TEAM ROMANCE: Blue Moon, "Up to and Including the Blue Moon Ball"
Title: Up to and Including the Blue Moon Ball
Author: torakowalski ( interview)
Team: Romance
Prompt: Blue Moon
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Rating: Hard R
Warnings: slight spoilers for various episodes up to and including 3x19 Vengeance
Summary: "You are being ridiculous," Teyla said sternly. "The Blue Moon Ball is a wonderful opportunity to be reunited with old friends and to celebrate our continued survival against the Wraith." "Yes," Rodney said under his breath. "Not being dead: an excellent reason to make ourselves wish we were."
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**
Up to and Including the Blue Moon Ball
Forty-Two Days
Rodney’s first clue that it was That Time again was a fairly innocent one, innocent enough that Rodney, busy with things that actually mattered, didn’t realise it was a clue until a while later.
He emerged from a long, frustratingly useless day of searching the database for, oh, anything worthwhile and realised that he hadn’t seen Elizabeth, John, Lorne, or Teyla all day.
It wasn’t as if he’d suddenly had a personality transplant and started needing other people in any way, of course, but he’d gotten used to constant interruptions and it was disconcerting when they didn’t come at the expected times with the expected assortment of slouches, smiles and food-related bribery.
If there was one person who’d know what was going on it would be Chuck, so Rodney went up to the control room to ask - not that he cared obviously, he was just idly interested.
“Yeah,” Chuck said, tilting back on his chair to look up at Rodney and simultaneously putting his coffee cup down on impossibly delicate Ancient crystals; the only reason Rodney didn’t have a fit about that was that he was momentarily distracted. “They’ve been in Dr Weir’s office all day.” He hitched a thumb over his shoulder, pointing, presumably just in case Rodney had forgotten when Elizabeth’s office was.
“All day?” Rodney repeated, now definitely curious. “What for?”
Chuck smiled a bland smile. “Sorry, Dr McKay, sworn to secrecy.”
Rodney narrowed his eyes. He’d call Chuck a frustratingly annoying little sycophant except he was Canadian, so he couldn’t possibly be; Rodney decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he was just a little overly efficient.
So they’d been in a meeting all day, a top secret one that he hadn’t been invited to; Rodney thought about being offended then remembered how much he hated meetings and decided instead to snag a second dinner from the mess while everyone else was occupied.
John and Teyla found him there a half hour later -- Ronon and Stackhouse were having a cracker-eating contest in one corner and despite Rodney’s better judgement and incredibly busy schedule, he’d gotten distracted.
Teyla looked happy when she sat down, buoyant even, while John looked faintly homicidal.
“What’s wrong with you?” Rodney asked around a mouthful of pudding, squinting at John through his happy, chocolate-induced haze. “Elizabeth tell you you’re not allowed to make anything go boom this week?”
“Blue Moon,” John said cryptically, but it was enough - Rodney felt his eyes go wide with horror.
“No,” he said, “It can’t be. Not again so soon.”
John merely nodded, slow and grave.
Teyla rolled her eyes. “You are being ridiculous,” she said sternly. “The Blue Moon Ball is a wonderful opportunity to be reunited with old friends and to celebrate our continued survival against the Wraith.”
“Yes,” Rodney said under his breath. “Not being dead: an excellent reason to make ourselves wish we were.”
John snorted into his bolognese; Teyla continued to look disapproving.
The Blue Moon Ball (so named by Cadman after the frequency with which they actually managed to host one) had, unsurprisingly, been Elizabeth’s idea. She’d thought it would be an excellent way to maintain connections with their allies and a bit of fun for the Atlantis personnel. None of the senior staff had had the heart to tell her that none of their allies liked them all that much or that most of the staff got more fun on an average Saturday evening in Greenhouse Six.
The first ball had descended into chaos when someone let slip that oh yeah, it was kind of their fault that the Wraith had woken up early; the second never got started due to everyone in the galaxy having to think Atlantis was destroyed, and planning for the third was interrupted by seriously pissy Ancients and spoiled-brat Replicators. And now, apparently, they were trying again; Rodney had to give Elizabeth points for determination.
A couple of tables over, a cracker-related event caused Ronon to tumble off his chair amid delighted laughter. Teyla shook her head and got up, pushing her way through the crowd, presumably to check Ronon hadn’t impaled himself on one of his hair-knives or anything.
John half rose from his chair, looking curious, but Rodney stopped him with a hand on his arm.
“We could run away,” he suggested in an urgent whisper. “Come back after the ball. With your sense of direction, no one would know where we’d gone, not even us.”
John flicked pudding into Rodney’s face, which Rodney, regretfully, decided to take as a no.
*
Twenty-Seven Days
“Gentlemen,” Elizabeth said, leaning back in her chair and smiling in that way that Rodney’s teachers used to smile when they thought they were giving him a treat, the sort of treat that usually ended in sunburn, mosquitoes or trips to the emergency room, “In addition to our regular missions, we also have the task of issuing invitations to our ball.” She pulled a chart towards herself. “Who would like to go where?”
Because they were all, it turned out, very cowardly intergalactic explorers, everyone shuffled their chairs back one space.
Rodney rolled his eyes. “Fine, fine,” he said, clicking his fingers in Elizabeth’s direction. “Give me the list; is that it? I’ll soon assign someone to every-” He was stopped by Elizabeth’s soft Rodney and Ronon’s booming McKay. Rodney jumped. “What?”
John held out his hand for the sheaf of paper that Elizabeth was still clutching protectively. “How about I do it, huh?”
It wasn’t that Rodney wanted to have any part in this insanity, but he was always being reprimanded for a lack of participation; they could at least appreciate him when he finally did try to help out. “I assure you, Colonel, I am perfectly capable of-”
“Rodney,” John said, the corner of his lip twitching. “You know you won’t be able to stop yourself sending Kavanagh to every planet on that list until someone ends up killing him.”
“Well,” Rodney started to protest, except it was a semi-valid point. “Okay, fine.” He folded his arms. “You do it.”
John’s only answer was a smirk.
*
They sent Radek back to M7G 677.
(This time he came home in a fetching, all-over shade of violet.
“This is your fault,” he hissed at Rodney, purple lips curled back in a snarl, purple hair standing up all over.
“Oh it is not,” Rodney snapped, trying to keep his mouth from wobbling. “Sheppard sent you.”
Radek’s purple hands flexed, claw-like, in Rodney’s direction. “Colonel Sheppard is not a cruel man, just a crazy one. He sent me back to those children of Satan in order to make you laugh. Therefore this is your fault and I will make you pay.”
With that dire warning, he spun around and stalked off, leaving a trail of purple glitter in his wake and Rodney to possibly strain something laughing.)
Gateteam Two went to see the Genii - the New Genii? The Free Genii? Rodney couldn’t remember, Ladon Radim’s Genii anyway.
(Lorne came back with an arrow in his shoulder.
“I thought they liked us this month?” John asked, trailing along beside the gurney as Lorne was led to the infirmary.
“Oh they’re coming, sir,” Lorne said, blood seeping out from between his fingers. “They just still don’t like me very much.”)
No one wanted to go to Hoth and John, apparently experiencing a fit of insanity, said his team would go.
(They stayed just long enough to see that there was no one left there to invite.)
*
Fifteen Days
PG7-HB4 was another of those planets where the village was kilometres from the ‘gate and John refused to bring the ‘jumper, claiming the walk would do them all good. It was on the endless walk back that Teyla asked, “Rodney, why have you yet to invite Dr Brown to the ball?”
Rodney, who’d been lost in contemplation of why exactly the Ancients had terraformed every planet to look the same as every other and to house the same annoyingly persistent bugs, jumped. “What? I’m not supposed to do that, am I?” He narrowed his eyes. “How do you know I haven’t?”
Teyla smiled blandly. “Girls’ poker night.”
A collective shudder ran through the rest of her team.
“I’m supposed to invite her?” Rodney repeated, just to make sure. He’d assumed that they’d just bump into each other. “She’s going anyway.”
Teyla shook her head, but surprisingly it was Ronon who answered. “You gotta ask her, McKay. Girls like to be asked.”
“Oh, really, so you’ve invited someone then?” Rodney snapped.
Ronon’s eyes darted to Teyla and away, not quite quick enough that no one noticed but fast enough that they could pretend they hadn’t. “No,” he rumbled.
“Then I’ll take your advice with a pinch of salt.” Rodney turned to John, who weirdly hadn’t said a word; he was normally first in line to tease Rodney about anything personal. “Colonel?”
“Yeah, Rodney, invite her,” John said shortly, sounding distracted. He quickened his pace. “C’mon gang, we don’t want to miss dinner, meatloaf tonight.”
“You hate meatloaf,” Rodney protested, but John was already steaming ahead.
*
Thirteen Days
Rodney invited Katie to the ball. She smiled and hugged him.
“Oh, Rodney,” she said, smiling happily. “I’d love to.” And then she kissed him.
Well Rodney thought, a little dazed, That’s gotten easier since junior high.
*
Five Days
Of course, it didn’t last.
Their afternoon mission - regular, not ball-related - was cancelled for reasons Rodney wasn’t particularly interested in so Rodney, having discovered years ago that the proper art of bowtie construction would forever elude him and feeling that he really should learn this year, what with his having a date and all, dragged John off for a lesson. It wasn’t going well.
“It’s no good,” Rodney said, tugging at the tight knot of black fabric around his throat. It seemed to grow tighter and he widened his eyes desperately at John in the mirror.
John laughed and got up from Rodney’s bed, coming to stand behind Rodney, deftly unknotting the bowtie and letting it hang loose around Rodney’s neck.
John’s long fingers brushed his chin as he took hold of the two strands of tie. “It’s really not that hard, McKay,” he said. “Just like this.” A twist, a flick, a tug and Rodney was wearing a perfectly neat and knotted tie.
“Hmm,” Rodney said, flicking it. It was infuriating that he couldn’t learn this; it was simple mathematics for goodness sake. “How come you know how? Or is it something the Air Force requires for arcane reasons of its own?”
“My roommate at college,” John said, “He could never get the hang of it either.”
Rodney’s ears pricked up.
When John spoke about college - which wasn’t often - each of his roommates were discussed with different levels of exasperation or fondness. Rodney had learned to identify this one, the one John was talking about now, by the careful neutrality John used and the very slight hesitation before the word “roommate”, the place where “boyfriend” was supposed to go, but couldn’t.
Rodney wasn’t sure if John remembered telling him how much more than a roommate this guy had been - there’d been a lot of alcohol involved - but he was willing to bet he did: John guarded his past jealously, he didn’t just let things slip, no matter how much Athosian rum was involved.
Rodney couldn’t help imagining it: nineteen-year-old John, gangly, probably hadn’t learned how to control his hair yet, standing behind some faceless college boy like he was now standing behind Rodney. Maybe he’d pressed closer, skinny hips against the guy’s ass.
John’s hands were long and slender, almost too elegant to be continually wrapped around guns and throttles and bantos rods and every now and then they brushed against Rodney’s collar. Rodney wondered if they’d moved lower on that boy in college, brushed a chest, slipped between shirt buttons, touched burgeoning chest hair
Rodney shivered, confused by his own daydreams. John’s sexuality had been an open secret between them for years, but Rodney had never thought about it like this before, as something stark and real. Of course, John had never been this far into his space for this long before either. Rodney shook his head at himself; that had to be why he was thinking about it now.
Coming back from his distraction, Rodney realised that at some point John had replaced his own hands with Rodney’s and that Rodney’s fingers, completely independent from his brain, had finally created the perfect bow.
“Ha!” he crowed, pleased by the achievement and distracted from peculiar thoughts of John’s hands.
John grinned, clapped him on the back. “Well done, buddy.” He deftly untied it again. “Now try again.”
“Oh f-” Rodney huffed, then stopped abruptly. “I nearly said ‘for crying out loud’” he said, watching his own eyes grow round and horrified. John’s grin broke into a full-out laugh.
Ten minutes later, they were still practising, growing a bit silly with the monotony, John bumping Rodney’s arms to deliberately set him off course, Rodney slapping at John’s hands when they tried to help.
They were laughing when Rodney’s doorbell chimed and, distracted, he called “Come in” without checking who was there, which was something he’d learned never to do since acquiring minions who liked to interrupt his very brief downtime with their blinding stupidity.
“Oh,” was the first thing Katie said, stopping just inside the doorway, frowning at the two of them, crowded close around the mirror.
“Katie,” Rodney said, turning towards her, in a good enough mood that his stomach didn’t fill with its usual anticipatory butterflies. “Come in, Colonel Sheppard has been-” He interrupted himself. “Is everything okay?”
She looked nervous, hands knotting together. Rodney noticed absently that John took one step away from him for every one that Katie took toward him.
“I’d better be going,” John said, voice fakely-casual. He smiled at Rodney, nodded at Katie. “Dr Brown.”
But, to Rodney’s surprise, Katie reached out and stopped John, her hand impossibly tiny and impressively soil-stained against John’s broad, hairy forearm. “Please, Colonel,” she said, “There’s no need to leave, this will only take a minute.”
So John frowned, but sidled over to Rodney’s desk chair rather than leaving; Rodney grew a little more worried and oh, there were those butterflies.
Katie turned towards him. “Rodney, I’m sorry, but I can’t come to the ball with you.” She said it breathily, all in a rush. Her lower lip turned white when she pressed her front teeth into it. Her teeth were neat and tiny and she used them too much during blowjobs and that wasn’t what Rodney should be thinking about now. “You’re a lovely man,” Katie was saying, “But Karl asked me and, well, I think he and I might be more suited than you and I.” Something about the way she emphasised suited seemed to assume that Rodney would know what she meant; he didn’t.
“I see,” Rodney said. He didn’t really know what else to say, at least two-thirds of the seven percent of brain function that he sacrificed to social interaction seemed to be sorting through botany-related mug shots (leaf-framed and gormless in his mind’s eye) trying to work out who “Karl” could be.
With another flurry of soft, sad words Katie left, looking miserable but accomplished. Rodney blinked after her then turned to John, who was standing pressed into a far corner, looking awkward. “Did she just break up with me?” he asked.
John winced a little. “Yeah, buddy, I think she did.”
“Oh.” There wasn’t really a lot more that Rodney could think to say to that. “Huh.”
John took two steps towards him, looking like he’d really much rather they were taking him further away and squeezed his arm. “Hey.”
When Rodney looked up at him, John looked concerned. “Oh,” he said again, in a totally different tone. “Oh. No. I’m fine. I just… she really broke up with me. Huh.”
And he was fine. It was a shame, he’d liked Katie, but at the same, he couldn’t help feeling a tiny shiver of relief. Having to think about Katie, Katie’s needs, Katie’s wants and wishes had been really very tiring, and she’d had this silent way of making Rodney feel guilty for wanting to spend time with John and the team - Rodney had never met anyone he voluntarily wanted to spend his spare time with before coming to Atlantis and he hadn’t wanted to have to give that up.
Then, a terrible realisation crossed his mind. “Who can I take to the ball now?”
John blinked. Rodney felt a little exasperated; John should have been used to the lightning turns of his mind by now. “You’ll just have to go stag, I guess.” A raised eyebrow. “I am.”
Rodney frowned. “You are?”
“Sure.” John shrugged. “Why not.”
Because the average woman on this base would give up three months of pay to go with you, Rodney thought but didn’t say - the number was accurate, though; Simpson and Kusanagi had done a survey.
“Well, you can come stag with me then,” Rodney said instead.
The blinking thing happened again, only this time when it was over no sound came out of John’s open mouth.
“Yes,” Rodney blustered on, happy with his new plan. “The majority of people going are alive because of me; if I go unaccompanied I’ll look… well, it isn’t a fitting look for a hero.”
“McKay,” John said, sounding kind of pained.
“Oh, okay.” Rodney waved a hand. “So not the majority of people, but I’ve definitely saved at least half of-” He stopped when he saw the look on John’s face. “Oh. That’s not what you were objecting to.”
“Not so much no,” John said, managing to drawl in a strangled sort of way, which Rodney was part impressed and part horrified by.
Rodney rolled his eyes. “Come on, Colonel. You won’t have to buy me a corsage, you won’t even have to pick me up, and there will most certainly be no requirement that you put out. Oh but you can glare menacingly at anyone who looks like they want to abduct me for my brain.” That was a happy little bonus; Katie would have looked a bit silly doing that.
John’s lip curled up, just slightly at one corner. “What if they want to steal you for your body?”
Rodney smiled, feeling a flush of satisfaction; John was going to say yes. “Check if they’re hot first,” he decided.
John laughed. “Okay, Rodney, sure.” He turned to go then paused in the doorway. “And Rodney? I’ll pick you up at 18:00, can’t have your momma thinking I’m a bad date.”
Rodney was still looking around for something to throw at him, when the door slid closed.
*
Three Days
It seemed like no one could produce a sentence that wasn’t in some way related to the ball. Rodney started banning people from the labs for excessive giggling (Miko), discussing hair-grooming tips (Kavanagh) and shooting him side-ways, heard-you-are-taking-Sheppard glances (Radek). Unfortunately, they all kept coming back.
Normally, Rodney could rely on at least one member of his team per meal coming into the labs and reminding him to eat, but lately everyone had been roped into various pointless (in that they wouldn’t help defend anyone against attack by anything worse than a soufflé) activities, and he ended up going to lunch with Radek.
They passed through the line and started looking for somewhere to sit. Radek nudged his arm and nodded to the far side of the room, expression of evil glee spreading over his face. Curious, Rodney followed.
They stopped beside a corner table, where Lorne was sitting, pouring over what looked like a large seating plan.
“Good afternoon, Major,” Radek said cheerily and sat himself and his tray down on the table, just catching the corner of Lorne’s plan.
Lorne narrowed his eyes for a moment then spread a look of affable welcome across his face - it was more than a little creepy. “Docs.”
“Is seating plan for tomorrow, yes?” Radek asked. Lorne’s eyes flared wide, his face losing all colour before slowly regaining it when Radek tsked at himself and said, “Oh, sorry, sorry, I mean for day after tomorrow, of course.”
Rodney smiled into his mashed potatoes; Radek was an evil little bastard.
“Yeah,” Lorne said, just a little hoarsely. “Didn’t know so many people were coming.”
Radek’s expression was grave and sympathetic and, to anyone who knew him well, completely fake. “Yes and seating plan is so important. My Aunt Svetlana who was caterer once organised reception for the government. It is rumoured she did not pay sufficient attention to seating plan and, well, three days later was Pražské jaro, uh Prague Spring.”
Lorne blanched and Radek bit into a sausage happily.
Two minutes later, John joined them. There was dust in his hair, but Rodney decided he didn’t want to know.
“Hey, guys,” John said, taking the seat beside Lorne and leaning into his space.
In a move that could almost have been accidental, Lorne twitched his plan out of John’s direct line of sight. John tipped his chair over onto two legs and used his extra height to crane over Lorne’s shoulder.
“Hmm,” John said.
Rodney bit his lip hard and told himself he wasn’t amused.
“Yes, sir?” Lorne asked in that annoyed yet tolerant tone that Rodney had noticed all John’s subordinates used around him - when they spoke to Rodney, there was always a lot more annoyance and a lot less tolerance.
John held up a hand. “Nothing, Major, you’re doing great.”
Lorne narrowed his eyes, but John continued to look guileless. “What? Sir.”
“Well,” John drawled, making it look like whatever he was going to say pained him. “It’s just you’ve put the representatives from Uniq and Tant next to each other at dinner and I don’t like to think what might happen if they find out we’ve been buying tava beans from them both.” He paused. “Big weapons.”
Lorne blinked at him. Then he swore - that was impressive, John had never driven him to cursing before. “Excuse me,” he said, grabbing up his chart and fleeing.
John dropped his chair back to four legs and smiled contentedly at Lorne’s abandoned tray. He scraped Lorne’s fries onto his own plate and passed the pudding cup over to Rodney, his smile changing shape in some unidentifiable way when Rodney thanked him.
Radek was laughing, shaking his head. “You are an evil man, Colonel. Was that true?”
“Sure,” John said. “I may have forgotten to mention that their big weapons are kind of like scythes.” He tipped his head thoughtfully. “Guess they’d still be plenty painful though.”
He dunked one of Lorne’s chips into the ketchup, leaned back and smiled. He looked tired but content and Rodney wanted to laugh at him but ended up smiling with him instead.
*
The Day Before
A little, blue-clad man from P4P CA5 (or Planet Greenhouse as Ford had called it) came through the ‘gate carrying something almost but not entirely unlike a clipboard.
He got the nearest Marine to sign it then pressed a little clicker on his belt; ten seconds later a troop of similarly blue-clad men came through, carrying between them the hugest shipment of flowers, potted plants, and foliage that Rodney had ever seen.
Elizabeth wasn’t anywhere to be found, was off doing… well, Rodney didn’t know what but it probably involved plotting ways to make his life even more miserable and floral-scented, so they directed the flower-people up the steps to Chuck’s platform.
Pretty soon, all that could be seen of Chuck was the ethereal (yet patriotic) glow of his maple leaf screen-saver and a mug-holding hand searching plaintively for coffee from amongst the aspidistras.
*
Blue Moon Ball
Rodney’s doorbell rang at 17:59. One of only two good things, in Rodney’s opinion, that the Air Force had taught John was punctuality - the other, obviously, was the ability to save Rodney’s life.
“Hey, Rodney,” John said, coming in and looking around. “D’you need any help with your-” He stopped short, almost like he was choking and Rodney looked up, confused. “Bowtie,” John finished a little hoarsely, still looking at Rodney like he’d suddenly turned into a Wraith.
“What?” Rodney demanded, hastily checking his reflection. He looked okay, he thought, a fine figure of a scientist in his dark suit, crisp white shirt and, yes, perfectly knotted bowtie. And, okay, maybe he didn’t look as dapper as John in his Air Force blues, but then, really, who did? There was still no reason for the staring.
John cleared his throat. “Looking good, McKay,” he said lightly. “You ready?”
Rodney swung his arms, feeling a little nervous, a little self-conscious about the way John was still looking at him. “Ready.”
They’d been banned from the gateroom since breakfast and, entering now, amidst a gentle swarm of nicely-dressed people, Rodney could see why. It was almost unrecognisable. Whoever had done the decorating had taken Atlantis’ natural blues and greens and silvers and transformed them into a shimmering, glittering, glossy marvel.
“Wow,” John said, looking all around.
“Yeah,” Rodney agreed, glancing a look at John and startling a little at the way the sparkly silver lighting caught and held on the handful of silver in his hair; it made him look otherworldly, like there was no where else he could possibly be but in a floating, alien city.
“Wonder where they got the fancy streamers,” John mused, nodding at the rows of tiny beads around the walls.
“I was more curious about the balloons,” Rodney said. “Must have been the Daedalus.”
John laughed. “Bet Caldwell loved that.”
“Ask him,” Rodney suggested, nodding to the other side of the hall, where Caldwell was standing by the drinks table, looking strangely stifled in his uniform. Novak had him cornered, chattering away and apparently oblivious to the hunted animal look around the corners of Caldwell’s eyes.
“Yeah,” John drawled, “I don’t think so.”
Rodney laughed. “Coward.”
“Oh you bet,” John agreed easily. He caught Rodney’s elbow and tugged him towards the other side of the room.
Rodney followed, glad to be moving away from where Elizabeth was standing, no doubt lying in wait to harangue them into socialising. He grabbed two flutes of champagne from a passing waiter, doing a double-take when the waiter turned out to be Jinto; he wondered what SGC rules were about child labour.
John had found an empty space near one of the balconies; it was out of the way, but still visible, so they looked like they were taking part while still being too far for most people to bother coming over. It was the sort of position that John always favoured at these kinds of events and the first few times that had surprised Rodney. John wasn’t exactly wallflower material; he could be charming, normally knew what to say. It had taken Rodney a long time to work out that just because John was good at it, didn’t mean he enjoyed it.
“Here,” Rodney said, pressing one of the flutes on John. “Might make the time pass quicker.”
John had his back pressed to the wall, hips slightly out, a picture of relaxation except for the way his fingers tightened around the flute stem and the long swallow he took of cheap, SGC-provided champagne. “You know, Rodney,” he said, “You should relax. You never know, you might have fun.”
“Says the man hiding in the corner,” Rodney countered.
John grinned and raised his glass.
Rodney was just about to do the same when a big hand smacked him between the shoulder blades and another hand came around to steal his glass. Rodney squawked, but Ronon, looking disturbingly good in what had to be the Satedan version of a tailored tux, just grinned at him.
“Saw you skulking over here,” he told them, downing Rodney’s champagne in one long swallow and rolling the glass back and forth like he wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. Rodney could only hope he didn’t try to store it in his hair while he decided.
“We’re hardly skulking,” Rodney scoffed. “We’re surveying.”
Ronon raised his eyebrows and looked meaningfully over Rodney’s shoulder where all the action was taking place.
Rodney scowled. “I have eyes in the back of my head,” he snapped.
John laughed and Ronon grinned. “Now that I believe,” he said and grabbed another glass of champagne for Rodney, forcing it on him when he started to splutter.
“Seen Teyla?” Ronon asked a couple of minutes later. He sounded sort of glum.
“No?” John asked.
Ronon nodded to the far side of the room and, turning, Rodney saw a few couples had started dancing. It was easy to understand Ronon’s depression; Teyla had discarded her usual coat-of-many-colours Athosian partywear and squeezed herself into something filmy, clingy and rather sparse. She was dancing, fast and sticky, with someone she’d once introduced as a “friend of her father” and who looked much more like he’d rather be a friend of hers.
“God,” Rodney groaned, voice pitched so that - hopefully - only John could hear him. “We have the hottest team ever.”
John glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, smiling slightly, almost privately. “Yeah,” he agreed.
*
There was only so long that Atlantis’ Head Scientist and Military Commander were going to be allowed to shirk their responsibilities. Unfortunately for them, Elizabeth’s interpretation of that that time was a lot shorter than theirs.
“Gentleman,” she said, appearing out of nowhere like an avenging angel in a dark red dress.
Uh oh, Rodney thought, Sprung, followed swiftly by I have got to stop spending so much time with Sheppard.
“Hey, Elizabeth,” John drawled, giving her his best slow smile.
The thing about Elizabeth that ensured Rodney’s continued respect was that she no longer fell for that smile. “Hello, John,” she said dryly. “Take yourself over to the refreshments table, please. There’s a visitor from Proculus who’s eager to see you again.”
Something painful and mean squirmed in Rodney’s belly, an evil something that was almost satisfied by the look of pale horror on John’s face.
“Uh, Elizabeth,” John said slowly. “I’m not sure that’s such a great idea; I never called her.”
Rodney watched Elizabeth’s lip twitch.
“John,” she said with exaggerated patience. “She’s an Ancient, I don’t really think she had to wait for your call.”
John’s expression suggested this wasn’t exactly reassuring, but he sloped off towards Chaya anyway like a good little soldier. Rodney’s stomach squirmed again and he covered it with a smirk at John’s retreating back, a smirk which faded and died when Elizabeth’s attention switched to him.
“No,” he said pre-emptively. The only person they’d met offworld (who was not currently on his team, anyway) that he was even slightly interested in seeing again was Noreena and Michael had ensured that that would never happen.
“Do you remember the Argase, Rodney?” Elizabeth asked sweetly. “Their Chief Scientist certainly remembers you; he seems most anxious to speak to you.”
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding,” Rodney groaned. He remembered the scientist from Argas all right, assuming “scientist” was used in the loosest way possible. A small, squirrelly man who, with his belief that rodents were the most powerful force in the galaxy and the key to defeating the Wraith, was either the reincarnation of Douglas Adams or totally cracked. Or quite possibly both.
Elizabeth raised her eyebrows at him meaningfully.
“Oh, fine,” he huffed. “But if he tells me one more time that the mice are just biding their time before saving us all, I can’t promise to be polite.”
Elizabeth nodded solemnly. “I know I can only ask so much, Rodney.”
*
As it turned out, the crazy Argase scientist had now turned his attention to frogs; Rodney thought the mice must be mightily relieved.
It took Rodney nearly twenty minutes to get away from him and even then it wasn’t so much “getting away” as it was grab Radek and hope the crazy man didn’t notice the substitution.
Still feeling a little dazed, Rodney wandered back into the general melee. He spotted Cadman in the middle of the dance-floor, throwing her hair about, looking like she was having the time of her life; Lorne doing a passable imitation of someone with rhythm; Parrish, near him, was doing a much less successful imitation of a bipedal animal. Ronon had gotten Teyla back from her suitor - Rodney wondered if it had involved bloodshed - and had her pressed against one of the pillars, doing some kind of bump and grind that was almost too hot to watch.
There was no sign of Katie or her mysterious “Karl”, which Rodney was glad of; he’d prefer his rival remain unidentifiable so no one could claim prejudice the next time Rodney cut resources from the botany department.
His search was interrupted by the dinner gong - and Rodney wasn’t going to think about the fact that, yes, they had a dinner gong - and Elizabeth was taking Chuck’s arm and leading the way into the mess.
Again, Atlantis looked like they’d let an interior decorator lose on her. It was beautiful, but something felt wrong, unnatural, Atlantis just hovering on the brink of looking cheap, too made up, her own natural beauty dampened. The slightly pinched look Rodney had noticed around John’s eyes since they arrived tonight, the way he kept gently, almost unconsciously brushing the walls, suggested he felt the same.
Lorne had seated Rodney at the top table, which was of course where he belonged. Rodney was just pouring himself some water from the pitcher - lemon-free, he had absolutely no doubt; it had taken three years but he’d finally come to trust the kitchen staff - when John slipped into the chair beside him.
“Hey,” he said brightly. He had the flushed, slightly hunted look that Rodney recognised from many hurried runs to the ‘gate pursued by overly-amorous girls; it looked like Chaya hadn’t given up her quest to get into his pants.
Rodney frowned at him. The rest of the table was arranged in a disgustingly hetero-normative boy-girl pattern.
“Yeah,” John said. “Apparently Lorne doesn’t like to be teased when he’s stressed.”
Rodney rolled his eyes and pretended he wasn’t pleased; John was bound to be more fun to sit with than any of the other options gathered here tonight, better even than Katie, who would have required small-talk and subtle flattery, neither of which came naturally to Rodney.
After dinner, which even Rodney had to admit was excellent, there were speeches; Rodney didn’t try to hold in a groan.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” Elizabeth began, standing at the head of Rodney’s table. Rodney immediately tuned her out, tried in fact to tune out all the world, counting down the minutes until he could reasonably escape. It was working well until John smacked him in the arm.
Ow, Rodney mouthed pointedly.
John just grinned and indicated the other side of the table with his eyebrows. John was the only person Rodney knew whose eyebrows could convey direction. On the other side of the table was an old man - an old, Genii man, according to his uniform - who had fallen asleep, his head lolling dangerously near the shoulder of the woman beside him.
It was the kind of thing John was bound to find hilarious and, sure enough, he was grinning broadly.
Rodney rolled his eyes.
John just grinned wider and poked his thigh.
Rodney poked back.
Things pretty quickly and predictably descended into a silent yet deadly poking war, hidden away below the table.
He felt John shake before a soft laugh broke through. Elizabeth stopped whatever she was saying and John turned his laugh into an unconvincing cough, grabbing Rodney’s hand to still it, looking contrite.
Elizabeth glared at them both then carried on with her speech.
John waited a beat then looked at Rodney. John’s cheeks were flushed from the wine, his ridiculously pink and girly lips stretched against a laugh, trying to keep it in.
In a moment of what had to be ball-induced insanity, Rodney couldn’t help thinking what a shame it was that John wasn’t Katie; Rodney would have known how to compliment him, would have been able to tell him he was beautiful and mean every word. Not that Rodney would say that, not ever, but he’d have been able to.
Something must have been off in his expression because John was frowning, looking confused, eyes growing wide, wide and… hopeful?
What’s going on? Rodney wanted to ask, which was something he very rarely if ever wanted or needed to ask; normally he was the one answering that question. John’s hand was still over his and feeling surprised, out of his depth, he jerked away, not really thinking about what he was doing until he saw the wash of hurt pass across John’s face, swift then gone.
And then, because the universe probably enjoyed keeping Rodney confused and off-balance, people started to push their chairs back, the usual scrape thankfully muted by Atlantis’ flooring.
John moved quickly, making as if to stand, but Rodney grabbed his arm, pulled him back down.
There were a lot of things that Rodney had let go over the years: the way John looked at him sometimes, hints other people had dropped, but holding hands under the table, even for just a minute, was much harder to dismiss.
“Colonel,” Rodney said quickly, conscious of the fact that people were going to want to start clearing the tables away any minute. “Is something… are we…” Is something happening between us? he wanted to ask, do you want me? but he couldn’t find a way to phrase it that didn’t make him sound stupid.
“McKay?” John prompted, face carefully blank.
That was just infuriating; there was no way that John couldn’t at least suspect what Rodney was trying to ask. Rodney wanted to take John away, drag him back somewhere empty and demand answers, but they were interrupted by soft footfalls from immediately behind them.
“Colonel,” a soft voice said behind them and, turning, Rodney vaguely recognised a Satedan refuge who Ronon had introduced them to one time. “Thank you for inviting us to your beautiful home.”
It took John two seconds longer than normal to produce his most charming smile, but Rodney didn’t think she noticed the delay. “We’re real glad you like it, ma’am,” he said, standing up.
Her fingers found their way around John’s upper arm, leading him away and talking in a tone that left no doubt that Rodney wasn’t intended to follow. A strange, empty sort of feeling settled in Rodney’s belly for a second, before he rolled his eyes and shook it off; good, he thought to himself, everything’s back as it should be.
Half an hour later, he was standing with Radek and a nice looking, middle-aged woman from Athos - Rodney had completely forgotten her name and was impressing even himself with the verbal gymnastics he was performing to avoid having to call her anything at all.
Conversation was not flowing freely: Radek only had eyes for Elizabeth (somewhere far across the room) and the Athosian only had eyes for Radek. So all in all Rodney wasn’t sorry when suddenly, and again, there were hands clamped around his arms (although, goddammit, people needed to stop grabbing him today).
“Hey, Radek,” John’s voice said, “I’m gonna need Rodney a sec, okay?” Before Radek could answer, Rodney found himself being marched away.
“Colonel,” Rodney spluttered. “What-?”
But then a hand was clamped over his mouth and John was dragging him behind a pillar. Rodney’s heart began to speed up.
“Rodney,” John said right in his ear. “If I don’t get out of here right now, I am going to kill someone. Okay?”
Rodney nodded slowly, hearing the soft hush, hush sound of their hair catching and rubbing together, feeling John’s hand slide a little over his mouth. He looked up into John’s face and yeah, John was wearing that look, the one he got when he was stretched to his limit, before he did something dramatic like starting to shoot people.
“Yeah,” he said. He took hold of John’s arm and dragged him outside, deliberately not looking left or right, working on the principle that if he didn’t see Elizabeth then she wouldn’t be able to see them either.
“What’s the matter?” Rodney asked when they were safely away from the glitz and the noise and the sight of Atlantis in her party frock, standing outside Rodney’s room, not-quite looking at each other. “Not feeling up to pretty blonde aliens today?”
John twitched. “Rodney,” he said slowly. “I never feel up to pretty blonde aliens.” He shuffled his feet, looked up from under his eyelashes. “Kind of thought you knew that.”
“Oh,” Rodney said, understanding, “Now you want to have this conversation?”
John rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah.” He looked down and then back up again. “I think I do.” He looked straight at Rodney. “Do I?”
And okay, that worked. John asking the difficult questions was much better than Rodney having to ask them, though of course John used many fewer words than Rodney would have done. “Wait,” Rodney said, “So all this, you’ve been, what, flirting with me?”
“No,” John said, looking uncomfortable. “I’ve been trying not to flirt with you.” He smiled in a way that he probably thought was charming, which God help Rodney, might actually have been charming. “Really hard.”
Rodney let himself smile, feeling such a rush of affection it nearly washed away the sudden trembling anxiety over the fact that John liked him.
“So all that,” he waved a hand, “Being weird around Katie and, and-” Rodney broke off. John had been doing things to make him laugh: sending Radek to Planet Kidkill, messing with Lorne, it had all been for Rodney, just like Radek had said. “Wow,” Rodney managed. No one had ever done anything like that for him before.
John was looking at him closely. “Good wow?” he asked, but Rodney was distracted by… well not by any one thing, but everything, by the reality that was John, standing in front of him and liking him. It was sort of mind-blowing.
“Good wow,” Rodney finally managed, amazed to find he meant it.
“Rodney,” John said. His voice was throaty, turned on, and it made something jump low in Rodney’s belly. “If you don’t want me to kiss you, you have to say so right now. In about two seconds it will be too late.”
Rodney swallowed. And very carefully didn’t say anything.
It was barely a kiss, just the soft brush of John’s mouth over his, and then John was stepping back, one hand still on Rodney’s arm but the rest of his body tense, defensive Rodney realised.
“Why now?” Rodney asked, without really meaning to, distracted by the way his lips were buzzing from John’s kiss, having to lick them to see if they tasted any different. They didn’t seem to and he was strangely disappointed.
John looked at him like he was crazy. “You were with Katie before,” he said like it should have been obvious.
Rodney thought about telling him he would have willingly ended things with Katie for even a chance with John, but he didn’t want to inflate his ego. Besides, he hadn’t known that was true until… well, now actually. Huh.
“Right,” Rodney said instead. “But I’m not now.”
John smile was soft, warm and happy, and entirely new to Rodney. “No,” he agreed quietly.
Rodney bounced slightly on his toes. “So you should kiss me again.”
John laughed. “How about we go inside, huh?” he asked, only laughing harder when Rodney walked into his door in his haste to get inside; Rodney found he didn’t even mind.
Inside it probably would have been awkward, but Rodney couldn’t think enough for awkwardness; he was vibrating with the need to touch John again. He’d always liked touching John, he realised, that secret thrill he got when John pressed up against him on missions, in meetings, and this was like that only magnified one hundred times and accompanied by a bone-deep, thrumming lust.
The minute the door shut, he reached for John, getting his arms around him, amazed by even that, by permission to touch; John’s slim, firm frame fit easily into his arms.
John pressed his face into Rodney’s neck. Rodney thought he might be smelling him, and he twitched, laughing a little.
“Shut up,” John muttered, lifting his face, a slight blush along his cheekbones.
And then there was nothing else for it and he was kissing John, kissing his best friend and by all rights it should have been awkward as all hell, but it wasn’t, it was safe and warm and good, probably for the exact same reason that it should be awkward, because it was John.
John pulled back from the kiss, just a little way, but too far for Rodney who reached for him, reeled him back in before either of them could take a full breath apart.
John laughed. “So, this is okay then?” he asked, teasingly, in Rodney’s ear.
Rodney kissed him again in answer. This was better than okay; it felt right, easy even. Relationships and all the things that went with them, the sex and the kissing, hadn’t been easy for Rodney since… well, he wasn’t sure they ever had been. This was still only kissing and it was still better than the few, hard, desperate, emotionless fucks in Siberia, than the shy, stilted, not-that-great sex he’d been having with Katie these last few months.
Here, right now, sliding his hands under John’s shirt, this made sense and Rodney couldn’t help wondering why the hell they’d never done it before.
Rodney skimmed one hand across John’s waist, touching first his belly, then his chest, light touches, exploratory, but John gasped into his mouth all the same. Something primal and possessive welled up in Rodney’s chest and he pressed his spare hand to the small of John’s back, urging him in, pressing him closer and John, who never liked to be pushed around, let himself be pressed, caught, held against Rodney.
It had taken Rodney half an hour to coax himself into his suit earlier this evening and it took John all of ten seconds to get him out of it again, get them both naked. They fell to the bed in a tangle of legs and arms, kisses and touches, mouths and cocks and needy, shaky moans.
John came with Rodney’s tongue on his inner thigh, which was strange and very hot. Rodney came pushed deep inside John’s body, which was better than any words that Rodney knew to describe it.
*
Afterwards, Rodney lay with his head on John’s chest. It wasn’t a position Rodney had ever thought to be in before, but John’s arms felt good, secure, one around his waist, the other across his back.
Rodney brushed his nose through John’s chest hair, tasting it curiously with the tip of his tongue; it tasted sort of hairy.
“The ball still sucked,” he told John’s right nipple, just in case it was getting any ideas that this surprising and rather wonderful end to the night had in anyway changed his overall opinion of enforced social events.
John’s nipple quivered slightly while the rest of him shook with laughter.
“So you won’t be going next year?” John asked.
Rodney pretended to consider. Then actually did consider. “Will I get laid like that again, if I do?” he asked.
“Rodney.” John sounded sort of fond. “If you give me an hour you can get laid like that again tonight.”
Rodney smiled, strangely relieved though it wasn’t as if he’d thought John was the type to fuck and run. “What about tomorrow night?” he asked, hoping he sounded casual.
John’s arms tightened around him, just slightly. “Tomorrow night too,” he agreed softly.
And it wasn’t quite a declaration of forever or even of intent, but that was probably for the best; Rodney wouldn’t have known what to do with one of those and John would probably have stroked out trying to make one. But he knew what John meant and John should know what he meant and that would definitely do.
/End
**
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Author: torakowalski ( interview)
Team: Romance
Prompt: Blue Moon
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Rating: Hard R
Warnings: slight spoilers for various episodes up to and including 3x19 Vengeance
Summary: "You are being ridiculous," Teyla said sternly. "The Blue Moon Ball is a wonderful opportunity to be reunited with old friends and to celebrate our continued survival against the Wraith." "Yes," Rodney said under his breath. "Not being dead: an excellent reason to make ourselves wish we were."
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**
Up to and Including the Blue Moon Ball
Forty-Two Days
Rodney’s first clue that it was That Time again was a fairly innocent one, innocent enough that Rodney, busy with things that actually mattered, didn’t realise it was a clue until a while later.
He emerged from a long, frustratingly useless day of searching the database for, oh, anything worthwhile and realised that he hadn’t seen Elizabeth, John, Lorne, or Teyla all day.
It wasn’t as if he’d suddenly had a personality transplant and started needing other people in any way, of course, but he’d gotten used to constant interruptions and it was disconcerting when they didn’t come at the expected times with the expected assortment of slouches, smiles and food-related bribery.
If there was one person who’d know what was going on it would be Chuck, so Rodney went up to the control room to ask - not that he cared obviously, he was just idly interested.
“Yeah,” Chuck said, tilting back on his chair to look up at Rodney and simultaneously putting his coffee cup down on impossibly delicate Ancient crystals; the only reason Rodney didn’t have a fit about that was that he was momentarily distracted. “They’ve been in Dr Weir’s office all day.” He hitched a thumb over his shoulder, pointing, presumably just in case Rodney had forgotten when Elizabeth’s office was.
“All day?” Rodney repeated, now definitely curious. “What for?”
Chuck smiled a bland smile. “Sorry, Dr McKay, sworn to secrecy.”
Rodney narrowed his eyes. He’d call Chuck a frustratingly annoying little sycophant except he was Canadian, so he couldn’t possibly be; Rodney decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he was just a little overly efficient.
So they’d been in a meeting all day, a top secret one that he hadn’t been invited to; Rodney thought about being offended then remembered how much he hated meetings and decided instead to snag a second dinner from the mess while everyone else was occupied.
John and Teyla found him there a half hour later -- Ronon and Stackhouse were having a cracker-eating contest in one corner and despite Rodney’s better judgement and incredibly busy schedule, he’d gotten distracted.
Teyla looked happy when she sat down, buoyant even, while John looked faintly homicidal.
“What’s wrong with you?” Rodney asked around a mouthful of pudding, squinting at John through his happy, chocolate-induced haze. “Elizabeth tell you you’re not allowed to make anything go boom this week?”
“Blue Moon,” John said cryptically, but it was enough - Rodney felt his eyes go wide with horror.
“No,” he said, “It can’t be. Not again so soon.”
John merely nodded, slow and grave.
Teyla rolled her eyes. “You are being ridiculous,” she said sternly. “The Blue Moon Ball is a wonderful opportunity to be reunited with old friends and to celebrate our continued survival against the Wraith.”
“Yes,” Rodney said under his breath. “Not being dead: an excellent reason to make ourselves wish we were.”
John snorted into his bolognese; Teyla continued to look disapproving.
The Blue Moon Ball (so named by Cadman after the frequency with which they actually managed to host one) had, unsurprisingly, been Elizabeth’s idea. She’d thought it would be an excellent way to maintain connections with their allies and a bit of fun for the Atlantis personnel. None of the senior staff had had the heart to tell her that none of their allies liked them all that much or that most of the staff got more fun on an average Saturday evening in Greenhouse Six.
The first ball had descended into chaos when someone let slip that oh yeah, it was kind of their fault that the Wraith had woken up early; the second never got started due to everyone in the galaxy having to think Atlantis was destroyed, and planning for the third was interrupted by seriously pissy Ancients and spoiled-brat Replicators. And now, apparently, they were trying again; Rodney had to give Elizabeth points for determination.
A couple of tables over, a cracker-related event caused Ronon to tumble off his chair amid delighted laughter. Teyla shook her head and got up, pushing her way through the crowd, presumably to check Ronon hadn’t impaled himself on one of his hair-knives or anything.
John half rose from his chair, looking curious, but Rodney stopped him with a hand on his arm.
“We could run away,” he suggested in an urgent whisper. “Come back after the ball. With your sense of direction, no one would know where we’d gone, not even us.”
John flicked pudding into Rodney’s face, which Rodney, regretfully, decided to take as a no.
*
Twenty-Seven Days
“Gentlemen,” Elizabeth said, leaning back in her chair and smiling in that way that Rodney’s teachers used to smile when they thought they were giving him a treat, the sort of treat that usually ended in sunburn, mosquitoes or trips to the emergency room, “In addition to our regular missions, we also have the task of issuing invitations to our ball.” She pulled a chart towards herself. “Who would like to go where?”
Because they were all, it turned out, very cowardly intergalactic explorers, everyone shuffled their chairs back one space.
Rodney rolled his eyes. “Fine, fine,” he said, clicking his fingers in Elizabeth’s direction. “Give me the list; is that it? I’ll soon assign someone to every-” He was stopped by Elizabeth’s soft Rodney and Ronon’s booming McKay. Rodney jumped. “What?”
John held out his hand for the sheaf of paper that Elizabeth was still clutching protectively. “How about I do it, huh?”
It wasn’t that Rodney wanted to have any part in this insanity, but he was always being reprimanded for a lack of participation; they could at least appreciate him when he finally did try to help out. “I assure you, Colonel, I am perfectly capable of-”
“Rodney,” John said, the corner of his lip twitching. “You know you won’t be able to stop yourself sending Kavanagh to every planet on that list until someone ends up killing him.”
“Well,” Rodney started to protest, except it was a semi-valid point. “Okay, fine.” He folded his arms. “You do it.”
John’s only answer was a smirk.
*
They sent Radek back to M7G 677.
(This time he came home in a fetching, all-over shade of violet.
“This is your fault,” he hissed at Rodney, purple lips curled back in a snarl, purple hair standing up all over.
“Oh it is not,” Rodney snapped, trying to keep his mouth from wobbling. “Sheppard sent you.”
Radek’s purple hands flexed, claw-like, in Rodney’s direction. “Colonel Sheppard is not a cruel man, just a crazy one. He sent me back to those children of Satan in order to make you laugh. Therefore this is your fault and I will make you pay.”
With that dire warning, he spun around and stalked off, leaving a trail of purple glitter in his wake and Rodney to possibly strain something laughing.)
Gateteam Two went to see the Genii - the New Genii? The Free Genii? Rodney couldn’t remember, Ladon Radim’s Genii anyway.
(Lorne came back with an arrow in his shoulder.
“I thought they liked us this month?” John asked, trailing along beside the gurney as Lorne was led to the infirmary.
“Oh they’re coming, sir,” Lorne said, blood seeping out from between his fingers. “They just still don’t like me very much.”)
No one wanted to go to Hoth and John, apparently experiencing a fit of insanity, said his team would go.
(They stayed just long enough to see that there was no one left there to invite.)
*
Fifteen Days
PG7-HB4 was another of those planets where the village was kilometres from the ‘gate and John refused to bring the ‘jumper, claiming the walk would do them all good. It was on the endless walk back that Teyla asked, “Rodney, why have you yet to invite Dr Brown to the ball?”
Rodney, who’d been lost in contemplation of why exactly the Ancients had terraformed every planet to look the same as every other and to house the same annoyingly persistent bugs, jumped. “What? I’m not supposed to do that, am I?” He narrowed his eyes. “How do you know I haven’t?”
Teyla smiled blandly. “Girls’ poker night.”
A collective shudder ran through the rest of her team.
“I’m supposed to invite her?” Rodney repeated, just to make sure. He’d assumed that they’d just bump into each other. “She’s going anyway.”
Teyla shook her head, but surprisingly it was Ronon who answered. “You gotta ask her, McKay. Girls like to be asked.”
“Oh, really, so you’ve invited someone then?” Rodney snapped.
Ronon’s eyes darted to Teyla and away, not quite quick enough that no one noticed but fast enough that they could pretend they hadn’t. “No,” he rumbled.
“Then I’ll take your advice with a pinch of salt.” Rodney turned to John, who weirdly hadn’t said a word; he was normally first in line to tease Rodney about anything personal. “Colonel?”
“Yeah, Rodney, invite her,” John said shortly, sounding distracted. He quickened his pace. “C’mon gang, we don’t want to miss dinner, meatloaf tonight.”
“You hate meatloaf,” Rodney protested, but John was already steaming ahead.
*
Thirteen Days
Rodney invited Katie to the ball. She smiled and hugged him.
“Oh, Rodney,” she said, smiling happily. “I’d love to.” And then she kissed him.
Well Rodney thought, a little dazed, That’s gotten easier since junior high.
*
Five Days
Of course, it didn’t last.
Their afternoon mission - regular, not ball-related - was cancelled for reasons Rodney wasn’t particularly interested in so Rodney, having discovered years ago that the proper art of bowtie construction would forever elude him and feeling that he really should learn this year, what with his having a date and all, dragged John off for a lesson. It wasn’t going well.
“It’s no good,” Rodney said, tugging at the tight knot of black fabric around his throat. It seemed to grow tighter and he widened his eyes desperately at John in the mirror.
John laughed and got up from Rodney’s bed, coming to stand behind Rodney, deftly unknotting the bowtie and letting it hang loose around Rodney’s neck.
John’s long fingers brushed his chin as he took hold of the two strands of tie. “It’s really not that hard, McKay,” he said. “Just like this.” A twist, a flick, a tug and Rodney was wearing a perfectly neat and knotted tie.
“Hmm,” Rodney said, flicking it. It was infuriating that he couldn’t learn this; it was simple mathematics for goodness sake. “How come you know how? Or is it something the Air Force requires for arcane reasons of its own?”
“My roommate at college,” John said, “He could never get the hang of it either.”
Rodney’s ears pricked up.
When John spoke about college - which wasn’t often - each of his roommates were discussed with different levels of exasperation or fondness. Rodney had learned to identify this one, the one John was talking about now, by the careful neutrality John used and the very slight hesitation before the word “roommate”, the place where “boyfriend” was supposed to go, but couldn’t.
Rodney wasn’t sure if John remembered telling him how much more than a roommate this guy had been - there’d been a lot of alcohol involved - but he was willing to bet he did: John guarded his past jealously, he didn’t just let things slip, no matter how much Athosian rum was involved.
Rodney couldn’t help imagining it: nineteen-year-old John, gangly, probably hadn’t learned how to control his hair yet, standing behind some faceless college boy like he was now standing behind Rodney. Maybe he’d pressed closer, skinny hips against the guy’s ass.
John’s hands were long and slender, almost too elegant to be continually wrapped around guns and throttles and bantos rods and every now and then they brushed against Rodney’s collar. Rodney wondered if they’d moved lower on that boy in college, brushed a chest, slipped between shirt buttons, touched burgeoning chest hair
Rodney shivered, confused by his own daydreams. John’s sexuality had been an open secret between them for years, but Rodney had never thought about it like this before, as something stark and real. Of course, John had never been this far into his space for this long before either. Rodney shook his head at himself; that had to be why he was thinking about it now.
Coming back from his distraction, Rodney realised that at some point John had replaced his own hands with Rodney’s and that Rodney’s fingers, completely independent from his brain, had finally created the perfect bow.
“Ha!” he crowed, pleased by the achievement and distracted from peculiar thoughts of John’s hands.
John grinned, clapped him on the back. “Well done, buddy.” He deftly untied it again. “Now try again.”
“Oh f-” Rodney huffed, then stopped abruptly. “I nearly said ‘for crying out loud’” he said, watching his own eyes grow round and horrified. John’s grin broke into a full-out laugh.
Ten minutes later, they were still practising, growing a bit silly with the monotony, John bumping Rodney’s arms to deliberately set him off course, Rodney slapping at John’s hands when they tried to help.
They were laughing when Rodney’s doorbell chimed and, distracted, he called “Come in” without checking who was there, which was something he’d learned never to do since acquiring minions who liked to interrupt his very brief downtime with their blinding stupidity.
“Oh,” was the first thing Katie said, stopping just inside the doorway, frowning at the two of them, crowded close around the mirror.
“Katie,” Rodney said, turning towards her, in a good enough mood that his stomach didn’t fill with its usual anticipatory butterflies. “Come in, Colonel Sheppard has been-” He interrupted himself. “Is everything okay?”
She looked nervous, hands knotting together. Rodney noticed absently that John took one step away from him for every one that Katie took toward him.
“I’d better be going,” John said, voice fakely-casual. He smiled at Rodney, nodded at Katie. “Dr Brown.”
But, to Rodney’s surprise, Katie reached out and stopped John, her hand impossibly tiny and impressively soil-stained against John’s broad, hairy forearm. “Please, Colonel,” she said, “There’s no need to leave, this will only take a minute.”
So John frowned, but sidled over to Rodney’s desk chair rather than leaving; Rodney grew a little more worried and oh, there were those butterflies.
Katie turned towards him. “Rodney, I’m sorry, but I can’t come to the ball with you.” She said it breathily, all in a rush. Her lower lip turned white when she pressed her front teeth into it. Her teeth were neat and tiny and she used them too much during blowjobs and that wasn’t what Rodney should be thinking about now. “You’re a lovely man,” Katie was saying, “But Karl asked me and, well, I think he and I might be more suited than you and I.” Something about the way she emphasised suited seemed to assume that Rodney would know what she meant; he didn’t.
“I see,” Rodney said. He didn’t really know what else to say, at least two-thirds of the seven percent of brain function that he sacrificed to social interaction seemed to be sorting through botany-related mug shots (leaf-framed and gormless in his mind’s eye) trying to work out who “Karl” could be.
With another flurry of soft, sad words Katie left, looking miserable but accomplished. Rodney blinked after her then turned to John, who was standing pressed into a far corner, looking awkward. “Did she just break up with me?” he asked.
John winced a little. “Yeah, buddy, I think she did.”
“Oh.” There wasn’t really a lot more that Rodney could think to say to that. “Huh.”
John took two steps towards him, looking like he’d really much rather they were taking him further away and squeezed his arm. “Hey.”
When Rodney looked up at him, John looked concerned. “Oh,” he said again, in a totally different tone. “Oh. No. I’m fine. I just… she really broke up with me. Huh.”
And he was fine. It was a shame, he’d liked Katie, but at the same, he couldn’t help feeling a tiny shiver of relief. Having to think about Katie, Katie’s needs, Katie’s wants and wishes had been really very tiring, and she’d had this silent way of making Rodney feel guilty for wanting to spend time with John and the team - Rodney had never met anyone he voluntarily wanted to spend his spare time with before coming to Atlantis and he hadn’t wanted to have to give that up.
Then, a terrible realisation crossed his mind. “Who can I take to the ball now?”
John blinked. Rodney felt a little exasperated; John should have been used to the lightning turns of his mind by now. “You’ll just have to go stag, I guess.” A raised eyebrow. “I am.”
Rodney frowned. “You are?”
“Sure.” John shrugged. “Why not.”
Because the average woman on this base would give up three months of pay to go with you, Rodney thought but didn’t say - the number was accurate, though; Simpson and Kusanagi had done a survey.
“Well, you can come stag with me then,” Rodney said instead.
The blinking thing happened again, only this time when it was over no sound came out of John’s open mouth.
“Yes,” Rodney blustered on, happy with his new plan. “The majority of people going are alive because of me; if I go unaccompanied I’ll look… well, it isn’t a fitting look for a hero.”
“McKay,” John said, sounding kind of pained.
“Oh, okay.” Rodney waved a hand. “So not the majority of people, but I’ve definitely saved at least half of-” He stopped when he saw the look on John’s face. “Oh. That’s not what you were objecting to.”
“Not so much no,” John said, managing to drawl in a strangled sort of way, which Rodney was part impressed and part horrified by.
Rodney rolled his eyes. “Come on, Colonel. You won’t have to buy me a corsage, you won’t even have to pick me up, and there will most certainly be no requirement that you put out. Oh but you can glare menacingly at anyone who looks like they want to abduct me for my brain.” That was a happy little bonus; Katie would have looked a bit silly doing that.
John’s lip curled up, just slightly at one corner. “What if they want to steal you for your body?”
Rodney smiled, feeling a flush of satisfaction; John was going to say yes. “Check if they’re hot first,” he decided.
John laughed. “Okay, Rodney, sure.” He turned to go then paused in the doorway. “And Rodney? I’ll pick you up at 18:00, can’t have your momma thinking I’m a bad date.”
Rodney was still looking around for something to throw at him, when the door slid closed.
*
Three Days
It seemed like no one could produce a sentence that wasn’t in some way related to the ball. Rodney started banning people from the labs for excessive giggling (Miko), discussing hair-grooming tips (Kavanagh) and shooting him side-ways, heard-you-are-taking-Sheppard glances (Radek). Unfortunately, they all kept coming back.
Normally, Rodney could rely on at least one member of his team per meal coming into the labs and reminding him to eat, but lately everyone had been roped into various pointless (in that they wouldn’t help defend anyone against attack by anything worse than a soufflé) activities, and he ended up going to lunch with Radek.
They passed through the line and started looking for somewhere to sit. Radek nudged his arm and nodded to the far side of the room, expression of evil glee spreading over his face. Curious, Rodney followed.
They stopped beside a corner table, where Lorne was sitting, pouring over what looked like a large seating plan.
“Good afternoon, Major,” Radek said cheerily and sat himself and his tray down on the table, just catching the corner of Lorne’s plan.
Lorne narrowed his eyes for a moment then spread a look of affable welcome across his face - it was more than a little creepy. “Docs.”
“Is seating plan for tomorrow, yes?” Radek asked. Lorne’s eyes flared wide, his face losing all colour before slowly regaining it when Radek tsked at himself and said, “Oh, sorry, sorry, I mean for day after tomorrow, of course.”
Rodney smiled into his mashed potatoes; Radek was an evil little bastard.
“Yeah,” Lorne said, just a little hoarsely. “Didn’t know so many people were coming.”
Radek’s expression was grave and sympathetic and, to anyone who knew him well, completely fake. “Yes and seating plan is so important. My Aunt Svetlana who was caterer once organised reception for the government. It is rumoured she did not pay sufficient attention to seating plan and, well, three days later was Pražské jaro, uh Prague Spring.”
Lorne blanched and Radek bit into a sausage happily.
Two minutes later, John joined them. There was dust in his hair, but Rodney decided he didn’t want to know.
“Hey, guys,” John said, taking the seat beside Lorne and leaning into his space.
In a move that could almost have been accidental, Lorne twitched his plan out of John’s direct line of sight. John tipped his chair over onto two legs and used his extra height to crane over Lorne’s shoulder.
“Hmm,” John said.
Rodney bit his lip hard and told himself he wasn’t amused.
“Yes, sir?” Lorne asked in that annoyed yet tolerant tone that Rodney had noticed all John’s subordinates used around him - when they spoke to Rodney, there was always a lot more annoyance and a lot less tolerance.
John held up a hand. “Nothing, Major, you’re doing great.”
Lorne narrowed his eyes, but John continued to look guileless. “What? Sir.”
“Well,” John drawled, making it look like whatever he was going to say pained him. “It’s just you’ve put the representatives from Uniq and Tant next to each other at dinner and I don’t like to think what might happen if they find out we’ve been buying tava beans from them both.” He paused. “Big weapons.”
Lorne blinked at him. Then he swore - that was impressive, John had never driven him to cursing before. “Excuse me,” he said, grabbing up his chart and fleeing.
John dropped his chair back to four legs and smiled contentedly at Lorne’s abandoned tray. He scraped Lorne’s fries onto his own plate and passed the pudding cup over to Rodney, his smile changing shape in some unidentifiable way when Rodney thanked him.
Radek was laughing, shaking his head. “You are an evil man, Colonel. Was that true?”
“Sure,” John said. “I may have forgotten to mention that their big weapons are kind of like scythes.” He tipped his head thoughtfully. “Guess they’d still be plenty painful though.”
He dunked one of Lorne’s chips into the ketchup, leaned back and smiled. He looked tired but content and Rodney wanted to laugh at him but ended up smiling with him instead.
*
The Day Before
A little, blue-clad man from P4P CA5 (or Planet Greenhouse as Ford had called it) came through the ‘gate carrying something almost but not entirely unlike a clipboard.
He got the nearest Marine to sign it then pressed a little clicker on his belt; ten seconds later a troop of similarly blue-clad men came through, carrying between them the hugest shipment of flowers, potted plants, and foliage that Rodney had ever seen.
Elizabeth wasn’t anywhere to be found, was off doing… well, Rodney didn’t know what but it probably involved plotting ways to make his life even more miserable and floral-scented, so they directed the flower-people up the steps to Chuck’s platform.
Pretty soon, all that could be seen of Chuck was the ethereal (yet patriotic) glow of his maple leaf screen-saver and a mug-holding hand searching plaintively for coffee from amongst the aspidistras.
*
Blue Moon Ball
Rodney’s doorbell rang at 17:59. One of only two good things, in Rodney’s opinion, that the Air Force had taught John was punctuality - the other, obviously, was the ability to save Rodney’s life.
“Hey, Rodney,” John said, coming in and looking around. “D’you need any help with your-” He stopped short, almost like he was choking and Rodney looked up, confused. “Bowtie,” John finished a little hoarsely, still looking at Rodney like he’d suddenly turned into a Wraith.
“What?” Rodney demanded, hastily checking his reflection. He looked okay, he thought, a fine figure of a scientist in his dark suit, crisp white shirt and, yes, perfectly knotted bowtie. And, okay, maybe he didn’t look as dapper as John in his Air Force blues, but then, really, who did? There was still no reason for the staring.
John cleared his throat. “Looking good, McKay,” he said lightly. “You ready?”
Rodney swung his arms, feeling a little nervous, a little self-conscious about the way John was still looking at him. “Ready.”
They’d been banned from the gateroom since breakfast and, entering now, amidst a gentle swarm of nicely-dressed people, Rodney could see why. It was almost unrecognisable. Whoever had done the decorating had taken Atlantis’ natural blues and greens and silvers and transformed them into a shimmering, glittering, glossy marvel.
“Wow,” John said, looking all around.
“Yeah,” Rodney agreed, glancing a look at John and startling a little at the way the sparkly silver lighting caught and held on the handful of silver in his hair; it made him look otherworldly, like there was no where else he could possibly be but in a floating, alien city.
“Wonder where they got the fancy streamers,” John mused, nodding at the rows of tiny beads around the walls.
“I was more curious about the balloons,” Rodney said. “Must have been the Daedalus.”
John laughed. “Bet Caldwell loved that.”
“Ask him,” Rodney suggested, nodding to the other side of the hall, where Caldwell was standing by the drinks table, looking strangely stifled in his uniform. Novak had him cornered, chattering away and apparently oblivious to the hunted animal look around the corners of Caldwell’s eyes.
“Yeah,” John drawled, “I don’t think so.”
Rodney laughed. “Coward.”
“Oh you bet,” John agreed easily. He caught Rodney’s elbow and tugged him towards the other side of the room.
Rodney followed, glad to be moving away from where Elizabeth was standing, no doubt lying in wait to harangue them into socialising. He grabbed two flutes of champagne from a passing waiter, doing a double-take when the waiter turned out to be Jinto; he wondered what SGC rules were about child labour.
John had found an empty space near one of the balconies; it was out of the way, but still visible, so they looked like they were taking part while still being too far for most people to bother coming over. It was the sort of position that John always favoured at these kinds of events and the first few times that had surprised Rodney. John wasn’t exactly wallflower material; he could be charming, normally knew what to say. It had taken Rodney a long time to work out that just because John was good at it, didn’t mean he enjoyed it.
“Here,” Rodney said, pressing one of the flutes on John. “Might make the time pass quicker.”
John had his back pressed to the wall, hips slightly out, a picture of relaxation except for the way his fingers tightened around the flute stem and the long swallow he took of cheap, SGC-provided champagne. “You know, Rodney,” he said, “You should relax. You never know, you might have fun.”
“Says the man hiding in the corner,” Rodney countered.
John grinned and raised his glass.
Rodney was just about to do the same when a big hand smacked him between the shoulder blades and another hand came around to steal his glass. Rodney squawked, but Ronon, looking disturbingly good in what had to be the Satedan version of a tailored tux, just grinned at him.
“Saw you skulking over here,” he told them, downing Rodney’s champagne in one long swallow and rolling the glass back and forth like he wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. Rodney could only hope he didn’t try to store it in his hair while he decided.
“We’re hardly skulking,” Rodney scoffed. “We’re surveying.”
Ronon raised his eyebrows and looked meaningfully over Rodney’s shoulder where all the action was taking place.
Rodney scowled. “I have eyes in the back of my head,” he snapped.
John laughed and Ronon grinned. “Now that I believe,” he said and grabbed another glass of champagne for Rodney, forcing it on him when he started to splutter.
“Seen Teyla?” Ronon asked a couple of minutes later. He sounded sort of glum.
“No?” John asked.
Ronon nodded to the far side of the room and, turning, Rodney saw a few couples had started dancing. It was easy to understand Ronon’s depression; Teyla had discarded her usual coat-of-many-colours Athosian partywear and squeezed herself into something filmy, clingy and rather sparse. She was dancing, fast and sticky, with someone she’d once introduced as a “friend of her father” and who looked much more like he’d rather be a friend of hers.
“God,” Rodney groaned, voice pitched so that - hopefully - only John could hear him. “We have the hottest team ever.”
John glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, smiling slightly, almost privately. “Yeah,” he agreed.
*
There was only so long that Atlantis’ Head Scientist and Military Commander were going to be allowed to shirk their responsibilities. Unfortunately for them, Elizabeth’s interpretation of that that time was a lot shorter than theirs.
“Gentleman,” she said, appearing out of nowhere like an avenging angel in a dark red dress.
Uh oh, Rodney thought, Sprung, followed swiftly by I have got to stop spending so much time with Sheppard.
“Hey, Elizabeth,” John drawled, giving her his best slow smile.
The thing about Elizabeth that ensured Rodney’s continued respect was that she no longer fell for that smile. “Hello, John,” she said dryly. “Take yourself over to the refreshments table, please. There’s a visitor from Proculus who’s eager to see you again.”
Something painful and mean squirmed in Rodney’s belly, an evil something that was almost satisfied by the look of pale horror on John’s face.
“Uh, Elizabeth,” John said slowly. “I’m not sure that’s such a great idea; I never called her.”
Rodney watched Elizabeth’s lip twitch.
“John,” she said with exaggerated patience. “She’s an Ancient, I don’t really think she had to wait for your call.”
John’s expression suggested this wasn’t exactly reassuring, but he sloped off towards Chaya anyway like a good little soldier. Rodney’s stomach squirmed again and he covered it with a smirk at John’s retreating back, a smirk which faded and died when Elizabeth’s attention switched to him.
“No,” he said pre-emptively. The only person they’d met offworld (who was not currently on his team, anyway) that he was even slightly interested in seeing again was Noreena and Michael had ensured that that would never happen.
“Do you remember the Argase, Rodney?” Elizabeth asked sweetly. “Their Chief Scientist certainly remembers you; he seems most anxious to speak to you.”
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding,” Rodney groaned. He remembered the scientist from Argas all right, assuming “scientist” was used in the loosest way possible. A small, squirrelly man who, with his belief that rodents were the most powerful force in the galaxy and the key to defeating the Wraith, was either the reincarnation of Douglas Adams or totally cracked. Or quite possibly both.
Elizabeth raised her eyebrows at him meaningfully.
“Oh, fine,” he huffed. “But if he tells me one more time that the mice are just biding their time before saving us all, I can’t promise to be polite.”
Elizabeth nodded solemnly. “I know I can only ask so much, Rodney.”
*
As it turned out, the crazy Argase scientist had now turned his attention to frogs; Rodney thought the mice must be mightily relieved.
It took Rodney nearly twenty minutes to get away from him and even then it wasn’t so much “getting away” as it was grab Radek and hope the crazy man didn’t notice the substitution.
Still feeling a little dazed, Rodney wandered back into the general melee. He spotted Cadman in the middle of the dance-floor, throwing her hair about, looking like she was having the time of her life; Lorne doing a passable imitation of someone with rhythm; Parrish, near him, was doing a much less successful imitation of a bipedal animal. Ronon had gotten Teyla back from her suitor - Rodney wondered if it had involved bloodshed - and had her pressed against one of the pillars, doing some kind of bump and grind that was almost too hot to watch.
There was no sign of Katie or her mysterious “Karl”, which Rodney was glad of; he’d prefer his rival remain unidentifiable so no one could claim prejudice the next time Rodney cut resources from the botany department.
His search was interrupted by the dinner gong - and Rodney wasn’t going to think about the fact that, yes, they had a dinner gong - and Elizabeth was taking Chuck’s arm and leading the way into the mess.
Again, Atlantis looked like they’d let an interior decorator lose on her. It was beautiful, but something felt wrong, unnatural, Atlantis just hovering on the brink of looking cheap, too made up, her own natural beauty dampened. The slightly pinched look Rodney had noticed around John’s eyes since they arrived tonight, the way he kept gently, almost unconsciously brushing the walls, suggested he felt the same.
Lorne had seated Rodney at the top table, which was of course where he belonged. Rodney was just pouring himself some water from the pitcher - lemon-free, he had absolutely no doubt; it had taken three years but he’d finally come to trust the kitchen staff - when John slipped into the chair beside him.
“Hey,” he said brightly. He had the flushed, slightly hunted look that Rodney recognised from many hurried runs to the ‘gate pursued by overly-amorous girls; it looked like Chaya hadn’t given up her quest to get into his pants.
Rodney frowned at him. The rest of the table was arranged in a disgustingly hetero-normative boy-girl pattern.
“Yeah,” John said. “Apparently Lorne doesn’t like to be teased when he’s stressed.”
Rodney rolled his eyes and pretended he wasn’t pleased; John was bound to be more fun to sit with than any of the other options gathered here tonight, better even than Katie, who would have required small-talk and subtle flattery, neither of which came naturally to Rodney.
After dinner, which even Rodney had to admit was excellent, there were speeches; Rodney didn’t try to hold in a groan.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” Elizabeth began, standing at the head of Rodney’s table. Rodney immediately tuned her out, tried in fact to tune out all the world, counting down the minutes until he could reasonably escape. It was working well until John smacked him in the arm.
Ow, Rodney mouthed pointedly.
John just grinned and indicated the other side of the table with his eyebrows. John was the only person Rodney knew whose eyebrows could convey direction. On the other side of the table was an old man - an old, Genii man, according to his uniform - who had fallen asleep, his head lolling dangerously near the shoulder of the woman beside him.
It was the kind of thing John was bound to find hilarious and, sure enough, he was grinning broadly.
Rodney rolled his eyes.
John just grinned wider and poked his thigh.
Rodney poked back.
Things pretty quickly and predictably descended into a silent yet deadly poking war, hidden away below the table.
He felt John shake before a soft laugh broke through. Elizabeth stopped whatever she was saying and John turned his laugh into an unconvincing cough, grabbing Rodney’s hand to still it, looking contrite.
Elizabeth glared at them both then carried on with her speech.
John waited a beat then looked at Rodney. John’s cheeks were flushed from the wine, his ridiculously pink and girly lips stretched against a laugh, trying to keep it in.
In a moment of what had to be ball-induced insanity, Rodney couldn’t help thinking what a shame it was that John wasn’t Katie; Rodney would have known how to compliment him, would have been able to tell him he was beautiful and mean every word. Not that Rodney would say that, not ever, but he’d have been able to.
Something must have been off in his expression because John was frowning, looking confused, eyes growing wide, wide and… hopeful?
What’s going on? Rodney wanted to ask, which was something he very rarely if ever wanted or needed to ask; normally he was the one answering that question. John’s hand was still over his and feeling surprised, out of his depth, he jerked away, not really thinking about what he was doing until he saw the wash of hurt pass across John’s face, swift then gone.
And then, because the universe probably enjoyed keeping Rodney confused and off-balance, people started to push their chairs back, the usual scrape thankfully muted by Atlantis’ flooring.
John moved quickly, making as if to stand, but Rodney grabbed his arm, pulled him back down.
There were a lot of things that Rodney had let go over the years: the way John looked at him sometimes, hints other people had dropped, but holding hands under the table, even for just a minute, was much harder to dismiss.
“Colonel,” Rodney said quickly, conscious of the fact that people were going to want to start clearing the tables away any minute. “Is something… are we…” Is something happening between us? he wanted to ask, do you want me? but he couldn’t find a way to phrase it that didn’t make him sound stupid.
“McKay?” John prompted, face carefully blank.
That was just infuriating; there was no way that John couldn’t at least suspect what Rodney was trying to ask. Rodney wanted to take John away, drag him back somewhere empty and demand answers, but they were interrupted by soft footfalls from immediately behind them.
“Colonel,” a soft voice said behind them and, turning, Rodney vaguely recognised a Satedan refuge who Ronon had introduced them to one time. “Thank you for inviting us to your beautiful home.”
It took John two seconds longer than normal to produce his most charming smile, but Rodney didn’t think she noticed the delay. “We’re real glad you like it, ma’am,” he said, standing up.
Her fingers found their way around John’s upper arm, leading him away and talking in a tone that left no doubt that Rodney wasn’t intended to follow. A strange, empty sort of feeling settled in Rodney’s belly for a second, before he rolled his eyes and shook it off; good, he thought to himself, everything’s back as it should be.
Half an hour later, he was standing with Radek and a nice looking, middle-aged woman from Athos - Rodney had completely forgotten her name and was impressing even himself with the verbal gymnastics he was performing to avoid having to call her anything at all.
Conversation was not flowing freely: Radek only had eyes for Elizabeth (somewhere far across the room) and the Athosian only had eyes for Radek. So all in all Rodney wasn’t sorry when suddenly, and again, there were hands clamped around his arms (although, goddammit, people needed to stop grabbing him today).
“Hey, Radek,” John’s voice said, “I’m gonna need Rodney a sec, okay?” Before Radek could answer, Rodney found himself being marched away.
“Colonel,” Rodney spluttered. “What-?”
But then a hand was clamped over his mouth and John was dragging him behind a pillar. Rodney’s heart began to speed up.
“Rodney,” John said right in his ear. “If I don’t get out of here right now, I am going to kill someone. Okay?”
Rodney nodded slowly, hearing the soft hush, hush sound of their hair catching and rubbing together, feeling John’s hand slide a little over his mouth. He looked up into John’s face and yeah, John was wearing that look, the one he got when he was stretched to his limit, before he did something dramatic like starting to shoot people.
“Yeah,” he said. He took hold of John’s arm and dragged him outside, deliberately not looking left or right, working on the principle that if he didn’t see Elizabeth then she wouldn’t be able to see them either.
“What’s the matter?” Rodney asked when they were safely away from the glitz and the noise and the sight of Atlantis in her party frock, standing outside Rodney’s room, not-quite looking at each other. “Not feeling up to pretty blonde aliens today?”
John twitched. “Rodney,” he said slowly. “I never feel up to pretty blonde aliens.” He shuffled his feet, looked up from under his eyelashes. “Kind of thought you knew that.”
“Oh,” Rodney said, understanding, “Now you want to have this conversation?”
John rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah.” He looked down and then back up again. “I think I do.” He looked straight at Rodney. “Do I?”
And okay, that worked. John asking the difficult questions was much better than Rodney having to ask them, though of course John used many fewer words than Rodney would have done. “Wait,” Rodney said, “So all this, you’ve been, what, flirting with me?”
“No,” John said, looking uncomfortable. “I’ve been trying not to flirt with you.” He smiled in a way that he probably thought was charming, which God help Rodney, might actually have been charming. “Really hard.”
Rodney let himself smile, feeling such a rush of affection it nearly washed away the sudden trembling anxiety over the fact that John liked him.
“So all that,” he waved a hand, “Being weird around Katie and, and-” Rodney broke off. John had been doing things to make him laugh: sending Radek to Planet Kidkill, messing with Lorne, it had all been for Rodney, just like Radek had said. “Wow,” Rodney managed. No one had ever done anything like that for him before.
John was looking at him closely. “Good wow?” he asked, but Rodney was distracted by… well not by any one thing, but everything, by the reality that was John, standing in front of him and liking him. It was sort of mind-blowing.
“Good wow,” Rodney finally managed, amazed to find he meant it.
“Rodney,” John said. His voice was throaty, turned on, and it made something jump low in Rodney’s belly. “If you don’t want me to kiss you, you have to say so right now. In about two seconds it will be too late.”
Rodney swallowed. And very carefully didn’t say anything.
It was barely a kiss, just the soft brush of John’s mouth over his, and then John was stepping back, one hand still on Rodney’s arm but the rest of his body tense, defensive Rodney realised.
“Why now?” Rodney asked, without really meaning to, distracted by the way his lips were buzzing from John’s kiss, having to lick them to see if they tasted any different. They didn’t seem to and he was strangely disappointed.
John looked at him like he was crazy. “You were with Katie before,” he said like it should have been obvious.
Rodney thought about telling him he would have willingly ended things with Katie for even a chance with John, but he didn’t want to inflate his ego. Besides, he hadn’t known that was true until… well, now actually. Huh.
“Right,” Rodney said instead. “But I’m not now.”
John smile was soft, warm and happy, and entirely new to Rodney. “No,” he agreed quietly.
Rodney bounced slightly on his toes. “So you should kiss me again.”
John laughed. “How about we go inside, huh?” he asked, only laughing harder when Rodney walked into his door in his haste to get inside; Rodney found he didn’t even mind.
Inside it probably would have been awkward, but Rodney couldn’t think enough for awkwardness; he was vibrating with the need to touch John again. He’d always liked touching John, he realised, that secret thrill he got when John pressed up against him on missions, in meetings, and this was like that only magnified one hundred times and accompanied by a bone-deep, thrumming lust.
The minute the door shut, he reached for John, getting his arms around him, amazed by even that, by permission to touch; John’s slim, firm frame fit easily into his arms.
John pressed his face into Rodney’s neck. Rodney thought he might be smelling him, and he twitched, laughing a little.
“Shut up,” John muttered, lifting his face, a slight blush along his cheekbones.
And then there was nothing else for it and he was kissing John, kissing his best friend and by all rights it should have been awkward as all hell, but it wasn’t, it was safe and warm and good, probably for the exact same reason that it should be awkward, because it was John.
John pulled back from the kiss, just a little way, but too far for Rodney who reached for him, reeled him back in before either of them could take a full breath apart.
John laughed. “So, this is okay then?” he asked, teasingly, in Rodney’s ear.
Rodney kissed him again in answer. This was better than okay; it felt right, easy even. Relationships and all the things that went with them, the sex and the kissing, hadn’t been easy for Rodney since… well, he wasn’t sure they ever had been. This was still only kissing and it was still better than the few, hard, desperate, emotionless fucks in Siberia, than the shy, stilted, not-that-great sex he’d been having with Katie these last few months.
Here, right now, sliding his hands under John’s shirt, this made sense and Rodney couldn’t help wondering why the hell they’d never done it before.
Rodney skimmed one hand across John’s waist, touching first his belly, then his chest, light touches, exploratory, but John gasped into his mouth all the same. Something primal and possessive welled up in Rodney’s chest and he pressed his spare hand to the small of John’s back, urging him in, pressing him closer and John, who never liked to be pushed around, let himself be pressed, caught, held against Rodney.
It had taken Rodney half an hour to coax himself into his suit earlier this evening and it took John all of ten seconds to get him out of it again, get them both naked. They fell to the bed in a tangle of legs and arms, kisses and touches, mouths and cocks and needy, shaky moans.
John came with Rodney’s tongue on his inner thigh, which was strange and very hot. Rodney came pushed deep inside John’s body, which was better than any words that Rodney knew to describe it.
*
Afterwards, Rodney lay with his head on John’s chest. It wasn’t a position Rodney had ever thought to be in before, but John’s arms felt good, secure, one around his waist, the other across his back.
Rodney brushed his nose through John’s chest hair, tasting it curiously with the tip of his tongue; it tasted sort of hairy.
“The ball still sucked,” he told John’s right nipple, just in case it was getting any ideas that this surprising and rather wonderful end to the night had in anyway changed his overall opinion of enforced social events.
John’s nipple quivered slightly while the rest of him shook with laughter.
“So you won’t be going next year?” John asked.
Rodney pretended to consider. Then actually did consider. “Will I get laid like that again, if I do?” he asked.
“Rodney.” John sounded sort of fond. “If you give me an hour you can get laid like that again tonight.”
Rodney smiled, strangely relieved though it wasn’t as if he’d thought John was the type to fuck and run. “What about tomorrow night?” he asked, hoping he sounded casual.
John’s arms tightened around him, just slightly. “Tomorrow night too,” he agreed softly.
And it wasn’t quite a declaration of forever or even of intent, but that was probably for the best; Rodney wouldn’t have known what to do with one of those and John would probably have stroked out trying to make one. But he knew what John meant and John should know what he meant and that would definitely do.
/End
**
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