Focal Point by lavvyan
Rating: PG-13
Summary: It was always like that. Sheppard's touch made him unable to focus on anything else.
AN:Beta-read by Denis, broet_chan, and shepsangel. Thank you!
And yet another fabulous cover by Smuffster (this is me running out of words to properly convey how cool it is)
Focal Point
Rodney hated infirmary stays.
His skin and insides all stitched up and repaired, broken body parts put into plaster, all he could do was lie there, utterly unproductive. With the good drugs faded enough to make him lucid, but not enough to make him cry with pain, Rodney usually experienced the worst part of hospitalisation – boredom, which for lack of a laptop or even a handheld inevitably led to introspection.
He didn't like introspection. He usually found himself lacking.
Of course, he could always skip that part and concentrate on remembering their last mission, except that was a disaster area all of its own. Thank God they'd brought Lorne's team along, because Rodney honestly didn't think the others could have unburied him from underneath all that rubble alone. Not while he was still alive.
It had been sheer bad luck that the outpost had collapsed when it did, eleven thousand years old material finally giving in to gravity. He'd just had enough time to shove Sheppard through the door, his friend's shocked face the last thing he saw before the whole structure came down. The next thing he remembered was waking up to the soft hum of the jumper and almost unbearable pain, Sheppard crouched down beside him, one hand grasping his, the other on his shoulder. Rodney hadn't even questioned that Lorne was at the controls even though Sheppard was the better pilot, just taking Sheppard's touch as the gift it was and letting it soothe him through wave after wave of agony.
It was always like that. Sheppard's touch made him unable to focus on anything else.
And that was probably where the introspection came in, because he wondered why that was. Despite his condescension for the soft sciences, he was all too familiar with the concept of 'skin hunger', of being starved for every little contact, except Carson and his staff touched him plenty with each examination, and the dissimilarity was bordering on ridiculous. The difference couldn't be just between casual and professional, either. There had been several dates with Katie Brown, each with various amounts of touching, kissing, and, well, not sex per se, but something that came very close without involving actual penetration. Still, Rodney didn't think Katie's hand on his arm could ever make him blink his way out of an equation and back into the lab. Nor would a light slap on the back from her be enough to make alien whales that had saved his life – and how cool was that? – fade into insignificance.
His chest was throbbing where the Ancient equivalent of concrete had broken two ribs, and he was starting to feel exactly where a thin metal bar had ripped its way through his intestines, but he ignored it, keeping his concentration on the mystery that was John Sheppard touching Rodney McKay. Perhaps it was a very narrowly oriented case of skin hunger, because Rodney was the only one who had Sheppard's attention in that way. Sheppard, who hadn't even looked at a woman since he'd come out of his Ascension 101 class and had to be aching to be touched, in any way, somehow felt comfortable enough to invade Rodney's personal space again and again and again, in a way he never did with anyone else, not even Ronon. It was strange, a mystery wrapped in a riddle and so on, and Rodney hated things he couldn't explain.
He also hated the clear discomfort that kept distracting him, growing harder and harder to ignore. Sheppard… touching him… a special kind of trust and friendship, unique and cherished, better even than what Atlantis itself could offer, because it was Rodney's, and his alone. And it wasn't… it wasn't – take a deep breath, concentrate – it wasn't just the touching, it was everything, the hanging out, the banter, the weird co-dependence thing they had going. It was… God, pain. Nagging and growing until Rodney simply wanted to curl up until he was but a shivering ball under the blanket, but every movement pulled at the stitches, both inside and out, leaving him no option except lie still on his back and breathe. Sheppard. He could swear the man was flirting with him, and judging by the way those touches kept distracting him, perhaps that flirting wouldn't be entirely unwelcome, and… and… and he couldn't do this anymore. He hurt, every part of his body, ache flaring in time with his heartbeat, and there was simply no way to keep thinking when his brain was flooded with all the wrong signals.
Rodney closed his eyes, certain that there'd be tears if he didn't, and he wasn't quite ready for that kind of humiliation. Tumbling under the waves of pain, he didn't really hear the footsteps until they stopped next to his bed.
"When's he due for the next dose?" Sheppard asked quietly, and Rodney wanted to kiss the man for giving him something to concentrate on besides the agony of his damn near fatal wounds and someone give him a shot, anything, please.
"Half an hour, I'm afraid," Carson replied, sounding genuinely unhappy about it, only that it didn't really change anything. Half an hour, that was thirty minutes, one thousand eight hundred seconds of this, and it would only grow worse. Rodney couldn't entirely suppress a whimper at that thought.
Then there was the touch of warm fingers, a strong hand sliding into his good one, and he clung to it, afraid the pain might pull him under if he let go.
"I'll stay with him," he heard Sheppard say, but it barely registered over the sound of Rodney's own desperate breathing, the feeling of blood pumping painfully through aching limbs. It was disturbing, and it hurt, hurt so much he was sure there'd never be anything else but agony, ever again, and then Sheppard's hand squeezed his fingers, hard, pulling him back, grounding him, a feeble connection to a world where not everything was suffering. Rodney didn't think he was in any shape to break Sheppard's fingers when he returned that grip with all the strength he could muster, but his thoughts were upside down, so he couldn't be sure. Sheppard gave a small grunt of pain, but didn't let go.
Didn't let go, until ages later the world became hazy and dulled and Rodney could feel his muscles turn to mush but didn't care, because the pain finally, finally, just ebbed away, taking his consciousness with it.
He thought that Sheppard gave his hand a last gentle squeeze before he disentangled their fingers, that there was the dry brush of lips over his sweaty forehead, but again, he couldn't be sure.
His last thought before reality faded out was that he wouldn't mind, though.
He wouldn't mind at all.
~~~
End.