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sga_flashficI see the challenge didn't QUITE close yet, so I'm sneaking in before it does! First fic in this fandom, you have ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
krisdia to thank.
Title: Prime
Author:megu_megu
Pairing: John/Rodney
Rating: PG, I suppose.
Seasons/spoilers: Around season three, brief nod to Phantoms/none
Synopsis: It isn't Rodney.
They'd left Rodney behind.
John had seen it happen. Everything was so formulaic, so goddamn typical that he wasn't sure how he hadn't see it coming. The usual sniping, the everyday shut up, Sheppard, this could be a zed-pee-em. John's knuckles brushing stones and waking circuitry. Rodney's sharp inhalation cutting through the hum of resurrected machinery, Rodney falling back through a half-moon of stone-- no no no no, John mouthed-- and something else walked out from under the backlit archway that wasn't Rodney at all.
He tried to explain to Elizabeth. Push all he knew to the forefront of his eyes. Gesture with hands. Use his fingers to draw diagrams into the air proving that McKay had. Not. Come. Back. He'd been left behind while they brought this thing wearing his face back through the gate. That Rodney was still waiting for him back in a soil-cool cave strangled with vines.
Waiting for John, for Atlantis to refuse the footfall of a fake body and call him home.
Elizabeth's smile is high and tight, then she promptly beckons to Beckett like it's an afterthought. Over her shoulder he can see the fingers that aren't Rodney's press tentatively against BDU pockets. It doesn't know what's in them. It hesitates for fractions of a second in its movements where Rodney's touch has never been anything but sure.
John tears himself away. If Beckett notices the goosebumps raised along the skin of his forearms, he makes no comment.
Half an hour later he's got his forehead on the shower walls watching water swirl down the drain, carrying the film of off-world dust away from his skin, back into Atlantis.
She swallows it without protest.
--
It only becomes worse.
John sees it sit across from their-- his-- teammates and gesture with a plastic fork. Words tumble from its mouth, falling wet and flat against the table.
It's all wrong. There's no energy in the movements, no barely constrained vibration of thinking thinking thinking that electrifies the air around Rodney, no tidal wave barrage of words-phrases-fingers-smiles that arches around. No visceral gravitation that pulls John into orbit.
That single thought opens a bottomless chasm at his feet. He's not in love with this Rodney. This Rodney of imitation that can't quite make numbers run in John's head and heat course down his spine.
Something in John goes bitter cold.
He does not remember moving to the table any more than he remembers why he's angry, terrified, grieving. John's who are you crashes into the back of his teeth, John's tray slams on the table and-- Christ-- his voice sounds so loud when it forces past his lips.
"2917."
"What's that, John?"
John's long fingers press red half-moons into his palms. "2917, Rodney."
Crooked frown. Raised brow. Patented Rodney, through and through and the blue of his eyes is so very wrong before there's a sudden, permanent shift of space between this Rodney and the Rodney he knows. "What are you trying to say, Colonel?"
"806. 1531. 4049."
It's gone quiet in the mess now, the weight of everyone's stare on him. The silence makes him realize his voice is getting louder. He can't stop. But Rodney's expression hasn't changed. It's fixed, flat like a xerox copy and John wants to rip it off his face.
"7151! 420! 5087! 139! 4909!"
Numbers trip off his tongue like gunfire, slip out like hard-edge knives and he hopes to hell they-- somehow-- cut through this abomination smiling Rodney's crooked smile to whatever voiceless nothing lies beneath.
Say it, Rodney, he pleads. Say it say it say it.
Nothing. Nothing as he's forced back out the mess. Ronon is wrapping strong hands at his shoulders. Teyla's voice is schooling his screaming back into his throat. It's still smiling, blank and horrible, with Rodney's goddamn face.
This, John thinks, is what it feels like to go crazy.
---
He's confined to his quarters and it's all so damn funny he doesn't know whether to cry or scream or laugh because how can they shut him away in a city that loves him?
She does. Atlantis loves John, loves John like Rodney loves him, their shining golden boy with fingertips that light things up inside them both. John is hit with an afterimage of Rodney's big palms rubbing his blood to the surface but when he looks up it's that thing and all the touches in the world aren't lighting up behind the wall while he screams primes like they'll save him--
John barely makes it to the toilet before retching.
Outside the window is ocean. He feels the water's movements through Atlantis, then through his back when he lays flat against the floor of his room. John doesn't know how long he stays down until a there's a sharp knock on the door and he's on his feet despite himself. It opens before he remembers to open it.
"That is not Rodney," says Zelenka.
John knuckles are stark white against the door frame. "No."
"We must go back."
"I know," John says, but Zelenka's already gone.
---
They believe him now, Zelenka and the others, fifteen minutes later.
Fifteen minutes later, when it opens the wormhole. Smiling Rodney's smile. Walking Rodney's walk. Hauling Miko away by her hair babbling don't worry, it doesn't hurt and you really look a little tired, you'll be safe and we'll do your work, hello, John, are you coming too as the sounds of safety latches coming off of weapons echoes through John's bones.
His own gun has been ready since they came home.
"John?" it says, so soft. For a frightening moment, it's Rodney there. Without his team. Without John. Sharply vulnerable from behind the gun. Face pinched with betrayal like he can't quite believe John's not twisting his own fingers into Miko's hair to help. John almost loses it then.
"John...?"
What if it's him--
But it's too late. Finger twitch, trigger pull, and the sharp shock of recoil in his hands. Johns waits for the horror of knowing he's right. Holds his breath against the sickening full-body clench of doubt, praying oh god oh god to not be wrong.
It crumples inward like folded rice paper. The body tumbles to the ground. No one breathes, no one moves. Movement ceases under the cold wave of quiet rushing in behind the gun's report. Silence chokes John and it disturbs him just a bit that there's no cry of you shot me and no panicking wail.
But there's no blood.
There's no blood.
John's not crazy after all.
"Elizabeth," he chokes. He doesn't have to force please past his throat for her to know it's there. He's sure he couldn't manage anyhow.
She'll have a team ready in under an hour while John finds a way to drop his gun.
---
They're in the cave with the body.
He tries not to think too hard about that.
Heels drag furrows in the red, red dirt as they pull it along. John doesn't look down, keeps his eyes on the cave because that's where Rodney is waiting for him. If he stops to look now the eating doubt of what if, what if I was wrong will catch him.
Zelenka is tapping at panels on the walls, shifting crystals into arrangements. He's not muttering in Czech. It's so incongruent, but John can't speak either, it seems blasphemous in front of this dead not-Rodney. His tone is clipped when he points-- touch here, Colonel-- and quiet as everything hums back to life.
Everything is ridiculously simple after that, like an arcade game: put coin in, receive ticket, thanks for playing. John muscles the body through the archway and it's gone, gone before Rodney tumbles through the other side.
Rodney, with fright-wide eyes, with golden eyelashes and crooked mouth, blessedly imperfect. Rodney. John falls in love all over again. Rodney simply falls. But the telltale curl of fingers tighten the sleeves of his BDUs in reply when he clutches Rodney to him as if he's not quite real enough, yet. John inhales, exhales. Presses lips to the delicate pulse-quivering skin of Rodney's temple.
"2917," he whispers.
A pause. A heartbeat. An exhalation of warm, warm air down his neck. The thrill of energy in the air that Rodney brings humming through him. It's there, it's all there, but John needs one more thing. Just one before he lets himself believe.
Say it. Say it say it please, please say it.
"Prime, idiot," comes the answer.
John smiles.
He takes Rodney home.
krisdia to thank.Title: Prime
Author:
megu_meguPairing: John/Rodney
Rating: PG, I suppose.
Seasons/spoilers: Around season three, brief nod to Phantoms/none
Synopsis: It isn't Rodney.
They'd left Rodney behind.
John had seen it happen. Everything was so formulaic, so goddamn typical that he wasn't sure how he hadn't see it coming. The usual sniping, the everyday shut up, Sheppard, this could be a zed-pee-em. John's knuckles brushing stones and waking circuitry. Rodney's sharp inhalation cutting through the hum of resurrected machinery, Rodney falling back through a half-moon of stone-- no no no no, John mouthed-- and something else walked out from under the backlit archway that wasn't Rodney at all.
He tried to explain to Elizabeth. Push all he knew to the forefront of his eyes. Gesture with hands. Use his fingers to draw diagrams into the air proving that McKay had. Not. Come. Back. He'd been left behind while they brought this thing wearing his face back through the gate. That Rodney was still waiting for him back in a soil-cool cave strangled with vines.
Waiting for John, for Atlantis to refuse the footfall of a fake body and call him home.
Elizabeth's smile is high and tight, then she promptly beckons to Beckett like it's an afterthought. Over her shoulder he can see the fingers that aren't Rodney's press tentatively against BDU pockets. It doesn't know what's in them. It hesitates for fractions of a second in its movements where Rodney's touch has never been anything but sure.
John tears himself away. If Beckett notices the goosebumps raised along the skin of his forearms, he makes no comment.
Half an hour later he's got his forehead on the shower walls watching water swirl down the drain, carrying the film of off-world dust away from his skin, back into Atlantis.
She swallows it without protest.
--
It only becomes worse.
John sees it sit across from their-- his-- teammates and gesture with a plastic fork. Words tumble from its mouth, falling wet and flat against the table.
It's all wrong. There's no energy in the movements, no barely constrained vibration of thinking thinking thinking that electrifies the air around Rodney, no tidal wave barrage of words-phrases-fingers-smiles that arches around. No visceral gravitation that pulls John into orbit.
That single thought opens a bottomless chasm at his feet. He's not in love with this Rodney. This Rodney of imitation that can't quite make numbers run in John's head and heat course down his spine.
Something in John goes bitter cold.
He does not remember moving to the table any more than he remembers why he's angry, terrified, grieving. John's who are you crashes into the back of his teeth, John's tray slams on the table and-- Christ-- his voice sounds so loud when it forces past his lips.
"2917."
"What's that, John?"
John's long fingers press red half-moons into his palms. "2917, Rodney."
Crooked frown. Raised brow. Patented Rodney, through and through and the blue of his eyes is so very wrong before there's a sudden, permanent shift of space between this Rodney and the Rodney he knows. "What are you trying to say, Colonel?"
"806. 1531. 4049."
It's gone quiet in the mess now, the weight of everyone's stare on him. The silence makes him realize his voice is getting louder. He can't stop. But Rodney's expression hasn't changed. It's fixed, flat like a xerox copy and John wants to rip it off his face.
"7151! 420! 5087! 139! 4909!"
Numbers trip off his tongue like gunfire, slip out like hard-edge knives and he hopes to hell they-- somehow-- cut through this abomination smiling Rodney's crooked smile to whatever voiceless nothing lies beneath.
Say it, Rodney, he pleads. Say it say it say it.
Nothing. Nothing as he's forced back out the mess. Ronon is wrapping strong hands at his shoulders. Teyla's voice is schooling his screaming back into his throat. It's still smiling, blank and horrible, with Rodney's goddamn face.
This, John thinks, is what it feels like to go crazy.
---
He's confined to his quarters and it's all so damn funny he doesn't know whether to cry or scream or laugh because how can they shut him away in a city that loves him?
She does. Atlantis loves John, loves John like Rodney loves him, their shining golden boy with fingertips that light things up inside them both. John is hit with an afterimage of Rodney's big palms rubbing his blood to the surface but when he looks up it's that thing and all the touches in the world aren't lighting up behind the wall while he screams primes like they'll save him--
John barely makes it to the toilet before retching.
Outside the window is ocean. He feels the water's movements through Atlantis, then through his back when he lays flat against the floor of his room. John doesn't know how long he stays down until a there's a sharp knock on the door and he's on his feet despite himself. It opens before he remembers to open it.
"That is not Rodney," says Zelenka.
John knuckles are stark white against the door frame. "No."
"We must go back."
"I know," John says, but Zelenka's already gone.
---
They believe him now, Zelenka and the others, fifteen minutes later.
Fifteen minutes later, when it opens the wormhole. Smiling Rodney's smile. Walking Rodney's walk. Hauling Miko away by her hair babbling don't worry, it doesn't hurt and you really look a little tired, you'll be safe and we'll do your work, hello, John, are you coming too as the sounds of safety latches coming off of weapons echoes through John's bones.
His own gun has been ready since they came home.
"John?" it says, so soft. For a frightening moment, it's Rodney there. Without his team. Without John. Sharply vulnerable from behind the gun. Face pinched with betrayal like he can't quite believe John's not twisting his own fingers into Miko's hair to help. John almost loses it then.
"John...?"
What if it's him--
But it's too late. Finger twitch, trigger pull, and the sharp shock of recoil in his hands. Johns waits for the horror of knowing he's right. Holds his breath against the sickening full-body clench of doubt, praying oh god oh god to not be wrong.
It crumples inward like folded rice paper. The body tumbles to the ground. No one breathes, no one moves. Movement ceases under the cold wave of quiet rushing in behind the gun's report. Silence chokes John and it disturbs him just a bit that there's no cry of you shot me and no panicking wail.
But there's no blood.
There's no blood.
John's not crazy after all.
"Elizabeth," he chokes. He doesn't have to force please past his throat for her to know it's there. He's sure he couldn't manage anyhow.
She'll have a team ready in under an hour while John finds a way to drop his gun.
---
They're in the cave with the body.
He tries not to think too hard about that.
Heels drag furrows in the red, red dirt as they pull it along. John doesn't look down, keeps his eyes on the cave because that's where Rodney is waiting for him. If he stops to look now the eating doubt of what if, what if I was wrong will catch him.
Zelenka is tapping at panels on the walls, shifting crystals into arrangements. He's not muttering in Czech. It's so incongruent, but John can't speak either, it seems blasphemous in front of this dead not-Rodney. His tone is clipped when he points-- touch here, Colonel-- and quiet as everything hums back to life.
Everything is ridiculously simple after that, like an arcade game: put coin in, receive ticket, thanks for playing. John muscles the body through the archway and it's gone, gone before Rodney tumbles through the other side.
Rodney, with fright-wide eyes, with golden eyelashes and crooked mouth, blessedly imperfect. Rodney. John falls in love all over again. Rodney simply falls. But the telltale curl of fingers tighten the sleeves of his BDUs in reply when he clutches Rodney to him as if he's not quite real enough, yet. John inhales, exhales. Presses lips to the delicate pulse-quivering skin of Rodney's temple.
"2917," he whispers.
A pause. A heartbeat. An exhalation of warm, warm air down his neck. The thrill of energy in the air that Rodney brings humming through him. It's there, it's all there, but John needs one more thing. Just one before he lets himself believe.
Say it. Say it say it please, please say it.
"Prime, idiot," comes the answer.
John smiles.
He takes Rodney home.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-01 05:31 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2008-01-01 06:12 pm (UTC)I'm a big softy for happy endings.(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-01 08:43 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2008-01-01 06:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-01 11:54 am (UTC)"What are you trying to say, Major?" - should be Colonel? Or is this a carbon copy Rodney error?
(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-01 06:05 pm (UTC)Rodney isn't the only one who can't remember to call him Colonel.(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-01 01:55 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-01 06:10 pm (UTC)I toyed with a whole scene of Radek getting creeped out by not!Rodney's politeness and near-constant smiling :D It got way too funny, though, so I had to leave it out.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-01 03:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2008-01-02 12:56 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-03 05:49 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-02 12:56 am (UTC)Poor John, with his total desperation. I love how he knew first, immediately, saw all the little wrong details the others missed, and how Zelenka was next. Also this: Atlantis loves John, loves John like Rodney loves him, their shining golden boy with fingertips that light things up inside them both.
(Also: YAY! You wrote SGA!)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-03 05:47 am (UTC)That's my favorite line, I'm so proud of it. :) I'm glad you picked up on it haha~
(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-02 02:11 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-03 05:46 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-03 06:29 am (UTC)Sheppard's desperation and that scene in the cafeteria are so intense. Awesome fic!
(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-04 01:12 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-05 05:38 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-04 01:11 am (UTC)Thank you for the kind words :D I thought the little secret-boys-club-handshake would be something they'd have.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-06 02:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-04 01:09 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-12 06:03 am (UTC)And this:
Half an hour later he's got his forehead on the shower walls watching water swirl down the drain, carrying the film of off-world dust away from his skin, back into Atlantis.
She swallows it without protest.
That's just brilliant.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-04 01:07 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-12 06:42 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2008-01-19 04:19 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-04 12:56 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-03 11:10 pm (UTC)Also Zelenka. <3
(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-04 12:55 am (UTC)YES! Zelenka. <3 I crush on him, I can't leave him out. :]