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Aug. 11th, 2008 12:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
erdaTitle: Yours, Anonymously
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
keefaq
Word count: 5385
Summary: Rodney didn’t make it off the Daedalus.
AU for the end of 5.04: The Daedalus Variations
Written for the Season Five Tagathon at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
sga_episodefic
John Sheppard was a meticulous man. Just as his clothing was carefully folded and precisely arranged in his drawers, as every item he kept in his room had an exact place where it could always be found, so was the position of his tray in the lunchroom placed every day according to a carefully thought out plan. Early on he had figured out where he would sit--so many days next to Rodney, so many days across from him, and the occasional very painful day when he felt that duty and discretion compelled him to sit away from Rodney completely.
He’d felt reasonably sure that the proximity formula was complex enough that no one would notice any pattern at all.
Today was a bad day, but as sitting with Rodney was no longer one of his options, he was sharing a table with Major Lorne and some of Lorne’s friends. He’d been having far too many bad days since losing Rodney, but hadn't been able to come up with any new plan for dealing with that. Lorne was a good guy, everyone thought so, an uncomplicated guy, wholesome and straightforward. Everything that John worked hard to project came naturally to Lorne because it wasn’t an act. Which John found unnerving and a little impolite of Lorne.
Lorne’s “Sir?” pulled him out of his reverie. “I need to get back to work, sir,” Lorne said, but he remained seated.
“Yes, go,” John said impatiently, waving him off with a gesture he’d learned from Rodney. He never knew quite what Lorne was thinking, but he imagined it wouldn’t be flattering. He finished his coffee and left the cafeteria with a nod to the rest of the table. He wanted to stop by the lab to talk to Zelenka again.
Mostly John had so far stayed focused on his fury about the whole situation. Rodney was supposed to go ahead of him, but John had bumped against him, clumsy in the space suit, and Rodney had dropped his tablet. Rodney knew how little time they had to get off the Daedalus, yet he pushed John away and turned back at the crucial penultimate second to retrieve the tablet. John’s momentum swept him out and away, hands clutching emptiness when the ship blinked out of their universe, carrying Rodney with it, away and gone in a flash of light.
That was that. Rodney was gone.
“You’re not even trying,” John said, leaning over the console in an attempt to intimidate Zelenka, which was probably a wasted effort.
“Am not trying because is ridiculous idea,” Zelenka wasn’t even annoyed. “I have explained many times, Colonel. Even if I could build universe traveling device, which I cannot, it would have no way of locating our Rodney.”
John sat down in the chair Rodney usually used and started browsing around on the laptop in front of him, looking for a clue. When he had disappeared, Rodney hadn’t given up. He’d spent years working to bring John home, and John wanted nothing but to return the favor. He was willing to work just as long and hard as Rodney had, but he had no idea how to work on this.
He retraced an imaginary life, Rodney’s life, after he had vanished into the future. What Rodney had done, what Rodney had revealed, freaked him out. For the first time, he seriously entertained the notion that his feelings for Rodney were reciprocated, and he’d lived with denial so long, been so comfortably sure he was alone in the world, that it shook him.
He’d watched Rodney fumble through so many attempts at heterosexual relationships and never seen any hint that he might be interested in guys. Rodney was up front when he was attracted to someone, not repressed or reluctant to take a shot at what he wanted. John had never really given any thought to pursuing his attraction to Rodney before. But every way he looked at what had happened, Rodney had shown a devotion to him in that alternate time line that spoke of something stronger than friendship. Rodney had disregarded his wife’s dying wish without any apparent hesitation in order to restore a time line in which he might never get together with her. Now, with Rodney out of reach, he regretted his reticence more than ever.
“Colonel,” Zelenka said. “Rodney is very smart man. Who knows? Maybe he will find a way to come home. We can only wait and see.”
“Yeah.” John said. “He built the thing in the first place, so if anyone can figure it out-” He was going to hold on to that thought. Rodney was away, but he would be back soon. In the meantime, John had things to do.
He was explaining what he wanted Ronon to work on with Rodney’s self defense lessons when Teyla came in, arms full of baby and various pieces of gear which she attempted to stuff into a locker one handed. She twisted around awkwardly for a moment before asking him to hold Torren for just a minute. He was out of the locker room and taking deep calming breaths in the hall before she had finished asking. He knew it was inexcusably rude to just bolt out of the room like that, but the sudden desire to punch her which had come over him when she’d held the baby out to him had shocked him speechless. He didn’t know what he could say to explain his behavior, so he simply walked away.
Everyone was being very careful around him, which only made him angrier.
The thing to do was to keep busy. Rodney would find his way back, and when he returned, John was going to change. He wasn’t brave, despite what other people thought. He was able to risk his life in the line of duty more because of a lack of imagination, a habit of not thinking. But when it came to his relationships he’d always drifted, doing whatever was easiest.
John had never in his life made a pass at anyone, had never had to. People came onto him all the time. His relationship struggles were all about trying to head off unwanted advances without too much embarrassment rather than about how to approach someone he was interested in. He’ already flirted with Rodney to the point that anyone less oblivious, that is-any one but Rodney-would have noticed. He was never going to have any chance of getting what he wanted unless he took direct action. He’d let opportunity pass him by over and over again, but he was finished with that. If Rodney-when Rodney- got home, he was going to act on his feelings.
He had a little map of the city on his laptop, and he’d been working his way section by section in his down time, exploring the more remote parts of the city. It probably wasn’t smart, in fact Rodney had outright told him it was dumb to wander around in unexplored areas alone, but he was always careful, just scouting the layout briefly, and Rodney had a copy of his plan so he always knew where John was walking. He’d promised Rodney that he wouldn’t take any little excursions when Rodney wasn’t around, and he kept that promise, though the impulse to wander off alone was stronger than it had ever been before. He could resume his schedule when Rodney got home.
He joined Woolsey at lunch, concentrating on the tiresome and time consuming but essential job of charming him. Rodney was bound to piss the head honcho off when he got back, and it would be up to John to smooth things over. Everything was normal, even the food, as more and more of the locals were planting earth crops. The stew definitely included real earth potatoes and carrots, though the meat was unrecognizable. It wasn’t until John reached for his dessert that he suddenly lost his appetite. Woolsey didn’t say anything or try to stop him when he stood up abruptly, muttering some excuse, and tossed the remains of his lunch, including the two untouched puddings, into the trash.
The next morning Rodney came home. He didn’t dash through the gate talking and gesturing excitedly or call John a genius. He just walked through calmly. John was in the gate room to meet him, but they didn’t make a big deal about it. For four months John had waited idly, doing nothing to bring Rodney home, but Rodney didn’t seem angry about it. John cocked an eyebrow and asked, “What took you so long?” and Rodney rolled his eyes.
Everything went back to normal. Later, when he asked Rodney what had happened, Rodney seemed strangely reticent. He was quiet for a long time before saying, “I got off the ship, went down to Atlantis. I had the tablet with all the information about the drive. It just took me a while to make another one.”
“Was your other self a big help?” John asked.
Rodney shook his head. “He was actually, uh, not alive anymore.”
That was… “Was I…?” John asked.
“You were still alive,” Rodney answered. He didn’t seem to want to say anything else, which was okay with John.
He woke up early the morning after Rodney’s return resolved to act on his feelings and damn the consequences. He found Rodney alone in one of the smaller labs, sipping coffee and staring at his computer screen as if he’d never been away. He had his jacket off. He didn’t try to keep his gaze from Rodney’s bare arms, the hair so light it was barely visible. His imagination followed his gaze so that he could almost feel his hands running over those arms, skimming from shoulder to hand, leaning over Rodney’s back. He’d stepped up behind Rodney, not quite close enough to touch and Rodney noticed him and turned to stare. “What’s up?”
“Nothing,” he said. “What are you working on so early in the day?”
Rodney didn’t answer, continued to look at him. John was standing close, close enough to touch. The moment was on him. He could cut through the talk and make his intentions clear with a gesture. All he had to do was move his own arm forward a matter of inches and make contact with Rodney’s arm; that was all it would take to make his feelings clear, but he was frozen. He didn’t do this, didn’t know how to do this. Want overwhelmed him, but he felt like he was encased inside a force field, completely immobilized, struggling unsuccessfully to act.
Still Rodney said nothing, sitting with unRodney-like stillness. There was time to act, plenty of time, but John just stood there until Rodney finally turned back to his laptop and the moment was gone. “I’m almost finished here,” he said, and when John continued to stand stubbornly and silently behind him, “Was there something else?”
“No,” he said, his voice so dull with disappointment that Rodney spun his chair around to study him.
“Colonel? Something wrong?”
He could feel the words clogged in the back of his throat. The potential energy was vibrating in his arms. All he had to do was say a word or reach out and touch, but he couldn’t. He shrugged. “I just think you cold give yourself a break.” He pulled up the best smile he could. “Problems’ll wait for you. You could afford to take part of the day off.”
“Yeah, okay,” Rodney said. “I’m almost finished here.”
John had no further reason to linger. It was an effort to walk out casually when he felt like running, but he managed it. Rodney being Rodney, he’d probably already forgotten any strangeness in their conversation.
It was clear he was never going to find the courage to make a move on Rodney, so he went to his back up plan, which had so far never failed him. He put himself in Rodney’s presence, way inside Rodney’s space, every time they were alone. Where once he’d drawled, now the words practically crawled out of his suggestive smirk. If once he’d leaned, now he draped and slithered in the most obvious way he knew. Not content just to steal food from Rodney, he now made a production out of eating it provocatively. When Rodney stood close to him, he gave in to the impulse to let his legs fall open, leaning back with his thighs apart in frank invitation to Rodney to step up.
He gave Rodney every opening, every opportunity. And Rodney? Rodney did nothing.
Not only did Rodney not make any moves on him, he seemed to lose interest in even spending time together. He was always off somewhere that John wasn’t, doing something unspecified. John would casually stop by the lab, Rodney’s quarters, the mess hall, all the places Rodney usually was, but Rodney wasn’t. When he asked Radek what Rodney was doing, Radek mumbled something about finally getting some peace and quiet and how he wasn’t Rodney’s nursemaid.
He maybe felt a little angry at the way Rodney was never around anymore. Maybe Rodney was seeing somebody on the sly? He certainly wasn’t going to chase around after the guy if he didn’t want to be bothered, but there were things as team leader that he needed to discuss, so he called Rodney on his radio.
“Yes? What?”
It was hard to tell when Rodney was annoyed, because, well, because it was Rodney. “Where are you?”
There was a long pause. “Do you need something, Colonel?”
“Yeah. I need to know where you are.”
“Look, Colonel, I’m off duty, and unless there’s some kind of crisis, I’d like to point out that’s it’s none of your business where I am.”
Again it was hard to tell if that was more than Rodney’s normal snippiness, but there was something off, some reason Rodney didn’t want to share what he was up to that gave John a bad feeling. He thought he could hear what might be Rodney repairing something noises. What did Rodney have to fix when he was off duty that he would be secretive about?
Since Rodney wasn’t around much, he went back to his schedule for checking out new areas of the city. It was something he could do by himself. It seemed he would never be able to make a move on Rodney, it was just not in him, and the chance of Rodney picking up on hints was, well, he needed to get back to he mindset he’d had before his little jaunt into the future.
Lost in thoughts of how very brave he wasn’t, he paused when he noticed a small side passageway veering off to the left and then turned down into it, startled when a door closed off the way behind him. He turned back and swiped at the door control. The door immediately opened and stayed open when he retreated back up the larger walkway. Stepping back into the side passage, he watched the door automatically close again.
Satisfied that he wasn’t going to be trapped, he continued down the hall until he came to two doors side-by-side, doors of both rooms slightly ajar. He took a step inside the first one and stopped. He knew immediately what the small room was for, and heat sweeping over him, he stumbled back out, glancing up and down the corridor to make sure he was alone. He took a quick look inside the second room just to make sure he knew what he was seeing.
When he got back to his quarters he decided to take a long shower, starting the water hot and gradually cooling it until he stood shivering under the icy spray.
He couldn’t banish the thought of those rooms. It disturbed him that he hadn’t known about them, that something like this might be going on in his city and he’d been completely oblivious.
“I found something strange in the section of the city I was in yesterday,” he said to Rodney, when he found him working alone in one of the small labs again. It was, he realized, the first time he’d seen Rodney in several days.
Rodney was engrossed in something on his laptop as usual, and gave a non-committal grunt.
“Past the room where we found the other Elizabeth,” he said.
“Yeah, so?” Rodney didn’t look up, but his tone was challenging.
“Found some rooms down there,” he said.
“What kind of rooms?” Rodney was still working, his tone casual, but dry.
“Uh,” he said, “for people to meet.”
Rodney straightened up and turned to face him, crossing his arms with one of his many ‘you’re such a moron’ expressions. “So you found the glory hole rooms,” he said bluntly.
“You knew about this?” his hands were both tightly fisted behind his back.
Rodney couldn’t have spoken more carelessly. “Of course I know about it.”
He relaxed his hands, stretching his fingers out. Rodney looked up. “You really didn’t know?” He turned away from Rodney’s brutal gaze. “Huh. I guess you are the man here. You’re not stupid enough to try to interfere, are you?”
He kept his gaze averted, knowing even the ever oblivious Rodney would see how angry he was. “Aren’t those kind of places mostly a gay thing?”
Rodney had already lost interest in the conversation and returned to his laptop. “You have a problem with that, Colonel?” he asked, still so casual.
John had a sudden thought that made him spin around and stare at Rodney. “Have you…you’ve actually used that place to hook up with someone?”
Rodney rolled his eyes without meeting his gaze. “Look, Colonel, I’m a busy man. I don’t have time to run around buying flowers and taking people on dates. Glory holes exist for a reason, you know? Especially in a place like this, people need some kind of stress relief. This is really none of your business.”
Rodney was right. It was none of his business, and part of him didn’t want to know any of this, but he couldn’t seem to keep his mouth shut. “You really use that room?”
Rodney huffed his breath out and pushed his laptop away. “Yes, Colonel, I really use that room. Every Tuesday evening I close up shop and head down there at exactly eight o’clock. Are you satisfied? Any other details of my personal life you feel a need to know?”
John could feel his ears tingling with the beginning of a blush. “No, sorry, I wasn’t trying to…what you do on your down time is your own business…” He didn’t flee exactly, he just decided the conversation had reached a natural stopping place and left. Maybe he walked back to his quarters briskly, but he didn’t run or anything.
The thought of Rodney in that tiny room was not pleasant. He definitely didn’t want to think about it. He was doing a pretty good job of banishing the images that had sprung into his imagination until it crossed his mind that maybe Rodney had told him the exact time he was in the room as some kind of invitation. He sank down onto his bed and indulged himself with that idea. Could Rodney really think quickly enough to do that? Of course he could, Rodney always thought and acted quickly. But no, he was kidding himself; he knew Rodney’s type and it wasn’t him. He’d watched Rodney fawn over too many women. When Rodney was attracted to someone, he blasted that attraction loud and clear, with no fear of rejection at all.
It was hard to put aside thoughts of the rooms, and Rodney in the rooms, but John had a genetic proclivity for compartmentalizing which came in handy almost as often as it tripped him up, and he drew on that ability now.
Things went along swimmingly for the next two days, but the third day after their little tete-a-tete John woke up early completely decompartmentalized over the awareness that it was Tuesday, Rodney’s day with the room. This fact ran rampant through every compartment, container, nook and cranny of his brain.
Rodney had given up twenty-five years of his life to try to bring John home, knowing it wouldn’t change his own life or bring back the wasted years. Rodney was going to be in an anonymous sex room this very evening and he’d made sure John knew it. The risk couldn’t be lower. He could go down there. He could satisfy his curiosity and it would help him put this craziness to rest and move on, get back on a less tumultuous keel. But what if Rodney really had told him when he’d be there as an invitation because he wanted to hook up? He didn’t even try to control himself in the shower, just took his cock in hand and brought himself off with a few hard strokes.
He stayed away from the labs, spending most of the day with the marines, finally going to supper with them. Even so, his thoughts continually circled back to Rodney and the room.
After supper he went to his quarters to catch up on some paperwork, but it was impossible for him to stay focused. He could go down to the rooms without committing to anything, just to see if Rodney was really there. He didn’t have to do anything once he got there. He could just look.
He felt exposed walking down the corridor, as if everyone he passed knew where he was headed. The halls seemed busier than usual, and every other person seemed compelled to hold him up with trivial questions. He could hardly keep from snapping. As he got farther from the more traveled areas of the city he got even more tense. At the corridor that connected to the rooms, he stopped, breath coming as fast as if he’d run there. He could still turn around and forget about this, except, yeah, he really didn’t want to.
He glanced around guiltily before ducking into the corridor. The door closed behind him with a portentous click that made him shiver. When he got to the first room he saw the door was closed. A light was on above the knob, presumably to indicate that it was occupied. He glanced at his watch 20:06. It had to be Rodney. He ducked inside the second room furtively, forcing himself to stand upright as the door slid closed behind him. He hadn’t even done anything, but he had a sudden insight into that Bible verse where looking with lust was equated with the sex act itself. He was so guilty, guilty, guilty, and he hadn’t even had any fun.
He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do next. There was probably some kind of signal or something that Rodney knew about, but since he’d never done anything like this before he wasn’t privy to the code.
There was no sound at all from the adjoining room. So maybe he should just go for what he wanted by opening his pants and getting into position at the hole. He leaned against the wall, taking deep breaths. What if it wasn’t Rodney? Maybe Rodney was just jerking his cord, never really came here, and this was some random stranger.
Did it really matter? Christ, he couldn’t just stand here all night. If he wasn’t going to go through with it, then he needed to leave, the sooner the better. Give Rodney, or whoever was in the other room, a chance to hook up with someone else.
A sudden, impatient huff from the other room made him step back. He knew that huff like he knew his P-90. He yanked his pants and boxers down. He wasn’t going to think anymore, just do it, like any other time he was out on a limb. But instead of getting into position at the hole, he bent down and pulled off his boots, then took off pants, boxers and socks and laid them carefully aside. He didn’t want his t-shirt either, so he pulled it off and placed it with his other clothing. He wasn’t sure what he wanted, but it involved not being in such a hurry. He noticed a small container of condoms in the corner of the room and a tube of some kind of lube next to it. That hadn’t been there when he’d found the rooms. There was also a small table with a padded top, just the right height for him to bend over and be comfortable. Only after taking another calming breath did he step up to the hole between the rooms, turn and bend down across the padded table.
He couldn’t help the little jerk of surprise when a hand,Rodney’s hand, slid across his ass. The hand stilled, pressed against him reassuringly and then dipped into the cleft of his ass cheeks, down across his hole. He’d already slicked himself up, but the finger that pressed into him went slowly and carefully. Rodney was going to take his time. He felt himself sinking back onto Rodney’s hand as far as he could through the barely large enough opening between the rooms. This was perfect, this was just what he wanted, Rodney here with him, doing him like he’d thought about so many times. He didn’t think about Rodney here with other people, other guys, he didn’t think about the way Rodney didn’t even know it was him.
As Rodney fingers stroked into him, and then his cock, he let himself imagine that Rodney knew it was him, that Rodney had come here to meet him and only him. He was in so deep by then that he couldn’t think anymore, just feel. John never made noises during sex, but his breath was coming faster and faster, and Rodney filled the silence with soft but unselfconscious little moaning sounds that wound him up more and more. Rodney apparently didn’t care if anyone recognized his voice, or maybe he was too far gone to realize how much noise he was making, enough noise for two people.
******
“Colonel Sheppard, hold up there,” Rodney called and John stopped and turned. The moment of facing Rodney after their encounter in the sex room had come on him without warning, much quicker than he’d expected. He hadn’t even made it to breakfast yet and Rodney was running him down in the hallway. “Look, you have to put me on the roster for the mission to P3X-133.”
Clearly Rodney had no idea it was John he had fucked senseless the night before. His manner, though he seemed unusually chipper for such an early hour, was completely matter of fact. “Lorne’s team has that.”
“Well, switch teams or just let me ride along with them.” Yep, Rodney was his usual demanding, clueless self.
John bit back an inappropriately angry response. “Lorne’s team is perfectly capable of handling anything you think you’ve got. Just brief them.” Rodney’s expression went stony and stubborn, a look John knew well. He swallowed his senseless anger. “Fine, fine, you can go with them,” he said grudgingly. “I’ll set it up.”
Rodney clapped his hands, seeming oblivious to John’s mood. “Great, I’ll just go and get geared up then,” he said, turning away and leaving John standing stupidly in the corridor, wondering why he was angry at Rodney when he’d given John exactly what he’d wanted for so long, and far from being a disappointment, it had been the best fucking of his life.
Rodney went to P3X whatever and came back full of some vague energy blah blah blah that probably wasn’t anything but could maybe be something and it made John seethe with an anger he couldn’t explain even to himself. The anger dissipated over the next few days to a dull resentment that Rodney continued to ignore. He was busy discussing the energy thing with Radek most of the time.
John was all too aware when Tuesday rolled around again. He’d been hoping somehow that wouldn’t happen, which pretty much summed up his pathetic state. He went to his room after eating supper with Ronon and stayed there pretending to read as his watch ticked slowly up to and past 20:00, then 21:00. No doubt by now Rodney had connected with some other anonymous body to use for his stress relief program.
He’d read almost a hundred pages with no retention at all when his door chimed. He hadn’t been expecting that, and he was doubly surprised when he opened the door to see Rodney standing there, looking not at all stress relieved. “Why?” Rodney asked belligerently. “Just explain it to me, okay?”
He didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t believe Rodney would confront him about- but he also couldn’t think of anything else Rodney could be referring to.
“Don’t give me that look.” Rodney pushed into the room.
John stepped back from the blast of Rodney’s intensity. “What look?” he asked. It came out sounding guilty, but he really didn’t know what might be showing on his face. He felt surprised at Rodney’s temerity mostly.
“I had to look at that expression the whole time I was trapped in the other universe,” Rodney said. “Four months I looked at your miserable face and I know for a fact we weren’t together there. John, just--” Rodney sighed and gave a defeated shrug. He looked exhausted, completely wrecked, which somehow made John feel a little less pathetic.
Rodney straightened up again. “Okay, you didn’t show up tonight, so, I take it…that’s not really what you wanted. So what do you want? Give me a clue here.” He sounded so demanding and exasperated, so normal, that John had to suppress a sudden desire to laugh at his discomfiture. Whatever crossed his face made Rodney’s eyes go wide and dark. Rodney stepped into him and grabbed his face with both hands, kissing him, slow and easy. John kissed back not slow, not easy, until Rodney pushed him almost roughly in the direction of the bed, and John went, sprawling back onto it without letting go of Rodney, pulling Rodney down between his spread thighs, because, yeah, Rodney was finally getting it.
Rodney kissed him harder, pushing him down against the mattress, pressing chest to chest enthusiastically. “I don’t want to ever have to see that look on your face again, “ Rodney said. He pushed up on his hands and stared. John couldn’t help bucking his hips up, seeking to regain the warmth and pressure of Rodney’s body against him. “Yeah,” Rodney said. “That’s the expression I want to put on your face, John,” he said, with something a lot like triumph in his voice.
This time they fucked with John face up, and John could watch Rodney’s face the whole time. Afterwards Rodney rolled off to the side, pulling John with him so that they could sleep next to each other. But John couldn’t rest. “Hey,” he finally said. “About that sex room.” Rodney made one of his many annoyed sounds and tried to pull John back in. “No, listen…you’re not going to go there again, right? I don’t want you to go there anymore.”
Rodney opened his eyes and started laughing like that was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard. He stopped himself with a visible effort at John’s scowl. “Jesus, John,” he said. “Did you really believe the ancients left us a glory hole?”
John shook his head. He hadn’t thought about how the room had gotten there. “I guess I figured one of our people made it,” he finally said.
“Yeah, one of our people,” Rodney said. He was clearly making a sincere effort not to laugh again. “You’re right about that.”
John felt his eyes widen as he understood what Rodney was saying. “You? You set that whole thing up? But why?”
Rodney shook his head. “I thought it was what you wanted,” he said, suddenly serious. “You don’t know how you were in the other reality, John. You weren’t…you. I had to do something.”
“So you never hooked up with anyone else in that room?”
“Of course not. Do I look like Mr. Anonymous Sex Machine to you?”
“Well,” John studied Rodney with mock seriousness. “Sometimes you do.”
Author:
keefaqWord count: 5385
Summary: Rodney didn’t make it off the Daedalus.
AU for the end of 5.04: The Daedalus Variations
Written for the Season Five Tagathon at
sga_episodeficJohn Sheppard was a meticulous man. Just as his clothing was carefully folded and precisely arranged in his drawers, as every item he kept in his room had an exact place where it could always be found, so was the position of his tray in the lunchroom placed every day according to a carefully thought out plan. Early on he had figured out where he would sit--so many days next to Rodney, so many days across from him, and the occasional very painful day when he felt that duty and discretion compelled him to sit away from Rodney completely.
He’d felt reasonably sure that the proximity formula was complex enough that no one would notice any pattern at all.
Today was a bad day, but as sitting with Rodney was no longer one of his options, he was sharing a table with Major Lorne and some of Lorne’s friends. He’d been having far too many bad days since losing Rodney, but hadn't been able to come up with any new plan for dealing with that. Lorne was a good guy, everyone thought so, an uncomplicated guy, wholesome and straightforward. Everything that John worked hard to project came naturally to Lorne because it wasn’t an act. Which John found unnerving and a little impolite of Lorne.
Lorne’s “Sir?” pulled him out of his reverie. “I need to get back to work, sir,” Lorne said, but he remained seated.
“Yes, go,” John said impatiently, waving him off with a gesture he’d learned from Rodney. He never knew quite what Lorne was thinking, but he imagined it wouldn’t be flattering. He finished his coffee and left the cafeteria with a nod to the rest of the table. He wanted to stop by the lab to talk to Zelenka again.
Mostly John had so far stayed focused on his fury about the whole situation. Rodney was supposed to go ahead of him, but John had bumped against him, clumsy in the space suit, and Rodney had dropped his tablet. Rodney knew how little time they had to get off the Daedalus, yet he pushed John away and turned back at the crucial penultimate second to retrieve the tablet. John’s momentum swept him out and away, hands clutching emptiness when the ship blinked out of their universe, carrying Rodney with it, away and gone in a flash of light.
That was that. Rodney was gone.
“You’re not even trying,” John said, leaning over the console in an attempt to intimidate Zelenka, which was probably a wasted effort.
“Am not trying because is ridiculous idea,” Zelenka wasn’t even annoyed. “I have explained many times, Colonel. Even if I could build universe traveling device, which I cannot, it would have no way of locating our Rodney.”
John sat down in the chair Rodney usually used and started browsing around on the laptop in front of him, looking for a clue. When he had disappeared, Rodney hadn’t given up. He’d spent years working to bring John home, and John wanted nothing but to return the favor. He was willing to work just as long and hard as Rodney had, but he had no idea how to work on this.
He retraced an imaginary life, Rodney’s life, after he had vanished into the future. What Rodney had done, what Rodney had revealed, freaked him out. For the first time, he seriously entertained the notion that his feelings for Rodney were reciprocated, and he’d lived with denial so long, been so comfortably sure he was alone in the world, that it shook him.
He’d watched Rodney fumble through so many attempts at heterosexual relationships and never seen any hint that he might be interested in guys. Rodney was up front when he was attracted to someone, not repressed or reluctant to take a shot at what he wanted. John had never really given any thought to pursuing his attraction to Rodney before. But every way he looked at what had happened, Rodney had shown a devotion to him in that alternate time line that spoke of something stronger than friendship. Rodney had disregarded his wife’s dying wish without any apparent hesitation in order to restore a time line in which he might never get together with her. Now, with Rodney out of reach, he regretted his reticence more than ever.
“Colonel,” Zelenka said. “Rodney is very smart man. Who knows? Maybe he will find a way to come home. We can only wait and see.”
“Yeah.” John said. “He built the thing in the first place, so if anyone can figure it out-” He was going to hold on to that thought. Rodney was away, but he would be back soon. In the meantime, John had things to do.
He was explaining what he wanted Ronon to work on with Rodney’s self defense lessons when Teyla came in, arms full of baby and various pieces of gear which she attempted to stuff into a locker one handed. She twisted around awkwardly for a moment before asking him to hold Torren for just a minute. He was out of the locker room and taking deep calming breaths in the hall before she had finished asking. He knew it was inexcusably rude to just bolt out of the room like that, but the sudden desire to punch her which had come over him when she’d held the baby out to him had shocked him speechless. He didn’t know what he could say to explain his behavior, so he simply walked away.
Everyone was being very careful around him, which only made him angrier.
The thing to do was to keep busy. Rodney would find his way back, and when he returned, John was going to change. He wasn’t brave, despite what other people thought. He was able to risk his life in the line of duty more because of a lack of imagination, a habit of not thinking. But when it came to his relationships he’d always drifted, doing whatever was easiest.
John had never in his life made a pass at anyone, had never had to. People came onto him all the time. His relationship struggles were all about trying to head off unwanted advances without too much embarrassment rather than about how to approach someone he was interested in. He’ already flirted with Rodney to the point that anyone less oblivious, that is-any one but Rodney-would have noticed. He was never going to have any chance of getting what he wanted unless he took direct action. He’d let opportunity pass him by over and over again, but he was finished with that. If Rodney-when Rodney- got home, he was going to act on his feelings.
He had a little map of the city on his laptop, and he’d been working his way section by section in his down time, exploring the more remote parts of the city. It probably wasn’t smart, in fact Rodney had outright told him it was dumb to wander around in unexplored areas alone, but he was always careful, just scouting the layout briefly, and Rodney had a copy of his plan so he always knew where John was walking. He’d promised Rodney that he wouldn’t take any little excursions when Rodney wasn’t around, and he kept that promise, though the impulse to wander off alone was stronger than it had ever been before. He could resume his schedule when Rodney got home.
He joined Woolsey at lunch, concentrating on the tiresome and time consuming but essential job of charming him. Rodney was bound to piss the head honcho off when he got back, and it would be up to John to smooth things over. Everything was normal, even the food, as more and more of the locals were planting earth crops. The stew definitely included real earth potatoes and carrots, though the meat was unrecognizable. It wasn’t until John reached for his dessert that he suddenly lost his appetite. Woolsey didn’t say anything or try to stop him when he stood up abruptly, muttering some excuse, and tossed the remains of his lunch, including the two untouched puddings, into the trash.
The next morning Rodney came home. He didn’t dash through the gate talking and gesturing excitedly or call John a genius. He just walked through calmly. John was in the gate room to meet him, but they didn’t make a big deal about it. For four months John had waited idly, doing nothing to bring Rodney home, but Rodney didn’t seem angry about it. John cocked an eyebrow and asked, “What took you so long?” and Rodney rolled his eyes.
Everything went back to normal. Later, when he asked Rodney what had happened, Rodney seemed strangely reticent. He was quiet for a long time before saying, “I got off the ship, went down to Atlantis. I had the tablet with all the information about the drive. It just took me a while to make another one.”
“Was your other self a big help?” John asked.
Rodney shook his head. “He was actually, uh, not alive anymore.”
That was… “Was I…?” John asked.
“You were still alive,” Rodney answered. He didn’t seem to want to say anything else, which was okay with John.
He woke up early the morning after Rodney’s return resolved to act on his feelings and damn the consequences. He found Rodney alone in one of the smaller labs, sipping coffee and staring at his computer screen as if he’d never been away. He had his jacket off. He didn’t try to keep his gaze from Rodney’s bare arms, the hair so light it was barely visible. His imagination followed his gaze so that he could almost feel his hands running over those arms, skimming from shoulder to hand, leaning over Rodney’s back. He’d stepped up behind Rodney, not quite close enough to touch and Rodney noticed him and turned to stare. “What’s up?”
“Nothing,” he said. “What are you working on so early in the day?”
Rodney didn’t answer, continued to look at him. John was standing close, close enough to touch. The moment was on him. He could cut through the talk and make his intentions clear with a gesture. All he had to do was move his own arm forward a matter of inches and make contact with Rodney’s arm; that was all it would take to make his feelings clear, but he was frozen. He didn’t do this, didn’t know how to do this. Want overwhelmed him, but he felt like he was encased inside a force field, completely immobilized, struggling unsuccessfully to act.
Still Rodney said nothing, sitting with unRodney-like stillness. There was time to act, plenty of time, but John just stood there until Rodney finally turned back to his laptop and the moment was gone. “I’m almost finished here,” he said, and when John continued to stand stubbornly and silently behind him, “Was there something else?”
“No,” he said, his voice so dull with disappointment that Rodney spun his chair around to study him.
“Colonel? Something wrong?”
He could feel the words clogged in the back of his throat. The potential energy was vibrating in his arms. All he had to do was say a word or reach out and touch, but he couldn’t. He shrugged. “I just think you cold give yourself a break.” He pulled up the best smile he could. “Problems’ll wait for you. You could afford to take part of the day off.”
“Yeah, okay,” Rodney said. “I’m almost finished here.”
John had no further reason to linger. It was an effort to walk out casually when he felt like running, but he managed it. Rodney being Rodney, he’d probably already forgotten any strangeness in their conversation.
It was clear he was never going to find the courage to make a move on Rodney, so he went to his back up plan, which had so far never failed him. He put himself in Rodney’s presence, way inside Rodney’s space, every time they were alone. Where once he’d drawled, now the words practically crawled out of his suggestive smirk. If once he’d leaned, now he draped and slithered in the most obvious way he knew. Not content just to steal food from Rodney, he now made a production out of eating it provocatively. When Rodney stood close to him, he gave in to the impulse to let his legs fall open, leaning back with his thighs apart in frank invitation to Rodney to step up.
He gave Rodney every opening, every opportunity. And Rodney? Rodney did nothing.
Not only did Rodney not make any moves on him, he seemed to lose interest in even spending time together. He was always off somewhere that John wasn’t, doing something unspecified. John would casually stop by the lab, Rodney’s quarters, the mess hall, all the places Rodney usually was, but Rodney wasn’t. When he asked Radek what Rodney was doing, Radek mumbled something about finally getting some peace and quiet and how he wasn’t Rodney’s nursemaid.
He maybe felt a little angry at the way Rodney was never around anymore. Maybe Rodney was seeing somebody on the sly? He certainly wasn’t going to chase around after the guy if he didn’t want to be bothered, but there were things as team leader that he needed to discuss, so he called Rodney on his radio.
“Yes? What?”
It was hard to tell when Rodney was annoyed, because, well, because it was Rodney. “Where are you?”
There was a long pause. “Do you need something, Colonel?”
“Yeah. I need to know where you are.”
“Look, Colonel, I’m off duty, and unless there’s some kind of crisis, I’d like to point out that’s it’s none of your business where I am.”
Again it was hard to tell if that was more than Rodney’s normal snippiness, but there was something off, some reason Rodney didn’t want to share what he was up to that gave John a bad feeling. He thought he could hear what might be Rodney repairing something noises. What did Rodney have to fix when he was off duty that he would be secretive about?
Since Rodney wasn’t around much, he went back to his schedule for checking out new areas of the city. It was something he could do by himself. It seemed he would never be able to make a move on Rodney, it was just not in him, and the chance of Rodney picking up on hints was, well, he needed to get back to he mindset he’d had before his little jaunt into the future.
Lost in thoughts of how very brave he wasn’t, he paused when he noticed a small side passageway veering off to the left and then turned down into it, startled when a door closed off the way behind him. He turned back and swiped at the door control. The door immediately opened and stayed open when he retreated back up the larger walkway. Stepping back into the side passage, he watched the door automatically close again.
Satisfied that he wasn’t going to be trapped, he continued down the hall until he came to two doors side-by-side, doors of both rooms slightly ajar. He took a step inside the first one and stopped. He knew immediately what the small room was for, and heat sweeping over him, he stumbled back out, glancing up and down the corridor to make sure he was alone. He took a quick look inside the second room just to make sure he knew what he was seeing.
When he got back to his quarters he decided to take a long shower, starting the water hot and gradually cooling it until he stood shivering under the icy spray.
He couldn’t banish the thought of those rooms. It disturbed him that he hadn’t known about them, that something like this might be going on in his city and he’d been completely oblivious.
“I found something strange in the section of the city I was in yesterday,” he said to Rodney, when he found him working alone in one of the small labs again. It was, he realized, the first time he’d seen Rodney in several days.
Rodney was engrossed in something on his laptop as usual, and gave a non-committal grunt.
“Past the room where we found the other Elizabeth,” he said.
“Yeah, so?” Rodney didn’t look up, but his tone was challenging.
“Found some rooms down there,” he said.
“What kind of rooms?” Rodney was still working, his tone casual, but dry.
“Uh,” he said, “for people to meet.”
Rodney straightened up and turned to face him, crossing his arms with one of his many ‘you’re such a moron’ expressions. “So you found the glory hole rooms,” he said bluntly.
“You knew about this?” his hands were both tightly fisted behind his back.
Rodney couldn’t have spoken more carelessly. “Of course I know about it.”
He relaxed his hands, stretching his fingers out. Rodney looked up. “You really didn’t know?” He turned away from Rodney’s brutal gaze. “Huh. I guess you are the man here. You’re not stupid enough to try to interfere, are you?”
He kept his gaze averted, knowing even the ever oblivious Rodney would see how angry he was. “Aren’t those kind of places mostly a gay thing?”
Rodney had already lost interest in the conversation and returned to his laptop. “You have a problem with that, Colonel?” he asked, still so casual.
John had a sudden thought that made him spin around and stare at Rodney. “Have you…you’ve actually used that place to hook up with someone?”
Rodney rolled his eyes without meeting his gaze. “Look, Colonel, I’m a busy man. I don’t have time to run around buying flowers and taking people on dates. Glory holes exist for a reason, you know? Especially in a place like this, people need some kind of stress relief. This is really none of your business.”
Rodney was right. It was none of his business, and part of him didn’t want to know any of this, but he couldn’t seem to keep his mouth shut. “You really use that room?”
Rodney huffed his breath out and pushed his laptop away. “Yes, Colonel, I really use that room. Every Tuesday evening I close up shop and head down there at exactly eight o’clock. Are you satisfied? Any other details of my personal life you feel a need to know?”
John could feel his ears tingling with the beginning of a blush. “No, sorry, I wasn’t trying to…what you do on your down time is your own business…” He didn’t flee exactly, he just decided the conversation had reached a natural stopping place and left. Maybe he walked back to his quarters briskly, but he didn’t run or anything.
The thought of Rodney in that tiny room was not pleasant. He definitely didn’t want to think about it. He was doing a pretty good job of banishing the images that had sprung into his imagination until it crossed his mind that maybe Rodney had told him the exact time he was in the room as some kind of invitation. He sank down onto his bed and indulged himself with that idea. Could Rodney really think quickly enough to do that? Of course he could, Rodney always thought and acted quickly. But no, he was kidding himself; he knew Rodney’s type and it wasn’t him. He’d watched Rodney fawn over too many women. When Rodney was attracted to someone, he blasted that attraction loud and clear, with no fear of rejection at all.
It was hard to put aside thoughts of the rooms, and Rodney in the rooms, but John had a genetic proclivity for compartmentalizing which came in handy almost as often as it tripped him up, and he drew on that ability now.
Things went along swimmingly for the next two days, but the third day after their little tete-a-tete John woke up early completely decompartmentalized over the awareness that it was Tuesday, Rodney’s day with the room. This fact ran rampant through every compartment, container, nook and cranny of his brain.
Rodney had given up twenty-five years of his life to try to bring John home, knowing it wouldn’t change his own life or bring back the wasted years. Rodney was going to be in an anonymous sex room this very evening and he’d made sure John knew it. The risk couldn’t be lower. He could go down there. He could satisfy his curiosity and it would help him put this craziness to rest and move on, get back on a less tumultuous keel. But what if Rodney really had told him when he’d be there as an invitation because he wanted to hook up? He didn’t even try to control himself in the shower, just took his cock in hand and brought himself off with a few hard strokes.
He stayed away from the labs, spending most of the day with the marines, finally going to supper with them. Even so, his thoughts continually circled back to Rodney and the room.
After supper he went to his quarters to catch up on some paperwork, but it was impossible for him to stay focused. He could go down to the rooms without committing to anything, just to see if Rodney was really there. He didn’t have to do anything once he got there. He could just look.
He felt exposed walking down the corridor, as if everyone he passed knew where he was headed. The halls seemed busier than usual, and every other person seemed compelled to hold him up with trivial questions. He could hardly keep from snapping. As he got farther from the more traveled areas of the city he got even more tense. At the corridor that connected to the rooms, he stopped, breath coming as fast as if he’d run there. He could still turn around and forget about this, except, yeah, he really didn’t want to.
He glanced around guiltily before ducking into the corridor. The door closed behind him with a portentous click that made him shiver. When he got to the first room he saw the door was closed. A light was on above the knob, presumably to indicate that it was occupied. He glanced at his watch 20:06. It had to be Rodney. He ducked inside the second room furtively, forcing himself to stand upright as the door slid closed behind him. He hadn’t even done anything, but he had a sudden insight into that Bible verse where looking with lust was equated with the sex act itself. He was so guilty, guilty, guilty, and he hadn’t even had any fun.
He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do next. There was probably some kind of signal or something that Rodney knew about, but since he’d never done anything like this before he wasn’t privy to the code.
There was no sound at all from the adjoining room. So maybe he should just go for what he wanted by opening his pants and getting into position at the hole. He leaned against the wall, taking deep breaths. What if it wasn’t Rodney? Maybe Rodney was just jerking his cord, never really came here, and this was some random stranger.
Did it really matter? Christ, he couldn’t just stand here all night. If he wasn’t going to go through with it, then he needed to leave, the sooner the better. Give Rodney, or whoever was in the other room, a chance to hook up with someone else.
A sudden, impatient huff from the other room made him step back. He knew that huff like he knew his P-90. He yanked his pants and boxers down. He wasn’t going to think anymore, just do it, like any other time he was out on a limb. But instead of getting into position at the hole, he bent down and pulled off his boots, then took off pants, boxers and socks and laid them carefully aside. He didn’t want his t-shirt either, so he pulled it off and placed it with his other clothing. He wasn’t sure what he wanted, but it involved not being in such a hurry. He noticed a small container of condoms in the corner of the room and a tube of some kind of lube next to it. That hadn’t been there when he’d found the rooms. There was also a small table with a padded top, just the right height for him to bend over and be comfortable. Only after taking another calming breath did he step up to the hole between the rooms, turn and bend down across the padded table.
He couldn’t help the little jerk of surprise when a hand,Rodney’s hand, slid across his ass. The hand stilled, pressed against him reassuringly and then dipped into the cleft of his ass cheeks, down across his hole. He’d already slicked himself up, but the finger that pressed into him went slowly and carefully. Rodney was going to take his time. He felt himself sinking back onto Rodney’s hand as far as he could through the barely large enough opening between the rooms. This was perfect, this was just what he wanted, Rodney here with him, doing him like he’d thought about so many times. He didn’t think about Rodney here with other people, other guys, he didn’t think about the way Rodney didn’t even know it was him.
As Rodney fingers stroked into him, and then his cock, he let himself imagine that Rodney knew it was him, that Rodney had come here to meet him and only him. He was in so deep by then that he couldn’t think anymore, just feel. John never made noises during sex, but his breath was coming faster and faster, and Rodney filled the silence with soft but unselfconscious little moaning sounds that wound him up more and more. Rodney apparently didn’t care if anyone recognized his voice, or maybe he was too far gone to realize how much noise he was making, enough noise for two people.
“Colonel Sheppard, hold up there,” Rodney called and John stopped and turned. The moment of facing Rodney after their encounter in the sex room had come on him without warning, much quicker than he’d expected. He hadn’t even made it to breakfast yet and Rodney was running him down in the hallway. “Look, you have to put me on the roster for the mission to P3X-133.”
Clearly Rodney had no idea it was John he had fucked senseless the night before. His manner, though he seemed unusually chipper for such an early hour, was completely matter of fact. “Lorne’s team has that.”
“Well, switch teams or just let me ride along with them.” Yep, Rodney was his usual demanding, clueless self.
John bit back an inappropriately angry response. “Lorne’s team is perfectly capable of handling anything you think you’ve got. Just brief them.” Rodney’s expression went stony and stubborn, a look John knew well. He swallowed his senseless anger. “Fine, fine, you can go with them,” he said grudgingly. “I’ll set it up.”
Rodney clapped his hands, seeming oblivious to John’s mood. “Great, I’ll just go and get geared up then,” he said, turning away and leaving John standing stupidly in the corridor, wondering why he was angry at Rodney when he’d given John exactly what he’d wanted for so long, and far from being a disappointment, it had been the best fucking of his life.
Rodney went to P3X whatever and came back full of some vague energy blah blah blah that probably wasn’t anything but could maybe be something and it made John seethe with an anger he couldn’t explain even to himself. The anger dissipated over the next few days to a dull resentment that Rodney continued to ignore. He was busy discussing the energy thing with Radek most of the time.
John was all too aware when Tuesday rolled around again. He’d been hoping somehow that wouldn’t happen, which pretty much summed up his pathetic state. He went to his room after eating supper with Ronon and stayed there pretending to read as his watch ticked slowly up to and past 20:00, then 21:00. No doubt by now Rodney had connected with some other anonymous body to use for his stress relief program.
He’d read almost a hundred pages with no retention at all when his door chimed. He hadn’t been expecting that, and he was doubly surprised when he opened the door to see Rodney standing there, looking not at all stress relieved. “Why?” Rodney asked belligerently. “Just explain it to me, okay?”
He didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t believe Rodney would confront him about- but he also couldn’t think of anything else Rodney could be referring to.
“Don’t give me that look.” Rodney pushed into the room.
John stepped back from the blast of Rodney’s intensity. “What look?” he asked. It came out sounding guilty, but he really didn’t know what might be showing on his face. He felt surprised at Rodney’s temerity mostly.
“I had to look at that expression the whole time I was trapped in the other universe,” Rodney said. “Four months I looked at your miserable face and I know for a fact we weren’t together there. John, just--” Rodney sighed and gave a defeated shrug. He looked exhausted, completely wrecked, which somehow made John feel a little less pathetic.
Rodney straightened up again. “Okay, you didn’t show up tonight, so, I take it…that’s not really what you wanted. So what do you want? Give me a clue here.” He sounded so demanding and exasperated, so normal, that John had to suppress a sudden desire to laugh at his discomfiture. Whatever crossed his face made Rodney’s eyes go wide and dark. Rodney stepped into him and grabbed his face with both hands, kissing him, slow and easy. John kissed back not slow, not easy, until Rodney pushed him almost roughly in the direction of the bed, and John went, sprawling back onto it without letting go of Rodney, pulling Rodney down between his spread thighs, because, yeah, Rodney was finally getting it.
Rodney kissed him harder, pushing him down against the mattress, pressing chest to chest enthusiastically. “I don’t want to ever have to see that look on your face again, “ Rodney said. He pushed up on his hands and stared. John couldn’t help bucking his hips up, seeking to regain the warmth and pressure of Rodney’s body against him. “Yeah,” Rodney said. “That’s the expression I want to put on your face, John,” he said, with something a lot like triumph in his voice.
This time they fucked with John face up, and John could watch Rodney’s face the whole time. Afterwards Rodney rolled off to the side, pulling John with him so that they could sleep next to each other. But John couldn’t rest. “Hey,” he finally said. “About that sex room.” Rodney made one of his many annoyed sounds and tried to pull John back in. “No, listen…you’re not going to go there again, right? I don’t want you to go there anymore.”
Rodney opened his eyes and started laughing like that was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard. He stopped himself with a visible effort at John’s scowl. “Jesus, John,” he said. “Did you really believe the ancients left us a glory hole?”
John shook his head. He hadn’t thought about how the room had gotten there. “I guess I figured one of our people made it,” he finally said.
“Yeah, one of our people,” Rodney said. He was clearly making a sincere effort not to laugh again. “You’re right about that.”
John felt his eyes widen as he understood what Rodney was saying. “You? You set that whole thing up? But why?”
Rodney shook his head. “I thought it was what you wanted,” he said, suddenly serious. “You don’t know how you were in the other reality, John. You weren’t…you. I had to do something.”
“So you never hooked up with anyone else in that room?”
“Of course not. Do I look like Mr. Anonymous Sex Machine to you?”
“Well,” John studied Rodney with mock seriousness. “Sometimes you do.”