Ch014 - Story 06 - Requisition Form 2245-B (A Love Story)
Title: Requisition Form 2245-B (A Love Story)
Pairing: John/Rodney
Rating: PG
Plot: Sheppard's been holding out on him.
Authors: darsynia, oxoniensis, sheafrotherdon and dogeared.
Artists: le_mot_mo, elli, beet and strivaria.
Requisition Form 2245-B (A Love Story)
Rodney told himself he was not looking for Sheppard. He really wasn’t. He was looking for a midnight snack, that was all, and if he happened to know from previous experience that Colonel Sheppard was nearly always to be found in the mess hall on the days the Daedalus arrived with supplies from Earth, well, that was just incidental. His resolve lasted about as long as it took him to recognize the packaging in front of his team leader from all the way across the well-lit dining area.
“Oreos?! You got Oreos sent from Earth and didn’t tell me?” Rodney stalked up to stand behind Sheppard with his arms crossed tightly in front of him, ostensibly to illustrate his distress, though if he were truly honest with himself it was to prevent the powerful urge to reach out, snatch the bag, and run. Oreos! The bag was just sitting there as if it weren’t a commodity worth its weight in coffee-as if it would be possible to just sit down and eat five of the things without wondering what else they might have been worth to him.
“Good evening to you, too, Rodney,” Sheppard said without turning around. He reached into the bag and pulled out another cookie, biting into it thoughtfully as he flipped to the next page of the stapled printouts in front of him. Rodney couldn’t see what they were, but he didn’t much care, because, Oreos.
“Well?” Rodney prompted, a little impatient and a tiny bit worried. They were-John was . . . he would share, wouldn’t he? If they were the sort of friends who spent late nights playing video golf and arguing over chess games, surely they were the sort of friends who shared ridiculously rare pseudo-delicacies from Earth. Rodney quashed the feeling of guilt that bubbled up at this thought, remembering the stash of single-serving popcorn he’d kept to himself during their first year of Daedalus runs. That was different, though, he rationalized. Teyla would have had no compunction about kicking his ass if she’d found out he was holding out on her, but he wasn’t planning on hurting Sheppard if he didn’t offer Rodney a cookie or three.
Not directly, anyway. Who knew what latent effects Sheppard’s ATA gene had on the environmental controls in his own quarters?
“‘Well’ what?” Sheppard asked, voice distorted thanks to his having stuffed an entire cookie into his mouth. He then turned to shoot a look of pure mischief at Rodney, complete with ostentatious chewing and eyebrow waggling. Rodney realized (with a longing look at the clear plastic tray) that as long as Sheppard was enjoying torturing Rodney by withholding what he wanted, the longer it would be before Rodney would be scraping Oreo cream from a dismantled cookie with his teeth.
Indignant wasn’t going to cut it. Rodney was going to have to go on the offensive.
As he searched his mind for something that would wipe the insolent, chipmunk-cheeked grin off of Sheppard’s face, the perfect statement occurred to him. Sheppard would have no safe retort-he’d probably just hand over Rodney’s share with the childish pout he sometimes sported when Rodney was right and he was wrong.
“Are you going to sit there and flirt with me some more or are you going to let me have some of those?” Rodney demanded.
Sheppard continued munching. And then, when there was clearly no more cookie left in his mouth, he started licking his lips and smacking his mouth and making truly obscene noises. Rodney would have been embarrassed for him if he weren't so fixed in hunger and chocolate mode.
Then Sheppard winked. Clear and unmistakable. A wink, and Rodney was so caught off guard that he didn't even notice Sheppard reaching out and grabbing another Oreo. He didn't even realize he was staring at Sheppard's mouth until Sheppard opened it wide and started licking at a cookie he'd split in half, softened icing coating his tongue, a crumb resting on his lower lip.
Rodney spluttered, and Sheppard grinned around the Oreo.
"I'll just carry on flirting, if that's all right with you?" Sheppard said, and took another lick of creamy filing.
"Oh," Rodney said, and he was fully aware that he was the one pouting. "Well, maybe I don't really want Oreos that much. I think you've put me off them."
Of course his statement would be have been more dignified and convincing if he hadn't stayed glued to the spot, still focused on Sheppard licking at the Oreo, and if his stomach hadn't chosen that moment to grumble. Loudly. He frowned. Clearly his method of approach wasn't working, and he wasn't too proud to change tack mid course. He'd go for straightforward this time.
"May I have a cookie? For Teyla," he added on an inspired whim. "She's having all sorts of cravings, and you weren't there but she kept on about chocolate cookies at lunch, how much she wanted some." He looked hopefully at Sheppard.
"McKay," Sheppard said, and looked at him. He didn't say anything else.
"Yes?" Rodney said eventually, wondering what the wait was for.
"You only had to ask." He handed over the bag. The entire bag, not just one or two cookies picked out for Rodney, but the entire precious bag of Oreos.
"Oh," Rodney stuttered. "I, um-" He battled a moment with his conscience. "They're not really for Teyla, you know," he added when his conscience won. "I mean, I'll give her some, and I'm sure she'd like them, and she probably is having cravings, not that she's told me about them, but you know, she's pregnant, and pregnant women have cravings, and she's had Oreos before so she could be craving them. Probably with pickles or marmite or something equally disgusting, and urgh, that'd be such a waste of Oreos, but still. I'll give her some. But-"
Rodney stumbled to a halt. For someone who in all probability had the highest IQ in the galaxy, he'd just been incredibly slow on the uptake. Sheppard had just said he'd rather flirt with him. That was- That was a tease, surely? He looked at Sheppard, but his face was annoyingly inscrutable.
"But what?" Sheppard asked, and Rodney gulped. He was used to dilemmas. He dealt with them daily. He thrived on dilemmas. But given the option of Sheppard flirting with him and all the possibilities that could lead to or sinking his teeth into a sinfully chocolate Oreo, well. This was a dilemma he had never anticipated.
Sex or chocolate.
John snorted softly. "Way to hit the gas, McKay."
Rodney blinked at him. "What? Gas? What?" He squinted at John and then at the Oreos-perhaps they'd been tampered with; perhaps the delicious creamy center was full of mind-altering drugs. Sex on mind-altering drugs could be fun.
"You said that out loud," John offered helpfully, gesturing with one finger. "The sex or chocolate thing."
Rodney smacked his forehead then let his palm fall to cover his eyes. If he couldn't see John, perhaps John couldn't see him. "Oh?" he said, as airily as he could.
"What if I want to, you know . . ." There was the sound of John's chair scraping across the floor, then the rustle of BDUs. "Date first?"
Rodney dropped his hand and flinched to find John standing perhaps six inches away. "Who the fuck are you?" he asked. A good offense was always the best defense, he'd been told, except it was entirely possible that the phrase was a football metaphor, in which case it was John who'd told him that, in which case . . .
"Made you look," John grinned.
Rodney spluttered and gestured with one hand. "You are twelve."
"Well, sure, but - "
"If you say 'so are you' I can guarantee my incipient hard-on will die."
John arched an eyebrow. "What, it's a one time thing?"
Rodney chose to ignore the fact that the back of his neck was burning. He hadn't been this spectacularly bad at trying to get laid since 1987. "One time . . . what?"
"One hard-on a day? No repeats?"
Rodney tilted his head and instructed his brain not to explode under any circumstances. "You know," he said weakly, "this is the most surreal conversation I believe I've ever had. And that includes the one I had with myself when I . . . well, let's just say quantum mirrors were involved, and I never, ever want to be reminded that another version of myself went to McGill."
John stepped right into Rodney's personal space, all body heat and stubble and the distracting smell of cookies. "I won't remind you."
Rodney swallowed. "Well. That's . . . good."
"So did you make a choice?'
"Hmm?"
John wet his lips. "Sex or chocolate?"
"I - "
Which is when John demonstrated the fine art of compromise and kissed Rodney with his sticky, talented, Oreo-flavored mouth.
Um, Rodney thought. "Um," he said, though it sounded more like ummmmm, and his lip slid wetly against John's as he said it, and if that sent a very confusing array of messages out along his nervous system and made him sway a little, well, he could hardly be blamed . . .
"Blood sugar!" he blurted, and when John pulled back out of their shared space far enough that Rodney could see his raised eyebrow, he continued, "I mean, I really just wanted a cookie-" He looked at John's shiny lip and swallowed. "Maybe I should sit down."
"Sure," John said, still annoyingly affable and unaffected. "Wouldn't want you to faint."
Jerk. Rodney would have had a snappy comeback for that if he hadn't been so distracted by the flush on John's cheeks and the way he looked a little crazy around the eyes.
Rodney squinted at him. John gazed somewhere over Rodney's left shoulder.
"This isn't-" Rodney snapped his fingers, suddenly not feeling dizzy at all anymore. "Is this all some kind of sugar high-related aberrant behavior? I mean, I saw you stuffing your face with those things-you never eat like that! Sugar's probably the number one ingredient! And then, boom, you were all over me!"
"Hey," John said, "I just wanted a snack. You were the one who kept talking about flirting, and sex."
"And you were the one who-you know!" Rodney said, pointing triumphantly at his own clearly irresistible mouth.
"I am not high on Oreos, Rodney! I don't even really like Oreos, okay? I requisitioned them because you like them, you jackass!"
Silence stretched between them; an Oreo that had been poised on its edge fell on its cookie face with a quiet smack, and they both stared at it.
Rodney did a quick mental rewind of the last quarter hour or so-how the mess hall had been uncharacteristically empty except for John; how the blue package had been right there on display; how John had been ostensibly enjoying them, but without so much as a glass of milk at the ready . . . Well.
Rodney was smart-maybe not about these things, so much, but in general, obviously-and he liked to think he recognized a declaration when he heard one.
He cleared his throat. "That's really very- Um. Thank you?" he said, just as John was starting to shift, like maybe he was planning on making a run for it.
John took a deep breath and scrubbed his hand through his hair and stood up straight, and he looked determinedly right at Rodney when he said, "Want to see what else the Daedalus sent?"
Rodney did.
Click on thumb
Authors:
Artists:
R1: le_mot_mo
R2: elli
R3: beet
R4: strivaria
Pairing: John/Rodney
Rating: PG
Plot: Sheppard's been holding out on him.
Authors: darsynia, oxoniensis, sheafrotherdon and dogeared.
Artists: le_mot_mo, elli, beet and strivaria.
Requisition Form 2245-B (A Love Story)
Rodney told himself he was not looking for Sheppard. He really wasn’t. He was looking for a midnight snack, that was all, and if he happened to know from previous experience that Colonel Sheppard was nearly always to be found in the mess hall on the days the Daedalus arrived with supplies from Earth, well, that was just incidental. His resolve lasted about as long as it took him to recognize the packaging in front of his team leader from all the way across the well-lit dining area.
“Oreos?! You got Oreos sent from Earth and didn’t tell me?” Rodney stalked up to stand behind Sheppard with his arms crossed tightly in front of him, ostensibly to illustrate his distress, though if he were truly honest with himself it was to prevent the powerful urge to reach out, snatch the bag, and run. Oreos! The bag was just sitting there as if it weren’t a commodity worth its weight in coffee-as if it would be possible to just sit down and eat five of the things without wondering what else they might have been worth to him.
“Good evening to you, too, Rodney,” Sheppard said without turning around. He reached into the bag and pulled out another cookie, biting into it thoughtfully as he flipped to the next page of the stapled printouts in front of him. Rodney couldn’t see what they were, but he didn’t much care, because, Oreos.
“Well?” Rodney prompted, a little impatient and a tiny bit worried. They were-John was . . . he would share, wouldn’t he? If they were the sort of friends who spent late nights playing video golf and arguing over chess games, surely they were the sort of friends who shared ridiculously rare pseudo-delicacies from Earth. Rodney quashed the feeling of guilt that bubbled up at this thought, remembering the stash of single-serving popcorn he’d kept to himself during their first year of Daedalus runs. That was different, though, he rationalized. Teyla would have had no compunction about kicking his ass if she’d found out he was holding out on her, but he wasn’t planning on hurting Sheppard if he didn’t offer Rodney a cookie or three.
Not directly, anyway. Who knew what latent effects Sheppard’s ATA gene had on the environmental controls in his own quarters?
“‘Well’ what?” Sheppard asked, voice distorted thanks to his having stuffed an entire cookie into his mouth. He then turned to shoot a look of pure mischief at Rodney, complete with ostentatious chewing and eyebrow waggling. Rodney realized (with a longing look at the clear plastic tray) that as long as Sheppard was enjoying torturing Rodney by withholding what he wanted, the longer it would be before Rodney would be scraping Oreo cream from a dismantled cookie with his teeth.
Indignant wasn’t going to cut it. Rodney was going to have to go on the offensive.
As he searched his mind for something that would wipe the insolent, chipmunk-cheeked grin off of Sheppard’s face, the perfect statement occurred to him. Sheppard would have no safe retort-he’d probably just hand over Rodney’s share with the childish pout he sometimes sported when Rodney was right and he was wrong.
“Are you going to sit there and flirt with me some more or are you going to let me have some of those?” Rodney demanded.
Sheppard continued munching. And then, when there was clearly no more cookie left in his mouth, he started licking his lips and smacking his mouth and making truly obscene noises. Rodney would have been embarrassed for him if he weren't so fixed in hunger and chocolate mode.
Then Sheppard winked. Clear and unmistakable. A wink, and Rodney was so caught off guard that he didn't even notice Sheppard reaching out and grabbing another Oreo. He didn't even realize he was staring at Sheppard's mouth until Sheppard opened it wide and started licking at a cookie he'd split in half, softened icing coating his tongue, a crumb resting on his lower lip.
Rodney spluttered, and Sheppard grinned around the Oreo.
"I'll just carry on flirting, if that's all right with you?" Sheppard said, and took another lick of creamy filing.
"Oh," Rodney said, and he was fully aware that he was the one pouting. "Well, maybe I don't really want Oreos that much. I think you've put me off them."
Of course his statement would be have been more dignified and convincing if he hadn't stayed glued to the spot, still focused on Sheppard licking at the Oreo, and if his stomach hadn't chosen that moment to grumble. Loudly. He frowned. Clearly his method of approach wasn't working, and he wasn't too proud to change tack mid course. He'd go for straightforward this time.
"May I have a cookie? For Teyla," he added on an inspired whim. "She's having all sorts of cravings, and you weren't there but she kept on about chocolate cookies at lunch, how much she wanted some." He looked hopefully at Sheppard.
"McKay," Sheppard said, and looked at him. He didn't say anything else.
"Yes?" Rodney said eventually, wondering what the wait was for.
"You only had to ask." He handed over the bag. The entire bag, not just one or two cookies picked out for Rodney, but the entire precious bag of Oreos.
"Oh," Rodney stuttered. "I, um-" He battled a moment with his conscience. "They're not really for Teyla, you know," he added when his conscience won. "I mean, I'll give her some, and I'm sure she'd like them, and she probably is having cravings, not that she's told me about them, but you know, she's pregnant, and pregnant women have cravings, and she's had Oreos before so she could be craving them. Probably with pickles or marmite or something equally disgusting, and urgh, that'd be such a waste of Oreos, but still. I'll give her some. But-"
Rodney stumbled to a halt. For someone who in all probability had the highest IQ in the galaxy, he'd just been incredibly slow on the uptake. Sheppard had just said he'd rather flirt with him. That was- That was a tease, surely? He looked at Sheppard, but his face was annoyingly inscrutable.
"But what?" Sheppard asked, and Rodney gulped. He was used to dilemmas. He dealt with them daily. He thrived on dilemmas. But given the option of Sheppard flirting with him and all the possibilities that could lead to or sinking his teeth into a sinfully chocolate Oreo, well. This was a dilemma he had never anticipated.
Sex or chocolate.
John snorted softly. "Way to hit the gas, McKay."
Rodney blinked at him. "What? Gas? What?" He squinted at John and then at the Oreos-perhaps they'd been tampered with; perhaps the delicious creamy center was full of mind-altering drugs. Sex on mind-altering drugs could be fun.
"You said that out loud," John offered helpfully, gesturing with one finger. "The sex or chocolate thing."
Rodney smacked his forehead then let his palm fall to cover his eyes. If he couldn't see John, perhaps John couldn't see him. "Oh?" he said, as airily as he could.
"What if I want to, you know . . ." There was the sound of John's chair scraping across the floor, then the rustle of BDUs. "Date first?"
Rodney dropped his hand and flinched to find John standing perhaps six inches away. "Who the fuck are you?" he asked. A good offense was always the best defense, he'd been told, except it was entirely possible that the phrase was a football metaphor, in which case it was John who'd told him that, in which case . . .
"Made you look," John grinned.
Rodney spluttered and gestured with one hand. "You are twelve."
"Well, sure, but - "
"If you say 'so are you' I can guarantee my incipient hard-on will die."
John arched an eyebrow. "What, it's a one time thing?"
Rodney chose to ignore the fact that the back of his neck was burning. He hadn't been this spectacularly bad at trying to get laid since 1987. "One time . . . what?"
"One hard-on a day? No repeats?"
Rodney tilted his head and instructed his brain not to explode under any circumstances. "You know," he said weakly, "this is the most surreal conversation I believe I've ever had. And that includes the one I had with myself when I . . . well, let's just say quantum mirrors were involved, and I never, ever want to be reminded that another version of myself went to McGill."
John stepped right into Rodney's personal space, all body heat and stubble and the distracting smell of cookies. "I won't remind you."
Rodney swallowed. "Well. That's . . . good."
"So did you make a choice?'
"Hmm?"
John wet his lips. "Sex or chocolate?"
"I - "
Which is when John demonstrated the fine art of compromise and kissed Rodney with his sticky, talented, Oreo-flavored mouth.
Um, Rodney thought. "Um," he said, though it sounded more like ummmmm, and his lip slid wetly against John's as he said it, and if that sent a very confusing array of messages out along his nervous system and made him sway a little, well, he could hardly be blamed . . .
"Blood sugar!" he blurted, and when John pulled back out of their shared space far enough that Rodney could see his raised eyebrow, he continued, "I mean, I really just wanted a cookie-" He looked at John's shiny lip and swallowed. "Maybe I should sit down."
"Sure," John said, still annoyingly affable and unaffected. "Wouldn't want you to faint."
Jerk. Rodney would have had a snappy comeback for that if he hadn't been so distracted by the flush on John's cheeks and the way he looked a little crazy around the eyes.
Rodney squinted at him. John gazed somewhere over Rodney's left shoulder.
"This isn't-" Rodney snapped his fingers, suddenly not feeling dizzy at all anymore. "Is this all some kind of sugar high-related aberrant behavior? I mean, I saw you stuffing your face with those things-you never eat like that! Sugar's probably the number one ingredient! And then, boom, you were all over me!"
"Hey," John said, "I just wanted a snack. You were the one who kept talking about flirting, and sex."
"And you were the one who-you know!" Rodney said, pointing triumphantly at his own clearly irresistible mouth.
"I am not high on Oreos, Rodney! I don't even really like Oreos, okay? I requisitioned them because you like them, you jackass!"
Silence stretched between them; an Oreo that had been poised on its edge fell on its cookie face with a quiet smack, and they both stared at it.
Rodney did a quick mental rewind of the last quarter hour or so-how the mess hall had been uncharacteristically empty except for John; how the blue package had been right there on display; how John had been ostensibly enjoying them, but without so much as a glass of milk at the ready . . . Well.
Rodney was smart-maybe not about these things, so much, but in general, obviously-and he liked to think he recognized a declaration when he heard one.
He cleared his throat. "That's really very- Um. Thank you?" he said, just as John was starting to shift, like maybe he was planning on making a run for it.
John took a deep breath and scrubbed his hand through his hair and stood up straight, and he looked determinedly right at Rodney when he said, "Want to see what else the Daedalus sent?"
Rodney did.
Click on thumb
Authors:
- Round 1 - darsynia : "Rodney told himself [...] Rodney demanded."
- Round 2 - oxoniensis : "Sheppard continued munching. [...] Sex or chocolate."
- Round 3 - sheafrotherdon : "John snorted softly [...] Oreo-flavored mouth."
- Round 4 - dogeared : "Um, Rodney thought [...] Rodney did."
Artists:
R1: le_mot_mo
R2: elli
R3: beet
R4: strivaria