lines of Jennifer's face fell into a softer expression. Smiling at him in a way just on the wrong side of compassion, she put a hand on his shoulder and said quietly, “It's called grieving, Rodney. It will pass.”
“No, you don't get it,” Rodney said more fiercely, forcing his voice down. “He is here. I'm not - wishing he was, or fantasizing him to my side. He's as real as ever, only… invisible.”
“John is dead, Rodney,” Jennifer said matter-of-factly. She gripped his shoulder, her eyes staring sternly into his, and suggested he talk to Dr. Soler Álvarez.
*
People realized that he was serious about his issue when he abandoned his work for days to search the Ancients’ database for a remnant of information about the device that had or hadn’t turned John invisible. The fact that the Kah had shut down their gate entirely to deal with their own problems didn’t exactly help.
In the meantime, Jennifer took him off all drugs as she had discovered elevated diphenhydramine levels in his blood, but as time passed and John didn’t, she voiced her doubt over the idea that there was a chemical reason behind Rodney’s hallucinations.
“I found something!” On the second day of his research, Rodney burst into a meeting of Woolsey and Sergeant Stackhouse’s team. “On P9M-731 the natives worship a golden crystal that’s apparently some token of their goddess. I wonder why we didn’t check out this planet earlier, if it’s not what I’m looking for then it might as well be a ZPM!”
Then Rodney got into a long fight with Woolsey about his clearance for gate travel, which he eventually lost. He had to accept another defeat when Lorne took a jumper through the gate and reported that P9M-731 was now just a lot of lifeless debris.
While the database conjured up nothing but dead-ends, Teyla and Ronon spent time off-world, asking their way from planet to planet, visiting countless peoples and cultures. In fact, they met a handful of traders who had traveled to P8C-444, all of them having been invited to the magical chamber. However their wishes had been of a very ordinary nature, such as the plea for a second child, the healing of their wife or a wealthy life. Although Rodney wanted to take this as a proof for John’s story, he couldn’t deny that the fulfillment of the traders’ wishes might have been mere coincidence.
There were few other tales of P8C-444 in Pegasus Galaxy.
“No wonder,” Rodney huffed, slumping into his chair. Teyla had returned to Atlantis and had visited him in his labs immediately. “With them killing everyone who mispronounces their planet’s name.”
“Maybe we are approaching this the wrong way,” Teyla said softly. “Maybe the reason for your experiences lies inside.”
“You think I’m going crazy.” Rodney couldn’t hide the reproach in his voice.
“I think you are haunted,” Teyla clarified.
“What, you think John’s coming after me as a ghost?” He expected her to laugh at this stupid, superstitious idea, but to his dismay she kept her serious expression.
“As a ghost?” She frowned. “There are tales among my people about the dead returning. However they are all of a darker nature. We believe that the world of the living should be restricted to just that - living beings. Ghosts do not fall under this category. If John was a ghost as they are portrayed in our stories, he would come at night and wreak havoc in your quarters.” She shook her head. “That is not what I meant.”
“Then what do you mean?” Rodney asked, eager to move away from the ghost idea.
“I think you are haunted by your feelings,” Teyla said carefully. “Not by John.”
“In other words, I’m going crazy,” Rodney snorted.
“This is not a word I would use,” she said. “But yes, maybe it is your mind that cannot accept what happened. Perhaps you should consider it.”
When days turned into weeks and John’s existence still remained a mystery, others started considering it, too.
*
“Does it bother you that everyone thinks I'm going mad?” Rodney asked bluntly one late night when he was sitting alone with Ronon in the mess hall, eating a belated dinner.
“It bothers me that you think you are,” Ronon grunted.
“What?” Rodney blinked at him, perplexed. “Do I think that?”
“It’s been weeks since he died,” Ronon said. “You can’t find out what really happened to John, Teyla and I can’t.”
“Actually, I found a very interesting remark in the database today,” Rodney pointed out. “It’s about people getting stuck between two different levels of existence, between life and death so to speak, without being able to revert to their old self.”
Ronon crossed his arms and leaned back. “If this remark was worth anything you’d be all over it now, and not sit here eating.”
“Fair enough,” Rodney sighed, picking at his food. “It was actually more about ascension, and the stuck victims were still visible to everyone.”
“See?” Ronon said. “And yet you’re still searching for proof for your theory with the wishes thing. As if you’re trying to prove you’re not crazy.”
“Well, what else am I supposed to do? Sit back and kick my heels or what; oh, who cares about my very personal invisible boyfriend?”
“Return to your work,” Ronon suggested. “And stop worrying about your… whatever they call it.”
“Hallucinations,” Rodney said sharply. “It’s what people get when they’re going bonkers, in case no one told you.”
Ronon shrugged. “Whatever. Move on, McKay. Accept what’s happened. Quit trying to find a way to fix things, it’s who you are now.”
“You mean mad.”
“I mean you and Sheppard.” Ronon emptied his beer with a loud gulp. “Good night, McKay.”
Rodney watched him leave the deserted mess hall, feeling John’s hand squeezing his shoulder.
“Maybe he’s right,” John muttered. “Maybe we should just… move on.”
*
Rodney figured that at least it was worth a try.
“Come here,” he pleaded quietly that night, moving over on the bed to make place for John. He couldn't hear the soft creaking of the mattress, couldn't see the mold of John's body where he sat down, but as he leaned over and muttered “What do you have in mind?” in Rodney's ear, the voice was as low and drawn out as it had always been, and John's warm breath tingled Rodney's neck.
Instead of a response, Rodney reached out for John’s body and closed his eyes.
He couldn't tell the difference then.
Inching closer, John cupped Rodney's chin to kiss him. Rodney felt John’s lips brushing his own, a light smile playing on them, then John’s tongue darted out and licked Rodney's lower lip. Rodney squirmed and hummed lowly, gripping John's hair, pulling him down on himself.
Rodney took his time removing John's shirt, running his fingers over the soft fabric. Once, he had read somewhere that blind people could actually feel colors with their fingertips, but he could only guess. While John had still been, well, visible, Rodney had never cared much for how his different shirts felt beneath his hands, which he regretted now. He imagined it was one of the black ones. It slipped neatly over John's head, breaking the kiss only for one inevitable second, before their lips locked again and Rodney ran his hands over John's bare chest, his fingers catching the dog tags dangling from the chain around John’s neck to draw him closer. From the thin layer of sweat and the quick pace of John's heart Rodney could tell John was just as aroused as he was himself, and he elicited a muffled moan from John by giving his nipples a brief squeeze.
With a quick movement of his hands, Rodney pushed his pants and boxers down. They gave a soft thump when they hit the floor, but Rodney didn't dare open his eyes to see where they had fallen. A low clattering indicated John was dealing with his belt, and Rodney grabbed the hem of his own shirt and pulled it over his head. John's panting mouth claimed him back immediately, his hot breath invading the pores of Rodney's skin, kindling the fire inside.
Rodney gasped for air when John finally let go of him, trailing fierce kisses down Rodney's neck, aligning his body with Rodney's.
“God, John,” Rodney panted, one hand running through the spiky mess on John's head, the other one reaching between them to grasp John's hard dick to give it a few hearty pumps. Groaning, he felt John’s hand close around his cock to jerk him off, too. The sensation of his own cock touching John’s turned him into a puddle of needy goo just like it always had.
Rodney's eyes fluttered open to see nothing, and the turn-on evaporated into something much sadder.
“Keep your eyes closed, Rodney,” John scolded him quietly, his mouth brushing Rodney's earlobe.
Rodney’s gaze flickered over his own feet dangling in the empty air, his hand holding on to nothing at all - a position too strange for masturbation. He closed his eyes.
“Come on,” he gasped, and John bent over to claim Rodney's lips back. They groaned in unison as John's yanks sped up, the sweet tingle of sex spreading in Rodney's abdomen as arousal took hold of him, their musky odor lingering in the air.
John shouted Rodney's name just before he came, tremors rippling through his body, shooting come all over Rodney’s belly. When Rodney reached his orgasm, John was real, holding him tight while he ejaculated on himself, the sheets and John's sticky, hot body, his own heart thundering in his ears. Beneath that, there was another rhythm, John's, red and loud, echoing through his own veins.
They were one.
“John,” he whispered, clinging to John, the whole of their bodies touching now. “John. John. John.”
And kept his eyes shut.
*
The next day, Rodney saved the city from a destructive ZPM overload. For hours he worked on fixing devices and circuits, rewrote codes and bossed people around, not thinking once of John’s invisible presence at his back.
Afterwards, Woolsey cleared him for gate travel, and returned him to his old team, which was now led by Colonel Lorne.
He was still a genius after all.
That didn’t stop people from calling him “mad scientist” behind his back, when they thought he wouldn’t listen. Well, whatever they wanted to believe. They didn't feel John's head resting on his shoulder when Rodney was sitting in his bed, typing some mission reports, they didn't smell his familiar scent, they didn't hear his soft chuckle when Rodney's reports didn't turn out as objective as they were supposed to be.
“Zelenka did not break the machine with ‘scandalous stupidity’,” John scolded him, nudging his side. “You know you should have told him you were going to pull out the plug before he did his experiments.”
“Well, he's got eyes, doesn't he?” Rodney defended himself. “He could've just used them to see what I was doing. Or ask me for my goddamn permission.”
“Oh come on, he doesn't need your permission,” John laughed.
“It was all he needed to do,” Rodney huffed, closing the file with a disgruntled tap of his finger. His folder opened, the long list of unfinished mission reports scrolling down. No wonder Woolsey gave him a hard time, but it wasn't like he had nothing better to do. “Not even I could foresee that he'd just assume everything was going the way he needed--”
He broke off. An errant click had opened a new file, one he hadn't touched in a long time. Next to him, John caught his breath as they both read the numbers on top of the rather empty page.
“P8C-444,” Rodney muttered, the mock anger at Zelenka washed out of his voice.
“The Golden Globe of the High Sun,” John added quietly. “And more blah-blah I forgot.”
Rodney chortled, but his mouth didn't quite manage a smile. He lingered on the few sentences he had been able to write.
“John,” he started after a while. “In that room, before it blew up - what was your final wish?”
John inched closer to him, putting an arm across Rodney's lap. “I wished that you'd survive,” he said, slightly choked-up although he was clearly trying to sound casual. “I felt the heat wave from the explosion and knew I was falling... and wished that you'd make it out alive.”
There was a silence after his words.
“I guess it worked,” Rodney said, briefly squeezing John's hand.
“Yeah, I guess,” John muttered and blew a kiss to Rodney's throat.
As his fingers finally typed the widely accepted lies into the document, Rodney listened to John's quiet, sleepy breath, and the even pounding of his heart.
***
Poll
Author: sonadorita ( interview)
Team: War
Prompt: Dead Letter
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Can be interpreted as death!fic
Summary: After a tragic explosion, Rodney is caught between believing in alien tales and doubting his own sanity.
Author's Notes: Big thanks go to neevebrody for putting up with my poor grammar skills and for patience when I was about to panic, and to lavvyan who made me go back and rewrite the whole story literally hours before the deadline. You are the best!
Once you've read the story, please take a moment to vote in the poll below. Ratings go from 1 (low) to 9 (high), so all you need to do is enter a single number in that range into each text entry box. You'll be able to see the Prompt and Team (Genre) information in the header above.
More details about the voting procedure can be found here.
There was one mission report Rodney had never finished. He hoped that in the flood of reports washing over the SGC's bureaucratic desks every day, no one would notice that one was missing, simply waiting until Woolsey stopped bugging him about it.
Naturally, he could lie about what happened on P8C-444, but as easy as saying lies out loud might be, his fingers just weren't able to fix them on paper. He wasn’t prepared for an admission of his own fallibility, his own insanity.
*
Negotiation talks with the natives on P8C-444 were surprisingly hard. The friendly people on a level of development of the early 19th century invited John’s team to their High Castle, the most important building of state and religion and treated them with the highest respect. They served the Lanteans their best food, which was a vast variety of all kinds of fruits - including, to Rodney's delight, not a single citrus fruit as these were luckily forbidden by their religion - the most delicious hotpot Rodney had ever eaten in his entire life, and tremendously delicate poultry.
However, they had a rather unpleasant law that required the execution of everyone, including strangers, who ventured to shorten the name of their planet. Rodney secretly vowed to never laugh about alien planet names again when he heard their term for P8C-444: “Sacred Globe of the High Sun That is Born From the Morning Sky and Will be Taken by the Evening Fires in the West Where the Daughter of the Night Dwells”. They wouldn't even let “Sacred Globe” pass and were this close to strangling Rodney when he dared to call their stupid globe “P8C-444”. Only John's promise of at least a dozen bottles of Athosian wine kept them from killing Rodney right on the spot.
Rodney couldn't wait to get home into his labs, where he merely needed to yell a few numbers and letters and everyone would understand him. He was so eager to go back to Atlantis that he even missed the end of the talks.
“We shall part as friends and allies,” the Priest of the High Castle - who naturally had a much longer title Rodney hadn't bothered to remember - said triumphantly, his young voice of barely twenty years worth of experience chirping through the hall. If he noticed how the entire team from Atlantis took a collective deep breath of relief, he didn't show it. “May the High Sun shine your ways, friends from Atlantis.”
“And yours,” Teyla said. Rodney smiled as John crumbled his cheat sheet with the planet's name in his hand.
“Before you go, I will offer you a special gift from the High Sun,” the boyish priest announced when they had all risen from the table. “It can only be granted two persons in addition to me at a time, so Colonel John Sheppard of the city of Atlantis and Doctor Rodney McKay of the city of Atlantis, I ask you to follow me first.”
Rodney exchanged a quick, slightly panicked glance with John - was this something that involved reciting the planet's name at least a hundred times? Or any other sacred title they didn't know anything about yet?
The priest led them to a small chamber lit only by an orange glow radiating from a device in the middle of the room.
“John!” Rodney whispered, trying, without much success or effort, to keep his words from the priest. “That looks like a ZP--”
“It is the Golden Orb of the High Sun,” the priest interrupted him in a light scolding tone. The ZPM, if it even was one, was hidden in a metal case, but thin openings carved at regular intervals into the shell let light through. “It will look into your heart and fulfill your deepest wish.”
Although he was keeping his mouth shut, John's eyes were bright with laughter, reflecting the golden light of the, well, whatever it was. The sight almost distracted Rodney from his quest to get his hands on the thing to examine it.
“Okay,” John drawled tentatively, taking a step back - also back from the priest, who had, accidentally or not, inched awfully close and was almost brushing John's side. Captured entirely by the sacred device in the middle of the room, the priest probably didn't notice, but Rodney was glaring pretty hard at this little boy who thought he could have everything just because he was a high priest of a planet with a pathetically long name. “And how does it--”
The loud bang of an explosion ripped Rodney's vision apart, his ears turning deaf immediately. The force of the blast slammed him against a wall and pinned him there by what felt like a wave of burning hot air. Pain shot through various parts of his body, and as he opened his eyes, he saw pieces of rock and wood flying right at him, spiraling down from the high ceiling and the walls.
“John!” he shouted, feeling only the vibration of his voice in his chest, hearing nothing. With growing panic he noticed something warm running down his forehead; if his brain was damaged he would come back and kick these aliens' asses - if he ever made it back to Atlantis at all, his right leg pressed immovably between two thick wooden pillars. And that scent, he really didn't like that scent--
“John, where are--” His voice faltered, as smoke filled his mouth and nose, and breathing quickly became harder and excruciating. Coughing, Rodney realized that the light allowing him to actually see the rubble he was buried under wasn't radiating from the Golden Orb of the High Fucking Sun but from the fire that was rapidly spreading across what was left of the chamber.
Rodney managed to think that this really didn't look good before a sharp arrow of pain pierced his head and the world went black.
*
Apart from a ridiculously long title, the Priest of the High Sun also had a lot of enviers, such as the Kah, the lower class in the two-caste system of P8C-444. Over the course of hundreds of years, they had been oppressed and exploited, until they decided that it was about time to turn the tide and replace the Priest with one of their own people. For years they had been preparing for the one massive attack that would finally kill the Priest and his closest confidantes and allow the Kah to usurp the power over the planet.
That big assault just happened to coincide with the visit of John's team. It was the Kah's bomb that exploded in the High Castle, their fires that burned the building down to the foundation. By the time the Lantean recovery team arrived in the newborn kingdom of the Kah, the ashes of the victims had already been spread into the fierce wind blowing across their country.
Afterwards the Kah claimed they were terribly sorry a Lantean had been killed during the raid, too, but weren’t exactly keen on starting trading relations with the people that had allied with their enemies.
*
When Rodney woke up again, he felt disorientated for only the shortest amount of time before the events on P8C-444 returned to his memory. He could still remember everything up to the point where something hit his head, so he must be dead, Rodney concluded, as amnesia or memory loss usually followed a hit on the head. He blinked, seeing nothing but blinding white light, and closed his eyes again. So, the tales of the bright light at the end of the tunnel were true after all, only he'd been spared the tunnel.
“He's awake, Doctor,” a mellifluous female voice said somewhere, followed by steps and a soft rattle. “His heart rate has increased significantly and I think he was moving his eyes.”
“Rodney, can you hear me?” another woman said; Rodney recognized the voice, only he forced the knowledge down, pretending he didn't know her, because that would mean she'd be dead as well. She hadn't even been on the planet.
“I can,” Rodney said. “Why are you dead, Jennifer? Did something happen on Atlantis?”
There was a brief pause before Dr. Keller answered. “I'm alive and kicking just like you, Rodney.”
So she was in denial? Rodney slowly pried his eyes open; taking a moment to adjust to the bright light following the darkness of, well, dying. The infirmary materialized in front of him, a nurse whose face seemed faintly familiar, and Jennifer's, looking incontestably alive.
Laughing dryly, Rodney threw a gaze at the IV running though his arm; he was probably high on some meds that made his thinking a little slower than usual. “Of course,” he said. “How long have I been out?”
“Several hours,” Jennifer told him. “Don't worry, everything is fine, you didn't suffer from any serious injuries, only a light concussion and you’ll probably have bruises tomorrow morning. Fortunately, Ronon carried you out of the building in time. How much can you remember?”
“Everything,” Rodney said. Jennifer's eyebrows shot up. “Up to the explosion, me almost dying in a fire and-- how is John?” He didn't care how worried he sounded, Jennifer probably knew about them anyway.
Jennifer flinched, her face growing visibly pale. The nurse quietly slipped back through the curtain. “Rodney,” Jennifer started, grasping his IV-free hand, holding it tight even as Rodney tried to pull out.
“What, is he in a coma? Did he acquire fourth degree burns and is beyond recognition now? Did he lose a leg? Or two? Or his arms? He won’t get thrown out of Atlantis, will he; I mean he’s been part of the expedition from day one, there are few people on the base with as much experience and knowledge as he acquired. Surely we’ll find another job for him, even if it’s not shooting the bad guys anymore; if he tries hard enough, he’s actually very fast doing math that is, well, basic for my caliber, but advanced for more ordinary persons.” There was a pain in his chest he couldn't quite define, his mouth blabbering aimlessly on as if he could prolong the moment just a little longer.
“Rodney.”
He wanted to shut his eyes so he wouldn't have to see the sadness and the pity in Jennifer's eyes, wanted to flee into the darkness again so he wouldn't feel her tight grip. He knew that grip from the movies. It was the grip of Bad News, the grip of Your Grandmother Died, the grip of Your Father Had an Accident, the grip of
“John didn't make it. He's dead.”
*
Jennifer took Rodney through another series of tests and provided a battery of meds before releasing him from the infirmary. Rodney knew at least half of the pills were supposed to keep him calm, keep him from panicking or overreacting. She had wanted him to stay in the ward where she and Dr. Heightmeyer's replacement - he couldn’t remember his name to save his life, it was something long and Spanish - could watch over him.
“I just magically survived an explosion and still don't have the Nobels I deserve, I'm not going to commit suicide,” he told her, and although she didn't seem entirely convinced, she allowed Teyla to take him to his quarters.
Ronon was there, too, sitting at the foot of the bed Rodney now possessed all alone. When he lay down, it took Rodney a while to notice that he was resting at the left edge, as always, to leave space for John on the right side, only now John wouldn't come and fill the bed with his warmth.
Teyla lit candles and said meaningful words, turning her head to the side so Rodney and Ronon wouldn't see her tears, and Ronon was just the rock he always had been, only he looked strangely crumbled.
All Rodney could feel was numbness. He blamed Jennifer's pills.
*
Rodney was alone in his quarters for the first time one night later. He was almost scared to death when a warm hand touched his out of nowhere, and John's voice said, “Don't freak out now, Rodney.”
Rodney felt his heart miss a beat, standing thunderstruck right there on the way from the bathroom to his bed, not even daring to blink. The hand, which was clearly John's - he could tell by the roughness of the skin and the length of the fingers and the careful, yet determined touch - loosened the grip and let go entirely. For a second or two Rodney could simply pretend that there had only been a noise outside the door, or his bed had creaked, and the sensation on his hand had only been warm water he hadn't dried off.
Then John said gently, as if he was standing right in front of him, “It's me. You can't see me, but I'm here.”
The drugs. He was still taking them, probably they had some side effects nobody had known of. Or the hours he'd gone without coffee that day were finally showing, he was pretty tired after all, probably he was just fantasizing. His body telling him that he needed sleep.
“I'm entirely, perfectly sane,” Rodney said, every word breaking into tiny, quivering shards the moment they left his lips. In fact, he'd never sounded less sane. “Totally, irrevocably sane.”
With two determined steps, he crossed the distance to his bed, stepping through the air that had been filled with John's voice a moment earlier. Part of him expected to run into him, but he didn't. He couldn't, because John wasn't real.
“Just the lack of sleep,” Rodney muttered, crawling beneath the blanket. “Perfectly sane.”
“Don't worry, nothing's wrong with your sanity,” John chuckled from somewhere next to his bed, startling Rodney so badly he dug his fingernails into his palms. Later he would notice the thin drops of blood, but now he couldn't care less about the pain.
“My sanity is--” Rodney found himself replying immediately, cutting himself short because he was not going to talk to a hallucination. He wasn't two miles beneath the sea; wasn't just experiencing some pre-death fata morgana. This was different.
“I'm sorry about scaring you,” John said, sounding just like him, mocking tone covering a layer of genuine worry. “It's kind of strange for me, too. Especially since you're the only one who can hear me - no really, I've tried. Also, sorry for taking so long 'til the reveal, but I didn't want you to water your pants down in the infirmary, and then you spent time with Teyla and Ronon and today you were surrounded by your colleagues all the time... you have no idea how hard it's to catch you with--”
“Shut the hell up now!” Rodney yelled in his best I'm-the-boss voice, only panic seeped through it like it was some damn sieve. And fuck, he'd just addressed an illusion. A moment later, he was on his feet again, feeling strangely exposed - but he wasn't going to face (or not face, in this case) a figment of his imagination, a projection, whatever this psycho-shit was, lying in his bed. He had to keep some dignity.
He paused just to test what was happening, and with relief, he heard nothing but silence. Taking a deep breath, he walked back to the bathroom and splashed some water onto his face, to get rid of the thin layer of sweat that had suddenly spread on his forehead. Maybe he should take another sleeping pill before going back to bed. Jennifer had babbled some mumbo-jumbo about sleep difficulties after experiencing the death of a loved one, and that stuff would hopefully allow him to phase out within minutes.
Calming himself with this prospect of falling asleep quickly and undisturbed, he dried his face and put the towel back. He lingered another moment, staring at his sleep-deprived figure in the mirror.
Then he heard John's even breath and panic rolled over him like a train to County Insanity.
He was here.
John was here.
“He's dead,” Rodney grunted fiercely, opening the small cabinet next to the mirror, searching for the blue package with the pills.
“Rodney, I'm not dead,” John muttered quietly, much nearer to him this time, and John's hand closed around his wrist as Rodney stood unmoving. Gently, he pushed it down to Rodney's side again, the touch so real he believed it was real when he closed his eyes to blink. “Please, let me explain everything to you, I have--”
With a sudden move, Rodney flung around, feeling John's body stumble backwards when he pushed him away. “Back off,” Rodney hissed, searching the empty air for a trace of something that would tell him he wasn't going crazy. Then again, he couldn't trust his eyes either. “You're dead, you're not here. You died in the fire, Teyla saw your-- saw your twisted head--” The words hurt, uttered by Rodney for the first time. “And then your body burned to ashes with everything else in the castle.”
“Dammit, Rodney,” John cursed from the floor. “No need to hit me like that. And I'm not dead.”
“The burial ceremony is tomorrow - shouldn’t that give you a subtle hint?” Rodney was taken aback by how shrill his voice sounded, echoing back from the tiled walls. “I'm just... grieving...” he muttered to himself, heading for the door.
Suddenly John's body was between him and the exit, his hands tightly gripping Rodney's arms, his warm chest pressed against Rodney's. Through two layers of clothes, Rodney could feel a heartbeat that wasn't his own.
“You're not grieving, Rodney,” John said calmly. “I mean, you probably are, but I'm actually--”
“Take your hands off me, bastard!” Rodney spat out, realizing that this was kind of like yelling at himself. He wriggled out of John's grip and pushed past him. “You're a delusion, imagination, nothing more, I know you died!” Every additional word he shouted in his fantasy's direction felt like he was losing another bit of his sanity. He wondered how much would be left when the night was over.
“Please, just listen to me!” John pleaded, following him out of the bathroom. Rodney collapsed on the edge of his mattress, burying his face in his palms. Maybe if he asked a nurse for some earplugs, he could block out the voice at least, maybe his strange not-vision of John would just leave him and not touch him again-- “The room the High Priest led us into, it truly was a gift, or rather granted them - I don't know who built it, the Ancients probably - the Golden Orb or whatever they called it wasn't a ZPM but a small machine that would grant everyone inside a wish. Apparently it was able to operate on us seconds before the explosion.”
Rodney shook his head as if he could make the hallucination go away; covering his ears with his hands, but John simply spoke up.
“Our last thoughts before the bang were transformed into wishes - I know all of this because the priest's final wish was that I would know about this and carry word of the gift of the Golden Sun or whatever into other worlds, but, well, he didn't take into consideration I might turn into nothing but air for everyone except you.”
“How practical,” Rodney snorted. “I'm the only one going crazy.”
“You're not going crazy,” John insisted, more forceful this time. “Rodney, can you remember what you thought just before the explosion?”
Rodney pulled up his legs and bent into a fetal position and started humming a random tune. This probably qualified as crazy. He didn't care. If John would just--
“Come on, Rodney!” John sounded like he was losing his patience. “Did you think, 'I wish John was invisible'? 'I wish nobody could see John'?” He paused, but Rodney kept humming, louder now. He recognized the song as one of Johnny Cash's now, and quickly switched to a Wagner piece he'd practiced as a kid. Playing that one had been one of the few times when his piano lessons had been any fun.
There was the rustling of clothes, and suddenly John was in front of him, shaking his shoulders. “Rodney! Remember! Did you wish you had me all to yourself? Listen to me!”
“I don't know, okay?” Rodney yelled, feeling John wince briefly. So a ghost could be startled, too. “I cannot remember!”
“It must have been something like that,” John muttered, his hands still resting on Rodney's shoulders. Slowly, John's fingers stretched and caressed Rodney gently, running down his biceps to the crook of his elbow and back. Rodney closed his eyes in an effort to will him gone, but achieved the opposite - there was no difference now, between the John he used to know and the John touching him so softly. It was as if John had never died.
And if he was right?
“I really cannot remember,” Rodney whispered, feeling John's body warmth coming closer. “I wish I could... I wish... I wish...” His voice broke as John's hot, familiar breath tingled across his nose and cheeks, the memories crushing Rodney. “John...”
What the hell, he thought, reaching out with his arms until he got hold of John. He pulled him closer with one hand, fondling John's warm neck with the other, his thumb stroking across the sensitive spot on John's throat. John moaned quietly, so familiar, so real, and Rodney bent forward, missing John's lips just a few inches. He trailed his kisses across John's cheek to his mouth, groaning lightly as John's tongue darted out and their lips locked together.
John had never been more real.
Hands caressed his back and held him tight as Rodney drew the kiss out, the familiarity of the scent and the senses hurting and calming him at the same time, putting all his need and his loss into the words his mouth silently spoke.
It was Rodney himself who finally broke the kiss, when he thought that looking back to this night one day, his pain would break him. With deep regret, he opened his eyes. Although the scent and the touches remained the same, in front of him was nothing but thin air. An unknown pain slowly spread in his abdomen, pressing the air out of his lungs and the blood out of his heart.
This was sadness, then.
“John,” he whispered, barely audible.
“I'm right here, Rodney,” John whispered back. “I won't go.”
“Yeah,” Rodney muttered, staring at the wall across from him. He swallowed and rose, feeling how John let go of him. If not for his warm presence, he wouldn't even notice anymore he was there. With slow, but resolute movements, Rodney changed into his grey uniform and slipped into his shoes.
“Where are you going?” John asked, but Rodney refused to answer, leaving the quarters without a further word. On the way down to the infirmary, John kept repeating the same question over and over, even trying to yank him back once; however, Rodney knew that for the sake of his sanity, he couldn't continue this any longer.
When he entered the infirmary, Jennifer had left already.
“Hey, Dr. McKay, what's wrong?” Dr. Koizumi asked.
“I'm having... visions,” Rodney croaked. “I think I need the strongest sleeping pills you've got.”
John sighed quietly next to him. “Oh, Rodney.”
*
“And you are sure I don't have a brain tumor,” Rodney said, rising from the examination table. It was the third time he asked, but Jennifer placated him and skimmed the scans again.
“There's not the slightest evidence,” she reassured him softly, gesturing over the 3D-projection of his brain. “Everything looks entirely normal.”
“And if the tumor hides somewhere?” Rodney doubted, pointing at a spot on the screen that looked a bit darker than the rest. “Maybe the scans just can't pick it up?”
“Rodney, I assure you there is no tumor hiding in your brain,” Jennifer said, putting emphasis on every word of the sentence. “Look, the flu is going around and I really got my hands full down here--”
“And what if the concussion has side effects?” Rodney mused. “Is that possible?”
“What kind of side effects are we talking about?” Jennifer sighed, visibly annoyed, glancing nervously at her watch.
“Well... what side effects are common for a concussion?”
“Rodney!” She managed to roll her eyes and glare at him at the same time, pulled back the curtain and turned to leave.
“Jennifer, wait!” Rodney called, and she twirled around with a “what now” expression on her face he would expect from annoyed parents scolding their child. He took a breath and said in a hurry, “I can hear John.”
A frown appeared on Jennifer's face as she stepped closer again. Rodney darted a glance sideways where the curtain was partly open, but couldn't see anyone in hearing range. With a shaky gesture, Rodney waved Jennifer closer to him.
“I can feel him, too,” he whispered. “When I close my eyes, it's as if - as if he's there.”
The hard lines of Jennifer's face fell into a softer expression. Smiling at him in a way just on the wrong side of compassion, she put a hand on his shoulder and said quietly, “It's called grieving, Rodney. It will pass.”
“No, you don't get it,” Rodney said more fiercely, forcing his voice down. “He is here. I'm not - wishing he was, or fantasizing him to my side. He's as real as ever, only… invisible.”
“John is dead, Rodney,” Jennifer said matter-of-factly. She gripped his shoulder, her eyes staring sternly into his, and suggested he talk to Dr. Soler Álvarez.
*
People realized that he was serious about his issue when he abandoned his work for days to search the Ancients’ database for a remnant of information about the device that had or hadn’t turned John invisible. The fact that the Kah had shut down their gate entirely to deal with their own problems didn’t exactly help.
In the meantime, Jennifer took him off all drugs as she had discovered elevated diphenhydramine levels in his blood, but as time passed and John didn’t, she voiced her doubt over the idea that there was a chemical reason behind Rodney’s hallucinations.
“I found something!” On the second day of his research, Rodney burst into a meeting of Woolsey and Sergeant Stackhouse’s team. “On P9M-731 the natives worship a golden crystal that’s apparently some token of their goddess. I wonder why we didn’t check out this planet earlier, if it’s not what I’m looking for then it might as well be a ZPM!”
Then Rodney got into a long fight with Woolsey about his clearance for gate travel, which he eventually lost. He had to accept another defeat when Lorne took a jumper through the gate and reported that P9M-731 was now just a lot of lifeless debris.
While the database conjured up nothing but dead-ends, Teyla and Ronon spent time off-world, asking their way from planet to planet, visiting countless peoples and cultures. In fact, they met a handful of traders who had traveled to P8C-444, all of them having been invited to the magical chamber. However their wishes had been of a very ordinary nature, such as the plea for a second child, the healing of their wife or a wealthy life. Although Rodney wanted to take this as a proof for John’s story, he couldn’t deny that the fulfillment of the traders’ wishes might have been mere coincidence.
There were few other tales of P8C-444 in Pegasus Galaxy.
“No wonder,” Rodney huffed, slumping into his chair. Teyla had returned to Atlantis and had visited him in his labs immediately. “With them killing everyone who mispronounces their planet’s name.”
“Maybe we are approaching this the wrong way,” Teyla said softly. “Maybe the reason for your experiences lies inside.”
“You think I’m going crazy.” Rodney couldn’t hide the reproach in his voice.
“I think you are haunted,” Teyla clarified.
“What, you think John’s coming after me as a ghost?” He expected her to laugh at this stupid, superstitious idea, but to his dismay she kept her serious expression.
“As a ghost?” She frowned. “There are tales among my people about the dead returning. However they are all of a darker nature. We believe that the world of the living should be restricted to just that - living beings. Ghosts do not fall under this category. If John was a ghost as they are portrayed in our stories, he would come at night and wreak havoc in your quarters.” She shook her head. “That is not what I meant.”
“Then what do you mean?” Rodney asked, eager to move away from the ghost idea.
“I think you are haunted by your feelings,” Teyla said carefully. “Not by John.”
“In other words, I’m going crazy,” Rodney snorted.
“This is not a word I would use,” she said. “But yes, maybe it is your mind that cannot accept what happened. Perhaps you should consider it.”
When days turned into weeks and John’s existence still remained a mystery, others started considering it, too.
*
“Does it bother you that everyone thinks I'm going mad?” Rodney asked bluntly one late night when he was sitting alone with Ronon in the mess hall, eating a belated dinner.
“It bothers me that you think you are,” Ronon grunted.
“What?” Rodney blinked at him, perplexed. “Do I think that?”
“It’s been weeks since he died,” Ronon said. “You can’t find out what really happened to John, Teyla and I can’t.”
“Actually, I found a very interesting remark in the database today,” Rodney pointed out. “It’s about people getting stuck between two different levels of existence, between life and death so to speak, without being able to revert to their old self.”
Ronon crossed his arms and leaned back. “If this remark was worth anything you’d be all over it now, and not sit here eating.”
“Fair enough,” Rodney sighed, picking at his food. “It was actually more about ascension, and the stuck victims were still visible to everyone.”
“See?” Ronon said. “And yet you’re still searching for proof for your theory with the wishes thing. As if you’re trying to prove you’re not crazy.”
“Well, what else am I supposed to do? Sit back and kick my heels or what; oh, who cares about my very personal invisible boyfriend?”
“Return to your work,” Ronon suggested. “And stop worrying about your… whatever they call it.”
“Hallucinations,” Rodney said sharply. “It’s what people get when they’re going bonkers, in case no one told you.”
Ronon shrugged. “Whatever. Move on, McKay. Accept what’s happened. Quit trying to find a way to fix things, it’s who you are now.”
“You mean mad.”
“I mean you and Sheppard.” Ronon emptied his beer with a loud gulp. “Good night, McKay.”
Rodney watched him leave the deserted mess hall, feeling John’s hand squeezing his shoulder.
“Maybe he’s right,” John muttered. “Maybe we should just… move on.”
*
Rodney figured that at least it was worth a try.
“Come here,” he pleaded quietly that night, moving over on the bed to make place for John. He couldn't hear the soft creaking of the mattress, couldn't see the mold of John's body where he sat down, but as he leaned over and muttered “What do you have in mind?” in Rodney's ear, the voice was as low and drawn out as it had always been, and John's warm breath tingled Rodney's neck.
Instead of a response, Rodney reached out for John’s body and closed his eyes.
He couldn't tell the difference then.
Inching closer, John cupped Rodney's chin to kiss him. Rodney felt John’s lips brushing his own, a light smile playing on them, then John’s tongue darted out and licked Rodney's lower lip. Rodney squirmed and hummed lowly, gripping John's hair, pulling him down on himself.
Rodney took his time removing John's shirt, running his fingers over the soft fabric. Once, he had read somewhere that blind people could actually feel colors with their fingertips, but he could only guess. While John had still been, well, visible, Rodney had never cared much for how his different shirts felt beneath his hands, which he regretted now. He imagined it was one of the black ones. It slipped neatly over John's head, breaking the kiss only for one inevitable second, before their lips locked again and Rodney ran his hands over John's bare chest, his fingers catching the dog tags dangling from the chain around John’s neck to draw him closer. From the thin layer of sweat and the quick pace of John's heart Rodney could tell John was just as aroused as he was himself, and he elicited a muffled moan from John by giving his nipples a brief squeeze.
With a quick movement of his hands, Rodney pushed his pants and boxers down. They gave a soft thump when they hit the floor, but Rodney didn't dare open his eyes to see where they had fallen. A low clattering indicated John was dealing with his belt, and Rodney grabbed the hem of his own shirt and pulled it over his head. John's panting mouth claimed him back immediately, his hot breath invading the pores of Rodney's skin, kindling the fire inside.
Rodney gasped for air when John finally let go of him, trailing fierce kisses down Rodney's neck, aligning his body with Rodney's.
“God, John,” Rodney panted, one hand running through the spiky mess on John's head, the other one reaching between them to grasp John's hard dick to give it a few hearty pumps. Groaning, he felt John’s hand close around his cock to jerk him off, too. The sensation of his own cock touching John’s turned him into a puddle of needy goo just like it always had.
Rodney's eyes fluttered open to see nothing, and the turn-on evaporated into something much sadder.
“Keep your eyes closed, Rodney,” John scolded him quietly, his mouth brushing Rodney's earlobe.
Rodney’s gaze flickered over his own feet dangling in the empty air, his hand holding on to nothing at all - a position too strange for masturbation. He closed his eyes.
“Come on,” he gasped, and John bent over to claim Rodney's lips back. They groaned in unison as John's yanks sped up, the sweet tingle of sex spreading in Rodney's abdomen as arousal took hold of him, their musky odor lingering in the air.
John shouted Rodney's name just before he came, tremors rippling through his body, shooting come all over Rodney’s belly. When Rodney reached his orgasm, John was real, holding him tight while he ejaculated on himself, the sheets and John's sticky, hot body, his own heart thundering in his ears. Beneath that, there was another rhythm, John's, red and loud, echoing through his own veins.
They were one.
“John,” he whispered, clinging to John, the whole of their bodies touching now. “John. John. John.”
And kept his eyes shut.
*
The next day, Rodney saved the city from a destructive ZPM overload. For hours he worked on fixing devices and circuits, rewrote codes and bossed people around, not thinking once of John’s invisible presence at his back.
Afterwards, Woolsey cleared him for gate travel, and returned him to his old team, which was now led by Colonel Lorne.
He was still a genius after all.
That didn’t stop people from calling him “mad scientist” behind his back, when they thought he wouldn’t listen. Well, whatever they wanted to believe. They didn't feel John's head resting on his shoulder when Rodney was sitting in his bed, typing some mission reports, they didn't smell his familiar scent, they didn't hear his soft chuckle when Rodney's reports didn't turn out as objective as they were supposed to be.
“Zelenka did not break the machine with ‘scandalous stupidity’,” John scolded him, nudging his side. “You know you should have told him you were going to pull out the plug before he did his experiments.”
“Well, he's got eyes, doesn't he?” Rodney defended himself. “He could've just used them to see what I was doing. Or ask me for my goddamn permission.”
“Oh come on, he doesn't need your permission,” John laughed.
“It was all he needed to do,” Rodney huffed, closing the file with a disgruntled tap of his finger. His folder opened, the long list of unfinished mission reports scrolling down. No wonder Woolsey gave him a hard time, but it wasn't like he had nothing better to do. “Not even I could foresee that he'd just assume everything was going the way he needed--”
He broke off. An errant click had opened a new file, one he hadn't touched in a long time. Next to him, John caught his breath as they both read the numbers on top of the rather empty page.
“P8C-444,” Rodney muttered, the mock anger at Zelenka washed out of his voice.
“The Golden Globe of the High Sun,” John added quietly. “And more blah-blah I forgot.”
Rodney chortled, but his mouth didn't quite manage a smile. He lingered on the few sentences he had been able to write.
“John,” he started after a while. “In that room, before it blew up - what was your final wish?”
John inched closer to him, putting an arm across Rodney's lap. “I wished that you'd survive,” he said, slightly choked-up although he was clearly trying to sound casual. “I felt the heat wave from the explosion and knew I was falling... and wished that you'd make it out alive.”
There was a silence after his words.
“I guess it worked,” Rodney said, briefly squeezing John's hand.
“Yeah, I guess,” John muttered and blew a kiss to Rodney's throat.
As his fingers finally typed the widely accepted lies into the document, Rodney listened to John's quiet, sleepy breath, and the even pounding of his heart.
***
Poll