Fic: The Shortest Distance between Two Points (McKay/Sheppard, R)
Title: The Shortest Distance between Two Points
Author: lilyfarfalla
Recipient: kisahawklin
Pairing: John/Rodney
Rating: R
Warnings: References imprisonment, but pretty minor.
Author's Notes: Dear kisahawklin: I hope you like this story! I kept calling it "A Wrinkle in Time AU" in my head, but while I translated most of the book from the Murrays to the McKays (and John) in my head, most of the scenes didn't really make it to paper. I would love to give it a try though, someday. But for today: Happy Christmas!
Summary: His body never forgets how it felt to be lifted into the sky on wings, made of feathers and bone and former-stars.
This story is a brief picture of how John and Rodney would grow up, and where they would end up, if they had been in Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, instead of Meg and Calvin.
-o-
John doesn't fully remember what happened the night he went for a walk in the woods near the McKay's old farmhouse. He remembers why he went for a walk. And he remembers Rodney. He remembers the cadences of Rodney's voice and Rodney's startled grin when John flung an arm over his shoulder. He remembers a boy a year behind him in school, who seemed like he could have been a friend, if John had stuck around.
John has a strangely vivid memory of Rodney's mother making stew in a science lab, and finds that he equates labs with comfort, warm lights and coming home. It explained his instant attraction to Barbara, wearing a white lab coat the day they met, her hair tied back from her face and goggles covering her eyes.
But he does not remember a Mrs. Whatsit, a Mrs. Who, or a Mrs. Which. The word "tesseract" has no meaning for him, and he thinks that stories about humans who travel through time and space are just really good science fiction.
Still. Even without solid memories, stories of his past that he can bring up to comfort or torture himself, John remembers.
His body never forgets how it felt to be lifted into the sky on wings, made of feathers and bone and former-stars. He keeps the sense of buoyancy, of possibility, of his arms wrapped around a warm body, cold air surrounding him, and the scent of flowers.
The first time he piloted his own plane up into the sky, John had a moment of dissonance, expecting to feel a rush of air, to hear the force of movement against the wind, to smell lavender and thyme. He recovered almost immediately, quickly enough that his instructor, who had been flying with him for months, never noticed the flash of hesitation. The flight had not been John's first time in the air, but it was the first time the upward momentum was under his control, and there was just a brief glimpse of mountain peaks, an echo of a song in his ears, before it all faded under the rattle and hum of the engine of the plane.
More than anything else, even Rodney, John remembers the compulsion he had to go for a walk in the woods that night. It was not one of the compulsions that changed his life (he thinks), but it sticks out in his memory, even more than the ones that proceeded his marriage and his entrance into the Air Force.
At 35, being bawled out as a renegade, as an incompetent, daredevil pilot who cared only about his own glory, who was goddamned lucky that his father had earned him a measure of respect he didn't deserve, how he'd never see a combat zone again, never see a US Air Force-owned bird again after his two years of Antarctic purgatory were up, John reflected that compulsions to take walks were really to be preferred to a series of choices that left three friends dead.
- - -
John had expected some parting remarks from General Davidson, but the man said little beyond giving John his basic transfer details. Davidson enjoyed inserting parables and Italian literary references into his speeches, and John had attempted to distract himself from his anger and grief by debating whether Davidson would reference Machiavelli or Caesar in his parting remarks. Still, hearing "Dante froze the worst of his betrayers, after all," when the General gave John his next assignment, had been an unexpected blow.
John had expected to really hate Antarctica. He grew up loving the warmth of summer, filling his bones up with sunlight. The thought of living in darkness for months at a time grated against his sense of right.
But instead of painful cold and darkness, Antarctica was like standing on a cliff at the end of the world and trying to peer over the edge. John took helicopters on milk runs, and he got his hands dirty with grease and engine oil, and his world was white and blue and endless views. Gravity felt different down here, he decided. Heavier maybe, almost like it was daring him to jump to see how hard he would fall.
John felt weighted down, more solid than he had for years. No orders to buck, no compulsions to follow, just flying and cold wind on his face. And then he flew to the research base 25 miles outside of McMurdo, dodged a glowing, golden squid, and, despite all his best instincts, felt compelled to sit down in a chair that lit up around him.
And then Rodney fucking McKay came running around the corner, and John felt the weightlessness of a perfect liftoff, of falling.
- - -
Seeing Rodney had shaken free some of his memories of his walk in the woods. The first things he recalled were mostly of Rodney and Earth. John remembered more about the night he had gone to the haunted house in the woods. He had been walking slowly, with a general goal of going to the abandoned shack, but no real plans to do anything, when he was nearly run down by a giant dog. The dog had ended up belonging to Rodney and Jeannie, his weirdly adult little sister (who was supposed to be mute, or something, but seemed to be some kind of savant, instead).
And while Jeannie had said that she would like to trust John, Rodney had said, "What would I know about him? He's a jock, popular," and John had felt the sting of that comment, and an urge to prove Rodney wrong.
When they got to the shack, Rodney's words had started coming faster and at a higher pitch, and it had been pure instinct that prompted John to grab his hand. Rodney's voice stopped midway through a word, and he looked up at John, through bizarrely thick eyelashes and a ridiculous head of curly hair and gaped at him.
John remembered holding Rodney's hand quite a lot, actually.
Though John never planned to tell anyone, Rodney had been the ultimate factor in John's decision to go to Atlantis. There were certainly many other reasons, pro and con, but without Rodney John thought he might have left it up to a coin toss. The grounded joy of an Antarctic sunrise had given John the equilibrium to make a real choice though, and he wanted to jump; he wanted to see where he would land.
Rodney had not recognized him, but John was surprised that he had connected the slightly balding man in a bright orange fleece to the curly-haired blond boy that John had first met. They had been so young when they had known each other - fourteen and thirteen, barely even teenagers.
After the chaos of the first days in Atlantis, John found himself wondering if their youth had been what Mrs. Whatsit and the others had needed from them, if they had thought their innocence would leave them unscathed.
- - -
It was not until the fifth or sixth time that Rodney did something absurdly brave that John realized he kept reaching out for Rodney's hand. Not finding it, he had resorted to head slaps and arm punches of varying strength and quantity. But as time went on, John started to wish that Rodney would reach back.
The thing was, John remembered how Rodney talked and talked and waved his arms around and was generally pretty brilliant, but he had forgotten how brave Rodney was. It was not a quality that would ever have struck anyone about the guy, on first meeting. Rodney was a ridiculous hypochondriac, and he constantly stressed the impossibility of their continued survival. But he went on a one-way trip through a wormhole in search of a mythical city, and he stepped into a black energy cloud to save Atlantis, and he attacked a Wraith to save John.
And then one day, John woke up and remembered Rodney hunched over, leaning into Aunt Beast, and saying, "Well, yes, obviously, I have to be the one to do it," and the force of the memory took his breath away.
John went through the morning in a daze, running in silence with Ronon and eating with a sleepy Teyla and Torren in the mess. Rodney had probably been up late working the night before, and John had never been so grateful to be a morning person, if it gave him even a few more hours to figure out what to do with the fact that he was in love with Rodney McKay.
On the one hand, it was patently ridiculous, which made John smile since that seemed like something Rodney would say, and holy fuck. John had to stop, close his eyes, and bend over to stop the blood from rushing from his head. How long had this been going on, he wondered. Since Antarctica? Since Camazotz?!
Thankfully, the rest of the day was fairly low key, no major emergencies (Chuck and one of the new scientists got stuck in a transporter, but Rodney sent Zelenka to sort it out and berate them for using the damaged one to begin with), and no off-world missions. John was contemplating an evening run to avoid the informal team dinner in the mess when he and Rodney collided in the hallway.
"Sheppard, what the fuck!" said Rodney, sprawled out on the floor in front of John.
John automatically stuck out a hand to help Rodney up. "Sorry McKay, wasn't watching where I was going, I guess."
Rodney took his hand, mumbling something about spinal injuries while John pulled him to his feet.
"Really, you can be a walking menace," Rodney finished.
John rolled his eyes. "I don't suppose you should take any responsibility for walking in me."
"Nooo," Rodney replied, "Because you aren't the one who ended up on the floor."
John grinned in reply. "Well, now, Rodney, I thought you'd be more used to that, what with all of the training that Ronon's putting you through."
Rodney opened his mouth to reply, but he stopped abruptly and looked down at his hand. Which John was still holding. Shit.
"Sheppard, why..." Rodney started, but John dropped his hand and stammered out something about a meeting with Lorne and practically ran away down the hall. Clearly, the desire for hand-holding should have been a sign.
It was not that John was so deeply emotionally repressed that he had not noticed that Rodney was important to him. John was a little in love with everyone who had been in that first group of explorers. Elizabeth and Ford and Miko and even the inexplicable Katie Brown were some of the bravest people John had even met. They had come to Pegasus without having any idea of what they faced, and they did it knowingly, willingly, even joyfully. John had been following orders, following Rodney, and a dream of something more. And that dream was all the first wave of the expedition had when they arrived in Atlantis, and it had sustained them through the months of isolation from Earth.
Teyla and Ronon he loved with all his heart, though John could never say it in words. They were team, family, bonded, and he had thought that was what he felt for Rodney as well. John did not know that there was anything more he could feel for another person.
But now, he saw how Rodney was different for him. How he wanted to stroke a hand down Rodney's arm when Rodney was overdosed on coffee or stimulants. How he wanted to pull Rodney in close after every near miss, and reassure himself that they were still alive with the physical proof of Rodney's muscles and flesh, with the smell of his skin. How he wanted to feel Rodney's hands on him, wanted Rodney to stroke his fingers along John's thighs and around his dick, wanted to feel Rodney's mouth on his.
But even if he knew enough to put a name to all of these desires, John did not know what to do about them. Rodney was his best friend, his family, and John needed him to be those things.
- - -
Eventually, all of John's memories from his wrinkle in time returned. He was not sure if it was seeing Rodney or being in Atlantis or just that his brain figured that wormholes and alien, vampire/bug hybrids were no more strange or horrifying than giant pulsing brains.
During long jumper flights, he sometimes thought about Mrs. Whatsit and Co, and wondered if they had been Ancients. Their interference in Rodney's life, in bringing back his father, did seem to suggest that they were not of the same non-interfering character as the Ancients John had met, but they did have a strange set of rules about what they could and could not do that made John suspect he might be right.
He wished he could ask Rodney and even thought of a couple of ways he could bring it up some movie or chess night. But Rodney had never given him any hint that he remembered meeting John at all, let alone that he remembered their tesseract to Uriel or the ride on a white, winged horse to see planets covered in hate. Maybe Rodney's memories had been wiped cleaner than John's own, or maybe he had purposefully forgotten.
Rodney had been so sure that saving his father would make everything alright. But when Mr. McKay left Jeannie behind on Camazotz, Rodney had been out of control with anger. When Rodney had saved Jeannie himself, John thought maybe the reuniting of his family would salve the wound. But John knew how it felt to leave a man behind unwillingly, and he did not think he would forgive anyone who left Dave behind on a planet of automans.
Of all of the things that John wanted and did not have, being able to theorize with Rodney about Mrs. Which being an Ancient was minor. But it grated at him, nights offworld when he could not sleep because his heart was pounding too fast, too hard, with Rodney's shoulder brushing his in the dark of the tent. If he could not wrap his arm around Rodney in return, and press his face to the back of Rodney's neck, he wanted at least to debate with Rodney whether it was possible for any Ancient to have the sense of humor required to dress up like a witch.
- - -
The other problem that John had with Rodney's faulty memory was that John kept forgetting that it was a problem at all.
After the 4th day of being stuck in the prison cell on M4X-P63, the blood on John's head had dried, but he had started shivering and could not stop. Rodney had resorted to telling fairy tales about the things he would do with a cache of three ZPMs.
"We can finally try out that miracle eye machine Carson found during the second year. The database claimed it could improve any vision to 20 - 10 quality-can you imagine Zelenka without glasses, Colonel?"
John was so tired, he forgot to stop and edit his words before he asked, "Hey Rodney, what if we tried to tesseract out of here?"
M4X-P63 had been a Wraith base nine months ago, but intel from Todd had lead the team to investigate the now-abandoned station. Unfortunately, while the Wraith did appear to be long gone from the planet, a group of scavengers had taken up residence.
John's memory of the whole thing was a little fuzzy, but Rodney had reassured him that Teyla and Ronon had been with the jumper when the team of Scarlati had knocked John over the head and forced Rodney into the cell. John was getting to be rather pissed off at how long it was taking his people to come and rescue them already.
After he asked the question, John felt Rodney stiffen up beside him. There was a long silence. Maybe Rodney was going to ignore John entirely, he thought hopefully. John reminded himself to feel embarrassed about this once they were back in Atlantis.
He pushed closer to Rodney, almost snuggling. They could see thick flakes of snow falling from the vent high in the ceiling in the middle of their cell. John had spent a couple of visits of the guards getting tossed around for inane questions about snow shovels and black ice, before Rodney finally put his foot down and insisted that John stop baiting them. But even after four days in a freezing cellar, Rodney put out heat like a furnace.
As the sun set (96 hours with no rescue, what the fuck, John wondered), even Rodney's warm arm and leg were not enough to stop John's teeth from chattering.
"Honestly!" Rodney huffed. "With my EXTREMELY LOW BLOOD SUGAR," he shouted toward the guards, "You'd think I'd be the one literally shaking to death, but no, you have to steal the glory as always Colonel."
But Rodney put his arm around John, hugging him in closer for warmth, and John let out a sigh of relief. He briefly considered nuzzling Rodney's neck, but decided to save that for day 6.
Rodney sighed noisily in his ear. "Figures it takes you freezing to death to mention anything from that time," he said.
John just nodded in reply, too intent on getting warm to really worry about anything Rodney wanted to talk about.
"But in all seriousness, John, if I could tesser, I doubt I would have ever joined the SGC. Wouldn't need the Stargates at all, really."
"Guess so," John replied. Except it was really more like: "G-g-g-uess-ssss-o," and John could feel Rodney roll his eyes before pulling him in even closer.
Things got a little fuzzy for John again after that, and it was not until he was recovering in the infirmary and Rodney was running around experimenting with the metals that made him and John undetectable to all of the puddlejumper and life signs scans that John remembered that he had not only asked about tessering, but that Rodney had answered.
Rodney did not mention anything when he visited John in the infirmary. He just babbled about his research and about how John should eat more pudding cups in anticipation of the next freezing jail cell they would inevitably be stuck in together and then wandered off when Teyla arrived with Torren.
But Rodney was waiting in John's room after he got out of the infirmary. John was still tired and cold, and he really wanted to crawl under his covers and sleep for a week. But then Rodney said, "I didn't think you remembered any of that."
And John could finally reply, "I remember more, now."
Rodney nodded and starred past John, eyes unfocused and bags a dark violet.
Now that Rodney was sitting still, John noticed how tired he looked, more worn down than John could remember since their last desperate save. He wondered if it was the weight of the memories or if John looked the same and had not noticed.
John sat down next to Rodney on the bed, and put a hand on Rodney's shoulder.
"Rodney," he said, hesitating.
"I couldn't believe it was you, in Antarctica," Rodney interrupted. He was still looking at the floor, his body half-turned away from John, shoulders slumped.
"I just, I thought it was a dream, for such a long time," Rodney continued. "Jeannie never mentioned it, and Dad," Rodney choked a little. "Our father never offered an explanation or acted as if anything had changed. He left the next morning to go to D.C., and he was gone again, and it all felt the same."
John squeezed Rodney's shoulder. Rodney slumped down a little more, but then he straightened up and turned his face to John.
"But why didn't you ever say anything?" Rodney asked, still a little forlorn.
"I..." John started. "I didn't think that you...I wanted..." John stopped, swallowed. Rodney was looking at him, a little concerned, a little amused at John's inability to say anything meaningful, ever.
"John," Rodney said.
"I love you," John said.
When John had considered, drugged up in the infirmary or freezing to death on frozen hell planets (ok, maybe Dante had something right after all), John had assumed that any confession of feelings to Rodney would result in shock, hand-waving, queries about John's mental health, and, worst of all, a slight downward tilt to Rodney's mouth. Something that would say, "No, sorry," without the words themselves.
John had also supposed, when he was supposing, that a confession this specific would only come with severe blood loss or maybe the destruction of Atlantis. He had not supposed that his deepest feelings would be exposed as an explanation for why he had fortified the walls between himself and Rodney.
But Rodney did not even flinch. He just tilted his head a bit and said, "You know, that should not make sense as an answer, but it totally does." He laughed softly. "I guess I really do speak Sheppardise."
John gaped at him. "But I....You....You knew?" he finally finished, feeling a little outraged. When did Rodney learn how to use a poker face?
"Well, not precisely," Rodney said a little loftily. "But you do touch me more than anyone else in Atlantis, and the hand-holding the other day was pretty obvious, in retrospect."
John sputtered.
"Ok, and Teyla gave me a long series of lectures about how friendships can deepen into relationships of greater meaning and how we should not fear the unknown, just because the known is comfortable," Rodney continued. "Honestly, it took a while for everything to click together, but it really does make perfect sense."
John had come out of the numbness from the initial shock, and he felt sick. His pulse was racing and his face felt like it was on fire, but his hands were clammy and his stomach was pinched and painful. He was not sure he could breath.
John snatched his hand away from Rodney's shoulder and stood up abruptly, fists clenched. He had always expected, at least, a measure of sympathy for falling for someone so obviously uninterested. But instead, Rodney seemed strangely unconcerned, as if John's stupid, stupid feelings were a minor prize on the path to the Nobel, proof that he could get someone to fall in love with him, even if it was not the person he wanted.
He heard Rodney getting up and hovering behind him. "John..." he said, his tone worried and something else, but John was too busy trying not to shake apart to really care.
"John, look at me." Rodney had moved to stand in front of John. Rodney grasped John's arms, holding him still. "John, come on."
John shuddered and looked up. Rodney did not look derisive or sad; he just looked a little worried.
"John, you know I love you too, right?"
John swallowed and shook his head, but he felt the tension leave his body and his hands unclench.
"Fuck," he mumbled, and Rodney laughed and pulled him in. John got his arms up in time to wrap around Rodney, to pull him in closer so he could nose along Rodney's neck while Rodney rubbed his back and ran fingers through his hair.
John felt Rodney relax as they both shuffled their feet to fit together even more closely.
Kissing Rodney turned out to be even better than John had anticipated. Deep and warm, and John felt himself getting lost in Rodney's mouth, in the sensation of Rodney's hands on his face. Rodney's hands were really as amazing as John had theorized, pulling him apart until he was shaking again, muttering words that he did not recognize until he felt the white, hot heat of orgasm rushing through him and heard Rodney saying, "Oh god, that is so so hot."
Afterwards, lying next to Rodney, shoulders touching, heart soaring, John grinned up at the ceiling and asked, "So Rodney, do you think Mrs. Whatsit and Co were Ancients?"
Author: lilyfarfalla
Recipient: kisahawklin
Pairing: John/Rodney
Rating: R
Warnings: References imprisonment, but pretty minor.
Author's Notes: Dear kisahawklin: I hope you like this story! I kept calling it "A Wrinkle in Time AU" in my head, but while I translated most of the book from the Murrays to the McKays (and John) in my head, most of the scenes didn't really make it to paper. I would love to give it a try though, someday. But for today: Happy Christmas!
Summary: His body never forgets how it felt to be lifted into the sky on wings, made of feathers and bone and former-stars.
This story is a brief picture of how John and Rodney would grow up, and where they would end up, if they had been in Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, instead of Meg and Calvin.
-o-
John doesn't fully remember what happened the night he went for a walk in the woods near the McKay's old farmhouse. He remembers why he went for a walk. And he remembers Rodney. He remembers the cadences of Rodney's voice and Rodney's startled grin when John flung an arm over his shoulder. He remembers a boy a year behind him in school, who seemed like he could have been a friend, if John had stuck around.
John has a strangely vivid memory of Rodney's mother making stew in a science lab, and finds that he equates labs with comfort, warm lights and coming home. It explained his instant attraction to Barbara, wearing a white lab coat the day they met, her hair tied back from her face and goggles covering her eyes.
But he does not remember a Mrs. Whatsit, a Mrs. Who, or a Mrs. Which. The word "tesseract" has no meaning for him, and he thinks that stories about humans who travel through time and space are just really good science fiction.
Still. Even without solid memories, stories of his past that he can bring up to comfort or torture himself, John remembers.
His body never forgets how it felt to be lifted into the sky on wings, made of feathers and bone and former-stars. He keeps the sense of buoyancy, of possibility, of his arms wrapped around a warm body, cold air surrounding him, and the scent of flowers.
The first time he piloted his own plane up into the sky, John had a moment of dissonance, expecting to feel a rush of air, to hear the force of movement against the wind, to smell lavender and thyme. He recovered almost immediately, quickly enough that his instructor, who had been flying with him for months, never noticed the flash of hesitation. The flight had not been John's first time in the air, but it was the first time the upward momentum was under his control, and there was just a brief glimpse of mountain peaks, an echo of a song in his ears, before it all faded under the rattle and hum of the engine of the plane.
More than anything else, even Rodney, John remembers the compulsion he had to go for a walk in the woods that night. It was not one of the compulsions that changed his life (he thinks), but it sticks out in his memory, even more than the ones that proceeded his marriage and his entrance into the Air Force.
At 35, being bawled out as a renegade, as an incompetent, daredevil pilot who cared only about his own glory, who was goddamned lucky that his father had earned him a measure of respect he didn't deserve, how he'd never see a combat zone again, never see a US Air Force-owned bird again after his two years of Antarctic purgatory were up, John reflected that compulsions to take walks were really to be preferred to a series of choices that left three friends dead.
- - -
John had expected some parting remarks from General Davidson, but the man said little beyond giving John his basic transfer details. Davidson enjoyed inserting parables and Italian literary references into his speeches, and John had attempted to distract himself from his anger and grief by debating whether Davidson would reference Machiavelli or Caesar in his parting remarks. Still, hearing "Dante froze the worst of his betrayers, after all," when the General gave John his next assignment, had been an unexpected blow.
John had expected to really hate Antarctica. He grew up loving the warmth of summer, filling his bones up with sunlight. The thought of living in darkness for months at a time grated against his sense of right.
But instead of painful cold and darkness, Antarctica was like standing on a cliff at the end of the world and trying to peer over the edge. John took helicopters on milk runs, and he got his hands dirty with grease and engine oil, and his world was white and blue and endless views. Gravity felt different down here, he decided. Heavier maybe, almost like it was daring him to jump to see how hard he would fall.
John felt weighted down, more solid than he had for years. No orders to buck, no compulsions to follow, just flying and cold wind on his face. And then he flew to the research base 25 miles outside of McMurdo, dodged a glowing, golden squid, and, despite all his best instincts, felt compelled to sit down in a chair that lit up around him.
And then Rodney fucking McKay came running around the corner, and John felt the weightlessness of a perfect liftoff, of falling.
- - -
Seeing Rodney had shaken free some of his memories of his walk in the woods. The first things he recalled were mostly of Rodney and Earth. John remembered more about the night he had gone to the haunted house in the woods. He had been walking slowly, with a general goal of going to the abandoned shack, but no real plans to do anything, when he was nearly run down by a giant dog. The dog had ended up belonging to Rodney and Jeannie, his weirdly adult little sister (who was supposed to be mute, or something, but seemed to be some kind of savant, instead).
And while Jeannie had said that she would like to trust John, Rodney had said, "What would I know about him? He's a jock, popular," and John had felt the sting of that comment, and an urge to prove Rodney wrong.
When they got to the shack, Rodney's words had started coming faster and at a higher pitch, and it had been pure instinct that prompted John to grab his hand. Rodney's voice stopped midway through a word, and he looked up at John, through bizarrely thick eyelashes and a ridiculous head of curly hair and gaped at him.
John remembered holding Rodney's hand quite a lot, actually.
Though John never planned to tell anyone, Rodney had been the ultimate factor in John's decision to go to Atlantis. There were certainly many other reasons, pro and con, but without Rodney John thought he might have left it up to a coin toss. The grounded joy of an Antarctic sunrise had given John the equilibrium to make a real choice though, and he wanted to jump; he wanted to see where he would land.
Rodney had not recognized him, but John was surprised that he had connected the slightly balding man in a bright orange fleece to the curly-haired blond boy that John had first met. They had been so young when they had known each other - fourteen and thirteen, barely even teenagers.
After the chaos of the first days in Atlantis, John found himself wondering if their youth had been what Mrs. Whatsit and the others had needed from them, if they had thought their innocence would leave them unscathed.
- - -
It was not until the fifth or sixth time that Rodney did something absurdly brave that John realized he kept reaching out for Rodney's hand. Not finding it, he had resorted to head slaps and arm punches of varying strength and quantity. But as time went on, John started to wish that Rodney would reach back.
The thing was, John remembered how Rodney talked and talked and waved his arms around and was generally pretty brilliant, but he had forgotten how brave Rodney was. It was not a quality that would ever have struck anyone about the guy, on first meeting. Rodney was a ridiculous hypochondriac, and he constantly stressed the impossibility of their continued survival. But he went on a one-way trip through a wormhole in search of a mythical city, and he stepped into a black energy cloud to save Atlantis, and he attacked a Wraith to save John.
And then one day, John woke up and remembered Rodney hunched over, leaning into Aunt Beast, and saying, "Well, yes, obviously, I have to be the one to do it," and the force of the memory took his breath away.
John went through the morning in a daze, running in silence with Ronon and eating with a sleepy Teyla and Torren in the mess. Rodney had probably been up late working the night before, and John had never been so grateful to be a morning person, if it gave him even a few more hours to figure out what to do with the fact that he was in love with Rodney McKay.
On the one hand, it was patently ridiculous, which made John smile since that seemed like something Rodney would say, and holy fuck. John had to stop, close his eyes, and bend over to stop the blood from rushing from his head. How long had this been going on, he wondered. Since Antarctica? Since Camazotz?!
Thankfully, the rest of the day was fairly low key, no major emergencies (Chuck and one of the new scientists got stuck in a transporter, but Rodney sent Zelenka to sort it out and berate them for using the damaged one to begin with), and no off-world missions. John was contemplating an evening run to avoid the informal team dinner in the mess when he and Rodney collided in the hallway.
"Sheppard, what the fuck!" said Rodney, sprawled out on the floor in front of John.
John automatically stuck out a hand to help Rodney up. "Sorry McKay, wasn't watching where I was going, I guess."
Rodney took his hand, mumbling something about spinal injuries while John pulled him to his feet.
"Really, you can be a walking menace," Rodney finished.
John rolled his eyes. "I don't suppose you should take any responsibility for walking in me."
"Nooo," Rodney replied, "Because you aren't the one who ended up on the floor."
John grinned in reply. "Well, now, Rodney, I thought you'd be more used to that, what with all of the training that Ronon's putting you through."
Rodney opened his mouth to reply, but he stopped abruptly and looked down at his hand. Which John was still holding. Shit.
"Sheppard, why..." Rodney started, but John dropped his hand and stammered out something about a meeting with Lorne and practically ran away down the hall. Clearly, the desire for hand-holding should have been a sign.
It was not that John was so deeply emotionally repressed that he had not noticed that Rodney was important to him. John was a little in love with everyone who had been in that first group of explorers. Elizabeth and Ford and Miko and even the inexplicable Katie Brown were some of the bravest people John had even met. They had come to Pegasus without having any idea of what they faced, and they did it knowingly, willingly, even joyfully. John had been following orders, following Rodney, and a dream of something more. And that dream was all the first wave of the expedition had when they arrived in Atlantis, and it had sustained them through the months of isolation from Earth.
Teyla and Ronon he loved with all his heart, though John could never say it in words. They were team, family, bonded, and he had thought that was what he felt for Rodney as well. John did not know that there was anything more he could feel for another person.
But now, he saw how Rodney was different for him. How he wanted to stroke a hand down Rodney's arm when Rodney was overdosed on coffee or stimulants. How he wanted to pull Rodney in close after every near miss, and reassure himself that they were still alive with the physical proof of Rodney's muscles and flesh, with the smell of his skin. How he wanted to feel Rodney's hands on him, wanted Rodney to stroke his fingers along John's thighs and around his dick, wanted to feel Rodney's mouth on his.
But even if he knew enough to put a name to all of these desires, John did not know what to do about them. Rodney was his best friend, his family, and John needed him to be those things.
- - -
Eventually, all of John's memories from his wrinkle in time returned. He was not sure if it was seeing Rodney or being in Atlantis or just that his brain figured that wormholes and alien, vampire/bug hybrids were no more strange or horrifying than giant pulsing brains.
During long jumper flights, he sometimes thought about Mrs. Whatsit and Co, and wondered if they had been Ancients. Their interference in Rodney's life, in bringing back his father, did seem to suggest that they were not of the same non-interfering character as the Ancients John had met, but they did have a strange set of rules about what they could and could not do that made John suspect he might be right.
He wished he could ask Rodney and even thought of a couple of ways he could bring it up some movie or chess night. But Rodney had never given him any hint that he remembered meeting John at all, let alone that he remembered their tesseract to Uriel or the ride on a white, winged horse to see planets covered in hate. Maybe Rodney's memories had been wiped cleaner than John's own, or maybe he had purposefully forgotten.
Rodney had been so sure that saving his father would make everything alright. But when Mr. McKay left Jeannie behind on Camazotz, Rodney had been out of control with anger. When Rodney had saved Jeannie himself, John thought maybe the reuniting of his family would salve the wound. But John knew how it felt to leave a man behind unwillingly, and he did not think he would forgive anyone who left Dave behind on a planet of automans.
Of all of the things that John wanted and did not have, being able to theorize with Rodney about Mrs. Which being an Ancient was minor. But it grated at him, nights offworld when he could not sleep because his heart was pounding too fast, too hard, with Rodney's shoulder brushing his in the dark of the tent. If he could not wrap his arm around Rodney in return, and press his face to the back of Rodney's neck, he wanted at least to debate with Rodney whether it was possible for any Ancient to have the sense of humor required to dress up like a witch.
- - -
The other problem that John had with Rodney's faulty memory was that John kept forgetting that it was a problem at all.
After the 4th day of being stuck in the prison cell on M4X-P63, the blood on John's head had dried, but he had started shivering and could not stop. Rodney had resorted to telling fairy tales about the things he would do with a cache of three ZPMs.
"We can finally try out that miracle eye machine Carson found during the second year. The database claimed it could improve any vision to 20 - 10 quality-can you imagine Zelenka without glasses, Colonel?"
John was so tired, he forgot to stop and edit his words before he asked, "Hey Rodney, what if we tried to tesseract out of here?"
M4X-P63 had been a Wraith base nine months ago, but intel from Todd had lead the team to investigate the now-abandoned station. Unfortunately, while the Wraith did appear to be long gone from the planet, a group of scavengers had taken up residence.
John's memory of the whole thing was a little fuzzy, but Rodney had reassured him that Teyla and Ronon had been with the jumper when the team of Scarlati had knocked John over the head and forced Rodney into the cell. John was getting to be rather pissed off at how long it was taking his people to come and rescue them already.
After he asked the question, John felt Rodney stiffen up beside him. There was a long silence. Maybe Rodney was going to ignore John entirely, he thought hopefully. John reminded himself to feel embarrassed about this once they were back in Atlantis.
He pushed closer to Rodney, almost snuggling. They could see thick flakes of snow falling from the vent high in the ceiling in the middle of their cell. John had spent a couple of visits of the guards getting tossed around for inane questions about snow shovels and black ice, before Rodney finally put his foot down and insisted that John stop baiting them. But even after four days in a freezing cellar, Rodney put out heat like a furnace.
As the sun set (96 hours with no rescue, what the fuck, John wondered), even Rodney's warm arm and leg were not enough to stop John's teeth from chattering.
"Honestly!" Rodney huffed. "With my EXTREMELY LOW BLOOD SUGAR," he shouted toward the guards, "You'd think I'd be the one literally shaking to death, but no, you have to steal the glory as always Colonel."
But Rodney put his arm around John, hugging him in closer for warmth, and John let out a sigh of relief. He briefly considered nuzzling Rodney's neck, but decided to save that for day 6.
Rodney sighed noisily in his ear. "Figures it takes you freezing to death to mention anything from that time," he said.
John just nodded in reply, too intent on getting warm to really worry about anything Rodney wanted to talk about.
"But in all seriousness, John, if I could tesser, I doubt I would have ever joined the SGC. Wouldn't need the Stargates at all, really."
"Guess so," John replied. Except it was really more like: "G-g-g-uess-ssss-o," and John could feel Rodney roll his eyes before pulling him in even closer.
Things got a little fuzzy for John again after that, and it was not until he was recovering in the infirmary and Rodney was running around experimenting with the metals that made him and John undetectable to all of the puddlejumper and life signs scans that John remembered that he had not only asked about tessering, but that Rodney had answered.
Rodney did not mention anything when he visited John in the infirmary. He just babbled about his research and about how John should eat more pudding cups in anticipation of the next freezing jail cell they would inevitably be stuck in together and then wandered off when Teyla arrived with Torren.
But Rodney was waiting in John's room after he got out of the infirmary. John was still tired and cold, and he really wanted to crawl under his covers and sleep for a week. But then Rodney said, "I didn't think you remembered any of that."
And John could finally reply, "I remember more, now."
Rodney nodded and starred past John, eyes unfocused and bags a dark violet.
Now that Rodney was sitting still, John noticed how tired he looked, more worn down than John could remember since their last desperate save. He wondered if it was the weight of the memories or if John looked the same and had not noticed.
John sat down next to Rodney on the bed, and put a hand on Rodney's shoulder.
"Rodney," he said, hesitating.
"I couldn't believe it was you, in Antarctica," Rodney interrupted. He was still looking at the floor, his body half-turned away from John, shoulders slumped.
"I just, I thought it was a dream, for such a long time," Rodney continued. "Jeannie never mentioned it, and Dad," Rodney choked a little. "Our father never offered an explanation or acted as if anything had changed. He left the next morning to go to D.C., and he was gone again, and it all felt the same."
John squeezed Rodney's shoulder. Rodney slumped down a little more, but then he straightened up and turned his face to John.
"But why didn't you ever say anything?" Rodney asked, still a little forlorn.
"I..." John started. "I didn't think that you...I wanted..." John stopped, swallowed. Rodney was looking at him, a little concerned, a little amused at John's inability to say anything meaningful, ever.
"John," Rodney said.
"I love you," John said.
When John had considered, drugged up in the infirmary or freezing to death on frozen hell planets (ok, maybe Dante had something right after all), John had assumed that any confession of feelings to Rodney would result in shock, hand-waving, queries about John's mental health, and, worst of all, a slight downward tilt to Rodney's mouth. Something that would say, "No, sorry," without the words themselves.
John had also supposed, when he was supposing, that a confession this specific would only come with severe blood loss or maybe the destruction of Atlantis. He had not supposed that his deepest feelings would be exposed as an explanation for why he had fortified the walls between himself and Rodney.
But Rodney did not even flinch. He just tilted his head a bit and said, "You know, that should not make sense as an answer, but it totally does." He laughed softly. "I guess I really do speak Sheppardise."
John gaped at him. "But I....You....You knew?" he finally finished, feeling a little outraged. When did Rodney learn how to use a poker face?
"Well, not precisely," Rodney said a little loftily. "But you do touch me more than anyone else in Atlantis, and the hand-holding the other day was pretty obvious, in retrospect."
John sputtered.
"Ok, and Teyla gave me a long series of lectures about how friendships can deepen into relationships of greater meaning and how we should not fear the unknown, just because the known is comfortable," Rodney continued. "Honestly, it took a while for everything to click together, but it really does make perfect sense."
John had come out of the numbness from the initial shock, and he felt sick. His pulse was racing and his face felt like it was on fire, but his hands were clammy and his stomach was pinched and painful. He was not sure he could breath.
John snatched his hand away from Rodney's shoulder and stood up abruptly, fists clenched. He had always expected, at least, a measure of sympathy for falling for someone so obviously uninterested. But instead, Rodney seemed strangely unconcerned, as if John's stupid, stupid feelings were a minor prize on the path to the Nobel, proof that he could get someone to fall in love with him, even if it was not the person he wanted.
He heard Rodney getting up and hovering behind him. "John..." he said, his tone worried and something else, but John was too busy trying not to shake apart to really care.
"John, look at me." Rodney had moved to stand in front of John. Rodney grasped John's arms, holding him still. "John, come on."
John shuddered and looked up. Rodney did not look derisive or sad; he just looked a little worried.
"John, you know I love you too, right?"
John swallowed and shook his head, but he felt the tension leave his body and his hands unclench.
"Fuck," he mumbled, and Rodney laughed and pulled him in. John got his arms up in time to wrap around Rodney, to pull him in closer so he could nose along Rodney's neck while Rodney rubbed his back and ran fingers through his hair.
John felt Rodney relax as they both shuffled their feet to fit together even more closely.
Kissing Rodney turned out to be even better than John had anticipated. Deep and warm, and John felt himself getting lost in Rodney's mouth, in the sensation of Rodney's hands on his face. Rodney's hands were really as amazing as John had theorized, pulling him apart until he was shaking again, muttering words that he did not recognize until he felt the white, hot heat of orgasm rushing through him and heard Rodney saying, "Oh god, that is so so hot."
Afterwards, lying next to Rodney, shoulders touching, heart soaring, John grinned up at the ceiling and asked, "So Rodney, do you think Mrs. Whatsit and Co were Ancients?"