[SGA fic] Close Only Counts in Horseshoes and Hand Grenades
Title: Close Only Counts in Horseshoes and Hand Grenades
Author: Smitty
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Spoilers: Season One
Length: ~16,000 words
Summary: It should have been a brilliant arrangement. Sex that didn't count was vastly superior to no sex at all and had the added benefit of no attachments and no expectations.
It was really kind of pissing John off.
Notes: Many thanks to reccea, control_freak80, miss_porcupine, and lilac_way for beta, encouragement, advice, and plying me with chicken and waffles.
Close Only Counts in Horseshoes and Hand Grenades
by Smitty
The first time John and Rodney didn't sleep together was a week after the retroactively-named Iratus bug glued itself onto John's neck and held on for dear life. Beckett kept John in the infirmary far too long, because it was Atlantis's first off-world casualty and everyone was kind of waiting for John to mutate into a Wraith or something.
It all happened something like this:
"I hear Beckett's finally letting you out," Rodney said, having appeared mysteriously at the doorway of the infirmary as John was about to leave.
"On my way right now," he answered.
"Going back to your quarters?" Rodney asked in a way that was so faux-casual that no one who had ever spoken to another human being would be fooled.
"Thought I'd get something to eat first," John said, curious to see where this was going. Rodney was practically vibrating tension and while this was hardly unusual, something about it seemed different from the everyday panic.
Rodney actually trailed him to the mess hall, went through the line with him, and shoveled down a plate of food while John ate his own dinner. John asked him a couple of questions about what was going on in the lab because what he really wanted to know was whether they had found anything that even approached the level of nifty of the puddlejumpers or the personal shield. (Because it really would have been handy if the Ancients had managed to make more than one of the latter.) Rodney answered with generalized insults and sweeping hands, and even though the answer was ultimately "no," it kept him away from John's Fig Newtons.
John thought maybe that would be enough, proof that John was doing just fine, thank you. But then Rodney got up and followed him down to the living quarters and when John stopped at his room, Rodney stopped too, and John thought he knew what this was all about. He was too bedsore and restless to give Rodney a good pep talk on why he shouldn't quit the team, but he resolutely began constructing one anyway, because minor freakout or not, Rodney had done everything right. Well, mostly right, and that's as much as John was going to ask of a civilian on his first official mission.
"Can I come in?" Rodney asked before John could launch his speech.
"Sure," John agreed, deciding that it was likely a battle best fought behind closed doors. Rodney's ego was formidable and it's possible that a little denting had occurred. John began to insert key phrases into his argument, phrases like, "essential to the mission" and "most adaptable mind" and "trust my life."
But once the door shut behind them, Rodney seemed oddly without words, twitchy with something and finally John asked, "So what's going on?" and waited for Rodney to announce that he wasn't cut out for field missions.
Instead, Rodney put his hand on the back of John's neck and, before John could flinch and shrug it off, stepped up and kissed him.
And yeah, John knew this, too. The brush with death, the lost, angry energy that circulated and bubbled and had nowhere to go but out, the reaching for someone, anyone, to spill it all into. John had done that with friends, crashed together with other guys who just needed an hour to remember they weren't dead, but more often it had been interchangeable women in bars, pretty brunettes who listened to how he'd almost died with huge eyes and wispy little gasps. They eagerly volunteered for the job, pushing him into bed and climbing on top so all he had to do was lie back and lift his hips until he was far, far away.
If he were a good officer, a good team leader, he would ease back, tell Rodney it was understandable but inappropriate and that John couldn't be what Rodney needed him to be.
But John had always been a lousy officer and he absolutely could be what Rodney needed him to be and what's more, he wanted to be.
He needed to be.
So he kissed Rodney back, sliding one hand along Rodney's arm to his shoulder, fisting the other in Rodney's shirt and dragging him in close. He eased back a little and opened his mouth to say something but couldn't find the words so he just took a breath and dove back in, licking and biting and pushing his way into Rodney's mouth.
It stood to reason that Rodney couldn't go long without talking and John was betting the dam would burst sooner, rather than later. He wasn't wrong.
"Oh, my God!" Rodney burst out, his head snapping back when John drifted off his mouth and licked the underside of his jaw. He reached out and grabbed John's face. "You almost -- you were going to -- You died!"
And that was just about all John needed to hear for the last five days of infirmary boredom to fall away and his chest to seize up. He fit his hands to Rodney's hips and slid hard against him, steering him to the bed.
"Rodney," he managed to get out, "I need -- "
"Yes, yes, obviously -- oh, wow, you do." Rodney's eyes widened when his hand curved over the front of John's trousers.
"Yeah," John said, and tumbled them both to the mattress.
Rodney ended up on top and he pushed up between John's legs, sliding their bodies together in a way that made John groan and squeeze his eyes closed. This was what he wanted, the push and the rush and a feeling other than pain and numbness and that slipping, fading sensation that was his life leaving him.
"Oh, wow," Rodney said, which meant John had to open his eyes and lift his head.
"What?"
"You -- that -- " Rodney surged forward and kissed John hard, and John let his head drop back on the pillow. That worked. He tugged Rodney's shirt up, his hands brushing warm skin.
Rodney got with the program pretty fast, shucking clothes down to his boxers before starting in on John's. Each piece of clothing hitting the floor meant some new part of John was opened to the air and it was like dragging away the smooth, sharp chitin of the ugly blue bug over and over again.
The rubber silencers on his tags were warm against his skin, shifting as Rodney pushed at their boxers, tangling his hand in the cotton and finding John's cock. John groaned as Rodney squeezed him and then cupped their cocks together.
"God, Rodney," John muttered, arching his hips up, pushing himself into Rodney's grip.
"Yeah, yeah," Rodney panted, breathing coffee-spiked breath into John's mouth.
John closed his eyes and tilted his head back and lifted his hips but Rodney was right there, skin and sweat and endless, endless words slurring into sounds, and John never quite lost that edge of fear that sent him tumbling into bed with stranger after stranger.
Rodney's hand felt good, amazing, and Rodney's stomach and chest and thighs were heavy and solid, drawing John to him, keeping him in the there and now, and before John knew it, he was pushing back, grabbing for Rodney's skin, finding Rodney's collarbone with his mouth, and finally, finally, crumpling the sheets in his fists as he came, shaking, all over Rodney.
"Oh, wow, oh fuck," Rodney said, and John felt the warm slick of a release not his own.
He finally let his head fall back on the pillow and stay there. He drew the deepest breath he could and held it for the count of five. The breath came gushing out of him as he let go and dropped his head to the side to look for Rodney.
"I, um, I guess I -- " Rodney's eyes were wide and uncertain and his hands fluttered pale in the fading sunlight. "I should really get um -- "
"Stay," John said, closing his own eyes. "I'm kind of a crash-right-after guy myself."
"Ah, yes, well, I usually, um, I usually get kind of wired but, I mean with all the stress and all, I think maybe I'll just -- "
After more than a beat of silence, John opened his eyes and lifted his head. Rodney was sound asleep next to him, face strangely open and vulnerable. John quirked a half-smile and laid his head back on the pillow. Rodney's body was warm against his as he went to sleep.
John woke up to find himself lined up precariously on the edge of the mostly-empty bed.
"Rodney?" he asked, pushing himself to one elbow, and blinking the room into focus.
"Ah, hi." Rodney smiled tentatively at him from the middle of the room, where he was trying to get his pants on but was thwarting himself by stepping on the lower legs. "I'm just um, well, I guess it's pretty obvious what I'm doing."
"Looks like you're leaving," John said, scratching his chest. Rodney's graceless exit didn't actually bother him -- he had a meeting at 0900, -- but he'd always been a fan of morning sex and it was still too early even for that.
"Yes, I uh, well, don't worry. It never happened."
John raised both eyebrows at this news. He lifted the sheet and made a show of peeking underneath. "I think maybe it did," he said, glancing back up at Rodney, who was steadily flushing redder.
"All I meant to say," he said quickly, head twitching to the side, "was that there's no reason to have the 'we're not doing this again' discussion or even the associated homophobic freakout, because as far as I'm concerned, this didn't count."
"Didn't count?" John repeated, because it really was kind of difficult to follow Rodney's train of thought before his morning coffee.
"This was obviously We're Not Dead!Sex," Rodney explained, with the capital letters and Boolean search parameters obvious in his voice, "or at least You're Not Dead!Sex, which is not a basis for...anything, most certainly not for freaking out -- " John hid a smile as Rodney's voice cracked and he wondered who was having the freakout " -- so I'm just going to go and this? Didn't count."
John was actually feeling pretty damn good for having had sex that didn't count, so he went on a run before his meeting and managed to startle Elizabeth by showing up more than two minutes early.
"What's gotten into you this morning?" she asked, trying to hide the freecell game she'd been playing on her computer.
"Oh, you know," he replied with perfectly calculated casualness. "The sun is shining, the birds are singing…."
Elizabeth narrowed her eyes at him and he grinned. "I take it back," she said dryly. "I don't want to know anymore." She sipped her coffee. "Happy to be out of the infirmary?"
"You have no idea," John replied, sliding into his seat as Carson and Bates came into the room, followed by Teyla.
Elizabeth looked around. "Where's -- "
"Right here, I'm right here!" Rodney exclaimed, sliding into the room, checking his watch. "Not late yet!"
John rolled his eyes. He knew it was too much to hope that Rodney would be able to pull off subtle but he'd kind of hoped that Rodney would have had enough time to get caught up in one project or another and be distracted enough from the-night-that-didn't-happen and the sex-they-never-had to act normal -- or as normal as Rodney got -- for the duration of the meeting.
"Now that we're all here," Elizabeth started.
"It wasn't my fault!" Rodney said immediately. "I've been working on the shield problem all night and I barely got any sleep and I would have been here sooner except I had this idea and I had to go to the lab and -- "
"Rodney!" Elizabeth interrupted. "I didn't say it was your fault. I just said we were all here and we could start the meeting. Do you want to go first?"
Rodney always wanted to go first so he could fidget and squirm through everyone else's reports until Elizabeth excused him early to go tend to his very important work, but this time he said, "No, of course not, I'm fine." He paused and blinked. John raised his eyebrows at him, but Rodney wasn't looking at him. In fact, John though curiously, Rodney was very definitely not looking at him. "Carson can go first," Rodney burst out, obviously having realized that he having a different conversation than he thought he was having.
"Okay, then," Elizabeth said with a strange look at Rodney and a bright smile. "Carson?"
Carson launched into an enthusiastic explanation of the partial success of his gene therapy. John used the distraction to try to catch Rodney's eye, but Rodney was having none of it. Finally, when feigning fascination with Carson's discussion of allele frequency, John saw Rodney glance over at him with wounded eyes. John waited a beat and then shifted his attention and lifted one eyebrow. Rodney suddenly developed an interest in quantitative trait loci.
Clearly, John's luck in the Pegasus galaxy wasn't getting any better.
John gave Rodney a week to get his act together. Actually, he gave Rodney three days and a mission, because Rodney spent seventeen hours on P3X-292 explaining the intricacies of nuclear fission to Ford and John had to either adjust his timetable or find a new XO. Ford had been getting that crazed look in his eye and his fingers kept curling into fists until Teyla gracefully interrupted and distracted Rodney with questions about Earth food. If it came down to fisticuffs, John's money would be on Ford -- he was a wily kid, even discounting his Marine training -- but in the grand scheme of things, Elizabeth needed Rodney more than John needed Ford and that's what sent John to Rodney's room after what he deemed sufficient showering time.
He deemed wrong.
Atlantis had a way of not waiting for someone to give permission before letting John into their room. He hadn't walked in on anyone naked yet but he tried to think hard about waiting for an answer before just walking into someone's room.
He sort of forgot that when he went looking for Rodney.
"McKay!" he hollered when Rodney failed to answer the chime of the door. "Open up!" The door opened and Rodney wasn't there. John walked in anyway and glanced around. "You're still showering?" he bellowed, without much hope that Rodney would hear him and walked into the steamy bathroom.
"Well, it's not like we have a water shortage or anything," Rodney snapped, leaning around the shower door. "The engineers working on the desalinization tanks are all geniuses, you know."
John looked at him. Rodney had been washing his hair and it stuck up in soapy tufts, suds sliding down his face. "You're talking to me now?" John asked, hopping up on the sink.
Rodney sniffed and disappeared behind the shower door. John tried not to think that he was naked and that the door would be completely transparent if the hot water hadn't fogged up the glass. He shifted uncomfortably on the counter and glanced over at the vague shape of Rodney visible through the steamy condensation.
"Aw, McKay," John called. "C'moff it. It didn't count, remember? You can't be upset about it if it didn't count. Can you?"
The water ran for a minute longer, then shut off.
"Fine, I suppose if you're going to use logic," Rodney said from behind the door. "Can you pass me the towel?"
John slid off the counter and reached for the towel. Then he paused and kicked his shoes off and worked his shirt over his head.
"Yeah, hold on a sec," he called, unfastening his pants and pushing them and his boxers to the floor.
"It's right on the -- oh." Rodney went blank and wide-eyed when he saw John holding the towel out in front of him.
"All you have to do is take it, Rodney," John said reasonably. He could feel the sticky heat weighing down his hair and clinging to his skin and the hair on his chest and on his legs.
Rodney pushed the door open further with his elbow, reached out, and wrapped his fingers in the towel. John dropped it but Rodney didn't make any movement to pull the towel closer to him. It was still blocking John's body.
It was blocking Rodney's body, too, and for a moment, John thought maybe he'd made a mistake and that Rodney really was upset about the other night. He felt annoyed and angry at himself. He hadn't been trying to pressure Rodney into something he didn't want. He just wanted to make things right between them.
"Look, Rodney," he started.
Then Rodney brought his hand down and John saw that he was hard too, and wet and warm, heated by the water and the steam filling the small room.
He went to his knees, taking the towel from Rodney and dropping it on the floor under him as he went.
"Oh, um, wow," Rodney said, looking at him like he wasn't quite sure what John was doing down there.
"Not yet," John said roughly and curved his hands around Rodney's thighs. He exhaled hot, moist air over Rodney's cock and watched it twitch. His first taste, a broad lick up the shaft, tasted mostly of warm water and a little of skin.
Rodney made a sound suspiciously like a whimper -- although John was sure he'd deny it later -- and grabbed for the wall and the door to brace himself. Deciding he was anchored well enough, John nudged Rodney's legs apart and slipped his hand between them. He pressed his thumb to the base of Rodney's cock to steady it and took the head in his mouth.
"Oh, wow, that's -- that's really just amazingly obscene looking," Rodney breathed and John glanced up at him, eyebrows lifted in query. "No! I mean, don't stop!" Rodney's face was flushed and he was breathing heavily. The slight swell of his stomach rose and fell just above John's eyelevel. "It's just that, wow, it's really hot when there's a woman doing it in -- in bed or something, but you? On your knees here? In the bathroom?"
Jesus, Rodney was turning him on with that description and what kind of narcissist was he becoming anyway? So he just took Rodney deeper into his mouth, closed his eyes as he pressed the head of Rodney's cock between his tongue and the roof of his mouth, and slid his hand back to cradle Rodney's balls in his palm.
"Oh, God, oh God," Rodney babbled. "I'm not usually this easy you know but that's just really -- I mean -- I don't want to be all -- oh."
John got a better grip on the base of Rodney's cock as Rodney was talking and proceeded to blow Rodney until the babble turned formless and Rodney was panting and whining against his own forearm.
He was fairly sure that he was working with uncharted territory, so when he stroked one finger behind Rodney's balls, he did so gently and non-invasively. Rodney came as if on cue and John was ready for it, swallowing as Rodney pulsed in his mouth.
When Rodney's face registered the inevitable sensitivity, John pulled off and rocked back on his heels. "Hey," he said, giving Rodney a friendly pat to the thigh. "You okay?"
Rodney's mouth moved for a few seconds before any sound came out. His round blue eyes were fixed on John and John suddenly thought that he knew how that first ZPM in Antarctica had felt under Rodney's scrutiny. Rodney nodded and said, "Yes, of course, I'm okay, I'm great, I'm wow -- "
Rodney's brain was fried so John stepped past him into the shower and started to jerk off. Going down on Rodney had gotten him pretty hard and he'd just set up the rhythm that usually worked best for him when Rodney pressed against his back and reached around to take over.
Rodney's strokes were short, fast, more efficient, and that didn't surprise John. What did surprise him was that Rodney slipped his other hand down, behind John's dick and stroked the soft skin of his sac. It wasn't a firm touch so John reached down and covered Rodney's hand with his own. Rodney let him lace their fingers together and John pressed Rodney's palm to his balls and demonstrated how he liked it.
Rodney's genius wasn't earned by just sitting in a classroom -- he was a damned fast learner and had John right up on the edge of release in less time than John usually managed himself.
"I'll do it next time," Rodney was murmuring in his ear. "I owe you, I just -- "
And then John came, seeing images of Rodney with his awesome, mobile mouth wrapped around John's dick, and he completely missed whatever it was Rodney was saying.
When he opened his eyes, Rodney was scrambling out of the shower and pawing through piles of clothes.
"Here, answer this," he demanded, brandishing John's radio earpiece.
"Major Sheppard," Elizabeth's voice chirped distantly. "If you're there, please acknowledge."
John reached for the device and brought it to his mouth as he stepped out of the shower.
"I'm here," he said. "Go ahead."
"We've had an unscheduled off-world activation," Elizabeth reported. "The shield is up and we're receiving radio transmission. If you could report to the control room as soon as possible -- "
"I'll be right there," John promised, hooking the radio in his ear and pulling on his boxers and pants. He tapped the radio off and pulled his shirt over his head.
"Feel better?" he asked, glancing over at Rodney.
"Well," Rodney said, who was hopping around trying to get his socks on, "if it doesn't count, there's no reason to freak out and therefore, sure, feeling great."
John smirked and cocked an eyebrow. "Didn't count?"
"It's a million degrees in here!" Rodney said. He was fully dressed and apparently intending to accompany John to the control room despite the lack of invitation. "Obviously we were overcome by the heat and had to...to...find release."
"Find release," John repeated, adjusting his sidearm in its holster.
"It was the heat," Rodney said weakly.
John tried not to smile. Winding Rodney up was turning out to be a fairly gratifying hobby. "It wasn't the heat," he said, deadpan, shrugging into his jacket. "It's the humidity."
"It -- what does that even mean?" Rodney asked, crinkling up his face and trying to work his own earpiece around his ear. "That makes no sense."
"It makes as much sense as 'it's the heat,'" John retorted.
P4X-893 had both heat and humidity and yet somehow John managed to restrain himself from jumping Rodney.
Sure, the people were mostly naked and everything was peaceful, the birds were singing, etc. etc., but those things were more likely to make John twitch and hold his P-90 closer than to toss it aside and fling himself at the nearest physicist.
At least until Teyla translated the terms of trade.
"The Makaarans are...concerned with the survival of their people in the wake of the Wraith cullings. They join in groups of three so that the woman can produce children of two men and when she is with child, which is...often, the men provide...companionship for each other. The willingness to demonstrate this companionship is considered -- "
"Yes, yes, we'll do it," Rodney interrupted. "Do we at least get a room or something or will we have to avert the Lieutenant's virgin eyes?"
"Hey!" Ford said on what John suspected was mostly principle.
"Who's this 'we' you're talking about, McKay?" he asked, having a sneaking suspicion that he'd been volunteered for yet another wacky adventure.
"Who do you think, Major?" Rodney asked impatiently. "Now, what's the protocol here?"
"Don't I get a say in this?" John asked, although by the look on his face, the answer was probably no.
"Actually," Teyla began, "it is not necessary -- "
"Look, even a curtain's okay, I'm just not into exhibitionism -- you! What are the accoutrements? Curtain? Room? Mud hut? Seriously, I'm not picky but if there's no bed, I'm going to need at least a pile of grass about three inches thick if I'm going to be able to walk after this -- "
And that's how John found himself in a small hut with a low bed, rubbing off against Rodney.
Rodney's hands were large and too warm on his hips and for some reason that was a real turn-on. John pressed his damp forehead against Rodney's, and paced his breathing to keep himself under control until he felt Rodney shiver and arch under him, slicking both their cocks with his release and then John let go. He pressed his mouth to Rodney's as he rolled off, too sweaty and too sensitive to want to touch anywhere else.
"Damn," he said, because he'd decided 'God' was just too encouraging and Rodney might take 'Fuck' as an invitation.
"Ah, yes," Rodney said, sounding like he was fighting a powernap. "Quite the uh -- yes." He struggled to sit up. John didn't bother.
"You didn't have to, you know," he said, turning his head to look at Rodney's arms, bracing him upright.
"Well, I hardly see how that has anything to do with it," Rodney said briskly. "It didn't count of course and thusly the possible repercussions -- "
"This one didn't count either?" John asked, raising an eyebrow and reaching out to poke Rodney in the ribs.
"Of course not," Rodney said, sounding at least a little appalled. "Aliens made us do it. I realize your access to SG-1's mission reports has been limited due to time and opportunity but surely -- "
"I read the mission reports," John interrupted. "I didn't see anything about 'aliens made us do it' and I'm sure I didn't see where 'aliens made them do it' was ever used as an excuse for SG-1 sneaking off for a team orgy or anything."
"Yes, well, I suppose your clearance doesn't include everything," Rodney said in what he probably thought was a mild tone but really was just smug. "It's standard operating procedure. Any and all sexual activity done in the name of escaping near-death or establishing good-will with an alien species is automatically exempt from the usual melodramatic declarations of love, heterosexuality, fidelity, etc., etc."
"But...you volunteered," John said stupidly. "It doesn't count if you volunteered! It was completely voluntary! That's what volunteered means!"
"Ah, I believe we're in agreement, then," Rodney said brightly, rolling out of bed and pulling on his pants.
"What?" John gave up on afterglow and hopped out of bed before realizing that he didn't have as far to hop as usual. "Ow." He pulled on his own boxers and trousers and pulled his shirt over his head.
"You said it doesn't count," Rodney pointed out, lacing up his shoes.
"I meant that your exemption doesn't -- why am I arguing with you?" he asked, because really, he should be jumping at the excuse to deny carnal sin with McKay.
"I ask myself that question every day," Rodney said archly and walked out of the tent.
As it turned out, Rodney really didn't have to. Teyla quietly informed John on the way back to the jumper that they could have bypassed the sex and just provided a gift for the most recent newborn.
John considered shooting Rodney but sex had always made him pretty mellow, and Rodney was busy explaining to Ford that if he'd spent more than three months with the SGC before joining the Atlantis expedition, he would have run into these situations all the time.
From the expression on Ford's face and the way he was nodding, John didn't think he'd be needing to have a discussion about the general interpretation of Public Law 103-160 with the Lieutenant -- no, John's bigger problem was getting Ford back in the field ever again.
The problem of coaxing Ford through the stargate took a backseat to a half dozen other emergencies over the next couple of days. John celebrated six consecutive hours of no explosions, flooding, unscheduled gate activations, or random alarms by sacking out on his rack with War and Peace.
He'd just gotten the book open and found his place when the door chimed. That just figured. He bit his lip and contemplated not answering, but he was never off-duty on Atlantis. With a deep sigh of regret, he put War and Peace aside and rolled off the bed. He crossed the room to the door and activated the door release.
It was Rodney.
"Do you uh, do you have half an hour or so?" he asked, twirling one hand to indicate -- John supposed -- the movement of a clock.
"Maybe," John said cautiously, and then Rodney finally looked him in the eye.
"Can I come in?"
"Yeah." John moved aside and let Rodney into the room. The second the door closed, Rodney's mouth opened.
"As I'm sure you've noticed, circumstances have conspired -- " Rodney closed his mouth and brushed past John to stand by the bed.
John raised his eyebrows and pulled his shirt over his head.
"Yes, exactly," Rodney said, looking only a little surprised. John took a few steps forward and leaned in to kiss Rodney, but found himself held back by Rodney's hands on his shoulders. "I think you should sit down," Rodney said.
John sat down.
Then he did a double take, as Rodney took the pillow from the bed, dropped it on the floor, and went to his knees.
"It might be worth noting," Rodney said, his hands deftly unfastening John's pants and sliding inside, "that while I have no actual practical experience in this field, I was considered the world's foremost expert on wormhole physics before I ever had access to an actual stargate, so odds are fairly good that I'll be able to adapt quickly and proficiently to this as well." And then he pushed John's shorts down and took John's dick in his mouth.
"Whoa," John said, his hips twitching upward.
"Oops," Rodney said, coughing and backing up again. "That wasn't quite what I expected."
"Sorry," John said, his voice lost halfway between a growl and a pant. "Go slower this time." He pushed his pants and boxers lower and made himself comfortable, leaning back on his elbows.
Rodney nodded and leaned forward, hesitating a little before he licked the skin on John's cock and then slipped his mouth over the head.
"Okay," John said, curling his chin to his chest so he could see what Rodney was doing. "Go ahead and suck a little. You can use your hand if you want." He felt a slight pull and tension on the skin as Rodney followed his directions and then the warm pressure of Rodney's palm on his balls. Rodney also never forgot anything he'd learned, John realized, remembering that same touch in the shower. "Take a little more," he suggested, trying not to sound too eager. Rodney's tongue was doing some fantastic things to the head of his cock but…just the head. Rodney slid his hand up, pressing his fingers around the shaft and braced himself on John's hip with his free hand.
John tensed and relaxed the muscles in his hips and rear, making a conscious effort not to move too much while Rodney was experimenting with depth and pressure.
"Mm!" Rodney said, his eyebrows lifting in surprise. John wasn't sure what brought that on, but Rodney's exploratory motions suddenly turned enthusiastic and John pushed himself vertical on both hands.
"You've got a hang of it," he said, suddenly finding himself short on breath. Rodney was getting himself into a rhythm between his mouth and his hand. John groaned a little as Rodney hummed pleasantly and reached out to feather his fingers in Rodney's hair. "That feels good," he said huskily, fine tremors chasing down his thighs and tickling the hair on his stomach.
Rodney made a sound that managed to be both pleased and smug without the benefit of actual words and John smiled. Then Rodney did something fantastic with his tongue and John almost couldn't suppress the thrust it provoked. He felt the familiar heat pooling between his legs and drawing up hard. "I'm going to come," he warned, sliding his thumb down to Rodney's jaw, ready to take over with his hand if Rodney drew off.
But Rodney just waved one hand, thumb and index finger touching in the "okay" sign, over his head, and sucked a little harder. He let his hand drop to join the other one and John dropped his head down, groaning with laughter and release. His orgasm was a firm, long rush of sensation spreading from his center to all his extremities and he let his elbows take his weight as he fell backward.
Rodney let go a second before John was really really ready and swallowed one more time, just air, to clear his mouth, John suspected, and turned glassy eyes up to John's face.
"Well?" he demanded.
"A-plus," John told him, kicking his feet back up to the bed and lifting his hips enough to pull his pants and boxers down and off. "You're an exemplary student. Take your pants off and come up here."
Rodney struggled out of his shirt first, tossing it somewhere over his head, and then kicked off his shoes. John watched as he worked off the pants and shorts. He was hard and flushed and when he hopped onto the bed, John rolled to his side and closed his hand over Rodney's dick. Rodney gasped and John didn't even do anything fancy -- just a couple of strokes and Rodney was pushing his own hips up and coming over the back of John's hand.
"Okay," he said, eyes still closed as John brought his hand to his mouth and sucked it clean. "That was pretty fantastic."
And he was out like a light.
John reached over, rubbed his thumb over Rodney's mouth, and wondered what the hell they were doing.
When John opened his eyes again, Rodney was looking for his clothes.
"So why didn't it count this time?" he asked, sitting up with some effort. "Your shirt's on the desk."
"I was merely, ah -- " Rodney cleared his throat. "We're even now. For that time before that time with the, you know, aliens."
"The time before you volunteered us to do it for the aliens?" John asked, lifting one eyebrow. "You mean because I gave you a blowjob in the shower?"
"A blowjob that didn't count because you were overcome with heat. And humidity," Rodney said quickly.
"If it didn't count, why do you need to make it even?" John asked reasonably.
Rodney stared at him.
"Yeah, okay, good point," John said quickly, because obviously a blowjob that didn't count was vastly superior to no blowjob at all. "Well…thank you. I'm glad we're even."
"Most people find it rather difficult to argue with a genius," Rodney agreed, and sat down to tie his shoes.
They had been even for a week when John traded Grodin for a bottle of Jim Beam and went to Rodney's room.
"So here's the thing," he said when Rodney opened the door, walking by him, straight into Rodney's quarters and setting the bottle on the desk. "I'm pretty sure our tolerance is shot all to hell. I mean we've been here how long? And had exactly one drink since stepping through the gate?"
"Apparently you are not on the very long list of people who know about the still on the lowest level," Rodney said dryly. "And also, you seem to be discounting that very potent grog on M7R - something."
"My point," John said, ignoring Rodney even though he did know about the still and was purposely turning a blind eye and the grog was foul and barely made him tipsy, "is that it's only going to take us a shot or two to get skunked and everyone knows that nothing you do when you're drunk -- " He stepped into Rodney's personal space and pitched his voice low. "Ever. Counts."
"I think it'll take more than -- " Rodney started and then his brain -- that one -- kicked into gear and his eyes widened comically. "I'll get the glasses," he said.
John worked the bottle open as Rodney dumped the dregs of two coffee mugs into a dead Ancient plant. He rinsed out both cups, but John could still smell coffee when he splashed whiskey into the metal mugs.
"What are we toasting to?" he asked as they lifted the cups.
Rodney opened his mouth and closed it again, and finally said, "To things that never happened."
"To things that never happened," John agreed, clearing his throat of an odd catch. They clinked mugs and tossed back the whiskey. John felt it burn down his throat to his stomach and straight into his groin. His dick had just been waiting for an invitation and that seemed to be it.
"Maybe we should do two," Rodney said, but when John glanced over at him, his face was flushed and his eyes were bright. "Just for good measure."
John poured a second slug, his hands hurried and clumsy, and they banged the mugs together a little breathlessly before downing the drink. Burning on adrenaline, alcohol, and testosterone, he set the mug carelessly on the table and reached for Rodney with both hands. Rodney was right there, just as pushy, just as grabby, just as hungry. They ground against each other, mouths meeting, desperate and sure. Rodney's hands tugged John's shirt over his head and they had to stop kissing long enough for him to get it off. John stripped off Rodney's shirt, and they tumbled down together on Rodney's bed, pants open and hands reaching.
"Okay, okay, hold up," Rodney panted. He slid off the bed and shoved his pants and boxers to the floor. Rodney wobbled a little getting out of his boots and socks but he didn't fall down and then he crawled up the bed and straddled John's legs. He tugged on John's waistband in what John hazily decided was the sexiest move ever. John lifted his hips and let Rodney draw the rest of his clothes down in the same jumbled heap. The cooler air of the room hit his already hard dick and made him shiver. Rodney's warm mouth took care of the chill and right when he'd gotten a good rhythm going with the sucking, he made it even better by stroking one curiously slick finger back behind John's balls.
"Yeah, Rodney," John groaned, bringing his feet up on the bed and letting his knees fall apart.
Rodney made a pleased little humming noise that felt fantastic around John's cock and then he stroked further back, searching out John's opening and skating his finger around the edge.
"Geez, Rodney," John grated out. "Would you just -- ?"
"Hm. Oh." And then Rodney was sinking his finger in, all the way until John could feel the rest of his hand tucked up against the bottom curve of John's ass.
John rocked his hips, riding high on the feel of Rodney everywhere. "Use two," he said suddenly, not full enough and unable to resist just that little bit more before he came. They were getting into stuff he didn't get from those desperate comfort encounters with guys who had almost turned into flaming balls of wreckage with him or women who wanted to pet him and make him better. This was stuff he did before any of that, stuff he hadn't realized he'd missed.
Rodney obliged eagerly, hands going elsewhere but his mouth inexorable on John's cock, and then he was touching John again, one hand holding his sac out of the way and two fingers fitting snugly inside.
"Rodney," John said, voice choking high in his throat. Rodney nodded, inadvertently banging the head of John's cock against his soft palate. John groaned and came in Rodney's mouth, tremors shuddering through all his limbs. Rodney pulled his fingers out a little too quickly -- John was going to have to teach him to slow down -- but at the moment, John was too boneless and satisfied to be discomfited by it.
The first thing he realized when he opened his eyes was that Rodney was jerking himself off. "Hey, let me do that," he said, rolling to his side and reaching for Rodney's wrist.
"I just -- " Rodney started, letting John pull his hand away and take Rodney's cock in his mouth. "Oh, wow, yeah. It was just that watching you, and feeling you, it was really hot and -- "
"I know," John said, pulling off Rodney's cock just enough to talk. He used his tongue to trace gate glyphs on the sensitive skin and stroked two damp fingers behind Rodney's balls. Rodney jerked at the touch, thrusting up against John's cheek. "Hey," he said, moving his fingers back, between the curves of Rodney's ass. "You want to know what it feels like?"
Rodney lifted his head. "I've been doing some experimenting on my own," he said. "Might as well be prepared, eh? So no need to be shy. I uh, I know what it feels like, but not what it feels like when you do it."
A hot weight dropped low in John's stomach and it would have meant an instant erection if he hadn't just come spectacularly in Rodney's mouth. He really had nothing to say to that so he dropped his mouth down over Rodney's dick, taking him in deep, and pushed one finger up. Rodney was dry and tight and hot inside, but John's finger slid in easily enough. It only took a moment to find the raised bump and then Rodney was coming in his mouth instantly and without warning.
"Oh, oh, wow," Rodney said as John swallowed and stroked his finger out and flopped over to the side. "That was, now I see why men are gay. I mean, not that what we've been doing hasn't been reason enough, but yeah, that would totally have done it years ago if you know what I mean."
John had no fucking clue what he meant, but he wasn't going to say so. Instead, he ran his fingers through Rodney's sweaty hair and kissed him on the mouth. The bonelessness hadn't gone away with blowing Rodney and John was more than ready to crash.
"Ah. Um. Maj -- John?" Rodney asked.
"I know," John murmured sleepily. "It doesn't count because we were drunk. I planned this one, r'member? Now shut up and go to sleep."
And against all odds, Rodney did.
(Part Two)
Author: Smitty
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Spoilers: Season One
Length: ~16,000 words
Summary: It should have been a brilliant arrangement. Sex that didn't count was vastly superior to no sex at all and had the added benefit of no attachments and no expectations.
It was really kind of pissing John off.
Notes: Many thanks to reccea, control_freak80, miss_porcupine, and lilac_way for beta, encouragement, advice, and plying me with chicken and waffles.
Close Only Counts in Horseshoes and Hand Grenades
by Smitty
The first time John and Rodney didn't sleep together was a week after the retroactively-named Iratus bug glued itself onto John's neck and held on for dear life. Beckett kept John in the infirmary far too long, because it was Atlantis's first off-world casualty and everyone was kind of waiting for John to mutate into a Wraith or something.
It all happened something like this:
"I hear Beckett's finally letting you out," Rodney said, having appeared mysteriously at the doorway of the infirmary as John was about to leave.
"On my way right now," he answered.
"Going back to your quarters?" Rodney asked in a way that was so faux-casual that no one who had ever spoken to another human being would be fooled.
"Thought I'd get something to eat first," John said, curious to see where this was going. Rodney was practically vibrating tension and while this was hardly unusual, something about it seemed different from the everyday panic.
Rodney actually trailed him to the mess hall, went through the line with him, and shoveled down a plate of food while John ate his own dinner. John asked him a couple of questions about what was going on in the lab because what he really wanted to know was whether they had found anything that even approached the level of nifty of the puddlejumpers or the personal shield. (Because it really would have been handy if the Ancients had managed to make more than one of the latter.) Rodney answered with generalized insults and sweeping hands, and even though the answer was ultimately "no," it kept him away from John's Fig Newtons.
John thought maybe that would be enough, proof that John was doing just fine, thank you. But then Rodney got up and followed him down to the living quarters and when John stopped at his room, Rodney stopped too, and John thought he knew what this was all about. He was too bedsore and restless to give Rodney a good pep talk on why he shouldn't quit the team, but he resolutely began constructing one anyway, because minor freakout or not, Rodney had done everything right. Well, mostly right, and that's as much as John was going to ask of a civilian on his first official mission.
"Can I come in?" Rodney asked before John could launch his speech.
"Sure," John agreed, deciding that it was likely a battle best fought behind closed doors. Rodney's ego was formidable and it's possible that a little denting had occurred. John began to insert key phrases into his argument, phrases like, "essential to the mission" and "most adaptable mind" and "trust my life."
But once the door shut behind them, Rodney seemed oddly without words, twitchy with something and finally John asked, "So what's going on?" and waited for Rodney to announce that he wasn't cut out for field missions.
Instead, Rodney put his hand on the back of John's neck and, before John could flinch and shrug it off, stepped up and kissed him.
And yeah, John knew this, too. The brush with death, the lost, angry energy that circulated and bubbled and had nowhere to go but out, the reaching for someone, anyone, to spill it all into. John had done that with friends, crashed together with other guys who just needed an hour to remember they weren't dead, but more often it had been interchangeable women in bars, pretty brunettes who listened to how he'd almost died with huge eyes and wispy little gasps. They eagerly volunteered for the job, pushing him into bed and climbing on top so all he had to do was lie back and lift his hips until he was far, far away.
If he were a good officer, a good team leader, he would ease back, tell Rodney it was understandable but inappropriate and that John couldn't be what Rodney needed him to be.
But John had always been a lousy officer and he absolutely could be what Rodney needed him to be and what's more, he wanted to be.
He needed to be.
So he kissed Rodney back, sliding one hand along Rodney's arm to his shoulder, fisting the other in Rodney's shirt and dragging him in close. He eased back a little and opened his mouth to say something but couldn't find the words so he just took a breath and dove back in, licking and biting and pushing his way into Rodney's mouth.
It stood to reason that Rodney couldn't go long without talking and John was betting the dam would burst sooner, rather than later. He wasn't wrong.
"Oh, my God!" Rodney burst out, his head snapping back when John drifted off his mouth and licked the underside of his jaw. He reached out and grabbed John's face. "You almost -- you were going to -- You died!"
And that was just about all John needed to hear for the last five days of infirmary boredom to fall away and his chest to seize up. He fit his hands to Rodney's hips and slid hard against him, steering him to the bed.
"Rodney," he managed to get out, "I need -- "
"Yes, yes, obviously -- oh, wow, you do." Rodney's eyes widened when his hand curved over the front of John's trousers.
"Yeah," John said, and tumbled them both to the mattress.
Rodney ended up on top and he pushed up between John's legs, sliding their bodies together in a way that made John groan and squeeze his eyes closed. This was what he wanted, the push and the rush and a feeling other than pain and numbness and that slipping, fading sensation that was his life leaving him.
"Oh, wow," Rodney said, which meant John had to open his eyes and lift his head.
"What?"
"You -- that -- " Rodney surged forward and kissed John hard, and John let his head drop back on the pillow. That worked. He tugged Rodney's shirt up, his hands brushing warm skin.
Rodney got with the program pretty fast, shucking clothes down to his boxers before starting in on John's. Each piece of clothing hitting the floor meant some new part of John was opened to the air and it was like dragging away the smooth, sharp chitin of the ugly blue bug over and over again.
The rubber silencers on his tags were warm against his skin, shifting as Rodney pushed at their boxers, tangling his hand in the cotton and finding John's cock. John groaned as Rodney squeezed him and then cupped their cocks together.
"God, Rodney," John muttered, arching his hips up, pushing himself into Rodney's grip.
"Yeah, yeah," Rodney panted, breathing coffee-spiked breath into John's mouth.
John closed his eyes and tilted his head back and lifted his hips but Rodney was right there, skin and sweat and endless, endless words slurring into sounds, and John never quite lost that edge of fear that sent him tumbling into bed with stranger after stranger.
Rodney's hand felt good, amazing, and Rodney's stomach and chest and thighs were heavy and solid, drawing John to him, keeping him in the there and now, and before John knew it, he was pushing back, grabbing for Rodney's skin, finding Rodney's collarbone with his mouth, and finally, finally, crumpling the sheets in his fists as he came, shaking, all over Rodney.
"Oh, wow, oh fuck," Rodney said, and John felt the warm slick of a release not his own.
He finally let his head fall back on the pillow and stay there. He drew the deepest breath he could and held it for the count of five. The breath came gushing out of him as he let go and dropped his head to the side to look for Rodney.
"I, um, I guess I -- " Rodney's eyes were wide and uncertain and his hands fluttered pale in the fading sunlight. "I should really get um -- "
"Stay," John said, closing his own eyes. "I'm kind of a crash-right-after guy myself."
"Ah, yes, well, I usually, um, I usually get kind of wired but, I mean with all the stress and all, I think maybe I'll just -- "
After more than a beat of silence, John opened his eyes and lifted his head. Rodney was sound asleep next to him, face strangely open and vulnerable. John quirked a half-smile and laid his head back on the pillow. Rodney's body was warm against his as he went to sleep.
John woke up to find himself lined up precariously on the edge of the mostly-empty bed.
"Rodney?" he asked, pushing himself to one elbow, and blinking the room into focus.
"Ah, hi." Rodney smiled tentatively at him from the middle of the room, where he was trying to get his pants on but was thwarting himself by stepping on the lower legs. "I'm just um, well, I guess it's pretty obvious what I'm doing."
"Looks like you're leaving," John said, scratching his chest. Rodney's graceless exit didn't actually bother him -- he had a meeting at 0900, -- but he'd always been a fan of morning sex and it was still too early even for that.
"Yes, I uh, well, don't worry. It never happened."
John raised both eyebrows at this news. He lifted the sheet and made a show of peeking underneath. "I think maybe it did," he said, glancing back up at Rodney, who was steadily flushing redder.
"All I meant to say," he said quickly, head twitching to the side, "was that there's no reason to have the 'we're not doing this again' discussion or even the associated homophobic freakout, because as far as I'm concerned, this didn't count."
"Didn't count?" John repeated, because it really was kind of difficult to follow Rodney's train of thought before his morning coffee.
"This was obviously We're Not Dead!Sex," Rodney explained, with the capital letters and Boolean search parameters obvious in his voice, "or at least You're Not Dead!Sex, which is not a basis for...anything, most certainly not for freaking out -- " John hid a smile as Rodney's voice cracked and he wondered who was having the freakout " -- so I'm just going to go and this? Didn't count."
John was actually feeling pretty damn good for having had sex that didn't count, so he went on a run before his meeting and managed to startle Elizabeth by showing up more than two minutes early.
"What's gotten into you this morning?" she asked, trying to hide the freecell game she'd been playing on her computer.
"Oh, you know," he replied with perfectly calculated casualness. "The sun is shining, the birds are singing…."
Elizabeth narrowed her eyes at him and he grinned. "I take it back," she said dryly. "I don't want to know anymore." She sipped her coffee. "Happy to be out of the infirmary?"
"You have no idea," John replied, sliding into his seat as Carson and Bates came into the room, followed by Teyla.
Elizabeth looked around. "Where's -- "
"Right here, I'm right here!" Rodney exclaimed, sliding into the room, checking his watch. "Not late yet!"
John rolled his eyes. He knew it was too much to hope that Rodney would be able to pull off subtle but he'd kind of hoped that Rodney would have had enough time to get caught up in one project or another and be distracted enough from the-night-that-didn't-happen and the sex-they-never-had to act normal -- or as normal as Rodney got -- for the duration of the meeting.
"Now that we're all here," Elizabeth started.
"It wasn't my fault!" Rodney said immediately. "I've been working on the shield problem all night and I barely got any sleep and I would have been here sooner except I had this idea and I had to go to the lab and -- "
"Rodney!" Elizabeth interrupted. "I didn't say it was your fault. I just said we were all here and we could start the meeting. Do you want to go first?"
Rodney always wanted to go first so he could fidget and squirm through everyone else's reports until Elizabeth excused him early to go tend to his very important work, but this time he said, "No, of course not, I'm fine." He paused and blinked. John raised his eyebrows at him, but Rodney wasn't looking at him. In fact, John though curiously, Rodney was very definitely not looking at him. "Carson can go first," Rodney burst out, obviously having realized that he having a different conversation than he thought he was having.
"Okay, then," Elizabeth said with a strange look at Rodney and a bright smile. "Carson?"
Carson launched into an enthusiastic explanation of the partial success of his gene therapy. John used the distraction to try to catch Rodney's eye, but Rodney was having none of it. Finally, when feigning fascination with Carson's discussion of allele frequency, John saw Rodney glance over at him with wounded eyes. John waited a beat and then shifted his attention and lifted one eyebrow. Rodney suddenly developed an interest in quantitative trait loci.
Clearly, John's luck in the Pegasus galaxy wasn't getting any better.
John gave Rodney a week to get his act together. Actually, he gave Rodney three days and a mission, because Rodney spent seventeen hours on P3X-292 explaining the intricacies of nuclear fission to Ford and John had to either adjust his timetable or find a new XO. Ford had been getting that crazed look in his eye and his fingers kept curling into fists until Teyla gracefully interrupted and distracted Rodney with questions about Earth food. If it came down to fisticuffs, John's money would be on Ford -- he was a wily kid, even discounting his Marine training -- but in the grand scheme of things, Elizabeth needed Rodney more than John needed Ford and that's what sent John to Rodney's room after what he deemed sufficient showering time.
He deemed wrong.
Atlantis had a way of not waiting for someone to give permission before letting John into their room. He hadn't walked in on anyone naked yet but he tried to think hard about waiting for an answer before just walking into someone's room.
He sort of forgot that when he went looking for Rodney.
"McKay!" he hollered when Rodney failed to answer the chime of the door. "Open up!" The door opened and Rodney wasn't there. John walked in anyway and glanced around. "You're still showering?" he bellowed, without much hope that Rodney would hear him and walked into the steamy bathroom.
"Well, it's not like we have a water shortage or anything," Rodney snapped, leaning around the shower door. "The engineers working on the desalinization tanks are all geniuses, you know."
John looked at him. Rodney had been washing his hair and it stuck up in soapy tufts, suds sliding down his face. "You're talking to me now?" John asked, hopping up on the sink.
Rodney sniffed and disappeared behind the shower door. John tried not to think that he was naked and that the door would be completely transparent if the hot water hadn't fogged up the glass. He shifted uncomfortably on the counter and glanced over at the vague shape of Rodney visible through the steamy condensation.
"Aw, McKay," John called. "C'moff it. It didn't count, remember? You can't be upset about it if it didn't count. Can you?"
The water ran for a minute longer, then shut off.
"Fine, I suppose if you're going to use logic," Rodney said from behind the door. "Can you pass me the towel?"
John slid off the counter and reached for the towel. Then he paused and kicked his shoes off and worked his shirt over his head.
"Yeah, hold on a sec," he called, unfastening his pants and pushing them and his boxers to the floor.
"It's right on the -- oh." Rodney went blank and wide-eyed when he saw John holding the towel out in front of him.
"All you have to do is take it, Rodney," John said reasonably. He could feel the sticky heat weighing down his hair and clinging to his skin and the hair on his chest and on his legs.
Rodney pushed the door open further with his elbow, reached out, and wrapped his fingers in the towel. John dropped it but Rodney didn't make any movement to pull the towel closer to him. It was still blocking John's body.
It was blocking Rodney's body, too, and for a moment, John thought maybe he'd made a mistake and that Rodney really was upset about the other night. He felt annoyed and angry at himself. He hadn't been trying to pressure Rodney into something he didn't want. He just wanted to make things right between them.
"Look, Rodney," he started.
Then Rodney brought his hand down and John saw that he was hard too, and wet and warm, heated by the water and the steam filling the small room.
He went to his knees, taking the towel from Rodney and dropping it on the floor under him as he went.
"Oh, um, wow," Rodney said, looking at him like he wasn't quite sure what John was doing down there.
"Not yet," John said roughly and curved his hands around Rodney's thighs. He exhaled hot, moist air over Rodney's cock and watched it twitch. His first taste, a broad lick up the shaft, tasted mostly of warm water and a little of skin.
Rodney made a sound suspiciously like a whimper -- although John was sure he'd deny it later -- and grabbed for the wall and the door to brace himself. Deciding he was anchored well enough, John nudged Rodney's legs apart and slipped his hand between them. He pressed his thumb to the base of Rodney's cock to steady it and took the head in his mouth.
"Oh, wow, that's -- that's really just amazingly obscene looking," Rodney breathed and John glanced up at him, eyebrows lifted in query. "No! I mean, don't stop!" Rodney's face was flushed and he was breathing heavily. The slight swell of his stomach rose and fell just above John's eyelevel. "It's just that, wow, it's really hot when there's a woman doing it in -- in bed or something, but you? On your knees here? In the bathroom?"
Jesus, Rodney was turning him on with that description and what kind of narcissist was he becoming anyway? So he just took Rodney deeper into his mouth, closed his eyes as he pressed the head of Rodney's cock between his tongue and the roof of his mouth, and slid his hand back to cradle Rodney's balls in his palm.
"Oh, God, oh God," Rodney babbled. "I'm not usually this easy you know but that's just really -- I mean -- I don't want to be all -- oh."
John got a better grip on the base of Rodney's cock as Rodney was talking and proceeded to blow Rodney until the babble turned formless and Rodney was panting and whining against his own forearm.
He was fairly sure that he was working with uncharted territory, so when he stroked one finger behind Rodney's balls, he did so gently and non-invasively. Rodney came as if on cue and John was ready for it, swallowing as Rodney pulsed in his mouth.
When Rodney's face registered the inevitable sensitivity, John pulled off and rocked back on his heels. "Hey," he said, giving Rodney a friendly pat to the thigh. "You okay?"
Rodney's mouth moved for a few seconds before any sound came out. His round blue eyes were fixed on John and John suddenly thought that he knew how that first ZPM in Antarctica had felt under Rodney's scrutiny. Rodney nodded and said, "Yes, of course, I'm okay, I'm great, I'm wow -- "
Rodney's brain was fried so John stepped past him into the shower and started to jerk off. Going down on Rodney had gotten him pretty hard and he'd just set up the rhythm that usually worked best for him when Rodney pressed against his back and reached around to take over.
Rodney's strokes were short, fast, more efficient, and that didn't surprise John. What did surprise him was that Rodney slipped his other hand down, behind John's dick and stroked the soft skin of his sac. It wasn't a firm touch so John reached down and covered Rodney's hand with his own. Rodney let him lace their fingers together and John pressed Rodney's palm to his balls and demonstrated how he liked it.
Rodney's genius wasn't earned by just sitting in a classroom -- he was a damned fast learner and had John right up on the edge of release in less time than John usually managed himself.
"I'll do it next time," Rodney was murmuring in his ear. "I owe you, I just -- "
And then John came, seeing images of Rodney with his awesome, mobile mouth wrapped around John's dick, and he completely missed whatever it was Rodney was saying.
When he opened his eyes, Rodney was scrambling out of the shower and pawing through piles of clothes.
"Here, answer this," he demanded, brandishing John's radio earpiece.
"Major Sheppard," Elizabeth's voice chirped distantly. "If you're there, please acknowledge."
John reached for the device and brought it to his mouth as he stepped out of the shower.
"I'm here," he said. "Go ahead."
"We've had an unscheduled off-world activation," Elizabeth reported. "The shield is up and we're receiving radio transmission. If you could report to the control room as soon as possible -- "
"I'll be right there," John promised, hooking the radio in his ear and pulling on his boxers and pants. He tapped the radio off and pulled his shirt over his head.
"Feel better?" he asked, glancing over at Rodney.
"Well," Rodney said, who was hopping around trying to get his socks on, "if it doesn't count, there's no reason to freak out and therefore, sure, feeling great."
John smirked and cocked an eyebrow. "Didn't count?"
"It's a million degrees in here!" Rodney said. He was fully dressed and apparently intending to accompany John to the control room despite the lack of invitation. "Obviously we were overcome by the heat and had to...to...find release."
"Find release," John repeated, adjusting his sidearm in its holster.
"It was the heat," Rodney said weakly.
John tried not to smile. Winding Rodney up was turning out to be a fairly gratifying hobby. "It wasn't the heat," he said, deadpan, shrugging into his jacket. "It's the humidity."
"It -- what does that even mean?" Rodney asked, crinkling up his face and trying to work his own earpiece around his ear. "That makes no sense."
"It makes as much sense as 'it's the heat,'" John retorted.
P4X-893 had both heat and humidity and yet somehow John managed to restrain himself from jumping Rodney.
Sure, the people were mostly naked and everything was peaceful, the birds were singing, etc. etc., but those things were more likely to make John twitch and hold his P-90 closer than to toss it aside and fling himself at the nearest physicist.
At least until Teyla translated the terms of trade.
"The Makaarans are...concerned with the survival of their people in the wake of the Wraith cullings. They join in groups of three so that the woman can produce children of two men and when she is with child, which is...often, the men provide...companionship for each other. The willingness to demonstrate this companionship is considered -- "
"Yes, yes, we'll do it," Rodney interrupted. "Do we at least get a room or something or will we have to avert the Lieutenant's virgin eyes?"
"Hey!" Ford said on what John suspected was mostly principle.
"Who's this 'we' you're talking about, McKay?" he asked, having a sneaking suspicion that he'd been volunteered for yet another wacky adventure.
"Who do you think, Major?" Rodney asked impatiently. "Now, what's the protocol here?"
"Don't I get a say in this?" John asked, although by the look on his face, the answer was probably no.
"Actually," Teyla began, "it is not necessary -- "
"Look, even a curtain's okay, I'm just not into exhibitionism -- you! What are the accoutrements? Curtain? Room? Mud hut? Seriously, I'm not picky but if there's no bed, I'm going to need at least a pile of grass about three inches thick if I'm going to be able to walk after this -- "
And that's how John found himself in a small hut with a low bed, rubbing off against Rodney.
Rodney's hands were large and too warm on his hips and for some reason that was a real turn-on. John pressed his damp forehead against Rodney's, and paced his breathing to keep himself under control until he felt Rodney shiver and arch under him, slicking both their cocks with his release and then John let go. He pressed his mouth to Rodney's as he rolled off, too sweaty and too sensitive to want to touch anywhere else.
"Damn," he said, because he'd decided 'God' was just too encouraging and Rodney might take 'Fuck' as an invitation.
"Ah, yes," Rodney said, sounding like he was fighting a powernap. "Quite the uh -- yes." He struggled to sit up. John didn't bother.
"You didn't have to, you know," he said, turning his head to look at Rodney's arms, bracing him upright.
"Well, I hardly see how that has anything to do with it," Rodney said briskly. "It didn't count of course and thusly the possible repercussions -- "
"This one didn't count either?" John asked, raising an eyebrow and reaching out to poke Rodney in the ribs.
"Of course not," Rodney said, sounding at least a little appalled. "Aliens made us do it. I realize your access to SG-1's mission reports has been limited due to time and opportunity but surely -- "
"I read the mission reports," John interrupted. "I didn't see anything about 'aliens made us do it' and I'm sure I didn't see where 'aliens made them do it' was ever used as an excuse for SG-1 sneaking off for a team orgy or anything."
"Yes, well, I suppose your clearance doesn't include everything," Rodney said in what he probably thought was a mild tone but really was just smug. "It's standard operating procedure. Any and all sexual activity done in the name of escaping near-death or establishing good-will with an alien species is automatically exempt from the usual melodramatic declarations of love, heterosexuality, fidelity, etc., etc."
"But...you volunteered," John said stupidly. "It doesn't count if you volunteered! It was completely voluntary! That's what volunteered means!"
"Ah, I believe we're in agreement, then," Rodney said brightly, rolling out of bed and pulling on his pants.
"What?" John gave up on afterglow and hopped out of bed before realizing that he didn't have as far to hop as usual. "Ow." He pulled on his own boxers and trousers and pulled his shirt over his head.
"You said it doesn't count," Rodney pointed out, lacing up his shoes.
"I meant that your exemption doesn't -- why am I arguing with you?" he asked, because really, he should be jumping at the excuse to deny carnal sin with McKay.
"I ask myself that question every day," Rodney said archly and walked out of the tent.
As it turned out, Rodney really didn't have to. Teyla quietly informed John on the way back to the jumper that they could have bypassed the sex and just provided a gift for the most recent newborn.
John considered shooting Rodney but sex had always made him pretty mellow, and Rodney was busy explaining to Ford that if he'd spent more than three months with the SGC before joining the Atlantis expedition, he would have run into these situations all the time.
From the expression on Ford's face and the way he was nodding, John didn't think he'd be needing to have a discussion about the general interpretation of Public Law 103-160 with the Lieutenant -- no, John's bigger problem was getting Ford back in the field ever again.
The problem of coaxing Ford through the stargate took a backseat to a half dozen other emergencies over the next couple of days. John celebrated six consecutive hours of no explosions, flooding, unscheduled gate activations, or random alarms by sacking out on his rack with War and Peace.
He'd just gotten the book open and found his place when the door chimed. That just figured. He bit his lip and contemplated not answering, but he was never off-duty on Atlantis. With a deep sigh of regret, he put War and Peace aside and rolled off the bed. He crossed the room to the door and activated the door release.
It was Rodney.
"Do you uh, do you have half an hour or so?" he asked, twirling one hand to indicate -- John supposed -- the movement of a clock.
"Maybe," John said cautiously, and then Rodney finally looked him in the eye.
"Can I come in?"
"Yeah." John moved aside and let Rodney into the room. The second the door closed, Rodney's mouth opened.
"As I'm sure you've noticed, circumstances have conspired -- " Rodney closed his mouth and brushed past John to stand by the bed.
John raised his eyebrows and pulled his shirt over his head.
"Yes, exactly," Rodney said, looking only a little surprised. John took a few steps forward and leaned in to kiss Rodney, but found himself held back by Rodney's hands on his shoulders. "I think you should sit down," Rodney said.
John sat down.
Then he did a double take, as Rodney took the pillow from the bed, dropped it on the floor, and went to his knees.
"It might be worth noting," Rodney said, his hands deftly unfastening John's pants and sliding inside, "that while I have no actual practical experience in this field, I was considered the world's foremost expert on wormhole physics before I ever had access to an actual stargate, so odds are fairly good that I'll be able to adapt quickly and proficiently to this as well." And then he pushed John's shorts down and took John's dick in his mouth.
"Whoa," John said, his hips twitching upward.
"Oops," Rodney said, coughing and backing up again. "That wasn't quite what I expected."
"Sorry," John said, his voice lost halfway between a growl and a pant. "Go slower this time." He pushed his pants and boxers lower and made himself comfortable, leaning back on his elbows.
Rodney nodded and leaned forward, hesitating a little before he licked the skin on John's cock and then slipped his mouth over the head.
"Okay," John said, curling his chin to his chest so he could see what Rodney was doing. "Go ahead and suck a little. You can use your hand if you want." He felt a slight pull and tension on the skin as Rodney followed his directions and then the warm pressure of Rodney's palm on his balls. Rodney also never forgot anything he'd learned, John realized, remembering that same touch in the shower. "Take a little more," he suggested, trying not to sound too eager. Rodney's tongue was doing some fantastic things to the head of his cock but…just the head. Rodney slid his hand up, pressing his fingers around the shaft and braced himself on John's hip with his free hand.
John tensed and relaxed the muscles in his hips and rear, making a conscious effort not to move too much while Rodney was experimenting with depth and pressure.
"Mm!" Rodney said, his eyebrows lifting in surprise. John wasn't sure what brought that on, but Rodney's exploratory motions suddenly turned enthusiastic and John pushed himself vertical on both hands.
"You've got a hang of it," he said, suddenly finding himself short on breath. Rodney was getting himself into a rhythm between his mouth and his hand. John groaned a little as Rodney hummed pleasantly and reached out to feather his fingers in Rodney's hair. "That feels good," he said huskily, fine tremors chasing down his thighs and tickling the hair on his stomach.
Rodney made a sound that managed to be both pleased and smug without the benefit of actual words and John smiled. Then Rodney did something fantastic with his tongue and John almost couldn't suppress the thrust it provoked. He felt the familiar heat pooling between his legs and drawing up hard. "I'm going to come," he warned, sliding his thumb down to Rodney's jaw, ready to take over with his hand if Rodney drew off.
But Rodney just waved one hand, thumb and index finger touching in the "okay" sign, over his head, and sucked a little harder. He let his hand drop to join the other one and John dropped his head down, groaning with laughter and release. His orgasm was a firm, long rush of sensation spreading from his center to all his extremities and he let his elbows take his weight as he fell backward.
Rodney let go a second before John was really really ready and swallowed one more time, just air, to clear his mouth, John suspected, and turned glassy eyes up to John's face.
"Well?" he demanded.
"A-plus," John told him, kicking his feet back up to the bed and lifting his hips enough to pull his pants and boxers down and off. "You're an exemplary student. Take your pants off and come up here."
Rodney struggled out of his shirt first, tossing it somewhere over his head, and then kicked off his shoes. John watched as he worked off the pants and shorts. He was hard and flushed and when he hopped onto the bed, John rolled to his side and closed his hand over Rodney's dick. Rodney gasped and John didn't even do anything fancy -- just a couple of strokes and Rodney was pushing his own hips up and coming over the back of John's hand.
"Okay," he said, eyes still closed as John brought his hand to his mouth and sucked it clean. "That was pretty fantastic."
And he was out like a light.
John reached over, rubbed his thumb over Rodney's mouth, and wondered what the hell they were doing.
When John opened his eyes again, Rodney was looking for his clothes.
"So why didn't it count this time?" he asked, sitting up with some effort. "Your shirt's on the desk."
"I was merely, ah -- " Rodney cleared his throat. "We're even now. For that time before that time with the, you know, aliens."
"The time before you volunteered us to do it for the aliens?" John asked, lifting one eyebrow. "You mean because I gave you a blowjob in the shower?"
"A blowjob that didn't count because you were overcome with heat. And humidity," Rodney said quickly.
"If it didn't count, why do you need to make it even?" John asked reasonably.
Rodney stared at him.
"Yeah, okay, good point," John said quickly, because obviously a blowjob that didn't count was vastly superior to no blowjob at all. "Well…thank you. I'm glad we're even."
"Most people find it rather difficult to argue with a genius," Rodney agreed, and sat down to tie his shoes.
They had been even for a week when John traded Grodin for a bottle of Jim Beam and went to Rodney's room.
"So here's the thing," he said when Rodney opened the door, walking by him, straight into Rodney's quarters and setting the bottle on the desk. "I'm pretty sure our tolerance is shot all to hell. I mean we've been here how long? And had exactly one drink since stepping through the gate?"
"Apparently you are not on the very long list of people who know about the still on the lowest level," Rodney said dryly. "And also, you seem to be discounting that very potent grog on M7R - something."
"My point," John said, ignoring Rodney even though he did know about the still and was purposely turning a blind eye and the grog was foul and barely made him tipsy, "is that it's only going to take us a shot or two to get skunked and everyone knows that nothing you do when you're drunk -- " He stepped into Rodney's personal space and pitched his voice low. "Ever. Counts."
"I think it'll take more than -- " Rodney started and then his brain -- that one -- kicked into gear and his eyes widened comically. "I'll get the glasses," he said.
John worked the bottle open as Rodney dumped the dregs of two coffee mugs into a dead Ancient plant. He rinsed out both cups, but John could still smell coffee when he splashed whiskey into the metal mugs.
"What are we toasting to?" he asked as they lifted the cups.
Rodney opened his mouth and closed it again, and finally said, "To things that never happened."
"To things that never happened," John agreed, clearing his throat of an odd catch. They clinked mugs and tossed back the whiskey. John felt it burn down his throat to his stomach and straight into his groin. His dick had just been waiting for an invitation and that seemed to be it.
"Maybe we should do two," Rodney said, but when John glanced over at him, his face was flushed and his eyes were bright. "Just for good measure."
John poured a second slug, his hands hurried and clumsy, and they banged the mugs together a little breathlessly before downing the drink. Burning on adrenaline, alcohol, and testosterone, he set the mug carelessly on the table and reached for Rodney with both hands. Rodney was right there, just as pushy, just as grabby, just as hungry. They ground against each other, mouths meeting, desperate and sure. Rodney's hands tugged John's shirt over his head and they had to stop kissing long enough for him to get it off. John stripped off Rodney's shirt, and they tumbled down together on Rodney's bed, pants open and hands reaching.
"Okay, okay, hold up," Rodney panted. He slid off the bed and shoved his pants and boxers to the floor. Rodney wobbled a little getting out of his boots and socks but he didn't fall down and then he crawled up the bed and straddled John's legs. He tugged on John's waistband in what John hazily decided was the sexiest move ever. John lifted his hips and let Rodney draw the rest of his clothes down in the same jumbled heap. The cooler air of the room hit his already hard dick and made him shiver. Rodney's warm mouth took care of the chill and right when he'd gotten a good rhythm going with the sucking, he made it even better by stroking one curiously slick finger back behind John's balls.
"Yeah, Rodney," John groaned, bringing his feet up on the bed and letting his knees fall apart.
Rodney made a pleased little humming noise that felt fantastic around John's cock and then he stroked further back, searching out John's opening and skating his finger around the edge.
"Geez, Rodney," John grated out. "Would you just -- ?"
"Hm. Oh." And then Rodney was sinking his finger in, all the way until John could feel the rest of his hand tucked up against the bottom curve of John's ass.
John rocked his hips, riding high on the feel of Rodney everywhere. "Use two," he said suddenly, not full enough and unable to resist just that little bit more before he came. They were getting into stuff he didn't get from those desperate comfort encounters with guys who had almost turned into flaming balls of wreckage with him or women who wanted to pet him and make him better. This was stuff he did before any of that, stuff he hadn't realized he'd missed.
Rodney obliged eagerly, hands going elsewhere but his mouth inexorable on John's cock, and then he was touching John again, one hand holding his sac out of the way and two fingers fitting snugly inside.
"Rodney," John said, voice choking high in his throat. Rodney nodded, inadvertently banging the head of John's cock against his soft palate. John groaned and came in Rodney's mouth, tremors shuddering through all his limbs. Rodney pulled his fingers out a little too quickly -- John was going to have to teach him to slow down -- but at the moment, John was too boneless and satisfied to be discomfited by it.
The first thing he realized when he opened his eyes was that Rodney was jerking himself off. "Hey, let me do that," he said, rolling to his side and reaching for Rodney's wrist.
"I just -- " Rodney started, letting John pull his hand away and take Rodney's cock in his mouth. "Oh, wow, yeah. It was just that watching you, and feeling you, it was really hot and -- "
"I know," John said, pulling off Rodney's cock just enough to talk. He used his tongue to trace gate glyphs on the sensitive skin and stroked two damp fingers behind Rodney's balls. Rodney jerked at the touch, thrusting up against John's cheek. "Hey," he said, moving his fingers back, between the curves of Rodney's ass. "You want to know what it feels like?"
Rodney lifted his head. "I've been doing some experimenting on my own," he said. "Might as well be prepared, eh? So no need to be shy. I uh, I know what it feels like, but not what it feels like when you do it."
A hot weight dropped low in John's stomach and it would have meant an instant erection if he hadn't just come spectacularly in Rodney's mouth. He really had nothing to say to that so he dropped his mouth down over Rodney's dick, taking him in deep, and pushed one finger up. Rodney was dry and tight and hot inside, but John's finger slid in easily enough. It only took a moment to find the raised bump and then Rodney was coming in his mouth instantly and without warning.
"Oh, oh, wow," Rodney said as John swallowed and stroked his finger out and flopped over to the side. "That was, now I see why men are gay. I mean, not that what we've been doing hasn't been reason enough, but yeah, that would totally have done it years ago if you know what I mean."
John had no fucking clue what he meant, but he wasn't going to say so. Instead, he ran his fingers through Rodney's sweaty hair and kissed him on the mouth. The bonelessness hadn't gone away with blowing Rodney and John was more than ready to crash.
"Ah. Um. Maj -- John?" Rodney asked.
"I know," John murmured sleepily. "It doesn't count because we were drunk. I planned this one, r'member? Now shut up and go to sleep."
And against all odds, Rodney did.
(Part Two)