14 Valentines 14: Heart Arrhythmia (ultimately John/Rodney, PG-13)
Title: Heart Arrhythmia
Pairing: Rodney/Jennifer, John/Rodney, Ronon/Jennifer
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~5,500
Warnings: Het
Summary: Rodney suddenly had two good friends he was simultaneously in love with. And he desperately wanted to believe that love wasn't an either-or, except if the two people one was in love with didn't also love each other, one ended up with the unfortunate prospect of having to choose one of them or none at all.
Notes: This was written as a Christmas present for thisissirius to the prompt of John/Rodney, betrayal. Nevertheless, this is no cheating!fic. Set after "The Shrine" and ignoring most of canon thereafter. Thanks go to neevebrody for the beta and to newkidfan for creating the perfect cover.
I'd also like to thank everyone who followed along, especially those of you who left a comment every day I posted. I can't even begin to tell you how much I appreciated that. You guys rock! ♥
14 Valentines Essay: Day Fourteen: International, in which belladonnalin writes this: No matter the term used, there are values shared by the people and countries that control most of the world’s wealth, wield most of the world’s political power, and generate most of the world’s waste. One of the most egregious of these shared values is a common view of the global south, the East, the less-industrialized nations as primitive or as helpless.
I would like to take this opportunity to link again to Kiva, a site where your loan of as little as $25 (and it is a loan; you get the money back in instalments) can mean a woman's continued existence as an entrepreneur. With as little as $25, you can help someone help themselves out of poverty. On this day, which is supposedly about love, please consider helping someone. Thank you.
~~~
Heart Arrhythmia
Observation had taught Rodney McKay that love was, in fact, a very simple thing. One met a suitable partner and discovered joint interests, discussed them and eventually agreed on a 'date' to further the acquaintance. Immediately after that, the courtship phase began, during which the initial feelings of compatibility continued to flourish and a strong mutual attraction developed, which then led to the physical component of love: kisses, caresses and, ultimately, fornication. Observation had also taught him that these proceedings usually followed an easily predictable scheme and could be initialised - provided the suitable partner was showing a modicum of interest - quite simply.
As a scientist, Rodney was sad to say that observation wasn't worth shit.
For one thing, there was nothing simple about courtship. You brought a woman flowers and she'd wanted a fruit basket. You took a man to a hockey game and he got pneumonia. You paid a woman compliments for her rather remarkable intellect - for a blonde - and got sent to Siberia. Courtship, it turned out, was a minefield, and Rodney was dismayed to say that if there was a social trap in any given situation, he'd be the one who walked right into it.
Another thing was that popular belief seemed to suggest that falling in love was something one did with one person at a time, and that was verifiably untrue. Evidence: one Dr. Rodney McKay.
He'd always known that the woman he'd eventually choose as a partner would be beautiful, intelligent and charming, proud to be at his side as he revolutionised the world of physics, astrophysics, and quite possibly engineering as well. He'd marry her and they'd raise a family together and be happy, two children and a picket fence, though maybe not a white one. Jennifer Keller was all that, pretty and smart and nice. She'd made him ask her out for a drink and he'd asked her again, later, and they'd had a surprising amount of fun together. Jennifer was a lot like him, too: a child prodigy, forced to grow up too fast in the cut-throat world of academics, not all that good with people. He could see himself growing old with her, more of an actual possibility than the fleeting wish it had been with Katie, but…
But. There was also John Sheppard, the strangest friend Rodney had ever had before he'd met Ronon. He was the sports type, could have been one of those popular guys if he'd let himself, but he hadn't been. He'd been as awed by Atlantis as Rodney, probably more, and he'd asked Rodney to be on his team before he'd even asked Teyla, and Rodney had never been anyone's first choice before. John drank beer and talked about Batman, played dumb computer games and watched bad movies and raced remote-controlled cars down the corridors of the city, all with Rodney, all for fun. And he was smart, and could be charming, and he was easy on the eyes, and Rodney had been in over his head before he'd even realised that, huh. Apparently he could fall in love with a man, too.
So instead of being the odd one out like he'd been for most of his life - unsurprisingly, for a man of his superior intellect - Rodney suddenly had two good friends he was simultaneously in love with. And he desperately wanted to believe that love wasn't an either-or, except if the two people one was in love with didn't also love each other, one ended up with the unfortunate prospect of having to choose one of them or none at all.
John Sheppard didn't like Jennifer Keller all that much.
Rodney wasn't prepared for 'none at all'.
Hence his dilemma. He knew that if he wanted to pursue any relationship at all, he would have to choose either one or the other. And he wanted a relationship. All his life, he'd watched movies where people fell in love either outright or as part of the subplot. He'd played computer games where people fell in love. He'd watched people fall in - and out of - love around him. He wanted to love someone, too. Wanted them to love him back; wanted the trust, the closeness, the steadiness that came with a relationship. But if one had to choose between two people one loved equally, how did one go about that prospect?
Rodney went with a cost-benefit analysis. He wanted to love and be loved in return, so all he had to do was figure out with which constellation that outcome was more likely. With Jennifer, at least Rodney was fairly certain that she did love him, to some extent. John was significantly harder to read. Oh, he liked Rodney, that much was a given, but did he love him? Rodney wasn't sure, and he couldn't ask. And that alone told him everything he needed to know to reach his decision.
Really, Jennifer was the smart choice.
Wasn't she?
~~~
"Go get the girl," John said, and Rodney nodded, and finished his beer.
Observation had taught him this as well: if the person one wanted to be romantically involved with actively encouraged one to court someone else then, in all likelihood, they didn't want to be romantically involved with oneself. Come to think of it, John had encouraged him to propose to Katie as well, which in hindsight should have been hint enough.
Well. Not John, then. Rodney nodded again, if only to himself this time.
If only everyone were smart enough to settle matters of the heart by means of the brain, there'd be a lot less war out there.
~~~
Asking Jennifer out wasn't the problem. Rodney had done that several times already, and it grew progressively easier. It was the transition from dating to dating that was giving him an ulcer, because how did one tell a friend that one was interested in her?
In the end, Rodney took a leaf out of Katie's Book of Dating and set up a nice dinner in his quarters. He had chicken breast with a creamy sauce and steamed vegetables from the mess, ruus wine from Kanaan, candles from John and a clap on the shoulder from Ronon, so what could go wrong?
Nothing, it turned out, because Jennifer rang his door chime exactly on time, dug into the chicken with relish and looked beautiful in the candlelight, her cheeks a little flushed from the wine. She laughed at Rodney's jokes and told funny stories about her time as an intern, and by the time he served dessert - fruit cups, because Jennifer loved them - Rodney knew he had made the right decision.
It still took all his courage to work up the nerve to kiss her. They were standing by the door by then, Jennifer thanking him for a lovely evening, and Rodney closed his eyes and kind of bumped his mouth against hers, the complete antithesis of the slow, seductive kiss he'd planned. He pulled back almost as soon as their lips had touched, heart racing and his cheeks so hot they had to be flaming red.
What the hell was wrong with him?
Jennifer blinked at him, then her own face turned a lovely shade of pink and she smiled, shyly, and Rodney let out a shaky breath.
"That was a lot more sophisticated in my head," he said, mouth twisting into a wry grin.
"Oh, I thought that was pretty okay," Jennifer replied, her own smile growing, and then they were kissing again; chaste, gentle things that were slightly scary but felt better than anything Rodney could remember, including that time when John had saved him from drowning inside a puddle jumper. Jennifer was so close to him he could feel her every movement, and when he put his arms around her she melted into the touch.
Yes, definitely the right decision.
~~~
Being with Jennifer was amazing. She was already friends with his friends, so he didn't have to introduce her to anyone. She didn't expect him to be someone he wasn't, just perhaps a little nicer when she was around, and Rodney could do that. She had the sweetest smile and the prettiest pair of breasts and frequently let him have access to both. Even the sex was fun; her smaller body all soft curves and sweet folds, fitting against his in a perfect, sweaty way. She was playful, experimental, and a little bit wicked.
Rodney couldn't remember ever being that happy. That relaxed.
The best thing was that John was still his surprisingly weird friend. He didn't relax as much around Jennifer as he did when she wasn't around, but they still ribbed each other at every opportunity, they still drank beer and they still played dumb computer games. Not as often, granted, and now Jennifer sometimes joined them for team movie night, but John never let his strange dislike of her show when she was around. Sometimes, when Jennifer smiled at him across a room, Rodney would catch John smiling too, an oddly gentle expression that Rodney didn't understand. Then again, understanding John Sheppard wasn't exactly easy at the best of times, although Rodney liked to think he had made some progress in that respect.
The bottom line was, Rodney had it all. He could love Jennifer, because they were in a relationship, because she loved him, and because he wasn't an idiot. He could let himself keep loving John, because there was no way now their friendship would ever turn into anything else, because it was safe, and because it would be impossible not to. John was brave and loyal and could be amazingly silly, and Rodney would go to great lengths for him.
But for Jennifer, he'd move the world.
~~~
Just when he thought things couldn't be any better, of course, life threw Rodney a lemon with enough force that ducking wasn't an option.
They'd lost John to the Khenchom rebel faction four days ago, after an act of stupid bravery that had quite possibly saved Rodney's life but might well have cost John his own. Neither the Daedalus nor the Apollo were due back in Atlantis any time soon, and the only information they had about John was the signal of his subcutaneous transmitter, transmitting steadily from within a thick-walled fortress built snug against a mountainside.
One of these days, Rodney was going to fit these things with a bio-monitor. Knowing where John was without knowing if he was even still alive was driving him nuts.
One of the Khenchom lansquenets had somehow acquired a plan of the fortress's interior. Rodney and Lorne both groaned when they saw that a good deal of rooms and hallways were situated inside the mountain.
"This is gonna be fun," Lorne said, and Rodney pinched the bridge of his nose to stave off the impending migraine.
"Yes," he snapped, "lots of fun. Buckets of fun." Lorne shot him a glare, and Rodney huffed out a breath. "How do we even get in there?"
Next to them, Ronon twirled his gun on his finger before he changed the setting. The weapon charged with a quiet whine. "Let's blow up the wall," he said, and sadly, that was the best plan they had.
Rodney shot three people on the way inside. Two men, one woman, and each of them might have belonged to the group that had assaulted him and taken John. Each of them might have killed John, even, but still Rodney felt sick as they fell. Ronon dragged him forward and past them before Rodney could see if they were dead, but he suspected they were.
The worst thing was that, if John really was dead? Rodney thought he might go back and make sure they were, too.
John was alive, though. Not well - no one who'd been so obviously tortured for the last few days could be well - but alive, and Rodney's breath hitched as he rushed forward to untie John from the crude wooden chair, Ronon guarding the door.
"Took you so long?" John rasped, the corners of his mouth twitching up into a weak smile, like he didn't have a care in the world, and Rodney wanted to kiss him.
Oh, no. No, no, no, hit him, that's what Rodney wanted to do. Not the, the other thing.
… Crap.
~~~
Thing was, if you disregarded the simultaneously wanting two people and the utter impossibility of having them both, love really should be quite the simple matter. Rodney McKay loved, and he wanted someone to love him back. That couldn't be too much to ask, could it?
Except this too, of course, was far from being that simple. He loved Jennifer. Jennifer loved him. He was happy with her. And yet - God help him, for he obviously couldn't help himself - Rodney wanted John. He wanted to go to bed at night and wrap his arm around firm planes instead of soft curves. He wanted to press a kiss against stubble instead of smooth skin. He wanted to bury his nose in dark, unruly hair instead of fine, blonde strands.
The sheer unfairness of it almost made him want to cry. There had to be something completely, utterly wrong with him not to be satisfied with what he had, and maybe Jeannie had been right all the times she'd called him a selfish jerk. He didn't want to hurt Jennifer, didn't want to lose her, and yet…
And yet. Somehow, perhaps while he was still frantically looking for a friend and fully expecting to find a corpse, Rodney had realised that one smile from John - a real one that reached his eyes - was worth at least three of Jennifer's. Somehow, engineering the better paper plane had always been more important than unlocking a new part of the medical data base, and how he could have not noticed that was beyond him.
And the worst thing? Everyone but him was satisfied with things as they were. Jennifer was happy, John was at least content, and Rodney would rather stab himself with a rusty nail than make them miserable simply because he wanted what he couldn't have. That would be… it would be a betrayal of the worst kind, and he just couldn't do it.
It was entirely possible that he might have made the wrong decision when he'd chosen between John and Jennifer. But he had made it, and he'd stick with it.
~~~
"I think I made the wrong decision."
Rodney blinked. "Pardon?"
Jennifer made a face and clasped her hands in front of her belly. "That didn't come out right," she said, and Rodney had the sinking feeling that this was going to be a relationship talk.
"You know, I think I forgot to tell Radek how to shut off the," he inched toward the door, "the… thing. Experiment. I should-" he pointed over his shoulder.
"Rodney." Jennifer's voice was… strangely wobbly, and her face looked utterly miserable. She was meeting his gaze head-on, but her eyes were bright and she looked like she might start crying any moment.
Realisation came over Rodney like glacier water.
"Oh my god," he breathed, "you're breaking up with me."
Jennifer pressed her lips together and nodded jerkily.
"Yes," she said, and Rodney felt unaccountably hurt. Sure, she'd been his second choice, but that didn't mean he didn't love her. He wanted her, he did.
"But- I thought we were good together." He blinked and waved a hand between them. "I… weren't we good together?"
"No!" Jennifer said quickly, and Rodney gaped at her. She paled and held out her hands as if to ward him off. "I mean, yes, we were! But…" she trailed off, looking down at her feet. "I'm kind of in love with someone else."
Rodney opened his mouth, but all that came out was a strangled sound so he closed it again. Jennifer didn't seem to notice.
"I've been taking sparring lessons from Ronon," she told the floor, sad-faced even as her cheeks started to flush. "He's… I… we kissed."
She snuck a look at Rodney's face and blanched again at whatever she saw there. "No, not recently! Back during the quarantine, I mean, you were with Katie, right? And I was locked up with Ronon and somehow it happened and then he never did anything, so I thought…" She gestured helplessly.
"You thought you'd take the one who loved you back," Rodney rasped. Jennifer's shoulders sagged.
"Yeah," she sighed. "I did."
Rodney looked at her. She was beautiful, and smart, and funny, and she wasn't for him. It figured; every woman he'd ever dated had broken up with him, so in hindsight, expecting this would turn out any different had been naïve. And she looked so miserable, and Rodney had never wanted to hurt anyone, and the least he owed her was honesty.
"It's all right," he said. Then he amended, "Well, as all right as someone dumping me in favour of someone else can ever be. But it's all right, really. I, uh, I understand." At Jennifer's hopeful look, he added, "You should go and be with Ronon. He was your, your first choice." He raised his chin and waved his hand in what he hoped was a noble gesture. "I set you free."
They looked at each other silently for a while, Jennifer with a faint air of disbelief, then Rodney burst out, "I'm bad at this," pulling a face at how stupid that sounded.
"I love you, Rodney," Jennifer said gently, her eyes bright. "Just, I think, maybe not in the right way? You know?"
Rodney nodded jerkily, because yeah. He knew. Then he realised something and his eyes widened.
"Oh my god," he blurted, "you're dumping me for the fitness coach."
Jennifer gaped at him. Then she started to laugh.
~~~
All in all, it was the most amicable break-up in Rodney's experience. It felt… strange. He kissed Jennifer good-bye - on the cheek - and walked to his room. Except then he passed right by it and went to Ronon's room instead, brushing a sweaty hand across the chime.
Ronon opened after a moment, looking just as unperturbed as always in his tan leather outfit. If he was surprised to see Rodney on his doorstep, there was no telling of it.
"McKay," he said. And really, most of the time Rodney appreciated his succinctness, but right now he could have done with a little stalling. Well. Obviously, wanting things and getting them were two very different pairs of shoes. Like… army boots and high-heels or something like that.
Right.
Rodney took a deep breath and straightened to meet Ronon's gaze head-on. "Can I come in?" he asked, and his voice didn't shake one bit.
Ronon stepped aside, and Rodney went in.
~~~
"So you see, denying oneself one thing in favour of another, or because it's the prudent thing to do, is just betraying one's own, ah, feelings. As they are. And, and I'd like Jennifer to be happy, because I love her. And you. Um. That is, I want you to be happy. With Jennifer. I mean, not that I don't love you, in, you know, the way a friend feels about another friend, but… I mean… Obviously that's also the way I feel about Jennifer, only I didn't know it, and I think I can be forgiven for a certain, well, one would have to call it obliviousness, but it's not like this is easy, you know. Oh. I think you would know, wouldn't you. I mean, apparently you've been carrying a torch for her and Jennifer said you kissed her first, but I didn't know that, and if I, that is, if your feelings were hurt - inadvertently! - through any actions on my part, then I'm sorry. Yes, all right, don't look at me like that. In any case, what I meant to say is that you and Jennifer, you should be… you should be happy. Together."
"… Okay."
~~~
John nearly blew a gasket the first time he saw Ronon and Jennifer kiss, so Rodney grabbed his sleeve and dragged him away before he could say anything they'd all regret. It was a Sunday, but the pier was empty except for a few seagulls, if you could call anything with leathery wings and clawed feet a seagull.
"What the hell, Rodney?!" John snapped, all but snatching the offered beer bottle from Rodney's hand.
"I thought you knew!" Rodney defended himself, at the same time wondering what the hell he was defending himself for.
John had taken a deep swig and was now staring at Rodney incredulously. "That your girlfriend is cheating on you with your blessing?"
"What? No!" Rodney sputtered. "We broke up four days ago!"
"Four days!" John laughed. It wasn't a happy sound. "So what, now she's going straight for her second choice?"
"Seeing as how that second choice was me, I dare say no." Rodney raised his chin. "Jennifer is pursuing the one she should have been with all along."
John stared at him, slowly relaxing as he blew out his anger with a long breath. "Jesus, Rodney," he said, and the expression on his face wasn't one Rodney could read, "did she tell you that?"
"What?" Rodney frowned. "Of course she did." After all, why wouldn't she? Honesty was one of the pillars of any relationship.
"Jesus." John looked down at his bottle, his hand clenched around the neck so tight his knuckles were a stark white. "Look. I know it's none of my business, but you're not…" He huffed out a breath. "She had no right to say that."
Rodney snorted. "She did, as a matter of fact. I mean," he circled a hand as if he could encompass the concept of a mutual break-up for John, "it's not like she crushed my achy breaky heart or something."
It wasn't. It hurt, yes, but not as much as he'd expected, and not for the reasons he'd expected, either. Even the most blind of idiots could see that Jennifer was a lot happier with Ronon than she'd been with him - not that she hadn't been happy; it was just… a quieter sort of happy, maybe - and that Ronon was about one step from hugging the entire city. It was kind of cute. As for Rodney, he had to admit that he missed the closeness more than he missed Jennifer.
Well. And the sex.
"She didn't," John said disbelievingly, and right, he didn't know, couldn't know, but at the same time Jennifer didn't deserve to be blamed for this mess when Rodney had been the one who'd started it.
"I, uh…" Rodney watched his fingers play nervously with the neck of his own beer bottle, because it was easier than looking at John right then. "I went with my second choice, too." He swallowed. "I… I wasn't aware of it at the time, but that's what I did."
Beside him, John had gone so still he didn't even seem to breathe. Then he set his bottle down with a harsh clank and got to his feet so fast that Rodney would have gotten whiplash if he'd been looking at him.
He wasn't, though. Couldn't.
"You two are completely fucked up," John said finally, flatly, and turned away, leaving Rodney alone with the sea and his thoughts and four unopened bottles of beer.
He drank them all.
~~~
"What about your first choice?"
"Whuh?" Rodney struggled awake, blinking and squinting as if his mostly-dark room might magically light up just because he wanted it to. He turned his head, and blinked again as the shadowy figure kneeling beside his bed resolved itself into John Sheppard.
"Your first choice," John repeated impatiently, glaring down at Rodney as if he was being deliberately slow, "why didn't you go with her?"
Rodney looked up at John, face pale in the washed-out moonlight, eyes dark and unreadable.
"Didn't want me." Rodney's voice was still thick with sleep, and maybe it was a trick of the light that made John seem to flinch. He caught himself quickly, though.
"Who was it?" he wanted to know, and oh, no. No, no, no. They were not doing this. Not now, not ever.
"I don't see how that's any of your business," Rodney said stiffly. He knew John. John was one of those people who shied away from emotion like dogs from a bath, a necessary evil that nevertheless had to be avoided at all costs. Telling John he was in love with him wouldn't end their friendship, but it would turn so awkward so fast he might as well give it up as a lost cause right away.
"The name, Rodney."
Except John was also a stubborn bastard who wasn't going to let this go. And Rodney was tired, he'd very recently been broken-up with, and goddammit, he deserved a break. And if John wasn't going to grant him that much, Rodney really didn't see why John should get one. All right, fine. John wanted to know? Fine.
Rodney let out a huff and raised his chin as well as he could while still lying down. "It's you."
There was a long pause, then John asked, in a strangled voice, "What?"
"I… that is…" Rodney swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. He was wide awake now. "You, it's you." He took a deep breath and added, "It was always you."
In for a pound. Rodney waited.
John knelt by his bedside, so still that in the moonlight, he looked like an imperfect but striking statue. He was staring at Rodney in stunned silence, and Rodney could almost feel the galaxy rotating slowly around them. Finally, John blinked and let out a long, slow breath.
"Son of a bitch," he muttered, blinked again, and jumped to his feet so fast he nearly tripped, as if he couldn't get away from Rodney quickly enough. The doors closed quietly behind him, and Rodney lay alone in the darkness, staring up at the grey ceiling, heart pounding in his chest.
Then he sighed, switched on the bedside lamp and reached for his laptop. Might as well get some work done, as he doubted sleep was going to come again.
~~~
He didn't see John at all for the next two days. They had no missions, no shared briefings, and Rodney tried to convince himself that he was so busy he barely noticed John's absence at all. That John was so busy he didn't have time to swing by the labs or Rodney's room. That this wasn't exactly what he'd been afraid of.
He wasn't entirely successful, but the truly great thing about Atlantis was that he could always find something to distract himself with. So what if John wasn't talking to him? Rodney was a very important man who couldn't just abandon his position as a paragon of diligence simply because someone wanted to try out his new skateboard and needed an audience. He was perfectly fine doing the job he was paid for, thank you very-
The lab doors slid open and John rolled in like a thundercloud, grabbing Rodney's elbow and dragging him out before anyone could even blink.
"Hey! What do you think you're doing?"
John just pulled him into the nearest transporter, stabbing at the map. "We need to talk."
"What, now you want to talk?" Rodney tried to yank his elbow free, but John's grip tightened to the point of being painful. "Ow! What is wrong with you? For the last two days you avoid me like I was Typhoid Mary-"
"Typhoid Meredith, more like," John muttered.
"-and now you're suddenly abducting me in the middle of the-" Understanding hit Rodney like a wave of vertigo. "Oh my god," he breathed, "oh my god, oh my- Okay, look, whoever you are, just tell me what you did to Colonel Sheppard and I promise I won't-"
John rolled his eyes and whacked him over the head with his free hand. "Shut up, McKay, I'm not an alien."
"It's a reasonable assumption," Rodney sniffed, resigned as he let himself be dragged down the hall. The door to John's quarters hissed open and they walked inside. John finally let go.
Rodney glared at him and rubbed his elbow, but he'd barely opened his mouth to complain when John rounded on him.
"I can't believe you dated Keller when you didn't love her!" His face was pale, small ovals of pink high on his cheeks.
Rodney's mouth fell open. "What, of course I loved her!" he refuted, with the indignation of the unjustly accused.
"You said you wanted me!" John pointed a finger at him, accusation in every tense line of his body. "Or did you change your mind on that, too?" His voice was rough, harsh, brimming with emotion, except Rodney had no clue what emotion that was.
"No! I love you both!" Rodney threw up his hands in frustration, pacing the small room. "And yes, I realise that the likelihood of both of you wanting me back is infinitesimal, but I really don't need you to rub it in that neither you nor Jennifer feel..." his voice broke, and he hated it for that treachery, "feel that way… about me."
Just like that, all the fight seemed to run out of John. He started to run a hand through his hair, aborted the motion halfway through, grimaced and finally shrugged. "Wouldn't say neither," he mumbled, scrubbing his face.
For a brief moment, Rodney thought he was going to have a coronary.
"You… you told me to go get the girl!" he yelled. "Don't tell me that was you being all noble and self-sacrificing again!" Looking at John's pained expression, Rodney let out a sharp bark of laughter. "It was! I can't believe- What, were you going to take this into your grave?"
John licked his lips before pressing them together and looking at the far wall, hands clasped behind his back and feet slightly apart like a good little soldier. The only sign that this was affecting him at all was the way his chest was rising and falling rapidly, like he was struggling to breathe.
"You were," Rodney said. His voice was almost toneless; his chest felt empty. Hollow. "You were… Jesus, you were going to be the best man, weren't you? You were going to be Uncle John and everyone would have loved you and no one would have known-" he broke off as his knees gave way without warning and he sat down hard on John's bed. "I never would have known," he breathed, the truth of it so huge it was near-incomprehensible.
John was still standing at parade rest, but his eyes were bright. He bit his lip, cleared his throat. "You didn't say anything, either." His voice was hoarse.
Rodney stared up at him from the bed, at the whole… John-ness of him. Dark clothes, messy hair, long torso, short legs… the pale skin around his right wrist, the dark hair on his arms… the way he stood utterly still when Rodney would be wringing his hands. Forty-one years old, military commander of humanity's remotest outpost, superficially attractive and completely messed up on the inside. John.
John.
He sighed. "Do you need me to tell you how you'll always be my first choice?"
John's lips twitched as he shifted his weight. "Nah. That'd be cheesy."
Rodney thought he should maybe say something else, but for once he didn't have the slightest idea what. He just looked at John, and John looked at him, and it seemed like Rodney had just blinked, just once, but suddenly John wasn't standing at parade rest across the room anymore. John was kneeling in front of the bed, in front of Rodney, reaching for his hand and clasping it so tightly it hurt as he leaned forward.
There was a moment, one brief moment, when Rodney's heart was hammering so fast he was certain he'd pass out before his lips even touched John's. John seemed equally freaked out, one second from bolting, but as the last four years had shown John Sheppard was nothing if not brave.
Kissing him was nothing like kissing Jennifer. It seemed both new and familiar, both huge and small. Rodney knew John's body; he'd dragged it, held it, been dragged and held in return; he'd been protected by it; he'd breathed in its scent. Kissing those lips was just one tiny detail, and it predominated everything, until all Rodney could hear was the blood in his ears and John's breath; until all he could feel was his heartbeat, his rapid breathing, and John's warmth. John's lips were soft, strangely hesitant, and Rodney knew that he could lose himself in this, just kissing, and never find his way back.
The thought didn't scare him at all.
~~~
It turned out that love was, in fact, as simple as making John smile that private smile, the one where his eyes went soft and the corners of his mouth turned just a little bit upward, barely enough to call his expression a smile at all. The one that Rodney got to see more and more frequently these days.
As a scientist - as a genius - Rodney was good at figuring things out.
One just had to observe.
*
Pairing: Rodney/Jennifer, John/Rodney, Ronon/Jennifer
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~5,500
Warnings: Het
Summary: Rodney suddenly had two good friends he was simultaneously in love with. And he desperately wanted to believe that love wasn't an either-or, except if the two people one was in love with didn't also love each other, one ended up with the unfortunate prospect of having to choose one of them or none at all.
Notes: This was written as a Christmas present for thisissirius to the prompt of John/Rodney, betrayal. Nevertheless, this is no cheating!fic. Set after "The Shrine" and ignoring most of canon thereafter. Thanks go to neevebrody for the beta and to newkidfan for creating the perfect cover.
I'd also like to thank everyone who followed along, especially those of you who left a comment every day I posted. I can't even begin to tell you how much I appreciated that. You guys rock! ♥
14 Valentines Essay: Day Fourteen: International, in which belladonnalin writes this: No matter the term used, there are values shared by the people and countries that control most of the world’s wealth, wield most of the world’s political power, and generate most of the world’s waste. One of the most egregious of these shared values is a common view of the global south, the East, the less-industrialized nations as primitive or as helpless.
I would like to take this opportunity to link again to Kiva, a site where your loan of as little as $25 (and it is a loan; you get the money back in instalments) can mean a woman's continued existence as an entrepreneur. With as little as $25, you can help someone help themselves out of poverty. On this day, which is supposedly about love, please consider helping someone. Thank you.
~~~
Heart Arrhythmia
Observation had taught Rodney McKay that love was, in fact, a very simple thing. One met a suitable partner and discovered joint interests, discussed them and eventually agreed on a 'date' to further the acquaintance. Immediately after that, the courtship phase began, during which the initial feelings of compatibility continued to flourish and a strong mutual attraction developed, which then led to the physical component of love: kisses, caresses and, ultimately, fornication. Observation had also taught him that these proceedings usually followed an easily predictable scheme and could be initialised - provided the suitable partner was showing a modicum of interest - quite simply.
As a scientist, Rodney was sad to say that observation wasn't worth shit.
For one thing, there was nothing simple about courtship. You brought a woman flowers and she'd wanted a fruit basket. You took a man to a hockey game and he got pneumonia. You paid a woman compliments for her rather remarkable intellect - for a blonde - and got sent to Siberia. Courtship, it turned out, was a minefield, and Rodney was dismayed to say that if there was a social trap in any given situation, he'd be the one who walked right into it.
Another thing was that popular belief seemed to suggest that falling in love was something one did with one person at a time, and that was verifiably untrue. Evidence: one Dr. Rodney McKay.
He'd always known that the woman he'd eventually choose as a partner would be beautiful, intelligent and charming, proud to be at his side as he revolutionised the world of physics, astrophysics, and quite possibly engineering as well. He'd marry her and they'd raise a family together and be happy, two children and a picket fence, though maybe not a white one. Jennifer Keller was all that, pretty and smart and nice. She'd made him ask her out for a drink and he'd asked her again, later, and they'd had a surprising amount of fun together. Jennifer was a lot like him, too: a child prodigy, forced to grow up too fast in the cut-throat world of academics, not all that good with people. He could see himself growing old with her, more of an actual possibility than the fleeting wish it had been with Katie, but…
But. There was also John Sheppard, the strangest friend Rodney had ever had before he'd met Ronon. He was the sports type, could have been one of those popular guys if he'd let himself, but he hadn't been. He'd been as awed by Atlantis as Rodney, probably more, and he'd asked Rodney to be on his team before he'd even asked Teyla, and Rodney had never been anyone's first choice before. John drank beer and talked about Batman, played dumb computer games and watched bad movies and raced remote-controlled cars down the corridors of the city, all with Rodney, all for fun. And he was smart, and could be charming, and he was easy on the eyes, and Rodney had been in over his head before he'd even realised that, huh. Apparently he could fall in love with a man, too.
So instead of being the odd one out like he'd been for most of his life - unsurprisingly, for a man of his superior intellect - Rodney suddenly had two good friends he was simultaneously in love with. And he desperately wanted to believe that love wasn't an either-or, except if the two people one was in love with didn't also love each other, one ended up with the unfortunate prospect of having to choose one of them or none at all.
John Sheppard didn't like Jennifer Keller all that much.
Rodney wasn't prepared for 'none at all'.
Hence his dilemma. He knew that if he wanted to pursue any relationship at all, he would have to choose either one or the other. And he wanted a relationship. All his life, he'd watched movies where people fell in love either outright or as part of the subplot. He'd played computer games where people fell in love. He'd watched people fall in - and out of - love around him. He wanted to love someone, too. Wanted them to love him back; wanted the trust, the closeness, the steadiness that came with a relationship. But if one had to choose between two people one loved equally, how did one go about that prospect?
Rodney went with a cost-benefit analysis. He wanted to love and be loved in return, so all he had to do was figure out with which constellation that outcome was more likely. With Jennifer, at least Rodney was fairly certain that she did love him, to some extent. John was significantly harder to read. Oh, he liked Rodney, that much was a given, but did he love him? Rodney wasn't sure, and he couldn't ask. And that alone told him everything he needed to know to reach his decision.
Really, Jennifer was the smart choice.
Wasn't she?
~~~
"Go get the girl," John said, and Rodney nodded, and finished his beer.
Observation had taught him this as well: if the person one wanted to be romantically involved with actively encouraged one to court someone else then, in all likelihood, they didn't want to be romantically involved with oneself. Come to think of it, John had encouraged him to propose to Katie as well, which in hindsight should have been hint enough.
Well. Not John, then. Rodney nodded again, if only to himself this time.
If only everyone were smart enough to settle matters of the heart by means of the brain, there'd be a lot less war out there.
~~~
Asking Jennifer out wasn't the problem. Rodney had done that several times already, and it grew progressively easier. It was the transition from dating to dating that was giving him an ulcer, because how did one tell a friend that one was interested in her?
In the end, Rodney took a leaf out of Katie's Book of Dating and set up a nice dinner in his quarters. He had chicken breast with a creamy sauce and steamed vegetables from the mess, ruus wine from Kanaan, candles from John and a clap on the shoulder from Ronon, so what could go wrong?
Nothing, it turned out, because Jennifer rang his door chime exactly on time, dug into the chicken with relish and looked beautiful in the candlelight, her cheeks a little flushed from the wine. She laughed at Rodney's jokes and told funny stories about her time as an intern, and by the time he served dessert - fruit cups, because Jennifer loved them - Rodney knew he had made the right decision.
It still took all his courage to work up the nerve to kiss her. They were standing by the door by then, Jennifer thanking him for a lovely evening, and Rodney closed his eyes and kind of bumped his mouth against hers, the complete antithesis of the slow, seductive kiss he'd planned. He pulled back almost as soon as their lips had touched, heart racing and his cheeks so hot they had to be flaming red.
What the hell was wrong with him?
Jennifer blinked at him, then her own face turned a lovely shade of pink and she smiled, shyly, and Rodney let out a shaky breath.
"That was a lot more sophisticated in my head," he said, mouth twisting into a wry grin.
"Oh, I thought that was pretty okay," Jennifer replied, her own smile growing, and then they were kissing again; chaste, gentle things that were slightly scary but felt better than anything Rodney could remember, including that time when John had saved him from drowning inside a puddle jumper. Jennifer was so close to him he could feel her every movement, and when he put his arms around her she melted into the touch.
Yes, definitely the right decision.
~~~
Being with Jennifer was amazing. She was already friends with his friends, so he didn't have to introduce her to anyone. She didn't expect him to be someone he wasn't, just perhaps a little nicer when she was around, and Rodney could do that. She had the sweetest smile and the prettiest pair of breasts and frequently let him have access to both. Even the sex was fun; her smaller body all soft curves and sweet folds, fitting against his in a perfect, sweaty way. She was playful, experimental, and a little bit wicked.
Rodney couldn't remember ever being that happy. That relaxed.
The best thing was that John was still his surprisingly weird friend. He didn't relax as much around Jennifer as he did when she wasn't around, but they still ribbed each other at every opportunity, they still drank beer and they still played dumb computer games. Not as often, granted, and now Jennifer sometimes joined them for team movie night, but John never let his strange dislike of her show when she was around. Sometimes, when Jennifer smiled at him across a room, Rodney would catch John smiling too, an oddly gentle expression that Rodney didn't understand. Then again, understanding John Sheppard wasn't exactly easy at the best of times, although Rodney liked to think he had made some progress in that respect.
The bottom line was, Rodney had it all. He could love Jennifer, because they were in a relationship, because she loved him, and because he wasn't an idiot. He could let himself keep loving John, because there was no way now their friendship would ever turn into anything else, because it was safe, and because it would be impossible not to. John was brave and loyal and could be amazingly silly, and Rodney would go to great lengths for him.
But for Jennifer, he'd move the world.
~~~
Just when he thought things couldn't be any better, of course, life threw Rodney a lemon with enough force that ducking wasn't an option.
They'd lost John to the Khenchom rebel faction four days ago, after an act of stupid bravery that had quite possibly saved Rodney's life but might well have cost John his own. Neither the Daedalus nor the Apollo were due back in Atlantis any time soon, and the only information they had about John was the signal of his subcutaneous transmitter, transmitting steadily from within a thick-walled fortress built snug against a mountainside.
One of these days, Rodney was going to fit these things with a bio-monitor. Knowing where John was without knowing if he was even still alive was driving him nuts.
One of the Khenchom lansquenets had somehow acquired a plan of the fortress's interior. Rodney and Lorne both groaned when they saw that a good deal of rooms and hallways were situated inside the mountain.
"This is gonna be fun," Lorne said, and Rodney pinched the bridge of his nose to stave off the impending migraine.
"Yes," he snapped, "lots of fun. Buckets of fun." Lorne shot him a glare, and Rodney huffed out a breath. "How do we even get in there?"
Next to them, Ronon twirled his gun on his finger before he changed the setting. The weapon charged with a quiet whine. "Let's blow up the wall," he said, and sadly, that was the best plan they had.
Rodney shot three people on the way inside. Two men, one woman, and each of them might have belonged to the group that had assaulted him and taken John. Each of them might have killed John, even, but still Rodney felt sick as they fell. Ronon dragged him forward and past them before Rodney could see if they were dead, but he suspected they were.
The worst thing was that, if John really was dead? Rodney thought he might go back and make sure they were, too.
John was alive, though. Not well - no one who'd been so obviously tortured for the last few days could be well - but alive, and Rodney's breath hitched as he rushed forward to untie John from the crude wooden chair, Ronon guarding the door.
"Took you so long?" John rasped, the corners of his mouth twitching up into a weak smile, like he didn't have a care in the world, and Rodney wanted to kiss him.
Oh, no. No, no, no, hit him, that's what Rodney wanted to do. Not the, the other thing.
… Crap.
~~~
Thing was, if you disregarded the simultaneously wanting two people and the utter impossibility of having them both, love really should be quite the simple matter. Rodney McKay loved, and he wanted someone to love him back. That couldn't be too much to ask, could it?
Except this too, of course, was far from being that simple. He loved Jennifer. Jennifer loved him. He was happy with her. And yet - God help him, for he obviously couldn't help himself - Rodney wanted John. He wanted to go to bed at night and wrap his arm around firm planes instead of soft curves. He wanted to press a kiss against stubble instead of smooth skin. He wanted to bury his nose in dark, unruly hair instead of fine, blonde strands.
The sheer unfairness of it almost made him want to cry. There had to be something completely, utterly wrong with him not to be satisfied with what he had, and maybe Jeannie had been right all the times she'd called him a selfish jerk. He didn't want to hurt Jennifer, didn't want to lose her, and yet…
And yet. Somehow, perhaps while he was still frantically looking for a friend and fully expecting to find a corpse, Rodney had realised that one smile from John - a real one that reached his eyes - was worth at least three of Jennifer's. Somehow, engineering the better paper plane had always been more important than unlocking a new part of the medical data base, and how he could have not noticed that was beyond him.
And the worst thing? Everyone but him was satisfied with things as they were. Jennifer was happy, John was at least content, and Rodney would rather stab himself with a rusty nail than make them miserable simply because he wanted what he couldn't have. That would be… it would be a betrayal of the worst kind, and he just couldn't do it.
It was entirely possible that he might have made the wrong decision when he'd chosen between John and Jennifer. But he had made it, and he'd stick with it.
~~~
"I think I made the wrong decision."
Rodney blinked. "Pardon?"
Jennifer made a face and clasped her hands in front of her belly. "That didn't come out right," she said, and Rodney had the sinking feeling that this was going to be a relationship talk.
"You know, I think I forgot to tell Radek how to shut off the," he inched toward the door, "the… thing. Experiment. I should-" he pointed over his shoulder.
"Rodney." Jennifer's voice was… strangely wobbly, and her face looked utterly miserable. She was meeting his gaze head-on, but her eyes were bright and she looked like she might start crying any moment.
Realisation came over Rodney like glacier water.
"Oh my god," he breathed, "you're breaking up with me."
Jennifer pressed her lips together and nodded jerkily.
"Yes," she said, and Rodney felt unaccountably hurt. Sure, she'd been his second choice, but that didn't mean he didn't love her. He wanted her, he did.
"But- I thought we were good together." He blinked and waved a hand between them. "I… weren't we good together?"
"No!" Jennifer said quickly, and Rodney gaped at her. She paled and held out her hands as if to ward him off. "I mean, yes, we were! But…" she trailed off, looking down at her feet. "I'm kind of in love with someone else."
Rodney opened his mouth, but all that came out was a strangled sound so he closed it again. Jennifer didn't seem to notice.
"I've been taking sparring lessons from Ronon," she told the floor, sad-faced even as her cheeks started to flush. "He's… I… we kissed."
She snuck a look at Rodney's face and blanched again at whatever she saw there. "No, not recently! Back during the quarantine, I mean, you were with Katie, right? And I was locked up with Ronon and somehow it happened and then he never did anything, so I thought…" She gestured helplessly.
"You thought you'd take the one who loved you back," Rodney rasped. Jennifer's shoulders sagged.
"Yeah," she sighed. "I did."
Rodney looked at her. She was beautiful, and smart, and funny, and she wasn't for him. It figured; every woman he'd ever dated had broken up with him, so in hindsight, expecting this would turn out any different had been naïve. And she looked so miserable, and Rodney had never wanted to hurt anyone, and the least he owed her was honesty.
"It's all right," he said. Then he amended, "Well, as all right as someone dumping me in favour of someone else can ever be. But it's all right, really. I, uh, I understand." At Jennifer's hopeful look, he added, "You should go and be with Ronon. He was your, your first choice." He raised his chin and waved his hand in what he hoped was a noble gesture. "I set you free."
They looked at each other silently for a while, Jennifer with a faint air of disbelief, then Rodney burst out, "I'm bad at this," pulling a face at how stupid that sounded.
"I love you, Rodney," Jennifer said gently, her eyes bright. "Just, I think, maybe not in the right way? You know?"
Rodney nodded jerkily, because yeah. He knew. Then he realised something and his eyes widened.
"Oh my god," he blurted, "you're dumping me for the fitness coach."
Jennifer gaped at him. Then she started to laugh.
~~~
All in all, it was the most amicable break-up in Rodney's experience. It felt… strange. He kissed Jennifer good-bye - on the cheek - and walked to his room. Except then he passed right by it and went to Ronon's room instead, brushing a sweaty hand across the chime.
Ronon opened after a moment, looking just as unperturbed as always in his tan leather outfit. If he was surprised to see Rodney on his doorstep, there was no telling of it.
"McKay," he said. And really, most of the time Rodney appreciated his succinctness, but right now he could have done with a little stalling. Well. Obviously, wanting things and getting them were two very different pairs of shoes. Like… army boots and high-heels or something like that.
Right.
Rodney took a deep breath and straightened to meet Ronon's gaze head-on. "Can I come in?" he asked, and his voice didn't shake one bit.
Ronon stepped aside, and Rodney went in.
~~~
"So you see, denying oneself one thing in favour of another, or because it's the prudent thing to do, is just betraying one's own, ah, feelings. As they are. And, and I'd like Jennifer to be happy, because I love her. And you. Um. That is, I want you to be happy. With Jennifer. I mean, not that I don't love you, in, you know, the way a friend feels about another friend, but… I mean… Obviously that's also the way I feel about Jennifer, only I didn't know it, and I think I can be forgiven for a certain, well, one would have to call it obliviousness, but it's not like this is easy, you know. Oh. I think you would know, wouldn't you. I mean, apparently you've been carrying a torch for her and Jennifer said you kissed her first, but I didn't know that, and if I, that is, if your feelings were hurt - inadvertently! - through any actions on my part, then I'm sorry. Yes, all right, don't look at me like that. In any case, what I meant to say is that you and Jennifer, you should be… you should be happy. Together."
"… Okay."
~~~
John nearly blew a gasket the first time he saw Ronon and Jennifer kiss, so Rodney grabbed his sleeve and dragged him away before he could say anything they'd all regret. It was a Sunday, but the pier was empty except for a few seagulls, if you could call anything with leathery wings and clawed feet a seagull.
"What the hell, Rodney?!" John snapped, all but snatching the offered beer bottle from Rodney's hand.
"I thought you knew!" Rodney defended himself, at the same time wondering what the hell he was defending himself for.
John had taken a deep swig and was now staring at Rodney incredulously. "That your girlfriend is cheating on you with your blessing?"
"What? No!" Rodney sputtered. "We broke up four days ago!"
"Four days!" John laughed. It wasn't a happy sound. "So what, now she's going straight for her second choice?"
"Seeing as how that second choice was me, I dare say no." Rodney raised his chin. "Jennifer is pursuing the one she should have been with all along."
John stared at him, slowly relaxing as he blew out his anger with a long breath. "Jesus, Rodney," he said, and the expression on his face wasn't one Rodney could read, "did she tell you that?"
"What?" Rodney frowned. "Of course she did." After all, why wouldn't she? Honesty was one of the pillars of any relationship.
"Jesus." John looked down at his bottle, his hand clenched around the neck so tight his knuckles were a stark white. "Look. I know it's none of my business, but you're not…" He huffed out a breath. "She had no right to say that."
Rodney snorted. "She did, as a matter of fact. I mean," he circled a hand as if he could encompass the concept of a mutual break-up for John, "it's not like she crushed my achy breaky heart or something."
It wasn't. It hurt, yes, but not as much as he'd expected, and not for the reasons he'd expected, either. Even the most blind of idiots could see that Jennifer was a lot happier with Ronon than she'd been with him - not that she hadn't been happy; it was just… a quieter sort of happy, maybe - and that Ronon was about one step from hugging the entire city. It was kind of cute. As for Rodney, he had to admit that he missed the closeness more than he missed Jennifer.
Well. And the sex.
"She didn't," John said disbelievingly, and right, he didn't know, couldn't know, but at the same time Jennifer didn't deserve to be blamed for this mess when Rodney had been the one who'd started it.
"I, uh…" Rodney watched his fingers play nervously with the neck of his own beer bottle, because it was easier than looking at John right then. "I went with my second choice, too." He swallowed. "I… I wasn't aware of it at the time, but that's what I did."
Beside him, John had gone so still he didn't even seem to breathe. Then he set his bottle down with a harsh clank and got to his feet so fast that Rodney would have gotten whiplash if he'd been looking at him.
He wasn't, though. Couldn't.
"You two are completely fucked up," John said finally, flatly, and turned away, leaving Rodney alone with the sea and his thoughts and four unopened bottles of beer.
He drank them all.
~~~
"What about your first choice?"
"Whuh?" Rodney struggled awake, blinking and squinting as if his mostly-dark room might magically light up just because he wanted it to. He turned his head, and blinked again as the shadowy figure kneeling beside his bed resolved itself into John Sheppard.
"Your first choice," John repeated impatiently, glaring down at Rodney as if he was being deliberately slow, "why didn't you go with her?"
Rodney looked up at John, face pale in the washed-out moonlight, eyes dark and unreadable.
"Didn't want me." Rodney's voice was still thick with sleep, and maybe it was a trick of the light that made John seem to flinch. He caught himself quickly, though.
"Who was it?" he wanted to know, and oh, no. No, no, no. They were not doing this. Not now, not ever.
"I don't see how that's any of your business," Rodney said stiffly. He knew John. John was one of those people who shied away from emotion like dogs from a bath, a necessary evil that nevertheless had to be avoided at all costs. Telling John he was in love with him wouldn't end their friendship, but it would turn so awkward so fast he might as well give it up as a lost cause right away.
"The name, Rodney."
Except John was also a stubborn bastard who wasn't going to let this go. And Rodney was tired, he'd very recently been broken-up with, and goddammit, he deserved a break. And if John wasn't going to grant him that much, Rodney really didn't see why John should get one. All right, fine. John wanted to know? Fine.
Rodney let out a huff and raised his chin as well as he could while still lying down. "It's you."
There was a long pause, then John asked, in a strangled voice, "What?"
"I… that is…" Rodney swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. He was wide awake now. "You, it's you." He took a deep breath and added, "It was always you."
In for a pound. Rodney waited.
John knelt by his bedside, so still that in the moonlight, he looked like an imperfect but striking statue. He was staring at Rodney in stunned silence, and Rodney could almost feel the galaxy rotating slowly around them. Finally, John blinked and let out a long, slow breath.
"Son of a bitch," he muttered, blinked again, and jumped to his feet so fast he nearly tripped, as if he couldn't get away from Rodney quickly enough. The doors closed quietly behind him, and Rodney lay alone in the darkness, staring up at the grey ceiling, heart pounding in his chest.
Then he sighed, switched on the bedside lamp and reached for his laptop. Might as well get some work done, as he doubted sleep was going to come again.
~~~
He didn't see John at all for the next two days. They had no missions, no shared briefings, and Rodney tried to convince himself that he was so busy he barely noticed John's absence at all. That John was so busy he didn't have time to swing by the labs or Rodney's room. That this wasn't exactly what he'd been afraid of.
He wasn't entirely successful, but the truly great thing about Atlantis was that he could always find something to distract himself with. So what if John wasn't talking to him? Rodney was a very important man who couldn't just abandon his position as a paragon of diligence simply because someone wanted to try out his new skateboard and needed an audience. He was perfectly fine doing the job he was paid for, thank you very-
The lab doors slid open and John rolled in like a thundercloud, grabbing Rodney's elbow and dragging him out before anyone could even blink.
"Hey! What do you think you're doing?"
John just pulled him into the nearest transporter, stabbing at the map. "We need to talk."
"What, now you want to talk?" Rodney tried to yank his elbow free, but John's grip tightened to the point of being painful. "Ow! What is wrong with you? For the last two days you avoid me like I was Typhoid Mary-"
"Typhoid Meredith, more like," John muttered.
"-and now you're suddenly abducting me in the middle of the-" Understanding hit Rodney like a wave of vertigo. "Oh my god," he breathed, "oh my god, oh my- Okay, look, whoever you are, just tell me what you did to Colonel Sheppard and I promise I won't-"
John rolled his eyes and whacked him over the head with his free hand. "Shut up, McKay, I'm not an alien."
"It's a reasonable assumption," Rodney sniffed, resigned as he let himself be dragged down the hall. The door to John's quarters hissed open and they walked inside. John finally let go.
Rodney glared at him and rubbed his elbow, but he'd barely opened his mouth to complain when John rounded on him.
"I can't believe you dated Keller when you didn't love her!" His face was pale, small ovals of pink high on his cheeks.
Rodney's mouth fell open. "What, of course I loved her!" he refuted, with the indignation of the unjustly accused.
"You said you wanted me!" John pointed a finger at him, accusation in every tense line of his body. "Or did you change your mind on that, too?" His voice was rough, harsh, brimming with emotion, except Rodney had no clue what emotion that was.
"No! I love you both!" Rodney threw up his hands in frustration, pacing the small room. "And yes, I realise that the likelihood of both of you wanting me back is infinitesimal, but I really don't need you to rub it in that neither you nor Jennifer feel..." his voice broke, and he hated it for that treachery, "feel that way… about me."
Just like that, all the fight seemed to run out of John. He started to run a hand through his hair, aborted the motion halfway through, grimaced and finally shrugged. "Wouldn't say neither," he mumbled, scrubbing his face.
For a brief moment, Rodney thought he was going to have a coronary.
"You… you told me to go get the girl!" he yelled. "Don't tell me that was you being all noble and self-sacrificing again!" Looking at John's pained expression, Rodney let out a sharp bark of laughter. "It was! I can't believe- What, were you going to take this into your grave?"
John licked his lips before pressing them together and looking at the far wall, hands clasped behind his back and feet slightly apart like a good little soldier. The only sign that this was affecting him at all was the way his chest was rising and falling rapidly, like he was struggling to breathe.
"You were," Rodney said. His voice was almost toneless; his chest felt empty. Hollow. "You were… Jesus, you were going to be the best man, weren't you? You were going to be Uncle John and everyone would have loved you and no one would have known-" he broke off as his knees gave way without warning and he sat down hard on John's bed. "I never would have known," he breathed, the truth of it so huge it was near-incomprehensible.
John was still standing at parade rest, but his eyes were bright. He bit his lip, cleared his throat. "You didn't say anything, either." His voice was hoarse.
Rodney stared up at him from the bed, at the whole… John-ness of him. Dark clothes, messy hair, long torso, short legs… the pale skin around his right wrist, the dark hair on his arms… the way he stood utterly still when Rodney would be wringing his hands. Forty-one years old, military commander of humanity's remotest outpost, superficially attractive and completely messed up on the inside. John.
John.
He sighed. "Do you need me to tell you how you'll always be my first choice?"
John's lips twitched as he shifted his weight. "Nah. That'd be cheesy."
Rodney thought he should maybe say something else, but for once he didn't have the slightest idea what. He just looked at John, and John looked at him, and it seemed like Rodney had just blinked, just once, but suddenly John wasn't standing at parade rest across the room anymore. John was kneeling in front of the bed, in front of Rodney, reaching for his hand and clasping it so tightly it hurt as he leaned forward.
There was a moment, one brief moment, when Rodney's heart was hammering so fast he was certain he'd pass out before his lips even touched John's. John seemed equally freaked out, one second from bolting, but as the last four years had shown John Sheppard was nothing if not brave.
Kissing him was nothing like kissing Jennifer. It seemed both new and familiar, both huge and small. Rodney knew John's body; he'd dragged it, held it, been dragged and held in return; he'd been protected by it; he'd breathed in its scent. Kissing those lips was just one tiny detail, and it predominated everything, until all Rodney could hear was the blood in his ears and John's breath; until all he could feel was his heartbeat, his rapid breathing, and John's warmth. John's lips were soft, strangely hesitant, and Rodney knew that he could lose himself in this, just kissing, and never find his way back.
The thought didn't scare him at all.
~~~
It turned out that love was, in fact, as simple as making John smile that private smile, the one where his eyes went soft and the corners of his mouth turned just a little bit upward, barely enough to call his expression a smile at all. The one that Rodney got to see more and more frequently these days.
As a scientist - as a genius - Rodney was good at figuring things out.
One just had to observe.
*