Fic: Forever Home Part 2 of 2 (McKay/Sheppard, NC-17)
Title: Forever Home
Author: kassrachel
Pairing: John/Rodney
Rating: explicit
Recipient: aesc
Spoilers: None
Part 1
*
Living with John feels strangely normal. They were pretty much in each other's back pockets on Atlantis anyway, but if someone had asked Rodney whether they would make good housemates, he's not sure he would have answered in the affirmative.
But they do. It probably helps that they're not doing much cooking: John brings dinner home from the market, and otherwise they mostly eat fruit and bread and cheese. Some of the food is pretty weird, but Rodney hasn't seen any sign of citrus fruit on this planet, which is a saving grace.
They play Go at night, for hours, with a grid board and two bowls of pebbles they find in a livingroom cupboard. Between the game itself and the trash-talking, it's actually pretty fun.
Sharing a bed is more challenging. This one isn't as big as the one at Janam and Sami's place -- it's built for two rather than for four -- but it's still easily as spacious as a Terran king-sized mattress, and after four years of sleeping on Atlantis' narrow twin beds, it feels luxurious. The mattress is solid, too, so Rodney's back isn't complaining.
They have plenty of space. They sleep in their boxers, back to back, with an acre or two between them. It's fine.
The hard part is when he wakes up in the middle of the night and sees John sleeping, limned with moonlight, and it's all he can do not to reach out and touch. When John comes out of the shower in the morning, thin towel tucked around his hips. But so far, John hasn't caught him staring.
That everybody they meet assumes they're a couple is either hilariously funny or some kind of sick joke the universe is playing on Rodney and his impossible fantasies. He tries not to think about that either.
*
Rodney thought the library was disorganized: scrolls rolled tight and tied with different colored ribbons, packed into cylinders, cylinders on shelves and on the floor and everywhere except suspended from the goddamned ceiling. But it's nothing on the market.
Even through his yashmak he can smell it from a block away: strong spices, and a dozen different kinds of stew, and leather. It's mostly covered (you'd hate to be outdoors during the heat of the day if there weren't shade) but that means it's noisier and the smells are stronger. By the time Rodney makes it to the entrance he's half-considering just going home. But a woman veiled in chartreuse smiles at him with her eyes, and calls, "You're looking for the other offworlder?"
Amazing that "offworlder" has already entered their vocabulary. That's got to be John's fault.
"Good guess," Rodney says, shading his eyes with one hand.
"This way," the woman says, and Rodney follows her into the throng.
It's chaos in here. One guy's got bolts of fabric in every imaginable color, stacked all the way to the roof. The next guy has bags of spices, big open burlap sacks on the ground and on shelves, each one overflowing with some kind of leaf or powder. Olives in every shade of purple and green. Dates still on their stems. Green pyramid-shaped fruits that might be some kind of fig. Women selling beads. Men calling out the names of their wares. Kids darting this way and that, underfoot. One's got a goat on a leash. It's completely insane.
And as they get deeper into the market, the press of people gets tighter. Less like a shopping mall, more like swimming upstream at a hockey stadium. A guy comes by with a wooden pallet on his head, piled high with oval breads, and Rodney winces and ducks even though it seems clear that the guy has good spatial skills and isn't ramming his cargo into anyone's forehead.
Just as Rodney's reflecting on the hope that the woman in chartreuse is actually leading him to John, not to some unknown terror in a market back alley, they emerge out of the crowd and into a square. It's still market on all sides -- people selling bells, bolts of shiny silk, drums -- but he can breathe again.
And there's John, sitting lazily in front of his stall. "Rodney!"
"Thanks," Rodney says to the woman, and they clasp hands and bow and she goes on her way. "Jesus," he says to John, "how do you ever find your way here?"
John grins. "Gets easier with practice."
"Hm."
"Also, there's a back way." John beckons to a boy from the next stall, who looks about eleven. "Hey, would you grab us a few coffees?"
Rodney reaches for his purse, but John shakes his head; the kid's already gone. "They bring free coffee here for all the customers. I send customers to their shop for beans. It's a win-win."
"I had no idea you had such business acumen."
"I just do what Sami tells me."
The kid's back wth the coffee already, steaming and fragrant in little ornamented glasses, and they lift their veils out of the way to drink. It's almost too hot, it's thick as mud, and it's spiced with something Rodney can't name. It's incredible.
"Oh, I think I love you," Rodney groans, too blissed-out to care quite how dorky he sounds.
"Way to a man's heart," John agrees, sipping his own.
*
When Tuesday rolls around again -- Shteyn, Rodney corrects himself; too soon to have heard back from the scholars at the Academy, but it's been a full week without rescue -- John leaves his earpiece by his side of the bed.
Rodney's pretty sure that if he asked, John would say something about conserving battery life. He's also pretty sure John would know it was a bogus explanation. The batteries in these things last for years. That he's not wearing his earpiece means he doesn't think anyone's coming for them. Not soon, anyway. Maybe not ever.
At the last second before he leaves for the library, Rodney tears his earpiece off and leaves it by his side of the bed, too. It seems forlorn there, somehow. He doesn't look back.
5.
Some people go to the baths on Seva afternoon. It's a sign of piety -- preparing oneself spiritually for Shmonit -- though given the way Janam swoons when he mentions it, Rodney suspects the experience is more sybaritic than he's letting on.
The solar-heated shower in their apartment works well enough, but it's nothing special, and Rodney feels guilty about showering for more than the few minutes it takes to soap up and rinse clean. "Besides," Sami wheedles, "tonight's the Festival of the Water-Drawing. You haven't lived until you've seen that!"
"You have to come to the baths," Ani urges them. "It's traditional to enjoy the waters before giving thanks."
Rodney's pretty sure they're talking about actual baths, not some kind of demented orgy, but it's always hard to be sure.
"C'mon, Rodney," John says, and of course once he turns that smile on Rodney, Rodney's willpower is toast. "Let's go have a soak."
And that's how they come to be standing in front of the public baths on the north side of the city. The big steps leading to the ornate doorway are thronged with veiled figures talking and laughing.
"These baths are for adults only," Sami explains as they follow him through marble hallways to a vast co-ed changing room. Rodney has time for a moment of panic -- fuck, it's a bathhouse bathhouse! -- before Sami continues, "the southern baths allow children, so they tend to be noisy and chaotic, especially on the eve of a festival. This one is more serene." Rodney's so relieved he almost trips over his sandals: serene almost certainly doesn't mean orgy.
Not that an orgy with John would be such a terrible thing, but Rodney's pretty sure John wouldn't see it that way.
Wrapped in thin blue towels, they emerge into an enormous echoing hall where the steam washes over Rodney like a caress. After a few weeks in the desert, humidity is the most incredible sensation ever. In front of them are low octagonal marble tables where people sit in groups of twos and threes, ladling hot water over one another from copper buckets. At the far end there's what looks like a massage parlor, and in the middle: an octagonal pool, tiled in blue, steaming.
"Oh my God," Rodney murmurs, because this is amazing. "This is amazing. We should be coming here all the time."
"This doesn't suck," John agrees.
"There's Rina," Sami says, pointing, and leads them to the pool, where Rina is sitting on a low ledge and luxuriating. He drops his towel and climbs in. Taking a deep breath, Rodney follows suit. As John descends the steps, Rodney finds an excuse to glance in the other direction; he desperately wants to look, but just as desperately doesn't want to get caught looking, and discretion seems the better part of valor. Barely.
The water's almost too hot to bear, which means it's perfect. Rodney closes his eyes, leans back against the tiled wall of the pool, and tries not to think for a while.
*
Eventually they move to one of the low marble octagons, and Sami brings over a pair of buckets of hot water. He takes one ladle and spoons the water slowly over his partners, which is sensuous and oddly mesmerizing; for all that the room is at 100% humidity, Rodney's mouth is suddenly dry.
"Want to do me?" John asks him, and okay, Rodney's a strong man, he can resist anything, even the combination of attractiveness and incredibly lame (surely unintentional) innuendo.
"Sure," Rodney manages, and moves to stand behind John so he can slowly pour the water over John's shoulders and down his chest. John bends his head forward, which is probably just to give Rodney better access but feels like a gesture of submission.
Rodney's saved from the purgatory of his own impure thoughts when yet another pair of towel-wrapped women stops in front of them, looking them up and down. "Welcome to the Golden City," one says flirtatiously.
"Been here a while already, thanks," Rodney says.
John gives a little twitch: trying not to laugh?
"I'm Lital and this is Harbia," the other woman says. "Will we see you at the Festival of the Water-Drawing tonight?"
"We'll be there," John says.
"Wonderful," Harbia gushes. She flicks a glance up at Rodney, grins, and then turns to walk away.
"Everyone wants to meet the strangers in town," Ani notes, sounding amused.
"I think they'd be in-demand even if they were locally grown," Rina quips.
Rodney's face flames hot with new understanding: they're being scoped. "I thought this wasn't that kind of bathhouse!"
The reference completely escapes their hosts, of course, but John reaches over and pats him on the ankle. "I don't think anyone's going to directly proposition us, if that helps any."
As if to put the lie to that, a man stops in front of them. He's tall, at least as tall as Ronon, which means he doesn't have to crane his neck much to look at Rodney even though Rodney's standing a couple of steps up. "I'm Aban," he says.
"Hi," John says. "I'm John; this is Rodney."
"Hi," Rodney echoes tightly. But Aban and John don't break eye contact.
"Adela and I would be honored if you would join us for a drink this evening." He gestures toward the pool. "She's still in the water; I thought I'd come say hello."
"Thanks for the invitation." John's voice is mild and noncommittal, but Aban grins, a flash of white teeth.
"Be well," he says. Rodney can't help staring as he walks away; even through his low-slung towel, his legs and the curve of his ass are completely spectacular. And the slope of his back and shoulders.
"Finished with that ladle?" John's voice startles him into looking down; he's been standing there with an empty ladle in one hand, watching Aban go. John's leaning back on his hands, looking up at him, wry amusement all over his face.
"I was just, ah --" Rodney fumbles for something, anything, he can say.
"You'd have to be dead not to notice Aban of the House Numan," Janam says, a note of wistful admiration in his voice.
"Here, let's trade places," John says, his voice light, and Rodney hands him the ladle and climbs down to sit. The first splash of water on the back of his shoulders feels really good -- and it means he can face the floor, doesn't have to look John in the eye. He's pretty sure he just came out to John, completely by accident, and he has no idea what John is thinking at all.
*
The music is audible from blocks away. There are bands of people playing stringed instruments that sound vaguely lute-like, though their tuning isn't exactly like anything Rodney knows. Boys tap at hand-drums and little girls are running around with tambourines.
The octagonal plaza in the center of town is packed with people, everyone in their finest robes and brightest veils. It's after dark, but the plaza is bright as day, lit with lanterns. There's a guy riding a unicycle, and another guy juggling flaming torches, and in the throngs some people are dancing.
"This is crazy," Rodney shouts to John, leaning close to cup his hand over John's ear.
John just nods.
The music is temporarily drowned-out by the sounds of the horns Rodney recognizes from the start of Shmonit. A hush falls over the crowd, and at the far end of the plaza people are moving to make way for a phalanx of tall figures, all robed and veiled in silver and grey. Two by two, they're carrying lidded buckets of water, eight in total, and they form a circle around the middle of the plaza.
Four figures veiled in white emerge with enormous crowbars, and slowly they pry the paving-stones away. Rodney cranes his neck to see what's below the street, but he can't make it out. A loud blast from what seems to be every horn in town, and the pairs who carried the water up from the spring raise their buckets and one by one pour their water into the middle of the plaza at the center of the city. A cheer goes up, and the music starts again -- drums, bells, lutes, and now people are singing something Rodney can't make out.
"Found you!" It's Ani, standing to their right, and she grabs John's arm. "Come on -- we're saving you seats at the weavers' banquet."
John shrugs to Rodney and they follow her through the crowd and out one of the streets that acts as a spoke of the plaza's wheel.
*
The weavers -- among whose number Ani is counted -- throw a pretty swank party. Ani takes them to a warehouse space Rodney's never seen, lined with rich carpets and piled with pillows where guests recline. Servers are making the rounds with platters of lamb on enormous beds of rice, tureens of stew, and bottles upon bottles of wine.
"We're so glad to have you here," Janam says warmly. His arm is around Sami, and Rina and Ani are leaning together beside them.
"What's the story with the water ceremony?" John asks.
"The water's brought up from the spring in the valley -- the same one that feeds us," Sami explains.
"And under the plaza there's, what, pipes?" Rodney asks.
Sami's nodding. "The water's sluiced back to the spring."
"It's our way of offering thanks to the Elements for the sustenance they provide," Ani says seriously. "And it ensures that there will continue to be water in the year to come."
"It's like a hard reboot of the water system," John muses.
As usual, their hosts just blink, not sure how to respond to the unfamiliar reference. And then Rina adds, "and of course, it's an auspicious time for new beginnings." She's blushing a little. Ani clasps her hand; Sami and Janam exchange a quick kiss.
Rodney feels a familiar melancholy creeping in around the edges.
The people here have been generous and welcoming -- more so than the Terrans (are they now Lanteans?) would have been if the situation were reversed, much as Rodney hates to admit it. And he actually likes these people. So why is he feeling so out-of-sorts?
Maybe it's the realization that this is basically their wedding anniversary, Janam and Sami and Ani and Rina. All of a sudden Rodney misses Teyla and Ronon with an ache so fierce it makes him lightheaded. Not that they were ever this kind of family, but they're family all the same.
"You okay?" John asks quietly.
"I'm--" Rodney stops himself. "I don't know how I am. I miss Teyla and Ronon."
"Yeah," John agrees.
As if by mutual agreement, this is a subject they mostly avoid. Too painful, too many unknowns. But right now Rodney can't help thinking about them. Wondering how they would respond to all of this.
Also as if by mutual agreement, they haven't talked about their bathhouse adventure. Which is a relief, because it means they're going to pretend John didn't notice Rodney checking that guy out. Which means, in turn, that they don't have to talk about whether John's now uncomfortable sharing Rodney's bed, or whether John thinks Rodney's an asshole for not coming out to him sooner.
But right now Rodney really wishes he could lean into John the way Rina's leaning into Ani -- not just because he wants to jump John's bones (because really, who doesn't?) but because he feels lonely, and far from home, and it's starting to sink in that this may be the way things are now. They may never find out what happened to Ronon and Teyla. They may never make it back.
Feeling isolated and alone when you're alone is bad enough. Feeling isolated and alone at a big party, surrounded by flirting and wine and conversation, Rodney thinks: that sucks beyond the telling.
"Good evening." There's a woman at the edge of their carpet who Rodney recognizes but can't place. She's tall and beautiful and wearing a magenta robe that makes her look like a Bollywood star.
"Adela," Ani says brightly. "Will you and Aban join us?" Right: last time he saw her, she was in a giant swimming pool, no wonder he couldn't put a name to her face.
"We were hoping your guests might join us," she says, turning the full force of her smile on Rodney and then on John. "Aban and I are over there," pointing toward a carpet maybe thirty meters away.
"That's a great invitation, but -- I think we might head home early, actually," John says.
Rodney breathes out a sigh of relief. Not that he's not attracted to Aban and Adela -- he has eyes, thank you -- but the prospect of negotiating...whatever this is...with them and with John was tying his insides in knots.
"Oh, you're going so soon?" That's Janam, disappointed.
"Yes, sorry, I'm not feeling very well," Rodney lies. It's almost true. "It's a beautiful party; thank you for including us. Thanks for the invitation, Adela."
"Another time, maybe," she says, shrugging a little, and bows in farewell.
"We miss our friends," John says quietly, and their four new friends make understanding noises.
"It must be difficult to be separated from your family," Janam says.
That brings a lump to Rodney's throat for sure. "Goodnight," he manages, standing up, and John follows him out of the pavilion and into the quiet streets.
*
They've just let themselves into their apartment -- Rodney's lighting the kerosene lantern -- when John speaks.
"Were you ever going to tell me?"
Rodney feels his shoulders tensing. "I thought we weren't going to talk about this."
"What gave you that idea?"
"Well, we hadn't talked about it yet! I figured that was working pretty well."
"Is it?"
Ouch. Rodney folds his arms. "Okay, yes, I like men." The words hang in the air, stark and irretrievable. "Is that a problem for you?"
John looks wounded. "Of course it's not a problem for me. Do you really think I'm that kind of jerk?"
Rodney leans against the wall, all the fight draining out of him. "No," he admits, fidgeting with the edge of his robe. "I think I'm a jerk for not coming out to you in the first place."
"Hey," and now John's voice is quiet and filled with concern. "I don't mean to make it -- look, there was nobody you were interested in, there was no reason for it to come up."
John's offering him a way off the hook, but he can't take it. Because what John's saying isn't true either, and if he's coming clean, he's really going to come clean. Rodney squares his shoulders, feels his mouth tightening.
"You're giving me the benefit of the doubt, but..." He has to swallow hard. "There is someone I've been interested in, and I should have said something to you a long time ago."
Suddenly John is standing a lot closer than Rodney thought he was. "You gonna tell me who it is, or do I have to guess?"
"It's you," Rodney says, helpless, because saying this is the wrong idea, he knows it is. It always has been. And it's really the wrong idea here and now, because all they have here is each other and he's just said the one thing that's guaranteed to make John uncomfortable, maybe even to push John out of their apartment. Despite the ambient heat, Rodney feels numb.
And then John's hands come up to cradle his face, and John's pushing him against the wall, and John's kissing him hot and desperate like something out of one of Rodney's fantasies, like nothing Rodney ever imagined at all.
*
They roll over and over on their bed, clothing discarded in a haphazard trail across the floor. Rodney's on top now, and he kneels up, pinning John to the bed. John's mouth is wet and his eyes are dark and he looks younger; he looks happy.
"God," Rodney says thickly, because this is almost too much: John Sheppard spread beneath him like a feast. John thrusts up a little, his hands moving restless over Rodney's hips. "I can't believe we --"
There are a hundred different ways he wants to end that sentence: waited this long, never said anything, haven't done this until today. Sudden anxiety rises in him -- what if this is only happening now because they're far from home, because he's the only person John has left who shares John's context? The only one who knows what Earth means, what Atlantis means?
"Stop thinking," John says."Unless you're contemplating what we have on hand that we could use for lube."
"'Stop thinking'? Hi, have you met me?"
John grins. "Think about this, then." He pulls Rodney down for a kiss and then gives a sinuous jujitsu twist that pushes Rodney onto his back, John above him now.
"Oh, so that's how it's going to be," Rodney says, aiming for irritable but sounding ridiculously pleased instead.
"Yep," John confirms, and shimmies down his body and sucks Rodney's cock into his mouth.
Something in Rodney's brain short-circuits. All he can process is hot, wet, good, John, fuck. John pulls back, his cock popping free, and murmurs "keep talking," which is when Rodney realizes he's saying all of this out loud. Which would ordinarily be embarrassing, but John circles the base of his dick with one hand and palms his balls with the other and Rodney can't help his whimper. His hands clench the bedcovers.
"Tell me what you like," John says -- it's almost an order -- and sucks him back in, this time with just the lightest scrape of teeth. That's positive reinforcement: Rodney lets himself babble, praise interspersed with gasps. When he comes, he stuffs his hand into his mouth to muffle his groan.
John slides up the bed and they kiss some more, John's mouth slightly bitter now which makes Rodney's cock want to stir again. When Rodney pulls him close John gasps, his dick hot against Rodney's thigh. Rodney reaches down and takes hold, almost giddy at the sensation of John's erection pressing into his hand. "John," he murmurs, and John twitches, as if he's yearning toward Rodney even in Rodney's arms. As if hearing his name is doing something to him.
Saying it is definitely doing something for Rodney, so he says it again, right into John's ear. And again, mouthing his way along John's jaw. When he whispers it and bites gently at the exposed line of John's neck, John comes apart, inhaling hard as if he's surprised by his own orgasm.
They sleep within arm's reach. Every time John's knee brushes his thigh, Rodney wakes for a second, and remembers, and falls asleep grinning at the ceiling.
6.
"P19-R43," Rodney says when John opens his eyes.
"Good morning to you too," John says, and his boyish smile is almost enough to distract Rodney from what he's just figured out.
"The couple we caught working with the Wraith."
John rolls over and scrubs one hand over his face. "The ones who were selling people from the next village over. What about 'em?"
Just remembering them makes Rodney's insides twist with anger again. Wraith-worshippers are bad enough, creepy and power-hungry and apparently perfectly content to sell out their fellow humans if it means they can feel immortal for a while. But these people were worse...and he'd never seen Teyla or Ronon half as angry as they were when they figured this one out.
"They were exiled," Rodney prompts.
"Yeah," John says, sounding slightly puzzled. He's just woken up; he's not getting it yet. "That's what they do on that planet when you commit an unforgivable crime."
After Rodney and Teyla made the case to the local authorities, and John and Ronon brought them in, the perpetrators were sent to prison camps on another world, fitted with ankle bracelets that won't ever let them step through a stargate again. They're bound to the prison world now. Never able to come home. "Their son," Rodney says triumphantly, "is who did this to us."
He can see the gears turning in John's mind. "We separated him from his family," John realizes aloud.
"So he separated us from ours." Rodney remembers him shouting threats as his parents were taken away by the authorities. Remembers the villagers holding him back, giving apologetic looks to Teyla and Ronon and Rodney and John as the guy ranted and raved about how he'd make them pay for breaking his family apart. As if his parents' wrongdoings had been the Lanteans' fault.
John lets his head thunk back against the pillow. "I knew he was dangerous, I just didn't--"
"You couldn't have predicted something like this."
"I should have." John's face is set; he's angry.
"Hey," Rodney says, and crawls across the bed. "You're supposed to be impressed with my deductive abilities, not sulking because you didn't magically intuit that that asshole was going to kidnap us."
John's mouth quirks slightly. "Oh?"
"Get with the program," Rodney says.
John takes a deep breath, then blows it out. "Okay."
Rodney rolls out of bed.
"Hey," John says, reaching for him.
It's hard to fight the temptation to just lean toward him, like a plant toward the light. "Hang on." John looks slightly pouty. "Let me brush my teeth," Rodney insists, "be right back."
Given everything that's wrong in their lives, it's amazing how good it feels to climb back into bed with John for the first time. Back into bed with John -- it makes Rodney's heart do somersaults. They've been sharing the bed for weeks, but not like this. This is something wild and new.
*
They've been in the Golden City for just over three weeks on the day the return letter comes from the Exegetical Academy.
It arrives on Khames afternoon, and Hinam brings it to the back room where Rodney is poring over a scientific-philosophical treatise written eight hundred years ago. Hinam hands it to him, uncharacteristically silent, and Rodney realizes what he's holding.
His heart is beating doubletime as he takes the brocaded box and unfurls the scroll inside.
Dear Doctor McKay, Visitor to the City of Gold:
We read with great interest the Council's missive about your predicament, and understand wholly your desire to return to your family and to your native air, fire, water, and soil.
Although no one in our halls could call to mind any writings about the ability to transmit voices or images across the aether, nor about the miracle of flight, we had hoped that on the rarefied shelves of our restricted section we might find word of something which would be of use to you.
It is with the greatest regret...
He reads it fast, skimming to the end. Then, his heart having plummeted, he reads it again. And then he rolls it back up, hands it to Hinam without a word, and walks out of the library.
He walks to the city walls, nods to the guard at the bottom of the parapet, and climbs to the top. The next few hours pass in a haze: Rodney walks the perimeter of the city from the top of the walls, staring out over the tawny sands. When the light starts to fade, he starts slowly home, though his feet are dragging; he doesn't want to return to their apartment. Doesn't want to have to break the news to John.
When Rodney walks in the door and sees John there -- feet up, working a little wrought-iron puzzle he brought home from the market a few days ago -- all of his carefully-prepared speeches fly right out of his head.
"It's no use," Rodney blurts.
John looks up. "Huh?"
Rodney shuffles over and sits heavily on the other couch, staring at his hands.
"Got the letter from the Academy today."
John doesn't say anything. It's obvious that he's intuited from Rodney's tone of voice that the news isn't good.
"There's nothing in their grand library about flight, or radio communications, or anything," Rodney says. He's near tears again, and that just makes him angrier. "There's a section of the library they thought might hold something like what we were looking for, but when the librarians got there, the scrolls were water damaged. Water damage, in this climate, can you believe it?"
"So, what, it's a setback," John begins.
"The Exegetical Academy is the biggest library on this world," Rodney says quietly. "If they don't have data, the data doesn't exist here to be had."
There's a moment of silence.
"We really can't phone home," John says.
Rodney can't quite laugh, but he gives John a wavery smile; it was a good line. "We really can't."
Neither one of them says what they're both thinking, which is that unless Zelenka finds them here, which seems increasingly unlikely with every passing day, this is home now. They can't count on making it back to Atlantis. They have to be home for each other.
*
Seeing John spread naked for him on their bed -- this time lying on his stomach, his face turned to one side and pillowed on his folded arms -- still takes Rodney's breath away.
"Tell me if you don't like it," Rodney says, slightly anxious but trying not to show it.
"I like everything," John promises, his eyes closed. There's a temptation to touch his entire body: to run his hands up and down John's calves and the backs of his thighs, to press his thumbs along the ridge of John's spine, to cup his shoulderblades, to map every mark and scar. But Rodney has a plan tonight, so he knee-walks his way between John's spread legs, cups his ass in both hands, and bends to take a first tentative lick.
John gasps, but Rodney was prepared for that; he holds John still, holds him open. They both got massages this afternoon at the bathhouse, because Rodney knows that after the massage the attendants wash you like a kitten. Every inch of them has been thoroughly scrubbed, not a speck of desert sand anywhere. After a massage and a scrub Rodney's skin tingles all over, sensations magnified, which means John is experiencing this kiss with a body that feels new.
"Rodney, fuck," John moans. He's twitching under Rodney's hands in a way that means he's getting hard, his dick trapped beneath his body and rubbing against the bed.
"Good, hm?" It's a rhetorical question; Rodney licks again.
John lets out a desperate, breathy little moan. Right now Rodney is as hard as he can ever remember being in his entire life. Doing this to John, imagining how good it has to feel, has him this close to coming even without being touched.
"Please," John manages.
"Hm?" Rodney's busy using his tongue to take John apart.
"Fuck me," John says, his voice low and breathy. "Will you--"
Rodney slides a finger inside and John convulses around him, groaning. They haven't done this yet, but God, Rodney wants to; wants it so badly. He pulls out and licks at him one more time and John chokes out a cry, stiffening.
Rodney makes it as far as wrapping his hand around his cock before he loses it, striping John's thigh with come. He collapses next to John on the bed, grinning stupidly into the pillow. After a second John rolls over and burrows his nose into Rodney's shoulder, throwing an arm over him. They laze that way for a long while.
*
John starts training with the local garrison a few evenings a week. Nothing intense, just light sparring, but he comes home sweaty and grinning like a maniac.
"They do really clean swordwork here," he says. "I'm going to ask Nilofa to teach me the basics."
Rodney shudders, imagining John sliced open like a gourd, but he keeps his mouth shut. He's not about to take away one of the few pleasures this world has to offer a man who can no longer fly.
Since the news came, Hinam has been friendlier to Rodney. And lately he's been making awkward hints about library work. He seems to be working up to offering Rodney some kind of paid scholar position. The scholar-philosopher-librarian seems to be the closest thing this culture has to honest-to-God scientists, so it's not a bad fit, all things considered.
Rodney wishes every day he'd paid more attention to A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, or to one of any number of science fiction novels he's read which share the basic premise (technologically advanced guy gets stuck in primitive culture; has to reinvent science) because there are a million innovations he wants to implement here and he can't quite figure out how.
The first thing he'll need if he's going to do anything useful is establishing reliable power. Sami tells him that the sandstorms that kick up during the second season of the year are pretty powerful. Harnessing wind is the obvious project to take on; he makes an appointment to see the Council about it after new moon.
John and Rodney start mentioning people from home again. Not a lot, not dwelling, but just saying their names, working them into conversation. "He thinks he's tough, but he's no Ronon," John says of one of the men he spars with. Rodney describes one of the scholars in residence as "smart and gorgeous -- a regular Teyla."
Saying their names hurts, but in a good way. It would hurt a lot worse if they let themselves forget.
7.
"Dr. Rodney," Tavar calls, almost tripping over her feet in her haste to reach what's become Rodney's unofficial reading room. "Dr. Rodney!"
"I'm here, what is it?" Irritable; how many times does he have to tell these people not to interrupt him when the door is closed?
"There's someone -- you have to come -- quickly!"
Panic flares along ever nerve in his body. "What's the matter? What's happened?" Oh, God, is it John -- has something happened to John? A fist of steel clenches around his heart.
She's shaking her head, out of breath; she must have run all the way from the market, or the plaza. "There are people here to see you. At the south gate. They say they're from your world."
He drops everything, doesn't even stop for his veil, just runs as fast as he can.
*
It's like being in a dream. Rodney rounds the corner and there they are: Ronon, Teyla, and half a dozen Marines.
Ronon spots him first and breaks into the fiercest grin Rodney has ever seen. He pulls Rodney into a bear hug and won't let go; they cling like that, and if there are tears on Rodney's face, well, they're soaking into the leather of Ronon's vest.
"We thought we'd never see you again," Rodney manages.
"Should've known better." Ronon's voice is gruff.
Rodney hears footfalls, sandals skidding at a breakneck pace. Teyla cries out, and he knows it's John.
When he and Ronon finally let each other go, John and Teyla are embracing, foreheads pressed together. And yeah, okay, they're all crying.
And Rodney has to hug Teyla, and Ronon lifts John off the ground. The Marines just stand there, grinning like idiots. By the time they all break, there's a circle of people standing around them. There's a moment of disjunction when Rodney wonders what this must look like to them -- and what these strangers in their colorful veils must look like to Ronon and Teyla, and to the soldiers from Earth. Janam is standing in the circle, watching them, and his eyes look suspiciously bright.
"These, ah, these are our friends," Rodney says, finally. "Ronon Dex, Teyla Emmagen, and -- " he fumbles for names and comes up blank. "I'm sorry, I don't remember--"
"Driver and Briggs," John says, his voice a little shaky, "and Esack, and Kliegman, and Kuo."
"I am Janam of the House Dibbah," Janam says, stepping forward. "My household took responsibility for Rodney McKay and John Sheppard when they first arrived."
"Then we must thank you," Teyla says smoothly. "From the bottom of our hearts."
"Oh my God," Rodney says, to no one in particular. "I can't believe you're -- you're really here. I don't --" His knees feel shaky.
"We've come," Teyla says, "to bring you home."
"Jumper's cloaked about a ten minute walk from here," Ronon adds.
"We have...things," Rodney says inanely. "There are some scrolls I've been working on; John wanted to give you a knife," he says to Ronon, "and we have clothes--"
"Is this place easy to get to?" John asks.
Ronon shrugs. "Now that we know how to find it, yeah."
"You have to go through a gate the Ancients said was broken," Teyla adds, "and fly through an...ion cloud, I believe it was?"
Rodney's snapping his fingers. "That's why the Wraith haven't come here," he realizes, aloud. "Depending on the composition of the cloud, their scanners might not even show that there's a planet inside!"
"Flying down here was a little bit harrowing," Briggs pipes up. "Sir."
"If we can come back here at will," John says, "we should head back to Atlantis now; I'm guessing Woolsey's jonesing for a report."
"More importantly, he has missed you both." Teyla's eyes are bright, and the tone of chiding affection in her voice makes Rodney's heart feel too big for his chest.
"We'll come back for our things, and to check in with you guys," John turns to Janam, "if that's okay with you...?"
"Of course." Janam steps forward and clasps John's hands, bending over them in a deeper bow than Rodney's ever seen. John returns the gesture, and then pulls him into an embrace.
Rodney follows suit. Janam's arms are strong and his body is firm against Rodney's. "Tell your wives we'll see them soon," Rodney murmurs into his ear, and Janam nods: yes, of course.
"Thank you all," John says, loudly, to the growing crowd. "We appreciate your hospitality more than we can say. We'll be back soon."
And then they follow Ronon and Teyla out of the city gates, the Marines taking their six, and walk toward the invisible jumper that's going to carry them home.
8.
Everything feels strange and new. The jumper, the hyperspace window, the cheering that welcomes them back into the gateroom. Zelenka hugs him so hard his back cracks; there are tears pouring down his face, which Rodney elects not to mention for the simple reason that he's in the same boat.
"Gentlemen, I am very glad to see you," Woolsey says, pumping John's hand.
"Likewise," John says, "believe me."
"I'm sure you have a great deal to report." Woolsey beams at them. "Shall we say tomorrow, oh-eight-hundred?"
"Sounds great," John says. "We'll be there."
"I wasn't sure you would find us," Rodney says to Radek, quietly.
"Neither was I," Radek admits, "but we were not going to give up. You must know this."
"Leave no man behind," Ronon says. "Right, Sheppard?"
"Right," John agrees.
During the pause that follows, exhaustion hits Rodney like the proverbial ton of bricks. Teyla seems to see it in his posture or his face. "Our friends are tired. They have come a long way."
"Yes, of course," Woolsey says, and claps his hands twice. "Okay, everyone! Give Colonel Sheppard and Dr. McKay some space."
And just like that, the crowd disperses. Rodney walks out without looking at anyone, making a beeline for his room.
*
Everything looks exactly as he left it. In the hypoallergenic atmosphere of Atlantis there isn't any dust, though Rodney feels like there should be. Everything should be draped with sheets, covered in cobwebs, something to show that it's almost six weeks since he was here last. But instead his quarters are their usual state of comfortable chaos, books and papers stacked haphazardly beside the tablet computer on his desk.
There's an enormous welcome-home card standing on top of the closed computer. He lifts it idly and looks inside: seems like pretty much everyone in town signed their names. John probably has one just like it.
The thought sends a spike of melancholy right into Rodney's heart. He sits down on his impossibly narrow bed, wishing to God he at least had a cat here, someone to come home to.
He has his earpiece in. He could tap his radio and call, see how John's doing. But he shouldn't. The right thing to do is to give John some space, Rodney knows that. These last weeks, the only time they were apart was when they were working; John's probably glad to have his own quarters back. Like Rodney ought to be. He's always been a man who enjoys solitude! But that old mantra has lost its efficacy. Maybe because now he knows what it's like to live with someone, and wow, it hurts to have to give that up.
This is the real reason he shouldn't have said anything about being into John. Because he got used to having something that he can't have anymore.
It's not as though John isn't in his life here. They'll still work together, eat together, watch movies together, play chess together. All of the things they usually do. The things they did, before. But John can't risk a gay relationship, that's obvious. And besides, John has a lot of options now. Almost everyone in Atlantis understands John's Earth references. He doesn't have to settle. He can do better.
Rodney lies down and tries to curl up, though the bed isn't quite wide enough to fit his knees. If he's going to be this pathetic, he might as well wallow in it, right? Some part of him wants to scoot back until he encounters John's warm body, John's open arms. It's like having a phantom limb: he has a phantom partner. He'll just have to get used to not having him anymore, and after a while, the pain will go away.
"Sheppard to McKay," John says in his ear. It's almost like intimacy, only not.
Rodney takes a deep breath to make sure he won't sound quite as lame as he feels. "McKay here."
"I'm...right outside your door," John says, and now his voice sounds a little tentative. "Can I come in?"
Rodney's out of bed and waving the door open in a heartbeat.
John has changed into BDUs, combat boots half-unlaced, a black t-shirt: his usual wardrobe. The wristband is back on, covering the bracelet Rodney's spent so many hours staring at. He looks like John Sheppard, Lieutenant Colonel and military commander of Atlantis, again.
Rodney feels sheepish still wearing his robe. Suddenly it seems like a symbol of who he was on Alma -- who they were, together -- who they can't be, anymore. He wishes he were wearing Atlantis clothes, something snug to help hold him together. The door whooshes shut behind John, and after a long second Rodney steps back and gestures into the room. "Home sweet home," he says, aiming for light-hearted.
"It's weird being back, huh?" John walks over to his desk and picks up the card, then puts it back down.
"I don't even know who all of those people are," Rodney admits.
John grimaces. "Yeah."
There's a pause, and then Rodney can't help himself: the words come spilling out. "So I guess we're going back to the way things were before, right? I mean, I know you can't afford to risk -- which is not to say that you would necessarily want to, even if the risk were reasonable, I do recognize that, so clearly the thing to do is--"
John looks tired then, and older, and sad. "Is that what you want?"
"Me?" Rodney squares his shoulders and raises his chin a little, trying to project the aura of a man who has the courage of his convictions. "It's obviously the smart thing to do."
"That's not what I asked." John's voice is husky, as if he's been shouting.
Rodney just stares at him, everything he wants to say hammering at the inside of his lips. No, he thinks. No, it is not what I want. It is not what I would ever want. But I'm trying. Don't make this harder than it already is.
John takes a breath. "Because I'll tell you..." The pause feels like it goes on forever. "That wouldn't be my preference."
It feels like Rodney's heart has stopped. "It wouldn't?"
"Hell no," John says, then amends it to "fuck no."
Just like that, the oppressive feeling in the room modulates into something different and new. "Oh," Rodney says, like an idiot.
John's smiling a little, wryly. "I guess it wouldn't be yours, either."
"Not so much," Rodney confirms. His exhaustion is gone, replaced by an eagerness that sings through his body.
"We have to tell Ronon and Teyla," John says, as Rodney walks over to him. "I don't want to keep this a secret from them."
"They're family," Rodney agrees. John's right there, barely an inch away, but it feels like they've crossed a mile when Rodney kisses him. The kiss is tender. How can it be so familiar and so new at the same time? But it is. Their first kiss in Atlantis. All of their explorations of one another's bodies, they're going to get to do again, here, a first time for everything all over again.
When they break the kiss, they grin at each other like they just won every lottery in the galaxy all at once.
"John," Rodney murmurs gratefully, and kisses him again, just because he can. "Welcome home."
END
Author: kassrachel
Pairing: John/Rodney
Rating: explicit
Recipient: aesc
Spoilers: None
Part 1
*
Living with John feels strangely normal. They were pretty much in each other's back pockets on Atlantis anyway, but if someone had asked Rodney whether they would make good housemates, he's not sure he would have answered in the affirmative.
But they do. It probably helps that they're not doing much cooking: John brings dinner home from the market, and otherwise they mostly eat fruit and bread and cheese. Some of the food is pretty weird, but Rodney hasn't seen any sign of citrus fruit on this planet, which is a saving grace.
They play Go at night, for hours, with a grid board and two bowls of pebbles they find in a livingroom cupboard. Between the game itself and the trash-talking, it's actually pretty fun.
Sharing a bed is more challenging. This one isn't as big as the one at Janam and Sami's place -- it's built for two rather than for four -- but it's still easily as spacious as a Terran king-sized mattress, and after four years of sleeping on Atlantis' narrow twin beds, it feels luxurious. The mattress is solid, too, so Rodney's back isn't complaining.
They have plenty of space. They sleep in their boxers, back to back, with an acre or two between them. It's fine.
The hard part is when he wakes up in the middle of the night and sees John sleeping, limned with moonlight, and it's all he can do not to reach out and touch. When John comes out of the shower in the morning, thin towel tucked around his hips. But so far, John hasn't caught him staring.
That everybody they meet assumes they're a couple is either hilariously funny or some kind of sick joke the universe is playing on Rodney and his impossible fantasies. He tries not to think about that either.
*
Rodney thought the library was disorganized: scrolls rolled tight and tied with different colored ribbons, packed into cylinders, cylinders on shelves and on the floor and everywhere except suspended from the goddamned ceiling. But it's nothing on the market.
Even through his yashmak he can smell it from a block away: strong spices, and a dozen different kinds of stew, and leather. It's mostly covered (you'd hate to be outdoors during the heat of the day if there weren't shade) but that means it's noisier and the smells are stronger. By the time Rodney makes it to the entrance he's half-considering just going home. But a woman veiled in chartreuse smiles at him with her eyes, and calls, "You're looking for the other offworlder?"
Amazing that "offworlder" has already entered their vocabulary. That's got to be John's fault.
"Good guess," Rodney says, shading his eyes with one hand.
"This way," the woman says, and Rodney follows her into the throng.
It's chaos in here. One guy's got bolts of fabric in every imaginable color, stacked all the way to the roof. The next guy has bags of spices, big open burlap sacks on the ground and on shelves, each one overflowing with some kind of leaf or powder. Olives in every shade of purple and green. Dates still on their stems. Green pyramid-shaped fruits that might be some kind of fig. Women selling beads. Men calling out the names of their wares. Kids darting this way and that, underfoot. One's got a goat on a leash. It's completely insane.
And as they get deeper into the market, the press of people gets tighter. Less like a shopping mall, more like swimming upstream at a hockey stadium. A guy comes by with a wooden pallet on his head, piled high with oval breads, and Rodney winces and ducks even though it seems clear that the guy has good spatial skills and isn't ramming his cargo into anyone's forehead.
Just as Rodney's reflecting on the hope that the woman in chartreuse is actually leading him to John, not to some unknown terror in a market back alley, they emerge out of the crowd and into a square. It's still market on all sides -- people selling bells, bolts of shiny silk, drums -- but he can breathe again.
And there's John, sitting lazily in front of his stall. "Rodney!"
"Thanks," Rodney says to the woman, and they clasp hands and bow and she goes on her way. "Jesus," he says to John, "how do you ever find your way here?"
John grins. "Gets easier with practice."
"Hm."
"Also, there's a back way." John beckons to a boy from the next stall, who looks about eleven. "Hey, would you grab us a few coffees?"
Rodney reaches for his purse, but John shakes his head; the kid's already gone. "They bring free coffee here for all the customers. I send customers to their shop for beans. It's a win-win."
"I had no idea you had such business acumen."
"I just do what Sami tells me."
The kid's back wth the coffee already, steaming and fragrant in little ornamented glasses, and they lift their veils out of the way to drink. It's almost too hot, it's thick as mud, and it's spiced with something Rodney can't name. It's incredible.
"Oh, I think I love you," Rodney groans, too blissed-out to care quite how dorky he sounds.
"Way to a man's heart," John agrees, sipping his own.
*
When Tuesday rolls around again -- Shteyn, Rodney corrects himself; too soon to have heard back from the scholars at the Academy, but it's been a full week without rescue -- John leaves his earpiece by his side of the bed.
Rodney's pretty sure that if he asked, John would say something about conserving battery life. He's also pretty sure John would know it was a bogus explanation. The batteries in these things last for years. That he's not wearing his earpiece means he doesn't think anyone's coming for them. Not soon, anyway. Maybe not ever.
At the last second before he leaves for the library, Rodney tears his earpiece off and leaves it by his side of the bed, too. It seems forlorn there, somehow. He doesn't look back.
5.
Some people go to the baths on Seva afternoon. It's a sign of piety -- preparing oneself spiritually for Shmonit -- though given the way Janam swoons when he mentions it, Rodney suspects the experience is more sybaritic than he's letting on.
The solar-heated shower in their apartment works well enough, but it's nothing special, and Rodney feels guilty about showering for more than the few minutes it takes to soap up and rinse clean. "Besides," Sami wheedles, "tonight's the Festival of the Water-Drawing. You haven't lived until you've seen that!"
"You have to come to the baths," Ani urges them. "It's traditional to enjoy the waters before giving thanks."
Rodney's pretty sure they're talking about actual baths, not some kind of demented orgy, but it's always hard to be sure.
"C'mon, Rodney," John says, and of course once he turns that smile on Rodney, Rodney's willpower is toast. "Let's go have a soak."
And that's how they come to be standing in front of the public baths on the north side of the city. The big steps leading to the ornate doorway are thronged with veiled figures talking and laughing.
"These baths are for adults only," Sami explains as they follow him through marble hallways to a vast co-ed changing room. Rodney has time for a moment of panic -- fuck, it's a bathhouse bathhouse! -- before Sami continues, "the southern baths allow children, so they tend to be noisy and chaotic, especially on the eve of a festival. This one is more serene." Rodney's so relieved he almost trips over his sandals: serene almost certainly doesn't mean orgy.
Not that an orgy with John would be such a terrible thing, but Rodney's pretty sure John wouldn't see it that way.
Wrapped in thin blue towels, they emerge into an enormous echoing hall where the steam washes over Rodney like a caress. After a few weeks in the desert, humidity is the most incredible sensation ever. In front of them are low octagonal marble tables where people sit in groups of twos and threes, ladling hot water over one another from copper buckets. At the far end there's what looks like a massage parlor, and in the middle: an octagonal pool, tiled in blue, steaming.
"Oh my God," Rodney murmurs, because this is amazing. "This is amazing. We should be coming here all the time."
"This doesn't suck," John agrees.
"There's Rina," Sami says, pointing, and leads them to the pool, where Rina is sitting on a low ledge and luxuriating. He drops his towel and climbs in. Taking a deep breath, Rodney follows suit. As John descends the steps, Rodney finds an excuse to glance in the other direction; he desperately wants to look, but just as desperately doesn't want to get caught looking, and discretion seems the better part of valor. Barely.
The water's almost too hot to bear, which means it's perfect. Rodney closes his eyes, leans back against the tiled wall of the pool, and tries not to think for a while.
*
Eventually they move to one of the low marble octagons, and Sami brings over a pair of buckets of hot water. He takes one ladle and spoons the water slowly over his partners, which is sensuous and oddly mesmerizing; for all that the room is at 100% humidity, Rodney's mouth is suddenly dry.
"Want to do me?" John asks him, and okay, Rodney's a strong man, he can resist anything, even the combination of attractiveness and incredibly lame (surely unintentional) innuendo.
"Sure," Rodney manages, and moves to stand behind John so he can slowly pour the water over John's shoulders and down his chest. John bends his head forward, which is probably just to give Rodney better access but feels like a gesture of submission.
Rodney's saved from the purgatory of his own impure thoughts when yet another pair of towel-wrapped women stops in front of them, looking them up and down. "Welcome to the Golden City," one says flirtatiously.
"Been here a while already, thanks," Rodney says.
John gives a little twitch: trying not to laugh?
"I'm Lital and this is Harbia," the other woman says. "Will we see you at the Festival of the Water-Drawing tonight?"
"We'll be there," John says.
"Wonderful," Harbia gushes. She flicks a glance up at Rodney, grins, and then turns to walk away.
"Everyone wants to meet the strangers in town," Ani notes, sounding amused.
"I think they'd be in-demand even if they were locally grown," Rina quips.
Rodney's face flames hot with new understanding: they're being scoped. "I thought this wasn't that kind of bathhouse!"
The reference completely escapes their hosts, of course, but John reaches over and pats him on the ankle. "I don't think anyone's going to directly proposition us, if that helps any."
As if to put the lie to that, a man stops in front of them. He's tall, at least as tall as Ronon, which means he doesn't have to crane his neck much to look at Rodney even though Rodney's standing a couple of steps up. "I'm Aban," he says.
"Hi," John says. "I'm John; this is Rodney."
"Hi," Rodney echoes tightly. But Aban and John don't break eye contact.
"Adela and I would be honored if you would join us for a drink this evening." He gestures toward the pool. "She's still in the water; I thought I'd come say hello."
"Thanks for the invitation." John's voice is mild and noncommittal, but Aban grins, a flash of white teeth.
"Be well," he says. Rodney can't help staring as he walks away; even through his low-slung towel, his legs and the curve of his ass are completely spectacular. And the slope of his back and shoulders.
"Finished with that ladle?" John's voice startles him into looking down; he's been standing there with an empty ladle in one hand, watching Aban go. John's leaning back on his hands, looking up at him, wry amusement all over his face.
"I was just, ah --" Rodney fumbles for something, anything, he can say.
"You'd have to be dead not to notice Aban of the House Numan," Janam says, a note of wistful admiration in his voice.
"Here, let's trade places," John says, his voice light, and Rodney hands him the ladle and climbs down to sit. The first splash of water on the back of his shoulders feels really good -- and it means he can face the floor, doesn't have to look John in the eye. He's pretty sure he just came out to John, completely by accident, and he has no idea what John is thinking at all.
*
The music is audible from blocks away. There are bands of people playing stringed instruments that sound vaguely lute-like, though their tuning isn't exactly like anything Rodney knows. Boys tap at hand-drums and little girls are running around with tambourines.
The octagonal plaza in the center of town is packed with people, everyone in their finest robes and brightest veils. It's after dark, but the plaza is bright as day, lit with lanterns. There's a guy riding a unicycle, and another guy juggling flaming torches, and in the throngs some people are dancing.
"This is crazy," Rodney shouts to John, leaning close to cup his hand over John's ear.
John just nods.
The music is temporarily drowned-out by the sounds of the horns Rodney recognizes from the start of Shmonit. A hush falls over the crowd, and at the far end of the plaza people are moving to make way for a phalanx of tall figures, all robed and veiled in silver and grey. Two by two, they're carrying lidded buckets of water, eight in total, and they form a circle around the middle of the plaza.
Four figures veiled in white emerge with enormous crowbars, and slowly they pry the paving-stones away. Rodney cranes his neck to see what's below the street, but he can't make it out. A loud blast from what seems to be every horn in town, and the pairs who carried the water up from the spring raise their buckets and one by one pour their water into the middle of the plaza at the center of the city. A cheer goes up, and the music starts again -- drums, bells, lutes, and now people are singing something Rodney can't make out.
"Found you!" It's Ani, standing to their right, and she grabs John's arm. "Come on -- we're saving you seats at the weavers' banquet."
John shrugs to Rodney and they follow her through the crowd and out one of the streets that acts as a spoke of the plaza's wheel.
*
The weavers -- among whose number Ani is counted -- throw a pretty swank party. Ani takes them to a warehouse space Rodney's never seen, lined with rich carpets and piled with pillows where guests recline. Servers are making the rounds with platters of lamb on enormous beds of rice, tureens of stew, and bottles upon bottles of wine.
"We're so glad to have you here," Janam says warmly. His arm is around Sami, and Rina and Ani are leaning together beside them.
"What's the story with the water ceremony?" John asks.
"The water's brought up from the spring in the valley -- the same one that feeds us," Sami explains.
"And under the plaza there's, what, pipes?" Rodney asks.
Sami's nodding. "The water's sluiced back to the spring."
"It's our way of offering thanks to the Elements for the sustenance they provide," Ani says seriously. "And it ensures that there will continue to be water in the year to come."
"It's like a hard reboot of the water system," John muses.
As usual, their hosts just blink, not sure how to respond to the unfamiliar reference. And then Rina adds, "and of course, it's an auspicious time for new beginnings." She's blushing a little. Ani clasps her hand; Sami and Janam exchange a quick kiss.
Rodney feels a familiar melancholy creeping in around the edges.
The people here have been generous and welcoming -- more so than the Terrans (are they now Lanteans?) would have been if the situation were reversed, much as Rodney hates to admit it. And he actually likes these people. So why is he feeling so out-of-sorts?
Maybe it's the realization that this is basically their wedding anniversary, Janam and Sami and Ani and Rina. All of a sudden Rodney misses Teyla and Ronon with an ache so fierce it makes him lightheaded. Not that they were ever this kind of family, but they're family all the same.
"You okay?" John asks quietly.
"I'm--" Rodney stops himself. "I don't know how I am. I miss Teyla and Ronon."
"Yeah," John agrees.
As if by mutual agreement, this is a subject they mostly avoid. Too painful, too many unknowns. But right now Rodney can't help thinking about them. Wondering how they would respond to all of this.
Also as if by mutual agreement, they haven't talked about their bathhouse adventure. Which is a relief, because it means they're going to pretend John didn't notice Rodney checking that guy out. Which means, in turn, that they don't have to talk about whether John's now uncomfortable sharing Rodney's bed, or whether John thinks Rodney's an asshole for not coming out to him sooner.
But right now Rodney really wishes he could lean into John the way Rina's leaning into Ani -- not just because he wants to jump John's bones (because really, who doesn't?) but because he feels lonely, and far from home, and it's starting to sink in that this may be the way things are now. They may never find out what happened to Ronon and Teyla. They may never make it back.
Feeling isolated and alone when you're alone is bad enough. Feeling isolated and alone at a big party, surrounded by flirting and wine and conversation, Rodney thinks: that sucks beyond the telling.
"Good evening." There's a woman at the edge of their carpet who Rodney recognizes but can't place. She's tall and beautiful and wearing a magenta robe that makes her look like a Bollywood star.
"Adela," Ani says brightly. "Will you and Aban join us?" Right: last time he saw her, she was in a giant swimming pool, no wonder he couldn't put a name to her face.
"We were hoping your guests might join us," she says, turning the full force of her smile on Rodney and then on John. "Aban and I are over there," pointing toward a carpet maybe thirty meters away.
"That's a great invitation, but -- I think we might head home early, actually," John says.
Rodney breathes out a sigh of relief. Not that he's not attracted to Aban and Adela -- he has eyes, thank you -- but the prospect of negotiating...whatever this is...with them and with John was tying his insides in knots.
"Oh, you're going so soon?" That's Janam, disappointed.
"Yes, sorry, I'm not feeling very well," Rodney lies. It's almost true. "It's a beautiful party; thank you for including us. Thanks for the invitation, Adela."
"Another time, maybe," she says, shrugging a little, and bows in farewell.
"We miss our friends," John says quietly, and their four new friends make understanding noises.
"It must be difficult to be separated from your family," Janam says.
That brings a lump to Rodney's throat for sure. "Goodnight," he manages, standing up, and John follows him out of the pavilion and into the quiet streets.
*
They've just let themselves into their apartment -- Rodney's lighting the kerosene lantern -- when John speaks.
"Were you ever going to tell me?"
Rodney feels his shoulders tensing. "I thought we weren't going to talk about this."
"What gave you that idea?"
"Well, we hadn't talked about it yet! I figured that was working pretty well."
"Is it?"
Ouch. Rodney folds his arms. "Okay, yes, I like men." The words hang in the air, stark and irretrievable. "Is that a problem for you?"
John looks wounded. "Of course it's not a problem for me. Do you really think I'm that kind of jerk?"
Rodney leans against the wall, all the fight draining out of him. "No," he admits, fidgeting with the edge of his robe. "I think I'm a jerk for not coming out to you in the first place."
"Hey," and now John's voice is quiet and filled with concern. "I don't mean to make it -- look, there was nobody you were interested in, there was no reason for it to come up."
John's offering him a way off the hook, but he can't take it. Because what John's saying isn't true either, and if he's coming clean, he's really going to come clean. Rodney squares his shoulders, feels his mouth tightening.
"You're giving me the benefit of the doubt, but..." He has to swallow hard. "There is someone I've been interested in, and I should have said something to you a long time ago."
Suddenly John is standing a lot closer than Rodney thought he was. "You gonna tell me who it is, or do I have to guess?"
"It's you," Rodney says, helpless, because saying this is the wrong idea, he knows it is. It always has been. And it's really the wrong idea here and now, because all they have here is each other and he's just said the one thing that's guaranteed to make John uncomfortable, maybe even to push John out of their apartment. Despite the ambient heat, Rodney feels numb.
And then John's hands come up to cradle his face, and John's pushing him against the wall, and John's kissing him hot and desperate like something out of one of Rodney's fantasies, like nothing Rodney ever imagined at all.
*
They roll over and over on their bed, clothing discarded in a haphazard trail across the floor. Rodney's on top now, and he kneels up, pinning John to the bed. John's mouth is wet and his eyes are dark and he looks younger; he looks happy.
"God," Rodney says thickly, because this is almost too much: John Sheppard spread beneath him like a feast. John thrusts up a little, his hands moving restless over Rodney's hips. "I can't believe we --"
There are a hundred different ways he wants to end that sentence: waited this long, never said anything, haven't done this until today. Sudden anxiety rises in him -- what if this is only happening now because they're far from home, because he's the only person John has left who shares John's context? The only one who knows what Earth means, what Atlantis means?
"Stop thinking," John says."Unless you're contemplating what we have on hand that we could use for lube."
"'Stop thinking'? Hi, have you met me?"
John grins. "Think about this, then." He pulls Rodney down for a kiss and then gives a sinuous jujitsu twist that pushes Rodney onto his back, John above him now.
"Oh, so that's how it's going to be," Rodney says, aiming for irritable but sounding ridiculously pleased instead.
"Yep," John confirms, and shimmies down his body and sucks Rodney's cock into his mouth.
Something in Rodney's brain short-circuits. All he can process is hot, wet, good, John, fuck. John pulls back, his cock popping free, and murmurs "keep talking," which is when Rodney realizes he's saying all of this out loud. Which would ordinarily be embarrassing, but John circles the base of his dick with one hand and palms his balls with the other and Rodney can't help his whimper. His hands clench the bedcovers.
"Tell me what you like," John says -- it's almost an order -- and sucks him back in, this time with just the lightest scrape of teeth. That's positive reinforcement: Rodney lets himself babble, praise interspersed with gasps. When he comes, he stuffs his hand into his mouth to muffle his groan.
John slides up the bed and they kiss some more, John's mouth slightly bitter now which makes Rodney's cock want to stir again. When Rodney pulls him close John gasps, his dick hot against Rodney's thigh. Rodney reaches down and takes hold, almost giddy at the sensation of John's erection pressing into his hand. "John," he murmurs, and John twitches, as if he's yearning toward Rodney even in Rodney's arms. As if hearing his name is doing something to him.
Saying it is definitely doing something for Rodney, so he says it again, right into John's ear. And again, mouthing his way along John's jaw. When he whispers it and bites gently at the exposed line of John's neck, John comes apart, inhaling hard as if he's surprised by his own orgasm.
They sleep within arm's reach. Every time John's knee brushes his thigh, Rodney wakes for a second, and remembers, and falls asleep grinning at the ceiling.
6.
"P19-R43," Rodney says when John opens his eyes.
"Good morning to you too," John says, and his boyish smile is almost enough to distract Rodney from what he's just figured out.
"The couple we caught working with the Wraith."
John rolls over and scrubs one hand over his face. "The ones who were selling people from the next village over. What about 'em?"
Just remembering them makes Rodney's insides twist with anger again. Wraith-worshippers are bad enough, creepy and power-hungry and apparently perfectly content to sell out their fellow humans if it means they can feel immortal for a while. But these people were worse...and he'd never seen Teyla or Ronon half as angry as they were when they figured this one out.
"They were exiled," Rodney prompts.
"Yeah," John says, sounding slightly puzzled. He's just woken up; he's not getting it yet. "That's what they do on that planet when you commit an unforgivable crime."
After Rodney and Teyla made the case to the local authorities, and John and Ronon brought them in, the perpetrators were sent to prison camps on another world, fitted with ankle bracelets that won't ever let them step through a stargate again. They're bound to the prison world now. Never able to come home. "Their son," Rodney says triumphantly, "is who did this to us."
He can see the gears turning in John's mind. "We separated him from his family," John realizes aloud.
"So he separated us from ours." Rodney remembers him shouting threats as his parents were taken away by the authorities. Remembers the villagers holding him back, giving apologetic looks to Teyla and Ronon and Rodney and John as the guy ranted and raved about how he'd make them pay for breaking his family apart. As if his parents' wrongdoings had been the Lanteans' fault.
John lets his head thunk back against the pillow. "I knew he was dangerous, I just didn't--"
"You couldn't have predicted something like this."
"I should have." John's face is set; he's angry.
"Hey," Rodney says, and crawls across the bed. "You're supposed to be impressed with my deductive abilities, not sulking because you didn't magically intuit that that asshole was going to kidnap us."
John's mouth quirks slightly. "Oh?"
"Get with the program," Rodney says.
John takes a deep breath, then blows it out. "Okay."
Rodney rolls out of bed.
"Hey," John says, reaching for him.
It's hard to fight the temptation to just lean toward him, like a plant toward the light. "Hang on." John looks slightly pouty. "Let me brush my teeth," Rodney insists, "be right back."
Given everything that's wrong in their lives, it's amazing how good it feels to climb back into bed with John for the first time. Back into bed with John -- it makes Rodney's heart do somersaults. They've been sharing the bed for weeks, but not like this. This is something wild and new.
*
They've been in the Golden City for just over three weeks on the day the return letter comes from the Exegetical Academy.
It arrives on Khames afternoon, and Hinam brings it to the back room where Rodney is poring over a scientific-philosophical treatise written eight hundred years ago. Hinam hands it to him, uncharacteristically silent, and Rodney realizes what he's holding.
His heart is beating doubletime as he takes the brocaded box and unfurls the scroll inside.
Dear Doctor McKay, Visitor to the City of Gold:
We read with great interest the Council's missive about your predicament, and understand wholly your desire to return to your family and to your native air, fire, water, and soil.
Although no one in our halls could call to mind any writings about the ability to transmit voices or images across the aether, nor about the miracle of flight, we had hoped that on the rarefied shelves of our restricted section we might find word of something which would be of use to you.
It is with the greatest regret...
He reads it fast, skimming to the end. Then, his heart having plummeted, he reads it again. And then he rolls it back up, hands it to Hinam without a word, and walks out of the library.
He walks to the city walls, nods to the guard at the bottom of the parapet, and climbs to the top. The next few hours pass in a haze: Rodney walks the perimeter of the city from the top of the walls, staring out over the tawny sands. When the light starts to fade, he starts slowly home, though his feet are dragging; he doesn't want to return to their apartment. Doesn't want to have to break the news to John.
When Rodney walks in the door and sees John there -- feet up, working a little wrought-iron puzzle he brought home from the market a few days ago -- all of his carefully-prepared speeches fly right out of his head.
"It's no use," Rodney blurts.
John looks up. "Huh?"
Rodney shuffles over and sits heavily on the other couch, staring at his hands.
"Got the letter from the Academy today."
John doesn't say anything. It's obvious that he's intuited from Rodney's tone of voice that the news isn't good.
"There's nothing in their grand library about flight, or radio communications, or anything," Rodney says. He's near tears again, and that just makes him angrier. "There's a section of the library they thought might hold something like what we were looking for, but when the librarians got there, the scrolls were water damaged. Water damage, in this climate, can you believe it?"
"So, what, it's a setback," John begins.
"The Exegetical Academy is the biggest library on this world," Rodney says quietly. "If they don't have data, the data doesn't exist here to be had."
There's a moment of silence.
"We really can't phone home," John says.
Rodney can't quite laugh, but he gives John a wavery smile; it was a good line. "We really can't."
Neither one of them says what they're both thinking, which is that unless Zelenka finds them here, which seems increasingly unlikely with every passing day, this is home now. They can't count on making it back to Atlantis. They have to be home for each other.
*
Seeing John spread naked for him on their bed -- this time lying on his stomach, his face turned to one side and pillowed on his folded arms -- still takes Rodney's breath away.
"Tell me if you don't like it," Rodney says, slightly anxious but trying not to show it.
"I like everything," John promises, his eyes closed. There's a temptation to touch his entire body: to run his hands up and down John's calves and the backs of his thighs, to press his thumbs along the ridge of John's spine, to cup his shoulderblades, to map every mark and scar. But Rodney has a plan tonight, so he knee-walks his way between John's spread legs, cups his ass in both hands, and bends to take a first tentative lick.
John gasps, but Rodney was prepared for that; he holds John still, holds him open. They both got massages this afternoon at the bathhouse, because Rodney knows that after the massage the attendants wash you like a kitten. Every inch of them has been thoroughly scrubbed, not a speck of desert sand anywhere. After a massage and a scrub Rodney's skin tingles all over, sensations magnified, which means John is experiencing this kiss with a body that feels new.
"Rodney, fuck," John moans. He's twitching under Rodney's hands in a way that means he's getting hard, his dick trapped beneath his body and rubbing against the bed.
"Good, hm?" It's a rhetorical question; Rodney licks again.
John lets out a desperate, breathy little moan. Right now Rodney is as hard as he can ever remember being in his entire life. Doing this to John, imagining how good it has to feel, has him this close to coming even without being touched.
"Please," John manages.
"Hm?" Rodney's busy using his tongue to take John apart.
"Fuck me," John says, his voice low and breathy. "Will you--"
Rodney slides a finger inside and John convulses around him, groaning. They haven't done this yet, but God, Rodney wants to; wants it so badly. He pulls out and licks at him one more time and John chokes out a cry, stiffening.
Rodney makes it as far as wrapping his hand around his cock before he loses it, striping John's thigh with come. He collapses next to John on the bed, grinning stupidly into the pillow. After a second John rolls over and burrows his nose into Rodney's shoulder, throwing an arm over him. They laze that way for a long while.
*
John starts training with the local garrison a few evenings a week. Nothing intense, just light sparring, but he comes home sweaty and grinning like a maniac.
"They do really clean swordwork here," he says. "I'm going to ask Nilofa to teach me the basics."
Rodney shudders, imagining John sliced open like a gourd, but he keeps his mouth shut. He's not about to take away one of the few pleasures this world has to offer a man who can no longer fly.
Since the news came, Hinam has been friendlier to Rodney. And lately he's been making awkward hints about library work. He seems to be working up to offering Rodney some kind of paid scholar position. The scholar-philosopher-librarian seems to be the closest thing this culture has to honest-to-God scientists, so it's not a bad fit, all things considered.
Rodney wishes every day he'd paid more attention to A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, or to one of any number of science fiction novels he's read which share the basic premise (technologically advanced guy gets stuck in primitive culture; has to reinvent science) because there are a million innovations he wants to implement here and he can't quite figure out how.
The first thing he'll need if he's going to do anything useful is establishing reliable power. Sami tells him that the sandstorms that kick up during the second season of the year are pretty powerful. Harnessing wind is the obvious project to take on; he makes an appointment to see the Council about it after new moon.
John and Rodney start mentioning people from home again. Not a lot, not dwelling, but just saying their names, working them into conversation. "He thinks he's tough, but he's no Ronon," John says of one of the men he spars with. Rodney describes one of the scholars in residence as "smart and gorgeous -- a regular Teyla."
Saying their names hurts, but in a good way. It would hurt a lot worse if they let themselves forget.
7.
"Dr. Rodney," Tavar calls, almost tripping over her feet in her haste to reach what's become Rodney's unofficial reading room. "Dr. Rodney!"
"I'm here, what is it?" Irritable; how many times does he have to tell these people not to interrupt him when the door is closed?
"There's someone -- you have to come -- quickly!"
Panic flares along ever nerve in his body. "What's the matter? What's happened?" Oh, God, is it John -- has something happened to John? A fist of steel clenches around his heart.
She's shaking her head, out of breath; she must have run all the way from the market, or the plaza. "There are people here to see you. At the south gate. They say they're from your world."
He drops everything, doesn't even stop for his veil, just runs as fast as he can.
*
It's like being in a dream. Rodney rounds the corner and there they are: Ronon, Teyla, and half a dozen Marines.
Ronon spots him first and breaks into the fiercest grin Rodney has ever seen. He pulls Rodney into a bear hug and won't let go; they cling like that, and if there are tears on Rodney's face, well, they're soaking into the leather of Ronon's vest.
"We thought we'd never see you again," Rodney manages.
"Should've known better." Ronon's voice is gruff.
Rodney hears footfalls, sandals skidding at a breakneck pace. Teyla cries out, and he knows it's John.
When he and Ronon finally let each other go, John and Teyla are embracing, foreheads pressed together. And yeah, okay, they're all crying.
And Rodney has to hug Teyla, and Ronon lifts John off the ground. The Marines just stand there, grinning like idiots. By the time they all break, there's a circle of people standing around them. There's a moment of disjunction when Rodney wonders what this must look like to them -- and what these strangers in their colorful veils must look like to Ronon and Teyla, and to the soldiers from Earth. Janam is standing in the circle, watching them, and his eyes look suspiciously bright.
"These, ah, these are our friends," Rodney says, finally. "Ronon Dex, Teyla Emmagen, and -- " he fumbles for names and comes up blank. "I'm sorry, I don't remember--"
"Driver and Briggs," John says, his voice a little shaky, "and Esack, and Kliegman, and Kuo."
"I am Janam of the House Dibbah," Janam says, stepping forward. "My household took responsibility for Rodney McKay and John Sheppard when they first arrived."
"Then we must thank you," Teyla says smoothly. "From the bottom of our hearts."
"Oh my God," Rodney says, to no one in particular. "I can't believe you're -- you're really here. I don't --" His knees feel shaky.
"We've come," Teyla says, "to bring you home."
"Jumper's cloaked about a ten minute walk from here," Ronon adds.
"We have...things," Rodney says inanely. "There are some scrolls I've been working on; John wanted to give you a knife," he says to Ronon, "and we have clothes--"
"Is this place easy to get to?" John asks.
Ronon shrugs. "Now that we know how to find it, yeah."
"You have to go through a gate the Ancients said was broken," Teyla adds, "and fly through an...ion cloud, I believe it was?"
Rodney's snapping his fingers. "That's why the Wraith haven't come here," he realizes, aloud. "Depending on the composition of the cloud, their scanners might not even show that there's a planet inside!"
"Flying down here was a little bit harrowing," Briggs pipes up. "Sir."
"If we can come back here at will," John says, "we should head back to Atlantis now; I'm guessing Woolsey's jonesing for a report."
"More importantly, he has missed you both." Teyla's eyes are bright, and the tone of chiding affection in her voice makes Rodney's heart feel too big for his chest.
"We'll come back for our things, and to check in with you guys," John turns to Janam, "if that's okay with you...?"
"Of course." Janam steps forward and clasps John's hands, bending over them in a deeper bow than Rodney's ever seen. John returns the gesture, and then pulls him into an embrace.
Rodney follows suit. Janam's arms are strong and his body is firm against Rodney's. "Tell your wives we'll see them soon," Rodney murmurs into his ear, and Janam nods: yes, of course.
"Thank you all," John says, loudly, to the growing crowd. "We appreciate your hospitality more than we can say. We'll be back soon."
And then they follow Ronon and Teyla out of the city gates, the Marines taking their six, and walk toward the invisible jumper that's going to carry them home.
8.
Everything feels strange and new. The jumper, the hyperspace window, the cheering that welcomes them back into the gateroom. Zelenka hugs him so hard his back cracks; there are tears pouring down his face, which Rodney elects not to mention for the simple reason that he's in the same boat.
"Gentlemen, I am very glad to see you," Woolsey says, pumping John's hand.
"Likewise," John says, "believe me."
"I'm sure you have a great deal to report." Woolsey beams at them. "Shall we say tomorrow, oh-eight-hundred?"
"Sounds great," John says. "We'll be there."
"I wasn't sure you would find us," Rodney says to Radek, quietly.
"Neither was I," Radek admits, "but we were not going to give up. You must know this."
"Leave no man behind," Ronon says. "Right, Sheppard?"
"Right," John agrees.
During the pause that follows, exhaustion hits Rodney like the proverbial ton of bricks. Teyla seems to see it in his posture or his face. "Our friends are tired. They have come a long way."
"Yes, of course," Woolsey says, and claps his hands twice. "Okay, everyone! Give Colonel Sheppard and Dr. McKay some space."
And just like that, the crowd disperses. Rodney walks out without looking at anyone, making a beeline for his room.
*
Everything looks exactly as he left it. In the hypoallergenic atmosphere of Atlantis there isn't any dust, though Rodney feels like there should be. Everything should be draped with sheets, covered in cobwebs, something to show that it's almost six weeks since he was here last. But instead his quarters are their usual state of comfortable chaos, books and papers stacked haphazardly beside the tablet computer on his desk.
There's an enormous welcome-home card standing on top of the closed computer. He lifts it idly and looks inside: seems like pretty much everyone in town signed their names. John probably has one just like it.
The thought sends a spike of melancholy right into Rodney's heart. He sits down on his impossibly narrow bed, wishing to God he at least had a cat here, someone to come home to.
He has his earpiece in. He could tap his radio and call, see how John's doing. But he shouldn't. The right thing to do is to give John some space, Rodney knows that. These last weeks, the only time they were apart was when they were working; John's probably glad to have his own quarters back. Like Rodney ought to be. He's always been a man who enjoys solitude! But that old mantra has lost its efficacy. Maybe because now he knows what it's like to live with someone, and wow, it hurts to have to give that up.
This is the real reason he shouldn't have said anything about being into John. Because he got used to having something that he can't have anymore.
It's not as though John isn't in his life here. They'll still work together, eat together, watch movies together, play chess together. All of the things they usually do. The things they did, before. But John can't risk a gay relationship, that's obvious. And besides, John has a lot of options now. Almost everyone in Atlantis understands John's Earth references. He doesn't have to settle. He can do better.
Rodney lies down and tries to curl up, though the bed isn't quite wide enough to fit his knees. If he's going to be this pathetic, he might as well wallow in it, right? Some part of him wants to scoot back until he encounters John's warm body, John's open arms. It's like having a phantom limb: he has a phantom partner. He'll just have to get used to not having him anymore, and after a while, the pain will go away.
"Sheppard to McKay," John says in his ear. It's almost like intimacy, only not.
Rodney takes a deep breath to make sure he won't sound quite as lame as he feels. "McKay here."
"I'm...right outside your door," John says, and now his voice sounds a little tentative. "Can I come in?"
Rodney's out of bed and waving the door open in a heartbeat.
John has changed into BDUs, combat boots half-unlaced, a black t-shirt: his usual wardrobe. The wristband is back on, covering the bracelet Rodney's spent so many hours staring at. He looks like John Sheppard, Lieutenant Colonel and military commander of Atlantis, again.
Rodney feels sheepish still wearing his robe. Suddenly it seems like a symbol of who he was on Alma -- who they were, together -- who they can't be, anymore. He wishes he were wearing Atlantis clothes, something snug to help hold him together. The door whooshes shut behind John, and after a long second Rodney steps back and gestures into the room. "Home sweet home," he says, aiming for light-hearted.
"It's weird being back, huh?" John walks over to his desk and picks up the card, then puts it back down.
"I don't even know who all of those people are," Rodney admits.
John grimaces. "Yeah."
There's a pause, and then Rodney can't help himself: the words come spilling out. "So I guess we're going back to the way things were before, right? I mean, I know you can't afford to risk -- which is not to say that you would necessarily want to, even if the risk were reasonable, I do recognize that, so clearly the thing to do is--"
John looks tired then, and older, and sad. "Is that what you want?"
"Me?" Rodney squares his shoulders and raises his chin a little, trying to project the aura of a man who has the courage of his convictions. "It's obviously the smart thing to do."
"That's not what I asked." John's voice is husky, as if he's been shouting.
Rodney just stares at him, everything he wants to say hammering at the inside of his lips. No, he thinks. No, it is not what I want. It is not what I would ever want. But I'm trying. Don't make this harder than it already is.
John takes a breath. "Because I'll tell you..." The pause feels like it goes on forever. "That wouldn't be my preference."
It feels like Rodney's heart has stopped. "It wouldn't?"
"Hell no," John says, then amends it to "fuck no."
Just like that, the oppressive feeling in the room modulates into something different and new. "Oh," Rodney says, like an idiot.
John's smiling a little, wryly. "I guess it wouldn't be yours, either."
"Not so much," Rodney confirms. His exhaustion is gone, replaced by an eagerness that sings through his body.
"We have to tell Ronon and Teyla," John says, as Rodney walks over to him. "I don't want to keep this a secret from them."
"They're family," Rodney agrees. John's right there, barely an inch away, but it feels like they've crossed a mile when Rodney kisses him. The kiss is tender. How can it be so familiar and so new at the same time? But it is. Their first kiss in Atlantis. All of their explorations of one another's bodies, they're going to get to do again, here, a first time for everything all over again.
When they break the kiss, they grin at each other like they just won every lottery in the galaxy all at once.
"John," Rodney murmurs gratefully, and kisses him again, just because he can. "Welcome home."
END