Disclaimer:
No characters belong to me. For fun, not profit.
Title: Skintight
Author: Toft
Rating: NC-17
A/N: A sequel to my fic 'Second Skin'. With huge thanks to Fairestcat, Mecurtin and Amireal for thoughtful, rigorous betaings, as ever, and much-needed support.
There were days when John woke up and got a shock like cold water over him when his brain volunteered, six months. Seven. Eight. At random ordinary moments, sometimes, when John was doing his paperwork at the desk, maybe, while Rodney was sitting on the bed in just a t-shirt and boxers, too caught up in something to get fully dressed after they’d fucked, tapping away at the laptop resting on his bare thighs, John would suddenly step back and see his life, and it was like a long, totally surreal dream he kept expecting to wake up from.
He was having one of those moments right now. This was a really stupid idea, this was totally fucking insane, even by his standards; he was standing in a hotel bathroom (room rented in Rodney’s name, one in John’s name next door with carefully messed up sheets and an empty suitcase) in fucking Toronto looking at himself in the mirror, his mascara-edged eyes screaming back abort abort abort.
*
It had been the better part of a year now – in every sense, John admitted to himself sometimes, which was weird enough – but the weirdest thing was that this thing with Rodney was… far easier than John had expected. Than he’d thought anything could be. Nobody had said anything, and so far as John knew, nobody had seen anything (although things had been close a couple of times), which was kind of amazing in a place like this. Rodney thought Teyla might know, but John wasn’t worried about it. It was Teyla. In fact, John wasn’t worried about a lot of things, except for once every so often when he’d wake up in a cold sweat, all his muscles locked and cramped, or when he’d have a day where he couldn’t eat much of anything, freaked out exactly because he wasn’t worried, and he really, really should be.
On those days, he’d be about ready to have a panic attack over stuff like the fact that he was fucking a man (or, technically, if you went by averages, being fucked by a man, and he wasn’t proud of the fact that that made a difference) who also happened to be on his team, the second-highest ranking civilian in his base and Rodney McKay. Stuff like, he had three skirts (one black leather miniskirt, one of loose, dark blue cotton and one made of some sort of soft, cured skin with tassels and feathers hanging off it, that looked like something you’d buy by a roadside near a Navajo reservation) stuffed in a bag at the bottom of Rodney’s closet. In a little purse in the same bag there was a tube of lipstick - Elizabeth’s lipstick – an eye pencil and a little box of grey eyeshadow, all misappropriated (John could only assume, he didn’t really like to ask) by Rodney from various female members of the Atlantis expedition. Stuff like, he hadn’t really thought this through at the beginning – obviously – but he was pretty sure he hadn’t expected it to go on this long.
*
“John! Are you – uh. Um, oh.”
Rodney froze in the doorway to the bathroom with one hand forgotten at a button of his shirt, and was staring, eyes wide and dark, flickering over John, and – Jesus. Jesus. John would never stop finding that hot, the way Rodney looked at him when he was - when he was dressed like this. He breathed in through his nose to calm the nausea, and wiped his palms on the soft, soft fabric of the skirt. God, why didn’t they make clothes for guys made of stuff like this? It was amazing, the way it sort of clung and didn’t at the same time, and it made heat and vertigo twist in John’s stomach. He swallowed, and looked back at the mirror. He watched himself say, “I’m not sure I can do this.”
“I’m the one who has to look at you all night,” said Rodney, voice cracking slightly. “God, you have no idea what you look like.”
John rubbed the fabric between his finger and thumb. Rodney was still staring.
“Oh, you, huh. You didn’t shave your legs, in the end.”
John shrugged tightly. “Nah.”
He’d been tempted, but he’d never done it before and he didn’t want to mess it up, and besides, what if there was an emergency and they had to go back suddenly, or he was hit by a car and had to go to hospital – or if it just didn’t grow back, he’d heard horror stories of guys who’d done it on dares – this was stupid enough, without taking an extra risk like that. Still, now, looking down at his stupid hairy knees, he wasn’t sure. He didn’t look like those guys who put on wigs and foundation and stuffed their chests, who really looked like women, or tried to. He looked like a guy in a skirt, a slashed t-shirt, combat boots and glittery eye makeup which John had bought at the mall in Toronto on impulse while Rodney was paying for his new laptop (and the shop assistant had fluttered her eyelashes at him and asked him if his daughter would be interested in getting a half-price makeover including a free ear piercing, at which point Rodney had appeared and announced that their daughter was getting her lobes mutilated over his dead body, and could they please get out of here before the insipid excuse for music being piped through the shop speakers gave him an aneurism? - while John tried to look anywhere but the shop assistant’s face).
“What are you, um, wearing? Under – as underwear.”
John shut his eyes and took another deep breath. God, this was going to be a long night. He’d had a couple of beers earlier and jerked off, because he knew otherwise he seriously wouldn’t be able to get out the door, but the panties were already feeling way too small, the elasticised edges cutting into his thighs. They were plain, black and cotton, the only thing they could compromise on between John going commando (“No, seriously, oh my god, hot, but you’d be arrested”) and something more… colourful (“Rodney. No.” “Oh, fine, ignore all my excellent suggestions”). These didn’t show under the skirt, Rodney could get them in a regular department store, they didn’t itch, and they didn’t put sick, crawling excitement under John’s skin that made him feel like he was going to come or die or both, maybe simultaneously. Not much, anyway.
He shrugged again. “The, uh, the ones you got.”
Rodney stared at him some more. John’s mouth went dry.
“Let’s stay here and have sex,” Rodney said abruptly, one hand clenched white-knuckled by his side, his voice high and getting higher. Despite himself, John thought that was pretty funny. “There is no way in this galaxy I am going to be able to walk around with you all night in public like that. I know I’m the – the paragon of discretion, but even I have my limits as far as restraint goes.”
John pinched his thigh through the skirt - hard - to get a hold of himself, because yes, clearly it was going to be a long night, but no way was he going to let Rodney off so easy. He backed off, cocked his hip a little, lowered his eyelashes (as Rodney shifted his stance slightly, cleared his throat, and something young in John was delighted all over again with how goddamn easy it was to do this to Rodney), said, “But, Rodney, you promised me.”
Rodney breathed deeply. He was a little flushed, now, and John had to hold in a grin.
“Yes. Yes I did. Oh, god, this is going to kill me. Fine. Let’s get this over with. But if we get arrested because I tried to ravage you in public, you are totally explaining it to Elizabeth.”
John carefully did not allow access to the mental images there, because otherwise they really wouldn’t get out of the hotel, and instead said, “You going to do your shirt up first?”
Rodney muttered something darkly that John didn’t bother to hear, but he did finish doing up the buttons. John opened a bottle of rum from the minibar, sniffed it and on consideration decided that it was only Rodney here and he was already wearing a skirt, so he might as well have it with coke. It burned on its way down anyway, the extra sugar barely hiding the taste, then Rodney came out of the bathroom stuffing something into a shoulder bag which he’d bought the day before at the mall, John had assumed for the laptop.
“What’s that?”
“That, Colonel, is me once again making sure we have a backup plan.”
The rum was starting to curl warmly in John’s belly, and he grinned. “You got a ZPM in there, Rodney?”
“Pants, idiot. And some wet wipes. That is, for the, uh,” Rodney waved vaguely in the direction of John’s face, as his own began to turn red, and looked at the floor a little to the right of John. “I thought, if anything happened – and obviously you weren’t paying any attention in the debriefing, but we are meant to be on call, and I just thought, if, god forbid – I just thought, you might not want to be, ah -”
“Rodney, are you apologising?” because yeah, they could have to be at the SGC with no notice at all, and it hadn’t even occurred to John, for god’s sake, but it definitely should have.
Rodney’s mouth snapped shut. “Um. No. No, of course not.”
“Because, it’s a good idea. Thanks.”
“Oh. Well. Of course it’s a good idea.”
John nodded solemnly, the grin threatening even harder to break out all over his face.
“I should have thought of it.”
Rodney stood up straighter, stuck his chin out stubbornly. “Yes. Yes, you should.”
“We ready to go?”
“I – nearly.”
Rodney strode across the few steps between them, put a hand on the back of John’s neck and kissed him pushily, running his tongue along John’s upper lip where he still tasted sweet from the coke. When he stepped back, the warmth in John’s stomach had gone lower, and Rodney sounded pleased and breathless when he said, “Ready now.”
“You messed up my lipstick, McKay,” John said mildly.
Rodney rolled his eyes. “What are you, Miss Colorado Springs? Go and fix it, then.”
*
The first time they’d finished it was after an argument when John had just got out of the infirmary after the Phoebus and Theylan debacle, which started with Rodney being pissy and ended with John yelling, “You shot at me, Rodney! You weren’t even looking! You could have fucking killed me!” and Rodney spitting out, “Oh, because your judgement’s been absolutely fantastic in the last twenty four hours, you nearly killed Elizabeth and destroyed the city, and why was that? Let me think - oh, yes, obviously, because you’re such a romantic.”
John had been kind of relieved, because he’d been waiting for it to happen, it was bound to happen, and now it had, and things could go back to normal. He’d felt clearer and calmer than he had in months – okay, he felt kind of like all his insides had been scraped out, too, couldn’t concentrate on anything and his hands wouldn’t stop shaking, but he figured those were after-effects of being paralyzed inside his own head for seven hours as his body ran around Atlantis shooting people, and that they’d pass. Rodney came back to John after three days, shamefaced and awkward, sort-of apologized, and that was as far as it went.
John never told him that he’d nearly broken through Theylan after he’d shot Ronon: that he’d fought hard enough that Theylan had lost control of John’s body for a second, but had recovered before John could get his hand to his radio and hissed into his head, if you were one of my men I’d have had you flogged and the scientist branded, and if you don’t settle down I’ll tell the whole city why, you invert filth. He also didn’t tell Rodney he hadn’t slept for those three days. It wasn’t often he got Rodney to apologize.
*
John forgot to freak out when they went down out of the back of the hotel to the cab, too busy being pissed with himself that Rodney was more ready for a worst-case scenario than he was, and being slightly bemused at the warm feeling in his chest (which was, in fairness, probably about two-thirds rum) that came from knowing that Rodney had his back, Rodney was looking after him. That was John’s job, but they were, he reflected, on vacation. It was kind of nice.
It was only when they were in the cab that John realized that he’d just voluntarily let someone other than Rodney see him dressed up for the first time in his life, and it was only when they were on the expressway that John realized that Rodney had done that thing again, distracting John long enough until he suddenly woke up in the middle of something that he really hadn’t meant to do. You’d think, he considered, slightly hysterically, that after this long he’d have worked out how to stop Rodney doing that. Rodney slid a hand over John’s thigh, then made a surprised noise in the back of his throat and stroked up and down to John’s knee a few times.
“Oh my god, that, wow, that feels incredible. What is that?”
“Rodney,” John hissed, nodding towards the cab driver. Rodney looked at him flatly.
“You’re wearing a skirt and we’re going to a club called the Flamingo. I don’t think he could have possibly misconstrued the situation.”
“You guys here for the parade?” the driver, a kid with a nose piercing, chirped from the front, and John gave up, looked out of the window and pretended not to shiver when Rodney idly rubbed his thumb along the line of John’s inside leg, over the fabric to bare skin.
“You’re so hot,” Rodney whispered as they passed under the carved archways to Chinatown, which should have looked tacky in the daytime, gaudy red and yellow and too glossy, but in the evening glow of the lights from the bars, looked to John, mildly drunk and with his best friend’s hand on his leg, like the gateway to some exciting night-time country, a fairyland – and once he’d thought that, he started sniggering and couldn’t stop. Rodney stared hard at him and went, “What? What?” and John thought that maybe he could do this after all.
*
John had been to a gay bar before. Once. He was twenty two, on leave, his grandmother dead six months and his father out of the country, so he went to New York. He’d meant to do the tourist thing, but he’d just spent seven months out in the desert, where the sky was hard as diamond and went on forever, and he got kind of claustrophobic with all the crowds and the buildings reaching way up over him like giant claws. The only thing he did was go to the top of the Empire State Building three days in a row, breathing in the wind that whipped through the tops of the skyscrapers until he felt completely empty, then, on his last night, go to a bar in the East Village that there’d been a flyer for in his hostel. He drank and stared surreptitiously until the guy who’d been smiling at him from the other side of the room came over, sat down so close to him that their thighs rubbed together and asked if he could buy him a drink, at which point John mumbled a negative, left, caught the subway across town, went to a different bar, drank some more and met Shayna, who was pretty and smelt good and let him fuck her on her couch. She let him sleep there, too, which was great, as he’d checked out of the hostel that morning. Thanks to all that, John’s memories of the place in the Village were kind of hazy, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t like this, Latin music, low lights and glass tables. For a moment John thought Rodney had gotten the wrong place, but then he took a closer look at the people sitting around them and realized, with a jolt to his stomach, that the five women sitting together and laughing over bright orange drinks were all a little too broad-shouldered, and that the one who’d just stood up to go to the bathroom was about six two. Rodney elbowed him in the ribs and muttered, “Stop staring!” and John quickly dropped his gaze to the floor.
A young Latino guy with a face as pretty as a girl’s showed them to their reserved table, swaying his slim hips to the beat so much that John felt like they should be doing a conga behind him. A couple of people’s eyes flickered over them as they passed – some appreciatively, men and (maybe) women, but he could deal with that. He kept his gaze parade-ground level, breathed slowly and made sure to walk casual, kept his face blank, like he came here with a skirt and another guy every day, and it was… actually, after the initial urge to get the hell out of there had passed, John found he could relax a little, and it was fine. As he slid into his seat facing Rodney, he looked at him, so as not to stare around. He was wearing a clean, light-coloured shirt with short sleeves. He looked good, John thought, surprised. It was weird to see him wearing something John hadn’t seen a hundred times before.
“Hey, Rodney,” John said. “The, uh,” he gestured at Rodney’s chest, suddenly weirdly tongue-tied, like he was on a first date or something – which actually, now he thought about it, he kind of was. Rodney frowned.
“What? Do I have something on my shirt?”
God, he’d always sucked at this, even with women, and he had no idea how to do it with Rodney, wasn’t even sure if he was supposed to. He shrugged.
“Forget it.”
“No, seriously, what? Does it make me look fat? I knew that shop assistant was incompetent, she just -”
“It’s nice,” John mumbled.
“What?”
“It’s nice, McKay. Jesus, you try and compliment a guy.”
Rodney stared at him blankly. Then he blinked suddenly, and his mouth softened.
“Oh. Um, really? Because I – well. Okay. Thank you.”
John went to rub his eyebrow, then remembered he was wearing makeup, and scratched at his ear awkwardly instead.
“Can we get a goddamned drink now?”
Rodney buried his face in the cocktails menu. “Right, right, yes.”
The light wasn’t good, but John was pretty sure Rodney was blushing. It made him want to laugh and – he didn’t even know, hit something, maybe, at the same time. One of the things John would never have guessed about Rodney before all this craziness happened was that he was weirdly sensitive about the way he looked. He didn’t normally like John to even look at him, which he’d learned after a few times of Rodney flicking out the lights or actually pushing John’s face to the side and muttering, “God, don’t.” It had pissed John off a little, sometimes, because Rodney got off on watching him, but it was mostly on principle. It wasn’t like he didn’t know what Rodney looked like already. He had broad shoulders, a big mouth, blue eyes and John wanted to touch the back of his neck pretty much all the time. He had a small red bruise there now, just below where his hair was soft and prickly, buzzed close to the skin. The bar had been too dark to see it, when they walked to the table, but John knew it was there, because he’d made it with his teeth this morning. Thinking about it made his fingers itch, so he rubbed the fabric of the skirt between them again. It didn’t help.
*
The second time they finished it was when Rodney walked in on John in a position that, okay, he was willing to admit could have been misconstrued, with a (hot, female) trade delegate. There was nothing in it – she had something in her eye - but Rodney said some things, and John said some things, and the delegate demanded recompense for Rodney calling her a demented, disease-spreading space-whore. Rodney went back to John that time too, but it was his fault, and they agreed never to refer to it again, then had hot make-up sex. With makeup. The trade concessions were a bitch, and John had to do some serious fabrication on the mission report, but the whole thing was actually kind of fun.
*
They only had one menu, so John drew straight lines on the table in the condensation left from someone else’s drink as Rodney studied it. When the pretty waiter reappeared to take their order, he looked John up and down with a wide smile before Rodney snapped, “He’ll have a Green Demon and I’ll have a Piña Colada, and if there’s any citrus in it at all he will kill you with his bare hands while I am choking to death.”
That actually seemed to make the guy look more interested, but John decided not to point that out to Rodney, who was staring around now more than John had been; John was way more discreet than Rodney, though, so instead of poking him, he nudged his knee against Rodney’s under the table. Rodney ignored him and whispered loudly, “Look at that guy! He looks like a quarterback! How can he be wearing high heels?”
This time, John did poke him, but Rodney still didn’t stop staring.
“Seriously, I think he could take you,” he said. “Hm, do you think Ronon could still kick ass in high heels?”
“You know, Rodney,” John said, “I’d really like to get through this evening without getting beat up by a guy in a dress, so do you think we could stop staring at the football player now?”
“Oh, fine, like you’re not curious,” said Rodney. When the drinks came, John ignored the straw and pretty much downed his weird pink drink in one, but Rodney was too busy moaning, “Oh my god, real pineapple, oh, John, you have to try this,” to notice. John put his empty glass back on the table with a click.
“Rodney,” he said. “Rodney.”
“What?” said Rodney, with milky foam on his upper lip, and John stood up, leant over the table and licked it off, tasting coconut, then kissed the startled noise Rodney made right out of his mouth, fast and dirty, right there in a bar where anyone could see. When he sat back down, smug and stunned, Rodney was staring at him, open-mouthed. John felt a little more smug.
“You - I -” Rodney stopped again and cleared his throat. “What was that for?”
“Wanted a taste,” John said, and grinned, then pressed his leg closer to Rodney’s under the table as Rodney’s eyes widened to the size of dishplates.
“Hey,” Rodney said suddenly, “we can do that,” and grinned back, so open and delighted that John wanted to kiss him again, suddenly, and he could, right now or in five minutes, whenever he wanted, wherever he wanted, and it felt like the first time he’d felt a jumper come to life under his hands. He rolled his eyes.
“No kidding, Rodney.”
*
After the freakout day which marked six months, John went through a phase where he wanted to tell people. It went from being a way to remind himself why this was such a bad idea (imagining what Elizabeth would say, what Caldwell would say), to an idle way to fill in the time when he was bored (the look on his father’s face), to jerking off to fantasies of leaving his radio on an open channel while Rodney fucked him, so the whole of Atlantis could hear the sounds he made. It got to the point where John actually nearly said something to Lorne, in a completely casual conversation on the walk between the briefing room and the gateroom, when Lorne had said something like, “Jesus, Colonel, how do you deal with McKay?” and John had got as far as, “Usually I just -” before he realized he was about to say blow him, and nearly shot himself in the leg. At that point, he realized there was a problem.
When he’d tried to talk it over with Rodney, though, maybe work out a plan of action, Rodney didn’t seem to grasp the fucking urgency of the situation. After John had explained what he’d nearly – Jesus, so nearly – done, Rodney just pulled his boots off with a sigh and lay down on John’s bed. Then he yawned.
John stopped pacing and snapped, “This is a serious problem, Rodney.”
“Sorry, am I supposed to be sympathetic, here?” said Rodney incredulously, staring up at his fingernails. “Do you even remember who you’re talking to? How the hell do you think I’ve been dealing with this for the last six months? My reputation would go up so high if the science team knew I was sleeping with you.”
“Look,” John gritted out, “I nearly told my second in command that I was sucking your dick, Rodney. I’d really appreciate it if you could get your head out of your ass and help me make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
“Oh, great, one more thing in Atlantis becomes my responsibility,” said Rodney. “I’ll write up a project schedule and get Radek to fit it into someone’s timetable. Dreben can work on it in between increasing the range of the deep space sensors and trying to refine the life-signs detector.”
“For fuck’s sake, Rodney,” John snapped frantically, “help me!”
Rodney sat up, then, eyes hard and angry, and swung his legs off the bed. “What the hell do you expect me to do, John? Wire your jaw shut? Just don’t tell anyone! Hey, look, I-can’t-keep-my-mouth-shut-McKay’s been doing it for six months! You think it’s easy for me? I want to tell everybody!”
“Well, I don’t!” yelled back John, and Rodney looked at him for a minute and then said, “Of course not. You know, I don’t know why I even got up this morning. There was no coffee, I knew it was going to be a shitty day,” then picked up his boots and walked out. He avoided John for a week, missing meals and working late, and on the seventh day John went and said he was sorry.
“You don’t even know what you’re apologising for, do you?” said Rodney. He shut his eyes. “I so do not have the energy to deal with this.”
John managed to only sounded a little croaky when he said, “Well, if you’re not going to accept it -” and Rodney said wearily, “No, no, apology accepted, whatever, come over here.”
That, in retrospect, was the third time.
*
As John sipped his second Green Demon - he had no idea what was in it (although he guessed a lot of alcohol, from the way the first one was already curling warmly through all his nerves along with the rum he’d had in the hotel), but it was really good – he looked up to find Rodney watching him.
“Huh,” Rodney said. “You know, I have to admit I’m impressed. I actually thought you would have freaked out by now.”
John raised an eyebrow. “It’s cool, Rodney.”
“Really?”
Rodney seemed to hesitate for a minute, then set his jaw determinedly, put his drink down, leaned over and kissed John on the mouth, just a quick brush of lips, surprisingly soft. Then he sat back, took a gulp of his drink, mouth crooked in an almost-smile, and didn’t meet John’s eyes.
John leaned close and whispered confidentially, “I’m actually pretty drunk.”
Rodney blinked and looked up, then laughed.
“Oh my god,” he said, and John thought happily, he’s happy. “I can’t take you anywhere, can I?”
“Yeah you can, Rodney,” John grinned, and suddenly found his heart twisting inside his chest, sweet and sore. “Anywhere.”
*
The fourth time, Rodney had fucked up on a mission – something so unbelievably stupid, so dumb John hadn’t believed it at first, and over food, the most basic fucking rule in the book, but Rodney didn’t even think, such a goddamn idiot - and Teyla nearly died because of it, and it was like Doranda all over again only ten times worse. After three weeks of Rodney white and brittle in the corner of John’s vision in staff meetings, which was the only time John even spoke to him, and Teyla constantly trying to get him alone and say reasonable things like, “Dr McKay is truly sorry, Colonel, it is wrong to punish him like this,” John went to the lab late one night, stood stiffly behind Rodney and said, not looking at him, “It’s late, McKay, you gonna come get some sleep?”
Rodney stared blankly at his screen for a couple of seconds, then tapped to save his work and said, “Yes. Yes.”
In Rodney’s quarters, after they’d been standing for a while and not looking at each other, when John leaned forward jerkily and pressed his mouth against Rodney’s, too hard, so their teeth banged together, Rodney went rigid as a board under John’s hands and gripped John’s arm so tightly that John’s hand tingled. Then he just let John shove his tongue in his mouth and push him back against the wall and bite his neck hard enough to draw blood, and he didn’t say a word, the silence making something horrible and frantic crawl under John’s skin. Rodney just stood there, not trying to fight John at all, and John had a sudden, visceral urge to punch him in the gut. He pushed himself away from Rodney and staggered back. Rodney looked at him, his mouth a red and miserable line.
“You’re such a fucker, Rodney,” John said shakily, his whole body thrumming.
“Can we just get this over with?” said Rodney tightly, and shut his eyes and tilted his head back.
John opened and closed his fists and tried to breathe.
“Come on!” Rodney said, through gritted teeth, but his voice was shaking. “Just, just do it, you clearly have to get it out of your system, I’m trying to save us both time here.”
“Fuck,” said John, sheer rage making his voice crack, and punched the wall next to Rodney, then cradled his fist against his stomach and rested his forehead on the wall, gulping in air. Rodney jumped, opened his eyes and then immediately said, “Oh, god, idiot, that’s exactly – I’m not a masochist, I have reasons, oh, god, have you broken it?”
The pain was diamond-bright and cut through everything, made everything clear. John flexed his hand, and it hurt so much it blurred his eyes, but it seemed to be working fine.
“No problem,” he said, and hiccupped a laugh, and Rodney made a weird, lost noise and put his arms around him, his head on John’s shoulder, and John just held on to the solid warmth of him as tightly as he could.
“You just make me so goddamned mad, Rodney,” John said hopelessly, looking at the pictures on the opposite wall of Rodney grinning manically with his diplomas, breathing in Rodney’s smell, sweat and soap, coffee and metal, and his chest hurting with the ridiculous urge to say sorry, sorry, I’m so sorry.
“Believe me,” Rodney said, muffled into John’s jacket. “I know.”
Later, when John was three-quarters asleep and had had a plastic bag of ice on his hand for a while, he became aware that Rodney was awake and sitting up. He was about to tell him to go to sleep, when Rodney very, very lightly touched his jaw with one finger and started whispering to him, a long, stumbling stream of words that brought John absolutely awake and rigidly still.
“Okay, look, I – I screwed up, John, I know, and you may not think that I’m – but I am, I’m trying, I really am, but, John, you have to – you have to not leave me. I, I can’t, you have no idea, you -” Rodney cut himself off, took a deep breath and dropped back down to a whisper, “Just, don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me.”
John kept his breathing controlled and shallow until his chest hurt, until Rodney had huffed out a sigh, lain down beside him and gone quiet. John lay awake next to him for most of the night, staring at the ceiling.
Rodney was quieter and more careful around them all for a long time, longer than it took for John’s hand to stop hurting when he flexed it. John hated it, hated seeing Rodney flinching a little whenever anyone said anything to him, working too late, bent over his laptop so he didn’t have to look at anyone, and hated Rodney for letting everyone see it. He couldn’t get what Rodney had said out of his head, which settled into a litany when he was jogging, don’t leave me don’t leave me don’t leave me, and it burned like guilt and bile in the back of his throat, in his eyes, in his stomach. They had constant snapping matches over nothing, driving everybody insane, and eventually one of their arguments spilled out into the canteen. Rodney snapped something pissy when John asked for the salt, and John, in a white-hot flash of spite, hissed something so utterly cruel that the moment he’d closed his mouth it fell open again and he stared at Rodney, appalled. Rodney stared back, white as a sheet, his eyes wide and shocked at first, then hardening into fury, and he actually slapped John across the face, right there at the table, and John scraped his chair back so quickly that he fell off it.
“Jesus, Rodney, could you be any more of a girl?” he said from the floor, stunned almost into laughter, both that Rodney had hit him (slapped him in the cafeteria, the military commander of Atlantis, for god’s sake, and what was this, high school?) and that he’d said something so unforgivable, and Rodney snarled, “You’re the fucking expert, Sheppard,” maybe more furious than John had ever seen him, and threw his tray at him. Rodney stormed out as his plate spun and clattered on the floor, and everyone in the cafeteria turned to watch as John picked himself up off the floor, potato-stuff all over his left leg, face stinging, light-headed and feeling better than he had in weeks.
That night, Rodney stripped him naked, cuffed his hands behind his back, brought him to the edge and kept him there until John was sobbing out every breath, bucking into empty air and almost out of his mind with the need to come right fucking now, when Rodney stopped touching him and said, angry and challenging and only a little breathless, “Tell me it’s never been this good.”
John gasped, “Yeah, fuck, Rodney, nobody, there’s never, please, fuck, I’m sorry,” and came into Rodney’s hand so hard he passed out.
Afterwards, Rodney licked the red lines around John’s wrists as John curled into him, still a little shaky.
“You know, I would never have believed you could be such a bitch,” Rodney yawned, and pulled John’s arms more tightly around him. “I’m actually quite impressed.”
“I swear I’ll use my powers for good instead of evil from now on, Dr McKay,” John mumbled, and smiled into Rodney’s shoulder as Rodney laughed softly, his breath tickling John’s ear.
The next day, they ate in the cafeteria together again, and it was so much like it had never happened that John actually wondered why people were staring at them. They both got yelled at by Elizabeth, too, who had certain ideas about behaviour appropriate to authority figures, and John pulled his sleeves down over his wrists as Rodney coughed and stared very hard at a point on the wall.
Then a hive ship appeared, and a trade disagreement blew up, and a month had gone by before Rodney woke John up by crawling into bed with him at a ridiculous hour of the night, dropped a brisk kiss on his neck and whispered, “Hi, sleeping now, we can have sex in the morning,” before collapsing onto the mattress, and John realized that things between them were cool again.
*
“Oh, hmm, this one’s nice,” Rodney said. John took a sip from the straw and looked up through his eyelashes at Rodney as Rodney smirked. He shut his eyes tight and said in his best British accent as Rodney dissolved into sniggers, “A full bodied little number, with a hint of -”
“Oh my god, you’re actually James Bond, aren’t you? You’re a spy posing as a Colonel in the Air Force who – oh my god, you’re sleeping with me to, to steal my secrets and sell them to your evil masters!”
“Dash it all, you’ve discovered my secret,” John pronounced, and took another sip of the bright blue drink as Rodney hiccupped with laughter. He assumed a pose of deep thought and tapped his chin with the straw. “Cranberry, curacao, vodka and a hint of… apple.”
Rodney wiped his eyes and checked the menu. “Oh, close, but no cigar, Colonel. You disappoint me.”
“What, you want the vintage, too?” John rolled some more of the drink around in his mouth, which set Rodney off giggling again. “Nineteen ninety six, an awfully good year for potatoes.”
“Oh my god, you’re such a dork. You missed mint cordial. Okay, okay, my turn, pick one. No lime or orange juice, don’t forg-”
“I know, Rodney. But, you know, that would be the perfect way to kill you. Everyone would think it was an accident -”
“‘I don’t know how it happened, Elizabeth!’” Rodney said in this smoothed out, dumb-sounding accent, opening his eyes wide and spreading his arms. “‘We were in this transvestite bar and playing identify-the-cocktail and then Rodney went this weird purple colour, fell over and died! It was kind of cool!’”
“What the – is that supposed to be me?” John said incredulously.
Rodney snapped, “Oh, come on, that was so much better than your stupid Roger Moore,” and this time it was John who laughed until his stomach hurt. When he’d calmed down enough to risk swallowing drink, Rodney was watching him. When John looked up, Rodney didn’t look away, and neither did John. After a moment, Rodney said softly, “I really suck at stare-outs.”
“That’s okay,” said John, which didn’t really make much sense, but he felt kind of breathless, and he didn’t seem to be able to think in a straight line.
“Do you want to, um, go downstairs?” Rodney said suddenly. “I mean, we can stay here and play more, this is, this is fun, actually probably the most fun I’ve had in years, if not decades, although obviously Atl-the base has had its good points, but having the threat of horrible death constantly hanging over one does tend to take the edge off, and anyway, what was I saying?”
Luckily, John was still processing the first half of the second sentence, so he didn’t have to go too far back to get to the point. The loud table across the room burst into laughter. “What’s downstairs?”
“Oh, well, more music, and, um, a bar, and dancing.”
John looked at Rodney flatly across the table. “I’m not dancing, McKay.”
“What do I look like, Patrick Swayze? I don’t dance. But there’s music. And it’s, ah, dark.”
“Dark.”
“Yes, yes,” said Rodney impatiently, “I went to look when I went to the bathroom. It’s very… people are dancing. Close together.”
John considered that, then the penny dropped, and everything seemed to narrow focus, suddenly, so he was suddenly very aware of the air against his legs, the way his ass slid against the seat and the wooden edge of the chair pressed against his bare thighs. He swallowed.
“You think we could give that a try?”
Rodney gripped the edge of the table, and his voice jumped about an octave. “Yes, that is definitely what we could do.”
John gave him a smile as heat turned over lazily in his stomach. “You have the best ideas, Rodney.”
“Well, obviously,” Rodney said.
*
Things were different, though, after that fourth big argument. John began to notice things, or maybe Rodney just got less careful. He didn’t know if Rodney did it every night they slept together, or if Rodney knew he was ever awake when John lay there, eyes shut, breathing carefully in and out, while Rodney touched his face or stroked his hair over and over, like he was afraid John was going to disappear any second. He stuttered, sometimes, when he was fucking John, or when he arched upwards as John licked and kissed his way down his body, and sometimes, when they were out in the open, in staff meetings or in the lab, John felt the hairs prickle on his neck and turned to catch Rodney watching, something open and hopeless on his face. John mostly managed to ignore it, pushing the restless nausea away, but it made him feel brittle and edgy and frustrated, because there was nothing he could do about it, and he had to keep telling himself it was Rodney who’d set things up this way, Rodney’s whole fucking arrangement from the beginning. If Rodney was happy with it, if he could live with it, fine. Rodney could bail out anytime he wanted to.
After all, it wasn’t like John was using Rodney, or anything like that. In fact, Rodney had admitted himself it was practically the other way around. It wasn’t John who was in this under false pretences, he told himself furiously over and over when he was jogging, flying, walking, shooting, anything where his brain came offline long enough to think about it. Rodney was John’s best friend, probably, with Teyla and Ronon. Rodney was safe, available, careful, and fucking him screwed up the chain of command as little as was reasonably possible, while John was convenient for him for exactly the same reasons. Rodney slept better when he’d just had sex, and ate regular meals when John ate them with him. He was more productive and easier to work with, so Elizabeth got less carefully worded recommendations from Heightmeyer about members of the science team. And John, every so often, when there was time and it was safe, could put on what was in Rodney’s closet and feel the tautness that was always in his spine and across his shoulders relax, so that he felt like he could just dissolve, it felt so good.
They’d take their time, make a night of it, so Rodney would leave the lab early, John would schedule some off-time, and John would shower in Rodney’s quarters, scrubbing until his skin was red and he could feel the brush of steam and cold air when he stepped out like the curl of a tongue, and would dress slowly, slowly while Rodney watched, as John remembered what it felt like, what it made him. He’d carefully colour his mouth waxy red and touch the grey powder which glittered like mica onto his eyelids, then pencil around his eyes, leaning so close to the mirror that his breath left little huffs of condensation. When he was finished, he’d feel newborn, raw and burning brighter than the sun, and sometimes he’d come the second Rodney touched him. Then Rodney would fuck him with the skirt still on, or sometimes would prop an arm behind his head to watch wide-eyed as John sucked his cock, and breathe stuff like, “Oh my god, your mouth, there’s – there’s lipstick – John, god that’s -” and, “Are you jerking off? Don’t jerk off, that’s not – here, put your hands here, so when I’ve, I can -”
It was so fucking good, and this situation with Rodney would look so different, if it wasn’t that John had gotten so that he didn’t want to try to go without it. And yeah, he knew, when he was absolutely honest with himself, that in a perfect world the best thing to do for Rodney would be to end it. But here, now, it would be messy and ugly and there was nowhere for Rodney to rebound, and the whole point of it – that Rodney could find someone better for him, someone who could be that for him – would probably be impossible anyway. The options were limited, which was the whole issue, here. As it was, everyone would lose, so John was not going to go there until there was a better alternative. And besides, John knew that he would kill for Rodney without hesitation, or die to save him. Okay, it was true he’d the same for anyone on Atlantis, because it was his job, but with Rodney, he’d mean it, and he figured that was the most you could say about anyone.
*
Rodney hadn’t been kidding. It was pretty damn dark, and the noise and heat hit John like a slap in the face. John stopped short halfway down the stairs, because, Jesus, this had seemed like a fairly classy place from upstairs, but down here the music was so loud John could feel it in the base of his stomach, something with a heavy bass and with a skipping, heavy rhythm, and men in dresses were making out on the fucking dance floor. He took a deep breath, and Rodney yelled something in his ear from behind him.
“What?”
Rodney stepped down onto the step above him and leant so close his breath brushed damp and hot against John’s ear. “I said,” he yelled, “we really don’t have to if you don’t want to. I’d like to keep my eardrums intact!”
Even in the sauna of the club, John could feel Rodney’s heat all down his back, and when Rodney’s hand came down to rest on John’s hip, John pressed back against him and closed his eyes. He felt the press of Rodney’s mouth below his ear, and involuntarily tipped his head back with a shiver. Then Rodney was kissing down his neck, his hand firm and possessive on John’s hip, and John realized he’d actually feel less conspicuous down on the dance floor with a hard-on under his skirt, so he grabbed Rodney’s hand and pulled him down the stairs. Once they were down there, Rodney kept hold of his hand and steered him towards the bar. As Rodney was yelling something at the barman, a man in a white half-open shirt threw himself against the bar next to them and bellowed, “JD and coke!” over the noise, then looked John up and down and grinned widely. He leaned closer and yelled, “Get you something?”
He smelt of aftershave and clean sweat, his shirt was clinging to him and he had a silver ring in his eyebrow, and John felt like he was nineteen again, a neon sign pointing down at his head. He lifted his hand, still holding tightly and sweatily to Rodney’s, and waggled it at the guy, forcing a smile. Rodney looked up from paying the barman, startled, and the guy shrugged, smiled and toasted Rodney with a little lift of his glass before wandering off. Rodney looked at John and opened his mouth like he was about to say something, then pressed his lips together and shoved a glass, ice-cold and dripping with condensation, into John’s hand, and went back to paying the barman. John thought he looked pleased.
*
About a month before, there’d been a day after a long time of fear and fighting when it finally looked like they might all be safe for a while, and they’d all been ordered to take a day off. The beginning of the slow relaxing of tension had left John with a bone-deep tiredness that was making his body feel like lead, and when Rodney started awake, like he always did, at seven a.m. Atlantis time and started, blindly but determinedly, to drag himself out of bed, John threw an arm over him, and Rodney flopped back down onto the mattress with a grunt.
“Wha’” he muttered into the pillow. “Gotta get up.”
“No, you don’t,” John mumbled, tugging Rodney down as he doggedly tried to get up again. “Day off. Orders from Carson.” He broke off with a yawn, but Rodney just said, “’kay,” and squirmed back under the covers, then sighed, “You’re warm,” and fell asleep again against John’s shoulder.
John woke again, a few hours later, to Rodney sliding out of bed again, letting cold air in under the covers. John said, voice scratchy and head foggy with sleep, “Hey,” and Rodney stopped. His whole body felt like it was welded to the bed. “Don’t go.”
He’d meant to say, don’t go to work, hadn’t meant, exactly, for Rodney to say, sounding surprised, “Don’t – really? You really – oh, well, okay,” and sink back into bed again after going to the bathroom, smelling of toothpaste and his bare feet cold against John’s leg.
“You’re waking me up, Rodney,” John grumbled, but when he opened his eyes, Rodney smiled at him like John was sunshine coming through the window after a month of rain, and kissed him, soft and deep and so sweet that even though John felt a little suffocated and antsy, he couldn’t bring himself to correct the misunderstanding. At first, John figured Rodney wanted to fuck him, and he was trying to work out at what point he should make it clear that he was just too goddamned tired, but when Rodney didn’t seem to want any more than these sleepy, comfortable, comforting kisses, John just relaxed into them, eventually so close to sleep that time seemed to telescope out, so that all there was was the fascinating scrape of Rodney’s stubble against John’s thumb and the wet sound of their breathing through kisses, the taste of Rodney’s mouth when he didn’t taste of toothpaste or coffee or sweetener, but just himself and John. Rodney was running his fingers through John’s hair, slowly rubbing the base of his skull through the shorter hairs there before combing through it to spike it up at the top, then scratching behind his ears gently, until John was boneless and stupid with the warm, undemanding pleasure that rippled down his spine.
“You’re just like my cat,” Rodney murmured absently, his voice sounding husky and slow, like he’d forgotten how to use it. “I really miss my cat.”
He sounded sad, and it made John feel upset and strange, pulling him up out of sleep. He tried to think of a way he could make Rodney feel better, something he could do for him, but even though he was coming more and more awake, trying to concentrate through Rodney petting his hair, he couldn’t come up with anything. There was all the stuff that Rodney was always talking about, good coffee and chocolate and blue jello and ZPMs, but they obviously weren’t enough, because he still missed his cat. And the more John thought about it, the more he realized that actually, really, Rodney never asked him for anything. That Rodney was - was undemanding. Rodney. Then he thought of something, and sagged further back into the mattress with relief at the universe making sense again. He was just too goddamned tired, obviously, he wasn’t thinking properly.
“Hey,” he croaked, and Rodney’s hand stilled on the back of his neck. “You still want to go to that place in Toronto?”
They’d never mentioned it again, from, what had it been, nearly ten months ago? And he wasn’t even sure if he had the city right, but he remembered the way Rodney had asked, shy and flushing, the way he never was normally.
“Huh,” Rodney said, after a little while. “I thought you’d chicke- ah, changed your mind about that.”
“I did not chicken out,” John said, vaguely annoyed. It was Rodney who just let the subject drop. “You want to go, we’ll go.”
“Oh,” Rodney said again. John shifted as Rodney’s fingers started moving in his hair again, relaxing again already. “Well, then, okay.”
John was sure he’d regret this later, but right now, he could hear the smile in Rodney’s voice, and warmth was curling happily in his stomach and through his limbs. He yawned. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. I’d – that would be nice.”
“Cool,” said John.
*
They found a corner where they didn’t get jostled, and for a while they just stood there, watching the people. John didn’t know if it was the drink, or if it was the way Rodney had kissed him on the cheek as they left the bar, quick and hard, and the barman hadn’t given them a second glance, or the fact that there were maybe a hundred guys in here dressed in everything from slinky evening dresses to jeans and earrings, but lightness was taking hold of him, bitter and sweet, loosening something that he hadn’t known he’d kept tight all these years, his whole fucking life, and he’d had to go all the way to another galaxy and back to find it out. He turned to look at Rodney, who was pink and sweating, his forehead reflecting the flashing coloured lights where his hair was getting thin, and John felt a sudden rush of emotion, something like homesickness and joy and anger all at once that made it hard to breathe.
“Hey,” he shouted, and touched Rodney on the shoulder to get his attention, then leaned close to Rodney’s ear and said around the lump in his throat, in a normal voice that he knew would be lost in the thump of the music, “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“What?” yelled Rodney, and John shouted, “Thank you.”
Rodney opened his mouth, but then didn’t say anything, just put his hand up on John’s cheek and stroked his thumb along the lines coming at the corner of John’s eye, everything out there on his face, and John felt something might crack open inside him, but couldn’t look away.
“I – John, anything,” Rodney finally shouted out, and John kissed him, couldn’t not kiss him.
Rodney’s arms came up around him immediately, one hand burying itself in his hair, the other sliding around to rest at the base of his spine, seeking out where John’s top was riding up to show bare skin. Rodney stroked the tips of his fingers up along the ridge of bone and kissed him hungrily, open-mouthed and indecent, like he wanted to fuck John right there in the club, and god, John wanted him to, he wanted to strip Rodney naked and fucking crawl inside him. John felt the vibration of Rodney saying something against his mouth, but he couldn’t make it out, and then Rodney’s hand slipped down to his hip and he hooked a thumb under the waistband to slide under the elastic of John’s panties, brushing electric against bare skin and tugging the fabric already too tight against his hardening cock. John broke the kiss with a gasp and pressed his forehead against Rodney’s, sharing fast breaths, dancing, sort of, Rodney’s hands cupping his ass through the skirt, now, John’s arms around Rodney’s waist. John closed his eyes and just swayed against him to the pounding beat, feeling like he was floating, Rodney a warm and heavy presence all around him, the sweet, syrupy taste of whatever Rodney had been drinking still in his mouth. When Rodney pulled his forehead back from John’s, John felt disoriented and distressed, like he’d taken his prop away. Rodney didn’t look much better, his pupils dilated and hair wet with sweat, sticking up in all directions, his mouth soft and slightly open, and John bent to kiss him again, so slow it was like moving through molasses. Rodney groaned into his mouth, and it went straight to John’s cock, which was pressing up against the panties, rubbing, driving him out of his goddamn mind. He plastered himself up against Rodney and grabbed his ass to grind up against him, letting his head fall forward onto his shoulder, and heard Rodney say, very clearly, “Oh, god, okay, that’s enough,” so John was already turning towards the stairs when Rodney grabbed his wrist and pulled.
*
“No, no, cab,” Rodney mumbled urgently into John’s mouth.
“Yeah,” John said, tasting Rodney, licking the hollow of his throat, and Rodney let his head fall back with a groan.
“Oh, god, don’t do that. I knew this would happen.”
“Hail a cab, McKay,” John muttered, and nudged Rodney’s damp shirt collar aside to bite his shoulder.
“With – with you doing that, oh -” Rodney moaned, hopeless and out of breath, so John pulled back, bit his lip and made an effort, but the night air was brushing cool against his damp skin, up between his legs and at the small of his back and around his neck, and he was so hard it ached.
Rodney muttered, “Yes, okay, good,” and, by some miracle, they managed to hail a cab before things got completely out of hand, and even made it back to the hotel without Rodney just rubbing John off through the skirt in the back seat. In the elevator, they pressed to opposite sides, silent and rigid. Rodney sobered up unbelievably quickly when it came to focusing to swipe the keycard, and John was on him almost before they were out of the corridor, kissing him fast and messy, pushing him back towards the bed before they’d even flicked the light switch.
Rodney said, urgent and breathless, “Okay, okay – John, god,” and John gritted out, “Rodney, Jesus, come on,” then Rodney had John’s skirt hiked up around his hips and was on his knees at the foot of the bed, mouthing the damp, sticky spot on the cotton panties, which were tight and painful around him now, barely covering him, and John’s head fell back, black spots dancing in his vision.
“Rodney,” he managed, “I’ll – I won’t -” and Rodney’s eyelashes fluttered dark against his face in the dim light as he took a deep breath.
“God,” he said huskily. “Well, your refractory period is usually quite good,” and just dove in, licked the crease of John’s inner thigh and along the side of his cock that was straining up against the elastic, wet and incredible, and John couldn’t believe the sound that came out of his own mouth. “Mmn,” Rodney said desperately, and finally, finally, he was tugging at the elastic that was cutting into John’s hips, nuzzling at John’s cock through the black cotton again like he couldn’t bear to wait. He pulled John’s hips up off the bed to tug the panties down over John’s ass, just the motion of thrusting up pushing John even closer to the edge, and when Rodney slid his hand inside the panties and wrapped his hand around John’s cock, John gasped, “Oh – oh, fuck,” and clenched his hand in the bedsheets, gulping air and shutting his eyes so tight he could see stars. Then Rodney slid the panties down and let John’s cock spring out, and John was arching up and already coming when Rodney sucked the head into his mouth, wet, lush and hot and so good that John saw white and started coming all over again.
When the last of the aftershocks had shuddered through him, he collapsed back on the bed, shaky and with heat still sharp-edged in his stomach, and lifted his legs obediently as Rodney pulled the panties off, leaving the skirt. Somehow, John’s boots were already unlaced.
“Rodney,” he croaked, “what do you want?”
“Oh, god, I, I don’t know,” Rodney panted, clearly gone all the way through to manic, struggling to get his pants off. “Where the hell’s the -”
“Here, I got it,” John said, pulling the tube from under the pillow.
“Oh, you’re a genius,” sighed Rodney gratefully, naked now in the orange streetlight from the window except for his boxers, which were tented over his hard-on as he tugged John’s boots off, and John, wide awake and lucidly drunk, thought of something else he could do for Rodney. He tucked the tube under his thigh to warm it, and pulled his top off over his head. When he dropped it over the side of the bed, Rodney was staring at him hungrily. John sat up and scooted back to the headboard, flipped the cap of lube and squeezed some into his hand, then pulled his knees up, tucked his hips forward, sliding easily against the satiny fabric of the skirt, and reached lazily between his legs. He felt self-conscious and turned on and uncomfortable, but it was worth it, for the way Rodney’s eyes widened.
“You want to watch, Rodney?”
“Oh, god,” said Rodney.
“I think I’ll take that as a yes,” John said, and pushed a finger inside himself. He closed his eyes and let his head fall back, giving himself a better angle, and because he couldn’t help it, god, it felt so incredible, and his skin was prickling from the way Rodney was staring, his breathing coming harsh and quick from the end of the bed. John let out a slow intake of breath on two fingers, twisting them experimentally, and Rodney made a strangled noise. On three, John felt the bed dip as Rodney climbed up onto it. He opened his eyes with difficulty, muzzy with pleasure, his silky skirt nuzzling his hardening cock and said, “On your back, McKay.”
“Oh, god,” Rodney said again, and scooted up clumsily as John made way, then climbed on top of him and straddled his thighs.
“Okay?” John said, laughing and shaky at the terrified look on Rodney’s face, and leant down to kiss him as Rodney pushed up on his elbows eagerly, moaning into his mouth and squirming against the skirt.
Then Rodney broke away and said breathlessly, “God, do you want to kill me? Hurry up, god, please,” so John took a deep breath, hiked the skirt up with one hand and took hold of Rodney’s cock with the other as Rodney hissed, then he positioned himself above him and bore down. It was difficult, at this angle, and he had to readjust a little and push down harder against the burn, then Rodney was whispering, eyes shut tight and fists clenched, “Fuck, fuck, John, oh, god, yes,” and pleasure was spiking up inside him and it was, god, so unbelievably good. He was casting a shadow over Rodney, and he moved from side to side a little, watching it move, then slid up and down experimentally, and Rodney arched up to meet him.
“Yes, good,” Rodney gasped, barely getting the words out, so John slid up and pushed down again, found a rhythm and fucked himself slowly on Rodney, the skirt draping down and catching between them so it was tight across his ass, damp and silky against his cock.
“You like this, Rodney?” he said, loving the way Rodney’s eyes fluttered open, confused and unseeing.
“You – oh, god, you know I do,” Rodney said hoarsely, “John,” and right at that moment, as Rodney's eyes fell shut again and his head fell to the side, time seemed to slow down and spread out, and it was like John was outside his body, watching himself with his face made up and a skirt on, riding an astrophysicist, his home in another galaxy, and he thought, this is my life now. Then, as Rodney grabbed his hip and held him down tightly as he shuddered up against him, convulsing right up off the bed as he came, this insistent little voice in his head, which actually sounded a lot like Rodney’s, asked him what the hell else he’d ever wanted. A family? Kids? John reached forward and tugged at Rodney desperately, and Rodney propped himself up on one elbow and kissed John open-mouthed, sloppy and pleasure-drunk, still panting between kisses, as John jerked off, rubbing himself through the skirt fabric until he came helplessly all over Rodney’s stomach, blissed out and weak with relief.
When he could move again, he eased off Rodney with a hiss, tugged off the messed-up skirt and flopped down beside him.
Eventually, he ventured, “Huh,” and Rodney huffed a laugh and wriggled to un-tuck the covers.
“Well,” he said, “That’s the understatement of the millennium.”
“Mm,” John said, yawning, and submitted to being rolled to get under the covers. Rodney bounced out of bed again after about five seconds and said, “I’m going to get some water, you want some water?”
John was already half asleep. “Mm.”
He heard the click of the glass on the table beside him, and felt Rodney’s fingers ruffle through his hair.
“John,” Rodney said quietly. John pressed his face into the pillow, feeling like he was going at two hundred miles an hour with no steering, and thought as hard as he could, I’m asleep. Then he was.
*
At about six in the morning, Rodney said, very loudly, “No!” and John practically shot out of bed, confused, thinking they were back in Atlantis and Rodney was answering his radio, before he realized it was just Rodney fucking talking in his sleep again.
“I told you,” Rodney insisted to the pillow, his eyebrows drawn together and his fingers clenching and unclenching in the covers, “Sheppard’s not here.”
John sat up, his mind still sleep-washed and foggy, absurdly panicked, and he said, “Yeah, I am. I’m right here, Rodney.”
“Well,” Rodney snapped, “I don’t know where he is.”
“I’m here,” said John, maybe a little loudly, and Rodney opened his eyes with a start and sat up.
“What? What? Did Elizabeth call?”
John rubbed his eyes and tried to clear his head.
“Oh,” said Rodney, looking around. “We’re here. What time is it?”
“Early,” said John. “You were having a bad dream.”
“Oh,” said Rodney. “Okay, thanks,” and dropped back down onto the pillow. John lay back down and tried to sleep, but he was itching all over and Rodney was snoring beside him, heavy and obvious and unavoidable, in John’s bed, in John’s life, and he ended up just getting up and having an existential crisis in the shower.
*
It lasted right through him packing his and Rodney’s bags, waking Rodney, waiting for him to shower and the cab all the way to the airport to catch their flight out. By the time they’d checked their bags in and gone through security, though, John was pretty much fine. Rodney was sweating and stressed, looking ridiculous in John’s sunglasses and muttering darkly about security procedures, and he dumped his laptop on the seat next to John and marched off to one of the duty free stores. John sat and watched a kid climb up on the top of a row of seats and his mom hauling him off again with a hissed command, a baby in a carrycot next to them, chewing on the corner of something red and plastic.
“Hey, you want some gum?” Rodney said, suddenly beside him again and holding out a silvery packet.
“No,” John said, and he reached over, lifted his glasses off Rodney’s face and kissed Rodney on the mouth, right there in the departure lounge. When he pulled back, Rodney was staring at him, but John couldn’t even guess what he was thinking.
“Be a while before we can do that again,” he explained, but Rodney just goggled at him some more. He seemed to have just decided what to say when the speakers called their flight, and John picked up his backpack and slung it over his shoulder gratefully.
“John,” Rodney said behind him, and John turned around. Rodney hadn’t moved. “John,” he said again, “I’m in love with you, you know that, right?”
The speakers called another flight, the kid climbed up onto the seats and got pulled down again, a mobile phone bleeped, and the world kept turning.
“Yeah,” John said, and he wanted to laugh, something like relief opening out in his chest, bright and clear. Rodney had been asking, Rodney was always asking, was a walking fucking question, and it was okay. “I do.”
“Well,” said Rodney, clinging to his laptop bag, chin stuck forward, “Well, good. That’s, ah, good.”
John strode up to him and kissed him again, cupping his jaw and gripping his shoulder, the laptop pressing against his chest where Rodney was still holding it like a shield. When he pulled back, he caught the eye of a woman staring at him over Rodney’s shoulder. She ducked her head, and as she turned away she was smiling.
Rodney was looking at John now like he’d never seen him before. John grabbed his hand, interlaced their fingers, and thought that really, considering everything in his life, it wasn’t that weird that despite everything, despite all the things that shouldn’t have worked about this, this thing between he and Rodney, it fit. They fitted together.
“You want to go home, Rodney?”
“Oh,” said Rodney, “Yes, it is, isn’t it?” and grinned, and John held his hand tightly all the way to the gate, feeling dizzy and stupid with the warmth that was creeping all through him, so that he felt he might light up like a room in Atlantis. The woman who checked their boarding passes did a little double take at them, looking at their joined hands.
“What?” Rodney snapped, “He’s afraid of flying,” and John was still laughing when they were taking off, feeling the airplane lift beneath them and the ground outside them fall away, the sky stretching out around them as they headed up towards the sun, a little closer to home.
End
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