You did what?
This fic has been sitting on my computer for about a month, and I just got around to finishing it.
Title You did what?
Author ShepsAngel
Summary Tag to the Hive
Rating PG
Feedback Feedback, is as always, loved and appreciated
Disclaimer I don't McShep, I'm just borrowing them for a while
“Whatcha working on?” Rodney quickly snapped the lid of his laptop closed before John had a chance to see the screen.
“Er nothing really. Well nothing you’d understand anyway”, Rodney reacted without thinking, but seeing the hurt in Johns eyes made him realise what he’d done.
John reply was cold, emotionless, “I thought we’d moved past all the ‘me dumb grunt, you genius’ crap, but obviously some things never change.”
John turned to leave but was stopped by a hand on his shoulder, a shaking hand. Turning to face Rodney, John realised for the time since returning from his little outing with Ford to the Hive ship, just how pale and exhausted Rodney was. He was Rodney open his mouth to say something before he was turning slightly green, and stumbling backwards. John caught him as his knees gave way, and gently lowered him to the floor.
As soon as he was on the floor Rodney drew his knees up and wrapped his arms around them protectively. John couldn’t help but notice the trembling in his hands was more pronounced, and had seemingly spread to the rest of his body.
“Rodney? What’s wrong?”
“I’m fine Colonel. Just tired.” Colonel? Colonel? Rodney hadn’t called him Colonel when they were in private, well, ever. They’d gotten together after the siege. Both men had realised their feelings for each other, as they had each watched the other ‘die’. That night they had fallen, desperately into each others arms, and never looked back. After that night Rodney had stopped calling John, Major, and never Colonel in private. Now he knew something was wrong.
“Don’t lie to me Rodney. You’re not very good at it. I’m going to call Beckett.”
“NO!” John was startled as Rodney grabbed his arm as it reached for his earpiece. There was no way that he could ignore the panicked look in his lovers eyes, or the increase in the intensity of his trembling, which radiated through John’s arm as Rodney continued to hold him tightly.
“Hey, hey. Shh. It’s okay.” John gently pried Rodney’s hand from his arm, before pulling the physicist into a tight embrace. “Rodney, you need to go see Beckett.” John couldn’t help but notice the way Rodney’s whole body went rigid at the mention of Carson’s name. “You’re obviously not well Rodney. You need to go to the infirmary, and get checked out.
“NO! I’m not going back there.” Rodney pulled away from John, before shakily getting to his feet to begin pacing the room. “You can’t make me go back there. I don’t care what you say I’m never setting foot in the infirmary again.”
John was also on his feet now, staring at his lover with a mixture of panic, worry and fear. John had never seen Rodney this upset before, and it hurt to see him in such a state. John decided to act, doing the first thing that he could think of. He took hold of Rodney’s arms, which were flailing expressively as he talked, and kissed him.
As Rodney pulled away John saw pure anger burning within his blue eyes. And it was so wrong for John to be thinking about how hot Rodney was when he was angry. “This is you solution to everything, isn’t it. Lets have sex and then everything will be okay. Well news flash Colonel. Your brain may live in your dick but mine doesn’t. You can’t fix this by jumping in to bed with me.”
“Fuck Rodney. Is that what you really think. That all I’m after is sex. You really think so little of me. Because if that’s how you really feel, then what the hell are we doing?”
“I honestly don’t know Colonel, we obviously both have different ideas about what we want from this relationship, and to be perfectly honest, if all you’re looking for is a fuck buddy then you can look elsewhere.”
If John hadn’t been focused so intensely on Rodney he would have missed it. The slight downturn of his mouth, the way his eyes never met Johns own, the way he appeared to become paler by the second.
“Rodney! Stop!” Rodney continued to pace, ignoring Johns almost desperate plea. “Rodney please, sit down before you fall down, again” That earnt him the patented Rodney Mckay death glare, although ultimately he was ignored as Rodney continued to pace. “Rodney, I know you didn’t mean what you just said, and you’re not going to get rid of me that easily.” John took a deep breath, “I love you, Rodney.”
That worked, Rodney stopped pacing, and turned towards John, shock written across his expressive features. Shock however, quickly turned to anger.
“Don’t say that. You don’t get to say that, you’re only making it all worse. Just leave me alone.” Rodney turned and began to move as fast as his rapidly tiring, aching body would allow, towards the door. He had to get away, he was feeling claustrophobic, as if the walls were closing in on him, and they were. John was like a dog with a bone, Rodney knew he’d find out what he’d done sooner or later, and Rodney didn’t want to be around when he did.
John was at Rodney’s side before he’d even made it through the door. He grabbed Rodney’s wrist as he reached for the door control, but let go almost immediately as the astrophysicist let out an involuntary hiss of pain. Momentarily startled by Rodney’s reaction, John was slow to react as Rodney took off down the almost deserted corridor.
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Stepping out on to the balcony into the cool night air, John couldn’t help but admire the view as the sun was slowly setting on the horizon. John could see why Rodney had chosen this balcony as his refuge.
“How did you find me?”
John turned in the direction of the weak, muffled voice to find Rodney visibly shaking, hugging his knees to his chest, face buried in his hands.
“Atlantis loves me remember.” John replied cockily, he knew his possession of such a strong ancient gene, and the resulting, almost symbiotic relationship he had with ancient technology was still a sore point for Rodney.
“Great, it’s not bad enough that every woman in the Pegasus galaxy fancies you, I’m in competition with a city now, too.”
Rodney felt a warm weight settle against him as John joined him on the floor. “Nah, there is no competition. You’d win, hands down every time. Now how about you stop trying to change the subject, and tell me what the hell is going on with you.”
“Nothing. I told you I’m fine.” Rodney’s eyes met John’s for a second, before he returned his gaze to the ocean. In that second John saw all that he needed to know. Rodney was scared, he’d seen that look more times than he cared to count. It was Rodney’s ‘Oh crap, I’m about to be fed upon by a wraith’, or ‘Oh crap, we’re all going to die,’ look.
“Rodney, please, what happened, talk to me.”
“I can’t.”
John gently took hold of Rodney’s wrist, and couldn’t help but notice how Rodney’s body stiffened under his touch. Rolling the sleeve of Rodney’s jacket up, John let out an involuntary gasp as he revealed the abused skin on Rodney’s wrist.
“Rodney. What the hell did they do to you?” John was shouting, and he really didn’t care. He was furious. Both at Ford’s men and at himself, for leaving Rodney behind.
“Nothing.” Rodney’s reply was barely audible, had Rodney not been right next to John he would have missed it.
“What the…Rodney, why are you defending them?”
“Because they didn’t do anything. I did it to myself.”
“Rodney, look, no matter what they told you, whatever they did to you wasn’t your fault.”
“Look, John.” Rodney’s eyes locked with Johns, all traces of fear gone to be replaced with pure anger. “Listen to what I’m saying. They didn’t ‘do’ anything. I made a conscious decision, that resulted in, this.” Rodney looked down at his reddened, bruised wrists. “This is my fault, no one else’s.”
John was now more than a little confused, ‘conscious decision’. He opened his mouth to speak before he was cut off by a raised finger from Rodney
“You really want to know what happened then I’ll tell you. Because you obviously wont let me get any peace until I tell you how I made a complete idiot of myself in front of everyone, and for nothing. You didn’t even need me, you saved yourselves. And I went through all that for nothing, and in the end it just proved to me that you don’t need me. Not really.
John wasn’t just confused now, he was angry. “McKay, what the hell are you talking about. Of course we need you, I need you. Everyone in this city would be dead if it weren’t for you.”
Rodney seemed to consider Johns words, before replying, “Hmm, yes. While that is technically correct, all that proves is that I am invaluable to Atlantis, not to the team. You don’t need me on the team. All I do is get in the way. I’m a liability. That’s why you left me behind on Ford’s planet, because you don’t need me. You managed to escape fine by yourselves, and I took that enzyme for nothing.” McKay turned, horrified at having just revealed what he had done to Sheppard.
Sheppard’s eyes were burning with, anger, disappointment, both. Rodney couldn’t be sure. “What do you mean you took the enzyme. You were being forced to take that stuff, you had no choice.
Rodney winced, “Not initially, no. But I willingly took an extra dose.”
“What! How much extra.”
“Rodney swallowed around the lump in his throat, before replying, “A lot extra.”
“Define a lot.”
“Enough to allow me to kick some butt.” Rodney couldn’t help but smile at the memory of the look of pure amazement on the goons face as he’d punched him. “Escape Ford’s guards, and then turn into a gibbering basket case in front of the entire gate room. Oh, and lets not forget the fact that I accused Carson of trying to kill me.”
“What? Why?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Guess I just got bored of watching to morons play a pathetically boring game of chequers. It had nothing at all to do with saving your scrawny butt, Teyla and Ronon too, of course. But God, when you didn’t come back, I thought…. And then when I was on the Daedalus, and watched the Hive ship explode, for a few seconds you were dead, and you seriously have got to stop dying. It’s doing nothing for my health, not to mention my mental state.”
John reached an arm around Rodney’s shoulder, and gently pulled him towards him. Rodney, spent from his rant let John envelope him in a tight embrace. For the first time in what felt like forever, Rodney felt completely safe, as John planted a gentle kiss on his forehead.
“I promise, I’m not going anywhere Rodney. I’m here for you, always. No matter what. I’ll never leave you again.”
“Don’t make promises that you can’t keep.”
“Rodney”
“No, I mean it John. None of us can predict what’s going to happen tomorrow.”
“I think this is the part where people usually say, I could get ran over by a bus tomorrow.”
“Yeah” Rodney snorted. And it was music to John’s ears. “Well as I don’t see any buses around here, I suppose in our case we could say, you could get landed on by a puddle jumper tomorrow.”
“With the way you drive, anything is possible.”
“Hey, I’m not that bad.”
“Rodney, if I hadn’t grabbed the controls back on P47-377 you would have landed on the roof of that poor persons house. Somehow I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch of the imagination that you could land on an unsuspecting person.”
“humph” Rodney crossed his arms, before glaring at John. “Yes, well, need I remind you that was entirely you’re fault. You’re the one who said, ‘I’m picking up energy reading’, and you know how I get when I’m tracking energy readings.
Sheppard smirked at Rodney, raising an eyebrow, before replying, “You know, I think I detected some strange energy readings in my quarters earlier.”
“Oh really. Well in that case maybe we should go check it out. Can’t have random energy fluctuations occurring all over the place now, can we.” Rodney grabbed John’s arm, and practically dragged him down the corridor. All thoughts of the resignation letter that sat on his desk forgotten, as he realised that he, like John, couldn’t promise never to leave, but he could damn well try.
Title You did what?
Author ShepsAngel
Summary Tag to the Hive
Rating PG
Feedback Feedback, is as always, loved and appreciated
Disclaimer I don't McShep, I'm just borrowing them for a while
“Whatcha working on?” Rodney quickly snapped the lid of his laptop closed before John had a chance to see the screen.
“Er nothing really. Well nothing you’d understand anyway”, Rodney reacted without thinking, but seeing the hurt in Johns eyes made him realise what he’d done.
John reply was cold, emotionless, “I thought we’d moved past all the ‘me dumb grunt, you genius’ crap, but obviously some things never change.”
John turned to leave but was stopped by a hand on his shoulder, a shaking hand. Turning to face Rodney, John realised for the time since returning from his little outing with Ford to the Hive ship, just how pale and exhausted Rodney was. He was Rodney open his mouth to say something before he was turning slightly green, and stumbling backwards. John caught him as his knees gave way, and gently lowered him to the floor.
As soon as he was on the floor Rodney drew his knees up and wrapped his arms around them protectively. John couldn’t help but notice the trembling in his hands was more pronounced, and had seemingly spread to the rest of his body.
“Rodney? What’s wrong?”
“I’m fine Colonel. Just tired.” Colonel? Colonel? Rodney hadn’t called him Colonel when they were in private, well, ever. They’d gotten together after the siege. Both men had realised their feelings for each other, as they had each watched the other ‘die’. That night they had fallen, desperately into each others arms, and never looked back. After that night Rodney had stopped calling John, Major, and never Colonel in private. Now he knew something was wrong.
“Don’t lie to me Rodney. You’re not very good at it. I’m going to call Beckett.”
“NO!” John was startled as Rodney grabbed his arm as it reached for his earpiece. There was no way that he could ignore the panicked look in his lovers eyes, or the increase in the intensity of his trembling, which radiated through John’s arm as Rodney continued to hold him tightly.
“Hey, hey. Shh. It’s okay.” John gently pried Rodney’s hand from his arm, before pulling the physicist into a tight embrace. “Rodney, you need to go see Beckett.” John couldn’t help but notice the way Rodney’s whole body went rigid at the mention of Carson’s name. “You’re obviously not well Rodney. You need to go to the infirmary, and get checked out.
“NO! I’m not going back there.” Rodney pulled away from John, before shakily getting to his feet to begin pacing the room. “You can’t make me go back there. I don’t care what you say I’m never setting foot in the infirmary again.”
John was also on his feet now, staring at his lover with a mixture of panic, worry and fear. John had never seen Rodney this upset before, and it hurt to see him in such a state. John decided to act, doing the first thing that he could think of. He took hold of Rodney’s arms, which were flailing expressively as he talked, and kissed him.
As Rodney pulled away John saw pure anger burning within his blue eyes. And it was so wrong for John to be thinking about how hot Rodney was when he was angry. “This is you solution to everything, isn’t it. Lets have sex and then everything will be okay. Well news flash Colonel. Your brain may live in your dick but mine doesn’t. You can’t fix this by jumping in to bed with me.”
“Fuck Rodney. Is that what you really think. That all I’m after is sex. You really think so little of me. Because if that’s how you really feel, then what the hell are we doing?”
“I honestly don’t know Colonel, we obviously both have different ideas about what we want from this relationship, and to be perfectly honest, if all you’re looking for is a fuck buddy then you can look elsewhere.”
If John hadn’t been focused so intensely on Rodney he would have missed it. The slight downturn of his mouth, the way his eyes never met Johns own, the way he appeared to become paler by the second.
“Rodney! Stop!” Rodney continued to pace, ignoring Johns almost desperate plea. “Rodney please, sit down before you fall down, again” That earnt him the patented Rodney Mckay death glare, although ultimately he was ignored as Rodney continued to pace. “Rodney, I know you didn’t mean what you just said, and you’re not going to get rid of me that easily.” John took a deep breath, “I love you, Rodney.”
That worked, Rodney stopped pacing, and turned towards John, shock written across his expressive features. Shock however, quickly turned to anger.
“Don’t say that. You don’t get to say that, you’re only making it all worse. Just leave me alone.” Rodney turned and began to move as fast as his rapidly tiring, aching body would allow, towards the door. He had to get away, he was feeling claustrophobic, as if the walls were closing in on him, and they were. John was like a dog with a bone, Rodney knew he’d find out what he’d done sooner or later, and Rodney didn’t want to be around when he did.
John was at Rodney’s side before he’d even made it through the door. He grabbed Rodney’s wrist as he reached for the door control, but let go almost immediately as the astrophysicist let out an involuntary hiss of pain. Momentarily startled by Rodney’s reaction, John was slow to react as Rodney took off down the almost deserted corridor.
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Stepping out on to the balcony into the cool night air, John couldn’t help but admire the view as the sun was slowly setting on the horizon. John could see why Rodney had chosen this balcony as his refuge.
“How did you find me?”
John turned in the direction of the weak, muffled voice to find Rodney visibly shaking, hugging his knees to his chest, face buried in his hands.
“Atlantis loves me remember.” John replied cockily, he knew his possession of such a strong ancient gene, and the resulting, almost symbiotic relationship he had with ancient technology was still a sore point for Rodney.
“Great, it’s not bad enough that every woman in the Pegasus galaxy fancies you, I’m in competition with a city now, too.”
Rodney felt a warm weight settle against him as John joined him on the floor. “Nah, there is no competition. You’d win, hands down every time. Now how about you stop trying to change the subject, and tell me what the hell is going on with you.”
“Nothing. I told you I’m fine.” Rodney’s eyes met John’s for a second, before he returned his gaze to the ocean. In that second John saw all that he needed to know. Rodney was scared, he’d seen that look more times than he cared to count. It was Rodney’s ‘Oh crap, I’m about to be fed upon by a wraith’, or ‘Oh crap, we’re all going to die,’ look.
“Rodney, please, what happened, talk to me.”
“I can’t.”
John gently took hold of Rodney’s wrist, and couldn’t help but notice how Rodney’s body stiffened under his touch. Rolling the sleeve of Rodney’s jacket up, John let out an involuntary gasp as he revealed the abused skin on Rodney’s wrist.
“Rodney. What the hell did they do to you?” John was shouting, and he really didn’t care. He was furious. Both at Ford’s men and at himself, for leaving Rodney behind.
“Nothing.” Rodney’s reply was barely audible, had Rodney not been right next to John he would have missed it.
“What the…Rodney, why are you defending them?”
“Because they didn’t do anything. I did it to myself.”
“Rodney, look, no matter what they told you, whatever they did to you wasn’t your fault.”
“Look, John.” Rodney’s eyes locked with Johns, all traces of fear gone to be replaced with pure anger. “Listen to what I’m saying. They didn’t ‘do’ anything. I made a conscious decision, that resulted in, this.” Rodney looked down at his reddened, bruised wrists. “This is my fault, no one else’s.”
John was now more than a little confused, ‘conscious decision’. He opened his mouth to speak before he was cut off by a raised finger from Rodney
“You really want to know what happened then I’ll tell you. Because you obviously wont let me get any peace until I tell you how I made a complete idiot of myself in front of everyone, and for nothing. You didn’t even need me, you saved yourselves. And I went through all that for nothing, and in the end it just proved to me that you don’t need me. Not really.
John wasn’t just confused now, he was angry. “McKay, what the hell are you talking about. Of course we need you, I need you. Everyone in this city would be dead if it weren’t for you.”
Rodney seemed to consider Johns words, before replying, “Hmm, yes. While that is technically correct, all that proves is that I am invaluable to Atlantis, not to the team. You don’t need me on the team. All I do is get in the way. I’m a liability. That’s why you left me behind on Ford’s planet, because you don’t need me. You managed to escape fine by yourselves, and I took that enzyme for nothing.” McKay turned, horrified at having just revealed what he had done to Sheppard.
Sheppard’s eyes were burning with, anger, disappointment, both. Rodney couldn’t be sure. “What do you mean you took the enzyme. You were being forced to take that stuff, you had no choice.
Rodney winced, “Not initially, no. But I willingly took an extra dose.”
“What! How much extra.”
“Rodney swallowed around the lump in his throat, before replying, “A lot extra.”
“Define a lot.”
“Enough to allow me to kick some butt.” Rodney couldn’t help but smile at the memory of the look of pure amazement on the goons face as he’d punched him. “Escape Ford’s guards, and then turn into a gibbering basket case in front of the entire gate room. Oh, and lets not forget the fact that I accused Carson of trying to kill me.”
“What? Why?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Guess I just got bored of watching to morons play a pathetically boring game of chequers. It had nothing at all to do with saving your scrawny butt, Teyla and Ronon too, of course. But God, when you didn’t come back, I thought…. And then when I was on the Daedalus, and watched the Hive ship explode, for a few seconds you were dead, and you seriously have got to stop dying. It’s doing nothing for my health, not to mention my mental state.”
John reached an arm around Rodney’s shoulder, and gently pulled him towards him. Rodney, spent from his rant let John envelope him in a tight embrace. For the first time in what felt like forever, Rodney felt completely safe, as John planted a gentle kiss on his forehead.
“I promise, I’m not going anywhere Rodney. I’m here for you, always. No matter what. I’ll never leave you again.”
“Don’t make promises that you can’t keep.”
“Rodney”
“No, I mean it John. None of us can predict what’s going to happen tomorrow.”
“I think this is the part where people usually say, I could get ran over by a bus tomorrow.”
“Yeah” Rodney snorted. And it was music to John’s ears. “Well as I don’t see any buses around here, I suppose in our case we could say, you could get landed on by a puddle jumper tomorrow.”
“With the way you drive, anything is possible.”
“Hey, I’m not that bad.”
“Rodney, if I hadn’t grabbed the controls back on P47-377 you would have landed on the roof of that poor persons house. Somehow I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch of the imagination that you could land on an unsuspecting person.”
“humph” Rodney crossed his arms, before glaring at John. “Yes, well, need I remind you that was entirely you’re fault. You’re the one who said, ‘I’m picking up energy reading’, and you know how I get when I’m tracking energy readings.
Sheppard smirked at Rodney, raising an eyebrow, before replying, “You know, I think I detected some strange energy readings in my quarters earlier.”
“Oh really. Well in that case maybe we should go check it out. Can’t have random energy fluctuations occurring all over the place now, can we.” Rodney grabbed John’s arm, and practically dragged him down the corridor. All thoughts of the resignation letter that sat on his desk forgotten, as he realised that he, like John, couldn’t promise never to leave, but he could damn well try.