"Rodney, I told you take ONE. One only!" Carson snapped, annoyed.

Rodney sighed, and looked away.

"I thought it was like paracetamol, Carson. One helps but two is better."

"No, these are powerful medications. We use this stuff as an anaesthetic even. The pills I gave you are normally taken in halves - it's more efficient to transport for us that way - and so effectively you took four times the recommended dose. I said one pill because I knew you would be needing something fairly strong. I didn't think you'd then take two of them after I told you explicitly ONE."

Rodney sunk into himself. He felt awful physically, like waking up with a hangover. But he also felt guilty, and ashamed, as well that he'd lost control… that others had seen him while he was only half there, and that he'd been half carried to the infirmary. He didn't have it in him to fight Carson. He felt so fragile inside… he honestly wanted to cry. He hadn't felt like that in a while, and he wasn't impressed it was happening now.
"I'm sorry." Rodney muttered, barely audible.

Carson's anger subsided. He was more upset that Rodney had been so careless, not actually angry at him. The Scot then took a close look at the man sitting on the bed before him. He looked… pitiful. The spark of life that had been Rodney McKay was gone, and instead it was replaced with a tiring sorrow. His eyes looked sullen, his posture was sloppy, and he looked on the verge of tears… but trying to hide it, with the anxious eye movements and rapid breathing that meant he wanted to run and hide.

Carson sighed. He went up to Rodney and held him. He could feel the tense resistance of Rodney's body at first, but soon the muscles relaxed and Rodney leaned against him.
"I'm sorry Carson." Rodney sniffled into the doctor's coat.

"I'm sorry too that I didn't explain. It's not really your fault. I'll give you the rest of the day off on medical leave. Is that ok?"
Carson didn't hear anything, but instead felt the scientist nodding against his chest. Carson released his embrace and smiled.

"Big day tomorrow isn't it? Going off world with the team."

Rodney breathed deep and nodded.
"Yeah. I'm going to go get some rest. Gotta be on the ball tomorrow."

"Good. I'll come by after I've finished my shift here."
"Ok, great." Rodney nodded. "What er, what are you working on?"
"I'm working more on that retrovirus."
"Oh, that idea of getting rid of the bug part of a wraith?"
"…Aye. I think I'm getting close, actually."
Rodney's interest perked.
"What, so you can actually do it? Turn a wraith into a human? Just like that?"
"It's a little more complicated than that, but effectively, yes."

There was a little silence as Rodney nodded. Sometimes it seemed Carson was making much more progress scientifically than he was. It was things like this that made Rodney joke about medicine being more magic than science. He believe the term he'd used to annoy Carson was 'voodoo'. But if Rodney was being completely honest, he was amazed at Carson's skill and knowledge.

Realising there had been a sizeable silence, Rodney hopped off the bed and left the infirmary. He wandered down the hall, attempting to hide from everyone but appear normal at the same time. Eventually he reached his quarters, and just flopped down onto the bed.

Nothing goes my way lately. He thought to himself, as he groaned. He was particularly not looking forward to tomorrow's mission. Hopefully it would be as boring as some of the botany reconnaissance missions had been. He felt a sudden twinge in his stomach at the thought of the last mission he went on. In all likelihood, it would end up being something like that instead. His eyes flickered over to the drawer he'd hidden his knife into.

He felt a little ashamed at how quickly he'd picked up the habit, but cutting was the only thing that really gave him any relief. He kind of liked it now, how it was so easy to show the pain inside when words just couldn't do it. Not that he could really talk to anyone about it anyway.

He sat up and grabbed his knife, and without hesitation quickly slid the blade over the usual place - his left forearm. He still hadn't tried the underside… up until now, he'd always thought of that just being attention seeking. But so far it felt like the other things he thought were attention seeking were actually helpful in a grim way, provided he didn't let anyone know. Curious, Rodney turned his arm over and cut down the soft skin over his wrist.

"Arg! Ow, ok that stings." Rodney exclaimed to himself. He decided that it hurt too much for the same result on the underside, and so he'd keep his usual place. Where once he was glad to see the tiniest dab of red appearing on his wounds, now he was never satisfied that enough damage was done. He was Rodney McKay, the damage causer, and so needed to have more than just scrapes on his arm to show it. He felt anger at himself well up inside him, and so he lashed out and struck his arm with the blade harder than he had before. Instantly, blood began to drip out and run down his arm. He just sat and stared at it for a while, half enjoying the expression of pain he could see, and half bewildered that he'd just done that.

Deciding that he was done for now, feeling the storm of emotions inside him calmed once again, he stood and went to the bathroom to clean the blood off himself. The deeper of the few cuts continued to bleed, and so he got out a dressing from the med kit. He took a deep breath. Who knows, maybe there will be danger on the mission to take my mind off things.

After a few hours of Rodney typing away at his computer, Carson entered to check in.

"Hullo Rodney, good to see you're keeping busy."
"Hm? Oh, yeah, just reading over some stuff. Typing up a paper and all." Rodney had tried at least to do that, but instead just found himself just wasting time browsing over things in the database.

"Mind if I stay a wee bit?" Carson asked as he seated himself on Rodney's couch.

"You're welcome anytime, Carson, you know that." Rodney said, closing his laptop and going over to join the doctor. Some comforting physical contact sounded pretty good to him right now.

"That's good. Radek is fine with what happened, by the way… he's not going to hold it against you. He just laughed when I told him and said it was typical of you. He told the team you had a bad reaction to an allergy pill."
Rodney carefully crept up to be cuddling Carson, behaving like a large dog attempting to sneakily sit in a tiny space on the couch unnoticed.

"Zelenka lied for me?"
"Yeah I guess he did… just a little white lie though. No harm done." Carson giggled, and embraced the scientist. "You feel up to going on the mission tomorrow?"
"Of course."
"Rodney, if something like what happened today occurs when you are just in your lab, I don't want you to push yourself by going offworld."

"Carson, it'll be fine. I don't want to let the team know anything's up. Besides, a change of scenery will be nice; distracting at the very least."

Carson conceded and just nodded, petting Rodney gently.

They then went and had dinner together in the mess, not really caring if people saw them. They were friends who shared meals all the time, so it should't appear to be suspicious. Rodney actually enjoyed the company, and the food. And his team didn't appear for the whole meal, so they got to eat just to themselves for once. Carson had to resist the urge to hold Rodney's hand as they left the mess and returned to Rodney's quarters. Once inside, however, Carson seized the opportunity to close the space between them and kiss Rodney gently. Rodney felt tingles running down his spine, causing goosebumps on his arms, as he responded to Carson's kiss.

I have so much good in my life, why do I still feel depressed? Rodney wondered as he looked into Carson's devoted eyes.

"What is it love?" Carson asked, seeing a change in Rodney's demeanour.

"Nothing. It's stupid."

"Hey." Carson exclaimed gently, and cupped Rodney's cheeks in his hand. "Nothing is stupid between us ok?"

"Alright." Rodney said, and sighed. He indicated for them to sit on the couch again. He then proceeded to talk about how he was so frustrated that he had good things in his life now he didn't have before - notably Carson - and yet he still felt worse than before. No matter what he did, he couldn't seem to get back to enjoying things as he did, he wanted nothing more than to be carefree and happy and just enjoy their time together but he was still just a mess. Carson was kind and listened to it all, petting Rodney softly as he spoke. He tried to tell the scientist that it wasn't his fault, that it was just something that came along with depression. That hating oneself for it only makes it worse. Rodney appreciated hearing the support, but wasn't sure how much he believed. Regardless of if it was part of the condition, he felt he should still have some control over it all.

"I'm not upset that you feel down, Rodney, when we're together. I know that's just how it is, and that you can both enjoy being with me and have depression… so don't worry, don't hate on yourself, and just focus on the moment." Carson said, and leaned in to kiss Rodney again.

"You're amazing and I don't know what I did to get you." Rodney said and kissed back. Carson didn't want to interrupt with a rebuttal, and so let it go and enjoyed the intimacy.

Rodney began to feel a deep energetic passion stirring in his gut. He became more forceful with his kisses, and began to slide his hand down Carson's shirt. Carson reciprocated, and tugged at Rodney's shirt to invite him closer. Rodney began to move to hover over Carson when he stopped dead, a wave of dread and panic washing over him. Carson looked about, wondering why his partner just froze. The cuts. Rodney could only think of one thing: the doctor before him seeing the self harm injuries. That was the opposite of what Rodney wanted, and would certainly kill any mood the removal of clothes would cause. But he was already half committed to the action - he had been the one to initiate…

"Love?"
Rodney swallowed and moved back to his seat on the couch beside Carson.

"I'm sorry Carson." Rodney said, desperately trying to think of an explanation.

"It's alright, Rodney. You're clearly stressed about tomorrow, I understand."
"Ah, yes. Tomorrow. That's it. I mean I want to, you know, but I can't get the feelings about the mission out of my head, and it puts a damper on things… you know?"
Carson nodded, and kissed Rodney's forehead.

"I think the best thing for you is some rest. Do you want me to stay?"
"No, it's ok, I kinda just want to get my head into the game as it were. I really am determined to go on the mission like old times."

Rodney felt bad for suddenly sending his boyfriend on his way, but he couldn't risk Carson catching a glimpse of his left arm. Carson understood, and got up to leave. Things were very confusing and muddled together for Rodney, and so he had to be patient. The last thing he wanted to do was force Rodney into something uncomfortable and make him regret it. He'd had experience with these kinds of emotions before in the past, and so had an understanding of what it was like for his partner right now.
"I'll see you tomorrow, love. And don't worry… there's plenty of time for everything, and everything is fine." It was a bit general and corny, but Carson wanted to say it anyway.

"Thanks, Carson." Rodney said. Carson then left, and Rodney remained on the couch, head in his hands. Not only was he regretting making a move and then taking it back, but he was now also worrying about tomorrow.