Work Text
In so many ways, it’s not different at all. Rodney’s used to leaving dismay in his wake, fighting for every scrap of approval or funding that’s diverted his way. He’s used to being ignored in the best of times, sneered at in the worst, and barely tolerated when his genius is needed to save their bacon just this one more time.It doesn’t stop it from hurting, though. He’s not sure anything’s going to stop that.He remembers, now, why hope is the most dangerous thing of all.He doesn’t remember where he heard that phrase.Some things do change, of course. There’s no funny, cutting banter between him and the scientists when he’s working in the labs, even if Radek says he’s forgiven him and certainly acts like not that much has changed—but the ease is still gone. Rodney works hard at leaning to ignore it, and eventually he does. He’s good at ignoring the inconsequential, and him having friends has always been entirely inconsequential. He’d lived without them for years, and hey, a brief stint of maybe eleven months wasn’t exactly character-changing. He still misses lobbing insults and knowing the words aren’t meant.Off world missions become an exercise in patience. Rodney doesn’t change his behavior, he knows better than that. The idea that he’s going to actually change parts of his personality at this late day is ludicrous, and even tacit implication on his part would only make someone believe the lie. So he doesn’t. He’s quieter, maybe, a little more stringent when his theories are called into question, but that’s the only real change.Professionally, anyway.The mess hall serving lemon chicken three nights running is something of a shock. The first two times it’s enough of one that Rodney just takes it, grabbing one of the MRE’s they haven’t had to eat in months. Sometimes, rarely, he knows when not to fight.The third time, he goes to see Elizabeth. It’s as painful as he knew it would be, but it works. On the fourth night, he’s served just plain chicken, sautéed with the not-onions the Athosians grow.Rodney still doesn’t eat it. Just grabs his MRE and heads back to the lab, where he’s eaten most of his meals for the past few days. He’s not going to change, no, but he’s not above sulking and certain things just hurt too much.Finding a lone place to eat, shunned and whispered at, while specific backs close ranks against him? Yeah, he’s already lived through this part of school, thanks, and as much as it sucked then at least he hadn’t had anything to lose.So he heads it off at the pass. So he’s a coward. So this isn’t news to anyone, least of all Rodney himself.The labs are always empty when he eats there. If he likes it, enjoying the quiet and the ability to work without imbeciles constantly badgering him with questions they now take to Zelenka anyway, that’s nobody’s business but his own.He knows all he really needs to do is wait, and as the second week bleeds into the third, he’s proven right. It takes effort for people to remember their anger and mistrust, and things go back to normal. He terrorizes the lab on a regular basis, he rolls his eyes and argues with Elizabeth in meetings and well, if he gives in a little faster that’s only because Elizabeth is often right and Rodney’s always known that. Missions go a little easier, particularly after several instances of Sheppard having no choice but to rely on Rodney’s theories.Life and death situations are crucibles.He still eats alone, but that rarely bothers him since he rarely eats much. Coffee is still a mainstay—he’s not stupid—but even that is starting to taste like ash. He eats because he has to, shoving down enough food for his stomach to stop hurting then abandoning whatever he’s grabbed with a sigh of relief. He’s not going to allow himself to starve; his brain needs the calories too much.But like many things that are necessary and unavoidable, he only has to do it. He doesn’t have to like it.It’s the fourth week when he notices the barest beginnings of a detente between him and the rest of the senior staff. Carson starts frowning at him during check-ups, muttering about Rodney losing weight he shouldn’t. Rodney just rolls his eyes at that, because Carson’s been on his case for months before that to lose some of the puppy-fat that’d stubbornly started reappearing once he obtained his second Ph.D. Carson takes offense at the eye-rolling, which at least makes it effective. Elizabeth starts smiling at him again in meetings, saying hello when she sees him in the halls. He doesn’t understand why she always looks shuttered, mouth a grim red slash, when he nods back and goes on his way; he’s being polite. What else can she possibly want from him?Teyla and Ronon act no differently. Ronon’s always been wary of him, after all, and he’s pretty sure Teyla never understood the finer details of Doranda, anyway. Still, it’s nice when Teyla stops him in the hall one day to take his shoulders and hold him immobile, waiting for him to touch his forehead to hers.He’s never been fond of hugs before. This is a decent compromise. Hey, maybe Jeannie would like it, if he ever sees her again? She likes hugs, and she always used to look upset with him when he avoided sharing them with her.Zelenka blows up at him over the stupidest, most inconsequential things and does so until Rodney finally shouts back that he’s being an ass and if he’s going to continue to be one, perhaps he’d like to do it elsewhere, like maybe checking up on the sewers or the desalinization tanks? Not his snappiest comeback, no, but afterwards the weird, bizarre little Czech is grinning like a loon and oddly, things are better from that point. Some tension Rodney’s never noticed eases.He laughs in Kusanagi’s face when she tells him that she is grateful he no longer acts so humbled or limited, that a great man like he is should not have to watch what he says. He laughs until the sound grows tight and acidic in his throat, forcing himself to stop and say instead that like Tom Cruise in that ridiculous movie he was forced to watch, if anyone couldn’t handle the truth then they didn’t deserve to be in Atlantis or graced with Rodney’s brilliance.He expects her to bow and scrape and blink back tears, because she always does when yelled at, but instead she giggles, scurrying down the hallway with her head ducked to try and minimize the blush Rodney can see from where he stands. It’s bizarre. Truly bizarre. It also doesn’t matter, since it’s her scientific skills he’s interested in, not her hormone-addled femaleness.He ends up staring long after she vanishes from sight.He skips dinner, just grabs a power bar on his way back to the labs. His wastebasket is already full of their wrappers, so he has to spend an extra few moments shoving the silvered foil down so it doesn’t flutter onto the ground. He doesn’t care about making the cleaning staff’s job easier, but the bright material catches his eye too much, glittering just outside his field of vision. It’s a distraction and he’s already got enough of those. Concentrating is starting to get hard.He’s only just got them balled up appropriately when his nose twitches. Sitting up, he stares blankly at the steaming scientists do it stochastically mug that he’s very certain wasn’t there before.His nose twitches again.Ignoring the way his hand shakes, Rodney carefully lifts the mug and tips it so that the small amount of thick, almost sludge-brown coffee rolls forward. Not only is it coffee, it’s Turkish coffee—too rich, too sweet, too strong, too perfect, and nearly impossible to produce without some fairly specific tools.Tools Rodney’s fairly certain they didn’t have.He waits a full two minutes—just in case it’s a mirage or hallucination because he’s definitely hallucinated coffee before—then slowly sips, rolling the almost syrupy liquid around on his tongue. It’s excellent, as good as it smells, and his arms start to tingle when he finally swallows down both it and a moan. He forces himself to wait a little longer, since he hasn’t survived this long by being complacent, before the mantra of coffee coffee coffee real Turkish coffee gets too loud and he starts drinking greedily.It’s good enough that Rodney hears himself whimpering pathetically when the mug is empty, going so far as to tap the bottom for the last few remaining drops. He does much better that night, actually completing some of the simulations Simpson kept failing at. He writes up his report and leaves it on her desk, still buzzing from the coffee and the satisfaction of something working correctly.He gets Kona coffee the next night.The night after that, it’s hazelnut cream.Rodney distrusts patterns created by humans, but this is one that benefits him, so he doesn’t question it. He’s burning with curiosity as to who it is, but the regular infusions of excellent caffeine and sugar are too good for him to actually start asking around. Looking gift horses in their mouths usually ends up with him missing a chunk of something—like his pride, something he has little of left—so for once, he just goes with it.The sixth and seventh night he spends away from the lab, on a mission, but the eighth is another cup of Turkish coffee as well as a bowl of that night’s dinner—beef stew that actually tastes like beef, with real-imitation beer in the broth, and some of the crunchy bread rolls the cooks had come up with.He eats it. It’s good so why should he deny himself something that tastes as good as this? He pays for it later when his body rebels against something that isn’t a power bar eaten on the fly, but even as he’s groaning and cursing himself, he can’t help but grin just a little.The new pattern includes dinner for a solid week, Rodney’s body growing accustomed to eating least one normal meal a day. It helps with his concentration problems, although he has no idea why. Was a secret admirer—which is the only conceivable reason someone is doing this—supposed to help fatigue and a fuzzy mind?Regardless, Rodney starts to expect his nightly meals and starts throwing out scientists who begin to linger, working on their own projects, so that Rodney has this time uninterrupted. He’s certain that rumors are starting to spring up, they always do, but Rodney ignores them as easily as he’s ignored everything else for the last two months. There’s always some new and deadly problem they have to deal with, some crisis they have only seconds to avert, and things like whoever is providing him coffee, dinner, and now the blankets he sometimes wakes at his desk to find wrapped around him, aren’t really that important.He’s so good at subsuming his curiosity that he starts dreaming about his unknown benefactor. It’s remarkably like being thirteen again and he hates it. He tells himself he does, anyway, and doesn’t think about how eagerly he goes to bed some nights.Sixteen days after the first cup of coffee appeared by his desk, Rodney wakes to find the shape of keyboard keys imprinted on his cheek, and a dark, shadowy figure hovering over him. His first reaction is a mild form of fear, since it’s dark in the lab and he can’t see very well. His second reaction is that the person leaning over him is warm, and he’s cold, even with the blanket draped over his shoulders, and did he mention that he was really, really cold?The person doesn’t react when Rodney burrows against him, just cups soft—almost scalding—fingers around the back of his neck and says nothing. Vaguely, Rodney’s certain whoever it is—male, familiarly reassuring—is waiting for him to go back to sleep, but he’s warm and no longer in such a painful position and well-fed and comfortable and the deep, steady thud of a heartbeat isn’t nearly as loud as it should be, and it’s sort of lulling, beside.He sleeps.That’s the new pattern for all of four days, Rodney waking grumpily to find his unknown benefactor, late at night when only military patrols are still awake. He always wakes in his own bed afterwards, instead of the lab, stretched out and comfortable, dressed in boxers and socks—his feet get cold—and nothing else. It’s not quite an invasion of privacy, although Rodney starts watching Cadman more closely just in case. He hasn’t forgotten waking up still sweaty from being taken on a run, but she just widens her eyes at him and starts snapping that stalkerish behavior is not acceptable, get over it already.He likes it when she snaps at him, although he’d rather remove his own tongue than admit that it, and stops watching. She’s as subtle as he is, and her ability to lie isn’t much better.Also, she’s female, and Rodney’s forehead and cheek and nose and once, even, his lips all tingle with the knowledge that his benefactor is not female. The latter contact had been inadvertent on Rodney’s part and made his benefactor squeak in a decidedly falsetto range, but there were still no objections, which was nice.Rodney likes stomachs that aren’t completely muscular. They’re comfortable.The fifth night Rodney wakes up, just a little, when he’s helped into bed and a warm weight straddles his hips and ass, but then there are hands—oh, god, hands—kneading his neck and shoulders, an unidentifiable voice breathing out something that’s more air than sound and definitely not comprised of words, but before Rodney can complain that he doesn’t understand, he’s asleep.When he wakes up, his shoulders don’t hurt and he can slap the alarm off without a wince. There’s another mug of coffee waiting by his head and a bowl of the cereal Rodney likes but rarely eats.The coffee isn’t piping hot and that, strangely enough, is incredibly reassuring. He doesn’t believe in imps or ghosts or even robots programmed to see to his every comfort, but the idea of being pampered by a human is at least understandable, even if it’s so thoroughly illogical that Rodney rarely thinks of it in those terms.He drinks his verging-on-lukewarm coffee and tries not to grin like a fool. It doesn’t completely work, but when Elizabeth keeps him after the meeting to talk to him about inconsequential things, smiling warmly at him the whole time, he even smiles back.It’s a little smile, and it makes the corner of his mouth hurt. That seems to make her stutter, hesitating when she hardly ever does, but then she’s going again, smooth and controlled like she didn’t just look sucker-punched and sad. When she ends the conversation by telling him that she’s glad he looks healthier, but that she misses seeing him at meal-times, all he can think is huh.It stays huh when he’s back at the labs, idly snapping with Zelenka about something idiotic that Bradford has done and needs to be taught a lesson about. He’s still angry with her, with all of those he’d called his friends, because it had hurt when they turned away from him. It still hurts, if he thinks about spending his evenings with only a power bar and his laptop, no matter how he’d convinced himself that it was just fine at the time.But he doesn’t think about it often, so the anger and hurt is something he only remembers, not something that consumes him, as Zelenka chuckles over a particularly cutting invective that Bradford winces under.Huh, he thinks again as the day winds down. Huh is what dominates his mind as he goes to the mess to eat dinner, something that occurs without any fanfare at all, still too busy debating something with Zelenka and later Teyla, who objects to using her people’s fields as a testing site for one of the agricultural specialists’ pet theories, no matter how much it may help increase the yield.It’s only later, back in his lab, that the huh resolves itself into something definable. “You couldn’t have just told me that you forgive me like a normal person?” he demands as he sips his latest cup of coffee—Kona, again, a particular favorite. “I mean, I realize that you’re emotionally stunted, but you do know how to talk.”Sheppard just smirks around his own mug of coffee, leaning his shoulder more firmly into Rodney’s. The touch is electric, which is different and startling; Sheppard looks startled too, although he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t stop, either, just stays silent as he waits for Rodney to finish, walking back with him to Rodney’s quarters and getting him undressed and under the covers, exactly as he’s that last few nights. He doesn’t seem to care that Rodney’s watching him, too fascinated to say anything and disturb the almost ritualistic behavior, just strips down to his own boxers and sits down on Rodney’s bed, facing the other way.Rodney rolls onto his side and stares.What he means to say is I don’t want this to stop, and thank you, and oh God, oh God, and please don’t ever let me do that again, don’t ever do this to me again, because I won’t survive it, not a second time. What he says is, “I’m not sure I can forgive you.”It’s cruel and blunt and Sheppard doesn’t even twitch. The air around him grows heavier, though, and after a few drawn-out seconds, he nods. “I deserve that.”“You watched. You watched everyone hate me because you did, even though you were the only one who had any right to.”The anger hasn’t abated one drop, it’s as wide and fathomless as the ocean that surrounds them, and he has to work to shove it back down, stamping down words and hiding the waves that crash like cymbals in his ears, because he is not the victim—he knows better than to claim that—and he still doesn’t get to have his say. Everyone’s made that clear.“I know,” Sheppard says. It isn’t the sorry that Rodney deserves, the one he found a way to say and say sincerely, but it’s the closest to an apology he’ll ever get. “You aren’t supposed to forgive me.””What, so you can be a martyr? You don’t need me for that, you’ve managed perfectly fine on your own.” He’s never in his life said so much with so few words, but he’s known Sheppard for a long time now and the language he speaks isn’t that difficult to translate. When Sheppard turns, the light shows a half-naked, hairy man who isn’t attractive, isn’t deserving of the lust and attention all of Atlantis—even Rodney—pays him. He’s just a man, miserable and old and frustrated with his failures. “Heightmeyer suggested it,” he says, studying the stretch of white sheet between their bodies. “The, uh, bringing you stuff. I thought it was just a way for her to get the chocolate I had stashed in exchange for more coffee, but when I went there, the first time?” When Sheppard looks up, his eyes are haunted and they don’t waver at all. “You—you’d stopped filling up entire rooms.”Rodney doesn’t want to examine how or why he understands that and just takes it as given. “You’re a moron,” he repeats, waving a lazy hand, “but I have it on good authority that I’m socially retarded, so yes, fine, I accept that you’re sorry even if you won’t say it, and if you ever do something like that to me again, I’m not going to roll over and take it, next time.” Sheppard nods so quickly that it’s pathetic—on his part—reminding Rodney of a misbehaving puppy, grateful that it’s a hand that pets and not another smack from a rolled up newspaper. “And I’m not going to automatically be nice to people, just because you suddenly like me again.”That stops the nodding, Sheppard’s tentative smile sliding back into a more familiar frown. “Elizabeth—”“Had every right to yell at me, which she did. But she had no right to freeze me out like that, no one did except maybe Zelenka, and that was their choice no matter how many cues they took from you. You’ve attempted, in your half-assed way, to make amends and I’ll accept it. But I’m not forgiving anyone else for something only you did.”His throat feels raw from talking so much, the most he’s done outside of the labs since coming back from Doranda. He hates that they need to do this, both of them uncertain and frustrated and hating that it’s necessary, but it is and there aren’t any quips or sci-fi references that can mask this conversation. It occurs to Rodney that Sheppard’s probably given him more than he’s given any of his girlfriends, ever. What that means, for both of them, is something Rodney is not nearly introspective enough to determine and dreads the day Heightmeyer pieces it together. He's going to have to stop avoiding her soon, dammit.He doesn’t start when Sheppard rests a hand on Rodney’s shoulder, palm rough and warm and oddly gentle. Fingers rub against skin that’s gone goose-pimply in reaction. “Throwing me out?”Rodney shakes his head. His voice is gone again, and that’s a good thing because Sheppard is pushing him, turning him so that he’s on his side and Sheppard can slide under the covers, pressing up close. His arm is heavy over Rodney’s waist, his knees are hairy as they rest against the backs of Rodney's, prickly and itchy, and his dog-tags are cold against Rodney's skin. The idiosyncrasies are minor but Rodney can’t really relax without them: pod-Sheppard is not an unlikely scenario on Atlantis and he can’t go through this again. He can’t.“Are you going to stop?” he asks. He’s not sure where the question comes from, just that he doesn’t think he can sleep without the answer.“Stop what?” Sheppard’s breath stirs the fine hairs on the back of Rodney’s neck.Putting words to what Sheppard’s been doing the last several weeks is more than Rodney can manage. He flushes, hating himself for it, and mutters incoherently when a single finger brushes over hot, hot skin. “I hate you,” he says viciously.“Only ’cause you haven’t been eating regularly,” Sheppard says, suddenly relaxed and almost jovial as he lets his hand settle against Rodney’s belly, fingers splayed wide. “And you stay in the labs way past your bed time. Makes you a grumpy boy, you know, not taking care of yourself.”“No, really, hate.”“Go to sleep, Rodney,” Sheppard drawls.It’s not an answer and Rodney falls asleep wondering if he’s given in too easily, dreaming of wicked, wicked smirks and giant floating question marks, the dot underneath bearing a Wraith’s sharpened dentures, that chase him through never-ending halls curved in silvery blue. When he wakes up the next morning, Sheppard is still there, warm and solid and wrapped around him like he never wants to let go, and Rodney stops asking questions in his head.This is answer enough.