stargateficrec | Fly Wishes to the Sky by cathalin (NC-17)

Rec Category: Sheppard/McKay
Pairing: Sheppard/McKay
Category: AU, First-Time, Romance
Warning: Slash
Author on LJ:

cathalin
Author's Website:
Link: Fly Wishes To The Sky

Why This Must Be Read:

This AU contains lovely descriptions of the beach and kites and gliders in a story of two lonely men who almost haphazardly, haltingly, finally come together in a long-distance relationship. Rodney's niece Madison makes an appearance, along with Earth-based characterizations for the familiar Atlantis characters. A sweet, slightly angsty, story of wind and water and love.

Excerpt:

The sun's on the horizon when they finally arrive down on the beach. McKay's got his trench coat back on, and it flaps crazily in the wind that's miraculously sprung up; usually this is the calmest time of day. His hair is flapping too, and his cheeks are pink. They finally discard their shoes partway down to the water, and McKay's got his khakis rolled up to reveal sturdy calves.

"How do we judge it?" McKay yells into the wind. "Is there a time limit?"

John thinks for a second. "Yeah. Without one, it'd be a question of who could stick it out here longest."

McKay nods. "Okay. Now if I can just remember how this works..."

John looks at McKay fumbling with the spindle and trudges over through the cooling sand. "Like this," he says, and their hands brush warmly as he shows McKay how to hold it. "I'll help you start it."

McKay's eyes narrow. "Are you patronizing me?"

John laughs. How the hell did he end up on a beach with a stranger who thinks he's patronizing him about flying a kite in a two-man competition? "Yeah McKay, that's exactly what I'm doing. Patronizing you over flying a kite on a beach at night."

McKay narrows his eyes even more, but can't hold it, and laughs. "Since I've clearly got the superior kite design, it doesn't matter. Do your worst!"

John clears his throat. "Uh. Let it out slowly. Don't let it fool you; if you let it go too far too fast, give her too much head, she'll crash and burn."

"Anthropomorphizing much?" McKay asks, eyebrow raised, giving John one of his intent looks.

John ducks his head and steps back. "Fine. Just wait; you'll see."

McKay counts down and they launch the kites. It's touch and go; the wind falters for a second and it looks like both kites are coming down. Just in time, the wind revives, and they both lift as one. John lets a little line spin out, then holds his kite steady for a few seconds, getting the feel of how the redesigned structure's going to fly.

McKay's yelling, a gleeful roar, "Look at mine! I'm so winning!"

"It's not over till the fat lady sings, McKay!" John yells back, letting his kite have its head, watching it soar higher, higher.

"Speaking of fat!" McKay yells even louder. "Your kite looks like a Before picture of a girl in an ad for a weight-loss product!"

"Well, your kite looks like a girl in a Before picture made it," John yells back.

"My mother could make a kite better than yours, are you insane?" McKay shouts.

John gasps out a laugh and has to steady his hand on the kite's lead. "Your kite looks like your little sister designed it!"

"My kite looks like it's twenty feet higher than yours already!" McKay shouts back. "And my sister's got a PhD in engineering physics!"

John's been so absorbed in their kite-flying that he hasn't been paying attention to the beach around them, so it's a jolt when he hears familiar laughter close at hand. He squirms inwardly; it figures that he'd be caught out doing something this absurd by the very people who've been urging him to let loose a little. He'd somehow forgotten what time it was.

"Hey, Sheppard! Ditched us today, huh?" Ronon says in a booming voice while jogging in place. Couldn't take three days in a row, old man?"

John grimaces at him while still managing his kite.

Teyla is doing a hamstring stretch, holding a frankly-improbable pose with her leg up behind her, and grins. "Now, Ronon, we've been telling him he needs to get out, have more fun."

Ronon snickers -- snickers! "Yeah, but I never thought it'd be playing on the sand."

John spares a second to think about what a picture he and McKay must make; two almost-middle-aged guys with their pants legs wet, running backwards through the sand, eyes on bobbing kites attached to strings.

"You're both hilarious," John manages, feeling his kite dart and weave on a random thermal, and pulling his line in a little.

"Who's your friend?" Ronon asks.

John kind of wishes they'd just go away, but gathers his wits. "Oh. This is Doctor McKay," he says. "And these," he says to McKay, gesturing with one hand to Ronon and Teyla, "are friends of mine. Ronon Dex, Teyla Emmagen."

"Pleased to--oh shit!" McKay says from a few feet away. "The lines are going to tangle. Pull back, pull back!"

John shakes his head and gestures to Ronon and Teyla, a "what are you going to do" type of shrug-wave, while running backwards and pulling hard on his kite's line. They both laugh again.

Teyla says, "Well, nice to meet you. We apologize, but we cannot break for too long. We need to stay aerobic."

"Oh!" McKay says. "Yes, uh. Pleased to meet you. My name's Rodney. Ridiculous to call me Doctor. Even though I am one. Two. Call me Rodney." He turns to John and repeats himself. "Call me Rodney."

John doesn't know whether he's imagining that McKay's voice deepens a little on that last bit.

"Nice to meet you, call me Rodney," Teyla says with a smile. Ronon snorts, and John wants to kill them. Can't he have a little innocent fun with a customer?

Ronon and Teyla take off jogging down the beach. Rodney asks, "So, they're...?"

"Uh. He's a writer. Trying to be a bestselling novelist. Freelances for magazines. She's some sort of marketing and fundraising person for Atlantis."

Rodney looks puzzled. "Atlantis?"

"Oh. Right, that sounds pretty weird. Atlantis Energy."

Rodney stares at John blankly.

"The clean energy company that set up shop here; they're trying to make a go of alternative energy sources from the ocean." John smirks at McKay and says airily, just to see what reaction he can elicit, "Something about waves, tides, temperatures."

"'Something about waves.' Why does it not surprise me that this is your level of description of something scientific?" McKay huffs. "Are they...?" he wiggles the fingers of his free hand suggestively in the air.

John draws a blank for a second, then figures it out. "Oh. No! Just friends. With each other."

"Then, you--never mind, sorry," McKay says quietly, then louder: "I'm sort of bad at social interaction."

"I hadn't noticed," John manages. "And no. Just friends. All of us. Have each other's backs, though."

McKay's voice sounds almost wistful. "Must be nice."

John's about to ask where McKay's from, what he does, when the wind shifts and blows hard off the cliffs looming to the east. McKay shouts and John grins, and then they're focused solely on their kites, rising up, up, into the darkening sky.

Their kites are still heading higher when the sun sinks completely to the horizon; they're specks now. Night falls fast; there are a few minutes of brilliant rose-tinted light, then dusk, then almost complete darkness.

John's strangely reluctant to end the competition, and McKay doesn't say anything either, despite the rapidly-falling temperature and the cold wind whipping their clothes. Their kites are invisible now, swallowed up in the night sky. John's just decided that he's going to have to say something and end it when they both gasp. High, high above the beach there are twin flashes of brilliance; rays from the sinking sun have somehow caught on their kites and reflected the rose-orange-yellow back down into their darkened quadrant of the Earth.

"Wow," McKay says breathily, close to John's ear. John turns and can barely see his face, outlined faintly by distant lights from the town. McKay's expression is completely different than any John's seen on his face so far; it's full of wonder. He's looking up, gazing at the two flashing points of light, and John fights a strange and inappropriate urge to put his hand on McKay's cheek.

"Yeah," he says softly. "Wow."

"Have you ever seen that before?" McKay asks quietly.

"Yeah," John says after the silence stretches a little too long. "Once. Not here, though. Somewhere else." Memories swirl for a few seconds; John comes back to himself with the feel of McKay's broad hand warm on his shoulder.

"Hey. You okay?" McKay's standing even closer to John now, and part of John wants to lean into his sturdy warmth, soak up his sarcasm and strength.

"Fine," he says a little too brusquely. McKay lets go of John's shoulder and steps away. John's abruptly freezing and hungry and tired.

"Well. I'd better--" McKay says.

"Right. We'd better get the kites for your niece figured out."

John finds himself watching McKay's hands as he efficiently sorts through packages, then watching his expressive mouth as he rejects them one at a time: "No, no, shoddy workmanship, no oh my god is this trying to turn little girls into sluts, no, I don't think so -- military wannabe, no, impossible physics, won't fly for more than two seconds."

McKay finally picks two kites, a dragon and one that's got every geometric configuration under the sun in it.

"You want to grab a late dinner?" John blurts.

"Oh! I,uh." McKay coughs into his hand, then looks back at John. "I--"

A loud beeping comes from McKay's hideous wristwatch and McKay looks momentarily confused, then incredulous. "Oh my god, why didn't you tell me it was eight o'clock!" he says.

"Well, I--"

"No, never mind, of course you didn't know. I have to be in Portland in an hour and a half. How much for the kites?" McKay digs in his pants pockets and pulls out a credit card from his seedy-looking wallet.

"Eighty bucks," John says, weirdly reluctant for the transaction to end. "But I don't have any way to take a credit card here at home."

"Oh. Of course," McKay says, looking around John's house as if surprised he's not in the store. The look on McKay's face has changed from confusion to almost-panic. "Oh god. I don't have cash. Never carry it. Ridiculous waste of space, and there are criminals everywhere. Though," he squints and looks out the big window in John's workshop, "if there were a place that was too remote for them, it might be here. But that's beside the point. I've got no cash, but I have to leave right this second or I'll miss my plane, and though I'm virtually certain to be late for it as is, on the off-chance that this state's abysmal roads aren't clogged with fleece-wearing weekenders heading to Portland, I have to try to make the flight, since my future Nobel Prize is at risk, not to mention the fortunes of my asshole employer, and--"

"Listen," John interrupts. "Just take the kites."

"No, no, I can't do that!" Rodney exclaims, looking horrified. He gestures at John's admittedly-not-palatial house around them. "I'm sure the multinational corporations who make these so-called 'kites' rake massive profits off the top of your, well, profits? If you have them? I mean, not that you probably don't, I'm sure you're very good at--"

"I'm doing fine," John says, then holds out his hands to forestall McKay's next round of protests. "Fine. Look, send me the money. Here." He grabs a piece of paper and, hesitating only for a second, scrawls his personal email address. "Email me and we'll make arrangements."

"Seriously?" McKay asks. "I hate to--okay, really, that's--yes. Okay, yes. I really can't miss this flight. But here." He pulls out his wallet and retrieves a battered card, flips it over and writes something on the back. "In case I forget. I get...distracted. Email me and I'll send it." He stops talking finally, and just stares at John.

There's sudden awkward silence, and John finally says, "Well, okay then."

McKay smiles and shuffles a little and replies, "Okay. I'll. Be emailing you?"

"Yeah. 'Bye." It feels like there's something the situation calls for, and after a bit he sticks out his hand.

McKay looks at John's hand as if it's something alien. Things go almost-awkward again, and then everything seems to click in all at once for McKay. "Right!"

"Okay." John smiles, and they keep standing there another few moments.

Rodney grips John's hand harder for a moment. "And be careful. I saw your paragliding stuff. Don't be stupid."

"I'm always careful," John says quietly.

Rodney rolls his eyes and releases John's hand. "Right. Going now." John opens the door and lets McKay out. He stares at McKay's retreating figure until he can't see him any more in the gathering mist. Huh.

...