Please Stay(Stargate Atlantis fic, M/M, Rodney, Allergy)

[Shay]

This is a short story that has been floating around in my head for a couple of months and I finally got the motivation to write it down, mostly due to Mercury's own recent story. The story doesn't take place in any particular season so there are no spoilers. There isn't a ton of sneezing in it, but I hope it's still enjoyable, especially since it's been a few years since I managed to write anything and I'm a bit rusty.

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John was abruptly awakened to the sound of a thunderous sneeze. He didn't remember Rodney getting into bed with him, but he didn't have to open his eyes to know that's who it was because who else would be waking him up by sneezing? John had waited for Rodney in his quarters, but as often happened, Rodney lost track of time and didn't return from the labs until after John had fallen asleep. John opened his eyes and saw Rodney looking down at him with a mortified expression on his face.

"Dammit, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you," Rodney apologized. "I really tried not to."

John snuggled up closer to Rodney and kissed him on the cheek. "It's ok." He gently stroked Rodney's hair until he fell asleep again. Just after he'd drifted off he was awoken again by a somewhat quieter, but no less powerful sneeze. John opened his eyes and glared at Rodney. He could forgive being woken once, but a second time was starting to wear on his nerves. Rodney murmured an apology and John soon fell asleep again.

After the third sneeze that woke him up, John was really starting to get quite annoyed. "Quit it Rodney."

"Sorry. I really can't help it. You know how my allergies can be," Rodney responded a bit indignantly.

"And it never occurred to you to take anything for it?" John asked.

"Of course I took something," said Rodney rolling his eyes. He opened his mouth to continue, but then a panicked look crossed his face. He grabbed a tissue from the box on the night stand and muffled a pair of sneezes into it with his whole upper body jerking forward from the force of it. He blew his nose before continuing. "You should have seen me in the lab an hour ago. I was much worse then."

John raised an eyebrow. "What were you working on in the lab? Some sort of botany experiment?"

Rodney cringed at the thought. "I'm still having an attack from the high pollen count on the planet we visited today."

John frowned. Rodney had been complaining about his allergies when they were off-world, but he'd pretty much just been sniffly and congested. Sure he'd stopped every five minutes or so to blow his nose, but there hadn't been any sneezing and they'd been back for several hours already. "Um shouldn't you be better now that you're back on Atlantis rather than worse?"

"Sometimes the sneezing doesn't start until later on after the congestion starts to drain," Rodney explained, "which started to happen about an hour ago in my lab." As if to prove his point, Rodney suddenly let out a powerful sneeze. He hadn't had enough warning to cover up, but he managed to turn his head away to avoid spraying John.

"Maybe I'd better go back to my own quarters and sleep there tonight," said John starting to get up.

"Don't go. It's been a long day. I feel like crap and I don't want to be alone," Rodney whined.

John sighed. It was really hard say no to Rodney when he was like this. "Look, I've got an early training exercise tomorrow and I really need my sleep."

"Please stay," Rodney begged. "I'm already groggy from the pills I took. I'm sure I'll be asleep before long."

John's eyes widened. It wasn't often that Rodney used the word "please". "Ok ok, I'll stay, but you'd better fall asleep soon."

John settled back down next to Rodney spooning him. There were a few more sneezes, but they lacked the volume and force of the ones that had woken him up. Soon the sneezes gave way to sniffles and when John heard Rodney start to snore softly he relaxed and drifted off into a peaceful slumber as well.

[tenderwarrior]

Very cute! I haven't heard of Stargate Atlantis, but I really enjoyed this nonetheless!

[Shay]

I'm glad you enjoyed it.

If you're curious, the two guys in my Avatar are the guys in the story with John on the top and Rodney on the bottom.

[Mercury]

I very much like the idea of John in Rodney's bed waiting for him and then just giving up and going to sleep because Rodney's got his head stuck in a project.

This is very sweet. I really liked it and I hope you find the motivation to do some more writing

Edited March 10, 2014 by Mercury

[Shay]

Thanks, I'm glad you liked it.

Most of my difficulties with writing stem from a bad combination of writer's block, fatigue from chronic health issues, and not having enough peace and quiet to focus on writing at times when I might be alert enough to actually get some writing in. I think I mostly managed to do this piece because it was quite short and I had the luck of actually having quiet in my house long enough to get it done. Most of my WIPs are much longer than this though. Maybe I'll try to work on them a little bit at a time, if I feel up to it, but in my particular circumstances, a story in which I've got several parts planned out in my head, it can feel a bit daunting.

Again I'm really glad you enjoyed this piece. It's probably the first time that I didn't care so much if I got any comments or not because the piece was over and done with and so I didn't need encouragement to continue, but it's always nice to know that people enjoyed something I wrote.

[blueberrymuffin]

I'm glad you were inspired to post this! I will support any and all SGA fic around these parts, especially John and Rodney. This was really sweet, so thanks for sharing!

[Shay]

Thanks, I'm really glad you like it. I will also support any and all SGA fic on here. Even if it's not quite my cup of tea fetish wise, I always love reading about the characters. In fact this is pretty much the only fandom that I seek out non-fetish fanfic for.

[katy693]

This was wonderful, I hope you feel up to one day writing more Atlantis fic. Thank you.

[Shay]

Thanks. I hope one day I'll be able to as well. It would be nice to be able to get some of these stories out of my head and written down.

I just realized that most of you commenting here are relatively new to the forum so you might not have seen the Atlantis fics I wrote years ago. If you're interested they are they are Icy Waters and Reckless Decisions. Icy Waters is a Rodney sick fic and it's written as a missing scene for the episode The Shrine in season 5. Reckless Decisions is a John allergy fic. I had written and posted several chapters for that fic but never finished it and I'm not sure if I ever will(the only way I could think of to finish the story ended up being something that wouldn't make sense to anyone but me unless I wrote at least one non-fetish prequel), so just wanted to give you fair warning going into it.

I also wanted to say that you might notice that those stories have spelled out sneezes while this one doesn't. That was something that I used to do but don't do anymore. I know spelled out sneezes are popular and I even enjoy them myself very much when reading a fic, but as a writer I found them very tedious to do and grew tired of it, so I decided I would let the reader decide how they want to imagine the sneezes sounding. I just wanted to explain this so you don't think this fic is the exception to the norm for me and that any fics I write in the future most likely won't have spelled out sneezes.