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"Ow," Rodney said. Teyla shifted her bare feet on his shoulders. "Thank you."
He was kneeling on John and Ronon's shoulders. His thighs were shaking where John and Ronon held onto him. He wasn't going to last.
"Rodney is right. I cannot reach the ceiling," Teyla said.
"Of course I'm right! That's basic math. That's addition. I learned that when I was three."
John passed the climbing line he kept coiled in a pocket up to Rodney. Teyla swung it carefully, and after a few throws she managed to toss it through the smallish hole. When she tugged, though, it fell back with a shower of loose dirt and pebbles.
"Do what you can," John said. His legs were shaking. Ronon noticed and widened his stance, shifting more of the weight onto himself.
Teyla threw three times more and succeeded twice, and Rodney made a sharp noise of pain on the second one, and John was starting to lose it, so he said, "down, down, down," after the second successful throw got them nothing.
Teyla slid nimbly off Rodney's shoulders and down Ronon's back, and then John's knees buckled and he took the rest of them down in a heap. "Son of a bitch," he gasped. "Ah, my knees."
"Ow, my back," Rodney said.
"No, I mean it," John winced, rolling on his back and grasping his thighs just over his kneecaps.
"I mean it too!"
But Ronon leaned over John, concern on his face, and Teyla tugged down his trousers to take a look. "You are simply bruised," Teyla said.
"You sure?" John squinted down at his knees.
"Yes, quite sure." She reclined beside him, and they both stared up at the hole in the ceiling, John wriggling slowly back into his pants. He was just, Jesus, tired. They'd been exploring for a while before the cave collapsed, chasing an elusive power signature.
"Ow," Rodney repeated, "my back."
"There there, Rodney," John said. If Rodney were really hurt, he'd be screaming the house down. Rodney harrumphed at John's lack of sympathy.
Ronon leaned back on John's other side, and all four of them watched the disc of light crawl up the wall. The sun was setting sooner, not later. "So, human pyramid was a failure. I'm open to suggestions," John said.
"I suggest we save our urine," Rodney said.
"Ew?" John remarked, his lip curling.
"Hey! The sooner we start, the longer we live!"
Rodney's pointing finger of anger didn't work as well when he was horizontal. John batted it away from his face. "We're not there yet," he said.
"If we can shift the rocks from the cave-in, we can stack them and reach the ceiling," Ronon said.
John pointed vaguely upwards. "There's a plan! A plan that does not involve bodily fluids, if you'll notice."
"Of course, they're heavy."
"Hey. We have a genius. We have levers."
"Backpack frames," Rodney said.
"Like I said," John said, because he knew his gear, thanks, "we have levers. An unmovable place to stand is a little harder, but we'll figure something out. No problem."
None of them moved.
"We'll just have a little nap first," John said. He closed his eyes and the others sighed around him. It had been a long day.
Of course, it was Rodney who broke the silence. He said bolt upright and said, "We're going to die."
John sat up reluctantly. "We have a plan," he pointed out.
"They will look for us," Teyla said.
"I'm not drinking your urine," Ronon said.
"There will be neither pee-drinking nor dying on this mission!" John snapped, glaring at everyone in turn. "We survived an attack from fourteen Wraith hive ships! We are not going to be defeated by rocks!"
"I bet I could make pretty good scaffolding from your bleached bones," Rodney said.
"Rodney."
"Oh, or a nice pulley. We could get a lot of simple machines out of Tarzan there."
"Rodney, calm down."
"No, I think I've been very stoic, and now it's time to panic!" Rodney stumbled to his feet, one hand pressed to his back like an old man.
"Is Tarzan an insult?" Ronon asked Teyla.
"Yes! Yes, it is!" Rodney said, crossing his arms. "Yes, I am insulting you, because why not? We're trapped in a collapsed cave miles from the gate with nonfunctioning radios and no convenient piles of garbage from which I can MacGyver us an Ancient escalator! We! Are! Screwed! And in the face of certain doom, I'm feeling tremendous freedom!" Rodney flung his arms wide and started pacing again. "You have stupid hair!" he said, pointing at John. "You need to learn contractions!" he said, pointing at Teyla. "And you need to learn about spoons!" he concluded, pointing at Ronon.
He stopped, panting, in the middle of the cave. They all looked at him.
"You done?" John asked. Rodney groaned and sank down cross-legged, his face in his hands.
"I can't actually do anything about my hair," John said a few minutes later, while Rodney curled near-fetal with misery. "I need gel or pomade or something to deal with the cowlicks, and that stuff was classified nonessential. Though the women got to bring their makeup. I call that unfair."
"Contractions are inelegant in Athosian. My father taught me to speak properly," Teyla said.
"I know how to use a spoon," Ronon said. "I prefer to use my fingers."
"Of course you do," Rodney muttered.
"Hey," John said.
"I don't think the backpack frames are going to work."
"Shut up, or I gag you," John said.
Rodney scoffed.
"Problem-solving or nothing, Rodney."
Rodney shut his mouth with an ostentatious click of teeth. "I'll just be making out my will."
John tackled him and clapped both hands over his mouth. Since they were both on the ground, he only shifted Rodney about four inches, but Rodney howled like a murder victim anyway. "My head hurts," John said. "Can we not?"
Rodney glared. John slumped down onto him, hands still interlaced over his mouth, cheek on his chest. Comfy.
"How much food and water do you carry?" Ronon asked.
"Ample," Teyla said. "Sufficient food for a week of normal activity, and we will be missed long before then. I suggest that we rest; it is late in the day and we have all labored much. We should begin again when fresh," she said, pointedly looking at Rodney and John.
"Mm-hm," John mmphed into Rodney's chest. He rolled off and stretched, popping his spine and neck like bubble wrap.
The light overhead reddened as Teyla, Ronon, and Rodney tore into MREs. Ronon ate with his fingers, of course. "Hungry?" Ronon asked.
"Nah," John said.
"Your people make good rations."
"You should see our real food."
"Bacon," Rodney said.
"Pizza."
"Cake."
"Reubens."
"French fries," Rodney sighed.
"I thought you called them poutine or chips or something up there?"
"What? No."
"Colonel? Doctor? It's my understanding that you are of different tribes, but your speech and dress is the same. Where does the difference lie?" Teyla asked.
"Our speech is NOT the same," Rodney huffed.
"He talks funny."
"No, you talk wrong."
"He says 'zed' and 'aboot.'"
"You say 'y'all.'"
"He's ruled by a queen and we're a democracy and call our leader 'Mr.'"
"We are a constitutional monarchy. The Queen is just because of tradition and respect for history. We have more democracy than you do. We have more parties."
John looked at him. "But your country is freezing-ass cold."
"Oh," Rodney said, "you went there. That's so typically American. Look, for your information, summer in Toronto is around thirty degrees. That's not cold, not by a long shot."
"They also use the metric system, which is just wrong." John cocked his thumb at Rodney.
"I think you mean precise and defined and scientifically meaningful--"
"I see!" Teyla cut in. "The differences are subtle, but important."
"Vital, thanks, and not that subtle, really," Rodney said.
"I think I understood about two sentences of all that," Ronon said.
John cut to the chase. "We were both colonies of England, and the United States of America overthrew England and Canada didn't."
"And then you attacked us," Rodney said.
"That was two hundred years ago! Get over it."
"The Revolutionary War was more than two hundred years ago and you're not over it."
"Well, that's because it was awesome," John said. "There we were, just regular Joes with muskets, and there you were lining up with red coats, and it was a righteous beatdown! The wages of imperialism."
"Oh yes, yes, imperialism is certainly something Americans would be familiar with." Rodney lifted his chin with triumphant superiority. "How's Iraq going for you?"
Wow. Below the belt.
John didn't hit him. He was silent for a long, long moment, tallying friends and injuries and pain while the smug look on Rodney's face slipped into insecurity. "The difference between Canada and America is cultural and historical," he said, finally, to Teyla. "We were the same until about 230 years ago, which is why we're not that different, but after that we went our own ways."
"Colonel, your friends that I met when we dreamed of Earth..." She got it. Of course she got it. And Rodney started to get it, the size and shape of what he'd really said, and John could see I-hurt-my-friend and yes-but-I'm-right battling it out across his face.
"They died in Afghanistan. Yeah, it's part of the same war as Iraq." And Teyla and Ronon knew all about that and Rodney was learning, learning hard, so that was the end of it.
The light was bluer, fading now. John got restless in the encroaching dark and slipped the frame out of a couple of backpacks, screwed the pieces together, and tossed it up against the ceiling to shake free a little more dirt and let in some moonlight. "No sweat," John said, sitting back down.
"Um, Colonel?" Rodney held out an MRE. "You should eat."
"Thanks." John tore it open-- Hey. "Rodney."
"Yes?"
"This is pot roast."
"Yes."
"You gave me one of your private stash?" They'd run out of the genuinely tasty MREs almost immediately, and the resupply from the Daedalus had disappeared into the ether.
"It's dark. I couldn't see."
But yeah, he had, and that was a pretty effective apology as Rodney's apologies went, so John shifted a little closer and leaned his back against Rodney's.
Then he ate with his fingers, because he couldn't resist. Rodney made a disgusted noise.
"You might have a point here, Ronon," John said. He licked gravy off his fingers.
"Utensils are unnecessary."
John sucked at his ring finger, smiling slightly at Ronon as Rodney quivered behind him. "Well, I wouldn't have given that to you if I realized Tarzan was contagious," Rodney finally huffed.
"One minute, twelve seconds by my count," Ronon said.
"You're a model of restraint, Rodney." John elbowed him affectionately.
"Well, I think I am, sitting here listening to you two give yourself blow jobs," Rodney said.
John met Ronon's eye, then they both looked down into their laps. Between Ronon and Rodney, Teyla was laughing silently. "I tried that when I was fifteen, but I just don't have enough vertebrae," John said.
"I tried that when I was fifteen, and I could. Once." Teyla snorted out loud and covered her mouth, stifling herself and doubling over. "Just once," Ronon said, and sighed.
"Mm," John said. He scooped out a big piece of beef and chewed it meditatively.
Rodney shook his head. "I never tried that."
"Not even once?"
"I was busy when I was a degenerate teen. You know, mysteries of the universe, stuff like that?"
"Blow jobs are a mystery of the universe," John said, and Teyla snorked again. "Breathe, partner!" he said, "you're going to hurt yourself!"
Teyla took a deep breath and shrieked with laughter. She doubled over, pressing her forehead to Rodney's shins, then rolled over onto her side in the middle of them. John peeled apart the foil sides of dinner and licked out the last bits of yum, watching her. "It wasn't that funny," Rodney said.
"Hee," Teyla said, and then "Hee," and then "My father once told me--hee--that the private counsels of men--hee--are full of great mysteries--" and then she was off again.
John finished with the foil and licked his fingers one more time. "Oh, stop it," Rodney said, and shoved him with his shoulder.
"Taking this kind of personal, Rodney," John said, shoving him back.
"If the damn radios would just work!" Rodney burst out.
"Well, they're not. And we're fine."
"Likely Colonel Sheppard would die first. He has the least body fat," Ronon said. "McKay, you might outlast us all."
Teyla burst out laughing anew. "Oh, thank you," Rodney said.
"Not helping, Ronon," John said, growling out a warning.
"Blood has a low enough salt content that you can drink it safely, but storage would be a problem." Ronon had a small, teasing smile on his face. "It rots fast."
John leaned back against Rodney and found his skin clammy and sweat-damp. "Breathe, McKay."
"Old age death, sure! Fast death, explosion death, bullet death! Painful death I have some problems with! Slow starvation blood-drinking nail-breaking death is right down there at the bottom!" Rodney yelled.
John grabbed Rodney's wrist. His pulse was racing. "Ronon, shut up, and that is an order. Rodney, breathe."
"I'm breathing! Nice air! Lovely air! Non-life-sustaining air!"
"Slower. In. Two. Three. Hold. Hold it, dammit." John faced Rodney, taking his shoulder and wrist.
Teyla wasn't laughing any more. "Rodney, we will escape in the morning. We are safe." She sat beside him, then embraced him lightly.
Rodney breathed raggedly. "You can't guarantee something subject to chance. You don't even know what the variables are," he said.
"We're the variables."
"That's ridiculous."
"You shut up too," John said. He plunked back down on his ass and took Rodney's ankle.
"Your fascist streak is very unappealing!" Rodney wasn't calming down; his breath was just as fast. John jiggled his ankle back and forth and Rodney yanked it away. "Very American. This is the difference, Teyla."
"We will be all right."
"May I speak?" Ronon asked.
"No," John said.
Ronon slid over next to Rodney silently. The light faded behind them, leaving them midnight blue outlines against the gray rock. John rested his head in his hands.
"Enh," Rodney said.
"Ronon... what are you doing?" Teyla asked.
Ronon didn't answer.
"Obscene things," Rodney said. His voice shook, and when John looked up, he found Ronon sucking on Rodney's fingers.
"Ronon, knock it off," John said, exhausted.
Ronon pulled off Rodney's fingers with a loud slurp. "That an order?"
"Well, don't tease," Rodney said. "That's not fair."
"Um," John said, and apparently that was enough indecision for Ronon to lick Rodney's palm and Rodney to moan. "Rodney."
"No, you shut up! I'm not passing up my last chance to have sex before I die," Rodney said.
"Wait." But Rodney groaned again, and Jesus, was that how he sounded when he fucked? Not that he'd given any thought to this question before, in situations like this.
Teyla reached up and kissed Rodney.
"Teyla!" John said, scandalized.
"He is no longer panicking," Teyla pointed out. She threw a leg over Rodney's and then there were wet noises on both sides. John's eyes adjusted as he reconciled himself to the fact that he had completely lost control of this situation, and furthermore that he didn't mind, and postscript, that they were making him hot. He sighed and leaned back on his hands, shifting to give his dick some room.
Ronon looked up at John, rubbing Rodney's thumb over his lower lip. "May I speak?" he asked.
"Yeah," John said, and Ronon dropped Rodney's hand and surged over in one quick motion.
"May I kiss you?" Ronon asked.
"No," John said, because Jesus.
Ronon sat beside him. "May I touch you?" he asked.
Rodney caressed Teyla's hip tentatively and Teyla straddled Rodney's leg, her groin pressed hard to his, and kissed him hard. "Um," John said.
"Oh," Rodney groaned.
"Mm," Ronon said, then hugged John from behind and licked his throat.
Teyla straightened up, wringing high, breathless moans from Rodney with circular movements of her hips, and looked at John. "I confess the intimate counsels of men are much as I thought they would be," she said, sounding way too calm for someone doing the things she was doing with her lower half, "but women have their intimate counsels as well, and I don't think they are quite what you suspect they are."
While John was trying to figure out what that meant, she took her shirt off. Pretty much the end of thinking there when confronted with God's finest work.
Ronon rubbed his beard against John's throat, sending shivers down his stomach to his erection. "Tell me to take your shirt off," Ronon whispered in his ear.
John didn't answer. His brain was stuck on the hamster wheel, bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea. The light was gone, nothing but a faint reflected glimmer on Rodney's moon-pale face and the slopes of Teyla's breasts. Rodney's mouth was a round black hole, and his eyes were fixed on Teyla.
"Please," Ronon whispered against the back of his neck. His hands flexed and fretted on John's shoulders.
Teyla opened Rodney's shirt, exposing more pale skin. She opened her pants and slipped them down the round curves of her hips, and John said, "Take off my shirt."
Ronon ripped open John's shirt, and Rodney and Teyla both looked at John, their eyes traveling down the line of his stomach, but Ronon just stopped, his fists clenched in John's shirt and his mouth working on the nape of his neck, until John said, "and touch me."
Ronon slid one hand down John's stomach into his pants and the other up his shoulder to cup his chin. John opened his mouth--and his eyes, his eyes were still open, watching Rodney stroke Teyla's thighs and Teyla cup a breast, watching him, circling her hips over his cock--and Ronon rubbed John's lip between his broad thumb and forefinger and yanked at John's belt. Ronon's hands were huge.
"I don't suppose, uh," Rodney said, his hands moving between him and Teyla.
"If you penetrate me I will get with child."
"Oh, well, no, I suppose not," Rodney said, "and you know, this is more than I had expected or hoped for this morning or, ah, any other day--good God, you're beautiful--"
John took Ronon's hand out of his mouth and put it on his hip instead. "Let me get him."
"Let you-- Oh, I see," Teyla said. She leaned back and John leaned forward onto his hands and mouthed her nipple until she undulated and Rodney whimpered. She stroked John's cheeks and kissed him, softly and then deeply.
She slid back, and John leaned down, inhaling deeply, finding his way over Rodney's body by smell. "Major," Rodney said. His voice wobbled.
"You mean Lieutenant Colonel," John said against Rodney's dick, barely restrained in thin cotton. Rodney groaned.
Teyla stroked the length of John's spine with her warm, damp palm. She slipped her fingers under his waistband and dug her fingers into his ass--and she was hard, she had strong warrior fingers; she was going to leave bruises. She was leaning on him to get to Ronon, kissing him, it sounded like; something wet, something that made him close his eyes and breathe in her scent and Rodney's combined. Wet, intimate, new...
He mouthed his way up the waistband and pulled it down with his teeth. "Jesus, Major!" Rodney grabbed his head.
"Lieutenant Colonel," John repeated. He tilted his cheek and brushed Rodney's dick with his stubbled cheek, making Rodney yelp. "Get it right or no head for you."
Behind him, Ronon laughed. "Oh, God, Lieutenant Colonel, Lieutenant Colonel, Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard, you ego-crazed son of a bitch!" Rodney yelped, petting John's head fretfully, sending little shivers down his scalp to his shoulders.
"That's more like it," John said before licking his way up and down Rodney's dick. Uncut, tender at the tip, irresistible once he had it in his mouth.
"Colonel, Colonel, Lieutenant Colonel, Colonel, suck it, Colonel, suck it, suck my dick," Rodney chanted. But he didn't grab, amazingly; he just stroked John's head, mussing up his hair even worse. John went deep, cozying up to Rodney's dick with his throat, and Rodney dissolved into a high whine.
Oh yeah, coming fast, so John backed off and rippled his tongue against Rodney's cockhead and Rodney shouted and shot in his mouth, thighs shaking, shoulders slamming against the cave floor, his hands tight on John's head.
John pried Rodney's hands off after a moment. "Enh," Rodney said, and closed his eyes.
John smiled with satisfaction and mm, come in his mouth, and mm, hands on his ass, and hey, Teyla next to him, touching his shoulder. Those were Ronon's hands on his ass, then. Admirable focus to that man.
She cupped his cheek and he knelt up, following her touch to her mouth. He kissed her, and she was just damn strong. Stronger than Rodney. Hard in places that he wasn't hard and soft in places that he wasn't soft. She rested her arms on his shoulders, and Ronon kissed John's spine up to her hands--seriously, really focused--and her breath quickened against John's cheek. John cupped her breasts, ample, overflowing, nipples tight against his thumbs, until she took his hand and pulled it down her belly.
Yeah. Woman knew what she wanted, not that he'd ever had any doubt of that. He slid his fingers inside her and she shivered in his arms and pressed closer. And then Ronon, still behind him, not asking in words or with touch or anything, just waiting.
"Ronon."
"Colonel."
"Fuck me."
"Okay," Ronon whispered, sounding hoarse, and Teyla smiled against John's mouth and flexed her fingers against his jaw and pressed him closer, closer, as he crooked his fingers inside her, looking for the sweet spot. Ronon's spit-wet fingers probed John's ass and opened him up hard and electric and huge inside him.
He felt pleasure crackling around his body from point to point: Ronon's fingers, Ronon's beard against his spine, Teyla's mouth, Teyla's wet flesh around his fingers, Teyla's nipples drawing crooked circles on his chest as she moved against him. They breathed together, faster and faster as Ronon twisted and pushed and John echoed the motion.
"John," Teyla said, pinning his wrist to his thigh, "John," so he shoved all four fingers inside her and rubbed the heel of his hand roughly against her clit and whoa, she came hard and loud, clenching and bouncing and shouting out her pleasure.
"I can make you yell," Ronon whispered in John's ear.
"You think so?" John asked. Teyla laughed and kissed his cheek.
"I know so."
"What..." Rodney propped himself up on his elbows. Teyla let John go and reclined against Rodney's legs. "Oh, uh, hello."
"Hello," Teyla said, stroking Rodney's belly.
And Ronon twisted his fingers and John bit his lip and fell forward onto his hands. "McKay," John said, very calmly, "tell me you have sunscreen."
"I, um. Um." Rodney sounded hoarse. He was resting on his hands, all soft, pale curve in the faint moonlight, but all John could think about was fingers, big fingers inside him and a big cock behind him.
"McKay, tell me you have something so that Ronon can fuck me and you can watch," John breathed, and Rodney made a choked sound and rummaged frantically through his pack while Ronon leaned down and tongued the small of his back.
And Rodney did have sunscreen, because paranoia was a damned useful quality, and he handed it to Ronon and Ronon scooped up a handful of cocoa butter and oh, God, oh, Jesus, those hands. Painless and slick, every movement now easier and more teasing, and his right hand stroking John from bent elbow to shaking side to sweaty hip to working thigh.
"Okay, it never occurred to me that you might be such a bottom," Rodney said.
"Let's just say I'm inspired," John said. Teyla smiled, fingering her nipple and Rodney's stomach idly.
Ronon hauled him upright against his body. "Please say that again, please," he whispered into John's ear.
"You heard me the first time," John said. Ronon clasped John's right hand in his own and lifted it to his mouth, muttering "please" inaudibly against his skin. Rodney was just sitting there, his eyes roaming up and down John's exposed body--like porn, they were all porn for each other--while Ronon pulled his hand free from John's ass and pulled his thigh back over Ronon's. Ronon lifted him easily and penetrated him slowly.
Yeah, that was something. That was something. He felt like his spine was wooden, rigid, as his body reshaped itself around Ronon's. Feeling--not pain, but just raw nerve endings firing on automatic--crackled outward to his toes and his fingers and finally up his stomach and throat to his mouth, so he opened his mouth and gasped, finally, and Ronon groaned and clutched him closer and thrust.
"Ah, Jesus," John breathed, hugging Ronon's arm to his chest.
"You'll yell for me," Ronon said.
"No, I won't."
"You will," and Ronon tugged on his balls and fucked him hard.
"This alpha male testosterone thing makes me slightly uncomfortable," Rodney said.
"Hey," John said, "just a little friendly competition--" and he caught his breath as Ronon moved him again, lifting him up like he weighed nothing at all, "uh, yeah, and would you prefer a drinking contest?"
"Would it be naked?"
"Probably--probably not."
"And not fair, since I outweigh you," Ronon said.
"I noticed that," John said. He noticed it more when Ronon bent them over, pressed him flat against the floor with one hand against his shoulder blade and the other hand still under him holding his balls, keeping him from coming just yet, and his thighs sprawled open and Ronon fucking him. Hard. Harder. Hardest, until he panted harshly into the crook of his arm and he was slapping the floor with the flat of his other hand because he had to move something, Jesus CHRIST.
At that, he had to laugh, because what was he doing? Having the best sex in at least three years with two aliens and his pet geek? And Ronon let go of his balls and he was laughing and coming, and maybe it was loud but it wasn't screaming, so he won. He won. And Ronon shot inside him and collapsed beside him and victory was sweet.
"I won," John pointed out breathlessly.
Ronon cut his eyes at him and said, "Rematch."
"Maybe next week." John couldn't have moved if you cattle-prodded his balls. He didn't fall asleep, though, because Teyla was using him like a cushion while Rodney--go Rodney!--ate her out like Casanova, and she was arching her back over John's and asking Ronon to hold her hands and making really amazing noises.
Then it was nothing but heavy breathing and relaxation all around. John cracked an eye and saw Rodney lying beside him, wiping off his chin and his mouth and his nose and both hands. "I wouldn't have thought you had a master's in muff diving," John said, and Teyla giggled, her head resting on his back.
"Well, I wouldn't have thought you were a big nelly bottom," Rodney said.
"Manly bottom," John corrected, but he was too fucked to really care about adjectives.
"You are all satisfying lovers," Teyla said.
"I would also like to suck your cock," Ronon murmured.
"Oh, GOD," Rodney said, sounding shocked beyond the bounds of language, and John gave him a friendly pat on the belly before passing out.
"Ow," John commented.
"Ow," Rodney agreed.
"I have insect bites on my roosa," Ronon growled, rubbing his ass.
Teyla didn't say anything, but rolled her neck between her hands until it cracked.
"Ow, son of a bitch," John said. "Ronon, you put these cramps in my legs, you get them out."
Ronon met his eyes and gave him a tiny, unexpected smile, and obliged.
Teyla stood up, gathering her clothes, and they all looked, because really. Damn. And she noticed, because they weren't subtle, and she smiled. She stooped and kissed all three of them before putting her pants back on, a firm, affectionate press of lips.
Yeah, there was a good plan, and John leaned forward and kissed Ronon and back and kissed Rodney, and then put his own pants on. Rodney, surprisingly, leaned over and kissed Ronon, and Ronon stood smoothly and helped him up.
They had energy bars for breakfast, looking up at the ceiling of the cave, and then Teyla tied the backpack frame to the climbing line and threw it like a javelin, and the bar caught across the mouth of the small hole and held and she shimmied up. Then John and Ronon boosted Rodney up. "I was always terrible at this," Rodney said.
"If you fall, we'll catch you," John said, and Rodney just nodded and kept going, hand over hand, not quite sure what to do with his feet but clinging to the rope with sheer will.
"You go first," Ronon said when Rodney was safely on the surface. "You're lighter."
"Yeah, I noticed that," John said, and he grinned and climbed up the rope.
On the way back to the jumper, with Rodney poking the radios to figure out why they still didn't work-- "Electromagnetic ores below ground," he said, "but hi, we're in the air now" --John explained don't ask, don't tell to Ronon and Teyla.
"I fail to see what your sexual conduct has to do with your proficiency as a warrior," Teyla said.
"Everything," Ronon said. "I was not permitted to touch women when I was in the service."
"Discipline," John said.
"Yes."
"I have to say I prefer this method of team-building to watching your stupid football video," Rodney said.
"Agreed," Teyla said.
"Philistines," John said.
THE END.
All comments are welcome.