Fic: And Truth, Beauty
Apr. 14th, 2006 06:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityofoneJust so everyone knows, I'm in Laois at ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
siriaeve's house for Easter weekend, where there is only—*gasp*—dial-up! But I couldn't resist svmadelyn's Thirteen Challenge. So here's...um. I'm not really sure what this is. But, uh. Happy Easter?
Title: And Truth, Beauty
Rating: R
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Length: ~1250 words
Summary: There's no one who John meets who doesn't love him a little bit.
And Truth, Beauty
John's mother was very beautiful. Everyone said so. Even John's father looked to her in wonder.
He never looked at John like that. After she left, he never looked like that at all.
There's no one who John meets who doesn't love him a little bit.
It hasn't always been this way. When he was a child, he was mousy and unmemorable, the kid who almost got left behind on museum field trips, who would sit at the end of a row of desks and not get handed down a page. At the sixth grade dance, he hugged the wall, pale skin shadowed in the blinking light of the strobe.
Then everything changed.
For everyone, everything changed. Puberty was puberty and it happens to everybody. But not, John was secretly convinced, like this.
"I think there's something wrong with me," he told the school nurse.
He was thirteen. When he sat on the exam table his feet swung, several inches above the floor.
"You're fine," said the nurse, moving her stethoscope across his chest. Cold metal circle and warm hands, moving, moving. "You're a strong, healthy, growing boy."
The stethoscope clunked down between her breasts as she bent low. Well, he thought later, splashing water on his face in the boys bathroom, I didn't see that coming.
John has had a lot of people tell him that he's the most beautiful man they've ever met.
Or, the most handsome.
Or, the most captivating.
Or, the most incredible, gorgeous, amazing.
Even Atlantis lights up for him like a whore.
John likes to hear people describe him. Not with these words—vague adjectives, useless, meaningless—but real descriptions, telling. He collects them like precious objects.
In high school, he had one girlfriend (briefly) whom he overheard on the phone, telling a friend that he looked just like Steve McQueen. Others have said: Rob Lowe, Luke Perry, Harrison Ford, Clark Gable, Will Smith, Brad Pitt, Paul Newman, and Annie Lennox. He has a mental list of all the words that have been applied to his huge, mammoth, thick, dirty, cut, uncut, eager, greedy, red, purple, not-the-size-but-how-you-use-it, foot-long, porn star, perfect cock. He still loves the poet he fucked in London who told him his eyes were like fire opals, his chin like a defiant man's. The one thing he was sorry to leave on Earth was the portrait he sat for in New York, in which the artist conjured into being a man with ebony skin and a kind smile.
When he looks in the mirror, he sees eyes a milky blue, set in a face that's unremarkable. He sees an undistinguished nose and an ignoble chin, hair that's wandering around lost somewhere between brown and yellow. He sees a man that no one would look at twice, were it not for some fluke of genetics or fate, if he did not have his mother's blood—her gift, her curse—running through his veins.
"I'll never forget you," said innumerable past lovers, and he knows that they won't: that their image of him is burned forever into their minds. They could all come together and talk about him—a thousand John Sheppards, no two the same.
Here is what he knows about Rodney's Sheppard.
He is handsome. This is not a surprise. He's always handsome. He's also apparently stringy, elf-eared, Chewbacca-chested, crazy-eyed, stupid-haired, and rakish. John enjoys Rodney's descriptors. He likes to sort through them later, reverse-engineer his appearance from the string of insults. He thinks he likes the man Rodney sees. He's nicely balanced. Imperfect.
John had wanted Atlantis to be a fresh start. When he'd looked down at George Washington's serious profile in his palm, he'd promised himself that he would make it be different. Everyone could still want him—they always would. But he wouldn't let anyone have him, just because it was easier. He wouldn't let anyone at all.
He'd forgotten, however, that he too has needs. So strange, after all these years, to have his own wants and desires, to feel unfulfilled. That was fulfilling, in its own strange way. But still he wanted.
Rodney says, "You're the most infuriating man I've ever met."
And John thinks: Yes.
He gets Rodney alone, an invitation of movies and chips and beer. Unnecessary—all he has to do, all he ever has to do, is ask. But he likes the pretense: it makes the whole thing feel more like something real people would do. With Rodney there, snarking and snacking beside him, he can almost pretend that this whole setup is more than just a game.
There's business in his pleasure: like it or not, there has to be; this is what he does. Sliding his hand up Rodney's thigh, turning in to him. Rodney stutters and sighs, opening: for lips that are soft or firm, generous or fierce, whatever Rodney needs them to be.
He opens, but his mouth against John's isn't hungry, it's hesitant. He says, "We shouldn't."
John draws back, confused. No one has ever said this to him before. Not in earnest.
"You." John blinks several times. "You don't want me?"
Rodney's laughter is a little sad. "Of course I want you." Of course he does. "But there are considerations: your career, our working relationship, our, our friendship... This is an important decision and we shouldn't—"
"You're thinking," John says, wonderous.
Rodney gives him a look like he just announced to the room that Rodney was breathing.
"Come here," John says suddenly, pulling Rodney to his feet, spilling chips across the floor. He drags him to the bathroom to the soundtrack of Rodney complaining about potential damage to the tendons in his wrists.
They stand in front of the mirror, John behind and slightly to the side of Rodney, gripping his arms, holding him against his chest. "Look at me," John commands. "What do you see?"
Rodney's face in the mirror conveys the belief that John must have a whole toolbox full of screws loose, but his "A lunatic?" is followed quickly by what John wants, what John needs: a simple list of scientist's observations—dark hair, dark eyes; the angle of his mouth, the slope of the line of his cheek leading down to his chin.
If John looks close enough, stares hard enough, he thinks he can almost see the man Rodney sees, staring back.
"Is there something wrong with your eyes, Colonel?" Rodney asks, when he's finished. His lips are wet from where he's licked at them, talking.
There's also another question, the one behind it, that he's really asking. And so John squeezes his arms—nervous, reassuring—and says, "Look closer. Look again."
Rodney stares, as if into the dark depths of the universe, as if into a black hole. And John feels the risk he's taking: of Rodney seeing everything and turning away, horrified (or worse, bored); of Rodney seeing nothing, just like everyone else, taking only what they want.
His hands on Rodney's arms like it might be the last time, and suddenly Rodney makes a soft sound. A tiny exhalation, down deep in his chest: "Oh," he says. A whisper. "John?"
He turns around slowly, like the mirror might be playing tricks. John swallows and stares down at him, his expression fixed. He can feel Rodney's eyes flickering over him, searching, searching.
Then, lifting a hand, laying it against John's cheek: "It's you," Rodney says.
"Me," says John, holding Rodney to him like a tether, like he never wants to let go. "It's me."
In case you're still wondering: this would fall into the "other demon" category, as John is an incubus. That's right...a demon of SEX! *eg*
siriaeve's house for Easter weekend, where there is only—*gasp*—dial-up! But I couldn't resist svmadelyn's Thirteen Challenge. So here's...um. I'm not really sure what this is. But, uh. Happy Easter?Title: And Truth, Beauty
Rating: R
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Length: ~1250 words
Summary: There's no one who John meets who doesn't love him a little bit.
And Truth, Beauty
John's mother was very beautiful. Everyone said so. Even John's father looked to her in wonder.
He never looked at John like that. After she left, he never looked like that at all.
There's no one who John meets who doesn't love him a little bit.
It hasn't always been this way. When he was a child, he was mousy and unmemorable, the kid who almost got left behind on museum field trips, who would sit at the end of a row of desks and not get handed down a page. At the sixth grade dance, he hugged the wall, pale skin shadowed in the blinking light of the strobe.
Then everything changed.
For everyone, everything changed. Puberty was puberty and it happens to everybody. But not, John was secretly convinced, like this.
"I think there's something wrong with me," he told the school nurse.
He was thirteen. When he sat on the exam table his feet swung, several inches above the floor.
"You're fine," said the nurse, moving her stethoscope across his chest. Cold metal circle and warm hands, moving, moving. "You're a strong, healthy, growing boy."
The stethoscope clunked down between her breasts as she bent low. Well, he thought later, splashing water on his face in the boys bathroom, I didn't see that coming.
John has had a lot of people tell him that he's the most beautiful man they've ever met.
Or, the most handsome.
Or, the most captivating.
Or, the most incredible, gorgeous, amazing.
Even Atlantis lights up for him like a whore.
John likes to hear people describe him. Not with these words—vague adjectives, useless, meaningless—but real descriptions, telling. He collects them like precious objects.
In high school, he had one girlfriend (briefly) whom he overheard on the phone, telling a friend that he looked just like Steve McQueen. Others have said: Rob Lowe, Luke Perry, Harrison Ford, Clark Gable, Will Smith, Brad Pitt, Paul Newman, and Annie Lennox. He has a mental list of all the words that have been applied to his huge, mammoth, thick, dirty, cut, uncut, eager, greedy, red, purple, not-the-size-but-how-you-use-it, foot-long, porn star, perfect cock. He still loves the poet he fucked in London who told him his eyes were like fire opals, his chin like a defiant man's. The one thing he was sorry to leave on Earth was the portrait he sat for in New York, in which the artist conjured into being a man with ebony skin and a kind smile.
When he looks in the mirror, he sees eyes a milky blue, set in a face that's unremarkable. He sees an undistinguished nose and an ignoble chin, hair that's wandering around lost somewhere between brown and yellow. He sees a man that no one would look at twice, were it not for some fluke of genetics or fate, if he did not have his mother's blood—her gift, her curse—running through his veins.
"I'll never forget you," said innumerable past lovers, and he knows that they won't: that their image of him is burned forever into their minds. They could all come together and talk about him—a thousand John Sheppards, no two the same.
Here is what he knows about Rodney's Sheppard.
He is handsome. This is not a surprise. He's always handsome. He's also apparently stringy, elf-eared, Chewbacca-chested, crazy-eyed, stupid-haired, and rakish. John enjoys Rodney's descriptors. He likes to sort through them later, reverse-engineer his appearance from the string of insults. He thinks he likes the man Rodney sees. He's nicely balanced. Imperfect.
John had wanted Atlantis to be a fresh start. When he'd looked down at George Washington's serious profile in his palm, he'd promised himself that he would make it be different. Everyone could still want him—they always would. But he wouldn't let anyone have him, just because it was easier. He wouldn't let anyone at all.
He'd forgotten, however, that he too has needs. So strange, after all these years, to have his own wants and desires, to feel unfulfilled. That was fulfilling, in its own strange way. But still he wanted.
Rodney says, "You're the most infuriating man I've ever met."
And John thinks: Yes.
He gets Rodney alone, an invitation of movies and chips and beer. Unnecessary—all he has to do, all he ever has to do, is ask. But he likes the pretense: it makes the whole thing feel more like something real people would do. With Rodney there, snarking and snacking beside him, he can almost pretend that this whole setup is more than just a game.
There's business in his pleasure: like it or not, there has to be; this is what he does. Sliding his hand up Rodney's thigh, turning in to him. Rodney stutters and sighs, opening: for lips that are soft or firm, generous or fierce, whatever Rodney needs them to be.
He opens, but his mouth against John's isn't hungry, it's hesitant. He says, "We shouldn't."
John draws back, confused. No one has ever said this to him before. Not in earnest.
"You." John blinks several times. "You don't want me?"
Rodney's laughter is a little sad. "Of course I want you." Of course he does. "But there are considerations: your career, our working relationship, our, our friendship... This is an important decision and we shouldn't—"
"You're thinking," John says, wonderous.
Rodney gives him a look like he just announced to the room that Rodney was breathing.
"Come here," John says suddenly, pulling Rodney to his feet, spilling chips across the floor. He drags him to the bathroom to the soundtrack of Rodney complaining about potential damage to the tendons in his wrists.
They stand in front of the mirror, John behind and slightly to the side of Rodney, gripping his arms, holding him against his chest. "Look at me," John commands. "What do you see?"
Rodney's face in the mirror conveys the belief that John must have a whole toolbox full of screws loose, but his "A lunatic?" is followed quickly by what John wants, what John needs: a simple list of scientist's observations—dark hair, dark eyes; the angle of his mouth, the slope of the line of his cheek leading down to his chin.
If John looks close enough, stares hard enough, he thinks he can almost see the man Rodney sees, staring back.
"Is there something wrong with your eyes, Colonel?" Rodney asks, when he's finished. His lips are wet from where he's licked at them, talking.
There's also another question, the one behind it, that he's really asking. And so John squeezes his arms—nervous, reassuring—and says, "Look closer. Look again."
Rodney stares, as if into the dark depths of the universe, as if into a black hole. And John feels the risk he's taking: of Rodney seeing everything and turning away, horrified (or worse, bored); of Rodney seeing nothing, just like everyone else, taking only what they want.
His hands on Rodney's arms like it might be the last time, and suddenly Rodney makes a soft sound. A tiny exhalation, down deep in his chest: "Oh," he says. A whisper. "John?"
He turns around slowly, like the mirror might be playing tricks. John swallows and stares down at him, his expression fixed. He can feel Rodney's eyes flickering over him, searching, searching.
Then, lifting a hand, laying it against John's cheek: "It's you," Rodney says.
"Me," says John, holding Rodney to him like a tether, like he never wants to let go. "It's me."
In case you're still wondering: this would fall into the "other demon" category, as John is an incubus. That's right...a demon of SEX! *eg*
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-16 07:41 pm (UTC)Incredible. And it left me with a huge lump in my throat. Didn't see that coming.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-17 04:42 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-17 10:30 am (UTC)Also, I love the idea that the Sheppard we see, the one we recognise, is Rodney's Sheppard. I know it takes the concept of the fourth wall a little too far, but it feels like the force of Rodney's personality overwhelms that of the others, so that we recognise his Sheppard as our own.
Oh, and I love the fact that it's Rodney's pragmatism that finally makes John trust him.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-17 04:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-17 09:14 pm (UTC)very, very neat!!! thank you!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-17 11:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-20 02:59 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-22 05:41 pm (UTC)In defense of my stupidity, instead of making it feel fantastic at all, you really distilled the traits of John Sheppard, so that it feels natural and real, canon. And so poetic and beautiful. I really liked this.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-22 05:49 pm (UTC)1) The scene with the nurse, I thought whoa, molestation of a 13yr-old?! At this point, I thought it would be a John=>child fic, and I had ideas spinning in my head of the fic going into why John gets hit on by people all the time and is in denial of it.
2) I thought it was interesting that you chose to make 'Rodney's John' the 'canon John'. As if we are all sharing in Rodney's fantasy. Or that Rodney sees a fantasy that John would like to be, one that John feels real in already.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-22 05:53 pm (UTC)There's business in his pleasure: like it or not, there has to be; this is what he does.
I mean, is John collecting souls or something? Is this just a metaphor? What?
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-08 10:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-02 10:32 pm (UTC)And yeah, I didn't get it till the end.
So...confession--I've been reading your fic for the past few days now (lots of fic, tons of fic, mountains and valleys and oceans of fic)...and you've made me a very happy reader. I just haven't commented, or at least not very much. (Tries to remember if she's done her reader-ly duty).
Man, your stuff is beautiful. I'm not generally into slash, but...Thanks.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-23 11:00 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-23 11:05 am (UTC)Or am I just wigging out because it's late and you've killed me with cool?
This story is fantastic. You are a fifth
dan master of the slow reveal aren't you?
Oh freakin' hell
Date: 2008-01-04 05:46 am (UTC)Damn and yet bless that Fey blood of John's.
Exquisite way of writing this, love.
*glomps you*
Of course Rodney would only see the "true John" as, well, him. Not what Rodney wants, but what John is.
*clutches Rodney close*
Just... perfect.
-----}-@
(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-09 06:57 pm (UTC):( i feel very annoying. i hope you are well.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-06-09 01:13 am (UTC)In truth, that was beautyfull.
Date: 2010-03-06 12:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-03-24 10:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-04-30 10:29 pm (UTC)Your descriptions were lyrical and flowed like magic. Loved that final scene at the end with mirror. Rodney seeing him for who he was and just loving him. Ah the sweetness... :)