"It must be annoying as hell," Rodney said, around the penlight he had gripped in his teeth to illuminate the crystals.
Ronon looked over. "What is?"
Rodney grimaced as best as he could with a metal tube stuck in his mouth. He took it out, tucked it under his little finger, and said, "Me."
"Yeah," Ronon said, with a truly impressive lack of tact, adding in a challenged way, "But if Sheppard can put up with your whining then so can I."
"Not that—whining? What has he been saying—never mind." Rodney shook his head, nearly cracking the back of his skull across the console. Cramped quarters here, and dark except for his flashlight shimmering over the powered-down array. At least when he talked he could hear his voice echoing around the comfortingly larger circumference of the cavern. "Not that. I meant. Being stuck here, guarding me, when you could be out there, fighting the good fight or proving yourself or whatever. It'd annoy me. If I gave a damn about my fighting prowess, anyway," and he wasn't—whining, God forbid, but there was a certain unavoidable bitterness. Just because he didn't have the time to waste pummeling his body into submission every morning and evening... "It must get to you."
"Oh," Ronon said, watching Rodney swap the burnt-out correlator with a redundant auxiliary capacitor. "No. It doesn't."
"It doesn't?" The capacitor was a provisional fix at best, but then this entire so-called technology was a makeshift mess of cannibalized parts anyway, and the connection wouldn't need to last longer than the initial charging up. Just enough power to short-circuit the lock to the DHD chamber, so they could dial out of here before the beasts outside got a mid-afternoon snack. Rodney got a better grip on the flashlight and squirmed around to angle it at the array overhead, sparing a glance at his teammate as he did. "Why not?"
Ronon shrugged. "This is fighting, too."
Rodney cocked his head toward the sporadic bursts of P-90 fire outside the cave, then looked at Ronon, squatting on the floor beside the console with his hands hanging between his knees, motionless but for the gun idly swinging from his loose grip. They hadn't been sure what might be living in this cavern, but it looked like the caution had been paranoia after all. "Yeah, pitched firefight against wild raccoon-lions, sitting quietly in a cave. I can see how you could mistake the two."
"You're fighting," Ronon said.
"Fighting to make this stupid piece of obsolescence open up, so we can get off this rock, sure. Whatever."
"It's how you fight," Ronon told him. "And making sure you can keep fighting—that's how I'm fighting. If you were as useless under there," and he nodded toward the console, "as you are out there, then it'd be annoying. But here, with this stuff, you're the best fighter around. As good as I am out there. Better, maybe."
"Useless out there," Rodney huffed, "useless, he says, after I've logged how many missions off-world, and wasted countless hours on the firing range, not to mention the bruises from the piñata role-playing that you call training," but he had to duck his head back under the console as he said it, because he could feel the pink heat of a blush rising in his cheeks. There was getting deserved praise for a job inhumanly and impossibly well-done; and then there was Ronon matter-of-factly telling you that you were the most competent scientist (or engineer, or whatever hat Rodney was wearing now) that he knew.
"You need to know how to defend yourself some," Ronon said. "In case no one else's around. Have to be good enough to make it until I get there."
Which would never be too long, Rodney knew that from experience. It was a little odd how accustomed he'd gotten to Ronon's presence. Off-world, and these days on Atlantis more often than not, his teammate was rarely far, an out-sized shadow. And somewhere along the line Rodney had stopped caring how often his gesturing hands would accidentally smack into an indecently broad, leather-coated chest; and had started counting on having someone there to move objects and people and shoot things before they shot him first. It wasn't that he hadn't questioned it; he'd just never wanted to ask, hadn't wanted to know if it was only on Sheppard's orders, or how much it bothered the warrior, so often being denied the opportunity to war.
It hadn't really occurred to him that Ronon might not mind it any more than Rodney himself did. Three years on Atlantis and he was still getting used to the idea that there were people who maybe actually sort of didn't dislike being around him. From the safe concealment of the console's innards, he couldn't help but ask, "So you don't mind the bodyguard duty? Once in a while?"
"Nope," Ronon replied. "As long as you keep up your end of the fight."
"Deal," Rodney said. He wriggled out from under the console, and Ronon pulled him to his feet, leaning over Rodney's shoulder as he switched on the current through the array and double-checked the circuitry. All good; he nodded to Ronon, tapped his radio. "Sheppard, Teyla, retreat, extract, come on in, whatever—we're ready to go," and he hit the button to get them all home.
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