.au sga fic: The hard sel (John/Rodney) PG13
The Hard Sel (John/Rodney) PG13 | ~3,400 words
A gift and a really terrible pun for the birthday of the fabulous, lovely dogeared. I hope your day is filled with wonderful and happy things, best Jenn!! ♥♥♥
(This is set in the little selmelier!Rodney AU dogeared and I have talked about; there is one drabble here that got this fic started. What is a selmelier, you ask? Well, read on!)
The Hard Sel
"Salt?" John peers skeptically at Ronon, who's either pretending to ignore him or knows John's skeptical and really doesn't care. Probably it's the latter; Ronon sheds weird looks like Teflon. "The guy sells Morton's. You're kidding me."
"When have I steered you wrong? And don't let him hear you say that." Ronon consults his diagram of the various tables and displays scattered around the Four Seasons conference room, and without consulting John veers off in the direction of the wine.
"Now you have," John grumbles. The crowd, well-heeled and high-heeled, swallows up even Ronon and his dreadlocks, and John starts to feel seriously out of place, in jeans and shirt that come by their scruffiness honestly and not at the hands of skilled scuffing artisans. Around him loom the marble and fine wood of the Four Seasons, and there's gold and crystal chandeliers, and the light from them reflects on the wall sconces and on the drops of water clinging to a profusion of flowers in their baskets and urns. He reminds himself he used to be okay with places like this, and had been expected to be okay, thanks Dad, but the men and women wafting past him on currents of Prada might as well be from another planet.
He can't quite understand how effortlessly Ronon fits into spaces like this, even though he'd inherited Sateda from his parents and has spent his entire life around wine and wine snobs. Then again, maybe Ronon's just that awesome at hiding it. John wanders idly over to a booth advertising French cheeses, turns away from the stomach-churning sample offered to him, ignores the slightly suspicious glance cast at his exhibitor's badge. He wishes for the quiet of his shop back in the Village, the vintage Fenders and Strats and the kids who come in every now and then to gape and listen to him mangle Clapton.
Once again, he reminds himself never to listen to Ronon again. Maybe he could go back to Athos's booth and talk with Teyla, at least until she or the crowd drive him off. I am here to sell our wines, not entertain you, she'd said earlier, fondly exasperated as she'd turned him over to Ronon. Also, you distract my customers, and I did not spend all year with my vines for them to be ignored. He and Teyla are friends - otherwise, John's pretty sure he wouldn't be here - but her grapes and her wine come first at times like this.
Sighing, John swings by a booth held by an Italian import shop, swipes a piece of what he's told is Parmesan cheese produced in a remote village where people still live like medieval peasants. The cheese costs over a hundred bucks for a couple of pounds, and John tells the man behind the table he hopes the peasants are getting rich. The man doesn't seem to think that's funny. A few tables down, while investigating the security devices protecting a clump of black truffles, he offers his I'm-smiling-at-you-but-please-go-away smile to a woman swathed in black silk and superiority; she doesn't take the hint. She introduces herself as a buyer for one of the trendier downtown restaurants, the kind, John imagines, that serves hamburgers garnished with hundred-dollar bills. He mutters something about being here to see the salt guy.
"Oh, the selmelier?" Her face twitches fractionally in what John supposes is Botox-muted excitement. "He'll be demonstrating this afternoon."
"That's nice." If he can find Ronon, he'll be gone long before the waiters bring out the foie gras and caviar for the mid-morning snack. Standing on his toes, he can almost see Ronon in front of a table for an upstate winery, bent in contemplation of something. The woman asks a question John doesn't hear, and then, sensing that she's getting nowhere, mutters something exasperated and huffs off.
"For a gourmet food show there's not a lot of food," John says to no one in particular.
He wanders into another room, and directly into a wall of humanity.
"What the?" There's no question of pushing through, because it's mostly women clustered together, gazing raptly at some central focus of attention, and so there's no question of asking someone what's going on. He winces in apology at a woman who grinds her stiletto into his toes for standing to close, and tries to find out what's the big deal without molesting anyone.
The big deal is a middle-aged guy at a booth like every other booth John's encountered so far. Behind him is a sign reading Atlantis. Nothing about the sign says what the guy is or what he does. Strip shows, maybe, although from what John can see the guy isn't the type: short, thinning hair, no thong.
"You're confusing them again," the man tells one of the women. "You don't cook with finishing salts, you finish with them. If you applied even one neuron to answering your question yourself, perhaps by working out the connection between "finishing" and "finishing salts," I wouldn't have to waste time answering it for you. Next?"
"My restaurant's speciality is truffle omelette," says another woman.
"Portuguese fleur de sel," the guy says, almost before the cook finishes her question. "You want something that won't interfere with the hundreds of dollars your customers are shoveling down their throats. A little bit of Pangasinian will take you a long way. Does anyone have an actual interesting question for me?"
John has vague, uncomfortable memories of his first wife telling him, among rather a lot else, he needed to be less of a jerk. I know you can't entirely help it, Nancy had said, but the preadolescent jerk side of you really doesn't work for me. It works for this guy, though - the salt guy, John doesn't need any more time to figure that out - because it's only with extreme reluctance, and much scribbling of phone numbers on business cards, that the man's audience moves on.
"God, I could murder a steak right now," the salt guy mumbles, just loud enough for John to hear him.
"Sounds like you could murder a person," John says. He needs a quick, casual sidestep and dip to read the name on the exhibitor's badge. Rodney McKay. Selmelier
"I could," McKay agrees, "and it would be entirely justified. People here don't have the faintest fucking idea of what they're doing when it comes to salt. One of the minerals most essential to human existence and they completely and spectacularly fail to appreciate it." He frowns, but John has the feeling the frown is for the crowd and not for him. At least, not yet. "Half of them think salt grows in blue cardboard packages."
"It's a crime." John can't entirely keep from smiling (hell, he doesn't want to). McKay glowers suspiciously at him and asks him if he's entirely sure he belongs here.
"Nope," John sighs. He messes with the badge, which is heavy enough to pull at his shirt obnoxiously. "I was supposed to come and help my friend Teyla, but she cut me loose."
"Teyla of Athos Winery?" McKay asks abruptly. He smiles, or almost smiles, blue eyes quickening with pleasure. "She knows her stuff… She actually makes merlot worth drinking." This, John suspects, is high praise. "I sell to her restaurant," McKay adds. "Halling actually cares enough about their tastings to make decent aperitifs."
"Small world." John stuffs his hands in his pockets and leans over the table. It's covered in wooden boxes and glass jars and small trays lined with linen. In the jars and on the trays salt lies in artfully-scattered heaps, pink crystals, dull grey, some green or the purest white, some gold. On one side are a few slabs of salt that, when McKay sees him looking, John learns are Himalayan. They gather all the light in the room to them and give it back as a soft glow, salmon and quiet gold and tan.
"Roman soldiers were paid in salt," John says. He tries out his best knowing, you-should-be-impressed-with-me grin.
"Yes, hence the word salary." McKay rolls his eyes. "Did you know that salt and sex are also associated etymologically? To be salacious was, in ancient thought, considered to be fertile. Salt was used in fertility rituals for hundreds of years."
John has to work not to think of things like sex and fertility in the context of McKay's mouth. He shifts in place and tries not to be obvious about it, is grateful that McKay seems to be oblivious so long as he can ramble on about salt. He's a physicist and chemist by training, selmelier by inclination, and he's the best thing to happen to salt since someone invented the salt pan. Absently, John asks questions he's pretty sure drive McKay up the wall, and McKay answers them with a strange mix of affection and irritation.
"No, these are not used for tequila shots," McKay growls. He closes up the jar of Turkish Black Pyramid, as though the breath of John's question is corrupting it. "Have your neurons been entirely co-opted by your hair?"
"There's nothing wrong with my hair," John says.
He steps to the side as a small gaggle of customers comes up. A young woman, who introduces herself as the executive chef at the Waldorf, places an order for a stunning amount of salt. The final price has John gaping, but the chef, Jennifer, seems unfazed, and tells McKay she'll have the check couriered to his shop tomorrow. A reporter from the Times comes up with a reminder that McKay's interview is later today, and leaves with a small packet of Maldon and a satisfied smile. Two guys, who like John definitely don't belong here despite the suits and ties, walk up. One of them, his jacket pocket overflowing with business cards and wrappers from one of the boutique candy booths, tries to poke at a small pile of Aigues Mortes. He gets his hand smacked by a vigilant McKay.
"Freaking twenty-five bucks for salt, Sammy," he says, shaking his head. "Insane." They wander off, elbowing each other and exchanging insults.
"Popular guy," John observes.
McKay preens and doesn't even bother being subtle about it. John stares, a little dazedly and a little too distractedly, and when McKay comes back down from his self-congratulation he notices, and shit fuck it's too late for John to pretend he was doing anything else. McKay blinks and his mouth moves silently - probably the first time in forever, John thinks, not much shuts McKay up - and he drums his fingers anxiously on the table. The drumming turns to rearranging the wooden boxes into some kind of symmetry, and uncertain glances at John, who's got those frissions of get-the-fuck-out-of-here going up and down his spine.
"I have an interview this afternoon, and a demonstration," McKay says after a moment. He fumbles for a pen and a business card; the fingers that capably weighed and parceled out salt and cradled crystals without breaking them suddenly don't seem that skilled. "Here's the room I'll be in. Come by at three?"
Be casual, John thinks, and takes the card.
"Sure thing," he says, holding onto the words, making them go slow. "See you then."
* * *
McKay vanishes a short while later, whisked away to insult the food writer and harangue the foodies who think they know more about salt than he does. John haunts the exhibit, killing time and frustrated, hungry and wanting in a way that is only partly to do with food. The roast beef sandwich he buys doesn't taste quite right without chips; the baked plantain chips don't really do a lot for him.
"So you met McKay?" Ronon asks. He's back behind Sateda's table, punching the numbers of wine cellars and distilleries into his address book. Bars don't manage themselves, especially ones like Sateda, which always reminds John of his dad's den and office, but with Ronon and their friendship instead of his father's distance. It's an old place, a New York institution that John can only afford to drink at because he knows Ronon and gets the friend discount.
John grunts and tilts his chair back. He realizes he's still listening for McKay's voice, its strident and irritated authority, and tells himself to stop it.
"Sounds like a yes to me," Ronon says. His phone beeps in time with the numbers as Ronon enters them, digit by digit.
* * *
The sixth floor of the Four Seasons is more plush carpet and wood and rainforest flowers, fine art on the walls. John goes down the hall at idling speed, humming Zeppelin to himself. A passing maid walks wide of him and hurries on.
Room 619 doesn't stand out from any of the others, except for how the door, solid as it is, can't quite contain McKay's voice. Scraps of his current tirade filter through, hints about the characters of different salts, anthropological facts that McKay usually doesn't care about but are in fact pertinent here, the extent to which common table salt and the mania for iodization has increased Americans' salt intake and decreased the number of saltworks and stronger salts are actually healthier because less is needed to achieve the same taste as the characterless powder dispensed by Morton's.
"Is that all?" McKay asks icily. John can't hear the interviewer's reply, but a few minutes later a harried-looking woman steps out, clutching her voice recorder as if for dear life. McKay materializes in the doorway as though he's actually chased her out; judging from the lightning-flash of annoyance in his eyes and on his face, maybe he has. He looks ready to pursue the reporter down the hallway, but he sees John (in fact, almost collides with him) and jumps back with a squeak.
"John," he says, tone on the edge of exclamation. "You came."
"Pretty sure I did," John says, avoiding the usual joke. Not yet, so far as I know, but I'd like to. He stops himself from asking how McKay knows his name. Name tags, God love them, and he wonders if he should start thinking of McKay as Rodney.
"Come in." McKay - Rodney - moves aside and waves John into even more opulence, deep blue and mahogany and marble, and it's almost like his parents' house John half-expects Rodney to snap at him to stand up straight. "So," Rodney says, darting around him and over to the couch. It has, oddly, twenty chairs arranged in a semi circle around it. "I have the demonstration in, uh, twenty minutes, and I'm kind of busy for the rest of the day and then I have to fly to France tonight for a buying trip, but…" He pauses and looks miserably at John. "I'm sorry, I suck at this."
"Suck at what?"
"Like you don't know." Rodney scowls at him accusingly and collapses onto the couch. John collapses next to him, knees barely avoiding the coffee table. On the coffee table are some of the salts from earlier, a pyramid of wrapped chocolates and caramels.
"What do you suck at?" John asks. He picks up one of the chocolates. Rodney makes a half-hearted, protesting noise, but lets it go.
"The whole picking-up-of-attractive-people thing," Rodney says morosely. "But in my defense, I'm very good at driving them off. Also, you really are very attractive, and I find that I'm somewhat less irritated answering your questions, even though they are significantly more idiotic than most I have to answer."
"You do suck at this, don't you?" John untwists the wrapper, twists it back. Untwist, re-twist. "Well, if it helps, I suck too."
"Yes, well." In the corner of his eye, John can see Rodney turning red. It isn't precisely attractive, but Rodney's helpless and flustered, and John, god help him, likes that. "I can tell you a bit about salt."
"Salt and caramel?" John asks, holding up the chocolate. "You're serious."
"The gods would become human to eat it," Rodney assures him. "Your President is addicted to them." He picks up a caramel and begins to hunt through his salt collection, humming something soft and random and classical. After some searching he produces a small packet marked Turkish Black Pyramid and opens it.
"So," Rodney says as he sprinkles a few crystals onto a cube of caramel, "what do you do? It definitely isn't food-related."
"Vintage guitars," John answers. "Mostly buying, restoring. Selling when I can."
"Really?" Rodney blinks, and offers him a smile that almost manages to be shy. "I used to play piano. I was pretty bad."
John can't quite imagine McKay being bad at anything, except maybe flirting; he has that arrogant determination that says he'll use his brain to beat anything into submission. He knows how Rodney feels, can hear when a string is mistuned and what a warp does to the sound, but he can't quite put finger to fret and play. "I'll give you my card," John offers. "Come by the shop sometime."
"I'd like that," Rodney says, so unguardedly pleased John's heart does something dangerous in his chest. "Here, try this. Your tongue will thank you."
John takes the caramel, eyeing the black flakes arranged across the top, aware of Rodney's warm fingers resting briefly on his. He bites into the caramel, blinking at the unexpected crunch - for a second he thinks it's a tooth, but then salt and sweet flood across his tongue. The caramel is more caramel, mellow and smooth and the smokiness of the salt makes it almost like whiskey without the burn.
"Jesus," John says when he can talk again. He licks his lips, chasing the last hints of sugar and salt, and is disappointed when it vanishes.
"Yes, Jesus," Rodney breathes, staring at him with wide and disbelieving eyes. "He'd… he'd like these too. You should have seen yourself, it was like - well, I can't describe what it was like, but suffice it to say… I'm really, really sorry."
John tries ask for what, but Rodney's mouth on his drowns the question out, and he licks it away, and salt stings John's lips all over again. Rodney's hand on his neck is desperate, uncertain, and holds him close, fingers rubbing frantic stay stay stay into John's skin. And that's okay, seriously okay, because John doesn't have anywhere to be other than right here, licking at the complexity of Rodney's mouth, ten kinds of salt and just Rodney underneath it all, and sweet from chocolate.
"Jesus would've liked this," John whispers against Rodney's lips, and Rodney nods, face hazy and soft like he's been drugged, and nips at John's chin, tongue pressed to his jaw like there's some rare salt there worth sampling. "A lot," Rodney adds fervently, biting delicately across John's neck now, and oh god that feels good, and it's easy to give in and sink back under Rodney's broad shoulders and delight. Easier to run one hand through Rodney's hair, fine and soft, long enough to tangle fingers in and tug when Rodney threatens to leave a hickey in the declivity of John's throat. He gets the other hand under Rodney's shirt, soft flesh and skin, strong bone underneath, and Rodney sighs happily when John manages to slip his fingers down the back of his pants.
A knock on the door shatters the silence of breath and touch like crystal. Rodney flies backwards as though propelled from a rocket; John almost falls off the couch.
"Oh my god," Rodney mumbles, "the fucking demonstration." He swipes at his hair, trying to flatten it. It doesn't work. "There's not much to be done for you," Rodney says, looking at John critically, John and his recalcitrant hair and his plaid shirt. "But please, please act casual. Slouch. You seem to be good at that."
"I'm very good at slouching." John stands up and adjusts himself, which draws a low, frustrated moan from Rodney, who straightens his shirt with a series of short and irritated jerks.
He glares at the door, as though the force of his expression can keep it closed, taps a finger against his arm. Something's going on in his head, something calculating. John waits for the results and tries not to fidget.
"Technically it's a closed demonstration," Rodney says at last, "but since I'm the one doing the demonstrating, I get to pick who gets to watch. So…" He trails off. "So you can stay and watch. No questions, though. I mean, you can stay if you want."
"I'll stay," John promises, quiet enough that he can't be heard over the sudden buzz that fills the room as the door gives way and opens. But he thinks Rodney hears, because Rodney smiles before he turns away.
-end-
A gift and a really terrible pun for the birthday of the fabulous, lovely dogeared. I hope your day is filled with wonderful and happy things, best Jenn!! ♥♥♥
(This is set in the little selmelier!Rodney AU dogeared and I have talked about; there is one drabble here that got this fic started. What is a selmelier, you ask? Well, read on!)
The Hard Sel
"Salt?" John peers skeptically at Ronon, who's either pretending to ignore him or knows John's skeptical and really doesn't care. Probably it's the latter; Ronon sheds weird looks like Teflon. "The guy sells Morton's. You're kidding me."
"When have I steered you wrong? And don't let him hear you say that." Ronon consults his diagram of the various tables and displays scattered around the Four Seasons conference room, and without consulting John veers off in the direction of the wine.
"Now you have," John grumbles. The crowd, well-heeled and high-heeled, swallows up even Ronon and his dreadlocks, and John starts to feel seriously out of place, in jeans and shirt that come by their scruffiness honestly and not at the hands of skilled scuffing artisans. Around him loom the marble and fine wood of the Four Seasons, and there's gold and crystal chandeliers, and the light from them reflects on the wall sconces and on the drops of water clinging to a profusion of flowers in their baskets and urns. He reminds himself he used to be okay with places like this, and had been expected to be okay, thanks Dad, but the men and women wafting past him on currents of Prada might as well be from another planet.
He can't quite understand how effortlessly Ronon fits into spaces like this, even though he'd inherited Sateda from his parents and has spent his entire life around wine and wine snobs. Then again, maybe Ronon's just that awesome at hiding it. John wanders idly over to a booth advertising French cheeses, turns away from the stomach-churning sample offered to him, ignores the slightly suspicious glance cast at his exhibitor's badge. He wishes for the quiet of his shop back in the Village, the vintage Fenders and Strats and the kids who come in every now and then to gape and listen to him mangle Clapton.
Once again, he reminds himself never to listen to Ronon again. Maybe he could go back to Athos's booth and talk with Teyla, at least until she or the crowd drive him off. I am here to sell our wines, not entertain you, she'd said earlier, fondly exasperated as she'd turned him over to Ronon. Also, you distract my customers, and I did not spend all year with my vines for them to be ignored. He and Teyla are friends - otherwise, John's pretty sure he wouldn't be here - but her grapes and her wine come first at times like this.
Sighing, John swings by a booth held by an Italian import shop, swipes a piece of what he's told is Parmesan cheese produced in a remote village where people still live like medieval peasants. The cheese costs over a hundred bucks for a couple of pounds, and John tells the man behind the table he hopes the peasants are getting rich. The man doesn't seem to think that's funny. A few tables down, while investigating the security devices protecting a clump of black truffles, he offers his I'm-smiling-at-you-but-please-go-away smile to a woman swathed in black silk and superiority; she doesn't take the hint. She introduces herself as a buyer for one of the trendier downtown restaurants, the kind, John imagines, that serves hamburgers garnished with hundred-dollar bills. He mutters something about being here to see the salt guy.
"Oh, the selmelier?" Her face twitches fractionally in what John supposes is Botox-muted excitement. "He'll be demonstrating this afternoon."
"That's nice." If he can find Ronon, he'll be gone long before the waiters bring out the foie gras and caviar for the mid-morning snack. Standing on his toes, he can almost see Ronon in front of a table for an upstate winery, bent in contemplation of something. The woman asks a question John doesn't hear, and then, sensing that she's getting nowhere, mutters something exasperated and huffs off.
"For a gourmet food show there's not a lot of food," John says to no one in particular.
He wanders into another room, and directly into a wall of humanity.
"What the?" There's no question of pushing through, because it's mostly women clustered together, gazing raptly at some central focus of attention, and so there's no question of asking someone what's going on. He winces in apology at a woman who grinds her stiletto into his toes for standing to close, and tries to find out what's the big deal without molesting anyone.
The big deal is a middle-aged guy at a booth like every other booth John's encountered so far. Behind him is a sign reading Atlantis. Nothing about the sign says what the guy is or what he does. Strip shows, maybe, although from what John can see the guy isn't the type: short, thinning hair, no thong.
"You're confusing them again," the man tells one of the women. "You don't cook with finishing salts, you finish with them. If you applied even one neuron to answering your question yourself, perhaps by working out the connection between "finishing" and "finishing salts," I wouldn't have to waste time answering it for you. Next?"
"My restaurant's speciality is truffle omelette," says another woman.
"Portuguese fleur de sel," the guy says, almost before the cook finishes her question. "You want something that won't interfere with the hundreds of dollars your customers are shoveling down their throats. A little bit of Pangasinian will take you a long way. Does anyone have an actual interesting question for me?"
John has vague, uncomfortable memories of his first wife telling him, among rather a lot else, he needed to be less of a jerk. I know you can't entirely help it, Nancy had said, but the preadolescent jerk side of you really doesn't work for me. It works for this guy, though - the salt guy, John doesn't need any more time to figure that out - because it's only with extreme reluctance, and much scribbling of phone numbers on business cards, that the man's audience moves on.
"God, I could murder a steak right now," the salt guy mumbles, just loud enough for John to hear him.
"Sounds like you could murder a person," John says. He needs a quick, casual sidestep and dip to read the name on the exhibitor's badge. Rodney McKay. Selmelier
"I could," McKay agrees, "and it would be entirely justified. People here don't have the faintest fucking idea of what they're doing when it comes to salt. One of the minerals most essential to human existence and they completely and spectacularly fail to appreciate it." He frowns, but John has the feeling the frown is for the crowd and not for him. At least, not yet. "Half of them think salt grows in blue cardboard packages."
"It's a crime." John can't entirely keep from smiling (hell, he doesn't want to). McKay glowers suspiciously at him and asks him if he's entirely sure he belongs here.
"Nope," John sighs. He messes with the badge, which is heavy enough to pull at his shirt obnoxiously. "I was supposed to come and help my friend Teyla, but she cut me loose."
"Teyla of Athos Winery?" McKay asks abruptly. He smiles, or almost smiles, blue eyes quickening with pleasure. "She knows her stuff… She actually makes merlot worth drinking." This, John suspects, is high praise. "I sell to her restaurant," McKay adds. "Halling actually cares enough about their tastings to make decent aperitifs."
"Small world." John stuffs his hands in his pockets and leans over the table. It's covered in wooden boxes and glass jars and small trays lined with linen. In the jars and on the trays salt lies in artfully-scattered heaps, pink crystals, dull grey, some green or the purest white, some gold. On one side are a few slabs of salt that, when McKay sees him looking, John learns are Himalayan. They gather all the light in the room to them and give it back as a soft glow, salmon and quiet gold and tan.
"Roman soldiers were paid in salt," John says. He tries out his best knowing, you-should-be-impressed-with-me grin.
"Yes, hence the word salary." McKay rolls his eyes. "Did you know that salt and sex are also associated etymologically? To be salacious was, in ancient thought, considered to be fertile. Salt was used in fertility rituals for hundreds of years."
John has to work not to think of things like sex and fertility in the context of McKay's mouth. He shifts in place and tries not to be obvious about it, is grateful that McKay seems to be oblivious so long as he can ramble on about salt. He's a physicist and chemist by training, selmelier by inclination, and he's the best thing to happen to salt since someone invented the salt pan. Absently, John asks questions he's pretty sure drive McKay up the wall, and McKay answers them with a strange mix of affection and irritation.
"No, these are not used for tequila shots," McKay growls. He closes up the jar of Turkish Black Pyramid, as though the breath of John's question is corrupting it. "Have your neurons been entirely co-opted by your hair?"
"There's nothing wrong with my hair," John says.
He steps to the side as a small gaggle of customers comes up. A young woman, who introduces herself as the executive chef at the Waldorf, places an order for a stunning amount of salt. The final price has John gaping, but the chef, Jennifer, seems unfazed, and tells McKay she'll have the check couriered to his shop tomorrow. A reporter from the Times comes up with a reminder that McKay's interview is later today, and leaves with a small packet of Maldon and a satisfied smile. Two guys, who like John definitely don't belong here despite the suits and ties, walk up. One of them, his jacket pocket overflowing with business cards and wrappers from one of the boutique candy booths, tries to poke at a small pile of Aigues Mortes. He gets his hand smacked by a vigilant McKay.
"Freaking twenty-five bucks for salt, Sammy," he says, shaking his head. "Insane." They wander off, elbowing each other and exchanging insults.
"Popular guy," John observes.
McKay preens and doesn't even bother being subtle about it. John stares, a little dazedly and a little too distractedly, and when McKay comes back down from his self-congratulation he notices, and shit fuck it's too late for John to pretend he was doing anything else. McKay blinks and his mouth moves silently - probably the first time in forever, John thinks, not much shuts McKay up - and he drums his fingers anxiously on the table. The drumming turns to rearranging the wooden boxes into some kind of symmetry, and uncertain glances at John, who's got those frissions of get-the-fuck-out-of-here going up and down his spine.
"I have an interview this afternoon, and a demonstration," McKay says after a moment. He fumbles for a pen and a business card; the fingers that capably weighed and parceled out salt and cradled crystals without breaking them suddenly don't seem that skilled. "Here's the room I'll be in. Come by at three?"
Be casual, John thinks, and takes the card.
"Sure thing," he says, holding onto the words, making them go slow. "See you then."
* * *
McKay vanishes a short while later, whisked away to insult the food writer and harangue the foodies who think they know more about salt than he does. John haunts the exhibit, killing time and frustrated, hungry and wanting in a way that is only partly to do with food. The roast beef sandwich he buys doesn't taste quite right without chips; the baked plantain chips don't really do a lot for him.
"So you met McKay?" Ronon asks. He's back behind Sateda's table, punching the numbers of wine cellars and distilleries into his address book. Bars don't manage themselves, especially ones like Sateda, which always reminds John of his dad's den and office, but with Ronon and their friendship instead of his father's distance. It's an old place, a New York institution that John can only afford to drink at because he knows Ronon and gets the friend discount.
John grunts and tilts his chair back. He realizes he's still listening for McKay's voice, its strident and irritated authority, and tells himself to stop it.
"Sounds like a yes to me," Ronon says. His phone beeps in time with the numbers as Ronon enters them, digit by digit.
* * *
The sixth floor of the Four Seasons is more plush carpet and wood and rainforest flowers, fine art on the walls. John goes down the hall at idling speed, humming Zeppelin to himself. A passing maid walks wide of him and hurries on.
Room 619 doesn't stand out from any of the others, except for how the door, solid as it is, can't quite contain McKay's voice. Scraps of his current tirade filter through, hints about the characters of different salts, anthropological facts that McKay usually doesn't care about but are in fact pertinent here, the extent to which common table salt and the mania for iodization has increased Americans' salt intake and decreased the number of saltworks and stronger salts are actually healthier because less is needed to achieve the same taste as the characterless powder dispensed by Morton's.
"Is that all?" McKay asks icily. John can't hear the interviewer's reply, but a few minutes later a harried-looking woman steps out, clutching her voice recorder as if for dear life. McKay materializes in the doorway as though he's actually chased her out; judging from the lightning-flash of annoyance in his eyes and on his face, maybe he has. He looks ready to pursue the reporter down the hallway, but he sees John (in fact, almost collides with him) and jumps back with a squeak.
"John," he says, tone on the edge of exclamation. "You came."
"Pretty sure I did," John says, avoiding the usual joke. Not yet, so far as I know, but I'd like to. He stops himself from asking how McKay knows his name. Name tags, God love them, and he wonders if he should start thinking of McKay as Rodney.
"Come in." McKay - Rodney - moves aside and waves John into even more opulence, deep blue and mahogany and marble, and it's almost like his parents' house John half-expects Rodney to snap at him to stand up straight. "So," Rodney says, darting around him and over to the couch. It has, oddly, twenty chairs arranged in a semi circle around it. "I have the demonstration in, uh, twenty minutes, and I'm kind of busy for the rest of the day and then I have to fly to France tonight for a buying trip, but…" He pauses and looks miserably at John. "I'm sorry, I suck at this."
"Suck at what?"
"Like you don't know." Rodney scowls at him accusingly and collapses onto the couch. John collapses next to him, knees barely avoiding the coffee table. On the coffee table are some of the salts from earlier, a pyramid of wrapped chocolates and caramels.
"What do you suck at?" John asks. He picks up one of the chocolates. Rodney makes a half-hearted, protesting noise, but lets it go.
"The whole picking-up-of-attractive-people thing," Rodney says morosely. "But in my defense, I'm very good at driving them off. Also, you really are very attractive, and I find that I'm somewhat less irritated answering your questions, even though they are significantly more idiotic than most I have to answer."
"You do suck at this, don't you?" John untwists the wrapper, twists it back. Untwist, re-twist. "Well, if it helps, I suck too."
"Yes, well." In the corner of his eye, John can see Rodney turning red. It isn't precisely attractive, but Rodney's helpless and flustered, and John, god help him, likes that. "I can tell you a bit about salt."
"Salt and caramel?" John asks, holding up the chocolate. "You're serious."
"The gods would become human to eat it," Rodney assures him. "Your President is addicted to them." He picks up a caramel and begins to hunt through his salt collection, humming something soft and random and classical. After some searching he produces a small packet marked Turkish Black Pyramid and opens it.
"So," Rodney says as he sprinkles a few crystals onto a cube of caramel, "what do you do? It definitely isn't food-related."
"Vintage guitars," John answers. "Mostly buying, restoring. Selling when I can."
"Really?" Rodney blinks, and offers him a smile that almost manages to be shy. "I used to play piano. I was pretty bad."
John can't quite imagine McKay being bad at anything, except maybe flirting; he has that arrogant determination that says he'll use his brain to beat anything into submission. He knows how Rodney feels, can hear when a string is mistuned and what a warp does to the sound, but he can't quite put finger to fret and play. "I'll give you my card," John offers. "Come by the shop sometime."
"I'd like that," Rodney says, so unguardedly pleased John's heart does something dangerous in his chest. "Here, try this. Your tongue will thank you."
John takes the caramel, eyeing the black flakes arranged across the top, aware of Rodney's warm fingers resting briefly on his. He bites into the caramel, blinking at the unexpected crunch - for a second he thinks it's a tooth, but then salt and sweet flood across his tongue. The caramel is more caramel, mellow and smooth and the smokiness of the salt makes it almost like whiskey without the burn.
"Jesus," John says when he can talk again. He licks his lips, chasing the last hints of sugar and salt, and is disappointed when it vanishes.
"Yes, Jesus," Rodney breathes, staring at him with wide and disbelieving eyes. "He'd… he'd like these too. You should have seen yourself, it was like - well, I can't describe what it was like, but suffice it to say… I'm really, really sorry."
John tries ask for what, but Rodney's mouth on his drowns the question out, and he licks it away, and salt stings John's lips all over again. Rodney's hand on his neck is desperate, uncertain, and holds him close, fingers rubbing frantic stay stay stay into John's skin. And that's okay, seriously okay, because John doesn't have anywhere to be other than right here, licking at the complexity of Rodney's mouth, ten kinds of salt and just Rodney underneath it all, and sweet from chocolate.
"Jesus would've liked this," John whispers against Rodney's lips, and Rodney nods, face hazy and soft like he's been drugged, and nips at John's chin, tongue pressed to his jaw like there's some rare salt there worth sampling. "A lot," Rodney adds fervently, biting delicately across John's neck now, and oh god that feels good, and it's easy to give in and sink back under Rodney's broad shoulders and delight. Easier to run one hand through Rodney's hair, fine and soft, long enough to tangle fingers in and tug when Rodney threatens to leave a hickey in the declivity of John's throat. He gets the other hand under Rodney's shirt, soft flesh and skin, strong bone underneath, and Rodney sighs happily when John manages to slip his fingers down the back of his pants.
A knock on the door shatters the silence of breath and touch like crystal. Rodney flies backwards as though propelled from a rocket; John almost falls off the couch.
"Oh my god," Rodney mumbles, "the fucking demonstration." He swipes at his hair, trying to flatten it. It doesn't work. "There's not much to be done for you," Rodney says, looking at John critically, John and his recalcitrant hair and his plaid shirt. "But please, please act casual. Slouch. You seem to be good at that."
"I'm very good at slouching." John stands up and adjusts himself, which draws a low, frustrated moan from Rodney, who straightens his shirt with a series of short and irritated jerks.
He glares at the door, as though the force of his expression can keep it closed, taps a finger against his arm. Something's going on in his head, something calculating. John waits for the results and tries not to fidget.
"Technically it's a closed demonstration," Rodney says at last, "but since I'm the one doing the demonstrating, I get to pick who gets to watch. So…" He trails off. "So you can stay and watch. No questions, though. I mean, you can stay if you want."
"I'll stay," John promises, quiet enough that he can't be heard over the sudden buzz that fills the room as the door gives way and opens. But he thinks Rodney hears, because Rodney smiles before he turns away.
-end-