stargateficrec | In This Era of Liberty by Chandri (M)

Show: SGA
Rec Category: Sheppard/McKay
Characters:: Rodney McKay, John Sheppard
Pairing: Sheppard/McKay
Het/Slash/Gen: Slash
Warnings: None
Author on LJ:

chandri
Author's Website: Fantasi.net
Link: In This Era of Liberty --- Podfic by juniperphoenix

Why This Must Be Read:

John really puts Rodney through the wringer in this breakup-makeup story. Whenever I read this, I usually end up wincing more than once at their up and down relationship, but the ending leaves me smiling with hope.

Excerpt:

So much of it, in the beginning, feels like a test. Rodney keeps expecting an exam, for someone to come and ask him questions and prove he knows what he’s doing. It’s disorienting, because usually things that are this important to him come with a syllabus, with a schedule, with guidelines. But as with all other purely human things he often feels like he’s fumbling, coming up with the right answer by accident and more often with the wrong one. Sometimes John freezes, and gives him a strange look, before shaking his head and pulling Rodney into bed. Sometimes Rodney says the wrong thing, but doesn’t know what it is until he’s said it, doesn’t know why it’s wrong until later.

Sometimes he wants to accuse John of cheating – not like that, just that John doesn’t have to think about this, and that’s unfair. Being deliberate with people isn’t something you’re supposed to have to learn. You’re supposed to just know, and Rodney knows this, and looks for it, sometimes, finds it missing. He never learned the things you’re supposed to simply feel, and that’s dissonant enough to make him angry about it. It’s like being asked to count the cells in his stomach lining; it’s part of him, it has to be, but he can’t articulate it, not in any sensible terms. Instead it’s buried, twisted up, and for him, emotion and intellect have always inhabited different spheres.

He can’t access this, can’t explain it, even though he can feel it there, hovering just out of reach. It gives him a headache.

“This isn’t really fair,” he says once, after an argument he still can’t parse. They’re slumped against the wall of John’s room, John’s hand cupped around the back of his head and his breath harsh in Rodney’s ear. Surprisingly, of the two of them, it’s usually not Rodney who yells. “You’ve done this before.”

“Done what before?”

“This.” Rodney’s hands flail, as he belatedly realises they’re behind John’s back, John can’t see him. “This – this, knowing the rules. You’ve done this before. You know what to do, and what things mean, and I… don’t.”

John laughs, loosening the knot under Rodney’s sternum, because five minutes ago John’s look was pitying, disbelieving, almost hurt, and he still feels guilty about that, because almost anyone else would have known how to fix it without panicking. “That,” John says dryly, “is really, painfully obvious.”

Rodney kind of wants to take offense at that, but what he actually does is sag against John’s body, sigh and feel heavy and tired. “Yeah,” he says, his voice breaking a little on the word. “I know.”

And John leans back to look at him, as he says, painfully earnest, “I’m trying,” and John smoothes back Rodney’s hair, which has grown long enough that it sticks up at funny angles.

“I’m not any good at this, either,” says John, in confidential tones and, pressing his cheek to Rodney’s, “but I know. It’s okay.”

...