Rhyme
McKay crept through the corridors stealthily. Well, okay, maybe more stealthish; none of the military personnel would have had the slightest bit of trouble tracking him, but he was an astrophysicist, not a secret agent! And he wasn't stomping this time, which made him proud of himself, considering that he hadn't had much practice at this. Sheppard always came to him, after all.
He heard loud voices as Bates and Ford rounded the corridor, arguing emphatically. "...irresponsible behavior, Lieutenant. I hope you can see that. How can you . . ." McKay closed his eyes, trying desperately not to hear, but he couldn't help himself. Curiosity killed the cat, and if life in Pegasus was any sort of indicator so far, it would probably kill him as well. Though part of it would also likely be Sheppard's fault.
". . . They're alive, Gene, that's more than I can ask for. I'd like to see you take out a superWraith." The footsteps stopped just around the corner and McKay couldn't help himself from creeping closer.
"I wouldn't have to. Because I wouldn't have gotten myself into that type of situation and you know it. Tell me, Lieutenant, man to man, what would you have done?"
Ford sighed. McKay could almost hear an eyeroll. "I would have given Gaul a gun, told him to stay put and taken Dr. McKay to figure out some way to protect the jumper, or at least help me take him out."
"My point, exactly, Sir. I know that McKay's just a whiny arrogant civilian most of the time, but he's an able body. A pudgy one, but able, capable of thinking strategically, and certainly the one most likely to think up a plan that would avoid directly engaging the hostile, if only just to save his own hide." Hey! He was not pudgy. He was big boned!
"But I'm not Sheppard. I would have had to take McKay because I don't have the gene and I know next to nothing about the jumpers. Sheppard could afford to not take that risk. We're out here to protect the civilians, not drag them into the line of fire."
"With all due respect, Sir, don't you think that's a bit optimistic of you? We both know that if Sheppard hadn't been his usual insanely lucky self and happened to get taken out, McKay was a sitting duck anyhow. And then we might not even be doing the investigation..."
"Or they could all be dead. But who said anything about an investigation, Gene? Don't you think they've been through enough?"
"You know the rules, Lieutenant. Suicide, questionable decision-making, high death-toll, as head of base security, it's my obligation to investigate."
What the hell? They didn't have the right! Well, they were military, so they didn't necessarily need the right. But Elizabeth wouldn't, couldn't. And Ford. Ford was a good kid. And he was their friend.
But the only resistance was a heavy sigh.
"You know, I'm right."
Ford! Come on, speak up for your teammates. You can do it.
"Fine, but I'm not happy about it. I mean, Major Sheppard doesn't always do things by the book, but he always seems to come through."
"Like he came through when we thought we had a mole? Like he came through waking the Wraith?"
"He saved your life!" Ford shouted. Good point. So maybe the kid hadn't been dropped on his head as many times as McKay had previously estimated.
"I would have gladly sacrificed my life to keep Atlantis safe."
"So would he."
"I know, Lieutenant. I can't doubt the major's conviction. I just have a problem with his judgment."
"You are aware that you're speaking about your superior officer, right, Gene?"
"That's why I'm talking to you, Aiden, and not to Dr. Weir or Kavanagh's little gang of merry men."
"Calvin has merry men?"
"Well they obviously ain't too merry if they keep hanging around him, but yes. He's a whiny slimy limpdick whimp, Aiden, but what he's saying makes enough sense that people are listening, both military and civilian."
"Military? But that's…"
"I know, believe me, I know. And I'm doing my best to keep a lid on it. But, can't you just see a little beyond your Sheppard hero worship and try to make some suggestions? I'm having a real hard time doing my job when he keeps fucking up like this."
"It's your job, Sergeant. He shouldn't have to do it for you."
"Aiden, please, he listens to you. With a martyr complex like his, he's only going to take all the pain this has caused as a sign of his own greatness."
And then McKay heard something he'd never heard before. It was a hardness in young happy-go-lucky Ford's voice, beyond the determination of battle. It was resentment. "No, he doesn't. He doesn't even listen to Weir, not really. And especially not when McKay supports him. If I said something critical, he'd probably just order me to shut up. You could try Teyla."
"Yeah, that's going to happen."
They both laughed, hollowly.
"I hate to say it, but then McKay's your best bet." Yep, because he would implode Bates' miniscule brain with the piece of his considerable mind the sergeant would be receiving if that ever happened.
"Will you talk to him?"
"Nah, he doesn't trust me to do anything remotely involving thinking. And besides, if you think I hero worship the major, you obviously haven't seen McKay." That was blatantly untrue. He did not hero worship Sheppard. Sure, they joked and flirted and kind of got carried away upon occasion. He respected Sheppard and cared about him, but that wasn't hero worship. When push came to shove, he stood his ground.
Just like you stood your ground when Sheppard was jerking you off in that ship? Or when he ordered you to stay with Gaul? Or when he made you drop yourself down the proverbial rabbit hole on the Genii homeworld? Or when he made you get friendly with children? McKay hated that voice. The voice of doubt. Or maybe of conscience. They were equally menacing.
"What do you mean? All they ever do is fight!" Stupid grunts, didn't get that it was more foreplay than anything else. The meatheads probably didn't know anything other than a few tweaks to some nipples an 'I love you' and good old missionary. Robots.
"Exactly. Have you seen McKay even lower himself to the level of fighting with anybody else? He just snaps at them or, in my case, shakes his head and ignores them. I honestly think he's impressed that the major can hold his own the way he does. Most people just gape, cry or run the other way."
McKay felt his jaw drop. There was an odd… Did Ford know? Ohmygod, Ford knew! Ford was going to rat them out. Sheppard would be court marshaled and Bates would be in charge and McKay would be locked up and nobody would trust him anymore and the respect he'd managed to gain from his fellow scientists would just evaporate once they realized that his libido had allowed Scott and Brendan to get killed.
He was practically hyperventilating now.
"Hey, maybe they're lovers." And now Bates suspected! McKay leaned back against the door as his vision blurred and his breathing increased.
But then came a guffawing laugh. He recognized Aiden's light, almost snorting, chuckle. "Yeah, right. Good one, Gene. I can just imagine that! In fact, I don't want to imagine that. I'm giving you latrine duty in my mind!"
McKay heaved a sigh of relief.
"Hey, did you hear that?"
Shit! McKay took off down the opposite corridor, toward Sheppard's room. They need to talk, really talk this time. After all, Sheppard had the bad manners to pass out during their last conversation. And Aiden Ford needed a spanking. Not the naughty kind, of course. More like the bruising 'betray you teammates to the evil walking talking ginger-bread soldier. Oh, ginger bread. He missed that. The little bakery off Mountain street…
A hundred meters and thirty-seven paranoid glances over his shoulder later, McKay had arrived at Sheppard's door.
He steeled himself and stepped up to the door. To his surprise, it opened. He was sure that Sheppard would have locked it. But then again, Beckett had all these bullshit medical reasons for things, and he was pretty scary with a needle. Of course, he hadn't quite prepared himself yet. Thought he could meditate while rearranging the crystals in Sheppard's door panel.
Instead he just stared at Sheppard, propped up against what looked like every pillow in the city, sitting on one of the medical air mattresses they'd brought from earth, which was laid out on the floor against the wall. One arm was bandaged loosely to Sheppard's chest and the other was resting on his side, holding it, even through the bandages as he took slow breaths in an out. He opened his eyes slowly and sleepily, yawning. Despite the wrapping of his ribs and the icepack that he seemed to have tied to the left side of his face with a shoelace, Sheppard looked regal, sitting straight against his mountain of pillows like that, like some sort of sultan with the eyes of a sphinx.
"Hey," Sheppard yawned.
"Hey." McKay fiddled with his hands, in the absence of anything else to do.
"We should talk." It was a sigh. Sheppard sounded too tired for this. Maybe this was a bad idea. He should go. But instead he said:
"We should." McKay shuffled nervously forward. "Are you all right?"
"I just got the shit beat out of me by a talking vampire catfish with really bad dreads but without the Bob Marley coolness, and can still feel every bruise even on whatever it is the Doc is giving me and sitting on more pillows then I thought we even brought to this galaxy, what do you think?"
"I hope you feel better?" He really did. He hated seeing Sheppard like this. He could feel it almost like a pain in his own chest. Sheppard wasn't supposed to look so fragile. He was supposed to keep coming back. He was never going to leave, if only because McKay didn't know what he would do if he did.
"Thanks, Rodney, I appreciate the sentiment."
McKay nodded, convinced that beneath the sarcasm and the weariness, that was heartfelt. He slid down the wall next to Sheppard's pillow throne, stretching his knees out with a loud crack.
Sheppard smiled slightly, but closed his eyes. "Was that a gunshot?"
"Nope. I'm just getting too old to follow you around, making sure you don't kill yourself."
"I'm getting too old for making sure I don't kill myself." Sheppard joked. "When I was twenty, I fell of a roof, crack some ribs. It wasn't this bad. I was back on my skateboard after a week."
"How'd you fall off a roof?" That was such a Sheppard thing. Especially when he said it so casually like that.
"I was trying to jump my mountain bike from one rooftop to another."
"Oh. Of course, why didn't I think of that? That's a perfectly reasonable thing to want to do. I hope you made some money from America's Stupidest Wannabes Try to Kill Themselves."
"Sadly, I couldn't afford a video camera. Besides, I was a kid!"
"Still are."
"C'mon, Rodney, don't tell me you never did anything stupid when you were young."
"Do I even need to dignify that with a response?" McKay smirked.
"Oh, I forgot, Mr. Braintrust just walked out of the womb, said thank-you-very-much and continued to do nothing but brilliance his entire life, without a single mistake."
"Nope, I fully admit that's incorrect. I didn't say 'thank you.' It's not like I choose to be born."
"Ah, I knew there was a problem there somewhere." They both chuckled slightly, Sheppard's more of a wheeze.
Before the silence could get past uncomfortable and into frigid, however, Sheppard turned his head to the side, wincing, and reached out with his good hand to grip McKay's. "We still need to talk."
"I know."
"I'm sorry, Rodney. We fucked up, I admit it."
"Yeah, I think we pretty much got the fact that we fucked up covered, you doing a good impression of the Mummy and all."
"Hey, the Mummy has it better than I do. He generally gets to chase hot chicks around." Sheppard sighed.
"And that's something you would never do." McKay rolled his eyes.
Sheppard rolled his back. "So, we fucked up. What do we do about it?"
McKay bit his lower lip. He wasn't sure. It was more than just reckless horniness or lack of judgment. It was… he didn't know what it was. "I've got nothing." He lifted Sheppard's hand, fingers entwined in his own and then dropped it again.
"We could always stop…" Sheppard let his voice trail off. He didn't need to finish that sentence for them both to know that it wasn't going to happen. They needed it too much. The pressure… well, McKay had never sympathized with those molten lava flows or barometers or diamonds, or anything like that before. But ever since he'd gotten here, he'd understood the weight of the world. And he'd found his release. It wasn't pretty and it was against both regulations and common sense, but he held onto it like the selfish bastard he was because the only alternative was implosion, crushing weight. And he really really didn't like death by suffocation.
"Could we?" McKay turned to face him for the first time, blue eyes piercing.
Sheppard shook his head, dislodging the icepack. McKay gathered it up, puling the cooler with pieces of impossibly round, Ancient-produced ice towards him and refilling what actually turned out to be one of Sheppard's socks. He raised an eyebrow.
"Big bruise." Sheppard responded.
McKay was careful as he replaced the 'bag,' smoothing damp hair from the side of Sheppard's face and noting the tumescent discoloring of Sheppard's handsome features. "Nice color you got going there. Brings out the green in your eyes."
Sheppard smiled, putting on a fake Southern accent. "Why careful, Doctor, you're making me blush."
"Oh how I love those red elephant ears of yours! How they fill my heart with blossoming…um…cherry blossoms."
Sheppard snorted in laughter, grasping his chest. "Don't say things like that to a man on a considerable amount of happy juice."
"I'll try to restrain my astounding wit from now on."
Sheppard just grinned this time, letting the comment fall to silence.
But McKay was not ready for the silence, not when it meant that he had to think about how Sheppard's lips were puffy and kissable moisten by ice-chips as they were, or how even with that ridiculous ice-holding contraption matting his hair, he was attractive. "So... no more sex on missions?" McKay supplied, for lack of anything better to say. Sheppard's gaze was too intense, the lights to dim, the flirtation too tender. This wasn't supposed to be. It was supposed to be about violence and competition and raw need.
But maybe this was need right here, looking into Sheppard's eyes and understanding his pain.
"I was thinking that was pretty much a give in."
"Maybe we should have a schedule."
Sheppard snorted. "Talk about taking all the fun out of it."
"You wouldn't keep one, even if I tattooed it to your forehead, would you?"
Sheppard sighed. "Nope. Not my style."
"We should restrain ourselves, somehow." He didn't want to feel. He didn't want to care, because it hurt so badly, watching the Wraith hit Sheppard, hearing the sickening crack when his ribs snapped, watching time slow as he flew through the air, waiting with baited breath as Sheppard lay motionless, screaming at Beckett over the comm link after Sheppard doubled over in pain. He had enough to worry about taking care of his own skin, and now he was preoccupied with Sheppard as well. It was too much. He didn't want to care… but he did.
"Rodney…" Sheppard looked even more pained now, head tilted just to the side, imploring. "I don't know if I can."
And that was the problem, wasn't it? They didn't need long walks on the beach and love songs and all the beauty and rhyme and romance in the world to care about each other. It had happened, and there was no going back. They had to deal with it now, because it wasn't like a switch you could just turn off, and that frightened him more than anything.
But the Sheppard continued. "But we have to. I can't keep going on missions with you like this, worrying about you all the time. But I'll be even more worried if it's that idiot, Bates, not me, looking after you." McKay winced, not wanting to bring up the conversation he'd overheard in the corridor.
"Or…" It was risky, but he had to try. As much as he wanted this new stirring deep in his chest to go away, this inkling of something more, he now knew enough about art, and new situations and doing what was necessary not what was safe, to know that they couldn't act as though this were the lab, or something that looked great on paper. They were living this, and in all likelihood, they were just going to get closer. He could feel it, like a pain, like a scar, as though Sheppard had marked him forever with this cursed sympathy, this ability to leave his own self for just a moment and care about someone. Not just people, but someone in particular.
"Or we could go with it. You know, keep pushing until we come out the other side." McKay practically winced at how stupid it sounded. But he couldn't go back to how it was before either. He'd gotten used to Sheppard's insufferable teasing, the bed hair, the laughs, the friendship. And he wasn't giving that up without a fight, either!
"Come out?" Sheppard played nervously with the bedcovers that pooled around his waist.
"No, not come out, you idiot. I mean… we're not going to stop caring about each other. I'm going to do everything I can to protect you and you're going to do the same for me. That's not going to change no matter what we do and we have to accept that. But maybe… maybe if we just stop trying to deny this and hold ourselves back until the worst possible moments, it will be easier to stay objective."
Sheppard nodded slightly, half-frowning in the way he always did when he was thinking hard about something. "You mean you want chocolate and flowers and… you know, a relationship?" He winced at the word.
"Well, I could always use more chocolate. Blood sugar, you know. But I think we already are in a relationship. A really dysfunctional one. But who wants to be normal, eh?"
"With you, I don't think normal's possible."
"A mark of genius." McKay smiled.
Sheppard smiled back.
And then he did something that had never happened before. Sheppard leaned forward, just slightly, blinking like he had something in his eye. McKay leaned in to see if there was something in there, and before he knew it, Sheppard's lips were on his own. Sheppard kissed like the captain of the football team, or a male lead in a romantic comedy: hungry, with mouth gaping open and lots of tongue. It was new. And kind of gross.
McKay pulled back. "What the hell was that?"
Sheppard made to shrug, but seemed to think the better of it. "A relationship thing? Going with it?"
"Hmm… Interesting…" McKay replied, bringing his fingers up to his now saliva-coated lips.
"Interesting? You call that interesting? Rodney, you just kissed another guy and that's all you have to say?" It was different than kissing a girl. He'd really have to do more to develop a full comparison. But it was far from unwelcome, right even. He didn't know where this would lead, maybe to nothing, but he had already lost some of the trapped feeling from earlier, the overwhelming hatred. This was something he needed to try, he decided.
"Well it was… interesting. Technique could be improved, but you know me, I'm not picky."
"Like hell you're not! And what's wrong with my technique? I've never had any complaints from women." Sheppard made it sound as though McKay was in the wrong just because all his little bimbettes didn't know a good kisser when they found one.
McKay shrugged. "I'm not a woman."
"No, you just faint like one." Sheppard's comeback was muted by a yawn.
"Okay, looks like its time for little majors to be off to bed," McKay said quietly.
"I'm not tired," Sheppard mumbled, even as his eyes drifted shut. McKay stared at him for just a moment –or maybe three- before he pushed off the wall and prepared to leave. But before he could get anywhere, Sheppard's hand had reached out to grip his. "I'ma 'ood kisser," he mumbled, "stay."
McKay sighed, but he was smiling. He could teach Sheppard how to kiss later. Right now he just wanted to feel that warm hand on his, a confirmation that Sheppard was still there, and he cared.
