Infamy Part 5
“Okay, we’re almost there.” With a firm hand on John’s arm, careful to avoid the bandage over his chocolate burn, I led him blindfolded down the corridor.
One hand searched the empty air in front of us; the other reached back and gripped my shirt. “You really don’t have to do this, Rodney. You know that, right? I don’t need a date. I’m completely happy with the way things have been. We can just go home and strip naked and do things to each other until we make noises that will have the cat cowering in the closet. I’m perfectly fine with that plan. So why don’t we just go do that?”
He started to turn back as if to follow out his suggestion and I tightened my grip on him. “Listen, I promised you a goddamn date and, by God, you are getting a date.” After two failures I wasn’t going to be swayed. All’s fair in love and war, they say, and at this point the line between the two had been permanently blurred. “So just buck up and grow a pair so I’ll have something to fondle after I romance the living shit out of you. Got it?”
I don’t take failure well. And maybe, from time to time, I have been known to let my refusal to accept that I couldn’t do something interfere with my more rational decision making skills. And perhaps a solar system and the ZedPM had paid the price in the past for my obstinate belief that eventually I could make any thing work the way it was supposed to.
But this was different. This was dating. This was something millions of people did on a daily basis. This was the sort of thing teenagers that served fast food had mastered and fratboys had elevated to an art form. Hell, even Uber Geek Bill Gates had managed to woo a woman into marrying him. If he could date, I could date. I could do this, I would do this, and if we both ended up in the infirmary yet again, then so be it. Carson could finally follow through with his threat to medically restrict any future dating attempts on my behalf. But tonight I had one finally chance to prove to John, and myself, and this entire goddamn expedition that I, Rodney McKay, could take the man I loved on a date.
May God have mercy on our souls.
“Yeah, okay, got it,” John answered warily, letting me lead him further down the hall.
Reaching the door of our destination I removed the blindfold from his face. “Here we are,” I informed him happily.
He blinked to adjust to the dim lighting, looked up and down the hall, then back at me. “Where exactly is here?”
Shaking my head that I had the reputation for being the unromantic one in the relationship I told him. “Hello, our wedding night, our hideaway in the depths of the city? Ring any bells?”
A slow smile spread across his face as he moved in a little closer and kissed me. “I remember my ears ringing and nearly passing out at one point in this room.”
“Well, let’s see if we can recreate that sensation, shall we?” With a wicked grin of my own, I opened the door to reveal a room lit by nothing more than several dozen candles and a homemade bed of blankets and sleeping bags in the middle of the floor.
The smile on John’s face froze and I couldn’t be entirely sure, but I thought I saw one of his eyes… twitch. “Wow. That’s a lot of… of open flame.”
“I know,” I told him gleefully, tugging him into the room when he hesitated at the door. “I pretty much cleaned Teyla out.”
Skirting wide around a table to our right holding six candles of different sizes, he pulled me directly in front of him when I moved too close for his comfort to another set on our left. “John, they’re candles; not flame throwers or explosive devices with trip wires.”
“Uh-huh. And last night we just had dessert and did a little bird watching.” He looked behind us to the door then to the bed a few feet ahead with a look of strategic calculation on his face.
“Which is one of the reasons we’re in a room with no exterior doors or windows.” Stupid damn birds ruining a perfectly romantic evening, not to mention costing me every piece of chocolate that we owned. “Besides, that, was so totally not my fault.”
“That’s the point, Rodney. With the luck we’ve been having and this fire trap you’ve set up here, we’ll be fortunate if Carsondoesn’t have to set up a special burn unit in the infirmary.”
Lifting my chin defensively, I countered, “He always overreacts to things.”
“Well, at least he wasn’t threatening to graft part of your ass onto your arm last night.” With a final tactical assessment of the situation we were facing, he sighed. “All right, we’re more than halfway in, might as well go ahead the rest of the way.” Shuffling us quickly forward, we reached the bed without bursting into flames. That fact alone seemed to be the basis for the sigh he released as he sat.
Dropping beside him on the pallet I'd made on the floor, I started unbuttoning his shirt. "Sex?" he asked in eager relief. "We're just going to have sex?"
“Eventually,” I promised as I slid the shirt off his shoulders, “but not just yet.”
I’d finally given in to Radek’s suggestion of sticking to what I knew, and I knew how to please John. But even though Carson refused to give me any more advice on grounds that it would go against his Hippocratic Oath and could unintentionally result in more injury to me and/or John, I tried to stick to my guns and infuse the event with a little more romance. I figured the memories of this particular room, the candles, and a nice massage and one other surprise should suffice before moving on to the main event.
John, however, didn’t seem too thrilled by the idea of something in between. The smile vanished, causing the bandages on his gashes to pucker around the creases on his forehead. “Why? What have you got planned?”
“Just lie on your stomach.” I shook my head and shoved him forward. “For the big, brave hero you sure are being a baby about this.”
Resting his chin on crossed arms, he spoke over his shoulder as I straddled his hips. “I have no problem protecting us from alien bad guys. It’s saving us from you that makes me a little nervous.”
“Well, maybe this will help to relax you.” Warming the oil briefly in my hands, I rubbed along his upper back in wide passes before settling in to his shoulders with my thumbs. Tight muscles loosened a little more with each stroke.
“Oh, God, McKay, that feels great.” His voice was muffled by the pillow. “It’s too bad you’re married.”
My hands stopped moving as I scowled, “And why is that?”
“Because I’d snatch you up in a heartbeat.” He grinned back at me and I rolled my eyes.
“And I’m the one that can’t date. Incredible.”
“You seem to be doing okay so far tonight.” The grin softened into an affectionate smile and I returned it as I rubbed a little more oil on my hands and moved to his lower back.
“Quiet. You’ll jinx us.”
Using the heels of my hands I kneaded into the small of his back, eliciting a highly arousing groan. “Where did you get the oil? It smells familiar.”
“Ronon. He uses it to clean his sword… the metal one, I’m hoping.”
“Sword oil?”
I shrugged adding a little more pressure. “It’s basically mineral oil with a little fragrance added. I picked up something else while I was there, too. Something that might explain all the Athosian paternity suits.”
“Oh, God, please tell me it doesn’t involve rope and knockout drugs.”
I snorted, running my hands up the length of his back and back down. “Hardly. It’s actually a book of Pablo Neruda poetry.”
“Ronon reads poetry?”
I couldn’t help but chuckle at the shocked response that had matched my own. “Actually, after reading some myself, I can see it fitting him pretty well. I even found a few that fit you.”
“Really?”
Leaning in a little closer, I started reciting.
“And I in these lines say:
Like this I want you, love,
love, Like this I love you,
as you dress
and how your hair lifts up”
I ran my fingers up into his hair and he let out a laugh of his own at the line, which led perfectly into the next.
“and how your mouth smiles,
light as the water
of the spring upon the pure stones,
Like this I love you, beloved.”
He rolled beneath me so that he was looking up at me, candlelight flickering in half-lidded eyes, that smile that always made me feel a little off-balance on his lips and he rested his hands on my hips. My own smile transmuted to one of mischief.
“Your turn.”
He blinked in alarm, erasing the sultry expression. “Mine?”
Turn about was fair play after that scare he’d given me the night before and I snickered at his reaction. “Kidding, I’m just kidding.”
Realizing he’d been caught in his own trap, he refused to admit defeat. “No, no, I can do this. Just give me a second here.”
He bit at his lower lip in thought and I couldn’t help but laugh at how much effort he was putting in. “Christ, Sheppard, don’t hurt yourself. I’m not sure I can explain to Carson if you have a poetry aneurism.”
He pinched one of my ribs and told me, “Fine, I have something.” He cleared his throat and began his recitation.
“As sure as night is dark and day is light
I keep you on my mind both day and night
And happiness I've known proves that it's right
Because you're mine, I walk the line”
Smiling broader, I threw up my arms in mock outrage. “Oh, sure, I give you Pablo Neruda and you give me Johnny Cash?”
“Hey, it’s red blooded American poetry for red blooded American men.”
“Precisely. What about a red blooded Canadian man?”
“That’s what this is for.” A fist in my shirt pulled me down into a warm kiss and within a minute all thoughts of poetry went out the room’s nonexistent window. And then it was his turn to run warm hands across my skin as he moved them up under my shirt, eventually tugging it over my head and tossing it away before pulling me to lie on top of him.
Finally, I thought, as we worked frantically to remove each other’s pants. Finally a date that went right, that was a success, that didn’t go down in flames.
No, it didn’t go down in flames… it went up in them.
I had just peeled his boxers off when I caught a whiff of… smoke? “Do you smell something?”
“Do you want me to smell something?” Eyebrows waggled and for a second I forgot all about what might be burning in the room other than the heat rising in certain body parts. But then my shirt that he had tossed aside… onto a set of candles… flared instead.
“Holy shit!” I exclaimed as I dived toward the doomed article of clothing.
Before either of us could even reach it, the lights in the room blared on and fire retardant sprayed from the walls. This wasn’t the first time I’d been doused with the frothy mix. Hell, it wasn’t even the second. So that when the spray finally stopped, I simply sat there with white foam dripping in large glops from my body.
John sat there, as well, shaking the mess from his hands before finally asking cautiously, “Rodney?”
“Don’t. Just… don’t.” Slumping down in defeat, I sighed. “I give up. I’ve done everything I can. I’ve done everything I know to do. Hell, I’ve done everything Carson and Radek and Teyla and Ronon know to do, too. And I still can’t take you on a date. I still can’t let you know how special, how amazing, how… everything you are to me.”
“Rodney, have you ever in your whole entire life tried to do something like this before?”
“Oh, fine, rub in my inexperience at this sort of thing. I built a fully functioning rocket out of Legos and baking soda when I was four. I solved the Rubik’s Cube the first time I picked it up. I can say kiss my ass in twelve different languages that don’t exist outside of science fiction movies and television. I managed to have a goddamn Ancient warship flying within a few hours. I never had experience with any of those things either, but I mastered them just fine.”
“The fact that you tried, that you wanted to try for me when you didn’t for anyone else… Christ, McKay, I can’t imagine being anymore special than that.”
Wiping at the foam on his chin, I couldn’t help but smile. “You were wrong, you know. What you said the other night about me loving work best. There’s nothing anywhere that I love more than you.”
“Is that what this is all about? Hell, if I’d known that I could have saved us and Carson a couple of interesting nights. I wasn’t talking about me. I meant that you could actually do your research instead of dealing with staff members bitching and meetings and briefings and missions. I’ve never doubted where I rank in your life, ever.” He kissed me then, before whacking my upside the head. “Give me a little credit here. Geez.”
Someone in the slowly dissolving puddles of foam was calling through the radio. John dug around until he found it, responding to the hail, “This is Sheppard.”
Radek’s relieved voice responded back. “Ah, Colonel. We saw that fire system activated at your location and needed to know if you required assistance.”
He looked to me then, raising an eyebrow questioningly. We could call it a night, throw in the towel, give up the ghost and a hundred other clichés of failure and just go home. But that would be the easy way out. And when did we ever take that?
I wiped another mass of foam from his face and gave him a small smile. “I memorized a few more lines of poetry.” Scooting a little closer I spoke barely above a whisper.
“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way
than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.”
He simply stared at me for a long moment and it made my chest ache to see what was written all over his face. Poetry couldn’t hold an Ancient-extinguished candle to what I saw there.
It took Radek calling, “Colonel? Are you there? Are you okay?” to pull him back to the here and now.
Shaking to clear his head, he cleared his throat, as well, and keyed the radio. “We don’t need any help, Dr. Z, we’re good.” Releasing his hold on the transmit button he tossed it aside and pulled me close. “We’re pretty fucking amazing.”
I melted against him and held tight. “So, no more dates?” I asked anxiously running a hand along his back.
“I don’t think you could ever top this one. Why mess with perfection?”
The kiss that followed put to rest any doubts that I might have had about John’s insecurities. And I came to a couple of conclusions that night. First, dating wasn’t something I would ever excel at, but making John happy was. Second, Pablo Neruda is a fucking genius. And third, Ancient fire retardant taste kind of like tapioca pudding.
*****
Part 6