Invisible Prisoner by dancinbutterfly (NC-17)

[mf_luder_xf]

Fandom: Stargate: Atlantis
Pairing: John/Rodney, John/OFC
Length: ~29,600
Author on LJ: dancinbutterfly
Author Website: Tags

When Critical Mass aired, I was really excited to see the Goa'uld in Pegasus. But the episode, besides Cadman and her tap-dancing bomb-making skills, was rather anti-climactic for me. This story is everything I wished that episode had been. The author is particularly good at emphasizing how trapped John feels, his pain and horror at what the Goa'uld is doing that he can't stop. dancinbutterfly ties in canon lines and scenes seamlessly. The snark is brilliant, the horror palpable, and the reactions once John is free are realistic. I particularly like the characterization of Heightmeyer.

A tense, angsty fic, that ends on a hopeful note.


"It's too dry here. It's playing hell with my sinuses. I'm on the verge of a spontaneous nosebleed every time I go out in that heat."

"Like in those Japanese cartoons when they see a pretty girl?" John asked. He held the phone sandwiched between his ear and shoulder so that he was free to doodle on a pad of paper instead of filling out his mission report.

"What? No. I'm just sensitive to the dry heat."

"You're just bored, Rodney."

"Possibly. You're not?"

"In general or just at the moment?"

John stared down at the picture he was drawing. It was a really really bad sketch of a puddlejumper which was currently resembling a can of Campbell's soup more than a space ship. But it was more entertaining than writing a mission report for boring planet PX-seventy billion or wherever.

So maybe he was bored with work, yes, but he was off duty tonight. And so was Helena.

All in all, the month back on Earth hadn't been a complete bore.

"Colonel, I have about seventeen time-sensitive projects I could be working on."

"You called me."

"That's beside the point," he snapped and John could almost see Rodney waving his hand dismissively at him. He couldn't stop himself from smiling at the image.

"It can't be that time-sensitive if you're making social calls. Is the solar system going to blow up? Because if it is I can let you go," he teased.

"No," Rodney said sourly. "I am not going to blow up another solar system. I didn't blow up the whole thing and we said we were going to stop bringing that up all the time. I made one little mistake and you people just can't let it go."

"It was a pretty big boom, Rodney."

"Who uses the word 'boom' in conversation? You're like a six-year-old."

"Hey, my inner child is nine and he takes offense at that."

"Don't you have work to do?" Rodney demanded.

John added a few lines to his puddlejumper sketch. The poor thing was really hideous. The Lanteans would be horrified. He felt like sending them a copy of his rendering in a databurst for General O'Neill. Or he should show it to Helena. She'd get a kick out of it and he liked it when she laughed. Then again, so would Rodney. Although Rodney didn't really laugh that often, come to think of it.

He needed to get to a Xerox machine. Then he could do all three.

"Don't you? You're the important scientist guy."

"Oh yes, I was in the middle of making a series of personal jet packs before I called."

John sat up at that. Because really, what guy hadn't wanted a jet pack when he was little? He certainly had. And maybe he wouldn't say no to one now. If he was offered.

"Really?"

"What? No! Jet packs aren't real. For god's sake, the amount of heat generated from the thrust that would be required from that sort of jet propulsion system would burn your legs off before it ever got you off the ground."

"Way to kill my fantasy there, pal."

"You fantasize about jet packs? Clearly, you're more twisted than I thought, which is saying something."

John wondered for a moment how Rodney would react if he had any idea what John really fantasized about. Not well, most likely. Although to be honest, a jet pack had never come up before. Now it was there in full force, fitting neatly into an image of Rodney in a barely-there leather superhero costume along the lines of Batman or possibly Nightwing that flashed through John's mind's eye.

The visual should have been a ridiculous one, as the idea of Rodney as anything even close to Batman could have been dorkier but not without a lot of work. Yet John found it to be startlingly hot and a bit unexpected.

John had forced himself out of the habit of thinking about Rodney like that now that he didn't see him every day. He found it was easier not to dwell on what he'd decided long ago was a pointless and juvenile crush when the object of the obsession was hundreds of miles away than it was when he was living down the hall from Rodney. Biweekly phone calls did not call for the same sort of closeness as living that close to someone and surviving dangerous missions through the gate together.

The fantasies had thankfully become less frequent once they'd been parted for awhile. John had them even less now that he was seeing Helena. And if thinking about Rodney sexually didn't come up, thinking about having to hide his desire didn't either.

It was only when Rodney called that those annoying issues seem to float up out of his subconscious. So, needless to say, he was a little distracted by the task of pushing them safely into the back of his mind where they belonged and came back to the conversation a little bit behind.

"—in a week."

"What?"

"Did you go deaf or did you just stop listening to me?"

"Are you going to yell if I say I stopped listening?"

"I would consider the option but you're not worth the energy."

"I won't be swayed by flattery so don't bother."

"Are you at least listening now? Or is your paperwork that much more interesting than our conversation?"

"I don't know. I've got some requisition forms I could be filling out. And I could probably catch Helena if I leave now. "

"Who?"

"Helena," John said, because she'd been a fixture in his life for a month and so of course Rodney knew about her. Only he didn't. "This girl I'm sorta...she's a girl."

"Is she an Ascended girl?"

"She's just a girl," John sighed.

A very smart, very pretty girl who he suspected knew a thing or two about gymnastics. A girl whose regular presence in his life and bed provided a considerable consolation prize for losing Atlantis, his contact with Teyla, Ronon, and Elizabeth, and his chance to fly in outer space on a regular basis.

"Really? I didn't know you went for the non-Ascended type."

"She's from New Hampshire."

"New Hampshire's up from here in latitude isn't it? So technically she has to ascend to get back. You really should double-check her references. Make sure she has, I don't know, parents."

"You don't really think you're funny, do you?"

"Who's being funny? You've got a track record, Picard."

John rubbed at his eyebrow with the eraser of his pencil, as if that would somehow erase the irritation from his brain. "McKay."

"What?"

"Setting aside the fact that I am not a member of Star Fleet or a captain, that one doesn't work by virtue of the fact that unlike Patrick Stewart, I have hair. So could you stop calling me Star Trek names and go back to what you were talking about earlier? Something's happening in a week? You can tell me, I'm not ignoring you right now. "

"Oh, yes, yes, yes. I'm flying in to Colorado Springs. I just got my ticket."

"Really? How come?"

"Business mostly." Which was code for: try to talk Samantha Carter into letting him work on her projects and/or go out with him. John didn't give him much of a chance for either but it would be good to see him again.

"We'll hang out while you're in town," John said. It wasn't a question. Having even one more member of his Atlantis family was too good a prospect to leave vulnerable to Rodney's always too-busy work schedule.

"If I don't have too much work, I guess that'd be all right."

He wouldn't have too much work. Colonel Carter liked John and she wasn't Rodney's biggest fan, despite (or more likely because of) his obsession with her. A few quick words and they'd have at least a few hours to hang out, have dinner, start feeling like things were normal again—or as normal as they could be without Teyla, Ronon, Elizabeth, and, well, everyone else.

"We'll work something out."

"We always do. Or, rather, I always do and you try your best not to ruin it."

"Yeah, miss you too, buddy," John sighed and glanced at the clock. It was later than he'd thought and he needed to actually get his report finished and filed if he was going to meet up with Helena tonight. He was supposed to be at her apartment in two hours or so. If he rushed, he could probably still make it on time. "But I've got to run if I want to get out of here in the near future."

"I need to make sure my obsequious toadies haven't destroyed my lab. It's like they were all cursed with ten thumbs and double-digit IQs. They'll give anyone a PhD these days," Rodney lamented distractedly. "I'll see you in a week, Colonel."

"Seeya in a week."

He hung up the phone, pushed his doodle away and set to work. The sketch fell off the desk but it didn't look any more like a puddlejumper when it hit the floor of John's office.


Invisible Prisoner