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The first time John Sheppard flew an airplane, he wondered why he’d ever bothered touching his feet to solid earth, submitting to the gravity that tethered his being to rock and soil, tangled weeds and desert dunes.
It was the crush of a diving F-16 over the standard weight of walking, no contest. The force compressed him to mere essence, the very core of what was necessary about him, with such superfluity as feelings to be forced flat, air bubbles under shrinkwrap. It was a purification, baptism by jet fuel.
But that was before puddle jumpers and Stargates, before Pegasus. Before Rodney McKay.
~~~
“Major, think about where we are in the solar system.”
There, the spark that set the inferno.
Star maps burst across synapses, literal galaxies of possibility appearing in a span of seconds, bluelit holograms reflected in two sets of eyes barely acquainted and never more at home.
Rodney shone brightly, John burned.
But when death chased John and Rodney, relentless and cunning, as Wraith or infection, they found safety in one another.
~~~
The first time John kissed Rodney, he marveled at how it was exactly like flying and nothing like it at all. Exhilaration and adrenaline, but a stillness that anchored, a fixed point in time and space.
And after every too-near miss, every skin-of-their-teeth stumble back through the Gate, John Sheppard thought about where they were in the solar system — a gleaming star field clinging to Pegasus’ frayed edges — and kissed Rodney until they were a single point of light.