sga_flashfic | Those Damn Space Pirate Blues

nataliadarimini.livejournal.com posting in

Title: Those Damn Space Pirate Blues
Author:nataliadarimini
Words: A mere 1054
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Summary: Anyway, anyway, there had been an incident with an animal that had been three times as big as any animal actually has a right to be.
Author's Notes: This was not what I'd meant to write at all. I wanted to tie everything up with a nice bow so I could stick it in a box marked "done." It didn't work out quite that way. Oh, and you'll need to have read Those Damn Amnesiac Blues or this will make no sense at all.

Those Damn Space Pirate Blues

***

Living in a cave, Dorn supposes, is always a tricky business. There are insects and unusual moss and fungal growths. There are undoubtedly trillions of parasites just waiting for exposure to his succulent flesh. What is bothering him the most about his current situation, though, is their cave's lack of medical facilities.

Sheppard is moaning a little bit in the corner, with Dorn's lab-coat under his head. Dorn had anticipated a straight shot to the stargate, from which they would travel to wherever their base of operations was located and then just get on with whatever it was they did. Sadly, even space-pirate-genius-nuclear-expert-action-heroes occasionally have faulty plans.

After he'd dragged Sheppard out of the compound and gotten him into the cart-thing, there'd been an incident with the animal that he'd felt was best qualified to draw the cart-thing.

It had been tied to a post not fifty feet away and it was vaguely large-ish and not-very-hostile-looking and it just seemed the logical choice. He's fully prepared to admit that this whole section of his plan was a little hazy. He hadn't been able to fabricate a logical reason to ask about the transportation outside. Plus, he'd have had to admit that he'd been wandering around on his own, because his handlers never took him out where he would have been able to see this stuff.

Anyway, anyway, there had been an incident with an animal that had been three times as big as any animal actually has a right to be and he'd been bleeding pretty heavily by the time he'd gotten them to the gate. Bacteria must be having a field-day in blood stream at this very second. Sheppard had just been beginning to show the first inklings of wakefulness at that point. Something must have been off about his calculations, because it had been much longer than ten minutes.

Dorn looks over at Sheppard, looking pale and dramatic and vaguely consumptive. It's only been about an hour and a half now. There's still the possibility that he'll come out of this okay.

Dorn had been working with admittedly shoddy research, but his own work was good. He does his best work under pressure, he can just tell.

He tries to be consoled by the idea that his captors must be in a similarly unpleasant state, but it doesn't actually comfort him. He doesn't really like the idea of having hurt anybody. He was just so eager to get Sheppard out of there.

Yes, yes, and now, with the twisting lines of Sheppard's scars and the watercolor splotches of his bruises dancing behind his eyelids, he sees that waiting to try to get a less violent solution wasn't an option.

Back there, when they'd gotten to the gate, when Sheppard had drowsily mumbled at him and made his heart swell up huge and protective in his chest, he'd thought that he just might be the hero of the story, improbable as it seemed. But now, hiding in this cave, of all the insanities, he has to acknowledge that he's really not. Or they wouldn't be stuck here still. The bastard of a yak-thing is lurking ouside the mouth of the cave, looking smug.

He'd tried to get Sheppard to give him something to go on. He needed an address, any safe place, but Sheppard couldn't give him any, couldn't focus on the fingers Dorn held in front of his face. And the people in the compound had never said any, they'd just called them by names that weren't any use to someone trying to use the gate. Dorn supposes, really, that he's lucky he remembers how to use the thing at all. That he can't remember any places to go is only a minor concern, right?

He can feel the panic gaining a foothold in the back of his head, at the base of his skull, sending tendrils of "what if" all along his neurons. Sheppard had seemed like he was coming out of it, damn it all to hell, and then he'd just started shivering and making those damn noises.

As he leans back to rest his head against the dirty wall, his extra shirt wrapped around his arm where that damn animal took a chunk out of his arm, he finally admits to himself that he might have made a mistake. Sheppard makes a gurgling noise in the corner.

Oh, god.

But Sheppard's not dying, he's heaving himself onto his side to vomit all over the floor. Dorn's can't imagine he's ever seen a prettier sight when Sheppard coughs a couple of times and then manages to get an arm underneath himself.

As he hoists himself up and staggers to Sheppard's side, Dorn thinks that he can hear a mumbled and beautiful, "I'm never drinking again." His legs give out on him a little bit when he tries to lower himself down next to Sheppard, but that's okay, it's not like he needed to go anywhere else.

His bleary looking eyes meet Dorn's and this amazing smile just cracks his face in two, like he'd just been given everything, everything he'd ever wanted. He starts laughing, a dry and hoarse noise, rasping and utterly joyous.

***

Rodney believes him when he tells him his name. After all, it's Sheppard.

But when he tells him that they live in the lost city of the ancients and fight space vampires, he has a moment of, "Oh, hell. Not again." Even with improbable aliens who want to suck his soul, though, his story rings far more true than anything from Rodney's other life.

Sheppard has wobbled to his feet and makes his way over to Rodney to stand by the device. He still can’t quite stop trembling, but he slings an arm around Rodney's shoulders to hold himself up while he indicates which signs are the right ones. The warmth of his arm is burning right through the back of Rodney's shirt as he tries to keep his hand steady enough to enter the sequence. The almost-yak is looking on with a paternal air.

This is it. This was everything that he's been working for. The culmination of everything. The hand on his shoulder tightens and he looks at Sheppard while the wormhole engages.

Sheppard's grin is absolutely breath-taking as he says, "Home, Jeeves."

"I thought you said my name was Rodney," he says, but then they are going through, going home, gone.

Current Mood: satisfied

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ceitie.livejournal.com

Rodney may think he's not the hero, but he managed to rescue both Sheppard and himself from the Genii while mostly amnesiac, which is pretty damn cool. Also, the smug yak-thing made me laugh, and Sheppard's smile upon waking up made me melt. Another sequel for what happens in Atlantis, pretty please? *blinks hopefully*

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