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taharielSince this file was titled 'Patient Form 3', I'm going to assume this is from when I was doing my stupid temp job at the hospital and saving things so people wouldn't immediately see what they were. But I digress!
This fic has, therefore, been sitting on my harddrive for at least two years. It's time to get rid! Never mind that I had completely forgotten it existed!
During the day, Rodney watches Colonel Sheppard walk by with a casual indifference that borders on the oblivious, barely looking up from his work but for the distracting sound of his footsteps in the hall disturbing the rhythmic tapping of his keys across the keyboard.
At night, he watches John walk past again and again, learning the subtle curve of his hip and the cadence of his steps, the way the strange blue light of Atlantis calls matching highlights from his dark hair and the smooth seashell curl of his ear, lying on his bed with his eyes closed and replaying it over and over in his mind like a recording. John. Not even Rodney catches himself looking, during the day.
~~~
To watch but not to touch, that’s the trick of it. Self-control may not be Rodney’s be all and end all but he does know what it means and he uses it, keeping his hands gesturing as he talks instead of reaching out to touch John’s arm, his shoulder, the rough black stubble of his cheek. He holds pens, coffee cups, computer tablets, finds new and exciting technology to occupy his clever fingers and their perpetual motion. Rodney knows now the exact texture of the inside of his pants pockets where he rubs the lining between his fingers to keep them still, or as close to still as they ever get; he knows the feel of the walls and the tables and the chairs and all the things the Ancients made, can touch them in his dreams and never know he was sleeping. He knows everything but what he wants the most – the texture of John’s hair, his skin, the gentle lines of his body that are hidden away beneath his clothes.
At night, when Rodney stands by the window and stares out at the rolling black ocean beneath him, he looks at the stars and the glowing white of the foam that bursts from the crests of the waves, luminous under the moon, and feels like something is missing.
At night, Rodney doesn’t lie to himself about the way he looks at John.
~~~
“What,” John says, pulling a pencil from behind Rodney’s ear to poke the small pile of metal parts on the desk in front of them, “was that?”
The metal at the end of the pencil that holds the eraser scraped against Rodney’s ear and made him shiver. “Maybe you should use your amazing newfound psychic abilities to find out, hmm? No? Then we’re both in the same boat, Colonel, and maybe if you went away, we’d have an ice cube’s chance in hell of putting it back together again, so if you don’t mind?”
Sheppard puts up his hands and just grins, stepping away from the bench just a step so that Rodney can gather in the components again like a mother duck with her babies, and crosses his arms over his chest, pulling his t-shirt tight across his torso where the cotton is soft and worn. “I was just asking, McKay.”
“Stop asking, start doing whatever you’re being paid to do and stop bothering me,” Rodney says in an irritable tone of voice, snatches back his pencil when Sheppard offers it to him, and starts to lay out all the parts in order of size on a clear area of his desk. “Go away,” he adds, glancing up at John, who is still smiling.
“Nice to know I’m appreciated ‘round here,” he drawls in that awful Southern accent that curls Rodney’s toes if he pauses to think about it, and saunters off as though he’d been meaning to all along, one hand on the butt of his gun and the other already at his headset checking up on his security teams.
“Perhaps this part is to go here,” Radek says, leaning over Rodney’s shoulder, and they bicker for a little while until pieces start to come together, when they fall into a concentrated silence.
~~~
Rodney’s feelings are very much like a jigsaw, like the pile of parts that turned out to be missing a vital component when they’d finally put it all into place, just like a jigsaw because the important parts, the parts that connect all the rest, are missing and he can’t find them to put it all together. Like a corner piece, or the complicated centre of a flower, or the eyes in a woman’s face. When he thinks about it, lying on his back in his room and staring at the strange designs on the Ancient ceiling tiles, he can just about see the pattern, but a lot of it is guesswork as to where things relate to one another and he runs his fingers through his hair, rubbing the palms of his hands into his eyes to try and rub the sleep from them, because this is important, damn it, and he needs to know how everything falls into place before it does it on its own and surprises him.
John had had just one small lock of hair falling down over his forehead that morning, the black stroke of a paintbrush across that pale skin like a caress. And Rodney… Rodney had a hollow feeling in his stomach, one that left him wondering where this was going and what he was doing, because he sure as hell had no idea why he couldn’t just forget things like that when it would be so much easier if he could forget them, forget the way that John moved and spoke and thought and was smarter than any soldier Rodney had ever met (except Sam, but she was fooling herself in the military. She was a scientist at heart, and she’d realise it sooner or later. Everybody else had.)
One day, Rodney thought, we’ll look back at this and laugh. But it didn’t make him feel better.
This fic has, therefore, been sitting on my harddrive for at least two years. It's time to get rid! Never mind that I had completely forgotten it existed!
During the day, Rodney watches Colonel Sheppard walk by with a casual indifference that borders on the oblivious, barely looking up from his work but for the distracting sound of his footsteps in the hall disturbing the rhythmic tapping of his keys across the keyboard.
At night, he watches John walk past again and again, learning the subtle curve of his hip and the cadence of his steps, the way the strange blue light of Atlantis calls matching highlights from his dark hair and the smooth seashell curl of his ear, lying on his bed with his eyes closed and replaying it over and over in his mind like a recording. John. Not even Rodney catches himself looking, during the day.
To watch but not to touch, that’s the trick of it. Self-control may not be Rodney’s be all and end all but he does know what it means and he uses it, keeping his hands gesturing as he talks instead of reaching out to touch John’s arm, his shoulder, the rough black stubble of his cheek. He holds pens, coffee cups, computer tablets, finds new and exciting technology to occupy his clever fingers and their perpetual motion. Rodney knows now the exact texture of the inside of his pants pockets where he rubs the lining between his fingers to keep them still, or as close to still as they ever get; he knows the feel of the walls and the tables and the chairs and all the things the Ancients made, can touch them in his dreams and never know he was sleeping. He knows everything but what he wants the most – the texture of John’s hair, his skin, the gentle lines of his body that are hidden away beneath his clothes.
At night, when Rodney stands by the window and stares out at the rolling black ocean beneath him, he looks at the stars and the glowing white of the foam that bursts from the crests of the waves, luminous under the moon, and feels like something is missing.
At night, Rodney doesn’t lie to himself about the way he looks at John.
“What,” John says, pulling a pencil from behind Rodney’s ear to poke the small pile of metal parts on the desk in front of them, “was that?”
The metal at the end of the pencil that holds the eraser scraped against Rodney’s ear and made him shiver. “Maybe you should use your amazing newfound psychic abilities to find out, hmm? No? Then we’re both in the same boat, Colonel, and maybe if you went away, we’d have an ice cube’s chance in hell of putting it back together again, so if you don’t mind?”
Sheppard puts up his hands and just grins, stepping away from the bench just a step so that Rodney can gather in the components again like a mother duck with her babies, and crosses his arms over his chest, pulling his t-shirt tight across his torso where the cotton is soft and worn. “I was just asking, McKay.”
“Stop asking, start doing whatever you’re being paid to do and stop bothering me,” Rodney says in an irritable tone of voice, snatches back his pencil when Sheppard offers it to him, and starts to lay out all the parts in order of size on a clear area of his desk. “Go away,” he adds, glancing up at John, who is still smiling.
“Nice to know I’m appreciated ‘round here,” he drawls in that awful Southern accent that curls Rodney’s toes if he pauses to think about it, and saunters off as though he’d been meaning to all along, one hand on the butt of his gun and the other already at his headset checking up on his security teams.
“Perhaps this part is to go here,” Radek says, leaning over Rodney’s shoulder, and they bicker for a little while until pieces start to come together, when they fall into a concentrated silence.
Rodney’s feelings are very much like a jigsaw, like the pile of parts that turned out to be missing a vital component when they’d finally put it all into place, just like a jigsaw because the important parts, the parts that connect all the rest, are missing and he can’t find them to put it all together. Like a corner piece, or the complicated centre of a flower, or the eyes in a woman’s face. When he thinks about it, lying on his back in his room and staring at the strange designs on the Ancient ceiling tiles, he can just about see the pattern, but a lot of it is guesswork as to where things relate to one another and he runs his fingers through his hair, rubbing the palms of his hands into his eyes to try and rub the sleep from them, because this is important, damn it, and he needs to know how everything falls into place before it does it on its own and surprises him.
John had had just one small lock of hair falling down over his forehead that morning, the black stroke of a paintbrush across that pale skin like a caress. And Rodney… Rodney had a hollow feeling in his stomach, one that left him wondering where this was going and what he was doing, because he sure as hell had no idea why he couldn’t just forget things like that when it would be so much easier if he could forget them, forget the way that John moved and spoke and thought and was smarter than any soldier Rodney had ever met (except Sam, but she was fooling herself in the military. She was a scientist at heart, and she’d realise it sooner or later. Everybody else had.)
One day, Rodney thought, we’ll look back at this and laugh. But it didn’t make him feel better.
