sga_flashfic | Gratitude by Helen [Search & Seizure]

Title: Gratitude
Pairing: Zelenka/Ronon [aka, Zedexa - relieves anxiety! by prescription only!]
Summary: “Keep still,” Ronon says. “Hold on.”
Notes: Written for the 'Search and Seizure' Challenge.

The people on M6X-462 seem okay until they take their scientists and won't give them back.

Sheppard is frantic, but hides it well, negotiating patiently, letting Teyla talk to their head guy for hours, smiling toothily at the locals.

"This isn't going to work," Ronon says, when they're hunched over the console in the jumper, cloaked fifty yards from the stargate.

"—diplomatic solutions," Weir says. The connection is staticky and weak.

"Listen, ah, Elizabeth," Sheppard says slowly. "We can't really hear you—"

"You can hear me," Weir snaps. "Are they being harmed?"

"The headman assures me they are not," Teyla says, unwillingly. Sheppard glares at her.

"Probably lying," Ronon says.

After the third day of useless negotiations, Sheppard and Ronon steal a hovercraft and crash it into the fifth story of the corrections building.

They find McKay first, his face swollen with bruises. He shrinks against the back wall of his cage, sheltering his body clumsily; his arm looks broken. Sheppard pulls in a sharp breath and shoves past Ronon.

"Finally," McKay mumbles, like his mouth hurts him; it doesn't come out nastily enough.

"Rodney—" Sheppard fumbles the cage open and slides down on his knees, touches McKay’s cheek carefully. In the sharp beam of their flashlights, his face looks awful, almost misshapen, black and crimson marks ringing his throat. Klaxons blare sharply in the corridor; Ronon can hear shouting, several floors up.

"Let's go," he says.

"Zelenka," Rodney says, "not far, I think, or—"

"Find him," Sheppard says, already helping McKay up, one gentle arm around his waist.

Ronon barrels down the hallway, kills a guy, and finds Zelenka in a cage, crumpled against a wall, cut up a little.

"Wake up," he says, fingers on the pulse in Zelenka's throat, heavy and slow. His fuzzy hair is matted and dirty, uniform pants crusted with blood from the thigh down. His glasses are bent, one earpiece snapped in half.

Zelenka doesn't feel any heavier than the backpack full of weights Ronon's been using to run the circuit he's marked out on Atlantis, but he's limp and awkward in Ronon's arms, head tipped precariously against Ronon’s shoulder.

Zelenka wakes when he’s taking the last flight of stairs two at a time.

“What is—“ Zelenka whispers, his voice rusty. In Ronon’s headset, he can hear Sheppard’s harsh breathing, shots being fired.

“Keep still,” Ronon says. “Hold on.”

Zelenka finds him three days later, sitting in one of the lounges, trying to read a book Sheppard loaned him. The spelling’s so strange he can barely decipher what’s going on, and the characters are weird as well; it’s been long enough since he read anything that it’s work. There’s a lot of downtime on Atlantis if you don’t know anything about math; he’s trying to develop hobbies.

Zelenka’s limping, a little, and his jawline is a patchwork of butterfly bandages and very precise stitches.

"I ask Rodney," he says. "He says you like to eat and to kill things, so—" he puts down a cardboard box on the table.

“What’s this?” Ronon says cautiously.

“For you,” Zelenka says. “In gratitude.” He flips the top of the box up with one finger, and Ronon sees that it’s filled with contraband; candy, mostly, but also packages of salty crunchy things, and four small oranges.

"I was doing my job," Ronon says.

"Yes," Zelenka says. "and still. I offer you my thanks." He slides the box across the table to Ronon, who reaches for it. Their hands overlap for a moment, Zelenka's pale, narrow fingers beneath his.

"Thanks. You're welcome," Ronon says. He folds his arms. "How's your leg?"

"Is not serious," Zelenka says.

"Looked serious."

"So I have some scars," Zelenka says, shrugging. "I will use them to impress people I wish to—well." He smiles, slowly. It’s a nice smile.

"Oh," Ronon says. Sitting down, his eyes are nearly level with Zelenka's, standing—his narrow nervous face, his nice smile. "You should keep it clean," he says.

"You should be careful, or I will think you're angling for a look at my manly scars," Zelenka says lightly.

"I wasn't," Ronon says. Sheppard's told him about military regs and earth taboos, and Ronon stopped even thinking about jerking off the second year he was on the planet, stopped wanting anything like that, but since he's been back, since Sheppard, oddly hollow-eyed, explained all the things that soldiers don't do on Earth, he's tried, once or twice, to remember what it was like to sleep with his face pressed against the nape of a neck, to slide his fingers down a back, past a waistband. "I wasn't," he says again. "I was—wounds like that can get infected."

"Yes," Zelenka says gravely.

"I shouldn't take this from you," Ronon says, pushing the box back across the table. “It’s not necessary, it was my. I—you don’t have to.” The back of his neck feels hot, nervous. He's careful not to touch Zelenka's hand again.

"Keep it," Zelenka says. "I stole most from Rodney anyhow."

“Okay,” Ronon says.

“Not the oranges, of course,” Zelenka says. “Those were mine.” Ronon nods. Zelenka sits gingerly on the edge of the bench, leg stiff in front of him. “And the gratitude,” he says. “That’s mine too—“

“I know,” Ronon says, a little too loudly.

“They would have killed us.” Zelenka’s still smiling, but his eyes are darker, quiet. Ronon nods. The sun’s sinking below the ocean, and the lights in the lounge flicker a little, uncertain, before they brighten against the twilight.

“The hovercraft,” Ronon says, finally. “Sheppard flew it.” He thinks about the way Zelenka’s arms tightened around his neck as he took the last flight of stairs, his stuttering breath against Ronon’s throat, the curve of his ribs beneath his palm. “It was my idea,” he adds.

“Ah,” Zelenka says, softly.

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From:

silviakundera.livejournal.com

Ahhhh.... pretty, pretty. You know how to make characters speak a lot within each other's silences, and it worked well with you for this fic.

This was a gorgeous set of lines: ""Rodney—" Sheppard fumbles the cage open and slides down on his knees, touches McKay’s cheek carefully. In the sharp beam of their flashlights, his face looks awful, almost misshapen, black and crimson marks ringing his throat. Klaxons blare sharply in the corridor; Ronon can hear shouting, several floors up."

and also this: The sun’s sinking below the ocean, and the lights in the lounge flicker a little, uncertain, before they brighten against the twilight.

“The hovercraft,” Ronon says, finally. “Sheppard flew it.” He thinks about the way Zelenka’s arms tightened around his neck as he took the last flight of stairs, his stuttering breath against Ronon’s throat, the curve of his ribs beneath his palm. “It was my idea,” he adds.

The second Zelenka/Ronon piece I've read, and I've liked them both enormously. I think this is what it's like to be brainwashed.

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