![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
cat-77.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
sga_flashficTitle: Warmth
Genre: McShep, McKay/Brown
Season/Spoilers: Post “Quarantine”
Rating: PG-13 for mild language
Synopsis: He had caved to pressure.
Author’s Notes: Follows Cool – Response to the “F**king Freezing” Challenge
Disclaimer: Not mine, they belong to people with far more money than I have. No profit is being made.
~~~~~~~~~~
Rodney watched the door close on the Botany lab in quiet shock. She certainly took that well. Turning, he did not even make it one complete step before her words hit him and realization set in. He had just been dumped.
He staggered back to the residence area, trusting his feet to find the way. Replaying the events in his mind, he couldn’t tell if he was hurt, pissed, or relieved. He wasn’t ready for marriage, wasn’t sure if he ever would be to tell the truth.
He had caved to pressure. One of the very few times in his life he had been talked into something. Of course, the last time he had been talked into something was by the same person – Jeannie knew just what buttons to push with him, always had and always would. At least this time it hasn’t involved government agents coming to his door to find out just why he was trying to mail order uranium for his working reactor. Now he needed to plot to get back at her for this one. Then again, maybe just pointing out how big of a disaster it was, and the fact it was her idea in the first place, would be enough. No, she deserved something better than that.
Speaking of disasters, he really fucked things over with Sheppard. They had a good thing going. It was comfortable, easy. It just fit. He had been wavering on asking for more. More time, more doing things together, more intimacy, more emotional baggage. More. Instead, he had thrown that out the proverbial window because he dared to believe his sister knew better than him.
What the hell made him think that? They had resorted to electronic golf of all things, sitting side by side in a lab playing games instead of pawing at each other in whatever empty room had been near by. He knew which one he had found more satisfying and, for once in his life, it hadn’t involved a keyboard.
He looked up from his musings and realized he had walked right past his own quarters and was already halfway past the end of the occupied rooms and the balcony at the end of the hallway. He was about to turn around when something caught his eye. Someone was standing out on the terrace, someone who looked vaguely familiar. This was odd as this was not one of the favored balconies of the city. Unlike countless others with stunning views, this one showed that even the revered Ancients were less than perfect as it pretty much stared right at a the big gray wall of the central spire.
It was one of his favorites.
He stepped forward, expecting the chirping of the door to announce his presence. If the only occupant had heard anything, he showed no notice. Rodney stepped forward, immediately buffeted by the gusts of cold wet wind swirling around from the brewing storm. Through gritted teeth, he managed a simple, “Hey.”
Sheppard did not even turn around, his gaze still locked on some interesting little thing that Rodney had yet to determine. “Hey,” he drawled back.
McKay rolled his eyes, though he knew the effort was wasted as his friend’s back was still turned to him. He shuffled forward, shivering in his thin jacket. “What are you doing?” he asked. He knew his tone was blunt, but he was kind of hoping to get to the point and get back inside.
Sheppard seemed to ignore the question, still staring off into space. Rodney idly wondered if his fascination with the gray wall was some sort of offshoot of his obsession with the color black. Before he could ask, John gestured to the tower, saying, “I climbed that.”
Rodney looked over to the relatively smooth surface, trying hard not to think about John searching for handholds amongst the supposedly aesthetically pleasing designs, slipping, or falling to his death. Instead, he used another blast of cold air as his inspiration and commented, “Fuck, it’s freezing out here.”
Sheppard, as always, took it in stride. “Was then, too.”
“So you could have caught hypothermia as well as fell to your death?” Rodney snarked, knowing hiding his concern was a lost cause with John, but needing to try anyway. He gathered his jacket around him in an effort to conserve body heat and sunk down between the balcony railing and the outer wall, letting it provide at least a little bit of shelter from the cold.
Sheppard finally broke his gaze away from the tower and turned around, bracing himself against the railing as he gave Rodney an inscrutable look. “Needed to be done,” was all he said. McKay took comfort in the fact that the wind made his hair look as ridiculous as his words sounded.
“Ah, yes, that’s always my first choice,” Rodney commented dryly. “The city is in lockdown with a possible contagion. Let’s chuck a chair out a window and scale the building!”
“We needed to turn off that beacon!” Sheppard countered. Rodney was just happy to get something more than a shrug out of him. Calmer now, he added, “I couldn’t get it to work from the lab and had no way of letting the people in the control room know the codes because the radios were down.”
“At least you had a radio,” McKay said under his breath. Who in the world would work for hours in an area with no means of communication in case of an emergency? Oh, that’s right: his girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend. Ex-almost-fiancé. He made a mental note to update the policy and make sure spare radios and laptops were available in all regularly used labs in the city. Then he made a mental note to debate telling her about it.
Sheppard raised an eyebrow at him. “If the radios were down, how would having a radio help?” he asked doubtingly.
Rodney raised his head and tried to exude confidence as he said, “It s entirely possible I would have been able to take apart the radio and used it to either find a means to communicate, or open the door.” Mentally, he was going through the impossibilities of such a claim, placing odds at success in a surprisingly low range.
John grinned, seeing right through the bravado. He took off his earpiece and spun it around on his finger. “This little thing could have saved the city?” he baited.
“In the right hands,” Rodney countered, determinedly not meeting his friend’s eyes. He watched the tiny piece of technology spin, imagining it flying in the wind and crashing to the waves below.
“And those would be yours, right?” He could hear the raised eyebrow at this point.
He scowled. “I’ll have you know I have very talented hands,” he huffed.
“Trust me, I know,” John replied. His whole body jerked, drawing Rodney’s gaze to his wide eyes. “Er, sorry,” he apologized, turning red. “Probably not the thing to say to an ex getting engaged.”
“Ex?” Rodney repeated. Seemed like a good fit.
Sheppard blushed again, looking away briefly before glancing back. “That was out of line, sorry,” he said. “I know I have no right...”
“No, she is my ex,” Rodney interrupted, finding he really wasn’t that disturbed by this fact.
“... because we agreed to keep this casual and...” John kept going, finally registering Rodney’s look and asking a bewildered, “She?”
McKay looked at him like he was a moron, before allowing a small smile to slip through. “Katie’s a she, right?”
“Er, yeah? But isn’t she also a fiancé now?”
Rodney shook his head. “Not so much, no.”
John slid down beside him, the same shocked look still on his face. “She said no?”
“We, uh, agreed neither one of us is ready for marriage yet,” Rodney hemmed.
“She said no?” John repeated, softer this time.
“And I think she broke up with me,” Rodney confirmed dourly.
John leaned up against him, shoulder to shoulder, the warmth from his body seeping through the fabric. “I’m sorry.”
McKay thought about it for all of about a second. “I’m not,” he decided. He saw the raised eyebrow again and sighed. “It was a mistake, and I should have seen it going in. It took several hours in a locked room together for both of us to realize it.”
“I’m still sorry,” John pointed out. “I know she was important to you.”
He turned, resting a chilled hand on a stubbled cheek, soaking in the heat. “I had something good, something that had the potential to be completely awesome, and I threw it away.” Before John could question just who he was talking about this time, he angled his head and brushed a chaste kiss across his lips. Pulling back slightly, he ran his tongue over his own lips, savoring the taste. “I’m sorry,” he said, trying to put as much of his heart into it as possible, trying to make him understand.
John closed his eyes, letting out a slow breath. When he opened them again, they were filled with something that looked remarkably like hope. “Don’t be,” he said, grabbing McKay’s face between his hands and kissing him properly. The kiss went on for minutes, hours, years, until they finally broke apart, gasping for air.
Resting his forehead against his lover’s, Rodney kept repeating, “Sorry, so sorry...”
John hushed him with a whispered, “Love you.”
Rodney’s head shot up, thanking the military reflexes that stopped them from damaging each other, breathing, “You do?”
Sheppard hung his head, looking up a bit sheepishly as he admitted, “Yeah.”
Rodney’s mind was whirling, memories of the past years, weeks came hurling forward in a jumble that made a remarkable amount of sense. “Then this wasn’t just...”
“No.”
“And so we could...?”
“Yeah.”
“Then why the hell are we sitting out here in the freezing cold?” he demanded, trying to push himself up to his feet.
“I have no idea,” John grinned. As they both righted themselves and moved towards the balcony doors, he casually asked, “So does this mean I get a ring?”
Rodney made a face and shook his head. “No, she kept that.”
The sound of John’s laughter followed them to his room.
End.
~~~~~~~~~~
Feedback is always welcomed.
Genre: McShep, McKay/Brown
Season/Spoilers: Post “Quarantine”
Rating: PG-13 for mild language
Synopsis: He had caved to pressure.
Author’s Notes: Follows Cool – Response to the “F**king Freezing” Challenge
Disclaimer: Not mine, they belong to people with far more money than I have. No profit is being made.
~~~~~~~~~~
Rodney watched the door close on the Botany lab in quiet shock. She certainly took that well. Turning, he did not even make it one complete step before her words hit him and realization set in. He had just been dumped.
He staggered back to the residence area, trusting his feet to find the way. Replaying the events in his mind, he couldn’t tell if he was hurt, pissed, or relieved. He wasn’t ready for marriage, wasn’t sure if he ever would be to tell the truth.
He had caved to pressure. One of the very few times in his life he had been talked into something. Of course, the last time he had been talked into something was by the same person – Jeannie knew just what buttons to push with him, always had and always would. At least this time it hasn’t involved government agents coming to his door to find out just why he was trying to mail order uranium for his working reactor. Now he needed to plot to get back at her for this one. Then again, maybe just pointing out how big of a disaster it was, and the fact it was her idea in the first place, would be enough. No, she deserved something better than that.
Speaking of disasters, he really fucked things over with Sheppard. They had a good thing going. It was comfortable, easy. It just fit. He had been wavering on asking for more. More time, more doing things together, more intimacy, more emotional baggage. More. Instead, he had thrown that out the proverbial window because he dared to believe his sister knew better than him.
What the hell made him think that? They had resorted to electronic golf of all things, sitting side by side in a lab playing games instead of pawing at each other in whatever empty room had been near by. He knew which one he had found more satisfying and, for once in his life, it hadn’t involved a keyboard.
He looked up from his musings and realized he had walked right past his own quarters and was already halfway past the end of the occupied rooms and the balcony at the end of the hallway. He was about to turn around when something caught his eye. Someone was standing out on the terrace, someone who looked vaguely familiar. This was odd as this was not one of the favored balconies of the city. Unlike countless others with stunning views, this one showed that even the revered Ancients were less than perfect as it pretty much stared right at a the big gray wall of the central spire.
It was one of his favorites.
He stepped forward, expecting the chirping of the door to announce his presence. If the only occupant had heard anything, he showed no notice. Rodney stepped forward, immediately buffeted by the gusts of cold wet wind swirling around from the brewing storm. Through gritted teeth, he managed a simple, “Hey.”
Sheppard did not even turn around, his gaze still locked on some interesting little thing that Rodney had yet to determine. “Hey,” he drawled back.
McKay rolled his eyes, though he knew the effort was wasted as his friend’s back was still turned to him. He shuffled forward, shivering in his thin jacket. “What are you doing?” he asked. He knew his tone was blunt, but he was kind of hoping to get to the point and get back inside.
Sheppard seemed to ignore the question, still staring off into space. Rodney idly wondered if his fascination with the gray wall was some sort of offshoot of his obsession with the color black. Before he could ask, John gestured to the tower, saying, “I climbed that.”
Rodney looked over to the relatively smooth surface, trying hard not to think about John searching for handholds amongst the supposedly aesthetically pleasing designs, slipping, or falling to his death. Instead, he used another blast of cold air as his inspiration and commented, “Fuck, it’s freezing out here.”
Sheppard, as always, took it in stride. “Was then, too.”
“So you could have caught hypothermia as well as fell to your death?” Rodney snarked, knowing hiding his concern was a lost cause with John, but needing to try anyway. He gathered his jacket around him in an effort to conserve body heat and sunk down between the balcony railing and the outer wall, letting it provide at least a little bit of shelter from the cold.
Sheppard finally broke his gaze away from the tower and turned around, bracing himself against the railing as he gave Rodney an inscrutable look. “Needed to be done,” was all he said. McKay took comfort in the fact that the wind made his hair look as ridiculous as his words sounded.
“Ah, yes, that’s always my first choice,” Rodney commented dryly. “The city is in lockdown with a possible contagion. Let’s chuck a chair out a window and scale the building!”
“We needed to turn off that beacon!” Sheppard countered. Rodney was just happy to get something more than a shrug out of him. Calmer now, he added, “I couldn’t get it to work from the lab and had no way of letting the people in the control room know the codes because the radios were down.”
“At least you had a radio,” McKay said under his breath. Who in the world would work for hours in an area with no means of communication in case of an emergency? Oh, that’s right: his girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend. Ex-almost-fiancé. He made a mental note to update the policy and make sure spare radios and laptops were available in all regularly used labs in the city. Then he made a mental note to debate telling her about it.
Sheppard raised an eyebrow at him. “If the radios were down, how would having a radio help?” he asked doubtingly.
Rodney raised his head and tried to exude confidence as he said, “It s entirely possible I would have been able to take apart the radio and used it to either find a means to communicate, or open the door.” Mentally, he was going through the impossibilities of such a claim, placing odds at success in a surprisingly low range.
John grinned, seeing right through the bravado. He took off his earpiece and spun it around on his finger. “This little thing could have saved the city?” he baited.
“In the right hands,” Rodney countered, determinedly not meeting his friend’s eyes. He watched the tiny piece of technology spin, imagining it flying in the wind and crashing to the waves below.
“And those would be yours, right?” He could hear the raised eyebrow at this point.
He scowled. “I’ll have you know I have very talented hands,” he huffed.
“Trust me, I know,” John replied. His whole body jerked, drawing Rodney’s gaze to his wide eyes. “Er, sorry,” he apologized, turning red. “Probably not the thing to say to an ex getting engaged.”
“Ex?” Rodney repeated. Seemed like a good fit.
Sheppard blushed again, looking away briefly before glancing back. “That was out of line, sorry,” he said. “I know I have no right...”
“No, she is my ex,” Rodney interrupted, finding he really wasn’t that disturbed by this fact.
“... because we agreed to keep this casual and...” John kept going, finally registering Rodney’s look and asking a bewildered, “She?”
McKay looked at him like he was a moron, before allowing a small smile to slip through. “Katie’s a she, right?”
“Er, yeah? But isn’t she also a fiancé now?”
Rodney shook his head. “Not so much, no.”
John slid down beside him, the same shocked look still on his face. “She said no?”
“We, uh, agreed neither one of us is ready for marriage yet,” Rodney hemmed.
“She said no?” John repeated, softer this time.
“And I think she broke up with me,” Rodney confirmed dourly.
John leaned up against him, shoulder to shoulder, the warmth from his body seeping through the fabric. “I’m sorry.”
McKay thought about it for all of about a second. “I’m not,” he decided. He saw the raised eyebrow again and sighed. “It was a mistake, and I should have seen it going in. It took several hours in a locked room together for both of us to realize it.”
“I’m still sorry,” John pointed out. “I know she was important to you.”
He turned, resting a chilled hand on a stubbled cheek, soaking in the heat. “I had something good, something that had the potential to be completely awesome, and I threw it away.” Before John could question just who he was talking about this time, he angled his head and brushed a chaste kiss across his lips. Pulling back slightly, he ran his tongue over his own lips, savoring the taste. “I’m sorry,” he said, trying to put as much of his heart into it as possible, trying to make him understand.
John closed his eyes, letting out a slow breath. When he opened them again, they were filled with something that looked remarkably like hope. “Don’t be,” he said, grabbing McKay’s face between his hands and kissing him properly. The kiss went on for minutes, hours, years, until they finally broke apart, gasping for air.
Resting his forehead against his lover’s, Rodney kept repeating, “Sorry, so sorry...”
John hushed him with a whispered, “Love you.”
Rodney’s head shot up, thanking the military reflexes that stopped them from damaging each other, breathing, “You do?”
Sheppard hung his head, looking up a bit sheepishly as he admitted, “Yeah.”
Rodney’s mind was whirling, memories of the past years, weeks came hurling forward in a jumble that made a remarkable amount of sense. “Then this wasn’t just...”
“No.”
“And so we could...?”
“Yeah.”
“Then why the hell are we sitting out here in the freezing cold?” he demanded, trying to push himself up to his feet.
“I have no idea,” John grinned. As they both righted themselves and moved towards the balcony doors, he casually asked, “So does this mean I get a ring?”
Rodney made a face and shook his head. “No, she kept that.”
The sound of John’s laughter followed them to his room.
End.
~~~~~~~~~~
Feedback is always welcomed.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-23 08:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-23 09:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-23 08:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-23 09:26 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-23 10:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-24 01:44 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-23 10:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-24 01:49 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-23 10:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-24 01:50 am (UTC)"Cool" and "Warmth" - stories
Date: 2008-01-24 12:28 am (UTC)Re: "Cool" and "Warmth" - stories
Date: 2008-01-24 01:52 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-24 01:10 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-24 01:56 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-24 02:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-24 03:12 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-24 06:02 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-24 02:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-24 12:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-24 02:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-25 01:33 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-25 05:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-25 07:41 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-26 03:06 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-25 09:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-26 03:08 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-08 06:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-16 02:27 am (UTC)