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[kbk]

[long-winded, unnecessary comments in bold, duh]

Title: Some Desperate Glory - One of my most inventive titles. No, really.
Author: kbk
Rating: PG? - I suck at these, and I don't care.

Disclaimers: Title and one image taken from Wilfred Owen's 'Dulce Et Decorum Est'.

The lines being: To children ardent for some desperate glory / The old lie: Dulce et decorum est / Pro patria mori. and that's from memory so please forgive the punctuation. Oh, and, translation: "It is sweet and proper to die for one's country."

Also, a quote from Star Wars by George Lucas. Characters/setting... I dunno, but not me. Never me.

Notes: Um. I need to sleep, like, now.

Amazing how often this phrase crops up.

I've been trying for something for this challenge for days; I've gone through three, four ideas (anyone want them?)

One of them's really good, too. I think, anyway. I might have to try it as a drabble. Do you know the story of Hercules' parentage?

and I'm fairly intimidated by the wow-making fic that's been going on here.

Seriously. A couple just before I posted absolutely blew me away. Dammit. Uh, "here" being sga_flashfic

But this idea ambushed me on the way to bed, so I wrote it, and now it's here.

~~~


"I know how to save Atlantis," says McKay, and John groans.

Deliberate choice of names! When I started writing, it was 'Rodney', and then I decided the POV should be tighter. Also, I'm kinda proud of that as a first line. Boom, you're in, Atlantis is in trouble, McKay thinks he can save the day, John's... not excited? huh? keep reading...


His eyes don't want to open.

This is something I do. Attributing will to parts of my body. It's not even conscious any more.

He's allocated himself six hours of downtime, enough to shower

and shit

and shave and sleep, just for a while, because he of all people knows how dangerous exhaustion can be.

One time he went for a flying lesson the day after an all-night gaming session. That was nearly the last lesson he ever had. And that totally isn't based on one of my driving lessons.

He can tell, by the light still slanting through his window, that he isn't more than halfway through that time, and here McKay is, invading his quarters and waking him up with yet another hare-brained scheme that isn't going to work.


"I mean it this time," says McKay, "I really do, I figured it out, but I can't do it on my own, I need your touch with the technology because it loves you, stupid thing, city should realise that I'm the one who keeps her going, but no, she just sits up and begs whenever you come back and you don't even care, you-"

Fanon! Fanon which I love madly. There's some really creepy vaguely-sentient!Atlantis fic out there. Yum.


"Rodney." John sits up. He knuckles his eyes fiercely, finally forces them to open and look at his friend. Less than an hour after his last stimulant shot, John estimates, from his knowledge of the schedules and from the way that McKay's hands are shaking.

That is, visibly from across the room.


McKay blinks. Wavers. "I can show you."


John groans again. Every once in a while, he finds himself incredibly, deeply resentful of the way McKay believes in him. John's a fuck-up and a waste of potential, and he's generally OK with that,

He is! He swears to God!

but then things like this happen. "Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi; you're my only hope," he mutters under his breath, and swings his legs out of the bed.

And that would be the Star Wars quote. Hardly subtle. I'm not sure if John realises he's casting Rodney as Princess Leia, but he probably does. I didn't realise until just now that he's casting himself as Obi-Wan going on that final mission. Cool.


McKay is staring at him, when he looks up.

In awe of his dorkiness.

There's an odd intensity in his expression - not that McKay isn't often intense, but this is something John isn't sure how to interpret. He flexes his thighs deliberately before he pulls on his pants, and he takes an extra second fastening his thigh holster.

Another spot of ambiguous motivation, here: is he flexing because he's tired, or to draw Rodney's attention? If the latter, is he serious or just being a cockteasing bastard? Also, hey! Americanism of pants, I got it right!

God, Elizabeth promised that he wouldn't be disturbed, and so did Lorne, and of course McKay is the only one who could get past their orders.


There's a guard outside his door, for pity's sake.

I find this image terribly funny, for some reason.

John nods to the man as they pass - he's young, and obviously shell-shocked by the force of McKay's ranting, and probably mildly terrified at the impending evacuation and subsequent isolation from the Milky Way.


"I've really got it," McKay is saying, almost skipping along by John's side, "and I'd explain it if I thought you could follow the math,

But there is no math. There is 'use the chair and a subsystem'. Plothole? Noooo. McKay being a bad boy!

and that's not an insult to you because really, you're very good considering how little training you've had, and the fact that I'm saying that should tell you how excited I am, because, really, I don't go handing out compliments willy-nilly,

He really doesn't.

and wow, I think I just turned into my mother for a second there and that's really not good, but never mind! Because, you see-"


John tunes McKay out. It's a skill he developed quickly, mostly in self-defense, because if he hadn't he might have ended up strangling the Chief Scientist, and that would have been bad.

Because the city would have been destroyed a year or two earlier. And maybe John would have regretted doing it, later. When he was in that manky little cell.

Probably. He's not sure he can remember why, right now.


It's the chair room that McKay takes them to, and John really isn't surprised.


"Sit down and do what you tell me, right?" He summons up a smile from somewhere, because they've done this before, oh and how they've done this before, and he doesn't want to remind McKay what he and Zelenka were saying two days ago.

After, by the way, spending two days straight with John sitting in the chair working through every command line they could think of.

We can't do anything with the chair, they'd said, all the drones are gone, the other weapons are damaged, it's just a shiny interface that won't let us do anything useful. John wouldn't put it past McKay to have discovered another function, but there's nobody else here,

Dun-dun-dunnnn!

and if this turns out to be nothing, John won't be in the least bit surprised.


Hell, he thinks as the chair tilts back beneath him, maybe he'll just go to sleep right here. McKay's probably the best guard he could possibly have.

Late addition, that last sentence. I wanted to have a line about trust, reference 'Trinity' a little, but it just wasn't working for me, so it got a little more oblique.


He tunes back into what McKay's saying, because the city reaching out for him

sentient! or, possibly, tentacles!

is waiting for instructions, and John doesn't actually know what he's supposed to be doing here.


"There's an emergency system, coded their equivalent of, well, of Top Secret and of Red Alert and of Last Resort Only And We Mean That,

Yes, Rodney can make the capitalisations clearly audible. So can David Hewlett.

and I'd have thought they'd have used it before, but, well, they were all running away or ascending... and I guess that's kind of the same thing, there, really,

Rodney does not have a very high opinion of the Ancients, these days. Nothing to do with having met Chaya, of course.

because... never mind, anyway, you just have to concentrate on how we have no options left, OK?"


John can do that. John can really, really do that. It's all he's been thinking about for days.


"And you'd do another kamikaze run, wouldn't you? That self-sacrifice thing you do that pisses me off so much, you'd be happy to go that way, wouldn't you?"


John opens his eyes again. There's something...

edited out: "in Rodney's voice that he doesn't recognise." It was too long. He shouldn't be thinking about it.

"Of course," he says.


He doesn't know what happens after that. But it hurts. It hurts a lot.

It's also rather messy. One of the first Marines to respond to Rodney's panicked radio calls - on the general channel, waking people across the city - had to turn right around and puke.


"I'm sorry," says McKay. "I'm so sorry, but it's the only way. You're the only one. I'm really sorry."

Uh, no, not at all me with too much Doctor Who, specifically Ten. Really.


John's blood gargles in his throat.

And that's the image from Owen. I think it's blood gargling from froth-corrupted lungs but I could be wrong.

And here is where I could put the, "So long, John," suggested by an anonymous commenter. Maybe in the website version. I'm still thinking about it. Because it's kinda vicious, and, really, I don't think Rodney wanted to kill John. It was just the pragmatic choice.

~~~

"He made me tell him," says McKay. "He said it was his job to be the one... He said I had to stick around in case it didn't work."

The thing is, if Rodney had waited until John was awake enough to notice how nervous Rodney was, this is totally what would have happened. Practically to the word.


"It's all right, Rodney." Elizabeth pats his shoulder in an attempt to soothe. "It wasn't your fault."

Lizzie Weir: ineffectual and misguided. She should be so good! And yet!


Rodney bows his head, and shakes, just a little.


He's the only one who knows he isn't crying.

He's laughing with vaguely-hysterical relief. I swear.

Oh, and yes, in my head it works, and saves Atlantis. But you should feel free to disagree with me, if you want the universe to be that fucked-up.

Comments

[wishfulaces.livejournal.com]

There's some really creepy vaguely-sentient!Atlantis fic out there. Yum.

There doesn't happen to be any crossover Atlantis/TARDIS fic out there, does there? Because, yes, that is immediately what my brain leapt to when I read that sentence. And I have no shame about admitting this.

And here is where I could put the, "So long, John," suggested by an anonymous commenter. Maybe in the website version. I'm still thinking about it. Because it's kinda vicious, and, really, I don't think Rodney wanted to kill John. It was just the pragmatic choice.

No, no, no. I think it would really be out of place in tone and the way this fic is written. But that's just me humble.

[kbk]

God, there should be. I don't think I've come across any, though. I'll keep an eye out. Oh, man.

And, and, *hugs you gratefully* because I kept thinking, y'know, I must have had a reason for not writing that in the first place, but I couldn't verbalise it, and I started worrying that I was just objecting out of pride, and. yeah. I don't trust my own brain.

crap, there was something else I was gonna... oh! you are lovely person for reading and commenting and things. yes.

[wishfulaces.livejournal.com]

And if there isn't, somebody's gonna have to write it. I don't think I could do it. But I'm flailing right now 'cos I have a ficathon assignment due in a month & I need to do research & haven't started and...*flails*

I am good at verbailizing for other people! But not for myself. I should, uh, work on that I think.

And you're welcome! It is fannish karma. And you are an awesome writer, so I like to encourage that. :-D