TEAM WAR: Call of the Wild, "Storm Front"
Title: Storm Front
Author: lavvyan ( interview)
Team: War
Prompt: Call of the Wild
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Summary: "What, so I'm going to end up a vegetable in some hospital bed while my mind goes frolicking among the waves, is that it?"
Notes: Many thanks to kisahawklin (and, by proxy, soleta), for beta services rendered.
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.
Storm Front
A storm is coming.
Rodney can feel it. He can feel a lot of things these days.
On the mainland, trees are swaying and bending, leaves ripped from their branches to tumble through the churning air. Birds flutter in spurts and drops as they look for shelter from the rolling mass of clouds that threatens rain and thunder any moment now. The temperature is dropping so fast that the giant snakes have become sluggish, losing precious momentum as they burrow into the underbrush.
Rodney knows this like he knows Riemann's equation. His palms are sweaty from nervous anticipation, heart fluttering in his chest like a startled butterfly caught in a vicious updraft. Atlantis is too far from the mainland for him to watch the tarnished sky from where he stands by his desk, and he's glad for it, even as that other part of him yearns to feel the gale, the rain, the sheer force of nature.
The door behind him whispers open. John doesn't look at him as he steps around the desk and pulls the curtains closed. Rodney watches him lock the balcony door, pull on the handle to make sure, and blow out a breath as he steps back. Satisfaction runs through Rodney like a sinus curve, smooth and elementary. He blinks.
"Wanna watch a movie?" John asks. He's smirking slightly, his voice casual, but his eyes are as dark as the sky above the mainland.
Rodney nods, and for the next ninety minutes, does his best to sit still.
A storm is coming, and it has his bones humming, his blood itching underneath his skin.
***
"The device seems to have been designed to assist in reaching Ascension," Radek said.
"Oh, great, another way of cheating. Why am I not surprised?" Rodney crossed his arms, ignoring Sheppard's dirty look.
"Shut up, Rodney, this is important."
***
The team doesn't go offworld anymore. They say it's to give Rodney time to figure this out. What they don't say is how they are afraid that he might step into a thunderstorm and just... stay lost in there.
They don't have to say it, just like Rodney doesn't have to thank them for keeping him back.
Besides, there are other things to worry about.
"Our intel says the Wraith are moving again." Lorne sits straight in his chair, gaze fixed on Woolsey as he reports. "The Insarahni report a cluster of Hive Ships near the star they call Little Mother, about 1.8 parsecs from MX8-399. Sgt. Woloski took a brief scouting trip in a cloaked 'jumper. He confirms six ships."
"Do we know the nature of their gathering?" Woolsey asks. He looks faintly worried. Then again, he always does.
"No, sir."
"All right." Woolsey leans back, fingers drumming a rapid staccato on the table. "Contact our allies, see if they have any information. Whatever these Wraith are planning, I want to know what it is."
Lorne nods, John promises adjusted duty rosters, and Rodney agrees to try and expand the capacity of the city's long range sensors. Again. Woolsey looks pleased at this and lets them go.
The Stargate blooms active the minute everyone leaves the briefing room, Arlington's team returning from P4S-913 or, as the marines call it, the Planet of the Bugs. Three of the agricultural anthropologists trail happily behind the soldiers, dragging a small cart loaded with specimen jars that are crawling with--
John's revulsion hits Rodney like a wave of nausea. He staggers and reaches out blindly for the railing of the control room balcony. John's hand slips beneath his elbow to steady him. Rodney gags as the fear-tinged disgust magnifies tenfold, only to find it quickly, blessedly replaced by a different kind of alarm. John's worry is something he's become used to over the last few days, and he clings to it as he breathes deeply.
"It's getting worse." John's words aren't a question, but Rodney nods anyway.
It's getting worse, and he isn't sure if the fear he's feeling is John's or his own.
***
"What, so he can feel other people's emotions now?"
Rodney sniffed. "Only if they're strong, so don't worry, Colonel, your head's safe from me."
"Rodney McKay is an empath?!" Sheppard started laughing. And kept laughing. And refused to stop laughing.
"Oh, shut up."
***
The sun has been shining all day and all the barometers claim that it will keep on shining for the next few days, so Rodney ventures to step outside on one of the lower balconies. The barely contained energy of the science department helps to keep him grounded, but even the main lab seems too small these days, walls tipping and closing in until he feels like they are pressing down on him, crushing him beneath their weight.
Rodney steps up to the railing, grips it with both hands, and shuts his eyes as he tilts his face towards the sun. He inhales deeply, the fresh sea breeze tingling in his nose. He smiles and takes another long breath, relishing the contrast to the dead air in the labs. The sun feels warm on his skin, the wind fluffs his hair, and he feels... content.
Rodney opens his eyes to look over the ocean. This far from the mainland, the waves are gentle, barely rippling until they brush against Atlantis's piers. The sunlight is dancing across the water in a ballet of blinks and sparks; a mesh of rays to catch the ocean. The water trembles as if to heave it off, playful but with an underlying sense of menace as it froths the light into a glittering foam. Rodney watches, caught in the play of sun and sea as the wind blows tears into his eyes, raises the little hairs on his arms. The waves are bucking now, crashing in protest, and in the distance, lightning crashes headlong into the sea.
"Rodney!"
Rodney flinches, startled into blinking his burning eyes as someone grabs his shoulder and pulls him away, off the balcony and into the steady calm of Atlantis's corridors. He stumbles, but John catches him, palms pressing heat into Rodney's skin.
"Hey, buddy, you okay?" This time, John doesn't even try to smile. "You seemed kind of zoned out there."
"I..." Rodney shakes his head and glances out through the stained-glass door. What he can see of the ocean looks turbulent, clouds building up in the distance.
His heart is pounding like window shutters through a storm.
"Can we... Do you want to race the cars? Inside?" he adds, because the outside scares him, with its deceptive sun and sparkling sea.
"Yeah. All right." John nods, but he doesn't let go. His hands are still closed around Rodney's biceps, squeezing like Rodney might drift away if John should loosen his grip.
Rodney doesn't remember deciding to reach out. John's shoulders feel bony beneath his palms, warm, real. They each draw in a sharp breath, but neither of them pulls away.
Perhaps neither of them can.
***
"I don't know, isn't this taking it a little far?" Sheppard bit his lip. Rodney threw his stylus at him.
"What, now you're starting to get worried?"
"You can control the weather with your mind, Rodney. You bet I'm getting worried."
Radek cleared his throat. "I do not think 'control' is the right word here."
***
The storm reaches Atlantis by nightfall, stars smothered by a thick layer of clouds. Rodney's curtains are closed, but they don't hold back the sound, barely filter out the lightning strikes.
Rodney puts on Tchaikovsky's first piano concerto and turns the volume up as far as it will go. When that fails to hold his attention, he boots up his laptop and loads Starship Troopers, hoping that the explosions will outboom the thunder. No such luck. He starts on his current favourite project and stops again after five minutes because he can't sit still. He paces his quarters, pulls at his hair until it's as statical as the air outside, and finally reaches for his radio. His free hand rests on the controls for the balcony door, just above the motion sensor.
"Sheppard," he says, hating the way his voice cracks.
"I'm right outside your door," comes the answer, and Rodney closes his eyes and lets out a shaky breath. Of course John is there. John is always there.
"So what are you waiting for?" he asks hoarsely, letting his head thunk against the cool glass. He hasn't even finished speaking when the door to his quarters glides open and John slips in.
"Hey, now, you don't want to go out there." In the space between lightning and thunder, John steps up next to him and gently unfolds the death grip Rodney has on the damn door controls. Rodney finds his hands clutch at John's shirt, because right now it's either the frantic pulse of John's worry, or the slower, stronger beat of the storm raging around Atlantis.
Something's got to give, and Rodney's scared shitless that it might be his mind.
"Distract me," he begs, pleads, "I've tried everything, but it didn't work and I can't think, you have to think of something or I'll go out of my mmmm--"
John's lips on his cut him off. John's fingers cradle his skull, keep him still as John's tongue pushes into his mouth, and Rodney has time to notice that John's hands are shaking before he's swept under by a feeling of want so strong it drowns out the rush of the tempest outside.
But the tempest inside he is helpless against. He clings to the slick glide of his fingers over John's sweat-damp skin, to the heat of John's breath on his neck, to the strength of John's teeth as he bites the inside of Rodney's thigh. His name on John's lips becomes his tether, holds him fast as he shakes and sobs and comes apart, safe in the knowledge that John will put him back together.
John won't let him go.
***
"As far as we have been able to determine, the purpose of the device was to separate the mind from the body by focusing it on the outside world." Radek pinched the bridge of his nose, then he looked straight at Rodney. "I am sorry. There does not seem to be a way to undo its effect."
Rodney stared at him. "What, so I'm going to end up a vegetable in some hospital bed while my mind goes frolicking among the waves, is that it?" His voice rose along with a growing feeling of hysteria, but he didn't care.
Radek looked at him, so sorrowful as if he were already gone. "If you are lucky, you may still ascend."
There was a long moment of silence, then Sheppard cleared his throat.
"Well. This sucks."
***
Two days after John changes their relationship in a way that Rodney can't even begin to understand, the Insarahni's six Hive Ships start moving. Their course will take them straight to Atlantis. They will arrive in nine days.
In a way, their looming threat is a relief. With the Apollo being overhauled and the Daedalus two weeks away, Atlantis is on its own, and six Hives are more than it can take. Rodney throws himself into his work with a relief so strong that he can almost touch it, upgrading defensive measures, reallocating whole departments to weapons research, strengthening the shields and refining the nukes they have once again traded from the Genii. He barely sleeps and only eats when he has to. If someone dares to interrupt, Rodney will snap that he is busy, busy, busy.
It isn't enough.
Rodney focuses the long range sensors on the sky and feels the edge of the atmosphere. He pulls the shield around the very tips of the piers and sways with the waves that lick them. He unplugs a drone's energy core and sees its shape mirrored in the myriad of creatures that scuttle through the ocean beneath him.
Between Atlantis and the pull of the outside world, he's starting to feel like he's being drawn in half.
He doesn't want to let go. He really, really doesn't want to, except he's tired and scared and doesn't want to die, and if the Wraith suck the life from his empty husk, at least he wouldn't have to feel it. Rodney has never been good with pain.
"I want those damn nukes, McKay!" John yells, stalking in and out of the labs at random intervals as if he wants to fasten Rodney to his presence. Rodney clings to him, and the grim fear John hides behind his blank face.
Sooner or later, the tether will snap.
***
"You have to want to stay."
"I do." Rodney threw up his hands at the skeptical look on Sheppard's face. "I do; what, do you think I want to spend the rest of eternity convening with nature?"
Sheppard seemed to accept that, and Rodney crossed his arms.
He wasn't lying. He was not.
***
Nine days. Waves of panic waft through Atlantis's halls as hundreds of Wraith Darts slam into the city's shields. The sea is boiling, a frothing mass of salt water and debris. The mainland stands in flames, black smoke rising towards the broken sky.
Rodney just sits and stares, fists clenched on his thighs as chaos rules around him. One of the Hives has teetered into the outer reaches of the atmosphere, hull in tatters from hundreds of drones, screeching as it burns. Another ship is little more than space trash, torn apart as three nukes overloaded its shields. But four Hive Ships remain, and Atlantis is running low on weapons.
Over the mainland, ash rises in a slow spin, picking up speed as the winds twist and turn. Rodney's whimper is lost in the noise.
The city shifts and trembles under the onslaught. Gathering every ounce of strength he has, Rodney rises to his feet and stumbles to the nearest console. The power drain on the ZPM is so high they might not even have to wait for the shield to fail. Rodney laughs quietly as the readout blares at him, danger, danger!
Yeah, no shit.
Another explosion rocks the city as the circuits cave under the strain. Somewhere, someone screams.
Over the radio, John declares he'll take up a 'jumper and overload one of the naquadah generators. The resulting blast should take out a Hive Ship, right?
Something inside Rodney snaps.
He feels his knees hit the ground, but doesn't know if someone catches him. His mind is elsewhere, brushing past the incoming darts to zero in on the mainland. The fledgling storm welcomes him with a roar. Rodney throws himself into it, whips it up and takes it over, hurls it across the sea and at the enemy who would take what's his.
The Wraith don't know what hit them. Darts tumble and collide, thrown out of their paths like children's toys, and Rodney takes a moment to watch them burn before he rises up, away from Atlantis and into the exosphere, towards the four ships awaiting their destruction.
He isn't afraid at all.
***
Ascension was a concept that Rodney had never understood. But even so, for a few brief moments, it had been within his reach.
For a few, terrifying moments, Rodney had been everywhere at once, known everything, seen everywhen. The whole multiverse, open before him, ready to obey his every whim.
And all he'd wanted was to go back home.
***
Rodney drifts. He catches an updraft, then drops until he's one with the waves. They meet the shore, and he spends some time rolling with the pebbles, clinking them against tiny bits of metal that are slowly being polished by the sea. The sunlight gilds them a warm copper-gold.
Rodney stretches, past blackened tree stumps to where the first sprouts of green already break the earth. He tickles the tiny leaves with the gentlest breeze and moves on, following a bee on its tumbling path.
But something is wrong. A single thread of unease weaves itself into the peaceful tapestry and threatens to unravel Rodney's simple joy. He pulls at it, tries to hide it between a cheerful well and a flower's scent, but it tugs right back at him. He falters, unease growing into a discomfort that trips him up, catches him in a net of growing terror.
He fights, panicked, struggles to rid himself of a dread that isn't his, that's choking him, pulling him back to where he doesn't want to be, back to, back to--
John!
Rodney screams, arching up from the bed as he struggles to breathe, waves of terror crashing over him, dragging him under. Alarms start shrilling around him; someone shouts, "He's crashing!" and then, nothing.
Blissful, empty, nothing.
***
Rodney could count on one hand the times someone had told him that he was loved. Usually, they told him because he was dying.
"In the way a friend feels about another friend," Sheppard had said.
Even back then, Rodney had known that for the lie it was.
***
John looks pale as he sits by Rodney's bed. Pale, and a little shaken. He keeps staring down at where his hands are folded in his lap. To be honest, so does Rodney.
He can't help it: John's hands are covered in tiny, reddened welts. So are his arms. Every now and then, John will scratch one of the welts with a blunt fingernail, only to flinch when he realises he's doing it.
Rodney remembers the terror that pulled him back into his own body and thinks, bug bites.
He shudders.
"I'm sorry," he says, because John seems to be waiting for something. This is the only thing Rodney can think of.
"Not your fault." John shrugs and still doesn't look up.
None of what happened is Rodney's fault, but that doesn't make him feel less guilty.
The thing is, he can still feel everything. The wind, the waves, the life they carry. John's tumble of emotions; a storm in its own right, with its own pull. Rodney reaches for it without thinking, and it's only at John's soft noise that he realises he's sitting up, sheets half-off the bed and his fingers wrapped around John's wrists.
"I... don't want to go," he says stupidly. John finally looks up, and Rodney finds himself caught by the darkness in that gaze.
Like storm clouds.
"I'm not letting you go," John says fiercely, his hands turning in Rodney's grip to clasp around his wrists in turn, like anchor chains. "Do you hear me? You're damn well staying, Rodney."
"Yes," Rodney says. He glances around to make sure they're alone before he tugs on John, pulls him in, cuts them both loose with a kiss that feels like swooping through the sky.
Yes. He's staying.
***
Rodney had been almost hit by lightning once.
He'd staggered to his feet and brushed the dirt off his pants with shaking hands while a few feet from him, grass smoldered. His heart had been pounding in his throat, a-live, a-live, a-live.
It had been the most frightening, most exhilarating experience of his life.
Until now.
***
A storm is coming.
Rodney can feel it. The little hairs in the back of his neck are prickling his skin. The sea breeze carries the faint smell of ozone.
Over on the mainland, small animals scurry into their dens.
Rodney smiles and ducks his head to bite, lightly, at that soft place where John's neck meets his shoulder. John's strangled gasp sounds loud in the small room, louder than the steady thwap of the waves hitting the piers below. John's body is slick with sweat as Rodney's fingertips brush down his sides. He's biting his lower lip, trembling with the need to come, "now, you sadistic bastard, please!"
Rodney doesn't need a tether anymore: he's tied himself so firmly into John that sometimes, like now, he thinks that he can almost feel the knots. John isn't the line that keeps him grounded. He's Rodney's safety net.
Rodney smiles. His quarters are filled with sunlight and soft moans as he licks over the tight nub of John's left nipple. The balcony door stands wide open to let in air that's as salty as John's skin.
A storm is coming. Rodney will stay right where he is.
***
The End.
Poll
Author: lavvyan ( interview)
Team: War
Prompt: Call of the Wild
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Summary: "What, so I'm going to end up a vegetable in some hospital bed while my mind goes frolicking among the waves, is that it?"
Notes: Many thanks to kisahawklin (and, by proxy, soleta), for beta services rendered.
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.
Storm Front
A storm is coming.
Rodney can feel it. He can feel a lot of things these days.
On the mainland, trees are swaying and bending, leaves ripped from their branches to tumble through the churning air. Birds flutter in spurts and drops as they look for shelter from the rolling mass of clouds that threatens rain and thunder any moment now. The temperature is dropping so fast that the giant snakes have become sluggish, losing precious momentum as they burrow into the underbrush.
Rodney knows this like he knows Riemann's equation. His palms are sweaty from nervous anticipation, heart fluttering in his chest like a startled butterfly caught in a vicious updraft. Atlantis is too far from the mainland for him to watch the tarnished sky from where he stands by his desk, and he's glad for it, even as that other part of him yearns to feel the gale, the rain, the sheer force of nature.
The door behind him whispers open. John doesn't look at him as he steps around the desk and pulls the curtains closed. Rodney watches him lock the balcony door, pull on the handle to make sure, and blow out a breath as he steps back. Satisfaction runs through Rodney like a sinus curve, smooth and elementary. He blinks.
"Wanna watch a movie?" John asks. He's smirking slightly, his voice casual, but his eyes are as dark as the sky above the mainland.
Rodney nods, and for the next ninety minutes, does his best to sit still.
A storm is coming, and it has his bones humming, his blood itching underneath his skin.
***
"The device seems to have been designed to assist in reaching Ascension," Radek said.
"Oh, great, another way of cheating. Why am I not surprised?" Rodney crossed his arms, ignoring Sheppard's dirty look.
"Shut up, Rodney, this is important."
***
The team doesn't go offworld anymore. They say it's to give Rodney time to figure this out. What they don't say is how they are afraid that he might step into a thunderstorm and just... stay lost in there.
They don't have to say it, just like Rodney doesn't have to thank them for keeping him back.
Besides, there are other things to worry about.
"Our intel says the Wraith are moving again." Lorne sits straight in his chair, gaze fixed on Woolsey as he reports. "The Insarahni report a cluster of Hive Ships near the star they call Little Mother, about 1.8 parsecs from MX8-399. Sgt. Woloski took a brief scouting trip in a cloaked 'jumper. He confirms six ships."
"Do we know the nature of their gathering?" Woolsey asks. He looks faintly worried. Then again, he always does.
"No, sir."
"All right." Woolsey leans back, fingers drumming a rapid staccato on the table. "Contact our allies, see if they have any information. Whatever these Wraith are planning, I want to know what it is."
Lorne nods, John promises adjusted duty rosters, and Rodney agrees to try and expand the capacity of the city's long range sensors. Again. Woolsey looks pleased at this and lets them go.
The Stargate blooms active the minute everyone leaves the briefing room, Arlington's team returning from P4S-913 or, as the marines call it, the Planet of the Bugs. Three of the agricultural anthropologists trail happily behind the soldiers, dragging a small cart loaded with specimen jars that are crawling with--
John's revulsion hits Rodney like a wave of nausea. He staggers and reaches out blindly for the railing of the control room balcony. John's hand slips beneath his elbow to steady him. Rodney gags as the fear-tinged disgust magnifies tenfold, only to find it quickly, blessedly replaced by a different kind of alarm. John's worry is something he's become used to over the last few days, and he clings to it as he breathes deeply.
"It's getting worse." John's words aren't a question, but Rodney nods anyway.
It's getting worse, and he isn't sure if the fear he's feeling is John's or his own.
***
"What, so he can feel other people's emotions now?"
Rodney sniffed. "Only if they're strong, so don't worry, Colonel, your head's safe from me."
"Rodney McKay is an empath?!" Sheppard started laughing. And kept laughing. And refused to stop laughing.
"Oh, shut up."
***
The sun has been shining all day and all the barometers claim that it will keep on shining for the next few days, so Rodney ventures to step outside on one of the lower balconies. The barely contained energy of the science department helps to keep him grounded, but even the main lab seems too small these days, walls tipping and closing in until he feels like they are pressing down on him, crushing him beneath their weight.
Rodney steps up to the railing, grips it with both hands, and shuts his eyes as he tilts his face towards the sun. He inhales deeply, the fresh sea breeze tingling in his nose. He smiles and takes another long breath, relishing the contrast to the dead air in the labs. The sun feels warm on his skin, the wind fluffs his hair, and he feels... content.
Rodney opens his eyes to look over the ocean. This far from the mainland, the waves are gentle, barely rippling until they brush against Atlantis's piers. The sunlight is dancing across the water in a ballet of blinks and sparks; a mesh of rays to catch the ocean. The water trembles as if to heave it off, playful but with an underlying sense of menace as it froths the light into a glittering foam. Rodney watches, caught in the play of sun and sea as the wind blows tears into his eyes, raises the little hairs on his arms. The waves are bucking now, crashing in protest, and in the distance, lightning crashes headlong into the sea.
"Rodney!"
Rodney flinches, startled into blinking his burning eyes as someone grabs his shoulder and pulls him away, off the balcony and into the steady calm of Atlantis's corridors. He stumbles, but John catches him, palms pressing heat into Rodney's skin.
"Hey, buddy, you okay?" This time, John doesn't even try to smile. "You seemed kind of zoned out there."
"I..." Rodney shakes his head and glances out through the stained-glass door. What he can see of the ocean looks turbulent, clouds building up in the distance.
His heart is pounding like window shutters through a storm.
"Can we... Do you want to race the cars? Inside?" he adds, because the outside scares him, with its deceptive sun and sparkling sea.
"Yeah. All right." John nods, but he doesn't let go. His hands are still closed around Rodney's biceps, squeezing like Rodney might drift away if John should loosen his grip.
Rodney doesn't remember deciding to reach out. John's shoulders feel bony beneath his palms, warm, real. They each draw in a sharp breath, but neither of them pulls away.
Perhaps neither of them can.
***
"I don't know, isn't this taking it a little far?" Sheppard bit his lip. Rodney threw his stylus at him.
"What, now you're starting to get worried?"
"You can control the weather with your mind, Rodney. You bet I'm getting worried."
Radek cleared his throat. "I do not think 'control' is the right word here."
***
The storm reaches Atlantis by nightfall, stars smothered by a thick layer of clouds. Rodney's curtains are closed, but they don't hold back the sound, barely filter out the lightning strikes.
Rodney puts on Tchaikovsky's first piano concerto and turns the volume up as far as it will go. When that fails to hold his attention, he boots up his laptop and loads Starship Troopers, hoping that the explosions will outboom the thunder. No such luck. He starts on his current favourite project and stops again after five minutes because he can't sit still. He paces his quarters, pulls at his hair until it's as statical as the air outside, and finally reaches for his radio. His free hand rests on the controls for the balcony door, just above the motion sensor.
"Sheppard," he says, hating the way his voice cracks.
"I'm right outside your door," comes the answer, and Rodney closes his eyes and lets out a shaky breath. Of course John is there. John is always there.
"So what are you waiting for?" he asks hoarsely, letting his head thunk against the cool glass. He hasn't even finished speaking when the door to his quarters glides open and John slips in.
"Hey, now, you don't want to go out there." In the space between lightning and thunder, John steps up next to him and gently unfolds the death grip Rodney has on the damn door controls. Rodney finds his hands clutch at John's shirt, because right now it's either the frantic pulse of John's worry, or the slower, stronger beat of the storm raging around Atlantis.
Something's got to give, and Rodney's scared shitless that it might be his mind.
"Distract me," he begs, pleads, "I've tried everything, but it didn't work and I can't think, you have to think of something or I'll go out of my mmmm--"
John's lips on his cut him off. John's fingers cradle his skull, keep him still as John's tongue pushes into his mouth, and Rodney has time to notice that John's hands are shaking before he's swept under by a feeling of want so strong it drowns out the rush of the tempest outside.
But the tempest inside he is helpless against. He clings to the slick glide of his fingers over John's sweat-damp skin, to the heat of John's breath on his neck, to the strength of John's teeth as he bites the inside of Rodney's thigh. His name on John's lips becomes his tether, holds him fast as he shakes and sobs and comes apart, safe in the knowledge that John will put him back together.
John won't let him go.
***
"As far as we have been able to determine, the purpose of the device was to separate the mind from the body by focusing it on the outside world." Radek pinched the bridge of his nose, then he looked straight at Rodney. "I am sorry. There does not seem to be a way to undo its effect."
Rodney stared at him. "What, so I'm going to end up a vegetable in some hospital bed while my mind goes frolicking among the waves, is that it?" His voice rose along with a growing feeling of hysteria, but he didn't care.
Radek looked at him, so sorrowful as if he were already gone. "If you are lucky, you may still ascend."
There was a long moment of silence, then Sheppard cleared his throat.
"Well. This sucks."
***
Two days after John changes their relationship in a way that Rodney can't even begin to understand, the Insarahni's six Hive Ships start moving. Their course will take them straight to Atlantis. They will arrive in nine days.
In a way, their looming threat is a relief. With the Apollo being overhauled and the Daedalus two weeks away, Atlantis is on its own, and six Hives are more than it can take. Rodney throws himself into his work with a relief so strong that he can almost touch it, upgrading defensive measures, reallocating whole departments to weapons research, strengthening the shields and refining the nukes they have once again traded from the Genii. He barely sleeps and only eats when he has to. If someone dares to interrupt, Rodney will snap that he is busy, busy, busy.
It isn't enough.
Rodney focuses the long range sensors on the sky and feels the edge of the atmosphere. He pulls the shield around the very tips of the piers and sways with the waves that lick them. He unplugs a drone's energy core and sees its shape mirrored in the myriad of creatures that scuttle through the ocean beneath him.
Between Atlantis and the pull of the outside world, he's starting to feel like he's being drawn in half.
He doesn't want to let go. He really, really doesn't want to, except he's tired and scared and doesn't want to die, and if the Wraith suck the life from his empty husk, at least he wouldn't have to feel it. Rodney has never been good with pain.
"I want those damn nukes, McKay!" John yells, stalking in and out of the labs at random intervals as if he wants to fasten Rodney to his presence. Rodney clings to him, and the grim fear John hides behind his blank face.
Sooner or later, the tether will snap.
***
"You have to want to stay."
"I do." Rodney threw up his hands at the skeptical look on Sheppard's face. "I do; what, do you think I want to spend the rest of eternity convening with nature?"
Sheppard seemed to accept that, and Rodney crossed his arms.
He wasn't lying. He was not.
***
Nine days. Waves of panic waft through Atlantis's halls as hundreds of Wraith Darts slam into the city's shields. The sea is boiling, a frothing mass of salt water and debris. The mainland stands in flames, black smoke rising towards the broken sky.
Rodney just sits and stares, fists clenched on his thighs as chaos rules around him. One of the Hives has teetered into the outer reaches of the atmosphere, hull in tatters from hundreds of drones, screeching as it burns. Another ship is little more than space trash, torn apart as three nukes overloaded its shields. But four Hive Ships remain, and Atlantis is running low on weapons.
Over the mainland, ash rises in a slow spin, picking up speed as the winds twist and turn. Rodney's whimper is lost in the noise.
The city shifts and trembles under the onslaught. Gathering every ounce of strength he has, Rodney rises to his feet and stumbles to the nearest console. The power drain on the ZPM is so high they might not even have to wait for the shield to fail. Rodney laughs quietly as the readout blares at him, danger, danger!
Yeah, no shit.
Another explosion rocks the city as the circuits cave under the strain. Somewhere, someone screams.
Over the radio, John declares he'll take up a 'jumper and overload one of the naquadah generators. The resulting blast should take out a Hive Ship, right?
Something inside Rodney snaps.
He feels his knees hit the ground, but doesn't know if someone catches him. His mind is elsewhere, brushing past the incoming darts to zero in on the mainland. The fledgling storm welcomes him with a roar. Rodney throws himself into it, whips it up and takes it over, hurls it across the sea and at the enemy who would take what's his.
The Wraith don't know what hit them. Darts tumble and collide, thrown out of their paths like children's toys, and Rodney takes a moment to watch them burn before he rises up, away from Atlantis and into the exosphere, towards the four ships awaiting their destruction.
He isn't afraid at all.
***
Ascension was a concept that Rodney had never understood. But even so, for a few brief moments, it had been within his reach.
For a few, terrifying moments, Rodney had been everywhere at once, known everything, seen everywhen. The whole multiverse, open before him, ready to obey his every whim.
And all he'd wanted was to go back home.
***
Rodney drifts. He catches an updraft, then drops until he's one with the waves. They meet the shore, and he spends some time rolling with the pebbles, clinking them against tiny bits of metal that are slowly being polished by the sea. The sunlight gilds them a warm copper-gold.
Rodney stretches, past blackened tree stumps to where the first sprouts of green already break the earth. He tickles the tiny leaves with the gentlest breeze and moves on, following a bee on its tumbling path.
But something is wrong. A single thread of unease weaves itself into the peaceful tapestry and threatens to unravel Rodney's simple joy. He pulls at it, tries to hide it between a cheerful well and a flower's scent, but it tugs right back at him. He falters, unease growing into a discomfort that trips him up, catches him in a net of growing terror.
He fights, panicked, struggles to rid himself of a dread that isn't his, that's choking him, pulling him back to where he doesn't want to be, back to, back to--
John!
Rodney screams, arching up from the bed as he struggles to breathe, waves of terror crashing over him, dragging him under. Alarms start shrilling around him; someone shouts, "He's crashing!" and then, nothing.
Blissful, empty, nothing.
***
Rodney could count on one hand the times someone had told him that he was loved. Usually, they told him because he was dying.
"In the way a friend feels about another friend," Sheppard had said.
Even back then, Rodney had known that for the lie it was.
***
John looks pale as he sits by Rodney's bed. Pale, and a little shaken. He keeps staring down at where his hands are folded in his lap. To be honest, so does Rodney.
He can't help it: John's hands are covered in tiny, reddened welts. So are his arms. Every now and then, John will scratch one of the welts with a blunt fingernail, only to flinch when he realises he's doing it.
Rodney remembers the terror that pulled him back into his own body and thinks, bug bites.
He shudders.
"I'm sorry," he says, because John seems to be waiting for something. This is the only thing Rodney can think of.
"Not your fault." John shrugs and still doesn't look up.
None of what happened is Rodney's fault, but that doesn't make him feel less guilty.
The thing is, he can still feel everything. The wind, the waves, the life they carry. John's tumble of emotions; a storm in its own right, with its own pull. Rodney reaches for it without thinking, and it's only at John's soft noise that he realises he's sitting up, sheets half-off the bed and his fingers wrapped around John's wrists.
"I... don't want to go," he says stupidly. John finally looks up, and Rodney finds himself caught by the darkness in that gaze.
Like storm clouds.
"I'm not letting you go," John says fiercely, his hands turning in Rodney's grip to clasp around his wrists in turn, like anchor chains. "Do you hear me? You're damn well staying, Rodney."
"Yes," Rodney says. He glances around to make sure they're alone before he tugs on John, pulls him in, cuts them both loose with a kiss that feels like swooping through the sky.
Yes. He's staying.
***
Rodney had been almost hit by lightning once.
He'd staggered to his feet and brushed the dirt off his pants with shaking hands while a few feet from him, grass smoldered. His heart had been pounding in his throat, a-live, a-live, a-live.
It had been the most frightening, most exhilarating experience of his life.
Until now.
***
A storm is coming.
Rodney can feel it. The little hairs in the back of his neck are prickling his skin. The sea breeze carries the faint smell of ozone.
Over on the mainland, small animals scurry into their dens.
Rodney smiles and ducks his head to bite, lightly, at that soft place where John's neck meets his shoulder. John's strangled gasp sounds loud in the small room, louder than the steady thwap of the waves hitting the piers below. John's body is slick with sweat as Rodney's fingertips brush down his sides. He's biting his lower lip, trembling with the need to come, "now, you sadistic bastard, please!"
Rodney doesn't need a tether anymore: he's tied himself so firmly into John that sometimes, like now, he thinks that he can almost feel the knots. John isn't the line that keeps him grounded. He's Rodney's safety net.
Rodney smiles. His quarters are filled with sunlight and soft moans as he licks over the tight nub of John's left nipple. The balcony door stands wide open to let in air that's as salty as John's skin.
A storm is coming. Rodney will stay right where he is.
***
The End.
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