Voices by arionchan [Reviews - 16]
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Category: Slash Pairings > McKay/Sheppard
Characters: John Sheppard, Other, Rodney McKay
Rating: PG-13
Genres: Challenge, First Time
Warnings: None
Series: None
Word count: 2434; Completed: Yes
Summary: My entry into the Urban Legends challange-#22 Poisoned telephone buttons. It went kinda odd and faintly disturbing on me, but yeah. McShep with a side helping of Atlantis. "...the thing that got to him was that he couldn't even regret it, not really."
He was screwed. Lost with no chance of recovery, no chance of retreat, not even denial. This was it, the point of no return and he knew with perfect accuracy just when he'd started down this path, and the thing that got him was that he couldn't even regret it, not really.
It was snow and sky and dodging for his life and O'Neill's 'not so much, no' and standing in a place that ninety-nine percent of the world didn't even realize existed and 'don't touch anything'.
And then there was the room with the chair and he'd brushed his fingers against burnished blue and silver and heard (please anything you want everything you need anything at all just please please touch me please just) and he sat down.
And that led him to here and now, to the feel and the warmth and the overwhelming wave that threatened to crush him but at the same time was so damn needed that he couldn't leave it, couldn't bear to try and save himself. He was never going to be able to live without this ever again. And as he listened to two sets of pleading whispers, in his ear and in his head, he couldn't bring himself to care.
It had gone on nonstop. Everything in that base beneath the snow hummed a plaint of (please, oh please) in the back of his head like home and need and the very best kinds of porn and he couldn't get away from it. Leaving was a relief so sharp it hurt, the clear cold air and just knowing he was leaving made the hum die down to a whimper, to silence, and he was alone in his head again, frightened that even after such a short time the silence felt strange, felt wrong.
But then came flipped coins and decisions and Cheyenne Mountain and the hum there was quieter, but present. And he found himself trapped in the lab, 'Major, touch this', 'Major, don't touch that.', 'Major, do you have any idea what that is?' and watching the people around him, silently asking himself where they'd fucked up—he knew perfectly well where he had—to get on the list.
Because you never sent your best people on a mission like this one. You sent the best of the people you could live without. And he would look at McKay as he dragged him from one glowing thingamabob to another (oh yes please touch just) and wonder to himself: if McKay was such a damn genius, and he truly seemed to be, what had the man done to get sent on a one way trip to another galaxy?
It was hypocritical of him because he knew how important it was sometimes to cross the line, remembered baking heat and blood on the sand on his bad nights, but the man kept making him touch things (please oh just yes like that touch me) and then making these little humming noises that almost echoed the ones in his head, and they wanted him to do this all the time—how exactly was he going to avoid going crazier than he already was?
And then he was through the gate and listening as the city jerked awake around him grumbling and slow like a sleepy lover and trying to keep himself from breaking into hysterical laughter as the halls burst into light around him. Listening to it awake and stretch out and whimper as power fled and systems failed and then he was through the gate again and standing in the flame-lit darkness with a single frightened child and a severed hand from something out of nightmares and Weir wouldn't let him, didn't understand he would not leave men behind because if he did, then why, why, why even bother? And he was stalking from her office listening to his teeth grind and the background chorus of concern (upset upset let us help you let us help anything you need anything you want just ask us tell us love us) and McKay was in front of him with that odd, lopsided frown on his face and that considering look in his eyes as options flickered through his mind snap, snap, snap, and 'Go upstairs, Major.' Just like that, he had flight, his necessary advantage, his chance to make it all mean something, and it had been handed over like it was easy and he never even had to ask.
And how many times after that had the man just given him what he needed without John having to ever say anything at all? Too many times for him to count, impossibly managing to not die, to pull the miracle out of nothing like a rabbit from a hat with a sarcastic comment and a belligerent lift of his chin and all the time the chorus: (anything anything touch us we love you love us please touch just anything please). Through every emergency, every near death experience, and the Wraith descending on the city like locusts on the fields, through it all he listened to the city stretch and hum under McKay's touch like a satisfied cat, heard her murmur her litany and how could he be jealous of a city for the love of God?
But he was, oh he was, and he couldn't help but dream at night of those hands on him, and if in his dreams his skin was cool metal and circuitry that was something he was forever keeping to himself. Weir was two steps from grounding him at the best of times, mentioning that he was falling in lust with the Chief Science Officer because of the city that talked in his head would buy him a lifetime ticket to padded walls and a strappy white jacket.
So he watched and he listened and he longed—fairly sure that McKay was totally clueless that Atlantis was in love with him and John Sheppard wasn't far behind. But McKay couldn't hear the city, and John couldn't (won't choose choice frightened let us in let us touch) say anything, so things remained a stalemate—Atlantis receiving touch without understanding, and John receiving understanding without touch, and both of them frustrated more often than not.
There had been the usual mission—trade for food, make alliances—except this time everything went well. The people were friendly, helpful, perfectly willing to part with ancient technology and had enough of their own that even McKay allowed that 'maybe they aren't entirely hopeless, Colonel.' Then it was ceremonial farewells and standing and watching as the high holy priestess of whatever anointed the DHD with oil, smirking as McKay twitched and muttered about 'gumming up the systems' and 'superstitious idiocy' and 'such a monumental waste of my precious time, I could be doing something useful right now.' And then McKay had dialed home and they'd gone through (home back ours back home safe good love home) and he'd watched in confusion as McKay made a surprised noise and dropped like a rock on the platform.
Then everything was chaos, Weir's 'Major, what happened' and Carson's concerned muttering about blood-pressure and adrenaline and escalated heart-rates, and a blur of (ours ours hurt where hurt why fix it fix him help why why supposed to take care of him take care what why) cut through by Carson's voice saying things like 'theory that the oil acted as some kind of psychotropic' and 'contact poisons' and 'absorbed through the skin' and 'seems to share some of the qualities of amphetamine' and 'not directly fatal, but I'm worried about his heart.' And he sat there and watched the frantic green lines of brain-waves and the double-timed beep of the heart monitor and shallow speedy jerk of breathing until Carson made him go back to his room where everything was quiet, even the city's constant babble reduced to a confused and worried whimper.
And then the door had opened silent and sure and McKay had been across the room and watching him with eyes that knew, breath still hitching along too quickly and "Why didn't you tell me that the city spoke?"
And oh god, he was so totally busted. "What?"
"I mean, I can understand your not mentioning the huge and obsessive crush, that's the kind of thing that probably shouldn't be told second-hand—though I must say that it is about time someone appreciated everything I do around here. But if I had to guess the city were in love with anyone I would have assumed it to be you, Colonel. So yeah, I understand not mentioning that, but you could have maybe mentioned to me that she was sentient. I mean that's the kind of thing that the science department should maybe be made aware of, don't you think? It isn't as if the rest of us could hear her—without the aid of psychotropic substances anyway. So going from normal to a city babbling away in my head like a hyperactive five-year-old was something of a shock. A heads-up might have been nice."
(here here now let us wants to loves us let us in touch please) "Did Beckett say you were okay to leave?"
"Don't bother trying to change the subject, and may I add that was a sad attempt at deflection and not nearly up to your usual standards. The point, if I recall correctly, was; while I can accept your not telling me that Atlantis has a perfectly understandable crush on me, mentioning that she was capable of doing so in the first place would have been a good thing. This is part of what friends do for one another, Colonel. Share the last coffee ration, put up with stupid jokes, take turns plunging into insane life-threatening situations in order to pull off daring rescues, inform them they live in sentient city/ships...well?"
Whose turn was it now? Because he kinda needed saving here, but he had a feeling it was his, and that meant not doing this, not letting this happen, because Rodney didn't know, didn't understand what it would mean, that it would change everything and he wasn't willing to let go of this, the click, the connection, something he hadn't had in so very long if ever, and if he let this happen he wouldn't have that anymore. "Can you imagine that conversation? 'Hey did I mention the city keeps a running dialog in my head and most of it boils down to odes to your hands?' I really didn't feel like playing Cyrano, thanks very much."
"Of course not, he never got the girl and...that was a very interesting parallel to draw, Colonel."
God damn it, why couldn't he have stuck with the Russian literature? By the time Rodney'd finished drawing out the flow charts trying to figure out what he'd meant he could have easily run away—the people on P3X-829 had seemed very receptive, what was a little spear jabbing among friends after all? Instead he was sitting here on the verge of an intensely awkward conversation, and Atlantis chimes in with her two cents. (hears us knows us loves us okay touch him let us in calm calm all will be well shh there now please just let him let us let let in open up) and he could have lived without the mix of gloating and soothing twisting around in his head as his stomach churned and Rodney crossed the room and looked at him. It was the expression usually directed at some fabulous new wonder Atlantis had provided because she loved the look just as much as he did, but this time she was producing him, and he while he was willing to be Rodney's he wasn't willing to be her. Rodney was speaking but his voice seemed far away and distant behind Atlantis and the frantic beating of his pulse. "So, I listened but never heard. You hear but never listen. We really are a pair, aren't we?"
Two steps closer and too close, too close, he could feel breath against his face warmth almost in reach, and for once he and Atlantis were thinking the same thing, "Oh god, please touch me."
Hand on the side of his face and he could hear his voice but he wasn't speaking, it wasn't him and he was losing, Atlantis and Rodney filling his head and Rodney's voice wasn't distant anymore, was close, dark and perfect and warm against his throat. "Shh. I know, John. I know. You don't have to say it, I know."
And then he was here, in this place, surrounded and held and warm, Atlantis babbling in his head and with his voice "God, yes, please, touch, please, need so much, God Rodney, please" and Rodney's soothing murmurs shushed against his skin. It was like flying, like falling, like trying and failing to keep one from the other and Atlantis' voice, his voice, their voice, all one and the same. The same because Rodney was touching them and they'd needed this for so long so long and it was hold and touch and feel and everything they'd needed and he always gave them what they needed even when they didn't ask even when he couldn't hear them and he wound them tighter and tighter and then he let them fly and everything was stretched out before them like perfect blue, like star-spangled space, like the ocean enfolding and freeing and perfect.
And then Rodney was watching with sleepy eyes, sex-sated and draped limply across them as they shuddered through the afterglow and ran fingers through soft messy hair and they loved him more than ever for giving them this.
"Yeah, I know. I don't entirely hate you either."
And they smiled up at the ceiling and said nothing at all.
- Text Size +
Category: Slash Pairings > McKay/Sheppard
Characters: John Sheppard, Other, Rodney McKay
Rating: PG-13
Genres: Challenge, First Time
Warnings: None
Series: None
Word count: 2434; Completed: Yes
Summary: My entry into the Urban Legends challange-#22 Poisoned telephone buttons. It went kinda odd and faintly disturbing on me, but yeah. McShep with a side helping of Atlantis. "...the thing that got to him was that he couldn't even regret it, not really."
He was screwed. Lost with no chance of recovery, no chance of retreat, not even denial. This was it, the point of no return and he knew with perfect accuracy just when he'd started down this path, and the thing that got him was that he couldn't even regret it, not really.
It was snow and sky and dodging for his life and O'Neill's 'not so much, no' and standing in a place that ninety-nine percent of the world didn't even realize existed and 'don't touch anything'.
And then there was the room with the chair and he'd brushed his fingers against burnished blue and silver and heard (please anything you want everything you need anything at all just please please touch me please just) and he sat down.
And that led him to here and now, to the feel and the warmth and the overwhelming wave that threatened to crush him but at the same time was so damn needed that he couldn't leave it, couldn't bear to try and save himself. He was never going to be able to live without this ever again. And as he listened to two sets of pleading whispers, in his ear and in his head, he couldn't bring himself to care.
It had gone on nonstop. Everything in that base beneath the snow hummed a plaint of (please, oh please) in the back of his head like home and need and the very best kinds of porn and he couldn't get away from it. Leaving was a relief so sharp it hurt, the clear cold air and just knowing he was leaving made the hum die down to a whimper, to silence, and he was alone in his head again, frightened that even after such a short time the silence felt strange, felt wrong.
But then came flipped coins and decisions and Cheyenne Mountain and the hum there was quieter, but present. And he found himself trapped in the lab, 'Major, touch this', 'Major, don't touch that.', 'Major, do you have any idea what that is?' and watching the people around him, silently asking himself where they'd fucked up—he knew perfectly well where he had—to get on the list.
Because you never sent your best people on a mission like this one. You sent the best of the people you could live without. And he would look at McKay as he dragged him from one glowing thingamabob to another (oh yes please touch just) and wonder to himself: if McKay was such a damn genius, and he truly seemed to be, what had the man done to get sent on a one way trip to another galaxy?
It was hypocritical of him because he knew how important it was sometimes to cross the line, remembered baking heat and blood on the sand on his bad nights, but the man kept making him touch things (please oh just yes like that touch me) and then making these little humming noises that almost echoed the ones in his head, and they wanted him to do this all the time—how exactly was he going to avoid going crazier than he already was?
And then he was through the gate and listening as the city jerked awake around him grumbling and slow like a sleepy lover and trying to keep himself from breaking into hysterical laughter as the halls burst into light around him. Listening to it awake and stretch out and whimper as power fled and systems failed and then he was through the gate again and standing in the flame-lit darkness with a single frightened child and a severed hand from something out of nightmares and Weir wouldn't let him, didn't understand he would not leave men behind because if he did, then why, why, why even bother? And he was stalking from her office listening to his teeth grind and the background chorus of concern (upset upset let us help you let us help anything you need anything you want just ask us tell us love us) and McKay was in front of him with that odd, lopsided frown on his face and that considering look in his eyes as options flickered through his mind snap, snap, snap, and 'Go upstairs, Major.' Just like that, he had flight, his necessary advantage, his chance to make it all mean something, and it had been handed over like it was easy and he never even had to ask.
And how many times after that had the man just given him what he needed without John having to ever say anything at all? Too many times for him to count, impossibly managing to not die, to pull the miracle out of nothing like a rabbit from a hat with a sarcastic comment and a belligerent lift of his chin and all the time the chorus: (anything anything touch us we love you love us please touch just anything please). Through every emergency, every near death experience, and the Wraith descending on the city like locusts on the fields, through it all he listened to the city stretch and hum under McKay's touch like a satisfied cat, heard her murmur her litany and how could he be jealous of a city for the love of God?
But he was, oh he was, and he couldn't help but dream at night of those hands on him, and if in his dreams his skin was cool metal and circuitry that was something he was forever keeping to himself. Weir was two steps from grounding him at the best of times, mentioning that he was falling in lust with the Chief Science Officer because of the city that talked in his head would buy him a lifetime ticket to padded walls and a strappy white jacket.
So he watched and he listened and he longed—fairly sure that McKay was totally clueless that Atlantis was in love with him and John Sheppard wasn't far behind. But McKay couldn't hear the city, and John couldn't (won't choose choice frightened let us in let us touch) say anything, so things remained a stalemate—Atlantis receiving touch without understanding, and John receiving understanding without touch, and both of them frustrated more often than not.
There had been the usual mission—trade for food, make alliances—except this time everything went well. The people were friendly, helpful, perfectly willing to part with ancient technology and had enough of their own that even McKay allowed that 'maybe they aren't entirely hopeless, Colonel.' Then it was ceremonial farewells and standing and watching as the high holy priestess of whatever anointed the DHD with oil, smirking as McKay twitched and muttered about 'gumming up the systems' and 'superstitious idiocy' and 'such a monumental waste of my precious time, I could be doing something useful right now.' And then McKay had dialed home and they'd gone through (home back ours back home safe good love home) and he'd watched in confusion as McKay made a surprised noise and dropped like a rock on the platform.
Then everything was chaos, Weir's 'Major, what happened' and Carson's concerned muttering about blood-pressure and adrenaline and escalated heart-rates, and a blur of (ours ours hurt where hurt why fix it fix him help why why supposed to take care of him take care what why) cut through by Carson's voice saying things like 'theory that the oil acted as some kind of psychotropic' and 'contact poisons' and 'absorbed through the skin' and 'seems to share some of the qualities of amphetamine' and 'not directly fatal, but I'm worried about his heart.' And he sat there and watched the frantic green lines of brain-waves and the double-timed beep of the heart monitor and shallow speedy jerk of breathing until Carson made him go back to his room where everything was quiet, even the city's constant babble reduced to a confused and worried whimper.
And then the door had opened silent and sure and McKay had been across the room and watching him with eyes that knew, breath still hitching along too quickly and "Why didn't you tell me that the city spoke?"
And oh god, he was so totally busted. "What?"
"I mean, I can understand your not mentioning the huge and obsessive crush, that's the kind of thing that probably shouldn't be told second-hand—though I must say that it is about time someone appreciated everything I do around here. But if I had to guess the city were in love with anyone I would have assumed it to be you, Colonel. So yeah, I understand not mentioning that, but you could have maybe mentioned to me that she was sentient. I mean that's the kind of thing that the science department should maybe be made aware of, don't you think? It isn't as if the rest of us could hear her—without the aid of psychotropic substances anyway. So going from normal to a city babbling away in my head like a hyperactive five-year-old was something of a shock. A heads-up might have been nice."
(here here now let us wants to loves us let us in touch please) "Did Beckett say you were okay to leave?"
"Don't bother trying to change the subject, and may I add that was a sad attempt at deflection and not nearly up to your usual standards. The point, if I recall correctly, was; while I can accept your not telling me that Atlantis has a perfectly understandable crush on me, mentioning that she was capable of doing so in the first place would have been a good thing. This is part of what friends do for one another, Colonel. Share the last coffee ration, put up with stupid jokes, take turns plunging into insane life-threatening situations in order to pull off daring rescues, inform them they live in sentient city/ships...well?"
Whose turn was it now? Because he kinda needed saving here, but he had a feeling it was his, and that meant not doing this, not letting this happen, because Rodney didn't know, didn't understand what it would mean, that it would change everything and he wasn't willing to let go of this, the click, the connection, something he hadn't had in so very long if ever, and if he let this happen he wouldn't have that anymore. "Can you imagine that conversation? 'Hey did I mention the city keeps a running dialog in my head and most of it boils down to odes to your hands?' I really didn't feel like playing Cyrano, thanks very much."
"Of course not, he never got the girl and...that was a very interesting parallel to draw, Colonel."
God damn it, why couldn't he have stuck with the Russian literature? By the time Rodney'd finished drawing out the flow charts trying to figure out what he'd meant he could have easily run away—the people on P3X-829 had seemed very receptive, what was a little spear jabbing among friends after all? Instead he was sitting here on the verge of an intensely awkward conversation, and Atlantis chimes in with her two cents. (hears us knows us loves us okay touch him let us in calm calm all will be well shh there now please just let him let us let let in open up) and he could have lived without the mix of gloating and soothing twisting around in his head as his stomach churned and Rodney crossed the room and looked at him. It was the expression usually directed at some fabulous new wonder Atlantis had provided because she loved the look just as much as he did, but this time she was producing him, and he while he was willing to be Rodney's he wasn't willing to be her. Rodney was speaking but his voice seemed far away and distant behind Atlantis and the frantic beating of his pulse. "So, I listened but never heard. You hear but never listen. We really are a pair, aren't we?"
Two steps closer and too close, too close, he could feel breath against his face warmth almost in reach, and for once he and Atlantis were thinking the same thing, "Oh god, please touch me."
Hand on the side of his face and he could hear his voice but he wasn't speaking, it wasn't him and he was losing, Atlantis and Rodney filling his head and Rodney's voice wasn't distant anymore, was close, dark and perfect and warm against his throat. "Shh. I know, John. I know. You don't have to say it, I know."
And then he was here, in this place, surrounded and held and warm, Atlantis babbling in his head and with his voice "God, yes, please, touch, please, need so much, God Rodney, please" and Rodney's soothing murmurs shushed against his skin. It was like flying, like falling, like trying and failing to keep one from the other and Atlantis' voice, his voice, their voice, all one and the same. The same because Rodney was touching them and they'd needed this for so long so long and it was hold and touch and feel and everything they'd needed and he always gave them what they needed even when they didn't ask even when he couldn't hear them and he wound them tighter and tighter and then he let them fly and everything was stretched out before them like perfect blue, like star-spangled space, like the ocean enfolding and freeing and perfect.
And then Rodney was watching with sleepy eyes, sex-sated and draped limply across them as they shuddered through the afterglow and ran fingers through soft messy hair and they loved him more than ever for giving them this.
"Yeah, I know. I don't entirely hate you either."
And they smiled up at the ceiling and said nothing at all.