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valdomarx · 4 years ago

Text

Entry, Descent and Landing

Stargate Atlantis, McKay/Sheppard, time loop, 6k, rated M

Also on AO3

“The gate’s not working,” Rodney huffs, entering the mess with a scowl on his face. He's clearly personally offended by this turn of events.

“Eh, I’m sure you’ll fix it.” John currently has more pressing issues to consider, like whether he can reasonably have fruit loops for lunch or whether he should eat some vegetables like an adult.

He picks up the fruit loops.

“I’m serious!” Rodney is all fidgety, talking and waving his hands instead of eating, and that’s never a good sign. “There’s something very wrong with it, and I have no idea why.”

John raises an eyebrow. It’s not often that McKay admits there’s something he doesn’t understand. And without the gate, they are vulnerable.

Regretfully, he puts the fruit loops back. “Alright. Why don’t you show me what the problem is?”

The gate will accept an address, and it spins and dials as normal. But when it should open a wormhole with a whoosh and a ripple of blue light, it simply stops dead. The lights fade out and it shuts itself off.

Huh.

“It’s been like this since we tried to dial New Athos for a check in.” A frown creases Rodney’s forehead. “Hand me that scanner, will you?”

They spend the day poking and prodding at the gate and the control consoles - or, more accurately, Rodney pokes and John swings his legs off the side of the console and provides unhelpful but, he thinks, amusing commentary - but there’s nothing to indicate a problem. No fried circuits, no missing components, none of the usual error warnings which appear when the gate runs into a problem. It just… doesn’t work.

They work through the afternoon, and by the time eight p.m. rolls around John is ready to call it a night and start again tomorrow. But before he can suggest they get some dinner, the gate whirs to life and begins to dial.

“Did you do that?” he asks Rodney, but he already knows the answer is no by the look of confusion on Rodney’s face.

The gate spins as if to dial but it doesn’t connect. It merely sits there, illuminated but inactive, and then -

John wakes up in his quarters.

That’s weird. He’s disoriented, and woozy, and he feels a headache creeping at the back of his skull.

He shakes it off. He probably just needs some food. He heads to the mess and is sitting down to eat when -

“The gate’s not working,” Rodney huffs.

John squints at him. “Again?”

“What do you mean, again?” Rodney waves him aside impatiently. “There’s something very wrong with it, and I have no idea why.”

A cold chill settles at the bottom of John’s stomach. “I know, Rodney. We had this conversation yesterday.”

“What are you talking about? Of course we didn’t. The gate only stopped working today.”

Rodney insists that he has no memory of the gate breaking, and neither does anyone else they talk to. It's like the previous day has simply disappeared.

The more he insists that he remembers it, the more Rodney turns from dismissive to concerned, until he marches him down to see Carson and okay, that's not the worst idea under the circumstances.

Carson checks him over, determines he's physically fine, and tells him it's probably just déjà vu. But that can't be right. It was so real.

Rodney keeps shooting him these worried looks, and that's definitely not helping. So he brushes it off and suggests they get back to fixing the gate. It is, after all, still broken.

They spend another few hours on that, opening up the consoles in the gate room and looking for any faulty hardware. Soon enough it's dinner time, and he's going to suggest heading to the mess when the gate spins up again, and oh shit -

He wakes up in his quarters. He frantically scrambles for his watch and sees that it reads two p.m.

This is definitely not déjà vu.

He heads straight to the gate room. The gate techs are antsy.

"Sheppard, you're here, good." Rodney enters, a tablet tucked under one arm. “We've got a problem. The gate’s not working."

They try to fix the gate again, with no more success than the last two attempts. John keeps checking his watch.

Maybe it's different now. Maybe he's changed enough to stop the day repeating.

At exactly right p.m., his sunny, perhaps delusional, optimism is shattered.

The gate starts dialing.

He wakes up in his quarters.

He sends Rodney off to consult with Zelenka and takes matters into his own hands.

He tries everything he can think of to dial the gate - dialing different addresses, dialing it at different times, even removing and replacing the control crystal in his famed “turn it off and turn it on again” approach to computer repair - but nothing works.

He tries taking a puddle jumper and flying out to the mainland, and into space, and as far around the planet as he can get. No matter how far he travels, at exactly eight p.m. he resets and wakes up back in his quarters.

Six hours is simply not enough time to solve whatever the hell is going on here

He tries explaining his situation to Elizabeth, to Teyla and Ronon, to Lorne, to Carson. Even when people are willing to entertain the notion of a time loop, no one knows how to address the problem, let alone suggest a solution. At best, they seem to be humoring him. At worst, they seem to think it’s his apparently inevitable slide into paranoia.

After trying everyone on the base he has even a passing relationship with, he gives up telling anyone. They can’t help him.

He overrides the city’s power usage limits and tries to dial up Earth. The gate still won’t dial, and he overloads the ZPM, and the entire city is plunged into darkness.

He wakes up in his quarters.

He used to love it here, his own little corner of the strange place that is his home. Now it feels like a prison.

He tries to make contact with the Athosians, or with the Manarians, or even with the Genii. But without the gate, his radio transmissions will take years to reach them. He sits by the radio anyway, listening to the crackling static and waiting for a reply he knows will never come.

Maybe he's trapped in a virtual reality, or his mind is being probed by aliens. It wouldn't be the first time.

Maybe none of this is real.

He stands on one of the city’s most distant piers, staring out into the ocean. It’s quiet here, now he’s turned off his radio and tweaked the lifesigns detector so it can’t track him. He watches the waves, the same today as they were yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that. He considers his options.

He puts a gun to his temple and counts down from five.

He wakes up in his quarters.

He bangs on the lab door and tries one more time to convince Rodney to help him.

“A time loop is not impossible,” he grits out. “It happened at the SGC.” He knows Rodney has read the file.

“That’s because there was an Ancient artifact involved.” Rodney sounds haughty. “Have you touched any strange Ancient artifacts recently, Colonel?”

John breathes between clenched teeth and shakes his head.

“So. Time just spontaneously started resetting itself, did it?”

“How should I know? All I know is that I have woken up in my quarters a hundred times by now, and every day at eight p.m. the loop resets itself.”

“Why are you the only one this is happening to?”

“I don’t know!” he yells. “I have no idea what terrible sin I’m being punished for here! I’ve made my share of mistakes in my life, but nothing that deserves this.”

Rodney stops moving and looks at him -- really looks.

“Jesus, Sheppard.” Rodney’s brow creases. “You’re not okay, are you?”

John slumps. He can’t summon the energy to deny it. “Not even remotely.”

For some reason, this seems to be what pushes Rodney into taking him seriously. He nods, once, sharply. “What can I do to help?”

He looks at his watch. It’s ten minutes to eight.

“Tell me a secret,” he says.

Rodney gives him a disdainful look. “What is this, a tween girls’ slumber party?”

He grits his teeth. “I spent the entire day trying to convince you what’s happening to me is real. I don’t have time to do that every loop. I need you to tell me something no one else knows, so next time I can convince you I’m not crazy or playing around and we can fix this.”

He sees Rodney’s mind working. He can tell he knows John is right and he’s considering options of what to tell him: details about his childhood, his research, his time here on Atlantis, and discarding each one. For all his faults, Rodney does not dissemble. His life is an open book, and for this to work John needs to know something truly private.

“Alright,” Rodney says eventually. He tilts his chin up and straightens his shoulders like he’s bracing himself for incoming fire. “When I was fifteen, there was a boy at school a couple of years older than me. His name was Mikey Haynes.”

“Have you touched any strange Ancient artifacts recently, Colonel?” Rodney asks with the same look of superiority he always has. “Because that’s the only way-”

“McKay,” he interrupts.

“- and why would you be the only one affected, that doesn’t make sense-”

“Rodney!”

Rodney stops. Something in the tone of his voice has broken through.

“I know about Mikey Haynes,” he says.

Rodney goes very pale and John can feel the anxiety radiating off him in waves.

“How do you know that name?” his voice is barely above a whisper.

“Because you told me, Rodney. In the last loop.”

For a few seconds Rodney stares at him, eyes wild and arms wrapped protectively around his chest. Eventually he gives one, sharp nod.

“Alright. You’re stuck in a time loop. What are we going to do about it?”

He has that conversation with Rodney every single loop. It is, without exception, the worst part of each one. Even feeling himself die wasn’t this awful.

He and Rodney have run every test they can think of. He’s been subjected to medical tests and genetic tests, they’ve scanned him for nanites and viruses and alien mind control, and they’ve turned up nothing. He is, by all accounts, completely healthy -- other than the fact he’s reliving the same six hours over and over and over and over.

“Maybe the problem isn’t with me,” he says. He chews over the idea and it seems plausible. “Maybe the problem is with the city.”

“What?”

“What if I’m not the one being looped through time? What if you are, and I’m the only one who’s aware of it?”

“So you’re sane and everyone else is crazy?”

“Yes.” He folds his arms over his chest. “Maybe my ATA gene gives me some protection against the effect, I don’t know.”

“Your magic genetics strike again.”

He ignores the griping. “If I’m right, the problem is even worse than I thought. The whole city, even the whole planet could be stuck in the loop. What’s happening to our allies while we’re stuck? How far have the Wraith advanced across this galaxy without us to keep them in check.”

Rodney swallows, the gravity of the situation finally hitting him.

“There must be a clue in the city sensors,” he says, pushing bits of drone aside to access the whiteboard in his lab. “If the reset is at the same time, there might be a preceding energy burst we can detect.”

“What good will that do?” John is too tired to think straight. “I know when the loop is going to reset.”

“Because if we know what type of energy it is, we can understand what’s causing it.”

John throws up his hands. Sure, why not. It's not like he's in a hurry or anything.

Rodney pokes through the sensor data, making little hmm noises which he finds unreasonably aggravating.

“See!” Rodney has his smuggest expression on, the one that simultaneously says I told you so and I know you find me charming. “Here, just before the gate failed to connect, there’s a small anomaly in the readings. It looks like… Interesting. It looks like ionizing radiation.”

“What does that mean?”

Rodney’s brow creases. “I’m not sure. There’s a spike of gamma and X-rays as the gate tries to connect. But I have no idea what the source is.”

John barely has time to let out a frustrated breath before the loop resets.

He hurries back to Rodney’s lab and points him to the sensor data.

“Interesting,” Rodney says again. “It looks like ionizing radiation.”

John exhales. “Yeah. You said that last time.”

He doesn’t need to eat, or sleep. His body resets with every loop. And yet, his mind has frayed. He hasn’t rested in so long, his thoughts are a jumbled mess.

He takes a loop off. He goes to the gym and spars with Ronon. His muscles are fresh but his strategy is a disaster; Ronon unsurprisingly wipes the floor with him. All the same, it feels good to stretch and move; to worry about avoiding a flying elbow instead of his sorry fate for a while.

Then he has dinner with Teyla. He doesn’t know how many loops it’s been since he ate, and even though he doesn’t need the sustenance he realizes he has been missing the sensory experience of it, and the camaraderie of a shared meal.

He tells Teyla about the time loop, casually, like it’s not a big deal, and she doesn’t seem convinced he’s telling the truth but she doesn’t dismiss the possibility out of hand either, and he loves her for that.

“If that were the case,” her head tilts to one side, thoughtful, “it would be a kind of opportunity, would it not?”

He squints. Nothing about this feels opportune.

“If time were to always reset itself, you could do anything you wish, without having to consider the consequences.” She shrugs. “Many have wished for such a chance.”

Huh. He never thought about it that way before.

Next loop, he steals a jumper and takes it for a joyride, zipping away from Atlantis and out into the solar system.

He pulls a reckless slingshot maneuver around the third planet out and is sent hurtling toward the star at the heart of the system, traveling so fast the jumper shakes and rattles even with the inertial dampeners. Elizabeth screams at him over the comms and he flips them off.

He approaches the sun at breakneck speed and the temperature in the cabin begins to rise. He swoops low into the sun’s corona, arcs of plasma leaping up around him, even more wild and ferocious than he expected. The sensors scream out warnings about hull temperature and radiation levels and he ignores them, absorbed in the way the jumper dives and banks.

He plunges closer, seeing the star’s surface bubble and erupt, then pulls up in a wild loop and swings down closer still: through the corona and into the chromosphere, the space around him transformed into wild hues of pink, shot through with filaments of white hot gas which snap and twist around him.

In the moment before the jumper is destroyed, as alarms blare and the air rushes out through cracks in the hull, his vision is filled with the surface of the sun. It is entrancing, covered in cells of red and orange and yellow, molten and changing and blindingly, blindingly bright.

He records a message for his father and uploads it to the queue to be sent back to Earth. “Dad,” he begins. “I want you to tell you something, something I’ve been meaning to say for a long time. From the very bottom of my heart: Go fuck yourself.”

He knows it’ll be heard by the gate techs, if not the entire expedition. That somehow makes it even more satisfying.

He finds Cadman.

“You’re an explosives expert, right?”

“Technically it’s high temperature and energetic materials technology,” she grins, “but close enough.”

“Awesome. Where do you keep the good stuff?”

She raises an eyebrow.

“You know. The really fun explosives they don’t let the field teams use.”

“Oh, that good stuff. Right this way.”

They spend an afternoon testing the structural integrity of the city’s farthest piers (not as good as you might think), seeing what happens when you strap C4 to a naquadah generator (an extremely large explosion), and enjoying the simple pleasures of tossing prototype grenades into the ocean (the water sprays rainbows across the sky as it is thrown miles into the air, and it falls on them like rain as they laugh).

Cadman barely needs any convincing.

He tells Lorne that he’s gay. Lorne doesn’t miss a beat.

“Yes, sir,” he says, entirely unperturbed. “I figured.”

He leaves a message for Nancy.

He tells her he’s sorry, that he knows he was a bad husband, that it wasn’t fair the way he treated her. He tells her that she deserved better, that he wishes her well, that he hopes she’s happy, and he means it.

He feels lighter the moment he's finished. He wonders why he never did this before the loop.

He’s struck by a genius idea, and he busts open a few locks and drags the ascension machine out of storage. Sure, it nearly killed Rodney, but maybe he’ll get lucky. Nothing to lose at this point, right?

The moment the light envelops him, he knows he’s made a terrible mistake.

Within minutes his skin is peeling away to reveal hard, blue scales beneath. The sunlight becomes unbearable. He turns the lights out and feels his way by sound instead.

He doesn’t remember much beyond that. There are only brief flashes in his mind: cold metal beneath his claws, horrified screams reverberating in a corridor, the effortlessness of scuttling up the side of a tower, the crunch of bones cracking between his mandibles.

He locks himself in his quarters for a few loops after that.

After a while his guilt is outweighed by his boredom. He picks up the guitar that has been primarily decorative thus far and learns to play Folsom Prison Blues.

Time keeps dragging on, indeed.

Eventually, as seems to be inevitable, he ends up coming back to Rodney.

"Sheppard." Rodney gives him a quick nod. "What can I do for you?"

There are a million answers to that question, and none of them are appropriate for work.

He considers the juxtaposition: Rodney's cool greeting with the way he's bouncing on the balls of his feet, all coiled excitement and nervousness. That's how Rodney often is around him, now he thinks about it.

Is it interest or intimidation? Fondness or annoyance? He's never been good at parsing emotions, and that's been a frequent source of frustration. Now it's particularly acute.

"You want some coffee?" Rodney offers, like an olive branch. "I'm sure we've got a clean mug around here somewhere."

John does not want coffee.

How many times has he thought about this? Too many to count. And how many more chances will he have?

What the hell, he thinks. Teyla was right. He'll never get a better opportunity than this.

He steps forward and puts a tentative hand around the back of Rodney's neck. He hears his breath catch. He rubs the soft hair there between his fingers, watches the blush rise on his cheeks. It's an enticing look.

Slowly, carefully, he leans in and kisses him, uncertain even though he knows the loop will reset, because this is bigger than some silly irresponsible behavior; this is him putting his heart in Rodney's fidgety hands and hoping against hope it won't be crushed.

For a moment Rodney freezes, and John is already formulating frantic apologies when Rodney mouths, "Oh god, finally," against his lips and wraps his arms around his shoulders, yanking him closer and kissing him hot and hard.

It's easy as anything to slip his hands under Rodney's thighs and to lift him onto the workbench, even while Rodney attempts to distract him by unbuttoning his shirt and biting a line along his collar bone.

He fucks Rodney over the bench in his lab, and next time on a balcony overlooking the city, and after that on Elizabeth’s desk. He learns every inch of his body; the soft plump of his thighs, the way he likes to be jerked off nice and slow, the sensitive patch of skin behind his ear.

For loops and loops, he does nothing else. Rodney never turns him down, not once. No matter where he is or what he’s doing, he’ll drop everything to be with him, and John has no idea what to make of that.

(Yes he does, but it's too big and too terrifying to look at directly, so he puts it aside.

It can wait. He has nothing but time.)

The first time he gets Rodney to fuck him, he bursts into fat, ugly tears afterwards and Rodney wraps a blanket around him and pets his hair. They stay like that for hours, Rodney holding him and for once not speaking, letting the waves of need and desperation and loneliness ebb and flow as they will, giving the simple comfort of his presence.

Sometimes he tells him about the loop, sometimes not. It doesn’t seem to make much difference to Rodney. Even when he explains nothing, just walks up to him and kisses him, Rodney kisses him back just as hungrily as ever.

And when they’re not fucking, they’re talking. He learns that Rodney has always wanted to learn to paint. He misses his cat (no, really. It’s not funny.) The one person on the base he is most afraid of is Elizabeth, because he secretly suspects she might be smarter than he is.

John tells him about why he doesn’t talk to his family, and about how out of place he always felt in the military. That he likes turkey sandwiches because they’re what his college roommate made for him when he first left home and had to learn to get by on not much money.

Each day, he learns more about Rodney and shares more about himself. And then the loop resets, and he has to walk into the lab and see Rodney regard him coolly and say, “Sheppard,” like that’s all they are to each other.

He misses him, and that sounds insane because he's spent practically every waking hour with the man for what must have been weeks. But he is moving forward and Rodney is staying still. Every time the loop resets, they drift further apart.

He stops sleeping with Rodney.

He gets back to work.

He pulls up the city sensor data and brings it to the lab.

“Here, look. You said before there was a radiation spike.”

Rodney drums his fingers against the tablet. “Yeah, there is. And it looks,” he squints, “sort of familiar.”

“What could cause that?”

“A million things. Radioactive materials. Black holes. Coronal mass ejections. Lightning, if there’s enough of it.”

“Wait, wait wait.” Something important scratches at his mind. “Coronal mass ejections, as in, from stars?”

“Yes. The magnetic fields inside a star shift as material moves in its interior, and when a prominence is formed and collapsed, the star releases a burst of plasma.”

He snaps his fingers. “That’s it! The sun in this solar system, we know it’s periodically unstable, right? And it’s even more active than usual right now.”

“How can you possibly know that?”

He thinks of the arcs of plasma he saw as he dove the jumper into the sun’s corona and decides against trying to explain that. “It’s not important. But we know the stargate has sent Earth teams through time when the wormhole passed too close to a coronal mass ejection, right? What if our stargate had the same problem?”

“That might send whoever was traveling through the gate through time, but it wouldn’t make time loop.” A light flickers in Rodney’s eyes. “Oh! Oh! Unless that’s why the gate failed. It tried to send an outgoing wormhole at the exact moment that the sun’s activity peaked. When the wormhole hit the coronal mass ejection, it bounced back to its origin, carrying its energy with it. And that would mean…” He taps frantically at his tablet. “Right! That spike of radiation is the effect of the outgoing and incoming wormholes colliding, forming a resonance wave. All that energy is forming ripples which must be throwing us through spacetime.”

“Great! So can you fix it?”

Rodney blinks. “I’m not even sure I can model what’s happening, let alone fix it. The mathematical equations alone will be weeks of work.”

“We don’t have weeks, Rodney. We have -” he checks his watch, “- just over half an hour before the loop resets and we lose everything.”

Despair starts crawling up his spine, but he shouldn’t have underestimated the sheer stubbornness of Rodney McKay.

“Well then.” Rodney sits him down and shoves a notebook and pen into his hands. “Looks like you’re going to have to learn some math and help me to remember.”

This is his routine now: Wake up in his quarters, run to the lab, talk Rodney through the problem as fast as he can, get lectured on astrophysics and mathematical modelling until he feels like his head is going to explode, repeat.

Repeat, repeat, repeat.

He gets the basics down quickly but there are still pages and pages of math for them to solve, and nowhere close to enough time to figure it out in one loop. So he learns, and remembers, and does his best to save himself.

Rodney explains it well when he’s not being a jerk, and John starts to understand why he likes this work.

He hasn’t done this much math since college, and it’s not as awful as he remembers. There’s a kind of beauty to it, actually, a balance of all the relevant variables quantified and described, their relationships mapped into symbols and equations, the logically clarity of a necessarily true fact.

“See, this variable here, this represents the duration of the outgoing wormhole.” Rodney taps the whiteboard. John stares at the way his hands dance over the numbers. “And this one here, this is the distance between Lantea and its sun...”

Each loop, he learns a little more. Eventually, he understands the equations Rodney has been scribbling for the past god knows how many loops.

Now they just need to actually figure out how to solve them.

“That equation is wrong.”

“What? No it isn’t. I worked that out myself.” Rodney is glaring at him like he insulted his mother.

“I’m telling you, Rodney. Look.” John uses the cuff of his shirt to wipe out a corner of the equations scribbled on the whiteboard. “This is assuming we’re still operating in base 10, but we know the gate operating system is partially in base 16.” He adds in the corrected figures as he goes. “So we need to convert it to polynomial here and here before we can compare the output to the data from our solar radiation readings, then we can figure out the coronal mass ejection’s effects on both the gate and our computers simultaneously and allow for the difference.”

Rodney is squinting at the whiteboard. “That’s… Huh. That might actually be right.” He steps closer, running his fingers beneath the figures John has changed. Then he wheels and rounds on John.

“You,” he says, pointing a finger at John’s chest. “You are a genius.”

And then he’s grabbing John’s shirt and hauling him close and kissing him, wild and messy and with great enthusiasm.

And John had told himself he wasn’t going to do this any more but this is different, Rodney had kissed him this time, and with the way Rodney’s hands are scrabbling at every piece of skin he can reach he doesn’t think he could stop himself anyway.

Afterwards, once they’ve wasted far too much of this loop to get any productive work done, John tells Rodney about all the times that they’ve done this before, and that this is the first time Rodney has been the one to instigate it.

Rodney shrugs. “What can I say? A man who knows his math really gets me going.”

John hides a smile. “You only want me for my brain, huh?”

“Yes,” Rodney says, like that’s obvious. He breaks into a grin and runs a hand through John’s hair. “And the hair, of course. That’s very important.”

“Mmhmm.” John stretches lazily across the sofa in the corner of the lab. “And the rest of me?”

Rodney gives him a sly look. “I guess that’s alright too.”

And then Rodney is giggling as John wrestles him to the sofa as well, and he’s all flying elbows and poking fingers until John gets him pinned beneath him, both of them sweaty and out of breath from laughter.

Oh, thinks John. So this is what happiness feels like. He’d almost forgotten.

The loop is about to end, though this one feels different.

They're lying squashed together on the too-small sofa, inelegantly draped around each other, when Rodney takes his hand. “You have to tell me,” he says. “We’re about to reset, and once we've fixed this and I've forgotten again, you have to tell me how you feel.”

His gut churns. It’s so much simpler to be together when he doesn’t have to think about the consequences.

“Promise me,” Rodney says. “It’s not fair that I should finally get what I’ve wanted for so long, and not be able to remember it.”

He thinks about how he feels each time Rodney is reset: the loss, the ache of it. He tries to imagine what it would be like to have those experiences erased entirely.

“Okay.” He squeezes Rodney’s hand. “I promise.”

“That’s it!” Rodney beams at the whiteboard, covered from top to bottom in dense equations. “I can’t believe we got that done so fast.”

John lets out a sound that might be considered a laugh.

“Ah.” Rodney looks at him sideways. “You’ve been working on this for a while, huh?”

“You could say that, yeah.”

“Well, good news. Now we’ve got the wormhole modeled, we can feed this data into the dialing device and reset the gate manually.”

“And that will stop the loop?”

“I sure as hell hope so, because it’s the only idea I’ve got.”

“Terrific.”

John makes a conscious effort to stop his leg from bouncing anxiously as Rodney loads up their data into the dialing device.

He checks his watch. It’s three minutes to eight.

This is going to work. Right? This has to work. He’s put everything he has into this fix and he honestly doesn’t know if he can cope with looping one single time more.

(He’s thought that so many times before. And yet, here he is, still, willing or not.)

“We need to get the timing just right,” Rodney informs the gate techs. He’s taken over the gate room and thankfully the entire base has learned not to get in McKay’s way when he has that steely look in his eye. “We need to engage the program at exactly the moment the incoming wormhole is set to arrive.”

Two minutes to eight. Adrenaline surges, and he wants to run or to fight, but there’s nothing he can do except watch the furrow in Rodney’s brow and the agitated tapping of his fingers against the Ancient keypad.

“Alright, Chuck, ready on my command.”

Rodney’s got this, he tells himself. They’ve got this.

One minute to eight.

“Now!” Chuck sits up straighter, focused on the instruments in front of him. Rodney taps at the keypad, attention narrowed down to the rapidly scrolling code on his screen.

The lights flicker, spluttering overhead and casting the gate room in an eerie disjointed light. The gate starts to rotate, the screeching noise louder than usual, the illuminated symbols seeming to glow more brightly.

There is a moment of absolute stillness, and then -

The whoosh of the outgoing wormhole connecting is the most beautiful sound he's ever heard. He can get out, he can be free, he can live. He doesn't have to be alone any more.

Blood rushes to his head in great waves and makes him dizzy, like this might all be an illusion, like it might disappear at any moment.

He checks his watch. It's two minutes past eight.

He lets out a hysterical peal of laughter, staggers away from the gate controls, and passes out.

He wakes up not in his quarters. The antiseptic smell of the infirmary is the sweetest breath of fresh air.

Elizabeth insists he needs medical supervision, but there's no chance of keeping a hoard of curious scientists away from an oddity like the man who looped through time. So he's in an infirmary bed being gently grilled about the experience by Zelenka, who has apparently been elected their representative.

Elizabeth does her best to project an air of calm as she asks, "Is there any way to know how long we were looping for?"

Zelenka pushes his glasses up on the bridge of nose. "It is hard to say for certain, but extrapolating the current season based on the length of the days, we must have lost around six months."

"Six months?" Elizabeth turns to him, aghast. "John, I can't even imagine."

She means well, but he can't handle pity right now. He plays it off casually, with a wink and a smile. "Trust me, you don't want to." He swings his legs off the side of the bed and calls out to Carson. "Doc, I'm good to leave, right? Pretty sure I'm healthy as a horse, and I've given the research team plenty of material to work with."

Carson looks him over, takes in the weary lines of his shoulders, and eventually nods. He always was perceptive. "Aye, alright. But stop back in tomorrow for a checkup."

"Sure thing. Now if you'll all excuse me, I'm looking forward to a well deserved night off."

He is looking forward to a night off, but the very last place he wants to wake up tomorrow is in his quarters. He'd sooner sleep on one of the piers, or in the locker room, or on a hive ship. Anywhere but there.

But there's another option. Or at least, there might be. So he finds himself fidgeting outside Rodney's door.

The door opens while he's pacing back and forth in the corridor.

"Sheppard?' Rodney blinks at him. "I was just on my way to find you. Earlier you seemed… so I thought… well, this must have been hard for you. What are you doing in the hallway?"

He doesn't have an answer for that. Instead he considers.

Rodney's hair is mussed, the way it gets when he's been deep in thought and running his hands through it. His fingertips are pinching together, a hum of low-grade anxiety that surrounds him whenever he has to confront emotional situations. He's wearing an old grey hoodie, one of his favorites because it's soft, even though he thinks it makes him look dumpy (it doesn't. Or maybe it does, but it doesn't matter, because it's comfortable and warm and it smells like Rodney. John knows because he's stolen it tens of times. It's one of his favorites as well.)

John knows him, knows every part of him, and he's so close he could reach out and touch him, but he's a million miles away as well.

"... John? Do you want to come in?" Rodney's face pinches into a concerned frown. "We don't have to talk, if you'd rather not."

He could walk away. Turn on his heel and leave, never mention any of this, let the whole incident fade into obscurity. But he's so close to having what he wants: something new, something familiar, something beautiful.

He takes a breath. Here is his chance. Now or never.

"Actually, I think we should talk." He lets himself smile at the precious memory, one perfect moment crystallized like a diamond from months of crushing pressure. "I made a promise."

#stargate atlantis #mcshep #my writing

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drethanramslay · 4 years ago

Note

26, 58 and 61 for ethan x mc please? like angst in the beginning but fluff in the end. thanks!! i love your fanfics btw i read it like 100 times and i can’t seem to get over it.

Aww thanks anon ☺️ and thank you for the ask ❤️❤️

You can find the prompt list here.

#26-“Are you angry…?”

#58-“Where have you been?!”

#61-“I’m sorry…I shouldn’t have done that, you can look after yourself…I shouldn’t have…I’m sorry.” this prompt is in the form of a text message

Author's note: okay anon I know you wanted a fluffy ending BUT, I decided to write it as a continuation to Hard for me i.e the prompt in which people demanded asked for a part 2

So forgive me for the ending

Word count: 1.2K

Warning: none, it's just angsty as hell

Cry for me

The next one week was painful.

Ethan's confession in the lift had left Leah in a flux of emotions. On one hand she was joyous that he returned her feelings and that he was all in.

But on the other hand she felt gut wrenching guilt which slowly started eating away at her sanity. She was in a relationship with Bryce. She had a freaking boyfriend but that still didn't stop her from pining for Ethan.

She was so lost in her thoughts half the times, zoning in and out of conversations. Bryce could see something bothering her so he slowly formulating a plan to cheer her up.

"Hey Princess?" Bryce asked as they drove to the hospital.

Leah snapped her head towards Bryce. "Yeah?"

“Are you angry…? Did I do something wrong?"

"Of course not, queen B!" I am angry with myself and the world.

"I just... Can't see you so down and lost. You know you can talk to me, right?"

I don't think I can talk about how I am completely and utterly in love with my boss and the fact that he returns the sentiments.

"Yap I know. It's just been a stressful week, y'know?"

"What if we have a movie night today? We can eat junk food and laugh on trashy movies?" Bryce spoke up as they got out of the car.

"That's exactly the thing I need. Thank you Bryce." Leah smiled at him and wrapped her arm around his waist, giving him a side hug.

Bryce gave her a breathtaking smile and wrapped his arms around her. "Anything for you Leah."

As they stood there, with their arms around each other in the parking lot, Leah failed to notice a pair of stormy blue eyes burning into her back.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------- After changing into her scrubs and grabbing a coffee from the coffee cart, Leah made her way towards Ethan's office. June and Baz were sitting and drinking coffee, pouring over the charts while Ethan wrote on the whiteboard.

"Good morning team." Leah greeted them with a smile.

"Good morning, Leah!"

"Good morning, Dr. Garcia."

"You are late. Where have you been?"

Leah's eyes snapped to the clock above the whiteboard.

8:00 am.

"I was getting the charts. And I am not late. We start the meeting at 8am." Leah said as she placed her laptop and coffee on the table.

"Dr. Garcia, this is not your 9 to 5 corporate job where you enter and leave at a given time. You are a doctor and time should cease to exist because our patient's life is in the palm of our hands. Every minute you spend wasting time, that much is cut from our patient's life. Have you forgotten your Hippocrates oath?"

Leah wanted to answer back, but she bit her tongue. NOT worth it Leah, calm down.

So clenching her jaw and swallowing down the humiliation, she responded in a curt voice. "Yes Doctor."

"Tardiness in not acceptable. Is that clear?"

Baz interrupted, trying to diffuse the situation. "Ethan she wasn't even that lat-"

Cutting Baz off, his icy eyes bored into her angry hazel ones. "Dr. Garcia, am I clear?"

"Crystal." Leah spoke up, glaring at Ethan.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------- And that's how the entire day continued. When working the case they were like a well oiled machine but outside in the hallways, they would glare at each other as if they wanted to kill each other.

The tension between Ethan was so thick that you could cut it with a knife. They butted heads throughout the duration of the shift that even the staff noticed.

Leah felt like a ticking time bomb, threatening to explode. Anger, frustration and pain is a very dangerous cocktail together, and now she had all of them whirling inside her like a tornado.

I'm gonna fucking confront him. That son of a bitch has it coming. Leah thought to herself, her teeth grinding.

So when she saw Ethan head towards the stairwell, she followed him.

"Dr. Ramsey, wait up."

"If it isn't patient related, don't bother me."

Leah rushed after him and grabbed him by his elbow with incredible strength, causing him to stop and turn towards her.

"What has gotten over you Ethan?"

"I don't know what you are talking about." He crossed his arms and stood there, towering over her.

"You are a smart guy. Acting dumb doesn't suit you. Now, let's try again, what has happened that has made you so pissed with me?"

"Rookie, I'm not mad at you."

"Yes you are!! You said Rookie in B flat and that only happens when I have royally pissed you off. And last time I checked I haven't done anything wrong-"

"What you did wrong, was crash into my life. What you did wrong, was try to cheer me up on a bad day. What you did wrong, was comfort me in my pain. What you did wrong was have faith in me when I was in doubt. What you did wrong, was make me fall for you."

Leah's jaw dropped. What sort of backhanded compliment was that? Clearing her throat and squashing the butterflies in her stomach, she spoke. "Ethan you can't say things like this to me."

"Why not? It's the truth. I like you way too much for my liking." He said in a low voice.

Leah threw her hands in the air. "Because, I am in a freaking relationship! You had your chance and you blew it. Don't Gove me mixed feelings now."

"I-"

"No now you will listen. You pushed me away. You said that you wanted space. You wanted my professional development. You wanted things to go back to normal. This is the new normal, okay? Accept it."

For a first time in a very long time, he looked helpless and guilty. "I was so wrong sunshine..."

Leah stuffed her hands in her coat and looked down at her lavender converse. She was at a complete loss of words. If things would have been easier she would have kissed him and hugged the sadness out of him.

But life is complicated. And everything has a price.

"So that's it huh? So..." Gulping Ethan continued, "You are over me?"

Silence.

Her brain was screaming at her to say yes and to move on from the angsty and painful chapter of her life. But she could not get herself to say it.

"If things were not as fucked up as they were... Do you think we would be a thing?"

Sighing she patted his arm. "I think you are smart enough to figure that out."

Leah side stepped him and climbed down the steps and opened the door of the stairwell to find Bryce standing there, a deer caught in the headlight expression on his face.

Leah greeted him, curiosity laced in her voice. "H..hey?"

Bryce immediately turned and started walking away fast.

"Bryce wait up."

This is some deja vu.

Bryce stopped and turned towards her, pain shining in his eyes. "Is it true?"

"What?"

"That you have feelings for Dr. Ramsey."

Shit shit shit. An alarm went on in her brain which caused her to freeze up.

"I-" Leah started but she was interrupted.

"I heard everything."

Leah took a deep breath. Cat’s out of the bag. No point denying it. "Please don't jump to conclusions. I-" her pager beeped, signalling that a VIP patient had arrived and she sighed.

"I need to go now. I will talk to you tonight. Please don't do anything rash. I beg you."

Without saying a word, Bryce shrugged and walked away.

Why is does it feel like the two important men of my life walked away from me in a span of 2 minutes?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was nine in the night and Leah was finally done with her rounds. Wearing her jeans and jumper, she tied her hair long black locks into a messy bun and stared at her reflection in the mirror.

Letting out a breath, she gave herself a pep talk. Okay Leah... You have to make a decision. You are not Hannah Montana. You can't have the best of both worl-

Her phone pinged, interrupting her. She picked it up to see that it was a text from Ethan.

Letting out a sigh, she picked up her messenger bag and walked out of the hospital, only one thing running in her head.

Who do I listen to? My head thats telling me that Ethan will hurt me again and that Bryce is better? Or my heart which tells me that Ethan is my one shot at true love?

It was painful to write this

Also the last part got 88 notes so lets get this to 90 notes so that I have motivation to write part 3 heheheheh

what do you think will happen in the next part?

ALSO GIVE ME SUGGESTIONS FOR WHAT I SHOULD NAME THIS SERIES

I love you guys

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Ethan x MC Taglist: @ethandaddyramsey @edith-eggs1 @pixelberryownsme @samihatuli @loveellamae @x-kyne-x @paulfwesley @zeniamiii @binny1985 @an-urban-witch-ig @ramseyegerton @mrsdr-ethan-ramsey @newcolonies @theodorepjames4 @unluckygs @choices-love-affair @kaavyaethanramsey @caseyvalentineramsey @ohramsey @squishywizardhq @junehiratas @lilyvalentine @itsgoingnuts @choicesfanaf @humanpokemon @temptress-of-death-and-desire @rookiefromedenbrook @courtesanofedenbrook @hatescapsicum @sanchita012 @edgiestwinter @fabi-en-ciel @mrsdrakewalkerblog @elwetritsche75 @livingpurpose @drramseysownsme @queencarb @andromedasinclaire @schnitzelbutterfingers @thanialis @floatingmeera @rookieoh @ethanramseyswhore @lucy-268 @big-yikers @have-aheart @whimsicalreader @tsrookie @itschoicesfanaf @lilypills @mals-chesthair @raleigheffingcarrera @utterlyinevitable @choices-fangirl-yeet @rookie-ramsey @papinaveensbitch @custaroonie @helloayzcream @hyperlightgrifter

#anushka writes #writing prompts #oh Ethan #ethan ramsey #ethan x mc #dr ethan ramsey #ethan jonah ramsey #ethan ramsey one shot #ethan ramsey x mc #open heart #open heart mc #open heart 2 #ohsy #choices #choices oh #playchoices #choices stories you play #choices stories we play #pixelberry

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barchiefanfiction · 6 years ago

Text

Doors of Perception

by @barchied / Kate

Prompt: "Tell me you don’t have feelings for me. Tell me that right here, right now, standing this close to me that you feel nothing for me. Tell me!"

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17649569

When he opens the door, it doesn’t lead him to his bedroom. He doesn’t find his sleeping form tucked in his bed waiting to be destroyed by this tougher, darker version of himself. Instead, he sees the door of her house. Just like he had what seemed like a lifetime ago now. In a further moment of deja vu, he watches as the door opens and Betty comes out wearing that same pink dress she’d worn to the dance. The one, he realizes now, she was wearing in the vision he’d just had of his friends in the cabin, encouraging him to play. He doesn’t have time to unpack that yet because she’s striding toward him both confident and nervous and he remembers this moment with such stark clarity that he knows what’s coming next.

His heart is beating in his ears as she speaks. Tells him she isn’t going to ask what happened with him and Veronica at Cheryl’s and he has to stifle a laugh because in the grand scheme of everything that seems so insignificant and faraway now. But then she’s asking him that question he got wrong the first time and it’s suddenly crystal clear why his subconscious has sent him back to this moment. “I’m asking if you love me…” The tears stinging her eyes are enough to break his heart all over again.

He remembers what he said the first time. Of course he loved her! But he wasn’t good enough, she was too perfect. He hadn’t meant for those words to hurt her, they were supposed to spare her the pain that he saw foreshadowed in their future. But, as it turned out, their lives would be riddled with pain anyway. Despite his best efforts to protect her by pushing her away, things had still gone to shit. Perhaps that had been his gravest mistake; to deny his feelings for her. They had always been better together after all; stronger, smarter, more capable.

The pained look on her face drew him back to reality. He was taking too long to answer. But, he has to get it right this time. “Of course I love you,” he echoed his response to their original conversation. He moved closer to her though and willed himself to find the right words this time.

“Okay so then why don’t you...want me?” Her voice was thick and her eyes were rimmed red. He hates seeing her like this, especially when he knows he’s the cause of her sadness. Ultimately, wasn’t that what he was trying to avoid in the first place? Wasn’t that why he’d rejected her to begin with?

He takes her hand in spite of himself. “It’s not that simple-.” But, wasn’t it? His courage staggers for a moment and he forces himself to take a ragged breath. “I’m scared,” he confesses that as much to himself as to her. “If I hurt you, if I caused irreparable damage to our friendship I would never be able to forgive myself.” He’s surprised he’s actually said those words out loud but after the other scenarios he’s been through so far, he knows he should just be honest with himself. This will go a lot easier if he just learns whatever this vision is trying to teach him or make him see. “You’re the most important person to me in the entire universe, Bets.” His hand had moved, seemingly on its own accord, to cup her face and he couldn’t help but feel his heart clench at the way she relaxed so willingly into his touch, how her eyes fluttered closed. Her absolute trust in him wasn’t forced or feigned, it was built on their foundation of friendship, of the love she’d always harbord for him. That love, however, had long blossomed into something more for the both of them. Of course in this dream or alternate reality or whatever it was he had the advantage of knowing things she didn’t know. Things this still innocent version of herself could never imagine they’d go through. She was still capable of holding onto optimism because she didn’t know what would happen.

“It’s not going to ruin anything.” She spoke the words assuredly, like it was a promise she could keep for the both of them out of sheer will alone. “It’s going to make everything better; make us closer.” It was like she could feel his thoughts radiating off of him.

He wants to believe her and some parts of him do. Their fingers have become intertwined at his left side and his skin tingles where it touches hers. Their connection is magnanimous and undeniable, and suddenly anything he wants to say about her being in love with some version of him she’s conjured up in her head seems worthless and unwarranted. His natural inclination is to push her away, reiterate that he’ll never be good enough for her. But perhaps he’s been sent back to this moment because he isn’t supposed to use those excuses this time.

Yet, as he studies her perfect, full, bottom lip that is practically screaming out to be touched by him, he still feels the need to send her away. “It’s not that I don’t want you, Betty.” The confession slips out before he can stop it and now he can’t take it back. It hangs between them only briefly before it’s tarnished by his next statement. “But I don’t deserve you or the way you’re looking at me. I have this darkness inside of me and I can’t let it hurt you.” It’s a chore to force out the last part. Because it’s the truth. That’s what he’s always wanted to protect her from, the darkness that exists inside of him. The one that makes him thirsty for revenge at any cost. The one that sent him on the run in the first place. He can’t risk letting her get caught in whatever crosshairs he’ll undoubtedly find on him.

He expects to find sadness on her face but he finds wistfulness instead. In fact, if he’s not mistaken, she actually giggles and shakes her head at him. “Oh Arch, you don’t think I already know that?” It’s her turn to cup his face and he can’t help but have a similar response of relaxing with ease into her soft, sweet touch. “I have darkness in me too,” She whispers softly, her voice almost a breeze against his skin. “But, I’m not afraid of the dark, especially not when I’m with you. Besides, we can bring flashlights.” She flashes him a misplaced smile and he wants to grin with her, let her positivity be infectious, but he feels restrained still and like he needs to put up a fight, for both of their sakes.

“It’s not that simple Bets-”

“It can be though.” She dares back before he can finish that half-assed argument he’d barely even crafted.

“I’m not sure I can be the man you want or deserve, I just-”

She steps closer to him and the sudden proximity cuts him off before her words do. Her wistful tone has been replaced by a more challenging one. “Tell me you don’t have feelings for me. Tell me that right here, right now, standing this close to me that you feel nothing for me.” Her chest is pressed to his now and any semblance of space between them no longer exists. If he’d thought he was tingling when their skin made contact earlier, then he was practically vibrating now.

“Betty, I-”

“Tell me!” She challenged again, drawing her hand down to rest against his chest, her fingers tapping expectantly against the less than luxurious fabric of his suit jacket.

He wants to tell her all of those things. He wants to spare her the pain of loving him like he did in reality. But this is a dream. A hallucination at best, what’s the harm in just seeing what it would be like? Her eyes shine with expectancy and hope and he can’t bring himself to destroy it. Not here. Not this time. “I could tell you those things.” He sighs, looking down so that their eyes are locked on each others, “But, you’ve always been able to tell when I was lying so it wouldn’t do me any good anyway.”

She opens her mouth to respond but her lips parting this close to him seems to awaken some carnal and instinctive need within him because the next thing he knows he’s kissing her. It’s not timid or reserved like their real first kiss, the one they’d shared at the wrong place and time in front of Cheryl’s. No, this kiss is in a class of its own. His arm snakes around her waist, his hand settling at the small of her back, melding them together. This kiss says everything he’s never been able to articulate about how he feels about her and what she means to him. This kiss changes everything.

Suddenly, he’s overcome with overwhelming sadness because this isn’t really happening. This isn’t really Betty. She isn’t really his. This harsh dose of reality breaks their kiss. He doesn’t realize he’s crying until her thumbs are brushing away his tears. “What’s wrong?” She asks softly, drawing him against her without hesitation or reservation.

“It’s not real.” He whispers, but even so he lets himself kiss her again because even though it’s not real; it could’ve been. And this is how it would’ve felt. He’s suddenly angry for robbing them both of this experience. He knows he’ll never forget the feel of her lips or the taste of them, even when he wakes up. He knows he’ll never stop craving them. He also knows he’ll never have them, not anymore. She loves Jug. The window he’d single-handedly decided needed t be forcibly closed, locked, and sealed- would remain that way.

When the kiss breaks this time they’re no longer standing outside of her house. As he opens his eyes he notices they’re somehow in his room. He looks around, confused at first. The room is basked in a faint glow of moonlight and street lamps that permeate through his uncurtained window. It creates a halo around her already angelic blonde hair, “It can be real.” She affirms, pressing her lips to his again and moving them backward.

When he feels his knees hit the side of the bed, he sits, pulling her with him. “We can’t,” He sighs, “We shouldn’t-” But every excuse he tries to muster dies on his lips as they find hers again. “Fuck it-” He mutters to himself, giving in to his desires once and for all. If this isn’t real- there can’t be any consequences to giving in any way.

His deft fingers find the zipper of her dress and it gives them both chills when he tugs it down and the fabric falls from her shoulders. His breath catches as he looks at the matching lingerie set she wears that tells the story of how she’d hoped the night would end. He wonders if this is something his own mind has conjured up, but somehow, he knows it isn’t. He stops trying to rationalize any of this and finally lets go.

He makes love to her. It’s more than he could ever imagine. He feels everything he’s ever wanted to feel. The love that radiates off of her is overwhelming. They cuddle after, before going at it again. And then a third time. He knows he has to savor this while he can. He thinks maybe it’s selfish, but if this hallucination is the only he way he gets to be with her for the rest of his life, he’s going to make it count while he still can. He assumes that when he falls asleep he’ll either wake up to the next part of the game or maybe he’ll have succumbed to his injuries and whatever purgatory he’d been experiencing for the past however long would cease to exist.

He supposed there would be a kind of beauty in it all ending like this. In fact he almost wills himself to slip away and let this be his last memory, even if it isn’t real. He lets his eyes close briefly and sleep is ready to come for him, but her voice brings him back. “What are you thinking about?” She asks quietly.

His eyes snap open, willing him to stay here as long as he can. “How I wish this was real.” He admits earnestly, knowing she probably won’t understand. His voice is thick with sleep and his eyes become heavy again. He knows he can’t hold on much longer, but he isn’t exactly sure what it means. He isn’t as scared as he thought he would be, though.

Everything starts fading away into blackness and he feels the dream coming to an end. He feels tears spring in his eyes and he tightens his grip on her body, which is heaped sleepily against his, not ready to let go yet. Eventually, even the feeling of her begins to fade and just before the moment ends completely, he hears her voice in the faintest of whispers. “It is.”

Then, everything fades to black.

When he comes to, he knows something doesn’t seem quite right, but he can’t exactly place it. In fact, he finds himself in his bedroom and it feels like it’s been weeks since he’s actually been here. When the bed shifts and a warm body is pressed against his, lips bestow a lazy kiss to the place where his would-be injury should have covered. Afraid whatever moment this is might end if he opens his eyes, he keeps them closed, yet he tugs the form close against him. He needn’t see her to know it’s Betty. He can feel her, all around him. He still has the wherewithal to understand the importance of savoring this feeling. “I had a strange dream..” He mumbles, trying to remember what it was.

He conjures up bits and pieces of memories that seem to be swirling around his mind. It’s hard to tell what’s real and what isn’t. Something about a bear, Betty loving Jughead, being on the run from Hiram Lodge? But just as quickly as those notions appear in his mind’s eye, they flit away before he can fully understand. It doesn’t help that his companion is drawing distracting shapes against his warm, bare skin which only serves to make it harder to concentrate. Suddenly, he recalls details in more clarity. The feel of her fingernails dragging across his back and digging into his shoulder. The fireworks her lips left behind as they trailed over his skin. The soft rock of her hips that culminated in moans of ecstasy. “Betty…” Her name is barely a whisper as his nerves ignite with the memory of how making love to her felt in that dream.

He’s startled more fully awake when he hears a response of “Hmm?” And then the body that had been draped over him shifts again, causing him to open his eyes. He looks down and sees her expectant face and for a moment he’s unable to process that it’s actually her until she pushes a strand of blonde hair back out of her eyes. Her hair is piled in a messy bun atop her head and he can tell that the game or hallucination as brought him to a new scenario.

“You’re still here.” Then, more sadly he adds, “That means I’m still dreaming,” He smiles in spite of himself because even though this can’t be real, he’s content to spend a little more time living in this fantasy he’s created for them. Maybe he’s in a coma in a hospital in Canada and this is all being induced by a line of morphine being pumped into him steadily through an IV. Whatever it is, he’s happy to stay here with her as long as he can.

When her lips are against his an instant later, he can’t help but notice just how real this feels. Last night he was fully aware that everything he was feeling was the product of his imagination. But as he rakes his fingers over her bare chest, the goosebumps that form underneath seem to have appeared on their own accord. He studies her like a book, his eyes taking in every finite detail of the way she looks. He hates himself for rejecting her. Wishes that this was reality and the other stuff was the dream. Or nightmare, as it were. He knows he can’t stay here with her forever but he knows he isn’t ready for it to end either. “I’m so in love with you,” He mutters tearfully before capturing her lips again, pulling her against him.

Each iteration of this dreamworld serves to reaffirm that every single thing that has gone wrong in his life has stemmed from rejecting her. Every version of her is blissfully unaware of all he has cost them and he can’t bring himself to confess to her that he fucked it up. It takes six rounds of this same instant before he’s fully realizing what he’s meant to do. Why he’s here. Why she is.

He’s been going about it all wrong. When the hallucinations brought him back to their moment in front of her house, the night of the dance, he thought he was supposed to choose her. Follow what his heart had wanted and see where it took them. Doing that was nice, but in all actuality, it did little to bring him closure. He owed her so much more than that, he finally realized. It wasn’t a confession of love he was supposed to give her, it was something more raw than that. The edges of this vision start to blur and he feels himself being dragged away. He knows what he has to say next time he sees her. He hopes this world gives him the chance.

Blackness coats the moment again and then, there is nothingness.

The next time he opens his eyes, it doesn’t feel like he is dreaming. The awful pain he was expecting to find in his chest radiates through each of his shoulders and down past his torso. Heart monitors and machines beep around him and draw him further into reality. The pain of his injury is almost nothing compared to the hole he feels when he realizes that Betty is not really his. That none of what he’s imagined will ever be real.

He is starkly aware of the dryness of his throat and he pulls an IV clad hand up to his face, pulling the oxygen line from his nose and blinking his eyes a few times to adjust to being awake for the first time in he isn’t sure how long. The room is mostly dark except for the myriad of lights glowing from the plethora of machine’s surrounding his bed. He groans as even the slightest of movements send terrible, dull, aching pains that radiate all the way through him.

Before his eyes are fully adjusted, he hears someone else in the room. He’s barely able to make out their silhouette, but recognizes when the move closer. Suddenly, he feels a straw tap against his dry lips and he parts them, sucking gently until cool water splashes refreshingly over his tongue. He takes a long drink, letting the crisp revitalizing liquid coat his throat and mouth. When he’s had his fill, he turns his head and feels the straw and cup being moved away and hears it being set on the table. Opening his eyes, he’s expecting to find a nurse, but is startled to find Betty looking back him, concern wrought into her brow.

“Fuck- I’m dreaming again, aren’t I?” He growls, averting his eyes from her. He knows what he’s supposed to do but he thought they’d be outside of her house again. He wonders why his subconscious has put him here and given him all the physical pain of his injury this time. He has a feeling that it’s nothing compared to the insurmountable void he will feel when she inevitable rejects him.

“Shitty dream,” She motions around the hospital room, a smirk on her lips nevertheless. She takes a seat in the chair next to his bedside and draws his hand into hers. “I’m pretty sure you’re awake.” She notes, squeezing gently. “Or I’m dreaming too,” She adds surreptitiously.

“No.” He says firmly, shaking his head. “You wouldn’t be here if this were real life.” His voice sounds so sad and pathetic, but he knows it’s his own fault. After all, he was the one who drove her away. It’s almost more disappointing how they’d let their friendship fall to the wayside since getting into their respective relationships. Maybe it was because deep down, they knew they were never meant to be just friends?

She seems hurt when he says that and drops his hand briefly. It’s not the reaction he’s expecting. “I will always be here when you need me, Arch. No matter what.” Then, she’s taking his hand again and when she squeezes it reassuringly, he forces himself to look at her.

“You won’t, Betty. You can’t.” It’s his turn to retract from her. He knows he doesn’t deserve her comfort. He’s let himself indulge in her too much in the other versions of this head trip. He doesn’t get to, not this time.

“I’m here now, aren’t I?” The earnestness in her voice is almost heart breaking.

“Not really, no…” He begins, frustrated with himself and the grogginess he feels. It makes it harder to articulate what he wants to tell her. And when you can’t coherently make your point, people tend to think you’re just rambling unimportant things.

“You aren’t making any sense, Arch.” She stands up and leans over him, brushing her thumb over his cheek. “You should rest some more, we can talk later.” She adds, leaning down to kiss his forehead and then her hand is reaching out for something on his left side and the pain is seemingly chased away by overwhelming warmth in the form of a morphine drip. He’s afraid if he doesn’t say it now he’ll miss his chance but before he can fight it, he’s giving into her suggestion with heavy eyelids.

When he awakes again, she’s still there next to him. Her eyes are closed but he can tell she isn’t sleeping. She doesn’t look relaxed enough. Still, he tries not to disturb her as he shifts in the bed to get more comfortable. “You’re awake,” She says, letting him know his efforts were unsuccessful. She stirs from the makeshift ball she’d folded herself into in that seemingly uncomfortable chair and stretches her arms above her head before rising and offering him the cup of water again.

He can’t help but laugh at the words she speaks because he knows he isn’t really awake. But he’s also glad for that, because if he were, he might lose his nerve. After taking another long drink of water, he forces the confession out before the moment can fade out again. “I’m so sorry, Betty.” He says rather suddenly. Tears sting the corners of his eyes and her face softens immediately. “I should’ve apologized to you so long ago,”

“Shh, Arch you don’t have to apologize for anything-” But he stops her before she can let him off the hook.

“I do though, I really do. I ruined everything that night.” The expression she wears implores him to explain more. She clearly has no idea what he’s referencing so he does his best to clarify. “I should’ve chosen you Betty.” He wishes he could be more articulate but whatever drugs are pumping through the IV to dull the pain are also mitigating his ability to form comprehensible thoughts or sentences. “I was scared of loving you and I pushed you away and it ruined everything.” He forces himself to look at her and he can see her eyes are red with tears. “I didn’t want to hurt you so I tried to let you go.” As he confesses these things, he recalls the dreams he had about her in quick flashes. The feel of her lips on his. The way their bodies moved together so perfectly in sync as they made ardent, passionate love. The details are so real he feels almost dirty thinking about them with her right there. “But I saw how it could have been for us. And I was wrong. I was so wrong. We would’ve been deliriously happy…” He doesn’t know when she sat down on the hospital bed with him, but she’s gathered him into her arms the best that the various cords, plugs, and machines will allow. “You’re not really here.” He reminds himself, as his tears soak the soft fabric of the sweater she wears. “None of this matters.” He tries to push her away again, to retract into his pain. He deserve all of it and more.

She refuses to let go. Her soothing voice is right next to his ear. “I am really here.” She whispers, “We are in a hospital. You were attacked by a bear.” As she says the words she seems to realize they will probably do very little to convince him that any of this is in fact real. “You gave my phone number to a nurse and they called me. I came up from Riverdale three days ago. You’ve been mostly out of it since I arrived, but the doctors assure me you’re getting better and that I can take you home soon.” Her tone shifts from a matter-of-fact delivery of truth to a more hopeful one at the last words she speaks. “How are you feeling?”

He smiles remorsefully. It seems plausible. But he knows it’s not real. Betty isn’t here. She can’t be. But yet, somehow she is. She’s so close he can smell the sweet, floral scent of her shampoo. “None of that matters…” Before he can stop himself, he kisses her. It makes his chest hurt in more than one way. The pain of the deep scratches in his chest is truly nothing compared to the agony that courses through him at the abrupt way she pulls away from him. It isn’t just that she breaks the kiss, she stands up and staggers back away from the bed completely breaking the contact between them.

“Archie!” Her fingers are on her lips and she wears a shocked, confused expression. “I’m with Jughead.”

“No.” He shakes his head with false confidence. “Not here you aren’t at least. This is some hallucination I’ve been having. I think maybe this is the final piece. Don’t worry, it’ll be over soon.” He looks around the room, surprised that he doesn’t recognize anything about it. He’s spent enough time in Riverdale hospital rooms to know that he isn’t in one now. It’s certainly strange, that the hallucinations have brought him somewhere that doesn’t seem familiar, but he doesn’t think much of it.

“Arch you’re-”

“No, you don’t get it. Seriously, Betty! Nothing that happens here matters. It’s not real. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. It’s why I can admit to you that I made a mistake. That I should’ve chosen you. That I think we’re soulmates. That I’ve been madly in love with you since the second grade. That I always fully intended on asking you to marry me when we’re eighteen. I can say all of that and I don’t have to be scared because I’ll close my eyes and when I open them again, I’ll be in some other form of this dream. There won’t be any consequences. No one gets hurt. I can kiss you, you can like it. We can be together. It’s okay if I don’t wake up because this is so much better than what it really is I….” He trails off as he studies the unreadable expression on her face.

She’s quiet for a long time and she isn’t looking at him. She’s staring intently at the floor and he thinks it’s an odd reaction. She should’ve kissed him by now. Thrown caution to the wind. She shouldn’t be sad or worried. She definitely shouldn’t be crying. They’re supposed to be happy here. That’s the whole reason he hasn’t tried to wake up.

“It’s not supposed to be like this.” He forces his eyes closed with the hopes that when he “wakes up” maybe they’ll be back in his room, wrapped up in his sheets like the last few times. Instead, he sees the same sad, worried look on her face and the same stark, cold hospital room. He closes his eyes again, maybe he just needs to keep them shut for longer, squeeze them tighter.

There’s another beat of silence as he struggles to restart this part of the ‘dream’ unsuccessfully. “Arch, it’s not a dream. Not this time.” She says, her voice laced with a mixture of sadness and regret. Nevertheless, she takes a step towards his bedside, and then another. “Please, open your eyes.” She whispers, brushing her thumb over one of his cheekbones gently.

There’s something final in her voice and all at once, he understands that she’s right. This time has felt different since he originally opened his eyes but a mixture of morphine and denial had allowed him to extend the fantasy his subconscious had created. “I don’t want to.” He confesses quietly, keeping them snuggly shut. He knows that as soon as he opens them, he has to face reality, the dream officially ends. All at once, the things he’d just said to her flash across his mind and he’s suddenly mortified and embarrassed; afraid of how he may have just ruined everything.

“Please,” Her voice is sanguine, cheering him on. “For me,” She adds, knowing full well those words will trap him into doing what she’s asked whether he wants to or not. He does open his eyes, but he can’t bring himself to look at her, and it breaks her heart a little. She doesn’t want him to feel like this. She isn’t exactly sure what it is she wants for either of them in this moment, but she yearns to make his pain go away. And her own, for that matter. Even if he’d made all those confessions under the false pretense of being in some suspended reality, she still felt the weight of them. More terrifying than that, she knew he meant every word. It was amazing how much conviction you could muster when you thought there were no consequences.

“You should-”

“Did you-”

They started and stopped at the same time, which caused him to finally cast his eyes up to hers. “You first, please.” His request was almost desperate, so she was compelled to oblige him.

“Did you mean all those things you said?” It was a very straightforward question, but a loaded one at that. She wasn’t sure what exactly she was hoping for his answer to be, but she felt like she already knew the truth.

For a beat, he just looked at her long and hard, as if deciding whether or not everything was presently too fragile to handle the truth. The prolonged silence, the way he stared so deeply into her soul, those alone were enough to answer her question. But he articulated a response anyway. “Yes, completely.”

She smiled first. A huge, genuine smile that she couldn’t stop from spreading even if she wanted to. But then, she nodded curtly, her eyes brimming with tears again. “Archie, I-” But she wasn’t sure where to begin. Suddenly, she was rising from the chair she’d occupied and in the next instant she was leaving the room. Then, as the door closed quietly behind her, he was alone.

He closed his eyes, and let the tears stream out. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected. Of course that would scare her away. It was too little, too late. Those were the words he was supposed to say all those months ago in front of her house, not now that she’d moved on and fallen in love with someone else. And not just someone else, with Jughead. His male best friend. Just like he had chosen Veronica over her. He’d made the choice to hurt her. He was supposed to live with the consequences. But now? Now he’d made another choice to hurt her again. But this time? This time he wasn’t sure their friendship could survive it.

Less than an hour had passed since she left when he heard the door handle turn and click open again. He’d been sat in quiet contemplation, wondering when she’d be back. She’d left her purse sitting on the floor so he knew she’d have to come back to get that at the very least. He considered, very briefly, pretending to be asleep so she could leave quietly and without any awkward goodbyes. But he couldn’t bring himself to do that. No, it wasn’t just that he couldn’t bring himself to, it was that he knew she deserved so much better than that from him. If this was how everything ended between them, it would have to be done right.

“Bets,” He began, as she closed the door behind her, but she put up her hand to silence him before she lost whatever nerve she’d mustered up that had brought her back in here.

“It’s not fair, what you said to me.” She said, stopping so that she was standing next to his bed with her arms folded across his chest.

“Betty I’m-” She shook her head, indicating that she wasn’t done, that it was still her turn.

“It’s not fair because if I didn’t know, I could just have been fine with the way things were. I could’ve loved him, probably forever. And even if some part of me would always just know that it wasn’t supposed to be, I could’ve just squashed it down and told myself that it didn’t matter because you were never going to-” She was crying now and she took a ragged breath to collect herself. “But now I can’t unhear what you said to me. Or unfeel the way it made me feel.” She looks almost angry at him as she says that.

He wasn’t expecting any of that and in spite of himself, it makes him feel hopeful, happy even. He reaches for her and to his surprise, she takes his hand and stepped closer. He isn’t sure what to say at first, so he just brushes his thumb over the back of her knuckles gently a few times. “Well, maybe I don’t want you to unhear it or unfeel it.” He finally manages, drawing his eyes back to meet hers. They share a thoughtful look as she takes a ragged breath.

“I’m sorry I ran out on you.” He turns her hand over in his own, his thumb brushing against the underside of her wrist now instead. “I...did something.” She said plainly, her eyes falling to look at the hypnotic patterns he traced against her wrist. Before he could ask for more details, she was offering them. “I called Jughead and told him I needed some time and space,” She cast her eyes back to his and swallowed hard, allowing the weight of her words to hit them both with full effect.

Archie swallowed the lump that had formed his his throat as she’d started her sentence. His heart was beating in his ears, thumping hard and blocking out all of the other noise in the room. “You,” He studied her in disbelief. “You broke up with him?” He asked, his voice so quiet it was as though he were afraid speaking too loudly would make it suddenly not true.

She simply nodded, fear still etched into her face until the smile that broke out across his seemed contagious and her own grin played at her lips. “I broke up with him,” Saying the words out loud made her heart clench with guilt, but she knew it was the right thing. She would never feel the same way about Jug anymore, not knowing how Archie felt. Not knowing how she would always feel about him.

“I know that doesn’t mean we automatically-” But before he could finish, her lips were against his and he was discovering his new favorite way to be proven wrong. It was better than any of the kisses they’d shared in his dream-induced mirages. They stopped kissing only when his heart monitor started screaming out beeps indicating his suddenly elevated heart rate. Sharing a laugh, she pulled back slightly. “Why don’t I go talk to a nurse about getting you out of here, hmm?” She moved to stand back upright, but he tugged her back down, kissing her again.

“I’d like that,” He smiled, finally letting go of her and watching in quiet fascination as she left the room. He wasn’t convinced this still wasn’t a dream, but he was content to ride it out as long as he could. Pulling the blanket off his lap, he moved to swing his legs of the side of the bed and stand up. He got a slight head rush and it took a moment to get his bearings, but steadied himself against the IV tower, using it for support to walk to the bathroom.

He was studying the gauze wrapped around his shoulder when he heard her come back in the room. “Good news, they’re just going to come check, clean, and redress your wound one more time and then we need to stop by the pharmacy to get some antibiotics and pain meds and then,” She poked her head around the bathroom door, “We can head out. I can rent us a hotel for the night, unless you have a place? Then we can figure out what we’re going to do in the morning.”

He looked at her through the mirror and smiled gently again, turning around and beckoning her closer. “I have a cabin, it’s probably not too far from wherever we are.” He let his hand rest on her hip and he leaned down, kissing her softly again, almost in disbelief at his ability to do that. “It’s not much, but it’ll do for the night.”

She nodded, grinning in return. “A cabin?” She cocked an eyebrow, “Sounds rustic.” She added, turning when she heard the door to his room open. “That’s probably the nurse. While she fixes you up, I’m going to head down to the cafeteria and grab us some food before they close.” Her stomach growled, as if to punctuate the necessity of the later.

By the time she was returning with sandwiches and drinks, she found him standing in front of the nurse’s station with what appeared to be discharge papers and his jacket draped over his arm. Vegas, who’d been given refuge in one of the on call rooms, was also sat by his feet ready to go. “All set?” She asked, to which he nodded and placed his hand on the small of her back, guiding her back towards the elevator’s she’d just stepped out of.

The sun was already setting by the time they got into her car and he knew that he didn’t want to deal with trying to get out to the cabin in the dark with her in tow so he offered to drive since he knew the area better and could get them there a little faster. Despite having been almost mortally wounded by an actual bear, she’d agreed to the idea and so he’d settled behind the driver’s seat and they’d headed out to the woods. An uneasy feeling loomed over them as they drove into the setting sun, but leaving civilization behind them in the rearview mirror felt oddly symbolic.

It took less than twenty minutes to get to the clearing where he knew they could park her car and make a short hike to the cabin. There was still a considerable amount of light left, but he didn’t want to waste any time. She urged him to take it easy as he, again, had just survived a bear attack, but they made it to the cabin in good time regardless. “It’s quaint,” She observed non-judgmentally, staring around the small, humble space as he locked the door behind them. It was no Ritz Carlton, but it would do.

Clean sheets adorned the bed, someone must’ve come back and cleaned up after him when he’d gone to the hospital. He sat down on them, watching as Betty took out the food she’d gotten at the hospital. It wasn’t until she was handing him the sandwich and bag of chips that he realized how truly ravenous he was. Not long after, she sat down next to him and they both ate in relative silence. This still didn’t feel entirely real.

When she was full, she offered him the rest of her sandwich and he took it appreciatively, finishing it in one bite before moving to clean up after them. As he gets a fire going, he is caught off guard by the question she asks from across the room. “In your dreams, did we…” She raises her eyebrows with suggestive emphasis even though he isn’t looking at her.

Turning around and walking back towards her, he can’t stop the grin that spreads across his face. “Yes, that we did.” He also couldn’t stop the slight blush that had come to tint his cheeks with that admission.

“And?” She gave him an expectant look.

“And...it was amazing. Mind blowing.” He couldn’t hide the pure happiness that spread across his features as he recalled their most intimate of encounters, or rather, the ones he’s imagined. His tongue darts out to wet his lips, and he bites down on his bottom one, recalling exactly how it felt.

“Show me,” She isn’t sure if it’s a request or a challenge, but she reaches for his hand, inviting him closer, suddenly envious of this insider information he has.

“We don’t have to…” He says quietly, but he’s already pulling her towards him so she’s flush against his chest and upright.

“I want to,” She admits, almost abashedly. That’s all he needs to hear before he loses himself in her. His lips capture hers with a familiarity they shouldn’t have yet. Maybe those dreams were actually just practice for this.

The real thing is so much better than any dream or hallucination. As they shed every piece of clothing that separates them from one another, it’s done with painstaking love and care, as if neither of them are sure this will happen again so they’ll both bother taking their time to remember every detail as it happens. Her eyes glance over his bandaged shoulder with a moment of hesitation, “Maybe you should rest-” But his lips are crushing hers and along with that, any argument she may put up for him needing to save his energy.

“I could be dying and I’d have the strength for this,” He promises against her neck lasciviously. It’s with that breathy confession that she loses any willpower she has left. She’s lost to her desires, and to his.

She isn’t sure how much time has passed when she finds salacious release for the third time since they started their passionate foray, but she knows she’s absolutely spent and he must be too as she collapses against his chest shortly thereafter. A million thoughts are swirling through her mind now and she isn’t sure where to begin.

She starts first with, “I love you, Arch.”

He smiles, pressing a kiss between her breasts. “I love you, too.”

The fire crackles behind them and she snuggles herself closer against his side, pressing a lazy kiss to his shoulder. “We could stay here,” She whispers the words into existence. “Me, you, Vegas…”

“Betty…” He doesn’t want to ruin this beautiful experience by telling her that it’s not realistic, instead he uses his arm to pull her closer. “We don’t have to decide anything tonight, let’s just enjoy-”

“I’m serious, Arch.” She props herself up on his chest and stares at him plainly, as if she’s already considered all the options and her mind’s been made up. “There’s nothing for me in Riverdale. My mom is…” She shrugs, not bothering to finish. “There just isn’t anything there for me, okay? You can do whatever you want, but I’m not going back.”

She speaks with such self-assurance that he can’t argue. These aren’t the words of some delusional teenage girl who wants to live in a fantasy world. They’re the ones of a person who has been looking for a way out for far too long and now that she’d seen one? She couldn’t go back even if she wanted to.

He studies her face, shadows casting against it as the firelight dances. “Okay,” He nods, tilting her chin up so his lips are hovering over hers. “We won’t go back.” His words are more like a pledge than anything else. Then, he voices one final promise, his eyes finding hers again, “I love you, more than anything. That will never change.”

“More than anything. Forever.” She agrees, stealing one more kiss from his lips before snuggling against his chest desirously, as a thick haze of sleep finally came for them both.

#barchie #barchie fanfiction #fanfic #prompts filled #long oneshot #ratedt #canon divergence #s3 #blughead #angst #hurtcomfort #fluff #smut #pining #t:doors of perception #a:barchied #a:barchiefanfiction

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xhellnhighheelsx · 7 years ago

Note

Prompt from the 100 ways to say I love you list: “Go back to sleep.” (Bonus if you did this in ATRIRAS universe because I am such a huge fan ;)

Funnily enough, this scene already exists in ch13 of rasd, but I wrote you another one because ily. This is also for @sonickedtrowel since I’m going to do angsty horrible things with your prompt

Go back to sleep

She talks in her sleep. For aslong as he can remember, he's watched over River as she slept. He’d sit up andlisten to her mumble about bullets and ballgowns and everything in between. Shemutters about anything from paradoxes to pastries, her incoherent ramblingsnever failing to captivate him.

When he was younger, he would tryto read his future in the way her eyes danced behind her lids. More often thannot, she would awake with a start, a gasp on her lips and fear hidden behindcalculating eyes. He always wondered what could scare her, this specter whohaunted him so. What did she dream of, this woman who so clearly read his everythought?

He dared to find out once, a longtime ago when he wore a different face. Even when he delved into her sleepingmind, he was never brave enough to dig deep. Fear of spoilers had always loomedlike a pit between them, her past, her thoughts, her secrets just an abyss he’dfall into and be consumed by.

Those fears can’t touch him now,not in the wake of everything they’ve been through. The future isn’t a chainthat holds him down. It’s a possibility that gives him wings. There's no morecause to run, no dark days to come hiding in her subconscious. Their tangledtime lines have been unraveled, and yet, there's still so much about her hecan't quite define.

River lies beside him on the bed,nestled between pillows and sheets. She's been dreaming contently for hours oreons, and his own eyes are just beginning to grow heavy when he hears a softmoan escape her lips. The sound of it jolts his body awake, his mind draggedback into focus. When his blinking eyes comes to, he notices her features haveslipped, her easy smile replaced by tight lips. Her brow has knit together, andhe finds the soft frown doesn’t suit at all.

His fingertips move of their ownaccord, brushing over her forehead until the lines have been smoothed away. Thesoft touch bids her lips to part, and the Doctor smiles to see the way herunease is undone by a simple caress of his fingers. Her reprieve lasts only aslong as his skin meets hers, because the moment he lowers his hand, herfeatures contort once again. A pained frown tugs at her sweet lips, and he'shelpless to stop the way his fingers gravitate to her temple once more.

Her mind calls to him like the sundoes to flower petals, and he finds himself pulled toward the warmth of hersubconscious. There's no spoilers to stop him now, and he’s suddenly overcomewith the need to come between her and whatever monsters cloud her dreams. His eyes fall shut as the window between themopens, a wave of adrenaline swallowing him whole. Her mind is a tapestry ofgreens and golds, of burnt ambers and freshly cut grass, of sunsets and spaceand shadows, of books and bright lights and the need for something blue.

She’s running from someone, ofcourse she is. His River is always knee deep in trouble, even in her dreams. Herhearts are pounding and something sharp and metallic licks at his mind. Fear,he realizes, and the Doctor's own oxygen freezes in his lungs. Without asecond thought, he presses ever so gently into her mind, projecting himselfinto her dream. Her thoughts are clearer now, the deeper he goes. It smellslike rain and mud and dust, and his hand covers hers, fingers entwining.River's breath hitches the moment he does, but she doesn't stir from herslumber. She grips him tight, like she dreams of their carefully claspedfingers whenever dangers nips at her heels, like his hand is a lifeline she'sreached for countless times before.

The shiver in her veins fades,replaced by the feel of something synthetic. It feels thick as cotton in hismouth, and ifdéjà vu had a taste, this would be it. It’s odd, to be an abstractthought tip-toeing in someone else’s subconscious. Even for a dream, it feelssurreal, somehow lacking, almost but not quite. River looks as real as ever,standing in a dress as white as the wedding gown she never got to wear. Shesmiles at him like all her Christmases have come at once, and he tries not tolet his own swelling joy bleed into her dreams. He tries to float among herthoughts even as his feet are planted firmly in her mind. Grass tickles betweenhis toes and the sight of a nearby lake nearly makes him choke. But River'spulse is steady, subdued, and he doesn’t understand why until he looks past herfor the first time.

A child with dark hair waves fromthe distance, and he knows now, why the air tastes like copper and dust andcomputer code. His fingers coil tight around River’s hand, pulling her towardhim, away from this place until her eyes can see nothing but him. There’s nopoint in dreaming about the past when they have so much left to discover. He takes control of the dream, pressingharder into her mind until their surroundings fade away. Greens and blues turnto smoke around them as he guides her into sweeter visions.

River’s eyes break from his totake in their new location. They’re standing on a crystallized ice cloud,ankle deep in ivory cotton and surrounded by black, star specked sky. And whenshe looks back to him, she smiles like she’s got a secret just begging to slipfrom her lips. Her arms fold around his neck and as his hands find her hips, hediscovers her dress has changed. It’s red and radiant and distracting, theneckline plunging in a way only her mind could conjure. He takes the firststep, or maybe she does, but the next thing he knows they're dancing, gliding,spinning, stirring up the clouds at their feet until wisps of fluffy whitefloat around them like bubbles before sailing off into black sky.

The air no longer tastessynthetic. It’s as fresh as a memory, as her perfume and ozone and the faintesthint of wine. Her laughter may as we’ll be music as he spins her out only topull her back in again. She twirls and the light from distant suns reflects offher hair like sprinkles of gold dust. River presses herself into him, her chestwarm against his, and it’s hard to believe that it’s nothing more than amirage.

“It’s very rude, you know,” Rivercoos, her words echoing in his mind, voice light as the clouds they stand on.

His palm finds her lower back,pulling her in closer, his own question floating into her subconscious. “Whatis?”

River smirks at him, coy and sweetand he’s so lost in the way the starlight catches on the apples of her cheeksit’s almost alarming when he hears her say, “Peeking into people’s dreams.”

The Doctor snaps his eyes open,finding River staring back at him. The smell of ozone vanishes like a clothripped from a table, cotton clouds replaced by satin sheets. The warmth oftheir bedroom is a blanket surrounding him, and on pain of death he’ll swearthat’s why his cheeks have gone red as he argues, “You’re not people.

“I’m half people,” River countersand the Doctor shrugs.

“Well it’s only half rude, then,isn’t it.”

Green eyes narrow as River stiflesa yawn, managing to glare at him all the while. It’s adorable and only slightlyterrifying and the Doctor bites back his own smile, eyes soft.

“I didn’t mean to wake you. Goback to sleep.”

“I’d rather be awake.” A devious twinkle sparks to life around heririses as River snakes one of her clever hands across the duvet. But the Doctoris faster, snatching the limb up before his wife can have her wicked way.

“I’ll bet you would,” he grins,pressing her knuckles to his lips. But as much as he’d like to tucker her outagain, “You need rest.”

“And you don’t?”

“Nope.”

His wife scoffs, rolling her eyes.“Hypocrite.”

“Harlot,” he grins back, andRiver’s eyes narrow once again, jaw clenching as she bites back another yawn.

He pulls her toward him then,tucking her into his side. River nuzzles into his chest with a tenderness she’dcut her own tongue off before ever admitting to, a sigh on her lips as shemutters, “You don’t have to do that.”

The Doctor presses his face intoher mass of hair, inhaling deep and delighting in the smell of honey and sweatand the faintest hint of smoke. “Do what?”

“Supervise my dreams.”

He does, in fact. He’s made apromise to himself, no more nightmares, not in this new life they’re building.If that means he has to stay awake forever to guarantee nightmares never stealher smiles and drag her to dark places, then so be it. But she’d never acceptsuch an answer, so instead the Doctor scoffs and says, “Who said anything aboutthat? Maybe I’m just nosy.”

River snorts, a puff of hot airagainst his chest. “No arguments here.”

“A first time for everything,” hemumbles back, words swallowed by her riotous curls.

Even as they bicker, his arms foldever tighter around her. It still doesn’t feel real, as if she’ll turn to smokeat any moment. He tells himself she won’t, the reminder that she's here to staya mantra in his head he plays on repeat. But nothing reassures him the wayRiver can. Her palm rests over his hearts like the sound of it is all thelullaby she’ll ever need to keep the nightmares at bay.

Stillness settles like a full moonon a cloudless night. River’s eyes have fallen shut again, her hearts a slowand steady rhythm, her voice already heavy with sleep. “Won’t you rest at all,darling?”

“Not tired,” he breathes, and whathe means is, he doesn’t want to miss this. He refuses to waste another momentwith her. He’d rather hold her and count the breathes she takes as her chestrises and falls. He’d rather study her face and the way she smiles as she sinksslowly into slumber.

“Join me in my dreams then,” Riverwhispers.

The invitation paints a smile onhis lips. Unable to deny her anything, he brings his hand up to cup her face,fingertips brushing her temple. Her mind sparks against his skin, and theDoctor takes a deep breath, filling his lungs with the smell of her shampoo.When he exhales, he’s back in the moonlight of her mind. River reaches for him,a tingle against his palm as he takes her hand in his and guides her into thesweetest of dreams.

(pick a prompt)

#ask #river song #drfic #doctor who #eleventh doctor #my fic #drabbles #for those that don't know rasd is a post library season 7 canon divergent series #this excerpt takes place between the two stories #Anonymous

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