Disconnect
by lamardeuse
Overall series rating: NC-17
Set during and after SGA 2x11, "The Hive".
Rodney was sitting in front of the laptop, completely immersed in his work, when he realized something important: he was completely immersed in his work.
He knew that most observers would assume this was his natural state, but the truth was that Rodney had not been completely immersed in his work since the first day he’d landed in the Pegasus galaxy. At first, there had been the terror generated by the prospect of drowning, and then the terror generated by the prospect of explosive decompression, and then the terror generated by the prospect of having the life sucked out of his body, and somewhere along the way he’d also acquired a terror of having the same things happen to other people, which was a feeling that had surprised the hell out of him, because he wasn’t sure he’d approached that level of involvement with his own family.
And now, as suddenly as it had come, it was gone again, like the brain matter blown out of Gaul’s left temple by the exit wound or the murdered Lindstrom, whose silent screams for help had haunted Rodney for months.
And he couldn’t feel it. He couldn’t feel anything.
With his formidable intellect unencumbered by concern for his teammates, he was able to ponder the reason for it objectively at the same time he projected the most probable course for the hive ship. The Wraith certainly didn’t seem to feel for their prey, any more than Ford now felt for his former comrades. If you were a cold-blooded killer – or aspiring to become one – it was to your advantage to be able to turn off the more inconvenient emotions, particularly pity or compassion or remorse .
Rodney knew he wanted those emotions back, but no matter how hard he concentrated, he couldn’t conjure them, restore them to life.
He tried to panic, but he couldn’t manage that either.
He thought about walking down the hall to the infirmary and saying to Carson, You have to help me. I don’t love John any more.
Would Beckett have a pill for that, he wondered?
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
When he stood on the bridge of the Daedalus he felt the first indication that his emotionless state was temporary. The mysterious dart executed a graceful twist as it peeled away from the crippled hive ship, and suddenly he knew John was alive, could see the influence of his steady hand in the bob-and-weave of the alien craft as if he’d just written his name across space. Rodney’s heart kick-started and his breathing hitched and his body was flooded with something that he recognized as exhilaration and excitement. It was still vague, fragile, but he tried not to dwell on this, because John was alive—
And then the flash came, burning into his retinas although the Daedalus’ screens had dimmed immediately in reaction, and there were two hive ships gone, but he didn’t give a fuck because God, no.
He checked and rechecked the scanners, had them make three complete orbits of the planet scanning for any evidence John had pulled off one of his patented miraculous escapes, but there was nothing the size of a complete dart either drifting through space or on the surface. Over his heated protests, Daedalus finally sped off for home, leaving behind the vaporized remains of everything Rodney had learned how to feel.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Standing in the Infirmary trying to act normal was one of the hardest things Rodney had ever had to do, because first of all, he couldn’t feel his feet, and (a bit more disturbingly) because when his gaze shifted he could see an afterimage of John Sheppard burned on his retinas, and he was just lucid enough to know that should not be possible.
When Rodney ran out of questions John no longer had an excuse to look at him, but he did glance his way at odd moments when Caldwell’s attention was elsewhere. The brief looks held an intensity that should have caused all the liquid in Rodney’s body to evaporate, but instead he only felt frozen, numb. After a few minutes, he blocked out the chatter and began reviewing the last power consumption report for the ventilation system in his head. There was an anomaly there that had bothered him before they’d set out on the last mission. He wondered if Zelenka had made any headway on that while he’d been gone, and made plans to ask him about it after the meeting.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
“Hey.”
Rodney raised his head and saw John looking up at him with a confused expression.
“‘S goin’ on?”
Rodney shook his head, equally confused. Sheppard reached up and swiped his fingers against Rodney’s cheek. Even in the low light, they shone with moisture.
Rodney merely shook his head again; how the hell could he explain why he was crying in the middle of a blow job when he hadn’t even known he was crying?
“Was I hurting you?”
“No.”
“Then…” John looked away in yet another of his patented moves. “You want me to go?”
“No,” Rodney said, and this time he didn’t recognize his own voice, or perhaps he did, because it was the voice he’d had when he was five and his mother had told him he had a superiority complex. He hadn’t known exactly what that was, his tastes leaning more toward the hard sciences, but he’d known it sounded bad, and so it was probably the reason she didn’t love him all that much.
He’d taken a certain comfort in the knowledge. After all, he’d always preferred to understand the reasons for things.
“Okay,” John murmured. He wriggled his way up the mattress until he was lying beside Rodney, his head supported by his hand.
“I, uh,” John said after a long moment, “I didn’t know where to find you, so I thought we’d head for Atlantis first and start the search from there. And then when we got back they told us you’d escaped.” He sounded almost disappointed, Rodney thought, and something dark and bottomless roiled inside him in response.
“Yes, well, I didn’t get to ride to the rescue either,” he snapped.
“I’m just trying to—” John began, then cut himself off and took a deep breath before continuing more quietly. “I’m trying to say I was worried about you.”
And now Rodney could tell he was crying because the paths of the tears tickled his cheeks, and he could hear his small, broken voice saying, “I wasn’t worried but I wanted to be, I should have been but I wasn’t. God, John, I couldn’t, I don’t—” want to go back, he didn’t say, because John wouldn’t understand and he couldn’t even begin to explain. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. John shifted beside him and stroked a hand through his hair. It only made him sob harder.
“Shhh, shhh,” John soothed, the warmth of his breath caressing Rodney’s temple, “it’s okay, it’s just the enzyme, you’ll be okay, you’re gonna be okay.” A strong arm pulled him in close and Rodney turned his face into the pillow to muffle the mortifying sounds he was making. After a while John gently loosened Rodney’s hands where they were tucked in close to his body, and guided one to wrap around John’s waist. Rodney’s breathing evened out immediately, his fingers unconsciously making circles on the smooth skin over John’s hip.
“I’m sorry,” he said when he could take a breath. “This is—”
“Fine,” John murmured. “It’s fine, Rodney. I get it, or at least I think I do. It’s kind of like combat, you know? You turn it on and you turn it off, and sometimes turning it back on is harder than you think it’s going to be.”
Rodney’s breath hitched, and before he realized it he heard himself say, “I’ve spent most of my goddamned life turned off. I’m so—” another rasping sob “—sick of it.”
“Yeah,” John agreed, so quietly that Rodney could barely hear him. “I get that, too.”
Rodney pulled back to stare at John. His eyes were scratchy, his lids puffy and his vision blurred; he felt nauseous and terrified and feverish and he thought he might be well on the way to a panic attack.
And he’d never felt better in his life.
John was frowning at him, probably because he was trying to decide if Rodney was about to vomit on him. God, Rodney loved those tiny furrows in his forehead, and the ridiculous fullness of his lower lip, and the way his eyebrows seemed incapable of coordinating their movements. He loved every contradictory inch of John Sheppard, the John who killed Wraith and made Ancient technology purr and flew as if he was the ship and ate Popsicles like they were some kind of sex toy and stroked Rodney’s hair the way his mother never learned how.
John watched him closely for a moment, his gaze searching. When he found what he was looking for, he released a small, secret smile.
“It’s good to have you back, Rodney,” he said quietly.
Rodney pressed his damp face to John’s neck and felt the pulse leaping just under his skin, steady and strong, and he felt grateful, so damned grateful. “It’s good to be back,” he murmured, brushing his lips to the hollow of John’s throat.
End
December 2005
Part XI: Down Time
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