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FIC: There is No Map (R)
Title: There is No Map
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Rating: R
Summary: Sometimes, he hates this job.
Wordcount: ~900 words
Notes: Kind of dark, and it's probably been done by people much better at this than I am, but I guess I wanted to take a stab at it too. Also - yes, the second section is inspired by Reavers.
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Rating: R
Summary: Sometimes, he hates this job.
Wordcount: ~900 words
Notes: Kind of dark, and it's probably been done by people much better at this than I am, but I guess I wanted to take a stab at it too. Also - yes, the second section is inspired by Reavers.
No matter what some people may think, they’re not the intergalactic police. They can’t righteously plow through every planet they think is doing something wrong. For one, they don’t exactly have the moral high ground in most situations. That doesn’t mean Rodney isn’t tempted occasionally to build Sheppard a bomb big enough to blow an entire world to pieces, though.
Sometimes, he hates this job.
-
On MX5-839, they step out of the wormhole and into hell.
The very earth is like charred flesh, leathery and tough and sewn up together badly, stapled in places to keep the skin stretched over broken bones and torn muscles. They investigate, because they have to. The first person they come across is too small to be a girl, tucked into the curve of a disfigured tree stump like the wood against her back might be enough to save her.
Teyla touches her fingers to the poor thing’s neck and no one is surprised when she shakes her head. Ronon growls, “Wraith,” and it’s not a question, but Sheppard answers anyway: “No.”
Rodney turns to see what Sheppard’s looking at and a second later he’s hunched over to contents of his stomach, tasting the acidic burn of bile thick on his tongue. When he can bring himself to look again, it’s only because of Sheppard’s hand on his shoulder, familiar and grounding – alive, where everything around them is dead and decaying.
The village is small, primitive, held together with hand-woven twine and mud. That in itself isn’t disturbing; it’s the way all of the dwellings are stained with blood that’s dried to brown – some splatters in places that are too high or out of the way to be anything but deliberate; it’s the way many of the corpses littering the path into the town are grinning wide enough, even in death, that Rodney can see their rotting molars, lips pulled back by metal rings.
“I have heard of people such as these,” Teyla says, hushed, as though the dead may still be listening. “Driven mad by their own fear.”
“Who knows what evil lurks…” Sheppard murmurs.
Rodney crosses his arms over his chest and shifts closer to Sheppard, only relaxing slightly once he feels the solid bump of Sheppard’s elbow against his side. “We should. We should go, because there could be – survivors and I, for one, desperately do not want to meet them. So. Let’s – please, let’s just go.”
They don’t burn the village because, in the end, no one wants to touch the bodies.
-
On M4X-938, a world named Hardus by the Athosians, a vendor who had been calmly showing Ronon the for-sale weapons turns nasty and has a knife through Ronon’s shoulder before anyone can so much as blink. She’s dead an instant later, staring unseeing up at the canopy of her stand, blood pooling around her head.
Rodney watches Sheppard put his gun away. Two or three people start to clap.
-
On M59-264, there are slaves.
Indiscriminate of color, age, gender – they’re worked to skin and bones, crisscrossing stripes of blood across their backs where new welts have overlapped old and split them open again. Many are shaky with fatigue and disease, their eyes dull with resigned pain.
Sheppard wants to save them all. It hurts Rodney to see the fierce longing in his eyes when Sheppard turns to him and says, “Just a few. We can take that many.”
They barter with their survival kits – powerbars, MREs, thermal blankets, extra clothes, trinkets – and buy a few of the young ones who are still fresh enough to care that they’re leaving, who still have a spark in them when they look at the sky that means they know what freedom is. Before they activate the gate, Sheppard kneels down in front of each of them and cuts the ropes holding their hands together. His jaw is tight and he clearly has no idea what to say to any of them.
One of the young girls has blue eyes and says, “Thank you, master,” so quietly Rodney strains to hear it.
Sheppard shoots to his feet so fast the girl nearly takes a tumble back into the dirt, quavering. He steadies her gently, and Rodney steadies him, one hand curled around the hem of John’s shirt, thumb pressing against bare skin.
-
On M3X-873, Rodney spends a terrifying two days alone in a blank-walled cell with no way to tell if his team is alive or dead. His captors don’t gloat or ask him to fix things, barely even acknowledge him except in passing.
When Sheppard finds him, Rodney hasn’t spoken in sixteen hours and the relief of seeing Sheppard’s familiar eyes, of actually being looked at instead of looked through has him pressing his face against Sheppard’s neck and babbling a steady stream of broken, fractured English that can’t sound like anything.
His throat is so raw by the time he winds down, that it takes him a minute to figure out if the wet patch on John’s shirt is blood or tears.
-
(“I can’t,” Sheppard says when the door opens, and that’s familiar too. He’s been saying it an awful lot lately. “Please.”
Rodney motions him in without a word, lets Sheppard’s frantic, hot mouth bruise his collar bone and learn the shape of his ribs, his hips. They fall asleep curled around each other like commas, comforted enough to rest, but still troubled enough to dream.)
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God. Something that painful shouldn't be so beautifully written.
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Rodney watches Sheppard put his gun away. Two or three people start to clap.
Chilling. And when the little girl called Sheppard "master". Oh.
Thank you.
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comforted enough to rest, but still troubled enough to dream.
*hugs them both tight*
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Teary eyed
and how many of ~our~ troops wish that they could fix everything? I can't even imagine how gut wrenching it is..to see, and not be able to help.
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Are you around? *mewls*
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Amazing job.
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Sheppard shoots to his feet so fast the girl nearly takes a tumble back into the dirt, quavering. He steadies her gently, and Rodney steadies him, one hand curled around the hem of John’s shirt, thumb pressing against bare skin.
Oh boys. This was painful and lovely and broke my heart.