Work Text:
Man In the Moon
by Kouros
Another lap around the tower, his breath even and his legs loose, John counted as he ran. Almost half a mile per circuit and he was coming up on his tenth. His pace was smooth, unhurried, he was relaxing, relieving the built up stress of the day. This part of the tower was deserted, and he was alone. He was alone with the city, and alone with the moon. It hung gibbous, oddly brilliant, and full to his Earthly expectations.
This moon was a bit closer but also a bit larger and it was beautiful, if haunting with it's argent prescience. He thought briefly about something he had overheard the scientists talking about, he recognized the mathematics even if he couldn't place the astronomy lesson. They were saying that the forces delineated in Roche's limit would happen and one day the huge disk would shake, tremble, and break into a million pieces that fell onto Atlantis. At times, he thought, he felt like it could happen to him.
He ran inside the halls and then out onto the balconies that encircled the tower. John barely noticed as he entered the hallways, the lights came on and then shut off, marking his physical progress. The city wasn't sentient, but it was remarkably well designed, and its response to him, at times made him feel a bit spooked. It knew where he was; it followed and tracked him every second of the day, and apparently the night too.
As he loped onward, his thoughts ran to other times. The moonlight made an irresistible bid to his subconscious, it called to the past. A past that John had no intention of recalling and wasn't aware he was doing it, until the memories burst into his mind while his body relentlessly jogged onward.
The moon had been full, and he had run that night too. The night that he had said goodbye to Bart. He could remember it like yesterday; he could feel it like the kiss of his lover. It had been so sweet, so terrible, so soul searing, and sad. It left him with nothing but running and the moonlight. It was over before it had begun. Bart. He had loved Bart with everything in his heart and soul. An older, more experienced boy at a time when they were both becoming men.
John had been a precocious 18 year old, Bart a worldly wise 22 year old, and they had touched and kissed and John had loved. What Bart had truly felt, John could never know, never say for sure. He had said he loved John, wanted to be with him and sworn to keep him in his heart forever. He had said "toujours ici" and put John's hand on his chest. John almost gasped as the memory of it swelled and he felt as though Bart's hand was touching him. His t-shirt was soaked, clinging to his body; his nipples fought against the coolness and stood up, futilely pushing at the fabric as he ran.
With no thought on his mind but the memory of that night, John began to curse. The images that flowed out of the past made his chest ache, his eyes water and his throat go tight. From one moment to the next, he went from the well-trained runner that he was to the hopelessly crushed lover that Bart had left. John stumbled and fetched up against the balcony, gasping not from the physical exertion but from the pain of the memory. He said goodbye to me. He left me for... Him.
Tears as hot as molten candle wax flowed from his eyes and John slid onto the floor in a heap. His back against the wall, he stared at the moon as his tears continued falling. After a long time, he wondered which would be the most awful. To remember the pain, or to forget the passion.
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Rodney settled into bed, pulling up his light blanket and arranging his pillow for comfort. One of the few things that he had learned to control with his transplanted ATA gene was the light level. It was perhaps his favorite thing about his living quarters. Waking up in the dark was acceptable now, because when he wanted light he had only to think at the room and the lights would come up slowly with a measured radiance that was gentle on eyes accustomed to the dark.
Rodney liked that, the dark had trapped him for too many years, held him prisoner to the memories of pain and bad things that happened when the lights were turned off. The moon had been his friend at times, shining and bright. Then it would disappear and leave him helpless in the dark with no control over it.
Control was something that he had been stripped of then, to have it now was a luxury beyond rational explanation. A small sigh escaped him as he snuggled in and hugged one of the thin, almost wafer like pillows to his chest. It wasn't what he wanted, wasn't what he really needed but it was better than the old fears, better than the nights that he didn't want to remember ever again. He fell asleep, the light in his room dim, but still on and constant, keeping him safe. Rodney slept, and if he dreamed, he didn't remember it when he woke.
End