Spoilers: none specific, seasons one and two in general
Codes: McKay, Sheppard/McKay
Rating: NC-17
Summary: He's out of practice with dealing with John, and it shows.
Author Notes: I won't even try to say that this is anyone's fault but rageprufrock, with her weird, diseased prompts. Thanks to justabi for the beta and chopchica and svmadelyn for prereading.
by jenn
*Of course*, John chose Mexico.
It's the height of summer, something Rodney forgot about on Atlantis, where it's always vaguely spring and always warm and always *indoors*. His lab, his room, the mess hall, the gym, the masochistic part of him keeping up the weekly workouts with Teyla long after he'd left the field.
A stretch of golden beach leers at him from atop the dunes, the sun bright overhead, and a million miles of the Pacific dancing as far as the eye can see. Rodney swallows hard, shoving the sunglasses back on before beginning the long trek down, sand shifting unpredictably with every step; his body is too used to still, solid floors and flat, inoffensive rugs. Stumbling onto the relatively flat line of the shore, he spots the house from the shoreline, invisible from the road, pretty and sharp and blending into the landscape, set up from the ground on granite and solid concrete, carefully shielded from sight of the road. If you didn't know where to stop, Rodney thought, you'd never find it, and that was John to a T.
Fifty feet in, he trips security but keeps moving. It's not like he's trying to hide.
His boots keep sinking into the sand, a good argument for why he should have stopped in Colorado for longer than it took to pick up directions and make the next flight out.
It's beautiful, though, and it reminds him of the Atlantis mainland, the Athosian camp, long evenings of celebration when John would grin over Athosian beer and play in the surf like a kid, bright and playful and drunk as hell; afterward, he would sprawl on his back in the puddle jumper and sing drinking songs with his head in Teyla's lap, filthy and wet and grinning into the ceiling.
Rodney wishes, suddenly and impossibly, that he could have brought Teyla or Ronon with him; this feeling of exposure isn't comfortable, as a slim figure materializes in view like a ghost, leaning against the granite of the primary supports.
Rodney would know him anywhere, slouch and careless ease and messy dark hair, longer than Rodney remembers, catching in the wind and covering his eyes. He doesn't even fucking *turn* to look, and maybe that says more than anything else.
A few lines run through his head, but nothing useful, nothing like he'd rehearsed, long speeches about friendship and Atlantis and the city that still misses him and has never stopped, about Elizabeth and duty and all the ways their lives have changed, about three lost years and maybe he'd work in a please, and in his head, he always gets the same answer, he always gets yes.
He's only a few feet away when he stops, and the speeches are gone. John cocks his head, then pulls off the sunglasses, and it's like the last time they spoke, the first, or anywhere in between. No one does ironic distance like John Sheppard.
"Rodney." John pushes off the granite, bare feet balancing easily on treacherous sand, starting toward the path leading up to the house, still expecting Rodney to follow wherever he led. A lot has changed, Rodney thinks, a little resentfully, a little lightheaded with the shock of seeing, but not that.
"That's all I get?" He's sweaty and hot and tired, too many hours in a plane to cross two countries since the last time he slept, customs, *questions* he couldn't answer at the SGC and Elizabeth's hopeful eyes when he walked through the gate. It's like it's hitting him all at once, here and now, with the peace of the surf in his ears, sand in his boots, and this annoying man walking away like they're practically strangers when they're anything but.
John turns on a heel, walking backwards, and that smile, Christ, it's been too long. Rodney hadn't known he'd been in withdrawal, starving for that look, soaking it in like a flower in the sun. It's a shock to still be that vulnerable. "Yeah."
John's kitchen is the epitome of military clean, precise geometrically perfect lines of walls and cabinets and appliances, everything in its place--it's like his feet don't even carry dirt, making Rodney feel like a slob, sloughing sand and sweat and grass around him. John doesn't say anything, just a single ironic look at the no longer pristine floor.
Rodney strips off his uniform jacket, tossing it on a kitchen stool. "Wow. I feel so welcome."
"Could have called." John gets two beers from the fridge, padding barefoot to the table and hooking a stool with a narrow ankle, sitting down with another smile.
"You don't have a *phone*."
John nods agreeably and kicks out the stool across from him, sliding the beer across the table. "There is that."
John watches him the entire time, not unfriendly, but a far cry from best case scenario, and it's funny that Rodney had been the optimistic one in the end, arguing he could do this, he could talk to him, find him. He hadn't expected the tanned, familiar stranger in cut-off shorts and unbuttoned shirt, and that was stupid. The hair is bothering him. This weird need to find some scissors and cut it, try to bring back someone he knows.
"With that winning personality, you must get a lot of visitors," Rodney says snidely, then bites his tongue.
"As a matter of fact, I don't." John pushes the beer across the table. "You can save the speech. No, I'm not coming back. No, I could care less what's happened. Yes, this is all a product of my silent suffering. Yes, wallowing in misery. Whatever. You've salved your conscience, Rodney. You really, seriously, don't have to break something trying to be nice." One eyebrow raises, giving Rodney a critical once-over that makes him hideously aware of the creases in his uniform and how sweat and sand have, improbably, lodged in his underwear. John's the only person on earth who can make him this self-conscious. "You look a little tired."
"You think I have a conscience?"
John grins and takes a sip of beer. "Anything can happen in three years."
It's so *awkward*. John's doing it deliberately, and he's never been the kind to do that before. "Sheppard--"
John rolls his eyes. "Look, I'm sure this is a well-meaning gesture on your part, which would, true, be a first, but I'm extrapolating from available evidence. But seriously. You didn't have to come out all this way."
"If you had a *phone*--"
John waves that away, standing up. "Give my regards to everyone."
Oh hell no. Rodney stumbles to his feet, catching himself on the edge of the table before he topples. "You think that--that--" Wow. "You just--oh no. You so aren't pulling this shit. And you're going to--" What? He's too hot to make sense. Rubbing a hand across his forehead, it comes away gritty with sandy sweat "Wait. Wait. I need a shower. Where's your bathroom?"
John's smooth turn is checked, just for a second. "You're kidding."
"You have any idea of how many miles of Pacific coast match the description I got?" Rodney's head hurts thinking about it. "Shower. Dinner. Bed. In that order. And don't even *think* about throwing me out. I will--do something."
"Something?"
"I'm *tired*." He's out of practice with dealing with John, and it shows. "You want something better? I can do better. When I'm not *dying of sunstroke*. So if you would--"
John looks at him, a frown creasing his forehead. "You are a little pink." And it's almost a concession, or it's just John, being annoying. Rodney's not sure which. "Come on. I can't send you back in worse condition than I found you." Putting down the bottle, John grins, a little lopsided, pushing his hair from his eyes, and for a second, Rodney wants to smile back. "I have aloe vera somewhere."
John invested in the best showers ever, with multiple massage functions and fantastic water pressure and *oh God*, it's almost better than Atlantis, even if he has to control it manually. Rodney just stands under it for a full ten minutes, soaking it in, and only comes out when it occurs to him that this could be seen as stalling.
He still can't remember a word of his speech.
Wrapped in a towel, he kicks his uniform into the corner--no way in *hell* he's getting back into that right now--and creeps into the hall. Kitchen to the left. So right, then. He listens for John, but there's no sound but the surf, so Rodney feels comfortable sneaking down two doors until he gets to what has to be John's room, as painfully neat as the rest of the house, bed and desk, computer and dresser. Going through drawers of t-shirts and jeans there's no way in hell he can fit into, he finds sweats buried beneath a painfully familiar uniform. Rodney grabs the sweats and t-shirt and shuts the drawer before he becomes dangerously sentimental. John uses emotions like weapons, and Rodney can't afford to give him any more advantages than he already has.
When he comes back out into the kitchen, John's still not in evidence, but there's coffee, and Rodney feels perfectly justified hunting through the cabinets, finding bread and creamer and sugar, and Oreos and God above thank you, Cheetos. Taking his spoils to the table, Rodney makes himself comfortable and tries to remember what he was going to say.
Right. Like this.
You should come back. The military is full of assholes, and okay, right, you'll still have to work with them, but you know, this time around you'll be one of *us* and we'll tell you how we made all their showers into salt water repositories. We'll even show you where we keep the good coffee, not that instant shit from the mess hall, and scientists have the *best* parties. You really have no idea.
Elizabeth misses you. Halling asks us about you every time we visit the mainland. Teyla is teaching me stick fighting to keep herself in practice with incompetent people so she'll be ready when you come back. Quote, by the way.
Ronon gave me permission to just knock you out and drag you through. That's Plan B, by the way. And I have a Wraith stunner in my bag. Okay, I don't, but I could get one.
Zelenka cut off access to his moonshine. Well, not to everyone, but they don't know that. Did I mention the puddle jumpers are in need of someone who *won't* destroy them? And your old quarters are haunted. I think Atlantis is bitter.
Rodney stares sadly at the empty bag of Cheetos. He does his best thinking while eating.
He knows the city is bitter. He can't prove it, but he's had three years with controls that wait that infinitesimal extra second before responding, doors that open too slowly, and lights that come on with malice aforethought. Things that no number of ZPMs seem to fix, and of course he doesn't believe John's old quarters are haunted, but tell that to every person assigned to them, because no one's ever stayed a second night.
When John comes back in, he looks at the kitchen table with resignation and not a little amusement. "When did you last eat? Colorado Springs?"
"The plane. Meatloaf casserole. Somehow, when I stopped living on this planet, the food went downhill on flights."
John snorts, sitting down to fish out the last Oreo. "I see you found clothes." The dark hair hides his eyes, and Rodney finds it annoying. John doesn't need more shields from the world. He does just fine on his own.
Rodney finishes his coffee. "You're a sucky host. Also, you're out of milk."
John's mouth twitches. "I was going to go shopping, but someone tripped my alarms, so I had to handle that first. Do you want me to drive you back to town, or can I assume you can drive yourself?"
Rodney leans both elbows on the table. "Are you throwing me out?"
John tries, but he's not Rodney. He's just not that rude. Rodney can see the battle on his face, and there's so much to be said for being raised to be polite, because it just fucks you over forever and ever. "No, Rodney. How long were you planning on staying? Should I just buy out the grocery store?"
Rodney grins. He likes winning. "Maybe just half."
John is a good sport about getting Rodney's car onto the property and into the garage, watching bemused as Rodney gets out his luggage.
"You *are* going back, right?" John says as Rodney hands him the cases for two laptops and the largest of the four suitcases. "Right?" He suddenly sounds worried.
"It would serve you right if I said no." Rodney picks up two and kicks at John's unmoving legs. "Hurry. I have a lot of delicate equipment here that shouldn't be exposed to extreme temperatures."
John gives him a familiar, irritated look, then takes a patient breath. "Right. Why--"
"Unlike some people who have taken up the life of a beach bum and do nothing but work on perfect tans, I actually have *work* to do." Rodney follows John up the stairs. "Did you have to build so many stairs? And doesn't this area get hurricanes pretty regularly?"
"I have good insurance," John says, a little breathless. "And--wait. Are you *complaining* about your accommodations? Because I hear you have a great apartment in Colorado Springs--"
"Lease ran out five years ago," Rodney says breezily. "And it would be a lot harder to chat from Colorado if you don't have a phone, and by the way, what the hell is up with that? Oh God, you--you have *internet* don't you?" Otherwise, they'll be finding the closest equivalent to a hardware store and Rodney will be spending his night wiring the house. "Sheppard? Tell me you have internet. Tell me you did not retreat to prehistoric man levels. Tell me you are still *civilized*."
John snickers as they cross the kitchen. "I have internet. Guest room to the left." John steps back to let Rodney go first. "Hope it's up to your standards."
It's bigger than his quarters at Atlantis, all soft woods and bare walls and a single double bed, made with creepy hospital corners, all that rigid cleanliness John seems to have turned into a religious vocation, giving Rodney this need to make it *messy*. But the view is amazing, and Rodney drops his suitcase to walk to the wide glass doors that overlook the Pacific.
"Oh wow."
It's like the view from the mess hall in Atlantis, Rodney thinks, pushing open the door to walk outside on the balcony, taking in the smell of sand and salt.
"The balcony connects to my room. That is not permission to poke around, by the way," John says behind him, but he sounds more amused than anything else. "You want to get the rest of your stuff--"
"Could you?" Rodney asks, not turning around. "It's been a really long day, what with tramping down eight--*eight*--beaches looking for you and driving around and did I mention I flew straight from Colorado without stopping?"
Behind him, John's quiet for a second. "No, you didn't, because you never complain. You--rest there. In the sun."
Rodney leans on the balcony. "Thanks. And be careful! Delicate--"
"Equipment, extreme temperatures, yeah, got it." John's feet fade as he goes out, almost a stomp but not quite, because John was raised to be a polite host even to terrible guests. Childhood conditioning is a fantastic thing, Rodney thinks, looking down at the sand far below, the lapping waves, then back up at the ocean, stretched out before him like a clue.
He can do this, he thinks, walking back inside to check on his laptops. He just needs a little time.
Rodney finds a desk in the living room and badgers John into moving it, reverently setting it with a view to the ocean, and proceeds to make the room less terrifyingly bare. He's here to *stay* until this is resolved and by God, John had better just get used to it.
"You know," John says, watching Rodney connect his laptops. God thank you, wireless internet. "Somehow--and this is crazy--I completely forgot how high maintenance you are. Two weeks, right?"
"I'm due a lot of vacation," Rodney says easily. "I need a better desk chair. That little town--Quadera? Something?--has office supplies, right?"
John stares at him for a second, and that's so much better than the distance, even better than the cool amusement. "You want a chair?"
"Can I steal yours? It looked ergonomically--"
"You *can't* have my chair." John hovers in the doorway, looking irritated all over again. "Fine. I'll be back--"
"Oh no. Last time you left my sight, you left the galaxy for a two week vacation that suddenly turned into three years." Rodney shuts down and riffles through a suitcase for shoes. "God knows where you'll go this time. Ecuador? Just stand right there and wait."
"Rodney--"
Triumphantly, Rodney drags out a pair of worn cross-trainers that he uses during his workouts with Teyla. Sitting on the edge of the bed--and messing up the corner--Rodney pulls them on. "Besides, you have no idea what I like to eat. Or what kind of chair to get. I have a very delicate back."
"I'm surprised you didn't bring one with you."
Rodney stands up. "Weight limit on flights." Getting his wallet from his laptop case--and that still feels weird, he hasn't dealt in money for so long--he passes John in the hall, wondering what exactly a Mexican grocery store carries anyway. "Wait. Do they even *have* real food here?"
John's mouth snaps shut. "Yes. We're in *Mexico*, not a third world country."
Rodney wonders. "I mean *normal* food. I'm not going to be forced to eat, like, cactus or anything, right?"
John rolls his eyes, but at least he starts moving, fishing car keys from somewhere in the depths of his pockets. "There's a resort nearby, so there's an American grocery store in town."
"Because I get enough weird food in Atlantis." John's thinner than he remembers, but it's the same easy stroll, the same purely unconscious, liquid grace. He'd changed into jeans and another shirt at some point, but his hair isn't any less a mess, which makes Rodney wonder if there's a brush in the entire house. Maybe he should get John one, just in case.
The drive is about what Rodney might have expected, a lot like John in a puddlejumper, which is to say, far too fast and having too much fun for it to be safe, but John let down the top and for a second, Rodney can see his team leader in the easy way John drives, sunglasses reflecting the ocean and a smile curling up the corner of his mouth, and Rodney wonders when John last flew. They don't try to talk, the wind jerking away any attempts at conversation, but Rodney likes the quiet. It lets him watch, and he hadn't realized, really, how much he'd missed John, the smile and the crinkles around hazel eyes when he's happy, the long fingers wrapped around the steering wheel, the slump in the seat, all vividly familiar like it had been only days, not years.
He'd *missed* John, not just his team leader, not just their extra-special Atlantis key, missed everything, but missed this most of all, the friendly quiet that Rodney's never had with anyone else.
Something relaxes in him that's been tight for three long years. He can't imagine leaving it again.
It's not so much a grocery store as a really ambitious convenience store, and the clerk speaks no English at all. John's Spanish is pretty fluid, which argues he's been here a while, which reminds Rodney all over again of the fact that John Sheppard managed a disappearing act the likes of which even Houdini might have envied. He's tempted to ask, but John's perfectly capable of ignoring questions he doesn't want to answer. And there's *ice cream*, so Rodney adjusts his priorities and gets three gallons.
"Missed it?" John says with a smirk, picking out familiar fruit and vegetables and steering Rodney away from the dairy section with a push of his hip. "Grab some cheese, would you? And don't drool on the merchandise. It makes the clerk nervous."
Rodney frowns. "Daedalus never brings us anything good," he says, pulling two bags of potato chips to throw in the cart--Mexican label, but he figures that it can't be that different. "MREs, apples, oranges, canned tuna, you'd think they'd know by now--oh God, hot chocolate mix. This is the best place ever."
"Haven't you come back at all in the last three years?" John asks, looking surprised, and Rodney has an almost irresistible urge to slap him. Grabbing extra Cheetos, he tosses them in the cart while John very seriously studies the selection of ground beef.
"Coffee. We need--"
"I get my coffee somewhere else," John says absently. There's something surreal and kind of hot about John judging different sizes of ground meat and eyeing packages of chicken with an acquisitive eye. It's domestic, in that way that John's never been. Rodney watches him frown over quarters as opposed to breasts and read prices like someone who goes shopping every week.
Rodney can't even *remember* the last time he went shopping for anything.
"What?" John says, and Rodney shakes himself, getting the package of chicken John had been eyeing and dropping it in the cart.
"Starvation setting in," he says, and John's mouth quirks. "Long day, no rest, this complete *asshole* got himself lost and it took forever to find him. Come *on*."
John's mouth flicks up. "Right. I'd hate to be responsible for your untimely death." Steering the cart, he picks up some cans that Rodney can't read, then goes toward the cashier, who watches John with the same wide eyed adoration that he seems to get from any female in his immediate vicinity. "Pizza okay tonight?"
"They have *pizza* here?" And the best part is when John starts to laugh.
They do--not Pizza Hut, but it's cheese on bread with piles of meat and vegetables and Rodney gives up on good manners when John drops the box on the coffee table and says "Knock yourself out."
He does give John just enough time to grab napkins and beer and have a seat before he opens it, and oh God. *Pizza*. "You know, the messhall tries, but even botany can't make the tomatoes the same."
"Hybridization," John says absently. At Rodney's look, John rolls his eyes. "I was ranking military officer, but I did keep up with what was going on with our food supply. Hydroponic tomatoes didn't have much flavor, so they crossbred with something the Athosians had."
Huh. He'd read the reports, but honestly, he'd never been interested enough to ask. "Tomatoes should be *red*, not purple.."
John nods, taking a drink of beer. He doesn't eat, but Rodney can count the number of times on one hand that he's seen John actually in the process of eating something. Beer dangling between his knees, slouching against an ancient (but not Ancient), overstuffed couch, John watches him with wide, carefully blank eyes. "I'm not going back."
Rodney waves a hand, briefly considers waiting until he's finished chewing, but John knows him and manners are a waste of time anyway. "I'm *eating*."
One eyebrow raises sharply. "And you think my answer will change when you're done eating?"
"I don't think I've had a chance to bring out my best arguments."
John rolls his eyes, taking another drink. "Rodney--"
"*John*," he says, slipping out so easily that it's almost like he's always used it when he never has before today. "Eating? Save the stoic denial for later." The pizza is half gone. Rodney licks tomato sauce from his fingers. Everything tastes better--maybe there's something to be said for three years of eating food that's always so subtly *wrong*. It makes even what's probably mediocre Mexican interpretations of pizza taste *amazing*. "How long have you been here?"
John glances down at his beer, hair back in his eyes. It's--weirdly sexy, even if it's annoying as hell. "A while." He takes another drink, then sets the bottle aside. "Rodney. It's been three years. Don't tell me after all this time, that suddenly there's some desperate need for me there. You have your scientists, you have your security, you have tons of ATA genes, and you have managed just fine without me."
"How would you know, unless you've been keeping up?" It's a shot in the dark, but O'Neill had always been a little squirrelly when they'd asked. "Oh. You *have* been keeping up, haven't you?"
John's irritation is almost funny. "If you all died, someone would have told me."
"If they could *find* you," Rodney hears himself snap, and he really, really hadn't meant to let John know about *that*. John's head tilts, putting the empty bottle aside, hands resting quietly on his knees. "Not that someone who was so desperate to get lost was all that easy to find."
John's mouth opens, then shuts. "You were looking for me."
"You thought we'd wait this long to get in contact?" Jesus, what the hell is *wrong* with him?
It's a visible effort, but John pulls back into himself, and Rodney remembers this little trick too well to be fooled, not by the way John shrugs, or the way he turns away, picking up his own empty bottle and the bottle that Rodney hadn't known he'd finished. "I never expected you to try." Turning away, John wanders out of the room, like he said something totally normal and not the stupidest thing Rodney's ever heard in his life.
What. The. Hell? "You think--Christ, what am I saying, you *never think*. That's a stupid question." Getting to his feet, Rodney hastily wipes tomato sauce off fingers and mouth, following John into the kitchen, noticing at some point, John had cleaned again, removing every trace of Rodney's messy descent into his life. Like he does everything, Rodney thinks resentfully, and he hadn't known he'd been this bitter, either. "You are so lucky that right now I'm filled with goodwill from all that pizza, or your ass would *so* be on the floor right now."
John turns to face him from the sink, in his little circle of personal space and privacy that Rodney's never been more tempted to invade. "Rodney--"
Hands clenched, Rodney feels something snap, probably a fingernail from the feeling, but it could be his temper. "You--you gave up on *us*. Don't you fucking *dare* make this about--," Rodney stops short, catching himself before he says something almost as stupid as anything John could come up with. "I'm going to go get some work done before I accidentally poison you or rewire your little burglar alarm to go off every few minutes, but later--oh, we are going to have a long talk about mind-boggling stupidity and--and--see? You've ruined my ability to even formulate a good rant. Is there more beer?"
Looking almost chastised, John points to the refrigerator, and Rodney feels perfectly justified in taking two and slamming the door after. "I--" Rodney says, feeling like he can be generous, since obviously John's had some kind of deep mental trauma at some point. There's no other explanation. "I will see you in the morning. And don't try to use the connection, I need all the bandwidth you've got. Night." Feeling magnanimous and higher road, Rodney turns with dignity and retreats to his room.
Just for that, he's so using all the bandwidth John's got, Rodney thinks spitefully as he boots up.
Rodney wakes up to the smell of coffee and realizes he has, and on *vacation* of all things, fallen asleep on his keyboard. There's a steaming cup of coffee on the desk beside his head and a note beside it.
*Breakfast is on the stove. Try not to commit any acts of violence against my stuff. Be back later.*
Dawn's barely cracked the sky outside, an indecent time to wake up for anything other than an imminent attack, and Rodney pries himself out of his new and extremely comfortable chair with difficulty, taking the cup to the balcony from habit long established in Atlantis.
It's a really eerily good view, and Rodney wonders how long John looked for it, in how many places. The SGC hadn't been able to keep up with him in any useful way, but the scattered reports always placed him near the sea.
John was always a morning person, Rodney recalls: military training, maybe, but also that thing he did where Rodney would find him at five in the morning, when Rodney forgot to sleep and was herded to bed by Elizabeth, on a secluded balcony with a Power Bar and a thermos of coffee, watching the water with wide, awed eyes. He'd never joined him--one of the few times Rodney recognized someone's need for solitude without an explicit statement--but he went looking more than he really wants to admit to himself. John's quiet awe was the reminder that Rodney needed, that Atlantis was more than the technology that they could barely understand, the relic of the Ancients that Elizabeth worshipped, more than halls and rooms and history, circuits and ZPMs and artifacts.
Seeing Atlantis through John's eyes, even for just those few minutes, reminded him how much more it really was.
Leaning into the railing, Rodney thinks of John in the kitchen--that space around him like a shield. It had always been there, always, since the first time Rodney met him, even if then, he'd barely recognized what he was seeing. Time and exposure had worn at it, but this, this is what John was before Atlantis, tightly wrapped inside himself, distant and content to stay that way.
Maybe moreso now, and it's a tiny, constant jab, that he'd gotten past that, gotten the parts of John that he kept protected, and here he was, locked out again like a stranger, worse than strangers, because John's showing him nothing that he wouldn't show anyone else, and more than anything else, Rodney wants that back.
Breakfast is actual eggs--the unpowdered kind, the kind that had a passing acquaintance with actual *chickens*, little round sausages that might have actually been from real *pigs*, and Rodney falls a little in love with John's coffeemaker, smooth steel, hot to the touch, and whoever he has to kill to get this coffee, totally worth it. Rodney shuts his eyes on his third cup and just savors the sheer perfection of properly made coffee.
John doesn't show any evidence of showing back up, but Rodney doubts he left the country just to avoid him, so he takes his cup and a spare back up to his room, moving the laptop onto the balcony. The wind from the ocean and the early morning make it cool enough to work, and while Rodney hates mornings with a passion, the view is almost inspiring.
More inspiring is his next glance up, some time later, between a report to the SGC on new discoveries on Stargate mechanics and finishing an email to his sister, to see John's figure coming down the beach, carrying a surfboard, shirtless and wet and of course he goes surfing alone in the morning, *of course* he does. John never met a risk he didn't propose marriage to and set up housekeeping with. Even from here, Rodney can see the peaceful look on his face, the loose stroll of pleasant exhaustion, the way the salt is drying his hair every which-a-way. He takes the stairs two at a time, and Rodney has a panicked second to try and remember if he left him coffee. Checking both his cups--empty--Rodney logs out and carries everything back inside, because if there isn't any left, Rodney will make more and it's always easier to make strong arguments while properly caffeinated.
They spend two days like this, and Rodney discovers patience is a highly overrated indulgence of someone with far too much time on their hands to waste. It's very, very irritating.
He puts his notes where John can see them--propulsion studies on different Pegasus space ships, plays dirty leaving specs for new weapons beneath, discovery of an Ancient sort-of armory with weapons they still can't quite use. The coffee table has a puddle jumper fusion design that Zelenka has been working on to integrate some of the more interesting Wraith technology, with a closer interface and a speculated addition of a hyperdrive. Just for the hell of it, he leaves his second laptop open to convenient mission reports from the SGA databases.
John gives him suspicious looks and walks by them like he has no idea what they are, but later, the papers have shifted, a smeared finger-tracing of the new puddle jumper design, and access times on the reports show recent activity. Rodney thinks this could count as progress.
"You are so transparent," John says while cutting up chicken the fourth night and leaving Rodney with a cutting board, a knife, and a pile of peppers in red and green and yellow and deep orange that, apparently, he's going to have to do something with. An unfortunate side-effect of finally catching John in the kitchen before he can escape onto the beach is that he's been pressed into manual labor.
"I've never claimed to be subtle," Rodney says truthfully, picking up a banana pepper and tentatively beginning to chop. "Any way you want these?"
"Not important, just chopped." John's doing something with the chicken and red pepper that makes Rodney extremely hungry, despite two mid-afternoon snacks and the bag of cheetos. It's the salt air and all this time outside, he thinks--he can't honestly remember the last time he went outside the confines of the city. Making a neat pile of chicken, John washes his hands and wanders back to the table, bringing a second knife with him and expertly decimates the peppers.
Rodney wonders when cooking became quite so hot. "When did you learn to cook?"
John flashes him a bright smile. "My mother. I took rotations in the mess, same as anyone."
"On Atlantis?" No, Rodney would remember that. And mock it.
"Never any time." John chops like his fingers are in no danger whatsoever, and it's still hot, but also kind of nerve-wrecking, to watch a blade move that fast near bare skin. "Smaller than that." The handle taps the back of Rodney's wrist. A pause. "How is everyone?"
Rodney hides his smile. "Halling has a new son--he got married again, or whatever the Athosians call it." From the corner of his eye, he sees John's mouth soften. "Cute kid, as kids go."
"That's high praise from you."
"He's less stupid than most of the people I work with." Rodney pauses, pretending to think, which turns into actual effort. A lot has changed, and not much at all. "Ronon and Teyla are--well. Still are. And so are Carson and Cadman, off and on." Rodney spends a lot of quality time trying to never discover anything about anyone's personal lives. In the long run, it saves him a lot of small talk he's bad at anyway. "Bates got a promotion when he got back. Radek's still got a crush on Elizabeth. We still haven't stopped the Wraith."
John's eyes are fixed on the peppers with a level of concentration more appropriate to brain surgery. "I heard you're building a ZPM variant of your own."
"You read it on my computer, which I conveniently left open for you to read." Rodney grins at John's flush. "And trying is the operative word. Of course I'll succeed, but I want to make it more easily rechargeable than the current ZPMs are."
"Which is to say, you still don't know how they did it."
"And you'd *think* they'd leave something that important somewhere on the database, wouldn't you? The traditional mating dance of the wild Ancient duck, that we can find, but can I get some *directions*? No." That still rankles. The Ancients had some weird priorities, and Rodney's opinion on their freakishness hasn't changed over the years. He cuts into another pepper, a little more viciously. "Caldwell is still an ass, but he's not interfering with my people, so it evens out and he just makes Elizabeth miserable. Lorne's bonding with the puddle jumpers in a way that most of us find disturbing. It's really something I don't want to think about, so I don't ask."
John's still cutting peppers. "Good for him."
"Elizabeth--" In all his speeches, Rodney's always stopped here. "Elizabeth is still in charge. But you know that, if you've been keeping up--"
"Rodney." The warning is clear.
Rodney slices a pepper crosswise. "You gave up, we didn't. You don't want to hear about it, you should have fucking been around it live, instead of fucking around through half of East Asia. Which is the last time anyone at the SGC could locate you, by the way." Rodney turns the pepper for another slice.
John doesn't answer, just keeps cutting with a surgeon's precision, steady hands and calm expression. There's a very inappropriate desire to smack his hand with the butt of the knife--if nothing else, it would get his attention.
"Rodney--"
"Instead, our last word from you was a note from Jack O'Neill telling us how you've taken off for more hospitable climates and well, maybe one day you'd get around to *telling us* yourself that you lost interest--" And that came from somewhere Rodney hadn't expected, the bitterness sharpening his consonants, and John's head comes up sharply, eyes wide. Then they flicker down and widen more.
"Rodney!" A hand is clamped around Rodney's wrist, jerking him up and around the table to the sink, and it takes a few seconds for Rodney to catch up to the fact that his finger stings and then John's running cold water over the cut.
Watching the blood spiral down the drain, Rodney thinks, tiredly, that maybe he's just a little too emotional to be allowed weapons. "That hurts."
John snorts softly and turns off the water, patting it dry with a paper towel before making a pad of a second one and pressing it over the cut. "Kind of delayed reaction there." Letting go, John takes his elbow. "Come on, let me get something on that. I'm just surprised you didn't get pepper in it, or trust me, you'd be noticing a lot more."
In the bathroom, he lets John spray it with something smelly that says it's an antibiotic and bandage it, though it's almost stopped bleeding. Staring at the mirror, Rodney sees himself as John must have--maybe not the same as memory, paler from a purely indoor life now, maybe not quite as pudgy, what with Teyla's enthusiasm for pounding him into the ground. John leans back against the sink, almost unchanged and changed, too, in the way he looks at Rodney, even that impersonal touch that means something, though Rodney's afraid to admit what it is.
In three years, Rodney has run through a hundred different possibilities, but it had never quite occurred to him that John might have moved beyond them, beyond Atlantis and the war they fought, beyond his friends there and his life there and *three fucking years* had passed, and yet somehow, Rodney had thought that time stood still.
"Why didn't you try?" Rodney asks softly, and John turns his hand over, like he's checking the bandage, but he's field dressed enough wounds not to doubt himself.
"Rodney--"
"We know why. Well, we figured out why. I just want to know why you didn't even try."
John's hands pull away, leaving chilled skin behind. Rodney lowers his hands, clasping them behind him. They're not shaking. He thinks. "I don't want to talk about this. And if that's what you came here for--"
"You know exactly why I'm here. Three years of sulking is a hell of a long time. Get the fuck over yourself and explain to me why we weren't even worth the effort to say good-bye to."
For a second, Rodney thinks John's getting pissed, and that's the sort of thing that shouldn't make him almost weak with relief, but it's more than he's gotten so far. He opens his mouth, but John's pushed by him out of the bathroom.
"John, don't you fucking *dare*--" But John's already too far away, even if the space can be measured in feet. "Don't you fucking *dare* walk away again," but it's too late for that, because John's not here, no matter where his body is, and the words trickle off, and he's weirdly exhausted. John watches him from a few feet away and doesn't say a fucking thing.
John waits a second, then nods, like Rodney had agreed with him. "I better check the chicken before it burns." He waits, like this piece of useless trivia is the most important thing in the world, then turns away, light controlled step, walking back down the hall to the kitchen, and Rodney stands there, half in and half out of the bathroom, feeling stupid, throat tight.
When he goes into the kitchen, John's pouring the peppers into the pan and asks what Rodney wants to drink, and Rodney sits down and takes a beer and doesn't say a goddamn thing.
He packs twice that night--getting up from restless, useless sleep to shove everything into bags (he's *moved on*, Christ, why are you doing this to yourself?), drag it back out with a glance out the balcony (this is *John* and he's a moron, what the hell does he know?), back to packing and when dawn crawls grey and sickly pink over the edge of the balcony, he's half-asleep over two half-packed bags, zipper hard against his cheek, laptop half-falling from his lap and wondering if he could learn to hate John for making him feel like this.
John vanishes for the morning and Rodney leaves the mess as is when he goes for coffee and blueberry bagels, sitting at the table still in his boxers and John's stolen t-shirt because he couldn't face touching his bags again. The kitchen seems less sunny, painted small and grey from the gathering clouds outside, and Rodney thinks blackly of hurricane season and how pettiness is beneath him except it's really, really not.
Outside, it's even darker, and Rodney glances at the surf that's getting slowly stronger, trying to find John in the fast moving, white capped waves. A sane person wouldn't go out on a day like this, but John's board is missing from the garage and he's never been sane anyway.
Going down the stairs, Rodney comes out on the shoreline. Without the skin-searing heat, he can actually kind of enjoy the sensation of sand shifting beneath his bare feet, the slow progress of the tide as it pulls out, and though he'll deny it to his dying day, there'd been a five second period of his life where he'd picked shells with his mother and cleaned them, neat rows on his bookcase, memories of family vacations gone by.
He may even still have some, in the depths of storage.
John materializes in front of him, wet, sand-encrusted feet invading his line of sight, and Rodney takes a few seconds before looking up, long, hairy legs, a nasty bruise forming across the top of one calf, wet shorts, bare tanned chest and finally, wet hair pushed back enough for Rodney to see the dark circles under the hazel eyes.
At least Rodney wasn't the only one who couldn't sleep. "Nice swim?"
John's eyes flicker out over the water. "A little rough today. I thought you'd be--" the pause is so short that Rodney almost misses it, "--working."
Rodney shoves his hands in his pockets and shrugs. "It's a nice day."
John squints up at the sky, then back at Rodney, amused. "No sun?"
"No hideous death by sunstroke today, no." John leans the board against the edge of a dune and Rodney takes in the jerky movements, edges shaved off, the kind of exhaustion that only comes when you're searching for it. He starts walking again, and to his surprise, John falls in step beside him.
"You look tired," Rodney says, breaking into John's solid silence. John shrugs, kicking sand a little like a kid. "I made more coffee."
"Coffee would be good." With his head tilted down, his hair hides his expression.
"You need a haircut," Rodney hears himself say, and John's eyes jerk up, hand going to his head self-consciously before he stops himself. "Seriously. What is with you and your hair anyway?"
John smirks but doesn't answer, and Rodney lets the silence settle this time. He's too tired to fight and he need a lot more caffeine in his system before he can think again. It's a pleasantly cool morning and a deserted stretch of beach. It's been too long since he had time like this, unstructured and quiet. "The town's your closest neighbor?"
John shrugs. "There are some others out here, but I've never seen them." And didn't look, either, if Rodney reads the body language right. John liked Antarctica, Rodney remembers suddenly, so an empty stretch of beach--. Yes, very John.
"General O'Neill said he contacted you," John says slowly, each word as careful as a foot on moving sand.
Rodney blinks, dismisses the need for caffeine, and keeps his eyes on the sand. "He did. And I assume it was your instructions that he be as brief and uninformative as possible?"
John's step stutters. "It was a--joint decision." This may be as close to an apology as Rodney will ever get.
"We deserved better than that." It's starting all over again, Rodney realizes with a sinking feeling, hearing the heat in his own voice. He's never had to control his temper before, isn't sure he knows *how*, and around John, it'd never been a requirement to even try. It's going to be silence and John walking away again and he's only half-packed. If he was going to leave, he would have done it last night, which argues that he's even more of a masochist than he'd thought. "I thought--"
"Yeah." John's voice is quiet. "It was a shitty way to do it."
Rodney takes a breath. "Yeah. Care to tell me why?"
John shrugs. "Believe it or not, I was kind of having a hard time. That doesn't lead to clear thinking. By the time I had time to think, it was too late." John's eyes flicker to him briefly. "I didn't expect anyone to come looking for me just because I was an asshole about how I said goodbye."
"Hey, apologize on your own time. I just came to drag your ass home."
John's steps stutter briefly, tripping over perfectly normal sand. "Rodney--"
"You're living on the Pacific coast, alone, when you could be anywhere, doing anything. The view is spectacular, and really familiar. If this isn't homesickness, I don't know what is."
John's head turns, irritated. "You're a lousy psychologist."
"I'm not *blind*. Sorry to hurt your delicate feelings. I would have been nicer if you'd just come back. Hell, a note that you were alive, which even the SGC couldn't confirm with any degree of certainty."
John's step stutters again. "You were looking."
Rodney jerks to a stop. "Every year for two weeks, I'd wander back to Earth, get my fast food fix, and annoy the shit out of anyone who *might* know where you would have gone. So if you're thinking we didn't care, well, you just weren't paying attention. It's not that I don't get you were pissed. I just don't get why you took it out on m--on us."
"On you." Flatly.
"On Elizabeth and Teyla and Ronon, on Carson and Radek and Lorne and every other fucking person who watched you go back to earth for a two week vacation and never come back." And that still pisses him off. "Elizabeth would have had you back before the ink was dry on your resignation papers. You know that."
"It wouldn't have been that easy." John's voice is sharp.
"Elizabeth would have fought for you." And that had been some meetings that Rodney would as soon forget. "We all would have fought for you." Rubbing his eyes, he starts walking again. After a few seconds, John's footsteps follow.
"There were other reasons that it wasn't practical at the time." John's voice is steady, but there's something underneath that makes Rodney wonder, filing it away for later thought. "And--"
"Come home." His voice cracks on an upward note. Rodney hadn't seen this coming, throat tight and scratchy, like he's been swallowing sand. That hadn't been in the speeches, carefully logical and enticing, hadn't been anywhere close to what he was going to say, but it stills John. "Come back home."
Thunder rolls darkly overhead, like a warning, and of course there's going to be an interruption, that's just the kind of luck Rodney has. The sky breaks in darker grey and Rodney looks up in resignation as it begins to rain.
John has tons of DVDs, stacked in the cabinet by the TV and on the floor, and Rodney retreats to the living room after changing, going through the piles to see what he's missed in the last three years. He's too distracted to pay any kind of attention to what he's choosing, finally picking at random to put in the DVD player and fall onto the worn couch, stretching out full length, bare feet brushing the armrest. He's a third through when John wanders in, dry and rumpled and slightly glassy, hesitating before he crosses to the couch. Rodney pulls his legs up but keeps his eyes on the TV.
The movie fades into background noise--John's straight and weirdly blank beside him, and Rodney had to be imagining that he can feel the warmth of John's body with his feet. The faded green t-shirt's seen a few too many washings, stretched over chest and arms in a way that's distracting when viewed from the corner of Rodney's eyes, a thin strip of exposed stomach above the jeans. He looks tired, Rodney thinks, and sits up slowly, watching John's eyes flicker slowly shut, slumping more with every breath before stretching sideways in the newly freed-up space with a sigh.
"Bad night?" Rodney says, fingers twitching inches from John's hair. Dark lashes fan downward, like John's too tired to keep his eyes open.
"Yeah." John's voice is slower, drawling the word into several syllables before trickling off, settling himself more comfortably on the couch. "It's supposed to rain for a few days," he adds, one hand curling up near his stomach. "It gets pretty weird here, so--"
"I survived a Wraith siege. I think I can deal with a little rain," Rodney says, and his fingers gingerly brush the top of John's head, not nearly enough for John to feel it. The movie plays on, but Rodney has no idea what's happening on the screen at this point, a blur of color and sound that he tunes out, paling in comparison to John's head inches from his thigh. "What do you usually do when it rains?"
John shrugs briefly. "Beat my own high scores on Gran Turismo II. Sleep." A yawn breaks in, and John's eyes flicker shut. "Read."
Rodney tentatively lets himself touch again, silky hair sliding like liquid across his fingers. "Get some sleep," he says, and he's never heard his own voice that soft, that careful. Another touch, firmer and less careful, but John doesn't pull away. "We'll play later and I'll beat all your scores when you get up."
"As if." Rodney watches John pull his legs up, looking uncomfortably cramped with his legs bent, feet braced against the armrest. He starts to get up, but John's hand snaps out, grabbing his wrist without even looking up. "Stay."
Rodney eases himself slowly down as John shifts up the couch, head resting on Rodney's thigh, legs dangling over the arm of the couch, and with a contented sigh, he slips off into sleep, mouth soft, fine lines sanded from his face into the kid he must have been years ago.
"I missed you," John whispers into the cool darkness, and Rodney's breath catches. "Don't--I don't want you to ever think I didn't."
Rodney's throat tightens again, and he strokes through John's hair with more confidence, because if John didn't want to be touched, he sure as hell wouldn't be falling asleep in Rodney's lap.
Clearing his throat, Rodney nods blindly. Idiotic, unproductive sentimentality, he thinks hopelessly. So very John. "I missed you, too."
They end up sacked out in the living room for most of the day--it's cool enough outside to turn the air conditioning off, and Rodney raids the kitchen while John's sleeping, coming back with chips and more cookies and soda from the fridge. John obediently lifts his head, still mostly asleep, when Rodney prods him, snorting softly before falling back under when Rodney's hand settles on his neck.
Two movies later, Rodney's drifting in and out to the sounds of rain and John's steady breathing, slumping into the corner of the couch, knowing his back will pay for this later and not caring at all when John throws a heavy arm over his thigh, like Rodney has any intention of getting away.
He can't make himself stop touching--innocent and weirdly chaste, running his thumb down the side of John's throat to feel his pulse, learning the rough curve of John's jaw by touch, the slow slope of his shoulder beneath his palm. It's too weird to admit to, too needed for Rodney to stop.
It's been three years, and he's making up for every lost second in touch, because if John says no, this may be the only time he has. "John," he says, softly enough to keep from waking him if he's really sleeping, but a few long seconds later, the dark lashes flutter open and John rolls slowly onto his back, blinking up at Rodney, mouth slightly open and soft-looking.
When Rodney leans down to kiss him, the soft mouth is even softer, and John's breath catches. It's slow, and sweet from cookies, carefully navigated with bad angles and awkward bodies, but Rodney can't pull away even for the seconds it would take to change positions. If it's the only time, he wants all of it, everything he can get, memorizing the texture of John's mouth, the slant of his lips, the sounds he makes into Rodney's mouth, the wet slide of his tongue against Rodney's, the way one hand curves around the back of Rodney's neck, pressing into his skin like he might leave fingerprints. Rodney wants him to, wants marks to remind him, etched into his skin that he can touch, later, and remember.
Eventually, John shifts up, never breaking the kiss, half in Rodney's lap, a little too big to do it all the way, but close enough now for Rodney to slides his hands under his t-shirt, up John's back, hot, smooth skin slick with breaking sweat. John holds his face in both hands and kisses like he's flying a puddle jumper in a war, intense and focused and devastating all at once. Slow licks and gentle thrusts of tongue, biting Rodney's lip and soothing it with a kiss, like he's learning Rodney by touch, too.
They do that forever, Rodney learning the taste of John's throat with his mouth, the place under his jaw that makes him shiver, tonguing the curve of John's ear and shutting his eyes when John sucks hickeys into his neck and shoulders, letting John pull off his shirt and working John's up, bare skin against bare skin better than anything Rodney can remember. He feels like a teenager again, the careful, tentative touches when you're learning something brand new, but Rodney had never done this as a kid and that makes it better somehow.
Night falls startlingly fast, and Rodney follows John to the kitchen, pushing him up against the counter to kiss him while leftovers from last night are warming in the microwave, sliding his hands into the back pockets of John's jeans to press against him, earning a gasp and a slow grind that could drive him crazy if he let it. Pressing a knee between John's thighs, Rodney licks into his mouth, pulling away reluctantly when the microwave pings far in the background.
They eat chicken and peppers and rice right out of the Tupperware bowl, sprawled on the living room floor on a blanket John pulls from the hall closet, unable to stop touching enough to bother with plates or manners, forgetting food altogether when Rodney mouths the length of John's spine, circling each vertebrae with his tongue, sucking slow kisses into the dip, breathing over wet skin to feel John shiver.
Later, they curl up in John's bed on top of the covers, lights out, making out to the sound of rain and Rodney falls asleep with John's head buried in his shoulder, one long leg across his, even breath puffing against his skin. One arm wrapped around John's shoulders, Rodney drifts off, knowing they're being stupid and honestly not giving a good shit.
John's right--it rains like the world's going to drown in it, and the electricity goes out twice. John's restless, reminding Rodney of the times they'd been grounded on Atlantis, how it scraped at John's calm until he was nothing but sharp, restless edges and sharper tongue. Halfway through the morning, he pushes Rodney's laptop off his knees and crawls into his lap, kissing like he's starving, and later, Rodney can't remember a word of the hypothesis he'd been writing, tasting blood sweet and copper-bright every time he licks his lips. That afternoon, he strips Rodney's room and throws down dropsheets and tells Rodney with frantic, fragile calm that he's about to learn the value of manual labor.
Rodney thinks that if he'd ever thought John was easygoing, well, he just hadn't been around a John on enforced inactivity like this. Somehow, he's holding a paintbrush and watching John patiently turning the walls from cream to a lighter shade of pale. John's down to cut off shorts and a t-shirt that's seen better decades, restless energy emanating off him almost visibly, and Rodney wouldn't have missed this for a brand new ZPM and five pounds of Godiva chocolate.
Rodney has no idea what he's doing, but body memory has John behind him, hand covering his, whispering "Long, slow strokes", turning a do-it-yourself home project into some bizarre porn where Rodney's hard every time he stokes--God, *paints* the wall, and he gets two walls done without any clear idea how it happened. John lets Rodney shower first, and Rodney comes out to John standing on the balcony, watching the ocean knocking into the shore, soaking wet and wide-eyed, like he might be remembering another storm entirely.
When he opens the balcony doors, John doesn't move. In the dark of early evening, the water's barely visible, a rolling, lightless mass, the scent of salt so strong in the air Rodney can taste it on the tip of his tongue.
"We've never been at our best talking," Rodney says. "Or, you don't, and I do it too much, and that always worked out really well for you, didn't it?"
John cranes his head sideways, eyebrows raised in polite, false confusion.
"Oh please, like that works on me. I always wondered why you liked me. It took a while to figure out that it was because I didn't ever ask you anything you didn't feel like answering."
"I told you--"
"You haven't told me shit. Christ, you're stupid but not a masochist. Explain what happened. Tell me why the hell you won't come back."
John leans both elbows on the balcony's rail. There's a streak of paint across one cheek and spotting his hair. The sharp features seem even sharper now. "You only have a week left," John says softly, and Rodney hears the quiet certainty, and the way he says it tells Rodney that nothing's changed. "You want to spend it arguing?"
"You want to spend it fucking?"
John pushes up off the balcony, and that space is all around him again. Talking won't change it, fucking won't crease it, and if anyone ever figured out a way to get through to John Sheppard short of blunt force trauma, well, they never shared the secret with Rodney. "Yes. I do." And John takes one measured step toward him, then another, then by him, cold wet skin brushing Rodney as he goes to the shower, and Rodney….
It's between them, the offer that's more a certainty than anything ever has been, and when Rodney goes back in the house, he dries himself again and listens to John in the shower.
It isn't enough, it's stupid to even think it, but it may be all either of them get, and Rodney can't, won't walk away from that.
The guest room is still drying, so at some point, all of Rodney's luggage and the extra desk migrated into John's room. John fell asleep almost as soon as he got out of the shower, one hand resting on Rodney's hip, fingers wrapped loosely in the top of his boxers. Despite his own exhaustion, Rodney can't quite follow, stretching on the bed next to John, controlling the urge to wake him up and start the sex part of the next five to seven days.
He's hard, but there's no urgency to it--it can wait, burning on the edge of his consciousness, because right now, it's almost enough just to sit here and look at John. General O'Neill had been vague and at the same time to the point. There was an issue with the Air Force. John had resigned to avoid a dishonorable discharge. Details never came, and Rodney's had three long years to feel his absence, more every day, and he'd never seen that coming.
O'Neill had said, here's where he's been, and said, he's not ready yet, and said, why are you doing this? Then this last time, he'd given Rodney a patient look and said, *this is where he is*, on a totally non-SGC piece of paper, handwritten directions that, by the way, *sucked*. Then he said, *you really sure you know what you're doing?*
Rodney had said yes, but he'd really meant, no, not at all.
"You know what else I miss?" Rodney tells the top of John's head. The soft breathing almost catches. "Missions. I never thought I'd say this, but the regular adrenaline rush was kind of fun."
John shifts, just barely.
"I can tell that you're awake."
John snorts, lifting his head with a patient look. "I was trying to go back to sleep."
"Yeah, well, I'm bored. I miss missions. Happy?"
With exaggerated patience, John pushes himself up on an elbow. "You miss missions."
"Defying death and the statistical probability of failure on a daily basis. Kind of a rush. Going where no human--or our kind of human, anyway--has gone before, encountering Wraith, occasionally stumbling over ZPMs and negotiating bad treaties. It was fun. I never told you that. But it was."
"Why'd you stop going?"
Rodney resettles himself on the pillow. "My team leader vanished."
"There are a lot of teams--"
"Well, there are. Under Caldwell. And as I once told you, I'm an extremely vital part of the Atlantis mission, invaluable, even, and risking me on the field was unacceptable when there was so much more important work I could be doing. That's a quote from the senior staff meeting where this decision was made."
John gives him a blank look. "And you let him?"
"Weirdly, no one wanted me on their team." Rodney almost smiles at John's wide-eyed surprise. "I probably overawed them with my brilliance and made them feel their inferiority. They couldn't handle it as well as you did." Rodney thinks. "I suppose they must have felt that way about all the science staff. All that brilliance in one place. Most of us haven't left the city in years. Not until well after a planet is declared perfectly. Fucking. Safe." Rodney snorts softly. "And you can guess how often that happens."
"Right," John answers dryly, but a frown is creasing his forehead. "Teyla and Ronon--"
"You may not really get this, what with all the time you've been away, but you chose weird people for your team. It's not like anyone else was chomping at the bit to get us. Teyla mostly does negotiations with Weir these days."
"Ronon--" John's voice rises on a questioning note, like he sees where this is going.
Rodney gives him a steady look. "They don't trust him. Or her. But mostly him. He and Teyla go out on assignments from Weir, but let's just say that Caldwell's people aren't exactly the most fun to hang out with."
For a few seconds, John doesn't do anything but stare. "I didn't know that."
"No, really? Since you didn't keep contact with us, I thought you'd *intuit* it out of thin air across two galaxies. Though on a guess, O'Neill kept you informed of some things, didn't he?"
From the look on John's face, yeah, and Rodney thinks lovingly of what he's going to say to the general next time he sees him.
"Right." John's fingers are stroking his hip beneath the top of his boxers, and Rodney struggles to keep his attention fixed. "Why are you doing this?"
Rodney grounds his attention on John's face. "Doing what?"
"Coming here. It's weird, even for you. I mean, especially for you."
Rolling onto his back, Rodney stares up at the ceiling. "Six months ago, there was an attack on the city. We were invaded. It was all very dramatic and annoying, and I was working on some diagnostics when the alarm came. My entire department was herded into the gateroom, where they executed us by initializing the gate and sending us into space one by one. Three died before I remembered I could shoot a gun, and there were five bodies in space by the time we got control of the room. It was a while until Caldwell's people could ride to the rescue. I think they were a little offended that we rescued ourselves."
John's sitting straight up now, hand leaving Rodney's skin. "How did they penetrate--"
"Little late to be worried about lapses in security," Rodney says sharply, missing John's touch. "And so not the point of the story. I'm a really good shot. I had this asshole instructor who made me learn to shoot. He drilled me every week, no matter how much the city needed maintenance or how much I needed sleep, and if I wasn't there on time, he'd *get me out of bed* to do it at an indecent hour. Every week, three hours in that fucking room. He taught me to handle a P-90, and every piece of aliens weapons technology we got, I had to be drilled in it, just in case. And when I asked why my time and skills were being wasted like that, he told me that one day, I was going to be alone and a completely unfamiliar weapon might be the only way to save my own life."
"Rodney--"
"Shut up. This time, my life wasn't in danger. They just wanted my security codes, and they started killing my people to get them. They didn't get the ATA gene thing, they didn't understand why the city wouldn't respond, and I watched *three people die* because I forgot I used to be more than just a scientist."
John's eyes darken. "You shouldn't have to be anything else."
"Oh *spare me*. They were my people and they died. The military wasn't there, there was just me and some goons from outer space and these laser twisty things that looked like batons and shit, those things hurt. After everything--after the memorial and the staff meeting, everyone was just so shocked that we survived, that *I* had stopped them, that I was capable of doing anything but hiding in a corner or throwing up on someone's feet as my last line of defense. And you know what? I forgot too. It took three of my people to die in front of my eyes before I remembered, I used to do this stuff *every day*. And I thought, if John could see this, he'd kick my ass for not keeping up my drills. Especially when two more died when I missed my first four shots."
John doesn't say anything for a long moment. "You didn't sign up for that part. That's why you *had* a military presence--"
"That's what Atlantis *is*, and I signed up for all of it. You're the one that taught me that. And I forgot, we all forgot. We forgot that it wasn't all laboratories and research broken by meals and sleeping. That it wasn't just earth on a different planet. It became more for me, you *made* it more." Rodney takes a breath, searching for the words. "You put civilians on military teams and told us we had to be more, be better. You took us out of our safe labs and sent us out to explore the universe that we'd only seen from a safe distance, and then you were gone and we lost that. You changed us and then you walked away and everything went back to the way that, I'm sure, it was supposed to be all along. And I really, really hate that."
John's eyes fix on the wall, and Rodney watches the long fingers clench into fists.
"Who died?"
Rodney shuts his eyes. "Miko was the fifth one. When I missed my fourth shot. They pushed her through and she screamed and then she died of explosive decompression. We didn't even have bodies to send back."
There are other things Rodney could tell him. That when Lorne and his team had finally broken in, there'd been five dead space goons on the floor and the rest were being shoved into space to experience first hand the effects of vacuum on living flesh. That maybe, Rodney had gone a little crazy for a little while there, because he doesn't remember giving that order, only that it was obeyed without question, that not even Lorne had been able to stop them. That later, he'd asked to be issued a weapon and the interminably long meeting where Caldwell had explained in far too many words that it wasn't safe, that it wasn't necessary, that this was the exception that proved the rule, blah blah blah, so much *bullshit*, and it all boiled down to, no, you're a *civilian*, a scientist, and you're nothing else. Then he'd been sent to Heightmeyer. Then he'd gone to Elizabeth, and after that, it all blurred until he arrived on the Pacific coast, looking for the Atlantis he'd lost.
When John looks at him again, it's like John's seeing him for the first time.
"They sent you back?"
"Not exactly." Rodney's fingers twist in the sheets. It's easier than he'd thought. "Caldwell was pretty pissed when Elizabeth put me on extended leave when I told her that I wasn't coming back without you. If he had his way, I wouldn't be going back at all." Sitting up, Rodney watches John's mouth tighten. "Post traumatic stress disorder, whatever nonsense they came up with to explain. Kate figured it was smarter to make up a diagnosis instead of admitting their Chief Scientist just went crazy."
"Oh." It's quiet, with the slow sound of rain outside and the hum of electricity, and John's so still that Rodney can almost see him thinking.
"Now tell me why you left us. You changed us and then you left us. And I never realized how much I resented you for that until just now."
John lets out a slow breath, sitting up, arms hooked over his knees. "There was a shake-up at the SGC. I don't know what Elizabeth did to piss them off so much, but they wanted--someone else in command of the military." The strong arms tighten, knuckles going white. "Someone they trusted. So I had a choice. I could be tried, and you and Elizabeth could come back to testify that no, I had never acted inappropriately with either my mission leader or my teammate. And you'd both be grounded to Earth for months, and maybe I'd be cleared, but the city would be without you and the SGC would have control until they let you go back. Or I could resign quietly and let them choose someone else to command Atlantis."
Rodney draws a breath. "Inappropriate behavior?"
"What I was doing. Did I get my job by fucking her? Did I break regs by fucking you? I don't even want to know what else they had listed--I didn't listen. I went to O'Neill and I resigned." John's mouth twists up in a smile. "They really did think I'd fight it. They wanted me to, to get her back here, to lock her down. To muddy the waters, to weaken her leadership. They got Caldwell, but they still had to keep Elizabeth, and I could live with that."
Rodney thinks of O'Neill at the SGC. "General O'Neill helped you."
"He understood what was important to me. After that--I could have told you, I guess, told Elizabeth, but then what? God knows what she would have done, and I couldn't risk that, not when they wanted her backed down so badly. So I left, and O'Neill helped me stay lost." John's eyes are distant, like he's seeing something else. "I don't miss the uniform. I don't even really miss flying--you wouldn't believe how much they apparently were paying me for two years in a different galaxy, so I bought a plane. I don't really miss bad food and I don't miss having some asshole give me bad orders that I somehow have to make work."
John's eyes grow distant, fixing on the balcony doors, the water outside.
"I miss the city. I miss--I miss the people. I miss being part of it." The hazel eyes flicker up, and it must be a trick of the dim light, that they look so green. "I hated you all for a little while. That you got to keep doing what I couldn't, and I couldn't even tell you why."
"So you're over it now? Missing it? Being pissed?"
John draws his knees in, looking smaller, vulnerable in the middle of this big bed. Chin resting on his knees, it's almost like he's seeing John for the first time, too. "You don't get over things like that, Rodney. And I didn't." Another pause, longer, and then the word comes out between clenched teeth, like it hurts to say. "Haven't."
Something in him loosens, startling him into a smile, the tension of three years melting away like ice in the sun. "I know."
John fidgets, mouth curving in a rueful line. "I don't think I can give it up again."
"Then don't."
John lifts his head, eyes fixed just above Rodney, like he's contemplating a new paint job. Rodney's arms hurt thinking about it. "I gave Jack the directions and told him the next time you wandered to earth, he could let you know."
Rodney breathes out. "You give shitty directions."
John grins, bright enough to light Atlantis. "I thought you needed the challenge."
"Son of a bitch." Reaching out, Rodney rests a hand on John's knee, and somehow, he's cupping his face, jaw rough and scratchy against his palm. Rodney kisses that smile, unable to help it, the curve of his lip and the rough cheeks and the point of his jaw, and John lets Rodney push him down, stretching like a huge cat, pulling Rodney down on top of him.
"You're coming home," Rodney says against his mouth, using his weight to pin John to the bed. "There's no reason not to. Elizabeth wants a civilian security advisor, she has applications out, but you're first choice. I have the contract in my laptop. It'll keep you in planes for many, many years. Or you could invest in puddle jumpers." He can barely think through the feeling of John stretching out under him, long and hard and perfect, and they can *do this*, they're doing this right now, and God, after, they'll do it again. "We have an *armory* that we can't use and Atlantis hates us because you aren't there. We can explore planets and annoy Caldwell and wait, *stop that*, if you're a civilian, we can let you know--God--where we hide the good coffee. This was part of my speech--oh God," and John's busy hands are pulling down his boxers and sliding inside. Oh God yes. "Oh God, say yes."
John snickers into his throat, biting down hard enough to make Rodney's cock jump. "I don't know. Tell me the rest of your speech first. I'm kind of curious how the SGC recruits."
Rodney pushes his hands into the bed, balancing his weight like John had taught him a thousand days ago, getting John's hands stretched out above his head, looking down at the grinning, flushed face, and God, this hadn't been in the speech but it will be now. "I'll fuck you. In my lab, in my quarters, in the puddle jumper, in your quarters, because they aren't haunted, I don't care *what* those spineless idiots say." Excitement and hope have a taste all their own--they taste like salt and skin and John. "You can teach me to shoot again and--and--" John bucks under him, cock brushing his through the soft cotton. "Oh. John."
John arches up, wrapping a leg around Rodney's. "The inducement is sex?"
Rodney grinds down, cock jumping at the way John's eyes go unfocused and wide. "Whatever it takes. I learned how to negotiate from you."
John laughs and Rodney frees one hand to jerk down John's boxers, line them up, and oh God that's good. That's so good. John grinds up with a strangled gasp, and Rodney leans down to kiss him, licking inside his mouth and breathing him in. Despite the cool air, they're both sweating, mixing with the precome on John's stomach, slick against his cock. "Rodney," he whispers, losing his vowels half-way through the word. "It's--not that easy."
"Make it easy." Rodney pulls John's thigh higher on his hip. "You want to. Fly the jumpers and go where no man's gone before. Make my city stop resenting us. Help Elizabeth keep the SGC in check." His breath's coming too fast, it's going to be over too soon, and God, he wants this forever. Cupping John's face, Rodney looks into his eyes. "I want to be more. I can't do it alone. I like the person you made me want to be. I want him back. I want you back. I want *you*."
John's eyes widen, going still, and Rodney shivers at the jerk of John's cock, the spill of heat between them, the look of shocked pleasure on John's face. That's enough, it's more than enough, he kisses John's warm, soft mouth and comes like a shot of electricity down his spine, comes whispering John's name and later, when he lifts his head, sated and exhausted and still hungry, still starving for all he's missed, he sees the answer in John's eyes, better than words.
But. "Say it, John."
And John says, "Yes."