SGA Fic: A Hundred, A Thousand
Title: A Hundred, A Thousand
Rated: NC-17
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Notes: this is a tag to the season 3 ep Miller’s Crossing, that I always wanted to write since it aired but never quite did until now. Yummy. I call that episode my “proof” that canon and fanon really weren’t that far off from each other.
“I can’t believe what you did.”
“I don’t really wanna talk about it.”
“You talked Wallace into sacrificing himself.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Well then how did he…”
“I presented a situation. He volunteered.”
“Still. You talked a man into killing himself.”
“He wanted to make things right.” John closed his eyes so he didn’t have to look into Rodney’s eyes. “I merely, uh--”
“Shut up,” Rodney said, and then suddenly there was warmth over John’s chest, his comic being yanked out of his hands and tossed to the side, pressure over his groin, and he opened his eyes to find Rodney straddling him. He wondered crazily for a moment if Rodney had fallen, if Rodney had bent over to pat him on the shoulder in awkward thanks and somehow stumbled. Then Rodney cupped his hands around John’s neck and leaned forward until his lips were a breath away and said, “I don’t need you to admit it.”
John’s breath rushed out in a stuttered protest, his hands pushing at Rodney’s hips. “Rodney, hey, listen--”
Rodney’s cock was hard against his, John’s own traitorous cock stirring to life beneath it. “I can’t believe you,” Rodney whispered, grinning wickedly down at him, and then Rodney’s forehead was against his, and Rodney’s breath was John’s own, and the room was spinning and John found his hands clutching into Rodney’s shirt and holding him there, rather than pushing him away. “You can stop denying it, I’m not buying it anymore.”
John closed his eyes again as Rodney leaned closer to him, shifting their cocks together, and John fisted his hands in Rodney’s shirt even tighter. “Jesus, Rodney, what--”
“I’ve known for years, John. Years. That I would do anything, whatever it took, to keep you here, to keep you alive,” Rodney said, leaning forward until John could almost, just barely, feel the brush of his lips against his. “Anything. I was so busy being horrified by the things I found myself willing to be okay with, willing to do, that it never once dawned on me that you felt the same.”
“I,” John said, his breath hitching on a moan as Rodney ground once, twice, three times against him, that sweet, perfect friction. “I would never let you… Never, I wouldn’t, ever… If he hadn’t, I would’ve,” John said, and he was so bad at this, so incredibly bad at saying the things he needed to say, the things he needed Rodney to know. “Rodney.”
Rodney knew though. He had to know. He must’ve known, because it was then that Rodney’s lips finally sealed over his, Rodney’s fingers cupping John’s face and holding him there like he was afraid that John was going to resist this, was going to run away. It wasn’t an unfounded fear, nearly every part of John’s being was on edge, ready to flee, but he didn’t. He didn’t push Rodney off, instead wrapping his arms around Rodney’s torso and pressing him closer and closer still, until they were mashed up together, cock to cock, chest to chest, lips to lips.
“You know this is unhealthy right,” Rodney breathed against him, his hands traveling down John’s torso to his stomach, rucking up John’s shirt to expose the skin beneath it. His short, blunt nails scraped across John’s stomach to just below his nipples. “To be this dependant on one another. It’s reached a vaguely psychopathic degree, yours and my co-dependence.”
“I’d wager we’ve passed psychopathic,” John said, just barely audible as he leaned forward and buried his nose in Rodney’s neck, smelling the strong musk of Rodney’s own sweat and soap. He pushed his hips up to meet Rodney’s and his arms tightened even more against Rodney’s back. “I need,” he said, his voice coming out wrecked and needy, but he didn’t care. “Rodney, I couldn’t… not without… I need.”
“Me too, God, John, so very incredibly,” Rodney said, pulling John’s shirt up and up until John had to let go of Rodney and lift his arms and head up long enough to allow Rodney to pull his shirt off.
Rodney groaned and pressed into him harder, pushing John down into the pillow and rutting against him harder and faster as Rodney kissed him again. John unzipped Rodney’s jacket, pulling it off without ever pulling away from their kiss. He only broke it as he pulled off Rodney’s shirt, his hands skimming down Rodney’s naked back after he’d tossed it to the side.
“Rodney,” he hissed as Rodney’s hips jerked against his, John’s head banging slightly into the wall behind him. Somehow that just made what they were doing hotter. Less perfect, more real. “Yeah, come on.”
“I can’t believe you did that,” Rodney said, voice low and deep and sex-hazed. It crawled deep inside John’s chest, around his heart to his guts and into his cock, making it throb and pulse and leak. “What you did for me, I can’t believe you talked a man into killing himself, God, that’s so unbelievably fucking hot.”
And John’s aware that it’s sick, and wrong, but he gets it, because he knows if the table had been turned, if it had been Rodney doing it for him, he would have felt the same way.
“I’d do it again,” he whispered in Rodney’s ear, his fingers digging into Rodney’s uniform clad ass, jerking up against him in a messy, non-rhythmic way, because he wasn’t in control of this at all, something baser was, something more animalistic. Something inside of him that claimed mine, and always, and made him flush with lust and want and need and power. “I’d do it again, I’d kill him with my own hands.”
“Oh, God,” Rodney said, sounding like he was coming apart already. “You would, wouldn’t you?”
“I’d kill ten of him,” John said, letting out a moan as Rodney nipped at his ear, licked down the side of his neck, feeling possessive and protective and wild and unhinged.
Rodney moaned and it vibrated through John’s chest and John felt his orgasm building. He tried to shove it down, push it back, because John wasn’t ready for this to end, he wasn’t done yet, he didn’t think he’d ever be done with this at all.
“John,” Rodney breathed into his skin and John twisted and jerked and pivoted and pinned Rodney beneath him, crawling down his chest, fingers fumbling with Rodney’s pants, unzipping them and tugging them roughly down, past over the shoes, jerking them free. “Oh, God, yes, please.”
“I’d kill a hundred, a thousand,” John said, and jerked Rodney’s boxers down and away until they hung off of one foot, wrapping his hand around Rodney’s cock and looking up into his eyes. “I’d break their necks if that’s what it took.”
Rodney’s eyes squeezed shut and his Adam’s apple worked up and down as he flung his head back against John’s wall, the thunk of his head against the wall making John grit his teeth together and moan.
He lowered his lips to Rodney’s cock and found that he was drooling almost, just from the thought of what he was about to do. The thought of the taste of Rodney’s cock, of Rodney’s come, on his tongue made him weak and shaky and horny like he’d never been before.
Licking the head was like that first dip of weightlessness in an F-16 when you did a tailslide, and John closed his eyes to let it wash over him as Rodney’s fingers laced in his hair and he started to bob up and down, lips over his teeth and suction dimpling his cheeks. Rodney squirmed under him and he reached out to steady Rodney’s hips, taking it slow, excruciatingly slow. He was determined to make Rodney feel as crazy as John obviously had become.
“Oh, God, oh, God,” Rodney mumbled incoherently above him as John settled into a rhythm, loving the way Rodney pulled and tugged almost painfully hard on John’s hair, his hips jerking wildly under John’s firm grip. “Please, I need, I want, please let me--”
Pulling off he grinned ferally up at Rodney, breathing over the head of Rodney’s cock. “No,” he said, flicking his tongue against the slit, gripping Rodney’s cock tightly in the tunnel of his hand. “I’m gonna do this nice and slow until you feel like you’re going to fucking break.”
Rodney let out a long, low moan at that, and John had to reach down and squeeze his own cock to keep from coming at the way Rodney looked, wild eyed and mussed.
“Don’t you realize you don’t need to drive me crazy by now, John,” Rodney whined, wrapping his fingers tightly in John’s hair and pulling him back down over his cock. “I’m already fucking insane.”
John just grinned some more and took Rodney deep into his mouth, humming against Rodney’s cock until Rodney bucked up into him. He pulled off and stuck a finger in his mouth, reaching down and tracing Rodney’s asshole with it, watching Rodney’s face for any signs of protest.
Rodney’s fingers dug into the sheets and he started breathing so hard John thought he might be hyperventilating. “Yes,” Rodney said, clearing up any confusion John might have felt. “Do it.”
John pressed his finger inside the tight wet heat of Rodney’s ass and lowered his mouth to Rodney’s cock, bopping up and down slowly as he worked his finger inside, around and around, stretching him, inserting a second finger and working them around even more, Rodney whispering encouragement and curses above him, driving John more and more insane until he forgot where they were and what they were doing, only that it was him and Rodney, forever and ever and ever.
He worked his fingers inside of Rodney slow and methodical until Rodney was tugging at John’s hair saying, “Ready,” and, “Do it now,” but he didn’t stop. He slowed down, his tongue flickering against the underside of Rodney’s cock, slow, slow, slow as his fingers inched centimeter by centimeter in and out of Rodney’s ass. Slower and slower until finally Rodney dug his heel into John’s side and said, “Come on, John, fuck, just fuck me already, I’m ready!”
Rising up on his knees and breathing unsteadily John reached shaky hands down to unbutton his own pants, pushing them down his hips as he watched Rodney watching him with enough electricity to light up Atlantis and Earth combined. The lust pooled in his cock until he was so hard he ached with the need for release.
Kicking them off he walked on his knees to where Rodney lay on his narrow, ridiculous bed, and all but fell on top of him. Catching himself on his hands as he stretched out on top of Rodney he kissed him, deep and raw and slow, tongue winding in Rodney’s mouth even as his head spun from lack of oxygen.
“Never,” he whispered into Rodney’s mouth as he slid inside of him, hand gripping Rodney’s hip tightly, fingers pressing into his skin hard enough to leave bruises. “You don’t ever get to leave me,” he said, pressing in so slow, slow, slow. “Do you understand me? Don’t you ever, ever, ask me to let you go.”
Rodney’s hands cupped his face and looking into his eyes made John’s heart flip over and stop, because there was no other word for what was reflected there except for love. “Okay,” Rodney said, pulling John down and kissing him softly. “I’m sorry, I won’t.”
And John meant to keep it slow, he meant to take his time, but by the time he pulled out and Rodney wrapped a leg around back behind John’s he already knew the game was lost, and so he fucked him hard and fast, feeling like he was ripping his insides out every time he pulled out of Rodney to shove back in. Feeling like if he could just get deep enough, if he could just make Rodney come hard enough, they’d never have to stop doing this. If he could just fuck Rodney hard enough he could crawl inside him and live there and never have to leave.
The orgasm came fast and washed over him like wiping out on a twelve foot wave off the coast of Wai Mei, water cresting over him and pulling him under until he can’t breathe and can’t tell which is the water and which is the sky anymore, just endless blue and bursting lungs and electricity thrumming through his body as he kicked and jerked trying to find the surface again so he could catch his breath.
His hips jerking through the last aftereffects of a truly spectacular orgasm he gripped Rodney’s cock and stripped it quickly and efficiently, bending down to bite the side of Rodney’s neck until Rodney came too, loud and obnoxious just like Rodney always is, fingers digging into John’s shoulder blades as he came in long hot stripes up John’s chest.
“Oh, oh, oh,” Rodney said, pinned underneath John as John pulled out and stretched on top of Rodney, unwilling to break their contact. “Oh, wow.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be that fast,” John mumbled against his neck. “I wanted to make it last.”
“Next time,” Rodney said, still breathing fast and unsteadily, breath tickling John’s ear as it blew past. “Next time we’ll make it last, but for now, Jesus, that was good. That was incredible.”
“Mmm,” John agreed, licking at Rodney’s skin to taste the salt. “Next time I’m gonna make it last hours.”
They laid in silence for a few minutes until Rodney started to make uncomfortable noises from underneath John and John shifted to sit up and grab for his shirt to wipe them off. As he wiped himself off he looked up and caught Rodney’s eyes, flashing a grin at him.
“Hey,” Rodney said, reaching out to still John’s hand. “Just… so you know?”
“What,” John said, sinking back onto his heels and running his hands up Rodney’s thighs.
“That goes both ways,” Rodney said, expression serious and intent. “No more so longs, no more riding nuclear warheads to your imminent death, no more personal upclose tête-à-têtes with Wraith queens. It’s a two way street.”
John stretched back out on top of Rodney and kissed him, raising back to look him in the eye. “You know I never choose to do that, right? It’s more of a necessity thing.”
Rodney just arched an eyebrow back at him. “And I didn’t choose to have my baby sister kidnapped because I emailed her.”
John nodded. “I know.”
Rodney grinned up at him and ran his hands down John’s chest. “We’re completely fucked, aren’t we?”
John grinned back. “Yeah, I think we kind of are.”
But it was worth it.
Rated: NC-17
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Notes: this is a tag to the season 3 ep Miller’s Crossing, that I always wanted to write since it aired but never quite did until now. Yummy. I call that episode my “proof” that canon and fanon really weren’t that far off from each other.
“I can’t believe what you did.”
“I don’t really wanna talk about it.”
“You talked Wallace into sacrificing himself.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Well then how did he…”
“I presented a situation. He volunteered.”
“Still. You talked a man into killing himself.”
“He wanted to make things right.” John closed his eyes so he didn’t have to look into Rodney’s eyes. “I merely, uh--”
“Shut up,” Rodney said, and then suddenly there was warmth over John’s chest, his comic being yanked out of his hands and tossed to the side, pressure over his groin, and he opened his eyes to find Rodney straddling him. He wondered crazily for a moment if Rodney had fallen, if Rodney had bent over to pat him on the shoulder in awkward thanks and somehow stumbled. Then Rodney cupped his hands around John’s neck and leaned forward until his lips were a breath away and said, “I don’t need you to admit it.”
John’s breath rushed out in a stuttered protest, his hands pushing at Rodney’s hips. “Rodney, hey, listen--”
Rodney’s cock was hard against his, John’s own traitorous cock stirring to life beneath it. “I can’t believe you,” Rodney whispered, grinning wickedly down at him, and then Rodney’s forehead was against his, and Rodney’s breath was John’s own, and the room was spinning and John found his hands clutching into Rodney’s shirt and holding him there, rather than pushing him away. “You can stop denying it, I’m not buying it anymore.”
John closed his eyes again as Rodney leaned closer to him, shifting their cocks together, and John fisted his hands in Rodney’s shirt even tighter. “Jesus, Rodney, what--”
“I’ve known for years, John. Years. That I would do anything, whatever it took, to keep you here, to keep you alive,” Rodney said, leaning forward until John could almost, just barely, feel the brush of his lips against his. “Anything. I was so busy being horrified by the things I found myself willing to be okay with, willing to do, that it never once dawned on me that you felt the same.”
“I,” John said, his breath hitching on a moan as Rodney ground once, twice, three times against him, that sweet, perfect friction. “I would never let you… Never, I wouldn’t, ever… If he hadn’t, I would’ve,” John said, and he was so bad at this, so incredibly bad at saying the things he needed to say, the things he needed Rodney to know. “Rodney.”
Rodney knew though. He had to know. He must’ve known, because it was then that Rodney’s lips finally sealed over his, Rodney’s fingers cupping John’s face and holding him there like he was afraid that John was going to resist this, was going to run away. It wasn’t an unfounded fear, nearly every part of John’s being was on edge, ready to flee, but he didn’t. He didn’t push Rodney off, instead wrapping his arms around Rodney’s torso and pressing him closer and closer still, until they were mashed up together, cock to cock, chest to chest, lips to lips.
“You know this is unhealthy right,” Rodney breathed against him, his hands traveling down John’s torso to his stomach, rucking up John’s shirt to expose the skin beneath it. His short, blunt nails scraped across John’s stomach to just below his nipples. “To be this dependant on one another. It’s reached a vaguely psychopathic degree, yours and my co-dependence.”
“I’d wager we’ve passed psychopathic,” John said, just barely audible as he leaned forward and buried his nose in Rodney’s neck, smelling the strong musk of Rodney’s own sweat and soap. He pushed his hips up to meet Rodney’s and his arms tightened even more against Rodney’s back. “I need,” he said, his voice coming out wrecked and needy, but he didn’t care. “Rodney, I couldn’t… not without… I need.”
“Me too, God, John, so very incredibly,” Rodney said, pulling John’s shirt up and up until John had to let go of Rodney and lift his arms and head up long enough to allow Rodney to pull his shirt off.
Rodney groaned and pressed into him harder, pushing John down into the pillow and rutting against him harder and faster as Rodney kissed him again. John unzipped Rodney’s jacket, pulling it off without ever pulling away from their kiss. He only broke it as he pulled off Rodney’s shirt, his hands skimming down Rodney’s naked back after he’d tossed it to the side.
“Rodney,” he hissed as Rodney’s hips jerked against his, John’s head banging slightly into the wall behind him. Somehow that just made what they were doing hotter. Less perfect, more real. “Yeah, come on.”
“I can’t believe you did that,” Rodney said, voice low and deep and sex-hazed. It crawled deep inside John’s chest, around his heart to his guts and into his cock, making it throb and pulse and leak. “What you did for me, I can’t believe you talked a man into killing himself, God, that’s so unbelievably fucking hot.”
And John’s aware that it’s sick, and wrong, but he gets it, because he knows if the table had been turned, if it had been Rodney doing it for him, he would have felt the same way.
“I’d do it again,” he whispered in Rodney’s ear, his fingers digging into Rodney’s uniform clad ass, jerking up against him in a messy, non-rhythmic way, because he wasn’t in control of this at all, something baser was, something more animalistic. Something inside of him that claimed mine, and always, and made him flush with lust and want and need and power. “I’d do it again, I’d kill him with my own hands.”
“Oh, God,” Rodney said, sounding like he was coming apart already. “You would, wouldn’t you?”
“I’d kill ten of him,” John said, letting out a moan as Rodney nipped at his ear, licked down the side of his neck, feeling possessive and protective and wild and unhinged.
Rodney moaned and it vibrated through John’s chest and John felt his orgasm building. He tried to shove it down, push it back, because John wasn’t ready for this to end, he wasn’t done yet, he didn’t think he’d ever be done with this at all.
“John,” Rodney breathed into his skin and John twisted and jerked and pivoted and pinned Rodney beneath him, crawling down his chest, fingers fumbling with Rodney’s pants, unzipping them and tugging them roughly down, past over the shoes, jerking them free. “Oh, God, yes, please.”
“I’d kill a hundred, a thousand,” John said, and jerked Rodney’s boxers down and away until they hung off of one foot, wrapping his hand around Rodney’s cock and looking up into his eyes. “I’d break their necks if that’s what it took.”
Rodney’s eyes squeezed shut and his Adam’s apple worked up and down as he flung his head back against John’s wall, the thunk of his head against the wall making John grit his teeth together and moan.
He lowered his lips to Rodney’s cock and found that he was drooling almost, just from the thought of what he was about to do. The thought of the taste of Rodney’s cock, of Rodney’s come, on his tongue made him weak and shaky and horny like he’d never been before.
Licking the head was like that first dip of weightlessness in an F-16 when you did a tailslide, and John closed his eyes to let it wash over him as Rodney’s fingers laced in his hair and he started to bob up and down, lips over his teeth and suction dimpling his cheeks. Rodney squirmed under him and he reached out to steady Rodney’s hips, taking it slow, excruciatingly slow. He was determined to make Rodney feel as crazy as John obviously had become.
“Oh, God, oh, God,” Rodney mumbled incoherently above him as John settled into a rhythm, loving the way Rodney pulled and tugged almost painfully hard on John’s hair, his hips jerking wildly under John’s firm grip. “Please, I need, I want, please let me--”
Pulling off he grinned ferally up at Rodney, breathing over the head of Rodney’s cock. “No,” he said, flicking his tongue against the slit, gripping Rodney’s cock tightly in the tunnel of his hand. “I’m gonna do this nice and slow until you feel like you’re going to fucking break.”
Rodney let out a long, low moan at that, and John had to reach down and squeeze his own cock to keep from coming at the way Rodney looked, wild eyed and mussed.
“Don’t you realize you don’t need to drive me crazy by now, John,” Rodney whined, wrapping his fingers tightly in John’s hair and pulling him back down over his cock. “I’m already fucking insane.”
John just grinned some more and took Rodney deep into his mouth, humming against Rodney’s cock until Rodney bucked up into him. He pulled off and stuck a finger in his mouth, reaching down and tracing Rodney’s asshole with it, watching Rodney’s face for any signs of protest.
Rodney’s fingers dug into the sheets and he started breathing so hard John thought he might be hyperventilating. “Yes,” Rodney said, clearing up any confusion John might have felt. “Do it.”
John pressed his finger inside the tight wet heat of Rodney’s ass and lowered his mouth to Rodney’s cock, bopping up and down slowly as he worked his finger inside, around and around, stretching him, inserting a second finger and working them around even more, Rodney whispering encouragement and curses above him, driving John more and more insane until he forgot where they were and what they were doing, only that it was him and Rodney, forever and ever and ever.
He worked his fingers inside of Rodney slow and methodical until Rodney was tugging at John’s hair saying, “Ready,” and, “Do it now,” but he didn’t stop. He slowed down, his tongue flickering against the underside of Rodney’s cock, slow, slow, slow as his fingers inched centimeter by centimeter in and out of Rodney’s ass. Slower and slower until finally Rodney dug his heel into John’s side and said, “Come on, John, fuck, just fuck me already, I’m ready!”
Rising up on his knees and breathing unsteadily John reached shaky hands down to unbutton his own pants, pushing them down his hips as he watched Rodney watching him with enough electricity to light up Atlantis and Earth combined. The lust pooled in his cock until he was so hard he ached with the need for release.
Kicking them off he walked on his knees to where Rodney lay on his narrow, ridiculous bed, and all but fell on top of him. Catching himself on his hands as he stretched out on top of Rodney he kissed him, deep and raw and slow, tongue winding in Rodney’s mouth even as his head spun from lack of oxygen.
“Never,” he whispered into Rodney’s mouth as he slid inside of him, hand gripping Rodney’s hip tightly, fingers pressing into his skin hard enough to leave bruises. “You don’t ever get to leave me,” he said, pressing in so slow, slow, slow. “Do you understand me? Don’t you ever, ever, ask me to let you go.”
Rodney’s hands cupped his face and looking into his eyes made John’s heart flip over and stop, because there was no other word for what was reflected there except for love. “Okay,” Rodney said, pulling John down and kissing him softly. “I’m sorry, I won’t.”
And John meant to keep it slow, he meant to take his time, but by the time he pulled out and Rodney wrapped a leg around back behind John’s he already knew the game was lost, and so he fucked him hard and fast, feeling like he was ripping his insides out every time he pulled out of Rodney to shove back in. Feeling like if he could just get deep enough, if he could just make Rodney come hard enough, they’d never have to stop doing this. If he could just fuck Rodney hard enough he could crawl inside him and live there and never have to leave.
The orgasm came fast and washed over him like wiping out on a twelve foot wave off the coast of Wai Mei, water cresting over him and pulling him under until he can’t breathe and can’t tell which is the water and which is the sky anymore, just endless blue and bursting lungs and electricity thrumming through his body as he kicked and jerked trying to find the surface again so he could catch his breath.
His hips jerking through the last aftereffects of a truly spectacular orgasm he gripped Rodney’s cock and stripped it quickly and efficiently, bending down to bite the side of Rodney’s neck until Rodney came too, loud and obnoxious just like Rodney always is, fingers digging into John’s shoulder blades as he came in long hot stripes up John’s chest.
“Oh, oh, oh,” Rodney said, pinned underneath John as John pulled out and stretched on top of Rodney, unwilling to break their contact. “Oh, wow.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be that fast,” John mumbled against his neck. “I wanted to make it last.”
“Next time,” Rodney said, still breathing fast and unsteadily, breath tickling John’s ear as it blew past. “Next time we’ll make it last, but for now, Jesus, that was good. That was incredible.”
“Mmm,” John agreed, licking at Rodney’s skin to taste the salt. “Next time I’m gonna make it last hours.”
They laid in silence for a few minutes until Rodney started to make uncomfortable noises from underneath John and John shifted to sit up and grab for his shirt to wipe them off. As he wiped himself off he looked up and caught Rodney’s eyes, flashing a grin at him.
“Hey,” Rodney said, reaching out to still John’s hand. “Just… so you know?”
“What,” John said, sinking back onto his heels and running his hands up Rodney’s thighs.
“That goes both ways,” Rodney said, expression serious and intent. “No more so longs, no more riding nuclear warheads to your imminent death, no more personal upclose tête-à-têtes with Wraith queens. It’s a two way street.”
John stretched back out on top of Rodney and kissed him, raising back to look him in the eye. “You know I never choose to do that, right? It’s more of a necessity thing.”
Rodney just arched an eyebrow back at him. “And I didn’t choose to have my baby sister kidnapped because I emailed her.”
John nodded. “I know.”
Rodney grinned up at him and ran his hands down John’s chest. “We’re completely fucked, aren’t we?”
John grinned back. “Yeah, I think we kind of are.”
But it was worth it.