Always Summer
Title: Always Summer
Author: seperis
Summary: It flows like water over Rodney's hands, slipping between his fingers in shimmering green and ocean blue by turn, quilted layers as soft as down. It's warm, reminding him of cashmere and silk, of a distant planet he hasn't called home in more years than he can count.
Rating: NC-17
Fandom: Stargate: Atlantis
Original Story: Shimmer by panisdead
John is at his most pornographic when he's fully dressed.
Long sleeves flash slivers of a bony wrist; glimpses of bare ankles in their room before his morning run; the soft skin at the back of his neck hidden by the collar of his jacket. Rodney remembers a long-ago laundry day and a staff meeting spent so hard he could barely breathe when John's too-short shirt gave teasing glances of a flat belly and a trail of dark hair vanishing beneath grey pants.
New clothes are scarce, and they make do with what they can trade or make: undyed wool in shades of grey and black; raw cotton spun into loose shirts that layer easily; knit socks sagging beneath the lip of worn boots too old to be repaired. Rodney stole John's boots before he left; he's on paperwork today and restricted to the city under Elizabeth's strict eye until the latest winter cold finally fades.
Rodney trades his watch for new boots on Talos, supple leather cured by a smelly woman who cackles at nothing while he watches the sun set, warmth seeping into his bones that have forgotten anything but cold.
John would have liked it here, baking out the illnesses that chased him through winter, uncoiling muscles hunched over desks for too many hours; Rodney still wakes to listen to the rasp of John's breath, pressing his palm to the thin chest and remembering pneumonia and twenty-two days that ended in fourteen bodies sliding into the ocean beneath a frozen sky.
"You look peaky," she says, smacking her lips as she reaches for another piece of leather, needle like a blur as it sets stitches finer than anything he's ever seen on earth; fit to John's narrow ankles, reinforced behind the Achilles tendon and beneath the heel, metal sewn under the leather toe, lined in supple doeskin to protect blistered skin and ward off the cold. "Get some air. Go for a walk."
Rodney glances around the small trading camp of dingy tents that promise Wraith-poison and miracle cures, charms made of herbs that ward off disease and death; somewhere in the mess of stalls and voices, Ronon trades for more of the plants that saved John's life and Teyla for the seeds that grow their crops. Spring feels a million years away.
He fingers the rough grey wool of his pants thoughtfully, pushing at a thinning spot near the knee. He has time. "Where would I go for fabric?"
*****
John likes layers to ward off the chill; Rodney mocks the loose fit of his pants while counting the outline of ribs, the sharply defined hip and knobs of his spine, watching the layers of black cotton over age-softened grey beneath his unadorned jacket, commander and soldier and Atlantean warlord who carries himself like a banner, a reminder of what the Ancients fled, the Atlanteans never will.
It was twenty-two days before he woke and two months before he walked, twenty pounds stolen from his body and fourteen people stolen from their ranks, abandoned to a galaxy that never gave anything when it could take and ignored by a gate that answered them only long after they'd ceased to care. Rodney doesn't know what Elizabeth told them; he knows what he told her, watching John struggling for every breath over two endless months and thinking how little their lives were worth, that the speculated risk of contagion outweighed the price of an antibiotic so common they could find it in any store on any corner in the world.
One day, they may be called to an accounting for that: the messages they don't answer, the galaxy they left behind. That day, however, is not today.
"What would you like?" the woman asks when he stops, drawn to the stall by vivid splashes of scarlet and gold, indigo draped over vivid pinks and oranges that match the setting sun. Something warm, he almost says, studying thick woven flannel and practical cottons that catch on fingers callused from the last harvest, the scars of blood blisters that healed too slowly. Instead, he watches the wind catch and pull at something new. "Give me that."
The woman nods, unfastening fabric that flows like water over Rodney's hands, slipping between his fingers in shimmering green and ocean blue by turn, quilted layers as soft as down. It's warm, reminding him of cashmere and silk, of a distant planet he hasn't called home in more years than he can count. Fragile, useless to a people who live in a city at war, to men and women who sleep in tents under alien skies and negotiate desperate alliances that spread the length of a galaxy, wear their weapons and their hope like they wear their skin.
She watches him nervously, eyes darting to his sleeve and back again, tracking the gun he wears and the patch he doesn't, what he's labeled on sight without a word. They know his name like they know his team and his city.
"Would you like--I have some excellent--"
"How much for this?"
He learned how to shoot from John, over years spent with more enemies than they had hours to fight them; he learned how to hunt from Ronon, over twenty two days trapped on the mainland with the healthy, waiting for a miracle; he learned how to plow from Halling while waiting for John to wake up. It shows in how he carries a gun and holds a knife, in circular scars from bullets and white lines from teeth, callused palms with fingertips smooth from a life spent on keyboards in more languages than there are stars he can see in the skies at night.
He learned how to bargain, too; that's from Teyla.
*****
"I know you wear it when I'm out all night," Rodney always tells him, trying to resent it, wrapping himself warm gold silk that John has never stopped mocking. "I can *smell you* on it."
John just rolls his eyes and goes back to his book, mouth curving up when he thinks Rodney can't see. "I smell like *you*."
For some reason, it always stops there.
Well, no, it doesn't. He knows John's warm then, sweat-slick skin flushing beneath his hands and mouth, knows John's breathing, panting filthy promises into his neck like a brand. Come dawn, Rodney will wake to the sound of a shower, nose buried in body warm silk that smells of them both.
*****
John's nothing but a ball of blankets in the center of their bed, rolled up like the burritos the mess staff pretends have some relation to Mexico and actual food. Rodney checks in with Zelenka on his way to the mess, getting a sandwich and grabbing another when Lorne tells him John had forgotten to eat.
The room's dark and comfortably warm, closing around him in welcome. He doesn't think it's too much to ask, to take this one thing, for three degrees difference that buys John's easy sleep.
Rodney sets the new boots in the closet; John will find them tomorrow. Moonrise isn't far off, light just breaking the distant horizon and spilling through the balcony doors and pooling silver on the floor. He watches the dark mass of ocean swell, the occasional glimpse of waves breaking against the shield as he strips away a long day one piece of clothing at a time, finding John's old pajamas by touch in a drawer. John's discarded BDUs are piled at the foot of the bed, smelling of smoke and salt and old blood; he pushes them beneath the bed with one socked foot along with a half-dry towel and one sock, thinking vaguely of their next day off, balancing laundry against a day with the Athosians. Make John fly them to the mainland and camp on the southern beaches, send him into the ocean to swim away the cold while Rodney naps in the sun, play chess with carved shells and volcanic glass, and map the night sky in wet sand.
Fuck John; that, too. Christ, that *first*.
It took two months for John to leave the infirmary on unsteady legs; Rodney walked him to his room and decided not to leave. John's nothing like Pegasus; he takes only what he's willing to give, and he never learned how to give less than everything. Rodney was too old to fall in love like this decades ago; he feels a lot younger now.
Rodney crawls up the bed, peeling the blankets back layer by layer, Athosian wool over Samadian cotton over worn polyester, a relic of a time long past, sliding cold hands beneath the warm gold silk to press against John's flesh, to feel John jump, growl caught between his teeth when he sees Rodney. "You."
Rodney settles on John's hips and smiles into sleepy hazel eyes, drawing his hands down John's chest over the material to feel John's shudder and rides the gentle rock of his hips; maybe not so long a day after all. "Like I said. You wear it. When I'm out." He wonders if John jerks off when he wears it, if it's the material against his skin or that Rodney wears it. Mostly he doesn't care; he just wants to watch.
John does sullen well, but smiling's better; Rodney kisses him awake until John sits up, following his mouth while Rodney slips the material from John's body. Smoothing rising goose bumps from John's skin with the palms of his hands, he feels John shiver as he pulls away. "Oh," John says, eyes fluttering open, hands flexing on Rodney's hips. "That's so not fair."
Rodney grins smugly as he pulls the bedjacket on, surrounding himself in John's lingering warmth, trapping the blankets beneath his knees when John would have rolled himself back up. "Got you something."
"Better be a Ferris wheel." John crosses his arms across his chest to hide a shiver, eyes narrowed. "Good mission?"
"Maybe." Leaning over the side of the bed, Rodney gropes for the paper-wrapped package he'd carried through the gateroom, flushing under Teyla's knowing smile, fumbling the string as John's hands close over his hips, bracing him as he sits up. It pours out in a shimmering green-blue river, pooling on John's chest. John reaches for it curiously, breath catching as his hands slide through it. When he looks up, his eyes are the green of early summer when the city is nothing but brilliant light and warmth that feels like it will never end. "Teyla says she'll fit you for a robe. Or a nightgown. Since you're such a--"
John kisses him before he can say more, tongue pushing into his mouth without warning, licking away the words Rodney knows he was going to say. John's hand closes around the back of his neck, holding him in place as his other hand slides down Rodney's belly, coated in shimmering green fabric and closes around his cock. He pushes John down on rumpled cotton, getting a knee between his legs, groaning at every slow stroke, at the ripple of cloth when John jerks him slow and hard and familiar. "Missed you," John whispers against his collar, pressing the outline of his teeth into the skin behind his ear. "Fuck me."
Rodney closes his eyes and breathes before he comes, pulling John's hand away with a hiss as the fabric goes with him, rougher than he'd thought on the oversensitive head of his cock. John smoothes the edges of the coat, fingers slipping on the smooth silk while Rodney tries to get his pajamas down and the blankets away. He needs another second as John stretches, idly kicking them off the bed. Mouth dry, he looks at the long, lean body, winter pale skin draped in shimmering green fabric and nothing else. "Huh." He can't think of anything else to say.
John grins, sitting up to kiss him again, easing him back on his heels while long thighs straddle his lap, hand wrapping around his cock; Rodney reaches for John's hips just as he's sinking into John an inch at a time. "Had--some free time," John pants, pressing his forehead to Rodney's shoulder. The material twists between them, pooling in John's lap and spilling over his thighs, a thin layer between Rodney's belly and John's cock, fabric clinging to the head and darkening with every shift of John's body when he starts to move.
It won't take long, not when John's like this, intense and focused, driving Rodney as hard as he's driving himself; John gives it up during sex the way he flies a jumper, fights a war, and falls in love. He's shuddering when Rodney pries one hand free of John's hip and wraps it around his cock, folds of material caught beneath his palm, feels the tight clench around his cock as John comes with a startled groan he buries in Rodney's shoulder, going boneless and pliant in Rodney's arms.
Rodney stretches him back on the bed, hooking one lax knee over his shoulder before driving back inside. John's body closes around him slick and hot, and Rodney forgets even the memory of cold when John arches fluidly, hands pulling at the edges of his robe, catching his mouth in a kiss that tastes like summer.
He's still shaking when John pushes him off, opening his eyes only at the pull of drying fabric clinging to them both. "So maybe I like that jacket," John tells the ceiling. Rodney smirks, pulling John closer until he can breathe John, sweat and soap and sex. "I'll wash this in the morning," he says, fingers stroking down the green cloth, mouth curved in a tiny smile before he yawns sleepily. "Maybe do the laundry too."
It feels like too much trouble to move, but Rodney does it anyway, hauling the blankets from the foot of the bed, curling against John's back before he can begin to shiver. "I'd marry you," he says, surprising himself so much he almost pulls away. For the laundry, he almost adds, then swallows the words before they find air.
John yawns again, rolling over in a lazy stretch of long limbs, eyes as green as the fabric twisted beneath them. "I think you already have."
Author: seperis
Summary: It flows like water over Rodney's hands, slipping between his fingers in shimmering green and ocean blue by turn, quilted layers as soft as down. It's warm, reminding him of cashmere and silk, of a distant planet he hasn't called home in more years than he can count.
Rating: NC-17
Fandom: Stargate: Atlantis
Original Story: Shimmer by panisdead
John is at his most pornographic when he's fully dressed.
Long sleeves flash slivers of a bony wrist; glimpses of bare ankles in their room before his morning run; the soft skin at the back of his neck hidden by the collar of his jacket. Rodney remembers a long-ago laundry day and a staff meeting spent so hard he could barely breathe when John's too-short shirt gave teasing glances of a flat belly and a trail of dark hair vanishing beneath grey pants.
New clothes are scarce, and they make do with what they can trade or make: undyed wool in shades of grey and black; raw cotton spun into loose shirts that layer easily; knit socks sagging beneath the lip of worn boots too old to be repaired. Rodney stole John's boots before he left; he's on paperwork today and restricted to the city under Elizabeth's strict eye until the latest winter cold finally fades.
Rodney trades his watch for new boots on Talos, supple leather cured by a smelly woman who cackles at nothing while he watches the sun set, warmth seeping into his bones that have forgotten anything but cold.
John would have liked it here, baking out the illnesses that chased him through winter, uncoiling muscles hunched over desks for too many hours; Rodney still wakes to listen to the rasp of John's breath, pressing his palm to the thin chest and remembering pneumonia and twenty-two days that ended in fourteen bodies sliding into the ocean beneath a frozen sky.
"You look peaky," she says, smacking her lips as she reaches for another piece of leather, needle like a blur as it sets stitches finer than anything he's ever seen on earth; fit to John's narrow ankles, reinforced behind the Achilles tendon and beneath the heel, metal sewn under the leather toe, lined in supple doeskin to protect blistered skin and ward off the cold. "Get some air. Go for a walk."
Rodney glances around the small trading camp of dingy tents that promise Wraith-poison and miracle cures, charms made of herbs that ward off disease and death; somewhere in the mess of stalls and voices, Ronon trades for more of the plants that saved John's life and Teyla for the seeds that grow their crops. Spring feels a million years away.
He fingers the rough grey wool of his pants thoughtfully, pushing at a thinning spot near the knee. He has time. "Where would I go for fabric?"
*****
John likes layers to ward off the chill; Rodney mocks the loose fit of his pants while counting the outline of ribs, the sharply defined hip and knobs of his spine, watching the layers of black cotton over age-softened grey beneath his unadorned jacket, commander and soldier and Atlantean warlord who carries himself like a banner, a reminder of what the Ancients fled, the Atlanteans never will.
It was twenty-two days before he woke and two months before he walked, twenty pounds stolen from his body and fourteen people stolen from their ranks, abandoned to a galaxy that never gave anything when it could take and ignored by a gate that answered them only long after they'd ceased to care. Rodney doesn't know what Elizabeth told them; he knows what he told her, watching John struggling for every breath over two endless months and thinking how little their lives were worth, that the speculated risk of contagion outweighed the price of an antibiotic so common they could find it in any store on any corner in the world.
One day, they may be called to an accounting for that: the messages they don't answer, the galaxy they left behind. That day, however, is not today.
"What would you like?" the woman asks when he stops, drawn to the stall by vivid splashes of scarlet and gold, indigo draped over vivid pinks and oranges that match the setting sun. Something warm, he almost says, studying thick woven flannel and practical cottons that catch on fingers callused from the last harvest, the scars of blood blisters that healed too slowly. Instead, he watches the wind catch and pull at something new. "Give me that."
The woman nods, unfastening fabric that flows like water over Rodney's hands, slipping between his fingers in shimmering green and ocean blue by turn, quilted layers as soft as down. It's warm, reminding him of cashmere and silk, of a distant planet he hasn't called home in more years than he can count. Fragile, useless to a people who live in a city at war, to men and women who sleep in tents under alien skies and negotiate desperate alliances that spread the length of a galaxy, wear their weapons and their hope like they wear their skin.
She watches him nervously, eyes darting to his sleeve and back again, tracking the gun he wears and the patch he doesn't, what he's labeled on sight without a word. They know his name like they know his team and his city.
"Would you like--I have some excellent--"
"How much for this?"
He learned how to shoot from John, over years spent with more enemies than they had hours to fight them; he learned how to hunt from Ronon, over twenty two days trapped on the mainland with the healthy, waiting for a miracle; he learned how to plow from Halling while waiting for John to wake up. It shows in how he carries a gun and holds a knife, in circular scars from bullets and white lines from teeth, callused palms with fingertips smooth from a life spent on keyboards in more languages than there are stars he can see in the skies at night.
He learned how to bargain, too; that's from Teyla.
*****
"I know you wear it when I'm out all night," Rodney always tells him, trying to resent it, wrapping himself warm gold silk that John has never stopped mocking. "I can *smell you* on it."
John just rolls his eyes and goes back to his book, mouth curving up when he thinks Rodney can't see. "I smell like *you*."
For some reason, it always stops there.
Well, no, it doesn't. He knows John's warm then, sweat-slick skin flushing beneath his hands and mouth, knows John's breathing, panting filthy promises into his neck like a brand. Come dawn, Rodney will wake to the sound of a shower, nose buried in body warm silk that smells of them both.
*****
John's nothing but a ball of blankets in the center of their bed, rolled up like the burritos the mess staff pretends have some relation to Mexico and actual food. Rodney checks in with Zelenka on his way to the mess, getting a sandwich and grabbing another when Lorne tells him John had forgotten to eat.
The room's dark and comfortably warm, closing around him in welcome. He doesn't think it's too much to ask, to take this one thing, for three degrees difference that buys John's easy sleep.
Rodney sets the new boots in the closet; John will find them tomorrow. Moonrise isn't far off, light just breaking the distant horizon and spilling through the balcony doors and pooling silver on the floor. He watches the dark mass of ocean swell, the occasional glimpse of waves breaking against the shield as he strips away a long day one piece of clothing at a time, finding John's old pajamas by touch in a drawer. John's discarded BDUs are piled at the foot of the bed, smelling of smoke and salt and old blood; he pushes them beneath the bed with one socked foot along with a half-dry towel and one sock, thinking vaguely of their next day off, balancing laundry against a day with the Athosians. Make John fly them to the mainland and camp on the southern beaches, send him into the ocean to swim away the cold while Rodney naps in the sun, play chess with carved shells and volcanic glass, and map the night sky in wet sand.
Fuck John; that, too. Christ, that *first*.
It took two months for John to leave the infirmary on unsteady legs; Rodney walked him to his room and decided not to leave. John's nothing like Pegasus; he takes only what he's willing to give, and he never learned how to give less than everything. Rodney was too old to fall in love like this decades ago; he feels a lot younger now.
Rodney crawls up the bed, peeling the blankets back layer by layer, Athosian wool over Samadian cotton over worn polyester, a relic of a time long past, sliding cold hands beneath the warm gold silk to press against John's flesh, to feel John jump, growl caught between his teeth when he sees Rodney. "You."
Rodney settles on John's hips and smiles into sleepy hazel eyes, drawing his hands down John's chest over the material to feel John's shudder and rides the gentle rock of his hips; maybe not so long a day after all. "Like I said. You wear it. When I'm out." He wonders if John jerks off when he wears it, if it's the material against his skin or that Rodney wears it. Mostly he doesn't care; he just wants to watch.
John does sullen well, but smiling's better; Rodney kisses him awake until John sits up, following his mouth while Rodney slips the material from John's body. Smoothing rising goose bumps from John's skin with the palms of his hands, he feels John shiver as he pulls away. "Oh," John says, eyes fluttering open, hands flexing on Rodney's hips. "That's so not fair."
Rodney grins smugly as he pulls the bedjacket on, surrounding himself in John's lingering warmth, trapping the blankets beneath his knees when John would have rolled himself back up. "Got you something."
"Better be a Ferris wheel." John crosses his arms across his chest to hide a shiver, eyes narrowed. "Good mission?"
"Maybe." Leaning over the side of the bed, Rodney gropes for the paper-wrapped package he'd carried through the gateroom, flushing under Teyla's knowing smile, fumbling the string as John's hands close over his hips, bracing him as he sits up. It pours out in a shimmering green-blue river, pooling on John's chest. John reaches for it curiously, breath catching as his hands slide through it. When he looks up, his eyes are the green of early summer when the city is nothing but brilliant light and warmth that feels like it will never end. "Teyla says she'll fit you for a robe. Or a nightgown. Since you're such a--"
John kisses him before he can say more, tongue pushing into his mouth without warning, licking away the words Rodney knows he was going to say. John's hand closes around the back of his neck, holding him in place as his other hand slides down Rodney's belly, coated in shimmering green fabric and closes around his cock. He pushes John down on rumpled cotton, getting a knee between his legs, groaning at every slow stroke, at the ripple of cloth when John jerks him slow and hard and familiar. "Missed you," John whispers against his collar, pressing the outline of his teeth into the skin behind his ear. "Fuck me."
Rodney closes his eyes and breathes before he comes, pulling John's hand away with a hiss as the fabric goes with him, rougher than he'd thought on the oversensitive head of his cock. John smoothes the edges of the coat, fingers slipping on the smooth silk while Rodney tries to get his pajamas down and the blankets away. He needs another second as John stretches, idly kicking them off the bed. Mouth dry, he looks at the long, lean body, winter pale skin draped in shimmering green fabric and nothing else. "Huh." He can't think of anything else to say.
John grins, sitting up to kiss him again, easing him back on his heels while long thighs straddle his lap, hand wrapping around his cock; Rodney reaches for John's hips just as he's sinking into John an inch at a time. "Had--some free time," John pants, pressing his forehead to Rodney's shoulder. The material twists between them, pooling in John's lap and spilling over his thighs, a thin layer between Rodney's belly and John's cock, fabric clinging to the head and darkening with every shift of John's body when he starts to move.
It won't take long, not when John's like this, intense and focused, driving Rodney as hard as he's driving himself; John gives it up during sex the way he flies a jumper, fights a war, and falls in love. He's shuddering when Rodney pries one hand free of John's hip and wraps it around his cock, folds of material caught beneath his palm, feels the tight clench around his cock as John comes with a startled groan he buries in Rodney's shoulder, going boneless and pliant in Rodney's arms.
Rodney stretches him back on the bed, hooking one lax knee over his shoulder before driving back inside. John's body closes around him slick and hot, and Rodney forgets even the memory of cold when John arches fluidly, hands pulling at the edges of his robe, catching his mouth in a kiss that tastes like summer.
He's still shaking when John pushes him off, opening his eyes only at the pull of drying fabric clinging to them both. "So maybe I like that jacket," John tells the ceiling. Rodney smirks, pulling John closer until he can breathe John, sweat and soap and sex. "I'll wash this in the morning," he says, fingers stroking down the green cloth, mouth curved in a tiny smile before he yawns sleepily. "Maybe do the laundry too."
It feels like too much trouble to move, but Rodney does it anyway, hauling the blankets from the foot of the bed, curling against John's back before he can begin to shiver. "I'd marry you," he says, surprising himself so much he almost pulls away. For the laundry, he almost adds, then swallows the words before they find air.
John yawns again, rolling over in a lazy stretch of long limbs, eyes as green as the fabric twisted beneath them. "I think you already have."