Ficlet: Problems

Author: linaerys
Title: Problems
Rating: PG
Pairing: Sheppard/McKay
Word Count: 555
Summary: Pre-slash. Rodney has problems. Probably AU for things that never happened.
Disclaimer: These characters do not belong to me, nor to I derive any profit from them.
A/N: I have a slight obsession with the around-the-leg holster, especially when Sheppard wears it. I thought Rodney might share the obsession. No spoilers.


The problem was the holsters, but that wasn’t the first problem, not by a long shot.

The first problem was Sheppard’s tongue. Luckily, he didn’t lick his lips that often, and when he did Rodney could look away and avoid the embarrassment of blushing or stammering.

Then Sheppard’s hair became a problem. Rodney could feel his palms itch with the urge to run his hands through it, so he had to stop looking at Sheppard all together, but then the Major asked him if he was feeling okay, and Rodney had to go back to looking. So he wouldn’t look at Sheppard’s hair, he’d look at his eyes: green or hazel, close together perhaps, but they suited that long face perfectly. No, look at his mouth instead. Except that definitely wouldn’t work, it being so lovely and the lower lip curving just so.

So Rodney did what he could and mostly ended up looking pained whenever the Major was around, or really any other time, because then he noticed the holster. At first he hadn’t really looked, because military men always have guns on them, and if you’re working on a military project, you shouldn’t pay attention to them, because thinking of all that potential energy, potentially lethal energy, just sitting on everyone’s hips and shoulders can make an already jumpy person even more nervous. But then one day he went out in the field and Sheppard decided it was past time everyone in the jump team had a sidearm, and he had snapped the gun onto Rodney’s leg without even asking first.

It had been very fast, barely time to go from the realization Major Sheppard is touching me somewhere very intimate to and now he’s stopped.

“There,” said Sheppard. “Don’t shoot until I tell you to. Or, I’m not around and it seems like the thing to do.”

“How will I know?”

“You’re a smart guy, McKay. It’ll come to you.”

Wearing the holster produced a particular awareness of his inner thigh, distracting, really, and Rodney thought he might rather have a shoulder holster, except that would be a lot less fun to have put on him, should that ever happen again. Unfortunately, the item took on a life of its own in Rodney’s imagination. Sometimes he got to take it off the Major, sometimes that’s all the Major was wearing, and every time Rodney saw someone wearing one, he had a nanosecond-long fantasy before turning his attention back to real life. Sometimes a nanosecond could mean the difference between life and death.

Sheppard wasn’t so easily distracted. When a Wraith put the sharp end of its stunner weapon through Rodney’s leg, it was Sheppard who used the holster’s belt as a tourniquet so they could remove the spike. Sheppard who held his hand as McKay went weak with pain and shock, Sheppard who cursed and realized he couldn’t comfort McKay and be the best pilot in the galaxy at the same time, so it was also Sheppard who got them back to Beckett and the infirmary in record time, and Sheppard whose face Rodney saw when he woke up.

And Rodney realized that it wasn't the Major’s hair, or lips, or any of a million other things that was the problem, but Sheppard himself. Luckily Rodney liked solving problems.