Work Text:
worms are the words but joy’s the voice
down shall go which and up come who
breasts will be breasts thighs will be thighs
deeds cannot dream what dreams can do
– time is a tree (this life one leaf)
but love is the sky and i am for you
just so long and long enough
(as freedom is a breakfastfood, e. e. cummings)
After the funeral, Dave didn't expect to see or hear from John for another five to ten years, depending on how well John figured they'd mended their fences. He was surprised to start getting dutiful monthly e-mails, with a weeks-long gap between Dave's replies and John's answers. John was stationed in a pretty remote place and only got his mail once a month or so, he said. Dave asked if John could get packages. John said no, and that there wasn't anything he needed. Dave tried not to take that as a rebuff.
The house Dave had inherited had two rooms of things in storage for John. The furniture from their grandparents (his grandmother had especially wanted John to have the dining room set, and her crystal), John's mother's books, things from their father passed down out of duty to the eldest son (oil paintings, a Persian rug, a small collection of rare Irish Bibles). Dave mentioned this to John once, and John had said that if Dave was hinting that he needed the space, he could get rid of it all. John hadn't sounded angry, though in e-mail who knew? But Dave didn't know if John understood that he had a legacy. Dave knew the import and the responsibility of John's inheritance, and he refused to sell anything until John had touched his history with his own hands.
Dave had been shocked at the funeral to see that John was getting old. He'd always pictured John the way he looked after his divorce: furiously arguing with Dad, or painstakingly careful with Nancy as his role of handsome and charming husband crumbled away. He'd always been drawn to places where he couldn't be followed, and Dave thought John had finally pushed them all past caring. But at the funeral Dave felt as if John had become a stranger; the gray hair and the lines on his face made Dave wonder if he should have tried harder, if Dad should have tried, to get John back.
Dave shared a name with his brother, but he didn't know who they were to each other. He was careful writing his e-mails, trying not to show irritation or to be overly familiar. He could tell John was trying just as hard, even though John was worse at it. John asked, two months after the funeral, how Neha and the kids were doing, and Dave had to explain about the divorce, about the few weeks a year he had custody because Neha's fabulous new job was in Phoenix. That sucks, John had said, with awkward sincerity. Dave sent him some pictures of the Hawaii trip he'd taken the kids on, and asked about John, if he was seeing anyone.
John's reply was delayed because, he wrote, he'd been stabbed and hospitalized twice in the past month. Dave had a fleeting moment of cynical black humor, thinking that just proved the lengths John would go to to avoid talking about himself. But they'd both inherited their father's stubborn-bastard genes, and this time Dave wasn't going to be put off by John's unit commander. He used every bit of influence his name and position gave him to force his way through layers of military obfuscation until he got Samantha Carter on the line.
"John mentioned your name," Dave said, making a split-second decision to be briskly professional instead of turning on the charm. Colonel Carter sounded like she had a had a finely-calibrated asshole detector. "He said you're the best commanding officer he's ever had. And he's my only brother, and I just want –" He paused to take a breath, and looked at the framed picture of his kids on his desk. "I don't even know how to send a care package that will actually reach him."
There was a slight delay on the line, enough to make Dave wonder if he hadn't just woken Carter up in Afghanistan, or some other center of whatever covert operations John was mixed up in now.
"No problem," Carter said. She sounded like she was smiling. "There's a, a transport leaving pretty soon, actually."
Dave grabbed his pen and wrote down the Colorado mailing address she dictated. He was hesitant to ask, feeling like he was going behind John's back, but. . . . "Is John okay? It sounded as if he was seriously hurt."
"I hear he'll make a full recovery," Carter said. "I was reposted back Stateside so I haven't seen him, but that's what I was told."
"I worry about him," Dave said, and winced. He wondered if Carter knew about all the years they'd been estranged; if she thought that his concern was too little and far too late.
"That's good," she said warmly, and then, "Sorry, stupid thing to say. I meant, having family support, that's important. I don't think John ever got personal mail under my command. I had to approve all the items shipped in," she added. "Some of the things people wanted delivered – "
"I promise not to send alcohol and pornography," Dave said dryly, and then winced. He wasn't talking to Neha, who'd have found that funny.
"Oh, beer and porn's fine," Carter said, her tone wryly amused. "Things like kittens, germ cultures, and seeds are a big problem. Kudzu's bad enough in the South, imagine if it was the vine that ate the universe."
Dave laughed; he liked her. He could see why John did, too, and he suspected that they'd been friends as well as colleagues.
He thanked her, and Carter said, her voice still pleasantly helpful, "In future, just contact me directly, Mr. Sheppard. It could cause trouble if word got out that someone was asking questions about John. I think he's worked pretty hard to ensure he's not connected to Central Utilities in any way. The wrong people knowing who he is could be dangerous," she added apologetically, right before ending the call. "You know."
Nancy had suggested the same thing once in a video call after seeing John at the funeral. She'd implied that John was enmeshed in some secret project, and she'd sent him a letter a few days later, saying she hoped CU didn't have any collaborative research projects with Applied Technologies or Stanton Research.
Dave had never heard of either, but had Jesse Chan, his PA, prepare files on them. The two companies had a high number of government contracts, and staff there had apparently died suddenly, their work abandoned. But government money was flooding into unregulated clandestine research these days – industry sources blamed this on the war – and there were too many unsubstantiated rumors about researchers and scientists going missing, disappearing from academia and payrolls completely. Chan commented cynically that the people on the street were happy to have 5 TB iPod Crystals and promising new cancer treatments, so no one was going to ask questions; and, he implied, no one who asked questions was safe.
Chan was a big fan of conspiracy theories and paranormal detective shows. Normally, Dave liked that about him.
Dave had sent Nancy his thanks for the warning and asked how her presentation to the UN had gone. Nancy had said fine, and I'm glad you're safe, which made Dave wonder, at the time.
He wondered now, as he entered Carter's data into his phone (first-generation Crystal, with only one terabyte), what danger John was in. He appreciated John using it as a plausible excuse, and at the same time felt ashamed for the lack of contact John had needed to explain.
That night Dave asked Neha to send him the recipe for the sugar cookies the kids loved, and made six dozen Saturday afternoon between a video conference with civic leaders and a charity dinner. He packaged them in Tupperware and had the housekeeper send one box to Nancy and one to Colonel Carter. John's cookies went inside a larger box with some herbal teas from the pantry and a quick get-well-soon note that Dave thought was entirely inadequate to the occasion, though it did have both flowers and a kitten on the front. He'd bought the card to send to Raina when she broke her arm, but then Dave had decided fuck it and flew all the way out to see his little girl and her pink cast.
John wrote that the cookies were really good and said he'd be willing to send on color pictures of his new scars if he could play on Dave's sympathy for more cookies. I was stapled together, John said. It was pretty gross.
Dave sent both cookies and fruitcake for Christmas, mailing the package in November to ensure it'd be there on time. He assumed that was what brothers did, look out for one another. He often felt like his father would have been disappointed that Dave hadn't tried to step into his shoes, but staying in his position with Energy Services and Development meant Dave managed to have a life outside of work. Dave was trying to put family first, when he could; looking after John, taking Christmas week off to spend with Neha and the kids. Besides, Dave assumed that if pressed his father would have admitted Dave was too inexperienced to be CEO; Dave had refused to even be a candidate for the succession, and was selfishly glad Barbara Daramy had stepped forward.
Neha flew in the day before Christmas, and they decorated the tree and called all the relatives and piled all the presents on the sideboard. There was even a mail-order package from John; this turned out to be four remote-controlled dinosaur cars complete with batteries, which rampaged through the discarded wrappings and ribbons all Christmas morning.
"I never knew I wanted one of these," Neha said, grinning as her dinosaur skidded into a counter stool. "Tell John I said thank you."
New Year's Eve they stayed in and watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The kids conked out at nine, and Neha opened a bottle of wine. She cried during the final battle – Dave knew his son wasn't just named Rohan because Neha's grandmother's numerologist said it was lucky – and Frodo made Dave think uncomfortable thoughts about John. He blamed the melancholy on the wine. The next day Dave sent John pictures and videos of the holiday chaos, saying thank you and this is all your fault and hope you're safe and well.
After the holiday noise and rush, the long tail-end months of winter were bad, alone in the house again. Dave kept walking into memories of Dad and hospitals, hushed conversations in funeral parlors and having to talk to caterers while choosing hymns. He didn't expect to hear from John, much less to be told he was now stationed near San Francisco and would love to get together, unless you're busy.
Dave replied, for my brother, I'll make time and then kicked himself when he didn't hear from John for a week. Good job scaring him off, he thought angrily at himself, and then: God, John was an idiot.
But he got a call at the office four o'clock on Friday, from John and his brand-new cell phone. John said he was in Washington after finishing four days of meetings with the President, various congressional interests, and a bunch of international committees, and could he drop by? Dave said sure, he'd have a guest room made ready, and then had to ask – it begged the question – if there was going to be a war. John just laughed and said oil prices wouldn't be affected for the time being, which wasn't that reassuring.
John showed up at half past eight, carrying a suitbag and a duffel and looking worn to the bone. Dave had prepared minestrone soup and whole-wheat rolls and salad, which amazed John.
"You made this yourself?" John asked, holding up his third roll to eye level.
Dave snorted. "The bread maker did the dough, I just divided it and put the rolls in the oven."
John looked seriously impressed. "That is so cool." He frowned, suddenly. "Did you make those cookies? I was the most popular guy on base until they were gone."
"Thank you," Dave said. He pointed. "The soup's home-made, too. Not that over-salted stuff from a can."
John took a huge, contemplative bite out of his roll, and then washed it down with iced tea. "Always kind of wished I could cook. Never really had the chance to pick it up, though." He stirred his soup idly, looking like he was trying to puzzle out how the bits of vegetables and meat combined. "This guy," John said, talking to his soup, his voice not changing at all except for a sudden undercurrent of tension, "this guy I used to be with? Home cooking would have knocked his socks off."
Thirty-three years they'd been brothers, Dave thought, repressing any impulse to react. One year since John'd brought a hot guy to their father's funeral. He didn't know if he felt weary or furious that his brother was sitting across the table, obviously terrified to tell him this and just as obviously trying so hard to reach out that it was a wonder his blood pressure could stand the strain.
"I could teach you," Dave said, the first innocuous comment that came to mind. "Neha and I used to cook together. She's more of a foodie than I am." He gestured at the rolls. "Whole wheat flour stone ground by a waterwheel in a nunnery in upstate New York."
"Nuns, huh?" John fished a chunk of potato out of his soup and ate it.
Dave shrugged. "So, the man you introduced me to, Dexter?"
John blinked, looking taken aback. "Dex?" And then he got what Dave was asking and went red and embarrassed-looking. "No. No, he's just a friend. Kind of young for me, you know?"
Dave discovered, to his amusement, that he liked watching John squirm, now that he wasn't caught between John and his father's wall of disapproval. "Enough of my acquaintances have trophy wives by now that a trophy boyfriend doesn't seem like that much of a stretch."
John made a noncommittal noise and started in on his soup. Dave didn't think of his own mother as a typical trophy wife, but he admitted he was biased. Dave's mom had been twenty-three when she'd married his dad, a year after John's mother died. Now that he was older, Dave recognized that as a dick move and something that probably messed John up as a kid. He and Neha had the kids see a counselor once a week to talk about about their feelings. He doubted his dad had been careful with John's emotional development.
"So what happened with your guy?" Dave asked. "Irreconcilable differences?"
John played more with his soup. "I never told him he was important to me," he said finally, the words flowing like he'd practiced them, but unsure, as if he'd never heard them out loud before. "He moved on." He said the last two words like they were in quotes.
Dave just nodded, and John stared at him, intent.
"You're my brother," John said, the words like an appeal, or a plea. "Blood family. And I feel like you should be more important to me, but I don't even know you." He shook his head. "I'm sorry about that."
Dave waved a hand. "You're here now."
John did that thing with his eyebrow that always bugged the hell out of their father, and then yawned hugely, barely catching it with a hand. "Sorry," he said, looking taken aback. "Been a long few days."
"Go to bed," Dave said. "I'll teach you how to make a killer omelet in the morning, and you can tell me why you're talking to the President."
It didn't quite go like that. John's omelet was a sad lopsided thing, dark brown on one side and soggy in the middle, and his work was, as always, classified. Dave didn't press him; Colonel Carter and Nancy had made him suspect that John was involved in something ominous.
"Are you safe?" he asked. John laughed and said he'd be a lot safer once they got rid of the den of snakes in the Beltway. "I hear you," Dave said. "You wouldn't believe the problems we have lobbying against government interference."
"A little interference now and then would be a damn good thing," John said. "But humanity bootstraps itself up anyway." On that cryptic note, he announced he wanted to go swimming.
John had to borrow a pair of swim trunks, tying them tightly to keep them on his hips. His scars were still pale and vivid, and John grimaced when they pulled while he stretched. Still, he beat Dave in two races out of three, and then made Dave play Marco Polo.
John took off after lunch, saying he had to get back to San Francisco – he implied darkly that the city might sink into the sea if deprived of his presence for too long, which surprised Dave into laughter. He wasn't used to thinking of John as funny. He was, he thought after John left, used to defining John by negatives: not cooperative, not talkative, not polite, not home, not in contact. And now he could add not straight and not a good cook, he supposed, and called Neha for no good reason except to tell her about John.
*
John's e-mails relaxed in tone after that, though he made a point of warning Dave that they were probably all censored. Dave half-bought that, but it also made it convenient for John to slither out of discussing his personal life. He called a lot, too, from the various places he was sent; apparently he was required to travel a lot for his new posting.
"No time to just hang out in San Francisco?" Dave asked once, taking a Sunday-morning call from John on his cell phone, in the club house.
"I think they're trying to prove to me that the city will survive just fine in my absence," John said, sounding beaten down. He was in a Best Western outside of O'Hare Airport, which probably compounded his low mood. "Which I knew already."
"I'd think your responsibilities were a good indicaton of your value to the Air Force," Dave suggested, not that he knew what John actually did. If he were sending a subordinate around the country to coordinate with branch offices, it wouldn't be a punishment.
John snorted. "It's not the Air Force so much as the International Oversight Advisory. These people don't have a clue what it's like out there, so they don't care. Nine out of ten of them think the snakes we're dealing with are the most pressing threat," John said. "And the other one out of ten is a snake and wants to make me the fall guy for his world domination scheme."
Dave gave a scoff of laughter. John's political views were both warped and cynical, but always overblown. "Come on, John. You tell me, is that true?"
John sighed, forgetting what a horrible noise that made through the tiny speakers. "Politicians and bureaucrats," he said, like they were dirty words. There was a noise like a plane taking off. Dave wondered if John had his windows open. "Rodney offered to hand the IOA's personal e-mail accounts over to Viagra spammers. I was noble. I said no."
Dave had heard about Rodney before, a calculated pattern of name-dropping that made him next to positive Rodney was the ex-boyfriend. He had to be circumspect about asking, though. "How is Rodney?" he asked, as if he were catching up on news about an old friend. "Figure out the Grand Unified Theory yet?"
John snorted, thankfully not into the phone this time. "He did that years ago when he was. . . high. Can't make heads or tails of it now, though."
"And I'm sure you never rub that in at all," Dave said dryly.
"He broke up with his girlfriend," John said abruptly. "So I'm being nice to him this month."
"He seems to do that a lot," Dave commented, seizing the perfect opportunity to say something without actually saying it.
John didn't reply for so long Dave had to check to make sure his phone battery was still working.
"He likes good-looking intelligent women with strong careers," John finally said, his voice light, as if he was teasing Rodney just by talking about him. "But I feel like he enjoys the idea of them more than the realities of being in a relationship. The same way," he added, and Dave could just picture the bitter twist to his mouth, "he idealizes the whole two-point-five kids, picket fence, pretty girl and white wedding thing, you know?"
Dave looked out the picture window at the dazzling expanse of manicured lawn and made a noise of agreement. His father had made sure he learned to play golf competently, to swim and ride, to dance, to play the piano. His grandfather had come to America as a child packed into steerage with his mother and brothers and sisters, and started working when he was nine. John and Dave were supposed to have been the ideal that their grandfather had striven to secure for his family line, and Dave still felt keenly how far from expectations he fell.
Neha had had similar ambitions, passed down from her family. Their marriage had been a process of stripping away expectations until they'd arrived at difficult truth. When they divorced they were better friends than they'd ever been while married, but they agreed they needed to learn how to be themselves, alone, on their own. Dave still loved her. Love was a lot more complicated than he'd thought back in the beginning.
From his conversations with Nancy, Dave knew John didn't bear the yoke of anyone's domestic fantasies comfortably or easily. John, in fact, had been known to make a point of being an obnoxious asshole, just to highlight how inappropriate he was.
"Rodney's sister told him he needed to get serious because he's not getting any younger," John went on, sounding a little lost. "Spooked him into making his move on his girlfriend before figuring out if he should move."
"Been there," Dave said, suppressing the urge to give unwanted advice and encouragement. "Done that."
John started laughing. "Oh, God," he got out finally, breathless. "Me, too."
*
Over the months of gradual reconciliation with John, Dave had constructed a mental image of Rodney McKay from the bits and pieces that John let slip. John said that Rodney was short-tempered and impatient, smarter than anyone in at least two galaxies, and brave. He said that they took turns saving each others' lives –Dave assumed this was meant literally. John talked about him like they were best friends, and one of these days Dave was going to ask him what the hell he'd been thinking to let Rodney get away in the first place.
The conversation he was going to have with John today, though, was going to involve a lot of yelling, he thought, leaning back in his desk chair as three people in black uniforms shoved past his PA and into his office, ordering Barton from Accounting to get lost.
The familiar tall guy with dreadlocks tossed Dave a grin. "Hey, dude."
"Dex," Dave said, and told Barton he should reschedule with Chan on his way out. He hoped his smile looked reassuring and in control.
Through the glass partition – everything in the new building was glass, meant to inspire honesty and not voyeurism, Dave supposed – he could see Chan with the phone tucked under his chin, wide-eyed but doing his best to appear unruffled. All of Dave's visitors were armed, and it looked like they were wearing bulletproof vests. Chan was living his own personal X-File, and didn't look happy about it.
Dex held out his hand and Dave stood and shook. The woman who'd slipped in behind Dex circled around to look through the plate glass windows at the view of the stand of trees and the river.
The third member of the group was manning the door, nervously. He paced and glared at Dex and snapped, "They're calling Security," and then opened the door a slit to yell, "Fine, you call for help, you should call the Marines."
The woman turned a serious gaze on Dave and asked curiously, "Do you have Marines stationed here?"
"Figure of speech," the man barked. He was carrying his gun in a holster strapped round his leg and kept touching it nervously.
"We are John's team. I'm Teyla Emmagan," the woman said, and inclined her head. "You know Ronon from your father's honor ceremony, and that is Rodney McKay."
"You're Rodney?" Dave said, incredulous. He'd expected more hair and less paramilitary efficiency.
Rodney turned and stared at Dave, as though sizing him up. Then he spread his hands out as if implying that he had been pushed past some invisible limit and was no longer responsible for his actions. "And you're John's brother. Much as I'd love to stop and chat, some very bad people want to wine you, dine you, and stick a snake in your head, and we would prefer not to hand over a large chunk of the energy grid, not to mention nuclear power plants."
"It's pretty creepy," Ronon agreed, with a sideways nod at Rodney.
"Plus John's decided he likes you," Rodney concluded, his grimace implying that he had yet to draw his own conclusion as to Dave's worthiness. He took out a PDA and began jabbing at it in annoyance.
Dave decided that he would not think about snakes, literal or metaphorical, until later, when he had more information. He picked his cell phone up, keeping both hands where they could be seen.
"John's busy," Rodney snapped. His shoulders dropped as much as they could under the bulk of his outfit. "Sam sent him out with the strike force."
Dave frowned and tapped his phone. "Colonel Carter?"
"Yes," Teyla said with a bright smile; Rodney just deepened his glower and demanded to know how he knew that.
"She's on my Christmas card list," Dave said, and placed the call. This time, he was connected immediately.
"Listen to Teyla," Colonel Carter said, brisk and authoritative. "You're not in immediate danger, and we'd like to keep it that way. Teyla's second in command on John's team. I'd trust her with my life."
"I'm not going anywhere until my kids and my ex-wife have protection," Dave said. "If someone's after me. . . ."
"John's taken care of that," Carter said. She sounded sincere, and sympathetic, as if she regretted dragging him into whatever this was. "Can you put Rodney on?"
Dave got up, handed the phone over, and moved to stand by Teyla, who was looking at the framed picture of Neha and his children with sharp interest.
"I understand. I have a son," she said by way of explanation, and arched one eyebrow with a faint conspiratorial smile. "Rodney delivered him."
Rodney snapped, "Fine, fine, whatever," into the phone and cut the line. He pointed at Teyla. "What did I tell you?"
Teyla's look was teasing and fond. "I will never think of that as an embarrassing story."
"And still you named the kid after John," Rodney said, but cut himself off, staring at the PDA in his hand as if it had offended him grievously. "Okay, we need to be gone. Now."
"I'm sorry," Teyla said, and put a hand on Dave's elbow. "I know this is strange for you. But I am told our getaway vehicle kicks ass."
"In that case," Dave replied with the best manners he could muster under the circumstances. He let her lead him out the door efficiently, waved off Chan's concerns with an unbelievable reassurance that everything was under control – "Friends of my brother," Dave said, "just passing through" – and let himself be led through the service door to the fire stairs and up to the roof. As they walked, Rodney fiddled with the PDA like it was his nervous habit.
The doors to the roof were jammed open with cans of grape Nehi soda, which was a fire code violation that if discovered would probably have earned the company a hefty fine, not to mention trouble from the unions. Ronon collected the soda as soon as Rodney followed Dave out into the brilliant sunlight, and shoved the heavy doors shut.
"The lack of solar panels up here didn't surprise me at all," Rodney said, making the words an accusation. He had a set of tools out and was detaching a device from the security system keypad, but he took a moment to give Dave a dirty look. "Nuclear power, nuclear weapons, very Sheppard of you."
"Rodney," Teyla said, sounding very much like a mother warning her child away from tactlessness. She moved forward resolutely, one hand held out with her fingers lightly curled, until they met resistance in the air. She ran her hand over something that wasn't there as if getting her bearings.
Then she walked forward and disappeared.
"The cloaking mechanism isn't that impressive," Rodney said, looking at Dave with a smug superior little smirk that Dave found incredibly insulting. "Just physics and a little alien technology."
"You probably shouldn't hit him," Ronon advised, dropping his arm heavily across Dave's shoulders and encouraging him forward towards the same space where Teyla had vanished. "He's piloting."
"It is wonderful," Teyla said. "Nothing to be afraid of." Her hand reached out from nowhere, palm up.
"Invisible," Rodney said, in a clear tone of superiority, "spaceship."
"Right," Dave said, and shrugged out of Ronon's hold, taking Teyla's hand and letting her pull him inside.
Spaceship or not, the inside looked like a cross between public transportation and the van Dave's carpenter drove. He'd walked into the rear compartment, which had two uncomfortable-looking benches and equipment held overhead with netting and bungee cords. Rodney and Ronon moved past into the cockpit, and the rear door banged shut.
The air immediately became stale, with a smell of locker room badly masked by air-freshener. Dave must have wrinkled his nose because Teyla said, with a quick squeeze before letting his hand go, "When we're flying you won't notice. Believe me."
Dave reached out and touched the metal wall. It was cool, and dinged faintly under his knuckles. "Are you in the military, or a contractor like Dex?" He still thought contractor must be a euphemism, if not for boyfriend then possibly for mercenary.
Teyla shook her head and waved him to a seat on the bench. "My people live on a planet in the Pegasus galaxy," she offered. It wasn't an answer to his question, but Dave wasn't about to call her a liar when he was sitting in an invisible spaceship that was now rising rapidly though the air, the buildings, river and woods below disappearing as they entered the clouds.
"He doesn't have clearance," Rodney shouted back in an impatient sing-song, his hands busy with the controls, which were, as far as Dave could see, a holographic display in front of the windshield. "Ask him what John was like as a kid."
"I'm sure he was charming and polite," Teyla chided, smiling at Dave in apology. "Colonel Carter will explain everything once we're back in the city. It's not a long ride."
Outside the window Dave could see stars, and the wide pale arc of the planet he'd spent his life on, hanging disconcertingly above them.
"John always wanted to fly," Dave said, feeling shaken and off-balance with a combination of awe and worry. "He must love this." He leaned forward, elbows propped on knees, and tried to make out the constellations, but there were too many stars. "Have you heard anything? Is he okay?"
"As far as I know, Sam isn't planning on giving him a bomb and a suicide run today, so he should be fine," Rodney snapped.
"Rodney," Teyla said.
"Back home we're his team, and here we're just civilians," Rodney muttered. "Swept out of the way when there's something military going down." He twisted around to give Dave a dirty look. "They've had him so busy running after Goa'uld clones that we hardly see him any more. And of course when the snakes found out about Atlantis they decided it'd make a great evil stronghold and started going after gene carriers. SG1 was supposed to have found all the Goa'uld on Earth, but I'm sure it'll turn out that some alphabet organization was keeping a couple saved up for a rainy day."
Dave suspected Rodney's outburst would have been terrifying if he'd been briefed beforehand, but most of it washed over him. He focused instead on the view, Earth growing beneath them as the spaceship dropped into the atmosphere. For a brief moment he could see the continent clearly, and had the disconcerting feeling that real life was imitating Google Earth. Dave knew they should all be dead, crushed by the incredible speed the spaceship was traveling at, but no one seemed worried. They had, he supposed, done this before – probably on other planets.
Dave wondered if John could take him to another planet. He wanted desperately to go, now that he knew it was possible; he wanted John's life of adventure, with attractive alien people giving him spacecraft and. . . and technology, he realized, and felt cold, then hot.
Alien technology, he thought numbly. In his cell phone. In the research done by Applied Technologies and Stanton Research, which people were killed over. The US government was hiring people to develop and implement ideas from other worlds, and no wonder international committees were interested in what John had to report. The world was poised on the brink of revolution, or renaissance, or inter-planetary war, or invasion – Dave tried to remember everything John had said about the snakes, but he couldn't. He'd dismissed it as a stilted and not particularly amusing turn of phrase. Rodney suggested the aliens were bodysnatchers. John had been stabbed – twice – and dropped nuclear bombs. Whatever out there was so terrible that was what was demanded.
I really don't want to believe in any of this, Dave thought.
The spaceship twisted down in an impossible arc, coming fast over the ocean towards spires, tall and glittering and impossibly alien.
"Yes, it's the lost city of Atlantis," Rodney said, failing to keep the pleasure out of his voice. "Which is also a spaceship. That your brother flies." He gave Dave a quick grin over his shoulder. "Welcome home."
*
Dave was shuffled off into a twenty-minute VIP tour as soon as the spaceship landed. Colonel Carter had met him as he disembarked, shaking his hand and being very apologetic.
"John and his team beamed up to a ship we have in orbit," Carter said. "The symbiotes are being extracted now, but my people need to brief the hosts before returning them to Washington. I'll send John back as soon as possible, but in the meantime. . . ." She had Dave sign a nondisclosure agreement, introduced him to Dr. Zelenka with an apologetic smile, and made a cryptic radio call and disappeared.
"Asgard beam," Dr. Zelenka explained, gesturing for Dave to follow. "Your first master's is in engineering, yes? You do understand some concepts in physics?"
"Don't let him touch anything," Rodney called after them. "He's a Sheppard."
As soon as they were out of sight, Zelenka pulled a small metal egg from his pocket. "Touch this," he said, and grinned widely when it glowed yellow and green in Dave's hand.
Dave spent most of his tour learning about technology that was operated by gene carriers, getting the For Dummies version of the Atlantis Expedition's history, and fielding some unsubtle proposals for research projects that sounded incredible, if they could be believed.
Zelenka's tour finished in his lab, even though Rodney was there and snapped, "What part of classified do you not understand?"
Zelenka shrugged, unperturbed. "He's a natural gene carrier, and he is not jaded yet."
Dave wondered how long it took to stop being awed by technology that was practically mind-controlled. "I'd like to talk to Dr. McKay," he said, and gave Rodney a pointed smile. "In private."
Zelenka looked disappointed. Rodney's expression was more complex: wary and defensive and irritated all at once.
Rodney sighed, as if imposed upon, but squared his shoulders. "Follow me," he said, and led Dave back out to the alien elevator. He hit the display, and a few seconds later the doors opened on an observatory platform at the top of a medium-sized tower.
There was a railing, but still. . . . "Are you planning on pushing me off?" Dave asked, crossing to look down. It was a long drop to the sea below.
"I come here to think," Rodney said tightly. He jerked a thumb to the side, where there were a couple of folding garden chairs and a white plastic patio chair. Rodney didn't offer a seat, though, just crossed his arms and looked at Dave as if he were an intruder. "You don't like me very much, do you?"
Dave shrugged and leaned back against the railing. Zelenka said the city was over ten thousand years old but in amazing condition; the rail would probably hold his weight. "You haven't gone out of your way to be likable. But John likes you. That's all that matters."
Rodney's expression went from surprised to shuttered.
"If you still like him, you should give it another try," Dave said. "Otherwise, let him go. He'll wait for you longer than he should, I suppose because he thinks you're worth it." He spread one hand, as if it was all the same to him.
"Of course I'm worth it," Rodney said automatically.
"He talks about you all the time." Dave turned to put his elbows on the balcony railing and stare out over the ocean. In the far distance, he could see the faint blur of land, mostly blocked by the central tower "Before they fell out, John wanted to make my father happy. He just. . . couldn't." He looked sideways at Rodney, who was very still. "He had to come out to me last year, because in my family it was expected none of us would ever dare to be gay. I understand now why he stays in the Air Force, despite what that means for his personal life." Dave indicated the city and flew a hand like a spaceship; Rodney snorted in what might be agreement. "Despite all that," Dave took a breath, "he knows who he wants. He won't ever be easy."
"Obviously you've never met him drunk," Rodney said, and then his eyes widened in horror.
Dave held up a hand. "You didn't say that and I didn't hear it." He sighed. "My father and his father before him believed in building a family legacy. I've come to believe the family part is the most important."
Rodney shook his head, looking amused. "You can say that because you're filthy rich."
"If you want a house in the suburbs with a white picket fence and a dog I could arrange that for you," Dave said. "John's got some lovely Queen Anne furniture in storage. As well as the family silver."
Rodney's face flushed with anger. "Can you buy John missions that don't involve complex algorithms for sacrificing one life for the good of the many? He could have died today very easily. The aliens he's been tracking for the past seven months get off on torture, mind control, and murder."
Dave took a breath, held it, and let it out, the way he did with his personal trainer during cool down. "If John died before our father did – we'd both long since given up on him. I don't think I'd have cared, which sounds horrible, but it's the truth. If he had died today, I'd mourn him and wish we'd had more time together. But I'd still be very grateful for the time we had together."
"I hate you," Rodney said, slumping against the railing.
"John's in love with you," Dave said. "From what he says, I think he has been for years. He's learning to cook for you."
Rodney reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose, as if warding off a headache. "He's the world's worst cook ever."
"I can't bring myself to tell him that," Dave said, and waited a beat. "Can you?"
Rodney shook his head, as if depressed that he was even having this conversation. Then he straightened abruptly and tapped the radio at his ear,
"Yes," he said. "Yes, of course. I'll be there." He cut the connection and looked in Dave's direction, without meeting his eyes. "John's back."
Dave nodded. "I'll wait here, if you don't mind. I have a lot to think over."
Rodney looked as if he wanted to argue, but then gave in with a loud huff of irritation. "Fine. Pull up a chair. I might be a while."
Dave waved a hand in dismissal, just to annoy Rodney. "Take all the time you need."
Rodney scowled, swallowed down words that were probably insults judging by his sour expression, and stepped into the elevator.
Dave turned back to look at the ocean. He tried to imagine the city as being the home of his Ancient ancestors, but that was impossible. He tried to imagine the city as John's home: the bright dangerous thrill of gene-activated technology, the spaceships, the people John had chosen to be his team, who seemed to have chosen him back. He probably would have to get rid of John's furniture, he supposed, and he hoped Rodney worked things out with John. Time was too short, and the universe was too terrifyingly large, but despite that, or because of it, Dave wanted the people he loved to be happy for as close to ever-after as possible. He suspected this was too much to ask of life, but he was a Sheppard; he asked anyway.
*
Dave wasn't really surprised when John called to say the city was scheduled to go home before the year was out. He told John to come over if he could before he left. John said he might bring someone, his tone partly hesitant, as if Dave might say no, and partly suspicious, as if he suspected Dave of interfering.
Dave just asked for a few days' notice, so he could get the guest room ready.
John and Rodney came for a weekend, John driving down from the airport in a rented sports car that made Rodney mutter darkly about midlife crises. Dave had assumed the visit would be awkward, with John uncomfortable and tongue-tied and Rodney abrasive and defensive, but he was glad to be proven wrong.
Rodney tried, quite obviously, to be on his almost-best behavior over lunch, and John came up with a set of childhood reminiscences that were mostly true but edited in such a way that Dave wasn't sure if he was purposefully sanitizing them or actually experiencing some kind of nostalgic selective amnesia. John leaned back in his chair, his sandwich half uneaten, and told Rodney about the time he'd tried to build a treehouse using a Victorian side table.
Dave wondered if he ought to mention just how much trouble John had caught. His mother, he recalled, had been furious, and John had been punished for damaging the furniture. Dave remembered seeing John cry, afterward.
"Idiot," Rodney said, shaking his head. "Can I have your bacon?"
John shoved his plate over.
"I never figured out how you did it," Dave heard himself saying. "You were, what, eight years old and three feet tall? The table weighted more than you did."
"Ladders, rope, and dumb luck," John said, shrugging, and then proceeded to demonstrate, using his cell phone as the table and a candlestick as the tree. "I should have been sneakier," he said, once the phone was precariously balanced. "I wanted to spend the night outdoors. See the stars, look for ghosts."
"Break every bone in your body by rolling over the wrong way," Rodney suggested..
John grinned, raised an eyebrow at Dave, and told the story about how he used to climb up to the roof and lie there reading books, where no one could find him.
"I never knew that," Dave said. John shrugged and said it was his own fault for being younger.
"You used to toddle after me everywhere," John said. "And you chewed on all my action figures while I was at school."
"As fascinating as this all is," Rodney interrupted. "And believe me, the joy of hearing about Sheppard as a kid could only be surpassed by candid family photos, but we kind of need to discuss, off the record, some of the proposed government research projects that I know people are wooing you with."
"Some of the technology has been known to blow up planets and solar systems," John offered, and gave Dave a wry sideways smile. "Knowledge is power, and power –"
"–is the family business," Dave said in chorus. "I miss hearing Dad say that. I never thought I would." John made a noncommittal gesture, but that was all Dave expected. "I'll make coffee," Dave said, standing and collecting the dishes. He looked at Rodney. "Why don't you get your slideshow and spreadsheets cued up."
From the kitchen, Dave heard John laugh and Rodney grumble in reply. "He knows you too well already," John said. "You want the projector over here?"
"Just put it down and come here," Rodney said. "You don't want kids, right? Because I worry too much just over you."
"Nope," John said, and there was a telling pause.
Dave didn't know how to tell John that it was fine to touch Rodney in front of him – within reason – or kiss him, or do any of the small things that couples did. He thought that would be an excruciating discussion with John; perhaps one Rodney might be better able to deal with.
"I don't say worry and mean something else," Rodney protested. "I don't worry because I care, I worry because you do stupid things."
"I'll be good," John said, in a low amused murmur. "I promise."
"No using the bedroom voice in public." There was another space of silence that coincided with the coffee finishing, which neatly sidelined his curiosity. He filled three cups and set them on the saucers on the tray, and added a dish of fancy chocolates. He was fairly sure John had told him Rodney had a sweet tooth.
John was still kissing Rodney – or maybe the other way around – when Dave set the tray down on the sideboard. John startled and pulled back, looking guilty but not pulling his hand out of the back pocket of Rodney's trousers.
"I'm happy for you," Dave said, meeting John's eyes. "Obviously, the aliens, the interplanetary wormholes, and the government conspiracy make everything ridiculously complicated," he took a breath, "but love is like that, in my experience."
John bit his lip, lost for words the way he got, but Rodney stepped in to save him.
"Hard work but worth it in the end?" he suggested, with a wry crooked smile. "I'll agree if you don't say you told me so."
"Welcome to the family," Dave said instead, and wondered what Neha would think of Rodney, and of John and Rodney. He'd have to tell her, he thought, and sat down to make decisions that would affect the future he was creating for his children, and all future generations.