Fic: The Human Body VII: Got Your Back (SGA - S/B - NC-17)
Title: The Human Body VII: Got Your Back
Author: smallwaldo
Fandom: Stargate: Atlantis
Pairing: Sheppard/Beckett
Word Count: 2750
Rating: NC-17
Summary: And then they done did sex. 'Cause even if tension-breaker sex isn't the most romantic sex in the world, sometimes it has to be done. (post-Trinity)
John made his report to Elizabeth while Rodney went through his physical. He tried to keep the four letter words to a minimum, but wasn’t as successful as he hoped judging by the look on Elizabeth’s face. He also realized he hadn’t been as contained as he was hoping to be when he noticed the looks he got from the techs as he left Elizabeth’s office and made his way through the control room.
He knew he was supposed to report to the infirmary for a post mission check up, but he wasn’t sure if Rodney was done yet and he really, really didn’t want to risk running into the other man.
So he just started walking, hoping to burn off his frustration. He walked from the north pier to the east pier, back to the central tower and then out to the west pier where the Daedalus was docked. He paced from one end of the ship to the other a few times before realizing that it really was too chilly to be out in just his t-shirt and jacket. It surprised him how often he forgot how cool ocean breezes were at night.
So he headed back in, his thoughts still turning over and over. Seeing the Arcturus project explode and the shock wave swallow five planets as they barely escaped, only the help of the Daedalus keeping them from being caught up in the wave looping over and over in his mind. He cursed Rodney sixteen ways from Sunday - for being so arrogant, for thinking he was smarter than the Ancients, for not being smart enough, for not quitting when things started going bad, for talking him into going on this fool’s errand, for having always pulled their asses out of the fire before making it impossible for John to say no when he literally begged for his trust.
It was late now. A few of the airmen he’d passed in the hall had been gossiping about the berating Rodney took from Dr. Weir. Most days John would have had something to say about idle gossiping, but he just couldn’t rouse himself to care that night.
He wasn’t surprised when he found himself making his way to Carson’s quarters. He knew he wasn’t good company, but he didn’t want to be in his own room. The last time he’d gone there, Rodney had sought him out and begged him for his trust. He didn’t want to be there so Rodney could come and beg him for his forgiveness. He wasn’t ready to give it yet. He wasn’t sure if he ever would be.
He palmed the doorchime and was surprised at how fast Carson answered the door. Almost as if he was waiting for him.
“I figured that since you didn’t make it down to the infirmary, if I just waited long enough you’d show up here.” He stopped, looking bashful for a minute, “Or at least I hoped you would.” He stepped aside to let John in.
“Feel free to kick me out if you want. I’m sure I’m not very good company. I tried to walk it out, but I’m not sure it worked.”
“I was hoping you’d be comfortable enough to come down here, to talk if nothing else. I’m hardly going to put you out.” Carson indicated the small sofa across the room.
John flopped down on the sofa and leaned forward to bury his face in his hands. He didn’t look up when he felt Carson sit next to him. He tried not to start when he felt Carson’s hand between his shoulder blades. He scrubbed at his face while Carson silently rubbed his back. “I should just be glad we both made it back alive, right?”
Carson slid his hand up to John’s hair and gently ran his fingers through the lank strands. “I wish I could say it’s come as a surprise that Rodney’s ego has come around and bit him in the arse so soundly, but it’s not. I just wish it hadn’t had to happen in such a bloody spectacular fashion.”
John sighed and leaned his head on Carson’s shoulder. “I don’t think it could have happened any other way with Rodney. Seriously, anything on a smaller scale than a solar system is… beneath him.” He wondered if that was a compliment or an insult or simply fact, but was too tired to really put much thought into it.
He looked up through his fingers when he felt Carson stand.
“Come on,” Carson said holding out his hand.
“What?”
“Come on,” Carson repeated.
“Where?” John felt like was being obstinate, like the right thing to do was simply to trust Carson to do what was best for him and follow along, but he’d just had his trust more profoundly shaken than he’d realized and he just couldn’t.
“You need a shower and then some sleep. Neither of which is a bad idea for me either, so I thought we’d manage both together.”
John stood and followed Carson to the bathroom. As the stained-glass door slid shut behind them, John caught Carson’s eye in the mirror. “You’re sure you want me to stay tonight?”
Carson reached over and started the shower. He knew the Ancients had solved the age-old Earth problem of needing to let the shower warm up, but old habits died hard, and he still started the water before he undressed. While steam billowed around them he pulled John into his arms and twined one hand in his hair, pulling him in for a kiss. “That a good enough answer for you?”
For reasons he didn’t understand at all, John felt himself blush. It wasn’t just warmth from the steam, he could feel it in the tips of his toes. It had been a long time since anyone had shown the kind of consistent patience with him that Carson did. He’d written it off as part of Carson’s job when he sat with him while he bitched and moaned through whatever injury or illness he’d managed to incur, but this was different. This was taking him when he wasn’t at his best just because he cared, because he wanted to.
John kissed him back, trying to morph all of his anxiety and anger and fear from the day’s earlier escapades into love and warmth for the one person he realized that, even today, he could count on unconditionally.
Carson pulled back after a minute and perfunctorily stripped down and stepped into the shower stall.
John took a second to take a few deep breaths and clear his mind of everything that had come before. He centered himself on the here and now - on being alive, on being with Carson. And on the fact that maybe this disastrous day had a chance of ending on a very good note indeed. He pulled off his clothes, not bothering to fold them or even hang them on the peg by the door, and stepped into the shower.
It occurred to him that it was about damn time that they’d seen each other naked, but at the same time he wished he were in a better frame of mind to appreciate it.
Carson carefully pushed John in front of him, letting John wet his hair as he grabbed the soap and began washing his back, stopping to knead and massage whenever he encountered a knot in the stiff muscles. It took more than half an hour for John to take a deep breath and let go of the tension that had ruled him when he’d come in. Once he had, Carson turned him around and wrapped his arms around him. John rested his head on Carson’s shoulder. “Feeling a little better?” Carson asked quietly.
John nodded, now starting to feel pleasantly drowsy with the warm water cascading over him and the tension starting to leave. “A little,” he conceded.
Carson put one hand under John’s chin and brought his head back up. He kissed him softly for a few minutes while his hands slid down John’s back to lightly skim his bottom. “Turn back around.”
Knowing he’d be terminally disappointed if this wasn’t going where it seemed to be, John turned back into the spray without saying anything, relaxing when Carson pulled him back against his chest. He was too tall to lean his head backwards onto Carson’s shoulder, but he let it drop back as Carson reached around him and took hold of his cock, pulling and stroking, massaging and teasing.
“Oh god,” John gasped, hoping Carson wouldn’t ask how long it had been since someone else had touched him. It had been an embarrassingly long time and despite, or maybe because of, all of the day’s insanity, he found himself responding with an almost equally embarrassing enthusiasm.
Carson kissed the side of his neck as he released John and John began to panic. Carson had never struck him as the sort to tease so mercilessly, but before he could find the words to accuse him, that hand was back, this time slick with soap and John let out the breath he’d been holding in a long sigh.
Carson pumped him and teased the head a little, and before long John could feel himself pushing into the strokes, one hand braced on the shower wall to help him keep his balance.
As his breathing started to speed up, Carson stopped. John turned his head, eyes wide, hoping this was another temporary delay.
“Turn around,” Carson told him again. John complied as quickly as he could on the slick floor.
Carson dropped one hand around his waist and pulled John in close, wrapping his other hand around both of their hard cocks and resumed the pumping.
Now able to drop his head on Carson’s shoulder, John did so as he put both arms around Carson, one in his hair, the other on his ass, pulling him close as Carson brought them both off.
As his world coalesced into a white light behind his eyelids he could feel Carson moving his hand even faster and he was dimly aware of the way Carson’s breath caught and his back stiffened signaling his own release.
They both staggered a little with the release of tension and John had to put one arm out to steady them both against the wall as the shower continued to pound over them. Once they were both balanced again, John wrapped his arms around Carson and hugged him tightly. “Oh my god…” He wasn’t sure what else to say. It wasn’t the best sex he’d ever had, it wasn’t romantic and it wasn’t creative, but it had been so badly needed that he felt overwhelmed by it.
Carson gently tipped John’s head up and kissed him softly again. “Feel better, do you?”
John couldn’t even answer that. He just laughed and hugged the other man even tighter.
When he could move again, Carson handed John the soap. “Guess we need to get cleaned up again and then get out before we turn into a couple of prunes.”
They quickly cleaned each other off and washed their own hair before stepping out and drying off. As John was running the towel over his hair, trying to get as much water out of it as he could, Carson came up behind him and put his arms around John’s waist. “You didn’t answer my question before. Do you feel better?”
John turned in his arms and met his eyes, realizing that Carson wasn’t fishing for a compliment or just asking because it was the kind of thing you did after a long day like he’d had. He thought for a second before finally saying, “Mostly, yeah.”
Carson nodded and took the towel from him, but the look on his face said the conversation wasn’t over. He led John to the bed, hitting the lights as they went and then Carson pulled John down so that he was spooned against John’s back, one arm wrapped around him. “Only mostly?” he asked as they settled.
John was glad he didn’t have to look at Carson while they had this conversation, and couldn’t help but notice that Carson had carefully engineered it that way. He wondered when Carson had gotten to know him that well. He wondered if he’d have been so perceptive if their roles had been reversed. “Well, you know,” he started with a shrug. “I’m not complaining. I’m so not complaining, but I didn’t figure that our first time together would be because I’m stressed out over Rodney being stupid. I’d … kind of hoped for something slightly more romantic.”
Carson shrugged against him. “We’ll have time for that later.” He pressed a kiss into John’s shoulder before tugging on it to get John to turn and face him. “But while you’ve brought up Rodney…”
Reluctantly John turned onto his back and faced Carson. “Do we have to do this now?”
“I’m not going to tell you to forget about what happened. I’m not even going to tell you that you should forgive him straight off. But you’re going to run into him tomorrow or the day after or the day after that and when you do, he’s going to want to apologize. He wanted to come find you when he was done in the infirmary tonight, but I told him not to - to give you some space.”
John’s eyes dropped, “Thanks, I guess. I really couldn’t deal with him tonight.”
Carson nodded and pushed a few stray strands of hair off John’s forehead. “I know. But I do think Rodney understands what he did and he does want to apologize. And honestly, this is behavior we want to encourage in him, so when he does, just hear him out. You and I both know - hell, he knows - that it’s going to take some time for the two of you to find your footing with each other again, but when he apologizes, just listen. It’ll make things a lot less awkward for you when you have to go out in the field together again.”
John nodded. He didn’t want to admit it, but what Carson was saying made sense. And if left to his own devices he would tell Rodney where to shove his apology and while that might feel good in the short term, in the long run it really would make things worse. “I’ll listen,” he promised, “but you’re right, I can’t forgive him yet.”
“I know, but I also know that some day you will, so just make things as easy as you can for the both of you for a while.”
John nodded. “I’ll try. But honestly, I don’t want to talk about this right now.”
“You ready to get some sleep?” Carson settled the blankets around them even as he asked.
John waited until Carson settled back down and rested his head on Carson’s shoulder. He debated back and forth with himself frantically for a few seconds before finally saying quietly, “Don’t think I don’t know how lucky I am to have someone talk with about stuff like this. And I appreciate that you aren’t just blindly siding with me, because you’re right: if I see Rodney tomorrow my instinct is to tell him where to shove it. And I guess there’s a small part of me that worries that he’s sitting alone in his quarters stewing alone and I kind of feel bad for him. A little. The rest of me says he deserves it. Anyway, I guess what I’m getting at is that I appreciate you being here for me. I hadn’t thought about it much - maybe I actively avoided thinking about it - but when I found myself here and couldn’t imagine not coming here after a day like today, I think I had to own up to the idea that I love you.”
John wondered when it had come to pass that he needed a thousand words to work up to three.
Carson kissed the top of his head, “I love you too. I think I didn’t say anything for fear of scaring you off.”
“If I didn’t scare you off yet, I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”
Carson smiled. “Well, as long as we’re in agreement then, I suppose we might want to get some sleep.” He gently stroked John’s arm a few times as John settled in.
John was only slightly amazed at how well he slept that night.