SGA fic: If you want to kiss the sky, R
If you want to kiss the sky
R, John/Various, ~8400 words
AU
Warning: John fucks a lot of people, willingly but not necessarily happily.
Warning: kind of meta.
[rather whiny note redacted. Story notes here.]
If you want to kiss the sky
John likes Antarctica. Nobody pretends that he's there for any other reason than to finish out his career without fanfare; nobody requires him to pretend that he's friends with them. He does his job exactly as well as he needs to, flying back and forth over the snow, white and gray and ice blue, and the only words he says to people are nice day, isn't it? and he keeps his hands to himself. It's what he wants, what he needs, nothing around him but air and ice and snow.
And then one day he nearly gets shot down--shot down! in Antarctica!--and he finds out that the base he's been flying to is some sort of top secret alien archaeological site and he can control squishy little missiles with his mind and all of a sudden an entire roomful of people are looking at John hungrily, and suddenly he doesn't like Antarctica so much anymore.
"I'll think about it," he says to Dr. Weir, suddenly desperate to be out above ground in the piercing sunlight and the thin air.
She looks like she's about to make another argument, but instead she only purses her lips and says, "I see," and he's allowed to escape and spend twenty minutes in the calm outdoors before the general comes striding toward him.
The trip back, the part of it that isn't taken up with deflecting O'Neill's arguments like they're playing tennis, John spends glaring at the snow, feeling betrayed: fuck you, snow.
The general looks pissed off as he gets out of the helicopter and stalks off; it makes John swallow a smile, because for all of the arguments that O'Neill had made, he hadn't gone the last logical step, and John mentally gives him a couple of points--he'd half been expecting the flight to end with a hand on the back of his neck and the General saying why don't we continue discussing this in private.
Which probably would have worked on a lot of guys who weren't John: bring him in, make him part of the group, and he'd have a hard time walking away. But no, just some reasonable arguments and a curt, "Think about it," before O'Neill swung out of the chopper, and John was left looking after his retreating form, trying not to grin and thinking maybe.
**
Fifteen years ago--almost to the day, he thinks, sometime in the spring of John's senior year of college--he paused in his run at the top of a hill and looked out at the city, at the sun rising gold and blue, and he pulled a quarter out of his pocket.
He stared at George Washington for a good long while before he spun the coin into the cold air, and e pluribus unum flashed, and he knew.
Later that morning, he let himself back into the crappy apartment he shared with three other guys. Alan and David had already left for class, but Nathan had a free morning, and he was sprawled at their scavenged kitchen table with his books spread around him, brush cut bent over his notebook.
When John plopped down in the chair across from him, Nathan barely looked up, but then John said, "I'm gonna do it," and Nathan put down his pencil and broke into a brilliant smile and pulled John across the table to kiss him.
John did his best to respond with enthusiasm; figuring he might as well get some practice in, and if he could make Nathan believe it, maybe he had a chance at fooling the entire United States Air Force.
He lifted a hand to slide over the light stubble at Nathan's jawline and curl around his neck. It wasn't so bad; Nathan was familiar even if this wasn't, this light drag of his fingers on someone else's skin.
John kissed back until Nathan broke away, smiling.
"Welcome to the family," Nathan said.
That night he took John out to celebrate; they stumbled into the apartment from the cool spring night clinging to each other and headed for the room Nathan usually had to himself (himself, and whoever he was bringing home that night from ROTC).
When Nathan pulled away from John to fumble at his own belt, there was a moment when John could feel his brain starting to flutter, but he pushed the panic down and instead reached out to touch Nathan, thought about flying and the color of the sky when the sun cuts into the dawn; about perfect weightless soaring, and he thought, I can do this.
**
Now John sits on a hill in the sunshine, flipping a quarter between his fingers, thinking about the last decision he made here, how if he goes maybe he'll be able to make it up to himself.
They want his blood, not his body; he won't be in the chain of command--hell, he won't even have to talk to anybody if he doesn't want to. Another galaxy is about as far away as he can get from the rest of the Air Force.
The last few months at McMurdo were a flurry of scientists talking too fast and Elizabeth Weir giving John updates a little too often on her attempts to get John attached to the expedition. ("You know I haven't decided yet, right?" he said.) But most of all, those months were filled with the beauty, the mental soaring-singing-heavenly-fucking-chorus of Ancient technology.
John used the chair a lot, and while it wasn't quite like flying--nothing is quite like flying--it was a pretty good second, and it's unlikely he'll ever get close again if he lets the Air Force punt him out on his ass like they're planning.
So what the hell, he thinks, and spins the coin, and doesn't really bother to check how it lands. And he lays back in the grass, stares at the sky, and pulls out his cell phone to call Dr. Weir.
**
Once they set a day of departure, the entire operation moves to Colorado, and John has to go through the entire secret base! aliens! shock again.
"Oh, hey," Rodney McKay says to him one day in the elevator. "Haven't seen you lately."
True: since they've come to Cheyenne Mountain John's been holed up in different labs than McKay's been holed up in; he won't say that he's missed McKay yelling at him to think at the Ancient tech differently, like McKay could see into his brain, but his face and voice are something familiar, at least, in this whirlwind.
"Nah," John says. "Been taking care of . . . stuff." Stuff. He waves one hand vaguely.
McKay's eyes flicker over John. "I'm actually--topside, there's this pizza place," he says. "Don't suppose you want to join me?"
McKay was one of the ones, back in Antarctica, who tended to look at John like he was a Christmas present waiting to be unwrapped. John was usually interfacing with Ancient tech at the time, so he mostly chalked it up to the genetic lottery that gave him a touch that McKay wished he himself had, but now there's something about the way McKay looks at him that makes John's blood run cold.
He can see the end of the evening, in McKay's apartment or a hotel room or hell, in one of the SGC cars, and he manages not to snap, I'm military, McKay, I'm not easy.
"Sorry," John says, forcing the casual tone as easily as he used to fake affection, "I've got plans," and then mercifully, the elevator dings and he gets off before McKay can say anything else.
**
The wormhole is a rush, it really is, and now he understands what O'Neill was talking about. And he steps forward, and the city lights up around him, and he thinks yes this is it, everything he ever wanted.
Twenty-four hours later, John collapses onto his bed and God, this is not what he signed up for.
Back in Cheyenne Mountain, the marines pretty much politely ignored him, following the lead of Sumner, who had made it clear that he didn't want any part of John. Not on the expedition (although John's genetics and Dr. Weir overrode the wishes of God and the United States Marine Corps), not in his chain of command (no problem there), not in his bed, for which John could have kissed him. (He refrained; it would only have served to confuse the man.)
So John politely ignored them all back, stayed out of their way, and deflected the occasional pass.
And now Sumner's dead by John's hand, and John's in charge of the entire damn base.
Fuck.
Later, John sits in an office--his office--and stares at paperwork without really looking at it. He's thinking instead about Marshall Sumner, alone and dying, trapped in a dark room with a monster. John never touched him--they had stayed in their own orbits and never crossed paths unless strictly necessary--and now he wonders if fucking him would have made it any easier to do what he did.
He kind of doubts it, and spends a minute considering the glorious history of fraternitas, back to George Washington, back to England, to ancient Rome, and he thinks fuck all of you; I'm doing this my way, and blinks, and focuses on his paperwork.
After a while, Lieutenant Ford pokes his head in the door. "Sir?"
John looks up. "Just the man I wanted to see. Have a seat," he says, and Ford does.
"Now," says John, "Tell me about gate teams," and he starts to put together Atlantis.
**
It takes until the first night the team spends offworld to make John think that maybe, maybe he can handle leading this expedition. He's got a gate team, they're traveling and trading and making some friends; McKay's aim is getting better and Teyla's looking a little more comfortable in the city, and when Ford thinks John's being a dumbass he doesn't use those exact words.
They're making it, they're coming together; on M98-452, they make some plans, they set up some tents, they say goodnight and that's that.
John's about to drift off when Ford rolls over, a shadow in the dark above John for a brief second before his mouth lands squarely on John's and his hand slides into John's pants, and shit, John was never under the delusion that marines were terribly subtle, but: shit, and even though John's spent years practicing the right kind of reaction he reflexively grabs Ford's wrist, hard enough to make him stop, and realizes his mistake as soon as he makes it.
"Sir?" Ford says, confusion in the dark, and withdraws his hand slowly.
For a few seconds the only sound is his own harsh breathing, and John says, "Look, I--I don't--" and lets go of Ford's wrist.
"Oh," Ford says. "Oh. Okay. Um," just a little bit of panic in his voice.
John rubs his hands into his eyes and says, "Fuck," into the darkness. "Sorry."
"No, no, it's cool," Ford tells him, recovering. "I served with a couple of guys who were--like that. I won't tell anyone."
"Thanks," says John, although he'd bet real money that it didn't work out so great for those couple of guys.
**
John settles in, after a while: they all settle in. Ford doesn't make another move, though sometimes he starts to say something and cuts himself off, or starts to reach out a hand and then checks himself. John mostly pretends not to notice, except when he's tired and Ford's tripping overhimself apologizing, and then he says, "Ford, seriously."
Lieutenant Miller, on the other hand, sometimes looks like he wishes he had an excuse to touch John; he's pretty close and easy with Ford and the other lieutenant, Price, but Miller seems a little too reserved to ever make the first move on his CO, not without Ford's excuse of being on John's team.
(Price seems to actively dislike John personally, which John could not care less about as long as Price follows orders and does his job well, which he does; John has enough to worry about without spending time wringing his hands over whether one of his lieutenants thinks he's a great guy.)
The three of them come to see John after he dies that one time; he feels ridiculously like he's holding court, Teyla attending, quiet on his right side.
"I'm glad you're all right, sir," Miller says, concern written across every inch of his face, and bends to kiss John lightly on the lips.
Powerless in the infirmary bed, John accepts the kiss, says, "I'll be back on duty soon," and does his best not to glare or freeze or even look at Teyla until Miller and Price are past the curtain that separates his bed from the rest of the infirmary.
Ford's hung back a little from the other two, and he shoots a worried glance at John, who shakes his head a little. The last thing he needs is for Ford to have a chat with Miller about backing off from the CO; Miller's not likely to be any trouble and John can put up with his low-level attentions.
Ford nods: he gets it, and drops a hand to squeeze John's foot briefly before leaving, his hand warm through the thin blanket.
Teyla's still there, though, calm in the chair next to his bed, and reaches out to clasp his hand lightly. She's looking at him curiously, though, and whatever it is, he really does not want to get into it right now.
"You do not desire them," she begins, and John looks away.
"Forgive me," she says. "It is only--I do not understand why you allow them to persist."
"It's complicated," he tells her.
She arches an eyebrow and says, "My apologies. I did not realize you had a prior engagement. Please do not let me keep you," and for a minute John just lies there, glaring at her in sullen silence broken only by the faint beep of the machines attached to him.
Teyla gazes at him serenely, calm and open and suddenly John wants to confide in her, tell her everything.
"It's a long story," he says instead; "it's just the way our military works," and turns his head the other way and pretends to fall asleep.
**
Another offworld mission, one of those planets where dusk falls more quickly than they'd anticipated. They're better off camping where they are and waiting out the short night rather than pushing towards the ruins in the dark.
McKay helps John set up the tents (meaning, McKay bitches about various things while John sets up the tents); Teyla and Ford are off finding firewood.
John dusts his hands off and plunks down next to McKay on a log, and--okay, the hell of it is, John can't even remember what Rodney said; just some dumbass joke, probably, and before John realizes what he's doing he's got a light hand on the side of Rodney's face and is kissing him, just the barest brush of lips, and--oh, shit.
"Look," McKay says, pushing John away firmly, "not that I don't love excessively masculine bonding activities as much as the next guy, but in case you hadn't noticed from the stylish blue panels on my jacket--" and he points both of his index fingers toward the jacket John's letting go of--"I'm a civilian. My involvement in your homoerotic military rituals begins and ends at target practice."
By the time he's done talking, John's across the campsite, arms crossed, facing the darkening trees. "It's not--" he says, and then stops, because he can hear Ford and Teyla coming back.
"I didn't mean--" he hisses again, and he has to spend the rest of the night not talking to McKay about it.
Rodney comes to his office the next day, a flurry of hands and words. Apparently he can't just let it go, like he hasn't spent years working with military and doesn't know that it's just a kiss, it didn't mean anything.
"I just," Rodney says, "I'm not having sex with you because you read it in a handbook somewhere."
"Drop it, McKay," John says, and thankfully, Rodney does.
**
"Are you married?" Teyla asks him one day when John's avoiding his actual duties by helping the Athosians rebuild their village on the mainland. It involves a lot of tree-felling and hitting things and swearing; John is currently slamming a rather blunt axe into the base of a tree and wishing he had a chainsaw.
"Nah," he says, tossing the axe onto the ground and reaching for his canteen. "Military. We're not allowed."
Teyla's eyebrows raise.
'Not allowed' isn't technically true, not since '91 and the Active Duty Marriage Act, but John doesn't quite feel like explaining the concept of the glass ceiling to someone who has neither ceilings nor glass, and anyway it's true, as far as any of them here on Atlantis are concerned. You don't send husbands and fathers into combat, and you sure as hell don't send them to another galaxy.
"I have," Teyla says, with one of the queer pauses which seem to pepper her speech--he's not sure if it's the gate translation, or the alien language, or Teyla herself--"heard of warrior castes which take a vow of celibacy. You follow their teachings?"
John hesitates, and wipes the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. "Not exactly."
**
Judging by his grins, Ford seems to think it's cute that John shares a tent with Rodney. (John tends not to share with Teyla in an effort to hold off rumors that he's fucking her instead of his lieutenants; she gets enough weird looks from the marines. [This is also the reason he tries not to spend too much time in Elizabeth's office.] He's not really sure it's working.) John doesn't know if he or McKay is the cute one, or if it's that Ford thinks they're both dysfunctional enough that they'd be really great together.
One movie night, when John's claimed one end of the couch as he usually does, Ford plops down next to his feet.
"Don't think I don't see what you're up to," John says. Last week he'd ended up with Ford's head in his lap.
"This is where the popcorn is, that's all," Ford grins.
"Popcorn?" Rodney's just come in.
Ford holds out the bowl like bait, and when Rodney gets close enough, grabs his arm and pulls and dumps him on the couch next to John.
Rodney struggles for a moment and then stills; Ford's probably got an arm around his ankle, and John smiles ruefully.
An hour and a half later, Rodney is asleep, slumped on John's shoulder in the flickering light of the screen. When John shifts his weight, Rodney wakes and blinks and says, "Mmf? Oh, sorry," and leans the other way so he's not touching John anymore.
John's entire left side is cold now, although he can still feel the heat radiating off McKay's body through the inch of space between them. He slides an arm around Rodney and pulls him back in. "It's okay," he says, and means it.
The next evening, Rodney says over a game of chess, "So, is it--"
John raises his eyebrows guilelessly, and whatever Rodney sees makes him drop his gaze and say, "Never mind."
**
After the storm, it takes them a few days to put themselves back together again; John comes down with a raging head cold and spends about a week thinking that maybe being electrocuted wouldn't have been so bad.
Miller starts hovering around John's office, when he's in his office, fussing with cups of tea and honey and orbiting close enough to note John's temperature at every available opportunity; in desperation John sends him out to the mainland to oversee the reconstruction of the Athosian settlement. John'll miss the tea, but he thinks that somehow he'll survive without the cool press of lips to his forehead every half hour.
Which, as Ford is offworld and not around to run interference, leaves him with Price.
Now, when John was in officer training, learning leadership and decorum and how to suck cock, he could tell there were a couple of different kinds of guys: there were those who he could tell joined the Air Force for the easy cameraderie--for the cock--and a couple more who he could tell were there despite it. John never counted himself in the latter group because unlike them, he didn't make it so damn obvious that he wasn't interested in fraternitas; instead, he played along. He smiled sidelong and he kissed like his life depended on it and he learned how to tell himself to just shut up and fuck, and no one could tell that Shep would really rather be somewhere else.
He guesses that the Marine Corps attracts its fair share of the latter group as well, and while it must be easier for them nowadays than it was when John was twenty-three, John's pretty sure that guys like that and guys like Price just don't get along.
Which is why it's kind of confusing when Price pokes his head into John's office and, at John's nod, sets a couple of cookies on John's desk along with his report.
**
The Wraith are on their way to Atlantis, which apparently means it's a fine time for Bates to accuse Teyla of being in collusion with the Wraith, which John is pretty sure is only thirty percent about that (twenty percent being the chance that Bates will never see another Superbowl, and the rest Teyla's probable influence on John's sexual habits or lack thereof). John finds out about this after Ford talks to a couple of Bates' friends and gives himself sixty seconds to be angry about it--most of which is spent spitting, "Fuck. Fuck," and cradling his hand after he punches a wall. (The nearest wall sconce flashes, either in reproach, alarm, or some sort of short-circuit; "Sorry," John says, and feels stupid.)
Much later, staring into the dark, a lot more than sixty seconds is spent thinking about whether he's completely fucked himself by putting the lieutenants off, how many of the men under his command think he's completely worthless.
Less than all of them, he thinks; Sheppard Versus Those Genii Bastards counted for something, and that's the best answer he's going to get. He puts it out of his mind for a while, because at this point, either he can effectively command and they might not all die, or he can't, and they'll only know that when the Wraith have taken Atlantis.
For now, though, he needs to sleep; who knows when he'll next get a chance. John closes his eyes against the delicate starlight and shimmers of the sea, and sleeps.
**
And then a fucking thousand things happen at once, and there's Wraith and certain death and contact with Earth and seriously, Pegasus, stop it.
**
The night the Wraith are finally gone, when he finally has a minute to just breathe, John sits in the mess hall with a plastic bottle of Earth water and thinks about picking up the pieces and putting them back together again. Colonel Everett is lying in the infirmary, his life gone, and John's best lieutenant is somewhere in the Pegasus galaxy, out of his mind and probably blaming John.
He's trying not to think about Ford's refusal to hear him, his own helplessness as the jumper disappeared. Maybe someone else could have reasoned with Ford, maybe not. (Miller was directing traffic at the time, what with a hundred new guys suddenly dumped on them; Price had died the day before, and John makes the command decision to be angry at Price, because it's not like Price will mind now.)
John's about at the point of deciding that since he'll be the same amount of use tomorrow he may as well just hang around until the sun comes up, when McKay comes in with his own bottle and a package of miniature Oreos. John tilts his head to welcome him to the table, and McKay slumps down next to where John's boots are propped on a chair.
They crunch through the cookies, licking too-sweet filling from the middles, and then continue to just sit in silence, John slouched back and McKay's elbows on the table; both of them are staring into space. John kind of wishes he wanted to cry, or cheer, or something.
"Shit," he finally says, shaking his head, and McKay just grips his water bottle and nods, raising his eyes to meet John's.
They sit there for a while longer, and then all at once John's had enough and he gets up and grabs Rodney by the arm and drags him off to the movie room and the only couch big enough for the both of them. He puts in a movie, the first one that comes to hand, and falls against Rodney where he's slumped on the couch.
It's some grand sweeping epic, and they're both asleep before the opening music even dies.
**
As soon as the wormhole deposits him in the SGC, John looks around at the gray walls, a mile underground, and he thinks, "Oh, hell no." Atlantis haunts his thoughts with memories of blue-bronze light and the scent of an alien ocean. He can't remember being so obsessed since college, thinking flying, flying, flying.
So he makes nice with everybody, manages not to flinch from their touches, and then Cameron Mitchell smiles at him, easy-friendly, and asks John if he wants to go grab a burger or something, take it back to Mitchell's place.
"Sure," John says. "It's been a while since I had takeout."
Later, lying tangled in Mitchell's cool sheets, John stares up at the sky, at the stars, and thinks that he'll kiss Mitchell good morning tomorrow, go back to the Mountain, and promise them anything they want.
Mitchell's lying deeply asleep in the moonlight; John looks at his calm face and wonders what it would be like for this to be easy, to be able to want it, fall along with somebody as easy as breathing. Maybe that it's just that he's out of practice--he hadn't had sex in months ("Three marine lieutenants and a hundred twitchy scientists," he said to Mitchell earlier that night, drinking beer he's not used to; "and none of them were really a good idea." Mitchell had paused long enough to say sympathetically, "Yeah, that must've sucked"). It's been longer still since he's spent the night.
He carefully tucks his hands behind his head, slow movements so as not to wake Mitchell up, and then lies still and quiet, watching the treetops sway, black against black, and he counts in his head the days until he's back on Atlantis.
**
Rodney corners him the next morning after the first meeting of the day; he'd given John a funny look when he walked in, so John resigns himself to hearing all about whatever bee's in Rodney's bonnet.
"I--" Rodney starts, and gestures for John to follow him as he heads out of the conference room--"I looked for you last night, I was going to go get pizza."
"Yeah," John says, not loudly but still loud enough for General Landry to hear him, ten feet ahead of them in the hallway, "I went home with Mitchell."
And Rodney stops dead in his tracks. "You--"
John shrugs. "Went home with Mitchell, yeah," and Rodney starts to splutter.
Some strong emotion is frozen on Rodney's face; whatever it is, John doesn't think it's a good sign. There's an unlocked door--a storage closet of some kind--so he ducks in and pulls Rodney after him. "Are you okay?"
That's the kind of question that usually prompts a tirade from Rodney detailing all of the ways in which he is not okay, but Rodney just says, "You slept with Colonel Mitchell."
"Yes," John says calmly, because it's good to say things like this calmly, and maybe if he does it enough he'll believe it himself. "I slept with Colonel Mitchell."
"Why?" says Rodney.
"Why the hell not?" John says, crossing his arms.
Rodney looks--well, stricken and confused all at the same time. "I thought you--" and breaks off when he catches a look at John's face.
"I mean," he starts again, "You weren't sleeping with Ford."
John is suddenly angry. "No," he snaps, all out of patience. "I wasn't sleeping with Ford, and I've been paying for it for a year. Half my men don't trust me, the SGC thinks I'm a loose cannon, they're looking for an excuse to keep me here and I'm sick of giving them ammunition, so please, Rodney. Tell my why I shouldn't sleep with Cameron fucking Mitchell if I want to."
He's practically hissing in Rodney's face, and half expects Rodney to descend into panicked babble again, but instead Rodney just draws himself up and looks John straight in the eye.
"Well," he says. "If you want to."
And they stay like that for a second, staring at each other, and John can't make himself say He's a great lay, a good guy, of course I want to, and finally, finally, Rodney looks down and away and fumbles for the doorknob.
**
John's new XO is named Evan Lorne, and he's practically a poster boy for fraternitas: baseball, blowjobs, and apple pie. As far as John can tell, Lorne is fucking half of the officers that came over on the Daedalus with them, most of the ones he plays basketball with on Friday nights (John doesn't think it's any coincidence that Lorne usually gets picked first even though he's five foot nine), and a couple of the scientists whom he'll most likely be accompanying offworld.
It takes a lot of scheduling to fuck fifteen different people regularly, and Lorne attends to it with the same attention to detail that he brings to his duties. He kind of reminds John of himself, back when John was really putting an effort into pretending.
John had two day planners back then. One sat on his desk and said things like MTG 1100; the other one was in his head and said things like TUES: PORTER. WED: BRECKINRIDGE, BLOWJOB. Porter was a good guy, John liked him: a quick fuck and show's over, not the prolonged bullshit some of the guys seemed to always want. John was good at going along with the prolonged bullshit, though; he'd cultivated a reputation as someone who likes everyone, someone who's up for anything--yeah, Shep, great guy, good with knots--but it was a relief sometimes to do someone easy.
Until--right, this was right about the time that they changed the regs and started allowing servicemen to marry; John saw a few wedding rings come out of the woodwork, even a couple of kids, and one of those rings was on Andy Porter's hand.
"Sorry," Porter said one day, shrugging on his jacket. "Promised the wife I'd be home early," and John had to shuffle his entire damn schedule around.
He doesn't think Lorne's like that, though, either hiding something nor faking machismo: Lorne really does like everybody.
So John's not all that surprised when Lorne wanders into his office one afternoon and takes off his jacket, saying, "If I have to fill out one more 99-50 I'm gonna scream. You want to take a break?"
John looks up from his own paperwork--there's a ton to finish before the Daedalus leaves again, a mad scramble to finish the documentation on every person and thing on the spaceship. He does like Lorne, though, and it wouldn't be that much of a hardship to have sex with the guy once in a while.
Besides, maybe if he's fucking somebody here it'll get back to Stargate Command and everybody'll just shut the fuck up about how John's not a team player.
So he shrugs casually, says, "Sure, what'd you have in mind?" and makes sure the kiss starts before he opaques his windows.
**
M3X-733, and John lies in the too-small tent he's sharing with McKay, staring up at the darkness and trying to sleep. But although John can sleep practically standing up in the middle of a brass band, right now the nighttime noises are niggling at the edges of his mind: the crackle of their campfire, the weird calls of nocturnal alien animals, the soft sounds of Bensen and Carles fucking in the next tent over.
He hears McKay scrub his hands over his face, the faint rasp of stubble against callus.
"A year and a half and I still can't sleep through that," Rodney mutters, and then there's the flump of him flopping restless, turning onto his side.
John's pretty good at ignoring it--even moreso now that he's in Atlantis surrounded by marines who can't seem to keep their dicks in their pants for five minutes altogether, but also from a lifetime of guys who thought they were being quiet when they weren't and guys who just didn't care who heard.
"Yeah, well," John says, "you get used to it."
**
Ronon's fitting in, John thinks, he's great to have on the team and has an almost fanatical devotion to teaching hand-to-hand--and everything's going fine until one day they stop for a breather at the far point of their morning run.
"Guys keep looking at me in the showers," Ronon says, a long sentence for Ronon, and John has a sudden sinking feeling. If Ronon's bothering to articulate a thought at all it's got to be a problem, and John hadn't even thought to warn the guy; god knew all of the international military got enough training and shit.
"Oh," John says. "Yeah, we do that."
"Fuck?"
"Yeah."
Ronon considers this. "You don't."
"Sure I do," John says, light and easy. Ronon shoots him a look, and John wonders why he's bothering to lie to someone who for seven years lived on the simplest truths, and amends, "Sometimes I do."
"I have to?" Ronon says. "We didn't do that on Sateda."
John can't tell if Ronon actually would, if he would change his life to include a dozen men from another planet or if the question he's asking is some kind of test. He wonders what would happen if he answered yes, if Ronon would just walk straight to the gate room and go anywhere but this fucked-up city; he remembers making the choice himself, twenty-one and knowing he'd do anything to fly.
"No," John says, "You don't," and he tosses the water bottle back at Ronon, and they set out again toward the hub of the city.
**
John's heading over to Rodney's to watch a movie--he'd traded Friday the Thirteenth to Lorne for Mission: Impossible--when it occurs to him that yesterday he watched a movie with Rodney, and the day before that they played chess, and they've eaten eight of their last ten meals together. (And also, his brain reminds him, John did kiss him that one time and it would be just like Rodney to misconstrue that.)
The realization hits him and his step slows.
Maybe one of these days Rodney'll make a pass, John thinks, stopping dead in the middle of the hallway, and the thought fills him with dread, the thought of deadening their easy cameraderie with a regular schedule of sex.
So he gets there and Rodney's already got the movie cued up, and John sits down, half-watching it. After twenty minutes of fidgeting, he says, "I can't date you."
Rodney turns and he's just got this look on his face, like he can't understand what John's saying.
"Look," John says, "it's just a really bad idea, and--"
He stops because Rodney is waving him off, his wait, wait wave, so he stops and waits.
"Any more," Rodney says, and now it's John's turn to look confused.
"You mean you can't date me any more," Rodney clarifies, and give him this oddly crafty look.
"We're not dating," John says stupidly.
Rodney looks around pointedly, at the movie (a restaurant blows up on the screen, John notices, fish everywhere. Awesome), at the drink John's holding, at the dimmed lights and the way they're pressed up against each other on the bed.
"I beg to differ," Rodney says.
"But," John says, "but, we're not, you haven't--" He flings a hand between them, gesturing, and wow, when did he start picking up Rodney's body language?
Now Rodney frowns. "I thought you weren't really interested."
"I'm not really interested," John says, "but--"
"But?" Rodney prompts him.
"But," John says, and stops, because none of this makes sense.
By now they should have been having sex and John should have been pretending to enjoy it. He's not doing that, though, not doing calculations in his head; instead, he lets himself be drawn back to recline against Rodney, an arm around his middle and a voice in his ear, saying, "You know, I do like parts of you that aren't your dick."
And lips press to his temple, and John says, "Oh."
And it would have been a really nice moment, except then Rodney says, "Now shut up, I want to watch Tom Cruise almost die," and John is forced to smack him.
When the credits start to roll, John starts to get up, but--okay, since when does Rodney have upper arm strength?--Rodney's holding on, still, and saying, "Hey, do you want to stay?"
He must be able to feel John silently freak out, though, maybe all of John's muscles tense for flight, because Rodney lets go and says quickly, "Not for, I mean, just, I could probably be talked into not giving you a blowjob," and John starts to laugh helplessly.
**
"Word around town," Lorne says, hopping up onto John's desk in front of him, knees apart, like he does every time he thinks John needs a break, "is that you were never this friendly before."
Before what, John doesn't have to ask. Before Lorne, before the Daedalus and oversight and the chance that the boys in Colorado could decide that John's not the guy they want. He slides a hand up Lorne's leg, avoiding the sidearm. "True," he concedes.
"Lieutenant Miller says you only fuck the field officers," Lorne says. "As a general policy."
John considers this as Lorne leans back, wrinkling John's paperwork, his hand dangerously close to John's coffee. It could have been John's general policy; they didn't have any other field officers that first year. John never fucked Miller, just like he never fucked Ford or Wayne or any other lieutenant in Atlantis. And it's true now: currently, yes, John is only fucking one person, and that person happens to be Major Evan Lorne.
But that's as far as it goes; John hasn't so much as shaken hands with Caldwell.
"I wonder where he got that idea," John says with a smile, and he thinks he almost manages to make it look sincere. (Ford. Ford is where Miller got that idea, actually, because Ford is--Ford was that kind of guy, to make excuses for his CO.)
Lorne doesn't take his bait, though, and even though John's hand's roaming he doesn't get distracted. Lorne never gets distracted. Hell, he could probably earn his marksmanship ribbon with a dick up his ass, not that John ever wants to know if he did.
"Sir, I just need to know what's going on. Why . . . " Lorne says, trailing off. And John owes him enough to stop playing games. He withdraws his hand, and hell if this conversation isn't even more fucked up when they're not touching.
"Why you?" John says. "Or why no one else?"
Lorne starts to say something and stops, frowning. "Both."
"Well," John says, "you, because . . . it works." Because it had to be someone, John thinks. Because you're here and you're the only one who can be the only one. Because you might actually be my friend.
Lorne quirks an eyebrow; maybe he did get all of that. "And everyone else doesn't work."
"Everyone else is avoidable," John says.
"I'm unavoidable?" Lorne says, but he's smiling.
And John smiles a little, and he thinks he might even mean it. "You're . . . perfect," he says.
**
"You think if you'd been fucking him he wouldn't have left," Ronon says out of the blue, and John misses a step and falls down hard, twisting his ankle.
For a moment all he can think of is the hard metal of the catwalk under him and the shooting pain in his leg; his other knee is bruised, probably scraped. He bites back a word and glares up at Ronon at the top of the stairs.
"Says who?" John grits out, and carefully moves himself to a sitting position to gently rotate his ankle. He doesn't bother to pretend not knowing who Ronon's talking about; it's been three days since they left Aiden Ford on a hive ship, and he's been sleeping less and running more and even Ronon's noticed.
Ronon squeezes by him to sit on the steps below. He shrugs, which means Teyla says, is who.
"I'm guessing she didn't use those exact words," John says dryly, and Ronon smiles and leans back against the steps on his elbows. No, she would have said something like Colonel Sheppard . . . struggled in his friendship with Aiden. Translation: John feels both relieved and guilty that he never fucked Ford.
"He would have gone anyway," Ronon says into the silence like he thinks John needs to hear it out loud, tilting his head back against the metal railing. "The Wraith fucked with him; wasn't anything you could do."
Which maybe John did need to hear out loud, and they sit in the quiet rafters for a little bit while John gingerly prods his ankle.
"Hey," he says, and leans on Ronon's shoulder as he levers himself up on his good leg. "Give me a hand here?" and he leans on Ronon all the way back to the infirmary.
**
John's on page 273 of War and Peace when Rodney comes into his quarters and collapses at John's desk.
"How was the mission?" John says lightly. Rodney's been on P98-002 all day with Lorne and a handful of engineers and archaeologists, studying Ancient ruins.
"Fine, fine," Rodney says, and pauses. "Major Lorne propositioned me."
"Yeah?" John says, and turns the page. "Take him up on it?"
There's a silence that makes John think he might possibly have said the wrong thing. He looks up; Rodney's staring at him.
"No, I did not take him up on it," Rodney says. "I happen to be dating you."
John blinks and sets his book down. "Rodney," he starts, cautiously. "You do know I'm fucking Lorne, right?"
Rodney glares at him. "Yes, thank you, I am aware of that."
" . . . and that I don't care if you are."
Rodney gets up and starts pacing. "No, but see," he says, "I do." He waves a hand at John. "Not, I mean, you; that's--you. But me, I would much rather be--" and he bites off what he was going to say, and finishes lamely, "with you." And he looks so lost that John sits up and makes room for him on the bed.
Rodney sits, and John unfolds and puts an arm around him. "I can't promise you anything," he says into Rodney's hair.
"I know," says Rodney softly.
**
The night after John brings Lorne back from the dead, they leave the debriefing together, smudged and tired around the eyes.
"Hey," John says, and Lorne pauses with his hand in front of the transporter. "You got plans tonight?" John says.
"Nah, I'm free," Lorne says, with a pretty good effort at not looking surprised. Lorne's usually the one to initiate.
John pretends not to take a deep breath and says, "Thought I might drop by later," and Lorne smiles.
"Sure," he says. "See you then."
Lorne doesn't ask him anything when he shows up at Lorne's door a couple of hours later, just invites him in: it's a nice place, tidy like Lorne's quarters couldn't be anything but. His window faces into the city; Atlantis's lights speckle the view like stars, but John only looks for a moment before sliding a hand up Lorne's arm and kissing him gently.
They make out, kissing slowly, lying warm and solid against one another before for a long time before they finally do fuck. John doesn't say much and Lorne seems to take the cue, although he does look at John a little worriedly once or twice like he's about to say are you sure? or check John for a head wound.
Afterwards, they lie in the dappled moonlight, and John says, "Glad you're back."
Lorne looks at him, his hand drifting to find John's, and says, "Thanks for coming."
**
"You didn't come by last night," Rodney says that morning at breakfast.
"No, sorry," John agrees, pushing his cinnamon roll across the table and ducking his head. He doesn't particularly feel like meeting Rodney's eyes, even though Rodney knows John and Lorne are fucking, knows that John would much rather be splayed across Rodney's bed, one pajama-clad leg flung over Rodney's. "Spent it with Lorne," he says shortly, and Rodney kind of bites his lip and nods.
"I . . . " John starts, and has to clear his throat of a bite of melon that suddenly seems dry, "I can come by tonight," and Rodney says, "Well, if you're not busy."
"Nah," John tells him, bumping Rodney's foot with his own. "Besides, I like your view better."
**
"Do you ever want to?" Rodney says that night as he gets into bed, propping himself up on an elbow next to John. "I mean, I'm not asking, I'm just asking. If you ever."
John rubs his eyes. "Rodney, if you had to fuck your coworkers, you wouldn't want to do it when you came home either."
Rodney snorts. "If I had to fuck your coworkers I wouldn't be able to stand when I came home," he says, kind of automatically, and then, smaller: "home?"
John's caught in the the blue of Rodney's eyes, and blinks a couple of times while his mind races, and realizes, yeah.
He laces his fingers with Rodney's, and very carefully kisses him, once, the kind of kiss that doesn't mean let's fuck now or hello, friend, but maybe gets across I'm staying the night. Every night. "Yeah," John says. "Home."
**
"All right," John says to Rodney as they're leaving the mess one day, Rodney to go back to the lab, and John to go over the security arrangements with Lorne, "see you tonight," and kisses Rodney goodbye.
John watches Rodney's face go from gobsmacked to realization to smug in less than a second, realizes himself that that's the first time they've done that in public, and blinks a few times himself.
He and Rodney manage to turn away at the same time, and as John falls into step beside Lorne, he says, "Problem, Major?"
And he can hear Lorne trying not to grin.
"No, sir," Lorne says, pulling John's head down and kissing him on the cheek. "None at all."
R, John/Various, ~8400 words
AU
Warning: John fucks a lot of people, willingly but not necessarily happily.
Warning: kind of meta.
[rather whiny note redacted. Story notes here.]
If you want to kiss the sky
John likes Antarctica. Nobody pretends that he's there for any other reason than to finish out his career without fanfare; nobody requires him to pretend that he's friends with them. He does his job exactly as well as he needs to, flying back and forth over the snow, white and gray and ice blue, and the only words he says to people are nice day, isn't it? and he keeps his hands to himself. It's what he wants, what he needs, nothing around him but air and ice and snow.
And then one day he nearly gets shot down--shot down! in Antarctica!--and he finds out that the base he's been flying to is some sort of top secret alien archaeological site and he can control squishy little missiles with his mind and all of a sudden an entire roomful of people are looking at John hungrily, and suddenly he doesn't like Antarctica so much anymore.
"I'll think about it," he says to Dr. Weir, suddenly desperate to be out above ground in the piercing sunlight and the thin air.
She looks like she's about to make another argument, but instead she only purses her lips and says, "I see," and he's allowed to escape and spend twenty minutes in the calm outdoors before the general comes striding toward him.
The trip back, the part of it that isn't taken up with deflecting O'Neill's arguments like they're playing tennis, John spends glaring at the snow, feeling betrayed: fuck you, snow.
The general looks pissed off as he gets out of the helicopter and stalks off; it makes John swallow a smile, because for all of the arguments that O'Neill had made, he hadn't gone the last logical step, and John mentally gives him a couple of points--he'd half been expecting the flight to end with a hand on the back of his neck and the General saying why don't we continue discussing this in private.
Which probably would have worked on a lot of guys who weren't John: bring him in, make him part of the group, and he'd have a hard time walking away. But no, just some reasonable arguments and a curt, "Think about it," before O'Neill swung out of the chopper, and John was left looking after his retreating form, trying not to grin and thinking maybe.
**
Fifteen years ago--almost to the day, he thinks, sometime in the spring of John's senior year of college--he paused in his run at the top of a hill and looked out at the city, at the sun rising gold and blue, and he pulled a quarter out of his pocket.
He stared at George Washington for a good long while before he spun the coin into the cold air, and e pluribus unum flashed, and he knew.
Later that morning, he let himself back into the crappy apartment he shared with three other guys. Alan and David had already left for class, but Nathan had a free morning, and he was sprawled at their scavenged kitchen table with his books spread around him, brush cut bent over his notebook.
When John plopped down in the chair across from him, Nathan barely looked up, but then John said, "I'm gonna do it," and Nathan put down his pencil and broke into a brilliant smile and pulled John across the table to kiss him.
John did his best to respond with enthusiasm; figuring he might as well get some practice in, and if he could make Nathan believe it, maybe he had a chance at fooling the entire United States Air Force.
He lifted a hand to slide over the light stubble at Nathan's jawline and curl around his neck. It wasn't so bad; Nathan was familiar even if this wasn't, this light drag of his fingers on someone else's skin.
John kissed back until Nathan broke away, smiling.
"Welcome to the family," Nathan said.
That night he took John out to celebrate; they stumbled into the apartment from the cool spring night clinging to each other and headed for the room Nathan usually had to himself (himself, and whoever he was bringing home that night from ROTC).
When Nathan pulled away from John to fumble at his own belt, there was a moment when John could feel his brain starting to flutter, but he pushed the panic down and instead reached out to touch Nathan, thought about flying and the color of the sky when the sun cuts into the dawn; about perfect weightless soaring, and he thought, I can do this.
**
Now John sits on a hill in the sunshine, flipping a quarter between his fingers, thinking about the last decision he made here, how if he goes maybe he'll be able to make it up to himself.
They want his blood, not his body; he won't be in the chain of command--hell, he won't even have to talk to anybody if he doesn't want to. Another galaxy is about as far away as he can get from the rest of the Air Force.
The last few months at McMurdo were a flurry of scientists talking too fast and Elizabeth Weir giving John updates a little too often on her attempts to get John attached to the expedition. ("You know I haven't decided yet, right?" he said.) But most of all, those months were filled with the beauty, the mental soaring-singing-heavenly-fucking-chorus of Ancient technology.
John used the chair a lot, and while it wasn't quite like flying--nothing is quite like flying--it was a pretty good second, and it's unlikely he'll ever get close again if he lets the Air Force punt him out on his ass like they're planning.
So what the hell, he thinks, and spins the coin, and doesn't really bother to check how it lands. And he lays back in the grass, stares at the sky, and pulls out his cell phone to call Dr. Weir.
**
Once they set a day of departure, the entire operation moves to Colorado, and John has to go through the entire secret base! aliens! shock again.
"Oh, hey," Rodney McKay says to him one day in the elevator. "Haven't seen you lately."
True: since they've come to Cheyenne Mountain John's been holed up in different labs than McKay's been holed up in; he won't say that he's missed McKay yelling at him to think at the Ancient tech differently, like McKay could see into his brain, but his face and voice are something familiar, at least, in this whirlwind.
"Nah," John says. "Been taking care of . . . stuff." Stuff. He waves one hand vaguely.
McKay's eyes flicker over John. "I'm actually--topside, there's this pizza place," he says. "Don't suppose you want to join me?"
McKay was one of the ones, back in Antarctica, who tended to look at John like he was a Christmas present waiting to be unwrapped. John was usually interfacing with Ancient tech at the time, so he mostly chalked it up to the genetic lottery that gave him a touch that McKay wished he himself had, but now there's something about the way McKay looks at him that makes John's blood run cold.
He can see the end of the evening, in McKay's apartment or a hotel room or hell, in one of the SGC cars, and he manages not to snap, I'm military, McKay, I'm not easy.
"Sorry," John says, forcing the casual tone as easily as he used to fake affection, "I've got plans," and then mercifully, the elevator dings and he gets off before McKay can say anything else.
**
The wormhole is a rush, it really is, and now he understands what O'Neill was talking about. And he steps forward, and the city lights up around him, and he thinks yes this is it, everything he ever wanted.
Twenty-four hours later, John collapses onto his bed and God, this is not what he signed up for.
Back in Cheyenne Mountain, the marines pretty much politely ignored him, following the lead of Sumner, who had made it clear that he didn't want any part of John. Not on the expedition (although John's genetics and Dr. Weir overrode the wishes of God and the United States Marine Corps), not in his chain of command (no problem there), not in his bed, for which John could have kissed him. (He refrained; it would only have served to confuse the man.)
So John politely ignored them all back, stayed out of their way, and deflected the occasional pass.
And now Sumner's dead by John's hand, and John's in charge of the entire damn base.
Fuck.
Later, John sits in an office--his office--and stares at paperwork without really looking at it. He's thinking instead about Marshall Sumner, alone and dying, trapped in a dark room with a monster. John never touched him--they had stayed in their own orbits and never crossed paths unless strictly necessary--and now he wonders if fucking him would have made it any easier to do what he did.
He kind of doubts it, and spends a minute considering the glorious history of fraternitas, back to George Washington, back to England, to ancient Rome, and he thinks fuck all of you; I'm doing this my way, and blinks, and focuses on his paperwork.
After a while, Lieutenant Ford pokes his head in the door. "Sir?"
John looks up. "Just the man I wanted to see. Have a seat," he says, and Ford does.
"Now," says John, "Tell me about gate teams," and he starts to put together Atlantis.
**
It takes until the first night the team spends offworld to make John think that maybe, maybe he can handle leading this expedition. He's got a gate team, they're traveling and trading and making some friends; McKay's aim is getting better and Teyla's looking a little more comfortable in the city, and when Ford thinks John's being a dumbass he doesn't use those exact words.
They're making it, they're coming together; on M98-452, they make some plans, they set up some tents, they say goodnight and that's that.
John's about to drift off when Ford rolls over, a shadow in the dark above John for a brief second before his mouth lands squarely on John's and his hand slides into John's pants, and shit, John was never under the delusion that marines were terribly subtle, but: shit, and even though John's spent years practicing the right kind of reaction he reflexively grabs Ford's wrist, hard enough to make him stop, and realizes his mistake as soon as he makes it.
"Sir?" Ford says, confusion in the dark, and withdraws his hand slowly.
For a few seconds the only sound is his own harsh breathing, and John says, "Look, I--I don't--" and lets go of Ford's wrist.
"Oh," Ford says. "Oh. Okay. Um," just a little bit of panic in his voice.
John rubs his hands into his eyes and says, "Fuck," into the darkness. "Sorry."
"No, no, it's cool," Ford tells him, recovering. "I served with a couple of guys who were--like that. I won't tell anyone."
"Thanks," says John, although he'd bet real money that it didn't work out so great for those couple of guys.
**
John settles in, after a while: they all settle in. Ford doesn't make another move, though sometimes he starts to say something and cuts himself off, or starts to reach out a hand and then checks himself. John mostly pretends not to notice, except when he's tired and Ford's tripping overhimself apologizing, and then he says, "Ford, seriously."
Lieutenant Miller, on the other hand, sometimes looks like he wishes he had an excuse to touch John; he's pretty close and easy with Ford and the other lieutenant, Price, but Miller seems a little too reserved to ever make the first move on his CO, not without Ford's excuse of being on John's team.
(Price seems to actively dislike John personally, which John could not care less about as long as Price follows orders and does his job well, which he does; John has enough to worry about without spending time wringing his hands over whether one of his lieutenants thinks he's a great guy.)
The three of them come to see John after he dies that one time; he feels ridiculously like he's holding court, Teyla attending, quiet on his right side.
"I'm glad you're all right, sir," Miller says, concern written across every inch of his face, and bends to kiss John lightly on the lips.
Powerless in the infirmary bed, John accepts the kiss, says, "I'll be back on duty soon," and does his best not to glare or freeze or even look at Teyla until Miller and Price are past the curtain that separates his bed from the rest of the infirmary.
Ford's hung back a little from the other two, and he shoots a worried glance at John, who shakes his head a little. The last thing he needs is for Ford to have a chat with Miller about backing off from the CO; Miller's not likely to be any trouble and John can put up with his low-level attentions.
Ford nods: he gets it, and drops a hand to squeeze John's foot briefly before leaving, his hand warm through the thin blanket.
Teyla's still there, though, calm in the chair next to his bed, and reaches out to clasp his hand lightly. She's looking at him curiously, though, and whatever it is, he really does not want to get into it right now.
"You do not desire them," she begins, and John looks away.
"Forgive me," she says. "It is only--I do not understand why you allow them to persist."
"It's complicated," he tells her.
She arches an eyebrow and says, "My apologies. I did not realize you had a prior engagement. Please do not let me keep you," and for a minute John just lies there, glaring at her in sullen silence broken only by the faint beep of the machines attached to him.
Teyla gazes at him serenely, calm and open and suddenly John wants to confide in her, tell her everything.
"It's a long story," he says instead; "it's just the way our military works," and turns his head the other way and pretends to fall asleep.
**
Another offworld mission, one of those planets where dusk falls more quickly than they'd anticipated. They're better off camping where they are and waiting out the short night rather than pushing towards the ruins in the dark.
McKay helps John set up the tents (meaning, McKay bitches about various things while John sets up the tents); Teyla and Ford are off finding firewood.
John dusts his hands off and plunks down next to McKay on a log, and--okay, the hell of it is, John can't even remember what Rodney said; just some dumbass joke, probably, and before John realizes what he's doing he's got a light hand on the side of Rodney's face and is kissing him, just the barest brush of lips, and--oh, shit.
"Look," McKay says, pushing John away firmly, "not that I don't love excessively masculine bonding activities as much as the next guy, but in case you hadn't noticed from the stylish blue panels on my jacket--" and he points both of his index fingers toward the jacket John's letting go of--"I'm a civilian. My involvement in your homoerotic military rituals begins and ends at target practice."
By the time he's done talking, John's across the campsite, arms crossed, facing the darkening trees. "It's not--" he says, and then stops, because he can hear Ford and Teyla coming back.
"I didn't mean--" he hisses again, and he has to spend the rest of the night not talking to McKay about it.
Rodney comes to his office the next day, a flurry of hands and words. Apparently he can't just let it go, like he hasn't spent years working with military and doesn't know that it's just a kiss, it didn't mean anything.
"I just," Rodney says, "I'm not having sex with you because you read it in a handbook somewhere."
"Drop it, McKay," John says, and thankfully, Rodney does.
**
"Are you married?" Teyla asks him one day when John's avoiding his actual duties by helping the Athosians rebuild their village on the mainland. It involves a lot of tree-felling and hitting things and swearing; John is currently slamming a rather blunt axe into the base of a tree and wishing he had a chainsaw.
"Nah," he says, tossing the axe onto the ground and reaching for his canteen. "Military. We're not allowed."
Teyla's eyebrows raise.
'Not allowed' isn't technically true, not since '91 and the Active Duty Marriage Act, but John doesn't quite feel like explaining the concept of the glass ceiling to someone who has neither ceilings nor glass, and anyway it's true, as far as any of them here on Atlantis are concerned. You don't send husbands and fathers into combat, and you sure as hell don't send them to another galaxy.
"I have," Teyla says, with one of the queer pauses which seem to pepper her speech--he's not sure if it's the gate translation, or the alien language, or Teyla herself--"heard of warrior castes which take a vow of celibacy. You follow their teachings?"
John hesitates, and wipes the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. "Not exactly."
**
Judging by his grins, Ford seems to think it's cute that John shares a tent with Rodney. (John tends not to share with Teyla in an effort to hold off rumors that he's fucking her instead of his lieutenants; she gets enough weird looks from the marines. [This is also the reason he tries not to spend too much time in Elizabeth's office.] He's not really sure it's working.) John doesn't know if he or McKay is the cute one, or if it's that Ford thinks they're both dysfunctional enough that they'd be really great together.
One movie night, when John's claimed one end of the couch as he usually does, Ford plops down next to his feet.
"Don't think I don't see what you're up to," John says. Last week he'd ended up with Ford's head in his lap.
"This is where the popcorn is, that's all," Ford grins.
"Popcorn?" Rodney's just come in.
Ford holds out the bowl like bait, and when Rodney gets close enough, grabs his arm and pulls and dumps him on the couch next to John.
Rodney struggles for a moment and then stills; Ford's probably got an arm around his ankle, and John smiles ruefully.
An hour and a half later, Rodney is asleep, slumped on John's shoulder in the flickering light of the screen. When John shifts his weight, Rodney wakes and blinks and says, "Mmf? Oh, sorry," and leans the other way so he's not touching John anymore.
John's entire left side is cold now, although he can still feel the heat radiating off McKay's body through the inch of space between them. He slides an arm around Rodney and pulls him back in. "It's okay," he says, and means it.
The next evening, Rodney says over a game of chess, "So, is it--"
John raises his eyebrows guilelessly, and whatever Rodney sees makes him drop his gaze and say, "Never mind."
**
After the storm, it takes them a few days to put themselves back together again; John comes down with a raging head cold and spends about a week thinking that maybe being electrocuted wouldn't have been so bad.
Miller starts hovering around John's office, when he's in his office, fussing with cups of tea and honey and orbiting close enough to note John's temperature at every available opportunity; in desperation John sends him out to the mainland to oversee the reconstruction of the Athosian settlement. John'll miss the tea, but he thinks that somehow he'll survive without the cool press of lips to his forehead every half hour.
Which, as Ford is offworld and not around to run interference, leaves him with Price.
Now, when John was in officer training, learning leadership and decorum and how to suck cock, he could tell there were a couple of different kinds of guys: there were those who he could tell joined the Air Force for the easy cameraderie--for the cock--and a couple more who he could tell were there despite it. John never counted himself in the latter group because unlike them, he didn't make it so damn obvious that he wasn't interested in fraternitas; instead, he played along. He smiled sidelong and he kissed like his life depended on it and he learned how to tell himself to just shut up and fuck, and no one could tell that Shep would really rather be somewhere else.
He guesses that the Marine Corps attracts its fair share of the latter group as well, and while it must be easier for them nowadays than it was when John was twenty-three, John's pretty sure that guys like that and guys like Price just don't get along.
Which is why it's kind of confusing when Price pokes his head into John's office and, at John's nod, sets a couple of cookies on John's desk along with his report.
**
The Wraith are on their way to Atlantis, which apparently means it's a fine time for Bates to accuse Teyla of being in collusion with the Wraith, which John is pretty sure is only thirty percent about that (twenty percent being the chance that Bates will never see another Superbowl, and the rest Teyla's probable influence on John's sexual habits or lack thereof). John finds out about this after Ford talks to a couple of Bates' friends and gives himself sixty seconds to be angry about it--most of which is spent spitting, "Fuck. Fuck," and cradling his hand after he punches a wall. (The nearest wall sconce flashes, either in reproach, alarm, or some sort of short-circuit; "Sorry," John says, and feels stupid.)
Much later, staring into the dark, a lot more than sixty seconds is spent thinking about whether he's completely fucked himself by putting the lieutenants off, how many of the men under his command think he's completely worthless.
Less than all of them, he thinks; Sheppard Versus Those Genii Bastards counted for something, and that's the best answer he's going to get. He puts it out of his mind for a while, because at this point, either he can effectively command and they might not all die, or he can't, and they'll only know that when the Wraith have taken Atlantis.
For now, though, he needs to sleep; who knows when he'll next get a chance. John closes his eyes against the delicate starlight and shimmers of the sea, and sleeps.
**
And then a fucking thousand things happen at once, and there's Wraith and certain death and contact with Earth and seriously, Pegasus, stop it.
**
The night the Wraith are finally gone, when he finally has a minute to just breathe, John sits in the mess hall with a plastic bottle of Earth water and thinks about picking up the pieces and putting them back together again. Colonel Everett is lying in the infirmary, his life gone, and John's best lieutenant is somewhere in the Pegasus galaxy, out of his mind and probably blaming John.
He's trying not to think about Ford's refusal to hear him, his own helplessness as the jumper disappeared. Maybe someone else could have reasoned with Ford, maybe not. (Miller was directing traffic at the time, what with a hundred new guys suddenly dumped on them; Price had died the day before, and John makes the command decision to be angry at Price, because it's not like Price will mind now.)
John's about at the point of deciding that since he'll be the same amount of use tomorrow he may as well just hang around until the sun comes up, when McKay comes in with his own bottle and a package of miniature Oreos. John tilts his head to welcome him to the table, and McKay slumps down next to where John's boots are propped on a chair.
They crunch through the cookies, licking too-sweet filling from the middles, and then continue to just sit in silence, John slouched back and McKay's elbows on the table; both of them are staring into space. John kind of wishes he wanted to cry, or cheer, or something.
"Shit," he finally says, shaking his head, and McKay just grips his water bottle and nods, raising his eyes to meet John's.
They sit there for a while longer, and then all at once John's had enough and he gets up and grabs Rodney by the arm and drags him off to the movie room and the only couch big enough for the both of them. He puts in a movie, the first one that comes to hand, and falls against Rodney where he's slumped on the couch.
It's some grand sweeping epic, and they're both asleep before the opening music even dies.
**
As soon as the wormhole deposits him in the SGC, John looks around at the gray walls, a mile underground, and he thinks, "Oh, hell no." Atlantis haunts his thoughts with memories of blue-bronze light and the scent of an alien ocean. He can't remember being so obsessed since college, thinking flying, flying, flying.
So he makes nice with everybody, manages not to flinch from their touches, and then Cameron Mitchell smiles at him, easy-friendly, and asks John if he wants to go grab a burger or something, take it back to Mitchell's place.
"Sure," John says. "It's been a while since I had takeout."
Later, lying tangled in Mitchell's cool sheets, John stares up at the sky, at the stars, and thinks that he'll kiss Mitchell good morning tomorrow, go back to the Mountain, and promise them anything they want.
Mitchell's lying deeply asleep in the moonlight; John looks at his calm face and wonders what it would be like for this to be easy, to be able to want it, fall along with somebody as easy as breathing. Maybe that it's just that he's out of practice--he hadn't had sex in months ("Three marine lieutenants and a hundred twitchy scientists," he said to Mitchell earlier that night, drinking beer he's not used to; "and none of them were really a good idea." Mitchell had paused long enough to say sympathetically, "Yeah, that must've sucked"). It's been longer still since he's spent the night.
He carefully tucks his hands behind his head, slow movements so as not to wake Mitchell up, and then lies still and quiet, watching the treetops sway, black against black, and he counts in his head the days until he's back on Atlantis.
**
Rodney corners him the next morning after the first meeting of the day; he'd given John a funny look when he walked in, so John resigns himself to hearing all about whatever bee's in Rodney's bonnet.
"I--" Rodney starts, and gestures for John to follow him as he heads out of the conference room--"I looked for you last night, I was going to go get pizza."
"Yeah," John says, not loudly but still loud enough for General Landry to hear him, ten feet ahead of them in the hallway, "I went home with Mitchell."
And Rodney stops dead in his tracks. "You--"
John shrugs. "Went home with Mitchell, yeah," and Rodney starts to splutter.
Some strong emotion is frozen on Rodney's face; whatever it is, John doesn't think it's a good sign. There's an unlocked door--a storage closet of some kind--so he ducks in and pulls Rodney after him. "Are you okay?"
That's the kind of question that usually prompts a tirade from Rodney detailing all of the ways in which he is not okay, but Rodney just says, "You slept with Colonel Mitchell."
"Yes," John says calmly, because it's good to say things like this calmly, and maybe if he does it enough he'll believe it himself. "I slept with Colonel Mitchell."
"Why?" says Rodney.
"Why the hell not?" John says, crossing his arms.
Rodney looks--well, stricken and confused all at the same time. "I thought you--" and breaks off when he catches a look at John's face.
"I mean," he starts again, "You weren't sleeping with Ford."
John is suddenly angry. "No," he snaps, all out of patience. "I wasn't sleeping with Ford, and I've been paying for it for a year. Half my men don't trust me, the SGC thinks I'm a loose cannon, they're looking for an excuse to keep me here and I'm sick of giving them ammunition, so please, Rodney. Tell my why I shouldn't sleep with Cameron fucking Mitchell if I want to."
He's practically hissing in Rodney's face, and half expects Rodney to descend into panicked babble again, but instead Rodney just draws himself up and looks John straight in the eye.
"Well," he says. "If you want to."
And they stay like that for a second, staring at each other, and John can't make himself say He's a great lay, a good guy, of course I want to, and finally, finally, Rodney looks down and away and fumbles for the doorknob.
**
John's new XO is named Evan Lorne, and he's practically a poster boy for fraternitas: baseball, blowjobs, and apple pie. As far as John can tell, Lorne is fucking half of the officers that came over on the Daedalus with them, most of the ones he plays basketball with on Friday nights (John doesn't think it's any coincidence that Lorne usually gets picked first even though he's five foot nine), and a couple of the scientists whom he'll most likely be accompanying offworld.
It takes a lot of scheduling to fuck fifteen different people regularly, and Lorne attends to it with the same attention to detail that he brings to his duties. He kind of reminds John of himself, back when John was really putting an effort into pretending.
John had two day planners back then. One sat on his desk and said things like MTG 1100; the other one was in his head and said things like TUES: PORTER. WED: BRECKINRIDGE, BLOWJOB. Porter was a good guy, John liked him: a quick fuck and show's over, not the prolonged bullshit some of the guys seemed to always want. John was good at going along with the prolonged bullshit, though; he'd cultivated a reputation as someone who likes everyone, someone who's up for anything--yeah, Shep, great guy, good with knots--but it was a relief sometimes to do someone easy.
Until--right, this was right about the time that they changed the regs and started allowing servicemen to marry; John saw a few wedding rings come out of the woodwork, even a couple of kids, and one of those rings was on Andy Porter's hand.
"Sorry," Porter said one day, shrugging on his jacket. "Promised the wife I'd be home early," and John had to shuffle his entire damn schedule around.
He doesn't think Lorne's like that, though, either hiding something nor faking machismo: Lorne really does like everybody.
So John's not all that surprised when Lorne wanders into his office one afternoon and takes off his jacket, saying, "If I have to fill out one more 99-50 I'm gonna scream. You want to take a break?"
John looks up from his own paperwork--there's a ton to finish before the Daedalus leaves again, a mad scramble to finish the documentation on every person and thing on the spaceship. He does like Lorne, though, and it wouldn't be that much of a hardship to have sex with the guy once in a while.
Besides, maybe if he's fucking somebody here it'll get back to Stargate Command and everybody'll just shut the fuck up about how John's not a team player.
So he shrugs casually, says, "Sure, what'd you have in mind?" and makes sure the kiss starts before he opaques his windows.
**
M3X-733, and John lies in the too-small tent he's sharing with McKay, staring up at the darkness and trying to sleep. But although John can sleep practically standing up in the middle of a brass band, right now the nighttime noises are niggling at the edges of his mind: the crackle of their campfire, the weird calls of nocturnal alien animals, the soft sounds of Bensen and Carles fucking in the next tent over.
He hears McKay scrub his hands over his face, the faint rasp of stubble against callus.
"A year and a half and I still can't sleep through that," Rodney mutters, and then there's the flump of him flopping restless, turning onto his side.
John's pretty good at ignoring it--even moreso now that he's in Atlantis surrounded by marines who can't seem to keep their dicks in their pants for five minutes altogether, but also from a lifetime of guys who thought they were being quiet when they weren't and guys who just didn't care who heard.
"Yeah, well," John says, "you get used to it."
**
Ronon's fitting in, John thinks, he's great to have on the team and has an almost fanatical devotion to teaching hand-to-hand--and everything's going fine until one day they stop for a breather at the far point of their morning run.
"Guys keep looking at me in the showers," Ronon says, a long sentence for Ronon, and John has a sudden sinking feeling. If Ronon's bothering to articulate a thought at all it's got to be a problem, and John hadn't even thought to warn the guy; god knew all of the international military got enough training and shit.
"Oh," John says. "Yeah, we do that."
"Fuck?"
"Yeah."
Ronon considers this. "You don't."
"Sure I do," John says, light and easy. Ronon shoots him a look, and John wonders why he's bothering to lie to someone who for seven years lived on the simplest truths, and amends, "Sometimes I do."
"I have to?" Ronon says. "We didn't do that on Sateda."
John can't tell if Ronon actually would, if he would change his life to include a dozen men from another planet or if the question he's asking is some kind of test. He wonders what would happen if he answered yes, if Ronon would just walk straight to the gate room and go anywhere but this fucked-up city; he remembers making the choice himself, twenty-one and knowing he'd do anything to fly.
"No," John says, "You don't," and he tosses the water bottle back at Ronon, and they set out again toward the hub of the city.
**
John's heading over to Rodney's to watch a movie--he'd traded Friday the Thirteenth to Lorne for Mission: Impossible--when it occurs to him that yesterday he watched a movie with Rodney, and the day before that they played chess, and they've eaten eight of their last ten meals together. (And also, his brain reminds him, John did kiss him that one time and it would be just like Rodney to misconstrue that.)
The realization hits him and his step slows.
Maybe one of these days Rodney'll make a pass, John thinks, stopping dead in the middle of the hallway, and the thought fills him with dread, the thought of deadening their easy cameraderie with a regular schedule of sex.
So he gets there and Rodney's already got the movie cued up, and John sits down, half-watching it. After twenty minutes of fidgeting, he says, "I can't date you."
Rodney turns and he's just got this look on his face, like he can't understand what John's saying.
"Look," John says, "it's just a really bad idea, and--"
He stops because Rodney is waving him off, his wait, wait wave, so he stops and waits.
"Any more," Rodney says, and now it's John's turn to look confused.
"You mean you can't date me any more," Rodney clarifies, and give him this oddly crafty look.
"We're not dating," John says stupidly.
Rodney looks around pointedly, at the movie (a restaurant blows up on the screen, John notices, fish everywhere. Awesome), at the drink John's holding, at the dimmed lights and the way they're pressed up against each other on the bed.
"I beg to differ," Rodney says.
"But," John says, "but, we're not, you haven't--" He flings a hand between them, gesturing, and wow, when did he start picking up Rodney's body language?
Now Rodney frowns. "I thought you weren't really interested."
"I'm not really interested," John says, "but--"
"But?" Rodney prompts him.
"But," John says, and stops, because none of this makes sense.
By now they should have been having sex and John should have been pretending to enjoy it. He's not doing that, though, not doing calculations in his head; instead, he lets himself be drawn back to recline against Rodney, an arm around his middle and a voice in his ear, saying, "You know, I do like parts of you that aren't your dick."
And lips press to his temple, and John says, "Oh."
And it would have been a really nice moment, except then Rodney says, "Now shut up, I want to watch Tom Cruise almost die," and John is forced to smack him.
When the credits start to roll, John starts to get up, but--okay, since when does Rodney have upper arm strength?--Rodney's holding on, still, and saying, "Hey, do you want to stay?"
He must be able to feel John silently freak out, though, maybe all of John's muscles tense for flight, because Rodney lets go and says quickly, "Not for, I mean, just, I could probably be talked into not giving you a blowjob," and John starts to laugh helplessly.
**
"Word around town," Lorne says, hopping up onto John's desk in front of him, knees apart, like he does every time he thinks John needs a break, "is that you were never this friendly before."
Before what, John doesn't have to ask. Before Lorne, before the Daedalus and oversight and the chance that the boys in Colorado could decide that John's not the guy they want. He slides a hand up Lorne's leg, avoiding the sidearm. "True," he concedes.
"Lieutenant Miller says you only fuck the field officers," Lorne says. "As a general policy."
John considers this as Lorne leans back, wrinkling John's paperwork, his hand dangerously close to John's coffee. It could have been John's general policy; they didn't have any other field officers that first year. John never fucked Miller, just like he never fucked Ford or Wayne or any other lieutenant in Atlantis. And it's true now: currently, yes, John is only fucking one person, and that person happens to be Major Evan Lorne.
But that's as far as it goes; John hasn't so much as shaken hands with Caldwell.
"I wonder where he got that idea," John says with a smile, and he thinks he almost manages to make it look sincere. (Ford. Ford is where Miller got that idea, actually, because Ford is--Ford was that kind of guy, to make excuses for his CO.)
Lorne doesn't take his bait, though, and even though John's hand's roaming he doesn't get distracted. Lorne never gets distracted. Hell, he could probably earn his marksmanship ribbon with a dick up his ass, not that John ever wants to know if he did.
"Sir, I just need to know what's going on. Why . . . " Lorne says, trailing off. And John owes him enough to stop playing games. He withdraws his hand, and hell if this conversation isn't even more fucked up when they're not touching.
"Why you?" John says. "Or why no one else?"
Lorne starts to say something and stops, frowning. "Both."
"Well," John says, "you, because . . . it works." Because it had to be someone, John thinks. Because you're here and you're the only one who can be the only one. Because you might actually be my friend.
Lorne quirks an eyebrow; maybe he did get all of that. "And everyone else doesn't work."
"Everyone else is avoidable," John says.
"I'm unavoidable?" Lorne says, but he's smiling.
And John smiles a little, and he thinks he might even mean it. "You're . . . perfect," he says.
**
"You think if you'd been fucking him he wouldn't have left," Ronon says out of the blue, and John misses a step and falls down hard, twisting his ankle.
For a moment all he can think of is the hard metal of the catwalk under him and the shooting pain in his leg; his other knee is bruised, probably scraped. He bites back a word and glares up at Ronon at the top of the stairs.
"Says who?" John grits out, and carefully moves himself to a sitting position to gently rotate his ankle. He doesn't bother to pretend not knowing who Ronon's talking about; it's been three days since they left Aiden Ford on a hive ship, and he's been sleeping less and running more and even Ronon's noticed.
Ronon squeezes by him to sit on the steps below. He shrugs, which means Teyla says, is who.
"I'm guessing she didn't use those exact words," John says dryly, and Ronon smiles and leans back against the steps on his elbows. No, she would have said something like Colonel Sheppard . . . struggled in his friendship with Aiden. Translation: John feels both relieved and guilty that he never fucked Ford.
"He would have gone anyway," Ronon says into the silence like he thinks John needs to hear it out loud, tilting his head back against the metal railing. "The Wraith fucked with him; wasn't anything you could do."
Which maybe John did need to hear out loud, and they sit in the quiet rafters for a little bit while John gingerly prods his ankle.
"Hey," he says, and leans on Ronon's shoulder as he levers himself up on his good leg. "Give me a hand here?" and he leans on Ronon all the way back to the infirmary.
**
John's on page 273 of War and Peace when Rodney comes into his quarters and collapses at John's desk.
"How was the mission?" John says lightly. Rodney's been on P98-002 all day with Lorne and a handful of engineers and archaeologists, studying Ancient ruins.
"Fine, fine," Rodney says, and pauses. "Major Lorne propositioned me."
"Yeah?" John says, and turns the page. "Take him up on it?"
There's a silence that makes John think he might possibly have said the wrong thing. He looks up; Rodney's staring at him.
"No, I did not take him up on it," Rodney says. "I happen to be dating you."
John blinks and sets his book down. "Rodney," he starts, cautiously. "You do know I'm fucking Lorne, right?"
Rodney glares at him. "Yes, thank you, I am aware of that."
" . . . and that I don't care if you are."
Rodney gets up and starts pacing. "No, but see," he says, "I do." He waves a hand at John. "Not, I mean, you; that's--you. But me, I would much rather be--" and he bites off what he was going to say, and finishes lamely, "with you." And he looks so lost that John sits up and makes room for him on the bed.
Rodney sits, and John unfolds and puts an arm around him. "I can't promise you anything," he says into Rodney's hair.
"I know," says Rodney softly.
**
The night after John brings Lorne back from the dead, they leave the debriefing together, smudged and tired around the eyes.
"Hey," John says, and Lorne pauses with his hand in front of the transporter. "You got plans tonight?" John says.
"Nah, I'm free," Lorne says, with a pretty good effort at not looking surprised. Lorne's usually the one to initiate.
John pretends not to take a deep breath and says, "Thought I might drop by later," and Lorne smiles.
"Sure," he says. "See you then."
Lorne doesn't ask him anything when he shows up at Lorne's door a couple of hours later, just invites him in: it's a nice place, tidy like Lorne's quarters couldn't be anything but. His window faces into the city; Atlantis's lights speckle the view like stars, but John only looks for a moment before sliding a hand up Lorne's arm and kissing him gently.
They make out, kissing slowly, lying warm and solid against one another before for a long time before they finally do fuck. John doesn't say much and Lorne seems to take the cue, although he does look at John a little worriedly once or twice like he's about to say are you sure? or check John for a head wound.
Afterwards, they lie in the dappled moonlight, and John says, "Glad you're back."
Lorne looks at him, his hand drifting to find John's, and says, "Thanks for coming."
**
"You didn't come by last night," Rodney says that morning at breakfast.
"No, sorry," John agrees, pushing his cinnamon roll across the table and ducking his head. He doesn't particularly feel like meeting Rodney's eyes, even though Rodney knows John and Lorne are fucking, knows that John would much rather be splayed across Rodney's bed, one pajama-clad leg flung over Rodney's. "Spent it with Lorne," he says shortly, and Rodney kind of bites his lip and nods.
"I . . . " John starts, and has to clear his throat of a bite of melon that suddenly seems dry, "I can come by tonight," and Rodney says, "Well, if you're not busy."
"Nah," John tells him, bumping Rodney's foot with his own. "Besides, I like your view better."
**
"Do you ever want to?" Rodney says that night as he gets into bed, propping himself up on an elbow next to John. "I mean, I'm not asking, I'm just asking. If you ever."
John rubs his eyes. "Rodney, if you had to fuck your coworkers, you wouldn't want to do it when you came home either."
Rodney snorts. "If I had to fuck your coworkers I wouldn't be able to stand when I came home," he says, kind of automatically, and then, smaller: "home?"
John's caught in the the blue of Rodney's eyes, and blinks a couple of times while his mind races, and realizes, yeah.
He laces his fingers with Rodney's, and very carefully kisses him, once, the kind of kiss that doesn't mean let's fuck now or hello, friend, but maybe gets across I'm staying the night. Every night. "Yeah," John says. "Home."
**
"All right," John says to Rodney as they're leaving the mess one day, Rodney to go back to the lab, and John to go over the security arrangements with Lorne, "see you tonight," and kisses Rodney goodbye.
John watches Rodney's face go from gobsmacked to realization to smug in less than a second, realizes himself that that's the first time they've done that in public, and blinks a few times himself.
He and Rodney manage to turn away at the same time, and as John falls into step beside Lorne, he says, "Problem, Major?"
And he can hear Lorne trying not to grin.
"No, sir," Lorne says, pulling John's head down and kissing him on the cheek. "None at all."