TEAM PLAY: as the crow flies, "The All American Road Trip Or How to Make Rodney Crazy in ..."
Title: The All American Road Trip Or How to Make Rodney Crazy in Two Thousand Miles
Author: secondalto
Team: Play
Prompt: as the crow flies
Pairing(s): McKay/Sheppard, brief McKay/Keller mention
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Notes: Thanks to mercutin for looking it over.
Summary: John takes Rodney on vacation.
Once you've read the story, please take a moment to vote in the poll below. Ratings go from 1 (low) to 9 (high), so all you need to do is enter a single number in that range into each text entry box. You'll be able to see the Prompt and Team (Genre) information in the header above.
More details about the voting procedure can be found here.
**
With the hive ship destroyed, the IOA came to the conclusion that the Wraith were not a serious threat to the Pegasus galaxy anymore, so on came the debriefings. John was used to them; he’d been through countless debriefings, and one more wasn’t going to kill him. Surprisingly, the Air Force only kept him underground for a week and a half; he wondered if he might have General O’Neill to thank for that. He asked around the SGC about Rodney, and was told he was still in meetings. So to pass the time, John flew. John badgered Mitchell into going with him to fly some of the remaining 302s, he got to try the new 303 and Sam even beamed him up to the Hammond and let him take a spin around Earth…but it wasn’t the same as a puddle jumper.
On the twentieth day he saw Woolsey in the mess. “So, any ideas on when we get to blow this joint?”
“Not any time soon, Colonel.”
“Let me guess, the scientists and engineers are still crawling around Atlantis.”
“Yes, it’s a once in a lifetime chance.”
“They do realize they can’t release a lot of the tech for decades yet?”
Woolsey shrugged. “It’s all about who gets to it first, I suppose. Do you have a particular urge to get back to Pegasus?”
“No, I know that Ronon and Teyla do.”
“The IOA are finished with them, I believe. But until the Hammond is cleared for interstellar travel, they are stuck here.”
“Well I can’t stay cooped up underground forever.” John sat there thinking, pushing the food around his tray. “I do have leave saved up.”
“A vacation sounds like a fine idea. Please, take McKay with you.”
“Is the IOA done with him?”
“Hardly, but I think if he spends one more minute in that conference room, I might have to defend him against a charge of homicide. I’ll arrange for his expertise to be needed elsewhere. A problem with the city I think; one only McKay can solve. I suggest going somewhere far away; we can find you with your transmitters.”
“You sure you don’t need us to light up anything in the city?”
“We have Doctor Beckett or Major Lorne for that still, and I think Colonel Carter and Doctor Jackson were trying to convince General O’Neill to donate his time as well.”
“Good luck with that,” John said.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Rodney was about to head for the mess, muttering under his breath about bureaucrats and red tape when he was pulled into a hall and practically dragged into an elevator. He was ready to deliver a rant about how important he was and how dare he be accosted like that before his mind registered that his kidnapper was John.
“Oh, it’s you,” he said, visibly relaxing.
“Who were you expecting, the Wraith?” John asked.
“No, I…” Rodney faltered. “Never mind. Why are you pulling me into elevators anyway? I was about to go eat, if I go into hypoglycemic shock because you’re so cavalier about my nutritional needs…..”
“We’ll get something on the way, Rodney.”
“On the way where?” Rodney glanced at the top of the elevator doors. The numbers on the display were getting slowly smaller; they were heading for the surface.
“Woolsey arranged time off for you. When was the last time you took a vacation?”
“I came….”
“None of the trips here for conferences, or to visit Jeannie count.”
Rodney realized he couldn’t remember the last time he taken more than a day off -- that hadn’t been spent in the infirmary.
“That’s what I thought,” John.
“But I haven’t packed anything,” Rodney countered.
John grinned. “I sent word to Teyla, she sent over a bag. If it’s missing anything we can buy it.”
“I need my laptop, it’s not on Atlantis.”
“That’s what airmen are for.”
Rodney crossed his arms. “You think you’ve thought of everything, don’t you?”
“I hope so.”
“What if I refuse to go?”
“You’re going to go, Rodney.”
There was silence as the elevator continued upward. Finally it stopped with a ding, the doors sliding open. John started to exit, but stopped at the threshold, turning to look at Rodney. The tension stretched until Rodney finally rolled his eyes, threw his hands up and sighed.
“All right, I’ll go, but only because I can’t stand another minute with those morons from the IOA.”
“I’ve heard,” John said, leading them out past security to the parking lot. He headed for a shiny red sports car.
“Of course you got the cliché,” Rodney said. “I’ll need my sun screen if you’re going to drive with the top down.”
John pulled out a set of keys, unlocking the car with a push of a button. “Beckett whipped up a gallon of the stuff, it’s in the trunk. Tell me you’re not going to complain the entire trip.”
“I make no promises,” Rodney said, spying his laptop bag and pulling out his machine. “So where are we going anyway?”
“Thought we might go see my brother, spend some time with the kids, and play Uncle John for a while.”
Rodney brightened. “He lives in Florida, right? That’s about what? Two, three thousand klicks from here?”
“As the crow flies.”
“So we’ll be there in four, five days max.”
“If we were going the direct route,” John said, pulling away from the security guard post.
“We’re not?”
John just put on his sunglasses, gave Rodney a smile that was slightly unnerving and drove away from Cheyenne Mountain.
---------------------------------------------------
John drove past the highway and turned down the exit to one of the back roads. When he spared a glance at Rodney, he saw that his friend was frowning. Rodney had pulled out his laptop the moment they’d sat in the car. John had almost wished he’d insisted it had been left behind, but then he’d have Rodney non-stop bitching at him the entire trip.
“Bad news?” he asked as casually as he could.
Rodney just muttered something, shutting the laptop and stowing it away. “It’s nothing.”
“Can’t be nothing if it put those lines on your forehead,” John said, taking one hand off the wheel to smooth it along Rodney’s brow.
“Both hands on the wheel!” Rodney cried, batting John’s hand away. “I was rereading an e-mail from Jennifer.”
John carefully schooled his features into a neutral expression. “And that’s bad?”
“She broke up with me. During that first week back. Through an e-mail. ” Rodney threw his hands up in disgust. “Who does that?”
“Well you have been pretty unreachable,” John said. “She give a reason? You two seemed pretty close when we landed here.”
“Guess not that close,” Rodney replied. “She left for home almost as soon as we landed. Seems the IOA didn’t need to spend too much time with her, so she went to see her family. She ran into an old flame and they reconnected. Apparently he proposed.”
“After one week?”
“I know! But she said yes and said she was sorry for breaking my heart.”
“Sorry, buddy.”
“I’ll live, I’ve had two weeks to sulk about it” he said, looking at the scenery for the first time.
“Then why are you saving the e-mail and rereading it?”
“I don’t know, I thought….I just hoped it would be different with her. I thought I’d learned from my mistakes with Katie.”
“There’s someone out there for you, Rodney. “
Rodney said nothing at first. “Where are we?”
“Somewhere south of Telluride.”
“You don’t know?”
John shrugged. “We’ve got signs a plenty. We’re enjoying the journey.”
Rodney harrumphed and sat back, but soon he was visibly relaxing and smiling at the countryside. There was a sign for a local golf course and Rodney sat up, pointing.
“That! There!”
John raised an eyebrow. “You want to go golfing?”
“Hey! I’m pretty good at it!”
“On the computer, the real thing is entirely different.”
“Rod could golf.”
“You are not Rod.” John pointed to a sign for mini-golf. “How ‘bout that instead? I’m sure hitting a little white ball will help, no matter what size the course is.”
Rodney harrumphed. So John took that as a yes and watched for the exit.
----------------------------------------------
Surprisingly, or maybe not so much, Sheppard was right. Hitting the ball did help with some of his anger, or what ever it was he was feeling about Jennifer. A part of him had always been expecting her to break up with him-- what a woman like her saw in a nerd like him he never knew. Another part of him was trying to ignore the memory of him running to Sheppard when he was losing his memory, not to Jennifer. The Colonel would never think of him like that.
Rodney had experimented in college, who hadn’t? And he’d had a few male lovers later on in life, but they were just about equal to the women he’d slept with. He’d kept it quiet when he worked with the SGC and continued to do so while on Atlantis-it was a military-run installation after all. But he couldn’t help the almost flirting that happened whenever he was around Sheppard, though their friendship was too precious to say anything about it. So when there was the slap on the back at the end of the eighteenth, with Sheppard’s hand lingering just a bit longer than necessary, Rodney wasn’t going to say anything.
They climbed back into the car, tired but happy and headed out to find a motel or something. “How can you afford all of this?” he blurted out when they were on the road again.
Sheppard just lifted an eyebrow. “Really, McKay, and here I thought you were a genius.” He took one hand off the wheel and held out one finger. “Two promotions in five years.” Another finger. “Combat pay.” Another. “Special duty pay.” Both of them rolled their eyes at that one; special duty pay was how the military got away with paying for the Stargate program without actually specifying what the money was for. Sheppard held up the next finger. “Pilot for experimental aircraft.” The thumb. “And no vacations taken. It all adds up in five years, especially since I have no real way to spend it and no one to send it to. Don’t tell me you’ve never looked at your bank account.”
“I was never in it for the money,” Rodney scoffed. He didn’t add that he knew John had family money; it was hard to break the hacking habit sometimes.
He was ignored as they pulled off into a motel parking lot. They got a room with two singles. Sheppard paid. “I was thinking of turning south tomorrow. And then maybe east.”
“Sure, whatever,” Rodney said. “Maybe we could see some historical landmarks?”
“Maybe.”
And that was all the conversation for the night.
--------------------------------------
They did see a few landmarks. Rodney scoffed at the idea of going to Roswell, and they mutually agreed to avoid it because it hit too close to home. They saw the Alamo, and spent three days in New Orleans. Along the way Rodney made him pull into every Putt Putt and mini golf course they ran across. He was becoming quite the master of the game. John also noted that Rodney was a little more touchy-feely than usual. A hand on the arm to point something out, friendly nudges and other small things. He didn’t say anything, figuring that Rodney would when he was ready. If he’d ever be ready. John had nursed his unrequited feelings for too long to get up too much hope. He was a little surprised that Rodney wasn’t harping or complaining when he turned north towards Arkansas rather than continuing east.
“You okay there, buddy?” he asked as they passed a sign for the worlds largest something or other.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Rodney asked.
“You’ve been kind of quiet. And I haven’t seen you pull out the laptop since Austin.”
Rodney raised an eyebrow. “I thought you’d be happy about that, vacation and all.”
“I am, just…” John shrugged. “There’s mini-golf a few miles from here, you game?”
“Always, Sheppard, always.”
“You, know, we’ve been friends for five years now, don’t you think it’s time you started calling me John?”
“Sure, John. Now get driving.”
John let Rodney win, though it wasn’t a hard thing to do. Rodney really was getting to be good at mini-golf. Maybe he should think about introducing him to the real thing. That night in the motel, John ‘borrowed’ Rodney’s laptop to look for proper golf courses.
--------------------------------------------------------------
“This isn’t a mini-golf course,” Rodney pointed out about a week later. They’d turned east again, into Tennessee. There were endless greens, surrounded by trees. He could see a sand trap and possibly a pond or maybe a lake. A little flag was flying off in the distance.
“No, it’s the real thing. Thought you needed the upgrade,” John said. “Seemed like you were getting bored with the miniature version.”
“I was just hitting my stride!” Rodney protested. “I can’t play real golf!”
“Sure you can,” John said. “It’s all about distance and angles and velocity. Use that big brain of yours for something other than saving the universe.”
Rodney just stared at him indignantly for a moment. He stood there, club in hand, trying to look angry. But John ignored him and put a tee into the ground, ball balanced precariously on top of it. He watched as John stepped back, swung the club and hit the ball. Instead of paying attention to the ball, he studied John. The line of his back as he pivoted into the swing, the way his hands gripped the club, gentle but strong, the way his ass looked in those pants.
Rodney shook his head and stepped up, putting his own tee in the soft earth. He quickly calculated the angles and such in his head before taking a breath and swinging the club. There was a whooshing sound and he looked up, expecting to see the ball soaring towards the green. Behind him, John was chuckling softly. He looked down and saw the ball still on the tee. He frowned at it.
“Here, let me show you,” John said, stepping up. He put his hands on Rodney’s hips, moving him around. Neither said anything as John moved him through the swing and then backed away. “Try it now.”
Rodney tried and the ball sailed off into the clear blue sky, only to land on the rough.
“Good first try,” John said. “Let’s go.”
---------------------------------------------------------------
Rodney ended up scoring in the triple digits and seriously over par. John just grinned and told him they’d have plenty of time to practice. Rodney had a barbed rejoinder ready, but John gave him a one armed hug and a pat on the back. Rodney immediately mourned the loss of contact when John moved away.
“I’ve got to return the clubs. Why don’t you see about getting us a room?”
There was a hotel associated with the course and Rodney nodded absently. He found himself watching as John walked away before shaking his head. The desk clerk had the credit card information already and Rodney just nodded at whatever the young lady was saying.
He was too busy thinking about John. He was trying to remember everything about the past five years. John had always been a little reluctant to talk about his personal life. Rodney knew he’d been married, thanks to the hacking. He liked to know whose hands he was putting his life into. There’d been Chaya but Rodney had been too angry to really listen to anything John had said about that. He suspected there’d been something between John and Teer, not that Rodney blamed John, and six months was a long time in any world. He also focused on other things, like how John had taken care of him while he’d been affected by the Ascension machine. How John seemed to relish their arguments, how he never commented on Rodney’s love life at all. Did John have feelings for him?
“Hey buddy, ready?” Rodney was distracted from his thoughts.
“Almost,” he said.
“Your key cards, sir,” the desk clerk said, handing over two plastic cards. “Room 310.”
“Thanks.”
“Two beds, right?” John asked. They often got one room with two beds at the fancier hotels.
“Of course,” Rodney said.
They stepped into the elevator, rode in silence and exited. Once they found the room. Rodney slid the card into the slot and pushed the door open. There was a small living area that lead into the bedroom. They both went in, Rodney shutting the room door behind him; they wanted to check out the firmness of the mattresses.
“Rodney….” John said, a tone of annoyance creeping into his voice. “That is not two beds.”
Instead there was a California King, flanked by two bedside tables with matching lamps.
“Why can’t I escape clichés?” Rodney muttered to himself.
John must have overheard him because he turned Rodney to face him. “Care to explain that? Weren’t you paying attention to the clerk?”
“No I wasn’t, John!” Rodney shouted, pushing away and stalking into the living area. “I was too busy with…with…watching you! You and your stupid gorgeous ass and your stupid hair and the stupid touching and….”
“Gorgeous ass?” John repeated with a hint of a smirk. “Why, Rodney, I didn’t know you noticed.”
“How could I not notice it in those pants?!?” Then Rodney paused, tilting his head and replaying the last moment in his head. “Wait. You don’t care I was looking at your ass?”
“I’ve been waiting for five years for you to look,” John said casually.
“So, I could have been getting laid regularly for the last five years instead of having a disastrous love life? I could have saved myself the heartbreak? And you said nothing?”
“American military, Rodney,” John said.
“Fuck that. I can get you Canadian citizenship in a snap, some people owe me favors.”
“That’s not really necessary, Rodney, but thanks anyway. So did you like what you were looking at?”
Rodney just gaped for a moment, then strode over to John and grabbed him. He pushed John against the wall and kissed him. John kissed him back, the pent up want of five years pouring into that one act. John pushed him back, grinning.
“I guess that’s a yes.”
“Yes, dammit. Now can we get to the part where we get naked?”
“Hold on, we’ve got time. I hope you don’t mind that I don’t plan on getting to Florida anytime soon.”
“Not if you keep kissing me like that. Besides, I hear they have this football hall in Ohio, thought you might want to swing by there. It’s only a few hundred miles, as the crow flies.”
**
Poll
Author: secondalto
Team: Play
Prompt: as the crow flies
Pairing(s): McKay/Sheppard, brief McKay/Keller mention
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Notes: Thanks to mercutin for looking it over.
Summary: John takes Rodney on vacation.
Once you've read the story, please take a moment to vote in the poll below. Ratings go from 1 (low) to 9 (high), so all you need to do is enter a single number in that range into each text entry box. You'll be able to see the Prompt and Team (Genre) information in the header above.
More details about the voting procedure can be found here.
**
With the hive ship destroyed, the IOA came to the conclusion that the Wraith were not a serious threat to the Pegasus galaxy anymore, so on came the debriefings. John was used to them; he’d been through countless debriefings, and one more wasn’t going to kill him. Surprisingly, the Air Force only kept him underground for a week and a half; he wondered if he might have General O’Neill to thank for that. He asked around the SGC about Rodney, and was told he was still in meetings. So to pass the time, John flew. John badgered Mitchell into going with him to fly some of the remaining 302s, he got to try the new 303 and Sam even beamed him up to the Hammond and let him take a spin around Earth…but it wasn’t the same as a puddle jumper.
On the twentieth day he saw Woolsey in the mess. “So, any ideas on when we get to blow this joint?”
“Not any time soon, Colonel.”
“Let me guess, the scientists and engineers are still crawling around Atlantis.”
“Yes, it’s a once in a lifetime chance.”
“They do realize they can’t release a lot of the tech for decades yet?”
Woolsey shrugged. “It’s all about who gets to it first, I suppose. Do you have a particular urge to get back to Pegasus?”
“No, I know that Ronon and Teyla do.”
“The IOA are finished with them, I believe. But until the Hammond is cleared for interstellar travel, they are stuck here.”
“Well I can’t stay cooped up underground forever.” John sat there thinking, pushing the food around his tray. “I do have leave saved up.”
“A vacation sounds like a fine idea. Please, take McKay with you.”
“Is the IOA done with him?”
“Hardly, but I think if he spends one more minute in that conference room, I might have to defend him against a charge of homicide. I’ll arrange for his expertise to be needed elsewhere. A problem with the city I think; one only McKay can solve. I suggest going somewhere far away; we can find you with your transmitters.”
“You sure you don’t need us to light up anything in the city?”
“We have Doctor Beckett or Major Lorne for that still, and I think Colonel Carter and Doctor Jackson were trying to convince General O’Neill to donate his time as well.”
“Good luck with that,” John said.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Rodney was about to head for the mess, muttering under his breath about bureaucrats and red tape when he was pulled into a hall and practically dragged into an elevator. He was ready to deliver a rant about how important he was and how dare he be accosted like that before his mind registered that his kidnapper was John.
“Oh, it’s you,” he said, visibly relaxing.
“Who were you expecting, the Wraith?” John asked.
“No, I…” Rodney faltered. “Never mind. Why are you pulling me into elevators anyway? I was about to go eat, if I go into hypoglycemic shock because you’re so cavalier about my nutritional needs…..”
“We’ll get something on the way, Rodney.”
“On the way where?” Rodney glanced at the top of the elevator doors. The numbers on the display were getting slowly smaller; they were heading for the surface.
“Woolsey arranged time off for you. When was the last time you took a vacation?”
“I came….”
“None of the trips here for conferences, or to visit Jeannie count.”
Rodney realized he couldn’t remember the last time he taken more than a day off -- that hadn’t been spent in the infirmary.
“That’s what I thought,” John.
“But I haven’t packed anything,” Rodney countered.
John grinned. “I sent word to Teyla, she sent over a bag. If it’s missing anything we can buy it.”
“I need my laptop, it’s not on Atlantis.”
“That’s what airmen are for.”
Rodney crossed his arms. “You think you’ve thought of everything, don’t you?”
“I hope so.”
“What if I refuse to go?”
“You’re going to go, Rodney.”
There was silence as the elevator continued upward. Finally it stopped with a ding, the doors sliding open. John started to exit, but stopped at the threshold, turning to look at Rodney. The tension stretched until Rodney finally rolled his eyes, threw his hands up and sighed.
“All right, I’ll go, but only because I can’t stand another minute with those morons from the IOA.”
“I’ve heard,” John said, leading them out past security to the parking lot. He headed for a shiny red sports car.
“Of course you got the cliché,” Rodney said. “I’ll need my sun screen if you’re going to drive with the top down.”
John pulled out a set of keys, unlocking the car with a push of a button. “Beckett whipped up a gallon of the stuff, it’s in the trunk. Tell me you’re not going to complain the entire trip.”
“I make no promises,” Rodney said, spying his laptop bag and pulling out his machine. “So where are we going anyway?”
“Thought we might go see my brother, spend some time with the kids, and play Uncle John for a while.”
Rodney brightened. “He lives in Florida, right? That’s about what? Two, three thousand klicks from here?”
“As the crow flies.”
“So we’ll be there in four, five days max.”
“If we were going the direct route,” John said, pulling away from the security guard post.
“We’re not?”
John just put on his sunglasses, gave Rodney a smile that was slightly unnerving and drove away from Cheyenne Mountain.
---------------------------------------------------
John drove past the highway and turned down the exit to one of the back roads. When he spared a glance at Rodney, he saw that his friend was frowning. Rodney had pulled out his laptop the moment they’d sat in the car. John had almost wished he’d insisted it had been left behind, but then he’d have Rodney non-stop bitching at him the entire trip.
“Bad news?” he asked as casually as he could.
Rodney just muttered something, shutting the laptop and stowing it away. “It’s nothing.”
“Can’t be nothing if it put those lines on your forehead,” John said, taking one hand off the wheel to smooth it along Rodney’s brow.
“Both hands on the wheel!” Rodney cried, batting John’s hand away. “I was rereading an e-mail from Jennifer.”
John carefully schooled his features into a neutral expression. “And that’s bad?”
“She broke up with me. During that first week back. Through an e-mail. ” Rodney threw his hands up in disgust. “Who does that?”
“Well you have been pretty unreachable,” John said. “She give a reason? You two seemed pretty close when we landed here.”
“Guess not that close,” Rodney replied. “She left for home almost as soon as we landed. Seems the IOA didn’t need to spend too much time with her, so she went to see her family. She ran into an old flame and they reconnected. Apparently he proposed.”
“After one week?”
“I know! But she said yes and said she was sorry for breaking my heart.”
“Sorry, buddy.”
“I’ll live, I’ve had two weeks to sulk about it” he said, looking at the scenery for the first time.
“Then why are you saving the e-mail and rereading it?”
“I don’t know, I thought….I just hoped it would be different with her. I thought I’d learned from my mistakes with Katie.”
“There’s someone out there for you, Rodney. “
Rodney said nothing at first. “Where are we?”
“Somewhere south of Telluride.”
“You don’t know?”
John shrugged. “We’ve got signs a plenty. We’re enjoying the journey.”
Rodney harrumphed and sat back, but soon he was visibly relaxing and smiling at the countryside. There was a sign for a local golf course and Rodney sat up, pointing.
“That! There!”
John raised an eyebrow. “You want to go golfing?”
“Hey! I’m pretty good at it!”
“On the computer, the real thing is entirely different.”
“Rod could golf.”
“You are not Rod.” John pointed to a sign for mini-golf. “How ‘bout that instead? I’m sure hitting a little white ball will help, no matter what size the course is.”
Rodney harrumphed. So John took that as a yes and watched for the exit.
----------------------------------------------
Surprisingly, or maybe not so much, Sheppard was right. Hitting the ball did help with some of his anger, or what ever it was he was feeling about Jennifer. A part of him had always been expecting her to break up with him-- what a woman like her saw in a nerd like him he never knew. Another part of him was trying to ignore the memory of him running to Sheppard when he was losing his memory, not to Jennifer. The Colonel would never think of him like that.
Rodney had experimented in college, who hadn’t? And he’d had a few male lovers later on in life, but they were just about equal to the women he’d slept with. He’d kept it quiet when he worked with the SGC and continued to do so while on Atlantis-it was a military-run installation after all. But he couldn’t help the almost flirting that happened whenever he was around Sheppard, though their friendship was too precious to say anything about it. So when there was the slap on the back at the end of the eighteenth, with Sheppard’s hand lingering just a bit longer than necessary, Rodney wasn’t going to say anything.
They climbed back into the car, tired but happy and headed out to find a motel or something. “How can you afford all of this?” he blurted out when they were on the road again.
Sheppard just lifted an eyebrow. “Really, McKay, and here I thought you were a genius.” He took one hand off the wheel and held out one finger. “Two promotions in five years.” Another finger. “Combat pay.” Another. “Special duty pay.” Both of them rolled their eyes at that one; special duty pay was how the military got away with paying for the Stargate program without actually specifying what the money was for. Sheppard held up the next finger. “Pilot for experimental aircraft.” The thumb. “And no vacations taken. It all adds up in five years, especially since I have no real way to spend it and no one to send it to. Don’t tell me you’ve never looked at your bank account.”
“I was never in it for the money,” Rodney scoffed. He didn’t add that he knew John had family money; it was hard to break the hacking habit sometimes.
He was ignored as they pulled off into a motel parking lot. They got a room with two singles. Sheppard paid. “I was thinking of turning south tomorrow. And then maybe east.”
“Sure, whatever,” Rodney said. “Maybe we could see some historical landmarks?”
“Maybe.”
And that was all the conversation for the night.
--------------------------------------
They did see a few landmarks. Rodney scoffed at the idea of going to Roswell, and they mutually agreed to avoid it because it hit too close to home. They saw the Alamo, and spent three days in New Orleans. Along the way Rodney made him pull into every Putt Putt and mini golf course they ran across. He was becoming quite the master of the game. John also noted that Rodney was a little more touchy-feely than usual. A hand on the arm to point something out, friendly nudges and other small things. He didn’t say anything, figuring that Rodney would when he was ready. If he’d ever be ready. John had nursed his unrequited feelings for too long to get up too much hope. He was a little surprised that Rodney wasn’t harping or complaining when he turned north towards Arkansas rather than continuing east.
“You okay there, buddy?” he asked as they passed a sign for the worlds largest something or other.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Rodney asked.
“You’ve been kind of quiet. And I haven’t seen you pull out the laptop since Austin.”
Rodney raised an eyebrow. “I thought you’d be happy about that, vacation and all.”
“I am, just…” John shrugged. “There’s mini-golf a few miles from here, you game?”
“Always, Sheppard, always.”
“You, know, we’ve been friends for five years now, don’t you think it’s time you started calling me John?”
“Sure, John. Now get driving.”
John let Rodney win, though it wasn’t a hard thing to do. Rodney really was getting to be good at mini-golf. Maybe he should think about introducing him to the real thing. That night in the motel, John ‘borrowed’ Rodney’s laptop to look for proper golf courses.
--------------------------------------------------------------
“This isn’t a mini-golf course,” Rodney pointed out about a week later. They’d turned east again, into Tennessee. There were endless greens, surrounded by trees. He could see a sand trap and possibly a pond or maybe a lake. A little flag was flying off in the distance.
“No, it’s the real thing. Thought you needed the upgrade,” John said. “Seemed like you were getting bored with the miniature version.”
“I was just hitting my stride!” Rodney protested. “I can’t play real golf!”
“Sure you can,” John said. “It’s all about distance and angles and velocity. Use that big brain of yours for something other than saving the universe.”
Rodney just stared at him indignantly for a moment. He stood there, club in hand, trying to look angry. But John ignored him and put a tee into the ground, ball balanced precariously on top of it. He watched as John stepped back, swung the club and hit the ball. Instead of paying attention to the ball, he studied John. The line of his back as he pivoted into the swing, the way his hands gripped the club, gentle but strong, the way his ass looked in those pants.
Rodney shook his head and stepped up, putting his own tee in the soft earth. He quickly calculated the angles and such in his head before taking a breath and swinging the club. There was a whooshing sound and he looked up, expecting to see the ball soaring towards the green. Behind him, John was chuckling softly. He looked down and saw the ball still on the tee. He frowned at it.
“Here, let me show you,” John said, stepping up. He put his hands on Rodney’s hips, moving him around. Neither said anything as John moved him through the swing and then backed away. “Try it now.”
Rodney tried and the ball sailed off into the clear blue sky, only to land on the rough.
“Good first try,” John said. “Let’s go.”
---------------------------------------------------------------
Rodney ended up scoring in the triple digits and seriously over par. John just grinned and told him they’d have plenty of time to practice. Rodney had a barbed rejoinder ready, but John gave him a one armed hug and a pat on the back. Rodney immediately mourned the loss of contact when John moved away.
“I’ve got to return the clubs. Why don’t you see about getting us a room?”
There was a hotel associated with the course and Rodney nodded absently. He found himself watching as John walked away before shaking his head. The desk clerk had the credit card information already and Rodney just nodded at whatever the young lady was saying.
He was too busy thinking about John. He was trying to remember everything about the past five years. John had always been a little reluctant to talk about his personal life. Rodney knew he’d been married, thanks to the hacking. He liked to know whose hands he was putting his life into. There’d been Chaya but Rodney had been too angry to really listen to anything John had said about that. He suspected there’d been something between John and Teer, not that Rodney blamed John, and six months was a long time in any world. He also focused on other things, like how John had taken care of him while he’d been affected by the Ascension machine. How John seemed to relish their arguments, how he never commented on Rodney’s love life at all. Did John have feelings for him?
“Hey buddy, ready?” Rodney was distracted from his thoughts.
“Almost,” he said.
“Your key cards, sir,” the desk clerk said, handing over two plastic cards. “Room 310.”
“Thanks.”
“Two beds, right?” John asked. They often got one room with two beds at the fancier hotels.
“Of course,” Rodney said.
They stepped into the elevator, rode in silence and exited. Once they found the room. Rodney slid the card into the slot and pushed the door open. There was a small living area that lead into the bedroom. They both went in, Rodney shutting the room door behind him; they wanted to check out the firmness of the mattresses.
“Rodney….” John said, a tone of annoyance creeping into his voice. “That is not two beds.”
Instead there was a California King, flanked by two bedside tables with matching lamps.
“Why can’t I escape clichés?” Rodney muttered to himself.
John must have overheard him because he turned Rodney to face him. “Care to explain that? Weren’t you paying attention to the clerk?”
“No I wasn’t, John!” Rodney shouted, pushing away and stalking into the living area. “I was too busy with…with…watching you! You and your stupid gorgeous ass and your stupid hair and the stupid touching and….”
“Gorgeous ass?” John repeated with a hint of a smirk. “Why, Rodney, I didn’t know you noticed.”
“How could I not notice it in those pants?!?” Then Rodney paused, tilting his head and replaying the last moment in his head. “Wait. You don’t care I was looking at your ass?”
“I’ve been waiting for five years for you to look,” John said casually.
“So, I could have been getting laid regularly for the last five years instead of having a disastrous love life? I could have saved myself the heartbreak? And you said nothing?”
“American military, Rodney,” John said.
“Fuck that. I can get you Canadian citizenship in a snap, some people owe me favors.”
“That’s not really necessary, Rodney, but thanks anyway. So did you like what you were looking at?”
Rodney just gaped for a moment, then strode over to John and grabbed him. He pushed John against the wall and kissed him. John kissed him back, the pent up want of five years pouring into that one act. John pushed him back, grinning.
“I guess that’s a yes.”
“Yes, dammit. Now can we get to the part where we get naked?”
“Hold on, we’ve got time. I hope you don’t mind that I don’t plan on getting to Florida anytime soon.”
“Not if you keep kissing me like that. Besides, I hear they have this football hall in Ohio, thought you might want to swing by there. It’s only a few hundred miles, as the crow flies.”
**
Poll