Fic: The Kiss: A Fairy Tale Story (McKay/Sheppard, Lorne/Zelenka, PG)
Title: The Kiss: A Fairy Tale Story
Author: ca_pierson
Recipient: meansgirl
Pairing:McKay/Sheppard, mention of Lorne/Zelenka
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Stargate Atlantis and the characters don’t belong to me and never will.
Word Count: 2,686
Author's Notes: For meansgirl, who wanted McShep, Lorne/Zelenka, and AU. If you enjoy it even a little, then I did well. Thanks to my beta darkmoore for poking this one into shape until it was something that’s actually readable.
Summary: Eating that lemon pie was a huge mistake, Rodney certainly isn't ever going to forget that.
---
The first thing Rodney felt after what must have been a long nap were dry, chapped lips on his. It came as a bit of a shock, considering when he'd gone to sleep there'd only been an old woman there. The surprise part was that she'd pretty much told him he wouldn't wake up again because his parents hadn't invited her to a Christening. It was all a bit stupid, really, but what could he reasonably expect from an old hag like that? Seen in that context being kissed wasn't the worst thing that had happened to Rodney recently, still, when whoever it was stuck their tongue down Rodney's throat, he decided he'd had enough: he pushed, hard.
There was a crash and a startled yelp before Rodney could talk his eyes into actually opening. Of course, a stasis chamber, figured. His head sure felt fuzzy enough for it. Movement drew his attention to the guy who'd thought he could just molest Rodney like that. "What the hell do you think you are doing?" It came out a lot less demanding than he'd wanted to, his voice rough and deeper than it was supposed to. He cleared his throat. "You can't just go around kissing people, that's just not right."
"Uh."
Very intelligent. Great. His knight in shining armor was one of the types who forgot they had a brain. He was also really old. At least thirty. If there was something Rodney hated more than being kissed without having been asked first it was being kissed by old geezers. His parents so wouldn't approve. He pulled a face. "You're way too old for me anyway."
The man gave him an incredulous look, then he picked himself up off the floor. "You're not a spring chicken either, buddy."
Rodney preened. Most people still viewed him as a child, rather than the mature adult he was now. "Well, thank you, stranger, but I'm sixteen, not stupid. Your seduction routine could use some work, by the way."
For a moment the man paused in brushing the back of his trousers free from dirt to gape at Rodney. He licked his lips, coming across as somewhat nervous. "Sorry?" he asked.
"As you should be," Rodney said. His knees finally felt stable enough to carry him, so he took a step out of the stasis chamber. Weird, he could have sworn the chamber had been bigger last time he'd seen it. He also wasn't sure how the thing had managed to get into his room, or how he got into it in the first place. He couldn't really remember all that much, apart from that woman and that slice of hell she called lemon pie. Then it all rushed back to him, having a piece of the pie, starting to choke as his airways closed up, the woman laughing at him, pushing him backwards ... feeling intensely cold as the stasis field built up. He shuddered. "My parents will reward you handsomely for freeing me, I'm sure."
"What? No, wait, let's back up here a bit. Hi, I'm John. Aren't you supposed to fall in love with whomever wakes you up? Isn't that the way this sort of thing is supposed to work? I open the stasis chamber, wake up the sleeping prince with a kiss and then there's lots of kissing and a royal wedding?"
That stopped Rodney cold on the way to the bathroom and he turned around to look at John. Mainly because his mother insisted princes need to show good manners; and because John did rescue him from the stasis chamber, so he deserved at least that. "Excuse me? What kind of literature have you been reading? That's certainly not how stasis chambers work. Not even the out-dated ones like these." He pointed at the hideous metal box he'd just escaped from. "Maybe your Ancient needs some work, because no-where in the database did it say anything about the kissing or a royal wedding."
The door closed on John slowly blinking at Rodney. It was a relief to finally be alone; keeping up appearances certainly wasn't easy all the time. He'd always wondered whether you could get hungry and thirsty in the stasis chamber (the answer to that was: yes) but he'd never given any of the other bodily functions a thought. In a way he now regretted that.
His bathroom was reassuringly the same starting with the bathtub and right down to the extravagant mirror his mother had given him for his tenth birthday. He'd barely stepped properly into the room when movement startled him. He almost jumped out of his skin when he saw a guy with a retreating hairline stand right there, staring at him through the mirror. He might have screamed like a little girl, water from where he was washing his hands going everywhere.
The door hissed open behind him and John appeared next to the old guy. "You need another rescue?" he asked, but Rodney barely heard him. That was him in the mirror. He was old. His hair was darker, and god only knew why it was so short. Disbelievingly he ran a hand through it, appalled at the way his body had changed.
"How long was I in that stasis chamber?"
"Uh."
Rodney whirled around, pointing a finger at John in accusation. "Tell me how much of my life that old hag took from me!" He tried very hard not to think of how she probably hadn't expected him to ever come out. Maybe he had been supposed to be a constant reminder to his parents about how she got the better of them. Maybe she'd wanted for them to die in the knowledge that their son would grow old in that thing, dying of old age millennia in the future. Rodney just needed to know how long he'd been in there, how much had been taken from him.
John rubbed the nape of his neck. "A couple of thousand years?"
Rodney grabbed bunches of his hair with both hands and pulled - until he remembered he didn't have enough left to lose in this way. "A couple of thousand years?" he asked calmly (or screeched, it probably depended entirely on the point of view of the observer). It was then that the floor came up to meet him viciously.
Ooo00O00ooO
"Is he alright?" John sounded worried and close-by, but at least not too close. Rodney opened his eyes a bit to orient himself. Turned out that he hadn't moved all that far, just to his bed, which was great because his back ached a bit. Maybe he'd hit something on the way down?
"He'll be fine, it's just the shock."
Rodney turned his head to the side until he could see both men. The second voice belonged to a man with dark hair in the oddest blue-and-black garments Rodney had ever seen. No wonder. He ached, a hand sliding up to push against his chest where his heart was beating way too fast. He'd lost everything. At least fifteen years of his life, his parents, his annoying little sister, his friends, his ... everything.
"Maybe I shouldn't have tried to wake him up on my own, but ... Carson, I think I kinda had to, you know?"
Carson turned a little, his intensely blue eyes meeting Rodney's for just a moment. Long enough to discover the man knew he was awake. Short enough to realize he wouldn't be given away. "I know. I'm glad Zelenka's code cracking thing worked and he's actually fine, your majesty. He's got a bump on the back of his head and a couple of bruises. Once he's had some time to come to terms with everything he'll be right as rain." Carson shot him another look. "He just needs some rest. Maybe you should just leave him be for a bit."
"I just want to sit with him."
"Your majesty," Carson said, then he took a step closer and put a hand on John's arm, "lad, just listen to me. He's an actual person, right? So all the things you imagined him to be when you were a kid sneaking up here to look at the stasis chamber aren't true. You know that, yes?"
John gave him a small smile that looked entirely too fake to be anything but pasted on to make Carson feel better. "I know that, but-"
"But you can't help whom you fall in love with. Yes, lad, but don't let him hurt you." There was another glance at the end of that, more of a glare, really. Quickly, Rodney closed his eyes and turned his head back the way it had been when he'd woken up.
There were a few murmured words, too low for Rodney to hear them, then the door opening and closing. For a moment Rodney wondered how long he'd have to pretend to be asleep until it was believable for him to wake up.
"I know you're awake," John said, making Rodney jump. He'd sat down at the edge of the bed, facing Rodney with an awkwardly open and hurt expression in his eyes that didn't show on the rest of his face at all.
Clearing his throat, Rodney sat up, too. "You're the king of Atlantis?" he asked. It was an educated guess, but Rodney believed in facts, in hard science, and he'd rather have that confirmed than rely on good guesswork, never mind how good it was.
"Yeah, kinda."
Rodney blinked. "Kinda?"
His answer was a one shouldered shrug and a duck of John's head. "The city really likes me, but I'm more of a hands-on type of guy, so Lorne, my seneschal, is doing the administrative stuff."
For a long time they were both quiet. Then a thought hit Rodney, "But if you're king, then we're related, that's great." Rodney regretted his enthusiasm when John flinched like Rodney had punched him. "I mean, very, very distantly related, through my little sister," he said, trying hard to make it better.
"Not really. My family managed to get into the city about two hundred years ago. Old great-great-grandfather had the gene and the city woke up when he touched things. It's how we decide who gets to rule the city next, by who has the strongest gene."
Rodney was trying very hard not to be disappointed, because having a relative, never mind how distant, would have been something at least. "I'm all alone," he said, because if he didn't put it into words, he was sure he'd die.
"No you're not," John replied, fiercely. He took Rodney's hand into his. "You're not alone." He swallowed and let go of Rodney again.
"I'm not a nice person," Rodney blurted. That was probably the only thing he could say that actually showed how much he appreciated the sentiment, the not being alone, the fact that John was prepared to take care of him. "I'm really not. I'm brilliant, I know everything about anything you could ever need to know, I kept Atlantis running practically on my own by the time I hit ten, but ... anybody who knew me back then-" he swallowed at that, because they were all dead now "-anybody would tell you that I'm arrogant, self-centered, and one of the most unpleasant people to be around."
John smiled, the corners of his lips curling up the smallest bit and his eyes practically shining. "Is that so?"
"Yes," Rodney said, his voice rough from his way too dry throat. He liked John, he really did, but he had no idea how to go about it in the first place, not after he pretty much pushed John away earlier. "So, you see, you can't really love me because I'm not-"
"-a nice person. Yeah, I got it."
He waved his hands at that, continuing as if John had never interrupted, "And you, you seem like a nice person, so maybe you should, I don't know, go out there and look around for another nice person and-"
"Rodney," John said.
"I just spent a couple of thousand years in a stasis chamber, John. I was sixteen when that woman gave me a slice of lemon pie and I thought I was going to die. I'm not ready for anything-"
"Rodney."
"-more. And what with you being ruggedly handsome with the wild hair and the nice eyes you shouldn't have a problem finding a nice girl to settle down with-"
"Rodney!"
Realizing he'd been babbling nervously, Rodney curled his fingers around a fistful of blanket. "Yes?" he asked.
"I can wait," John said.
Rodney let go of the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "Really?"
John just nodded.
It all turned a bit awkward then, forcing Rodney to study the blanket covering his legs as if it was the most fascinating thing he'd ever seen. "You know," he said, licking his lips, "I owe you for getting me out of there. I could have died from old age in another couple of thousand years."
"You're welcome."
Rodney cleared his throat. "I meant that I might owe you a kiss after all ... maybe?"
"I think I'll take a rain check on that, actually," John said, getting up. That odd almost-smile was still on his face. "Next time we kiss I'd rather it's because you want it too, instead of you thinking you owe me. You should get some rest now." He gave Rodney an awkward pat on the shoulder before he left.
Rodney didn't even have time to move before the door closed behind John. He was left sitting there, totally stunned. He wasn't sure what surprised him more: John telling him he wanted something mutual, him just walking out like that, or being told to rest.
Rest! He'd just had enough rest to last him an entire lifetime. Determined, he got out of bed and headed toward the console in the corner of his room. Atlantis should have collected a massive amount of data over the past two hundred years and Rodney was determined to go through it as soon as possible.
Ooo00O00ooO
Rodney stormed into John's office. It had taken him exactly a week to figure out that he really liked John's wild hair, his changeable eyes and the way he kept leaning against things. After that, he'd been trying to tell John (well, without actually saying anything) that he wouldn't mind continuing where they'd left off right after John had opened the stasis chamber. "What," he said, "do I have to do to get you to acknowledge me? Strip naked and dance in front of you?"
"I think we should go," Lorne said into the quiet that followed Rodney's outburst. He practically dragged a gaping Zelenka out of the room with him, starting to whisper with his husband before the door had even properly closed behind them.
"Well?" Rodney crossed his arms in front of him, glaring at John.
"I ... what?"
Irritated and utterly frustrated with the whole situation Rodney tapped his foot. "Why aren't you kissing me?"
"You're not ready, Rodney, I thought I'd made myself clear when I said that I want this to be mutual." He'd said that very same thing several times before and Rodney was entirely sick of it.
Furious, Rodney took the last few steps until they were face to face and stabbed a finger into John's chest. "And who gets to decide when I'm ready? You? I've been giving you hints that I'm ready for more for weeks! Are you just too thick to-"
The kiss took Rodney as much by surprise as the first one. It was just as gentle, John's lips warm and dry against his until Rodney growled impatiently and pushed John up against the wall. A sharp nip of teeth and John was pushing back as desperately as Rodney felt.
It could have been minutes or an eternity until they had to come up for air. "Your hints suck," John said, chuckling breathlessly, before he kissed Rodney again.
The End.
Author: ca_pierson
Recipient: meansgirl
Pairing:McKay/Sheppard, mention of Lorne/Zelenka
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Stargate Atlantis and the characters don’t belong to me and never will.
Word Count: 2,686
Author's Notes: For meansgirl, who wanted McShep, Lorne/Zelenka, and AU. If you enjoy it even a little, then I did well. Thanks to my beta darkmoore for poking this one into shape until it was something that’s actually readable.
Summary: Eating that lemon pie was a huge mistake, Rodney certainly isn't ever going to forget that.
---
The first thing Rodney felt after what must have been a long nap were dry, chapped lips on his. It came as a bit of a shock, considering when he'd gone to sleep there'd only been an old woman there. The surprise part was that she'd pretty much told him he wouldn't wake up again because his parents hadn't invited her to a Christening. It was all a bit stupid, really, but what could he reasonably expect from an old hag like that? Seen in that context being kissed wasn't the worst thing that had happened to Rodney recently, still, when whoever it was stuck their tongue down Rodney's throat, he decided he'd had enough: he pushed, hard.
There was a crash and a startled yelp before Rodney could talk his eyes into actually opening. Of course, a stasis chamber, figured. His head sure felt fuzzy enough for it. Movement drew his attention to the guy who'd thought he could just molest Rodney like that. "What the hell do you think you are doing?" It came out a lot less demanding than he'd wanted to, his voice rough and deeper than it was supposed to. He cleared his throat. "You can't just go around kissing people, that's just not right."
"Uh."
Very intelligent. Great. His knight in shining armor was one of the types who forgot they had a brain. He was also really old. At least thirty. If there was something Rodney hated more than being kissed without having been asked first it was being kissed by old geezers. His parents so wouldn't approve. He pulled a face. "You're way too old for me anyway."
The man gave him an incredulous look, then he picked himself up off the floor. "You're not a spring chicken either, buddy."
Rodney preened. Most people still viewed him as a child, rather than the mature adult he was now. "Well, thank you, stranger, but I'm sixteen, not stupid. Your seduction routine could use some work, by the way."
For a moment the man paused in brushing the back of his trousers free from dirt to gape at Rodney. He licked his lips, coming across as somewhat nervous. "Sorry?" he asked.
"As you should be," Rodney said. His knees finally felt stable enough to carry him, so he took a step out of the stasis chamber. Weird, he could have sworn the chamber had been bigger last time he'd seen it. He also wasn't sure how the thing had managed to get into his room, or how he got into it in the first place. He couldn't really remember all that much, apart from that woman and that slice of hell she called lemon pie. Then it all rushed back to him, having a piece of the pie, starting to choke as his airways closed up, the woman laughing at him, pushing him backwards ... feeling intensely cold as the stasis field built up. He shuddered. "My parents will reward you handsomely for freeing me, I'm sure."
"What? No, wait, let's back up here a bit. Hi, I'm John. Aren't you supposed to fall in love with whomever wakes you up? Isn't that the way this sort of thing is supposed to work? I open the stasis chamber, wake up the sleeping prince with a kiss and then there's lots of kissing and a royal wedding?"
That stopped Rodney cold on the way to the bathroom and he turned around to look at John. Mainly because his mother insisted princes need to show good manners; and because John did rescue him from the stasis chamber, so he deserved at least that. "Excuse me? What kind of literature have you been reading? That's certainly not how stasis chambers work. Not even the out-dated ones like these." He pointed at the hideous metal box he'd just escaped from. "Maybe your Ancient needs some work, because no-where in the database did it say anything about the kissing or a royal wedding."
The door closed on John slowly blinking at Rodney. It was a relief to finally be alone; keeping up appearances certainly wasn't easy all the time. He'd always wondered whether you could get hungry and thirsty in the stasis chamber (the answer to that was: yes) but he'd never given any of the other bodily functions a thought. In a way he now regretted that.
His bathroom was reassuringly the same starting with the bathtub and right down to the extravagant mirror his mother had given him for his tenth birthday. He'd barely stepped properly into the room when movement startled him. He almost jumped out of his skin when he saw a guy with a retreating hairline stand right there, staring at him through the mirror. He might have screamed like a little girl, water from where he was washing his hands going everywhere.
The door hissed open behind him and John appeared next to the old guy. "You need another rescue?" he asked, but Rodney barely heard him. That was him in the mirror. He was old. His hair was darker, and god only knew why it was so short. Disbelievingly he ran a hand through it, appalled at the way his body had changed.
"How long was I in that stasis chamber?"
"Uh."
Rodney whirled around, pointing a finger at John in accusation. "Tell me how much of my life that old hag took from me!" He tried very hard not to think of how she probably hadn't expected him to ever come out. Maybe he had been supposed to be a constant reminder to his parents about how she got the better of them. Maybe she'd wanted for them to die in the knowledge that their son would grow old in that thing, dying of old age millennia in the future. Rodney just needed to know how long he'd been in there, how much had been taken from him.
John rubbed the nape of his neck. "A couple of thousand years?"
Rodney grabbed bunches of his hair with both hands and pulled - until he remembered he didn't have enough left to lose in this way. "A couple of thousand years?" he asked calmly (or screeched, it probably depended entirely on the point of view of the observer). It was then that the floor came up to meet him viciously.
Ooo00O00ooO
"Is he alright?" John sounded worried and close-by, but at least not too close. Rodney opened his eyes a bit to orient himself. Turned out that he hadn't moved all that far, just to his bed, which was great because his back ached a bit. Maybe he'd hit something on the way down?
"He'll be fine, it's just the shock."
Rodney turned his head to the side until he could see both men. The second voice belonged to a man with dark hair in the oddest blue-and-black garments Rodney had ever seen. No wonder. He ached, a hand sliding up to push against his chest where his heart was beating way too fast. He'd lost everything. At least fifteen years of his life, his parents, his annoying little sister, his friends, his ... everything.
"Maybe I shouldn't have tried to wake him up on my own, but ... Carson, I think I kinda had to, you know?"
Carson turned a little, his intensely blue eyes meeting Rodney's for just a moment. Long enough to discover the man knew he was awake. Short enough to realize he wouldn't be given away. "I know. I'm glad Zelenka's code cracking thing worked and he's actually fine, your majesty. He's got a bump on the back of his head and a couple of bruises. Once he's had some time to come to terms with everything he'll be right as rain." Carson shot him another look. "He just needs some rest. Maybe you should just leave him be for a bit."
"I just want to sit with him."
"Your majesty," Carson said, then he took a step closer and put a hand on John's arm, "lad, just listen to me. He's an actual person, right? So all the things you imagined him to be when you were a kid sneaking up here to look at the stasis chamber aren't true. You know that, yes?"
John gave him a small smile that looked entirely too fake to be anything but pasted on to make Carson feel better. "I know that, but-"
"But you can't help whom you fall in love with. Yes, lad, but don't let him hurt you." There was another glance at the end of that, more of a glare, really. Quickly, Rodney closed his eyes and turned his head back the way it had been when he'd woken up.
There were a few murmured words, too low for Rodney to hear them, then the door opening and closing. For a moment Rodney wondered how long he'd have to pretend to be asleep until it was believable for him to wake up.
"I know you're awake," John said, making Rodney jump. He'd sat down at the edge of the bed, facing Rodney with an awkwardly open and hurt expression in his eyes that didn't show on the rest of his face at all.
Clearing his throat, Rodney sat up, too. "You're the king of Atlantis?" he asked. It was an educated guess, but Rodney believed in facts, in hard science, and he'd rather have that confirmed than rely on good guesswork, never mind how good it was.
"Yeah, kinda."
Rodney blinked. "Kinda?"
His answer was a one shouldered shrug and a duck of John's head. "The city really likes me, but I'm more of a hands-on type of guy, so Lorne, my seneschal, is doing the administrative stuff."
For a long time they were both quiet. Then a thought hit Rodney, "But if you're king, then we're related, that's great." Rodney regretted his enthusiasm when John flinched like Rodney had punched him. "I mean, very, very distantly related, through my little sister," he said, trying hard to make it better.
"Not really. My family managed to get into the city about two hundred years ago. Old great-great-grandfather had the gene and the city woke up when he touched things. It's how we decide who gets to rule the city next, by who has the strongest gene."
Rodney was trying very hard not to be disappointed, because having a relative, never mind how distant, would have been something at least. "I'm all alone," he said, because if he didn't put it into words, he was sure he'd die.
"No you're not," John replied, fiercely. He took Rodney's hand into his. "You're not alone." He swallowed and let go of Rodney again.
"I'm not a nice person," Rodney blurted. That was probably the only thing he could say that actually showed how much he appreciated the sentiment, the not being alone, the fact that John was prepared to take care of him. "I'm really not. I'm brilliant, I know everything about anything you could ever need to know, I kept Atlantis running practically on my own by the time I hit ten, but ... anybody who knew me back then-" he swallowed at that, because they were all dead now "-anybody would tell you that I'm arrogant, self-centered, and one of the most unpleasant people to be around."
John smiled, the corners of his lips curling up the smallest bit and his eyes practically shining. "Is that so?"
"Yes," Rodney said, his voice rough from his way too dry throat. He liked John, he really did, but he had no idea how to go about it in the first place, not after he pretty much pushed John away earlier. "So, you see, you can't really love me because I'm not-"
"-a nice person. Yeah, I got it."
He waved his hands at that, continuing as if John had never interrupted, "And you, you seem like a nice person, so maybe you should, I don't know, go out there and look around for another nice person and-"
"Rodney," John said.
"I just spent a couple of thousand years in a stasis chamber, John. I was sixteen when that woman gave me a slice of lemon pie and I thought I was going to die. I'm not ready for anything-"
"Rodney."
"-more. And what with you being ruggedly handsome with the wild hair and the nice eyes you shouldn't have a problem finding a nice girl to settle down with-"
"Rodney!"
Realizing he'd been babbling nervously, Rodney curled his fingers around a fistful of blanket. "Yes?" he asked.
"I can wait," John said.
Rodney let go of the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "Really?"
John just nodded.
It all turned a bit awkward then, forcing Rodney to study the blanket covering his legs as if it was the most fascinating thing he'd ever seen. "You know," he said, licking his lips, "I owe you for getting me out of there. I could have died from old age in another couple of thousand years."
"You're welcome."
Rodney cleared his throat. "I meant that I might owe you a kiss after all ... maybe?"
"I think I'll take a rain check on that, actually," John said, getting up. That odd almost-smile was still on his face. "Next time we kiss I'd rather it's because you want it too, instead of you thinking you owe me. You should get some rest now." He gave Rodney an awkward pat on the shoulder before he left.
Rodney didn't even have time to move before the door closed behind John. He was left sitting there, totally stunned. He wasn't sure what surprised him more: John telling him he wanted something mutual, him just walking out like that, or being told to rest.
Rest! He'd just had enough rest to last him an entire lifetime. Determined, he got out of bed and headed toward the console in the corner of his room. Atlantis should have collected a massive amount of data over the past two hundred years and Rodney was determined to go through it as soon as possible.
Ooo00O00ooO
Rodney stormed into John's office. It had taken him exactly a week to figure out that he really liked John's wild hair, his changeable eyes and the way he kept leaning against things. After that, he'd been trying to tell John (well, without actually saying anything) that he wouldn't mind continuing where they'd left off right after John had opened the stasis chamber. "What," he said, "do I have to do to get you to acknowledge me? Strip naked and dance in front of you?"
"I think we should go," Lorne said into the quiet that followed Rodney's outburst. He practically dragged a gaping Zelenka out of the room with him, starting to whisper with his husband before the door had even properly closed behind them.
"Well?" Rodney crossed his arms in front of him, glaring at John.
"I ... what?"
Irritated and utterly frustrated with the whole situation Rodney tapped his foot. "Why aren't you kissing me?"
"You're not ready, Rodney, I thought I'd made myself clear when I said that I want this to be mutual." He'd said that very same thing several times before and Rodney was entirely sick of it.
Furious, Rodney took the last few steps until they were face to face and stabbed a finger into John's chest. "And who gets to decide when I'm ready? You? I've been giving you hints that I'm ready for more for weeks! Are you just too thick to-"
The kiss took Rodney as much by surprise as the first one. It was just as gentle, John's lips warm and dry against his until Rodney growled impatiently and pushed John up against the wall. A sharp nip of teeth and John was pushing back as desperately as Rodney felt.
It could have been minutes or an eternity until they had to come up for air. "Your hints suck," John said, chuckling breathlessly, before he kissed Rodney again.
The End.