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The party is being held at the most cavernous banquet hall in all of Atlantis, but still it's insufferably stuffy inside. Rodney is flushed and his collar is itchy against his throat, even well after the starchiness has been lost to the damp of his sweat and and he’s popped the top-most button so he can breathe better. Rodney loathes dressing up possibly as much as he loathes the stifled military celebrations he’d been forced to attend ever since they reestablished contact with Earth and propriety poked its way back through the gate. He was white knuckling his way through this event before John disappeared— but now it’s unbearable.
At first Rodney assumes John wandered to the bar to refill his drink, but then he never resurfaces, and no amount of frantically panning the room to try and catch sight of his stupid hair proves effective. And what’s worse is that Katie keeps suggesting they “take a walk” together and tugging at his sleeve, which is not helping with the whole being too hot and feeling faint business, so. Rodney manages to steal away under the guise of using the bathroom so that he can locate John and ream him a new one for abandoning him there with three Botanists and Caldwell, who is apparently a huge succulent aficionado? Who knew. Not Rodney. If he hears one more word about cacti he's going to explode.
After a rushed lap around the room and an even more rushed glass of champagne he pilfers off a platter, Rodney finally finds John outside. He’s gazing out across the black flicker of the sea, shoulders hunched, elbows braced against the railing. And John, of course, looks good in his dress blues. Not perfect, as the formality makes his messy hair look even messier than it usually is by contrast, tousled by the salty night breeze so that he seems like he’s unraveling ever so slightly. But still…in a nice way. Rodney forces himself to loosen his grip on the empty champagne glass a little lest he shatter it, cut his hand, do something stupid. “There you are,” he says instead, not even bothering to keep the irritation out of his voice. “What are you doing out here? They were just about to bring out the good hors d’oeuvres, none of that rabbit food crudités crap. I saw crab cakes, and those stuffed mushroom caps, and, um, deviled eggs,” he explains, gesturing loosely and nervously even though John isn't even looking at him, not anymore. There was a brief moment when his eyes slid over, but then they vaulted back to the ocean, like there was something more interesting than Rodney out there on the horizon.
“You noticed I was gone?” John says then, raising an eyebrow, squinting, frowning, so fucking mysterious and debonair Rodney could scream.
“Well,” he sighs. “you see, there was someone actively trying to undermine every one of the compliments I carefully planned, ahead of time, to use on Katie, and then very suddenly, there wasn’t. So yes, I happened to notice your absence.”
John’s expression twists into something wry. “How’s that going?” he mumbles.
“What? How’s what going? The compliments? Let’s see, I’m out here with you so, clearly not very good,” Rodney snaps, although he is feeling substantially less dizzy and claustrophobic now that he’s beneath the splay of stars, breathing fresh, briney air. But John does not need to know that part.
“I just meant. Doctor Brown in general,” John explains, though it is not much of an explanation.
Rodney bristles, suddenly defensive. “Fine. Very good. Better when there's no meddlesome third parties and it’s just her and I,” he lies. The truth is, he sort of panics when he's alone with Katie. He’s better with people to riff off of, people to act as a buffer so that she doesn’t like—pounce. He’s not ready to be pounced upon. He wouldn't know what to do if she did. The least awkward kiss they shared, Cadman manned, (womaned?) which does not make him feel very good about himself to recall.
“Hm,” John says, shifting his weight, studying Rodney for a few seconds before his gaze shifts back out to sea. “Why are you out here, then?”
“Because! I’m a kind person and an excellent friend and I didn’t want you to miss the good hors d’oeuvres!” Rodney explains, though he's a generally unkind person and a pretty bad friend and they both know it. It’s just—he doesn’t want to tell the truth, doesn’t want to admit to how uncomfortable he is around his own fucking girlfriend without John as a buffer. A deliberately annoying buffer.
Because god—John is literally the world’s worst wingman. He is always trying to make Rodney look bad in front of Katie, or prevent him from going on dates with her, or inviting himself to the dates and monopolizing the conversation the whole time, so if she leaves the mess hall feeling charmed it’s not Rodney’s charm doing it. But this fate is somehow preferable Rodney making himself look bad, so. He lets it happen. He might even be secretly relieved to have John to blame his date-related shortcomings on.
John is looking at him again, brows drawn tight and eyes narrowed, like he’s trying to suss out a lie. Rodney’s best defense is offense, he thinks, he’s heard John say this tactic is good in dating and football but not always good in black OPS, and has thus internalized it, so without thinking he grips the ice-cold balustrade and blurts, “Ok, ok. Can I ask you something?”
“Shoot,” John says with a shrug, chewing the inside of his cheek.
“Why do you do that!?” Rodney asks, throat tight, suddenly dizzy as wind whips past them. It smells like John himself rather than hair gel and cologne, and Rodney clenches his jaw as he stares down at the white foam line of the surf crashing against the city, trying to get his bearings. That champagne he chugged is catching up to him, making his head fuzzy, his stomach hot as it roils.
“Do what?” John fires back, like he doesn’t know.
“Why do you—ok, normally I wouldn’t give you the satisfaction of actually telling you this, since it will inevitably go to your big head—”
“My big head!” John interrupts, and Rodney peels away from the railing to take a step back because this is—this is the sort of thing you say to your friend when you are not standing close enough to his body you can feel the waves of heat coming from it.
“Shut up! Just. You could have any girl at this party,” he chokes out, and that shuts John up, his eyes flashing dark and startled as he flinches. “Yeah, I told you I didn’t want to say it, you asshole, but. I just want to know why you insist on being my competition. I mean you could steal Dr. Brown out from under me in a heartbeat, you know that, I know that,” he rambles, extending his hand to rotate it rapidly out in the space between them, like he is trying to usher himself out, make the words come faster, clearer, something. His wrist looks like a pale, broken thing, and they both stare at it. “Why do you decide to be interested only in the women I date?”
It stays suspended in the air between them, too heavy, too real.
“Wow,” is all John can manage to say.
“Ok, whatever! I’ve had some champagne! Pardon my ineloquence, I just don’t understand why you could have your pick of women and you still, always go for the girls I'm going for. And then never actually do anything about it,” Rodney finishes, wincing, because he did not stick that landing. The whole question was a wreck, actually, and he knows he’s going to have to repeat himself, tie up lose ends, double down or pedal back or—
John laughs. Like an honest to god, snorting explosion of it. “Is that what you think I’m doing!?” he asks.
“Well yes!” Rodney snaps, because obviously that’s what John is doing. “What else could it be?! It’s a pattern, you’re not subtle, every single time I flirt with a girl or express the slightest amount of interest you swoop in and interfere even if you weren’t interested before. Remember, on that Volcano planet? You always do this! Because. Well, I don’t know! That’s why I’m asking, but I suspect it’s because you cannot stand the idea of losing to me, or not being the best, most adored man in the room or whatever.”
John shakes his head, still shaking, though his laughter has mostly deteriorated into choked wheezing, his eyes dark in the night. “You’re so smart,” he says then, quietly, almost to himself. “Why are you do stupid about this one thing?”
Rodney sucks in a breath, skin prickling as he jabs an accusatory finger in John’s direction. “Wait excuse me? You think I’m being stupid? Explain how I’m being stupid.”
John closes his eyes, scrubs a hand over his face, fucks up his hair even more. “Never mind, Rodney,” he says, something creeping into his voice and filling the words with breath so they come out as nothing more than exhausted sounding huffs. “Let’s go in. Get some of those deviled eggs. You can hook me up with the champagne, I want to feel half as crazy and loose-lipped as you are tonight.”
And then John’s grabbing Rodney’s shoulder and steering him towards the doors and back to the party, and no amount of begging or pleading or pestering (or champagne) gets him to clarify what in the hell he thought Rodney was being stupid about.
“Drop it,” he says firmly, more than once, fingers hooked into the space between the buttons on Rodney’s oxford, knuckles brushing against the undershirt below.
“Fine,” he concedes, eventually, leaning away because drunk John is scary, and intense, and touches him more than he is used to being touched. But Rodney is a scientist, so it is only a bluff. He mentally dog-ears the page, and vows to come back to it later.
—-
Soon, Rodney realizes the issue bothers him too much to get an objective read on. He draws blank after resentful blank every time he wracks his brain for explanations, and always ends up deciding John was just lying to him, throwing a curve ball so he didn’t have to own up to his childish habits.
But then, in moments, it still prickles beneath Rodney’s skin: the way John’s voice got quiet, the way his eyes went dark, reflecting back the sea, the stars. And then the doubt comes for his throat, every time. There is something John knows and he doesn’t. Something he needs to figure it out.
Naturally, Rodney goes about it by conducting some experiments. The behavior is very consistent where Katie is concerned, but he tests it a few more times anyway, just to gather data. And sure enough, John is weird about it every chance he gets. Butting his head in. scheduling impromptu team meetings so Rodney has to cancel dates. Sitting down at the mess hall between him and Katie and stealing fries of Rodney’s plate, chewing noisily until Katie eventually makes an awkward, hasty excuse and leaves.
Rodney is certain John doesn’t actually want Katie Brown for himself, is the thing. He just doesn’t want Rodney to have her. He is also certain the phenomenon extends to other women as well, so he broadens the experiment parameters, and decides to lay it on thick one day a visiting astrophysicist team from Earth is touring their facilities. John is busy lurking around the lab how he often does, sucking on one of those Carmel apple pops because ever since they were able to dial back home he always requests a giant, halloween-candy sized bag of them alongside his new release DVDs and NFL team rosters.
There’s one scientist—she’s young, no more than 30, sort of pear-shaped and pimply with beady eyes magnified by her coke bottle thick glasses, and Rodney knows right away she’ll be easy enough to flirt with. He’s never had much luck with the sort of women he finds attractive, but there were always one or two girls just like this who hung on his every word back in college, and he remembers what it felt like to dazzle them and soak up the attention. So, he compliments her, tells her how smart she is, even throws in a few winning smiles for good measure.
She’s blushing and giggling shortly after, and it works like a homing beacon. John appears seconds later, armed with winning smiles of his own, and Rodney cannot help the triumphant feeling that rears up in his throat, choking him. He knew it—knew that would work, knew John would swoop in like a shark drawn in by the metallic tang of blood freshly spilled into seawater. He knew John would suck up to this girl he wouldn’t have even noticed if Rodney hadn't noticed her (or fake-noticed her) first. He is so insanely predictable.
After the girl asks Rodney if he’d like to get dinner, but he brusquely declines, sidling away from her to present John with his findings. Maybe he’ll explain himself now that Rodney has data.
He finds him outside again, pouting, because it must be difficult to fancy yourself a Casanova and not even be able to get one dumpy astrophysicist to fall for your games. He jabs a finger into the back of John’s arm, where his tricep is drawn tight, golden against the black of his shirt. “You did it again,” he declares triumphantly.
John rounds on him, reflexively rubbing at the spot he just poked. “What, tried to steal your girl?” he bites out, head cocked. “Promise that’s not it, Rodney."
"Then tell me what it is?"
He frowns. "You don’t want to know.”
"Yes, I do," Rodney insists.
"You don't. Or maybe you know already, deep down, and you're just trying to prove an existing thesis so you have a reason to be a dick."
"I am not being a dick! You're the one flirting with my girlfriend and my scientist!"
"McKay, I am warning you." John's gaze darkens, he pulls himself up to his full height and uses some seldom called upon secret military vibe to show he means business—mortifyingly, it works, and Rodney shrinks away.
“Ok, ok,” Rodney he says, stomach twisting because—well—he’s the one with carefully documented evidence, he’s the one supposed to call John on his bullshit. But instead John’s eyes are flaring, a strange sort of desperation coursing across his features that Rodney has only witnessed before in dire, dangerous circumstances. “But if you want me to stop digging, maybe you should stop.”
John narrows his eyes, head ever tilting as he looks at Rodney hard, face dangerously close. Close enough Rodney can see the razor burn on his jaw line, sweet smell the caramel apple pop on his breath as he grits out, “Stop what? What do I do?”
Rodney backs away, confused, stomach suddenly dissolving into hot burning knots the way it always does with Sheppard looks at him this way: like he can’t understand why he has to say more, because he thinks Rodney should just get it—whatever it is— already. But he doesn’t get it. There is nothing but darkness, and perhaps there’s a match he could strike in his pocket to illuminate it all, but he’s afraid to reach for it, so instead he just swallows, eyes darting away as he mumbles, “You. Uh. You interrupt.”
“Yeah,” John says in a flat, matter of fact voice.
“Well what am I supposed to make of that!? If it’s not some weird macho competitive thing and it’s not that you actually give a shit about these girls liking you, what is it? If I—if I didn’t know better, I’d think it was some. I don’t know. Envious thing?” Rodney blurts, because he knows about envy, he knows what it’s like to be socially awkward and average looking at best, he knows what it’s like to feel hidden in the shadows of the John Sheppards of the world, second best to the men who are effortlessly handsome and charming and good at this sort of thing.
Which is why he’s sure John himself can’t possibly be feeling that—but his eyes flash so suddenly, the corner of his mouth twitching at the word envious, something almost wounded presenting itself before it's replaced with hard black again.But Rodney saw it. He saw John stripped bare for a moment. Not the shark, but the single, vulnerable twist of shed blood in the water, dissipated from rust to pink as it’s carried by high tide. The match burns a hole in his pocket.
“You’re…jealous?” Rodney tries, the word feeling strange and impossible on his tongue. “Of me,” he adds for good measure, a failsafe, a way out. “Because I’m. Well, I’m fantastic, obviously, I’m smart and beautiful women like me, and you, for reasons unclear to me, are threatened by that even though… beautiful women like you, too.” It's riddled in flat out lies, he knows it. But still, it's what comes out.
John chokes out a humorless laugh, backs away, the tension draining out of his body as he rolls his eyes and stares up at the sky above them. Clouds are eclipsing the formerly sunny blue, replacing it with sugar-spun grey, soft like laundry lint. “Right,” he says, shaking his head. “I’m jealous of you. God. You are something else, Mckay.”
And the nonchalance, the dismissal—it’s too much to take. Rodney stops fighting the darkness, lets it swirl around him, and in it he stands, consumed by muddy half-realizations: John is jealous. John is not jealous of him, though. And by process of elimination, that means…that means he must be jealous of the women. Of Katie Brown.
Rodney’s scalp prickles, blood roaring in his ears. John was right: he knew this, already, in some deep-buried layer of his psyche. But he didn’t want to look at it. He wished so badly there was some other explanation, so much so he wrote up a whole proof, but of course, John didn’t follow the script. John never follows the script. He's insubordinate every chance he gets. “Why?” he asks then, staring at John, who stares right back.
He’s not angry anymore. There’s nothing but a resigned sadness in his eyes now, old and long-suffering. A chronic pain rather than an injury, and it hurts Rodney to behold, because that—that’s heartbreak, and just like that, a new proof solidifies from the evidence. “Oh,” he says, shocked.
“Yeah,” John says, gripping the railing, knuckles bloodless, elbows locked. “Told you you didn’t want to know.”
“But. How?” Rodney chokes out over the peal of his own ringing ears, which is a ridiculous thing to say because it makes no sense and only scrapes the very surface of what he still doesn’t understand, but he can’t put words to all the rest of it. He can’t spill that much blood into the sea, too many sharks will come and he's sort of afraid of sharks. “Wait—you’re telling me you, John Sheppard, are—”
“Don’t!” John cuts him off, pointing at him like he's a naughty dog. “Don’t make me say it.”
And it comes out so raw Rodney holds his own hands up in surrender, backs away, eyes climbing all over John and every plane of his body, every line in his face, as if he’s seeing him for the first time. He waits for him to say, wow, joking, really got you there, but he doesn't. His mouth looks soft. Soft and caramel sweet, impossible, out of bounds, the sort of thing men don’t let themselves notice about other men unless they are making a comparison, but of course, John didn’t follow the script. John never follows the script. “Sheppard, I can’t,” he says then, because it’s true, he can’t. It’s true the way the laws of thermodynamics are true: indisputable, unchanging. “I don’t. I’m not—”
“I know you're not,” John says, pleading. “I know. I don’t expect anything. I was never even gonna fucking tell you but you went digging and digging and chasing me out onto every fucking balcony in this city and—I’m not. I would never try anything. You gotta believe that.”
Rodney nods, mechanically, frozen in place and uncharacteristically quiet and weirdly, inexplicably, disappointed. “I didn’t think. I wasn’t worried about that,” he mumbles, voice high and faint and seeming faraway, even to himself. “You weren’t going to tell me?” he adds then, wondering how long, god, what all has he thought about—what do men even—how do they—
“I didn’t want to lose you,” he says, more blood, more sharks. “As a friend, I mean. Like this— it doesn’t have to change anything,” John insists although everything has already changed. He shrugs, shoulders bunched tight and defensive for a second before he lets them slump in defeat. “We can just. Pretend it’s not there. I dunno. Just. Don't ask to transfer teams, you’re a an important part—”
“No, no, I wouldn’t, I don’t want that! I—Um. pretending it’s not there sounds good,” Rodney decides on, because he wants to forget it all, he wants the darkness back, he wants to have never wondered about this so much he forced himself to find out. Curiosity killing the cat, lesson learned, why does he always do this.
John nods, gaze flicking to the ground, the sea, and back to Rodney again, resolute and hard-edged. Rodney is used to the guarded version of John, he can deal with that. “Ok,” he says. And then, voice clipped, he adds, “I’m sorry, by the way.”
“Yeah,” Rodney mumbles, shaking his head. “Um. Me too.”
—
Unfortunately, now that the cat curiosity killed is out of the bag, Rodney can't force its corpse back in. It just sits there, in his mind, stinking. There are flies everywhere. He is so annoyed. All he can think about is the fact that John has systematically and intentionally ruined all his dates, ever, because he…what? Loves Rodney? Wants him? Rodney has never been loved or wanted in his whole life, and certainly not by someone who knows him even a fraction as well John does. The fact John is a man (gay man?! How did that happen? Rodney has questions) seems secondary, somehow, to the fact that John is also 1. really hot 2. under no illusions about Rodney's personality and or shortcomings. It's heady stuff, really. To be (maybe) loved and wanted by one's really hot best friend (who, incidentally, is a man).
He keeps going back to the stuff John said— I won't try anything followed by the horrible surge in his own chest of wait no please try something, I only said I can't to appease the dead cat in my brain, I didn't mean it. Rodney tries hard to convince himself he didn't really want John to act on it, but deep down he knows he did. His resistance was not born from a true desire to not do—stuff—with John, it was born from the unshakable certainty he simply couldn't, because John was off limits, and not gay, and…John. Even now, after he saw that raw horrible hurt in his eyes and knew he wasn't lying, Rodney keeps replaying their conversation, convincing himself he misunderstood what John said (or didn't say) and that if he brings it up again, admits he'd like to reconsider his initial protests, he'll make a fucking fool of himself because he's still missing some massive integral component to what motivated John's behavior and that he only imagined John loves him and wants him because secretly, all this time, he loved and wanted John.
All in all, it's too risky to bring up. So he does his best to honor their agreement. John is pretty good at it—there's a few more fake smiles than usual and they're not spending as many nights gaming together (agony) but for the most part he's behaving in a recognizably Sheppardy Fashion. Only Rodney is falling apart, apparently. Ruminating and thinking himself in caffeinated circles all night long.
After all, John didn't exactly say, "I love you, I want you." He didn't say anything at all. He sort of strategically didn't say things and Rodney filled in the blanks. The more time that passes, the more certain (and horrified) Rodney is that he filled in the blanks in a weird, gay, embarrassing, hopeful way, and John didn't mean for him to interpret his jealousy in that manner like, at all. It's really hard to know for sure, when they agreed to Pretend it Never Happened.
It occurs to Rodney he should bring up that he would like to addend the agreement, but John is making it really hard by quietly avoiding ever being alone with Rodney. It's crazy—Rodney didn't really realize how much time they spent alone together until it stops happening. He also didn't realize how much he enjoyed said alone time with John. He doesn't consciously alter his behavior around Ronon and Teyla, but he does annoy them (and they annoy him, actually!) to such an extent there's often a layer of subtle restraint to their interactions after enough time has passed, where John endlessly tolerates him. He's very aware of the fact that since their little conversation, he hasn't gotten to settle into the idle pleasure of being endlessly tolerated. And well. He misses it. He misses John, even though he still sees him all the time.
Things reach an unendurable climax when Rodney's next scheduled date (dinner, then a moonlit walk around the city) with Katie Brown, comes and goes without John showing up or having anything to say about it except a half hearted "have fun." It's only after several hours have transpired following the meal and Rodney's feet hurt from walking around in his Date Shoes so long and Katie's head (which smells dizzyingly like floral shampoo, he really needs to tell her that the fragrance gives him a migraine) has drifted to his shoulder hopefully and she keeps nuzzling him and they keep making circles because it's clear she wants him to kiss her but he doesn't want to that he realizes, with a sudden and terrible clarity, he was only looking forward to this date because he was positive John would intervene. The date wasn't about Katie, it was about John—it was bait more than a date, it was a torch intended to draw a very specific moth and oh my god…Rodney is a fucking terrible, terrible boyfriend and should probably be formally banned from interacting with women entirely.
"Katie," he announces with newfound resolve, disentangling from her, heart pounding in his throat. "I—I'm really, really sorry, but this isn't going to work."
Her mouth purses, twists in dissapoint ment as a salty breeze carries her way too perfumed hair up in a pretty little flurry. Goddammit. Rodney winces, reminds himself that even if he's hurting her right now, this is kinder than what he's been doing. He should have ended things that very first date, when Cadman showed him what he was supposed to do, how he was supposed to act, and he had been simply unable to do it. "I don't understand," she says, hand flicking up uselessly to adjust the pendant of her necklace, like its crookedness is the reason Rodney is breaking up with her. "I thought we were having a nice time? "
"We were, we are—you're a really, really nice and beautiful woman I'm just. I'm not good with people, and…"and what? And I only kept seeing you because subconsciously I liked the way my best friend always ruined it? Because I wanted him there? Wanted to keep him jealous? Rodney swallows thickly. "You deserve a lot better," he settles on.
She doesn't cry, just makes a dry sound, a little laugh aborted in her throat. "My friends kept telling me that, you know."
"They did?" Rodney snaps before immediately schooling himself, "I mean, of course they did. They're right."
"I thought maybe…if I was patient enough you'd prove them wrong," she says, shrugging. "Guess I was a little too generous, huh?"
"A lot too generous," he admits, offering her the world's stiffest, most awkward hug. After a beat she returns it, migraine-scented hair soft against his cheek. "I'm sorry—I know it's a really awful cliche but, this has nothing to do with you. It's all me. My mistake. My bad people and uh, dating skills. Et cetera."
She pulls away, nodding. "I know," she says. "I've known awhile it was a lost cause, which means I guess it's partly my fault…I let it go on, even though I knew it wasn't working."
"And that was very ah—diplomatic of you," he grits out. "Even…charitable."
"It was mostly lazy," she says as they start to walk back, finally freed from their pointless, perpetual circles around the south dock. There's a metaphor somewhere in here, but Rodney is too suddenly exhausted to find it. He's just relieved to be getting off his feet, soon, getting out of his stupid date shoes, and away from the chill outside. "Dating is hard anywhere, Rodney. But especially somewhere like Atlantis. You kept calling me, so I kept giving you another shot…seemed easier than putting myself out there all over again."
"Oh. Well—like I said, you're very nice, and pretty, I'm sure you'll have no issues returning to the field, as they say," he manages. "Though a bit of friendly advice, co-worker to co-worker now that we're no longer beating the dead dating horse: you might want to try a shampoo with slightly less fragrance? It can be overwhelming, to say the least."
She pats his shoulder. "You really are bad with people," she says. Diplomatic. Charitable. Rodney thinks of John, and his endless tolerance.
—
Not jut his endless tolerance. But—other things, too. Nice and attractive things. Like that he never smells too cologney or intense, Rodney has never gotten a migraine from smelling his hair. And then there's his irritatingly perfect forearms. The way he slurs his words. The way he is perfect and all the girls like him even though apparently he doesn't even like girls. His worried expression, the tilt of his brows when he looks at Rodney to make sure he's eaten enough power bars or drank enough water on away missions on hot planets. The way he says his first name, often and almost as if it has an extra syllable, like he wants to keep it in his mouth as long as humanly possible. Stuff he's sort of stopped doing, since Rodney confronted him. Stuff Rodney really, really wants back. And then some. If that's on the table. He's not sure, yet—the dead curiosity cat is rather Schrodinger in nature: John loving him an untested hypothesis, based on a series of assumptions and yes, Rodney's ready to admit it now: hopes.
—
Rodney decides John can't run from alone time if he corners him in his bedroom in the middle of the night, so that's what he does. It seemed like a foolproof plan after 48 hours no sleep and an entire pot of nine PM black coffee, but in retrospect he should have thought better of it, because now he's got a fucking gun pulled on him, jammed right into his chest with his back against the wall and John all barefoot and tousel haired in front of him, smelling like just the right amount of deodorant and sleep. "Oh my God, it's me, what is your problem?" he keens, hands up in surrender.
John stares at him, blinking before his expression finally softens. "I was having a dream," he mumbles, letting Rodney go.
"A nice dream?" Rodney asks, trying to make things normal again, despite his pounding heart and sweaty temples, which he had even before John tried to kill him.
"No," John says, sitting on the side of the bed and shoving the gun back under his pillow. "A wraith dream."
"Oh," Rodney says. "Yeah, inopportune time to invite myself into your room while you were sleeping, then," he says. "My bad."
"Is everything ok?" John asks then, eyes flashing as he visibly reaches the (tragically incorrect) conclusion Rodney would only appear like this if there as an emergency. "The city—"
"Oh, everything's fine," Rodney interrupts quickly. "I—I well. This sounds crazy now, but I drank a bunch of coffee while I paced around my room imagining an, uh, hard conversation we need to have and somehow convinced myself now would be a good time to have it because, well, it hasn't escaped my scrutiny that you've been very craftily like. Avoiding me."
John covers his face with his hand and flops onto his mattress, which is too small for him. Rodney cannot help but think that the much superior mattress in his own quarters would better admit the stretch of John's lanky frame. "Rodney…I said pretend it never happened."
"Yes, well, you said that when I was freaking out," he says impatiently. "I'm not freaking out anymore."
John moves his hands so he can shoot Rodney a look. "Pacing around all night drinking coffee isn't what a not freaking out person does! No offense."
"Ok, fine, I'm not making a very good case for myself, whatever, but I promise, I am in my totally right and sane mind, " Rodney insists. "And it was necessary to get you alone because I'm here to ask for clarification, on our conversation, and um, your. Well. Feelings," he ends lamely, hating the semi-seedy way that word sounds coming from his mouth.
"Oh yeah? Chasing a guy down while he's sleeping to ask him about his feelings just screams sane mind," John snarks. "You keep cornering me about this, but it's not going to change, Rodney. I don't know what you want—"
"What I want is to know what you want!" he interjects, pointing triumphantly at John. "You never really said, before, and—I had a date, two nights ago, with Katie, and it went swimmingly because you weren't sabotaging me the whole time which made me realize I didn't even go on dates for them to go well, I went on them to—to—" then he dissolves into sputters while John stares at him, eyes dark and sort of terrified.
He sits up tall and stiff, narrows his gaze. "What are you trying to tell me, Rodney?"
And Rodney isn't sure, he's bad with people, he's bad with words, he just wants to know if the cat is dead or not and if John loves him and wants him or not and if he's crazy but his bloodstream is made of caffeine so before he manages to formulate an answer, he strides into John's space, grabs his face, and kisses him.
Part of him still thinks he's wrong about everything and that John is going to shove him off and call him one of the colorful names Rodney's college bullies spit before throwing dry erase markers at the back of his head, but instead, John goes sort of twitchy and slack under him, and his mouth opens. The kiss gets insanely wet and hungry and all Rodney can think about is how wildly easy and natural and good this is compared to all the times he kissed Katie (except for the time Cadman did it for him, oops). John's stubble is under his own palms and John's hands are big and warm and shifting up his shoulders, one behind his neck and their tongues are touching and somehow Rodney is on his knees, bracketing John in on his absurdly tiny bed and then it hits him, what's happening. Reality and an army of very alive very screaming cats catches up to him. He wrenches away to say, "Wait—I think—"
But John kisses him again, yanks him in by the neck of his shirt. "No, how about we don't wait and you don't think," he says, and his voice is all low and sexy in this way Rodney has never heard before but absolutely feels in a deep, formerly cobwebby place in his body as it suddenly goes up in flames.
"Erm,mpgh" he says into John's mouth, forcing himself to turn his head. "I came here to talk!" he tells the wall.
John palms up his side. "Yeah, but making out is way more fun." And he has a point so then they're kissing again. Rodney thought John would be a rough and demanding kisser, (only now is he realizing in order to have formed this assumption about how John kisses he must have imagined or at least wondered about kissing John), but in reality it's so soft. Careful and thorough and mind-melting. His stomach is taut and hairy under Rodney's fingertips and oh god that must mean he is touching John under his clothes.
"I need to know," Rodney says, skimming up to John's pectorals, over his ribs, grabbing him, digging his nails in, swallowing the little cut off groan that elicits. "If you love me and want me."
John snorts. "Aren't you a genius? Can't you use context clues?" he pleads.
"No!? I mean I'm a math genius, if you've somehow failed to notice I'm terrible at people, I need things spelled out for me quite literally or else I spiral."
"Hm. Thought you weren't spiraling," John rumbles, spreading his thighs so Rodney can slot more neatly between them and why didn't anyone tell him how much hotter it was to grind against someone who also had a dick that was also hard so there was no guessing games about whether or not they were aroused?
"There might have been some obsessive thought patterns ruling the last 48 hours," Rodney admits. "I feel closer to an answer than ever, though. You could put me out of my misery."
"Yes and yes," John says eventually, between hot, desperate drags of his mouth and Rodney supposes, yes, those are context clues, he could have gathered as much but wow is it nice to be told. "You happy?"
"Ecstatic," Rodney admits, the last syllable cut off with a kiss. And for once, he doesn't have much more to say.
—
Once it's all over and Rodney has been thoroughly sold on the superior merits of homosexual sex (low pressure, significantly less confusing, clear uncomplicated anatomy, the list goes on), all his efforts shift to staying firmly atop John's exceedingly narrow mattress. The only way it works is if John lies directly on top of him. He was about to put no pressure to cuddle on the list of Pros of Gay Sex, but then modifies it to actually pleasant cuddling, because this is awesome, even if it's hard to breathe. "Did you know," he broaches as he plays with John's truly absurd hair, "that you don't have to keep the teeny tiny regulation mattress in here?"
"I like to suffer," John jokes, voice muffled by Rodney's sternum.
"Well I don't," Rodney says as he wraps an especially unruly spike of brown around his index finger. "So I am submitting a redecoration request."
John smiles against his chest, eyes shut and sleepy and remarkably relaxed, for a face he so rarely sees slack. "On the subject of things we know or don't know…did you know, I am also bad at reading people and enjoy clarity?"
Rodney blinks, trying to figure out what the fuck John is asking until it hits him— that he stormed in here demanding answers, but hadn't offered any of his own in uncertain terms. "Oh—oh! I am so in love with you and into you and I'm sorry I made everything so awkward," he says in a rush, feeling himself color even though he's naked and white and doughy under John Sheppard and really, if that isn't embarrassing then none of the other stuff should be.
John hums, smiles wider. "Cool," he says then. "That's really nice."
"That's really nice?!" Rodney snorts. "Given all the women drooling over you, I really thought you'd be more of a romantic."
"Hey! I'm romantic," John says. "But more… obsessively fuck up all your dates than spout poetry romantic. Sorry."
Rodney grins at the ceiling—he, personally, could not be less sorry about John's particular brand of romance. "Safe to say I forgive you," he announces.
—
Three weeks later: John gets a bigger bed, and Cadman and Katie Brown announce they are dating, and Rodney isn't even jealous.