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The snow all around them was unbroken, a pure, crisp blanket of innocence, with the sunlight teasing shy glints of colour from the whiteness; and, for a moment, not one of them took a step from their place in front of the Gate. There was some unspoken sense in the air that to go on was to sully that freshness, with their heavy tread and a brutal crunch of boot against beauty.
John wasn’t sure what the rest of his team was thinking, in that space of shared appreciation, reluctance, and preemptive sorrow, but, for himself, he had Wallace heavy on his mind, so that was the image which coiled around him, angry and tight, as he lifted his foot and made the first indentation; began the crushing of that ethereal perfection to so much messy, defiled slush.
Wallace; and a memory of himself as a young boy in the snow, rolling around in it and laughing with his friends. Flushed and exhilarated; cold, yes, but not the sort of cold he lived with now, only that crisp and welcome chill, which could be so delightfully resolved with hot chocolate, hugged close, and a warm, crackling fire.
How many steps had he had taken, since then, to thoroughly crush that boy into the ground; to take a pure soul and rub dirt into it, bit by bit? Wallace was only the latest of those steps and not even the worst.
Not that he was sure that he could tell any more: could rank his transgressions in order of justification or of impact; or of the blood which poured out from them, over the snow.
Wallace was bound up with Rodney (he smiled inwardly; as if everything wasn’t bound up with Rodney, now, fight it as he would) and John turned to look at him: moving as easily, and carelessly beside John, as if he’d never hesitated with the rest; not been too struck by beauty, and its painful brevity, to move a muscle; nor even, for a moment, to breathe, lest that breath shifted one small, perfect crystal from its place.
John watched his bright eyes, so vibrantly living, and the warm scarf warding his throat, like a fierce, woollen dragon; not hiding his vulnerability, but highlighting it. He traced mental fingers over all those layers Rodney had insisted on, so thick that he was swallowed up inside them, like a child in his father’s clothes.
No outcome which had ended with losing Rodney had been conceivable. John wondered what would have happened if Wallace hadn’t made the choice he did (the ‘suggestion’ he’d been firmly steered towards).
Would John have given his own life? Let Jeannie die and forever suffered Rodney’s blame and guilt and suffering? Or would he have held Wallace down himself for Todd to feed on, blocking out what he was doing, even from himself, because he knew that Rodney wouldn’t just accept his orders, not this time, not when so much was at stake.
Because Wallace’s screams, echoing in his dreams, forever, were still far, far better than Rodney’s.
If he could unreel time, and undo all of his mistakes and choices, right and wrong and somewhere between, how far would he have to go, to get to this pure unbroken snow? And would things, for him - for everyone - be better or worse, if he’d never broken the crust of it?
Maybe the snow was listening in to his thoughts, and feeling vengeful against their trespass, because, even as he watched - his attention partly on his surroundings and partly on the centre of his own personal universe - that centre said ‘oh’ with a small, quiet surprise, as the snow gulped him down and vanished him.
~~~
Rodney had always half-thought that drowning would be what killed him.
He couldn’t recall, now, if he had thought so even before his father’s odd choice of bedtime reading matter (bitter, he realised now, at being pushed, through some snarling, vicious argument, into reading to him at all) had focused his mind on the deeps and the terrors that waited there, to drag you under and never let you go.
It hadn’t occurred to him he might drown in snow.
Not that he didn’t understand the dangers. In Fort McMurray, winter lasted a while and snow had been as much a part of his childhood, as the cold war in his home and the methods he had used to try and escape it: reading, learning, growing an even icier shell. Following music down its twisting, wondrous pathways, almost to the exit: until it shattered under his feet and melted away.
It was this familiarity, perhaps, which had placed snow fairly low on his long list of potential fatalities, his mental showreel of grisly ends, which had grown exponentially over the years. A list which had once contained neither Wraith, nor the upsettingly probable option of ‘my own blasted hubris’.
But it had shot, now, of course, right to the top of his list and, while this might not be more excruciating than death by Wraith, it was bad enough. The fall had been disorienting and, though he thought he was still upright, he couldn’t be certain. Wasn’t even aware of all his extremities, except those parts which were insisting on his awareness, with a long, thin scream of pain.
He had struck hard against something as he reached the bottom of the small, hidden crevasse, hurting his left arm - breaking it, more than likely - and doing something unpleasant to his side, besides catching him a dizzying blow on the head, so that, in all the snow packed around him and fallen in on top of him, forbidding him movement, he couldn’t tell up from down, nor left from right; nor see anything in the blackness, which his mind told him shouldn’t be black at all, but white and white and white, with just a few ragged and grotesque ribbons of red, from the slow steady trickle of blood.
Slowly, he had puzzled some things out in his cold, numb brain. The scarf had protected his mouth a little, preventing him from inhaling the entire snow bank as it collapsed and giving him a little space to breathe. For now, at least.
But he knew how hard it could be to find someone buried deep and to get them out again. He knew that he was likely to die here, entombed in this purity, stained with himself; and wasn’t that fitting.
It was a long, long way from that eager young student of knowledge, to a man who had destroyed most of a solar system. Who had made choices, intended to save lives, which had sometimes led to the taking of them.
Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing that the snow had eaten him. Entombed him alive, with the cold pressing in on all sides and his breath coming ragged, not quite given over to panic; the pain as yet sharp, but getting steadily more distant, as the numbness grew over him, like a mould.
But even as he thought that, he fought against the idea.
If he’d made mistakes - and he had, oh, he had - then he needed to fix them. If he’d caused deaths - and he’d done that too - then he’d also saved them, a lot of them, and he had even more he needed to save. There was no way not to make missteps along life’s path, unless you didn’t move along it at all, and all he could do, was to take the guilt he held onto (and deserved) and use it like a torch to illuminate the next step; to be a harsh voice in his head which stopped him on the threshold of each choice and made him think harder and deeper and less selfishly.
And, besides, sometimes what happened was no more under your control than a step into a hidden hole in the snow, leading down and down and down, like the welcoming jaws of a whale. Rodney couldn’t move here, could barely breathe; could do nothing but hold on against the dizziness and the cold.
His team would come, if he held on long enough. But he hoped they were quick, for the snow had teeth and the longer he was down here, the more of him would be slowly, relentlessly, devoured.
He breathed.
And breathed.
~~~
The snow had closed over Rodney completely, swallowing him whole, with a soft, snowy sigh and a satisfied glint of the sun; so that, if they hadn’t been watching, there would have been no indication of where to dig. As it was, they got to it straight away, careful to keep an eye on each other and not to get sucked under themselves.
All guilt and introspection had been put to the back of John’s mind for now; it could wait its turn, behind the stark fear and the single-minded determination to get Rodney out of there alive; or die trying.
Because John would throw himself under the snow, would tunnel down into the suffocating white, would offer himself to any gods of the snow who might be listening, if he could only get Rodney out of there and safe.
They worked together, tense and grim, until Teyla struck something beneath the surface; something she thought was a hand. They were even more careful then, not to slip down, not to lose him to the shifting, treacherous snow, but urgent, too, to get him free before his lungs filled up with clogging cold and he died, even as they worked to save him: expiring on the very cusp of hope.
He wasn’t conscious and John thought, for a long eternity of terror and grief, that he wasn’t breathing either; but then his chest moved, in a slow, but determined effort, a last defiant push against death.
They had called for help as they started digging, so that, even as they slid him from the snow like a newborn, the medical team was approaching, walking steadily and carefully over the snow; ruffling it further, until the surface was more scuff than snow; the marks, not those of defilement, but of life and hope.
John’s head whirled with dizziness and cold and something that he didn’t quite allow himself to feel as relief, because Rodney had been so cold he might have been made entirely of ice, and his chest was barely moving, even now, as if the effort it took might become too much at any moment.
John talked to him, they all did, words of encouragement, secretly threaded through with love, whatever love it was safe to say, so that he knew he was free and out of the snow and that he needed to keep fighting.
Maybe he couldn’t hear, but John had a fancy that their words - his especial words, those whispered, as well as those briskly allowed to be heard - and all the touches they gave him, of help and companionship and encouragement, would seep and burrow into Rodney’s brain and heart and warm him from the inside out.
Rodney wasn’t allowed to die, he hadn’t permission, and John never meant to give it to him; not if Rodney brought Death back, with his dark robe aswirl and scythe shyly in hand, and told him they were lovers now and he was very sorry, but he hoped that John would be happy for him.
John’s world narrowed, sometimes, to only those things and people he loved, and he couldn’t always come to terms with that; but if it was to be his way, he would do it properly. He would defend what was his, with every ounce of him he had and answer for the consequences in his dreams, his regrets, perhaps his afterlife; but they, they would not suffer, would not answer, because John would take all of that on himself, because he loved them.
He’d whispered it - ‘I love you’ - breathed the words to Rodney, so quietly, that he wasn’t even sure they had left his intentions and made their way out of his lips.
But he had a wild fancy that Rodney breathed just a little more strongly afterwards.
~~~
Rodney was so cold that he couldn’t remember not being cold, couldn’t understand what that might feel like, not to have threads of ice twining through your blood and bones, a part of you.
There was activity all around him and words, running too rapidly for him to grasp. He clutched after them, hopelessly, a little upset by the sensation; a little bit struck by wondering if this was what it was like for others when he took a breath and launched himself, joyously, on a voyage into knowledge and wondering and the winding pathways of his brain.
Things shifted and blurred and changed around him. He had some sense that time was leaping forward, impatient and restless, blurring over the boring parts and pausing from time to time, to take its bearings.
And then warmth was slowly, steadily pushing its way in, nestling up against the cold like a warm puppy befriending a snowball.
Teyla was there, and then Ronon, their smiles, and gentle teasing, pushing more of the warmth inside of him, gradual and slow, the glad coming of Spring in his veins.
Then it was John; and time stopped surging and leaping and rested, at last; destination achieved.
“Hey, Buddy.”
“Hey.”
It wasn’t quite the conversation of his dreams - and now that he thought that, Rodney wondered if he’d had such conversations, rehearsals of certain words and emotions in his mind, which were startling and natural, all at once - but Rodney was sleepy in a pleasant way, for once, not sluggish with that heavy weight of exhaustion and cold, and he was content to snuggle into the silence, as long as John was snuggled there with him.
A hand slipped into his and he took it without hesitation; squeezing and holding on. His other hand winced and sulked and he only then remembered that it was damaged and looked over at it, mildly surprised by the slow, spiteful returning of pain.
“Three cracked ribs, some lacerations, your left arm was broken in several places and you cracked your head pretty hard.”
“I really should stop doing that. My braincells are mission essential.”
He remembered the dizziness and confusion, the dark. And an impression of red on white; blood on snow. Warmth against the cold. Life against the bleakness.
Like John’s eyes, so intense against the unusual paleness of his face, and the dark rings of fatigue. There was a moment of incoherent emotion, a flash of revelation, and the beginning of something disconcertingly poetic; until Rodney was so struck by John’s current resemblance to a raccoon, that he laughed suddenly, with complete and utter inappropriateness.
And affection, too, so much affection, that it rose up and poured out of him, a sparkling fountain of not-so-sudden love. An understanding which had been eluding him for so long.
He drew in a breath, sharp and painful - those ribs - and John’s hand squeezed his, his eyes spilled over with confusion, concern and a misplaced guilt; as if Rodney’s foot finding the wrong place in the snow was his fault. As if he’d become so accustomed to self-blame, that he simply adopted it as his default.
For Rodney, it had taken a long while to fully accept how much he was responsible for. The wrongs he had done and the reasons behind them. But he felt that, in owning what was truly his and understanding what was not, it was a little easier to get through the days, not drowning and drowning and drowning, always, but fighting to swim.
“Thank you. For digging me out.”
“Well, I did consider for a moment, how much quieter it would be around here, if you were a popsicle …”
John’s face took every scrap of humour out of his words and said ‘fear’, ‘terror’, ‘I nearly lost you, you utter bastard’, so loudly that Rodney could hear the words in his head and feel them like a force of nature.
He squeezed John’s hand a little harder and found his own gripped back so tightly that he didn’t think he’d be able to pull away if he wanted to.
He was pretty sure that he never would.
Rodney drifted, warmth winning the fight against the cold, his blood now more full of puppy than of snowball, all slipping drowsily into sleep.
His eyes were closed, but he could picture John’s face as he leaned in close and watched over him. As he whispered something, so quiet that he can’t have intended it to be heard. Something scathing, on the surface, but with a thick layer of yearning and something else, something real.
“You need to get better at saying ‘I love you’.”
Rodney felt John stiffen and gasp, before he snuggled himself down with the warmth and let it cuddle him softly to sleep.
~~~
John stared down at his white sheets and Rodney against them, solid and snoring.
He still wasn’t sure exactly how he’d gotten here.
John had stayed close to Rodney as he recovered, making sure that he saw him every day, enough times to be certain he was still okay and warm and real; that he wouldn’t vanish, in a moment, swallowed up by some mocking universe who wanted everything that John held dear, just because he did so.
He hadn’t dared risked any more soft words, anything dangerous, and yet Rodney had watched him and smiled at him, as if he knew something. Had touched a little more and let himself be touched. Had waited until his ribs didn’t ache with every breath and until they were alone and talking about something or other, some topic as inconsequential as a snowflake, before throwing out the words, as casual as you please.
“It’s weird, because I fell in love with you without noticing somehow. I mean, I’m a remarkably observant man, and you’d think that would be one of those things which stood out …”
Rodney had turned and smiled at him, like he was sharing a joke, and John had stiffened and cooled and heated, all at once; had not been at all sure of his physical state, of whether he might puddle into liquid mortification, or escape into evaporating gas - or solidify: to form something more sure and real than he had been for a while.
“Rodney, I don’t know what you …”
“Yes, you do.”
Rodney wasn’t amused now, but he was soft, so breathtakingly soft and gentle, in a way he only usually showed glimpses of, underneath his brittle defences.
“You love me too, I know you do, but you don’t have to say it. I don’t need anything you don’t want to give, I just wanted you to know that … you exude it, always, your love, and that’s okay. It’s good. I’ve never had that before, like a blanket to warm me and catch me, always. It matters to me. It matters a lot.”
And then Rodney had patted his arm lightly and begun talking about cats and how people were so very wrong about their affection for humans, just because they were hung up on the obedience of dogs and John hadn’t had to say anything, hadn’t had to run or shrivel or do anything but roll with the conversation and, later, much later, let it sink inside him and permeate his whole being.
Because he’d loved Rodney for so long now and yet he hadn’t really imagined it had been noticed. That any good thing he’d put out there, could have had as much of an effect as the bad.
They had begun meeting up every night, after that, and talking a little more, getting closer to the real and important things. John couldn’t quite remember why he’d kissed Rodney, that first time, except that he’d been sparkling with excitement about something or other and his eyelashes had been so long and so fluttery and his mouth had curved in invitation and John had felt wanted and needed and warmed.
And somehow, in stages, they had arrived here, Rodney naked, contented and asleep, with John’s fingerprints on every intimate part of him, and Rodney’s on John, searing into him like tiny wrinkles of remembered warmth.
The snoring stopped.
“Are you going to just stare at me, or are you going to get warm? Because, obviously, I’m a sight to behold, but I can feel your shivering from here.”
John hadn’t felt any shivering, not with Rodney to stare at; or maybe he had just gotten used to being cold. But it wouldn’t hurt to take the edge off for a while; so he wriggled under the covers and wrapped himself over, and under, Rodney, until he wasn’t sure who was blanketing whom; and he let himself bask in warmth and love, given and received, until he joined Rodney’s snoring with his own, in a sweet, snorted symphony; their breaths evening out and twining together, against the world.