kageygirl

Completely OT, but: Pats won! Also, Tom Brady is like a giant slice of lickable. I'm just sayin'.

McKay/Sheppard, spoilers for "Hot Zone." ("Hot Zone"? Y'damn weirdo.)

Summary: "Unspoken" doesn't always mean "unsaid."

Thanks to

wickdzoot,

mmmchelle, and

docmichelle, for butt-kicking, hand-holding, and listening to me whine, in varying configurations. *g*

At Close of Day

"I thought I'd never see you again," Rodney mumbled against his collarbone, and John blinked.

He was pretty sure that was supposed to be his line.

"Oh?" John asked, trailing his fingers carefully through Rodney's hair. Not because he didn't know what Rodney was talking about, because how could he not? The clock had run out on Rodney. His time had been up. The only thing standing between Rodney and agonizing nanoviral death had been the fact that, all those months ago, his longing for the ATA gene had overridden his natural caution about the gene therapy.

It was almost a fluke that he'd survived, and John had been trying his damnedest not to dwell on it, for all the good that did him.

Rodney sounded like he needed to talk it out, though. John imagined he could almost hear the words waiting to bleed through Rodney's unnatural stillness; Rodney's agitation lay coiled in the heavy tension John felt everywhere they touched.

John drew in a cautious breath, past the tightness in his own throat, and glanced up at the shadowy ceiling for a second, though he knew there were no answers to be found up there.

There never had been before.

So John was just winging it when he asked, "Is that right?"

"Mmm, yes. I did." Rodney bent his neck, curling into John's chest, leaving John with a view of the top of his head. They hadn't even changed out of their clothes, just crashed on John's bed in an exhausted tangle. John knew he had to reek of sweat--first there'd been Teyla's ass-kicking disguised as a workout, then all the running around in hazmat suits, not to mention fleeing the generator explosion. But Rodney didn't seem bothered by it.

He had the hem of John's t-shirt twisted around his fingers, and his voice was way too light and casual, for all the wrong reasons. "You know, I honestly thought I was going to die, with everyone listening to it over an open comm line."

"Not everyone," John said, and barely kept himself from wincing, because--really not the point, and that could hardly have been less reassuring.

"Close enough," Rodney said, humoring John, as if it really mattered. "Though, you're right--instead, some of them were actually standing right there, watching." He drew his fingers into a fist, fabric stretched tight over his knuckles. "I should have died back there. I knew it was coming, and I didn't--I'm sorry, John." Rodney sighed, and John felt it flutter across his chest. "I knew you'd be listening, and I... I didn't say anything to you."

"That's okay." In hindsight, it was great, because Rodney had lived and they hadn't been outed. Though John felt like an asshole for even thinking about that.

Besides, John had always sucked at goodbyes, himself.

Rodney hitched closer, pinning John's leg to the mattress with his thigh, like John was the one who'd almost died, and not because he got too close to a nuclear shockwave. When Rodney started talking again, his voice was still too light, too controlled, though his words were starting to pick up speed, as if shouldering one another aside in their haste to get out. "I should have--I should have said something to you. There are social conventions. You're supposed to say something at a time like that, right? Something big, something profound, something meaningful..."

John covered Rodney's hand with his own, running his thumb over the ridges of knuckles outlined in taut black cotton. "I don't think there's anything you're supposed to say."

"But I should have." Rodney flexed his hand, short nails scraping gently against John's stomach. "To you, I mean, I should have said something. You deserve--I should have said something."

"It's all right, Rodney." John slid his hand from Rodney's hair to his neck, stroking lightly over tendons stiffening with strain. He would have rubbed harder, tried to soothe Rodney, but he wasn't sure Rodney would welcome that right now.

"No, it's really not. It's not all right. I should have--there are certain things a person is supposed to do under certain circumstances, and I don't, I don't always know what they are, okay, but some things--"

"Rodney. Rodney." John squeezed his shoulder, because Rodney was really making his throat ache. "You don't have to say anything. I... I know."

Rodney's head snapped up, all that tension finding a focus as he stared down at John. "Do you? How? For that matter, what?" Rodney pushed off him to sit up, hand planted none-too-gently against John's ribs for leverage. "Seriously, I don't even know exactly what the hell I'm talking about, so what could you possibly--"

"Rodney." John caught his wrist before he could get away, holding on in the face of Rodney's sudden anger.

"What?" Rodney glared down at him, breathing hard.

John looked back at him, not backing down but not pushing him. Rodney's wrist shook in his grip, and Rodney's face was a mosaic of pain, fractured and sharp. It hurt John just to see it, and the words he knew he should say just wouldn't come, wouldn't be forced out at a time like this.

Not like this.

Instead, he said softly, "I know enough, okay?"

Rodney's glare was hard and icy and fragile. "No. No, you don't. None of us do, don't you see that? And five people died today because someone touched the wrong thing and didn't even know it until it was too late, and there seems to be a very good chance that something like that will kill us all off before the Wraith even have the chance to do it themselves."

John nodded deliberately. He could have given an obvious, reassuring lie, and it would have been easy. John could see it like it was scripted out in front of him. But Rodney was coming apart, was letting John see it. And right now, having Rodney's trust was more important than taking the easy way out. So John just agreed with him. "Maybe it will."

"'Maybe it will'?" Rodney narrowed his eyes, scathing and unimpressed, and John wondered whether Rodney even knew what he was so mad about. "That's all you have to say, 'maybe it will'?"

John shrugged, rolling his shoulders against the blanket. He couldn't bring back the dead, and he hadn't even been there for Rodney at the time, but he could be here now, could be a convenient target if that's what Rodney needed. He asked quietly, in all seriousness, "What do you want me to say?"

"That's exactly my point." Rodney clenched his captive hand, frustration making him tremble and raising his voice. "How the hell should I know?"

John reached out and set his free hand on Rodney's shoulder, sliding his palm up to Rodney's neck. Rodney's face crumpled, and he turned his head away, taking a couple of hard, shuddering breaths. John saw his eyelashes flutter, and when he spoke again, his voice was broken, the anger drained away. "And if I don't know, how the hell are you supposed to know," he said, and it wasn't a question. It was a surrender, and John stroked his thumb over Rodney's cheek. "God, John, it's just so..."

"Yeah, it is." John tugged gently on Rodney's neck. Rodney resisted him, just enough that John had to apply constant pressure; he was pretty sure Rodney was just running on fumes at this point, fighting him on autopilot, because Rodney tucked his head back down onto John's shoulder readily enough, heaving a deep sigh. John brought Rodney's hand to his own neck, brushing his chin against Rodney's fingers. "Feel better?"

"No," Rodney said, worrying at the collar of John's shirt with his fingertips. John ran his own fingers down the back of Rodney's hand, and Rodney flattened his palm against John's chest. "Was I supposed to?"

"Maybe."

"'Maybe,' again?" Rodney raised his head enough to give John a watery glare. "Bastard."

"Probably," John agreed, and Rodney snorted in disgust, but he laid his head back down and tightened his arm around John.

After a while of just letting Rodney's presence warm him, listening to him breathe, John pressed a kiss into his hairline, and Rodney shifted against him. "I'm sorry I didn't say anything to you," Rodney said softly, too clearly to have been drowsing, though his eyes stayed closed.

You do, John wanted to say. Every day, all the time. But instead, he murmured, "I wasn't really listening anyway," and he wrapped himself around Rodney, maybe too tightly. Or maybe just tightly enough, because Rodney chuckled, burying his head in John's chest, and John held onto him when the tears soaked into his shirt.

***

Title nicked (not without embarrassment at the cliché) from Dylan Thomas, "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night":

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.