Burning Down the Tower by scifinut [burning up challenge]

[scifinut.livejournal.com]

Title: Burning Down the Tower [burning up challenge]
Author: scifinut
Pairing: Rodney/Radek if you squint really hard and stand on your head
Rating: PG
Summary: Rodney and Radek get to go deal with the aftermath of a Lantean fire suppressant system...which hasn't worked for about 9,000 years.
Warnings: Character death
Notes: Thanks to archae_ology for the beta. You're the best, hon!

The alarm wasn't so bad, once you got used to it. It was actually kind of soothing, in everything but volume. Even with the earplugs Radek had grabbed, it was still loud enough to cause him physical pain. For a few seconds he wondered how the Ancients had survived with this sound, then he realized they had probably inhabited this area of the city and didn't have to wait until it got this loud to find out what the problem was.

Rodney was walking beside him, both of them with computers and tool kits. One of the fire suppressant systems had been activated on the lower levels, and because of the way the system was designed, someone had to be there in person to turn it off. Which meant two people had to be there, because of Rodney’s insistence that nobody go anywhere alone? A part of Radek's mind was glad for this, but another part was wondering why Rodney had woken him up at 3 in the morning for it.

As they approached where the system had gone off, there was some sort of sticky white foam coating everything. It stuck to them, but slipped along the floor, making walking treacherous. "Rodney, perhaps we should go back, come with a better equipped team, make sure we are safe to walk!"Radek screamed at the top of his lungs. It did no good, he could barely hear himself, and there was no way Rodney would be able to hear him.

Through another door, and the alarm was getting louder and louder. Radek saw out of the corner of his eyes that Rodney was flailing his arms around, trying to keep his balance. Apparently some of the white stuff had made him slip. Radek pretended not to see and knelt at the main console in the room, working on silencing the alarm before it drove him mad.

The silence, when it finally came, was so surprising that Radek and Rodney stared at each other before they realized they could actually communicate without vague gestures. "So, we call a team in to clean this up and study their system?"Radek asked, shouting out of habit.

Rodney winced at the sound. "Sure, sounds good to me. And now that we don't have that damned thing going off, let's look around and see what happened."

Radek nodded and began plugging in his computer to the console after clearing a connection port with his hands. It didn't smell particularly pleasant, but then again, it was several thousand years old, who knew what it had been made out of or what its expiration date was? A program came up and Radek ran the console information through the translation program on the laptop. "Hm," he said, cocking his head to the side and squint.

"Hm? What's that mean?" Rodney asked. "Good hm or bad hm?"

"It appears there was a fire here. The system is not lying to us about that. Though I am still not sure why it did not alert us in the control room. Perhaps the remote alert was disconnected, but the rest of the system remained intact." And the smell seemed to be getting worse, though it could have been Radek's imagination. Or the fumes from the white stuff, whatever it was.

Rodney came to kneel beside Radek, looking over his shoulder at the computer screen. There was evidence in the system of a fire, that much was certain. Even with just the rudimentary translation program, there were some words that stayed in his mind. Among those in his mind were various ways of dying on a mostly powerless floating city. "Wow," he breathed. "It doesn't look good at all." Something was tickling his nose, and he coughed a bit. "This stuff smells funny, doesn't it?"

Radek turned to look over his shoulder at Rodney. Something behind Rodney, however, made his eyes go wide. "I believe...we may be in bigger trouble than we thought." He could see flames poking out through the white foam from a wall console in the room, and the smoke was beginning to fill the area. Unfortunately, the smoke was thickest between them and the door, and the fire was spreading to the door as he stared.

Rodney spun and looked, back pedaling and falling onto the ground. He looked around for another way out of the room, but all there was a small window that dropped two stories into the water. And Radek couldn't swim. Shit. He hit his radio. "McKay to Sheppard, I need you awake right now. We're in trouble and might need air rescue." Not to mention waking Carson up for possible smoke inhalation, whatever reaction his skin was having with this suppressant shit, and burns. And possibly a drowning victim, if the fire kept getting worse.

"Rodney, do you have any idea what time it is?" came John's voice over the radio.

"Yes, it's time for you to get your ass into a jumper and get down to the lower levels; Radek and I are trapped in a burning room. There's no exit but the window, and he can't swim, so hurry the hell up!" he snapped back at John. The fire was spreading quickly now, flames licking along the wall and up to the ceiling.

Terror held Radek in place. He didn't hear a word Rodney was saying, he simply stared at the fire. Dying in a fire was the second worst death he could imagine. At least, it had been before he had heard about the Wraith. Now it was the third. Right after drowning, which was what he would do if they escaped the fire. Death by fire or death by water, neither seemed very fun at the moment, and there was literally no way out. Or was there? The doorway, he remembered, was quite large. If he could open the door remotely, he could make a run for it and get out to freedom. Grabbing the laptop, he began typing furiously, looking up at the fire occasionally to see if the door had opened. Of course, with the thick smoke there was no way to tell but to trust what the computer was telling him. And it was telling him that it was time to try it.

With a short scream, Radek threw himself to his feet and ran headlong into the smoke and flames. When he got to the doorway, he was surprised to find the door closed. The smoke had closed in thick around him, and the flames were close enough to burn him, but all he could think to do was pound at the door, praying it would open and let him out.

"Radek!" Rodney yelled. He wanted to run in after the man, but there was a crashing sound followed by a small explosion. He turned and ran towards the window, abandoning the laptop and tools they had brought down with them. Radek was gone. The entire doorway area had collapsed. All he could do now was hope there was no structural damage and get out on his own. And damn the water was cold as he jumped in. His clothes were trying to drag him down, and he toyed with the idea of not trying to tread water. Radek was dead, and it was ultimately his fault. He had woken the man, he had dragged him along, hadn't listened when Radek said they should wait and bring in more people.

His radio was gone too, which meant he didn't hear John screaming at him, asking what was wrong, what the explosions were. Rodney lay on his back watching the smoke pour out of the window. He saw several more explosions rock the room before a jumper came around the tower. They were far enough away from the main tower that it had taken the jumper time to get to him. A smile crossed his face as the jumper came down to the water's level to pick him up. The last thing he remembered seeing, the last image that would remain in his mind whenever he thought of Radek, was the entire tower falling, smoke pouring out of the one small room. Radek was gone, the tower was gone. It was fitting in a way. The man whose passion fuelled both himself and Rodney, whose energy kept the department going in a crisis, seemed to fuel the destruction of the tower. Now both were gone forever.

Comments

[leesa_perrie]

Oh well, I know what it's like - you're writing the story and then suddenly one of the characters insists on doing something and you have no choice but to comply! I think they're more unruly than those scary plot bunnies!!