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Lacrimosa dies illa
Qua resurget ex favilla
Judicandus homo reus.Tearful that day,
On which will rise from ashes
Guilty man for judgement.~ The Lacrimosa Requiem.
Rodney muttered something, low and grumpy, on the general theme of mud and insects, and John tuned out. It was going to be a long enough day as it was without listening to Rodney whinging and whining about it as well. Not that the scientist wasn’t vaguely justified when it came to his complaints for once – the bugs were in plague proportions and were putting even calm-in-a-storm Teyla out of sorts – but, well, just because you had to walk around with your bandanna tied over your mouth and nose to avoid breathing the goddamn little menaces in didn’t mean that Rodney had to get all donning-of-sackcloth-and-ashes about it. For God’s sake, it wasn’t as though they weren’t generally surrounded by mud and bugs, or dust and bugs, or something else and bugs. John should know. He was the bug expert, after all, wasn’t he?
As though intuitively aware that John was ignoring him, the Canadian turned and gave him a sour look. The protective glasses he’d scrounged up from somewhere in the depths of his backpack (and, seriously, for a guy who objected so fiercely to lugging stuff around, Rodney seemed to carry an awful lot more than anyone else in his pack) made the expression even more comical than usual. John shrugged and smirked, although nobody else could see it, hidden, as it was, beneath the blue of his bandana, and drawled, “What, McKay?”
Rodney mumbled something snarkily under his breath that just might have been Czech swearwords, improbable as that seemed. John gave him a look (something across between another smirk and an attempted reprimand) and made a mental note to himself that the pair of scientists were probably spending waaaay too much time together, something which could surely only result in either universal domination by The Geek Species, or else general destruction. Not that that meant they didn’t argue all the time anymore – they did – non-stop – and it sent John barking mad – why, just before they’d left they’d had a massive blue in the gateroom about, so far as he’d been able to tell, the name of some asteroid or something that Doctor Lee back at the SGC had placed some random geeky bet on. The bickering alone proved they spent too much time in each other’s company actually, although, if truth be told, John had heard certain, fleeting, whispered rumours in the hallways that, when The Thing With Katie had ended Rodney had, surprisingly or otherwise, found comfort with—
No.
John actually shook his head as he thought the word and then realised, to his annoyance, that he must also have spoken it aloud, and with quite some spirit, because half of his team had turned around and now stood there peering at him, overtly curious in the context of their otherwise general gnat-induced boredom, their eyes mildly intrigued between the border of their bandannas and their hair. John rolled his own eyes right back at them. He drawled out another dry, “What?” and hefted the length of his P-90 against his hip, the motion of a man unsure of what to do with his hands but convinced that nobody else ought ever guess. He distrusted the knowing gleam that Teyla’s eyes cast upon him as she gazed with deliberate, pointed slowness, bordering of lethargy, from himself to Rodney. (A Rodney who was utterly oblivious, as per usual, of the events going on around him unless they directly related to him. Which, of course, they kind of did this time, but he didn’t need to know that, did he. Did he?). John just knew that beneath Teyla’s scarf, wound with a silky, earthen sheen around her face (for she wasn’t really a bandanna-wearing kind of woman, was she?) she was grinning like the cat that got the damned cream.
With a quiet blink, John realised that his traitorous eyes had somehow remained fixated upon Rodney. He shook his head to himself, then watched the scientist work for a moment or two, bent over the alien device that had led them all to this bug-infested planet in the first place (and which was supposed to be hypothetically useful, but Elizabeth was the kind of leader who wanted these things double-checked and triple-checked and why not, really, since, even with the bugs it was better than sitting staring at the mess-hall wall, wasn’t it?). John shrugged.
Rodney kept up a running dialogue of chatter and complaints as he worked. Or perhaps it was a monologue, since nobody else seemed to be listening, and the other scientists who were there to help him seemed mostly to simply nod obligingly when they agreed, or perhaps even if they didn’t. Part of John’s brain smirked at he watched the man work, enjoying the way Rodney’s hands danced with such effectiveness and certainty, belaying the complaints that came from his mouth. Still, that was only part of John’s brain, and the rest of it was cursing in a long-suffering kind of way. John repeated NO to himself, although this time he took care to keep it tucked away neatly inside the privacy of his own skull. Rodney McKay is a member of your team, he informed himself in his best, first-class Stern Voice Masquerading As An Authority Figure (although, seeing as how said voice rarely worked on anyone else who actually knew him – with the exception of in life-and-death situations, of which this currently wasn’t one, although it might relieve the boredom and the bugs and thus the Rodney-watching discussion if it were, not that he actually wanted to wish life-and-death situations on anyone – he failed to see why it would be any more effective on himself than it was on them). Rodney is a team mate and a colleague, and a bit of a royal pain in the ass sometimes if we have to get down to the gritty truth of it all. And even if he weren’t, you’re not starting anything here. You’re the ranking officer, damn it, and you’ve behaved yourself so far, so you can keep it like that. (Well. Mostly behaved. Almost mostly. Okay, so not really at all but he’s on your team and that makes all the difference, a whole world of difference, a great big galaxy of difference, really. Somehow, kinda, maybe.)
Besides, the whole Gay Thing—
John paused inwardly and realised that he was using both his father’s term and his father’s tone of voice to think it, and wished he could take soap and water to his brains. The whole conversation, he decided suddenly, could end right then and there. He turned, and let Teyla distract him with news about – well – he wasn’t entirely sure what the news was actually about, because he wasn’t paying all that much attention, but he just focussed his mind on the pleasant, reassuring, familiar sound of her voice, and he set his eyes and his brains to watching the perimeters of the area they’d secured themselves, and the world beyond it, dense and jungly and gnat-ridden, rather than let his eyes and thoughts linger any longer on the scientist working in front of him.
It wasn’t that John Sheppard was insecure about which way his inclinations wandered. He wasn’t. He was perfectly comfortable in his own skin and had no problems proving it off-duty and with anyone who wasn’t – well – with anyone who wasn’t Rodney, actually.
The shot came from nowhere. Well, no, of course it came from somewhere, unless it was a total miracle, like the immaculate conception of ammunition, but it may as well have been from nowhere because right at that second John was too busy yelling for everyone to get down now and you, and you, cover our backs to try and analyse it too hard. The couple of marines he’d had posted at the edges of the make-shift clearing were brutally effective at their job and John would normally have joined them but it was hard to get his head clear since the sudden, oblique silence had hit him. Not real silence, for there was the noise of people carrying on and gunfire and God only knows what else, but the crooked-sideways-silence that meant that Rodney was not mouthing off. With a worried grunt John found himself crouched at the scientist’s side and demanded, “You okay, McKay?”
“Yeah.” Rodney had a stunned look on his face and John didn’t really believe him that he was fine. He helped him sit back up against the ancient device in the sudden quiet of ceasefire (punctuated by a marine yelling that they’d got the fucker, sir, then begging forgiveness for his language, sorry, spoke out of line, sir). John nodded curtly, made motion with one hand for them to check the perimeter again, and then realised that his other hand was still wandering anxiously around Rodney’s face and shoulders as though to double-check for wounds of some kind.
“208 Lacrimosa,” said Rodney abruptly. “That’s its name.”
“That’s what’s name?”
“The Main belt asteroid. One of the largest of the Koronis asteroids, you know, the one that Lee and Zelenka have been arguing about back and forth across the universe. What we were fighting about in the gateroom. They kept arguing about what is was called, but that’s it. 208 Lacrimosa. I just remembered.”
“Oh. Right.” John paused, thumb against the pulse in Rodney’s neck, the reassuring beat of blood beneath the skin making him feel more alive himself. He watched, as the scientist’s attention seemed to wander back off asteroids and onto the world around him; watched as Rodney’s eyes widened slightly beneath the intensity of his own gaze. John wanted to speak, to say something, to explain I’m glad you’re alive and not dead, because if you were dead, it would be my fault, for having my thoughts on you instead of the job, see, and that would be ironic, really, don’t you think?
But John didn’t speak, and perhaps he never would, who knew, because at that moment the scientist scrambled to his feet, lurched forwards, and cried, “Teyla—”
She still had a smile on her face, when the scarf was lowered, but her eyes were those of a woman caught by surprise, startled, to find herself flung forth into the stars so unexpectedly.