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The survival suit was heavy, and uncomfortably hot for the controlled temperature of the gate room. John hadn't worn it since they'd left Antarctica, since all the planets they'd visited thus far had had shirt-sleeve weather, and the temperature around Atlantis itself was moderated by the heat capacity of the great ocean around them. But before the mission, their astronomers had warned them that at this time of year M3X-617 would be in the grip of full winter; when the team emerged from the wormhole into a maelstrom of blowing snow, John was grateful for the suit's insulation.
"Oh, great," said Rodney, once they were all huddled together on the other side of the gate. "How far do we have to walk?"
"I remember the village as a walk of no more than half an hour," said Teyla. Her face was a tiny oval, almost hidden in the huge hood of her borrowed survival suit. "Although I have never done it in this season."
"Yeah, and I wish we weren't, either. We should have taken a jumper. Do we even know where the path is?"
"Follow me," grunted Ronon, who had declined the offer of a suit with some disdain; instead he'd cobbled together a hooded jacket and leggings from furs he'd obtained from the Athosians and some quilted cloth he'd found in a store-room somewhere. It couldn't have been as warm as the survival suits, but if Ronan were cold he didn't show it at all. Teyla fell in behind him.
John gestured towards them. "Go on, McKay. You don't want to lose sight of them."
"What I want to do is go back through the gate to my nice, warm laboratory."
"I thought you wanted the ZPM."
"Right, right." Rodney sighed. "There is a small chance this village has a ZPM, and an even smaller chance they will actually let us trade them something for it. But I suppose it's worth trudging through a blizzard."
"Then trudge on," said John pointedly. With a put-upon groan, Rodney started after Teyla, and John followed.
It was easiest to walk where Ronon's steps had compressed the most recently-fallen snow, but when John looked closely he could see the width of the path, delineated by the footsteps of earlier travelers despite the overlay of blowing snow. Probably the snow had been piling up all winter. It was impossible to tell how deep it was underneath them, but the drifts rose a foot or so to either side, in some places piling higher, in other places spilling across the path. At least the area around the gate had been tamped down, or perhaps shoveled away.
The path brought them into a forest; here the trees cut the wind enough that the entire width of the path was relatively clear, save for three or four inches of new powder on the surface. A few long strides brought him alongside Rodney.
"You should try to move a little faster," he said. "Stay a little closer to Ronon and Teyla."
"I'm moving as fast as I can, believe me. I want to get this over with as soon as possible."
"Come on, you were stationed in Antarctica. You should be used to snow."
"I was in a heated building in Antarctica. I didn't exactly spend a lot of time outside."
John snorted. "And here I thought you were Canadian."
"I am Canadian! Canadians sit inside drinking hot coffee, and look at snow through the window. We don't feel the need to prove our manliness by running around in mukluks, and anyway, Colonel, despite what you geographically-challenged Americans may think, Toronto summers are usually in the thirties. Celsius," he added, before John could make the snide remark that was on the tip of his tongue.
Instead he just said, "I'm amazed. You mean you didn't grow up in an igloo?"
"Yeah, yeah, we have indoor plumbing, too," said Rodney, turning to roll his eyes at him, and John grinned, and then they both stopped short to avoid running into Teyla and Ronon, who had come to a standstill at the far edge of the forest.
"What is it?"
Ronon gestured ahead of them, toward a clearing of open hillside - no, make that a mountainside. The trees and the falling snow had obscured the changing topography; before them the path clung to the edge of a steep slope which disappeared into whiteness both uphill and down. Perhaps 40 yards ahead the forest thickened again, the trees barely visible through the swirling flakes.
John nodded. "We'll take it one at a time. Ronon, then Teyla, then Rodney, and I'll come last. Don't start until the person ahead of you is safely across."
"Safely? What do you mean, safely?" said Rodney, his voice rising.
"Well, I'd say that slope's about thirty, thirty-five degrees. Worst-case scenario, there's a chance it might slide."
Rodney stared at the snowfield with the horrorstruck look he usually reserved for Wraith. "Slide? Like, avalanche, slide? Oh, no. No ZPM is worth getting killed in an avalanche."
"It's probably not going to happen. But if it does, Ronon and I are carrying shovels. We'll dig you out." He nodded toward Ronon, who began to move out cautiously, holding his P-90 in front of him with both hands.
"Oh, great. I'm going to get killed in an avalanche."
"We'll try to keep that from happening. Just remember your training from Antarctica."
"Hello, laboratory scientist here. They save that for the maintenance guys who actually have to go outside."
"I also have little experience with the snow," said Teyla.
John sighed. "If the snow starts sliding, try to stay on top of it." He demonstrated a few windmilling strokes with his arms. "Like swimming. If you do go under, stay calm. Rodney and I have life-signs detectors. Shouldn't be any difficulty finding you."
"Yeah, just follow the panicked screams," muttered Rodney.
"I'm over," crackled Ronon's voice on the radio. John nodded to Teyla, and she started to cross. Even in the bulky survival suit she moved like a dancer, lithe and easy, and soon she was in the trees with Ronon. Rodney took a few steps, just to the edge of the slope, and hesitated.
"It's really not a big deal, Rodney."
"Did I say it was a big deal? It's a cakewalk," he said, and started across. He was definitely walking fast, nearly running, which for some reason struck John as amusing. McKay had faced down Wraith; he had faced down Genii. He had walked right into that energy-sucking thing, that time when they had to get it through the gate. When the occasion for heroism arose, he was right there - as long as he didn't have to think about it first.
The snow seemed to be falling harder, now, and it was not only falling down from the sky but also blowing horizontally, whirling around in tiny tornadic swirls. The trees on the far side of the slope receded into whiteness, and John lost sight of Rodney before he reached the other side, even though he had moved as close to the edge of the forest as he could and was squinting against the snow.
He found himself tense, alert. The snow dampened the normal forest noises that he would expect to hear; of course, the squirrels and birds he was accustomed to on earth were slightly different creatures on this planet, just as the trees resembled Earth spruce but were probably something else entirely. But he remembered this odd silence from the times he'd been cross-country skiing in the Sierra Nevada, back when he was in college. The preternatural quiet seemed to seep into his bones and set him on edge, and he almost jumped when Rodney's voice came over the radio, telling him he'd made it to the other side.
He unslung his P-90 and held it out as Ronon had done. If he got buried by a slide he could at least poke it out into the air, like he'd learned to do with a ski pole. But the others had crossed safely; the chances of getting nailed were slim.
When he stepped out of the trees, into the blizzard, it was as though someone had suddenly turned off the mute button, and turned up the volume. The wind whistled through the branches of the trees on the edges of the clearing, an eerie two-pitch howl that he heard in his teeth. The path was barely visible, just a narrow flat spot on the hillside, and his feet made a crunching noise in the snow with every step. Rodney's footprints had already vanished.
The whistling and the crunching became louder, building imperceptibly, and he only realized the noise had become a rumble when he was two-thirds of the way across. When it was too late.
He broke out into a run but the snowslide caught him and knocked him off his feet, ripped the P-90 out of his grip and sent it cartwheeling downhill. Swim to the top, he told himself, swim through it. But it wasn't like swimming in a pool, or in the cool, salty water around Atlantis. The snow fought back in a way that water didn't, battering his head and his arms, ripping back the hood of his suit, snatching his radio from his head. His legs hurt, his ribs hurt, his lungs hurt; his skin prickled as snow found its way down his collar and into his sleeves, and for one terrible icy moment he felt its cold fingers reach into his nostrils. Holding his breath, screwing his eyes tightly closed and crossing his arms in front of his face like a shield, he let the wave of whiteness wash over him and pull him down, down, down the mountain.
When the roar of the avalanche had subsided to a dull thrum, he slowly moved his hands. The snow was heavy, but loose and uncompacted in front of his face, and he swept it aside to excavate breathing room. As he did so, the thrumming quieted, and he realized it had been only the sound of his blood pulsing through his veins, unnaturally fast and loud in the small space. He opened his eyes.
The space in front of him was monochrome gray, and his vision blurred as he tried to focus. It was impossible to tell how big his breathing space was without sticking his hand out and feeling it; a wave of disorientation struck him as his hand crashed unexpectedly into the snow. But he was seeing gray rather than black, which meant he wasn't buried deeply. He might be able to break through to the surface - if he could determine which way was up.
His mouth was dry from tension and pain, but he managed to gather enough saliva to spit. In the grayness he couldn't see where it fell, so he put a hand out and tried again; this time he felt where gravity had directed his spittle. That was down. The other way, therefore, was up, and he punched his hand in that direction. When he withdrew his arm he saw only gray above, through the hole, but it was a lighter gray, the gray of the stormy sky, and he felt fresh flakes waft down onto his face.
He hooted loudly, as much noise as he could make with one breath. Only silence answered him, and for a moment a cold panic seized his chest: had the others been stupid enough to come out of the woods after him before the avalanche had run its course? He forced himself to breathe slowly, calmly, inhale for four hearbeats and exhale for four more, listening.
It was Rodney he heard first. The words were indistinguishable but the tight, urgent tone was clear. He thrust his hand through the hole above him and wiggled his fingers, hoping they showed over the surface. A strong hand grasped his, and it was the best fucking thing he'd ever felt in his life; then the hand released him, and he heard the sharp rhythmic crunch of shoveling, and that was the best noise he'd ever heard.
"No, farther over to the side. He's obviously less than a meter down, you don't want to - stop!" There was a scrabbling noise, and the hole above him widened, several pairs of hands knocking the last layer of snow away from above his head.
"McKay," he croaked.
"Thank God. Are you all right?"
"I'm kind of buried sideways here. And I'm a little worried about my legs." It had probably been better when they had hurt; at the moment, he couldn't feel them at all.
"Ronon, dig there," said Rodney, his arm pointing somewhere John couldn't quite see from his angle. "No, no, carefully. Use your hands, don't use the shovel. Teyla, help me here." Gently they excavated the snow from around John's shoulders and torso as Rodney kept up a running commentary: dig here, be careful there, don't move, we're getting you out. He was talking to himself more than to the others, who were probably ignoring him anyway, John thought, but he found the flow of words in Rodney's familiar voice somehow soothing. He closed his eyes, feeling the whispery touches of their hands as they brushed the snow away.
Then Ronon's hand passed through the snow and moved his left leg to the side, and the pain came flooding back in, and he jerked his shoulders up, crying out. "Stop!" barked Rodney; his arms went around John's shoulders, easing him back down to the snow. "It's all right, it's all right, John, you're going to be all right," he murmured, his face close to John's ear, his arms wrapping him in a soft, gentle embrace. He almost thought he felt Rodney's lips press against his cheek; it was probably just snow.
Rodney released him and turned to Ronon. "I told you to be careful, damn it!"
"He is doing what he can," Teyla said.
"Well, he should do it more carefully. You can't be too careful with injuries like this. Maybe he broke his neck."
"It was his leg," said Ronon.
"Well, it might be his spine, I don't know, they're all interconnected. You know, the thigh bone's connected to the - back bone," he sang. Teyla and Ronon just stared at him, and John snickered despite the pain. "Never mind. What I mean is, if we move him the wrong way he could be paralyzed for life. You wouldn't want that to happen, would you?"
"Not really," said John, and Rodney gave a little embarrassed laugh. Teyla and Ronon exchanged a smile, then started working again to uncover him.
"No, look, I'm sure it's not - it's not that bad, right? You're okay, aren't you?" Rodney's face was as open and earnest as a puppy's, the falling snow clinging to his eyebrows and eyelashes like fur. All he needed was a flask of brandy around his neck, thought John giddily, and that made him burst out laughing again, which only made Rodney's look of concern deepen. "Oh, no. Are you going into shock? Please don't go into shock."
"I'm all right, Rodney." He moved his head from side to side. "I don't think my neck's broken. Or my spine. My leg, on the other hand, might be. Just get this snow off me. I'll try not to scream."
After ten minutes or so he was uncovered, and he sat up awkwardly, surrounded by the mounds of snow the team had moved. "All right, good," said Rodney. "Can you get up? No, wait, don't try it by yourself. Ronon, get his other side," he said, bending to put his arm around John's waist. John settled his right arm over Rodney's shoulders and his left over Ronon's.
"I'm ready," he said, tensing against the pain. And it was painful, incredibly painful, and there was no way he was going to be able to put weight on it. No way was he going to be able to walk to the village, or even back to the stargate. He leaned on Rodney, on his right, and shook his head. "I can't."
"What do you mean, you can't? We have to get you back to Atlantis."
"What about the ZPM?"
"Fuck the ZPM," said Rodney, and John heard the anger in the ragged edge of his voice. "We're getting you back now."
"I have an idea," said Ronon, and he strode off toward the forest, moving quickly and easily despite the steep, lumpy snow left by the avalanche.
"Perhaps you should rest," said Teyla. "It will be a difficult journey. The path is very high above us now." She put a hand on John's shoulder; on his other side he felt Rodney tense.
"Perhaps you should help Ronon with whatever his idea is," said Rodney. "I'll help the Colonel down."
"I'm not sure I'll be able to get up again, actually." The pain was only intense if he weighted his leg, but even leaning on Rodney it was a sharp, throbbing ache, growing worse by the minute. Even his foot felt painful, and he wondered if it had swollen in his boot. He hoped they wouldn't have to cut it off back in Atlantis; finding another pair that fit him as well as these did would be impossible.
"We will both assist you," said Teyla, giving Rodney a sharp glance. Together they eased him back down to the snow, and John let his head fall back and closed his eyes. To avoid thinking about the pain, he concentrated on breathing steadily and slowly, feeling the snow falling on his bare face. His ribs hurt slightly with each inhale; he hoped they weren't broken as well. In, out. In, out.
He had focused so intently on his breathing that he didn't hear Ronon's approach. "Good idea," he heard Rodney say, and he opened his eyes. Ronon had a large bundle of branches and tree boughs and was laying them out on the snow. "But that's a lot more than we need for a splint."
"The rest is for a sled," Ronon said.
"Mechanical advantage, right, good thought. What do we have to tie them together with?"
"These." Ronon had taken apart some of his clothing, it looked like, and had come up with a handful of leather thongs and straps. Rodney studied them for a moment.
"That won't be enough. Wait a second." He started undoing his survival suit.
John frowned at him. "What are you doing?"
"Being manly and self-sacrificing - what does it look like I'm doing? I don't need this shirt."
"I thought you were cold."
"Yes, well, worrying about you has warmed me up." Not that he looked particularly warm as he slipped off his shirt; his nipples stood straight out and John could tell that the only thing keeping him from shivering was sheer force of will. He brushed the snow from his bare skin and then quickly re-fastened his survival suit. "We can use this," he said, handing the shirt to Ronon, who nodded gravely.
In the end they used the long sleeves of Rodney's shirt to tie John onto the odd platform that he and Ronon devised from the boughs. It was sort of an Indian-style travois, intended to slide along the snow rather than be carried, and as they eased him over onto it he could smell the piney scent of the cut ends and the crushed needles. His leg they bound to another branch using two of the thongs.
It took all three of the others to move him back up the hillside to the path; Ronon pulled the makeshift sled, with Teyla and Rodney helping from the sides. He had indeed tumbled down the mountain a long way, he realized. Going back up the hillside was a slow, bumpy ride, and his leg protested with every jounce. But once they had regained the path the sled moved easily and smoothly, and despite the pain the motion nearly lulled him to sleep.
It was a simple break, as it turned out, and it didn't take long for Dr. Beckett to set it and wrap it with a more professional splint, although to John's dismay the boot was a total loss. Fortunately his ribs were only bruised, as was most of the rest of his body. "You'll be many interesting shades of yellow and blue tomorrow, I predict," said Beckett, but he gave him crutches and some ibuprofen, and sent him back to his room to recuperate.
He couldn't go out on missions until it healed; that was a given. Elizabeth also decided that the possible ZPM on M3X-617 could wait until that planet's summer, and he wondered whether Rodney had argued with her, or pushed her for that decision. Although, it was funny: when the avalanche had been only a theoretical possibility, Rodney had complained nonstop, but as soon as there was a real crisis he did what needed to be done.
They all had, really. Ronon's strength and Teyla's quiet competence would be assets to any team. He was glad they had been there to dig him out of the snow, just as he was glad to have them at his back on every mission. And then there was Rodney.
Had he just imagined that kiss, that brush of lips so close to his ear? One thing was sure: he hadn't imagined hearing Rodney say his name, his actual given name. He didn't think Rodney had ever used his name before. Nor had he imagined the tension in Rodney's voice, the urgency, the emotion. The jealous look he'd flashed Teyla, when she'd knelt to help him. The puppy-dog look in his eyes under their snow-covered lashes.
But maybe he had been imagining them all, because among the fairly constant stream of visitors to his quarters the next day, where he lay propped up on his bed with his laptop, Rodney was conspicuously not present. Ronon and Teyla had stopped in to check on him, and Elizabeth, of course; Lorne had come by to discuss possible secondary strike team compositions, and Bates had wanted to go over an emergency lockdown plan. A small delegation of officers and NCOs had brought him a get-well card signed by the entire military contingent, and Lucy from the mess had brought up meals that looked a whole lot better than their usual fare, and even included a chocolate bar with his dinner. But Rodney hadn't stopped by once.
Well, he'd just have to stop by Rodney's room, instead. The only reason he'd stayed in his room all day was that people kept coming to see him. Besides, he was getting bored, and the doc had said that walking would actually help the break heal.
He levered himself out of bed and hobbled to the door. It wasn't too bad maneuvering on the crutches, especially since all he needed to do to open the door was just think opening thoughts at it. At Rodney's door, though, he decided that would be considered rude, so he leaned his weight onto his good leg and knocked.
The door slid open. Inside Rodney was sitting at his desk, doing something on his laptop. "Yes, what is it?" He looked up. "Oh, it's you."
"It's me," said John. "Can I -?"
"Yes, yes, come in," said Rodney, turning back to his computer.
After swinging on his crutches over to Rodney's bed, he let himself drop down onto the mattress. Hard as a board; no wonder Rodney was so grouchy in the mornings. "I'm fine, thanks."
Rodney didn't even turn around. "Well. I, uh, knew that, actually. I asked Carson to let me know, I figured you were getting tired of everybody asking about your leg."
"How thoughtful of you."
"I knew you'd be busy. Or trying to be busy, but I imagine it wasn't easy, what with the entire population of Atlantis trying to squeeze into your room."
"Ah." John watched Rodney's back for a moment, his broad shoulders and the curve of his arm as his finger moved across the laptop's tracking pad. Not bad, he decided. "So. You're pretty busy, huh."
There was a pause. "Actually, I'm playing FreeCell."
"Are you winning?"
"Please. Sikorski showed in 2003 that every game is theoretically winnable."
"So, are you winning?"
"Of course I'm winning. Didn't I just say that? I always win."
"Then what's the point of playing? If you always win."
Rodney's gaze had never wavered from the screen, but John noticed he wasn't actually touching the keyboard anymore. "Let's just say that I like my excitement in small, predictable doses. Worst-case scenario, I hit the redeal button. Unlike other people who, oh, strap nukes to themselves and go flying off on suicide missions."
Or go marching through avalanche paths, John added silently to himself. "Look, I'm trying not to make a habit of it, all right?"
"Very funny, Colonel."
"John," he said quietly, and that made Rodney finally stop pretending to play FreeCell and swivel around to look at him. "You called me John on the planet."
"Yes, well, I was under a lot of stress."
He put out a crutch and swung to his feet, then walked over to Rodney's desk, watching Rodney's eyes widen with apprehension as he approached.
"What? What?"
"I was just wondering whether you always kiss people as a reaction to stress."
"It's been known to happen!" Rodney had slid his chair back so it was nearly against the wall; he clutched the sides of it protectively, his shoulders hunched. So it had been a kiss. Well, that was interesting.
"What's the matter, Rodney? Scared I'm going to attack you?" He lifted one of his crutches and aimed it like a gun. "Bang!"
"Oh, yeah, very funny," said Rodney. He stood up, his eyes darting nervously this way and that as he realized that John was closing on him; then he backed into his chair, knocking it over in his apparent desire to flatten himself into the wall.
John advanced until he was nearly chest-to-chest with him, ignoring the slowly-building throbbing in his leg. Dropping the crutches, he placed his hands against the wall on either side of Rodney, pinning him. "So tell me. Am I making you feel stressed out?"
"I think that's pretty obvious!" Rodney's eyes were pure deer-in-the-headlights. Then he blinked. "Wait a minute. You can't possibly - don't tell me you -"
"Get with the program, Rodney," he said, and kissed him.
Now, that was a satisfying way to shut him up, he thought. Or at least, to make him stop talking; because he wasn't exactly silent, he was making these gratifying little strangled moans, like he was trying to remember how to breathe, and John would have been worried that maybe this wasn't a good idea but for Rodney's arms, which had come around and clamped onto his waist like a vise.
But when he finally judged that Rodney had been sufficiently calmed, or at least sufficiently distracted, and broke the kiss, Rodney was staring at him with a thunderstruck look. Not exactly the look he wanted on someone he'd just been kissing.
"What…what was that all about?"
"I thought it might be nice to try it without the snow down my neck."
Rodney frowned. "You're on painkillers, aren't you. What did Carson give you, oxycodone? No wonder you're acting goofy - that stuff is pretty potent, not that I can take it, it gives me these red spots on my chest and arms and it itches like -"
John shut him up again.
This time Rodney did a creditable job of kissing back, or at least of melting back against the wall and allowing John to plunder his mouth. Every so often his tongue made a tentative flicker against John's, then retreated, as though it wasn't quite sure of its welcome, which was really rather stupid, considering that John's mouth and hands were doing their best to communicate a high degree of interest.
When they parted, he looked, if anything, even more glum. "You're going to hate me when you're off the drugs."
"He gave me ibuprofen, Rodney. And I'm not going to hate you unless you keep willfully ignoring what I'm trying to communicate, here." He stepped back and winced as his leg gave a particularly painful throb.
"You shouldn't be on your feet, should you." Rodney turned away from him and collected the crutches, looking distinctly relieved at being able to change the subject. "Here. Go sit down," he said, waving at the bed, and John hobbled over and gratefully collapsed on it.
"Don't think I don't get the point," continued Rodney, righting his chair and sitting in it. "I'm just not sure you do. I mean, okay, so I got a little freaked out when I thought you were dead."
"Yeah, I tend to get a little freaked out when I think I'm dead, too."
"Oh, please. Being dead is your whole purpose in life. So to speak."
"I don't see what the big deal is. So, you're attracted to me." John grinned. "You can probably figure out that I don't mind."
"Well, I do!" Rodney leapt out of his chair and began pacing. "Look, first of all, it wasn't anything I'd expected you to find out about. Being as how you're, how shall I put it, in the US military and therefore unlikely to be interested -"
"Don't ask, don't tell," said John, smirking.
"I wasn't going to! And I might add that I was doing a very good job of repressing it, up to now. Because," he said, jabbing a finger in John's direction, "the point is that I have enough trouble dealing with your total disregard for personal safety, without having any sort of meaningful relationship with you!"
John sighed. "You have it all wrong. I have a very high regard for my safety, believe me. It's just that I have a higher regard for yours."
"Oh, you do, do you?"
"Yours, and the rest of my team's. The safety of everybody in Atlantis is my responsibility. I don't have a death wish, Rodney. But if it's a choice between me, and everybody else…." He shrugged.
"Well, I'm sure everybody else is ecstatic that you're happy to throw yourself in front of a truck for them. Personally, I think that self-preservation is a valuable goal."
"Unfortunately, that's not my job."
His words hung in the air between them for a moment. Finally John spread his hands in surrender. "All right. Seriously, I don't see that denying what you feel and what I feel makes any difference. Other than making us both miserable, that is. But if it's what you want -"
"It's not what I want," said Rodney.
John pulled himself to his feet. "It's what you're going to get, I guess," he said, and left.
They weren't both miserable. In fact, as John's leg gradually healed and he returned to more and more of his normal duties, it was as though none of it had ever happened - the kiss in the snow, the kiss in Rodney's room, none of it. It wasn't just a matter of not talking about it; Rodney sat with John in the mess as usual, eating and complaining about his latest project, and John dropped by Rodney's lab every so often to see what all the fuss was about, and they argued together during Elizabeth's executive meetings exactly as they always had.
John supposed they'd both had a lot of practice at behaving as though everything were normal, even though ever since they'd arrived in the Pegasus Galaxy the word 'normal' pretty much failed to apply to anything at all. So far he'd been clinically dead once, he'd flown off on a suicide mission - two, if you counted the flight from the Daedelus toward the sun - and he'd turned into a weird sort of hybrid bug-thing and only been restored by the grace of Doc Beckett. A broken leg from getting caught in an avalanche was small potatoes, relatively speaking.
But it had apparently been the last straw for Rodney; and in a sense that had been the last straw for John. It wasn't as though he'd been planning to seduce Rodney, or even that he'd considered Rodney as a romantic possibility. He hadn't considered anyone as a romantic possibility. They were all too busy figuring out Atlantis, trying to survive.
Maybe it was just that he had kept himself from this line of thinking for so long, aware in his bones of his responsibilities and his duties, that when someone - anyone - showed him some affection, it just pinged on his radar and he locked on. So it happened to be Rodney, so what - they were good friends, the best of friends, and if they were interested in each other, where was the harm?
Because now he couldn't stop thinking about Rodney. About the way Rodney had kissed him on M3X-617, lips brushing his ear like falling snowflakes; the way his mouth had opened so sweetly and tentatively when they'd kissed in his room, the way Rodney had melted against the wall and into his arms. John hadn't been with a man since before he was posted to McMurdo - too small a pool there to risk getting kicked out - and he missed that feeling of a solid, strong body against his, big hands, kissing someone without having to bend down. Then again, he hadn't been with a woman since Cara-Lyn Simmons got rotated back to the States in his second year on the ice. So maybe he just needed to get laid.
He was definitely getting cabin fever, not being able to go out on missions. He no longer needed the crutches, but his leg was nothing near strong enough yet, so he spent a lot of time in the gym working out while Lorne took point offworld, and listened in on the debriefings, taking notes and wishing he'd been there. He was doing his weighted leg lifts when Elizabeth called him from the control room; in the background he could hear shouting, and gunshots, and he didn't wait for her to tell him what was wrong before he headed for the nearest transporter.
The first thing he saw from the doorway was Teyla, limping and covered with blood. "What happened?"
She turned a tear-streaked face to him. "The creature moved so quickly. We tried to save him."
A cold fist gripped his heart; he looked over her shoulder into the room. Ronon and Lorne were nearly as bloody as Teyla, and were carrying - oh, shit. Dr. Beckett was already there, with a gurney and a rack of ominous-looking medical equipment. A few long strides took him to his side, just as Ronon and Lorne gently lowered their burden onto the gurney.
"Holy shit," he breathed. The bloody mess on the gurney was barely recognizable as Rodney; his scalp was half-torn off and there were deep gashes across the left side of his face, and his arm, good Christ, his arm…. He forced himself to tear his gaze away. Focus on something else, anything else, he told himself, and looked up at Doc Beckett.
"Is he going to be all right?" he asked, hating himself for the whine he heard in his voice.
Beckett shook his head "I can't say yet. Easy, now," he said to the medical assistant who was sliding a wickedly large needle into Rodney's arm, his right arm, the one that hadn't been sliced open by whatever it had been. The one bit of him that looked more or less intact. Rodney's eyes were closed and his chest barely moved with his breaths; he did not even wince as the needle went in, and this, more than anything else, made John's gut clench with blind fear. Rodney screamed when he got a splinter, for God's sake.
Beckett and his assistant wheeled the gurney away, and John forced himself not to follow. Ronon and Lorne were quietly talking to Elizabeth at the top of the stairs, and he went to join them.
"What did that to him?" he demanded.
Lorne shrugged. "Looked like a cross between a bear and a dinosaur. McKay was tracking down an anomalous energy reading and wasn't watching his back."
"It surprised us all," said Ronon. His clothes were black with dried blood, and John wondered how much of it was Rodney's.
"If he survives, it's because of Teyla," Lorne added. "Lucky for McKay she was nearby. She went after it - it was dragging him back to its cave, I think - and it dropped him."
"I should have been there."
"I'm sure there was nothing you could have done," said Elizabeth.
Ronon grunted. "Maybe you could have outrun that beast. Maybe not."
"I should have - why did you leave him alone?" he said, wheeling suddenly, narrowing his eyes at Lorne. "You should have known better."
"McKay was complaining about weird noises coming from behind some rocks. Ronon and I were checking it out because he kept whining about it. When the bear-thing attacked, it came from a completely different direction. "
John glared at him for a moment, then looked at Elizabeth. "I'm taking the next mission."
"When Carson says you're ready -"
"I'm ready now."
"Sir, if you are unhappy with my performance of my duties," Lorne said, with uncharacteristic stiffness, "I am prepared to -"
"It's not you, Major. But I'm going on the next mission. It's my team."
"What's left of it," said Ronon. "Teyla is injured, you are still healing, and Dr. McKay…" He shrugged. "I do not know if we got him in time."
"He's not dead yet," said John grimly, and marched out of the room.
Doctor Beckett didn't let him - or anyone else, for that matter - into the infirmary for three days. John knew that Elizabeth was badgering Beckett just as much as he was, and finally he allowed them in - "But only for a few minutes."
"We'll be good," promised Elizabeth, exchanging a smile with John. Then they saw Rodney, and their smiles vanished.
What had been left of his hair had been shaved off completely, and his exposed scalp was a map of angry red cuts and neat blue-threaded stitches. The overlay of incongruous lines continued down the topography of Rodney's face, skimming his cheekbone, wrapping around his jaw, leading John's eye down to Rodney's shoulder, where the too-pale skin disappeared into a mass of white gauze and bandages.
"Oh, Rodney," said Elizabeth. "I guess I shouldn't ask how you're feeling. You probably feel awful. But you're going to be fine."
"Can't wait," mumbled Rodney. His lips barely moved; it probably hurt to talk. It hurt John just to look at him. A sudden irrational burst of rage exploded somewhere deep in his belly. He was furious with Lorne for letting this happen, furious with Rodney for not fucking paying attention. Furious with himself, for not having been there.
Rodney was looking at him. Under the stitches and the bruising, his expression was impossible to read; John wondered whether his fury was visible on his own face, whether the tight lines of anger showed.
Rodney said something else, something he couldn't quite hear, and he moved closer. "What was that?"
Doctor Beckett stepped forward from behind them. "Perhaps you should come back another time."
John waved him away, his eyes intent on Rodney's face. "See how it feels," croaked Rodney.
Elizabeth put her hand on his arm. "We should go, John."
"Just a minute." He let his fingers rest lightly on Rodney's shoulder as he bent to whisper into his ear. "It's not what I want, either."
It was another week before Rodney was judged healed enough to leave the infirmary. John had poked his head in a couple of times a day, whenever he could contrive a reason to pass by, but Beckett never allowed him to stay for long. Sometimes Rodney was sleeping, and John would just watch for a moment, then leave; other times he would talk with him, tell him what was going on in the rest of the city. Keeping it casual, light, so Rodney never had to say anything more than, "Hmm," or, "Oh?"
But when Rodney was transferred back to his own room, John found himself oddly reluctant to visit. The infirmary had been neutral territory, so to speak; it was like they were two different people in there, playing roles, the Injured One and the Visitor. Not Rodney McKay and John Sheppard.
They'd brought some of the lab equipment up to Rodney's room, and of course he had the laptop. It wasn't as though he was sitting there bored, John reasoned. He had his work to do. Sometimes when John passed by he heard him arguing with Zelenka or Kavanagh, who came up regularly. Sometimes he was deep in conversation with someone on the other end of the radio, and sometimes he was silent, and John would glance casually through the open door and see Rodney at his computer. His left arm and shoulder were still swathed in bandages; while his right hand flew across the keyboard with practiced skill, his left hand rested mostly on the edge of the desk, occasionally moving laboriously to tap a key.
After a week of avoidance, it wasn't getting any easier. He'd been cleared to go offworld, and soon he'd be going on missions, and even though it would take Rodney a while longer to be fully healed, he was still liable to endanger himself in any of a million different ways here in Atlantis. There wasn't any point in putting it off, he told himself, and knocked on Rodney's door.
"Yeah, come in," said Rodney. His speech was back to normal; the stitches in his face had been removed, but the scars were still vivid and new, and his hair was still too short to hide the wounds to his scalp. His arm was no longer bandaged, but it hung stiffly at his side. "Hello, Colonel."
"John."
Rodney's mouth twitched. "You can't be serious."
He pushed past him into the room and sat on the edge of Rodney's bed. "Oh, my name is definitely John."
"Very funny. You know what I mean."
He raised an eyebrow and leaned back on his elbows. "No, tell me."
"Look, I'm not…I'm not going to win any beauty contests, here."
"Got news for you," said John. "You weren't before. Come on, Rodney, I'm not that shallow. I'm not after you for your stunning good looks."
"That makes one of us," muttered Rodney.
"And here I thought it was my qualifying for Mensa that turned you on."
"It was. Is. Okay, and your charm, and your, your stunning good looks, all right? Except none of this is important, because I'm not going to have a relationship with someone who might get killed at any moment!"
"It's too damn late for that!"
Rodney stared at him. "What is that supposed to mean?"
John sighed. "Sit down." He patted the bed next to him, and Rodney sat. "When we were here before, I was thinking, we're both interested, right? So why not?"
"That's what you think?"
"No," he said. "That's what I thought then. But then you decided to get yourself killed -"
"Hey, not dead yet!"
"Right. But it was a damn close thing, and don't do that again, okay?" He ran a hand through his hair. "What I mean is, there's no point in 'not getting into a relationship,' because we're already in one."
"That's not the kind of relationship I was talking about," said Rodney.
"Right. You meant this kind," said John, and tugged him close.
"I look like Frankenstein."
"So I'll close my eyes," murmured John, and then their lips were touching, and he felt Rodney's good arm slip around his waist as Rodney's mouth opened to his. It was a slow, gentle kiss, like dancing to a slow song, their tongues sliding languorously against one another, their lips moving softly and sweetly, as though they had all the time in the world just to kiss.
"The point is," said John, when they'd paused enough to draw breath, "I don't like to see you coming back through the gate in pieces. Having a 'relationship' isn't going to change that one way or the other. Because we already have a relationship. We're just not having sex." Then he grinned. "Yet."
"You really want to," said Rodney. His voice was filled with wonder and surprise, like he'd just been given a present he wasn't expecting.
"Yeah, I want to. Look, I know things aren't too certain around here, what with the Wraith and all. I can't promise you that either of us are going to survive this. But worst-case scenario, we'll have some good years first."
"I suppose I can handle that," said Rodney slowly. Then he raised an eyebrow. "What about a best-case scenario?"
John pretended to consider for a moment. "Best-case scenario…we start by taking off these clothes."
Rodney smiled. "I suppose I can handle that, too."
audio version (mp3, 10.5MB, about 45 minutes long - please rightclick and save)
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cover art by Wychwood
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| written September 2005 by Isis