An Old Story, by aesc

[aesc.livejournal.com]

Title: An Old Story
By: HF
Email: aesc36 @gmail.com
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Rating/Warnings: PG13. Vague sexual references, language
Disclaimer: Not mine!
Word Count: 7,709
Summary: McSheppardian remix of "Cupid and Psyche." Science conquers all... Or, almost all.

Notes: This is a little long for flashfic purposes, but it seized my brain with sharp, pointy teeth and wouldn't let go.


AN OLD STORY

Once upon a time, or something like that, there was a very brilliant (and slightly odd-looking) man known as Rodney McKay. He was in his thirties and still lived at home with his parents, much to their mutual annoyance.

(He would have moved out, but back then it was the custom for all single men and women to live with their parents until they got married off. Remember, this was the olden days and they didn’t know any better.)

“I honestly don’t know what we’re going to do about him,” Rodney’s father said, over the sound of yet another explosion. “We need to get him off our hands somehow, and no one wants to marry him.”

Rodney’s mother sighed and nodded. “What do you think he’s blown up this time?”

“I think it was the greenhouse.”

A glassy shatter verified this, and Rodney’s mother murmured something about her poor begonias.

Unfortunately for Rodney and his parents, no one was willing to marry him and thus take him off their hands. In part, this had to do with the fact that Rodney was far too obsessed with science (i.e. blowing things up) to pay attention to any of the young men or women who came to the McKay house hoping to marry into one of the richest, if more eccentric, families in the kingdom. Mostly, though, Rodney was abrasive and more than a bit nasty to anyone who possessed an iota less intelligence than he did (which was everyone), and being insulted on a regular basis was not most people’s idea of conjugal bliss.

The official McKay line was that Rodney’d had a curse placed on him by a vengeful goddess, a curse that kept him chaste and spouseless and alone, but neither of his parents was sure people were buying that anymore.

* * *

In fact, the curse story was true, more or less, but no one knew this for a fact, not even Rodney’s parents. The goddess of love really didn’t have anything to fear from Rodney – he wasn’t much of a threat in the informal, ongoing beauty contest the immortal women engaged in to pass the time (and Chaya was still getting grief over the whole “Judgment of Paris” debacle) but she tended to take exception to people who believed other things in life were more important than sex.

“Fine,” Chaya growled to herself as she sat on her cloud and watched Rodney wreaking single-minded havoc on his parents’ household. “If he doesn’t want sex, we’ll see how he gets on without it.”

She turned to her assistant with a glare and then proceeded to explain her plan.

Like most forms of divine revenge, Chaya’s was brilliantly simple in theory, more complex in execution: people wouldn’t fall in love with Rodney McKay. They’d come to look at him, admire his intelligence and the huge craters he’d put in the McKays’ backyard, but they wouldn’t marry him. They’d get better offers from another king, discover a call to chaste service in some mountain temple, the women would realize they in fact loved the McKay’s younger daughter Jeannie, and the men would, too.

Jeannie got married off really quickly. Even Kavanagh, who had been adopted and whose face had the disturbing habit of screwing up, sphincter-like, whenever something annoyed him, got married the third time out of the gate.

So Rodney stayed in his parents’ house, blew things up to pass the time, and waited.

* * *

What Chaya didn’t know was that her assistant – whom some people called her son but was actually more like a very distant relative – had gone winging off to the McKay palace to carry out her orders, and had actually stood there (invisible, of course) and watched Rodney murmuring his way through an experiment, and had liked how Rodney’s brows furrowed and his blue eyes went dark in concentration, and had thought now nice and broad his shoulders were and that his mouth was perfect for kissing, and had been so distracted that he’d shot himself with the wrong arrow.

John, of course, never mentioned this, just got back home to heaven and put a bandage over the wound, and whenever Chaya asked him why he was hanging around the McKay place, he said he wanted to make sure the curse was working.

“It is, of course,” Chaya sniffed.

“Yeah,” John agreed, and kept watching. He grinned when the sound of another explosion wafted up to heaven, followed by the startled cries of people running for cover.

The explosions were pretty cool. Rodney was even cooler.

* * *

At last, desperate to get Rodney out of the house and save the tattered remains of his wife’s roses (which were slated for complete obliteration sooner or later), Rodney’s father went to the local oracle and asked for help.

“I really need to get him out of the house,” he whispered. “I’ll do anything. Anything.”

The oracle eyed him speculatively. “Give me an extra fifty and I’ll see what I can do.”

Sighing, but desperate enough not to complain about extortion, Rodney’s father pulled out a large gold piece and tossed it on the table. The oracle pocketed it swiftly, tucking it in somewhere among his voluminous robes.

“Here’s the deal.” The oracle coughed and waved a piece of fern in the direction of the incense. A fresh plume of smoke wafted up, and the oracle coughed again. “Your son has had a curse placed upon him by the goddess Chaya. He is destined to marry no mortal man or woman, but instead, is to be betrothed to a dark, terrible all-devouring monster before whose might even the immortals tremble. Yea, neither man nor god may stand before him, for his power encompasses all the earth and verily the depths of the sea and the heights of…” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, ten days from now, you must take your son to the cliffs overlooking the borders of your land and leave him, and from there he will be taken to his new home.”

This sounded like a bit much to Rodney’s father, but he agreed, made the appropriate sounds of lamentation for a beloved son so condemned, and made sure to leave a tip.

He got home and, as predicted, there was some weeping and wailing. Some of it came from Rodney’s mother, partly grief (she didn’t want to send her son off to be devoured by a Cyclops or whatever was waiting for him) and partly relief (that her flowers would finally have a chance). The rest of it came from Rodney who was, predictably, very upset at this turn of events.

“You have got to be kidding me!” he shouted. The high vaults of the dining hall echoed with indignation. “You can’t seriously believe that this… this charlatan knows what he’s talking about.”

“He was one of the oracles at Delphi,” Rodney’s father said. He poked at his broccoli. “And I’m sorry, Rodney, but you know that the Delphi oracles are sworn to tell the truth. I’m afraid it’s the cliffs for you.”

“This is completely ridiculous,” Rodney said, his expression mutinous. “I’m not going.”

* * *

Ten days later, as scheduled, Rodney’s father and mother deposited him at the top of the tallest cliff. They had dressed in mourning, believing they were sending their son off to a messy, painful death instead of his marriage, and Rodney was likewise swathed in a white burial sheet over his finest clothes. Jeannie and Kavanagh, who’d come along, gave him perfunctory hugs, and Kavanagh’s face screwed up again.

“This guy sounds like a real prize,” he said as he stepped away. “I’m sure you’ll be very happy together.”

“Oh, shut up.”

With these and similar words of affection, the rest of Rodney’s family departed back down the mountainside, leaving Rodney alone and exposed on the top of the cliff.

“Great,” he muttered, yanking the sheet off. “Just great.”

The wind tugged violently at the sheet, pulling it from Rodney’s hands and sending it flying out over the cliff, down and down and… Rodney winced, even further down, flapping on currents of air. The same wind played through his hair, brushing cool fingers across his neck.

“I wonder what’s going to get me first: this monster or exposure.” He shivered in his coat and drew it more tightly around his body.

He lost track of how long he stood there, but after a while it seemed as though the wind was becoming warmer, gentler – “Probably hypothermia,” he told himself – and finally sighing to a stop, improbable considering how far up he was.

“Rodney?” asked a voice.

Rodney spun around, looking wildly in all directions.

“Who said that?”

“I did,” said the voice, the voice that was coming out of nowhere, and oh God, auditory hallucinations.

“Definitely hypothermia,” Rodney whimpered.

“No,” the voice said very patiently, very kindly, as gentle as the soft breeze that lapped at his cheeks and brushed invisible lips across his forehead. “I am the West Wind, and I was sent here to take you to my master’s home.”

So it was to be the horrible black all-devouring monster after all. Strangely relieved to have the manner of his death settled, Rodney nodded.

The Wind picked him up as effortlessly as if he were a leaf and whisked him away. Rodney very carefully kept his eyes shut, and most definitely did not think about how far above the earth they were, and also didn’t wonder if the Wind would become tired, or bored, or get sick of carrying him and drop him to a messy, horrible death on the plains below. But the Wind flew on, steady and warm, and sometimes telling Rodney what he could see from so far up – distant rivers Rodney had only read about in books, fabulous palaces, mountains, forests that were the homes of nymphs and satyrs and dryads.

Gradually, Rodney gave in and opened his eyes, and after a long moment of vertiginous terror began to enjoy himself.

“We will be at my master’s home very soon,” the Wind told him at length, and sure enough, after another half-hour – by this time the sun was very low in the west, and almost blinding because they were flying right into it – it said, “Do you see that bright spot on the horizon? That is your new home.”

The bright spot grew larger and larger, a many-turreted palace that looked more like a city than a single building, floating in the midst of the ocean. Sunlight glowed copper and crimson and gold all along its edges, bright against the shadows that covered the eastern towers.

“Wow,” Rodney said, and the Wind laughed.

Eventually, the Wind slowed and Rodney felt himself falling – a gentle fall, though he still ordered the Wind to be careful and, for God’s sake, to go slower (the Wind laughed at this). The Wind set him down outside a giant door, atop one of the great arm-like piers that radiated out from the center of the city.

“You may go inside,” the Wind told him, “for all has been made ready for you.”

One last brush of warmth across Rodney’s face, and then the Wind swirled back up and away, and Rodney was alone again.

“Well,” he said, staring up at the huge towers which now, from this perspective, looked forbidding and grim. “I’m just in time for dinner, I guess. Which is good, because the evil black monster thing is probably hungry. Wouldn’t want to keep him waiting.”

And with that, he walked inside.

The gates opened for him as the Wind had promised, but inside all was silent. No gatekeeper, no herald or steward or any other sign of life. Just immense, echoing hallways stretching out to either side of him.

“Hello?” Rodney asked, and only his echo answered back.

Hello? hello?

“Maybe he decided to eat out tonight.” Rodney turned right and started walking, keeping an anxious eye on the shadows and an anxious ear out for footsteps. No one came, and he couldn’t hear anything else other than his own footsteps and the terrified knocking of his heart, the harsh rasp of breath that meant he was probably going to start hyperventilating at any minute.

Eventually he came to another door and paused in front of it, debating whether or not to walk through.

And as he stood there trying to figure out what to do, the door, as though moved by invisible hands, opened with a soft hiss of air.

Rodney jumped.

Beyond the door stretched another vast hall, but this was lit with what seemed to be hundreds of lamps. A gigantic table, crowded with candles and trays of food, ran the length of the hall, though the dizzying vaults and crevices made it seem small and insignificant.

“Oh my God,” Rodney breathed, and stared up and up and up into vast recesses where lights and shadows danced together, reflecting and refracting through chandeliers and pillars that seemed to be made of topaz and emerald.

Monster or not, his fiancé had good taste. Rodney wandered closer to the table, caught between amazement at his surroundings and hunger (his parents hadn’t given him so much as a farewell brunch that morning). He was trying to inspect one of the trays and the ornate decoration on one of the pillars at the same time when another invisible voice spoke next to him.

“You hungry?”

Rodney jumped a mile, told himself he probably needed to get used to this, and looked around for this new interlocutor.

“I’m right here,” said the voice, deep and rough and impatient.

“Sorry, I’m selectively blind,” Rodney snapped. “What’s the deal?”

“I am sorry,” another voice said, a woman’s this time, “but he is not accustomed to our present state. We are our master’s servants, and we are here to serve you as well. How may we be of assistance?”

“Um…” Rodney wanted to be hostile and impolite, but the disembodied voice was cordial and measured, and he couldn’t vent his annoyance on it. “Could you tell me if any of these dishes have citrus in them? I’m deathly allergic. Though maybe that’s a better way to go than being devoured alive, and it’s not as messy as beheading me or whatever he wants to do.”

“I…” The voice trailed off, and Rodney had the distinct impression its owner was puzzled. “Our orders are to see that you are made comfortable for the night, to give you food and the opportunity to refresh yourself before you sleep, for your journey has been long.”

Technically Rodney hadn’t done anything except sit for the past several hours, and the West Wind had smelled sweetly of flowers and salt from the great western Ocean, but the least the horrible dark all-devouring monster owed him was a decent meal and a good night’s sleep before killing him in whatever gruesome and painful manner he’d planned.

Between them, the two voices figured out which dishes were citrus-free and Rodney ate. And ate. It was wonderful, all of it, rare delicacies from the East, the finest olives and grapes, rich wine that made him dizzy.

“Oh my God, this isn’t poisoned is it?” he demanded, waving the cup where he thought one of the voices was standing.

“I wish,” said the rough, ill-tempered voice. “Are you done yet?”

“No.” Rodney scowled around a mouthful of something sweet.

He eventually finished, though not without speculating further that maybe the monster wanted him to be fattened up – not very healthy, Rodney supposed, and years of devoting himself to science had ensured he wasn’t what anyone would call scrawny (but his friend – and almost-fiancé – Radek, now there was someone who needed meat on his bones), but there you go. The voices escorted him down more halls and through chambers as amazing as the dining room, and lights flickered and came on, revealing intricate tapestries and more glasswork.

“Wow,” Rodney murmured.

“It is a very old palace,” the woman’s voice said, close by his right shoulder. “It has been our master’s all his life, and it is yours now. Tomorrow, once you are rested, we will take you exploring, if you wish.”

This sounded like a slightly more permanent arrangement than “snack for evil monster” suggested.

By the time they got to the bedroom, Rodney was too overwhelmed by wonders and exhaustion to comment further. He barely noticed the massive bed as anything more than a vague tickle of concern in the corner of his awareness, the silk and tapestries and rich woods blending into the other marvels of the palace. The voices showed him to a bathroom the size of his parents’ house, with its own indoor lake and jars of oil and soft towels laid out, but he was too tired to take advantage of them, just nodded, stood in the doorway for a moment before turning back around and stumbling into bed.

“Good night, Rodney,” the woman’s voice said. “I wish you a good rest.”

The lights went out completely, and Rodney realized abruptly that there were no windows here. The room was utterly black.

He wondered if the voices were gone. It felt like they were, and he couldn’t hear anything other than his own soft, nervous breaths.

This was probably the part where the monster came for him, and Rodney forced himself to calmness. He tried to imagine what it looked like, some distorted thing with sharp teeth and claws and horrible livid skin, and it would materialize out of the darkness, stalking him, moving across the bed very slowly, letting Rodney taste the last desperate seconds of his life, and its breath would be hot and moist with blood, smelling of death, but mostly hot like the breath on his skin right now, like the body he couldn’t see hovering over him…

Wait.

Oh God, the monster was in here with him.

It was in fact right on top of him, oh God.

Rodney did what any sensible person in his situation would do: he screamed and lashed out blindly, relieved when his fists met something that felt like a human jaw and made a sound that sounded – and felt – satisfyingly painful.

“Ow! Fuck!” yelped his assailant. “Fuck!”

“Get away!” Rodney shouted, scrabbling for the edge of the bed. “Get your filthy talons off me!”

“Talons?” the voice asked, sounding far too injured and aggrieved considering its owner was planning on devouring Rodney raw. “Who said anything about talons?”

“Says me,” Rodney snapped. The monster didn’t seem to be pursuing him; he could hear faint rustling on the far corner of the bed, as though the creature had retreated to lick its wounds. “What, you weren’t planning on having me as a midnight snack?”

“Not exactly,” said the monster. “Ow. That hurt.”

“Well, that’s what you get.” Thank God he hadn’t undressed; Rodney had no idea what he would have done if he’d been naked. He fumbled on the bedside table for a lamp, a candle, anything, but found only smooth wood.

“I wasn’t going to eat you,” the monster said after a moment, and he sounded like he actually meant it, and that Rodney was maybe more than a bit crazy for even suggesting it.

“Is that part of your clever ploy to lure me into a false sense of security before devouring me?”

“No, it isn’t.” The monster said this very slowly and carefully, as though attempting to imprint the words on Rodney’s brain. “Didn’t you listen to the prophecy? I’m supposed to marry you, not eat you. I can’t have a husband and eat him too, you know.”

“Har har.” Rodney eyed the other side of the bed suspiciously. “So, what, do I get to find out who you are? Granted, all the other prospects were pretty dismal, especially Sumner – and he married Kavanagh, if you can believe it. It actually makes me kind of ill to think about. Anyway, I can’t believe my parents agreed to this without finding out more about you, other than that, you know, you’re horrible and all-devouring and no one can stand before your power.”

“Well, I am,” the monster told him, sounding insufferably smug about it.

“Not exactly the kind of thing that puts you on the Top 10 Bachelors list.”

The monster made a sound that could have passed for a laugh.

“Look,” the monster said after a moment, “I don’t know how to say this, but we’re pretty much married now…”

“Yes, yes…”

“… and we sort of need to consummate it.” The monster paused. “I was kind of trying to do that just now.”

“By molesting me in my sleep?” Rodney squawked. “What kind of idiotic plan is that?”

“It works in the old stories,” the monster said defensively.

“Yeah, and they’re old. Back then people thought romance consisted in grabbing some random maiden or youth and making off with them without so much as a ‘Hey, what’s your sign?’ This is today, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“Oh for…” The monster sounded a bit closer now; Rodney could feel the bed shift as he moved. “Look, Rodney…”

“What’s your name?” Rodney demanded. “You know mine, why can’t I know yours?”

“Because you can’t.” The monster was very close now; Rodney could feel the warmth of his body, and it was a human warmth, or something like it, and he smelled nice, pleasant, and not at all like old blood or bones or death. “I can’t show myself to you, not ever, and I can’t give you my name. If you see me, that’s it… I’m gone. And I kind of don’t want that.”

“Oh.” Rodney blinked, taken aback by the monster’s sincerity, by the rapidly-growing suspicion that the monster was actually not a monster at all, but possibly a slightly-disturbed man who was even more paranoid than Rodney himself. “Um, if you don’t mind me asking then, why me?”

He could feel the other man shrug, a nice shift of firm flesh against his shoulder. Fingers played down his neck, under his collar.

“I sort of was watching you one day,” he said, like it was that simple, when a lot of people had been sort of watching Rodney for a long time and hadn’t done anything about it, or had married Jeannie or Kavanagh instead.

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” the other man said, and his mouth was just under the curve of Rodney’s jaw, and strong fingers pressed along Rodney’s cheekbone, turning his head, and then warm, strange lips were on his, and oh, Rodney said again.

* * *

Rodney woke up dazed and alone, and something close to happy, and the lights in his bedroom were on again. He sat up and winced as muscles pulled uncomfortably. His husband must have been a gymnast or something because, hello, limber. And insatiable.

Rodney loved him already.

“Did you sleep well?” the woman’s voice asked, without a trace of humor, like she didn’t know what Rodney and his new husband had gotten up to the previous night.

“Very well,” Rodney said, which was a lie, and tried to straighten out the blankets.

He could feel her amusement, but she didn’t say anything else, other than to mention breakfast was ready for him when he wished it.

“Where’s… um… my husband?” he asked as he stumbled toward the washroom.

“He’s out,” said the gruff male voice.

“Oh my God!” Rodney whirled around. “Please tell me you aren’t going to watch me take a bath.”

“Believe me, you don’t need to worry about that,” the voice said, mercifully sounding much further away. Rodney slammed the door between them just in case.

In fact, unless it was night and Rodney was in bed, his mysterious husband was always “out,” though Rodney consoled himself with the knowledge that when his husband was in, he was, most definitely, in.

So Rodney spent his days in the company of the two voices, exploring the vast city-like palace. It truly was a place of wonders, filled with ancient knowledge, more books and scrolls than Rodney had ever seen, and no door was closed to him – except the doors to his husband’s private room, which were locked and forbidden.

“Don’t try to go in there,” Rodney’s invisible husband said one night. “Please.”

“Was there a prenup I should have signed or something?” Rodney demanded, but he was in too good a mood from yet another blindingly hot round of sex to be really annoyed by it.

Things went on like this for a good while – invisible sex at night, invisible companions to talk to during the day, good food – and Rodney would have been content except for the slight niggling feeling that he should let his family know he was, in fact, alive.

“I don’t know why,” his husband said in between kisses, his voice coming from somewhere further down Rodney’s chest in the vicinity of his right nipple. “I mean, they abandoned you to the mercies of… what was I supposed to be? An all-devouring monster or whatever.”

“Yeah,” Rodney agreed, rocking into that wonderful, invisible mouth. “But still. They should know how I’m doing… if only because it would really piss Kavanagh off to know he got stuck with some second-rate warlord in Scythia.”

“Only pain will come of it.” And that sounded sufficiently foreboding to warn Rodney off, and his orgasm that night should have wiped all thoughts of Kavanagh and Jeannie from his mind, but they stayed like a particularly annoying fungus, and so reluctantly Rodney’s husband said they could come for a visit after Rodney had worn him down on the subject.

“They’ll try to persuade you to get a look at me,” was the warning, delivered the night before Rodney’s brother and sister were to arrive. “And if they succeed, well, we’re kind of screwed.”

“Like I’ll ever listen to what Kavanagh has to say,” Rodney scoffed, running his fingers through thick, tousled hair and wondering if that hair looked as soft as it felt. “I love you. Now shut up and do that thing with your tongue again. The thing that isn’t talking.”

* * *

Kavanagh and Jeannie showed up that following morning, ruffled and surprised at their mode of transport; the West Wind had picked both of them up from their respective homes and flown them here, though from the looks of them, somewhat less gently than it had transported Rodney. The two voices were cool, and the rough male one even more hostile than it usually was.

Other than that, Rodney was delighted with his siblings’ reactions to the palace. They gasped over its size and richness, marveled over the food that appeared magically at lunchtime (and at almost any other time you even thought about eating), the fact that the palace was in the middle of the sea, the rich bedrooms, the voices, the bathing rooms, everything.

“So, what is it that your husband does?” Kavanagh asked. He sounded a bit drunk. Rodney was sure he was stealing soap and towels from the guest bathrooms.

“What does it look like he does?” Rodney demanded. “He’s a great prince. He spends most of his time hunting and doing other… princely things.”

“Will we get to meet him?”

Rodney glared at Jeannie; she sounded suspiciously like she had when she’d snaked Radek out from under him, far too innocent and disinterested. And if she thought she was going to steal Rodney’s invisible-yet-obviously-very-hot husband, well, she had another thought coming.

“Maybe,” he said, instead of the no way in hell he wanted to say. “He’s pretty busy. Hunting.”

“Have you ever seen him?”

“Of course I have.”

“So what’s he look like?” Jeannie again, and the two losers were tag-teaming him.

“Hot. Of course.”

“What’s his hair color? His eyes? How tall is he? Does he have any scars?”

“A tattoo?” Jeannie interrupted. “Birthmarks?”

Rodney was many things: brilliant, irascible, great in bed (and he had proof), but he was a terrible liar, and as he fumbled his way through his answers it became pretty clear that he hadn’t once laid eyes on his husband.

“It sounds like he’s really the monster of the prophecy,” Kavanagh said at last. “He’s probably waiting until you’re fat enough… or fatter, anyway… to eat, and then that’s it.”

“Or worse.” Jeannie peered at Rodney anxiously, as though looking for missing parts. “You could be in terrible danger, Rodney.”

“You’re right,” Rodney muttered, because they were, in a horribly wrong sort of way. He hadn’t once seen his husband, but then again, his husband hadn’t once hurt him or even given a hint he was planning on carving Rodney up into steaks. But then he hadn’t once seen his husband, and if he’d loved Rodney like he said he would have revealed himself and all this cloak-and-dagger stuff was getting pretty ridiculous. He was probably paranoid – a sentiment Rodney understood and shared in – and maybe he was insecure about some hideous deformity he wouldn’t admit to.

But still.

It seemed a lot like a trust issue to Rodney, and Trust Issues were the big relationship issue these days, as Jeannie kept telling him between whispered conferences with Kavanagh. They were busy making plans, plans that involved hiding a dagger under his pillow and sneaking a small lamp into the bedroom.

“Light the lamp before you stab him,” Kavanagh was saying. (“Obviously,” Jeannie sniffed.) “You need to make sure you’re stabbing him in the heart.”

“Right, right,” Rodney muttered.

He saw them off after dinner, and the West Wind picked them up and whirled them off back home. Standing there on the piers, watching Kavanagh and Jeannie vanish into the distance, Rodney felt small and alone and completely confused.

He debated with himself for the rest of the evening – silently, because he was sure the voices wouldn’t approve of this – and managed to smuggle in a small lamp, along with a knife he’d stolen from the dinner table. It was ridiculously blunt, but better than nothing.

As usual, his husband came when the lights had gone out, and after sex – sex that was too good, too wonderful and desperate, and God he shouldn’t do this – Rodney lay there and listened to his breathing and told himself silently and emphatically that there was no possible way his husband could be what Kavanagh and Jeannie said he was, that he’d had too much proof to the contrary and Rodney was big on proof, that Kavanagh and Jeannie were jealous and that was it, but damn it, they could be right, and it was better to be safe than sorry, and before he knew it he was lighting the lamp with a shaking hand and picking up the knife.

Light spilled golden across the bed and his husband was beautiful. Bronze and shadow and long-limbed and graceful even lying there asleep.

Rodney started violently, and a drop of oil spilled from the lamp. It landed, hissing, on a naked shoulder, and his husband woke.

A moment.

“I told you so,” his husband said after a moment. “But did you listen?”

Rodney shook his head, despairing.

“I have to go.”

The lamp went out.

When light came again, Rodney was alone. Really alone: no voices to greet him, just the endless emptiness of the palace.

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. FUCK.” He struggled out of bed and threw on his clothes, pointedly ignoring the treacherous lamp and the knife where he’d dropped them the night before.

Rodney McKay was many things: brilliant, irascible, great in bed (and he had proof), a terrible liar, and also a person who admitted when he’d screwed up.

“I’m going to make this right,” he told himself and the empty castle. The voices didn’t answer him this time, and he was pretty certain they’d gone. “I’ll find him and whatever I need to do to fix it, I’ll do it.”

Fortunately, the West Wind was there to help him off the island city, though it treated him much more roughly than before. When it dropped him on the mainland, he begged it to stay for a moment.

“I don’t suppose you know where he’s gone off to?” he asked the Wind.

The Wind sighed. “Your husband was the son – well, very distant relative, anyway – of the Goddess of Love. She’ll be angry when she learns it was you he fell in love with, and you who gave him that wound – she doesn’t like people sneaking around and countermanding her curses. But if you travel to her temple at Cyprus, you must pray to her there and see if you can make amends.”

“Thank you,” Rodney said politely, though the thought of praying to Chaya made him physically ill, and the Wind whispered its acceptance and whirled away again.

It was a long, hard trek to the temple, but Rodney managed it in good time, and soon he stood within the precincts. He lit the incense and offered the one prayer he could remember – the shortest – and waited.

Chaya came down to him, tall and beautiful and scornful.

“I hope you’re happy, you… you hussy,” Chaya hissed. “Thanks to you and your unfaithfulness, John has been very badly wounded. Lamp oil burns are very dangerous; Carson is having a very difficult time fixing him up.”

“Look,” Rodney bristled. “I came to apologize. And to see my – To see John.”

“Well, tough.” Chaya crossed her arms under her bosom and glared at him. “I’ve half a mind to turn you into a toad or something else slimy and disgusting, but… That would be boring. All the gods and goddesses do it. Instead…” She trailed off a moment, and the expression she fixed on Rodney was decidedly unpleasant. “I will set you some trials, and maybe – just maybe – you can prove yourself worthy of his love and trust. I don’t think so, though. He’s very angry.”

“I’ll do them,” Rodney told her, wilting inside at the possibility of John never forgiving him.

She blinked. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Fine, then.” Chaya waved an imperious hand, and a gigantic pile of seeds materialized on the open floor beside them. “First, you must sort through all of these seeds – the smallest, finest seeds the earth produces: millet, sesame, mustard, and so on. You must sort them out into separate piles, and if so much as one seed is out of place, there’ll be hell to pay. And you can forget about seeing John ever again.”

She vanished, and Rodney was alone.

“Vindictive bitch,” he grumbled, staring disconsolately at the pile of nearly identical seeds. This was impossible – which was obviously the point – but he wasn’t going to give up.

After a bit of thought, Rodney hunted up some simple tools and scavenged parts from the temple and the surrounding buildings, and built a small machine that sifted out seeds based on weight. The work went quickly, and would have gone faster if a bunch of ants hadn’t shown up out of nowhere and kept trying to get into the seeds.

Rodney had stepped on what he was sure was his millionth ant by the time the machine finished sorting out the seeds. Chaya returned a short time later and inspect the piles, her face growing increasingly wrathful as it became clear that not a seed was out place.

“You obviously had help,” she snarled, “so here’s what you’re going to do next: I want you to fetch the fleece from some golden sheep that graze in fields not far from here. And I want plenty of it, or else.”

Sighing, Rodney stalked off to the field and walked up to one of the golden sheep, but retreated hastily when the sheep bellowed at him and charged.

“Homicidal sheep. Great,” he said to himself from the safety of a low tree branch. The flock of sheep clustered around the tree, baa-ing ferociously. Could sheep climb trees? he wondered. Even if they couldn’t, they seemed pretty determined to stay and starve him down. He sat on his perch, treed and somewhat desperate, and thought.

Eventually, he figured out a way to rig up a rough sort of fleece-gathering device using branches, leaves, and the string that served as his belt. Like fishing for fleece, he thought, as he plucked a good amount from the backs of the sheep, who were now somewhere between enraged and confused.

He sat there all night as the sheep circled restlessly, but eventually they gave up and Rodney was able to climb back down and return to Chaya’s temple with his prize.

“Damn it, you just won’t quit,” Chaya snarled, and yeah, Rodney wasn’t going to quit so he was happy she’d realized that. “Fine. Next task: You must fill this flask with water from the place where the rivers of the Styx and Cocytus have their headwaters, at the top of a cliff of treacherous rocks. And it had better be full, or else.” She shoved the flask at Rodney and disappeared.

Like before, Rodney was filled with despair as he contemplated his task, because the rocks were steep and treacherous with slime, and he knew he’d fall to his death into the river far below. But after applying his not-inconsiderable genius to the problem, he devised a system of pulleys and levers that hoisted the flask up to the top of the cliff and lowered it, filled to the brim with dark water.

“I can’t believe this,” Chaya said when Rodney presented her with the flask. “One last task, then, and we’re quits.

“As you know, nursing my poor sick son – er, very distant relative – has tasked me cruelly. My beauty has faded and, if you can believe it, they’re saying Athene is more beautiful than I. Athene. This will not do.” She frowned at Rodney. “As this is more or less all your fault, it falls to you to fix things. So, you’re to go down to the Underworld and ask the Queen to fill this box – ” and here she produced a richly-carved box from her cleavage “ – with some of her beauty.”

This was by far the worst task yet, and Rodney could see no way to use his science to accomplish it. Pulleys and levers and winnowing machines couldn’t do much to get him to the land of the dead, unless he used one of them to hoist himself up to the heights and then fall. But then he’d be dead, and science couldn’t bring him back, and he’d lose John forever.

Despairing, he set out for a tall tower and decided that he might as well go out with style – and it was, so to speak, the quickest way down. As he stood at the top of it, he thought back to that morning on the cliff when the West Wind had spoken to him, and then his journeys to the tallest towers of John’s palace, and the darkness of their bedroom at night, and he hoped death would be a bit like that.

Just as he nerved himself to step over the edge into empty space, a voice came from nowhere.

It wasn’t the voice of either of the servants or the West Wind, but it was gentle and calm and very reasonable, and Rodney realized that the tower itself was speaking.

By now, this ceased to amaze him.

“Rodney, there is another way,” it said, and went on to tell him the secret road that led down to Erebus, and the things he must do to ensure his safe passage by the three heads of Cerberus, to cross the river on Charon’s boat, not to eat anything in the Underworld, for then he would be trapped there forever.

Feeling slightly ridiculous – come on, why hadn’t he thought to look at a map? He was supposed to be brilliant (but he was also tired, and just wanted to see John and beg for forgiveness and curl up next to him and never move again, ever) – he climbed down from the tower and stumbled off on the road to Erebus.

He followed the tower’s instructions precisely, tossing a cake to Cerberus and giving a penny to Charon, politely refusing all the food pressed on him (though he was really hungry, but the thought that he was being offered food by dead people pretty much killed his appetite). He persuaded Persephone to part with some of her beauty, though when she gave the box back to him it seemed no heavier than before.

“And tell Chaya she needs to stop sponging off the rest of us goddesses,” Persephone added as he turned to leave.

Rodney left the way he came in, still careful to follow the tower’s instructions, politely refusing all the food pressed on him, giving another penny to Charon, and another cake to Cerberus.

When he came out again into the light of day, he sat down by a stream to rest and get a drink. Leaning over it, he saw how absolutely… well, horrific he looked: tired, dirty, scratched by thorns and sharp rocks from the adventure with the Styx, covered with Cerberus slobber, a bruise on his arm where one of the sheep had gotten him, some ant bites.

“Oh my God, you look like death,” Rodney sighed. “John’s never going to want to look at you again.” He thought of how beautiful John had looked in the few seconds before all their happiness had dissolved, the bronze of his skin in the candle light and midnight-dark hair, immortal and perfect, and turned red looking at himself, pale, bruised skin and thinning hair and all.

Then he remembered the box of beauty Persephone had given him.

“Just a little, to take the edge off,” he told himself, and opened the lid.

* * *

Meanwhile, John was actually doing quite well. Carson, as the god of healing, was good at what he did and the oil burn had long since stopped bothering him. Chaya, though, had him locked up like a criminal, and while he’d disobeyed her orders, it wasn’t like she was in charge of him, or his mother, and John was getting sick of her evasions.

“You’re too ill to do anything,” she kept telling him, even as she tested the bars over the window and the lock on the door. “When you’re better, we’ll talk.”

There wasn’t anything to discuss. He wanted Rodney, had missed him desperately ever since that horrible night, and he vowed to bring up the subject at the next council. What a stupid rule, that mortals weren’t allowed to see any of the gods in their real forms, that they had to be invisible or in the shape of another creature. John had always found bestiality disturbing (though Zeus didn’t seem to have a problem with it at all, and even enjoyed it, the kinky bastard) and besides… this was Rodney, impossible and stubborn Rodney who’d irritated Chaya and somehow unknowingly tricked John into tripping up and scratching himself with an arrow.

Carson had told him about Chaya’s vengeance and Rodney’s successive victories, and John had grinned, ridiculous and proud and relieved that Rodney hadn’t given up.

“She’s gone overboard, though,” Carson had said to him this last time, and explained about the trip to the Underworld, and how Rodney was, at this instant, lying unconscious on the bank of the Styx.

“He opened Persephone’s box,” Carson said sadly. “Poor lad, he was so close.”

“That does it.” John stood up and started prowling around, looking for any way out. “Seriously, that so does it.”

The grate over one window wasn’t latched all the way; with a little tugging, John got it open and flew out to look for Rodney.

He found him, as Carson had said, lying on the banks of the Styx, eyes open and unseeing, clouded with the haze of infernal sleep. Carefully, John eased Rodney’s head into his lap and wiped the sleep from his eyes, replacing it in the box that lay next to a limp hand.

Rodney blinked once, twice, their blue clearer now and truer, sharpening when the fixed on John. And possibly for the first time ever, when Rodney’s mouth moved, he didn’t speak, though whether that was out of surprise or the kiss John pressed to it a heartbeat later, John didn’t know.

“I…” was all Rodney could manage when John let him up for air.

“I can’t believe you listened to Kavanagh,” John said. “Genius.”

“Neither can I.” Rodney had the grace to look ashamed, faintly red and awkward, but determined as he’d been when John had come to him that first night and Rodney had punched him in the face. “But I… John, I’m really sorry. Really really sorry.”

“Yeah,” John said, “it’s cool.”

“I can't believe you're the god of love,” Rodney muttered, staring raptly up at John. “I mean... wow. You look more like the god of weird hair or black clothing. You're not very... pink.” He gestured to John's dark shirt and pants, and his perpetually wind-ruffled hair. “So, um, I'm still kind of in shock.”

“There's nothing wrong with my hair or my clothes,” John said, frowning.

Rodney snorted, and it was clear that the only thing John could do was kiss him again.

And so he did.

* * *

After that, Chaya had to admit defeat and welcome Rodney to the ranks of the immortals. While she was never polite to him, she never made him run pointless errands again.

Jeannie, by far the lesser of the two evil siblings, lived obscurely but happily in her little kingdom. However, on the return trip from John’s palace, Kavanagh said something to piss the West Wind off and ended up being dumped in the ocean.

Rodney’s parents were, predictably, pleasantly surprised and pleased that their son had married so well. When word got out that Rodney had “landed the god of love” (his father’s phrase, used when he’d found the oracle who’d made the prophecy and demanded his money back, but the oracle pointed out that love is all-devouring and horrible and so won on a technicality), the fame and prestige of the McKay family increased dramatically. Rodney’s mother was especially relieved, as it meant her greenhouse and flowers were safe from Rodney’s depredations forever.

As you might guess from this sort of story, John and Rodney spent a lot of time having incredibly hot sex. One of the benefits to being an immortal, as Rodney discovered the night after Zeus had given him his first taste of nectar and ambrosia, is a very short refractory period. When the maiden goddesses started to complain about the noise, John and Rodney moved out of Olympus and back to John’s palace on the sea.

And, because this is an old story, they lived happily ever after.

-end-