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“Hey, McKay. Welcome back,” John says as Rodney blinks up at him. He’s standing at the head of the infirmary bed. He keeps his eyes on Rodney’s face, away from his back, and smiles his best team-leader-everything’s-fine smile. Rodney stops blinking and starts to look worried.
“Oh my god,” he says, or tries to say but it comes out all creaky and dry.
John holds up a cup of ice. “Want some?” But Rodney’s distracted, his eyes darting all over the room, and John sees the moment he realizes that he’s in the infirmary and that he’s lying on his stomach and that – “Wha--? Oh my god, you fiends, you – my hands!” – he’s restrained against the metal bed rails. He starts twisting, and John’s back aches for him because Rodney doesn’t seem to get that he’s hurt as his grogginess turns into panic, and where the hell is Carson?
“Calm down, Rodney,” Carson says before he’s even made it past the white fake-privacy curtain. He presses his hands on Rodney’s shoulders, above the – above. If John stood up from his wall-slouch, he could almost touch them too, because it’s just – wow – except that he can’t even get within a foot of Rodney. The last time he tried, Carson smacked his hands. “I wasn’t going to do anything,” he protested, and when Carson stared at him, he changed “do anything” to “hurt him.” Carson sighed and said, “Colonel, we have no idea what will hurt him right now.”
Oh. “Right.” He held up his hands innocently.
“What do you remember?” Carson asks Rodney.
“Let me go,” Rodney says, almost calmly. which makes John tense up and wait for the break.
“Rodney, I can’t let you go until I know you’re not going to start pulling at your—” there’s a slight pause that maybe Rodney doesn’t hear, but John does – “back again.”
“My back? What’s wrong with my back? Why am I on my stomach? Ah-ah- ow! It hurts. You quack, what did you do to me?”
Carson fingers something in his lab coat pocket. “Don’t make me sedate you,” and he takes advantage of Rodney’s bluster to pop an ice chip in his mouth.
John decides now is a good time to retreat. Because he promised he’d tell Elizabeth the minute Rodney woke up. And he’s been in the infirmary for several hours and it’s about time to stretch his legs, so he’ll just walk up to her office rather than use the radio. He’s almost out the door when –
“You! Colonel! Stop right there. This is your fault, isn’t it?”
John swings around. “My fault? Wait just a second there, McKay. You were the one poking around in that jungle after I told you it wasn’t a good idea. You were the one who ignored me when I suggested we wait for some back-up and better scanners and containment methods. You were the one who kept saying ‘just five more minutes,’ and then you shrieked—”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Sheppard. I did not shriek.”
“McKay, I was there.”
Rodney gets a familiar mulish glare. “No. I remember nothing about this, but I can tell you that I did not shriek. A yell, yes, a shout of alarm, maybe even a manly scream. But not a shriek.”
“Fine.” John shrugs. “Ask Teyla and Ronon.”
“Fine,” Rodney echoes and it looks like he wants to cross his arms over his chest except, that’s right, he can’t since he’s still on his stomach and strapped to the bed, and John mouths “shriek” at him because he’s so goddamned relieved to see Rodney acting normally.
“Well,” Carson says with a smile. “I think we can get these restraints off you. You don’t seem too much the worse for wear.”
John’s eyebrows shoot up his forehead. He can’t help it. “Except for the—” He gestures.
“What’s with the flappy motions?” and “Ouch!” Rodney says, just as Elizabeth walks in. Ronon is on her heels.
“Ah,” Carson says. He looks at Elizabeth. She folds her hands and purses her lips.
“I’m not going to like this, am I,” Rodney says, not questioning, and John tilts his head and starts to say, “I don’t know, it’s kinda cool,” but Elizabeth glares at him in that glaring-not-glaring way she has, and he looks at the floor and doesn’t watch Rodney’s face turn red as the words start to pile up in his head, just waiting to explode out of his mouth, and finally Ronon beats them all to it.
“You got wings,” he tells him.
+++
A week later, Carson hasn’t figured out how to get them off. And they seem to be growing. Or something. It’s not that they’re getting bigger so much as, “Uhm, solidifying,” Carson says.
Rodney looks at him in horror. “You mean like one of those babies that never gets born and then calcifies inside the uterus?” He grabs Carson’s arms and shakes him, and looks at John. “I have a stone baby growing out of my back. You need to do something. Now!”
John decides if he lets Rodney see his grin he risks cold showers every morning, or at least a good fight with the city as Rodney systematically reprograms it to spout out only cold water, and probably salt water as well, until John sweet-talks Atlantis into heating it back up. Because it’s not funny. So he points at Carson.
Carson shakes Rodney off him. “Yes,” he says. “It’s exactly like a calcified baby, except that they’re wings and they’re not calcifying and they’re not a baby and they’re not in your uterus.”
“I don’t have a uterus,” Rodney says, looking at Carson like he’s stupid. Carson pinches the bridge of his nose, as if to stave off a headache.
“Oh my god, I don’t, do I? Did it give me one of those too?”
“Rodney, wings and babies. Do not mesh.” Carson tries again. He’s using that falsely patient voice that McKay provokes so easily.
“So,” John says, more to rescue himself and Carson both than because he needs to know. It’s kind of obvious.
“Yes, Colonel. No off-world missions for Rodney until we know more.”
“You can’t have Zelenka,” Rodney says immediately. “I need him to work on the wingbox with me.”
John shakes his head sadly. “I told you that you should have let me name it.”
Rodney snorts. “Who got stuck with the wings here? Yeah, me. Me! Now shoo. Go be military or something.”
And that’s when John – see, it’s not that he hasn’t thought of this so much as not let himself think of it because it’s just wrong and humans, well, humans don’t fly, not like that, and they’re going to get the wings off Rodney, and, and, but.
“Hey, Doc, you think he can fly?”
“Out,” Rodney practically shouts. But John’s barely down the hallway when he hears Rodney repeat his question to Carson. He’d stop and wait for the answer except that there’s something in Rodney’s voice, something that’s not quite his normal pitch of excitement-worry-reaction and sounds quiet, sort of like Rodney gets when he’s scared. Which makes it harder to walk away, but John does.
+++
After one mission, he decides that the team will stand down for another week or two. They took Moniades with them to fill the Rodney-hole. She’s not a bad scientist despite what Rodney insists and she’s not bad in the field either, but Teyla looked too serene and Ronon didn’t even bother to hide the way he watched her – “keeping an eye on the scientist, like we’re supposed to,” he says to John, who thinks wrong, wrong, wrong, that’s not it at all, and then he doesn’t let himself think any more about that.
Anyway, Lorne’s team is much better at some things. Like not insulting the locals. Or not getting kidnapped an hour into the mission. Or not ruining their food treaties by saying things along the lines of “Jesus was a great big cock-sucker” to a bunch of Crusaders, or that’s what it would have been if McKay’d said that on Earth say, oh, 800 years ago, and geez, sensitive. Or maybe John’s just used to it now.
Lorne’s team is also better at things like, you know, not sprouting wings.
However, they’re currently tied for number of times they’ve managed to not get culled when the Wraith surprise-attack. In terms of percentages, not sheer numbers, because if they just counted up the numbers, John’s team’s totally got it over on them because they’ve been around longer. Rodney’s got a chart.
Besides, Rodney’s going to get better soon. Carson’s going to figure something out; he always does. If he doesn’t, Rodney’s going to have to rip open lines in the backs of his grey-blue science shirts so that the wings can come out. They tend to fold up against his back, surprisingly tight, and he’s been sticking to heavier, more bulky clothing so that they’re at least partially covered. Mostly he wears his lab coat so that only the tips sweep low beyond the edge of the fabric. The fabric falls over them in odd twists. John doesn’t think he’s ever seen so much of McKay’s lab coat. But as the wings mature, become part of Rodney’s life, it’s harder to keep them hidden.
“I can’t,” Rodney says.
“Give it, McKay,” Ronon says. He’s actually got a needle and thread in hand. He shrugs at John. “Had to repair a lot of clothes over the years.”
Rodney winces, and John doesn’t see the problem. “We can get more uniforms from Earth. Bigger sizes.”
“That’s not it.” Rodney looks like he wants to say more, or maybe just huff at them, but he doesn’t.
+++
“Ouch,” Rodney says, but it’s more out of habit than actual pain, John thinks, because he doesn’t wince when Carson prods the wings through his clothing. Rodney’s already tucked them back away by the time John and Elizabeth get there.
“Definitely maturing.”
“Explain, please.” Elizabeth steps forward to look at the display screen of the scanning device Carson’s using.
“When they first formed, they were soft, even the bone under the membranes. Almost malleable,” Carson tells them. John knows this; he felt them bend back under his hands when he dragged Rodney away from the wingbox on MX8-640. “But they’re hardening, rather like a baby’s bones do as they harden from cartilage to bone. The membranes that form the webs of the wings are toughening as well. Several weeks ago, they were more gossamer, fragile.”
“Like insect wings,” Rodney says, and John thinks about iratus bugs and blue skin, and winces despite himself. He’ll take Rodney’s first comparison, calcified baby, over insect wings any day. Rodney looks at him.
“Aye. But they’re starting to feel and react more like a very thin, strong leather now,” Carson finishes. “The good news is that these changes make Rodney far less vulnerable to injury, either careless or intentional. Actually, if this continues, it’s possible that the wings could end up being used as a shield of sorts. Rodney could wrap them around his body to protect himself. I’m seeing the muscle on his chest and back increasing as well. It’s the chest muscles that actually do most of the supporting work for the wings. Rodney, I’m going to prepare some strengthening exercises with Dr. Segur for you to do.”
John looks up. “They go all the way around you?” He had no idea. Rodney’s kept them tucked close and, surprisingly, he doesn’t talk too much about them either, except to include them in his normal list of complaints. To be that big, though, enough to shield. That’s—
“Yes, yes,” Rodney says, and his mouth slants down. “I have more important things to do in the lab.”
After he leaves, John looks at Elizabeth. “So I’m thinking he’s not taking this as well as he seems to be.”
She raises her eyebrow at him. “Would you?”
Sure, yeah, John wants to say, because hey, maybe Rodney can fly now. Fly. How can Rodney not want to test that out? How is that even a problem? He gets the whole stuck on base thing and that sucks, but it looks like Carson will let him off-world soon if the wings keep doing whatever it is they’re doing. About time, too, because John couldn’t stand down the team indefinitely, and Ronon keeps making their replacement scientists nervous and Teyla looks so serene that her face is turning plastic-like. And John himself, well. He’s cool with it. Totally. As long as he gets his team, his whole team, back ASAP.
And he gets the whole staring thing that people had going on for a while with the wings, but that’s getting better now. Rodney’s not exactly shy about expressing his feelings on that subject to the offenders, and John might have said a few things to his men as well. He’s still not sure how it happened, but they listen to him. Some of them are even a bit afraid of him. “But in a good way, sir,” Lorne had said seven minutes into a horridly awkward conversation after mumbling something about the Genii and their attempted takeover. “They know that you’ll never give up on them or the city,” and John could have sworn that the wall – Atlantis – patted his ass. He jerked forward to attention as if he meant to and Lorne snapped to as well, and then John ruined the whole military thing by waving him off with one hand. Lorne grinned and said, “Sir.”
But Rodney. To fly. To swing into the sky with nothing between you and the air except light and the spray of the sea. Oh, god, to fly. That’s got to be worth something.
+++
A few days later, he finds Rodney in the mess with Zelenka. His tray clunks as he sets it on the table. “Hi.”
They barely glance at him. “Clearly not Asian,” Zelenka says.
“What numbskull even thought they might be? Do I look Asian?” Rodney waves his fork around. He sits on a stool these days so that his wings don’t run into the back of a chair.
“Simpson thought they might be.”
“Oh my god,” Rodney sputters. “I’m going to have to fire her. Immediately.” Zelenka nods with him.
“Er. Why?” John thinks he’s probably an idiot for jumping into this conversation, but sometimes these things can’t be helped.
This gets him the scientists’ attention. He leans back in his chair, striving to look as though under their gaze he doesn’t feel like an experiment gone wrong, ready to be tossed out.
“Him too.” Zelenka shakes his head sadly. “He does have an excuse, though. Is military.”
“Hey.”
“That’s no excuse.” Rodney steals the pudding from John’s tray. “He’s almost not an idiot. He can do math. Therefore, no excuse.”
“‘He’s’ right here,” John says mildly. He thinks Rodney’s shirt is moving on his back just a little. He wonders if the wings move like his hands do when he gets agitated. “So?”
Rodney smacks the spoon against his lips as he licks away pudding. John never noticed before, but they’re a bit chapped, aren’t they. “Simpson obviously doesn’t belong in my department if she doesn’t know that Asian dragons almost never have wings.”
“Oh, obviously,” John says, but he’s smart enough to be quiet.
Zelenka’s nodding again. “They fly because of magic, not their wings. Although it is true that European dragons also use magic to fly because if you look at the physiology of their wings, they tend not to be strong enough to actually support the body. They have a humerus and a radius – these are like the arm – and then the phalanges, the—”
“Yeah, fingers, I got it,” because John’s not totally stupid. Even Rodney admits that he’s almost not an idiot.
“Not to mention that Asian dragons are often scaly, and my wings are clearly not scaly.”
“Which Simpson should know,” Zelenka says.
“Because how can you call yourself a geek and not?” Rodney appears to be taking this as a personal affront.
“Does she call herself a geek?” John bites the inside of his lip in order to keep a straight face. He’s got to find a way to take a closer look at Rodney’s wings.
Rodney and Zelenka look at each other and then at him. Rodney’s eye is twitching. “Hello?”
“She is scientist, Colonel,” and Zelenka’s agitated enough that he actually forgets the article, and that’s how John knows that Radek said that because Rodney said the same thing at the same time, only he remembered the “a” and said, “She’s a scientist!”
“Right,” John says, lengthening the word.
“Although it’s true, when the wings were new, they were a bit shimmery, like scales. Perhaps she had a reason to think—”
“Radek.” Rodney’s scandalized glare cuts him off.
“Hum. Yes, she should be ashamed of herself. But she is not the only one. Miko thought perhaps they were like Mesoamerican dragon wings. Even though they are not feathered.”
“Pathetic. That’s pathetic. What’s wrong with you people? Canadian here. European ancestry. Kind of obvious.” Rodney points at himself.
John blinks. There doesn’t seem to be a question here that Rodney’s wings are dragon-like, rather than insect or bird or, or, something else. Whatever else has wings. Bats. “Not bats?” he asks.
“Please,” and if John were a lesser man, he might wilt under McKay’s scorn. There’s something wrong here, though, something the scientists are missing and he just can’t put his finger on it, and— “Uh, guys? Dragons aren’t real. So McKay can’t have dragon wings. Also? Not on Earth here. So all those nonexistent Earth dragons are even more nonexistent here.”
There’s silence. Then: “I do not understand what he means,” says Zelenka.
Rodney sighs. “I’m firing you too, Colonel.”
“You can’t fire me.” But John’s protest is buried under Rodney’s words as he turns and says, “And you! Was my whole department talking about me behind my back?”
“Certainly.” Zelenka is cheerful. “You were in the infirmary. But we always talk about you behind your back.”
“You people need more work.” There’s a gleam kindling in Rodney’s eyes. Zelenka pushes back his chair and grabs his tray in a hurry. “Must go!”
But John doesn’t care about what kind of wings Rodney has. He wants to know when the whole science team, or at least the physics people, got to see Rodney’s wings. Why they got to see them and he didn’t. What color they are and what they feel like, and if Rodney can fly with them. He opens his mouth to ask if Rodney will show them to him and then snaps it shut because he realizes that that’s not what was going to come out at all. More like he was going to say, “Why did you show them and not me?” and when he looked in the mirror this morning as he brushed his teeth, he definitely saw a 40-year old man there so when did he become a teenage girl?
“Right,” he says to himself and, “Got reports to do,” to Rodney, which is seriously not smooth because Rodney knows he hates writing reports.
+++
“You should try flying with those things, McKay.”
“I don’t want to.”
“But it would be so cool.” As if to emphasize his point, the Ancient trinket he’s fiddling with lights up and squeaks.
“Jesus. Give me that. You’re such a child.” Rodney swipes the gadget back and his eyes meet John’s as he does, and his mouth quirks. It’s kind of funny that Rodney smiles the same way he frowns sometimes, and once John heard Ford say that he couldn’t always tell if McKay was smiling or frowning. Which John doesn’t get because it’s clear – the left side of his mouth tips down if he’s frowning, and the right side tilts up if he’s smiling, and the left side tips down just a bit more than the right goes up. And if he’s smiling broadly enough so that some of his teeth show, more show on the right side than the left because of the way his lips move.
This is at least the fifth time they’ve had this conversation and it always goes something like this:
John: Flying is cool.
Rodney: In a jumper, maybe. With inertial dampeners. And a navigation system.
John: And yet somehow you still manage to fly in anything but a straight line.
Rodney: My point exactly.
John: But flying is cool! Don’t you want to fly?
Rodney: No.
John: Hey, are you okay? You’re being awfully quiet.
Rodney: Watch where you point that thing! (And then he ducks)
John: What thing? (And he looks at whatever Ancient thing he’s holding, usually just before it burbles something at them and starts to shake or build a charge or, once, shoot out a pulse that turned the wall purple, and then John thinks, “Off, off, OFF.”)
You know what? (he says, looking at the gadget of the day.) We should test out how much your wings can shield you.
Rodney: Oh, sure, because I love being beat up. Like I’m not aching from Ronon’s sadistic marathon that Carson demands. Because I have nothing better to do. What are you people looking at? (He scowls around the lab, and everyone becomes very busy at their stations.)
John: It’s called a run. Jogging. Jeesh. Okay, so just think about it. Flying is – it’s like nothing else. In the world. I’ll help you. (And he will, and not just because he really, really wants to see those wings. He’s a nice guy that way.)
But today John has a new argument. “Carson says that as soon as we know what your wings are capable of, or, actually, not capable of, you can come back on the team.”
Rodney pauses. “I don’t need to fly in order to go off-world, Colonel. I seem to remember just walking works fine.”
John raises an eyebrow. When he was in high school, he’d taught himself how to do that. It pissed off his dad. Also, the girls loved it. Now it makes Rodney say, “Fine, or running,” and then John gets to nod and add, “For our lives.
“Don’t you miss it?”
Rodney types furiously into his laptop. He’s got marker on his hands from the whiteboard. “Uh, no.”
“Aww, Rodney,” which is the big guns now, because John almost never calls Rodney by his first name. He tried not to think of him as such either, but that was clearly a mission that was going to kick his ass so he gave in gracefully to himself while he sat by Rodney in the infirmary and waited for him to wake up on, like, their first week in Atlantis after the guy walked into an energy-sucking cloud. That was when John admitted to himself that there was something seriously weird about the Pegasus galaxy. Space vampires, life-draining black clouds, empty ZPMs, all demanding energy that John just doesn’t have to give them. As much as he’d like to give the used-up ZPMs more juice. Sometimes he thinks that Rodney will manage to do it, not because he’s that smart – even if maybe he is, and John’s not saying if that’s the case – but because Rodney just gives and gives, and then demands drugs from Carson and gives some more.
And if John takes, takes Rodney’s name for his own thoughts, then that’s just a little thing.
Besides, Teyla’s Teyla and Ronon’s Ronon, and it’s a team deal. John always nods definitively to himself when he thinks this.
Rodney’s wings twitch under his shirt. “Hah!” says John. “You do miss it! Admit it, you want to get back off-world.”
“Traitors,” Rodney says.
“It’s just not the same without you.” John says it sweetly, smarmy too, with wide eyes, and Rodney flips him off behind his computer screen where only he and John can see it.
+++
Truth is that John can’t make Rodney do anything he doesn’t want to do. Elizabeth can, but John’s never quite figured out how. So when Rodney shows up in the gym a week later during John’s sparring session with Teyla – just as she lands a solid blow to his thigh and he clenches his teeth and nearly bites his tongue – Rodney’s there because he wants to be. Not wants to be in the gym, of course, but wants to go on missions again.
When she’s done sparring with John, Teyla smiles at Rodney and says, “I am very glad to have you back, Rodney.”
“But I haven’t done anything yet.”
“You will.”
“All right,” John says a beat later. “Carson knows what we’re going to do, and I’ve talked to him and Dr. Segur about what we might be able to expect from the wings.”
“Like Segur knows what he’s talking about. The man specializes in birds,” Rodney grumbles. “I am not a bird.”
“Yes, we know. You’re a dragon.” John grins at him, sudden and bright because the thought of Rodney-dragon is kind of appropriate in a funny way, and watches Rodney blink.
“Hah.”
“Okay, take off your lab coat so we can get started. We’re just going to try positioning the wings, see where they reach, and what kinds of reflexes they’ve got built in when touched.”
“You mean attacked.”
“Naw.” John shrugs. “Yeah, maybe.”
“We will be gentle,” Teyla assures him.
Maybe it’s the late afternoon sun falling in through the high windows, or maybe it’s just that John’s never seen the wings before, not since that first day, but when Rodney takes off some of his layers and shifts his shoulders a bit and eases the wings out through the long slits in the back of his blue shirt, they glow. John starts and very deliberately crosses his arms over his chest. His fingers begin to itch. They’re fucking glowing, and it’s – it’s –
“Oh,” Teyla says. “They are beautiful.”
Rodney squirms a bit and then smiles. It’s almost shy, but McKay doesn’t do shy. Right? Suddenly what John knows seems wrong, or not wrong, but off-kilter, like something’s shifted on him and he wants to reach forward, steady himself on those wings. Because they’re big, long and wide, and they’re not really glowing. They pick up orange from the walls, and the sunlight bounces off them, a pearly warm shade that’s not at all white and not grey and not orange either, no matter what it looks like. They look solid, like Rodney, except that wings aren’t solid by nature, even if they’re meant to lift their bearers up off the earth and let them fly, and “You know,” John says, “maybe this isn’t the greatest idea.”
It’s absolutely the wrong thing to say. “What? Oh, no, you don’t get to do this. Not now, not after you’ve nagged me for weeks. We are going to test out my wings and we’re going to do it today. And then I’m going to learn how to fly because I talked to Carson and Segur, and they think the wings will hold me up, especially after I learn how to use them and build up their strength. This isn’t up to you anymore, Colonel, and—”
Rodney keeps going, but John’s looking at Teyla and she’s looking back, and he has to look away because she sees too much, things even John doesn’t see. Or that maybe he just won’t let himself. He doesn’t know where to look, though, because, god, he can’t look at those wings. So he says, “I don’t nag,” because it’s the only safe thing he can latch onto.
“Teyla. Why don’t you try a few things out?” John thinks it’s better if she takes over.
She gives him another look and this time he forces himself to hold her gaze. He’s not sure if he can touch Rodney’s wings. He just wanted to see them, that was all, and to know if Rodney could fly, and it wasn’t supposed to be like this. It’s that he does want to touch them, so badly, which is new because he doesn’t want to touch Rodney. It’s just his wings. Because they’re wings.
John learned early not to want anything too much. Invariably, he wouldn’t get it and that just hurt more. So the only thing he ever really let himself want was to fly, because there were some things, or really, just one thing, that he couldn’t manage to shut down his desire for completely.
Which, oh, of course, explains this, because Rodney’s wings are all about flying and it’s entirely normal for John to want that. John feels a bit better as he realizes this; some of that weird rush of urgency fades away.
Teyla works with Rodney for 45 minutes, until Rodney is drooping. By the time she stops, he’s managed to draw them about himself fast enough to block four of her blows and he’s no longer flinching when she touches them. “Sorry,” he’d said. “It’s just that no one but me and Carson and his ducklings have ever touched them.”
“McKay,” John drawls from against the wall where he’s watching and giving him instructions. “You’ve been sneaking episodes of House again from Marshall, haven’t you.”
“Like you haven’t been.” Rodney is panting.
“Sure, but I’m not the one who thinks medicine is voodoo.”
Teyla says, “May I?” and strokes her finger over the tip of his left wing when he nods. John clenches his hands into fists behind his back. Rodney shivers a bit, but nothing more. “It’s not really that much different from you touching my arm or hand. Except that it’s this whole other part of my body that didn’t used to exist.”
John overheard some of the biologists speculating among themselves in the mess one day that the wings would be erogenous zones. Which apparently had little to no basis in animal physiology, as several were quick to point out, but others really liked the idea and didn’t give it up so quickly. “This is McKay we’re talking about, people,” O’Reardon had said, and the table got quiet for a few minutes before Dr. Kotov said, “But still, wings,” and one of the women sighed. That was when John got out of there.
“Right, McKay,” he says. “Let’s take you to Carson so he can check you out.”
“I feel fine. No need.”
“Doctor’s orders.” John busies himself picking up some of their equipment from the floor while Rodney tucks his wings back inside his shirt. That’s the plan, at least.
There are some noises and then Rodney says, “Uhm.” And there it is again, that hint of shyness, and John doesn’t know what to do with it. “They don’t want to go back in.”
“What do you usually do?” Teyla asks.
“It’s easier to fold them up and just slide the shirt on over them. But since they’re out now, it’s too hard to get the shirt off to do that. I can usually get them back into place pretty well.”
“You are tired. They are not used to being worked as we have just forced them to. This will get easier, Dr. McKay.” Teyla smiles apologetically. “I am afraid I have a meeting I must attend. John will assist you.”
John stares at her. The thing about Teyla is that it’s hard to know when she’s lying, and mostly she doesn’t. But right now? Totally lying. Because the radio chirps in her ear, oh-so-conveniently, and John knows that no one ever has timing that good. Never. He’s been in at least 308 situations in the last six months where he’s wished for someone to call him at just the right moment, and it never happens.
“Sheppard,” Rodney says impatiently. “We don’t have all day. Some of us have work to do,” and John thinks he must have imagined that split second of shyness earlier.
“Fine, coming.”
It’s John who flinches the first time he touches the wings, not Rodney, and they feel nothing and everything like he thought they would. Buttery leather, soft and firm, and he wants to trace the line of thin bone that holds them together like a wire, to press his palm into their webs between the bones, to run his fingers along their edge. He wants to know if Rodney wraps them around himself, maybe when he sleeps, and what they feel like against his skin. If they’re warm or cool, and if they make water pool on their surface like drops of mercury.
It takes forever for him to get them back under Rodney’s shirt.
+++
Carson makes them wait a day before trying again – “It’s not the wings I’m concerned about, but the back and chest muscles being strained” – yet within a week, Rodney’s back on the team, stepping through the gate. Teyla’s face becomes mobile again, as much as it ever does when she’s on guard, and Ronon stops watching. Or rather, he keeps watching, but now it’s different, better, good. John – John’s just happy to have his team back together. He tilts his face up to the twin suns, squints under his dark glasses, and watches a hawk-like creature glide across the sky.
+++
Teyla and Ronon come up with a shirt solution. Ronon designs something to be made out of Athosian leather that laces up under each arm so that it can be lifted over the head and fitted around the base of the wings. Rodney looks at it, says, “Kind of girly,” and, “Oh, right, but thank you?” and, “See, it’s just that—”
“You need only wear it when working with the wings. You may continue to wear your normal clothes otherwise,” says Teyla.
Rodney’s mouth turns down. “I know. But if I start changing my clothes, that means it’s. It’s. I mean, it was bad enough when I had to rip up my shirts, not that I cared about the shirts themselves, but at least they were mine. From before. But if I put this on, it’s new and it’s from after, and maybe I’ll never get back to. To.” He stops.
Teyla places her hands on his shoulders and leans forward. She waits for him to come to her, for his forehead to press against hers. He pauses, and then gives in.
John thinks there’s a conversation going on here that he’s missing.
+++
The first time Rodney tries to fly he doesn’t get off the ground. In fact, he ends up closer to the ground than ever, on hands and knees, and this is why it’s only John and Ronon and Teyla there to see this, because where else would they be, and Carson.
Ronon found a long, wide, roofless space out on one of the piers. At first they started lining the floor with mattresses. Then Zelenka came up with some weird bouncy, foamy substance from one of the chemists, which he gave to John, not Rodney, and they all decided not to tell Rodney exactly where it came from. John wouldn’t want people talking about him trying to fly, either. Luckily, Rodney’s distracted enough with his concerns for his safety that he lets it go, mostly, after he frowns.
“You need to start from high up.”
Rodney’s eyes widen. “Not too high.”
“Yeah, but at least kind of. Like starting from the edge of a cliff. When animals learn how to fly, they don’t just take off from the ground. It’s easier to catch the current of the air.”
“Why, thank you, Colonel. I believe I do understand the concept of flight. Physicist, here.”
“Higher up, bigger fall. Harder fall.”
John and Rodney both glare at Ronon.
“Helpful,” John mutters.
Ronon shrugs. “True.”
“Not if he can fly.” John resists the urge to say “duh” at Ronon. Because that would just be immature. Not worthy of the military commander of Atlantis.
“Maybe I can’t fly, though. We don’t know. My body mass is way over the normal ratio for birds and insects. If I were meant to fly, my bones would have hollowed out, become more spongy.”
Carson sighs. “Rodney.” To which John adds, “You have wings. Wings.” And Rodney just stares at him and says, “Duh.”
John laughs. He can’t help it, even though he hates his laugh.
“Oh, god, can we just stop now?”
It’s Teyla who finally gets Rodney up on the perch they’ve made him after he’s bounced around on the foamy-trampoline stuff one last time. He stands there, bare toes curled over the edge, like a child peering over the tip of his first diving board at the neighborhood pool, and just when John thinks he’s not going to do it, he screws up his face and jumps.
“Keep your eyes open, McKay!” John shouts, a second too late. Beside him, Carson makes a pained sound.
Rodney looks up at them from his graceless sprawl on the foam. He blinks and sounds a little stunned. “I think I forgot to use my wings.”
“Are you all right, Dr. McKay?” Teyla offers him a hand up.
“No. I bet I skinned my knees. Through my kneepads.” He’s wearing shorts in an effort to cut down on wind resistance against his body and bulky clothes. “Hah! See? Red. Maybe even bleeding. It’s obviously trying to. I’m going to be black and blue tomorrow. I can’t believe I let you talk me into this. Whose idiotic idea was this? Oh, that’s right, Lieutenant-Colonel Flying-Is-Cool.”
When Rodney pauses for breath, John grins and says, “Ready to try again?” and McKay looks like he’s going to slug him, but his shoulders slump a bit and he says, “I have very delicate skin, you know.”
“Oh, we know,” John assures him. Rodney shoots him a dirty look and climbs back up on the platform. He hesitates longer this time, maybe because he has a better notion of what’s coming.
It gets worse before it gets better. Rodney’s face turns more and more red, from exertion, from embarrassment, perhaps. He’s not exactly the most physical kind of guy under the best of circumstances, and probably having four people standing around staring at his every motion isn’t helping. “Cerebral,” he likes to say about himself, which John thinks is somewhat misleading. Because if there’s anyone who knows the city, who somehow just intuits what she needs, it’s Rodney. Well, and John too, but that’s different. Sometimes the city’s in his dreams, cool and gleaming, like a thousand hands running over his body. He has arched up under her touch and just as quickly run from it, waking with a harsh breath, because there are things she understands about him, things that are too much, too much.
Yet the more Rodney stumbles and falls and crashes, the more determined he becomes. Carson’s telling him to stop, giving him fifteen more minutes, and saying, “Rodney, come on, don’t kill yourself today, you can try again tomorrow,” and Rodney’s ignoring him. John decides he’s going to butt in and cut McKay off because this really is starting to look painful, and he’s learned that the less Rodney complains, the more it actually hurts, and Rodney stopped complaining half an hour ago. John actually has to look away several times, look away from Rodney’s narrowed eyes and thin lips, from that ridiculous helmet that he insisted on, away from those grey, grey wings picking up the sheen of the city, and that’s why he misses it, the first time Rodney flies.
Teyla exhales, and John feels like he’s been socked in the gut, and Rodney bounces up from the foam, tired and laughing, and Ronon claps him on the shoulder. He stumbles, and John grips his elbow to steady him, to steady himself, because he missed it, Rodney’s first airborne moment, god. Rodney glances at him, quick, questioning – John never touches him, anyone, not if he can help it, but especially not Rodney – and then lets it go because he’s too excited.
“Did you see? Did you see me?” he asks over and over. “I flew! Only for a few seconds, but flying!”
Teyla smiles indulgently. “Yes, we all saw, Rodney,” and John’s belly clenches.
“You were right, Colonel,” Rodney says, turning. He’s always magnanimous in victory. “Flying is cool.”
The tip of his wing brushes John’s bare arm.
+++
After that, Rodney is better with his wings. Not just at using them to protect himself – “You know,” he never fails to point out, “if someone shoots my wing, it will hurt just as much as shooting my arm,” to which Teyla or Ronon or John will respond that it’s less damaging to hurt a wing than his head and that usually works – but also at just living with them. He still wears his white lab coat more often than not, but it’s less now.
+++
Rodney flies better in the morning, after he’s had some food and too many cups of coffee, before the day tires him, them all, out. John likes to run in the mornings anyway, so he begins to find McKay before he can make it to the lab and drags him out to the pier and goes through stretches with him before launching Rodney into the air. He stands below and watches. Soon, Rodney will be ready for a bigger space. Over the ocean.
John stands with his arms crossed a lot these days, because he’s afraid that otherwise he might try to reach up to Rodney and, he doesn’t even know. Not ground him or keep him on the city’s firmness. Touch him? Do something else? Mere touch barely seems enough sometimes, and he doesn’t even allow himself that.
When it’s early, the sun is large, low on the horizon above the sea, pink and red, and Rodney’s wings glint like the belly of a conch, white-sheen and coral-warm. He can stay up for whole minutes now, wings flapping, then gliding steadily, and he curves in an easy semicircle to touch down. Always with a smile, right corner of mouth tilted up.
John smiles back, light, automatic, surface-y, and then runs with Ronon, runs until he feels as though he’s falling, like Rodney used to when he tried to fly. John knows that even if he had wings, maybe they wouldn’t be able to keep him up because sometimes he thinks he does have wings, stillborn, calcified inside him, and he didn’t know it until McKay’s unfurled.
+++
Rodney doesn’t fly at night. John knows this; it’s impossible. Well, not impossible because this is Rodney and he could easily rig some lights up, but he wouldn’t. First of all, that would be a waste of energy and even though it’s not as bad as it could be, as it has been, they still don’t have so much that Rodney’s going to light up the sky. Second, Rodney? Flying at night? No way that’s going to happen. Too many things could go wrong.
This is how John knows that the person he sees soaring, swooping, skating on the currents of air Atlantis blows between her tall spires isn’t Rodney. There are these little gusts of wind, less contrary and much warmer than those over the ocean, that push through the uneven planes of the city. Low over her edges, cooler by the water, tangling and laughing with the spray of the waves that reach up for a salty kiss; rising over the living quarters nearer the center; spiraling up with indolent twists around the towers, carefree with the soft nightlight glow of the sleeping city.
John’s wings are dark with night, dusted with star-sparkle, because just like Rodney’s, they’re eager to coat themselves in whatever surrounds them. Because in the dark, John steals Rodney’s wings and flies with them. He goes far, out over the wide sea, somersaulting and wheeling until Atlantis is only a firefly dancing on top of the ocean swells, and when John wakes up in his bed, he’s salty with sea spray that is sweat.
The city shifts around him.
+++
“You don’t have to come with me, you know. I’m not going to fall.” Rodney loosens the laces on his leather fly-shirt and stretches his wings.
John shrugs. “Sure.” But it’s part of his routine, and John actually likes routine. He tries not to admit it since he’s got a lazy flyboy image to maintain. Yet military precision isn’t so bad, not always.
“Seriously, Colonel. Not that I don’t appreciate it, but I know you have better things to do than stand here while I fly. I’ll radio if I need any help.”
It’s not that John’s reluctant to leave. It’s just that he’s – it’s a big step, you know? Maybe I like watching you, he wants to say to Rodney, except of course John doesn’t really want to say anything like that. That’s not the kind of thing John says to anyone, especially when there’s room for it to be misinterpreted. The only time it’s safe to say something like that is in the middle of sex, when it clearly means, ‘you’re hot, take off your clothes and let me see you, touch you, so I can get us both off.’
“Don’t forget to stretch properly,” he says. “And pay attention to your own limits. Don’t stay out too long. And don’t go too far out over the water in case you get tired and can’t make it back. Because I don’t want to have to come rescue you in a jumper,” he finishes lamely, and, yeah, he feels pretty silly right now.
Rodney rolls his eyes, although there’s a grin on his face too. “You’re worse than my sister used to be,” which means ‘You’re worse than my mother never was,’ but even though somehow John knows things like this, they don’t talk about them. Rodney backs up a few steps and runs off the edge of the pier, and there’s a dip and then he’s up, wings spreading wide. They welcome the morning blue of the sea and sky, bright, bright, and John shields his eyes and makes himself walk away.
+++
He goes to the infirmary to find Carson. “How we doing on finding a solution to McKay’s wings?”
“What?” Carson says, startled, which John thinks can’t be a good sign.
“Getting rid of McKay’s wings?”
“Ah. Not so good. We concentrated on it for about a month, and then got a bit sidetracked. I’m just getting back to it now.”
“But have you got anything, any ideas?” Because three months ago when this happened, Carson had been pretty morose about the prospects of finding something.
“Short of cutting them off surgically, which is a bad idea? No. Zelenka finally managed to convince Rodney to let him take the wingbox apart. But there doesn’t seem to any sort of reverse function. Presumably if you used it, you were pretty sure you wanted what you got.”
Like so many other things around here, John thinks. It would really help if these sorts of things came with better warnings. He can’t figure out why there wasn’t an Ancient FCC or FDA. Maybe there was. He doesn’t think so, though. Zelenka hadn’t wanted to disassemble the wingbox without Rodney’s okay, not because Rodney’s the head of science but because they’re Rodney’s wings.
“The odd thing is,” Carson continues, “that the wingbox isn’t really a wingbox. Or a wingbox only. Zelenka’s not sure, but it seems to have different effects on different people.”
Which just makes John’s morning even better. It figures that it would give Rodney, of all people, wings, of all things.
Carson sticks a label on the samples he’s working with and looks up. He considers John. “Frankly, I’m a bit surprised to hear you ask about it.”
“Why’s that?”
“You’re the only one who hasn’t. Elizabeth still asks for weekly updates and information on any breakthroughs, not that there’ve been any. Rodney, oh, Rodney.” Carson laughs. “He was in here every day for two months driving us mad. He’s better about it now. Hasn’t been around for a while.”
John’s not sure he likes that. He’s just concerned about Rodney, that’s all. The wings have got to go at some point. They were cool at first, something new, fun to do things with, like, yes, fly. Enough is enough, though, and man was not meant to have wings. They could lead to long-term damage that they don’t know about now, or carelessness in the field. John sees how Rodney’s starting to use them to shield himself from small objects. They’re like flesh, easily pierced by bullet or arrow, but lesser things bounce off them harmlessly. Once, when they got caught in a rainstorm, Rodney wrapped them over his head and let the rain slide off them while he stayed dry. He tried to shelter the rest of the team, but John knew better than to get too close to those wings, within a dangerous fingerspan of them. Since John wouldn’t do it, neither would Ronon, and finally Teyla looked at them, said, “Men,” in a tone that everyone knew to leave alone, and stepped gracefully into the cover of Rodney’s broad wings.
“Okay, Doc,” he says. “Keep at it.”
“Colonel.” Carson’s voice stops him at the door. “They might be permanent.”
+++
When things blow themselves to hell off-world and try to take John’s team with them, it happens quickly. This time is no exception.
“I didn’t do it!” McKay shouts as he dodges to avoid some kind of pellet. The people of P9R-452 have rudimentary firearms, effective enough to kill, unfortunately, along with a variety of other weapons.
“I know, McKay,” John yells back. “We saw the Wraith dart fly by. Behind you! We’re headed for the gate.” He jerks his head at Teyla and she’s got Rodney’s back. They’re three klicks from the gate with no jumper, and the terrain isn’t optimal. It’s rough and mostly open, and fuck, there’d better not be a cruiser or something worse up there hovering, waiting to cull.
“McKay,” he says into the radio. “Fly up to the gate, low, we’ll cover you if you stay close to the ground until you’re out of range. Get to Atlantis and send a jumper back with some marines.”
“Not enough time, Colonel,” Rodney says as they run and slip behind the brown bushes that are the only plants around. “By the time they assemble and get here, you’ll be at the gate or shot because these bushes are useless cover.”
Ronon grunts in agreement. John scowls and shoots down one of their attackers. He aims for the shoulder, enough to stop the man, not enough to kill. He doesn’t want to kill these people, damn it. Not over the Wraith.
“Fine,” he says. Rodney’s right. “Then get to the gate and be ready to dial when you see us. We’ll be behind you.” At least he can make sure Rodney makes it home. He’d send him through now and have him leave the gate open, but he can’t, not with the threat of Wraith up there. As long as Rodney gets to the gate unharmed, though, he can always hop through if he needs to.
“You need me here, Colonel,” Rodney says as he takes down a man, flinching, still holding his ground. John just catches it from the corner of his eye but he’s busy raking the perimeter with gunfire.
“I need to not be worrying about you, McKay. Get your ass out of here. That’s an order.”
Rodney snarls something and waits a beat longer, and then takes off, low and straight in a way that no jumper’s ever flown for Rodney but just like they fly for John. A cry goes up from their pursuers. Their surprise gives Rodney enough time to out-distance their firearms, and John, Ronon, and Teyla take off at a run, twisting and firing as they go. Rodney’s a speck in the distance, then gone.
When they’ve gone about two kilometers, the locals fade away. John slows to a brisk jog to let them catch their breath and taps his radio. “McKay, what’s your position.” There’s no response except crackle. “Teyla,” he says, calmly. “Can you get McKay?”
“Rodney?” she says. “Dr. McKay, please respond.”
She barely manages to shake her head at John before he’s off running again, running faster than he knew he could, and Ronon and Teyla are with him, and his heart is stuttering, tripping in a rhythm that pounds out “Rodney, please,” on endless repeat.
Ronon gets to the gate first with the pulse of his gun. Set to kill now, John notes with some detached part of his brain as he sees Rodney, wings bloody, sprawled on the ground, tangled with a still man, and he whirls at a noise behind him, shoots for the heart, once, twice, two down, and that’s it. Rodney got the rest.
“Gate ambush,” Teyla says, leaning over Rodney. He groans and says something. Teyla hushes him. “Dial the gate, John. He is not badly injured, I think.” But this doesn’t get a rise out of Rodney, and that worries John more.
They carry him through the gate. Teyla bends under him and cradles his wings so they don’t drag on the ground. Carson’s waiting for them on the other side, and they hold Rodney while he does a quick check of Rodney’s chest and belly, to make sure that he can lie on his stomach, and when he nods, they set him on the stretcher.
Rodney’s wings are red, red, bright and bold, no pearly sheen to them, but glittering sharp under the city’s lights, more eye-catching than Elizabeth’s command shirt.
+++
John pokes his head into the infirmary later. He wants to wait until Rodney’s asleep, but doesn’t because that would be cowardly. He finds him sitting up in bed eating pudding. His wings are stretched out on either side of the pillows propping him up. They look sanitized like the infirmary, a bit pale.
“Hi,” John says. He thinks about pulling around a chair and straddling it. He doesn’t. He’s not going to stay that long, and besides, there’s something about sitting down that makes it harder to talk to Rodney sometimes. Even when he’s laid up in a sickbed. John needs every advantage he can get.
“How’s it going?” He already knows. Carson told them that most of the blood wasn’t Rodney’s, that Rodney has a few strained wing muscles and tendons which are going to mean no flying for a while as they heal, that he had to put in five stitches in the lower right wing, and that the nine power bars Rodney had crammed into his wing-modified Tac vest probably saved him a chest wound.
“Power bars?” Elizabeth said, and Carson laugh-sighed. “Aye. Obviously they wouldn’t stand up to any real weapon, but this was akin to a BB gun.” John didn’t laugh when he heard this because he wasn’t sure how long it would take him to stop if he started, but he’d made a mental note to bust Rodney’s chops about it later.
Rodney’s watching him. He finishes his pudding. “Do you have something to say to me, Colonel? Because it looks like you do. And I have something to say to you, and I think I should talk first because I know what you’re about to say and it’s stupid, so you can just stop thinking it. I’ll save you the trouble of even having to say it, because I’m nice like that.” He pauses, and John blinks, once. “Well, no, I’m not, and quite frankly, idiots deserve to be told when they’re doing their idiot thing, as a public service really, but you? Were not an idiot today. Mostly.”
“I nearly got you killed today, McKay.”
Rodney waves his hand. “Nearly being the key word. Did you know they were waiting for us at the gate? Was there any indication that they would do that? Any hint that they were going to attack us once that dart came through? Any hint that the dart was going to show up at all? Uh, no.” The last comes out sing-songy, annoying.
“Not the point,” John grits out. His eyes feel tired. Too much brightness today, so he rests them on Rodney’s agitated wings because they’re cool white-grey, and it’s probably not good for them to be fluttering around right now. “I should have kept the team together.”
In what must be McKay’s greatest feat of forbearance to date, he refrains from mentioning that he’d said that at the time. John wishes he would; he wishes Rodney would blame him for this.
“Look, Colonel, I’m sure Ronon and Teyla have already said this, but you couldn’t have known. And you did what you’re supposed to do in the field, protect the scientist. And on best available information, you made the right choice. But now you have to reevaluate the data, because you overlooked some. I’ve been going out there with you guys for three years now, and I’m not Zelenka or Simpson or Moniades or O’Reardon anymore.”
John can’t look away from his wings. It’s like the sugar in the pudding is rushing to them, flushing them out in sweet, crystalline white, and he leans forward, just a bit, because here it is again, that whisper in his head that says “touch,” so he doesn’t. Because, Jesus, Rodney’s right and somewhere along the line he became a soldier, or not quite but something like a soldier, too close to one for John’s comfort and that wasn’t supposed to happen. There are soldiers and there are scientists out here in Pegasus, and they each of them keep the other alive in the way that they know best. To shove this onto Rodney, this burden of fighting on top of everything else he’s got to deal with – that wasn’t supposed to happen.
Rodney shrugs and then makes a pained noise as it pulls at his wounded flesh. “We’ve all been at war since we stepped through that gate, Sheppard.”
John nods. He doesn’t like it, but he gets it. So next time when this happens, because it will happen again, maybe he’ll make the same decision and get Rodney out of what he thinks is harm’s way, or maybe he’ll make a different one and keep the team knit close, but yeah, there’s a new factor in the equation.
Rodney sighs, a put-upon sound. “Go on.”
“What?”
“You’re staring at them. Just, I don’t know, whatever it is you’re thinking. You can touch them if you want.” He’s a mix of belligerent and diffident.
John’s eyes flicker up to meet his and then back down. “I just have to—” He reaches out and traces a line parallel to the row of stitches Carson sewed in. It’s the same buttery sensation he remembers, and he wants to splay his hand wide against it.
“Besides.” Rodney is talking, talking his way through John’s touch. It helps, makes it casual. “You’re kind of a scien—well, mathematician.”
This is so unexpected a concession from Rodney, of all people, that John straightens and says, “Huh?”
“Okay, not a very bright one, but for someone with only a master’s, that’s to be expected. You did help Miko with the calculations for recalibrating the internal sensors, though. Course,” he says thoughtfully, “she should have done that by herself because I could have done it in three hours, and it took her two days, but I can’t be everywhere at once. And I’d say you sped her up by, oh, probably almost four hours.”
John stares at him, and then he grins. It’s practically a real grin, too, and he can see that Rodney knows it, because sometimes when Rodney smiles really widely, his lips thin out and it should make him look mad, but instead it’s kind of peaceful.
“God, McKay,” John says.
+++
Rodney does physical therapy for his wings. Mostly it’s a mish-mash of moves from Tai Chi, yoga, and Teyla’s slow Athosian katas. Rodney’s opinion is that it’s better than meditation, but not by much. He wants to fly again, though, and John wants to see him fly, so he pushes him despite his complaints. If John were a better man, he’d want Rodney to fly again because it makes Rodney happy. That’s not it, though. It’s more about the places John knows, nooks and crannies in the city out of which he can watch Rodney fly, catch the sunrise flush on his wings or the clean, leaping sea. He runs while Rodney soars, east to west and west to east until he inevitably loses him, listening to the murmur of the city and the waves and the rush of his own blood, tracking Rodney though the sky, out Atlantis’s wide windows.
+++
“John,” someone says, beguiling, and he knows he’s asleep. Because in his dreams he can fly away from her if things become too much, he steps forward into her, closer to her edge. She laughs and brushes along under his hands; he slides them down her railing and looks out over the sea.
“Go,” she says with a little push, and he spreads his wings wide and swoops out. Her caress still tingles on the soles of his bare feet as he flies, and it’s spreading up his legs even as she twinkles at him in the increasing distance. It’s a brush up and down, soft and firm, and then someone else laughs, pleased and male, and John jerks when he sees Rodney gliding next to him.
They fly like fighter jets in formation, up and up, and then Rodney yells something to him that John can’t hear for the rush of night wind in his ears. But he sees what Rodney’s doing when he dips under John and crosses his path, and John swerves to avoid him and they make an X in the sky, and then triangles and diamonds and figure 8s all skated around each other, looping back to Atlantis, strange not-geometric shapes that only John can see.
He wonders if when he wakes in the morning, he’ll be able to look out and find their patterns in the blue sky.
+++
McKay’s been watching him. Rodney’s not very subtle about these things. If John had any clue what Rodney was thinking, he’d say something, try to head him off at the pass. It’s not good to let things fester and build in Rodney because inevitably they end in a messy explosion. John doesn’t know what he did to make him interested, though, and he’s more afraid of the answer at this point so he plays dumb.
He’s in the mess with Lorne. Lorne’s almost done eating and John’s just beginning, and he’s trying to shift some of his paperwork onto Lorne without seeming to do it, and it’s working. If only because Lorne’s not-quite-smirk is telling him he totally sees through his CO.
Rodney comes over with his tray. He’s not even within earshot when he starts talking. “…and that imbecile could have erased the entire thing with his carelessness if I hadn’t—”
“Been there to save the day?” John suggests. He stabs his fork into something that’s probably not cauliflower.
“Yes, exactly,” Rodney agrees, and a minute later, “Oh, puh-lease. Are you being snide? Because there’s no need for that. You’re just jealous that that engineer on MX7-059 gave me all the sweet bread yesterday and you none.”
Lorne snorts. “Nope, that’s not why he’s jealous. He’s just jealous that you’ve got wings and he doesn’t.” He winks, pushes back his chair, and stands. “Colonel,” he says, and leaves.
There’s a sudden silence. John looks up. Rodney hasn’t sat down yet.
“Oh my god,” he says in a stunned tone. “That’s it. That’s IT!”
“Jeesh, McKay, keep it down,” and John’s thinking fast, hard, and nothing’s coming to mind, and suddenly he runs out of time to take evasive maneuvers because Rodney’s just too damn quick once he puts something together.
“You – you’re jealous. JEALOUS!” and he chortles with glee as people at the tables around them hush and turn.
“Christ. Not here, McKay,” John says through clenched teeth. He makes a quick calculation. McKay’s got a tray full of food, untouched, and if John can just saunter out of here in the next, oh, three seconds, Rodney will be torn between his food and the prospect of mocking John, and food will win. So he says, “Good meatloaf today,” meaning nothing of the sort, and is halfway out of the mess, leaving Rodney to snicker, and he’s almost out, almost, and suddenly Rodney’s behind him, saying, “Hey, wait up.”
John glances behind him and there it is, Rodney’s still-full tray of untouched food abandoned on the table while Rodney practically skips at his elbow. John wants to groan. This is more serious than he thought.
He walks quickly through the halls, not sure where he’s going. They get wide-eyed but not really surprised looks from the personnel they pass, because after all, it’s McKay stalking him. John tries to paste his somewhat-affectionate-but-mostly-bemused-and-long-suffering look on his face since that’s what everyone’s used to seeing from him when Rodney gets like this, except that he’s kind of busy trying not to panic so mostly he thinks he just looks constipated.
“That’s why I keep seeing you when I fly in the mornings. I thought it was coincidence, for, say, the first month, since that’s when you run. But I always see you, and I don’t think you used to run in those places because I don’t think it’s possible to actually run in some of the places I keep seeing you. So, okay, not coincidence, and you’ve been SPYING on me!”
John stops in his tracks in the middle of the hallway and opens his mouth, and realizes he has no idea what to say. Because it’s kind of true. He starts walking again.
“But, hey, hey, it’s okay. I get it. You wanted the wings, probably wanted to fly since before you could walk – I bet you were one of those kids who climbed trees with paper feathers and jumped, just to see what would happen, not that I know about things like that because I wouldn’t – I didn’t – it was Jeannie’s fault. We’re cool though,” Rodney says, stumbling over the word a bit because that’s something flyboys like John say, not science geeks like Rodney. “But you’ve got to admit, it is a little freaky. The whole spying thing. You could have just said. Not slunk around the city like, I don’t know. But jealous. Of me!”
If it wouldn’t bust his wings, John would shove Rodney into the wall and-and-do something to him, just to make him shut up. He wants to, wants to shove his fists against Rodney’s chest and push, use his body to press him back. Rodney would be surprised enough to forget that he’s got more mass than John, forget that Teyla’s taught him how to use that against John, and his eyes would go wide and John would lean forward and inhale and –
They’re standing outside of Rodney’s quarters. “In,” John says, low, and Atlantis smiles wide for him and he yanks Rodney into his own room. The blue and tan jacket is warm under his hand, warm from Rodney’s skin.
Rodney’s still talking, paying no attention to where they are. “You don’t have to be jealous, though, Colonel. Sure, they’re fun but you don’t think they’re a pain too?”
John stares at him and finds that the thing knocking the back of his knees is a bed, so he sits down. Because Rodney’s so smart, so quick, and he puts things together precisely, completely correct, not a piece out of place, except for the part where he totally and completely misses the point.
But that’s not surprising, really, ‘cause so did John.
It’s not the wings. Not anymore. If it ever even was.
If he thought he could get away with it, John would bury his face in his hands just for a moment’s peace. Only that’s not what he wants at all. He lets Rodney’s words wash over him, familiar, sure.
“I mean, do you have any idea what it was like at first? No, of course you don’t. You probably never even thought about it beyond, ‘Hah! Wings! Fun!’ It sucked. Fucking sucked.”
John’s head snaps up. It’s so rare for Rodney to swear that it’s a pretty good sign he’s not just complaining because he’s McKay but because he’s actually upset over something. John missed the leap where the admittedly one-sided conversation went from delight in John’s jealousy to this. Rodney’s mouth slants down. The wings are trying to unfurl the way they do when he gets upset and needs more than two hands to wave around.
“Everyone staring, and okay, they always stare because, hi, genius, but it was more than that. And suddenly I couldn’t even wear my clothes and they’re just clothes and you didn’t get it at all, but it was my body, this thing I’ve had all my life and then it wasn’t mine. It was like learning to walk all over again because my center shifted and I had this weight on my back and maybe you didn’t see me stumble around for a month? They’re heavy, and you know what? My back, god, my poor back. Because I already had a bad back, Colonel, and now these things pulling at me constantly, and we have no idea how to get rid of them!”
Something crashes to the floor – an ugly little statue the Counselor on PX9-391 insisted Rodney take after he fixed their water system – and smashes under the force of Rodney’s expanding wings. He wears them outside his shirts now, with the shirts zipped up below them rather than just ripped open, sometimes with his lab coat over, sometimes not. His hands are flapping with them, emphasizing, and it’s like having two Rodneys, or at least a Rodney and a half, and that’s not nearly as disturbing as it should be. God, John’s got it bad.
Rodney suddenly slumps onto the bed next to him. “We don’t know how to get rid of them,” he repeats quietly. “Do you have any idea what that means? Even if, yeah, they can be fun sometimes. I can’t go home. Ever. No stepping through that gate to Earth.”
His shoulder brushes against John’s. John fights not to lean into it.
“Rodney,” he says as something inside him curls tight, sharp, bone-brittle, his own stillborn wings. He didn’t realize before, and even though he understands what Rodney means about not being able to go back to Earth – it’s about choice and freedom and having that taken from you – yet still he tries to say, “Isn’t this home? Atlantis?”
But before he can get it out Rodney twists and jabs him in the thigh with his finger and says, “So, no, Sheppard, you don’t get to be jealous of them,” and John doesn’t know how to tell him that he’s wrong.
+++
John stays away from the edges of Atlantis after that, runs high in her rafters through her ribs where he can’t see out. There’s no such thing as distance by space in the city, not for him, not for Rodney. They always need to be in the center, available. Sometimes, though, it’s possible to find distance by time.
The thing is – the thing is this: He’s not worried that Rodney might try to fly away or anything like that. It’s just that John’s always been the one to fly, to fly into the secret places of his mind, behind his smile and lazy words and silence, to fly out into the sky. And this is the most ridiculous thing ever, ever, because John’s never had to worry about being the one left. Because he had no idea that Rodney could leave, or no, that’s not quite it. It’s that he had no idea that he could ever – would someday – be left by Rodney.
+++
Teyla’s bantos rod hits him first on the leg, hard, and then across his back, less hard, but still enough to make him fall with a muffled curse. “I am through,” she says. There’s something disapproving in her voice. John can’t think what he did to piss her off.
+++
Elizabeth clears her throat as he leaves her office after dropping off some reports. “John,” she says.
“Elizabeth.” He serves it back to her.
There’s a pause. “Never mind.” She moves her head just this much, enough that John knows there’s something she wants to and won’t say. He’s not asking.
“Sure.” Giving her a little smile, he gets out.
+++
Zelenka shoots him mean looks across the mess. John makes a mental note to check the climate control in his room when he gets back. And in the jumpers. Zelenka’s got a vindictive streak.
+++
Ronon doesn’t treat him any differently. Which is as it should be, because John has no clue why anyone else is.
John likes Ronon.
They finish their run, and Ronon stands there while John pants and tries not to chug too much water.
“You can be kind of an ass, huh, Sheppard.”
John coughs through a mouth full of liquid and manages to swallow. “What?”
“Jealous of McKay’s wings? Give the guy a break.”
“Wait. What did he tell you?”
Ronon lifts a shoulder. “Nothing. Didn’t have to. Heard it in the jumper bay the other day. And Greenhouse Two. And the infirmary.”
“Yeah, well, botanists!” John sputters. “Nurses! Come on. You gonna believe everything you hear in this place?”
Ronon stares at him.
John holds up his hands. “Not true.”
“Okay.” Ronon’s agreement is quick, too quick.
“Really.”
“Okay.”
John can’t remember why he liked Ronon.
+++
John catches a group of marines huddled around one of the balconies. They’re staring at something off in the sky. One of them giggles, and a few look a bit dewy-eyed.
Not fair. Totally unfair. How come they can watch Rodney and he can’t? Rodney’s wings are late afternoon sun-yellow, inviting. “Break it up, people,” he says, just because he’s their CO and he can.
Cadman winks at him as she walks away, hips swinging, and damn it, it’s just not fair, and he’s going to go tell Rodney exactly that once he’s back from his flight and that’s what he thinks all the way down to Rodney’s quarters, that and nothing else, because he won’t be able to go through with it if he thinks about it too much. He chimes the door. It slides open. He’s going to say, “Damn it, McKay,” and he opens his mouth and says, “Da—oh, I can, er, come back later,” because fuck, Rodney’s wings are still out and he’s sweaty, his face flushed from flying, from the exertion and the wind at his temples. His wings are glistening, a faint sheen of – what, salt? sweat? the city’s ocean? – over them, and John wants to lick. Damn it.
“Oh, it’s you,” Rodney says. Just like that, John’s pinned, unable to leave. Rodney, looking completely unaware of what he’s done, steps into the bathroom and grabs a towel. He comes out rubbing the back of his neck.
“Don’t,” John says, involuntarily, except that maybe it’s not. Maybe he meant to say it. He doesn’t want Rodney to wipe away his sweat. Let me, John wants to say. With my hands, my mouth, my tongue. Let my skin be your cloth.
And maybe he does say it, out loud, or maybe he doesn’t and it’s just the expression on his face, which must be open and raw, and John’s suddenly terrified because he’s totally hanging in the wind here, exposed, wingless.
When Rodney’s wings skim his flesh, he looks down at them. They’re muted silver-grey, like the city, like Atlantis, and John’s felt this a hundred nights before, but never quite like this. He reaches out, finally, finally, and touches. “Rodney,” he says, and even he can hear the something in his voice, something he still doesn’t have a word for.
Rodney’s eyes dip, and there it is again, that hint of odd shyness that John first saw when they started working with his wings, and then it disappears. John feels its loss, because what if that’s the real thing here and all the rest is just Rodney’s bravado, and he says, “Hey, hey, look at me.”
Rodney does. “I don’t get to,” he says. “Very often. But. I give great head.” Some of his customary smugness returns, and John can’t help it, he laughs and leans in and kisses him. Quick, then lingering, and more and more, lingering. He hadn’t thought he was going to do that.
“I bet you do,” he agrees. “But I want more. Turn around,” he says, in lieu of telling him that that’s not what this is about. Well, not entirely. Because, sure, he’ll take all the blow jobs he can get. Not just, though. Rodney’s a smart guy; he’ll figure it out and then when he does, he’ll get to be all pleased with himself for doing so without John’s help.
Rodney unlaces the sides of the shirt under his arms, and John pushes it off his shoulders, lifts it over his wings. He presses his face into Rodney’s neck, biting gently, learning the taste of his skin. Then down, down and over, and the wings quiver under his fingers, under his mouth, and Rodney shudders and says, “Oh, god, you only want me for my wings,” in this horrified, lust-thick voice, and John laughs again, lets the vibrations roll through the thin softness of the wings. He doesn’t usually laugh like this, not during sex, not ever, but it’s Rodney, Rodney.
“Nah,” he says against Rodney’s lower back, under the shadow of the wings. His hands tease their edges. “I told you, I want more.”
Rodney makes a noise, indeterminate.
“I thought you said your wings weren’t erogenous zones.”
“They’re not,” Rodney says. His breath catches as John undoes Rodney’s pants and pushes them down mid-thigh.
John touches his ass with his mouth, presses a light kiss to the left cheek and then bites down, worries the skin, marks it up, and smiles. Rodney’s wings flutter under his hands, against his arms stretched up to stroke them. “They weren’t. It’s just – this – I – you.”
“You,” John agrees. “Inside me.”
Rodney stills, frozen even to his wings, and then he’s grinning and a hot rush of relief tingles through John because for a second there he thought he was moving too fast. “Really not an idiot,” Rodney says, grinning, yanking his pants the rest of the way off. He turns around and John finds himself being backed across the room by Rodney’s arms and wings and the solid strength of his body.
“Come on, come on,” John says as he walks backwards and tries to strip himself and touch Rodney all at the same time. Their hands tangle. John loses his shirt, his pants, trips over his own feet trying to get out of his boots, and this is exactly what happened when he was fifteen and it was Rosa Smith out at the old airfield, only now he doesn’t mind and neither does Rodney. He goes down on his back on the bed. Rodney follows, and John spreads his legs wide, offering, and Rodney takes.
He wants to be filled, surrounded by Rodney. The feel of Rodney everywhere, with fingers and mouth and wings, on his chest and belly and face and cock and thighs. Inside him, slick and slow, eager, unrushed, and god, why didn’t he do this before, because it’s easy, so easy. His legs are high in the air, split, then over Rodney’s broad shoulders, and John’s not going anywhere and neither is Rodney. The tips of his toes brush past the flutter of Rodney’s Atlantis-grey wings and for a minute, he almost thinks that Rodney’s going to lift them both up, straight off the bed.
John’s saying something, something mindless, he doesn’t know what, and Rodney thumps him on the shoulder and says, “That – you – sexy, holy shit, except, oh my god, I can’t concentrate when you’re saying those things, shut up, shut up, shut up,” and John’s breath hitches, gasping, and he keeps talking, saying whatever it is that’s making Rodney fall apart, and Rodney pinches one of John’s nipples, flat copper discs. The backs of his legs are slipping against Rodney’s chest, slippery with both their sweat. And then he can’t say anything but Rodney’s name, Rodney, Rodney, Rodney, making up for all the times he stole that name and hoarded it inside his head and called him “McKay” when really he meant RodneyRodneyRodney, and Rodney’s still muttering “Shut up” and John knows he means anything but, because after—
—after, his mouth is tipping, right side up, surprisingly sweet as he collapses next to John, half on him, half off, and looks at him. Just looks, with his eyes steady and his mouth curved, and John wraps his hand around the back of his neck. He loves Rodney’s weight pressing down onto him. The wings settle softly around them, along his arms.
“Awesome,” he says after a while.
“For the love of Pete,” Rodney says, half asleep. He doesn’t make any noises about John leaving, and John’s not going to give him any ideas. “You really are six. Shut up and go to sleep like any normal man after sex.”
Which sounds like a pretty good idea and Rodney’s a genius like that, so he does.
+++
“Hey, Rodney,” John says when Rodney lands next to him on the balcony. He’s been watching, because he can. The wings are happy yellow, mid-morning glow radiating off them. “You wanna race?” He waggles his eyebrows.
Rodney takes one look at him and says, “You’re nuts. I’m not racing against you in a puddle jumper.”
Which is the great thing about Rodney. John didn’t even have to explain.
“I’ll give you a head start,” he promises. “Cross my heart and all that.”
“Colonel,” and John knows he means ‘John.’ There’s a glint in Rodney’s eyes. “Your ass is mine.”
John grins, lazy in the morning. “You haven’t won yet, McKay.”
But the thing is, Rodney has, and John – he’s already there. They’re standing side by side on the balcony, with their feet on the ground and the city spread out shimmering below them, and just like that John can feel the sun on his wings. He knows Rodney feels it, too; John sees it right there in the slant of his mouth. He never realized you could do this with somebody else and never leave the ground, but this – this is it, this is what it feels like to take off and soar. John tips his head back as Rodney’s wings stir the air in lazy circles, as Atlantis hums against his skin where he leans into her. This is flying.