Fic: Team Spirit
Title: Team Spirit (1/1)
Author: msgordo
Rating: PG13
Pairings: Ronon/Rodney
Dedication: For witchqueen. Happy holidays!
Team Spirit
~*~*~*
Ronon Dex had been on Atlantis for four months before he relaxed enough to pay attention to the people outside his immediate team. Seven long years of running and fighting the Wraith hadn't left him much time to focus on his social skills, and so it took him some time to realise that, well, he wasn't exactly being embraced by the mainstream Atlantean population. Even discounting the inevitable disgruntled feelings that were bound to arise from Sheppard having him daily beat the daylights of the other soldiers under the guise of improving their training.
Privately, Ronon was halfway convinced that Sheppard only had him do it for his private entertainment and couldn't care less whether the overall standard of field training was raised a miniscule amount.
It also didn't help that outside his off-world duties and 'training' Sheppard's soldiers, he didn't have any other duties or demands on his time to help him interact with people. The time spent with his new team was always interesting, and Sheppard tried to make time for him outside of their regular running and training in the gym, but the older man was also responsible for overseeing all of the city's security and military personnel and just didn't have the time to make sure Ronon was kept busy.
Teyla was as helpful as she could be in integrating him into his new society, perhaps understanding more than anyone else just how displaced Ronon felt, but she had her own duties to her people and her diplomatic liaison post working with Doctor Weir in approaching planets for new alliances and more often than not Ronon found himself receiving nothing more than an apologetic smile as she hurried away to deal with her responsibilities.
Which left Rodney McKay, possibly the only person on Atlantis whose social skills were more atrophied than Ronon's.
Ronon tried exactly twice to approach the fourth member of his team outside of their normal working parameters, and both times it had been a dismal failure. The first was after encouragement from Sheppard, his team leader muttering some vaguely supportive words about getting to know the people who would be watching his back, and Ronon, after spending two days in careful consideration of Rodney, decided the best way to approach the man was with the help of their only common interest -- food -- so he turned up at McKay's lab to offer an invitation to eat lunch in the mess together. The blank look on Rodney's face spoke volumes when he interrupted the experiment running in the lab, and then the quickly disguised look of what Ronon later determined was disdain had him glaring and spinning on his heel out of the lab before McKay even managed a reply.
The second time both Teyla and Sheppard had spent a shared lunch session trying to talk Ronon into making another attempt, and it was only in sheer self defence against their relentless efforts to build a stronger team that he found himself back at McKay's lab to offer him a one-on-one session in the gym to bolster the scientist's poor hand to hand skills. The wide blue eyes and colour draining from McKay's face as Ronon extended the invite after herding the other man into a corner away from his colleagues pretty much told Ronon all he needed to know about his value as a friend as well as a handy person to have in the field and from that point on the only contact the two men had was strictly in a group setting.
He told himself it didn't matter. He'd been on his own a long time. He had Teyla and Sheppard, even if he sometimes felt as though he was just another obligation they both met out of duty, and he began to settle into his new life. If nothing else his new fellow soldiers respected his admittedly formidable fighting skills and he firmly squashed any feelings of longing when he found himself time and again eating alone in the mess hall, watching the people around him and generally being ignored until yet another crisis loomed.
Which is why it came as somewhat of a surprise when he had been asked by Doctor Weir to go down to the laboratories to escort one of the scientists into an unoccupied part of the city and unintentionally eavesdropped on Rodney McKay defending him with vicious intensity to two marines.
"Oh come on, Doc, you don't like him anymore than we do." A voice that Ronon recognised belonging to a marine called Simmons that he had beaten particularly badly two days before, had his steps slowing as he approached the open doorway, his excellent instincts warning him not to betray his presence. "You can't tell us you actually trust him. The Colonel might have bought into his whole super warrior shtick, but we all know that he's the reason Ford never made it back with you that time."
Ronon stopped dead and his whole body tensed. Ford. The shadow he was constantly trying to escape and the one subject that no one brought up in his hearing when they could avoid it. Yeah, that explained his problems fitting in all right.
The sound of an exasperated snort came from the lab. "No, Ford never made it back with us because he was quite clearly insane. Gave himself up to the Wraith, remember? Does that scream mental stability to anyone here? No? Big surprise! Also, tried to kill me, yet another check against him in the completely crazy column."
A new voice spoke. "Yeah, but that wasn't Ford, that was the enzyme. He wouldn't really have hurt you, Doc. You two were buddies, right? Its not like you just had to put up with him like you do the Major's new pet project."
Ronon almost turned away in the long pause that followed, hands clenching into fists at his side in fury at the casual dismissal in the voice. Then Rodney's voice sounded again, so quiet and regretful that Ronon frowned in concern. That wasn't the man he knew. "No, Ford and I weren't buddies. We worked together and that was about it. Believe me, he knew exactly what he was doing on that planet." Ronon's sensitive ears caught the sound of a shaky breath being taken and then Rodney's voice returned to its normal acid pitch. "And when I want your opinion on Ronon Dex, I'll ask for it. He's a member of my team and I'd prefer that you go and conduct your little high school bitching session somewhere that I don't have to hear it."
Simmons' spoke again, voice filled with malicious glee. "Sure, Doc. Whatever you say. We just thought we'd let you know that we're all on your side. The guy might have taken in Sheppard and Teyla, but us grunts know bad when we see it. I don't think he's gonna be around for much longer. We've made it pretty clear that he's not wanted."
Ronon eyebrow's shot up at the next words from McKay. "Listen to me, you pathetic excuse for a mouth-breather, and this time pay attention. Ronon Dex is on my team, and as such it is my right to mock, belittle, insult and generally make his life as miserable as I possibly can on a regular basis because I am obviously immeasurably more intelligent than the man and I save his life every day I step through the Stargate and twice on Sundays. However," Ronon frowned as McKay's voice lowered and there came the sound of a shuffling step from inside the room. "You do not have the right to say anything about my team-mate because you are not on my team. Forget about anything Colonel Sheppard might do to you if he heard about what you've been saying here today, he can only kill you. I can make you beg for death until you're a little puddle of marine piss on the floor and then I'll pass you over to Teyla to play with until I get my second wind and think of something even more wretched to do to you. And there's not one damn person on this base that would stop me because they're all as terrified of me as you have just learned to be. Get out of my lab, start running and don't stop until you're absolutely sure that I'm not going to hit you with the death ray that I invented this morning in my coffee break and spread your atoms all over the wall."
Ronon just had time to step back before the two marines in the room with Rodney burst through the doorway. They stopped short upon seeing him and stared with horrified eyes until a voice from inside the lab floated out. "I'm not hearing any running!" Ronon turned his head to watch as the two men all but sprinted down the corridor and out of sight and stiffened as he realised that Colonel Sheppard stood not five feet down from him and smirking meanly.
Sheppard straightened from the wall and with a nod to Ronon sauntered past him and into the lab. "Hey, Rodney. Playing nice with the other kids?"
"Of course." McKay's voice sounded casual and unconcerned. "Unless we're being invaded yet again, go away. I'm busy."
"I see that." Sheppard's voice sounded even more amused and the sound of something metallic scraping across a desk sounded. "Rodney, Rodney, Rodney. Death ray?"
Ronon couldn't help himself and drifted forwards to peer into the room to see Rodney McKay looking uncharacteristically embarrassed as he scowled at his smirking Colonel who was holding aloft an unfamiliar metal object. "Yes, well, I've had a total of five hours sleep in the last two days and I'd like to see you come up with something more impressive than a Death Ray to threaten two trained to kill and armed soldiers that could beat you to a pulp without even breaking a sweat."
Sheppard rolled his eyes and brandished his metal object. "Rodney, this is a child's toy."
Rodney looked like he was torn between guilt and smug, but in the end plumped for smug and grinned at Sheppard like a mischievous little boy. "But they didn't know that."
"If I have to take another meeting with Elizabeth because you've been making my guys cry again, McKay, I am not going to be happy." Looking anything but disapproving, Sheppard wagged his finger mockingly at Rodney's flushed and delighted looking face and then jerked a thumb back over his shoulder. "Also, you've got a visitor."
Ronon tensed again as Rodney looked past Sheppard and all mirth bled from his expression when he saw Ronon hovering in the doorway. "Oh!" Rodney looked uncharacteristically uneasy for a moment, before straightening his shoulders and fixing his usual impatient glare on his face. "Yes? What do you want?"
Sheppard rolled his eyes and turned to leave. "Way to make a guy feel welcome there, McKay. Don't forget the briefing at 15:00." He clapped Ronon on the shoulder as he passed him. "See you later."
The sound of Sheppard's footsteps fading away down the hall echoed unnaturally loud in both men's ears as they stared at each other, and then Rodney folded his arms over his chest and snapped, "Well? Important things happening here, fate of the planet...."
"I heard what they said." Ronon stepped into the room, making a conscious effort to keep his body loose and unthreatening as Rodney flushed guiltily and took a step back. "And what you said."
Rodney's eyes flickered with futile hope towards the door and then skipped around the laboratory. "Congratulations. All your faculties are functioning. If you heard what the jarheads said then you also must have heard me tell Colonel Sheppard that I'm busy. What do you want?" He darted a quick glance at Ronon and then looked away again. "I'm fairly sure I've already reached my quota of dumb animals passing through my laboratory today, and unless you're here to tell me that you've suddenly acquired the ancient gene or become a fantastically brilliant physicist overnight then...."
"Thanks." Ronon's deep voice cut through Rodney's rising pitch with ease and he grinned at the embarrassed looking scientist. "You were pretty scary there for a second."
Rodney's mouth closed with a snap and he blinked at Ronon for a moment before sheer anger flashed through his eyes. "Yes, yes. Let's all make fun of the scary brains of the outfit. I'm sure that the men with the really big guns will just wet themselves with fear when they next run across me in a deserted part of the city all by my lonesome. The sheer power of my cerebral cortex will have them cowering and whimpering in no time."
Ronon nodded without a trace of mockery. "Yeah. Probably." His grin widened mischievously. "If your brain doesn't get them, then your mouth definitely will." He cocked his head to the side as Rodney looked torn between fury and mortification and nodded slowly. "I meant what I said though. Thanks. I didn't expect you to do that."
Rodney turned away as an uncomfortable expression flashed across his face and busied himself staring down at his laptop. "Don't let it go to your head. I have a vested interest in staying on your good side."
"Yeah," Ronon eased closer and propped his hip up against the worktop, noting with interest the increased tension in Rodney's shoulders at the nearness in his proximity when he pointed out reasonably, "Except you didn't know I was listening. You could have made life easier for yourself and gone along with what they were saying. No one would have known."
The tips of Rodney's ears flushed a deep purple as he muttered, "I would." He stabbed a savage finger at the keyboard of his laptop and glared when it made a rude bleeping noise in response. "You're on my team."
"Didn't think that mattered." Ronon's shoulders lifted in an easy shrug as Rodney looked up at him warily. "You don't like me anymore than they do."
"Oh my god! What are you, twelve?" Rodney flung his arms up in the air and stepped away from the worktop and out of reach of Ronon in case things turned violent. "I don't know you. You're just the scary big guy with the scary big gun that I go on the occasional mission with. Nothing more, nothing less."
Ronon eyed him dispassionately. "Could have been more." He folded his arms across his chest and stared accusingly at Rodney. "You won't talk to me outside of work. Not exactly easy to get friendly when someone keeps cutting you dead and avoiding you."
"Yes, because we have so much in common." Rodney rolled his eyes. "Clearly we're kindred spirits, cruelly separated by the fates until stumbling across each other by happy chance in this misbegotten galaxy."
Ronon snorted in amusement. "I wouldn't go that far." He narrowed his eyes and fixed Rodney with a dark glower. "You wouldn't eat with me or train with me. Why?"
Rodney gaped incredulously. "Do I look like I have a burning desire to become an incredibly intelligent heap of broken bones?" He flapped a hand between their bodies. "Seriously, what exactly gave you the notion that I share the same self-destruct gene as Sheppard?"
Ronon looked startled for a moment and then scowled. "You thought I wanted to hurt you?" His eyes darkened with anger. "I'm not an animal."
"No, no, of course not." Rodney stepped backwards in alarm. "Did I say that? I just meant..." He swallowed heavily as Ronon straightened up and yelped, "Death ray! Seriously!"
"Child's toy." Ronon unfolded his arms and let them hand loosely at his sides, taking dark pleasure in the scared look on Rodney's face. "You've got nothing, McKay."
Painfully aware of that fact, Rodney back-pedalled some more and pulled out his big guns. "If you lay a hand on me, I'll tell Sheppard!" He continued to back away as Ronon looked unimpressed and advanced, spluttering frantically, "Teyla! I'll tell Teyla, and she can kick your ass."
Ronon paused briefly and then shrugged. "She can try." He herded Rodney skilfully until the shorter man was plastered against the wall of the laboratory and then planted his hands on either side of his body and leaned in. "Scared?"
Rodney swallowed, his throat clicking dryly in panic as he stared up at Ronon's inscrutable face. "If I said yes, would that make this any less painful?" His eyes flickered from side to side, searching for help or escape. "Really, scale of one to ten? You're easily beating out the wraith at the moment." He tried to retreat further as Ronon leaned in and babbled, "All of them put together! You are a scary, scary man. Happy now?"
"No." Ronon stared down into Rodney's eyes, his eyebrows drawing together in displeasure. "I could kill you now and there's nothing you could do about it."
Rodney started to hyperventilate and shut his eyes. "Oh God."
"But I won't." Ronon leaned back as Rodney's eyes popped open and he gently tapped his fist against Rodney's chin. "Because you're on my team." He stepped back as Rodney gaped incredulously at him and grinned. "You're an idiot, McKay."
Rodney went from terrified to indignant in under a second. "I am not."
"I wasn't asking you to train with me so I could hurt you, I was asking you to train with me so that we could become friends." Ronon looked almost shy for a moment and his eyes fixed on the wall above Rodney's head. "I don't have many people willing to talk to me here. Now I don't have to keep running, I wanted...." He shook his head in frustration as Rodney muffled a sound of surprise, and turned to leave. "It doesn't matter. Forget it."
"Wait!" Rodney darted forwards and grabbed for Ronon's arm, looking amazed by his own success when the bigger man stopped and glowered down at him. "Um, look..." He snatched his hand away as he realised he was clutching hard enough to turn the skin white under his fingertips and then stared blankly at the flesh as the blood rushed back and it darkened before his eyes. "I'm not good at this."
Ronon grunted. "Yeah. I noticed."
"Oh what, and you're Mr Congeniality?" Outraged, Rodney scowled up and huffed an impatient breath. "Look, I'm sorry, alright? I didn't know what you were trying to do. When Ford...." He stiffened along with Ronon as he stumbled over his lost teammate's name and then stuck out his chin and carried on in a rush, "When Ford was here, we just weren't that kind of team. We were friendly, but we weren't friends, and then when he left I regretted that we weren't." The corner of Rodney's mouth quirked in a wry flash of humour. "Particularly when we met up with him again and I didn't have any real argument for him not to kill me."
Ronon's teeth ground together audibly. "I'm not Ford."
"I know!" Rodney raised his hands defensively, face starting to flush with uneasiness again. "I just thought that you'd have more in common with Teyla and Sheppard than me."
Ronon ground his teeth again and muttered sourly, "Yeah. At least we all know that we're not trying to kill each other."
"Oh my god, you are twelve!" Rodney threw up his hands in despair. "Pay attention, I'm apologising. That almost never happens!"
Ronon scowled. "It's not happening now, either."
"I could invent a death ray, you know." Rodney's eyes flashed belligerently, all fear forgotten in the face of Ronon's unwillingness to accept his perfectly acceptable apology. "It's the work of a moment. Just keep pushing me, Haile Selassie."
"Who?" Ronon looked puzzled and then glowered furiously. "Did you just insult me?" He paused and finished flatly, "Again."
Rodney opened and closed his mouth several times before a flash of humour lit his face. "Well, we are teammates, right? As previously stated; it's my right."
Ronon stared at him long enough to have Rodney shifting nervously once more, before cracking a grin. "Yeah. Guess so." He tilted his head curiously, eyes betraying his wariness at another rejection. "So you'll stop avoiding me now?"
"Yes, yes." Impatiently Rodney flapped his hands. "We'll become best friends and spent lots of quality time swapping manly secrets and discussing the best ways to kill our enemies. Perhaps on weekends we can get really wild and quaff lots of Athosian ale and pretend to carouse all the non-existent bars whilst picking up non-existent wenches." He caught the baffled look on Ronon's face and rolled his eyes. "Women. We can pick up women."
Ronon looked shifty and then shrugged to himself. Friendship had to start somewhere, right? "Yeah, McKay, about those manly secrets..."
~*~*~*
When Rodney looked back at that moment as time passed, he seriously doubted his own sanity and previously unquestioned highly developed sense of self-preservation. If he had thought for one second that listening to what he had assumed was the ultimate alpha male and man's man come out of the closet in the middle of his lab would lead him to where he was now, he would have invented that damn death ray and shot himself with it.
"If you don't wake up, you incredible waste of oxygen, I'm going to make whatever passes for your existence now more miserable than you can possibly imagine." Rodney ignored the disapproving looks from Carson and the nurse on duty, and leant further over Ronon's prone and bandaged form. "I mean it. I'm wasting precious research time here keeping watch over your overly muscled carcass, and if any of those imbeciles that Elizabeth laughingly calls scientists manages to screw anything up in my absence then I'm going to blame you for it entirely." He clutched tighter at the forearm he already held in an iron grip, hissing savagely, "For god's sake, I spoken to you at great length on many interminable occasions, you great oaf, I know your mind isn't that interesting. Snap out of it!"
Rodney glanced over his shoulder where he could see Sheppard and Teyla both sleeping naturally in their own beds and then looked back at Ronon, his despair written in every line of his face. "The others woke up days ago. You're just being difficult and that's my job. I'm the brilliant, high-maintenance person on this team. You're just the big gorilla with a gun. Stop trying to hog all the attention that should rightfully be mine." He scowled. "This is exactly why I was so loathe to become more than colleagues with you people. You're all insane and have a death wish! I get used to having you around and then you go and do something stupid like saving Kavanaugh of all people and finally succeed in blowing yourselves up. Well I hope you're happy!" Working himself into a righteous snit, Rodney didn't notice two hazy and confused eyes open and try blearily to focus on him. "Not only did you save the life of the most useless person on this base, except possibly that moron Simmons, you also shot any chance I had of getting a half-way decent replacement for the pony-tailed cretin to hell. Oh yes, and put yourself in a coma!"
Ronon blinked his gummy eyes and tried to focus. All he could see was a vaguely purple coloured blob hanging in the air over him and shouting at him with Rodney McKay's voice, and the last time he looked Rodney hadn't been purple so he was fairly sure that something wasn't right. He tried to open his mouth to convey his concern to the purple blob but apparently it wasn't done yelling yet.
"It's been six days!" Rodney shook the arm he held in a death grip and ignored the glare and annoying shushing noise from Carson. "I've been doing this stupid concerned bedside manner routine for six days and I refuse to do it anymore. Either you wake up right now or I'm walking out of here and I won't even come back when they finally decide that you are a vegetable and pull the plug. And don't think I'll bother mourning you, either! Oh no, first chance I get, I'm going off-world and I'm going to track down Ford and I'm going to beg him to come back because at least he had the decency to want to kill me immediately rather than by inches."
Ronon licked dry lips and tried to growl at the mention of Ford' name. He found it somewhat difficult when he realised that he had a tube stuck down his throat.
"Did I ask for this?" Rodney, completely outraged, cast his eyes to the ceiling and demanded of any passing Ancients that might be listening, "Did anyone hear me ask even once for this great lummox to come along and decide to be my friend? Where exactly is it recorded that the top attributes Rodney McKay was looking for in a partner included terrible hair and strong suicidal leanings?"
Ronon tried to remember how to coordinate his facial muscles into a scowl. He had great hair.
Rodney evidently decided that the Ancients were being as unhelpful as they usually were and tore his eyes away from the ceiling to glare back down at Ronon. "You started this, and if you think...Oh my God!" He bent down until he was nearly nose-to-nose with Ronon and yelled, "It worked! Carson, get over here, he's awake! I am a genius; he's awake!"
Ronon shut his eyes in alarm when nothing but purple filled his admittedly sub-standard vision and concentrated on ignoring the slow build up of nausea in his stomach and the increasingly uncomfortable tube stuck down his throat.
What followed was confusing, painful and loud thanks to Rodney yelling furiously from outside the infirmary after he was unceremoniously ejected from it when he refused to stay out of the way and stop telling Carson and his staff how to do their jobs. Finally Ronon lay on his pillows, sans his tube and gratefully sucking ice chips that a far more sympathetic nurse than Rodney fed him. In the background he was dimly aware of Sheppard and Teyla anxiously asking Carson questions, but overwhelming everything was Rodney shouting increasingly inventive threats and curses and frantic pleas to be let back in when those were ignored. Finally Ronon weakly shook his head and whispered huskily, "McKay..."
His sympathetic nurse looked disapproving and said soothingly, "Doctor Beckett has just called for an escort to have him removed to his quarters. He won't disturb you any more."
"N...no." Ronon grunted in frustration when his sore and bruised throat refused to work properly. "Want...him."
The nurse looked even more disapproving. "Certainly not! He's been unbearable these last few days, the last thing you need is...wait, what are you doing? Doctor Beckett!" The woman reached hastily for Ronon's hand, trying to stop him pulling out his IV line. "Doctor Beckett!"
Ronon grunted again, shamed to realise just how weak he was when the slight woman easily restrained him. "McKay...get...him."
"Oh for...stop that, you bloody fool." Carson Beckett hurried over and gently moved his nurse out of the way before taking over holding Ronon still. "Do you want to send yourself straight back to the land of nod? This is keeping you alive at the moment, do you understand?"
Ronon stopped trying to struggle and blinked blearily up at Carson's angry face. "Want...McKay."
Carson blinked, taken aback. "What? Don't be daft, man. I'm not letting that..."
"Please." Desperate, Ronon resorted to begging. "Get...McKay."
"I..." Carson stared at the look of naked desperation on Ronon's normally implacable face and found himself nodding. "Alright." He turned at the outraged hiss from his nurse and said, "Christine, go get the bloody idiot to stop screaming and tell him he can come back in if he does it quietly." He waited until she turned away before adding tetchily, "And without mentioning any sort of barnyard animal!" He looked back down at Ronon with a wry twist to his mouth. "You must have hit your head harder than we thought, lad. Rodney's not my idea of restful company, aye?"
Ronon closed his eyes gratefully, whispering, "Just...scared."
"There's no need to be scared, Ronon." Carson dropped a comforting hand on Ronon's brawny shoulder. "Now you've woken up, I've every confidence you'll be as good as new in no time."
"Not...me." Ronon licked his lips and forced his eyes to open again. "Him. I'll make him...behave."
Carson looked confused and then his face flooded with understanding. "You mean..." He gaped down at Ronon's grey face. "Rodney?"
Ronon's mouth curved in a faint smile. "Yeah"
"And this was before you hit your head?" Carson's eyes were filled with a sick kind of fascination. "Really?"
"You absolute idiot." The bellow from behind Carson announced Rodney's re-entry into the infirmary, quite obviously uncaring of the order to remain quiet. "I ought to kill you myself!"
Ronon grinned weakly as the man himself stormed to his bedside and elbowed Carson out of the way forcefully. "You can...try."
Rodney stared down at the last person in the universe he had ever pictured himself falling for and stabbed a finger at the least bruised patch of skin he could see. "If you ever do anything that stupid again..."
Ronon ignored Carson bug-eyed at the foot of the bed and slowly raised a hand to clasp Rodney's non-poking arm. "Sorry."
"Oh you are not." Rodney stopped poking and gripped the hand that held his in shaking fingers. "You could care less that I've been through hell sitting here waiting for you to wake up. My back is irreparably ruined thanks to sleeping in that wretched chair for night after night, and I don't even want to go into how much weight I've lost thanks to all the meals I've missed. You are thoughtless and selfish and..."
Carson, eyes still fixed incredulously on the unlikely couple, backed away to where Sheppard and Teyla were propped up against their pillows watching with wide grins as Rodney tore strips off Ronon that the warrior could ill afford to lose in his weakened condition. "Colonel...?"
Sheppard laughed sympathetically. "Yeah. Kinda took me by surprise too, Doc." He winked as Carson turned to him with a startled expression. "Officially, I don't know a thing about it. Unofficially...." He trailed off with a roguish grin.
"But...Rodney!" Carson, painfully aware he was bleating like the sheep that Rodney so often accused him of having intimate knowledge of, sat heavily on the end of Sheppard's bed. "And Ronon?"
"It is a good match." Teyla, warning and warmth in her tone in equal measure, nodded towards her two friends with a gentle smile. "They are well suited."
Carson looked back at Ronon's bed and stared as Rodney finally ran out of steam and stood blinking helplessly down at the man smiling sleepily up at him. Even from across the room it was possible to see the tremble in Rodney's hand as he traced the line of Ronon's jaw with a gentle touch, mouth twitching with emotion as he reassured himself that his lover was really alive. Ronon closed his eyes with a tired sigh and turned his head into the touch, lines of pain tightening his face. Carson's mouth fell open as he watched Rodney lean forward and press a brief kiss to Ronon's forehead before hooking his foot around the chair that he had occupied ever since his team had returned bloodied and broken from a routine mission gone horribly wrong and dropping heavily into it. He propped his chin up on one hand, keeping the other wrapped around Ronon's, and blinked in exhaustion as Ronon slipped into a healing sleep.
Carson jumped at a light touch on his arm and looked away from the two men to see Sheppard studying him soberly. "Is this going to be a problem, Doc?"
"What?" Carson's eyes widened in understanding. "Of course not, Colonel. I'm offended that you could even ask me that, man! What happens in this infirmary, stays in this infirmary."
Satisfied, Sheppard leaned back against his pillows. "Good. Thanks." He glanced at his teammates again. "Rodney's out. Can you get him a blanket or something? He gets cold."
"Aye, I know." Carson nodded and stood. "Get some rest, you two. You're still healing yourselves." He smiled as both Teyla and Sheppard turned on their sides so that they could keep watch on the oblivious Ronon and Rodney and obediently settled down into their pillows. "Honestly, you four will be the death of me yet." He walked away to fetch Rodney's blanket, smiling at the sound of quiet laughter behind him and making a mental note to have a chat with his nurse to insure that his promise to the Colonel was filled. He shook his head to himself, muttering in amusement, "Rodney? The poor wee lad must need his head read."
~*~*~*
The End.
Author: msgordo
Rating: PG13
Pairings: Ronon/Rodney
Dedication: For witchqueen. Happy holidays!
Team Spirit
~*~*~*
Ronon Dex had been on Atlantis for four months before he relaxed enough to pay attention to the people outside his immediate team. Seven long years of running and fighting the Wraith hadn't left him much time to focus on his social skills, and so it took him some time to realise that, well, he wasn't exactly being embraced by the mainstream Atlantean population. Even discounting the inevitable disgruntled feelings that were bound to arise from Sheppard having him daily beat the daylights of the other soldiers under the guise of improving their training.
Privately, Ronon was halfway convinced that Sheppard only had him do it for his private entertainment and couldn't care less whether the overall standard of field training was raised a miniscule amount.
It also didn't help that outside his off-world duties and 'training' Sheppard's soldiers, he didn't have any other duties or demands on his time to help him interact with people. The time spent with his new team was always interesting, and Sheppard tried to make time for him outside of their regular running and training in the gym, but the older man was also responsible for overseeing all of the city's security and military personnel and just didn't have the time to make sure Ronon was kept busy.
Teyla was as helpful as she could be in integrating him into his new society, perhaps understanding more than anyone else just how displaced Ronon felt, but she had her own duties to her people and her diplomatic liaison post working with Doctor Weir in approaching planets for new alliances and more often than not Ronon found himself receiving nothing more than an apologetic smile as she hurried away to deal with her responsibilities.
Which left Rodney McKay, possibly the only person on Atlantis whose social skills were more atrophied than Ronon's.
Ronon tried exactly twice to approach the fourth member of his team outside of their normal working parameters, and both times it had been a dismal failure. The first was after encouragement from Sheppard, his team leader muttering some vaguely supportive words about getting to know the people who would be watching his back, and Ronon, after spending two days in careful consideration of Rodney, decided the best way to approach the man was with the help of their only common interest -- food -- so he turned up at McKay's lab to offer an invitation to eat lunch in the mess together. The blank look on Rodney's face spoke volumes when he interrupted the experiment running in the lab, and then the quickly disguised look of what Ronon later determined was disdain had him glaring and spinning on his heel out of the lab before McKay even managed a reply.
The second time both Teyla and Sheppard had spent a shared lunch session trying to talk Ronon into making another attempt, and it was only in sheer self defence against their relentless efforts to build a stronger team that he found himself back at McKay's lab to offer him a one-on-one session in the gym to bolster the scientist's poor hand to hand skills. The wide blue eyes and colour draining from McKay's face as Ronon extended the invite after herding the other man into a corner away from his colleagues pretty much told Ronon all he needed to know about his value as a friend as well as a handy person to have in the field and from that point on the only contact the two men had was strictly in a group setting.
He told himself it didn't matter. He'd been on his own a long time. He had Teyla and Sheppard, even if he sometimes felt as though he was just another obligation they both met out of duty, and he began to settle into his new life. If nothing else his new fellow soldiers respected his admittedly formidable fighting skills and he firmly squashed any feelings of longing when he found himself time and again eating alone in the mess hall, watching the people around him and generally being ignored until yet another crisis loomed.
Which is why it came as somewhat of a surprise when he had been asked by Doctor Weir to go down to the laboratories to escort one of the scientists into an unoccupied part of the city and unintentionally eavesdropped on Rodney McKay defending him with vicious intensity to two marines.
"Oh come on, Doc, you don't like him anymore than we do." A voice that Ronon recognised belonging to a marine called Simmons that he had beaten particularly badly two days before, had his steps slowing as he approached the open doorway, his excellent instincts warning him not to betray his presence. "You can't tell us you actually trust him. The Colonel might have bought into his whole super warrior shtick, but we all know that he's the reason Ford never made it back with you that time."
Ronon stopped dead and his whole body tensed. Ford. The shadow he was constantly trying to escape and the one subject that no one brought up in his hearing when they could avoid it. Yeah, that explained his problems fitting in all right.
The sound of an exasperated snort came from the lab. "No, Ford never made it back with us because he was quite clearly insane. Gave himself up to the Wraith, remember? Does that scream mental stability to anyone here? No? Big surprise! Also, tried to kill me, yet another check against him in the completely crazy column."
A new voice spoke. "Yeah, but that wasn't Ford, that was the enzyme. He wouldn't really have hurt you, Doc. You two were buddies, right? Its not like you just had to put up with him like you do the Major's new pet project."
Ronon almost turned away in the long pause that followed, hands clenching into fists at his side in fury at the casual dismissal in the voice. Then Rodney's voice sounded again, so quiet and regretful that Ronon frowned in concern. That wasn't the man he knew. "No, Ford and I weren't buddies. We worked together and that was about it. Believe me, he knew exactly what he was doing on that planet." Ronon's sensitive ears caught the sound of a shaky breath being taken and then Rodney's voice returned to its normal acid pitch. "And when I want your opinion on Ronon Dex, I'll ask for it. He's a member of my team and I'd prefer that you go and conduct your little high school bitching session somewhere that I don't have to hear it."
Simmons' spoke again, voice filled with malicious glee. "Sure, Doc. Whatever you say. We just thought we'd let you know that we're all on your side. The guy might have taken in Sheppard and Teyla, but us grunts know bad when we see it. I don't think he's gonna be around for much longer. We've made it pretty clear that he's not wanted."
Ronon eyebrow's shot up at the next words from McKay. "Listen to me, you pathetic excuse for a mouth-breather, and this time pay attention. Ronon Dex is on my team, and as such it is my right to mock, belittle, insult and generally make his life as miserable as I possibly can on a regular basis because I am obviously immeasurably more intelligent than the man and I save his life every day I step through the Stargate and twice on Sundays. However," Ronon frowned as McKay's voice lowered and there came the sound of a shuffling step from inside the room. "You do not have the right to say anything about my team-mate because you are not on my team. Forget about anything Colonel Sheppard might do to you if he heard about what you've been saying here today, he can only kill you. I can make you beg for death until you're a little puddle of marine piss on the floor and then I'll pass you over to Teyla to play with until I get my second wind and think of something even more wretched to do to you. And there's not one damn person on this base that would stop me because they're all as terrified of me as you have just learned to be. Get out of my lab, start running and don't stop until you're absolutely sure that I'm not going to hit you with the death ray that I invented this morning in my coffee break and spread your atoms all over the wall."
Ronon just had time to step back before the two marines in the room with Rodney burst through the doorway. They stopped short upon seeing him and stared with horrified eyes until a voice from inside the lab floated out. "I'm not hearing any running!" Ronon turned his head to watch as the two men all but sprinted down the corridor and out of sight and stiffened as he realised that Colonel Sheppard stood not five feet down from him and smirking meanly.
Sheppard straightened from the wall and with a nod to Ronon sauntered past him and into the lab. "Hey, Rodney. Playing nice with the other kids?"
"Of course." McKay's voice sounded casual and unconcerned. "Unless we're being invaded yet again, go away. I'm busy."
"I see that." Sheppard's voice sounded even more amused and the sound of something metallic scraping across a desk sounded. "Rodney, Rodney, Rodney. Death ray?"
Ronon couldn't help himself and drifted forwards to peer into the room to see Rodney McKay looking uncharacteristically embarrassed as he scowled at his smirking Colonel who was holding aloft an unfamiliar metal object. "Yes, well, I've had a total of five hours sleep in the last two days and I'd like to see you come up with something more impressive than a Death Ray to threaten two trained to kill and armed soldiers that could beat you to a pulp without even breaking a sweat."
Sheppard rolled his eyes and brandished his metal object. "Rodney, this is a child's toy."
Rodney looked like he was torn between guilt and smug, but in the end plumped for smug and grinned at Sheppard like a mischievous little boy. "But they didn't know that."
"If I have to take another meeting with Elizabeth because you've been making my guys cry again, McKay, I am not going to be happy." Looking anything but disapproving, Sheppard wagged his finger mockingly at Rodney's flushed and delighted looking face and then jerked a thumb back over his shoulder. "Also, you've got a visitor."
Ronon tensed again as Rodney looked past Sheppard and all mirth bled from his expression when he saw Ronon hovering in the doorway. "Oh!" Rodney looked uncharacteristically uneasy for a moment, before straightening his shoulders and fixing his usual impatient glare on his face. "Yes? What do you want?"
Sheppard rolled his eyes and turned to leave. "Way to make a guy feel welcome there, McKay. Don't forget the briefing at 15:00." He clapped Ronon on the shoulder as he passed him. "See you later."
The sound of Sheppard's footsteps fading away down the hall echoed unnaturally loud in both men's ears as they stared at each other, and then Rodney folded his arms over his chest and snapped, "Well? Important things happening here, fate of the planet...."
"I heard what they said." Ronon stepped into the room, making a conscious effort to keep his body loose and unthreatening as Rodney flushed guiltily and took a step back. "And what you said."
Rodney's eyes flickered with futile hope towards the door and then skipped around the laboratory. "Congratulations. All your faculties are functioning. If you heard what the jarheads said then you also must have heard me tell Colonel Sheppard that I'm busy. What do you want?" He darted a quick glance at Ronon and then looked away again. "I'm fairly sure I've already reached my quota of dumb animals passing through my laboratory today, and unless you're here to tell me that you've suddenly acquired the ancient gene or become a fantastically brilliant physicist overnight then...."
"Thanks." Ronon's deep voice cut through Rodney's rising pitch with ease and he grinned at the embarrassed looking scientist. "You were pretty scary there for a second."
Rodney's mouth closed with a snap and he blinked at Ronon for a moment before sheer anger flashed through his eyes. "Yes, yes. Let's all make fun of the scary brains of the outfit. I'm sure that the men with the really big guns will just wet themselves with fear when they next run across me in a deserted part of the city all by my lonesome. The sheer power of my cerebral cortex will have them cowering and whimpering in no time."
Ronon nodded without a trace of mockery. "Yeah. Probably." His grin widened mischievously. "If your brain doesn't get them, then your mouth definitely will." He cocked his head to the side as Rodney looked torn between fury and mortification and nodded slowly. "I meant what I said though. Thanks. I didn't expect you to do that."
Rodney turned away as an uncomfortable expression flashed across his face and busied himself staring down at his laptop. "Don't let it go to your head. I have a vested interest in staying on your good side."
"Yeah," Ronon eased closer and propped his hip up against the worktop, noting with interest the increased tension in Rodney's shoulders at the nearness in his proximity when he pointed out reasonably, "Except you didn't know I was listening. You could have made life easier for yourself and gone along with what they were saying. No one would have known."
The tips of Rodney's ears flushed a deep purple as he muttered, "I would." He stabbed a savage finger at the keyboard of his laptop and glared when it made a rude bleeping noise in response. "You're on my team."
"Didn't think that mattered." Ronon's shoulders lifted in an easy shrug as Rodney looked up at him warily. "You don't like me anymore than they do."
"Oh my god! What are you, twelve?" Rodney flung his arms up in the air and stepped away from the worktop and out of reach of Ronon in case things turned violent. "I don't know you. You're just the scary big guy with the scary big gun that I go on the occasional mission with. Nothing more, nothing less."
Ronon eyed him dispassionately. "Could have been more." He folded his arms across his chest and stared accusingly at Rodney. "You won't talk to me outside of work. Not exactly easy to get friendly when someone keeps cutting you dead and avoiding you."
"Yes, because we have so much in common." Rodney rolled his eyes. "Clearly we're kindred spirits, cruelly separated by the fates until stumbling across each other by happy chance in this misbegotten galaxy."
Ronon snorted in amusement. "I wouldn't go that far." He narrowed his eyes and fixed Rodney with a dark glower. "You wouldn't eat with me or train with me. Why?"
Rodney gaped incredulously. "Do I look like I have a burning desire to become an incredibly intelligent heap of broken bones?" He flapped a hand between their bodies. "Seriously, what exactly gave you the notion that I share the same self-destruct gene as Sheppard?"
Ronon looked startled for a moment and then scowled. "You thought I wanted to hurt you?" His eyes darkened with anger. "I'm not an animal."
"No, no, of course not." Rodney stepped backwards in alarm. "Did I say that? I just meant..." He swallowed heavily as Ronon straightened up and yelped, "Death ray! Seriously!"
"Child's toy." Ronon unfolded his arms and let them hand loosely at his sides, taking dark pleasure in the scared look on Rodney's face. "You've got nothing, McKay."
Painfully aware of that fact, Rodney back-pedalled some more and pulled out his big guns. "If you lay a hand on me, I'll tell Sheppard!" He continued to back away as Ronon looked unimpressed and advanced, spluttering frantically, "Teyla! I'll tell Teyla, and she can kick your ass."
Ronon paused briefly and then shrugged. "She can try." He herded Rodney skilfully until the shorter man was plastered against the wall of the laboratory and then planted his hands on either side of his body and leaned in. "Scared?"
Rodney swallowed, his throat clicking dryly in panic as he stared up at Ronon's inscrutable face. "If I said yes, would that make this any less painful?" His eyes flickered from side to side, searching for help or escape. "Really, scale of one to ten? You're easily beating out the wraith at the moment." He tried to retreat further as Ronon leaned in and babbled, "All of them put together! You are a scary, scary man. Happy now?"
"No." Ronon stared down into Rodney's eyes, his eyebrows drawing together in displeasure. "I could kill you now and there's nothing you could do about it."
Rodney started to hyperventilate and shut his eyes. "Oh God."
"But I won't." Ronon leaned back as Rodney's eyes popped open and he gently tapped his fist against Rodney's chin. "Because you're on my team." He stepped back as Rodney gaped incredulously at him and grinned. "You're an idiot, McKay."
Rodney went from terrified to indignant in under a second. "I am not."
"I wasn't asking you to train with me so I could hurt you, I was asking you to train with me so that we could become friends." Ronon looked almost shy for a moment and his eyes fixed on the wall above Rodney's head. "I don't have many people willing to talk to me here. Now I don't have to keep running, I wanted...." He shook his head in frustration as Rodney muffled a sound of surprise, and turned to leave. "It doesn't matter. Forget it."
"Wait!" Rodney darted forwards and grabbed for Ronon's arm, looking amazed by his own success when the bigger man stopped and glowered down at him. "Um, look..." He snatched his hand away as he realised he was clutching hard enough to turn the skin white under his fingertips and then stared blankly at the flesh as the blood rushed back and it darkened before his eyes. "I'm not good at this."
Ronon grunted. "Yeah. I noticed."
"Oh what, and you're Mr Congeniality?" Outraged, Rodney scowled up and huffed an impatient breath. "Look, I'm sorry, alright? I didn't know what you were trying to do. When Ford...." He stiffened along with Ronon as he stumbled over his lost teammate's name and then stuck out his chin and carried on in a rush, "When Ford was here, we just weren't that kind of team. We were friendly, but we weren't friends, and then when he left I regretted that we weren't." The corner of Rodney's mouth quirked in a wry flash of humour. "Particularly when we met up with him again and I didn't have any real argument for him not to kill me."
Ronon's teeth ground together audibly. "I'm not Ford."
"I know!" Rodney raised his hands defensively, face starting to flush with uneasiness again. "I just thought that you'd have more in common with Teyla and Sheppard than me."
Ronon ground his teeth again and muttered sourly, "Yeah. At least we all know that we're not trying to kill each other."
"Oh my god, you are twelve!" Rodney threw up his hands in despair. "Pay attention, I'm apologising. That almost never happens!"
Ronon scowled. "It's not happening now, either."
"I could invent a death ray, you know." Rodney's eyes flashed belligerently, all fear forgotten in the face of Ronon's unwillingness to accept his perfectly acceptable apology. "It's the work of a moment. Just keep pushing me, Haile Selassie."
"Who?" Ronon looked puzzled and then glowered furiously. "Did you just insult me?" He paused and finished flatly, "Again."
Rodney opened and closed his mouth several times before a flash of humour lit his face. "Well, we are teammates, right? As previously stated; it's my right."
Ronon stared at him long enough to have Rodney shifting nervously once more, before cracking a grin. "Yeah. Guess so." He tilted his head curiously, eyes betraying his wariness at another rejection. "So you'll stop avoiding me now?"
"Yes, yes." Impatiently Rodney flapped his hands. "We'll become best friends and spent lots of quality time swapping manly secrets and discussing the best ways to kill our enemies. Perhaps on weekends we can get really wild and quaff lots of Athosian ale and pretend to carouse all the non-existent bars whilst picking up non-existent wenches." He caught the baffled look on Ronon's face and rolled his eyes. "Women. We can pick up women."
Ronon looked shifty and then shrugged to himself. Friendship had to start somewhere, right? "Yeah, McKay, about those manly secrets..."
~*~*~*
When Rodney looked back at that moment as time passed, he seriously doubted his own sanity and previously unquestioned highly developed sense of self-preservation. If he had thought for one second that listening to what he had assumed was the ultimate alpha male and man's man come out of the closet in the middle of his lab would lead him to where he was now, he would have invented that damn death ray and shot himself with it.
"If you don't wake up, you incredible waste of oxygen, I'm going to make whatever passes for your existence now more miserable than you can possibly imagine." Rodney ignored the disapproving looks from Carson and the nurse on duty, and leant further over Ronon's prone and bandaged form. "I mean it. I'm wasting precious research time here keeping watch over your overly muscled carcass, and if any of those imbeciles that Elizabeth laughingly calls scientists manages to screw anything up in my absence then I'm going to blame you for it entirely." He clutched tighter at the forearm he already held in an iron grip, hissing savagely, "For god's sake, I spoken to you at great length on many interminable occasions, you great oaf, I know your mind isn't that interesting. Snap out of it!"
Rodney glanced over his shoulder where he could see Sheppard and Teyla both sleeping naturally in their own beds and then looked back at Ronon, his despair written in every line of his face. "The others woke up days ago. You're just being difficult and that's my job. I'm the brilliant, high-maintenance person on this team. You're just the big gorilla with a gun. Stop trying to hog all the attention that should rightfully be mine." He scowled. "This is exactly why I was so loathe to become more than colleagues with you people. You're all insane and have a death wish! I get used to having you around and then you go and do something stupid like saving Kavanaugh of all people and finally succeed in blowing yourselves up. Well I hope you're happy!" Working himself into a righteous snit, Rodney didn't notice two hazy and confused eyes open and try blearily to focus on him. "Not only did you save the life of the most useless person on this base, except possibly that moron Simmons, you also shot any chance I had of getting a half-way decent replacement for the pony-tailed cretin to hell. Oh yes, and put yourself in a coma!"
Ronon blinked his gummy eyes and tried to focus. All he could see was a vaguely purple coloured blob hanging in the air over him and shouting at him with Rodney McKay's voice, and the last time he looked Rodney hadn't been purple so he was fairly sure that something wasn't right. He tried to open his mouth to convey his concern to the purple blob but apparently it wasn't done yelling yet.
"It's been six days!" Rodney shook the arm he held in a death grip and ignored the glare and annoying shushing noise from Carson. "I've been doing this stupid concerned bedside manner routine for six days and I refuse to do it anymore. Either you wake up right now or I'm walking out of here and I won't even come back when they finally decide that you are a vegetable and pull the plug. And don't think I'll bother mourning you, either! Oh no, first chance I get, I'm going off-world and I'm going to track down Ford and I'm going to beg him to come back because at least he had the decency to want to kill me immediately rather than by inches."
Ronon licked dry lips and tried to growl at the mention of Ford' name. He found it somewhat difficult when he realised that he had a tube stuck down his throat.
"Did I ask for this?" Rodney, completely outraged, cast his eyes to the ceiling and demanded of any passing Ancients that might be listening, "Did anyone hear me ask even once for this great lummox to come along and decide to be my friend? Where exactly is it recorded that the top attributes Rodney McKay was looking for in a partner included terrible hair and strong suicidal leanings?"
Ronon tried to remember how to coordinate his facial muscles into a scowl. He had great hair.
Rodney evidently decided that the Ancients were being as unhelpful as they usually were and tore his eyes away from the ceiling to glare back down at Ronon. "You started this, and if you think...Oh my God!" He bent down until he was nearly nose-to-nose with Ronon and yelled, "It worked! Carson, get over here, he's awake! I am a genius; he's awake!"
Ronon shut his eyes in alarm when nothing but purple filled his admittedly sub-standard vision and concentrated on ignoring the slow build up of nausea in his stomach and the increasingly uncomfortable tube stuck down his throat.
What followed was confusing, painful and loud thanks to Rodney yelling furiously from outside the infirmary after he was unceremoniously ejected from it when he refused to stay out of the way and stop telling Carson and his staff how to do their jobs. Finally Ronon lay on his pillows, sans his tube and gratefully sucking ice chips that a far more sympathetic nurse than Rodney fed him. In the background he was dimly aware of Sheppard and Teyla anxiously asking Carson questions, but overwhelming everything was Rodney shouting increasingly inventive threats and curses and frantic pleas to be let back in when those were ignored. Finally Ronon weakly shook his head and whispered huskily, "McKay..."
His sympathetic nurse looked disapproving and said soothingly, "Doctor Beckett has just called for an escort to have him removed to his quarters. He won't disturb you any more."
"N...no." Ronon grunted in frustration when his sore and bruised throat refused to work properly. "Want...him."
The nurse looked even more disapproving. "Certainly not! He's been unbearable these last few days, the last thing you need is...wait, what are you doing? Doctor Beckett!" The woman reached hastily for Ronon's hand, trying to stop him pulling out his IV line. "Doctor Beckett!"
Ronon grunted again, shamed to realise just how weak he was when the slight woman easily restrained him. "McKay...get...him."
"Oh for...stop that, you bloody fool." Carson Beckett hurried over and gently moved his nurse out of the way before taking over holding Ronon still. "Do you want to send yourself straight back to the land of nod? This is keeping you alive at the moment, do you understand?"
Ronon stopped trying to struggle and blinked blearily up at Carson's angry face. "Want...McKay."
Carson blinked, taken aback. "What? Don't be daft, man. I'm not letting that..."
"Please." Desperate, Ronon resorted to begging. "Get...McKay."
"I..." Carson stared at the look of naked desperation on Ronon's normally implacable face and found himself nodding. "Alright." He turned at the outraged hiss from his nurse and said, "Christine, go get the bloody idiot to stop screaming and tell him he can come back in if he does it quietly." He waited until she turned away before adding tetchily, "And without mentioning any sort of barnyard animal!" He looked back down at Ronon with a wry twist to his mouth. "You must have hit your head harder than we thought, lad. Rodney's not my idea of restful company, aye?"
Ronon closed his eyes gratefully, whispering, "Just...scared."
"There's no need to be scared, Ronon." Carson dropped a comforting hand on Ronon's brawny shoulder. "Now you've woken up, I've every confidence you'll be as good as new in no time."
"Not...me." Ronon licked his lips and forced his eyes to open again. "Him. I'll make him...behave."
Carson looked confused and then his face flooded with understanding. "You mean..." He gaped down at Ronon's grey face. "Rodney?"
Ronon's mouth curved in a faint smile. "Yeah"
"And this was before you hit your head?" Carson's eyes were filled with a sick kind of fascination. "Really?"
"You absolute idiot." The bellow from behind Carson announced Rodney's re-entry into the infirmary, quite obviously uncaring of the order to remain quiet. "I ought to kill you myself!"
Ronon grinned weakly as the man himself stormed to his bedside and elbowed Carson out of the way forcefully. "You can...try."
Rodney stared down at the last person in the universe he had ever pictured himself falling for and stabbed a finger at the least bruised patch of skin he could see. "If you ever do anything that stupid again..."
Ronon ignored Carson bug-eyed at the foot of the bed and slowly raised a hand to clasp Rodney's non-poking arm. "Sorry."
"Oh you are not." Rodney stopped poking and gripped the hand that held his in shaking fingers. "You could care less that I've been through hell sitting here waiting for you to wake up. My back is irreparably ruined thanks to sleeping in that wretched chair for night after night, and I don't even want to go into how much weight I've lost thanks to all the meals I've missed. You are thoughtless and selfish and..."
Carson, eyes still fixed incredulously on the unlikely couple, backed away to where Sheppard and Teyla were propped up against their pillows watching with wide grins as Rodney tore strips off Ronon that the warrior could ill afford to lose in his weakened condition. "Colonel...?"
Sheppard laughed sympathetically. "Yeah. Kinda took me by surprise too, Doc." He winked as Carson turned to him with a startled expression. "Officially, I don't know a thing about it. Unofficially...." He trailed off with a roguish grin.
"But...Rodney!" Carson, painfully aware he was bleating like the sheep that Rodney so often accused him of having intimate knowledge of, sat heavily on the end of Sheppard's bed. "And Ronon?"
"It is a good match." Teyla, warning and warmth in her tone in equal measure, nodded towards her two friends with a gentle smile. "They are well suited."
Carson looked back at Ronon's bed and stared as Rodney finally ran out of steam and stood blinking helplessly down at the man smiling sleepily up at him. Even from across the room it was possible to see the tremble in Rodney's hand as he traced the line of Ronon's jaw with a gentle touch, mouth twitching with emotion as he reassured himself that his lover was really alive. Ronon closed his eyes with a tired sigh and turned his head into the touch, lines of pain tightening his face. Carson's mouth fell open as he watched Rodney lean forward and press a brief kiss to Ronon's forehead before hooking his foot around the chair that he had occupied ever since his team had returned bloodied and broken from a routine mission gone horribly wrong and dropping heavily into it. He propped his chin up on one hand, keeping the other wrapped around Ronon's, and blinked in exhaustion as Ronon slipped into a healing sleep.
Carson jumped at a light touch on his arm and looked away from the two men to see Sheppard studying him soberly. "Is this going to be a problem, Doc?"
"What?" Carson's eyes widened in understanding. "Of course not, Colonel. I'm offended that you could even ask me that, man! What happens in this infirmary, stays in this infirmary."
Satisfied, Sheppard leaned back against his pillows. "Good. Thanks." He glanced at his teammates again. "Rodney's out. Can you get him a blanket or something? He gets cold."
"Aye, I know." Carson nodded and stood. "Get some rest, you two. You're still healing yourselves." He smiled as both Teyla and Sheppard turned on their sides so that they could keep watch on the oblivious Ronon and Rodney and obediently settled down into their pillows. "Honestly, you four will be the death of me yet." He walked away to fetch Rodney's blanket, smiling at the sound of quiet laughter behind him and making a mental note to have a chat with his nurse to insure that his promise to the Colonel was filled. He shook his head to himself, muttering in amusement, "Rodney? The poor wee lad must need his head read."
~*~*~*
The End.