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Fic 'In Flux'
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kellifer_fic
Pairing: Shep/McKay
Rating: Mature
Notes: Followup to the story In Passing
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue!
In Passing | In Flux | At Rest
Summary: John pushed forward gently and Rodney was pressed against his door. It was so reminiscent of the first time they had come together as more than friends that Rodney forgot why he was supposed to be mad.
By Rodney's third year, he knew he was in trouble.
Constant bad luck with flatmates and a perfectionist streak a mile wide had rendered Rodney almost incapable of finishing out his year with the perfect grade point average that his full scholarship required. His parents had been so relieved when he had gotten it and had finally admitted that they hadn't been sure how they were going to afford University for both he and Jainee.
He didn't want to mar their relief with his own concerns that the pressure to do well was placing on his already frazzled sensibilities. He could also see the relief was plain with Jainee because despite the fact that she was quite brilliant and would have been the shining star in any other family, everyone knew that Rodney was going to 'do something important' and so her University career would have probably been the one to be sacrificed if it came down to that.
His only saving grace in all this time had been a small rectangle of cardboard he'd received each and every month, like clockwork.
For twelve months he'd received postcards from exotic locales always covered in the same looping scrawl, always the same words.
Wish you were here.
Sometimes Rodney wanted to turn the brightly coloured picture over and see that there had been something added to the regular sentiment, some kind of glimpse into the life behind the gaudy tourist pictures that proclaimed such things as 'Welcome to Monte Carlo' and 'Barbados - you'll never want to leave' He knew though something the postcards did say, just not in so many words.
I miss you. I think about you.
Perhaps the postcards had become merely habit, or a joke amongst John's buddies, but Rodney didn't think so. Sometimes they were crumpled, dog eared and stained and Rodney imagined John carrying them in a breast pocket, having found just the perfect next postcard weeks before it was due to be sent and not wanting to pass it by in case the opportunity did not arise again.
For six months, John seemed to have found somewhere stable to stay. Rodney's fridge was covered in six corresponding rectangles of bright and sandy beaches and smiling dark women with flowers in their hair. He picked the last one off his fridge from behind the bear magnet that was holding it up and sighed heavily.
Four months ago.
His mother had started answering the phone "Nothing today Rodney," in that strange mix of resignation and anger that was the trademark of all mother's who recognised when their children had had their feelings hurt, but were powerless to do anything about it. She'd accepted the strange communication between John and her son and the fact that the postcards always turned up at his childhood home, and had secretly started looking forward to them herself.
Which is why Rodney was surprised when coming out of his chem. lab, to find John Sheppard casually leaning against a wall waiting for him, looking for all the world like he did it everyday.
~*~
Rodney wasn’t pure as the driven snow. He had had partners during his time at Uni, but he’d always held himself back. He knew somewhere in the back of his mind that it was crazy to still be waiting for the first boy that had ever kissed him, ever made him feel truly special, but while he still received those damn postcards, he had hoped.
The last four months, with no word and no brightly coloured piece of cardboard to assure him that he was still thought about as much as he thought about, he had started to finally let go.
In short, Rodney was angry.
He had to admit to himself that he was mostly hurt, but the anger was a good way of masking that and he really needed to be angry right that moment.
“What are you doing here?”
They hadn’t talked the whole way back to Rodney’s dorm room. John had merely silently followed when Rodney had stalked away. He’d slammed through hallways and the inner dorm corridors, underclassmen scuttling out of his way, sensing the pureness of unfocused rage and not wanting it to find a target in them.
John simply shrugged, a gentle half lift of the shoulders that briefly made his t-shirt ride up enough for Rodney to get a glimpse of honey-coloured belly. Rodney had to remind himself of the current mood he was trying to maintain.
Angry, angry, angry.
“Well, where have you been the last three years?” Rodney tried a different tack.
“You, of all people, should now exactly where I’ve been, every step of the way,” John’s voice was the lazy Southern drawl that Rodney remembered and also called to the front of his mind each and every time he needed to treat himself to a little self-gratification.
Pathetic really.
Angry, angry, angry…
“Except for the last four months,” Rodney corrected, immediately regretting the words because it sounded like more of a complaint than an accusation, and it also sounded silly as soon as it was out of his mouth.
John raised his arm and his hand came down on the front of Rodney’s shoulder, hand splayed so his fingers spanned Rodney’s collarbone. “You’ll just have to trust that I’m sorry about that,” he said simply.
Rodney blinked. Okay, so he hadn’t actually expected to be apologised to.
John pushed forward gently and Rodney was pressed against his door. It was so reminiscent of the first time they had come together as more than friends that Rodney forgot why he was supposed to be mad.
Angry, angry… ah hell
~*~
John sauntered in and put his feet up casually on Rodney’s life as easily as he had the first time. It was like there had always been a John shaped hole just waiting to be filled.
There was also no explanations and Rodney couldn’t bring himself to ask any questions, no matter how burning. He was terrified that probing too deeply would break the spell that had allowed John to just simply show up in the first place.
Rodney sat on the end of his pathetically narrow single dorm room bed and watched John sleep. He was lying on his back, one leg crooked and the other hanging over the edge, a tanned arm over his eyes and there was a strip of sunlight across John’s chest, which was currently covered in one of Rodney’s wash-softened sleeping t-shirts. John was a beautiful man and, if anything, the years that had passed had only improved him. He had some extra scars that hadn’t been present the last time Rodney had been able to touch his skin, but Rodney knew it would be one more thing he was too scared to ask about.
Right now, his hand traced an ugly twisting, raised strip of white flesh that run up John’s inside leg, from the middle of his calf all the way to mid thigh. Rodney wasn’t sure he even wanted to know what could have done that. When his eyes travelled back to John’s face, he finally realised he was being watched. There was a strange smile playing across John’s face and Rodney remembered that this man was practically a stranger.
He hadn’t had a chance to nail down all the facial expressions yet.
“What?” Rodney raised his eyebrows.
“You can ask me. I don’t mind and I’m not going to disappear,” John said, his tone light but his eyes serious.
“I… just give me a little while. It’s enough that you’re here,” Rodney hoped that the sappiness of his words wouldn’t scare John too badly. Instead, John rose onto his elbows and regarded Rodney for a moment.
He canted his head and the strange, half-grin was still in place. “Maybe I want you to ask me,” he offered.
“Maybe I can’t yet,” Rodney replied.
John nodded.
~*~
He studied better and longer than he had in a long time. His lecturers and professors remarked on the difference. They all said that it was nice to see Rodney so relaxed.
It helped that the hours spent in the library were never alone. He had a constant companion who would ferret out books that he couldn’t find and charm the casual librarian into letting him have the restricted books for longer than was necessarily allowed.
“She had a crush on you, you know,” Rodney remarked when John thumped a text down that he had reserved a month previously and had not been able to get his hands on.
John shrugged. “I have a crush on you,” he countered then dropped himself into the chair opposite and swung his long legs up so they were resting on the table.
Rodney stared at John open-mouthed.
~*~
When Christmas rolled around, Rodney asked John to come home with him, expecting John to beg off.
“Sure,” he agreed, as if he had just been waiting for Rodney to ask.
~*~
They’d messed about, but the last time they’d both still been kids, despite what they thought at the time.
This time there wasn’t the adolescent flush of doing something forbidden, but deeper feelings attached. Rodney was pretty sure he was in love with the man slowly stripping his clothes off and he also thought it was probably the worst and best thing to have ever happened to him.
He marvelled as more and more creamy flesh was revealed; the remnants of the Hawaiian tan long vanished. John’s tiny little smirk snapped Rodney out of his trance. “This isn’t a one man show you know,” John scolded as he kicked off his boots and then unsnapped his belt.
Rodney blinked at him for a second and then blushed. “Right! Sorry… just, you know, enjoying.” Rodney moved to pull off his own shirt but John’s fingers on his own stopped his movement.
“That’s okay. I don’t mind,” John’s smile was mischievous. He slid his pants down over slim hips and then his boxers and he was standing in front of Rodney, completely naked and unafraid. Rodney thought that in a sane world he should feel like the one in control of the situation, being the one still dressed, but by it’s very nature John’s assuredness had given him control.
Rodney envied his casual grace.
“Now you,” John prompted and Rodney reached for his shirt, but John’s fingers once again intercepted. “No, let me,” he offered and stripped Rodney carefully, almost reverentially.
Rodney had never thought of himself as particularly attractive. He was Canadian-winter pale and he was pretty sure his lankiness would disappear in his twenties just as his Father’s had. He was already broadening across the shoulders and more disconcertingly, through the waist.
The feral glint in John’s eyes as he revealed more of Rodney’s body wiped clean any misgivings he had about himself.
They came together, fast and hard and as they lay afterwards, tangled in Rodney’s tiny bed, both gasping for breath, Rodney asked one of the questions that had been plaguing him.
“Why me?”
John swivelled his head so his chin was resting on Rodney’s chest and their eyes were level. “I’m not sure why you don’t get that I’m the lucky one in this situation,” he answered simply.
~*~
Three weeks later, he was gone again.
A small part of Rodney had been expecting it, dreading it it would actually be more accurate. He had to admit though, that he had been getting a little complacent as more time passed.
“That boy, honestly,” his mother grumbled as Rodney sat at his parent’s kitchen nook, having come home to hide in the comfort of his childhood room and lick his wounds in private. A plate was thumped down in front of him and he eyed the mountain of eggs, bacon and pancakes warily.
Jainee appeared in the doorway and slid in to the chair opposite. She searched Rodney’s face for a few seconds and then her mouth firmed into a line, the hard little slash that Rodney saw on his own face when he looked into the mirror.
“I’m going to track him down and murder him,” Jainee promised.
“Thanks,” Rodney smiled.
~*~
Back at Uni, his phone was ringing in his dorm even before he’d unpacked. He picked it up and tucked it under his chin and his mother greeted him warmly, but there was something strained under her voice.
“Are you okay?” he queried, tired of the small talk she was attempting.
“Hon, I don’t know if I should tell you this,” she sighed heavily. “I almost threw the damn thing out.”
Rodney’s heart made a little leap.
A day later, he had a postcard in hand, addressed in the familiar looping scrawl, but the sentiment was slightly different.
”Wish I was there.”
Rodney flipped it back and forward, looking from the writing to the picture showing rolling green hills and stating that New Zealand was the most beautiful place on Earth.
“Someday you’re going to have to say goodbye properly, you asshole.” Rodney grumbled. He then dutifully tacked the card up on his small fridge.
Knowing that in exactly twenty-eight days, there would be another.
Author:
kellifer_ficPairing: Shep/McKay
Rating: Mature
Notes: Followup to the story In Passing
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue!
In Passing | In Flux | At Rest
Summary: John pushed forward gently and Rodney was pressed against his door. It was so reminiscent of the first time they had come together as more than friends that Rodney forgot why he was supposed to be mad.
By Rodney's third year, he knew he was in trouble.
Constant bad luck with flatmates and a perfectionist streak a mile wide had rendered Rodney almost incapable of finishing out his year with the perfect grade point average that his full scholarship required. His parents had been so relieved when he had gotten it and had finally admitted that they hadn't been sure how they were going to afford University for both he and Jainee.
He didn't want to mar their relief with his own concerns that the pressure to do well was placing on his already frazzled sensibilities. He could also see the relief was plain with Jainee because despite the fact that she was quite brilliant and would have been the shining star in any other family, everyone knew that Rodney was going to 'do something important' and so her University career would have probably been the one to be sacrificed if it came down to that.
His only saving grace in all this time had been a small rectangle of cardboard he'd received each and every month, like clockwork.
For twelve months he'd received postcards from exotic locales always covered in the same looping scrawl, always the same words.
Wish you were here.
Sometimes Rodney wanted to turn the brightly coloured picture over and see that there had been something added to the regular sentiment, some kind of glimpse into the life behind the gaudy tourist pictures that proclaimed such things as 'Welcome to Monte Carlo' and 'Barbados - you'll never want to leave' He knew though something the postcards did say, just not in so many words.
I miss you. I think about you.
Perhaps the postcards had become merely habit, or a joke amongst John's buddies, but Rodney didn't think so. Sometimes they were crumpled, dog eared and stained and Rodney imagined John carrying them in a breast pocket, having found just the perfect next postcard weeks before it was due to be sent and not wanting to pass it by in case the opportunity did not arise again.
For six months, John seemed to have found somewhere stable to stay. Rodney's fridge was covered in six corresponding rectangles of bright and sandy beaches and smiling dark women with flowers in their hair. He picked the last one off his fridge from behind the bear magnet that was holding it up and sighed heavily.
Four months ago.
His mother had started answering the phone "Nothing today Rodney," in that strange mix of resignation and anger that was the trademark of all mother's who recognised when their children had had their feelings hurt, but were powerless to do anything about it. She'd accepted the strange communication between John and her son and the fact that the postcards always turned up at his childhood home, and had secretly started looking forward to them herself.
Which is why Rodney was surprised when coming out of his chem. lab, to find John Sheppard casually leaning against a wall waiting for him, looking for all the world like he did it everyday.
~*~
Rodney wasn’t pure as the driven snow. He had had partners during his time at Uni, but he’d always held himself back. He knew somewhere in the back of his mind that it was crazy to still be waiting for the first boy that had ever kissed him, ever made him feel truly special, but while he still received those damn postcards, he had hoped.
The last four months, with no word and no brightly coloured piece of cardboard to assure him that he was still thought about as much as he thought about, he had started to finally let go.
In short, Rodney was angry.
He had to admit to himself that he was mostly hurt, but the anger was a good way of masking that and he really needed to be angry right that moment.
“What are you doing here?”
They hadn’t talked the whole way back to Rodney’s dorm room. John had merely silently followed when Rodney had stalked away. He’d slammed through hallways and the inner dorm corridors, underclassmen scuttling out of his way, sensing the pureness of unfocused rage and not wanting it to find a target in them.
John simply shrugged, a gentle half lift of the shoulders that briefly made his t-shirt ride up enough for Rodney to get a glimpse of honey-coloured belly. Rodney had to remind himself of the current mood he was trying to maintain.
Angry, angry, angry.
“Well, where have you been the last three years?” Rodney tried a different tack.
“You, of all people, should now exactly where I’ve been, every step of the way,” John’s voice was the lazy Southern drawl that Rodney remembered and also called to the front of his mind each and every time he needed to treat himself to a little self-gratification.
Pathetic really.
Angry, angry, angry…
“Except for the last four months,” Rodney corrected, immediately regretting the words because it sounded like more of a complaint than an accusation, and it also sounded silly as soon as it was out of his mouth.
John raised his arm and his hand came down on the front of Rodney’s shoulder, hand splayed so his fingers spanned Rodney’s collarbone. “You’ll just have to trust that I’m sorry about that,” he said simply.
Rodney blinked. Okay, so he hadn’t actually expected to be apologised to.
John pushed forward gently and Rodney was pressed against his door. It was so reminiscent of the first time they had come together as more than friends that Rodney forgot why he was supposed to be mad.
Angry, angry… ah hell
~*~
John sauntered in and put his feet up casually on Rodney’s life as easily as he had the first time. It was like there had always been a John shaped hole just waiting to be filled.
There was also no explanations and Rodney couldn’t bring himself to ask any questions, no matter how burning. He was terrified that probing too deeply would break the spell that had allowed John to just simply show up in the first place.
Rodney sat on the end of his pathetically narrow single dorm room bed and watched John sleep. He was lying on his back, one leg crooked and the other hanging over the edge, a tanned arm over his eyes and there was a strip of sunlight across John’s chest, which was currently covered in one of Rodney’s wash-softened sleeping t-shirts. John was a beautiful man and, if anything, the years that had passed had only improved him. He had some extra scars that hadn’t been present the last time Rodney had been able to touch his skin, but Rodney knew it would be one more thing he was too scared to ask about.
Right now, his hand traced an ugly twisting, raised strip of white flesh that run up John’s inside leg, from the middle of his calf all the way to mid thigh. Rodney wasn’t sure he even wanted to know what could have done that. When his eyes travelled back to John’s face, he finally realised he was being watched. There was a strange smile playing across John’s face and Rodney remembered that this man was practically a stranger.
He hadn’t had a chance to nail down all the facial expressions yet.
“What?” Rodney raised his eyebrows.
“You can ask me. I don’t mind and I’m not going to disappear,” John said, his tone light but his eyes serious.
“I… just give me a little while. It’s enough that you’re here,” Rodney hoped that the sappiness of his words wouldn’t scare John too badly. Instead, John rose onto his elbows and regarded Rodney for a moment.
He canted his head and the strange, half-grin was still in place. “Maybe I want you to ask me,” he offered.
“Maybe I can’t yet,” Rodney replied.
John nodded.
~*~
He studied better and longer than he had in a long time. His lecturers and professors remarked on the difference. They all said that it was nice to see Rodney so relaxed.
It helped that the hours spent in the library were never alone. He had a constant companion who would ferret out books that he couldn’t find and charm the casual librarian into letting him have the restricted books for longer than was necessarily allowed.
“She had a crush on you, you know,” Rodney remarked when John thumped a text down that he had reserved a month previously and had not been able to get his hands on.
John shrugged. “I have a crush on you,” he countered then dropped himself into the chair opposite and swung his long legs up so they were resting on the table.
Rodney stared at John open-mouthed.
~*~
When Christmas rolled around, Rodney asked John to come home with him, expecting John to beg off.
“Sure,” he agreed, as if he had just been waiting for Rodney to ask.
~*~
They’d messed about, but the last time they’d both still been kids, despite what they thought at the time.
This time there wasn’t the adolescent flush of doing something forbidden, but deeper feelings attached. Rodney was pretty sure he was in love with the man slowly stripping his clothes off and he also thought it was probably the worst and best thing to have ever happened to him.
He marvelled as more and more creamy flesh was revealed; the remnants of the Hawaiian tan long vanished. John’s tiny little smirk snapped Rodney out of his trance. “This isn’t a one man show you know,” John scolded as he kicked off his boots and then unsnapped his belt.
Rodney blinked at him for a second and then blushed. “Right! Sorry… just, you know, enjoying.” Rodney moved to pull off his own shirt but John’s fingers on his own stopped his movement.
“That’s okay. I don’t mind,” John’s smile was mischievous. He slid his pants down over slim hips and then his boxers and he was standing in front of Rodney, completely naked and unafraid. Rodney thought that in a sane world he should feel like the one in control of the situation, being the one still dressed, but by it’s very nature John’s assuredness had given him control.
Rodney envied his casual grace.
“Now you,” John prompted and Rodney reached for his shirt, but John’s fingers once again intercepted. “No, let me,” he offered and stripped Rodney carefully, almost reverentially.
Rodney had never thought of himself as particularly attractive. He was Canadian-winter pale and he was pretty sure his lankiness would disappear in his twenties just as his Father’s had. He was already broadening across the shoulders and more disconcertingly, through the waist.
The feral glint in John’s eyes as he revealed more of Rodney’s body wiped clean any misgivings he had about himself.
They came together, fast and hard and as they lay afterwards, tangled in Rodney’s tiny bed, both gasping for breath, Rodney asked one of the questions that had been plaguing him.
“Why me?”
John swivelled his head so his chin was resting on Rodney’s chest and their eyes were level. “I’m not sure why you don’t get that I’m the lucky one in this situation,” he answered simply.
~*~
Three weeks later, he was gone again.
A small part of Rodney had been expecting it, dreading it it would actually be more accurate. He had to admit though, that he had been getting a little complacent as more time passed.
“That boy, honestly,” his mother grumbled as Rodney sat at his parent’s kitchen nook, having come home to hide in the comfort of his childhood room and lick his wounds in private. A plate was thumped down in front of him and he eyed the mountain of eggs, bacon and pancakes warily.
Jainee appeared in the doorway and slid in to the chair opposite. She searched Rodney’s face for a few seconds and then her mouth firmed into a line, the hard little slash that Rodney saw on his own face when he looked into the mirror.
“I’m going to track him down and murder him,” Jainee promised.
“Thanks,” Rodney smiled.
~*~
Back at Uni, his phone was ringing in his dorm even before he’d unpacked. He picked it up and tucked it under his chin and his mother greeted him warmly, but there was something strained under her voice.
“Are you okay?” he queried, tired of the small talk she was attempting.
“Hon, I don’t know if I should tell you this,” she sighed heavily. “I almost threw the damn thing out.”
Rodney’s heart made a little leap.
A day later, he had a postcard in hand, addressed in the familiar looping scrawl, but the sentiment was slightly different.
”Wish I was there.”
Rodney flipped it back and forward, looking from the writing to the picture showing rolling green hills and stating that New Zealand was the most beautiful place on Earth.
“Someday you’re going to have to say goodbye properly, you asshole.” Rodney grumbled. He then dutifully tacked the card up on his small fridge.
Knowing that in exactly twenty-eight days, there would be another.
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