Suspended Animation by Kat Reitz & tzigane (Amnesty 2006, dangling challenge)

[tzi]

Title: Suspended Animation
Authors: tzi & zaganthi
Pairing: John/Rodney
Warnings: This all started with the Bad Sex challenge. And boy, it was bad.
Rating: R-ish, mostly for references to previous bits and cursing.
Summary: "You didn't deserve to die when you were stupidly fucking your way through your education, you certainly can't just give in now!"
Segment: The third (and last) bit of Do I Know You From a Frat Mixer, or Another Galaxy? and Firing Squad. Sorry to keep you dangling for so long.
Spoilers: Through... uh. Trinity or a little later, we think.
Length: 5,682 words.



Most people probably figured the worlds that bothered John Sheppard the worst were the ones with bugs. Flying bugs, creepy crawly bugs, smelly bugs, pretty much anything in the insect family. While John had to admit that he didn't like those worlds a whole lot (winged bugs really freaked him out, especially the ones that got to be the size of his hand), the truth was that there were worlds that bothered him worse.

Worlds, for example, just like the one they'd spent the last thirty-six hours trampling through.

Deserts made him think of Afghanistan, it was true, but places like P3F-976 were filled with vines and water and crevices that were hidden beneath mud. A man could be ankle deep and falling before he knew it, like some of the places he'd been sent in South America. As a pilot, people figured he probably didn't end up getting his feet dirty, and that was true. He didn't, much, but even a PT run could end up going too close to snake-ridden muddy jungles for John's comfort.

"I could be sitting behind a desk right now."

The jungles of South America didn't have a Doctor McKay, to start with, and P3F-976 did.

"Yeah, but what's the fun in that, McKay?" John asked, slogging onwards. Ronon and Teyla had split with them when they'd realized that four people going along the same path generally meant whoever was last got bogged down and would have to be pulled out. That left just him and Rodney. Well. Him, Rodney, and Rodney's bitching.

"The fun would be putting my feet up on said desk, and settling my ass in what I hope would be the most comfortable chair in the world. Except right now, even the chair in Elizabeth's office would look pretty damn comfortable." It wasn't even dangerous; it was just tedious. The local flora and fauna were pretty herbivorous-seeming, and so far they hadn't met anything scarier than some ores that Rodney had liked the looks of, and a huge three eyed squirrel-beaver thing.

John had mentioned that it looked like good eating.

He didn't think Rodney was going to forgive him anytime soon.

"Well, we're on our way back, McKay. You can lounge in your chair all you want once we hit the whoooa!"

Whoa, whoa, whoa, because there was mud, and the vines had hidden one of those crazy open sinkholes that just seemed to fall down for eternity into what was probably the Pegasus equivalent of quicksand. The only thing saving John from a horrible, useless death was the vine wrapped around his left ankle and the fact that he'd grabbed hold of another one on the way down.

He had the feeling they were going to give a lot sooner than he wanted them to.

"Shit! Sheppard?!" He could hear Rodney up behind him, could hear motion, and there was mud along the edge of that hole that John hadn't seen coming. That pretty much meant that McKay was going to die, and he couldn't let that happen. After all, he couldn't even see the bottom.

"Stay back!" Yeah. One dead guy was plenty, in John's opinion. "The fuckin' thing's gonna give if you come closer!" Vines were well and good, but they were thin, and John's hands were muddy from scrabbling on the way down. He'd never been afraid of heights, but having that much empty nothing underneath him scared the hell out of him.

That wasn't how he wanted to die. Not that he wanted to die, but he wanted to die flying, soaring, skimming through the sky like nothing could stop him except possibly an anti-aircraft missile or a laser bolt from some insane weapon. Dying falling into the mud was, it wasn't how he was supposed to go, it just wasn't.

"It's going to give anyway!" There was a dart of light skimming over him. Rodney's flashlight. "Jesus, hold on..."

"I don't want it to give with both of us!" Okay. Okay, so if he just pulled, just a little, he at least wouldn't be falling headfirst. Just a little, and it wouldn't give, it wouldn't give, if he just kept telling himself that. "Back up, McKay!"

"I'm backing up!" Then he was gone, which was heartening and made John want to shout at the same time, because he kind of didn't want to die alone just because Rodney was a squeamish coward.

Okay. Okay, so that wasn't fair, but dying alone kind of fucked John up like that. Maybe he hadn't been the best guy in the world, but he'd paid his penance, done his time, and, yeah, listened to way too much Johnny Cash. Right. Right.

Grunting, he managed to wrap his wrist in the vine, cursing as thorns started to bite in. They'd been small, so he hadn't noticed them immediately, but now they were hurting like a motherfucker. After the jolt, and facing certain death, everything was starting to hurt like a motherfucker, and wasn't adrenaline supposed to stop that shit from happening? He wasn't supposed to notice the pains until after he was dead or whatever, and he wasn't going to die just because he didn't want to and he wasn't ready to give in yet.

"Okay, I'm coming, Sheppard!"

"Coming!?" John couldn't help the yelp. It sounded girly, and the way it seemed to hit the wall of mud across the way made the whole thing give an unstable wobble. Shit, shit, shit. So not good. "Don't even think about it, McKay!"

But then, looking up through to the murky canopy above the hole, he could see Rodney's head, and then an arm thrust down at him. "Grab my hand!"

"Are you crazy!?" Okay, yeah, no, stupid question. Forget that one chemistry teacher who'd told him there were no stupid questions. In the world of Meredith Rodney McKay, there were definitely stupid questions, and even idiotic ones. "I'll pull you down!"

"No you won't -- look, just take my hand! We don't have time for this!" Because John arguing against his own rescue was probably getting a whole new category of stupid in Rodney's mind.

"Forget it, McKay! Go get Ronon and Teyla!" John didn't really think they'd have any better chance of dragging him up from the sinkhole he was dangling over. He just didn't want to pull Rodney down after him.

Rodney snapped his fingers at him, still leaning down into the hole. "Take my hand! There isn't time to get them!"

"I'll pull you down after me!" John gasped again, feeling the vine around his ankle giving. Shit. Shit. Shit!

"I'm tethered! Take my damn hand!" There was the thrust again, but there was no way it would work, he'd just end up pulling McKay's arm out of the socket, and they'd end up dead in different ways. Rodney shook his hand at John, trying to snatch onto him, John could tell. "Dammit, just take my hand! You didn't deserve to die when you were stupidly fucking your way through your education, you certainly can't just give in now!"

That made... no sense. Absolutely no sense whatsoever, but Rodney obviously thought it did. If he wanted to take the chance on dying, John wasn't stupid enough to keep yelling no until he fell.

Carefully, John moved, managed to wriggle himself almost into position. "You gonna... ungh! 'splain that. Later?" Yeah. Yeah, almost, almost, and he thought he could hear Ronon, maybe, thought...

"Just take my..." Rodney leaned down further, snatched at John's muddy fingers tightly. "Don't let go!"

Don't let go.

John could definitely do that.

His wrist and ankle hurt like a bitch, Carson had lectured him endlessly about the appropriate use of BioFreeze, and John had never been so glad to have a shower in his life. Not even that one time with the thing and the bathtub full of Jell-O and the girl with the mouse tattoo.

There had been dirt in places that John didn't even know he had.

There had been a day and a half of hiking, strange, humid terrain, and then the mud. Every muscle in his body hurt, and he had a feeling that all of them were getting a round of BioFreeze after their fucking useless mission.

At least Carson had told them they could all come back when they were clean to let the physical therapist work on them a little. John would take what he could get, as far as that went.

Given a choice between a good rubdown and finding McKay, choice number one should definitely be letting the pretty brunette with the great hands and the gel rub him into a puddle of goo. Logically, that should be the way to go.

John had been doing the logical thing for twenty years. Just what a guy who was all manly hetero man would do.

Something about Atlantis was seriously fucking over his sense of the appropriate, however, no matter how firmly he'd enforced it with himself over the years. Finding McKay it was, then. He could get an explanation for Rodney's outburst, maybe quietly thank him for actually pulling John out, and just play it by ear. McKay was fascinating and infuriating in equal parts, hot and smart in ways that got John worked up in all ways, good and bad.

Finding Rodney wasn't hard. John knew that odds were high that he'd still be in his rooms, possibly still in the shower. John wasn't sure about that, since he'd been pretty in love with the hot water himself. After all, getting the mud out of his hair -- all of it -- had been pretty damn difficult. Rodney might not have as much hair, but he did have a love of bathing that seemed to go against everything a he-geek probably stood for.

Pausing outside of Rodney's door, he waved his hand at the lower crystal and heard the chime sound, announcing his presence. It wasn't right to just walk in on a guy when he was half naked or just generally not ready.

"Hold on!"

Yeah, okay. He could do that, even if it meant hanging around in the corridor in a pair of old sweat pants and a t-shirt getting the eyeball from the guy who lived next door. Wasn't McKay supposed to be living in geek central? Or maybe he'd just put himself at the edges because most of the marines were afraid of his fire-breathing dragon act -- the new ones, anyway. The old ones were used to it. After three years and change, McKay breathing fire at them was like a strong cup of coffee early in the morning. It was as normal as Rodney bitching for nearly thirty-six hours straight about the mission.

The geek in the room next to Rodney finally got bored of staring at him, probably too weak-kneed to say anything. John figured he could look up what department the guy was in and give him a quick talking to, because some of the boys from the midwest didn't take too well to even that kind of eyeballing, and that really wasn't something Sheppard wanted to have to preside over on their base.

The door he was standing in front of seemed like it was never going to open, and John was close to giving up, because his calves were screaming at him -- which was when the door opened, of course.

McKay must've taken time to get fully dressed again. "Colonel, I didn't expect you here."

"Oh, didn't you." Yeah. Right. Like he could possibly expect otherwise with a statement like that, one that sounded way too familiar, one that made him paranoid. Did McKay know about what he'd done the year he spent at Oklahoma State? How could he know? Maybe he hadn't meant that. Maybe he'd meant something else entirely. John wasn't sure, but he knew one thing as he brushed past Rodney.

He was definitely going to find out.

"No. I thought you might be in bed, like anyone sane who's almost fallen to their imminent death, only to be stopped by some really strange purple vines and one intrepid scientist." Rodney lingered near the door, like he was hoping he could open it again and John might leave.

"Intrepid. Yeah." Yeah, and possibly nosy or... John had no idea. "So, you know, I've taken the Kirk jokes, and I understood -- okay, so maybe not understood, but I got it later on -- when you were pissed off about Chaya. There's a lot of shit I'm willing to take from you, McKay, but I didn't fuck my way through school, and I don't appreciate the implication."

Rodney folded his hands over his chest. "Okay, no. No, no, no, I'm the last person who's going to believe that from you, after what you did."

Holy God. He knew.

The sheer panic that flitted through John was almost overwhelming, ice skating its way up his spine before he managed to pull himself together. "What I did?" If McKay didn't know, John damn sure wasn't spilling the beans.

"You're not as stupid as you pretend to be." Rodney shot him a cutting look, and took a back step, one, two, sat down on the edge of his bed. "Look, I don't want to argue about this now. I mean, you were there, too, and you've never said anything so -- I just brought it up to shock you out of your pity party down there, because if I didn't think you deserved to die after what you did when you were sleeping your way through college dorm rooms, I wasn't going to let you think you deserved to die just because you didn't think I was capable of having the self-preservation to tie my leg to a tree."

Wait.

"What?" John asked, honestly stunned. "That. I. You." He'd only actually slept with two people while he was in college, and he would have recognized Barry if he saw him again. Probably would have broken his nose, too. "That was. But I. But you..." He wasn't that much younger than John, was he? Just a year or two, not four, and he wasn't... that kid had been skinny and blond with curls and stick legs. Not broad through the chest, crooked-mouthed and... and McKay. "What the fuck, Rodney!?"

"Oh, like you didn't know!" Rodney snapped it, the edge of his mouth curling into a miserable sneer, and it looked like he was going to cross his arms again.

"Actually, no!" He was going to have a fucking heart attack. Rodney. God. He'd been, he'd wanted, and... "I didn't! It's not like you look the same!"

And Rodney was just staring at him, mouth open a little, eyes wider than John had been expecting. "You're kidding?"

"That was twenty years ago, Rodney!" Twenty years, seventy pounds, half a foot, John didn't say. "You don't look..." Anything. Anything like he had. What the hell. "How was I supposed to figure it out?"

"You're kidding? I thought you knew!" Rodney leaned forwards a little, gesturing weakly at John. "I mean, I thought you just..."

"Well you were wrong." Wrong, wrong, wrong, and John was completely unprepared for the shock and the whallop of guilt socking him in the gut. "I didn't know."

"Oh. Uhm." Rodney dropped his eyes. Actually dropped his eyes, and shifted a little, making the mattress squeak. "Well, hey, look at the time."

Yeah. That was Rodney, all right. That was all Rodney, and probably all that kid John had fucked when he was doped up to the eyeballs, and John had never wanted more to apologize. Bad that there was the kid, worse that the kid was Rodney. "Look." He took a deep breath and started fumbling for words, long tamped down, things he didn't know how to say even now. "I. I'm not good with this kind of thing. I mean, just. You know. Tell me I'm not responsible for, I don't know...."

"I don't know what you're trying to say." Rodney still didn't look at him, because yeah, it was probably embarrassing.

John's hand scrabbled desperately through his hair for a minute. "I don't know, either," he admitted, rubbing his palm across his face. "I don't know. I just wanna be sure I haven't, you know, given you some kind of complex or messed you up. I wanna know if it's my fault you're... you're this unhappy person all the time!"

Rodney stood up, and the mattress creaked again. For an orthopedic mattress, it sounded pretty unstable. "I am not unhappy!"

"Oh, you are so!" John snapped before he could stop himself. Idiot. He knew better than to provoke Rodney, but he just couldn't stop himself.

"I am perfectly fucking happy with myself! My life neither began nor ended when you fucked me with Carmex! It was just one more..." Something, and it gave John a lot of verbal blanks he could fill in.

Oh, Jesus. Carmex. Christ. He should remember that. He should really remember that, except for the part where he'd been stoned out of his gourd. "Oh, God." God, god. "I just wanted to know if I scarred you for life or what, I..." Yeah, he obviously had. Great.

He'd definitely deserved the hell he'd thrust himself into.

"I don't know!" Snapping again, his eyebrows pulled together. He hardly looked a thing like that kid had looked, soft-featured and young, so scary young.

At least he'd grown into the shadowed eyebrows John could still practically see on the face imprinted in the back of his mind.

"Well neither do I!"

"I'm not the one who asked the stupid question in the first place, am I? No! So just..." There was another vague wave of his hand. Yeah, out. Leaving.

Right. Except not so much. "Well. Yeah. Okay. That's true." True, but he wasn't ready to leave yet. Not yet. He had to figure out what to say, because this was so going to fuck with their dynamic. He just couldn't think of what needed to be said.

"Fine." He could see the action of Rodney swallowing. "There's, uh, I'm sure there's better things for you to be handling. Like everything you pulled. And I need to sleep."

"Yeah." They were both worn out, and there were parts of John that hurt that totally shouldn't. Ever. "There's..." No. No, he wasn't just going to walk out. "Come on, McKay! I'm sorry, okay?" Even as tired as he was, there was no way he could possibly sleep knowing just how badly that fuck-up was haunting him. It was a miracle Rodney even talked to him, much less trusted him on missions or... anywhere. Ever.

He'd told Rodney he'd have to earn back the trust John had placed in him.

John hadn't even deserved Rodney's trust in the first place.

Rodney's eyes cut up towards him again, and he muttered, "You fucked my virgin underaged ass, and you're sorry. Wow. Thanks. I guess there's not a Hallmark card for that one, huh?"

The way his stomach clenched, balling up in fiery protest, made John want to puke. It had been bad then, but it was even worse now. "I was drunk, and the guy who asked me to the party had slipped something in the first beer! It wasn't like I had any clue until the morning after!"

Rodney snapped his fingers, that one two three thing he did when he had an idea that was either going to save them or end badly. "I should make one! I'm sure they wouldn't reject it. 'I'm sorry that I fucked you and ran, but I'm sure your life has been fulfilled thanks to the trust issues you developed, that have allowed you to concentrate more fully on your academic aspirations. Also, I was high. Not sure if that helps. Signed, reformed military man who loves pussy. Honest.'"

Wow. That hurt. Kind of a lot, actually. Sort of the Rodney version of fuck you and the puddlejumper you rode in on, John figured, pulling in a deep shaky breath. "Look, Rodney. I'm sorry. Okay? I was sorry then, and I didn't know what to do. I.... you have no... Okay. What do you want me to do?"

"I don't know! What the hell, I thought you knew and were just being an ass, and that's really what I've been basing our working relationship on for the past three years! The expectation that you were an unbelievably smug dick!" Rodney was right in his face, half-pacing, too damn close when his hands were moving like that. One of them was liable to lose an eye.

Rodney had thought he knew, and he'd still apologized to John for things he did, for Doranda. Still worked with him, still tried to be friends with him.

Yeah. If he felt like shit before, it would be fair to say the urge to offer Rodney both wrists and a razor blade was damn sure rising.

"I KNEW!?" He couldn't help yelling. It just spilled over, bubbled up from the pit of his belly. "You thought I KNEW? Fuck, Rodney! You were this, this... this skinny blond kid with long legs and big eyebrows! Okay, so you've still got the eyebrows, but you managed to grow into them in the intervening, wow, twenty years! How was I supposed to know!? It's not like I stopped on the way out to pick up your Man-At-Arms and eyeball the Sharpie scribble on the bottom!"

He'd been a little too busy being traumatized. Not that Rodney hadn't been, too, and wow. John thought maybe he was going to puke.

"Yeah, well, you still looked like you, so I thought..." Rodney turned slightly, pacing away from John. "Just, uh. Never mind. I'm going to ignore that you implied that I used to be hot, and. I don't know what comes next."

John didn't either, actually. Apparently he didn't know when to shut up any more than he knew what came next. "I wasn't implying that you used to be hot! Actually, I was, uh, you know. Maybe implying that you, you know. Got. Um. Hotter. Or... something." Not the right thing to say to a guy who probably hated him, outweighed him by a good thirty pounds, and fought like a pissed off drenched cat. "You were a kid, McKay. I'm pretty sure the trauma came before thinking that."

"Great." Rodney's arms were still folded over his chest, and it was impossible to read anything from that but anger.

"You were! And it's not like I just walked away and didn't care." The possibility that Rodney might think that seriously pissed him off. "I gave up math for you. I did this because of you. I...." Shit. "I'm sorry. I've been sorry for twenty years and didn't know what to do about it!"

And for all his effort, all he got was a bleakly puzzled look from Rodney. "You gave up math for me? What the hell makes you think I'd want anyone to give up math? What kind of idiot are you?"

John gave a bitter laugh. "Well it's not like I was thinking straight. Considering the circumstances."

Rodney took a backwards step, unfolding his arms a little. "Obviously not! Math is the great foundation on which our admittedly limited understanding of the universe is based! Oh my god, you went into the military because you freaked out, didn't you? You are an idiot!"

"Hey!" He couldn't help the protest; it wasn't like he was stupid or anything.

Okay. Maybe calling His-Father-the-Colonel hadn't exactly been one of the smartest things he'd ever done. On the other hand... "It got me here, didn't it?"

"Yes, it did." Rodney lifted his chin, eyes vaguely worried and defiant all at once. "Now what?"

Good question. "Now, I apologize for being a jackass. Again. And, uh." John cleared his throat. "I have no idea."

"Great." Rodney swallowed, chin still held high. "Neither do I." And what did he think John was going to do, brag about what had happened?

"So, uh." Yeah. Right. "You could accept the apology. Y'know. Maybe."

"Fine." There was a moment of pause, and John didn't know what he wanted to do. "I accept your apology."

"Good." That was really good. John just wasn't sure where that left them, or if it left them anywhere, actually. "You should know that I haven't... I mean, not since then. With...." Much of anybody actually. It kind of freaked John out when people touched him, so he usually let the people who were persistent enough (Chaya, his mind sang. Mara.) get as far as they wanted to go. It was easier to close his eyes and think of Atlantis some days. He really wished there might be a time, eventually, when he'd have more than that. He just didn't think he deserved it. He was lucky Rodney had even tried to be his friend instead of trying to turn him in to... Elizabeth or somebody, anybody, for what he'd done.

He could have, too. There was a statute of limitations on things, but the military wouldn't care about that, and it... it shouldn't. Care about how much time had passed, when it had happened, period. "No?"

He couldn't help the way he fidgeted, one hand clenching into a fist by his side. "No."

"Huh." And maybe Rodney was going to shout that from the rooftops of Atlantis. "Oh. That's uh, I didn't expect that of you, I mean, the Ancient women alone..."

"Yeah, well, they're... Ancient-y," John explained, or at least tried to. Why was he trying to explain this to Rodney again? "And kind of scary."

"Kind of scary," Rodney echoed, and he finally turned away from John, sat down on the edge of the bed. "You know, I, I think I really need to get some sleep. You should, too. It's, I mean, between your arm and your ankle, you must be... sore."

"Yeah." John took a deep breath and shifted towards the door. "I could use some rest." Maybe it would give him time to figure out what to do, what to think, about this whole... thing.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have assumed that you'd, that you knew." He looked defeated, and John felt worse than he had when he'd come into the room.

"Know what?" Obviously he was missing something. John was pretty oblivious about other people sometimes, mostly because he's spent twenty years trying to be.

"The, uh, me and what happened, that uh..." Rodney looked up, mouth twisted crookedly down. "Sorry. It's been a long couple of days."

John nodded slowly. It had definitely been that but... "What'd you wanna say?"

"I..." Rodney shifted his legs, leaned his elbows on his knees. "It's stupid. And I'm, we're both tired, but I'd still sleep with you, if we had a do-over."

He could feel his heart stutter, pulse almost stopping before it sped up, went wild. "You'd, if... I...." Oh, great. That sounded really smart, just like a guy McKay might be willing to sleep with. "Are you... saying what I think you're saying?"

"I'm saying something that would violate your military's regulations." Rodney rubbed at his face. "Which doesn't apply to me half as much as it applies to you, even if apparently taking it up the ass is a risk to national security on par with taking out unsecured loans."

Oh. Wow. Rodney was suggesting... "But how can you even want to when I'm... When I...." His mind hiccoughed over that, the image eternally looping in his mind. The kid (Rodney), curled up over broken toys, He-Man sheets, condom stuck to his thigh.

"When you, what? Almost fell down a hole and died today? I'm pretty tired. I don't think my kit and tackle would work right now." Rodney made a vague pointing gesture that made John want to push him backwards onto the mattress. He hadn't wanted anything like that in... Not since then, anyway. His first sight of Rodney had made his fingers twitch, though, made him want, and John was pretty sure he could get it up even if he was half-dead.

"When I did that to you."

"It's probably no consolation, but I've had worse since. Better, too," and he said that wistfully, "But it's a depressingly standard bell curve. And you're not a pedophile, right? The fact that I have pubic hair is not a problem."

John could feel the laughter choke in the back of his throat. "Huh. No. Uh, you know, you were..." His hands moved, outlining some kind of memory. He couldn't say just what. "I already told you that I thought you got hotter. The whole thing with pubic hair is a pretty big part of that."

"Then I'm, I, uh. It's been twenty years." Rodney leaned up a little, sat up straighter, elbows settling on his knees. "Why not?"

"Because." Because John didn't deserve that. Didn't deserve forgiveness. Didn't deserve Rodney, and wow, he hadn't ever though he'd really think something like that. "Because I. Hurt. You. Y'know. I don't, I'm not..." Worth it. He gave a faint bark of sound. "I've been, for twenty years, I've been..."

"Been what? In the Air Force? Yes, I noticed that from your files." Rodney rolled his shoulders, playing that bizarre and unexpected fact off. So, Rodney had gotten into his files. "You. Okay, yeah, that was hellish. I woke up and wondered why you didn't come back. I, I was hopeful and stupid, and didn't understand what people did to each other, and you were this handsome -- and I thought it might work out to be some real, uh, relationship."

John couldn't stop the sound he gave. "I, um. I was scared. You were there, and I didn't remember anything and you were so young and it looked... you looked like I hurt you." He probably had. A lot. Then, and when he left. "I was scared, so I got in my car and drove back to OSU. Um. Stillwater. Oklahoma. Managed to get into the Academy the next year, even though I had to start fresh."

It was this unbelievable spilling of dark, ugly secrets, and it wasn't as painful as John had been afraid it would be. Bad enough, though.

"You apparently thought Carmex was the best lubricant ever. I've come across worse ideas, but..." Rodney shrugged his shoulders again, eyes fixed on John now. "How old were you?"

He couldn't stop himself from moving forward, hesitant steps towards Rodney, who was his friend. His friend, and the kid from so long ago, and it should maybe freak him out more than it did. Well, that or he was numb, in shock a little. "Turned eighteen a week before. Skipped senior year to go to OSU, get away from the old man. He gave me a car." Sweet ride. He'd loved that Camaro. "I drove it up to Northwestern. Had a friend there." Right. Friend. "He wasn't my friend anymore after that."

"Bet not." Rodney kept looking at him, and then rubbed at his face again. "So, you're just three years older than me."

Huh. "You looked all of twelve, and you had He-Man sheets, Rodney! It freaked me out. I mean--"

"Like you never had He-Man sheets. Look, why don't you..." Rodney waved vaguely at him again. "Come or go, but we can't sit here and talk all day. Night. Do you want to? Because I'm tired and I thought we'd just spent enough time in the rainforest to make our pores ooze chloroform."

"Do you, uh. Want me? To stay?" John felt stupid, like everything was half-stuttered or mostly a question, but he was pretty sure it was no big surprise, all things considered.

They'd said a lot, but in the end it all amounted to not much at all. Except at least Rodney knew he hadn't known all along, and now John did know. And Rodney wanted him, even if it sounded like he had traumatized Rodney at least half as much as he'd feared. "Yeah."

Carefully, John licked his lips and took a deep breath, stepping closer to the bed. It was small, and it'd be a bitch to get both of them in there. There was no way they'd be comfortable, either of them, and Rodney would wake up raising hell come morning, but. "Okay. I'd, uh. I'd like that."

"Great." And at least Rodney looked vaguely nervous. "If we're, I mean, we might as well do this half right, and not when I'm going to fall asleep as soon as I can."

"It's been twenty years," John said finally, putting one knee down on the bed beside Rodney's thigh. "I think I can wait until we're both awake. That okay?"

"Yeah." Rodney shifted, twisted like he was going to lie down right away, but he didn't. He leaned up, reaching fingers to curl against the side of John's neck. "That's great."

"Promise I'll still be here in the morning." John couldn't help the way his mouth curved, just a little.

He'd make a point to be there in the morning, just to see if he could work back a little of Rodney's trust from twenty years ago. Rodney probably thought he was crazy for being all bent out of shape over that, but that was okay. Maybe he was. "Right."

"Yeah," John murmured, leaning down and doing something he wished he'd done three months ago, four years ago, two decades ago. Funny, that the crooked line of his mouth was so soft, so sweet. Maybe it had been that way all along, the first time, except he didn't remember it as anything but a tragedy.

And Rodney didn't seem to think it had to stay that way.

By the time he closed his eyes, John was more certain than ever of one thing.

Rodney was right.

It wasn't going to.