Parting
Is Such
by lamardeuse
by lamardeuse
Overall series rating: NC-17
Set during SGA 2x15, "The Tower".
Rodney rolled onto his left side for the eighty-ninth time that night. Unfortunately, the position wasn’t any more comfortable than it had been the other eighty-eight times, nor were any of his other customary positions. He was getting desperate enough for sleep that he was seriously considering a Cadmanesque midnight run. There was something to be said for exhausting the body completely, draining it of every last ounce of energy so that thought became next to impossible.
Without his conscious consent, his hand reached out, fingers sliding over the sheet, seeking the nonexistent warmth for long seconds after he’d told them to stop.
He turned his head into the pillow and breathed in, but after nine days – no, ten – there was only a faint trace of John’s scent left behind. It was enough, though, God, it was enough to conjure up all kinds of thoughts he’d firmly told himself not to think about. He hated not being in control of his brain, especially since it was the one thing he’d always trusted he could have some control over.
Sighing, Rodney rolled onto his back and gazed at the ceiling. At least that was free of associations –
His traitorous mind flashed on the image of John, back bowed off the mattress as he came, mouth open in a silent prayer, eyes wide and staring upward–
Rodney closed his eyes and groaned. One thing was clear: he was going to have to get new quarters, or at least new pillowcases.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
“Rodney.”
Rodney jumped at the sound of John’s voice in his ear. “Yes?”
“The team’s headed out tomorrow morning at oh eight hundred. Briefing, my quarters, eighteen hundred. Bring your tray from the mess; we’ll talk over dinner.”
Rodney’s steps slowed. “I—”
“If you can’t make it, I can meet with you later after I’ve met with Teyla and Ronon. Your choice.”
“No, I – eighteen hundred sounds fine.”
There was a pause. “Fine,” John said tightly. “See you then,” and Rodney heard the soft click as the connection was severed.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The mission was beyond boring, yet another check-in call with established trading partners. Ronon tracked down a couple of Satedans he knew and they were soon drinking and reliving the bad old times before they’d all been scattered to the far ends of the galaxy. John sat in a corner and nursed a pint of the local brew, giving a flawless impression of gregarious involvement.
Rodney took another swig of his own beer, annoyed when some of it trickled down his chin.
He really thought John would have called his bluff by now, would have shown up outside his door late one night and shoved him up against a wall until he relented, or cornered him when he was alone in his lab. (The fact that this line of reasoning was approximately at a thirteen-year-old level of social development didn’t bother Rodney overmuch. After all, why change the habits of a lifetime?) To say that he was conflicted about their relationship was an understatement; on the one hand, he had the boon of regular and spectacular sex, and on the other, he had the spiraling, gut-churning intensity of emotional entanglement with a man whose job description meant he could very easily die tomorrow.
And on the third hand, they could all very easily die tomorrow, and on the fourth Rodney was kidding himself if he thought he still had any kind of choice in the matter.
John’s lazy gaze flickered over Ronon and his friends, a small smile curving his lips. When his gaze slid to Rodney, the smile didn’t falter, though Rodney thought the green eyes turned a little cold.
Rodney wiped at his chin and set down his beer. The last thing he needed was to get drunk and maudlin; he was managing the second just fine without any help.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Ronon stopped by the lab the next day; his presence was incongruous enough to cause a minor stir among the science staff. Unperturbed, Ronon jerked his head toward Rodney’s private office; after a few moments of fuming, Rodney rose and followed him inside.
“You’re being an asshole,” Ronon said without preamble as soon as the door had closed.
“I’m sorry?” Rodney asked incredulously.
“You’re being an – ”
“I heard you the first time,” Rodney snapped. “You’re picking up the local slang quickly, aren’t you?”
Ronon bared his teeth. “We have the same slang. Some things are universal.”
Rodney folded his arms. “Thank you for the lesson in cross-cultural linguistics. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m very –”
“He won’t come to you,” Ronon said calmly. “It’s not his way.”
Rodney took a moment to scrape his jaw off the floor. “What are you now, his best girlfriend? Do you sit around in your bunny slippers and do one another’s hair while sharing your innermost secrets?”
Ronon snorted as if he actually understood the references. “Teyla and I’re both worried, that’s all. Sooner or later this is gonna affect the team.”
Rodney drew himself up, although that still made him nearly a full head shorter than Ronon. “Oh, I’m sorry if your tidy little military viewpoint doesn’t allow for two men to have a – ”
Ronon shook his head. “I’m not talking about the fucking. We had that on Sateda, too. But the men who chose one another weren’t afraid to die together.”
Rodney’s vision clouded with rage. “I’m not – ”
Ronon silenced him with a look. “They weren’t afraid to live together, either.”
While Rodney was still trying to formulate a reply that wouldn’t make him sound like an asshole, Ronon shocked the hell out of him by laying a huge hand on his shoulder with something approaching gentleness.
“Talk to him,” Ronon said. “You’re good at that. Kind of.”
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
As it was, Rodney managed to find enough minor crises to keep himself occupied until the next mission three days later. This one started off like the previous one, but quickly headed south when John managed to get himself kidnapped by the cast of Hamlet. If Rodney had been there –
– yes, if he’d been there, no doubt the bad guys would have thrown down their weapons in fear, because the sight of Ronon, Teyla and John heavily armed was hardly a daunting sight, but Rodney McKay with a nine millimeter pistol clenched in his sweating, shaking fists, now there was a force to be reckoned with.
Sometimes the workings of Rodney’s brain frightened even him.
Sighing, Rodney stared up at the low ceiling of the mud-and-thatch hovel that was their home for the night, and tried not to think about how once again, he had absolutely no control over whether or not he’d ever see John alive again.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
It was Ronon’s burly arm, not John’s, that hauled him up the last few feet into the sunlight.
“Where’s Colonel Sheppard?” Rodney demanded. He’d spoken with him on the comm only half an hour ago; he should have been here by now.
Teyla pointed her chin up the hill toward the tower, where he could make out a group of people walking toward them. They were far enough away to only be distinguishable by the color of their clothing, which tended toward the garish. A black-clad figure was leading them.
“And he doesn’t even need a set of pipes,” Rodney muttered, then surprised Teyla and Ronon by laughing so hard he could barely breathe.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
This time, when Rodney spilled beer all over himself, he had a damned good reason.
The harvest festival – Christ, why was it always called a harvest festival? – was in full swing, after a rocky start. John, friend of the people, had encouraged the nobles to show a little noblesse oblige by bringing some of their vast stores of food back to the poor bastards who’d grown the stuff in the first place. Then, after spending far too much time trying to explain the parallels with the final scene in The Grinch Who Stole Christmas to Ronon and Teyla, John had finally given up when the first suckling pig-thing had come off the vast spit. Seeing grown men actually crying because they couldn’t remember the last time their families had eaten meat tended to put a damper on the festive atmosphere.
Luckily, full bellies and large amounts of alcohol tended to go a long way to eroding class differences, and soon Rodney found himself enjoying some surprisingly good beer while he watched the younger members of the village begin a surprisingly intricate dance in the middle of the square. It had a certain mathematical precision he wouldn’t have thought them capable of, the way the opposed pairs of dancers came together and spun off at precise angles. It was beautiful, really, and if he closed his eyes and thought about it for a moment he was sure he could create an equation to describe the movement…
He awoke with a start when his beer tipped and spilled all over his pants.
“Fuck!” he exclaimed, shooting to his feet and startling a couple of the nearer dancers out of their pattern. The beer that had pooled in his lap now flowed freely down his legs, and he groaned as the trickles wended their way into his socks. Turning abruptly when Teyla regarded him as one might a three-legged puppy, he stalked off toward the hut they’d shared the other night. Surely those people had a bucket of water he could use to –
“Mara. I told you, I can’t do – that.”
Rodney stopped dead in his tracks. “But John, the other night you – ”
“Yeah, we both know what happened the other night,” John drawled. “I think it would be best if we forgot the whole thing.”
Heart doing backflips in his chest, Rodney plastered himself against the nearest wall and inched forward until he could peek around the corner. In the moonslight, he could make out two figures standing close together.
“Please forgive me, John. You’re twice the man Otho could ever have been –”
“Aw. You’re just saying that ‘cause I’m the one still breathing.”
“– and I was a fool.” Rodney watched her press closer to John until there was no more space between them. “I need you. I think I may be falling in love with you.”
John barked a laugh. “You don’t need anything or anyone, Mara, and I don’t think you’d know what love was if it paraded itself stark naked in front of you. But I’ll give you the first one.”
The woman stepped back as if she’d been slapped. “You should be careful of what you say.”
John leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead. “There. I knew you were smarter than you pretended to be.” And with that, he turned on his heel and started walking back toward the party.
Rodney leaned back against the wall of the hut as the woman’s incoherent squeals of frustration mingled with the distant sounds of the music. His pants were soaked and reeked of stale beer, his head was swimming, and he was nearly asleep on his feet.
But he felt fine.
End
January 2006
And because Melagan is a funny and wickedly talented lady, here are Ronon's bunny slippers:
Part XV: Least Resistance
leave a comment on my livejournal
Back to Stargate:
Atlantis fiction