'Term of Service' by Resonant, commentary by viva_gloria, 2/3

[viva_gloria]

He woke up hours later, with an ache in his shoulder and that faintly feverish sensation you got when you slept too much in the daytime. Sheppard's weight was still pinning one of his legs to the couch, but Sheppard's head was no longer resting on his chest.

He opened his eyes to find Sheppard looking down at him -- looking like hell, with bruised eyes and deep lines around his mouth. Rodney took a breath to utter some inanity there's Rodney belitting himself again like "How are you doing?" and Sheppard kissed him.

People usually telegraphed a kiss pretty thoroughly, so that even Rodney, who was not the best at predicting human behavior, knew they were coming and could get his mouth in the proper position beforehand. This one was totally out of left field, and Rodney's lower lip got smashed against his teeth while his upper lip wrinkled up uncomfortably under his nose. "I never see these things coming." And Rodney knows his flaws but, as before, there is nothing in his experience to help him cope with this situation, or with John's uncharacteristic (broken) behaviour.

It lasted maybe two seconds, and then Sheppard's whole body went tense. With lightning speed Rodney saw the way to prevent another round of guilt and horror, Thinking fast and furious again, and now he understands what's going through John's mind. Well, the emotional affect, anyway. John's thoughts are still (and will probably remain) a closed book. and he cupped a hand over Sheppard's cheek and opened his mouth.

For a while the kiss was an oddly ceremonious affair, like a dance. It occurred to Rodney that Lija had trained Sheppard in the way she wanted him to kiss, and he was just starting to get pissed off when apparently it dawned on Sheppard that he was on his own time and could kiss any damned way he wanted to Mmmm yeah. And he does want to kiss Rodney wet and hot and dirty, and Rodney is very willing to be so kissed. , and suddenly everything got a lot wetter, a lot dirtier. Rodney made a noise that wasn't quite a groan but fell very far short of being English.

He put his hands on Sheppard's back and took a shocked breath; somehow i.e. by not having predicted any of this, perhaps by resolutely refusing to notice this morning he'd failed to notice the way the silky fabric conducted body heat so well that it was like touching bare skin. Sheppard shivered against him, kissing deeper, and Rodney ran his hands down and found that the pants were just the same. He rubbed his thumb along the undercurve of Sheppard's ass, and Sheppard drew off his mouth to say, "Oh, yeah."

"I can't -- can't entirely approve of how hot I find this," he said, gathering up a handful of the slippery fabric. You can take the man out of Canada, but you can't take Canada out of the man. Succumb to the dark side slippery fabric, Rodney! Stop being so liberal!

"Yeah?" Sheppard wiggled his ass under Rodney's hand.

"Yeah, but this -- I mean, this is the, the material of your oppression and whatnot."

Sheppard raised up further to look Rodney in the eye. "It's different," he said, "if you like it." It's not just not-Lija that's doing it for John: it's Rodney.

In Atlantis, Sheppard had been so palpably untouchable that Rodney had never seriously that 'seriously' tells a whole other tale. I bet Rodney's been looking -- though it's not at all clear if he's 100% straight, or 50%, or what. I don't think it matters within the scope of this story. You can read him as 'gay for John', or as 'any reasonable offer accepted'. He clearly has some experience with guys, which is handy... considered him as an object of fantasy. Here, where he'd been slinking around in harem pants and eyeliner and falling asleep in Rodney's lap, the Atlantis habits of mind had persisted. It was a little hard to reconcile his former purely aesthetic appreciation of Sheppard with the carnal appreciation that was apparently permitted now.

Sheppard licked his neck, his ears, his jaw -- stripped him of his soft shirt and lay back down on top of him to rub that silk all over his naked chest until Rodney shoved it off him so he could touch him properly, and then Rodney groped him further down and stopped dead when he found him not hard. Which is as much a shock to the reader, given the gasping etc, as to Rodney: wonderfully abrupt.

"What -- is -- are you --" He got control of his sputtering with effort. "Jesus, Sheppard, you don't -- I mean, you don't have to come back here and service me."

Sheppard looked confused, drunk with kisses; he took a couple of panting breaths -- and, god, he couldn't be faking all that; Rodney could feel his heart pounding -- and then he shook his head fast, like he was trying to shake off a fly. "No," he said, "it's, that's not the point. It's not about that."

"How can it not be about --"

"Jesus, Rodney, a guy has limits, you know? If you're not going to give me -- I mean, if you can't unless I --" and his voice was breaking, and he was already moving to get up, and Rodney grabbed him around the hips and rolled on top of him. He forgot He means to be, but yeah, his mind's on other things to be gentle, but Sheppard moaned and writhed against him, and Rodney said, "No, don't, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, we can do anything you want."

"This," Sheppard said, shoving at Rodney's pants until Rodney got them off, "do this, I want this," and he hauled Rodney all the way on top of him, scratching up and down his back and muttering encouragements under his breath, until Rodney was crazy with it, shoving his cock into Sheppard's body heat in the silky pants over and over until he came.

"God, Rodney, yeah, that was so good," Sheppard said, with one of his old wicked grins you can taste the nostalgia there, see Rodney realising just how long it's been since he saw that grin , and Rodney smiled back down at him and said, "You, too, you were amazing," all in an embarrassing confessional rush 'embarrassing', oh, Rodney, don't put yourself down, don't shut yourself up, don't keep thinking you're somehow cheating by getting this. until he bent to kiss Sheppard some more just to shut himself up.

It was only afterwards, when he'd kissed Sheppard into an exhausted sleep on the couch and laid a blanket over his bare chest and smeared pants, that it really hit Rodney with full force how very deeply fucked up everything was now.

He had about half an hour before he was due in Kellen's rooms, which meant he was going to have to recover at a speed he hadn't managed since a good day in graduate school. Sheppard, asleep on the couch with his eyeliner smeared and his jaw shading from 'unshaven' to 'bearded,' still managed to look about twelve. There was now no one on the entire planet except people who wanted to have sex with him. You would be surprised, Dr McKay, at how often this must happen to Sheppard. Though if Ara lo Bajo is truly a fannish colony that would explain a great deal. Rodney was no expert at this sort of thing, but he kind of thought that wasn't a good thing.

It worried him to leave. He ordered flatbread and cheese and a sort of sour salsa that went together to make a reasonable approximation of a pizza, and then he took a shower and went rather sluggishly up to Kellen's.

"Found a friend in the men's quarter?" she said when he didn't have his usual enthusiastic response to her. "Come, now; it's clear you've spent your purse elsewhere, and none of the nobles could have you without my permission, so it has to be a private matter." Not nearly as private as Rodney would like it to be. But Kellen is so down-to-earth about it.

The last time she'd been displeased with him, she'd cheerfully shut down all his computer access. He'd lasted an hour and a half, and then gone back to her with the most heartfelt apology of his life, and she'd relented after demanding a backrub of epic proportions. But he really couldn't apologize for this with any sincerity.

He stiffened his spine. He could live without intellectual stimulation. He could. He had inner resources.

She gave one of her husky laughs. "Oh, Rodney. I'm not going to take your lover from you. If I'd wanted a claim on the whole of a man's heart and body, I'd have been looking for a sweetheart, not a body servant." Compare and contrast with Lija, who apparently thinks she owns John Sheppard's soul. She poked his foot with hers. "Tongue still works, yes? Hands? Then I've no complaints."

The "pizza" was eaten and Sheppard was gone when Rodney came back to quarters; there was nothing unusual in that, but he went to bed feeling uneasy, and kept waking up suddenly from dreams where he couldn't stop things from blowing up or breaking down, and discovering that only ten minutes had passed since the last time he'd looked at the clock.

In the hours before dawn he heard his door open, and a moment later Sheppard was snuggled up against his back, sweat-sticky and smelling strongly of sex.

Rodney had a number of complaints about uninvited smelly naked people in his bed, but before he could utter any of them, he was deeply and dreamlessly asleep.

They were still entangled when he woke up. He wondered whether Sheppard was this much of a cuddler, or whether Lija had trained him to do this, too, so thoroughly that he defaulted to it even when he was asleep. Or of course it could be Rodney cuddling ...

Sheppard still looked worked-over, with dark smudges around his eyes that could have been either exhaustion or eye makeup. The sex smell was even worse the next day, and Rodney couldn't quite get his brain to leap the gap between John Sheppard and this warm body in his bed. He's still thinking too hard. And none of that did anything at all to slow down the surge of desire he felt.

God, he had no mental tools for solving a problem this weird, but having sex with Sheppard was obviously a bad move, even if it was Sheppard's idea. Rodney was going to have to figure out a way to offer him, whatever, reassurance, friendship, physical comfort, without getting drawn into something that would only screw him up further.

Sheppard stretched, and groaned, and opened his eyes. "Jesus, I reek," he said, and stuck his face in Rodney's neck and said, "but you smell fantastic," and opened his mouth over Rodney's jugular, and before Rodney could talk himself out of it, he was plastered against Sheppard again, hard and panting and utterly out of the tenuous contact he'd managed to make with his better intentions. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. And who's he trying to be good to? John, or himself?

He tried, just the same. "Sheppard --" he said, when he could get his mouth free. "I'm not sure this is a good idea."

Sheppard cheated by nibbling on the side of Rodney's ear before replying, which was definitely not accepted debate technique. "I want this," he said in his low morning voice.

"I'm not convinced that you're in your right mind, frankly," Rodney said, shaking his mouth off. "I mean, you've had a spectacularly traumatic experience, and it's making you think you want something that under ordinary circumstances I'm sure would never cross your mind --"

"It'll be fine," Sheppard said with one of his patented winning looks. Awww. Bless. Adolescent boy! (A side we haven't seen much of since their contracts started).

"I seem to remember you saying that quite recently," Rodney said irritably. "I seem to remember that things turned out very badly."

"Do you have something else you'd rather be doing, Rodney?" he said in a familiar impatient tone that lowered Rodney's guard just enough for Sheppard to flip him and crawl down his body.

It was so unexpected that he actually jumped when he felt Sheppard's mouth on his cock. "Christ," he said, "you do this?"

Sheppard raised his head. "No," he said, and lowered it again. *snort* Though, as will shortly become clear, John doesn't do this. This is pretty much a first. Possibly Lija has put him off the entire female sex. Or possibly it's just Rodney being Rodney that appeals so much.

"Oh, god, that's -- all right, yes, ow, easy," because Sheppard clearly had no clue how to proceed, but it didn't matter very much; a bad blowjob was still better than almost anything else, and a bad blowjob from John Sheppard, laid out on his stomach humping the bed frantically -- Rodney flung him off just in time and came all over his neck from where he was looking up and going, "What, what, did I do it wrong or, fuck, Rodney!"

"No, no," he said when Rodney moved to show him how it was done. "I didn't shower, I came in all, jesus, I'm disgusting."

"Never mind that," Rodney said, though the sanitary implications were horrifying. He can put aside all his considerations of hygiene when it suits him. Or when he thinks it suits John.

"You don't need to, just," and Rodney's hand collided with Sheppard's on Sheppard's cock, and Sheppard shuddered all over and came before Rodney could even close his fist.

"OK, so, seriously, this, you want to go do that and come home to this? Because you don't have to, you know that, I would never --"

"What I don't want is to have to negotiate all this again," Sheppard said, and he stalked off to the shower before Rodney could muster a single argument.

Morning sex was more consistent with a night job as a body servant. By the time Kellen was ready for him, Rodney was rested up, but Kellen winked at him and said, "Take it home with you."

He was surprised to find Sheppard still in quarters, even though it was after nine p.m.

"This is pretty common for her," Sheppard said. "Lot of the time her nights don't even start till midnight." He seemed oddly hesitant, as though he felt the same way Rodney did; if they were both conscious and not suffering from any immediate trauma, it was hard to cross the space between them, or even know for sure if Sheppard would want to, now that his immediate need for comfort was over. This is effectively the morning after -- they are both conscious and as trauma-free as they're going to get, and yep, some renegotiation may be required.

If Rodney had been alone in quarters, he would have started working his way through the technology database, but that would be rude.

While he was standing there dithering, Sheppard said, "Don't overthink it, McKay. Just say what you've got to say," and he looked up and realized that Sheppard had his arms crossed and a belligerent look on his face, as though he thought Rodney was going to reject him. I can see Rodney's eyeroll at the very thought. He's in pretty deep already: he is not about to reject John, and wouldn't even if he wanted to because of what it would do to John.

So Rodney said tentatively, "Honey, I'm home?" and Sheppard relaxed a little and said, "Just let me get my French maid outfit," and Rodney flinched and said, "Don't even joke about it. If she hasn't done it yet, I'm sure she will."

"I don't," Sheppard said in a low, thrilling voice, "want to talk about her," and for the first time when he was conscious and not traumatized Another pivot point: echoing Rodney's thoughts above, crossing that space, making that connection , he put his hands on Rodney.

Just his neck, but it felt so good that Rodney sighed, "Oh," and Sheppard said, "God, Rodney," and brought his hands up to hold Rodney's face still for kissing.

Kellen never kissed; she said it tended to create inappropriate attachments. Probably his attachment to Sheppard was already inappropriate and I bet Rodney doesn't even know how long it's been inappropriate. But it's John he wants, not Kellen. , but after all these weeks of having actually a quite satisfactory sex life, Rodney discovered that he was longing for just this, Sheppard's mouth on his, the taste of him strangely familiar after such a short time, something that wasn't about skill or even really about physical pleasure but just about connection. I want to say 'the two of them against the world': there's an element of shared adversity here as much as the physical desire and the need for comfort.

It seemed to be different for Sheppard; Lija did kiss, and maybe that was what made him hurry through it now. Rodney can't decide whether Lija's trained Sheppard to do things, or whether he's avoiding those things because she demands them. He doesn't seem to accept option 3, John wanting to do things his way. In a minute he was pushing up Rodney's shirt, muttering, "Come on, come on, I want you," against Rodney's bare shoulder, pulling Rodney down on top of him.

Not that that wasn't good, too.

They rolled around on Sheppard's bed for a while, clumsy and eager, too turned on to do a halfway decent job getting each other undressed or to stop and separate and take care of their own clothes. Sheppard liked Rodney on top of him, and kept turning him. They were like that, grinding frantically together, John with his shirt undone and Rodney still in his pants, when Sheppard's bedroom workstation chimed a flowery little arpeggio.

"Shit," Sheppard said, taking his hands out of Rodney's pants. "That's her code. I thought maybe she'd give me the night off."

Rodney rolled off him, and he rolled on top of Rodney, pushing up on his arms to see the screen. "I'm due at midnight," he said. "Almost an hour. Take your pants off."

Rodney did, and rolled back on top of him, not even trying to take it slow any more; Sheppard's cock slid alongside his easily, and Sheppard sucked in his breath through his teeth and said, "Jesus, jesus, don't, I'll come."

Rodney frowned at him. "Well, yeah."

"Can't," Sheppard said, removing Rodney's hand. "No, really, oh, fuck, you've got to, god, stop. If I go off now, I won't be able to get it up for her." Poor John: his refractory period isn't up to all this extra excitement.

Oh, christ, and she wasn't likely to be as understanding as Kellen was. Rodney backed up reluctantly and tried to get himself under control. He wondered if politeness required him to wait till Sheppard left to jerk off.

"No, you idiot, why should you stop? You're done for the day."

"It seems more -- etiquette would --" etiquette, Rodney? C'mon. Though I find his thoughtfulness rather touching.

"No, come on, Rodney, I want you to," Sheppard said, stroking his cock with a tentative hand. "Come on. It'll be hot."

"Oh -- god, all right, yes, yes," he said, because if Sheppard wanted to jerk him off and pant in his ear and lick anywhere he could reach, that was, he had no objection to, oh god it was good.

"Say 'John,' " Sheppard said in a growly voice. "Nobody here can say it properly. Say it, Rodney," and Rodney said it and kept saying it while he came all over his hand. Rodney's reminding him of who he is. (The not-being-able-to-say-their-names is important later, and not mentioned til now because Kellen makes the effort. It's Lija who can't say John's name, or Rodney's. And, and! This, this exact point, is where 'Sheppard' becomes 'John': as though Rodney's affirming John's identity even in his thoughts. (Though 'Sheppard' will be back.)

"Aw, fuck, I wish --" John kept on rubbing him slickly until Rodney had to grab his arm, and then he linked his squishy fingers through Rodney's and kissed him like crazy, until just when Rodney was afraid he really wasn't going to be able to stop himself, he rolled to the other side of the bed, panting.

He looked better than porn with that damned shirt still hanging off one arm, and then the workstation chimed his ten-minute warning and he got up and showered without closing the curtain, and that was porn, too, washing his hair and drying off and getting dressed, hard all the time and looking at Rodney out from under his eyelashes.

His figure-skater pants hid nothing, especially without underwear, and Rodney couldn't resist groping him at the door, kissing him and feeling him up till the blush came back and John grated out, "Stop," and Rodney looked at him and said, "Whatever she paid for you, it wasn't nearly enough." Which is pretty much a declaration, though neither of them acknowledge it as such. That's another admirable thing about this fic: they behave like men, not like women.

And when John came home in the morning, Rodney sucked him off before he was even properly awake, and then he felt better.

Except the thing was, John liked making out in the evening. He liked making Rodney come and then going right up to the edge and stopping and then going off to Lija so hard he could barely walk. "That has got to be hazardous to your health," Rodney said one night when they were both panting for it because John had asked Rodney to wait till he was dressed this time.

"No, I'm pretty sure that's just something we tell girls," John said lazily, like he wasn't leaking a wet spot on Lija's late-Elvis-period pants. Adolescent boys again! And that sense of conspiracy, shared experience. (John never enquires as to Rodney's sexuality. Presumably he thinks that actions speak louder than words.)

"Well, it's frustrating as hell for me," Rodney snapped, and then he wished he'd kept his mouth shut, because John looked so stricken, and the last thing he needed was someone else with ownership rights over his body.

"No, but, see," John said, pulling Rodney closer, the sequins sharp against his bare skin, "see, I like it. I like it because I walk out of here," and by now he was talking between fast kisses that were all tongue and breath, "and I have to go up and play Romeo for Lija, but all the time I can be thinking that this is yours, you made me this way, it's all really for you. It makes it better." It's a dangerous game, but so poignant. Rodney is John's survival mechanism.

"Well, that's," Rodney swallowed. "Twisted even for Pegasus." which is saying a lot He licked John's ear, tonguing around the cuff and the hoop. "But when --" His courage failed him before he could mention Atlantis, because it wasn't like they'd agreed to go on when the term was up. "When you're out of that woman's clutches," he said instead, kissing John, biting gently against the desire to make a mark, "I'm going to make you come five hundred times." I think this is the first mention of After: life after sex-slavery, life after Baj, their relationship once normality has been resumed. And it goes unremarked

"Christ," John said, biting his lip hard. "You just about started tonight," and he was on his knees before Rodney could stammer an apology.

Kellen didn't say anything about Rodney's continued incapacity, but after the second time, she provided a device, in shiny candy colors like everything else here I'm wondering if the candy colours and cheerful-animal packaging are indicative of a kind of ... adolescence, or more generally a playful side, to Baj culture. They are remarkably unromantic about sex, their science is pretty decadent, there's this unsubtlety to the look and feel of their culture. I may be reading too much into a brightly-coloured dildo: it is not as though they are especially rare in Real Life. At least the Baj don't put faces on theirs ... that we know of. and with a sharp bend to it, not lifelike at all but apparently very effective.

Anyway, once he pointed out the satellite imagery, most nights she had more use for him with his clothes on. "Rodney, there's machinery in there."

"I've identified the cloak generator," Rodney said, pointing at the lower edge of the screen. "But I don't know what all the rest is. Whatever it is, it's something your ancestors considered particularly vital."

"How do you get that?"

"Well, for one thing, look at these lines here. This is something metallic, under the water, that connects the gate island with every other island in the chain. And all those millions of taboos? The ones that got us in trouble in the first place? They have to come from somewhere."

Her eyes got big. "Could it be a water-treatment device?"

"It could be, yes. Could you get me in there to look at it?"

"It wouldn't be easy," she mused. "Even if I could get you onto that island, which would be very difficult, you'd still have to have a way to get down there."

"You have underwater craft," he pointed out.

"You've seen the pool," she said. "I don't know anyone who could pilot one in such narrow spaces."

"I do," Rodney said.

John stayed out late and slept till lunchtime, like a night-shift worker only with eyeliner, * crawling into Rodney's bed while Rodney was in the dream-sodden sleep of the very early morning. Rodney sometimes tried to stay in bed till John woke up, but the sense of time wasting became a burden to him; he wasn't really a morning person by nature, but he'd become one by necessity, and once he was awake he wanted -- well, actually he wanted coffee, but lacking that, he wanted breakfast, a stimulant, and a new problem to solve.

When John lay down, Rodney didn't even wake up any more; full morning would come and there John would be, hair very odd because it usually wasn't all the way dry when he hit the pillow, a pile of satiny black stuff on the floor outside the shower, and sometime around midmorning John would wander out naked and lean over behind Rodney at his computer and say, "What's up?" and they'd go back to bed and stay there till hunger drove them out.

Rodney didn't know how John got to be the age he was, looking and acting the way he did, without ever making out with a guy, but he wasn't bashful. "Hey," he'd say, when Rodney hauled him frantically away before he came, "if you can swallow, I can swallow," or, "Hey, you're not too heavy, I like it," or, "Hey, wow, that's all it takes? Cool." This is delicious, not only because Rodney can't believe nobody else (male) has made a move on John, but because John's taking to it like a duck to water. Natural talent, evidently. And perhaps appreciation of Rodney's care for him, which I bet he doesn't get from Lija.

Or, "Hey, I want you to fuck me."

"No, you don't," Rodney said irritably; he'd never found it easy to shift gears. "You think you do, but believe me, you don't."

"C'mon," John wheedled. "Lija pegged me once. It didn't hurt very much." Which, in a nutshell, tells us everything we need to know about that unseen scene.

"Oh, a ringing endorsement, that is so very -- oh, fine," Rodney said. The defensive argument is automatic, but then Rodney's desires catch up with his brain.

With their customary bluntness, the Baj packaged their lubricant in a giant plastic dick; there was some in the all-purpose cabinet that Kellen had had stocked for them when they'd requested the Healio. It had a big smiling face on the head. Rodney brought it back to bed and found John laying flat on his belly; he hauled him back onto one hip, one knee bent, and when he had him arranged, he slicked his fingers and ran them over John's hole.

John went up on one elbow and craned back, trying to see his own ass. "What are you doing?"

Rodney's stomach clenched. "Wishing Lija a painful, protracted, humiliating death." And again: detail by allusion. Showing not telling. An' all that. He went on rubbing his fingertips back and forth, riding on a thin slick of lube. After a moment, John put his head back down. After another, his muscles began to relax, and he made a noise and said in a surprised tone, "Rodney. That's pretty nice there."

"It is, isn't it?" Rodney said. "I like it, too, in case you're keeping track." Because so far it's Rodney taking the upper hand (as it were), and John along for the ride. But Rodney isn't going to let it stay that way, assuming he has the option.

John lifted into the stroke, just a fraction. Rodney tried an experimental fingertip, just a quick in-and-out, and John said, "OK," but Rodney kept to what he was doing until John said, "Yeah," and then, "Please."

When Rodney slid a finger into him, John began to talk, his voice thickened, slowed, like the time they'd gone to the rain planet and brought home the depressant rice. There is so much backstory in this fic, and it's never intrusive. A whole other fic could be fitted in, here.

"I know what you're thinking, but it really wasn't bad," he said. "It wasn't like this, but it wasn't bad. Kind of a nice break. This para says a great deal about how Lija's treating him -- demanding, needy -- and how hard John's finding it to cope. Lija's behaving as though this is a relationship, not a contract: and John's going along with that, rather than fighting it, because he tries to be a gentleman and because he's pretty inept when it comes to relationships. With women, anyway. She couldn't see my face. No eye contact. No worrying she'd send me away because I had the wrong kind of smile."

"Mm?" Rodney wasn't really listening. John's ass closed behind his finger as he pulled it out; he loved the feel of it opening again each time, and the way John was pushing into each stroke now. Obviously nobody else had ever put their fingers here. He'd found possibly the only untouched bit of John Sheppard. This is a phrase that stuck with me. John's being peeled open in this fic, figuratively speaking, and Rodney is the one who gets to see the raw places inside.

When Rodney stroked over his prostate, it was almost an accident -- not like he didn't know it had to be somewhere in the vicinity, but he was still just fooling around when John said, "Fuck, what --" and then, "Oh, jesus, now, please."

And just like Rodney was dying to get in, crazy for it, and he wrapped himself around John's pliant form and pressed fervent kisses into the back of his neck and, with an agonizing slowness that he felt deserved a medal at this point, pressed inside.

"Jesus," John said tightly, but there wasn't any serious resistance, and he was rising up to meet Rodney coming down. "Jesus, Rodney, that's so -- intense," and Rodney braced up on his knees and reached under John's leg, along the slick trail he'd left, over and down to grasp John's cock.

John arched back hard and came without a sound.

Rodney hung on until John dropped his head, panting, and then finally got That 'finally': impatience, or being so turned on he can barely hold back? Or the unaccustomed selflessness, and now it's his turn? to make a handful of full strokes before he was coming himself.

"God, yeah," John said, turning over and stretching, sleepy smile on his face. "That's what I wanted." But before Rodney could fish for any more compliments, Oh, Rodney, how brutally well you know yourself. John was asleep.

Rodney thought he'd stay awake just to enjoy the rare unguarded look on John's face, but that lasted about thirty seconds.

John woke him up hours later jerking him off and rubbing his own cock against Rodney's hip. "Do it again," he muttered against Rodney's neck, face hot where it was hidden against Rodney's skin. "I can't stop thinking about how it felt. Do it again."

"Jesus. What time is it?" He lifted his head to look at the screen beside the bed. "You've got less than an hour before --"

"Don't," John said before Rodney could say her name. "It'll be fine. I won't -- I just want to feel you one more time."

"Yeah, right, you can, and anyway you're probably sorer than you think you are, and, oh, fine, give me the Slippero," because John was kneeling up against the headboard, slanting Rodney a look over his shoulder that wasn't so much seductive as annoyed, This is so exactly John that I can see that expression perfectly. He does scowl so pretteh. and, yes, that turned him on way more than it ought to.

In just one try, John seemed to have learned all about how to do it, and he pushed back on Rodney's fingers, and then he pushed back on Rodney's cock, with a groan like relief.

"Does, oh, god, does it hurt?"

"A little," John sighed, rocking back against him. His knuckles on the headboard were white. The patience that Rodney had been so proud of earlier was long gone, and he rocked in John, as gently as he could but without stopping, and John said, "Rodney, yeah, yeah, do it now," and he came so fast he was embarrassed.

Lija's ten-minute warning chimed.

John grabbed Rodney's arm where it was slung across his chest, panting. "Not yet. Stay in me. Just a little bit longer." HIs voice was gritty, and Rodney could feel his heart pounding.

Rodney looked over John's shoulder, down the length of his body. "I want to touch it. It's not fair that she gets to touch it and I don't."

"Oh, god," John said. "Do it. Just a little bit."

"If you --"

"Just a little bit," he said through gritted teeth. "I can take it." This is John trying to regain control ... He loosened his grip on Rodney's arm, and Rodney slid his hand slowly down, over John's sweat-slick chest, over his belly down between his cock and his body -- John breathing in shallow pants, his whole body taut in Rodney's arms, quivering around Rodney's cock where it was still in him -- and when Rodney stroked a thumb up the hot length of John's cock, John grated out, "No, no, no, Rodney --" and came. ... and failing.

"Oh, god, she's going to have you flogged," Rodney said. "I'll call Kellen. We'll get you out of it. We'll say you've got the flu or something."

"You want her to come here?" John said in a horror-stricken tone. "I'll go. I'll tell her I just want to worship her body." He did up the laces of the black pirate shirt with shaking hands. "I'll tell her I had a dream about her. I'll tell her I got kicked in the balls." His face was tight as it had been before they'd ever touched. It was pretty obvious he was terrified. Everything's undone. And 'terrified' says a great deal, none of it nice, about how badly John copes with Lija's temper.

"Christ," Rodney said. It was awful. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, this is my fault, I should have been the one person in Pegasus who could resist you." And Rodney's full of guilt (and in over his head, because for once he doesn't get defensive or say that it was John's idea). I wonder if he's realised that part of what he's feeling is almost certainly jealousy -- that Lija gets to spend time with John, when Rodney wants him to himself? He hated that John looked hot in the stupid clothes Lija picked out, hated that he himself had a nice quiet evening of database searches ahead of him, hated that tonight John couldn't stay home and steal his yellow berries and get the rest he needed, hated that all he had to do was look at John to want him again.

"It'll be fine," John said, and slunk out.

"I am so very much not reassured," Rodney said to the closing door.

When he woke up, John wasn't there.

This wasn't unheard-of. Lija kept late hours. He didn't panic. He didn't. Keep telling yourself that, Rodney.

When he left for Kellen's, John was still missing, and he was still missing when Rodney came home, and Rodney woke up next morning in an empty apartment. He was getting started on a sort of low-key panic when John came in, wearing different clothes, and lay down with his head in Rodney's lap.

"She said," he said, voice muffled against Rodney's stomach, "that since nothing else made me do right, she was going to see how I did without the bad influence of my countryman." Rodney could feel him trembling.

"Crap. So she had you in jail or something? In solitary?"

"No, it was an apartment just like this one. Just. You know. Alone." That's what scares John. He wouldn't get through this without Rodney. He hid his face for a second and then said, "I should have held out."

"Held out, what do you mean held out?"

"Always before I could just act like I didn't give a shit what she took away from me, because I didn't. But this time I let her get to me." Because the one thing that matters is ...

"She's a vile creature of the underworld," Rodney said.

John's mouth moved slightly, not quite a smile. "Yeah," he said, "and now she knows how to hurt me."

Having sex with Kellen had made Rodney's mind work better. He'd been relaxed and rested, alert without caffeine, more able to cope with the small frustrations of everyday life than he could remember being since he was a child.

Having sex with John sometimes made Rodney's brain stop working altogether, and not just in the mindless-orgasm sense, either. He was worried and tense, now. Every choice looked like a test with a heavy penalty for failing, every mistake like a dropped gun. There's a real sense of imminent doom here. And yes, Rodney does stop thinking when John's around. he stops thinking nearly as much about himself: and he can't act rationally when John's pushing him to do something.

He hadn't even been aware of what a luxury it had been to have nothing to lose.

John was doubly careful not to displease Lija in any way, and after a few days of extra effort -- composing poetry *snort* I really, really want to read The Love Poetry of John Sheppard. O go on. and saying wistful things -- he finally hit on the brilliant strategy of letting himself get caught stealing her black-beaded choker and saying shamefacedly that it made him think of her.

These tricks because John is a crafty, wily guy when the situation permits seemed to restore him to his old self somewhat, enough so he could talk about her with rolled eyes instead of that haunted look.

"If she puts you in solitary again, I'll get Kellen to find out where you are and I'll come and, and bust you out," Rodney said.

"She's not going to put me in solitary again." John used his thumb to wipe away a stray splotch of eyeliner. His nails were painted a deep iridescent purple-black. "I've got her number."

But when he came home the next morning, something weird was definitely up. He brought Rodney breakfast, and put out the clothes, and fussed over Rodney as he ate until finally Rodney said, "Hey, I didn't buy your contract, so either you have something to feel guilty about or you're buttering me up for something." And John, instead of denying it, sat down and rubbed the back of his neck in a very suspicious fashion and said, "Lija knows about us."

"What?" Rodney said. "You told her? Why aren't you in solitary? Did she beat you?"

"It's not so bad. She thinks it's cute. Like when your dog sniffs another dog at the park." John doesn't say he didn't tell her. But why would he? Or, heh, did he moan the wrong name?

He was still rubbing the back of his neck. Rodney sat down across from him. "What aren't you telling me?"

"It's nothing. It's not a big deal. I'm going to talk her out of it anyway."

"What?"

"She wants to see us. But I can bring her around."

Rodney frowned. "You wouldn't be panicking if all she wanted to do was meet me, so -- oh, my god."

"Rodney, relax, it's never going to --"

"Oh my god. Your -- owner -- wants us to put on a sex show for her. That's it, isn't it? Oh, my god, I never expected to find myself in the sex trades at this late time of my life." Definitive proof that this version of Rodney doesn't read fanfic. I love the hysterics. And I can easily see John's patient expression, talking him down.

"You can say no. Or get Kellen to forbid it."

Rodney looked at him. "You don't actually want to do this, surely?" John didn't answer. Rodney examined him. "Because it's a terrible idea. This -- you and me --"

"It's private, yes, I know."

"I was going to say, it's the only thing keeping you sane in this place. To the extent that you are sane. It's -- can't you see that --" He stopped, because John didn't actually seem to be aware that he wasn't the same here as in Atlantis, and it probably wouldn't be good for him to notice just how much he'd changed in here. This is a level of maturity and consideration that wouldn't have happened in the first half of the story. Rodney's changed a lot too: does he just accept that, or hasn't he noticed? But to have Lija's sticky fingerprints all over this sanctuary ... it seemed just the sort of thing to spoil John's only escape from life with a girl who seemed to think his every thought was for sale.

And now John was giving him this disgusting pout, and he couldn't even remember whether the pout had been part of the repertoire of Lt. Col. John Sheppard of Atlantis oh, it was, it was ... , or whether it was part of the identity of Lija's termsman. "What is it?" he said wearily. "Is this some sort of, of exhibitionist fantasy for you, or is it that you want both of us together, or what?"

"She's jealous," John said. "She's driving me nuts with questions. She's all demanding proofs of devotion."

"She doesn't own you."

"She can make my life hell if she thinks she's not getting what she paid for," John said. "I keep telling her it's just for fun, so I thought if I could show her, she'd shut up about it."

Rodney looked at John to see if he was joking, but John's face had every appearance of sincerity. "OK, ow," Rodney said. "You want me to go be naked in public in front of Satan's youngest daughter so that I can demonstrate my insignificance."

"Yeah, I knew you'd get it," John said. Supremely nonchalant! Rodney is probably scowling like mad.

He hadn't quite expected the squalor of Lija's rooms; he knew from Kellen that people at their level of wealth could get cleaning services on request, so apparently Lija just never requested it. Every surface was thick with clotted dust and sparkly flower-scented body glitter, and drifts of filmy discarded clothes covered the floor and the furniture.

Not surprisingly, there were a lot of mirrors.

Lija herself was, aesthetically speaking, still as beautiful as she'd been at the auction, delicately arranged in some wrapping of dark-blue satin that bared her arms and her cleavage and about half a kilometer of pale leg. Somehow in the intervening days, Rodney had begun expecting her evil to show on her face, but even her petulant expression wasn't unattractive.

She had a couple of friends with her, both very pretty girls; the three of them were sprawled out on a couch, making a picture that would have looked like porn except that all the looking tonight was going to go in the opposite direction. There: fanfic meta. Here we are, dear co-readers, on that couch, watching intently and licking our lips.

Lija raised her perfectly exquisite eyebrows at him. "This is the other foreigner, Rodley," she said to her friends. Kellen had had some difficulty with the DN combination, too, but she'd at least made the effort. Kellen behaves like a grown-up in a commercial transaction, and treats Rodney with respect. Lija ... not so much. Rodney didn't bother to correct her.

"Oh, but I had forgotten," Lija said. "He's so -- not like John." She couldn't quite manage the way a J sounded in English, so that came out somewhere between 'Chohn' and 'Yohn.' "Could you not have had a companion who was more -- like you?"

"He's my buddy," John said, bumping Rodney with his shoulder.

"Oh, yes, I see!" she said, beaming. "This is not for romance but only because it's easy." The syntax does sound .. alien, in a way that Kellen's speech doesn't.

Rodney tried to exchange a glance with John at that, but John didn't take his eyes off Lija.

"Still, he's not very -- I certainly don't want to watch him." She pressed her long-fingered hands together under her little pointed chin in a thinking gesture that someone had obviously told her was adorable. "I know!" she said at last, clapping her hands together. "Rodley will sit like this --" She bounced to a seat against the many pillows piled at the head of the bed. "And my Yohn will sit in front of him --" She patted the bed in front of her. "And then I will be able to see what it is that he can do for you that you like so much." Pause a moment to admire that choppy, spiky little string of monosyllables there.

"That'll work," John said in his usual lazy drawl. Now he looked at Rodney, with a hard, expectant look. "Right, Rodley?" .. which is a reminder that they're not themselves here, they're playing roles: Lija's termsman Yohn and his homely, easy friend Rodley.

"Sure," Rodney said tightly.

It was clear to him that the idea of seeing his body wasn't filling anyone here with joy, which was just as well; Rodney could think of worse people to be naked in front of, but they were all blood relatives. He kicked off his shoes and went and sat in the indicated spot.

John, on the other hand, was obviously expected to undress, and he did so, with a showy little hipshot pose. His body language was totally relaxed. Right down to the flirty little glance out from under his eyelashes, everything he did said, I like having you look at me. I like showing off my body for you and your friends. Rodney made himself watch -- it seemed like the supportive thing to do -- but it was creepy as hell, Creepy that John's so good at it? Clearly not at all hot, because Rodney has to force himself to watch. and he was glad when John finally sat down in front of him and leaned back.

The name of the game seemed to be to put John on display so Lija's friends could admire her taste. So Rodney figured his role was to show John off a bit. He ran his hands up over John's chest, and John leaned back against him; he still felt a little tense under Rodney's hands, and he wasn't all the way hard, either, but the situation wasn't exactly conducive.

Under different circumstances, Rodney would have relished the chance to do some of the leisurely exploration of John's body that he hadn't yet gotten to do. This thing they were doing was so much a part of what passed for reality on Ara lo Bajo that sometimes Rodney forgot that they hadn't really been doing it for that long this moment of cognitive dissonance is almost the first time that Rodney seems to seriously think about that 'realer' life. , that they had another, realer life somewhere else where it would have been weird in the extreme that he was running his fingertips up John Sheppard's inner thigh while three beautiful women watched.

He nudged John's dick with his thumb, rubbed his knuckles gently up the side of it. This was going to take forever.

One of Lija's friends, the redhead, leaned over and murmured something, probably something derogatory. "Oh, no," Lija said. "That's the way my Yohn is. He has wonderful stamina." The redhead looked at him with new respect.

Thumbs on his nipples made John sigh and squirm back; Rodney couldn't quite tell how to take that. "Yeah?" he said into John's ear, very low; he didn't care to share any of his conversations with Lija and her friends.

John leaned back further, and his neck finally unbent enough for him to lay his head back next to Rodney's. "Yeah," he said, a long sigh. "Keep talking, Rodney."

"Right," Rodney said. "Because this isn't a challenging enough exercise in acting, let's add improvisatory dirty talk to --"

John's cock was hardening perceptibly.

"Oh," Rodney said.

"Yeah, oh, you idiot," John muttered. "Did you think I wanted you to do Penthouse Letters for me?" yes please Because yeah, it's Rodney that turns John on; not Lija, not the situation, he needs to remember who he's really with and he can't see Rodney's face. He shifted his weight from one hip to the other, moving against Rodney's hand on his belly now. Lacking the useful bottle of Slippero, Rodney licked his hand; John caught it in his mouth and licked it, too. The women murmured, heads together. A little pout had started up on Lija's rose-petal face.

"You might want to look at your girlfriend. She's looking a little neglected."

John groaned, sounding more pained than excited, but he obediently opened his eyes. Lija tucked most of her pout back in. 'tucked' is unexpected, but neat

Rodney took John's cock in a loose grip and for a long moment there was no sound but John breathing through his teeth as Rodney established a rhythm just a little faster than the small movements of John's hips. If he kept his eyes on his own hand, it was actually kind of hot.

"That's good, good," Rodney said in John's ear. "Let her think this is all for her. We know better, don't we? I know who all this is for. I know who you do this for. I know --"

John's shoulders pressed back suddenly, and Rodney had one of those moments where he saw doom coming but wasn't quick enough to stop it. Mostly in this fic Rodney thinks fast enough to backpedal or to avoid disaster -- for instance, when John kisses him and then draws back -- but yep, "having sex with John sometimes made Rodney's brain stop working altogether". This realisation is a syllable too late. "Oh, hell," he said, and slapped his hand over John's mouth, but not fast enough to prevent him from crying out the first syllable of Rodney's name.

He saw from the sudden flaring of Lija's nostrils that she'd heard, too.

"Oh, hell," he said.

When Rodney arrived at Kellen's apartment, out of breath and halfway into a panic attack, the door rolled right open for him; apparently she'd programmed it to let him in even if it was five in the morning. She was still up, barefoot in her lounge clothes, reading a book with a cover drawing of an anthropomorphized sea mammal with six tentacles and a hat. Once Upon a Furry Octopus, by skoosiepants. Though there is no hat on the cover art as posted: obviously a different edition.

"Whose idea was that?" she said when he told her the problem. "It was a very stupid one, if you don't mind my saying so."

"It was Lija's, and I think when John says no to her, she sulks him to death," Rodney said. "But even I didn't foresee that it would be a disaster of these proportions. Or am I wrong and there's some chance he'll come out of this unpunished?"

"You're not wrong," Kellen said grimly. "She'll do whatever she thinks will hurt him the most."

"Which is to separate us."

"Will that be so bad? If he's got half a brain, it will only take a couple of fivedays to bring her around, and she's not allowed to actually hurt him or deprive him of necessities. And now that the Council investigation is in progress, she'll be under extra scrutiny."

"The last time she put him in solitary, he was shaking after twenty-four hours," Rodney said. "Not to be excessively conceited or anything, as if! But Rodney's deadly serious. This is not about him. This is about John. but this has screwed him up in ways I can only dimly imagine, and I'm his only link to a life where he's anything other than Lija's toy."

"Well, then," Kellen said. She smacked her palms down on her thighs decisively. "If I can gather the Council, get you an underwater craft, and demand his presence on the gate island, are you fairly confident that you won't fail and humiliate us all?" It feels as though there's a missing scene here: but on the other hand, what would it have shown us, except the process of reaching this decision? (Also, yay Kellen!)

"No," Rodney said. "We're just going to have to take the chance."

commentary, part 3