Interloper - fic
Mar. 17th, 2024 02:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deird1Here's a John/Rodney slash fic. Because it had to happen eventually.
Title: Interloper
Rating: R
Word Count: 2790
Pairing: John/Rodney
Summary: Rodney is dying to get inside John's dreams. John is just dreaming. (And dying.)
Interloper
Weir is dead. John sits, with her in his arms, letting the grief wash over him.
He had tried hard, so hard, to protect her, but he still couldn’t keep her safe. And now she lies, so still, bloody yet still beautiful, strangely heavy in his arms.
He couldn’t save her. Why couldn’t he save her?
John sits, holding Elizabeth tightly, and howls his sorrow to the world.
Grief counselling is apparently a lot of talking, while Kate Heightmeyer sits there with a sympathetic look on her face.
It’s a few weeks before she smiles at him and says, “I think you’ve done some excellent work on this. As far as I’m concerned, you’re ready to resume active duty.”
It should have been a simple enough negotiation, but the Acostians and the Galatenes are already at each others’ throats, and when the Wraith show up it disintegrates into a three-way battle, with John’s team just trying to escape from all the chaos.
He’s nearly at the gate, dodging explosions and listening for Darts, when he trips, slamming face-first into the ground. No time to think – he pushes himself up, hands scratched and bloodied, and continues to run, limping more than he’d like.
“Sheppard!” Rodney is one hundred yards away, near the treeline.
John waves him closer. “We need to get to the gate!” he yells. “You run, I’ll dial.”
“No, wait, we need to talk–” But John is already sprinting forward, wiping sweat out of his eyes, and dialing Atlantis.
Rodney swears loudly, and dives through the gate, closely followed by the others.
Zelenka has discovered a new Ancient device.
“It seems to have been used for an Ancient form of psychiatry. Or at least, that is what we are speculating. It interacts with the subconscious, drawing thoughts into conscious expression.”
He hands it to Carter, who holds it for a second and then looks up, frowning, and says “This week has been very hard. I wish I had more experience in this galaxy.” Then she freezes, goes blank-faced, and hands it back to Zelenka, saying simply “I see.”
“Yes, it’s quite fascinating, really,” Zelenka says. John notes that he is wearing gloves.
“Hey, what’s everyone talking about?” Rodney pokes his head round the door, and waves awkwardly. “It’s just me – Rodney. Dr Rodney McKay.”
John rolls his eyes. “McKay, take a seat.”
“Right. Thanks.” He sits, still on-edge – John’s not sure why.
Teyla is more interested in the device. “I imagine this could be quite useful. Especially for those who are… less comfortable in expressing themselves.” She picks it up, thoughtfully, and takes a moment – then says “Colonel Carter, you do not join us for breakfast in the mess. I wish you would, at least on occasion.” She raises her eyebrows thoughtfully, and then smiles and hands it to John.
John takes it with his sleeve covering his palm, and promptly deposits it in Rodney’s hand. And he blinks and immediately says “Sheppard looks really hot in those pants.” – then freezes, looking horrified.
No-one’s sure exactly what to say to that.
Rodney dumps the device on the conference table, then puts his face in his hands and groans, “Oh, great. I really do know how to concoct the ultimate nightmare scenario, don’t I?”
Zelenka picks up the device again. “So… I will perform some more analysis on this, and then… store it somewhere. Carefully.”
Carter nods. “I think that’s probably a good idea.”
And everyone makes excuses to leave, trying not to look too hard at Rodney (face still in hands) or John (hands in pockets, studying the floor).
The room is silent for a moment, and then John stands up and clears his throat. “So, McKay…”
Rodney looks up. “We’re alone?” He still looks embarrassed, but he rises, crossing his arms, and says, “We need to talk.”
John leans back on the conference table. “What are you doing later?”
“So, you know how the mind can – wait, what?”
“I’ve got the evening free, so if you want to come over, we could… talk.” A slight smile, which John is aware makes him look sexy.
Rodney is staring, open-mouthed. “You’re serious, aren’t you? This – this is seriously how you’d respond to–”
John kisses him. And Rodney kisses back.
They go back to John’s place, and have dinner together.
“So, we really do need to talk.”
“Sure.”
“So, the kissing, that was nice – a little surreal, and probably my brain patterns are just malfunctioning in some way I haven’t figured out yet, but–”
John kisses him again.
“See, like I say, nice, but that’s not the point. You see–”
“McKay.”
“Yes?”
“Yes, I really did kiss you. Yes, I plan on doing it again.” He suits action to word, then, smiling, murmurs, “and again” – and again and again they kiss, Rodney protesting at first, trying to finish his sentences even while he’s kissing John back, but eventually he says “Oh, screw it. There’s such a thing as hazard pay – even if this is all some weird glitch.” and then everything is hands, and mouths, and skin, and cocks, and they cannot stop touching each other.
Soon they stop delaying the inevitable, and just move in together. John’s football posters clash with Rodney’s geek aesthetic, but even then the whole thing just sort of fits.
Rodney rolls over in bed and says, seriously, “So, I need to explain something.”
He sounds worried, and John raises his eyebrows and asks “…was that not…”
“Oh, no, the sex was fine. The sex was great – if rather unexpected – but you see, your subconscious, it doesn’t always think linearly. At certain times it sort of leaps from scenario to scenario – so if someone wants to interact with your subconscious–”
It sounds like he’s settling in for a very long nerdy lecture, and John’s almost relieved when his comms unit starts beeping at him. He gets out of bed, saying “Sorry, McKay, this looks pretty important.” and starts talking to the control room even while Rodney is saying “No, wait, I need to explain–” behind him.
Fire, fire everywhere – and none of them are trained firefighters, but everyone’s doing their best, using suppressives on the closest flames, or diving into the chaos to drag out those who’ve been injured. John pulls two to safety, and then spots Lorne, trapped under some rubble – he sprints to his side, ignoring the heat, and is just about to pull the steel beam off of him when the whole ceiling–
Pain, and panic, and yet more pain. How can something missing hurt like it’s still right there? John’s freaking the hell out, and in agony – God, when is the morphine going to start working – and what the fuck is he going to do?
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!
“Sheppard?” Rodney’s face comes into view. “It’s going to be okay.”
“Okay?” Is he insane?! “Both of my arms are missing!” He’s hyperventilating.
Rodney shushes him, patting his face – and when that fails, kisses him, and whispers, “Trust me, okay? This is not what you think it is.”
He has to calm down. He can’t calm down. “I don’t know what–”
Through a haze of pain, he sees Rodney smiling at him. “I’m going to get you out.”
What? That doesn’t work. “Get me through this, you mean?”
“That too.”
His arms, his arms are gone, gone, what the fuck? John can’t manage to think, he can’t. “This can’t be happening.”
Rodney’s voice says, “It’s not, okay?”
Right. This is just panic. He’s been trained. “Okay. I’ll keep calm.”
“No, I mean it’s really not.” Rodney glances behind him, at Keller, then lowers his voice. “This isn’t reality.”
Breathe deep, breathe calm, count one two three four five, breathe deep. What is McKay talking about? Reality? Right – people who panic, they can hallucinate. “I am here, in this bed.” One two three four five, breathe deep.
“No, you’re not, that’s what I’m saying.”
“What are you on about, McKay?”
“Look, I–” Then a glance at Keller again, and he shakes his head. “Keep your voice down. This needs to stay between us – or she’ll realise I’m a threat.”
Either the morphine is really kicking in, or McKay is going completely insane.
He tries to ask, but Rodney’s face is swimming out of view, and his words are getting fainter, and yep, the morphine’s kicked in.
Rodney’s voice comes back to him, once. “Just stay with me, okay? I’m going to help you.”
P71-5MG has access to some truly excellent biotech. John will never be able to play piano, but his new hands have basic function, and even feeling, and that’s more than he ever thought he’d have again.
He flexes his fingers, watching as they move.
Keller smiles at his clear relief, and says, “Now, you will have a list of rehab exercises. Even though these might not be entirely biological limbs, they still need to be moved. The more you stick to the exercise regime, the more your nervous system will get used to interacting with your arms.”
That makes sense. He tries to link his fingers together – fails - crosses his arms instead.
Keller talks him through each exercise, then releases him from the infirmary.
Rodney is in their room, pacing back and forth.
“Hey, I’ve been looking for you.”
“Yes, sorry about that. I’m an interloper in the program; I can only enter scenarios where it makes sense.”
Rodney is making no sense. John doesn’t care; he’s having a good day. “I got my new arms.”
“Yes, fine, good.” Rodney waves off the miracle of modern medical science, and keeps pacing. “But look, the whole amputation thing sent your heartrate skyrocketing, and if we don’t figure out a solution soon, your body could crash completely.”
“McKay. I’ve got new arms. Look at them. They even–” he slides them up under Rodney’s shirt “–come with full sensation.”
“And that’s really – oh – really great, but we need to have this conversation. This scenario can’t become another porn fantasy, so if you could please listen – wait, unless that’s the point?”
“Porn is the point?” John has no problem with this.
“Well, I mean, theoretically, if it’s trying to experiment with scenarios that heighten emotions – which, the pattern seems to be heightened, non-heightened, heightened, non-heightened – me keeping you in a state of heightened emotion could delay the scene change long enough for me to–”
He’s talking nonsense again. John starts to kiss his way along Rodney’s neck, but suddenly Rodney is pushing him down on the bed, ripping John’s t-shirt off, and saying “Just… enjoy this, okay? Really enjoy this. And also listen.”
Okay, he’s been asked to listen. And he will. But Rodney’s not talking right now – instead he’s kissing, then licking, his way down John’s torso, unbuttoning his pants with unexpected deftness, and lightly stroking past John’s cock.
“Listening?”
“Mmm. Yes.” Also his skin is tingling, but he tries to concentrate.
Rodney kisses him deeply, then says “So, you’re kind of trapped.”
“Yep, you’ve got me pinned.”
“No, Sheppard, I mean in real life you’re trapped.” He’s skimming his hands lightly down John’s chest, while continuing to nuzzle his neck.
“Mmm?”
“You’re in some sort of machine. We’ve never seen this exact kind before, but it’s familiar enough for us to hack into.”
Wait, this sounds concerning – but then Rodney starts gently squeezing his balls, and holy shit. He lies there, gripping the sheets and attempting to listen.
“The thing is, though, the machine has you trapped in a dreamlike state, and we can’t figure out how to turn it off without giving you severe brain damage.” Rodney’s thumb is repeatedly stroking the tip of his cock, and John’s not sure where he learnt how to do that, but he should give lessons. “Effectively, the only way to get you out is by you breaking out from inside.”
John wants to ask questions, but his brain can’t summon anything more coherent than a sort of shuddering gasp.
“Just – nothing here is real, okay? Not Atlantis, not the people, not anything except me. And I–” He breaks off. Then: “Shit, I think it’s figured out that I’m–” Which is the last thing he says before he dies.
Rodney’s body lies, bloody and battered, against the wreckage of the corridor, and John is freaking the hell out. But there’s no time to think, no time, because the Dart that crashed through his window is opening up, and suddenly nothing else matters – not the wreckage, not the torn wires sending sparks in every direction, not Rodney’s broken body lying vacant-eyed on the floor – because there is a Wraith standing directly in front of him, and John isn’t even wearing pants. His gun – shit, his gun is on the other side of the room, and he can’t possibly have enough time to dive for it – but he can, because the Wraith is firing a weapon at the marines sprinting up the corridor, and John has a moment to grab his gun.
The marines drop, clearly dead in an instant.
Wait, what? Since when do Wraiths opt to kill their food supply?
Out the window, more Darts are arriving, slamming into buildings, some exploding on impact, some opening to release their pilots. Not far away he can hear people screaming.
The Wraith picks him up by his neck, slamming him against the wall as it
Incorrect. It should be feeding, not just
But it’s here, it’s really happening, and there is Weir on the floor, dead
No, not Weir, it’s McKay
But the Wraith Queen holding him smiles, and says “So, John Sheppard. At last you meet your doom.”
But it wasn’t a Queen before
Maybe it was
Maybe
Wraiths don’t kill their food supply
He says that. He gasps for breath in the Queen’s hands and says “You… guys have… stunners, not… guns…”
The Queen smiles, morphs – Weir is standing there. “Nicely reasoned, John. But we Replicators would really prefer you to be dead.”
Weir’s a Replicator?
Yes, you knew that
Rodney is lying on the floor
Rodney is hacking a dream machine
Weir’s a Replicator – but that Replicator is not Weir.
She snarls at him. And suddenly Rodney is standing next to him. “Yes! Keep doing that.”
“What?” He struggles against Weir’s hold.
“Whatever you’re doing. It’s working. The dream is collapsing in on itself.”
Dream. This is a dream.
“Wake up,” he tells himself.
Weir smiles, nastily, and pulls apart his arm – his useless, state-of-the-art arm.
“Keep going, John,” Rodney says, urgently.
“Wake up.” He screws his eyes shut, and yells it: “Wake UP!”
John wakes up.
There’s some sort of structure around his face. He struggles to pull it off – but then Teyla is there, talking in calm tones and releasing him so that he can sit up.
They’re in a room he’s never seen before. He’s been lying in a weird perspex booth, and McKay is currently being released from another one.
Keller is there. She smiles at him – “Hi there, Colonel” – and then proceeds to do all the normal doctor crap (light in eyes, feeling the pulse) while John attempts to talk past her to find out from Teyla what the hell has been happening.
Teyla’s explanation is similar to Rodney’s – a dream machine that had him trapped – and she adds “You were trapped in there for nearly five hours, John. We were getting quite worried.”
“Five hours?” John rubs his hand across his face. “It felt like months.”
“Yes, Rodney said you appeared to be moving from scenario to scenario as though time had passed between them.”
“Rodney said? You guys… couldn’t see what was going on?”
Keller’s busy listening to his heartbeat, Ronon’s non-verbal as ever, and Rodney is bright red and not saying a word, but Teyla answers him: “No, we had only Rodney’s descriptions.”
“Right.”
“Well done on finding a way out, John. You must have great mental fortitude.”
“Thanks, Teyla.”
A few more minutes of poking and prodding, and then John stands up. He gestures towards Rodney, and says, “Could you guys give us a few minutes?”
And suddenly they are alone.
Rodney is still bright red, and now starts talking at typical McKay speed. “For the record, nothing that happened there is ever going to be told to anyone, and I’m not expecting anything from you, or anything, although really, if you think about it, it was impressively quick thinking and adapting to difficult circumstances, so not really anything sexually inappropriate at all, and we can actually just ignore that it ever–”
“McKay?” he interrupts, calmly.
“Yes?” Rodney looks anxious.
“Stop explaining things.” And John kisses him once more.
Title: Interloper
Rating: R
Word Count: 2790
Pairing: John/Rodney
Summary: Rodney is dying to get inside John's dreams. John is just dreaming. (And dying.)
Interloper
Weir is dead. John sits, with her in his arms, letting the grief wash over him.
He had tried hard, so hard, to protect her, but he still couldn’t keep her safe. And now she lies, so still, bloody yet still beautiful, strangely heavy in his arms.
He couldn’t save her. Why couldn’t he save her?
John sits, holding Elizabeth tightly, and howls his sorrow to the world.
Grief counselling is apparently a lot of talking, while Kate Heightmeyer sits there with a sympathetic look on her face.
It’s a few weeks before she smiles at him and says, “I think you’ve done some excellent work on this. As far as I’m concerned, you’re ready to resume active duty.”
It should have been a simple enough negotiation, but the Acostians and the Galatenes are already at each others’ throats, and when the Wraith show up it disintegrates into a three-way battle, with John’s team just trying to escape from all the chaos.
He’s nearly at the gate, dodging explosions and listening for Darts, when he trips, slamming face-first into the ground. No time to think – he pushes himself up, hands scratched and bloodied, and continues to run, limping more than he’d like.
“Sheppard!” Rodney is one hundred yards away, near the treeline.
John waves him closer. “We need to get to the gate!” he yells. “You run, I’ll dial.”
“No, wait, we need to talk–” But John is already sprinting forward, wiping sweat out of his eyes, and dialing Atlantis.
Rodney swears loudly, and dives through the gate, closely followed by the others.
Zelenka has discovered a new Ancient device.
“It seems to have been used for an Ancient form of psychiatry. Or at least, that is what we are speculating. It interacts with the subconscious, drawing thoughts into conscious expression.”
He hands it to Carter, who holds it for a second and then looks up, frowning, and says “This week has been very hard. I wish I had more experience in this galaxy.” Then she freezes, goes blank-faced, and hands it back to Zelenka, saying simply “I see.”
“Yes, it’s quite fascinating, really,” Zelenka says. John notes that he is wearing gloves.
“Hey, what’s everyone talking about?” Rodney pokes his head round the door, and waves awkwardly. “It’s just me – Rodney. Dr Rodney McKay.”
John rolls his eyes. “McKay, take a seat.”
“Right. Thanks.” He sits, still on-edge – John’s not sure why.
Teyla is more interested in the device. “I imagine this could be quite useful. Especially for those who are… less comfortable in expressing themselves.” She picks it up, thoughtfully, and takes a moment – then says “Colonel Carter, you do not join us for breakfast in the mess. I wish you would, at least on occasion.” She raises her eyebrows thoughtfully, and then smiles and hands it to John.
John takes it with his sleeve covering his palm, and promptly deposits it in Rodney’s hand. And he blinks and immediately says “Sheppard looks really hot in those pants.” – then freezes, looking horrified.
No-one’s sure exactly what to say to that.
Rodney dumps the device on the conference table, then puts his face in his hands and groans, “Oh, great. I really do know how to concoct the ultimate nightmare scenario, don’t I?”
Zelenka picks up the device again. “So… I will perform some more analysis on this, and then… store it somewhere. Carefully.”
Carter nods. “I think that’s probably a good idea.”
And everyone makes excuses to leave, trying not to look too hard at Rodney (face still in hands) or John (hands in pockets, studying the floor).
The room is silent for a moment, and then John stands up and clears his throat. “So, McKay…”
Rodney looks up. “We’re alone?” He still looks embarrassed, but he rises, crossing his arms, and says, “We need to talk.”
John leans back on the conference table. “What are you doing later?”
“So, you know how the mind can – wait, what?”
“I’ve got the evening free, so if you want to come over, we could… talk.” A slight smile, which John is aware makes him look sexy.
Rodney is staring, open-mouthed. “You’re serious, aren’t you? This – this is seriously how you’d respond to–”
John kisses him. And Rodney kisses back.
They go back to John’s place, and have dinner together.
“So, we really do need to talk.”
“Sure.”
“So, the kissing, that was nice – a little surreal, and probably my brain patterns are just malfunctioning in some way I haven’t figured out yet, but–”
John kisses him again.
“See, like I say, nice, but that’s not the point. You see–”
“McKay.”
“Yes?”
“Yes, I really did kiss you. Yes, I plan on doing it again.” He suits action to word, then, smiling, murmurs, “and again” – and again and again they kiss, Rodney protesting at first, trying to finish his sentences even while he’s kissing John back, but eventually he says “Oh, screw it. There’s such a thing as hazard pay – even if this is all some weird glitch.” and then everything is hands, and mouths, and skin, and cocks, and they cannot stop touching each other.
Soon they stop delaying the inevitable, and just move in together. John’s football posters clash with Rodney’s geek aesthetic, but even then the whole thing just sort of fits.
Rodney rolls over in bed and says, seriously, “So, I need to explain something.”
He sounds worried, and John raises his eyebrows and asks “…was that not…”
“Oh, no, the sex was fine. The sex was great – if rather unexpected – but you see, your subconscious, it doesn’t always think linearly. At certain times it sort of leaps from scenario to scenario – so if someone wants to interact with your subconscious–”
It sounds like he’s settling in for a very long nerdy lecture, and John’s almost relieved when his comms unit starts beeping at him. He gets out of bed, saying “Sorry, McKay, this looks pretty important.” and starts talking to the control room even while Rodney is saying “No, wait, I need to explain–” behind him.
Fire, fire everywhere – and none of them are trained firefighters, but everyone’s doing their best, using suppressives on the closest flames, or diving into the chaos to drag out those who’ve been injured. John pulls two to safety, and then spots Lorne, trapped under some rubble – he sprints to his side, ignoring the heat, and is just about to pull the steel beam off of him when the whole ceiling–
Pain, and panic, and yet more pain. How can something missing hurt like it’s still right there? John’s freaking the hell out, and in agony – God, when is the morphine going to start working – and what the fuck is he going to do?
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!
“Sheppard?” Rodney’s face comes into view. “It’s going to be okay.”
“Okay?” Is he insane?! “Both of my arms are missing!” He’s hyperventilating.
Rodney shushes him, patting his face – and when that fails, kisses him, and whispers, “Trust me, okay? This is not what you think it is.”
He has to calm down. He can’t calm down. “I don’t know what–”
Through a haze of pain, he sees Rodney smiling at him. “I’m going to get you out.”
What? That doesn’t work. “Get me through this, you mean?”
“That too.”
His arms, his arms are gone, gone, what the fuck? John can’t manage to think, he can’t. “This can’t be happening.”
Rodney’s voice says, “It’s not, okay?”
Right. This is just panic. He’s been trained. “Okay. I’ll keep calm.”
“No, I mean it’s really not.” Rodney glances behind him, at Keller, then lowers his voice. “This isn’t reality.”
Breathe deep, breathe calm, count one two three four five, breathe deep. What is McKay talking about? Reality? Right – people who panic, they can hallucinate. “I am here, in this bed.” One two three four five, breathe deep.
“No, you’re not, that’s what I’m saying.”
“What are you on about, McKay?”
“Look, I–” Then a glance at Keller again, and he shakes his head. “Keep your voice down. This needs to stay between us – or she’ll realise I’m a threat.”
Either the morphine is really kicking in, or McKay is going completely insane.
He tries to ask, but Rodney’s face is swimming out of view, and his words are getting fainter, and yep, the morphine’s kicked in.
Rodney’s voice comes back to him, once. “Just stay with me, okay? I’m going to help you.”
P71-5MG has access to some truly excellent biotech. John will never be able to play piano, but his new hands have basic function, and even feeling, and that’s more than he ever thought he’d have again.
He flexes his fingers, watching as they move.
Keller smiles at his clear relief, and says, “Now, you will have a list of rehab exercises. Even though these might not be entirely biological limbs, they still need to be moved. The more you stick to the exercise regime, the more your nervous system will get used to interacting with your arms.”
That makes sense. He tries to link his fingers together – fails - crosses his arms instead.
Keller talks him through each exercise, then releases him from the infirmary.
Rodney is in their room, pacing back and forth.
“Hey, I’ve been looking for you.”
“Yes, sorry about that. I’m an interloper in the program; I can only enter scenarios where it makes sense.”
Rodney is making no sense. John doesn’t care; he’s having a good day. “I got my new arms.”
“Yes, fine, good.” Rodney waves off the miracle of modern medical science, and keeps pacing. “But look, the whole amputation thing sent your heartrate skyrocketing, and if we don’t figure out a solution soon, your body could crash completely.”
“McKay. I’ve got new arms. Look at them. They even–” he slides them up under Rodney’s shirt “–come with full sensation.”
“And that’s really – oh – really great, but we need to have this conversation. This scenario can’t become another porn fantasy, so if you could please listen – wait, unless that’s the point?”
“Porn is the point?” John has no problem with this.
“Well, I mean, theoretically, if it’s trying to experiment with scenarios that heighten emotions – which, the pattern seems to be heightened, non-heightened, heightened, non-heightened – me keeping you in a state of heightened emotion could delay the scene change long enough for me to–”
He’s talking nonsense again. John starts to kiss his way along Rodney’s neck, but suddenly Rodney is pushing him down on the bed, ripping John’s t-shirt off, and saying “Just… enjoy this, okay? Really enjoy this. And also listen.”
Okay, he’s been asked to listen. And he will. But Rodney’s not talking right now – instead he’s kissing, then licking, his way down John’s torso, unbuttoning his pants with unexpected deftness, and lightly stroking past John’s cock.
“Listening?”
“Mmm. Yes.” Also his skin is tingling, but he tries to concentrate.
Rodney kisses him deeply, then says “So, you’re kind of trapped.”
“Yep, you’ve got me pinned.”
“No, Sheppard, I mean in real life you’re trapped.” He’s skimming his hands lightly down John’s chest, while continuing to nuzzle his neck.
“Mmm?”
“You’re in some sort of machine. We’ve never seen this exact kind before, but it’s familiar enough for us to hack into.”
Wait, this sounds concerning – but then Rodney starts gently squeezing his balls, and holy shit. He lies there, gripping the sheets and attempting to listen.
“The thing is, though, the machine has you trapped in a dreamlike state, and we can’t figure out how to turn it off without giving you severe brain damage.” Rodney’s thumb is repeatedly stroking the tip of his cock, and John’s not sure where he learnt how to do that, but he should give lessons. “Effectively, the only way to get you out is by you breaking out from inside.”
John wants to ask questions, but his brain can’t summon anything more coherent than a sort of shuddering gasp.
“Just – nothing here is real, okay? Not Atlantis, not the people, not anything except me. And I–” He breaks off. Then: “Shit, I think it’s figured out that I’m–” Which is the last thing he says before he dies.
Rodney’s body lies, bloody and battered, against the wreckage of the corridor, and John is freaking the hell out. But there’s no time to think, no time, because the Dart that crashed through his window is opening up, and suddenly nothing else matters – not the wreckage, not the torn wires sending sparks in every direction, not Rodney’s broken body lying vacant-eyed on the floor – because there is a Wraith standing directly in front of him, and John isn’t even wearing pants. His gun – shit, his gun is on the other side of the room, and he can’t possibly have enough time to dive for it – but he can, because the Wraith is firing a weapon at the marines sprinting up the corridor, and John has a moment to grab his gun.
The marines drop, clearly dead in an instant.
Wait, what? Since when do Wraiths opt to kill their food supply?
Out the window, more Darts are arriving, slamming into buildings, some exploding on impact, some opening to release their pilots. Not far away he can hear people screaming.
The Wraith picks him up by his neck, slamming him against the wall as it
Incorrect. It should be feeding, not just
But it’s here, it’s really happening, and there is Weir on the floor, dead
No, not Weir, it’s McKay
But the Wraith Queen holding him smiles, and says “So, John Sheppard. At last you meet your doom.”
But it wasn’t a Queen before
Maybe it was
Maybe
Wraiths don’t kill their food supply
He says that. He gasps for breath in the Queen’s hands and says “You… guys have… stunners, not… guns…”
The Queen smiles, morphs – Weir is standing there. “Nicely reasoned, John. But we Replicators would really prefer you to be dead.”
Weir’s a Replicator?
Yes, you knew that
Rodney is lying on the floor
Rodney is hacking a dream machine
Weir’s a Replicator – but that Replicator is not Weir.
She snarls at him. And suddenly Rodney is standing next to him. “Yes! Keep doing that.”
“What?” He struggles against Weir’s hold.
“Whatever you’re doing. It’s working. The dream is collapsing in on itself.”
Dream. This is a dream.
“Wake up,” he tells himself.
Weir smiles, nastily, and pulls apart his arm – his useless, state-of-the-art arm.
“Keep going, John,” Rodney says, urgently.
“Wake up.” He screws his eyes shut, and yells it: “Wake UP!”
John wakes up.
There’s some sort of structure around his face. He struggles to pull it off – but then Teyla is there, talking in calm tones and releasing him so that he can sit up.
They’re in a room he’s never seen before. He’s been lying in a weird perspex booth, and McKay is currently being released from another one.
Keller is there. She smiles at him – “Hi there, Colonel” – and then proceeds to do all the normal doctor crap (light in eyes, feeling the pulse) while John attempts to talk past her to find out from Teyla what the hell has been happening.
Teyla’s explanation is similar to Rodney’s – a dream machine that had him trapped – and she adds “You were trapped in there for nearly five hours, John. We were getting quite worried.”
“Five hours?” John rubs his hand across his face. “It felt like months.”
“Yes, Rodney said you appeared to be moving from scenario to scenario as though time had passed between them.”
“Rodney said? You guys… couldn’t see what was going on?”
Keller’s busy listening to his heartbeat, Ronon’s non-verbal as ever, and Rodney is bright red and not saying a word, but Teyla answers him: “No, we had only Rodney’s descriptions.”
“Right.”
“Well done on finding a way out, John. You must have great mental fortitude.”
“Thanks, Teyla.”
A few more minutes of poking and prodding, and then John stands up. He gestures towards Rodney, and says, “Could you guys give us a few minutes?”
And suddenly they are alone.
Rodney is still bright red, and now starts talking at typical McKay speed. “For the record, nothing that happened there is ever going to be told to anyone, and I’m not expecting anything from you, or anything, although really, if you think about it, it was impressively quick thinking and adapting to difficult circumstances, so not really anything sexually inappropriate at all, and we can actually just ignore that it ever–”
“McKay?” he interrupts, calmly.
“Yes?” Rodney looks anxious.
“Stop explaining things.” And John kisses him once more.