Moments We Choose to Ignore (PG)

[skidmo_fic]

Title: Moments We Choose to Ignore
Rating: PG
Pairing: McKay/Zelenka
Spoilers: The Storm, Hot Zone
Disclaimer: None of these characters belong to me...sadly
Feedback: yes, please.
Summary: Life passes in the tiny moments we often choose to ignore.
Author’s Notes: written for the gatecreation episodes challenge.




If you had told Dr. Rodney McKay two days ago that life passes in the tiny moments we often choose to ignore, he would have accused you of sickening sentimentality. Now he would get a faraway look in his eyes as though remembering some profound moment in his life. And it was all due to one man...and several million nanites.

***

Radek knew their relationship had begun out of sheer boredom. The days in Antarctica could be quite tedious, mounds of paperwork and hours of supervising ATA gene carriers didn’t do much to occupy the mind of a man like Rodney McKay. Hours of studying the Ancient drone weapons didn’t do much to occupy the mind of a man like Radek Zelenka either, but it was Rodney who had succumbed to boredom first.

Radek had assumed that the relationship was casual, but the first time Rodney called him “Zelumpka” in the labs, it stung more than a little.

Once they got to Atlantis, boredom was no longer an excuse. But imminent disaster provided them with another, one that had been used by men for centuries to explain their sudden interest in members of their own gender.

Tension release.

It was certainly a valid excuse, Radek thought. They were both, Rodney especially, under enormous amounts of stress. The mere discovery of a species whose sole purpose seemed to be to suck the life out of as many humans as possible was enough to make even the straightest of men seek release wherever he could get it. And it only made sense, in a community such as Atlantis where men outnumbered women at least three to one, not to be picky when it came to choosing partners.

This excuse lasted right through the night after the storm hit. That night Rodney had tension to release, certainly, but when he came into Radek’s quarters after hours of running diagnostics to make sure the city wasn’t going to sink in the middle of the night, he didn’t say anything. Radek watched him from the bed as he shed his jacket (still covered in the makeshift bandage no one had bothered to tell him should probably have gone under his clothing), sat down to take off his shoes and socks and then slowly stripped off his shirt and trousers. He stood for a moment in just his boxers staring at nothing, as though he couldn’t remember why he was there.

Eventually, Radek took pity on him and said, “Come to bed, Rodney.”

This brought Rodney’s gaze to the bed, and the dazed physicist said, “Hm? Oh right,” before crawling in behind Radek, curling himself around the Czech’s smaller body and falling immediately to sleep.

***

Radek suspected that night that their relationship had become more than the casual affair it had started as, but he didn’t know for sure for another week.

Standing in a crowded room, watching his lover (Yes, Radek had thought, he is my lover) trying to come up with something pithy to say as his last words, desperately bumbling out all the things he wanted to say before the end, Radek at last understood that what they had was far beyond whatever they had been trying to pretend they were to each other (colleagues, friends, intellectual equals). When Rodney had inexplicably survived, it was all Radek could do not to kiss him right there, in front of all of Rodney’s staff.

And when he’d realized that he would be next, his fear and stress were not in anticipation of the terror he knew he would experience. They were caused by the look Rodney gave him the moment he too realized that Radek would be next. Radek had felt like his heart was being wrung out inside his chest, squeezed of every drop of blood, when he’d watched Rodney hallucinating, knowing there was nothing he could do to help him. Now Rodney would experience the same, but Radek knew Rodney would never admit to himself that it was hopeless. He would try and try and try until it was too late, and then he would blame himself for not having found a solution. This was what Radek truly feared.

But he should have known. After all, this was the great Rodney McKay. He always found a solution, even if he had to be helped out by his suicidal military friend. The relief that Radek felt when Dr. Weir announced that they once again had control of Atlantis was mirrored in Rodney’s face, and their almost hug turned handshake spoke more to Radek than any touches they’d given each other in the past.

***

That night, after running more hours of diagnostics to make sure the city wasn’t going to sink overnight, Rodney wandered into Radek’s room, stripped off his uniform and crawled into bed behind Radek, curling himself around the Czech. He fell asleep almost immediately, but not before whispering into Radek’s wild tangle of hair, “I...well...I...y’know?”

Radek snuggled closer to his chest and answered. “Yes, Rodney. I know. So do I.”

fin

Comments

[rosewildeirish.livejournal.com]

Aww. Sweet. :)

[skidmo-fic.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[sgatlantislight.livejournal.com]

Aw! Yes, we know, Rodney.

[skidmo-fic.livejournal.com]

He's just so good at expressing himself without actually saying the words, isn't he?

[sgatlantislight.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes! *Sigh* The SGA guys are all such, such, well, guys.

[kat-lair.livejournal.com]

oh this was just lovely and a tad bittersweet.

[skidmo-fic.livejournal.com]

Thank you. :)

[secondsilk.livejournal.com]

Sweet. They don't quite have words for what they have, but they don't need them, either.

[skidmo-fic.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[herk227.livejournal.com]

Awwwwww :)

[afullmargin.livejournal.com]

Mmm, not nearly enough love for this pairing. :) I love the dramatic interplay here - the development of the relationship just seemed to very right.

And, of course, no words needed. Lovely.

[skidmo-fic.livejournal.com]

Thanks! :)