You Must Remember This (The Same Old Story Mix) Remix Author: trinityofone
Original Story: You Must Remember This by Auburn
Summary: "Do you think we've done this before?" he asks.
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Stargate: Atlantis
There's a clock running down in his head.
Sixteen hours.
Nine hundred sixty minutes.
Fifty-seven thousand, six hundred seconds.
Less.
They need to make the most of it.
"Do you think we've done this before?" he asks, arching up into the eager sweep of John's tongue.
"Yes," John says. Nine hundred fifty-eight. Fifty-seven thousand, five hundred twenty-four. "No."
Unasked, the question breathed into the curve of John's throat: Do you think we'll do it again?
Fifty-seven thousand, five hundred eighteen.
There's a clock running down in his head. He's timed it all perfectly. Knocking on Sheppard's door: "What?" Sheppard says, brow creased as he opens it. "Rodney, I only have a couple more minutes..."
"I know," Rodney says, and he reaches up and—
Soft surprised mouth, for a moment—four hundred seventy-six, seventy-five, seventy-four, seventy-three—for a moment, yes: opening, ardent beneath him. But the fingers that scramble and squeeze against his shoulder aren't so pliable, are anything but soft.
"Now?" Sheppard says. "You're doing this now?"
Now: six minutes; four hundred fourteen seconds and counting, counting down.
"I—" he says. Recalculating: his timing may have been a little bit off.
"I'm not a last minute thing," Sheppard says. "I'm not consequence-free."
They hit the five minute mark as the door clicks shut in his face.
Two hundred ninety-nine. Two hundred ninety-eight. Two hundred ninety-seven seconds to wait until his time runs out and he can forget it all.
He asks, "Do you think we've done this before?"
On his knees with John's belt buckle under his hands, "Do you think we've done this before?"
On his back with John bending low, dog tags scraping down, "Do you think we've done this before?"
In the control tower, bending John over the console, "Do you think we've done this before?"
Sheppard standing in the doorway, raising his hand over the sensor that'll slam it in his face, "Do you think we've done this? Are we done with this?"
"Yes," says John. "Yes. Yes. No. Yes. Yes."
Fifty-seven thousand, six hundred seconds and counting.
There's a clock running down in his head. The detailed account he left himself has explained it all very clearly: they've become a city without a past, with a history told in sixteen hour increments, each isolated, unconnected from the rest. And so he has: sixteen hours—nine hundred sixty minutes—fifty-seven thousand six hundred seconds: that little chunk of time to solve it for them, before it all once more cycles back.
Sixteen hours. Counting down.
He's got to go see Beckett—very important, a virus like this is really more Carson's department, but he shouldn't be left unsupervised, without Rodney to impress upon him the importance of fifteen hours, nine hundred forty-seven minutes, fifty-six thousand, eight hundred thirty-nine seconds clicking away, of time tick ticking down, every thought and idea and emotion lost to the recycling bin of oblivion—too precious to be forfeit, but gone, going, gone. He needs to—to fight the futility of it, the utter uselessness of every wasted thought, every squandered action, every undone deed.
The door opens and it's already closing.
Sheppard walks inside, his eyes intent. His hands are at his sides, squeezed; there's a piece of paper crushed in one. "McKay," he says, as if he's confirming Rodney's identity, as if he's forgotten even that.
"I don't have time for this, Colonel," Rodney says. "Unless you like never getting any use out of anything you do?"
Sheppard's eyes scrape over him, considering. It's a long gaze: too long, and Rodney should resent it, every second wasted.
Sheppard says, "It's really all a matter of correct timing, isn't it?"
In the seconds before John kisses him—fifty-six thousand, six hundred fifty-four; fifty-six thousand, six hundred fifty-three—Rodney gets a flash of how the gears interlock: drivers and idlers, meshed together into trains, linked to a weight or coiled spring. The spring goes off—John moving forward, moving forward, gripping the back of his neck—and the gears twist, and the pendulum rocks. Tick. Tock. Tick.
John's mouth, the click of his teeth; his heart, both their hearts, beating out a frantic rhythm in the tight cabinets of their chests. John tastes familiar—reassuring until Rodney realizes that what he's tasting is his own brand of toothpaste.
"Oh, God," he says, pulling back. "Do you think we've done this before?"
"Yes," says John. "No. We haven't done it yet."
And Rodney's eyes widen, already doing the calculations: fifteen hours; nine hundred forty-one minutes; fifty-six thousand, four hundred sixty-two seconds vanishing one by one by one.
"Plenty of time," John says. "We have plenty of time. Plenty.
"And tomorrow," he adds, running a hand up Rodney's arm, "we'll have plenty of time again."
Rodney shakes his head, even as he allows John to tug him backward toward the bed. He knows—they both must know—that it doesn't work like that. Time isn't moving forward, second onto second, minute onto minute, hour onto hour. They're not building toward anything, not anything real; no matter how hard they push, at the end of every day, the rock rolls right back down the mountain.
Yet still he pushes himself into the strong span of John's arms, and tries to tell himself that tomorrow, the next day, anything beyond the seconds still left to them doesn't matter, is of absolutely no consequence at all.
"Do you think we've done this before?" Rodney asks, watching John scribble another note to himself: hints and scraps and clues. Breadcrumbs.
"Dunno," John says, turning his neck, glancing over to where Rodney lies, twisting the bedsheets between his fingertips. A moment, drawn-out: and Rodney tries very hard not to see the seconds evaporating into the air between them, popping like soap bubbles.
John taps his pen against his naked thigh. Then, passing them both over, pad and pen, "You want to answer that question for yourself?" he asks, even though they both know: the person he is now is also on the road to dematerialization. One hour; sixty-seven minutes; four thousand twenty-eight seconds and counting, falling away.
Rodney stares down at the pad, the empty white sheet. Pen in hand, he could make a mark. Yes, he could write. Yes.
It's the same old story.
You've done this all before.
He looks up, stares deep into John's eyes.
"Kiss me," he says, pen and paper sliding from his fingers, rolling down the hill of his bent calves. "Kiss me again."
He sighs into John's mouth, softly, lips moving upon lips as the seconds tick by, the clock in his head running down, down, down. Rolling backwards to zero, where every kiss is just like the last, is just like the first time.
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You Must Remember This (The Same Old Story Mix)
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