Story notes for "Undoing" by Resonant
Posted February 18, 2007
When I polled people for inspiration -- oh, many months ago -- I decided to ignore all the request for sex slave stories (feeling that I had been there and done that) and instead do city exploration.
A million beta thanks to Ces, who went over the story in detail about five times. Thanks too to Giglet and Julad.
I had a different story on the first draft, which I still think would have been pretty funny. It started out like this (John POV):
He sank down on the couch. It was every bit as comfortable as it looked. Beside him, he heard the hiss of Rodney bringing up an interface.
He shut his eyes.
He opened his eyes cautiously, because he had no idea where he was.
Nothing hurt, there was no noise, nothing smelled dangerous. He was in uniform but only lightly armed. He was lying on a couch.
It was a really amazingly comfortable couch.
" -- feel anything? There was an energy output, but I'm not sure what it did. Colonel?"
"Rodney." His voice didn't sound scratchy; apparently he hadn't been asleep for long. "Want to tell me what just happened?"
"I just got finished telling you I don't know what just happened," Rodney said. "Would you like me to go over it again in smaller words?"
"One minute you and I were in the mess making plans to take a look at that room in the med wing, and the next ..." He sat up and craned his neck to look at the panel. There were a handful of small buttons on each side and a single slider in the middle, like it was made to do one thing with a few small adjustments. "Oh. It did something to my short-term memory, didn't it?"
"It's wiped out about, mm, an hour or so," Rodney said, looking at his watch. "How do you feel?" He leaned forward in the chair, pulling John's left eyelid up, not too gently, and peering into it, with his other hand warm on John's jaw. His hands smelled like antibacterial soap. John swallowed, and Rodney pulled back enough to look at him. "Are you hurt?"
Instead of answering, John put his hand on the empty space at the top of the panel and leaned in to kiss Rodney.
As fulfillment of years-long fantasy went, it could have gone better. Rodney squeaked and stiffened, and John's mouth slid down to his chin, and by the time John adjusted, Rodney was trying to talk. John kept on, with a certain despairing determination, because whether or not he let up now, the fallout from this was going to be the same: unbearable.
And after a second Rodney's mouth stilled, and after another second, John's gut went hollow at the feeling of Rodney's lips going soft under his. Of Rodney kissing him.
He grabbed Rodney around the waist, and Rodney slid forward out of the chair unexpectedly and said, "Ow!" as his knees hit the floor. He gave John a baleful look and said, "Fine, though I usually insist on a little more foreplay," and shuffled comically forward to undo John's pants.
It wasn't what he'd meant, but it was OK, it was fine, Rodney was better than he'd -- oh, jesus, that mouth -- John's hips were thrusting up, harder than he'd ever have let them if he'd really been in control of himself, and Rodney made a loud noise of protest and raised his head to give John a baleful look, and it was the same look he gave everybody, all the time, so John came in his face.
"Oh, smooth," Rodney said.
"Hey, sorry," John said, aware that he sounded more aggrieved than apologetic. He had a handkerchief in his pocket, because you never knew when you might need to make a tourniquet or get blood off your hands, or, hey, wipe your own come off your teammate's face. He polished off Rodney's chin and neck, with Rodney mumbling something about kindergarten, and he zipped up without meeting Rodney's eyes, well aware that he had just screwed up what was probably his one and only chance.
Unless --
Before he'd even fully completed the thought, he was getting up. Hauling Rodney up to sit on the couch he'd just vacated. Slapping his hand down on the panel.
And eventually they find a way to get the memories back, and it turns out that they've been in the room for hours having lousy sex, getting embarrassed, erasing it all.
So bad sex was fun, but John angst turns out to be more fun.