Villains, Part 2
Description: Seth tries to get through to Rodney, Rodney starts to open up about what Seth's missed
Word Count: 1,956
Warnings: Occasional bad language
Other: Canon I had to rewrite this after LJ lost it as I predicted back in March, but actually it turned out a lot nicer than what I wrote before, so it's cool. Also I've not been around as much, but I still love everyone who is <3
Seth only dozed lightly for the time that passed; every small plaintive noise Rodney made cutting through. Seth half wanted to wake him from the nightmares, but if that was the only way he could get any sleep...
But after about an hour or two it had gotten far worse, physically tossing and turning, and there wasn't much space to do that on the sofa. Seth reached out from where he lay to the coffee table and picked up a few magazines, before throwing them down hard on the laminate floor.
Rodney started awake, and almost fell off the sofa. He looked around, wide-eyed and terrified.
“You okay?” Seth asked gently.
He could see Rodney forcing his feelings down and away until he got somewhere in the proximity of a neutral expression. “Yeah. What happened?”
"You fell asleep," he supplied slowly, "so I figured we could sleep down here. Maybe talk some more later." Rodney wasn’t just scared, he was terrified; he had to talk to Seth.
Except the suggestion of talking only seemed to scare him even more. “I- No. It’s, like, 3 in the morning, we can’t just-” He suddenly frowned, “Where did these blankets come from?”
"Got them from Mzyra."
"Oh. Well… we should go to bed. Why would you sleep down here?”
"Well… last time we did that you woke me up after a couple of hours," Seth smiled.
"Oh." Rodney blushed and swallowed, then got an expression of determination; "I won't do that next time."
"I don't mind, just thought this might be easier. We can go to bed if you want, and then we can talk in the morning."
Rodney froze up. “Talk about what?”
Seth tried to shrug nonchalantly. “Anything, everything. What I missed while I was dead and you were alive…”
“Nothing good. You wouldn’t be interested.”
“I am interested.”
Rodney tried to keep his face impassive and shrugged. “Not much to tell.”
Rodney was a terrible liar, but it was frustrating all the same. “Rodney, you’re having nightmares and waking up terrified!”
Rodney flushed again and scowled a little, though not really at Seth. “I died. I’ll get over it.”
“Let me help you.”
Then he did scowl at Seth. “How? How do you think you’re going to help what’s already happened? Why do you think talking and remembering it is going to help?!”
“Because I’ll know what you’ve been through at least!” Rodney rolled his eyes at that. “And it’s not like repressing half your thoughts and feelings has ever done wonders for you before!”
Rodney blushed and scowled harder, Seth had touched on a nerve. “I’m going to bed,” he grumbled and stormed off, despite Seth’s dismay - this wasn’t what he’d intended at all.
“Well I’m going to stay down here!” he called after him, more of an offer than a retort. All he got back was the sound of Rodney’s bedroom door closing.
Seth huffed in frustration, and went and fell back down on the smaller sofa. Mzyra said she had faith in him with this, but Seth had no idea how or why. Not when the mission was to help Rodney. Not when Rodney was the most repressed and touchy man Seth had ever known, and Seth had the tendency to speak before he thought and say the wrong thing.
Well whatever, he sighed and curled up on the sofa again; he would at least be here if Rodney had a nightmare again. And if Rodney didn’t have more nightmares, maybe he wouldn’t need help so much.
Seth’s shoulder was shaking slightly, which was weird; he wasn’t doing that, but it wouldn’t stop.
“Seth…” he heard the whisper, and then realised that there was a hand on his shoulder, doing the shaking.
He opened his eyes and looked up to see Rodney. Yes, Rodney was dead now and Seth wasn’t alone anymore. Rodney looked miserable and scared though - because he was clearly traumatised but wouldn’t tell Seth what happened, and he’d stormed off before: Seth remembered now.
Seth tried to suppress his yawn, “Wh’sup?”
Rodney was once again apparently blindsided by Seth’s vague questions, and it made him look even more unhappy. “I hate everything,” he settled for mumbling.
Seth stretched out a bit; these sofas really weren’t that comfortable for sleeping. “You’ve hated everything for as long as I’ve known you.” Seth let his memory wander a bit back to when they’d first lived together. “Especially me,” he mused. And Juan Harris.
Rodney had gone and sat in a ball, arms around his legs, on the other sofa. “You hated me too.”
Not really, Seth considered. He couldn’t deny that he hadn’t liked Rodney to start with, but hate was a strong word. He just hadn’t understood Rodney; he’d never come across anyone else quite like Rodney before or since.
But Rodney kept talking before Seth could say any of that. “Everyone hates me in the end,” he mumbled.
Seth wondered if that tied into Rodney’s trauma somehow. Lynch mob maybe? But he sounded more upset than scared right now. “No they don’t. And not more than they hate me.”
“Do you even remember the trial?” Rodney asked curiously, and quietly like maybe a conversation wasn’t really happening if it wasn’t above a certain number of decibels.
“Um, I remember the trial before I went to jail?” No jury, no defense, just a judge - Sara, who was still pissed at him. “ ‘Justice’ lol,” he snorted.
“We had another trial.”
“We did? Well, given that I can’t remember it, I’m sure I put forth a spectacular case there too,” he rolled his eyes. “Although… I do remember…”
“What?”
“I’m not sure. The last thing I really remember was having my head crammed in a weird machine by some green guy, but after that… I don’t know, it could be bits and pieces of dreams, or maybe they did happen, but some of the flashes of things… Seemed a bit court-y. Like I was in a witness box or something.”
“You were. At one point at least.”
“Wow. They made me testify at my own trial that I don’t remember?”
“Not really. It wasn’t your trial, it was mine. They’d already made their mind up about you.” Seth raised a confused eyebrow at him. “Not guilty for reason of insanity.”
Seth sighed. “Why does everyone seem to conclude that about me?”
“Because you’re very strange. And even weirder post-having your head crammed in that machine. I assume you didn’t want to kill Jasmine Ryman?”
“I don’t even know who that is,” he sighed. “Guess she’s another for the list though. Actually I think Mzyra mentioned all this to me when I died, but she didn’t give me details. So… hang on, I was made to testify at your trial?”
“They thought I put you up to killing her, since she was engaged to the man who took my job. They wanted you to say that I gave you orders to kill her.”
Seth’s stomach churned. “I didn’t incriminate you, did I? Or was I like brainwashed and would say anything I was told to?”
Rodney shook his head, hair swinging gently. “No. You confessed to killing her and wouldn’t say who had told you to do it, but you completely denied that it was me.”
“Good,” he let out a breath of relief. “So did you get off the hook then?” Maybe the Ryman girl’s fiancé had killed Rodney, thinking the verdict was wrong after Rodney went free.
“No. I wasn’t guilty of having her killed or anything like that, but you did admit that I knew about what you’d done in the past, so everyone knew that I had knowingly employed an apparently mentally unstable murderer, and they drudged up all my old stealing and stuff… They got me on reckless endangerment and a bunch of smaller stuff.”
“What was your sentence?”
“It was meant to be sixteen years and some massive fine.”
“Meant to be?”
“Didn’t live sixteen years. Lived long enough for everyone to disown me though.”
“I know how that is. Must have happened to me twice, even if I can’t remember the second time.”
“They probably didn’t disown you really. You were the unfortunate crazy one who couldn’t control his actions and should be pitied. I was the evil, scheming, selfish one.”
“I prefer to consider you true neutral, tactical and clever, and big on self-preservation.”
Rodney looked puzzled. “Why do you bother considering me anything?”
“I’ve told you before: you’re my friend. My only friend,” he conceded. “I like you, almost as much for some of your slightly questionable qualities as despite them. It’s why I want to help you.”
Rodney seemed to mull this quietly.
“Actually… I could swear that the last of my memories - the little bits and pieces - was of you.” He strained his memory to get anything else. “There was… a bed, I think…”
“In jail.”
“Really? I thought it was nicer than that…”
“They converted the old hotel.”
“Oh, right. Hang on, they let us share a cell?”
“It wasn’t fully completed yet. And you were… like you were at the time.”
“I think you were talking to me, but I can’t remember what you were saying.”
“I was trying to get you to act normally, and then made you go to bed, hoping you’d be normal after some sleep.”
Seth laughed, “Well I suppose that kind of sums up our friendship, doesn’t it? You trying and failing to get me to be ‘normal’.”
Rodney barely managed to half-smile and lost it almost immediately. “You died the next day. Killed.”
“Mzyra said something about a… razor in my food?”
Rodney stared at the floor and nodded slightly. “I didn’t know. I would have stopped it.”
“I wasn’t blaming you for it.”
“Though you weren’t really there to save anymore anyway. I wish you had been.” Seth couldn’t see Rodney’s eyes very well across the room, but he thought he might be on the verge of crying.
“I wish I had been.” He forced a joking smile, “then I wouldn’t need to be told what happens after that.”
Rodney didn’t smile, but shook his head, hair falling across his face. “I can’t, Seth. I can’t.”
Seth thought that might happen. “Well, I guess suffice to say that you were in a jail where razors were put in prisoners’ food to kill them, so clearly it was seriously fucked up.”
Rodney nodded. Poor Rodney.
“You should get some sleep.” He looked wrecked.
“I don’t want to sleep. I keep dreaming.”
“You’ll have to sooner or later. Come on: we can both sleep down here, and you can wake me up whenever you need to, and we can chat or play games or watch TV to take your mind off it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“What for?”
“All of this. You could be asleep in bed.”
Seth laughed. “Rodney… You have no idea how much better things are with you here. If Mzyra had come to me and said I could have you for company but I’d never be allowed to sleep ever again, that is an offer I would have seriously considered.”
“You are a bit crazy,” Rodney told him almost apologetically.
Seth shrugged, and then added earnestly “And thank you.”
“What for?”
“Telling me as much as you have. It helps, knowing a bit more. I get that you can’t tell me the rest, but if you ever think you can, or you want to… I’m right here.”
Rodney nodded distractedly, and then started to pull the blanket over himself. “I’ll probably be waking you up again soon,” he warned him, even more apologetically.
“I look forward to it,” Seth said brightly, curling up again.
Word Count: 1,956
Warnings: Occasional bad language
Other: Canon I had to rewrite this after LJ lost it as I predicted back in March, but actually it turned out a lot nicer than what I wrote before, so it's cool. Also I've not been around as much, but I still love everyone who is <3
Seth only dozed lightly for the time that passed; every small plaintive noise Rodney made cutting through. Seth half wanted to wake him from the nightmares, but if that was the only way he could get any sleep...
But after about an hour or two it had gotten far worse, physically tossing and turning, and there wasn't much space to do that on the sofa. Seth reached out from where he lay to the coffee table and picked up a few magazines, before throwing them down hard on the laminate floor.
Rodney started awake, and almost fell off the sofa. He looked around, wide-eyed and terrified.
“You okay?” Seth asked gently.
He could see Rodney forcing his feelings down and away until he got somewhere in the proximity of a neutral expression. “Yeah. What happened?”
"You fell asleep," he supplied slowly, "so I figured we could sleep down here. Maybe talk some more later." Rodney wasn’t just scared, he was terrified; he had to talk to Seth.
Except the suggestion of talking only seemed to scare him even more. “I- No. It’s, like, 3 in the morning, we can’t just-” He suddenly frowned, “Where did these blankets come from?”
"Got them from Mzyra."
"Oh. Well… we should go to bed. Why would you sleep down here?”
"Well… last time we did that you woke me up after a couple of hours," Seth smiled.
"Oh." Rodney blushed and swallowed, then got an expression of determination; "I won't do that next time."
"I don't mind, just thought this might be easier. We can go to bed if you want, and then we can talk in the morning."
Rodney froze up. “Talk about what?”
Seth tried to shrug nonchalantly. “Anything, everything. What I missed while I was dead and you were alive…”
“Nothing good. You wouldn’t be interested.”
“I am interested.”
Rodney tried to keep his face impassive and shrugged. “Not much to tell.”
Rodney was a terrible liar, but it was frustrating all the same. “Rodney, you’re having nightmares and waking up terrified!”
Rodney flushed again and scowled a little, though not really at Seth. “I died. I’ll get over it.”
“Let me help you.”
Then he did scowl at Seth. “How? How do you think you’re going to help what’s already happened? Why do you think talking and remembering it is going to help?!”
“Because I’ll know what you’ve been through at least!” Rodney rolled his eyes at that. “And it’s not like repressing half your thoughts and feelings has ever done wonders for you before!”
Rodney blushed and scowled harder, Seth had touched on a nerve. “I’m going to bed,” he grumbled and stormed off, despite Seth’s dismay - this wasn’t what he’d intended at all.
“Well I’m going to stay down here!” he called after him, more of an offer than a retort. All he got back was the sound of Rodney’s bedroom door closing.
Seth huffed in frustration, and went and fell back down on the smaller sofa. Mzyra said she had faith in him with this, but Seth had no idea how or why. Not when the mission was to help Rodney. Not when Rodney was the most repressed and touchy man Seth had ever known, and Seth had the tendency to speak before he thought and say the wrong thing.
Well whatever, he sighed and curled up on the sofa again; he would at least be here if Rodney had a nightmare again. And if Rodney didn’t have more nightmares, maybe he wouldn’t need help so much.
Seth’s shoulder was shaking slightly, which was weird; he wasn’t doing that, but it wouldn’t stop.
“Seth…” he heard the whisper, and then realised that there was a hand on his shoulder, doing the shaking.
He opened his eyes and looked up to see Rodney. Yes, Rodney was dead now and Seth wasn’t alone anymore. Rodney looked miserable and scared though - because he was clearly traumatised but wouldn’t tell Seth what happened, and he’d stormed off before: Seth remembered now.
Seth tried to suppress his yawn, “Wh’sup?”
Rodney was once again apparently blindsided by Seth’s vague questions, and it made him look even more unhappy. “I hate everything,” he settled for mumbling.
Seth stretched out a bit; these sofas really weren’t that comfortable for sleeping. “You’ve hated everything for as long as I’ve known you.” Seth let his memory wander a bit back to when they’d first lived together. “Especially me,” he mused. And Juan Harris.
Rodney had gone and sat in a ball, arms around his legs, on the other sofa. “You hated me too.”
Not really, Seth considered. He couldn’t deny that he hadn’t liked Rodney to start with, but hate was a strong word. He just hadn’t understood Rodney; he’d never come across anyone else quite like Rodney before or since.
But Rodney kept talking before Seth could say any of that. “Everyone hates me in the end,” he mumbled.
Seth wondered if that tied into Rodney’s trauma somehow. Lynch mob maybe? But he sounded more upset than scared right now. “No they don’t. And not more than they hate me.”
“Do you even remember the trial?” Rodney asked curiously, and quietly like maybe a conversation wasn’t really happening if it wasn’t above a certain number of decibels.
“Um, I remember the trial before I went to jail?” No jury, no defense, just a judge - Sara, who was still pissed at him. “ ‘Justice’ lol,” he snorted.
“We had another trial.”
“We did? Well, given that I can’t remember it, I’m sure I put forth a spectacular case there too,” he rolled his eyes. “Although… I do remember…”
“What?”
“I’m not sure. The last thing I really remember was having my head crammed in a weird machine by some green guy, but after that… I don’t know, it could be bits and pieces of dreams, or maybe they did happen, but some of the flashes of things… Seemed a bit court-y. Like I was in a witness box or something.”
“You were. At one point at least.”
“Wow. They made me testify at my own trial that I don’t remember?”
“Not really. It wasn’t your trial, it was mine. They’d already made their mind up about you.” Seth raised a confused eyebrow at him. “Not guilty for reason of insanity.”
Seth sighed. “Why does everyone seem to conclude that about me?”
“Because you’re very strange. And even weirder post-having your head crammed in that machine. I assume you didn’t want to kill Jasmine Ryman?”
“I don’t even know who that is,” he sighed. “Guess she’s another for the list though. Actually I think Mzyra mentioned all this to me when I died, but she didn’t give me details. So… hang on, I was made to testify at your trial?”
“They thought I put you up to killing her, since she was engaged to the man who took my job. They wanted you to say that I gave you orders to kill her.”
Seth’s stomach churned. “I didn’t incriminate you, did I? Or was I like brainwashed and would say anything I was told to?”
Rodney shook his head, hair swinging gently. “No. You confessed to killing her and wouldn’t say who had told you to do it, but you completely denied that it was me.”
“Good,” he let out a breath of relief. “So did you get off the hook then?” Maybe the Ryman girl’s fiancé had killed Rodney, thinking the verdict was wrong after Rodney went free.
“No. I wasn’t guilty of having her killed or anything like that, but you did admit that I knew about what you’d done in the past, so everyone knew that I had knowingly employed an apparently mentally unstable murderer, and they drudged up all my old stealing and stuff… They got me on reckless endangerment and a bunch of smaller stuff.”
“What was your sentence?”
“It was meant to be sixteen years and some massive fine.”
“Meant to be?”
“Didn’t live sixteen years. Lived long enough for everyone to disown me though.”
“I know how that is. Must have happened to me twice, even if I can’t remember the second time.”
“They probably didn’t disown you really. You were the unfortunate crazy one who couldn’t control his actions and should be pitied. I was the evil, scheming, selfish one.”
“I prefer to consider you true neutral, tactical and clever, and big on self-preservation.”
Rodney looked puzzled. “Why do you bother considering me anything?”
“I’ve told you before: you’re my friend. My only friend,” he conceded. “I like you, almost as much for some of your slightly questionable qualities as despite them. It’s why I want to help you.”
Rodney seemed to mull this quietly.
“Actually… I could swear that the last of my memories - the little bits and pieces - was of you.” He strained his memory to get anything else. “There was… a bed, I think…”
“In jail.”
“Really? I thought it was nicer than that…”
“They converted the old hotel.”
“Oh, right. Hang on, they let us share a cell?”
“It wasn’t fully completed yet. And you were… like you were at the time.”
“I think you were talking to me, but I can’t remember what you were saying.”
“I was trying to get you to act normally, and then made you go to bed, hoping you’d be normal after some sleep.”
Seth laughed, “Well I suppose that kind of sums up our friendship, doesn’t it? You trying and failing to get me to be ‘normal’.”
Rodney barely managed to half-smile and lost it almost immediately. “You died the next day. Killed.”
“Mzyra said something about a… razor in my food?”
Rodney stared at the floor and nodded slightly. “I didn’t know. I would have stopped it.”
“I wasn’t blaming you for it.”
“Though you weren’t really there to save anymore anyway. I wish you had been.” Seth couldn’t see Rodney’s eyes very well across the room, but he thought he might be on the verge of crying.
“I wish I had been.” He forced a joking smile, “then I wouldn’t need to be told what happens after that.”
Rodney didn’t smile, but shook his head, hair falling across his face. “I can’t, Seth. I can’t.”
Seth thought that might happen. “Well, I guess suffice to say that you were in a jail where razors were put in prisoners’ food to kill them, so clearly it was seriously fucked up.”
Rodney nodded. Poor Rodney.
“You should get some sleep.” He looked wrecked.
“I don’t want to sleep. I keep dreaming.”
“You’ll have to sooner or later. Come on: we can both sleep down here, and you can wake me up whenever you need to, and we can chat or play games or watch TV to take your mind off it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“What for?”
“All of this. You could be asleep in bed.”
Seth laughed. “Rodney… You have no idea how much better things are with you here. If Mzyra had come to me and said I could have you for company but I’d never be allowed to sleep ever again, that is an offer I would have seriously considered.”
“You are a bit crazy,” Rodney told him almost apologetically.
Seth shrugged, and then added earnestly “And thank you.”
“What for?”
“Telling me as much as you have. It helps, knowing a bit more. I get that you can’t tell me the rest, but if you ever think you can, or you want to… I’m right here.”
Rodney nodded distractedly, and then started to pull the blanket over himself. “I’ll probably be waking you up again soon,” he warned him, even more apologetically.
“I look forward to it,” Seth said brightly, curling up again.