Notes: This was originally written for the SGA Reverse Big Bang. You have to read it on my ao3 account to see the art I wrote it for, though.
Chicago, USA
The smell was the first thing that hit Rodney as he entered the taped off crime scene. There was a rancid sort of odor in the air, like rotting flesh. It nearly had his lunch coming up as his eyes laid upon the family sprawled across the nearly abandoned back road.
"Get these gawkers out here," Rodney barked at the cops milling outside the tape. He walked alone to the family, eyes tracing the man and woman who must have been the parents and then moving to the young children.
Their bodies hadn't grown to adult sized as they'd aged; leaving the young eight year old girl and six year old boy looking something like midgets in their shriveled deaths. It was sickening, if only for the fact that the energy around them felt wrong.
Rodney paused, uncertain suddenly as to his next step. He knew what he would do if he had a Sentinel, knew that he would instruct his bonded to smell the air. It was a proven fact that Sentinels could pick up emotions through scent and while Rodney could clearly feel the terror that still emitted from the dead family, he couldn't feel what the attacker might have been feeling, his body now gone.
Guides drew their discoveries from the energy currently present, but Sentinels could pinpoint the tiny flecks of particles that still contained the demon's scent. It was why, if Rodney were bonded, he would be in the background, his ability used as an aid to his Sentinel not the forefront investigator.
But he wasn't bonded and Rodney was one of the best at what he did, so he pushed back his bitching mind and took more mental notes, committing to memory the scene so that he could bring it up later at any point and compare notes.
A larger energy source approached just at Rodney's blind-spot and he turned to see a man ducking under the yellow tape, staring at the bodies with a hard sort of line at his mouth.
"This is an active crime scene," Rodney stated, in case the man was daft. "You need to leave."
The man turned his hazel eyes to Rodney and the Guide was struck by how attractive he was, from his mildly tanned skin to his slightly spiked brown hair. Still, he couldn't let himself get distracted by a pretty face. He had a job to do.
"Dr. Rodney McKay, isn't it?" the man said with a soft smile.
"Yes?" Rodney crossed his arms. He figured the man was a local detective, self-important in his own city as he stood legs wide facing the crime scene he thought should be his.
The man titled his head to the side and his smile widened. "My name's John Sheppard. I believe we're to be partners?"
Rodney blinked, his heart falling in his chest like a prophecy of something to come.
..o..
Rodney stalked up to Radek, annoyed as his new CIA tag-along followed just behind him. His friend, one of the most renowned Major Crime detectives in Chicago, looked up upon his approach.
"Rodney," Radek greeted. He had large bags under his eyes, made even more visible by the slim glasses perched over his nose.
"Radek," Rodney nodded. "You look like shit."
"And you still do not mince your words," Radek murmured. He glanced from Rodney to the agent behind him.
Rodney sighed. "Radek, John Sheppard of the CIA. Sheppard, Radek Zelenka. He's a genius in the labs and I trust his opinion." The words, like I don't trust yours, settled between them, but John didn't seem too perturbed.
Radek's lips twitched, but his eyes were still tired and his shoulders slumped slightly. "You're in need of information, yes?"
"Have you found anything, Detective?" John asked as Rodney was opening his mouth.
"Ah," Radek pushed away the file topmost on his desk to scan the one below. "Yes, the family, they visited this restaurant." He turned the paper around to show John, but Rodney was looking at the file that had been pushed away.
"Alicia Vega is missing?" Rodney asked.
"Who?" John frowned.
"The CEO of Vega Enterprises?" Rodney snorted at him. "You really don't know?"
"Wait, the cell company?" John blinked.
"They make some of the most advanced cellphones yet," Rodney told him. "They're replacing the iPhone, even. Or they would, if people weren't such Apple cultists."
"You have a Macbook Pro," John pointed out dryly. It was Rodney's turn to blink, surprised by John's perceptiveness.
"Huh," he said, then shook his head. "Radek?"
"There have been no sightings of her so far," Radek murmured. "But that is a different case. You should go to the restaurant, question the manager."
"Well…." Rodney wavered and then nodded. "Right, of course. But you should find Vega. She's too important to go missing."
"Why?" John asked as they turned and left the PD. "Surely she'd got someone that can step up if she's, I don't know, eloped or something."
"Vega wouldn't just elope from her life's work," Rodney scowled. "She's one of the first women to make CEO in such a competitive industry."
John shrugged. "Oh."
The conversation dropped between them, stifled until the cab they'd hailed pulled up at the restaurant front and they got out.
They talk to the host, who quickly rushed to get the manager for them. The man rushed them into a side room, full of tables but no patrons. He was short and balding, the manager, with nervous hands that wrung at the edges of his suit jacket.
"What can I do for you, Agents?" he asked once introductions had been made.
"Where were you last Friday night?" Rodney asked quickly.
"Here, like I usually am," the manager answered immediately. "I was walking the crowds most of the night."
John nodded. "Good, then you should be able to tell us if you saw anything strange between the hours of six and seven-thirty."
"Strange how, Agent?" he asked.
Rodney flashed the pictures of the family who'd been killed in the man's direction. "Do you remember these people?"
The manager studied the pictures and nodded. "I… yes. I think I do."
"Can you describe their behaviors while they were here?" John inquired.
"They ordered, they ate, one of the kids cried a bit because they wouldn't get desert," the man frowned. "They didn't stand out."
"But someone did," Rodney latched on immediately. The nervous swell of the man's energy rose. "Who?"
"No one," the manager said.
"You're lying," John told him, his voice hard. "You will cooperate with us or-"
"You won't like it," Rodney cut the CIA agent off quickly. He wasn't sure what the man was going to say, but something dangerous was coming off him and it made Rodney both annoyed, and a little interested.
"I," the manager gulped. "There was a group of men, okay, they were a little strange. One of them put on this mask thing… it was green with a big nose and the others were kind of hissing over it but," the man shook. "Whatever happened, I had nothing to do with it!"
"What do you think happened?" Rodney pressed.
"Maybe the family, er, the man killed the weirdo with the mask," the manager said. "I don't know, I don't even really care, just leave me out of it."
He was starting to get really agitated and Rodney had what he needed so he backed up a step. He turned to look at John, to tell him they should go, only to see John staring at the manager with his head tilted to the side as if he was listening to something.
"I believe you," John said finally. "Thank you for your cooperation."
The manager nodded and turned on his heels, high-tailing it out of their presence. Rodney hated men who were nervous in the presence of law enforcement on principle, but that wasn't really what was on his mind.
No, what had him frowning was the way John kept his head titled, his eyes tracing the footsteps of the manager like a hunter.
Rodney licked his lips. "We should go," he whispered in a voice so soft he could barely hear it himself.
John snapped to. "Right, sorry," he shook his head. "Well, that was informative. Don't think a group of men laughing over masks is really useful, is it?" he snorted and began walking back towards the door of the restaurant.
Rodney followed behind him, nodding nonchalantly, but internally his heart had sped up.
John looked at him. "You okay?"
"Fine," Rodney forced a smile on his face. "Just hungry."
John sniffed the air. "Me too. I think there's a Chinese place this way, you interested?"
"Yeah," Rodney nodded. He closed his eyes forcefully and pushed his mild panic away.
John Sheppard may be a Sentinel, but there was nothing he could do about that now.
..o..
Rodney sank into himself, drawing the energy of the air around like a blanket to cocoon his own emotions. It was trick he'd learned soon after he'd come online, a poor substitute to the shielding of an actual Sentinel, but better than nothing.
Feeling more centered, he strengthened the shield, rendering it unreadable to most low-level empaths and Sentinels. Now that he knew what his temporary partner was, he didn't want complications.
Rodney was a powerful Guide and as such very attractive to Sentinels, regardless of the Sentinel's power. He figured John had to be pretty low to be able to travel for his job. The higher level the Sentinel, the most they were attached to a single territory and John, obviously, wasn't.
Regardless, the power differences wouldn't matter if the Sentinel found out that Rodney was a Guide. And he didn't want to have to reject the moron; it would cause problems in their partnership and they had a demon to catch. He doubted that John knew already, it wasn't in his file.
Still, there were problems with not showing John what he was. He wouldn't be able to use his powers effectively without giving himself away and that was almost just as dangerous as having to reject the Sentinel.
Rodney frowned. Something felt off around him. Not off like the demon's lingering death, but off as if there was deception in the air.
It didn't feel angry, it was just present. Rodney brushed it away. There were quite a number of supernatural forces at work on the world that mundanes didn't know about and he tried not to bother with them unless they were harming people.
A soft scratching sound made its way to Rodney's ears and he opened his eyes, still entranced in his meditative state, to see his spirit guide scratching at the door. The artic fox's brilliantly white fur sparkled as his blue eyes bore into Rodney.
Rodney stood, the energy he'd been feeling at fading into the background. The door opened and John stepped through, giving him a strange look, no doubt about the fact Rodney was standing in the center of the hotel floor, staring at him.
"We've got another hit," John said. "Houston."
"Right," Rodney looked back to where his fox had been, but the spirit guide had vanished. "I'll book us a jet."
