SGA Fic: Tongue-Tied (Rodney/Ronon)
Title: Tongue-Tied
Fandom: SGA
Pairing: Rodney/Ronon
Length: 4900 words
Summary: It’s comforting and familiar and Rodney’s distracted by the thought that really, out of all the people on Atlantis, Ronon should probably be one of the least familiar.
Notes: Written for the cliché someone gets tied up at undermistletoe. Huge beta thanks to audrarose. *loves*
Tongue-Tied by Sori
I hate you, Rodney wants to say.
You’re all morons, he wants to shout.
You’ve ruined me, he wants to scream.
Instead he’s forced to sit silently at the table in Elizabeth’s office listening, while everyone else talks about him.
The irony of this is not lost on him.
“Do we know how to reverse the effects?” Elizabeth is speaking to Zelenka but she’s looking across the table at Rodney. Three years in Atlantis, and she’s gotten truly deranged, Rodney realizes. She’s got a gleam in her eye, a look that’s not so much worried as poorly concealed glee.
Usually, he’d be right there with her if the whole thing wasn’t happening to him.
“We think it’s a variation of the personal shield,” Zelenka says. “Somehow trapping all sound inside a sort of containment field. Fascinating really, how the shield allows sound to enter but not leave.”
“What purpose would this serve?” Teyla interrupts.
“Recon.” Ronon says, nodding his head and looking at Rodney with interest.
“Recon?” Elizabeth’s got that look again, the one that makes Rodney shiver. For a pacifist, she can be truly evil.
“Reconnaissance,” Sheppard answers. “Sound is usually the first thing that gives away an enemy position. With a cloak that could control all the sound around an individual, well--,” he trails off. He reaches out and touches the glimmering shield around Rodney, watching it shimmer and move, wrapping around his finger and allowing it through. “Weird. Think they meant to include some sort of invisibility cloak with it also?”
The table erupts in noise, voices talking over each other and Rodney catches, “maybe we can try to add in…” and “he wouldn’t mind, we could probably change the resonating frequency…,” like he was an experiment and not a victim of one of Zelenka’s tech experiments gone awry.
Damn theorists.
Rodney grabs a piece of paper from the notebook sitting uselessly in front of Sheppard. He scribbles, “Hello! Are you all morons? I am sitting right here.”
He waves it around in the air and no one seems to notice, because now they’re saying, “there must be a maximum time limit to remain in the shield, perhaps…” and “two weeks? Do you think we’d need it for that long?”
Snatching up the notebook, he knocks Sheppard upside the head with it once and the table goes silent. He holds up his paper and glares until Elizabeth clears her throat and says:
“Of course, Rodney, my apologies. Did you have a suggestion?”
Rolling his eyes, he writes, “Fix me. Now.”
Sheppard chuckles, entirely too happily for a man that just lost the most valuable member of his team to an unfortunate tech issue.
“Right.” Elizabeth shakes her head and turns to Zelenka. “As I was saying, can we reverse the effects?”
Zelenka nods frantically. “Yes, of course. It should be a matter of reversing polarities, perhaps. Two days, I believe, to make the changes.”
Rodney steals another page from Sheppard’s notebook. “I can have it fixed in one day. Tops.”
Elizabeth shakes her head sadly. “Sorry, Rodney. You’re not to be involved in this. Time is critical and since we can’t be certain of all the effects associated with your…current impairment, I’d feel better with Dr. Zelenka taking the lead.”
“Zelenka? You do realize this is all his fault, right?” Rodney holds up the paper for everyone to read then balls in up and tosses it across the room, aiming for the trashcan by Elizabeth’s desk and missing entirely.
He watches in morbid fascination as the wad bounces off Ronon’s head. Ronon glares, and picks up the paper. He grabs a loose pen, hastily writes something out and tosses it back at Rodney.
“Do you have to be such an asshole, McKay?” Rodney reads the words, shocked and surprised, and, wow, he’d had no idea.
“You can *write*?”
Ronon watches him carefully, stretching out his legs and tipping his chair onto the back legs. “Do we really have to fix him?”
**
Ronon follows Rodney out of the conference room and down to the infirmary. He stands across the room, staring at the empty doorway as Beckett starts hooking Rodney up to the various monitors. As if it’s a big surprise, Beckett declares him medically sound and tells him, no worries, Rodney, I’m sure Radek will have your voice restored in no time.
Rodney glares and stomps - silently, which is just not anywhere near as satisfying - out of the room and toward his lab. Ronon’s footfalls are enviously loud next to him.
“Again, why are you following me?” Rodney writes, holding it up and waving it in Ronon’s face. It’s the fifth time he’s asked but it’s the first time Ronon’s decided to answer.
“Dr. Weir told me to.” Ronon shrugs his shoulders and goes back to ignoring Rodney as they walk.
“Yes. Wonderful. Good for you. But go away now.” Rodney tosses the piece of paper to Ronon. As if the day really needed to get worse.
Ronon snorts, loud enough that it echoes in the hallway. “No, can’t do that.”
Rodney stops and turns to stare at him. He waves his hand in the air. “And the reason for that is…?” He writes, annoyed. It’s only been a few hours and already he’s irritated at conversations held on paper.
“Because,” Ronon says, as if that’s the only reason needed.
Rodney closes his eyes and…fuck. He scribbles out a note and jogs to catch up with Ronon.
“I think I hate you.” He flicks the note at Ronon and walks through the door to his lab. And, of course, he’s instantly mauled by his staff, rushing up to him in a throng of screaming bodies.
“Do you feel a change of pressure inside -.”
“Would you mind if I took an energy reading on your -.
“We’ve been hypothesizing that -.”
“Is it all sounds or is it limited to --.”
Rodney holds up his hands and no one seems to notice since at some point, the conversation stopped being directed at him and started being about him. Shrugging off the hands and instruments that are reaching out to touch him, he heads toward Zelenka in the far corner of the lab. As soon as he’s close enough, he makes a grab for the shield generator but Zelenka’s quicker and slaps his hand away in poorly hidden glee.
“Rodney, Dr. Weir does not wish you to assist on this project.”
Rodney shakes his head and picks up his laptop only to find a note taped to the screen, written in Sheppard’s obnoxious scrawl. “Limited not, you are, by your inabilities. Remember to just use the Force, McKay.”
He pulls the note off the screen, tosses it into the trash and pulls up the Atlantis interface. It only takes a few minutes to reprogram the systems in Sheppard’s quarters.
**
Rodney’s got a stack of paperwork that’s past due, ten pieces of tech that he’s set aside for his own personal research; he has fifteen partially complete articles waiting for final proofs on his laptop and a science division of personnel numbering close to 100 with problems and issues and evaluations that all fall into the category of now and urgent and time sensitive. He has so many things to do, that he could conceivably start working now and not finish for two solid weeks.
Yet, the only thing he wants to be working on is sitting in pieces on a table, on the other side of the room, being jealously guarded by an irritated Czech.
Mostly, he spends his day staring at his pile of paperwork, contemplating all the ways Zelenka could screw up this entire process. Ronon seems content to sit in the corner playing something loud and obnoxious on the Nintendo DS he won from one of the Marines. Rodney can hear the screams of agony from the game system and see Ronon’s expression of sheer bliss. The last time he’d stolen a look, the screen had been filled with alien blood oozing slowly down the monitor.
Rodney gets up and walks over to flop down in the chair next to Ronon. He pokes him in the side and leans over to look at the screen. Still bloody, still loud, still…with a woman in an exceptionally tiny dress.
Rodney grabs a stack of note cards off the nearest table. “What’s the game?”
Ronon shrugs his shoulder and pushes some more buttons and the woman pulls a big gun out of her little dress. They both sigh, Ronon’s chest heaving, pressing his shoulder closer, Rodney’s shield shimmering
The new scientist that arrived on the Daedalus’ last trip walks up and starts screaming loudly at Rodney. “Dr. McKay, what would you like me to work on?” He’s flailing his hands around and his voice is way too shrill for a grown man and, Christ, his headache just increased exponentially.
Rodney can’t decide whether to ignore him, or present him with a wonderfully succinct hand gesture; writing out an insult seems to be too much trouble. Things were always so much easier when he could just yell and be done with it.
Ronon’s screen beeps again and Rodney looks over to see an alien grab the woman’s dress and start tearing it off. (A definite modification; sometimes it pays to be surrounded by computer geeks with nowhere to go on their days off.)
“Dr. McKay? Can you hear me?” The man screams again, hand to his ear and he not only looks like an idiot, he obviously is an idiot.
Ignoring him, Rodney leans closer and starts pointing to the screen and Ronon nods, toggles the controls and the dress shreds entirely apart. Their legs touch, hip to thigh, and Rodney feels a flash of heat, his stomach clenching down tight. Maybe it’s from the half-naked video woman; probably it’s from the soft pressure of Ronon’s shoulder, dreds rustling against Rodney’s cheek, the musky smell that’s new and exotic and yet, still sort of normal.
“Go away. Now,” Ronon says to the scientist and Rodney nods his head vigorously. Ronon doesn’t even bother looking up from the computer screen. When the scientist storms off, Rodney looks over and Ronon’s smirking. It’s actually a bit scary since Ronon smirking isn’t all that different from Ronon about-to-commit-violent-acts.
“Huh,” Ronon says and Rodney tells himself that he doesn’t actually smile.
**
At lunch, the ten minute walk to the mess hall takes thirty. Every few feet, someone bolts out of a doorway and starts asking Rodney a question. It’s probably the novelty of having him silent because he seriously doubts the supply sergeant really needed to know, right then, if he wanted to order more paperclips, flash drives and memory sticks for the secondary physical sciences lab.
Ronon walks along beside him, not saying anything, just stepping aside and crossing his arms every time a new person comes running up. When Miko shuffles closer and mentions true love and destiny and a few other words that Rodney figures pretty much scarred him for life, Ronon leans comfortably against the wall, crossing his ankles and staring stupidly at Rodney with the closest thing to a grin that Rodney’s ever seen on his face.
So much for his willingness to protect Rodney from the hoards of ravaging imbeciles.
Rodney’s not used to anyone following him around (except for that time in Russia with the 6 foot blond and the snowballs -- an event that will never again be spoken of) and he finds Ronon’s presence a bit like having a headache of ungodly proportions. He’s this constant *thing*, giant and lurking, occasionally looking over Rodney’s shoulder and watching his movements. Rodney’s not sure if he’s watching to make sure Rodney doesn’t suddenly disappear into Ancient tech oblivion or if he’s plotting new and inventively painful ways to kill him.
But it could be worse: Ronon doesn’t ask stupid questions, the kind half his staff asks at least five times a day; he doesn’t shrug his shoulders and feign ignorance when Rodney’s yelling silent words and waving his arms around in obscene gestures. (Really, as if the words ‘fuck you’ can be confused with any other words in the English language). He’s been asked to explain Rodney’s condition no less than a dozen times and even Rodney has to admit that he’s mastered the explanation.
“Zelenka broke him” truly is an accurate assessment.
By the time he makes it to the mess hall, it’s the middle of the lunch rush and the place is packed with grumpy scientists and hungry soldiers who are in no mood to be trapped behind a non-speaking Rodney in the food line.
Rodney gestures madly to the woman behind the counter, flapping hands and mouthing words, and really, is it too much to ask that the mess hall people have the capacity to understand when he’s practically screaming, “No citrus, right? Right?” He’s about to pull out his note cared and write, die, die, like the moron that you are when Ronon elbows him hard in the side and says:
“Shut up, McKay.”
Rodney glares up at him, pushing Ronon back half-a-step with a finger to his chest. Rodney feels a flash of satisfaction that he hasn’t felt in the hours; since he reprogrammed Sheppard’s room to run alternating hot-cold water bursts in the shower.
“McKay-.” Ronon’s hands clench on the edges of his own tray, knuckles going white. He jerks his head toward the tables and then pushes by Rodney to head down the line. He grabs food randomly, shoving it on his tray, two plates of something and two bowls of something else and Rodney starts imagining a horrible death by citrus when Ronon comes up behind him and shoves him hard. “Walk,” he growls out, stepping in front and leading them over to a table.
Rodney sits down and Ronon pushes a half-tray of food across the table to him. Coffee and a real-ham sandwich and those little crispy things that are like potato chips only without the potatoes, and the almost-watermelon that Rodney loves but had only tried after making Carson sit next to him in the mess hall table with an epi-pen and full crash cart at the ready.
Rodney looks up and waves his hand in a vague motion of at least I won’t die today before Ronon grunts and they both start eating. The food maybe tastes better then usual which is just stupid since they ran out of real mayonnaise two weeks ago and the fruit’s not quite ripe and the military has gone all cheap on them so the coffee’s horrible. But Ronon’s not talking, not poking and prodding and getting back some of his own, leaving Rodney free to eat instead of scramble madly for lame note cards that are a poor substitute for actual verbal ability.
It’s almost…nice, which is a word Rodney hates. He’s Canadian and has no interest in turning into the world’s biggest cliché.
Still, the meal is strangely good and Rodney doesn’t want to think too hard about all the reasons why.
**
Sheppard doesn’t take the whole hot/cold shower modification from the day before well. At the morning staff meeting, Rodney sits next to him and tries to explain experimental energy conservation, but somehow the argument loses some of it’s effectiveness on 3x5 yellow note cards.
He’s just started on the dynamics of cyclic-energy usage in time critical activities involving water consumption, when Ronon sits down across the table from Rodney. He pushes two cups of coffee, a package of index card and a red felt marker toward him.
Rodney looks up and their eyes catch and their heads nod and he thinks that maybe they somehow just had an entire conversation. He’s not quite sure what they said, but really, that doesn’t seem to matter so much.
Ronon disappears after the meeting when Elizabeth receives a frantic call from Parrish, something involving chess and the botany team and the empty lab on Level 5 and Rodney’s positive that the less he knows about it, the better. Zelenka’s still being annoyingly stubborn and despite Rodney repeatedly hitting him in the head with a balled up notes asking, “are you finished yet?”, he’s not yet allowed Rodney to touch the shield generator.
Instead, Rodney’s mostly sitting on a stool, throwing the notes at Zelenka and writing out a random selection of note cards that he stores in his pocket for later use. Zelenka chatters on from nearby, loudly and passionately, as his fingers fly over the wires and small pieces of equipment. In all these years, Rodney doesn’t think he’s ever before seen him looking almost orgasmic with bliss.
“Yes, yes, Rodney. You’re right, I am brilliant. Far more brilliant than you. Absolutely,” Zelenka agrees with himself, smiling and nodding his head at Rodney. He picks up the piece of paper that just hit him in the head then flips open his laptop and punches in some numbers, cackling manically like he’s been doing for the last half hour.
Rodney gives him the finger and Zelenka laughs at the strange shimmering vibration of the shield as Rodney mouths the words.
“You flatter me, Rodney. Please.”
Ronon doesn’t show up again until almost dinner. He walks in the door and the room goes instantly silent, all eyes watching him as he walks across to where Rodney’s sitting.
“McKay,” he says by way of a greeting and Rodney barely keeps himself from jumping up and screaming ‘thank God, save me’. Instead, he rifles through his newly written note cards and holds one up.
“I am surrounded by idiots.”
“If you say so.” Ronon nods his head and Rodney watches as the gold rings at the ends of his dreds catch the light. He can’t bring himself to look away until Ronon asks, “McKay? You want to get out of here for a while?”
Rodney stands up. “My hero,” he writes and Ronon cuffs him on the shoulder in response.
**
At dinner, Sheppard stands up the mess hall and smiles happily at the occupants before he says, “Dr. McKay would like you all to know that he believes that ‘Back to the Future’ is a credible scientific exposition on time travel.” He nods his head a few times and sits down across the table from Rodney. “You know, Rodney, I could get used to this.”
Rodney picks up his pudding cup and contemplates the need for chocolate versus other possible uses. The need for chocolate wins out after Ronon puts a hand on his knee and squeezes tight. He can feel the warmth of Ronon’s shoulder up and down his arm, the press of hot skin, the scratch of rough fabric. It’s comforting and familiar and Rodney’s distracted by the thought that really, out of all the people on Atlantis, Ronon should probably be one of the least familiar.
Yet somehow, he’s not, not really. Rodney gets his humor and he recognizes his touch and he can still see Ronon’s almost-smile when he closes his eyes. And those aren’t necessarily important things to know, but they are good things to know. They’re the sort of things that most people on Atlantis don’t bother knowing about Ronon.
Rodney can’t help feeling more than a little smug.
**
At the end of the day, Ronon walks him back to his room. Which is overkill, obviously, but it doesn’t seem to matter so much when Ronon follows him through the door and pushes him against the nearest wall, licking into his mouth, hard and fast, until Rodney can’t help but wrap his arms around Ronon’s waist and pull him in closer.
He wants to say, “what the hell?’ but Ronon’s whispering, “come on, McKay, come on,” as his hand starts working on Rodney’s pants, pushing them down and shoving them off until he’s got a hand on Rodney’s cock, all rough calluses and smooth strokes, taking and demanding and making Rodney respond. And, fuck, it’s good and Rodney opens his mouth and kisses back, remembering tight leather pants and flexing muscle and those stupid, stupid dreds swinging in Ronon’s face and making him look brainy and illegal and all kinds of trouble.
For once he’s glad that’s he’s an alien experiment gone awry because if he could talk, he’d screw this up, and that’s the last thing he wants to do. Instead, he tightens his arms around Ronon and pulls him in, closing the space between them till it’s nothing, till he can feel the heat and the hardness and the need that seems to be rolling off them both in waves.
“Wait,” Ronon gasps out. “Okay?” He asks and Rodney answers by pushing Ronon’s shirt up.
“Fuck.” Ronon whispers into Rodney’s mouth
Rodney shakes his head, scratching his nails against Ronon’s chest, letting his tongue trail down Ronon’s neck, licking at his Adam’s Apple, biting, too rough - and *fuck* - until Ronon is moaning and working his hand faster on Rodney’s cock.
“Yeah,” Ronon says, over and over, and Rodney grins and bites harder, thinking, “yeah, oh yeah,” and wishing he had his voice.
Rodney grabs Ronon’s hips and presses them close, pushing and pulling and rubbing him off until Ronon’s not talking, no mumbled words, just moaning, and gasping out sounds that make Rodney want this more than he’s wanted anything in years.
It doesn’t take long until Ronon is coming, gasping out ‘fuck’ and closing his hand harder around Rodney’s cock, speeding up his strokes. Rodney comes with Ronon’s name on his lips, silent and easy and all kinds of good.
Rodney pushes him backwards and drags him across the room, tipping them both onto the bed and curling around him. Comfortable and boneless, and Rodney can’t think of anything beyond sleep.
Sometime in the deep hours of the night, Ronon’s soft snores wake him. It’s been a while since he’s shared a bed for the entire night and he contemplates getting up and getting an early start in the lab. He’s always been lousy at mornings after.
But it’s warm, too warm to crawl out into the cold, and Ronon’s lying stretched out, taking up way too much bed, his lips curled up a little in sleep, looking relaxed and sated, and like all kinds of sex.
Rodney pushes the hair back from Ronon’s face, watching his eyes move underneath his lids, his hands twitch, just a little, on his chest. He can’t quite decide what all he’d say if he could talk right now and maybe, God, hopefully, they wouldn’t need to have some long, painfully awkward discussion.
Still, it seems like something has to be said, words spoken and decisions made and, seriously, it’s horrifying to even contemplate. But they work together, everyday, and Rodney knows how screwed up that can get. They barely agree on the best of days, throw in sex, and Ronon’s obvious and understandable infatuation, and things could go bad extraordinarily fast.
“Whats’t?” Ronon mumbles into the pillow, he lifts up his head enough to blink his eyes open. He moves closer and pulls Rodney in with an arm around his waist, and buries his head back in the pillow.
And he can feel Ronon’s heartbeat, strong and steady and tight against his chest; he can feel the soft scratch of beard and the press of warm, sleep-smelling skin, and Rodney shoves over a little bit and lies back down.
Tomorrow’s a new day; plenty of time to figure it out then.
**
Rodney’s radio squacks at 6:00 in the morning and he has to shove Ronon’s leg off his hip and crawl over him to grab at the headset on the side table.
It takes him three times keying the mike and a good thirty seconds of screaming “What?” into the handset before he remembers. He shakes Ronon’s arm until he sits up, dreds wild around his face, eyes wide and aggravated. Rodney throws the radio at him and flops back down on the bed, hands over eyes.
Zelenka’s voice is still echoing through the headset, loud and annoying, and Ronon shuts him up by growling something back. Rodney wishes he could see Radek’s face when Ronon’s voice booms across the channel, loud and sleep rough and obviously in Rodney’s quarters.
Oh, yeah.
Rodney hears a jumble of words tossing back and forth between the two and gives up trying to listen, his attention captured by a small tattoo low on Ronon’s side, right above his hip -- black ink with lines and 6 random dots; it’s a bit like the mark on Ronon’s neck with a slightly different variation in pattern. He can’t help but reach out, touching the raised lines, rubbing along the marks, wondering how they’d feel on his tongue.
Ronon’s side shivers at the slight touch and Rodney smoothes his thumb along the lines a bit harder. He hardly notices when Ronon tosses the handset back on to the table.
“He’s got the machine fixed. He needs you down in the lab,” Ronon says, flopping back in bed, legs and arms and body spread wide, huge and taking up way too much space.
Later. Not yet. After while, he wants to say.
Instead, Rodney opens his eyes and nods.
**
“You’ve fixed it, right?” Rodney scribbles out and pokes the card toward Zelenka. “Tell me you haven’t screwed this up.”
“Will you believe me if I tell you that it’s fixed and to stop worrying?” Zelenka asks, taking the card from Rodney and turning toward the machine.
In about ten seconds, Rodney’s going to pick up the shield generator and get his voice back. In theory that’s how it’s going to work. It remains to be seen whether or not that’ll actually happen.
“We’re ready, Rodney. Activate the device.”
Rodney looks around: Zelenka waiting expectedly, Sheppard bouncing on the balls of his feet, Ronon’s standing close, looking solid and dependable and sort of illegal in the leather pants that seem just a little bit tighter than usual. He sighs and picks it up.
He feels a tingle, a little trail of warmth moving up and down his arms and he knows. He just knows.
“My God, you call yourself an expert? Three days! It takes you three days to fix me!” Rodney’s shouting and it feels amazing, arms flapping and people all over the lab looking over at him in various stages of distress.
“You! Idiot new guy!” Rodney stalks over to the new scientist that had spent the last three days yelling and pantomiming every gesture. “I couldn’t speak but I could hear. This was only explained to you, what, a dozen times or more? Seriously, where the hell did the government find you? You’re worthless. Leave and go find some other lab to inflict your presence on.”
Sheppard’s grinning from ear to ear as Rodney walks up and joins their little circle. “Never thought I’d say it, McKay, but welcome back.” He claps Rodney hard on the shoulder once and walks away.
“It’s good to have you back,” Zelenka says, packing up the small generator in a carefully labeled box. “Dr. Weir wants us to keep working on this and see if we can integrate the cloaking technology. She looked excited at the possibility.”
Rodney snorts. “Atlantis has completely ruined her.” Zelenka nods and smiles slightly, nodding his head and walking away.
Rodney and Ronon are standing together, staring, and Rodney’s feeling awkward like he hasn’t felt in years. One night of sex and now, when he can finally talk, say something, he has no idea where to start.
“You’re an idiot. Why weren’t we having sex months ago?” He starts, but stops as Ronon interrupts, leaning close and whispering lewdly in his ear:
“Let’s fuck.”
Rodney’s breath catches, the sweat starts to pool in the small of his back. He imagines that he can feel Ronon’s hands moving on his body, ghostlike, fingertips brushing hidden spots, mouth trailing down his chest and up his neck and-
Rodney nods his head and walks quickly toward the door, desperately calculating how long it’ll take to get to his quarters and if there’s an accessible closet somewhere along the way.
“Yeah.” Rodney nods, and can’t remember why he thought words were so necessary anyway.
--End-
Fandom: SGA
Pairing: Rodney/Ronon
Length: 4900 words
Summary: It’s comforting and familiar and Rodney’s distracted by the thought that really, out of all the people on Atlantis, Ronon should probably be one of the least familiar.
Notes: Written for the cliché someone gets tied up at undermistletoe. Huge beta thanks to audrarose. *loves*
Tongue-Tied by Sori
I hate you, Rodney wants to say.
You’re all morons, he wants to shout.
You’ve ruined me, he wants to scream.
Instead he’s forced to sit silently at the table in Elizabeth’s office listening, while everyone else talks about him.
The irony of this is not lost on him.
“Do we know how to reverse the effects?” Elizabeth is speaking to Zelenka but she’s looking across the table at Rodney. Three years in Atlantis, and she’s gotten truly deranged, Rodney realizes. She’s got a gleam in her eye, a look that’s not so much worried as poorly concealed glee.
Usually, he’d be right there with her if the whole thing wasn’t happening to him.
“We think it’s a variation of the personal shield,” Zelenka says. “Somehow trapping all sound inside a sort of containment field. Fascinating really, how the shield allows sound to enter but not leave.”
“What purpose would this serve?” Teyla interrupts.
“Recon.” Ronon says, nodding his head and looking at Rodney with interest.
“Recon?” Elizabeth’s got that look again, the one that makes Rodney shiver. For a pacifist, she can be truly evil.
“Reconnaissance,” Sheppard answers. “Sound is usually the first thing that gives away an enemy position. With a cloak that could control all the sound around an individual, well--,” he trails off. He reaches out and touches the glimmering shield around Rodney, watching it shimmer and move, wrapping around his finger and allowing it through. “Weird. Think they meant to include some sort of invisibility cloak with it also?”
The table erupts in noise, voices talking over each other and Rodney catches, “maybe we can try to add in…” and “he wouldn’t mind, we could probably change the resonating frequency…,” like he was an experiment and not a victim of one of Zelenka’s tech experiments gone awry.
Damn theorists.
Rodney grabs a piece of paper from the notebook sitting uselessly in front of Sheppard. He scribbles, “Hello! Are you all morons? I am sitting right here.”
He waves it around in the air and no one seems to notice, because now they’re saying, “there must be a maximum time limit to remain in the shield, perhaps…” and “two weeks? Do you think we’d need it for that long?”
Snatching up the notebook, he knocks Sheppard upside the head with it once and the table goes silent. He holds up his paper and glares until Elizabeth clears her throat and says:
“Of course, Rodney, my apologies. Did you have a suggestion?”
Rolling his eyes, he writes, “Fix me. Now.”
Sheppard chuckles, entirely too happily for a man that just lost the most valuable member of his team to an unfortunate tech issue.
“Right.” Elizabeth shakes her head and turns to Zelenka. “As I was saying, can we reverse the effects?”
Zelenka nods frantically. “Yes, of course. It should be a matter of reversing polarities, perhaps. Two days, I believe, to make the changes.”
Rodney steals another page from Sheppard’s notebook. “I can have it fixed in one day. Tops.”
Elizabeth shakes her head sadly. “Sorry, Rodney. You’re not to be involved in this. Time is critical and since we can’t be certain of all the effects associated with your…current impairment, I’d feel better with Dr. Zelenka taking the lead.”
“Zelenka? You do realize this is all his fault, right?” Rodney holds up the paper for everyone to read then balls in up and tosses it across the room, aiming for the trashcan by Elizabeth’s desk and missing entirely.
He watches in morbid fascination as the wad bounces off Ronon’s head. Ronon glares, and picks up the paper. He grabs a loose pen, hastily writes something out and tosses it back at Rodney.
“Do you have to be such an asshole, McKay?” Rodney reads the words, shocked and surprised, and, wow, he’d had no idea.
“You can *write*?”
Ronon watches him carefully, stretching out his legs and tipping his chair onto the back legs. “Do we really have to fix him?”
**
Ronon follows Rodney out of the conference room and down to the infirmary. He stands across the room, staring at the empty doorway as Beckett starts hooking Rodney up to the various monitors. As if it’s a big surprise, Beckett declares him medically sound and tells him, no worries, Rodney, I’m sure Radek will have your voice restored in no time.
Rodney glares and stomps - silently, which is just not anywhere near as satisfying - out of the room and toward his lab. Ronon’s footfalls are enviously loud next to him.
“Again, why are you following me?” Rodney writes, holding it up and waving it in Ronon’s face. It’s the fifth time he’s asked but it’s the first time Ronon’s decided to answer.
“Dr. Weir told me to.” Ronon shrugs his shoulders and goes back to ignoring Rodney as they walk.
“Yes. Wonderful. Good for you. But go away now.” Rodney tosses the piece of paper to Ronon. As if the day really needed to get worse.
Ronon snorts, loud enough that it echoes in the hallway. “No, can’t do that.”
Rodney stops and turns to stare at him. He waves his hand in the air. “And the reason for that is…?” He writes, annoyed. It’s only been a few hours and already he’s irritated at conversations held on paper.
“Because,” Ronon says, as if that’s the only reason needed.
Rodney closes his eyes and…fuck. He scribbles out a note and jogs to catch up with Ronon.
“I think I hate you.” He flicks the note at Ronon and walks through the door to his lab. And, of course, he’s instantly mauled by his staff, rushing up to him in a throng of screaming bodies.
“Do you feel a change of pressure inside -.”
“Would you mind if I took an energy reading on your -.
“We’ve been hypothesizing that -.”
“Is it all sounds or is it limited to --.”
Rodney holds up his hands and no one seems to notice since at some point, the conversation stopped being directed at him and started being about him. Shrugging off the hands and instruments that are reaching out to touch him, he heads toward Zelenka in the far corner of the lab. As soon as he’s close enough, he makes a grab for the shield generator but Zelenka’s quicker and slaps his hand away in poorly hidden glee.
“Rodney, Dr. Weir does not wish you to assist on this project.”
Rodney shakes his head and picks up his laptop only to find a note taped to the screen, written in Sheppard’s obnoxious scrawl. “Limited not, you are, by your inabilities. Remember to just use the Force, McKay.”
He pulls the note off the screen, tosses it into the trash and pulls up the Atlantis interface. It only takes a few minutes to reprogram the systems in Sheppard’s quarters.
**
Rodney’s got a stack of paperwork that’s past due, ten pieces of tech that he’s set aside for his own personal research; he has fifteen partially complete articles waiting for final proofs on his laptop and a science division of personnel numbering close to 100 with problems and issues and evaluations that all fall into the category of now and urgent and time sensitive. He has so many things to do, that he could conceivably start working now and not finish for two solid weeks.
Yet, the only thing he wants to be working on is sitting in pieces on a table, on the other side of the room, being jealously guarded by an irritated Czech.
Mostly, he spends his day staring at his pile of paperwork, contemplating all the ways Zelenka could screw up this entire process. Ronon seems content to sit in the corner playing something loud and obnoxious on the Nintendo DS he won from one of the Marines. Rodney can hear the screams of agony from the game system and see Ronon’s expression of sheer bliss. The last time he’d stolen a look, the screen had been filled with alien blood oozing slowly down the monitor.
Rodney gets up and walks over to flop down in the chair next to Ronon. He pokes him in the side and leans over to look at the screen. Still bloody, still loud, still…with a woman in an exceptionally tiny dress.
Rodney grabs a stack of note cards off the nearest table. “What’s the game?”
Ronon shrugs his shoulder and pushes some more buttons and the woman pulls a big gun out of her little dress. They both sigh, Ronon’s chest heaving, pressing his shoulder closer, Rodney’s shield shimmering
The new scientist that arrived on the Daedalus’ last trip walks up and starts screaming loudly at Rodney. “Dr. McKay, what would you like me to work on?” He’s flailing his hands around and his voice is way too shrill for a grown man and, Christ, his headache just increased exponentially.
Rodney can’t decide whether to ignore him, or present him with a wonderfully succinct hand gesture; writing out an insult seems to be too much trouble. Things were always so much easier when he could just yell and be done with it.
Ronon’s screen beeps again and Rodney looks over to see an alien grab the woman’s dress and start tearing it off. (A definite modification; sometimes it pays to be surrounded by computer geeks with nowhere to go on their days off.)
“Dr. McKay? Can you hear me?” The man screams again, hand to his ear and he not only looks like an idiot, he obviously is an idiot.
Ignoring him, Rodney leans closer and starts pointing to the screen and Ronon nods, toggles the controls and the dress shreds entirely apart. Their legs touch, hip to thigh, and Rodney feels a flash of heat, his stomach clenching down tight. Maybe it’s from the half-naked video woman; probably it’s from the soft pressure of Ronon’s shoulder, dreds rustling against Rodney’s cheek, the musky smell that’s new and exotic and yet, still sort of normal.
“Go away. Now,” Ronon says to the scientist and Rodney nods his head vigorously. Ronon doesn’t even bother looking up from the computer screen. When the scientist storms off, Rodney looks over and Ronon’s smirking. It’s actually a bit scary since Ronon smirking isn’t all that different from Ronon about-to-commit-violent-acts.
“Huh,” Ronon says and Rodney tells himself that he doesn’t actually smile.
**
At lunch, the ten minute walk to the mess hall takes thirty. Every few feet, someone bolts out of a doorway and starts asking Rodney a question. It’s probably the novelty of having him silent because he seriously doubts the supply sergeant really needed to know, right then, if he wanted to order more paperclips, flash drives and memory sticks for the secondary physical sciences lab.
Ronon walks along beside him, not saying anything, just stepping aside and crossing his arms every time a new person comes running up. When Miko shuffles closer and mentions true love and destiny and a few other words that Rodney figures pretty much scarred him for life, Ronon leans comfortably against the wall, crossing his ankles and staring stupidly at Rodney with the closest thing to a grin that Rodney’s ever seen on his face.
So much for his willingness to protect Rodney from the hoards of ravaging imbeciles.
Rodney’s not used to anyone following him around (except for that time in Russia with the 6 foot blond and the snowballs -- an event that will never again be spoken of) and he finds Ronon’s presence a bit like having a headache of ungodly proportions. He’s this constant *thing*, giant and lurking, occasionally looking over Rodney’s shoulder and watching his movements. Rodney’s not sure if he’s watching to make sure Rodney doesn’t suddenly disappear into Ancient tech oblivion or if he’s plotting new and inventively painful ways to kill him.
But it could be worse: Ronon doesn’t ask stupid questions, the kind half his staff asks at least five times a day; he doesn’t shrug his shoulders and feign ignorance when Rodney’s yelling silent words and waving his arms around in obscene gestures. (Really, as if the words ‘fuck you’ can be confused with any other words in the English language). He’s been asked to explain Rodney’s condition no less than a dozen times and even Rodney has to admit that he’s mastered the explanation.
“Zelenka broke him” truly is an accurate assessment.
By the time he makes it to the mess hall, it’s the middle of the lunch rush and the place is packed with grumpy scientists and hungry soldiers who are in no mood to be trapped behind a non-speaking Rodney in the food line.
Rodney gestures madly to the woman behind the counter, flapping hands and mouthing words, and really, is it too much to ask that the mess hall people have the capacity to understand when he’s practically screaming, “No citrus, right? Right?” He’s about to pull out his note cared and write, die, die, like the moron that you are when Ronon elbows him hard in the side and says:
“Shut up, McKay.”
Rodney glares up at him, pushing Ronon back half-a-step with a finger to his chest. Rodney feels a flash of satisfaction that he hasn’t felt in the hours; since he reprogrammed Sheppard’s room to run alternating hot-cold water bursts in the shower.
“McKay-.” Ronon’s hands clench on the edges of his own tray, knuckles going white. He jerks his head toward the tables and then pushes by Rodney to head down the line. He grabs food randomly, shoving it on his tray, two plates of something and two bowls of something else and Rodney starts imagining a horrible death by citrus when Ronon comes up behind him and shoves him hard. “Walk,” he growls out, stepping in front and leading them over to a table.
Rodney sits down and Ronon pushes a half-tray of food across the table to him. Coffee and a real-ham sandwich and those little crispy things that are like potato chips only without the potatoes, and the almost-watermelon that Rodney loves but had only tried after making Carson sit next to him in the mess hall table with an epi-pen and full crash cart at the ready.
Rodney looks up and waves his hand in a vague motion of at least I won’t die today before Ronon grunts and they both start eating. The food maybe tastes better then usual which is just stupid since they ran out of real mayonnaise two weeks ago and the fruit’s not quite ripe and the military has gone all cheap on them so the coffee’s horrible. But Ronon’s not talking, not poking and prodding and getting back some of his own, leaving Rodney free to eat instead of scramble madly for lame note cards that are a poor substitute for actual verbal ability.
It’s almost…nice, which is a word Rodney hates. He’s Canadian and has no interest in turning into the world’s biggest cliché.
Still, the meal is strangely good and Rodney doesn’t want to think too hard about all the reasons why.
**
Sheppard doesn’t take the whole hot/cold shower modification from the day before well. At the morning staff meeting, Rodney sits next to him and tries to explain experimental energy conservation, but somehow the argument loses some of it’s effectiveness on 3x5 yellow note cards.
He’s just started on the dynamics of cyclic-energy usage in time critical activities involving water consumption, when Ronon sits down across the table from Rodney. He pushes two cups of coffee, a package of index card and a red felt marker toward him.
Rodney looks up and their eyes catch and their heads nod and he thinks that maybe they somehow just had an entire conversation. He’s not quite sure what they said, but really, that doesn’t seem to matter so much.
Ronon disappears after the meeting when Elizabeth receives a frantic call from Parrish, something involving chess and the botany team and the empty lab on Level 5 and Rodney’s positive that the less he knows about it, the better. Zelenka’s still being annoyingly stubborn and despite Rodney repeatedly hitting him in the head with a balled up notes asking, “are you finished yet?”, he’s not yet allowed Rodney to touch the shield generator.
Instead, Rodney’s mostly sitting on a stool, throwing the notes at Zelenka and writing out a random selection of note cards that he stores in his pocket for later use. Zelenka chatters on from nearby, loudly and passionately, as his fingers fly over the wires and small pieces of equipment. In all these years, Rodney doesn’t think he’s ever before seen him looking almost orgasmic with bliss.
“Yes, yes, Rodney. You’re right, I am brilliant. Far more brilliant than you. Absolutely,” Zelenka agrees with himself, smiling and nodding his head at Rodney. He picks up the piece of paper that just hit him in the head then flips open his laptop and punches in some numbers, cackling manically like he’s been doing for the last half hour.
Rodney gives him the finger and Zelenka laughs at the strange shimmering vibration of the shield as Rodney mouths the words.
“You flatter me, Rodney. Please.”
Ronon doesn’t show up again until almost dinner. He walks in the door and the room goes instantly silent, all eyes watching him as he walks across to where Rodney’s sitting.
“McKay,” he says by way of a greeting and Rodney barely keeps himself from jumping up and screaming ‘thank God, save me’. Instead, he rifles through his newly written note cards and holds one up.
“I am surrounded by idiots.”
“If you say so.” Ronon nods his head and Rodney watches as the gold rings at the ends of his dreds catch the light. He can’t bring himself to look away until Ronon asks, “McKay? You want to get out of here for a while?”
Rodney stands up. “My hero,” he writes and Ronon cuffs him on the shoulder in response.
**
At dinner, Sheppard stands up the mess hall and smiles happily at the occupants before he says, “Dr. McKay would like you all to know that he believes that ‘Back to the Future’ is a credible scientific exposition on time travel.” He nods his head a few times and sits down across the table from Rodney. “You know, Rodney, I could get used to this.”
Rodney picks up his pudding cup and contemplates the need for chocolate versus other possible uses. The need for chocolate wins out after Ronon puts a hand on his knee and squeezes tight. He can feel the warmth of Ronon’s shoulder up and down his arm, the press of hot skin, the scratch of rough fabric. It’s comforting and familiar and Rodney’s distracted by the thought that really, out of all the people on Atlantis, Ronon should probably be one of the least familiar.
Yet somehow, he’s not, not really. Rodney gets his humor and he recognizes his touch and he can still see Ronon’s almost-smile when he closes his eyes. And those aren’t necessarily important things to know, but they are good things to know. They’re the sort of things that most people on Atlantis don’t bother knowing about Ronon.
Rodney can’t help feeling more than a little smug.
**
At the end of the day, Ronon walks him back to his room. Which is overkill, obviously, but it doesn’t seem to matter so much when Ronon follows him through the door and pushes him against the nearest wall, licking into his mouth, hard and fast, until Rodney can’t help but wrap his arms around Ronon’s waist and pull him in closer.
He wants to say, “what the hell?’ but Ronon’s whispering, “come on, McKay, come on,” as his hand starts working on Rodney’s pants, pushing them down and shoving them off until he’s got a hand on Rodney’s cock, all rough calluses and smooth strokes, taking and demanding and making Rodney respond. And, fuck, it’s good and Rodney opens his mouth and kisses back, remembering tight leather pants and flexing muscle and those stupid, stupid dreds swinging in Ronon’s face and making him look brainy and illegal and all kinds of trouble.
For once he’s glad that’s he’s an alien experiment gone awry because if he could talk, he’d screw this up, and that’s the last thing he wants to do. Instead, he tightens his arms around Ronon and pulls him in, closing the space between them till it’s nothing, till he can feel the heat and the hardness and the need that seems to be rolling off them both in waves.
“Wait,” Ronon gasps out. “Okay?” He asks and Rodney answers by pushing Ronon’s shirt up.
“Fuck.” Ronon whispers into Rodney’s mouth
Rodney shakes his head, scratching his nails against Ronon’s chest, letting his tongue trail down Ronon’s neck, licking at his Adam’s Apple, biting, too rough - and *fuck* - until Ronon is moaning and working his hand faster on Rodney’s cock.
“Yeah,” Ronon says, over and over, and Rodney grins and bites harder, thinking, “yeah, oh yeah,” and wishing he had his voice.
Rodney grabs Ronon’s hips and presses them close, pushing and pulling and rubbing him off until Ronon’s not talking, no mumbled words, just moaning, and gasping out sounds that make Rodney want this more than he’s wanted anything in years.
It doesn’t take long until Ronon is coming, gasping out ‘fuck’ and closing his hand harder around Rodney’s cock, speeding up his strokes. Rodney comes with Ronon’s name on his lips, silent and easy and all kinds of good.
Rodney pushes him backwards and drags him across the room, tipping them both onto the bed and curling around him. Comfortable and boneless, and Rodney can’t think of anything beyond sleep.
Sometime in the deep hours of the night, Ronon’s soft snores wake him. It’s been a while since he’s shared a bed for the entire night and he contemplates getting up and getting an early start in the lab. He’s always been lousy at mornings after.
But it’s warm, too warm to crawl out into the cold, and Ronon’s lying stretched out, taking up way too much bed, his lips curled up a little in sleep, looking relaxed and sated, and like all kinds of sex.
Rodney pushes the hair back from Ronon’s face, watching his eyes move underneath his lids, his hands twitch, just a little, on his chest. He can’t quite decide what all he’d say if he could talk right now and maybe, God, hopefully, they wouldn’t need to have some long, painfully awkward discussion.
Still, it seems like something has to be said, words spoken and decisions made and, seriously, it’s horrifying to even contemplate. But they work together, everyday, and Rodney knows how screwed up that can get. They barely agree on the best of days, throw in sex, and Ronon’s obvious and understandable infatuation, and things could go bad extraordinarily fast.
“Whats’t?” Ronon mumbles into the pillow, he lifts up his head enough to blink his eyes open. He moves closer and pulls Rodney in with an arm around his waist, and buries his head back in the pillow.
And he can feel Ronon’s heartbeat, strong and steady and tight against his chest; he can feel the soft scratch of beard and the press of warm, sleep-smelling skin, and Rodney shoves over a little bit and lies back down.
Tomorrow’s a new day; plenty of time to figure it out then.
**
Rodney’s radio squacks at 6:00 in the morning and he has to shove Ronon’s leg off his hip and crawl over him to grab at the headset on the side table.
It takes him three times keying the mike and a good thirty seconds of screaming “What?” into the handset before he remembers. He shakes Ronon’s arm until he sits up, dreds wild around his face, eyes wide and aggravated. Rodney throws the radio at him and flops back down on the bed, hands over eyes.
Zelenka’s voice is still echoing through the headset, loud and annoying, and Ronon shuts him up by growling something back. Rodney wishes he could see Radek’s face when Ronon’s voice booms across the channel, loud and sleep rough and obviously in Rodney’s quarters.
Oh, yeah.
Rodney hears a jumble of words tossing back and forth between the two and gives up trying to listen, his attention captured by a small tattoo low on Ronon’s side, right above his hip -- black ink with lines and 6 random dots; it’s a bit like the mark on Ronon’s neck with a slightly different variation in pattern. He can’t help but reach out, touching the raised lines, rubbing along the marks, wondering how they’d feel on his tongue.
Ronon’s side shivers at the slight touch and Rodney smoothes his thumb along the lines a bit harder. He hardly notices when Ronon tosses the handset back on to the table.
“He’s got the machine fixed. He needs you down in the lab,” Ronon says, flopping back in bed, legs and arms and body spread wide, huge and taking up way too much space.
Later. Not yet. After while, he wants to say.
Instead, Rodney opens his eyes and nods.
**
“You’ve fixed it, right?” Rodney scribbles out and pokes the card toward Zelenka. “Tell me you haven’t screwed this up.”
“Will you believe me if I tell you that it’s fixed and to stop worrying?” Zelenka asks, taking the card from Rodney and turning toward the machine.
In about ten seconds, Rodney’s going to pick up the shield generator and get his voice back. In theory that’s how it’s going to work. It remains to be seen whether or not that’ll actually happen.
“We’re ready, Rodney. Activate the device.”
Rodney looks around: Zelenka waiting expectedly, Sheppard bouncing on the balls of his feet, Ronon’s standing close, looking solid and dependable and sort of illegal in the leather pants that seem just a little bit tighter than usual. He sighs and picks it up.
He feels a tingle, a little trail of warmth moving up and down his arms and he knows. He just knows.
“My God, you call yourself an expert? Three days! It takes you three days to fix me!” Rodney’s shouting and it feels amazing, arms flapping and people all over the lab looking over at him in various stages of distress.
“You! Idiot new guy!” Rodney stalks over to the new scientist that had spent the last three days yelling and pantomiming every gesture. “I couldn’t speak but I could hear. This was only explained to you, what, a dozen times or more? Seriously, where the hell did the government find you? You’re worthless. Leave and go find some other lab to inflict your presence on.”
Sheppard’s grinning from ear to ear as Rodney walks up and joins their little circle. “Never thought I’d say it, McKay, but welcome back.” He claps Rodney hard on the shoulder once and walks away.
“It’s good to have you back,” Zelenka says, packing up the small generator in a carefully labeled box. “Dr. Weir wants us to keep working on this and see if we can integrate the cloaking technology. She looked excited at the possibility.”
Rodney snorts. “Atlantis has completely ruined her.” Zelenka nods and smiles slightly, nodding his head and walking away.
Rodney and Ronon are standing together, staring, and Rodney’s feeling awkward like he hasn’t felt in years. One night of sex and now, when he can finally talk, say something, he has no idea where to start.
“You’re an idiot. Why weren’t we having sex months ago?” He starts, but stops as Ronon interrupts, leaning close and whispering lewdly in his ear:
“Let’s fuck.”
Rodney’s breath catches, the sweat starts to pool in the small of his back. He imagines that he can feel Ronon’s hands moving on his body, ghostlike, fingertips brushing hidden spots, mouth trailing down his chest and up his neck and-
Rodney nods his head and walks quickly toward the door, desperately calculating how long it’ll take to get to his quarters and if there’s an accessible closet somewhere along the way.
“Yeah.” Rodney nods, and can’t remember why he thought words were so necessary anyway.
--End-