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sga_flashficTitle: Revival
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Sheppard/Ronon
Rodney was working underground (quite literally) somewhere for SGC and it wasn’t hard to become out of touch with him.
Ronon had briefly been in the papers for some weight-lifting thing, then had fallen off the radar. He didn’t even *have* a phone number that John was aware of.
Elizabeth and Carson, after a while, and stack of invitations he’d excused himself from, took the hint.
Zelenka had never called, anyway. Which he shouldn’t have minded given that the whole point of the exercise was not to talk, but somehow it stung.
He didn’t want to think about Teyla. Not even slightly. What had happened to Teyla had been what made them have to evacuate.
She was probably still there, in the City. Stalking the hallways, looking for prey.
They’d gotten so used to criss-crossing over the line – they tweaked a gene here, accelerated an enzyme there. They’d gotten so used to getting away with it. Until, of course, they hadn’t.
He knew their only hope, those that were left, was to build something new, to get away from those who also remembered.
What John Sheppard had failed to really think through was that Atlantis was his whole life, and carving it out of him took most everything with it.
That was why he went into the strip bar. And the one after that, and the one after that.
And then – realising, now that there was no one to see or care, to ask or to be told - the one with men in. And the one after, and the one after and the next.
And it was like a spool of tape flicking round.
And then he opened his eyes one day in Chicago and it was this:
John could see dark skin, pale scars, scars that he * knew* about. Heat coming off the skin. Smell of cheap scented oil assaulting his nose, clogging at the back of his throat.
Ronon’s body, up and close and personal, except not.
Pounding, pounding bass in the over-loud song – SWEET CHERRY PIE! – it screamed so overpoweringly that it was almost like silence.
Ronon’s legs splayed, straddling over John as he sat in the chair, his bare, dripping, shining torso gyrating in his line of sight, toned and tanned and familiar in precisely opposite ways. Stomach muscles flexing and flexing with a planned eroticism that seemed alien to everything he remembered.
Ronon’s head up high, thrown back, looking at the ceiling or maybe with his eyes closed, unaware and uninterested and hurting. Oblivious. Absent.
John wanted to reach out, just to bring the other man’s attention, just a tap. To bring Ronon back. He *wanted* so hard like he never had before, gut-punched with need and emptiness yearning to be re-filled.
What happened to you? Why are you doing this? Why didn’t you call me?
But he didn’t say anything, didn’t move a muscle.
As the song ended, though, Ronon’s gaze came down, scanned his face. John held his breath, stomach falling away, pinioned by brown eyes he’d never gotten to look into as often as he wanted to.
They flicked over his face blankly. Ronon’s mouth came closer, expelling hot, moist air and kissed him once, closed mouth, professional. So quick and unexpected that John was more aware of the whoops from nearby tables than the fleeting sensation.
Then he was stepping over John, leather chaps straining in all the right places.
He walked away, swaying his hips to the music, and disappeared behind a bead curtain as the next act ‘Handsome Hans’ appeared on the stage in a silver cowboy outfit.
John wasn’t quite sure how long he sat there, watching.
He needed to leave, for five hundred and a half very good reasons. Okay so he had few unanswered questions but it didn't have to *matter* - he could just go and cut free and loose. He could - he would, he must - escape.
And, yet, somehow, before the cowboy dropped his last tassel, John was walking through that bead curtain, and somehow back into the future.
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Sheppard/Ronon
Rodney was working underground (quite literally) somewhere for SGC and it wasn’t hard to become out of touch with him.
Ronon had briefly been in the papers for some weight-lifting thing, then had fallen off the radar. He didn’t even *have* a phone number that John was aware of.
Elizabeth and Carson, after a while, and stack of invitations he’d excused himself from, took the hint.
Zelenka had never called, anyway. Which he shouldn’t have minded given that the whole point of the exercise was not to talk, but somehow it stung.
He didn’t want to think about Teyla. Not even slightly. What had happened to Teyla had been what made them have to evacuate.
She was probably still there, in the City. Stalking the hallways, looking for prey.
They’d gotten so used to criss-crossing over the line – they tweaked a gene here, accelerated an enzyme there. They’d gotten so used to getting away with it. Until, of course, they hadn’t.
He knew their only hope, those that were left, was to build something new, to get away from those who also remembered.
What John Sheppard had failed to really think through was that Atlantis was his whole life, and carving it out of him took most everything with it.
That was why he went into the strip bar. And the one after that, and the one after that.
And then – realising, now that there was no one to see or care, to ask or to be told - the one with men in. And the one after, and the one after and the next.
And it was like a spool of tape flicking round.
And then he opened his eyes one day in Chicago and it was this:
John could see dark skin, pale scars, scars that he * knew* about. Heat coming off the skin. Smell of cheap scented oil assaulting his nose, clogging at the back of his throat.
Ronon’s body, up and close and personal, except not.
Pounding, pounding bass in the over-loud song – SWEET CHERRY PIE! – it screamed so overpoweringly that it was almost like silence.
Ronon’s legs splayed, straddling over John as he sat in the chair, his bare, dripping, shining torso gyrating in his line of sight, toned and tanned and familiar in precisely opposite ways. Stomach muscles flexing and flexing with a planned eroticism that seemed alien to everything he remembered.
Ronon’s head up high, thrown back, looking at the ceiling or maybe with his eyes closed, unaware and uninterested and hurting. Oblivious. Absent.
John wanted to reach out, just to bring the other man’s attention, just a tap. To bring Ronon back. He *wanted* so hard like he never had before, gut-punched with need and emptiness yearning to be re-filled.
What happened to you? Why are you doing this? Why didn’t you call me?
But he didn’t say anything, didn’t move a muscle.
As the song ended, though, Ronon’s gaze came down, scanned his face. John held his breath, stomach falling away, pinioned by brown eyes he’d never gotten to look into as often as he wanted to.
They flicked over his face blankly. Ronon’s mouth came closer, expelling hot, moist air and kissed him once, closed mouth, professional. So quick and unexpected that John was more aware of the whoops from nearby tables than the fleeting sensation.
Then he was stepping over John, leather chaps straining in all the right places.
He walked away, swaying his hips to the music, and disappeared behind a bead curtain as the next act ‘Handsome Hans’ appeared on the stage in a silver cowboy outfit.
John wasn’t quite sure how long he sat there, watching.
He needed to leave, for five hundred and a half very good reasons. Okay so he had few unanswered questions but it didn't have to *matter* - he could just go and cut free and loose. He could - he would, he must - escape.
And, yet, somehow, before the cowboy dropped his last tassel, John was walking through that bead curtain, and somehow back into the future.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-06 10:19 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-06 02:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-07 02:02 am (UTC)This was originally longer and then I looked at the plot I'd figured out and went pale and just abridged to this sequence (which was the one that had first popped into my head). But I would like there to be more, because, as you say: and there is pretty-woman!Ronon in my brain screaming to be let out.
Do you think I should take a crack at it?
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-08 11:15 pm (UTC)This is not just a shallow request for what happened behind the bead curtain (altho... please?). There's a lot here that is screaming out for more - what happened to Teyla? What was so bad it made them leave? Why is John so desperate to escape from the other Lanteans? Did the SGC really let Ronon wander off around Earth unsupervised, or did he drop off the radar against orders?
I really like your writing style, very sparse, and the line about Teyla still prowling the halls felt all the more menacing for it, and also seemed filled with John's guilt as well as pity. And the line about John opening his eyes in Chicago & seeing Ronon scars, you somehow convey his lack of attention & emptiness stretching back through all the other bars. And the way you don't say "Ronon moved like..." but instead say Ronon's body, Ronon's legs, his gaze, his mouth, but somehow not him, really does an excellent job of conveying how absent & shut down he is.
So yes. Listen to
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-28 11:22 pm (UTC)I'll agree it would be nice to hear more about Teyla, I love apocafics--but leave this as is. It's such a lovely, fragile thing that is perfect all on its own.