Archive of Our Own ^beta

Later, Rodney will think it’s just embarrassing how long it took him to realize what was happening but in the first place it’s not like he’s never passed out on Sheppard’s couch during movie night before and in the second, to be fair, he’s only been awake for a few seconds when the sense of wrongness starts to build.

Plus, let’s be honest, John Sheppard is goddamn distracting when he’s rumpled and sleepy, no matter their working paramilitary (actual military, for him) situation, and sure, they don’t talk about it but Rodney tries to be at least mostly honest or, okay, honest-adjacent maybe with himself in his own head, thanks.

So he wakes up, trying not to groan out loud about how his neck is going to feel if he conked out bent practically sideways and in half like this because yes, yes, all of them have technically died a time or two and his neck is not worse than that (according to anyone else and while Rodney is still not exactly a master of the social graces and whatnot, he has learned to stifle the ‘whining’ when Ronon and John are around because it turns out they have just no sympathy for his twinges), and activates his radio. “Yeah? McKay.”

“You up? The research team on that planet with the donkey-shaped pterodactyl things just reported something for us to take a look at,” says the voice in his ear. Which, on reflection, is Lorne. Which, why is Lorne...

Rodney frowns and, probably because John is stretched out next to him, all long lean muscles and heat, fails to engage even the smallest ego-saving shred of intellect. “Um. Us?”

“Just you and me, Doc. Teyla’s still on the mainland and Keller won’t clear Ronon until he can actually bend his leg more than like ten degrees. It doesn’t seem dangerous, though, they just want you to come—”

“Hold their hands?”

“Not what I was gonna say, but definitely what you would. You good for, hm. Leave in ten minutes?”

Rodney grumbles a slightly confused agreement and starts to turn and ask John when the hell he’d been seconded to Lorne and what the hell is Ronon down from as he stands up...and stalls out when he realizes he is barefoot and in his underwear, like literally wearing nothing but skin on his feet and legs, just as he deactivates the radio. Which, what? Like, he’s comfortable here and all, but they don’t have a pants-optional sort of vibe for movie... and then Ronon’s leg, and Lorne, and...shit. What? He looks around. It’s just him and John here, and John is grinning up at him but making absolutely no move to do anything despite the coiled tension in his jaw. “Gotta go be important?”

“Yes, but what are you—”

“Don’t worry. I’ll keep your spot warm.” The grin widens despite the tension that’s still there. “Unless you need me to pilot or whatever.”

“No, I mean it’s just, I mean, I can.” Rodney tries not to let his face do the thing that makes him extremely, epically, pathetically bad at poker, which is really a pain in the ass because when he was a kid he always thought it would be pretty fun to make the kinds of jackasses who gamble millions of dollars for fun cry. His face probably isn’t cooperating though because why is he barefoot and not quite bare-assed in John’s quarters and going into the field with Lorne while John is just... hanging out? What is happening?

Unfortunately, John Sheppard knows him really well, and there is no chance he misses the face. The grin drops like its a literal mask removed and John is on his feet (also bare, also extending up to the thigh where snug boxer briefs fit nicely against thighs that should be illegal in all galaxies real and imagined) and pulling on socks while hopping to his boots with his pants tucked under one arm. “Mer.”

“What?”

“Talk to me.”

And Rodney would, he really would, except for two problems. One, John has never, not ever, called him Mer after that initial meeting with Jeannie, and two, if this were just an alternate John then that would not explain the Lorne thing or the Ronon thing or the feet and thighs thing or... So that leaves alternate Rodney, which doesn’t explain how he is himself while here, or some kind of improperly calibrated sim in which case it’s probably not an extremely smart idea to go spilling everything.

Or another Replicant situation in which case what, this is just weird cruel torture? Because obviously they would be able to tell that he was already noticing the issues but that doesn’t seem to be changing anything, and also what, they just want to mess with his low-key but omnipresent obsession with John Sheppard? Bleh.

Oh! Or bodyswap, and, okay, that would not be unheard of, with the Jennifer switch that one time, but if he is in his own body the implications are, well, somewhat-to-extremely upsetting? Ugh. He decides to stop generating options.

“A-about what?” he says. He squeaks a little, and for the love of god and/or physics, he’s been playing this game, this insane life of unimaginable science and knowledge but also unreasonable and frankly unconscionable danger, for nearly seven years now; you’d think he’d have worked out not to sound like a child when the situation calls for it, which it always does.

“About why you’re freaking out. What’s goin’ on?”

He sounds perfect. Laconic and drawly and somehow both knotted up tight about anything emotional or scary and also gentle and ready to help (anyone, for all that he hides it behind the flyboy facade and a meter-thick emotional-suppression bunker, but Rodney in particular). Perfect. Also, how, how, has the hopping just made his previous cozy bedhead into effortlessly hot unruliness? Wait, nope, not a good time to focus on that.

“I’m fine,” Rodney says shortly. “I just don’t like that Ronon is still unavailable.”

“Oh hey, I can shoot pretty good if you want some muscle.” John raises his eyebrows. “So Lorne isn’t on double duty and all, if you run into any bad guys. I totally don’t mind.”

“Hey. I have passed your damned shooting tests every time for years. I can also shoot ‘pretty good’ at this point, so I don’t really think, look. Just, what did you say before? Keep my spot warm? It’s just science. I’ll be back in a couple of hours and we can pick up where we left off.” There. That sounds appropriately grumpy and high-strung, right?

John squints at him for a moment, studying him, then (thank god) relaxes, some of the tension he’d picked up in the quest for boots dropping back away. “Oh I think we can do better than that,” he says, giving the occasion a truly epic and absurd eyebrow waggle.

And this is the point at which things go truly off the rails, because then he steps forward, drags his nose up Rodney’s jawline, bites his earlobe, and murmurs, “I’ll be butt naked and ready for you. Hurry home.” And then he gropes Rodney’s ass.

Rodney inhales sharply and turns toward him, which is a terrible idea because then that mouth is right there and all right, so he has to play along until he knows what’s what, right? But drowning in the subsequent kiss, while it would be a good way to go, is not how to make progress on the what’s-what front.

This does not mean he doesn’t arrive at the jumper bay twelve, rather than ten, minutes after Lorne’s call. With beard burn on his neck and possibly a minor or moderate chafing situation in his shorts due to inappropriate erection attire.

And no idea how he’s ever going to live his life without more of that.

John frowns slightly when he startles awake to the sound of a ping from the duty officer. “What, hey. Ptthbt McKay get your hair our of my mouth. Jesus this is worse than Nancy’s cat used to be.” He swats at Rodney’s offending fluff a couple more times and stretches his neck off to the side to clear his airway/jawline/lipspace while trying not to think too hard about his body’s unauthorized response to waking up with the smell of McKay in his nose, then reaches up for his ear. “Sheppard.”

“Research team on what I guess we’re still debating whether to call Donkeydorf or Planet Shrek wants McKay’s eyes on something. Should be a quick in and out,” Chuck says in his ear.

“Right now?”

“They don’t want to keep working around it, I guess. You think you can round him up for a quick run?”

John privately thinks this probably means they just found like, Ancient popsicle stick art and want an excuse to drag McKay out for a late-night exercise because they’re pissed he sent them instead of himself on the stated basis it was ‘probably not going to be worth anyone’s valuable time,’ because making friends and influencing people, if one is Rodney McKay, requires the ‘people’ part of the equation to be a sarcastic genius, a diplomat, a guy previously mostly concerned with not dying of Wraith, and/or someone otherwise willing to overlook, well, everything. But, he doesn’t say any of that. He just gives McKay a little shove and says “Sure. I’ll gather him up and be there in ten. You think Ronon and Teyla need to come?” He glances across at where Ronon’s sacked out on the chair. Teyla never stays very late on movie night any more when she’s able to make it, and Ronon’s had a rough couple of weeks, getting hit hard with what would have been a truly gnarly hip wound if John had been a quarter of a second later getting into position.

“Come where, babe?” McKay mutters in the half-awake, fuck-off tone that often precedes full wakefulness. Not that they sleep together. Exactly. But like, on missions and stuff, sometimes, and anyway they have sat vigil next to each other after a variety of significant and distressing injuries a bunch of times, and John loves and hates that he knows exactly how half-woken McKay plays. Then he stirs more and opens his eyes. “Also, wait, I thought Ronon was still...” He sits fully up, looks at John, looks at Ronon, and then, for some reason, looks at his feet. “Uh.”

John tilts his head, belatedly setting aside the ‘babe’ for later consideration. Or never consideration; maybe just ignoring it is going to be best for everyone. “What?”

Rodney doesn’t stammer or offer up a disruptive-to-ignoring excuse for the ‘babe’ thing, but does frown and point at Ronon, asking, “Has he, uh. Has he been here all evening?”

“Uh. Yeah? Movie night!” John says. “Also, we gotta go have a look over at the research site. They want your eyes.”

“Sure. Obviously that’s a great reason to drag us out in the middle of the night, or, I don’t know, what time is it? It has to be late, right? God, they probably just found like, cave art or something,” Rodney says.

John snorts out loud. “I was thinking popsicle stick art. Wanna bet on it?”

“Dunno. What’s the stake?”

“Dessert?”

“Boring. I mean, obviously I will take your dessert, but surely we can do a little better than that.” He waggles his eyebrows which, what. “Are we bringing Lorne, or--”

“Lorne?” John shakes his head “Why? It’s just gonna be an in-and-out. I’m all the pilot, muscle, and company you’ll need.” He makes a face and picks something out of his mouth, holding up a fine hair and giving Rodney a look.

“And you’re good to fly?”

John doesn’t dignify that. “I’m always good to fly and you know it.”

“Sure, but.”

“But nothing. We’re all good.

Rodney looks down at his feet again, then shakes his head. “I have got to start getting more sleep.” And then he rolls, straddling John’s lap, and after asking, “Did I hear you say ten minutes? Good.” ...kisses the shit out of John.

All right, that probably either explains or compounds the babe from earlier, but what the hell is even... It turns out that Rodney is either some kind of kissing savant or way more experienced than John has ever realized, because in less than fifteen seconds John is on the very edge of forgetting they’re supposed to be going anywhere.

Which has literally never happened in his life. Like, ‘he was married and went on a traditional island in the tropics honeymoon, but during it he had a list in his head the whole time of things he needed to get back to’ never. As the kiss goes on (and on!) John finds he is developing some really big questions about how, exactly, Rodney’s love life has been such a shit show because honestly unless this skill is very compartmentalized from literally everything else to do with fucking, he has to be an even bigger asshole than John has ever seen him be when in a relationship for his partners to give this up? Probably? Christ. It’s drugging and amazing and he just... he can’t care. About relationship things or flying donkeys or whatever the fuck. It’s probably just popsicle art! It’s not like he needs to grab anything but his gun and a jacket before they head out. They have time.

His face involuntarily tries to follow Rodney when he pulls away, and he feels almost dizzy (again: holy shiiiit), and then Rodney’s standing up off him and extending a hand to pull him up and upsettingly (uh. But.) not kissing him again. “Come on.” And with that, they’re off to the gate room.

It’s not until he’s steering the jumper through the ring that John manages to pull his scattered brain cells into enough semblance of order that he thinks it might not be the best idea he’s ever had to go ahead and head off world with with a McKay who is obviously either on drugs of some kind, a clone (shouldn’t he have noticed a gap somewhere?), a Replicant (shit), or, like, Rod. As soon as they emerge he turns to him and says “Rodney.”

And Rodney stares at him. “R...Rutherford? Are we calling each other by middle names today?”

John drops his chin to his chest. He sets aside the question of whether this answers or exacerbates (or both) his previous questions re: relationships, the ‘babe,’ and Rodney’s feet, and says, “Well, maybe,” then goes ahead and focuses on keeping them on their flight path. After all, if Rodney is a danger, having him off Atlantis is all to the good anyway, and if someone has to contain him, well. John isn’t assigning that nightmare to anyone else, either.

Even if being the container might end him. Shit.

He briefly, very briefly, considers coming up with a reason they gotta land, right now, so he can get some kind of a jump on Rodney and start getting answers in a setting in which he probably wouldn’t have to actually (ugh) hurt him, but the thing is, Rodney’s come a long way as far as handling himself during their time on Atlantis, and with no further information about whether and what kind of danger he might be, John can’t be totally sure he’ll come out on top especially if this iteration of Rodney has special skills. Other than kissing. The ...regular? Rodney can disable the jumper at least as well as he can, can fly it himself, and knows where they are going and how to get back, so it’d be a crapshoot and might leave the mission and/or the research team unprotected. Double shit.

Plus, to review, he does not want to goddamn hurt him, even if he’s some kind of 360° head-turning evil clown Rodney or something.

He turns and offers a lazy grin. “I mean, sometimes it’s kinda fun being someone else, right?”

Rodney chuckles, scrolling through what looks like some kind of schematic without really meeting John’s gaze. “Babe, I like the you that is you just fine.” He marks something on the diagram while John tries not to have a coronary event about being obviously cared-for, which is fucking heady even while he knows it might be, like, a twisted game situation, and then shrugs a little. “But if you want some low-stakes role-play, I guess middle names is one way to do it. Maybe Rodney is an interstellar spy? But then I guess you’d have to be, ummm,” he looks up and grins slyly. “Army, I guess?”

John scowls at least as much at the Army notion as the issue of getting no further information, and tries to keep his tone light. “Come on, McKay. Obviously I’d have gone to law school and you’d be sucking face with a congressman by now.”

“Think I can do better than your face,” Rodney says, looking over now and giving John a quick up-and-down examination that somehow is both perfectly publicly appropriate and perfectly filthy.

John snorts with his face and clenches with his entire rest of his anatomy at the, at the friendly, familiar, clearly very personal leer. This had better not be another Charles Winchester lookalike shoving an electronic hand through his head. “Probably gotta wait til we’re home for that,” he says after clearing his throat slightly, which he judges isn’t wildly out of character, probably, since it’s what he’d do in a seriously-turned-on-in-public scenario anyway.

“I dunno,” Rodney says. “If I look at their whatsit real fast, we could probably pull over on the way back for some Jurassic-esque hanky panky and still be home for dinner.”

John grits his teeth a little, reminds his libido that he is a goddamn soldier and can control himself, and, ugh, subtly tells the jumper to develop a slight and inexplicable shimmy in the port stabilizer. It’s a known occasional (real) problem and a good reason to slow down, and he hates it, but as much as his dick thinks ‘forest head in a slightly dangerous due to dinosauroids environment’ is a fantastic idea, fucking not-Rodney’s mouth in the wilderness is probably a bad idea on a number of levels.

“Although,” Rodney says, eyes still on his work, “I actually don’t want to do anything that will get you grounded again.”

Grounded? Jesus. No, that’s a full no-go as far as John is concerned, and he lets the tiny shimmy get less tiny. Grounded. Fuck.

Maybe, he tells himself while definitely not looking at Rodney at all, maybe or probably or maybe it’s a certainty because the laws of alternate realities are not exactly well-understood and settled science... where was he? Maybe when this is all sorted out actual-Rodney will be interested in, well. Doing... things. Without getting him grounded and with whatever other mouth skills he has because fuck. Sure, that’s going to involve John having an awkward conversation or whatever, but fuck it, he’s a pretty smart guy with a lot of skills. He’ll come up with something. Right? He definitely can come up with something.

Rodney spends the two minutes while they get the jumper ready to roll trying to decide whether his relationship with Lorne in this scenario is, or in the case that it’s some kind of mindfuck thing, is meant to be, one in which he chats casually, and whether it matters. He doesn’t have much more data than he had before (notable exception: a lot of new reference data regarding ways in which John Sheppard can absolutely ruin him with just his mouth and without more effort than it takes him to light up whatever the smallest piece of alien tech they’ve ever found is), so he’s more or less running with the assumption the situation is A Problem, but that still doesn’t help much. He finally decides to be ‘absorbed’ in some reading, which can’t be that out of character, right?

And then as they’re just through the gate and Lorne is turning in a smooth arc, he says, “You and Sheppard hanging in there?”

“Um. What?”

“Well. I mean, he was in pretty rough shape when he was first grounded, but he seems lighter now with you guys finally, well.”

“He’s not grounded!” Rodney says sharply before he can consider it because the notion of John without flight is just... it’s just. No. Then he realizes this does explain the Lorne part, and even while he wonders how long things have been going on, he adds, “Um, I mean. Any more?” John did offer to fly them, right? He must not be literally... anyway.

“No, I know, but it’s going to be a while before he’s cleared for anything substantial. That’s rough on any adrenaline junkie pilot, which, let’s not pussyfoot, is all pilots, at all times, but even in that context he needs it a lot, the airtime I mean, but I guess maybe with you guys finally doing... things...” he gestures at Rodney and Jesus Christ this is totally about the nakedness and kissing situation ugh, “and then with how he is about responsibility, that whole diplomatic incident...”

Rodney has nothing resembling enough structure to the pieces gathered so far to probe further about whatever the fuck that means (yet) (and also fucking fuck, he’s no kind of intelligence agent or cop what the fuck), so despite that the whole ‘now that you guys finally’ commentary and sex-topic gesturing is just compounding his general confusion, he says, “Well, it turns out that now that we... finally... Anyway, he seemed pretty good when I left him. And not upset. And willing to, um, wait.”

“Well, good. I’m glad it all led to, ...you know, I always hated the rules about this shit, but it’s still all things I try not to consider too hard.” He gestures again. “Sorry. Don’t mean to make it weird. Anyway. I’m still working on the IOA. Um, and before you spiral, the incident was not on you either. Obviously. Since you’re not grounded and never were.”

Rodney has at this point no idea where this conversation is going to end up, which is freaking him out a little, so he latches onto something out of desperation. “I hate how that term means either not allowed to fly or being kept from social engagements and activities by one’s parents. I mean, I know one probably grew out of the other, but when it’s you guys it always sounds like the first one, and when it’s me, well. It comes across differently.”

Lorne looks at him side-eyed, then shrugs. “Anyway. It wasn’t your fault.”

Rodney gets the sense this is not the first time they’ve had this part of the conversation, and that he is in fact not reacting as expected, so he sighs. “So you’ve said.”

That seems to bring him closer to the mean on whatever Rodney Reaction Bell Curve Lorne holds in his mind, so that’s something. Lorne nods. “So don’t go bringing that in again into whatever they need from you today, right?”

Rodney wonders exactly how incompetent at compartmentalization this “Mer” version of him must be or ostensibly be or... whatever, the whole situation is giving him hives on multiple levels at this point, that this is evidently a repeating conversation with Lorne, who he doesn’t feel like he knows well enough to ummmm be having it, but then, whatever the fuck happened must have been pretty messy anyway, and also this version is apparently much further along the cuddle John Sheppard game than he himself is, so there are bound to be differences. Would sex with John be the sort of thing that would rattle him like that? More than, okay, more than blowing up a solar system or tearing a dimensional hole and hosing some other universe?

Sure, to be fair, that’s a high maybe, given it’s John. Rodney tries to get more comfortable in his seat because at least squirming is probably better for his back in the long run? and goes back to the data file he’d found loaded up for him when he started reading. It’s a diagram, but the labeling looks like toddlers were in charge of naming decisions and in any case the relationships in the branches are highly unclear if not fully irrational because it looks like they’re implying the device both is and is not present and their scientific conclusion is mostly that it gives people the willies. He guesses this is why they need him to look at in person and it’s definitely going to be better if he figures out what they are struggling with before he arrives so he can step off the jumper, perform a miracle in ten seconds, and go home.

Where John will be naked and waiting.

Which, again, he’s honest in his own mind so he can’t really pretend that’s not pretty appealing, but. Eugh.

Probably letting that situation resolve to its logical conclusion isn’t a good idea in case this is actually a scenario not yet considered and there’s coercion or something involved. Rodney does, yes, very much want to do naked calisthenics with John, but not if John isn’t excited about it, and when has his John ever... of course, his John is also emotionally constipated on his most open and vulnerable day, so he supposes it’s possible, and alternate reality rules aren’t exactly precise, but still, no way to know from here, right? And this one is apparently dealing with being grounded so maybe he’s fucking Rodney as a coping mechanism? That does seem like a pretty likely reason. Anyway. So getting home faster will just mean needing to manufacture a reason why not to, and manufacturing reasons to John is, not to put too fine a point on it, not among Rodney’s more effective or well-polished skills.

John isn’t super great at misdirecting him at this point, either, which if anything maybe argues against pursuing anything here (in this timeline/reality/hallucination?) even further; on consideration he thinks he’d know if this John were coerced, at least, so the good news is, he’s probably not going to hell on the strength of today alone, but still, fucking a quasi-stranger while they are unaware that’s what’s happening is on the list of things that can definitely be construed as deeply creepy and/or assault, despite the closeness they do for real have.

Damn it, though, because he’s going to need to stall with Lorne instead, isn’t he? He sighs and starts reading a random file in the “weird shit we found that doesn’t do anything but someday we oughtta figure out why it’s here” folder on his laptop.

By the time they land at the research site, John has graduated the shimmy to low-key shudder. He feels a little bad about it, because it’s going to miraculously resolve as they approach Atlantis and that will mean someone, possibly Rodney but also likely everyone else who has anything to do with jumper maintenance, is going to have to chase that ghost. Maybe once he figures out what the shit is going on, he’ll fess up. Or once he gets actual Rodney back, anyway.

He’s not sure what he’s supposed to call McKay right now, since he can’t even think about making his mouth return that ‘babe’ as though everything is totally fine and every other pet name seems equally incorrect and the whole middle name thing suggests Meredith but that’s also not something he can wrap his lips around.

Not that he is wrapping his lips around anything. Or thinking about it extensively. Or experiencing vivid imaginary moments on the topic during which he is very distracted.

Obviously.

Like, it’s hardly a new topic of interest to him, and he’s pretty accustomed to cordoning off his distraction about it in order to, you know, function, but the part where it’s pretty clear the Rodney next to him, and perhaps therefore also the Rodney he wants to...wrap... is aggressively on the same page, is a whole new level of distraction and his cordons have large, jagged, very unstable gaps in them that are not being stitched back together by the extent to which he’s now legitimately worried about not just whatever is happening, but also about his version of Rodney, who as far as he can tell has been replaced by an unknown entity and may be gone for good.

He better not be.

He sets down far enough out that they’ll have to walk a bit, and late enough that dawdling will not be appealing; just because the donkeysauruses are hilarious doesn’t mean they’re necessarily safe to be around, and just in case McKay has forgotten this and/or is going to offer up additional ways to enjoy each other’s company, he says so.

“Yeah, no shit,” Rodney says. “Did it seem more, like, horizontal than usual?”

“What?”

“The shimmy. It felt more directed than it has when I’ve felt it before.”

John is glad to be looking into his kit and verifying the presence of Rodney’s epi-pen so he doesn’t have to worry about his face giving him away; besides that he knows he probably looks like a man who has been thinking about getting his dick sucked for the last fifteen minutes, Rodney surely knows him well enough to see a patent lie. “Eh, since we don’t know why they do it, I guess maybe there are factors we don’t understand? It wasn’t that bad.”

“Bad enough to slow us down.”

“Sure, but if it had been an emergency we’d probably have been okay. I was just, you know, abundance of caution.”

“Sure,” Rodney says. “Because that’s always how you roll.”

John offers up a smirk that he doesn’t bother trying like usual to keep from being fond because obviously this Rodney knows about the fondness, and shrugs. “Can I help it if I like keeping you safe?”

That, by the way, is the truest statement he’s made this whole time.

Also, he could very easily get used to not hiding his fondness. Shit.

“All right, what’s the emergency?” Rodney says by way of greeting.

“This,” the lead guy (Bidwell? Bartell? Barbell?) says, turning with an unnecessarily-dramatic arm sweep. “Look.”

“Yes, I was aware we were looking,” Rodney says, approaching the group near a central column. “It was the whole reason for the unplanned trip--although, video technology does exist, so why didn’t we just...” he trails off. “What the fuck?”

As he approaches the column, a section of it changes. In a way, it lights up, but that’s not the full experience of it. It’s as though it accrues a gritty goosebump-raising texture and taste that travel into his consciousness by way of a phenomenon that looks like sound.

Sure, that’s going to make a cogent and well-received report. It also does somewhat explain why the technical report they sent seemed insane.

“It doesn’t show on video,” Maybe-Bagwell, definitely calling him that for now, says. “It’s only in person. But, it also—”

Rodney shushes him. The sense of the structure is shifting in a way that, to his frustration, he can’t describe. It’s changing shape? Or something? But it’s solid and clear and he reaches out a hand to touch it when Bagwell snatches at his sleeve and drags him back by the elbow. “Hey!”

“Hey yourself. What do you tell everyone every time there is a new Ancient device or site?”

“Don’t touch...oh. Right.” Rodney watches the wall change more, aware that it’s remaining the same as it started, but also not. “Fine, so what do we know?”

“It ate the probe we poked it with.” That’s Hank Ritchie, the kid who idolizes Zelenka, which, all right, that’s a choice, Rodney guesses. But it also means he talks like him, sometimes giving only the bare bones with the assumption he won’t need to say more when for fuck’s sake Rodney can only surmise from context when there is context. Also, he doesn’t make intermittent descents into Czech scatalogica that Rodney keeps meaning to look up just so he knows exactly how many of his ancestors of which degree(s) Radek is cursing, so that’s something.

But in this case his blunt statement also contains useful information, so maybe the kid has potential, target of idolatry notwithstanding. “Oh. Well. Thanks for not letting it eat my hand, I guess. Um.”

“It has a readout thing,” Ritchie says, pointing to one side. “But, nothing that makes sense coming from it.”

Rodney crouches to examine (without touching!) the screen which... all right, it has to be medical, right? This is maybe some kind of diagnostic device? Because the screen faces away from the mutating wall, for a second user or participant to read from. “What was the probe looking for?”

“Dandridge said it looked like something was melting but audibly.” Which, that is a reasonable, or at least not completely insane, description of the phenomenon, if one were to try to boil it down to a single phrase, so Rodney has to give him credit for that. “Like I said, only in person. The rest of us don’t see it, but—”

“But I do,” Rodney says, quickly considering whether he knows a Dandridge. “So where is Dandridge now?”

“Uh. It started to make him sick? Then anxious. Basically it freaked him the fuck out.”

“Oh cool. Because anxiety is something that needs to be induced in, say, me.”

“Right, but asking random people to look at it wouldn’t help, and without knowing what it is, we can’t move on.” He points at the two dim rooms through archways on the far side of the device. “We didn’t want to pass by it in case the eating-the-probe phenomenon was larger than we knew.”

“Well.” Rodney puts his hands on his hips. “Dandridge has the ATA gene, I assume?” He should know this, but actually, wait, no, he should know this, and Dandridge does not, but meets the criteria for the gene therapy to work. All right, so this Dandridge has already done it?

“No,” Ritchie says, fucking up that assumption right off the bat. “He’s doing the therapy next week, but right now—”

“But none of the rest of you can see it.” Rodney turns. “M--” Wait. Is Lorne a major here? Uh. “Hey Lorne?”

Lorne is up near the entryway to the area. “Yeah?”

“This column look weird to you?”

“No, but I’m forty feet away.”

“Yes, I see that. A ten-meter walk doesn’t seem out of bounds to ask.”

Lorne snorts and comes closer. “Uh, yeah, and I don’t like it. Hey, probably don’t touch it.”

“Yeah, no shit.” Rodney opts out of mentioning that he had in fact needed that reminder just a few minutes ago. “Anyway, I think it’s some kind of device that transfers human energy, I guess? and I gotta look at the readout. You can see it doing its thing, so I figure you better stay here while I do that.”

“McKay, if it tases me while you’re over there futzin’ with it, believe me when I tell you I’ll make your life hell.”

“Oh please. My life regularly descends to at least the third level regardless of any effort I do or don’t make. Is it making you feel sick?”

“Little bit, if I keep looking at it.”

“Great. Try not to upchuck on anything.” Rodney steps off to the side, avoiding looking directly at whatever is going on in favor of examining the readout screen.

“I know this is usually your line,” John says, giving his hands something to do by resting one on the holster at his hip and rechecking his ammo situation with the other (what, just because they didn’t expect drama here doesn’t mean he’s not absolutely loaded up to deal with it), “but do not touch that thing.”

They’re still a good five yards from it and John stops and puts his hand on Rodney’s arm to hold him back just in case.

“No kidding,” Rodney says. “It looks like it’s melting.”

“Uh, no, it looks like it’s molten,” John says. “Like pure energy, concentrated right into that small space.”

Rodney glances back over his shoulder at him. “So I feel like this is a gene thing, then. Wait does anyone else here have—”

“I’m as close as we have,” a doughy looking new guy (Dallas? Danza?) pipes up. “Eligible for the procedure, haven’t really bothered. Anyway, it’s trying to give me a migraine but I can’t exactly explain why.”

“Yeah, well, it’s because it’s like if you put the energy of a ZPM in visual form and compressed it into art,” John explains. “But really no one else sees it?”

“We tried to probe it,” Bidwell says.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, because only Dandridge was seeing anything and so at first we were thinking hallucination? But like, he doesn’t have--”

“Right. So that’s new, and weird. We’ve never come across anything that folks who could do the gene therapy can sense, have we?” John’s sure they have not, but Rodney’s the science guy and he might have come across a reference or something?

Rodney frowns. “No, but given that not everyone can get much out of the procedure, it was probably only a matter of time.”

“Maybe. What happened when you probed?”

“It ate the probe,” Bidwell says with a sigh.

“Ate it? It disappeared or...?”

“Ate it, it swallowed it whole, here one minute gone the next but very definitely by vanishing into some kind of void we couldn’t find again a second later.”

“Like, it pretty much grew a tongue and slurped,” Dandridge adds.

“Ew,” Rodney says. John has to agree; a raw power suction device is a whole new fuel cell for recurring nightmares, if you ask him.

“And then you called back to base, but said you just needed McKay to look at it?”

“Well yeah. It didn’t attack anything, just responded to us and all we want is to go on by and work on some other stuff.” Bidwell waves an arm toward a couple of darkish arches further on. “Just wanted to make sure it would be safe to go past.”

“Oh for fuck’s...” Rodney already has his laptop cradled in the crook of one arm and he’s plugging things together to set up cabling connections to a little readout down the wall.

“You’re not plugging into this thing, are you?” John hears the sharpness that almost conveys his actual distress at the notion of Rodney getting hurt, but Rodney’s already making one set of gestures toward Bidwell and shaking his head at John.

“I don’t know, John, maybe I should, hey, see if I can find out more without touching it,” he says. He sets the laptop down and plugs into the most likely port quickly, stepping back from the computer until it doesn’t get slurped. “OK well that’s something, I... are you fucking kidding me?”

John takes up a station immediately behind Rodney’s left shoulder and looks at the display.

There’s an image of Rodney, well, no, Rod or another version or reality of Rodney that is more inclined toward leather and coolness, and text that reads, “this is my fuckup, but I can’t fix it alone.”

Of course he can’t.

John resists the impulse to just shoot the screen and go back to bury his head under his pillow because fucking fuck, and turns his chin in toward Rodney. “Well, so now what?”

“No idea.”

“Oh well that’s just fantastic,” Rodney says, glaring at the screen. “What the fuck does he want me to do about that?”

The gathered team all stare at him.

“What?”

“That’s you, though, right?”

“Did.” Rodney stares back, trying to work out... did this reality never encounter. Hm. Rod crossed over, but if he runs with the (unproven, possibly unwarranted) assumption that the situation is that he himself has crossed to a different other... but. All right, so then did he and Jeannie just.

Probably, right? They were right on the edge of getting the math anyway, so it was probably just. But then also there have been Replicant clones, and probably those happened everywhere, right? But maybe that played differently here, too?

Why is this his life. Okay. So, without further scrambling the, it’s not a timeline. The ‘verseline? Or something, and without giving away the farm if his unproven, unwarranted assumption is not correct, he needs to know what they know about alternate realities.

So fine. “You know, this reminds me, I can’t remember, have you all met my sister?”

God, Jeannie better exist here. Wait, maybe here she didn’t take the path that led to Madison, and then maybe he can just call her here? She can come help? But no, he doesn’t want to get ahead of himself. But they’re all staring at him, and he can’t tell if it’s the ‘you moron obviously we all know her well’ or the ‘we were unaware sisters were a thin’ stare, so that’s no help.

“Right, anyway, very smart, and I’m reminded of her theory of alternate universes.”

“Yeah, obviously,” Bagwell says. “But are you suggesting there are also alternate us-es?”

So that’s a relief, but. “Of course I, well, yes, and I think we are looking at one.”

Bagwell looks at Ritchie, then at Crowell, then sighs. “We figured it was like 30-70, but if that’s not actually you...”

“Exactly.” Okay, that went maybe a bit better than expected.

The image on the screen changes. Now it says “you get this loop if you put someone with the gene in the sensor field before we get the whole thing turned off.” Then, after a moment, “Please respond,” and a lengthy equation which Rodney grimaces at, followed by a diagram. The two loop back and forth and then the cycle starts again.

“In and out, my ass,” he says to no one in particular.

He grabs an image of the equation onto his laptop and starts pulling it apart while he waits for the diagram to cycle back through. “Hey Lorne?”

“Yeah?”

“You don’t have to stand there right now, but I’m pretty sure I need Zelenka. And John. Go get them?”

“Sheppard?”

“Uh, yeah? You have a different math whiz in mind?”

Lorne frowns.

“Oh for the love of. Look, just because he has a less transparent relationship with calculus than I do doesn’t mean he can’t, you know what, just can you trust me here? Because the other choice is we go get Jeannie and I feel like I don’t really want to do that.”

“Why? I mean, if it’s not a safety issue, we can just turn it off for now and come back when you’ve had time to do the math, right?”

Right, so put up or shut up time, apparently. “No,” Rodney says. “It’s urgent to me, because that one isn’t me, but I’m assuming he’s enough like me that leaving something up ‘until they get the whole thing shut down’ implies it needs shutting down. And cross-reality adventures aren’t great, so.”

“Ah.”

“Take the nauseated kid with you,” Rodney says. “Might as well get him to the infirmary sooner than later.

“I’m not excited about leaving you unprotected,” Lorne says.

Rodney looks around at the group. “Theses guys have all been here naked of military presence for a couple of days.”

“Fine but these guys don’t have the very close attention of the man who can tell the city to murder me in my sleep, which I will if I show up back there without you,” Lorne argues.

Rodney snorts. “Remind him that you came to get him to come protect me and see if that helps.”

Lorne sighs and nods. “Yeah, okay. Will do. Expect a couple hours, yeah?”

“Yep. Here, take...” Rodney grabs the nearest laptop, which apparently belongs to Chen, who squeaks, then acquiesces, and transfers the files he has so far onto it. “They can start cramming en route. Remind, well, so he is but sometimes, anyway, remind John it’s okay to be smart in public.”

Lorne legitimately chuckles, and takes the laptop.

“We shoulda brought Zelenka,” John says as the rest of the group heads on into the back rooms. There’s nothing about this part that they can effectively help with, as far as Rodney can tell, and also it shouldn’t do any harm to anyone without the gene. Dandridge, also no real help, sets up shop just outside where he doesn’t have to look at the thing and starts organizing the notes they have so far, leaving John alone with Rodney.

Rodney shrugs. “Or Jeannie, I guess,” he says. “I assume this is the proof that alternate universes do have alternate versions of us.”

John catches himself before uttering a full-bodied duh and just nods. “Isn’t Jeannie...”

“Oh, right. She’s probably out of range for a while anyway,” Rodney (Meredith, John has to remind himself, or Mer) says. Well, I guess Zelenka would be okay, but I don’t want to send you back in a hurry in that jumper.”

John curses his poor planning in his head and tries to run some kind of logic tree analysis of whether this is a good time to confess about the nature of the shimmy, then shrugs. Fetching Zelenka would take the time to run back, flight time, explaining time, and travel, and given what happened the last time they encountered Rod he’s not sold on the concept of leaving any iteration of Rodney here in case of dire outcomes. “K, well, I dunno if I have the chops, but what do we have?”

Rodney explains, the movements of his hands so familiar even when he reaches out with the kinds of casual touches that he wouldn’t ever make under normal circumstances, but which John can’t quite get enough of, that John practically has to set a reminder to tell him every few minutes this is not his Rodney. Which, Jesus, he’s not a guy who hangs out with the psych team, you know, ever, but he’s confident there is a lot of unpacking to do on the topic of his mind’s assertion that there is a Rodney who is his. And the fact that he feels something like a growl surging in his chest when he tries to set the concept aside.

Mer has, it seems, fully fucking broken him with that goddamned kiss.

He forces his attention to stay with the process Mer is working out, acting as the duck for every layer of the system and asking stupid (but helpful!) questions, and in an hour Mer sighs and cracks his back gently, then outright moans when John, who is definitely still not crossing any lines here but obviously they touch on the regular as far as Mer is concerned and if he’s taking slight advantage, fuck it, sue him, moves behind him and presses his thumbs into the slope of his shoulders.

Yeah, okay, this was a stupid idea since now John is stuck offering the massage because leaping away seems pretty shitty, but also stuck not just leaning down and... right, bad idea, not thinking about that.

Finally, he calculates that’s enough massage and somehow his body has managed to refrain from full boner in the field (medium-sized miracle), and he rests his hands on Mer’s shoulders for a couple of heartbeats and then steps back.

“So, is it you or me,” Mer asks, glancing up at him.

“What?”

“You’re not my John, babe. One of us is in the wrong universe.”

“You’re not wrong, but how did you know?”

Mer chuckles and goes back to typing something while he says, “Lots of things. For one thing you tend to stick a lot closer to me than you were just standing... It’s me, right? I don’t think my John would have suggested Radek before Jeannie, and based on how it felt to walk over here, and the fact you didn’t offer to massage my leg too, I’m pretty sure the body I’m sitting in hasn’t had ACL repair surgery. And also, I think you already met--”

“Rod, yeah. Pretty sure it’s you,” John says with relief. “You seemed pretty discombobulated when you woke up, too, and nothing seems weird to me, but that doesn’t exclude that it’s both of us and it’s just that I’m in a universe closer to my own. Also, wait, why Jeannie?”

“You’ve met her. I mean, you have, obviously?”

“Right?”

“Yeah, and she’s the second--” he jabs a thumb at himself-- “smartest person in Pegasus, so.”

“Your Jeannie lives here? What about.” John stops cold. Just because they’re on the same page about the cross-up universe situation it doesn’t follow that he should go telling Rodney about a niece that might not exist for him, right?

“Oh. Well, fuck,” Mer says, turning toward him. “She stayed in Vancouver?”

“She’s been here, but only to consult. Why?”

Mer looks at him for a minute like there’s some reason why this should bother him, then shakes his head quickly. “Not that important. Anyway, what do you suppose the version of me where I belong is doing?”

“Probably doing exactly what we are,” John says. “I expect if it’s a direct swap my Rodney—”

“Oh, well yes, that explains that, too,” Mer says. “How long has he called himself Rodney?”

“College, I think, but anyway, he’s probably been obviously in the wrong place as long as you have, right? Also, I can go get Zelenka. Jumper’s fine, I just, you know, you were offering, well.”

“And you didn’t want that because you... what, you and he don’t? Jesus, did he hit his head as a child or something? What could possibly make him not jump you as soon as the opportunity presented itself?”

John snorts. “That’s a hell of a conclusion.”

“Am I wrong?”

“About the head-bump? Yes, as far as I know.”

Mer scowls, both corners of his mouth turning down into disgusted crinkles. “No, the other part.”

“We don’t,” John says, and then, to his horror, he clarifies, “he’s never been interested.”

“Bullshit,” Mer says. “I am he, he is me, we are we, and you are you, looking like you. Ergo.” He reaches down and catches John’s hand, turning it palm up. “Your callouses are even the same.” One hand comes up to graze his thumb against John’s jaw. “And the fucking bug scar. Identical. It’s freaky.” Then he grins. Beams, actually. “He definitely is. And now? Now you know it and you’re gonna hafta take action.”

He literally boops John’s nose when he says it, his grin goddamn gleeful, and John wonders what the timeline change was that caused him to keep his name and be a person who booped. He hopes it was that his parents sucked less – seems like a good candidate, and he likes the idea of a Rodney with a happier early life.

Also, Christ, it turns out John is a person who is happy to be booped, if the booper is Rodney. His dignity is never going to survive any of this.

“So now,” Mer says as he turns back to the lines of code compiling on his laptop, “we gotta get me home, obviously, but we also gotta get him back to you. Also obviously. I only wish I could be there to see the fallout.”

John can’t even figure out what the response to that should be. He also can’t wait, but that’s all tangled up in the terror of the what if – what if Mer is wrong, what if they fuck up getting him back, what if Rod is wrong, and what if he fucks it all up somehow anyway even in the best case. All he can manage is a sarcastic yeah, yeah, I’ll send you my therapy bill, enjoying that with the benefit of a previous bullshit under his belt he can absolutely see that Mer does not, not for one second, believe that John Sheppard is ever darkening a therapeutic door.

“Finally,” comes back on the whatever it is interuniversal communication device Rodney has hung together with tape, wire, spit, and hope. Naturally it’s text-only and he’s not willing to actually commit a fuck you to the record, so he just types, Sometimes we have to work with what we have.

From there, it’s a matter of triangulating a series of, well, frankly impossible sets of coordinates that seem to comprise some kind of epic causality vortex in which Rod somehow opened and stepped into (on purpose! Having not learned from the other time! What the hell, did he hit his head?) a rift that moved him, but in a way that involved math that required one Rodney in each universe and once one was displaced a whole weird chain reaction happened (anyway this is how he’s describing it for now; no one in two galaxies has both the math and the security clearance to prove him wrong and it’s not like he doesn’t have a lot of data and notes to fuck around with later) and a terse discussion of the value of bringing more than one expert to solve a large problem--he thinks the fuck you really loud at that, but given that he only started to make sense, for a value of sense that involves squinting and looking at it all kind of sideways and as though drunk, once John arrived and stood with him, ugh, Rod isn’t wrong. About that. Rift thing: still wrong.

Rodney wonders, as he puts the last chunks of code to reverse all this into place, why alternate-John works just as well as his John; it seems like the differences should be enough, devastating kiss notwithstanding, to break the bond of shared experience that makes for the shorthand they so often fall into.

He also wonders if this is going to mean that his John feels less, less special? No, not that, but something like that, when, it’s definitely when not if, he gets home.

But, no time for that now. He’s evidently the last of the Rodneys that got sucked into this nonsense to get the code done, and he is definitely going to need a beer about that later but right now, “Done!”

John, who is standing just behind him, solid against his back with both hands on Rodney’s shoulders because evidently they have gone all in on the coupleness, squeezes his delts and leans down. “Knew you could do it.

Rodney’s whole body heats at the way the whisper is warm against the shell of his ear and turns his head. “Yeah, I mean, once you got here it wasn’t so hard.”

“I mean, getting back to your John seems like pretty good motivation,” John says.

Rodney shakes his head. “He and I aren’t—”

“Seriously?” John blinks a couple of times. “Mere—Rodney. I am currently a shitshow and I gather yours is not, and still somehow you, my you, picked me anyway. What could he possibly have done not to be at least as worthwhile?”

Rodney’s worked out, sort of, that whatever the incident was, this John made one choice differently that resulted not only in Ronon nearly bleeding to death of an injury before anything could be done, but several of their biggest allies turning away from them, and done it in a way that pissed off the IOA so bad the only way he was still here was their relationship, which, actually, that sucked for him and here he was still building up Rodney.

“Okay, so no, it’s not. Like, I’m on board. I would be on board if he blew up a solar system. Um, I did that here too, right?”

“Would anything have stopped you? Yes.”

“And like, I did choose him when the whole thousands of years, desert planet, hologram thing, or at least it sure seems like I did and nothing about that story struck me as false.” Rodney checks on the compiling code and then looks back up. “But my John hasn’t ever. Well, that kiss was a bit of a shock, is what I’m saying.”

John scrunches up his face. “Crap, sorry.”

“No, I said I was on board. It wasn’t a bad shock. But I mean, he’s never been interested.”

“Bullshit.” John rolls his eyes. “Look, I’m assuming you’d be telling me if it was that he and I are like, fundamentally different. If you could tell immediately—”

“The nakedness promise was a pretty big clue.”

“Whatever, I mean, me. I’ll tell you what I told him: brains are sexy as fuck, not in any stupid zombie kind of way, and to be honest, the desert planet game... yeah. He came for me.” John makes a face that is both the kind of blank Rodney knows well, that happens when John tries to use his words, and also shows a squirmy discomfort, but to Rodney’s surprise he continues. “He put his life into it. It’s not possible for there to be a combination I want more than brains and loyalty. Seriously. When you get back, just. Yeah.”

“Well shit, for a second there I thought you were going to give me actual actionable emotional advice.” Rodney smiles as he says it, though, because yeah, they’re exactly the same. Exactly.

The computer gives a little ding and he looks back down. “Okay, it’s ready.”

“You good?” John asks.

Rodney shrugs, then says, because if John can be vulnerable so can he. “No, but it got me here. We all step into mathematically insane holes in space all the time, right? How bad can this one be?” He pauses and says, “I wonder if we all agreed to go home because we all also agreed to go home, or if we really are all out of our fucking minds.”

“Oh, it’s both,” John says, grinning. He steps in close to Rodney, hands cupping his face. “Look, this is just in case. It isn’t cheating because it’s you, and I feel like you’re doing the same thing on the other side. But it’s your math, so it’s unnecessary, but still, for luck,” and he lowers his face and kisses Rodney again, not dirty this time, but gentle.

“Does this make me Luke Skywalker escaping the Death Star?”

“Ew, no, I’m not your sister.”

“Bleach. I need bleach.”

“Your own fault. Now go do the thing.”

“John?” Rodney says, stepping, metaphorically, while not moving a muscle, from something to something through a cold sharp nothing that electrifies his body hair so it all stands up and simultaneously presses his skin in a way that feels red and reminds him of the sensation of chewing raw broccoli florets that are starting to turn yellow but aren’t quite bad yet. He doesn’t like it.

“Rodney?” John asks, standing exactly -- exactly -- where other John had been, posture the same, hands on his hips, in tac gear with his rank insignia the only difference Rodney can see. It’s freaky. Like, freaky. Had his John kissed other Rodney for luck? Is it creepy if he did? God damn it.

“How.” Rodney’s voice cracks and he tries again. “How do we prove we’re aligned right? I mean, that this isn’t just a different wrong universe.”

John considers. “No idea. I feel like Rod must have made allowance for that?”

“Oh like he was the only genius working on the problem. It was his mess!” Rodney finds himself touching his lips, where other John was just seconds ago, and puts his hand down.

“Easy! I’m just saying, I assume he at least had some idea how to make sure everyone ended up in the right place, right? Some kind of sorting mechanic?”

Rodney wags one hand side to side. Probably yes, but he can’t even think of a way to make progress toward proving ahead of time, in theory, that such a thing would work right. “Maybe we have to prove we’re not misaligned.”

“Not sure that’s easier.” John says. “Wait, it’s Rodney, though, right? Not Meredith?”

“True.”

John makes a little check mark in the air with his finger.

“And you’re not grounded,” Rodney says.

“GROUNDED?”

“I know. It was weird.”

“No. Wait, so I wasn’t with you?”

“You were. Very with me.” Rodney feels his face heat and considers whether it’s easier to just say, in words, what the first signs had been that he was not in Kansas any more.

“So the Meredith that came here belonged where you were, then.”

“Maybe. You, the you that was there, called me Mer, which was when I realized that being in your quarters in my underwear might not be the only thing that wasn’t making a lot of sense. To be clear, that you was also in your, his, whatever, underwear.”

“For me, this got weird when a person I had previously thought was you got over being super confused about Ronon being at movie night and then kissed me so thoroughly I thought I might be having a really exciting stroke.”

Rodney grips the back of his own neck with one hand. “Yeah, I had, um, a similar moment.”

“Oh yeah?”

“But after I’d already worked out, I mean, I felt a little bad about, okay, so I was trying to play along in case—”

“In case it was some kind of mindfuck, right. I got that. I, um. Things actually got weirder, though?”

“Well, in that I had to have Lorne fly me out here because of the whole grounding thing.”

“I meant for me.” John shrugs. “Also, you have to quit referring to me being grounded because no. Like, no.”

“I know. It was weird. And terrible. Also it meant Lorne called me but not you for a situation and I would like that to happen never more times.”

“Cool me too. Taking care of situations is my job.” John’s lips pull into a little quirk, almost a smirk and almost a grin. “Actually, I told other you that, too. Uh. We should probably have this conversation when we get back to base, but I mean, so far has anything felt off? If we’re proving alignment and whatever.”

Rodney shakes his head. “Nothing pinging, but again, this time I have not arrived at consciousness in my underwear in your quarters, so the bar is pretty low. Hey, where is everyone, anyway?”

John points. “Research team is continuing operations. We made sure everyone here has no gene, and Dandridge is outside until further notice. You think we can shut this thing all the way down? Also, what the hell was it even for?”

Rodney makes a face. “It’s kind of morbid, but our best guess is that it’s a way to retrieve someone who died. Or, no, probably not died because that would make them zombies or something, but, like, was injured at a critical moment. Like, if someone was right on the precipice of a valuable contribution, by whatever measure, and then was unable to complete their task, and the group as a whole thought it was in the best interests...”

John makes a matching face. “Nope, don’t need one of those. I’m starting think the Ancients were basically a whole society of deeply fucked-up sociopaths.”

“Just starting? No, I mean, I don’t disagree.” Rodney checks the screen and then carefully presses a recessed little panel, and waits for the melting screen sensation, which it’s sort of upsetting to find he’d gotten kind of used to? to cease, then promptly drops down onto his knees in front of John to get under the lip of the nearby ledge.

John steps back just a little too quickly, and Rodney looks up. “What?”

“Uh.“ John shakes his head, but his face goes red in a way that gives Rodney pause.

“Oh, so not. I’m just disabling this fucking thing with prejudice,” he says. “But I feel like this is part of that same conversation. Which we are having back at base. Possibly with beer. Or a lot of beer.”

“Yeah, okay.” John gestures over his shoulder with one thumb. “If you don’t need me, I’m going to go fix, so, I sort of gave the jumper a case of the shakeys on the way here for, well, reasons, and it’s fine, but I’m going to go make sure nothing got, you know, shaken. Then I’ll bring it in closer and pick you up.”

“I’m not an invalid, John. Hell, I’m not even injured, weird cold dimensional portal notwithstanding.”

“Yeah, but I landed far out.” John shrugs. “It’ll give you time to do your thing and,” he pulls a protein bar out of his pocket, “have a snack.” He pauses, one hand hovering at the front of his jacket. “Um, are you still cold?”

“Ooh! Yes, now that you mention it,” Rodney says, catching the bar and pulling one end open. “And eh, sort of but not really. I think it’s more just the principle.”

John pulls his vest off and then the medium-weight shirt underneath, unrolling the sleeves and passing it over without looking at Rodney, who takes it and frowns.

“Just put it on,” John says. “I’ll be running anyway.” He puts the vest back on and gives his shoulders a little shimmy to settle it.

Rodney isn’t quite sure what to do with the literal shirt off John’s back, and for one thing it’s going to be a bit tight on him but that’s not terrible, but for another in conjunction with the conversation they’re apparently dancing around it feels... nice? But weird. To be aggressively cared-at. He shakes his head and starts working on his own vest to put the shirt on under. “Fine, but if you’re not here when I’m done I reserve the right to head toward the gate on foot too. I wanna go home.”

John tosses a second protein bar, points at his full canteen which he’s leaving on the ledge, and turns to go.

The jumper is fine, which, let’s be honest, John already knew, but he needs some time with no additional confusing feelings, and this is what he has.

Of course, as soon as he gets in the damned thing he realizes that alternate-Rodney left his own extra shirt in the seat and a protein-bar wrapper next to it, and this is all it takes for him to backslide into something that isn’t quite a memory or a fantasy related to forest sex. That is, he remembers the proposition and hasn’t exactly never considered the concept with this Rodney (but never dropped even a hint; the Air Force has historically been opposed to any shenanigans that might end up on the record), and this feeling takes both things, ties them in a knot, cuts them in messily-bleeding half, and leaves John biting his lip.

Damn it. He’d been planning to maintain some kind of professionalism at least until they left the immediate vicinity of the artifact, what with how if it had tossed multiple Rodneys through the multiverse it wasn’t inconceivable it was also holding some kind of sway over them locally?

Either that or it’s that he’s a chickenshit. Ugh. Well, fine, he can bite his lip and verify flight status, right? So he battens everything down and cranks latches and ties knots until he thinks Rodney will have run out of patience and/or snacks, then lifts off, taking the jumper in a bit of a sweep to the east so he’ll cross Rodney’s path if he’s misjudged.

But no, he sets down exactly as Rodney emerges from the door, followed by three of the guys from the team. Dandridge moves to join them as soon as they start toward him.

Oh, right. Not just Rodney to cart, unless this is just for update purposes.

It’s not – the team will stay as planned, but they’re sending Dandridge back to spend some time with Medical. Makes sense, given he had the reaction he did, but John hates it. He didn’t want to be that professional.

And then they’re in the air and moving back toward the gate at a pretty good clip, so he just sets it all aside and flies, trying to take this space to appreciate not being grounded (fuck that, they can pry the jumper out of his cold--)

“Okay?” Rodney says, and somehow he’s put himself immediately behind John, standing so his hands are on John’s shoulders as though this is normal.

John tries not to let the quivers in his belly turn into full-body tremors, and looks up. “Shouldn’t you be seat-belted and solving world peace over there?”

Rodney shrugs. “Turns out, I’d rather stand here.”

Then his fingers tighten into the tops of the armholes in the vest over John’s relatively uncovered shoulders, because he’s still wearing John’s shirt, and okay, the quivers hold steady but the goosebumps don’t give a shit what John thinks about their emergence.

Rodney runs a firm palm down over John’s right delt and gives another little squish, then moves away. John lets out a breath, but Rodney is back immediately, dropping the abandoned shirt from his seat into John’s lap. “You’re not running now.”

“You want me to wear your shirt?” John is unimpressed with the extent to which his throat decides now is a great time to sound like an adolescent experiencing the vocal fluctuations of puberty, but also a flush washes all over the renewed goosebump situation.

He puts it on, and now they are wearing each other’s clothes as a means of offering care in a situation in which nothing is on fire, no one is experiencing hypothermia, and everyone’s own clothing is present and accounted for.

Jesus. Why is that the line that, upon being crossed, has him in practically a fugue state about the whole situation. Maybe the way Teyla consistently reminds him that it’s not a failure of leadership to talk to the psych folks is not entirely unreasonable? He swallows.

“Um, thanks,” he finally says. He glances up and finds Rodney looking down at him.

“No problem.” Rodney turns to look toward the back compartment, where Dandridge has apparently sacked out on the bench, then wets his lips. “So. You know how one of the things you love about me is my baseline social incompetence? Or, really it’s indifference, I guess, because mostly I don’t give a fuck what bureaucrats and socialites and mostly everyone else thinks?”

“Oh, is that one of the things?” John asks, throat still a little rough.

“It is. It’s also something I value about you, although you accomplish it with coolness where I do it with wordvomit.”

“Cool is your word, not mine,” John says. “Mine is that I’m just too lazy to bother.”

“Sure. I see how lazy you are every day when you follow up your morning 10K with letting all comers beat the shit out of you for a couple hours unless there’s a reason to go hiking off-world. Anyway. Where I was going with this was, given the last however many hours, you’re going to have to tell me if you need me to care about social stuff to do with your stupid military rules and whatnot.”

“Stupid military rules?” John wets his own lips now. “What, like, requiring everyone be field qualified per standard testing and licensing matrices?”

“No, like requiring people who want to fraternize be of dissimilar genital apparati.”

John somehow doesn’t choke to death on his own spit, but it’s a pretty close call.

“Did you just call, did you just say apparati?”

“Word. Vomit,” Rodney says, hooking at thumb at his own chest. “And right now it’s in go big or go home mode.”

John hitches in a breath, pauses to consider whether this is a good idea and decides it’s too scary to decide, then says, with about five percent of the volume of leer he wants to offer but he can’t let go quite that hard right now, “Do I have to choose? Between big and whatever?” He glances down at Rodney’s crotch in case his point might be missed.

Rodney laughs, maybe a little maniacally, and his face is gleeful like Christmas. “I dunno, I think I do okay, but I’m not offering any promises of like, a phallic dreadnought or anything.”

“Oh my god,” Dandridge’s voice says from the back compartment, causing both of them to freeze. “Look, neither one of you is really my boss—”

“Beg to differ,” Rodney says, eyes still on John. “Head of sciences, here.”

“Whatever. I report through Parrish. But man, no one is gonna be mad about your, I repeat ‘oh my goddddd’ apparati, but the nerdy dick jokes have got to go. But also damn it, I had last week in the pool, so you suck.”

“The...pool?” John says, terse and tense and then grateful for Rodney’s hand resting on his shoulder again.

“For when you pull your heads out. I think freaking Kavanagh has this week.”

The look on Rodney’s face, and John feels something settle in him when he realizes exactly how well he is able to read it, is a perfect split between enthusiasm about the head-pulling-outing and outrage that Kavanagh could win. He grins. “We could wait a week,” he offers.

“Oh fuck that. I knew we should never have let him come back with us. God. Fine, I’ll just have to corrupt the file so no one can prove whose week it was. Remind me when we get home.”

John chuckles again and, as they come over the top of the tree line, dials the gate.

Rodney looks from Teyla to Ronon and back to Teyla, then turns and considers John’s door. “Um.”

“Hey, you guys bailed in the middle of movie night last night, man,” Ronon says, clapping Rodney on the shoulder. “I just showed up for the do-over.”

“And I, having learned from Ronon that a ‘do over’ was in the works, accompanied,” Teyla puts in. Her chin is lifted because as far as Rodney can tell she doesn’t know how to have shitty posture, but also she seems lightly put out by his clear lack of enthusiasm for their presence. Then she goes and adds, “Are we not welcome, when movies are playing?”

“I... yes? I mean, technically, yes, we sort of bailed, but I didn’t have a choice and then for John it was urgent, and also as far as I know you were asleep and you were gone! There’s nothing to do over!” Rodney dislikes that his pitch is rising as he points at Ronon, then at Teyla, then throws up his hands in despair. “Also, for the record, in the other universe you weren’t at movie night because apparently you were still on the mainland and you went diving into horrible danger like some kind of maniac and your leg got blown off or something and Jennifer was holding you hostage, so all things considered I think you had a great night on this side of the line.”

Ronon purses his lips. “Hostage? Huh. So some things were a little different?”

“Not literally hostage. But you know how the doctors are! They just.” Rodney waves his hands again. “I imagine it wasn’t any kind of fun.”

“Getting my leg blown off? Not fun? You sure?”

Teyla rolls her eyes slightly, then says, “Speaking of the other universe, we have heard a rumor regarding other differences that may or may not influence whether we remain welcome for tonight’s entertainment.”

And this is when Rodney realizes that they both totally know all about the, the whatever it is he and John are working their way toward doing, and are messing with him. Even Teyla. Is messing with him. Which is just mean, damn it, because look, it was one thing to talk lightly and maybe a little hypothetically about this on the way back, but now it’s actually real, or at least, more real because it’s true he did sort of wake up half dressed with the other John but that’s different and anyway he doesn’t need this shit. “You guys suck.”

Ronon starts to make what is definitely going to be a seriously lewd comment, but Teyla puts up a hand and he grins broadly and slaps Rodney’s shoulder again. (Ow.) “Come on,” he says to Teyla, turning to go. “We can do kid movie night.”

“You do that,” Rodney says. “I’ll just be here hoping everyone knows what they’re talking about, which, in my experience, odds are low and probably this will end in galaxy-level catastrophe, but at least you guys will have Mulan or whatever.”

“Rodney, all will be well, and no one on this base or among our allies is going to validate whatever concerns might exist,” she says. “And, as I believe you are aware, a large proportion of the mission believed this outcome to be inevitable and the only way for the two of you to be happy.” She turns to Ronon. “I am given to understand ‘kid movies’ are primarily intended for the viewing of young children, perhaps accompanied by a parent. I see why I might be invited therefore, but unless new information came to light while I was away last week and I have not yet been apprised of it, you do not have children.”

“You were gone for days, not years.”

“Information can be gathered and conveyed quickly.”

Rodney bites his lip. A part of him wants to help Teyla, now that she has moved her focus to messing with Ronon, but also he’s pretty happy to be out of the spotlight and has no interest in returning to it, so he stays silent.

“Amelia told me I could watch kid movies anyway,” Ronon says. “She said it’s as good as therapy.”

“I see. Well, perhaps then it will do us all some good, and our next team night should include something animated. For now, lead on.”

Rodney watches them go, then turns back to the door and tries to work out whether there’s anything new he should be doing to announce his presence given their probable change in status. Unless John, having had time to freak out, has freaked out. Which is not impossible, but fortunately Rodney is stubborn as fuck, and extra so when feeling uncertain, so probably he will prevail? Unless John has truly changed his mind. Damn it. He’s still on step one of contemplating the door, though, when it slides open and John looks out at him. “Something wrong with the doorbell?”

Rodney looks at him. He’s in a white tank top (what. Since when does John wear white tanks? Or, anyway, since when does he wear nothing over them? This is probably not a useful point to consider at this time.) and sure, his legs aren’t bare, but he’s barefoot beneath his ordinary regulation BDUs. “Uh. No. You’re not wearing socks.”

“I don’t usually wear them to shower,” John says.

Rodney glances back up and oh, John’s hair is wet, his jaw recently shaved and smooth, his fingernails clean where Rodney can see them as he crosses his arms over his chest. “Are you flexing at me?” There’s just a tiny pause in which Rodney rapidly reviews this question and shakes his head like a cat that fell in the bath. “No, I mean. Did you, you’re clean.”

“Unless something is seriously fucked with the plumbing, that’s how I generally hope to come away from a shower. Is that not how it goes for you?” John mercifully doesn’t respond to the ridiculous flexing question, although as apparently instead he’s just being a shit, Rodney isn’t sure this is better.

“You just, you seem really calm.” Rodney is not, it turns out, at all calm despite Teyla’s very recent reassurance. No chill, no game, no cool. But John, who is calm in military matters but usually tied in the knottiest of knots when there are feelings, seems, well. Chill, in possession of all manner of game, and totally cool. It’s completely unfair.

John curls his lips together into his teeth and steps back, nodding Rodney in, and says, “Teyla was here before you.”

“Yes, she and Ronon were out in the hall giving me shit.”

“About me?”

Rodney watches is fascination as John’s demeanor tautens into hard lines everywhere that was just soft and barefoot five seconds ago, and... oh. Not cool, not chill, just pretending. Because it’s safe. Because there’s no risk. Well. “No.” Then he thinks about the implication of John assuming his team would warn Rodney against him, and he shakes his head emphatically. “No. About movie night. Because I guess we skipped out last night.”

The tension shifts and John flings out his arms. “It was an emergency! And Teyla wasn’t even—”

“I know! That’s what I said. Anyway, then they went to do kid movie night, which I guess Ronon is into now so I’m sorry if that means we get some kind of horrifying Disney situation next week.”

“Horrifying?”

“Did you not hear the part where I said Disney? Oh my god.”

“They can’t be all horrifying. Can they?” John frowns. “They’re aimed at kids, right?” His shoulders soften back down and he shifts his weight.

“Sure, kids who need to know losing one or both parents is just one accident away.” Rodney sighs. “We gotta steer him to, like, The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes or something.”

John snorts and steps closer to Rodney. “First of all that movie is older than you are and I doubt it was even available at Blockbuster, much less on Atlantis. Second, I feel like most of the context would be pretty lost.”

“Yeah, but no one dies in a forest fire.” Rodney mutters. “Torren, in particular, should not be given reason to fear the forests for his parents’ safety.”

“Okay, I see your point. No Bambi.” John takes one more step, invading Rodney’s space, and says, “But they weren’t worried about, you know.” He gestures between them, a finger pointing to himself and to Rodney and back. “Like, pointing out what a shitty deal I am?”

“You’re ridiculous. If they’d be warning anyone off it would be telling you I’m too, um, I don’t know. Too much? Too exacting, hypochondriacal, needy, rude...”

“One, you’re exacting because you deal with complicated systems and small errors grow.”

“I know and also thank you, but that doesn’t make me fun to live with.”

“You’re not a hypochondriac. Or, you are, but it’s in service to not dying of lemonade or palpitations and since I also don’t want that, I’m comfortable with just continuing to carry epi, which I have been doing for years.”

“I know that too but even, well. Jennifer is a freaking doctor and thought I was kind of a hassle in that regard.”

“Eh, maybe she was just oversensitized. I don’t have any other hypochondriacs to worry about. Also what is this ‘too much’ bullshit?”

“Oh please. You know it’s commonly held.” Rodney puts his hands up, palms forward, and asks. “But then for some reason you think you’re the problem in this, this, I’m goig to go with ‘relationship’ let’s save the panic about that for way later, but so is this the point in this conversation at which I should start enumerating your good qualities too? Uh, some of them involve the flexing.”

“Only some? Also you are only about five percent as rude as you were when we met and it’s not like I ever clocked out as a result, so whatever. And anyway, the people who are the targets of that five percent almost always deserve it. Which is why sometimes it’s me.”

“More than five percent.”

“Fine, seven and a quarter.”

“No, I mean, It is ‘only some,’ but it’s more than five percent of mine that are about the flexing. When you flex, well. I’m pretty shallow.”

“Nah. You just like looking at things.” John shrugs with one shoulder and bites his lip then says, very low, so Rodney almost can’t hear the words he sees forming on John’s lips. “So, like, wanna look at me for a while?”

Rodney stares at him, then bursts out laughing. “That is by miles the least smooth things I have ever heard you say. Also yes, yes I do.”

“Yeah?” John’s shoulders have hunched a little, but they relax again and Rodney sighs.

“Uh, yeah. Sorry, not actually laughing at you so much as well, okay, yes also at you, but it’s positive laughing.”

“Is that a thing?”

“It’s a thing. I’m told people laughing together is a sign of a strong ... okay still going with relationship. So.” He steps forward now as well, and lifts his chin. “But honestly. You asked me to look at you and for one thing, you don’t exactly like being perceived--”

“I don’t, okay, true, but you can look for a few minutes.”

“Great. But not while kissing. That’s weird. But for another thing, as if I’m ever not looking at you, when we’re in any kind of proximity, so the invite is maybe a tiny bit late.”

John considers that for a second and tilts his head in acknowledgment, then says, as though this was the point of this conversation, “Good call on not looking while kissing,” and lowers his mouth to Rodney’s, making a sound that isn’t a groan and isn’t a hum, but it’s somewhere in there.

He kisses Rodney differently than other John did, and Rodney spares half a second of processing power to wonder whether that’s a difference of universe or of familiarity. Whether after the novelty wears off this will change, or if it’s just that this John had enough different experiences to change his approach or his interests.

Then it occurs to him that in fact, he doesn’t care, because John’s hands are cupping his jaw, fingers behind his ears as he explores Rodney’s mouth, and it’s like he thinks, despite that they have both just used the somewhat alarming word relationship, he might need to get every detail he’ll ever have right now. It feels careful but desperate, and not in the way it would be desperate for get-to-horizontal reasons, and Rodney is... he’s not having that. It only takes a second to realize what it is, and he’s not having John worried or stuck in a space in which he thinks he’s, what, not worthy of this? Fuck that; if they’re going to pump up his own sense of self-worth, that has to be a two-way game, right? He pulls back and just says, “John.”

John opens his eyes and blinks at him, and Rodney says, “I’m not going anywhere.”

John’s ears and cheeks flush a little pink, but his eyes widen, and yeah, Rodney’s definitely getting them horizontal, but first, two things: one, the shirt has to go, and two, John needs to know this is not about the next, optimistically, fifteen minutes. He pushes his hands up under it and lays his palms flat against John’s sides, pushing up over his ribs and taking the shirt with him, adding, “Not now, but also not in general. Come on, John, you know I always come for you.”

John huffs and when Rodney looks up, his eyes are a little uncertain still but his grin is dirty as hell, and Rodney shakes his head. “Pssht, fine, I guess you have no in-person evidence on that front, although I feel like you can, at this point, make an accurate educated guess, but you know that wasn’t what I meant, right? Like, we’re doing this, I’m in. More than five percent, less than twenty, but the rest is about how you also will always come for me. Not like that, even if yes, also like that.” Then he finishes shoving the shirt up and off, and runs a finger back down through the valley over John’s sternum, between the currently not flexed but still appealing muscles, and on down to hook into the waistband of the low-slung BDUs, tugging John toward him.

“Are we.” John pauses and bites his lip again like maybe he’s being too forward (he’s not) and then follows his teeth with his tongue and asks, “Are we in a hurry?”

Rodney presses his lips together and tilts his head because come on. “I mean, sixish years of foreplay will do that, but no. I just can’t nibble skin that’s covered nearly as effectively. I have very unhurried plans that, hm, what time is it? I feel like we can stretch things out for a few hours? For this time; later, if we don’t, like, if everything goes as well as I’m hoping, I have ideas about a variety of long and short scenarios.”

John mmphs as the lights go so low the discarded white shirt, crumpled, on the floor, is pretty much the only thing in the room reflecting light, presumably because he told them to, and then he’s dragging Rodney behind him to the bed.

Rodney lets himself be led without a single complaint. There will be time later to talk about talking about it.

It’s early, even for him, when John wakes, the room dimly lit in the way that suggests dawn is near because even though he doesn’t really have windows in his quarters, thre's just a feeling, and Rodney is sprawled over him like there’s some kind of weird space shortage in the room and they need to take up the same space at the same time to accommodate.

On consideration, he supposes if the whole multiverse is in the same space overlapping, just in a different dimension or whatever, maybe that’s not that bad a way to think about it, except in that depending on how he looks at the math it might kind of imply that their overlap is because they don’t belong in the same universe and he doesn’t want to look at that notion too hard.

None of this changes that he has competing needs. One is to stay right here and let this moment, this feeling, soak in just in case, because no matter what Rodney said there’s no way, no way, it’s as simple as just falling into bed together.

Not that he’d trade that part.

The other is to get up and do something about his bladder, which he figures is going to get urgent in the next ten minutes. Besides that, sure it’s early, but he still probably only has about half an hour before Ronon shows up, and Rodney won’t want to be here for that anyway. So, with a sigh, he shifts and prods, working to squirm his way out from under without waking Rodney up.

“Don’ ev’n think abouddit,” Rodney murmurs, slurred and sleepy but definitely not truly asleep in the passed out practically dead way he usually is once they’re home and safe. Not that John has ever checked in to find him that way after a rough mission or anything, shut up, that would be creepy. Anyway. Not asleep now.

“About what?” John asks, low and quiet, getting one foot out from under the covers.

“Sneaking out,” Rodney says. “You think you’re gonna go for your ridiculous run and then I’ll leave and you won’t have to discuss this.”

John does sort of think that’s a likely way this could have gone, if he’d gotten out without disturbing Rodney, but it’s not because he’s trying to sneak. Just. “Well, wetting the bed seemed like it wouldn’t be that sexy?” he whispers back. “Stay asleep.”

Rodney opens his eyes. “You could have just said,” he says. “But you were sneaking.”

Busted.

“I’m not exactly used to announcing my piss calendar,” he mutters grumpily.

“Uh-huh,” Rodney says, rolling off him “Go drain the iguana or whatever, and then get your ass back here; I have plans for it if you don’t get all stressed out about it being the morning after.”

John swears, because now he not only needs to hit the head, but his dick is skipping ahead to next steps and that’s only going to make everything take longer. He pauses, has no idea what else to say because even with Nancy, simply avoiding post-coital conversations has always comprised the entirety of his morning-after skill set, after all, and shakes his head, then shuffles off to the bathroom and closes the door.

Ten minutes later, bladder emptied and brain working way too hard toward an apparent goal of freaking him the fuck out despite his very specific intention to do absolutely no such thing, he’s staring at himself in the mirror, looking at the obvious hickey under his left ear and wondering if he left any similar damage on Rodney.

Or if he’d find other marks on himself if he could look away from this one. His skin flushes just thinking about Rodney’s mouth ranging over his body, stopping at intervals that might have been random except that every time he stilled, taking the moment to nibble, bite, suck, lick... he’d lift his head and say things about wanting to know what that particular bump, crease, or swell had tasted like since – and then name a time he saw whatever it was in the field, or in the infirmary, as though in fact, he had been waiting from whenever that had been to more closely observe this particular square millimeter of John.

Some of the times were from their first few steps off Atlantis onto various Pegasus landscapes.

What the fuck. Since that time, Rodney has been inhabited by another consciousness, dated two women seriously, been through a couple of really personal events like trying to ascend and nearly dying of invulnerability, and had hundreds of beers with him, and all that time he’s been waiting to know what the curve at the bottom of his left rib cage tastes like? The roughened skin on the point of his right elbow? The shells of his, and this makes John shiver remembering the way he’d said it, ridiculous unexplainable elf ears?

Not that John hasn’t had the same sort of standing list in his head for nearly as long, but. Damn.

And then Rodney had gotten his mouth on John’s cock, and he’s pretty sure he’s never going to recover.

Like, ever.

He wonders abstractedly if there’s anyone around doing tattoo work that could squeeze him in today to trace the hickey and make it a permanent reminder. Just in case it’s all he gets. It might be, right? Like, that would not be the most unexpected aspect of the last 48 or so hours and he’s definitely going to be a disappointment on the freakout front.

“John?” Rodney’s voice is right outside the door and John can’t help it. He grins goofily at himself in the mirror in a surprising rush of optimism. Maybe it might not be, too? He lets himself hang there for just a second before he answers, letting the feeling of rightness, like the perfect moment when a jet breaks through clouds to sunshine and a distant curved horizon, sit with him.

“Yeah?” When he takes a breath and answers, his voice is a rasp, and he tries clearing his throat. “Yeah?”

It’s not much better. There’s an okay chance this is a result of him reciprocating on the cocksucking with both enthusiasm and the total unwillingness of a prideful man not to be beaten. As though there’s a scoring system for blowjobs. Christ, he’s so fucked.

“You setting up camp in there? I feel like there’s an opportunity, if so.”

John frowns and opens the door, then steps back when Rodney, wearing boxers and nothing else, barrels on in and right past him to turn on the shower. “Are you—”

“Jumping you in the shower? Hopefully. Unless you’re regretting your life choices and would rather I did not.”

John bites his lip, then shakes his head. “I mean...”

Rodney’s face falls for a second before he puts a little space between them and pastes on an aggressively-neutral definitely-not-gutted-why-do-you-ask expression that John both recognizes immediately and hates himself for causing, because he definitely did. Fuck. Really should have worked out how to morning-after at some point prior to age forty.

“NO,” he says. “Not I mean I’m regretting. Shit.” He cups the back of his own neck with one hand and looks at Rodney’s bare feet. “Maybe you’ve noticed I’m really, really bad at talking about, you know, stuff.”

“I have, but as much as I’m sometimes labeled socially awkward and also suck at, as you say, talking about stuff, one of the things I don’t have any questions about is that everyone engaged in any kind of sex thing has to be on board. So. I’m going to need you to say words. I’ll start. Last night was amazing, I want to do it again, a lot, until always, and—”

“And I’m in,” John says, stepping forward and pushing Rodney into the shower enclosure. He takes another breath to steady himself and says in what he knows is too much of a rush, but fuck it, Rodney has a really fast brain and if he can’t count on that for this what is the point, “I’m just having a hard time believing I get this. Despite, you know, the other universe one and how that was obviously happening in an aggressive, anyway. I was in here looking at this.” He waves his hand at his own throat. “And thinking it can’t be hidden without some kind of conversation about makeup, no thanks, and anyway I don’t want to hide it but then I was thinking what if you, anyway. So.”

Rodney’s grin is broad and bright. “I feel like I should get some kind of prize, except I, you know, already got one.” He points at John.

John has a ridiculous moment of both not knowing what to do with that because ugh, he’s kind of a mess when it comes to praise or being valued, whatever, and feeling smug.

He’d be okay continuing to feel it. If it doesn’t kill him; the book is probably dead even on that.

“So then, is that enough words?” he asks. “For engaging in any kind of sex things, I mean.”

“It is.” Rodney nods. “It is.” He pauses. “So I had this head of steam about coming in here and jumping you in the shower, right, but then I made you talk and now I don’t know how to proceed.”

“You ...don’t?”

“Well no, I mean, I do, but I have a lot of ideas and no one is presenting itself as primary and so I don’t know whether to risk the health and well being of my knees--”

John groans and closes his eyes, reaching for Rodney and gripping both sides of the now-sodden boxers because obviously it was totally sensible of him to push him in here wearing them, and takes the question out of Rodney’s hands. “I don’t really need my knees to fly,” he says, dropping down and dragging the cloth with him.

Rodney puts his hand on John’s head, fingers threading into his hair, and says, “Not that I object, except for how this is going to put you ahead of me on the tasting curve but I can always go for extra credit later, but I wasn’t asking for—oh, okay.” He breaks off as John leans forward and buries his nose into the crease between his thigh and his groin, grazing the skin there with his teeth and opening his eyes to look up.

He wants to promise he’ll give Rodney a turn, except that for one thing there’s an above-even chance he will not keep from coming while he’s down here, and for another that would involve moving his face away from Rodney’s balls, losing the sensation of his cock filling against John’s cheek, and that’s not happening.

Not at all.

Rodney’s just going to have to trust him.

He turns inward and opens his lips against the side of Rodney’s shaft, relishing the way his hand tightens, the way he gasps, the low murmur that slowly resolves into a string of swearing which, all right, John has been in the military for a long-ass time and also has heard Rodney go off on The Idiocy of Most Other Humans on multiple occasions, and this is an order of magnitude filthier, largely because it’s specifically profane praise of his mouth, his tongue, his lips, his stubble, and, in apparently no particular order, most of the rest of his body.

It’s heady and John wants it to keep on going forever, but--shit!--just as Rodney’s balls are drawing up in his hands, there’s a series of thumps on the door, and god damn it, that’s going to be Ronon, who will probably go ahead and try to come on in, which would be less of a problem if they’d decided to close the damn door to the bathroom, and in any case, sure, John can (and does) tell Atlantis to keep the fucking door closed, but this is just going to lead to questions. He pulls back. “Fuck.”

“Yes,” Rodney says, although from the glazed look in his eyes and the fact that John is sure he was about four seconds from release, it might be that he’s simply stating his agreement with a perceived plan.

“That’s Ronon.”

“Who will definitely stay the fuck out, right?” Rodney says sharply, grasping the issue and scowling, then scowling harder in the direction of the hallway.

“Yeah, probably, but he might go tell Woolsey I didn’t show up to run if I don’t, you know.” John jerks a thumb toward the door.

“Right, well, you go tell him to not do that while I take stock of your condom supply,” Rodney says. “Because as long as we’ve had to pause, I’ve worked out a hierarchy on the ideas.”

John swallows a moan and stands up, ignoring the cracking and popping in the knees he turns out to actually, yes, need, then wraps a towel somewhat haphazardly around himself and goes to the door.

Rodney closes the bathroom door behind him, opens the cabinet, and rummages.

Thirty seconds later, John is back, and Rodney is squinting at him and starts walking him backward toward the bedside table. “You have zero condoms in here.”

“I know. I probably also have zero in the, look, it’s not like, anyway it’s just you, so really.”

“Was that supposed to be in code? Is there a key phrase somewhere?”

“No. I just mean I’m not fucking anyone, so it hasn’t been much of a priority,” John grumbles.

“Oh. Well, then. Wait, you what?” Rodney squints harder. “Like, no one?”

“Such as?”

“What?”

“Like, who, exactly, were you expecting I was fucking?”

“I don’t know. Someone who is pleasingly, like, athletic from one of the marine squads or something? I see you with that Perry guy sometimes. Or the one with the hair? Castlesomething?”

John stares, trying to figure out what to do with his hands for this conversation they are having with him in a towel that’s doing a very poor job of disguising the state of his dick and Rodney at half-mast and butt-ass naked, with their bodies both stuck in the stupid middle between aroused and confused. He finally decides to settle them on his hips and pretend not to care that this cannot possibly look any way that a person with any dignity would tolerate. “Castlethwaight, and no. One, the military has all these stupid ideas, and it hasn’t been all that long since that suggestion was a great way to get sent to the stockade. Two, brains are sexy and overall the marines don’t select for intellect. Not that they’re all the kind of stupid people accuse them of or anything, don’t tell anyone in the Air Force I said that, but.” He shrugs and gestures at Rodney in a way he hopes conveys ‘but none of them are at all like you.’

Rodney shakes his head. “I like brains too, but I can’t say there have been a lot of times when I’ve fully ruled out the fuckability of an entire employment category based on that.”

“Bullshit. You rule out entire employment categories for millions of assignment types for any and every reason, and anyway three, are we actually going to stand here with our dicks out considering the cost-benefit of various marines? Should we assess them one by one, or do you have a search algorithm—hey!” Rodney actually manages to surprise him with the flung pillow, which, really? But also... He “are we fighting? Jesus, do we have to?”

“We are not fighting. I am interrupting your fucking ridiculous digression into my work habits.”

“So that’s a no, on the search algorithm?” John steps in closer, hoping to restore them to a cocksucking sort of situation while the opportunity is present.

“That’s a no. Come on, put on pants. Where are my pants? Do you think if you ask real nice Atlantis will just use force fields or something to get us to my quarters without bothering with pants? She loves you best. Except me, I mean.”

“She likes you and all, but she doesn’t love you best, McKay,” John says, awkwardly bending down and fishing out Rodney’s pants from under the bed and then grabbing his own off the chair. “Wait, why are we going to your quarters?”

“Condoms,” Rodney says. “Obviously, since we are definitely, well, unless you don’t want, of course, but I do, and no, I mean, I love you more than she does, probably, not sure how to measure, proof will take some time, maybe not right now, but...” He breaks off at John’s sudden intake of air. “What?”

John shakes his head. “You can’t just say, I mean.” He sighs. “Any of that. Jesus. Fine. You work on that proof, but right now, more importantly, do we need them?”

Rodney blinks. “As far as I know we’re not likely to get pregnant, but I haven’t exactly had time for recent testing, and I realize Jennifer is a doctor and probably would take care of, so most likely, but not for sure, anyway, so yes?”

John drops his pants back on the chair, takes a breath, and lets the towel fall so Rodney can, well, perceive him not wanting to go anywhere but back to bed. “Fuck that,” he says. “Get over here.”

Rodney, thankfully, takes the somewhat unintentional commanding register that sneaks into his voice as a legitimate order, and lets John push him down on the bed.

“You know what kills me?” Rodney asks. He’s slouched back in his chair, working on his third dessert because, and John can’t really argue with him on this which is probably why he handed over his without even being asked, he didn’t exactly get a chance to eat during the saving the galaxy segment of his week, and also he got an unexpected amount of exercise in the night and early and late morning.

“Lemons?” Ronon says, shoving his own dessert at Rodney because it’s looking like three is inadequate. John scoots his chair a little closer to Rodney’s, which is probably not very circumspect of him with whatever worries he’s still holding, but Rodney reminds himself there’s a goddamn pool so it’s not like the word won’t have already spread.

Rodney mashes his lips into an annoyed line. “That’s not a mystery, now is it?”

Ronon smiles broadly. “Would be, if you didn’t tell us every week.”

“Hmph.”

John nudges his shoulder against Rodney’s, “What.”

Rodney offers an incredulous look. “He’s being an ass, and as previously discussed, I am not being a hypochondriac!”

“I know that part. What, as is, what is it that kills you?”

“Oh. That. Well, on reflection it’s pretty clear Other John and Other Rodney are cohabiting, which implies some kind of, I don’t know, long-termishness?”

“You think maybe that’s because they learned about the pool and decided to win it?”

“Huh. Maybe, but I felt like it was more about a recent big change that played into a longer-time situation and what the hell is our problem? The math is slightly fuzzy and there’s always the potential for one of us having been dropped on our heads as children—”

“Ha, that’s exactly what other you asked me about you,” John says.

“Back atcha. Anyway, but there’s a whole, like, averages, and I mean if we, our persons, are continuous across at least a lot of universes, like, how are we the stupid cousins?”

“Maybe there were other not-us extenuating circumstances. I mean, we don’t know that it’s not just that one and this one in which, and everywhere else we are stupid for longer or otherwise not on the market or whatever.”

“Okay, fair point, but we could have pulled our heads out, like, years ago. The law of diminishing returns suggests we could have gone with more like sixish months of not doing that and then had five and a half years of morning--”

“Exercise?” Ronon asks. “Sheppard gets that anyway, except when he is apparently too busy showering. Seems like a you problem.”

Rodney glares. “John, do you think it would be wrong for me to, I don’t know, see a hypnotist to see if I can call to mind what, exactly, led to the leg blowing off problem?”

“What, so you can reproduce the conditions? Probably.” John leans close. “But you know how to blow up solar systems so I guess probably if you put your mind to miniaturization...”

“Asshole.”

Ronon throws his head back and laughs, then tells Rodney, “McKay if you get the drop on me I deserve it. Probably oughtta remind you, though, I keep score.”

John puts up a hand. “Fine. No leg blowups. Morning exercise protocol to be determined. Living arrangements, eh, let’s talk about that later.” He ducks his head and murmurs, for only Rodney’s ears, “Not that you have to want, I mean. Anyway.”

It’s Rodney’s turn for a shoulder nudge. “Op please. Mi casa su casa etc and we are definitely not going to keep your bed because no. But I just meant, think how much less tense we both would have been all this time.”

“We both?” John raises an eyebrow. “As I recall, one of us had a significantly shorter dry spell than the other?”

“You were unattainable! Was I supposed to be a monk? Wait, probably yes, huh? Well, spilled milk, I guess.” He pauses, looks at John’s face doing weird emotion shit, clears his throat, then changes the subject. “Um, okay, so, how was kid movie night?”

Ronon grins. “I learned that Earth has talking warthogs!”

Rodney stares at him. “It ...does not.”

“Evidence says it does. You like evidence, right? Also lions.”

“Oh my god.”

Teyla, arriving with her tray and with Torren on one hip, looks among them and shakes her head. “I fear Amelia has led us astray.” She hands Torren to Rodney without asking (what.) and sits down to sip her tea unhindered. “Clearly the warthogs and lions were what I believe you have referred to as artistic license, presented as foils to our true heroes, the hyenas.”

Rodney, who is literally never who watches Torren because both child and parents have met him and kids definitely think he’s weird, desperately grabs four leftover berries off John’s plate and holds them in his palm for Torren to choose from, and says to him, “Your mother is exhibiting signs of exhaustion. Is that your fault? Well no, not fault; I’m sure you’re just being a little kid and that’s not something to blame a person for, unlike adult freakouts about moving in together. Still, exhausting.”

Torren takes a berry and bites into it, grinning up at him, then, because of course, Teyla’s kid, grabs two more and then mashes the last one flat in Rodney’s hand before he even sees it coming, and immediately pats Rodney’s face with some of the guts.

Rodney doesn’t love that he literally says “Ack!” in the face of this assault, as this is neither dignified nor articulate, but here he is.

John just offers a napkin and holds out his hands for Torren. “Come on, kid. Let’s go see about um maybe getting together some of my stuff in some boxes. What do you say?” He raises his eyebrows at Teyla.

She nods and shoos him. “We will be along directly. Rodney, did you get enough dessert?”

For fuck’s sake. Rodney finishes wiping off his hands and cheek before he answers, because, well. The team isn’t new, and they’ve been family for years, but this feels settled and warm in a way that has never, not even with Jeannie in the last couple of years, been the way of the family he was born into. “Yeah,” he finally says. “Yeah, I think I’m good.”

John squeezes his shoulder and takes off with the kid, and Teyla tucks into her, what is that, like, gruel? Why is his family so weird.

It generally takes about six minutes to pack every shred of John’s shit up, including uniforms and tech, and probably it’ll be another four to walk it over to Rodney’s quarters, but John doesn’t actually do any work on it. He grabs the remote for the RC car and folds himself down to the floor, Torren in the hollow formed by his crossed legs. “Wanna race?” he asks.

“Wate,” Torren agrees. John doesn’t know enough about kids to know how long this one will keep struggling with R and S sounds, but as far as he’s concerned he can just take his time figuring shit out because he unreservedly loves it. Not that this is information he has expressed to, you know, anyone ever.

“Cool.” He puts his arms around him to hold the remote in front of them both, then helps him zoom the car around the room. It’s not like John has a ton of furniture or crap on the floor, so the zoomability factor is pretty great and it makes Torren squeal, which he also loves more than he will ever tell anyone. “What do you think, should I move in with Uncle Rodney?”

Torren, who is actually pretty well-versed on the concept of ‘moving’ for a kid that only sort of has a vocabulary, looks up and then pats the remote again. “Wate.”

“True,” John agrees. “We can race cars in our room then if we want.”

Torren beams and goes back to watching the car and intermittently making an attempt to alter its course.

“It’s kind of scary, though,” John says, veering the car just before it’s going to head into the bathroom, where he will have to go get it, which will lead to looking at the shower, which, well. He’s babysitting. “What if he gets sick of me?”

Torren squirms and falls forward out of his lap onto the floor, then turns around, stands up butt-first, and flings himself at John, arms wide. It takes a second to work out he is being aggressively hugged by a toddler. Who is patting his ...back? It’s more his shoulder. Patting his back and telling him it will be ‘otay.’

Well. “Yeah, I know. But I didn’t want to tell any of the other grownups I was scared.” John wraps his arms around the little body and holds him in close. “Thanks, man,”

Torren pats again and babbles something the words of which John can’t work out at all, but his best guess is that Torren is exhorting him to be brave or strong or something, and what’s he gonna do, disappoint a little kid? Yeah, okay. He should at least get out a box or something to get started.

There’s a knock at the door and John lets it open to find Kanaan standing there. Kanaan looks at them and frowns. “Is he injured?”

John shakes his head. “I was telling him about my plans for the afternoon and he thought I needed a hug.”

He doesn’t say, and he was fucking right. Jesus, even this baby is more emotionally-competent than he is. It probably means he should actually talk to psych on purpose someday, damn it.

But Kanaan nods. “He is his mother’s son.”

“She send you? I didn’t even know you were back in the city.”

Kanaan just looks at him, more or less like Ronon would, and see? Isn’t it just easier to ignore stupid questions?

Torren gives one more little pat and then does the thing little kids and cats have in common where they just sort of squirm and turn around in one weird flex. He pokes John’s knee until he moves his feet apart, clearing the way for toddling, and makes his way over to his father.

Kanaan picks him up and settles him on one hip. “She thought you might get more done without the sort of help one is offered by a small child.”

John disagrees; Torren is great. Still, it’s true he has not yet managed to organize a box. “We were busy racing the car,” he defends. “Also important.”

Torren agrees. “Wate,” he says seriously.

Kanaan chuckles. “You are never going to stop being interesting to him on that basis alone,” he says.

“A guy has to have something going for him.”

Kanaan looks at him thoughtfully, one hand scratching gently in Torren’s mop of curly hair. “John Sheppard, I have seen you take care of your team, and of all the residents of this city and beyond. You have many things ‘going for you,’ not least of which is that you are the kind of man who risked everything to save my family and myself. I would not have you think you do not.” He grins, sharp and sudden. “Also, I know you are now uncomfortable, and so we will go. But Teyla will probably be along quite soon, so you’ll want to... what is the term I have heard your men use? Gird your loins?”

John snorts. “I don’t ever see the point in ungirding, when it comes to her.”

“Excellent choice.” Kanaan turns and walks out, leaving John scowling. When did he turn out to have all this family, and why is his family so weird.

“How’d you get her not to come?” John asks, when Rodney shows up twenty minutes later, without Teyla and with no apparent intention to press him on the moving thing.

Rodney offers a shrug. “I said I thought you might have been all emotionaled out. She said she could see how that might be. She told me Torren was home with his dad, so I came here.”

“To help me pack?”

“Hey, that’s what you said, not me, and while I’m on board -- I told you, I’m in -- I’m determined to try this new thing where I don’t push and push until I get my way.”

“Oh yeah? What makes today special?”

Rodney snorts. “I will, okay actually probably not, deny I said anything this fucking... anyway, you, is what.”

“Oh.” John chews on that for a minute, then says, “Torren told me it was going to be okay and to be brave. I’m making assumptions on that second part because he was speaking Toddler and he doesn’t exactly have every sound under control yet, but from context, it seemed pretty clear.”

“Why, was there some kind of incident with spiders?”

“Uh, no. I told him I was moving to your quarters, which he approved of on the basis we can race cars more, and that I was kind of scared.”

“Of me? Come on. I’m the guy that gets shot in the ass and accidentally tries to be immortal but nearly dies of hypoglycemic shock.”

John shrugs. “Well. I’m the guy that fucks up relationships, so.”

“Nah.” Rodney sits down on the bed, which because John doesn’t know how to not be in the Air Force is made up with neat corners despite how thoroughly they unmade it earlier, and gives a little bounce. “But you know what? You don’t have to bring shit, but we’re going to my-slash-our quarters now anyway because I am running on adrenaline and whatever you call a runner’s high built on sex, and if I’m napping, it’s going to be on a real mattress that has back support.”

“And you need me for that?”

“Duh. When I’m done napping I have more exploring to do. I think I’ve only covered like sixty-two percent of your skin.”

“Don’t we have, I don’t know, work to do?”

It’s Rodney’s turn to shrug. “Not unless there’s a crisis,” he says. “Teyla also said I should tell Woolsey we need a couple of days, which I did, which you can override if you want but I hope you won’t. He said, uh. Well. He looked at me over his glasses and asked why we couldn’t have waited until his week in the pool, so I feel like it wasn’t any kind of surprise?”

John plunks down next to Rodney. “So you and Teyla arranged a, what, unofficial honeymoon?”

“Make it official if you want,” Rodney says. “But I guess maybe.”

“Make it what?”

Rodney rolls his eyes. “I feel like I have said this already. I’m in. This is all. Doesn’t matter to me what the paperwork says, although if it’s important for like, military medical proxy reasons or some damn thing you should tell me.”

“Are you, what are you.”

“Trying not to make you more scared. You’re not exactly sanguine about the concept of getting married again.”

“Married?” John blinks at him. “What?”

“Well I didn’t mean set up an official roommate contract where we agree who takes out the trash each week or whatever.”

“This is... this is your worst marriage proposal yet,” John says. “And I have heard the stories about the other ones, so don’t tell me it’s not.”

“Sorry. I wasn’t. I never expected the option of, well, anyway, are you the type who wants flowers and a party? Or a family event? Or, okay, I know you don’t want to be on the jumbowhatsit at a hockey game. So no, I think you don’t want a bigger show. We have covered this: too much perceiving.”

“Fuck off, I’m not even breathing into a bag or anything over here.”

“Oh please. In addition to the butt arrow and accidental starvation issues, I know breathing into a bag is more me. You just curl up and fade into a dark corner. By the way, I do have a couple of suitable dark corners in my quarters as well, for when that’s what you need. I can even move my tertiary laptop group out of the coziest one, just for you.”

“Tertiary my ass,” John says, grinning at Rodney and no longer looking like he might, in fact, be freaking out. “You know you have like six on full time rotation.”

“Yes, those are the primaries; hence the word group.”

“Oh, I see. Wait, is this actually why you have enormous quarters? Fifteen laptops that have their own room?”

“That and my, out to be our amazing bed. And no one said you had to live in a monastic cell on a pallet eating moldy bread or whatever with no real windows, you know. You chose these quarters. Wait, do you not want windows? Because we can find someplace less bright if you want. There are tons of open--”

“No, that’s not... I just didn’t want to be the kind of boss that takes the best rooms, man. Windows are fine, as long as there are blackout curtains. Which you have. Which I know because sometimes I have to come in and open them to drag your ass out of bed.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t want to be the kind of boss who was always extra grumpy because of shitty sleep and stubbed toes, so. Also, just think how much more convenient that dragging will be now,”

“It sure will,” John says with a smirk. “So why are you always extra grumpy?”

“Har har. That’s regular grumpy. Extra mostly shows up when we have a coffee shortage or I have to eat tofurkey. Hm. It seems to be comestible-problem-generated, and that’s totally resolvable so here is a tip for you: keep me supplied in good coffee and nonsoy proteins and you won’t have to make excuses for me hardly ever. Also, that’s another reason on the quarters: plenty of power both for the laptops, of which there are seventeen, thanks, and for the coffee pot.”

“Obviously.”

“So. Honeymoon? He gave us the couple of days, but I mean if we don’t start until tomorrow that’s just that much less fucking we have time for.”

“Your sister would murder us both,” John says, after a moment of consideration.

“For fucking? She seems pretty pro-fucking based on a couple of extremely uncomfortable college-era interactions, and it’s not like she’s a bigot.”

“For not inviting her to the sot of event after which one has a honeymoon. So would Carter.”

“Jesus. We better just stick with moving you into my bed for now, then, huh?” Rodney grins. “See, you totally had it right in the first place.”

John shakes his head. “Why. Why is my family, and also when did I get a family that’s, like, good? but why are they all so fucking--”

“WEIRD,” Rodney finishes with him. “No idea, but my hypothesis, untestable probably but I can work on that after I figure out who loves you more, is that it’s more that people who get weird families are people who hare off to another galaxy sight-unseen, and then, despite harrowing and complicated events over the course of years there, stay.” He stands up and holds out his hand. “Come on, John. Let’s go consider the logistics of laptop storage and access.”

“We are fully sucking at considering your laptops,” John says, nuzzling in against Rodney’s throat like it’s a crackling fire in an ice storm or, or what, an oasis in that millennia-future version of Atlantis? Neither feels like an adequate metaphor, but he can’t come up with a better framing. They’ve so far made it a whopping three feet into Rodney’s quarters and gotten sidetracked, and he can’t quite manage to give a fuck.

“They’re currently fine,” Rodney says, tipping up the edge of his jawline so John can nuzzle in deeper. “We can consider them later. Or never, maybe, if you’re good with letting me just keep you in bed?”

John snorts. “You’re not staying in bed any more than I am, Rodney. You’d have a wild idea at 3:23 in the morning and roll out, forgetting I exist.”

“No, hush, let me have my...” Rodney’s eyes go soft as he imagines. “Okay, true, I would get the idea and roll out. However, I have only ever forgotten you existed when I was dying, and even then, actually you were the one person I did not forget out of everyone here, if memory serves which it does, so let’s just agree right now that would never happen. I’d just drag you to the lab with me to help me pass the time while simulations ran.” He pulls John’s leg up around his waist as he walks them toward the nearest wall, and ungh John previously had no idea he was as into being manhandled as he clearly is. Jesus. He bites down on Rodney’s earlobe as the other leg is dragged up and he settles around Rodney’s hips and tries to maintain a grip on reason.

“What if I wanna drag you to the jumper bay as a stowaway when I run out on a mission. I mean, there are boring parts of flying, and I might need to pass time, too.” Honestly, John isn’t sure he’s flexible enough for whatever it is Rodney’s going for, but he can’t seem to care a whole lot about that, either. Jesus, besides the new manhandling kink he’s really going to have to find a way to cope with what seems to be a new, constant, not-at-all-low-level degree of need to touch him, because he’s never going to get anything done again. Neither of them is. Maybe they really do need a couple of days to see if they can get a lid on it?

Rodney lifts his face away. “I’m going to be slightly responsible here and note that much as I want to be the guy that fucks you into the wall, my back is never going to tolerate this,” he says. “So just, one more minute, and then we’re moving this to the bed.”

John chuckles. “What if I want to stay here?”

“Fuck my back,” Rodney says immediately.

John shakes his head. “Nah, I can wait. Once you’re back to work, I bet you can rig up some kind of, like, anti-grav--”

“Are you suggesting I would misuse our high-level access to alien tech to build a sex ...dungeon swing or whatever?”

“Maybe,” John says. “I won’t tell if you won’t. Meanwhile, bed.” He squirms his legs loose from around Rodney’s waist and drops to the floor, then jerks every layer of shirt he’s wearing over his head and lets it drop. “Race you?”

Rodney shakes his head. “You go ahead.” He yanks his own uniform shirt up and off, then tilts his head. “Do you know how often when we’re in the field I bring up the rear?” He reaches and snags the button of John’s pants, unfastening it and letting go before looking him up and down. “Ever wonder if there’s a reason?”

John feels his face heat and knows he’s turning a fairly unflattering shade of red, but there’s nothing but interest and admiration in Rodney’s eyes, so he bites his lip and finishes the job, letting the pants go too.

“Go on,” Rodney says, gesturing. “I will definitely be right behind you.”

John turns to go. “New rule for the field,” he says, walking away and trying not to think about his own ass and whether he walks weird. “You come up front so I don’t have to know you’re back there staring at my ass.”

Rodney snorts, close behind him, and trails a finger down his spine, making him jolt and shiver. “Maybe when we’re venturing into the unknown,” he says. “On the way home, though...” He closes the distance, wrapping his arms around John and bringing his back into his broad chest. “I think we can agree that even though neither of us is good at patience, there could be something to be said for anticipation?”

John takes one more step then twists and falls backward onto the wide bed, bringing Rodney with him. “Protocol TBD. Now. Who do I have to blow around here to get your pants off?”

Rodney drops his face to John’s shoulder and chuckles, then turns in and grazes his teeth along John’s jawline. “Probably most efficient to pick me,” he says. “In case efficiency is among your goals.”

“Efficiency. Urgency. Whatever.”

“Are you going to ask nicely?” Rodney asks, an empty threat hanging in there because he already has one hand at his waist, working on his buckle.

“What, am I supposed to ask permission to suck your dick again?” John looks up at him. “Hey Rodney? Can I--”

Rodney nods and pushes away just long enough to strip. “Any time you want.”