John's day could not get any worse. From the moment Arthur shook him awake and started drilling him on improvised conversational tactics, to finally understanding why he was being drilled, everything just kind of sucked after that. The coffee Arthur gave him was cold, the clothing Eames was supposed to wear was too baggy on him, and then he'd had to call the chemist and hear her angrily berate him for not having a chemical profile already set for emergencies like these.

Like anything like this should be something he would be prepared for. Like oh, our Forger got himself shot and I have to fill in, was something that happened to him all the time. So they just wouldn't fuck up, or he'd end up in Limbo. Truthfully, he'd never been in Limbo before, and had no intention of ending up there now, as Arthur's explanation of it had been horrifying, and he had no intention of fucking around with a lifetime of that.

It was early enough that he wasn't even thinking clearly enough to realize that not only were they doing this without Eames, but that he was going to be playing himself in McKay's head. It was much later, when they were actually prepping to enter the clinic, waiting for McKay and his entourage to arrive, that John fully recognized what he was going to do. Rodney McKay was going to be hooked into the PASIV and he was going to distract him while Arthur mucked around in his head to look for key-codes. This was horrible and was never going to work, and fuck McKay was going to kill him, or McKay's subconscious was going to kill him, and he was going to end up in fucking Limbo.

"Whatever you do, don't get killed John, I do not want to have to go into Limbo after you alright? I'm set to come up before you remember that. Then I'll kick you and pull you out, finally is McKay, by then we'll be out of here." Arthur preps him one more time, and yeah John knows the order, and really doesn't need to be reminded that he isn't supposed to get killed.

They watch as McKay enters the building and then they're rushing inside as a small Russian nurse hurries them through the clinic's halls. John cannot really understand her, but something she says has Arthur halting in his steps. It sends a bolt of alarm through John, but quickly Arthur starts walking again. She raises her hand to stop them in the hall, and enters a room. Inside she'll be giving McKay what he believes to be a vitamin shot that will make him mildly drowsy, but it really a tranquilizer. "He's hypoglycemic." Arthur's voice is low, John blinks, trying to understand. "He needs to eat regularly... the medical report we have, the one on Air Force file, it didn't mention that." Arthur explains, and there, the day was getting so much fucking worse. "Do not let him die either John." Arthur warns, no worry to his tone, but John figured after the night they'd had, Arthur's worry had already been spent up.

The nurse ushers them in not long after, and it's like a punch to the gut when he sees McKay. The man looks small, all the bluster gone from him, curled up on his side on the examination table. Arthur is prepping him almost immediately for the PASIV but all John can do is look. It's been awhile since he'd seen the scientist, and even then he'd only know Rodney for a week, but the changes were clear. He looked ill, his skin pale, heavy rings under his eyes. Notable was the missing wedding ring, the stubble. It looked like life had been hard on McKay, harder than it had been on John lately. He catches himself brushing back thinning dark-blonde hair, his knuckles brushing against pale skin. Ashamed his eyes flick up to note Arthur watching him, partway through with inserting his own needle. "Don't mess this up." Arthur warns, sliding into a chair. John inserts his own needle and closes his eyes tight, listening to Arthur press the button that released the drug cocktail.

The dinner is all muted sounds, it's blessedly hot, John can taste sweat when he licks his lips. He's wearing sunglasses, a Hawaiian shirt, under the light jacket he can feel the heavy familiar weight of his gun and holster. He turns his head to look out of the window, watches the dust storm work a mess of the parking lot. When he turns his head back, it's to see McKay staring at him curiously. "So you want me to work with you?" John asks, as if they'd been having a conversation all along, as if he was making sure of something McKay had just said. This was the second dream down, John's dream, filled up with McKay. Which meant the first level with Arthur's mazes had gone off perfectly, leaving their target disoriented enough to trip up.

The scientist blinks soft blue eyes, and John takes him in, remembers suddenly how beautiful they look, how much emotion they show unbidden. McKay is confused, alarmed, struggling to remember, and then it all lifts away. John is shocked by the calm amiable expression that drifts onto McKay's face. The hard lines lift, the cruel set of thin lips fades to a smile, and most importantly the cold glint in blue eyes melts to innocence. "I'm dreaming." McKay whispers it, but John has no trouble hearing him, his whole world is pretty much focused on that, and how they were so fucked, just five minutes of his time into the dream. "What?" John could kick himself, because fuck, he'd been trained better than this, but it was McKay, who had thrown him so hard the first time they met, so really he was expecting shit to go any better this time? He should have got right back on that plane and told Arthur he'd pay him back, this was -bad- fucking horrible.

John also notices as an afterthought that the dinner's patrons hadn't turned on him yet either. "Always you, in my fucking dreams." McKay tilts his head, looking at John, studying him. "Haunting me, you're like a ghost." McKay sighs, and John is left spinning. "I am?" John asks, takes a sip of his coffee. "Of course, and of course it makes sense, I mean you could have done so much for the project, could have gotten me the project back really. I risked so much just offering you a place, and then getting you in without NDA, and you had such promise. Of course you haunt me, and it's no use even lying to myself, I mean you are me, just a mental representation of longing. Sheppard was fucking hot." McKay sighs, and John is pretty much not sure he would have wanted Eames playing him right now anyway.

"That other Sheppard was hot, but... he didn't get it. Didn't get exactly what I was up against here, and he wasn't..." McKay sighs sharply, pushes his hand through his hair, stabs his fork into the plate of pancakes in front of him. "He wasn't mine, he didn't belong, as much as I wanted him, needed someone like him because fuck. Everything I worked for, and I managed it in another universe? I actually managed it and the only difference was -you- I didn't have you. Of course I dream of you, of course you haunt me." McKay's words tell John everything he'd heard way back in that parking lot before he'd tried to run away and not look back and pretty much failed that miserably. Except he cannot run here, cannot pretend he's not listening, too stupid to get it.

"I'm haunting you?" John asks, and the look he gets from McKay has him standing, pulling the scientist with him, because if he doesn't get McKay out of here, then the dinner's other patrons are going to start turning on him. He presses Rodney against the wall some place deep in the hotel casino, feels the man's warmth, the way his chest hitches pressed between them. Rodney is shorter than him but heavier, John knows if this turns he might be in shit, but for now Rodney is compliant. Very compliant, tilting his head back, letting it thud against the wall as John bites and sucks against soft pale skin, nuzzling Rodney's collar aside. He was supposed to be distracting anyway, and fuck Arthur's bitchy calls. Arthur wasn't his mother, and Rodney -wanted- him, wanted the broken John, not the perfect visitor from another universe, John could only take so much.

John really isn't expecting it when the other John with his odd military jacket pulls him off McKay brutally and punches him. He probably should have he thinks, blocking another punch, after the conversation they'd just had, but honestly he had not been thinking very clearly. "You don't fucking touch him you broken fucking bastard." John is pretty sure by the shocked expression on McKay's face that this shade is only half of his creating. "You'll leave him as fucking crushed as you left Nancy, you don't deserve him." Oh yes, and that was self-hatred pouring out, and this was a horrible time for him to have a heart to heart with himself. Fucking hell, Arthur was going to kill him.