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omg_wtf_yeahTitle: The Long Engagement (7/16)
Rating: NC-17
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard (McShep)
Secondary Pairings: background McKay/Keller (predating McShep), Teyla/Ronon
Words: about 51,222
Summary: McShep Steampunk!Atlantis AU. Acrobat John Sheppard of Sheppard Circus Co. unintentionally navigates his troupe into Lantean territory and runs afoul the mistrustful leader of Atlantis, Dr. Rodney McKay. While the troupe plays shows for the Lanteans, Rodney proposes that he and John's adopted sister, Jennifer, get engaged. To get his way and John's blessing, Rodney has to convince John that he's good for John's sister, but his plans go awry as the men get closer and what Rodney wants begins to change.
Notes: My SGA Big Bang entry. Thank you, my superawesome betas:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ishie and teenygozer, my friends: kay_greatness, mad_lynn, and murderdetective, and my artists: fractalreality, saldemonium, and cynicatlantis.
Art: I was fortunate to get three artists who created amazing companion art for the story. I was blown away by what they came up with, it was so perfect and amazing. I completely, totally love them. So, please, check them out!
Full Story on the SGA Big Bang server
Seven
He swept the bristles of the brush through paint the color of cornflowers, making the shape of an eight, the shape of infinity. The black earthenware pot on the desk was a dark rim around paint the color of the sky over the mountains. It was a mirror reflecting the plain outside.
A shaft of sunlight fell through the fogged window pane over his desk in his wagon, illuminating the dust motes spiraling in the air and the smooth planes of his stomach. In the afternoon, he didn't need to light the lamps and let the coals smolder on the grate. The coals warmed the room and suffused his skin with heat. A circular mirror on the edge of his desk reflected the movement of his hand.
Footfalls on wood sounded the approach of another person. John fixed his hazel eyes on the mirror and felt the cold touch of the brush against his skin. Brush bristles slid over the curve of his hip bone, carefully reproducing the outline of clouds, the bright and shining vaults of heaven.
The hinges creaked lowly as the door swung open and John flicked a stormy gaze at Rodney as the other man stood in the doorway, framed by the mirror. "Hey, in or out! You're letting the cold in!" he shot over his shoulder.
In the mirror, Rodney's crooked mouth was drawn down in a determined frown. "I came here to convince you that you were totally unreasonable before," he announced as he pushed the door shut behind him. The brass knob rattled as the latch caught.
John snorted. "Yeah, well. Good luck with that."
"Yes… Well…." He trailed off, pushing his hands deeply into the pockets of his trousers, and looked at a loss for words and a little helpless, his brows pitched upward hopefully. His pale eyes passed over the cramped confines of John's wagon, taking in John's possessions as though seeing them for the first time. He paused and John met his eyes in the mirror, arching his eyebrow challengingly. McKay's mouth sagged downward and John felt something stir in his chest but kept his features trained in cool challenge.
After a moment, Rodney shook his head lightly and said as though he hadn't before noticed, "You're blue."
John's brows knit and formed a small well in his forehead as he cultivated a sarcastic expression, making a gesture that was neither a nod nor a dismissal. "Like the sky," he provided. When McKay shook his head, John gestured with the brush toward the big top. "For the show tonight."
"Oh. And you, uh…." McKay hesitated and his voice rose in pitch which John found weirdly endearing. "Did you do this yourself?"
John held the brush at rest between his thumb and forefinger like a calligrapher. He tried to look at McKay like McKay was as stupid as he was always saying everyone else was but the scientist seemed impervious to his expression. "Yeah," he replied.
Rodney's brows quirked upward. "Oh. Well." His eyes drifted over John's shoulders and the shape of his collarbone, his gaze settling near John's chin, around his mouth and recognition that he was being watched settled on John. McKay looked disappointed and John tried really hard not to want to cheer him up. "You're pretty good," the scientist finished finally.
John nodded his head in sarcastic appreciation of the compliment. "Thanks."
John turned his eyes back to his reflection and pressed the brush to his stomach, shaping the darker outline of a cloud, white paint crisp against the blue. He didn't watch McKay in the mirror but felt his eyes on his back as he painted. "You're welcome," Rodney said, his voice clipped and to the point.
"As I was saying before…," he began leadingly.
John scowled in quicksilver irritation and he felt the hairs on the back of his neck acutely, like the wire-brush spine of an angry cat. "Right," he muttered.
"Were you classically trained?" Rodney asked. His voice was light with absentminded curiosity.
John tucked his chin to his chest and leveled his eyes on McKay in the mirror from beneath furrowed brows. The skin at the edges of his eyes crinkled as he narrowed his eyes. "You came to ask me if I was a classically trained painter?" he asked sarcastically. It sounded as likely as sunstroke in December.
Rodney's pale eyes moved over the wall near the mirror. Shadow played at the corners of his lips and the place they parted. "Ah, no," he replied dismissively, shaking his head.
John snorted and shrugged a shoulder, one corner of his mouth lifting. "Huh. That's too bad," he drawled.
McKay met his eyes in the mirror, his forehead creasing as he frowned pragmatically. "Why?" he asked.
John shrugged. "I'm sick of hearing you ask me the same question."
Rodney narrowed his eyes, curling his lips irritably. "Oh, ha ha," he shot back.
John's chest vibrated as he chuckled lowly, turning his smile toward the desk and his pots of paint.
"Okay," Rodney said suddenly. He took a breath. "So, the reason you don't want Jennifer to marry me is this misguided notion you have that I'm a jerk."
John bobbed his head in agreement, consulting the earthenware dish as he lifted it from the table.
"So the only possible solution to our problem is to get you to get to know me better so you'll change your mind," he finished triumphantly and John set the dish down, his features darkening.
He half turned to regard the other man with open disbelief. "And that makes sense to you?" he asked.
Rodney snorted and grinned at John. He shook his head, eyes narrowed on John as though John were the one with bizarre notions. "Are you kidding?" he asked brightly. "Of course. It makes perfect sense."
John turned his eyes back to the mirror and dipped his brush into the paint again. "Yeah, well, I'm no genius but that doesn't seem…." He paused. "What's the word?" he asked.
Behind him, McKay offered no suggestions.
"Oh, yeah," John finished pointedly, glancing up at McKay's reflection with pitched eyebrows and feigned frown. "Logical."
Rodney scoffed. "Oh, please. Spend a few hours with me and you'll see I'm a lovable teddy bear," he retorted.
"Lovable teddy bear." John knit his brows. "Yeah, that seems likely," he replied sarcastically.
McKay nodded airily, his gaze wandering over the wall. "Yes, well…," he said, "I'm glad you see it my way." Then, looking hopeful, he asked: "So…when you're done…?"
John glanced at McKay, a little put off and Rodney lifted up a slim case he carried in his hand. "I brought my chessboard," McKay put in.
John paused, his eyes showing his confusion. "Chess," he said finally.
"You know how to play, right?" Rodney asked.
John had learned to play on the road when he was a boy. It took him five minutes to learn the basics. Two games and he put down admirable strategy. John had never lost a game but there was no sense telling McKay that. "Oh, I have an idea," he demurred cryptically.
The scientist surveyed his reflection with an optimistic expression, unaware of that fact. "So…?" he asked.
John shrugged a shoulder. "Sure, I guess. You're on."
A smile curved the corner of McKay's mouth and the scientist came further inside, twisting the chessboard between his hands to set it out on John's tabletop. John set his paintbrush down on the edge of the paint pot and turned, pulling a chair out across the floor across from McKay.
As they settled, McKay peered across the table at him. "So," he asked innocently, "Shall we play for stakes?"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Between five and eight that evening, John beat Rodney three out of five games – the second ending in stalemate and the last ending with Zelenka's rap on the door to let him know the show had begun. The chair legs scraped over the wood floor as John straightened his legs out and pushed it back. He stood up and the wooden birds hanging from the ceiling spun in lazy, oblong circles behind his shoulders. He turned, grabbing his coat and Rodney was on his feet at John's back, his mouth hanging open.
"Hey!" he protested. "We're in the middle of a game!"
John half turned and shrugged his shoulders. Zelenka blinked sluggishly, half of his body in the open doorway. "Sorry, McKay, you heard the man – show time," John said, hooking a thumb toward the big top. He bobbed on the balls of his feet.
"Oh, that's fair!" McKay called sarcastically from by John's table as the wagon door shut behind the two men. He leant back against the edge of the table, staring after them for a long moment as he heard John's boot treads fade off and away completely. Then he swept the chess pieces into the slim case he'd brought along with him and ran out the door. Tucking the case beneath his elbow, he chased John to the flap of the big top tent where the dark haired man lifted the fabric up and went in.
When John came back from his first act, slick with sweat and sky blue paint, McKay was in the waiting area with two crates set up on either side of a large book trunk. It looked like a bizarre dinner arrangement in the low light from behind the backdrop. McKay saw him and swept his hand out, gesturing to the chessboard and the little ivory and pewter pieces arranged on the tiles anew.
"So, best out of ten?" he asked hopefully.
John glanced at the board sidelong, arching an eyebrow dubiously. "Oh, yeah, we'll start all over again 'cause I was beating you," he said after a beat.
McKay grimaced. "Oh, what? Yeah, right. Can't you recognize a hustle when you see it? I was two turns from trashing you."
John took the bait and knew it, sitting down on his crate, he appraised the board. Then his brows knit and his features darkened. "Rodney, where's my queen?"
"Your queen?" Rodney asked helpfully, lifting his eyebrows. He cast a look at the board.
John narrowed his eyes at the other man, looking up from beneath his brows. "Yeah, my queen," he shot back. "Where's my queen, McKay?" he demanded. "I was about a move and a half from putting you in check mate."
The other man scowled. "You wish," he retorted. "I don't even think it was still on the board."
John narrowed his hazel eyes. "It was on the board; about a move and a half from checking your king, actually."
Rodney shrugged his shoulders, casting a disinterested look at the board. "I didn't see it before. Maybe it's still in your wagon."
The hue of John's green eyes were brighter in contrast with the blue paint on his face. "Why don't you go get it?" he suggested, theatrically threatening.
McKay's mouth sagged in a frown. "I already set it out," he complained.
John scowled at him silently and McKay sighed, pushing the crate out as he stood. "Fine," he groaned. "Just don't…." He made gestures like cartwheels with his hands. "Move until I get back."
"No," John replied sarcastically. "That's just what I was going to do." McKay lifted a hand and John cut him off, pointing to the flap in the tent. "Go," he ordered.
McKay's shoulders drooped and he sighed, rolling his eyes as he turned and left in the direction John pointed at.
At the table, John buried his smile in the shadow of his lifted shoulder and straightened the pieces on the board.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chess became a Monday and Wednesday thing, then a Friday and a Saturday thing. Then it was almost every day. John didn't notice the time passing, just a series of shows, a series of practices. Life at the camp was pretty similar to how it always was, but there was an air of excitement that lay thick in the air. John tried to tell himself the visits weren't part of it but around three in the afternoon, his hazel eyes would scan the troupe for McKay's square face and thoughtful furrowed brows, maybe the light, mocking smile he sometimes wore.
Around three in the afternoon, the scientist always showed up. He knocked on John's door like clockwork, arrayed in his black coat and driving goggles, the chess board tucked under his elbow. John would open the door in his decisive manner, dressed in his shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a black vest, face to face with the other man. And McKay would pitch his eyebrows up hopefully, lifting the board up as he'd ask, "Ready to be trounced?"
"Born ready." Pointing at him, he'd say, "But you'll have to eat your words when you lose. Again."
The scientist would narrow his eyes at him and John would suppress the levity rising in his chest and fluttering with the quick step beat of his heart.
Day by day, John found himself forgetting the road. He wasn't alone in it. Teyla and Ronon's free smiles and Zelenka and Weir's engaged, fascinated expressions said more than anything else. Everyone liked it there. Atlantis felt like the place they'd been waiting for or like it had been waiting until they found their way there.
John wasn't surprised Jennifer wanted to stay but it planted an acid seed of resentment in his stomach because she wasn't the only one who wanted to be there – she just thought she was.
Atlantis was hard to say No to. It was a pearl citadel in silvery water – only it wasn't a piece of jewelry or a dead sculpture carved in bas relief. It was dynamic, a challenge.
There was also McKay.
There was a weird magnetism to the way he held his body that drew John's eyes when he was around. Like on a Sunday afternoon, outside of the big top, Rodney a hundred feet away and John by a light pole as Aiden Ford practiced with his horse.
The slow track of Ford's white mare obscured McKay from sight for a moment – Ford's lean muscles flexing under caramel colored skin as he held still, balanced on his outspread hand on the mare's flank. The silhouette of Ford and the horse fused into one blurry shape as John watched Rodney mangle his hat, smiling with uncharacteristic platitude at Jennifer by Carson's cages, Jennifer's face obscured by the lacy edge of her parasol, dragging the hem of her slate blue dress through the mud and John bit his tongue.
Rodney was easy to watch. It was easy for John to keep squinting his eyes at the curved corner of his heavy mouth. When Rodney felt his gaze and turned back briefly John glanced back at Ford, shot off a short directive. One minute, thirty seconds more before he chanced a look in Rodney's direction and by that time the other man had looked away.
Just like Atlantis – their being there wasn't supposed to happen but it did and now there was nothing he could do about it but watch and wait. John swallowed and turned back to Ford. He tried not to glance away.
Part Eight
Rating: NC-17
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard (McShep)
Secondary Pairings: background McKay/Keller (predating McShep), Teyla/Ronon
Words: about 51,222
Summary: McShep Steampunk!Atlantis AU. Acrobat John Sheppard of Sheppard Circus Co. unintentionally navigates his troupe into Lantean territory and runs afoul the mistrustful leader of Atlantis, Dr. Rodney McKay. While the troupe plays shows for the Lanteans, Rodney proposes that he and John's adopted sister, Jennifer, get engaged. To get his way and John's blessing, Rodney has to convince John that he's good for John's sister, but his plans go awry as the men get closer and what Rodney wants begins to change.
Notes: My SGA Big Bang entry. Thank you, my superawesome betas:
ishie and teenygozer, my friends: kay_greatness, mad_lynn, and murderdetective, and my artists: fractalreality, saldemonium, and cynicatlantis. Art: I was fortunate to get three artists who created amazing companion art for the story. I was blown away by what they came up with, it was so perfect and amazing. I completely, totally love them. So, please, check them out!
He swept the bristles of the brush through paint the color of cornflowers, making the shape of an eight, the shape of infinity. The black earthenware pot on the desk was a dark rim around paint the color of the sky over the mountains. It was a mirror reflecting the plain outside.
A shaft of sunlight fell through the fogged window pane over his desk in his wagon, illuminating the dust motes spiraling in the air and the smooth planes of his stomach. In the afternoon, he didn't need to light the lamps and let the coals smolder on the grate. The coals warmed the room and suffused his skin with heat. A circular mirror on the edge of his desk reflected the movement of his hand.
Footfalls on wood sounded the approach of another person. John fixed his hazel eyes on the mirror and felt the cold touch of the brush against his skin. Brush bristles slid over the curve of his hip bone, carefully reproducing the outline of clouds, the bright and shining vaults of heaven.
The hinges creaked lowly as the door swung open and John flicked a stormy gaze at Rodney as the other man stood in the doorway, framed by the mirror. "Hey, in or out! You're letting the cold in!" he shot over his shoulder.
In the mirror, Rodney's crooked mouth was drawn down in a determined frown. "I came here to convince you that you were totally unreasonable before," he announced as he pushed the door shut behind him. The brass knob rattled as the latch caught.
John snorted. "Yeah, well. Good luck with that."
"Yes… Well…." He trailed off, pushing his hands deeply into the pockets of his trousers, and looked at a loss for words and a little helpless, his brows pitched upward hopefully. His pale eyes passed over the cramped confines of John's wagon, taking in John's possessions as though seeing them for the first time. He paused and John met his eyes in the mirror, arching his eyebrow challengingly. McKay's mouth sagged downward and John felt something stir in his chest but kept his features trained in cool challenge.
After a moment, Rodney shook his head lightly and said as though he hadn't before noticed, "You're blue."
John's brows knit and formed a small well in his forehead as he cultivated a sarcastic expression, making a gesture that was neither a nod nor a dismissal. "Like the sky," he provided. When McKay shook his head, John gestured with the brush toward the big top. "For the show tonight."
"Oh. And you, uh…." McKay hesitated and his voice rose in pitch which John found weirdly endearing. "Did you do this yourself?"
John held the brush at rest between his thumb and forefinger like a calligrapher. He tried to look at McKay like McKay was as stupid as he was always saying everyone else was but the scientist seemed impervious to his expression. "Yeah," he replied.
Rodney's brows quirked upward. "Oh. Well." His eyes drifted over John's shoulders and the shape of his collarbone, his gaze settling near John's chin, around his mouth and recognition that he was being watched settled on John. McKay looked disappointed and John tried really hard not to want to cheer him up. "You're pretty good," the scientist finished finally.
John nodded his head in sarcastic appreciation of the compliment. "Thanks."
John turned his eyes back to his reflection and pressed the brush to his stomach, shaping the darker outline of a cloud, white paint crisp against the blue. He didn't watch McKay in the mirror but felt his eyes on his back as he painted. "You're welcome," Rodney said, his voice clipped and to the point.
"As I was saying before…," he began leadingly.
John scowled in quicksilver irritation and he felt the hairs on the back of his neck acutely, like the wire-brush spine of an angry cat. "Right," he muttered.
"Were you classically trained?" Rodney asked. His voice was light with absentminded curiosity.
John tucked his chin to his chest and leveled his eyes on McKay in the mirror from beneath furrowed brows. The skin at the edges of his eyes crinkled as he narrowed his eyes. "You came to ask me if I was a classically trained painter?" he asked sarcastically. It sounded as likely as sunstroke in December.
Rodney's pale eyes moved over the wall near the mirror. Shadow played at the corners of his lips and the place they parted. "Ah, no," he replied dismissively, shaking his head.
John snorted and shrugged a shoulder, one corner of his mouth lifting. "Huh. That's too bad," he drawled.
McKay met his eyes in the mirror, his forehead creasing as he frowned pragmatically. "Why?" he asked.
John shrugged. "I'm sick of hearing you ask me the same question."
Rodney narrowed his eyes, curling his lips irritably. "Oh, ha ha," he shot back.
John's chest vibrated as he chuckled lowly, turning his smile toward the desk and his pots of paint.
"Okay," Rodney said suddenly. He took a breath. "So, the reason you don't want Jennifer to marry me is this misguided notion you have that I'm a jerk."
John bobbed his head in agreement, consulting the earthenware dish as he lifted it from the table.
"So the only possible solution to our problem is to get you to get to know me better so you'll change your mind," he finished triumphantly and John set the dish down, his features darkening.
He half turned to regard the other man with open disbelief. "And that makes sense to you?" he asked.
Rodney snorted and grinned at John. He shook his head, eyes narrowed on John as though John were the one with bizarre notions. "Are you kidding?" he asked brightly. "Of course. It makes perfect sense."
John turned his eyes back to the mirror and dipped his brush into the paint again. "Yeah, well, I'm no genius but that doesn't seem…." He paused. "What's the word?" he asked.
Behind him, McKay offered no suggestions.
"Oh, yeah," John finished pointedly, glancing up at McKay's reflection with pitched eyebrows and feigned frown. "Logical."
Rodney scoffed. "Oh, please. Spend a few hours with me and you'll see I'm a lovable teddy bear," he retorted.
"Lovable teddy bear." John knit his brows. "Yeah, that seems likely," he replied sarcastically.
McKay nodded airily, his gaze wandering over the wall. "Yes, well…," he said, "I'm glad you see it my way." Then, looking hopeful, he asked: "So…when you're done…?"
John glanced at McKay, a little put off and Rodney lifted up a slim case he carried in his hand. "I brought my chessboard," McKay put in.
John paused, his eyes showing his confusion. "Chess," he said finally.
"You know how to play, right?" Rodney asked.
John had learned to play on the road when he was a boy. It took him five minutes to learn the basics. Two games and he put down admirable strategy. John had never lost a game but there was no sense telling McKay that. "Oh, I have an idea," he demurred cryptically.
The scientist surveyed his reflection with an optimistic expression, unaware of that fact. "So…?" he asked.
John shrugged a shoulder. "Sure, I guess. You're on."
A smile curved the corner of McKay's mouth and the scientist came further inside, twisting the chessboard between his hands to set it out on John's tabletop. John set his paintbrush down on the edge of the paint pot and turned, pulling a chair out across the floor across from McKay.
As they settled, McKay peered across the table at him. "So," he asked innocently, "Shall we play for stakes?"
Between five and eight that evening, John beat Rodney three out of five games – the second ending in stalemate and the last ending with Zelenka's rap on the door to let him know the show had begun. The chair legs scraped over the wood floor as John straightened his legs out and pushed it back. He stood up and the wooden birds hanging from the ceiling spun in lazy, oblong circles behind his shoulders. He turned, grabbing his coat and Rodney was on his feet at John's back, his mouth hanging open.
"Hey!" he protested. "We're in the middle of a game!"
John half turned and shrugged his shoulders. Zelenka blinked sluggishly, half of his body in the open doorway. "Sorry, McKay, you heard the man – show time," John said, hooking a thumb toward the big top. He bobbed on the balls of his feet.
"Oh, that's fair!" McKay called sarcastically from by John's table as the wagon door shut behind the two men. He leant back against the edge of the table, staring after them for a long moment as he heard John's boot treads fade off and away completely. Then he swept the chess pieces into the slim case he'd brought along with him and ran out the door. Tucking the case beneath his elbow, he chased John to the flap of the big top tent where the dark haired man lifted the fabric up and went in.
When John came back from his first act, slick with sweat and sky blue paint, McKay was in the waiting area with two crates set up on either side of a large book trunk. It looked like a bizarre dinner arrangement in the low light from behind the backdrop. McKay saw him and swept his hand out, gesturing to the chessboard and the little ivory and pewter pieces arranged on the tiles anew.
"So, best out of ten?" he asked hopefully.
John glanced at the board sidelong, arching an eyebrow dubiously. "Oh, yeah, we'll start all over again 'cause I was beating you," he said after a beat.
McKay grimaced. "Oh, what? Yeah, right. Can't you recognize a hustle when you see it? I was two turns from trashing you."
John took the bait and knew it, sitting down on his crate, he appraised the board. Then his brows knit and his features darkened. "Rodney, where's my queen?"
"Your queen?" Rodney asked helpfully, lifting his eyebrows. He cast a look at the board.
John narrowed his eyes at the other man, looking up from beneath his brows. "Yeah, my queen," he shot back. "Where's my queen, McKay?" he demanded. "I was about a move and a half from putting you in check mate."
The other man scowled. "You wish," he retorted. "I don't even think it was still on the board."
John narrowed his hazel eyes. "It was on the board; about a move and a half from checking your king, actually."
Rodney shrugged his shoulders, casting a disinterested look at the board. "I didn't see it before. Maybe it's still in your wagon."
The hue of John's green eyes were brighter in contrast with the blue paint on his face. "Why don't you go get it?" he suggested, theatrically threatening.
McKay's mouth sagged in a frown. "I already set it out," he complained.
John scowled at him silently and McKay sighed, pushing the crate out as he stood. "Fine," he groaned. "Just don't…." He made gestures like cartwheels with his hands. "Move until I get back."
"No," John replied sarcastically. "That's just what I was going to do." McKay lifted a hand and John cut him off, pointing to the flap in the tent. "Go," he ordered.
McKay's shoulders drooped and he sighed, rolling his eyes as he turned and left in the direction John pointed at.
At the table, John buried his smile in the shadow of his lifted shoulder and straightened the pieces on the board.
Chess became a Monday and Wednesday thing, then a Friday and a Saturday thing. Then it was almost every day. John didn't notice the time passing, just a series of shows, a series of practices. Life at the camp was pretty similar to how it always was, but there was an air of excitement that lay thick in the air. John tried to tell himself the visits weren't part of it but around three in the afternoon, his hazel eyes would scan the troupe for McKay's square face and thoughtful furrowed brows, maybe the light, mocking smile he sometimes wore.
Around three in the afternoon, the scientist always showed up. He knocked on John's door like clockwork, arrayed in his black coat and driving goggles, the chess board tucked under his elbow. John would open the door in his decisive manner, dressed in his shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a black vest, face to face with the other man. And McKay would pitch his eyebrows up hopefully, lifting the board up as he'd ask, "Ready to be trounced?"
"Born ready." Pointing at him, he'd say, "But you'll have to eat your words when you lose. Again."
The scientist would narrow his eyes at him and John would suppress the levity rising in his chest and fluttering with the quick step beat of his heart.
Day by day, John found himself forgetting the road. He wasn't alone in it. Teyla and Ronon's free smiles and Zelenka and Weir's engaged, fascinated expressions said more than anything else. Everyone liked it there. Atlantis felt like the place they'd been waiting for or like it had been waiting until they found their way there.
John wasn't surprised Jennifer wanted to stay but it planted an acid seed of resentment in his stomach because she wasn't the only one who wanted to be there – she just thought she was.
Atlantis was hard to say No to. It was a pearl citadel in silvery water – only it wasn't a piece of jewelry or a dead sculpture carved in bas relief. It was dynamic, a challenge.
There was also McKay.
There was a weird magnetism to the way he held his body that drew John's eyes when he was around. Like on a Sunday afternoon, outside of the big top, Rodney a hundred feet away and John by a light pole as Aiden Ford practiced with his horse.
The slow track of Ford's white mare obscured McKay from sight for a moment – Ford's lean muscles flexing under caramel colored skin as he held still, balanced on his outspread hand on the mare's flank. The silhouette of Ford and the horse fused into one blurry shape as John watched Rodney mangle his hat, smiling with uncharacteristic platitude at Jennifer by Carson's cages, Jennifer's face obscured by the lacy edge of her parasol, dragging the hem of her slate blue dress through the mud and John bit his tongue.
Rodney was easy to watch. It was easy for John to keep squinting his eyes at the curved corner of his heavy mouth. When Rodney felt his gaze and turned back briefly John glanced back at Ford, shot off a short directive. One minute, thirty seconds more before he chanced a look in Rodney's direction and by that time the other man had looked away.
Just like Atlantis – their being there wasn't supposed to happen but it did and now there was nothing he could do about it but watch and wait. John swallowed and turned back to Ford. He tried not to glance away.
