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Fic 'At Rest'
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kellifer_fic
Pairing: Shep/McKay
Rating: Mature
Notes: Third and final part of the aptly titled (thanks SuperFox!) "Postcard Series"
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue!
In Passing | In Flux | At Rest
Summary: John was trailing fingers across Rodney’s bicep and down, gooseflesh chasing the path his fingers were taking. “Maybe I’ll ask you if you stay around long enough,” Rodney finally said, regretting the words almost immediately. John’s hand stilled and the temperature in the room seemed to drop. He knew John deserved that and possibly more, but he wished he could take it back all the same.
Image made bysg1atlantis
Author:
kellifer_ficPairing: Shep/McKay
Rating: Mature
Notes: Third and final part of the aptly titled (thanks SuperFox!) "Postcard Series"
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue!
In Passing | In Flux | At Rest
Summary: John was trailing fingers across Rodney’s bicep and down, gooseflesh chasing the path his fingers were taking. “Maybe I’ll ask you if you stay around long enough,” Rodney finally said, regretting the words almost immediately. John’s hand stilled and the temperature in the room seemed to drop. He knew John deserved that and possibly more, but he wished he could take it back all the same.
Image made by
sg1atlantisRodney thought he was in trouble when he came home to two Air force officers on his doorstep.
“Your country needs you,” one advised him, all serious dryness only slightly marred by the fact that he was a whole six minutes out of puberty.
“I’m not an American,” Rodney answered just as dryly and the Officer blinked.
The other, a man older and infinitely more likeable, smiled tightly. “I’m sure Canada can spare you for a while.”
Rodney could appreciate snarkiness.
~*~
Rodney was surrounded by geniuses he could boss about and was truly in his element. He was also in Antarctica which… wasn’t.
Everything was cold all the time and regrettably, by his own order, no heating implements were allowed in the Ancient outpost for fear of damaging equipment that had possibly lain dormant in the ice for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
Oh, Rodney was really popular for that one.
The only people that didn’t seem to notice were Doctor Jackson who seemed completely at home despite the fact that Rodney had heard that he was actually a desert rat, and Doctor Carson Beckett.
Admittedly, Carson was too terrified of touching anything in the outpost to worry about being cold.
It didn’t help that he was constantly asked to touch things, by everyone
He was lamenting his presence in the alien chair and the need for him to do it when he activated one of the Ancient weapons. Amidst the panic, Rodney heard a voice over the radio, announcing that they had an “Incoming bogey.”
Can’t be… Rodney’s brain tried to assure.
It sure is, every other part of him overruled.
~*~
They’d only seen each other fleetingly over the first few weeks, mostly by Rodney’s design. For the first two years when John had disappeared on him again the postcards had come like clockwork, every month.
When they’d stopped, Rodney had a few precious months of blissful happiness assuming it was again a sign of John’s imminent appearance, dropping like a thunderbolt back into Rodney’s life.
The happiness dried up after the first full year with no word.
It wasn’t hard to avoid the Major. Rodney was busy getting the city up and functioning while John was overseeing their defensive position and the military contingent. There’d been talk of going offworld to try and trade for food and other necessary items and more importantly to Rodney, to begin the hunt for another ZPM, but Rodney had ignored it all because he assumed he would be safely ensconced in his lab for the duration.
He was summoned to a meeting that involved John and Elizabeth Weir and informed that he would be one of the first people to step through the Ancient Stargate onto another world in the Pegasus Galaxy.
He looked at John’s face and got the distinct impression that this was the best way John knew how to say the words he couldn’t actually speak.
I’m sorry.
~*~
There’d been a capture and a subsequent rescue and the loss of their senior military Officer.
Suddenly John was in charge.
Rodney was still mostly avoiding him, but knew he couldn’t keep this up forever, there being only so much space in a city floating in the middle of the ocean. When John turned up at his door at about three in the morning two months into their stay, Rodney knew he couldn’t hold onto his anger.
John tried pressing Rodney up against the door just like old times, but Atlantis obediently opened the entryway as soon as John came near it. Rodney spilled through, landing on his back with a surprised "Oomph!" He squeaked when John landed heavily on top of him. John sighed and rolled sideways, cradling his knee in both hands that was the one part of him that had connected with the floor instead of yielding scientist.
"That was supposed to be sexy," he grumbled.
"It was, right up until the falling," Rodney replied graciously, shifting so that he was sideways, pressed against the length of John's body. "And hey, we're prone. That's what we were aiming for, right?"
John looked at him, one eyebrow raised. "Yeah," he drawled.
"So, hurrah, success!" Rodney was laughing now and John couldn't help but join in.
~*~
“You’re still not going to ask me, are you?” John prodded the next morning. They were lying on the floor of Rodney’s room with their legs hooked over the bed so that their torsos were dappled in morning sunshine.
Rodney had secured one of the few personal rooms with a balcony and the air was sweet and mild as it flowed through from outside. He knew John had gotten a room that more resembled a tiny bedsit and figured they would end up in his room for the most part.
If they… continued.
“I trust there was a good reason,” Rodney shrugged slightly and the skin on the back of his shoulders rubbed pleasantly against the floor with the movement. Truth be told, he was dying to know what had happened to John and why the correspondence had dried up, but he couldn’t bare the thought that it was just neglect and apathy.
He much preferred his own romantic fantasies that involved John being a prisoner, denied any kind of writing implements and lamenting every day that he couldn’t communicate with his one true love.
Jesus, Rodney thought, I’m still in love with him.
“I won’t press,” John allowed, although Rodney suspected he was irked by the continual recalcitrance. “I can’t explain unless you want me to, and I don’t think you want me to.”
John was trailing fingers across Rodney’s bicep and down, gooseflesh chasing the path his fingers were taking. “Maybe I’ll ask you if you stay around long enough,” Rodney finally said, regretting the words almost immediately. John’s hand stilled and the temperature in the room seemed to drop. He knew John deserved that, and possibly more, but he wished he could take it back all the same.
“We’ve got a mission in two hours,” John stated, rolling to his feet in a graceful flow of limbs. He was standing over Rodney, his body blocking the sun and Rodney shivered.
His whole life had been shadowed by John Sheppard and Rodney finally understood the simple truth of it.
~*~
The third time John left without saying goodbye, Rodney was pretty sure it was the one time it would be unforgivable.
John had loped up the control room stairs, heading for the jumper bay and a noble attempt at self-sacrifice that would spare the city from Wraith attack.
Despite the pure heroicness of the action, Rodney was furious.
He stalked to his room and pulled a battered box out from under his bed. It was slightly larger than a shoebox and had the look of something that had travelled a lot and been handled an equal measure. Masking tape reinforced the cardboard corners that would have sagged without its support and the box might have once been blue, but was now a washed out grey colour.
Rodney opened the lid carefully and extracted the precious items from inside. He placed the tied bundle of brightly coloured postcards on the floor in front of him and untied the binding. He fanned the postcards in an arc and took a moment to look at them, each representing a far off and exotic place that he would probably never see.
Rodney picked up the first card and carefully tore it into tiny pieces. He moved onto the second one with as much care.
It only took him an hour to completely destroy each and every one.
~*~
For the few weeks after the Wraith attack, Rodney managed to restrict his dealings with John to a strictly professional capacity. It took another 3am visit for Rodney to be cornered into having a real conversation.
“You’re avoiding me,” John accused. He was wearing his fatigue pants and a loose t-shirt and his hair was spiky and ruffled. Rodney thought it was unfair of John to turn up on his doorstep looking all cute.
“I’ve been perfectly polite,” Rodney corrected, moving first to the left and then the right to block John’s entry into his room. To any outside parties, it would have looked like they were engaged in some kind of weird dance. Finally, John grasped Rodney by the shoulders and bodily moved him out of the way.
He stopped dead only two steps into the room, seeing tiny bits of paper scattered all over the floor.
“You room is a-“ John had started out with a light quip, but he’d leant down to retrieve some of the paper and had snagged a slightly larger piece. He’d stopped talking when he’d recognised part of a hibiscus flower. “Wait, these are-“
“I didn’t want them anymore,” Rodney huffed, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the wall. “They’re just a big fat reminder that you keep leaving me.”
“Rodney-“
“No, you know what, I get to say this. You’ve never given me the chance to say this. You hurt me and I didn’t deserve it.”
“I know that,” John allowed quietly.
Rodney threw up his hands. “For all I know, this is a thing with you. You get someone to fall completely in love with you and then just walk away, leaving them shattered. I bet you have a…a… scientist in every port or something! I bet… what?” Rodney finally noticed that John was staring at him, open-mouthed.
“What?” he repeated.
John rushed at him and Rodney’s first reaction was to put his hands up in front of his face, but he was being grabbed around the waist and lifted clear off his feet, which was an achievement in itself considering he figured he must have outweighed John by more than a few pounds. Through the rushing in his ears, Rodney finally made out that John was actually laughing.
“Put me down!” he demanded. John obliged, but kept his arms around Rodney’s waist. Rodney finally had to place two palms flat on John’s chest and shove backwards to get free. “What are you doing? Have you completely lost your mind?”
“You love me,” John sighed, his face radiant.
Rodney blinked. “No, I… oh crap!” Rodney realised he had blurted the single most hurtful truth, right in the middle of his tirade without realising it. “So?” Rodney demanded, crossing his arms defensively.
“I just… I’m so in love with you that everything else fades into the background,” John stated matter-of-factly. “I thought I’d screwed even the remotest possibility that you’d ever feel the same way.”
It was Rodney’s turn to stare, open-mouthed. “Then why do you keep leaving me, without saying anything?” Rodney demanded.
“Oh hell, I had to leave. The first time I was being sent to military school by my Father. Then I was going into the Airforce. With the Wraith, well, you know, I had to.”
“Okay, I get that, but why the disappearing without a word?”
John ran a hand up the back of his neck while colour flooded his cheeks. “I know it was stupid, but I couldn’t risk saying goodbye to you,” John admitted sheepishly.
“What, why?”
John sighed heavily. “Because Rodney, if you’d asked me to stay, I wouldn’t have been able to leave.”
Rodney closed the space between them in a single stride and was crushing John’s body to his own. John’s t-shirt was wrenched up and off and flung across the room and he devoured any single scrap of bare flesh that came near his mouth.
John was murmuring his name and trying to stop the assault on his chest, neck and shoulders long enough to divest both of them of the rest of their clothes. After so much had happened, the sex was quick and messy and left them both lying, panting on the floor with tiny bits of postcard sticking to their bodies.
Afterwards, John swept his hand down Rodney’s back, dislodging stubborn bits of cardboard. Rodney was lying on his stomach with his head pillowed on his arms and their faces were close, noses almost touching. John’s eyes crinkled. “You were really mad, weren’t you?” he asked, retrieving a torn piece of cardboard from his own shoulder and flinging it aside.
“Yes and no.” Rodney rolled onto his back and then came to his feet, causing a tiny little postcard storm in his wake. John rose up on one elbow and regarded Rodney as he crossed the room and opened a drawer in his desk, rummaging through the contents. “I was making something.”
Rodney seemed to find what he was looking for because he pulled something free and then crossed the room again. He stood over John and offered him a hand. John took it and Rodney hoisted him to his feet.
Rodney seemed to hesitate, but then he handed over a square of cardboard, about the size of a postcard.
The difference was, this postcard was made up of taped together pieces of probably more than a dozen other cards. John looked at the jumbled collage on the front and Rodney harrumphed. “Turn it over,” he prompted, circling his hand in an impatient gesture.
John flipped the patched together card in his hands and in big black marker scrawled across the back was a single word.
Stay.
“Your country needs you,” one advised him, all serious dryness only slightly marred by the fact that he was a whole six minutes out of puberty.
“I’m not an American,” Rodney answered just as dryly and the Officer blinked.
The other, a man older and infinitely more likeable, smiled tightly. “I’m sure Canada can spare you for a while.”
Rodney could appreciate snarkiness.
~*~
Rodney was surrounded by geniuses he could boss about and was truly in his element. He was also in Antarctica which… wasn’t.
Everything was cold all the time and regrettably, by his own order, no heating implements were allowed in the Ancient outpost for fear of damaging equipment that had possibly lain dormant in the ice for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
Oh, Rodney was really popular for that one.
The only people that didn’t seem to notice were Doctor Jackson who seemed completely at home despite the fact that Rodney had heard that he was actually a desert rat, and Doctor Carson Beckett.
Admittedly, Carson was too terrified of touching anything in the outpost to worry about being cold.
It didn’t help that he was constantly asked to touch things, by everyone
He was lamenting his presence in the alien chair and the need for him to do it when he activated one of the Ancient weapons. Amidst the panic, Rodney heard a voice over the radio, announcing that they had an “Incoming bogey.”
Can’t be… Rodney’s brain tried to assure.
It sure is, every other part of him overruled.
~*~
They’d only seen each other fleetingly over the first few weeks, mostly by Rodney’s design. For the first two years when John had disappeared on him again the postcards had come like clockwork, every month.
When they’d stopped, Rodney had a few precious months of blissful happiness assuming it was again a sign of John’s imminent appearance, dropping like a thunderbolt back into Rodney’s life.
The happiness dried up after the first full year with no word.
It wasn’t hard to avoid the Major. Rodney was busy getting the city up and functioning while John was overseeing their defensive position and the military contingent. There’d been talk of going offworld to try and trade for food and other necessary items and more importantly to Rodney, to begin the hunt for another ZPM, but Rodney had ignored it all because he assumed he would be safely ensconced in his lab for the duration.
He was summoned to a meeting that involved John and Elizabeth Weir and informed that he would be one of the first people to step through the Ancient Stargate onto another world in the Pegasus Galaxy.
He looked at John’s face and got the distinct impression that this was the best way John knew how to say the words he couldn’t actually speak.
I’m sorry.
~*~
There’d been a capture and a subsequent rescue and the loss of their senior military Officer.
Suddenly John was in charge.
Rodney was still mostly avoiding him, but knew he couldn’t keep this up forever, there being only so much space in a city floating in the middle of the ocean. When John turned up at his door at about three in the morning two months into their stay, Rodney knew he couldn’t hold onto his anger.
John tried pressing Rodney up against the door just like old times, but Atlantis obediently opened the entryway as soon as John came near it. Rodney spilled through, landing on his back with a surprised "Oomph!" He squeaked when John landed heavily on top of him. John sighed and rolled sideways, cradling his knee in both hands that was the one part of him that had connected with the floor instead of yielding scientist.
"That was supposed to be sexy," he grumbled.
"It was, right up until the falling," Rodney replied graciously, shifting so that he was sideways, pressed against the length of John's body. "And hey, we're prone. That's what we were aiming for, right?"
John looked at him, one eyebrow raised. "Yeah," he drawled.
"So, hurrah, success!" Rodney was laughing now and John couldn't help but join in.
~*~
“You’re still not going to ask me, are you?” John prodded the next morning. They were lying on the floor of Rodney’s room with their legs hooked over the bed so that their torsos were dappled in morning sunshine.
Rodney had secured one of the few personal rooms with a balcony and the air was sweet and mild as it flowed through from outside. He knew John had gotten a room that more resembled a tiny bedsit and figured they would end up in his room for the most part.
If they… continued.
“I trust there was a good reason,” Rodney shrugged slightly and the skin on the back of his shoulders rubbed pleasantly against the floor with the movement. Truth be told, he was dying to know what had happened to John and why the correspondence had dried up, but he couldn’t bare the thought that it was just neglect and apathy.
He much preferred his own romantic fantasies that involved John being a prisoner, denied any kind of writing implements and lamenting every day that he couldn’t communicate with his one true love.
Jesus, Rodney thought, I’m still in love with him.
“I won’t press,” John allowed, although Rodney suspected he was irked by the continual recalcitrance. “I can’t explain unless you want me to, and I don’t think you want me to.”
John was trailing fingers across Rodney’s bicep and down, gooseflesh chasing the path his fingers were taking. “Maybe I’ll ask you if you stay around long enough,” Rodney finally said, regretting the words almost immediately. John’s hand stilled and the temperature in the room seemed to drop. He knew John deserved that, and possibly more, but he wished he could take it back all the same.
“We’ve got a mission in two hours,” John stated, rolling to his feet in a graceful flow of limbs. He was standing over Rodney, his body blocking the sun and Rodney shivered.
His whole life had been shadowed by John Sheppard and Rodney finally understood the simple truth of it.
~*~
The third time John left without saying goodbye, Rodney was pretty sure it was the one time it would be unforgivable.
John had loped up the control room stairs, heading for the jumper bay and a noble attempt at self-sacrifice that would spare the city from Wraith attack.
Despite the pure heroicness of the action, Rodney was furious.
He stalked to his room and pulled a battered box out from under his bed. It was slightly larger than a shoebox and had the look of something that had travelled a lot and been handled an equal measure. Masking tape reinforced the cardboard corners that would have sagged without its support and the box might have once been blue, but was now a washed out grey colour.
Rodney opened the lid carefully and extracted the precious items from inside. He placed the tied bundle of brightly coloured postcards on the floor in front of him and untied the binding. He fanned the postcards in an arc and took a moment to look at them, each representing a far off and exotic place that he would probably never see.
Rodney picked up the first card and carefully tore it into tiny pieces. He moved onto the second one with as much care.
It only took him an hour to completely destroy each and every one.
~*~
For the few weeks after the Wraith attack, Rodney managed to restrict his dealings with John to a strictly professional capacity. It took another 3am visit for Rodney to be cornered into having a real conversation.
“You’re avoiding me,” John accused. He was wearing his fatigue pants and a loose t-shirt and his hair was spiky and ruffled. Rodney thought it was unfair of John to turn up on his doorstep looking all cute.
“I’ve been perfectly polite,” Rodney corrected, moving first to the left and then the right to block John’s entry into his room. To any outside parties, it would have looked like they were engaged in some kind of weird dance. Finally, John grasped Rodney by the shoulders and bodily moved him out of the way.
He stopped dead only two steps into the room, seeing tiny bits of paper scattered all over the floor.
“You room is a-“ John had started out with a light quip, but he’d leant down to retrieve some of the paper and had snagged a slightly larger piece. He’d stopped talking when he’d recognised part of a hibiscus flower. “Wait, these are-“
“I didn’t want them anymore,” Rodney huffed, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the wall. “They’re just a big fat reminder that you keep leaving me.”
“Rodney-“
“No, you know what, I get to say this. You’ve never given me the chance to say this. You hurt me and I didn’t deserve it.”
“I know that,” John allowed quietly.
Rodney threw up his hands. “For all I know, this is a thing with you. You get someone to fall completely in love with you and then just walk away, leaving them shattered. I bet you have a…a… scientist in every port or something! I bet… what?” Rodney finally noticed that John was staring at him, open-mouthed.
“What?” he repeated.
John rushed at him and Rodney’s first reaction was to put his hands up in front of his face, but he was being grabbed around the waist and lifted clear off his feet, which was an achievement in itself considering he figured he must have outweighed John by more than a few pounds. Through the rushing in his ears, Rodney finally made out that John was actually laughing.
“Put me down!” he demanded. John obliged, but kept his arms around Rodney’s waist. Rodney finally had to place two palms flat on John’s chest and shove backwards to get free. “What are you doing? Have you completely lost your mind?”
“You love me,” John sighed, his face radiant.
Rodney blinked. “No, I… oh crap!” Rodney realised he had blurted the single most hurtful truth, right in the middle of his tirade without realising it. “So?” Rodney demanded, crossing his arms defensively.
“I just… I’m so in love with you that everything else fades into the background,” John stated matter-of-factly. “I thought I’d screwed even the remotest possibility that you’d ever feel the same way.”
It was Rodney’s turn to stare, open-mouthed. “Then why do you keep leaving me, without saying anything?” Rodney demanded.
“Oh hell, I had to leave. The first time I was being sent to military school by my Father. Then I was going into the Airforce. With the Wraith, well, you know, I had to.”
“Okay, I get that, but why the disappearing without a word?”
John ran a hand up the back of his neck while colour flooded his cheeks. “I know it was stupid, but I couldn’t risk saying goodbye to you,” John admitted sheepishly.
“What, why?”
John sighed heavily. “Because Rodney, if you’d asked me to stay, I wouldn’t have been able to leave.”
Rodney closed the space between them in a single stride and was crushing John’s body to his own. John’s t-shirt was wrenched up and off and flung across the room and he devoured any single scrap of bare flesh that came near his mouth.
John was murmuring his name and trying to stop the assault on his chest, neck and shoulders long enough to divest both of them of the rest of their clothes. After so much had happened, the sex was quick and messy and left them both lying, panting on the floor with tiny bits of postcard sticking to their bodies.
Afterwards, John swept his hand down Rodney’s back, dislodging stubborn bits of cardboard. Rodney was lying on his stomach with his head pillowed on his arms and their faces were close, noses almost touching. John’s eyes crinkled. “You were really mad, weren’t you?” he asked, retrieving a torn piece of cardboard from his own shoulder and flinging it aside.
“Yes and no.” Rodney rolled onto his back and then came to his feet, causing a tiny little postcard storm in his wake. John rose up on one elbow and regarded Rodney as he crossed the room and opened a drawer in his desk, rummaging through the contents. “I was making something.”
Rodney seemed to find what he was looking for because he pulled something free and then crossed the room again. He stood over John and offered him a hand. John took it and Rodney hoisted him to his feet.
Rodney seemed to hesitate, but then he handed over a square of cardboard, about the size of a postcard.
The difference was, this postcard was made up of taped together pieces of probably more than a dozen other cards. John looked at the jumbled collage on the front and Rodney harrumphed. “Turn it over,” he prompted, circling his hand in an impatient gesture.
John flipped the patched together card in his hands and in big black marker scrawled across the back was a single word.
Stay.
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