Something More
Jan. 28th, 2006 02:58 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
rachael-recs.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
rec50My Sheppard/McKay rec50 table.
Claim: Stargate Atlantis: John Sheppard/Rodney McKay
Title: Something More
Author: Jenn (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
seperis)
Characters:
Prompt: 24 - Future Fic
Rating: Mature
Length: long
Brief summary: John left the Atlantis expedition 3 years before, and Rodney is determined to bring him back. I loved the little hints that we get as the story progresses, the way Rodney's backstory gets filled in slowly over time. John is clear and sharp in this, and you can see how he's slowly unraveled, leaving everything about him at loose ends. There's also great description in this, whether it's a landscape or a feeling; it visually rooted and the people feel like real people to me, with complexities and the push-me/pull-you of relationships underlying so much of their actions. The other lovely thing is how much of the story happens in what is not said. The subtext is utterly wonderful.
*Of course*, John chose Mexico.
It's the height of summer, something Rodney forgot about on Atlantis, where it's always vaguely spring and always warm and always *indoors*. His lab, his room, the mess hall, the gym, the masochistic part of him keeping up the weekly workouts with Teyla long after he'd left the field.
A stretch of golden beach leers at him from atop the dunes, the sun bright overhead, and a million miles of the Pacific dancing as far as the eye can see. Rodney swallows hard, shoving the sunglasses back on before beginning the long trek down, sand shifting unpredictably with every step; his body is too used to still, solid floors and flat, inoffensive rugs. Stumbling onto the relatively flat line of the shore, he spots the house from the shoreline, invisible from the road, pretty and sharp and blending into the landscape, set up from the ground on granite and solid concrete, carefully shielded from sight of the road. If you didn't know where to stop, Rodney thought, you'd never find it, and that was John to a T.
Fifty feet in, he trips security but keeps moving. It's not like he's trying to hide.
His boots keep sinking into the sand, a good argument for why he should have stopped in Colorado for longer than it took to pick up directions and make the next flight out.
It's beautiful, though, and it reminds him of the Atlantis mainland, the Athosian camp, long evenings of celebration when John would grin over Athosian beer and play in the surf like a kid, bright and playful and drunk as hell; afterward, he would sprawl on his back in the puddle jumper and sing drinking songs with his head in Teyla's lap, filthy and wet and grinning into the ceiling.
Rodney wishes, suddenly and impossibly, that he could have brought Teyla or Ronon with him; this feeling of exposure isn't comfortable, as a slim figure materializes in view like a ghost, leaning against the granite of the primary supports.
Rodney would know him anywhere, slouch and careless ease and messy dark hair, longer than Rodney remembers, catching in the wind and covering his eyes. He doesn't even fucking *turn* to look, and maybe that says more than anything else.
A few lines run through his head, but nothing useful, nothing like he'd rehearsed, long speeches about friendship and Atlantis and the city that still misses him and has never stopped, about Elizabeth and duty and all the ways their lives have changed, about three lost years and maybe he'd work in a please, and in his head, he always gets the same answer, he always gets yes.
He's only a few feet away when he stops, and the speeches are gone. John cocks his head, then pulls off the sunglasses, and it's like the last time they spoke, the first, or anywhere in between. No one does ironic distance like John Sheppard.
"Rodney." John pushes off the granite, bare feet balancing easily on treacherous sand, starting toward the path leading up to the house, still expecting Rodney to follow wherever he led. A lot has changed, Rodney thinks, a little resentfully, a little lightheaded with the shock of seeing, but not that.
"That's all I get?" He's sweaty and hot and tired, too many hours in a plane to cross two countries since the last time he slept, customs, *questions* he couldn't answer at the SGC and Elizabeth's hopeful eyes when he walked through the gate. It's like it's hitting him all at once, here and now, with the peace of the surf in his ears, sand in his boots, and this annoying man walking away like they're practically strangers when they're anything but.
John turns on a heel, walking backwards, and that smile, Christ, it's been too long. Rodney hadn't known he'd been in withdrawal, starving for that look, soaking it in like a flower in the sun. It's a shock to still be that vulnerable. "Yeah."
Link to the story: Something More
Claim: Stargate Atlantis: John Sheppard/Rodney McKay
Title: Something More
Author: Jenn (
seperis)Characters:
Prompt: 24 - Future Fic
Rating: Mature
Length: long
Brief summary: John left the Atlantis expedition 3 years before, and Rodney is determined to bring him back. I loved the little hints that we get as the story progresses, the way Rodney's backstory gets filled in slowly over time. John is clear and sharp in this, and you can see how he's slowly unraveled, leaving everything about him at loose ends. There's also great description in this, whether it's a landscape or a feeling; it visually rooted and the people feel like real people to me, with complexities and the push-me/pull-you of relationships underlying so much of their actions. The other lovely thing is how much of the story happens in what is not said. The subtext is utterly wonderful.
*Of course*, John chose Mexico.
It's the height of summer, something Rodney forgot about on Atlantis, where it's always vaguely spring and always warm and always *indoors*. His lab, his room, the mess hall, the gym, the masochistic part of him keeping up the weekly workouts with Teyla long after he'd left the field.
A stretch of golden beach leers at him from atop the dunes, the sun bright overhead, and a million miles of the Pacific dancing as far as the eye can see. Rodney swallows hard, shoving the sunglasses back on before beginning the long trek down, sand shifting unpredictably with every step; his body is too used to still, solid floors and flat, inoffensive rugs. Stumbling onto the relatively flat line of the shore, he spots the house from the shoreline, invisible from the road, pretty and sharp and blending into the landscape, set up from the ground on granite and solid concrete, carefully shielded from sight of the road. If you didn't know where to stop, Rodney thought, you'd never find it, and that was John to a T.
Fifty feet in, he trips security but keeps moving. It's not like he's trying to hide.
His boots keep sinking into the sand, a good argument for why he should have stopped in Colorado for longer than it took to pick up directions and make the next flight out.
It's beautiful, though, and it reminds him of the Atlantis mainland, the Athosian camp, long evenings of celebration when John would grin over Athosian beer and play in the surf like a kid, bright and playful and drunk as hell; afterward, he would sprawl on his back in the puddle jumper and sing drinking songs with his head in Teyla's lap, filthy and wet and grinning into the ceiling.
Rodney wishes, suddenly and impossibly, that he could have brought Teyla or Ronon with him; this feeling of exposure isn't comfortable, as a slim figure materializes in view like a ghost, leaning against the granite of the primary supports.
Rodney would know him anywhere, slouch and careless ease and messy dark hair, longer than Rodney remembers, catching in the wind and covering his eyes. He doesn't even fucking *turn* to look, and maybe that says more than anything else.
A few lines run through his head, but nothing useful, nothing like he'd rehearsed, long speeches about friendship and Atlantis and the city that still misses him and has never stopped, about Elizabeth and duty and all the ways their lives have changed, about three lost years and maybe he'd work in a please, and in his head, he always gets the same answer, he always gets yes.
He's only a few feet away when he stops, and the speeches are gone. John cocks his head, then pulls off the sunglasses, and it's like the last time they spoke, the first, or anywhere in between. No one does ironic distance like John Sheppard.
"Rodney." John pushes off the granite, bare feet balancing easily on treacherous sand, starting toward the path leading up to the house, still expecting Rodney to follow wherever he led. A lot has changed, Rodney thinks, a little resentfully, a little lightheaded with the shock of seeing, but not that.
"That's all I get?" He's sweaty and hot and tired, too many hours in a plane to cross two countries since the last time he slept, customs, *questions* he couldn't answer at the SGC and Elizabeth's hopeful eyes when he walked through the gate. It's like it's hitting him all at once, here and now, with the peace of the surf in his ears, sand in his boots, and this annoying man walking away like they're practically strangers when they're anything but.
John turns on a heel, walking backwards, and that smile, Christ, it's been too long. Rodney hadn't known he'd been in withdrawal, starving for that look, soaking it in like a flower in the sun. It's a shock to still be that vulnerable. "Yeah."
Link to the story: Something More
