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Radek didn’t go to see Rodney in the infirmary. He supposes he should have, he is Rodney’s friend, after all, but he couldn’t. What could he say? I’m still cold, how are you? Why did you lie to me? No.
This whole thing is Zelenka’s fault. He was the one responsible for supervising the jumper repairs. He was the one who said she was ready to fly. He was the one who came to me embarrassed because he was afraid to fly at the best of times, not to mention a test flight. I should have just told him to suck it up. But no, no I say sure, I’ll take her out. And now, now he’s all safe and warm and cozy on the surface while I’m stuck down here paying for his mistakes. You’ll excuse me if my trust for my fellow scientists is at an all time low.
It’s been two days since Radek listened to the audio file the downed puddle jumper transferred over with the rest of its usable data when he extended the shield between the two. There was probably video once, maybe even in 3-D, but Rodney rerouted the power to keep himself warm, to keep the pressure up inside the cargo hold to keep the rising water out. Audio is all that’s left, like one half of a telephone call playing through Radek’s head over and over again, like boy band music, only worse. Radek listens to it at night to remind himself what this thing he’s had going on with Rodney all this time really meant. Nothing. He didn’t even trust Radek to try to save him.
If he can’t turn to you, who can he turn to?
It’s not that Radek hasn’t heard the saga of Lt. Colonel Sam Carter, the perfect woman, all blonde and tall and brilliant, but she hasn’t been working side by side with Rodney all this time. She’s never sat awake with Rodney for three days building nuclear weapons to save them all from certain doom. She’s never been half the things to Rodney that Radek has, but still Rodney wants to kiss her. Rodney probably thinks of her while he’s touching himself and drooling on Radek’s cock. Radek’s just a stand in for some military person who doesn’t even want Rodney in his own mind.
Radek’s known it all along, but he’d needed the reminder once he had let himself give in to the fantasy. When he’s felt the temptation to let go again, to let the fantasy wash back over him just once more, let his hands go to touch everywhere they itched to go while his imagination runs away with him (which shouldn’t have been so very, very many times in only 48 hours), he replays it. Rodney was cold and alone and dying all he wanted was a little of the human contact he’d begged of Radek so many times, but he didn’t want it from Radek.
He’d tried so hard, so, so hard not to delude himself, not to get comfortable, not to want more, but in the end he’d still wound up cold and alone and broken inside. And the worst part, the worst part was that Radek still wants the lie he’d told himself with a hushed voice in the back of his mind. He still wants Rodney, still wants to believe that Rodney wants him, still can’t quite crush the last tiny part of him that hopes Rodney feels the way he does, lost and lonely and just a little bit in love.
It’s stupid, he knows it’s stupid, and he can just imagine the ridicule Rodney would subject him to if he knew how stupid Radek really is.
Rodney’s made fun of him for a lot of things, but never for the things that mattered. Not even for a second did Rodney hesitate when Radek asked him to take the jumper's test flight, didn’t make a single crack about Radek being afraid. Radek knows that people think that Rodney is a coward, but Rodney will do what needs to be done if people need him. Elizabeth had to talk him into going on the rescue mission to save Rodney, Rodney, and he wouldn’t have for anyone less. He’s afraid to kiss Rodney when Rodney’s had his mouth on Radek’s penis a hundred times, is terrified to tell Rodney he even has feelings, let alone how he feels, and Radek knows he never will. No one has ever called Radek a coward (though Colonel Shepard looked like he wanted to that day in Elizabeth’s office), but Radek knows what he is.
Rodney has been out of the infirmary for hours, back in the lab driving everyone one crazy, but he hasn’t spoken to Radek once, hasn’t even looked at him. Radek wants to scream at the top of his lungs, because he can stand being stupid, he can even stand it if Rodney never touches him again, but he can’t stand to go back to being invisible the way he was back before Rodney needed him, before Rodney even knew his name. It doesn’t matter if everyone else sees him now, Radek needs Rodney to see him.
When Radek’s wife left him ten years ago, Radek hadn’t noticed for ten days, and that was half the problem. Radek forgets the time and winds up asleep on the cot in his lab only to wake up and work some more. Nothing else ever matters when he’s lost in his work and Rodney gets that, makes fun of Radek for drinking only twelve cups of coffee a day so he can get his beauty sleep. Rodney forgets to eat when they are in the middle of something big and Radek’s never met a man quite so enamored of food.
Before Radek met Rodney, he would get an occasional twinge of remorse for the terse way he treated others. Being polite and playing politics was never high on his list of priorities, something which kept him out of a career in academia, but sometimes he wishes... Rodney McKay makes Radek seem affable and down right mild mannered in comparison, a trait for which he alternately adores and hates the man. It’s a relief to be able to say the first thing that comes into his mind without censoring himself. He never has to worry about hurting Rodney’s feelings.
On the other hand, it had been almost twenty years since Radek had let himself be hurt by someone else before he met Rodney and now he walks around with a dull ache relieved only by occasional bouts of stabbing pain. Even his divorce had only left him with a wistful sort of regret that he’d never have her borscht again. Every time Rodney left Radek without so much as a thanks felt like a fresh slice on the wound in the center of his chest. Rodney’s never kissed him and that hurts more than having his intelligence questioned twenty times a day or his input disregarded ever could.
It feels like he’s been waiting for days for everyone to leave the lab for the night, but they finally do, Miko tossing a worried glance back and forth from Rodney to Radek and back again before she shuts her laptop. Rodney relaxes perceptibly as she walks out the door; his shoulders slacken and the whole top of his body slumps down over the table. But his face doesn’t soften, if anything, his features get more pinched, tighter and a crease forms between his brows that wasn’t there a second before. He huddles in on himself and starts to shiver. Radek is across the room and reaching out to touch Rodney before he can think better of it.
Rodney lets out a startled yelp and jerks back when Radek’s fingers brush against the bare skin of Rodney’s arm. The sudden movement is too much for the wobbly lab stool to take and it overturns, taking Rodney with it. Rodney’s arms flail wildly during the half second fall, clutching for something to help right him, but ultimately just pulling Radek down to the floor, too. Radek’s arm hurts; he must have stuck it out to catch himself. He’s rubbing his head where he knocked it against Rodney’s, but for the most part he is fine because Rodney cushioned his fall.
That’s when Radek realizes he’s sprawled half on top of Rodney, who is still a little stunned, just sitting there, not even breathing. And then he does, takes a big gulp of air, shoves Radek right off onto the floor and scurries back a few feet until he hits the base of the lab table and stops. The bandage on Rodney’s forehead where he hit it in the puddle jumper is turning suspiciously red in the center. Radek moves to check on the wound to see if it has reopened or if it is just bleeding through the stitches, but Rodney flinches and turns his face away from Radek’s hands.
“Just go away and leave it alone, Zelenka,” Rodney says and the heavy, resigned tone hits Radek like a slap in the face. Anger, irritation, snappishness, these are things that Radek knows what to do with from Rodney, but this weary resignation… he has no experience with this.
“Be still, Rodney.” Radek grabs Rodney’s head with both hands and tilts it toward the light. He lifts the edge of the tape and peels the gauze back. “You have already one head wound this week and it is bleeding through your bandage. I must check it to see that you do not pass out in the hallways from blood loss before you arrive in the infirmary and Dr. Beckett sends out Marines to arrest me for assault.”
“I’m fine.” Rodney reaches up to pull away Radek’s hand, the one that has been cradling his head. Radek almost snatches his own hand away when he realizes his thumb is rubbing along Rodney’s cheekbone, but Rodney pauses with his hand cupped warm around Radek’s and it stops him. Radek’s breath catches when he looks into Rodney’s eyes. “Please, Radek, leave me with my last shred of dignity.” The look is pain.
“Rodney,” Radek says low and soft, still looking into his eyes. Their faces are so close, so close and Radek thinks he might never get this close again if he doesn’t do something now. He says, “Rodney, please,” and brings their mouths together. He kisses Rodney softly, just a dry press of lips, not the hot, wet kiss he drowns in from his fantasies, but he puts all the things he cannot say into it. It breaks something Radek thought was already broken beyond repair in his chest when Rodney turns away.
“I don’t want your pity, Radek. I know how you feel; you’ve made it abundantly clear. I don’t know what I was thinking, but I won’t be bothering you again. Now please just go.” Rodney still hasn’t looked back at Radek, which is just as well, because Radek might have hit him if his face had been convenient. Radek thought he’d be hurt, but he’s not. He’s angry.
“You lied to me.” Radek spits out the accusation with more venom than he thought he had in him, stored up from every night Rodney left him lying alone in his bed with his dick hanging out and not so much as goodbye.
“What?! I never lied,” Rodney spluttered. “I never lead you to believe we had anything more than an arrangement. I never flinched away from your body in revulsion. I never used you the way you used me.”
“You liar! You used me every time you came to my bed, every time you touched me and left me the second your needs were taken care of. No, you never lead me to believe we were anything more than convenient. You made that quite clear. And then you lied to me. I saved your life and you lied to me. You wrapped your arms around me and you told me you knew I’d find you, like you trusted me, but it was all a lie. You never thought I’d find you. You never thought of me at all except to curse me for putting you down there in the first place.”
“You, you, you bastard! The second my needs were taken care of?!” Rodney flipped his head around to meet Radek’s eyes, his own flaring with anger. “My needs were never taken care of. You never even look at me, never make a fucking sound, you just lie back with your eyes closed so you can imagine it’s someone else sucking your cock. Pardon me if I don’t want to stick around for the let down when you open your eyes.”
“You arrogant, insufferable, stupid man!”
“Yes, yes, I’m petty, arrogant and bad with people, I know,” Rodney said as he waved Radek away with his hands. “I never lied to you. I was freezing to death under six thousand feet of water about to come crashing in on me, so pardon me if it took a hallucination to bring out my better nature. I didn’t think you would find me, but she did. She told me to sit back and wait for you to find me, to trust you to save me, and you did. But she was part of me. I didn’t lie.”
They both deflated and sat looking anywhere but at each other for a long moment, the silence heavy on them until Radek mumbled, “Insufferable little man,” and kissed Rodney hot and hard and wet. Just like the kiss from Radek’s fantasy, the kiss pulls him under, drowns him, rolls him under and keeps him there, keeps him kissing Rodney until Rodney kisses back.
“Please, oh god, please,” Rodney whimpers into Radek’s neck as they roll together on the floor. Radek winds up on top, kissing Rodney again, fierce, possessive, needy, his hands roaming everywhere and Rodney’s just shaking under him and taking it. “Wanted this so long.”
Radek feels like he is on fire, needs to feel the cold press of Rodney’s skin against his again, but when he rucks their shirts up, shoves their chests together, Rodney is hot.
“Wait,” Radek says, planting a shaky hand on Rodney’s chest to hold him down. “Not here. Not on the floor.”
“My room is just down the hall,” Rodney says as he scrambles to his feet. Before Radek can process what’s going on Rodney is dragging him down the hall by the hand until they stop at Rodney’s door.
Radek hesitates. He’s never been inside Rodney’s room before. He knows where it is, has always known where it is, but he’s never been invited there. It’s always felt like there was an invisible barrier a three-foot radius from the door, and that’s where he stops this time, too.
“We can go to your room, if you want,” Rodney says from just inside the door, still holding Radek’s hand, but loosely now.
Radek shakes his head and steps through the barrier into the room and presses Rodney into the wall beside the doorway with a kiss. He can feel Rodney’s erection this close and he knows what he wants. He’s never been allowed to touch before, so his hand sneaking up under Rodney’s shirt is tentative. He slides it down through the baby soft hairs on Rodney’s soft skin past his belly button and down into his pants. Rodney wears boxers, but Radek has seen that before.
Rodney moans rough and low in his throat when Radek finally gets to his prize. The hot velvety skin under Radek’s fingers mesmerizes him, so Radek is surprised when he realizes that he’s managed to unbutton Rodney’s pants with his other hand. He strokes it experimentally a few times before his eyes drift back up to Rodney’s face. Rodney’s face is always so open, just as it is now, the uncertainty and desire written in the lines of his mouth, the skin around his tightly clenched eyes. Rodney wants this, maybe more than Radek does, but Rodney’s afraid and that undoes Radek more than begging ever could.
“Rodney?” Radek looks up, kisses him soundly and leads him to the bed. “Be there in the morning when I wake up.”
“Yes.”