TEAM PEACE: A House Divided, "A Heart Needs a Home"

[trobadora]

Title: A Heart Needs a Home
Author: shrift
Team: Peace
Prompt: a house divided
Pairings: McKay/Sheppard, McKay/Keller
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: None
Summary: Sometimes when a door closes, a closet opens.

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**

It happened while he was eating dinner at a nice restaurant in San Francisco, fancy enough but nothing too chi-chi because Rodney actually liked eating portions larger than a command crystal, on a date with his girlfriend. Rodney hadn't been on a normal Earth date in years even before he went to the Pegasus galaxy, and it was making him a little nervous. Jennifer, at least, was used to his babble and was still smiling at him. She'd ordered a bacon cheeseburger and was wearing a hot little black dress. Rodney thought she was awesome.

"Just over three weeks until we go home," Rodney said. He knocked over the pepper shaker and scooped it back into place without pausing. "It's a little late, but I'm thinking about making an advent calendar for Teyla." Rodney didn't know what to put in it, though; Ronon probably could help with that.

Jennifer laughed a little. "We are home, Rodney."

"What do you mean? Of course we're not home," Rodney said. "It hasn't been home in a long time. I mean, Jeannie's here, but that's --"

"Rodney," Jennifer said, covering his hand with her own, her expression suddenly serious, "it's home for me."

"What?"

"I miss my family. I miss French fries and going to the library and having drinks with my girlfriends."

Rodney turned his hand palm up and squeezed her fingers. "Oh."

"My dad's not getting any younger, and if anything, going to Atlantis has shown me how fragile all our lives are. I don't want to miss any more time with him. You could stay with me, you know," she said beseechingly.

"But how could you want to be here when we could be up there?" Rodney asked, flailing in the general direction of space.

"Well, 'up there' keeps trying to kill me," Jennifer said, rolling her eyes.

Rodney shrugged. "You get used to it?"

Jennifer shook her head. "I don't think that I want to get used to it. I love you, Rodney. Promise me that you'll at least think about staying?"

"I'm not getting any younger, either," Rodney joked. His eyes were hot and dinner was giving him indigestion. It felt like his last chance to get married was slipping away and that he'd never have the white picket fence and the 2.5 children to trot out as proof that he hadn't failed as a human being.

"Promise me?" Jennifer pushed.

"Okay," Rodney said. "Yeah, I'll think about it."

Rodney took Jennifer back to her hotel and absently kissed her goodnight, wondering, as he and a handful of Marines and scientists got a ride back to Atlantis courtesy of the Coast Guard, if this was the reason that Jennifer hadn't elected to be part of the Atlantis skeleton crew. It wasn't like they really needed their chief medical officer in residence when they weren't actively fighting the Wraith or the Replicators or the Ori. But how long ago had she decided that she wasn't coming back?

He didn't know what to think. Rodney had got out of the habit of making long-term plans. He'd never been very good at it; his talents were better suited to fixing three impossible things before breakfast and pulling miracles out of his ass five seconds before the world ended, or getting himself sent to very remote and very cold locations.

When they disembarked at Atlantis, Rodney went to his quarters and stood outside the door for a moment, and decided to keep wandering. He thought better while in motion.

"Hey," John said. Rodney looked up and realized where he was. John was standing in the doorway to his quarters, arms crossed and leaning one shoulder against the frame. John looked at his watch. "You're home early."

"Hey," Rodney said. He stood in the hallway fidgeting awkwardly.

John jerked his thumb over his shoulder and said, "I have bootleg DVDs of the Batman TV series."

"Ooh," Rodney said, momentarily distracted. "I smell popcorn."

"Door's open," John said, and went inside his quarters. Rodney followed him.

They made it through three episodes and an entire bag of popcorn before he turned to John and said, "Jennifer's not coming back with us."

John was digging a shred of popcorn kernel from his teeth. He made a garbled noise around his finger before pulling it out of his mouth and repeating, "What?"

"She's staying on Earth," Rodney said.

"I'm sorry to hear that, buddy," John said. He grimaced. "I guess you two are, uh..."

Rodney blurted, "She wants me to stay with her."

John froze.

"I told her I'd think about it."

John stood up fast, as if the couch was on fire or someone had told him not to move because there was a man-eating bug next to him. "What the hell, Rodney! You're going to abandon the team just like that?"

"What? No!" Rodney protested.

"Ronon and Teyla came to another galaxy for us. Hell, Teyla had to leave behind her son. And you're just going to throw it all away?"

Rodney gaped at him. Burgess Meredith was on the TV, wearing a purple top hat and a monocle, with a cigarette holder clenched in his teeth.

"I just said I'd think about it," Rodney said, standing up and crossing his arms.

John drew his mobile face into an unpleasant smirk. "I think we all know what that means."

"I don't like what you're implying," Rodney said stiffly.

"Yeah, most people don't," John admitted, rubbing the back of his neck, and it diffused the tension just like that. John paused the DVD and then backtracked a few minutes so they could watch what they'd missed. When the episode ended, Rodney went back to his quarters, brushed his teeth, stripped down to boxers and a T-shirt, and climbed into bed.

Rodney was, to put it in technical terms, 'dinking around' with the DHD in the command tower. He was underneath the console on his back with his hands inside a panel, trying to follow a niggling thought down a twisty path to an almost picayune problem. The truth was that he was bored and had done all the routine maintenance at least five times since they'd landed in the bay, so now he was attempting to fix an issue that hadn't presented itself yet but could in another, oh, decade or three. Rodney would have to talk it out with Zelenka when he returned from visiting his pigeons.

He was wriggling out from the console when something tapped his ankle.

"Hey," John said, squatting down and wincing when his knees popped. "What are you up to?"

"Nothing good," Rodney said.

"Made any decisions?" John asked.

"I haven't even had time to think about it yet," Rodney huffed. "What's wrong with you?"

John shrugged. "I just thought maybe I could help. For instance, have you thought about a long distance relationship?"

"Absence doesn't make the heart grow fonder," Rodney snapped. He gestured at John with an Ancient tool that basically was a sophisticated screwdriver, and a lame one for not even being sonic. "No, no, no. In my experience, absence makes the heart go 'Wow, why did I put up with that so long? What was I thinking? I love being single. Oh, hey, there's a hot guy looking at me. Maybe I'll let him buy me a drink.' Fast-forward four weeks and I'm being broken up with via email, and she's claiming 'Sorry, Rodney. I didn't mean to fall in love!' And that is why I don't do long distance."

John blinked and inched away, as if he were afraid of catching Rodney's emotional cooties. "That was remarkably specific."

"Funny how that works," Rodney said.

"I never thought you'd let the team down like this," John said.

Rodney groaned. "Not this again."

"Who am I gonna take in the field if you stay, huh?" John said. He aimed a light slap at Rodney's calf, and it actually stung like hell.

"Zelenka," Rodney said. "He's good and you know it."

"But he's not good in the field," John said.

"Yeah, well, neither am I," Rodney said.

"Well, we've already got you trained and everything," John said, shrugging. "It'd take months to break in someone else."

"The horror," Rodney said dryly.

John persisted. "If you stayed, our team would be a man down. You gonna do that to us?"

"Really not succeeding in making me feel valuable, Sheppard," Rodney said. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have a date with a naquadah generator, and you're not invited."

He ditched John in the command tower and went to the naquadah generator that was operating a very tiny, miniscule percentage under optimum. As he fiddled with it, he couldn't help but think about John and Teyla and Ronon going on missions without him. He wondered whose brain was big enough to get them out of the trouble that they routinely got into, which was what happened when a race of super intelligent beings set booby traps in an entire galaxy.

Rodney wasn't a modest man; there were very few people in the universe who could do what he did, and he didn't know how he'd handle it if one of them died because he wasn't there.

The next day, Rodney was in the mess hall, eating breakfast and minding his own business for once when he was ambushed.

"Sheppard says you might not come back with us," Ronon said, sitting across from Rodney.

Rodney made a grumpy noise around a slice of toast. "Sheppard's a gossipy bastard."

Teyla sat next to him. "Hello, Rodney."

"What do you think about it?" Rodney asked her anxiously.

"I think that you should follow your heart," Teyla said diplomatically.

Rodney sighed. "Thanks. That's such useful advice. My heart hasn't got a clue, okay?"

"I would not blame you if you chose to stay," Teyla said, smiling softly and touching Rodney's shoulder. "But I would miss you if you were gone."

"Oh," Rodney said. He swallowed hard. "That's -- thanks."

"If you stayed, you could get a cat," Ronon said after a moment.

"What's that got to do with anything?" Rodney asked, bemused.

Ronon shrugged and said, "You talk about cats a lot."

"I do not," Rodney insisted. Then, "Do I?"

Teyla tactfully remained silent.

"It's all just so weird. If I stay, what if we get married? What if Jennifer wants kids?" Rodney poked at his scrambled eggs. "I mean, I've thought about it a lot but I suppose I assumed it would never happen, that I could have a family."

"Maybe that's because you already have one," Ronon said. He stole Rodney's blueberry muffin and shoved away from the table so hard that Rodney scrambled to keep his tray from sliding to the floor.

"Rodney," Teyla said as Ronon walked away.

"He liked Jennifer, you know?" Rodney said. "It makes me wonder. I mean -- not like that, just -- he deserves a family more than I do, doesn't he? It doesn't seem fair."

"And yet Jennifer loves you, Rodney," Teyla said.

"Yeah," Rodney said. He stared at his tray for a moment, and then looked at Teyla. "Were you ready to be a mother?"

She blinked rapidly, and then took a deep breath. "It was something of a surprise, as I believe it so often is, but when Torren arrived, I welcomed him into my life gladly. It was... terrifying. And wonderful."

"Do you think I could do that?" Rodney asked, realizing exactly how pathetic he sounded.

Teyla briefly appeared taken aback, eyelashes fluttering and her mouth flattening, but then she looked him in the eye. "I believe that you can do anything you set your mind to, Rodney."

"I love you," Rodney said in a rush. "I just wanted you to know in case I stay."

Teyla's answering smile was pretty awesome. "And I you, Rodney."

Rodney couldn't sleep. He was too busy staring at the ceiling and coming up with pro and con lists. If he stayed, he could be closer to Jeannie and Madison. If he stayed, he'd only have Jeannie and Madison because all his close friends would go with Atlantis. If he left, he'd lose Jennifer, but at least he'd have his team. What if he stayed and they broke up? What if he left and regretted it?

He still couldn't publish if he stayed unless he also left the SGC, but then there would be no more stargates and aliens and ships and Ancient technology. All the NDAs that Rodney had signed over the years would make it tricky to go back into the public sector with anything cool enough to show up Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Rodney got out of bed, put on some shoes, and went looking for John. Everyone on Atlantis had seen Rodney in pajamas at one point or another. Emergencies waited for no man to change out of his Atari sleep pants.

John wasn't in his quarters, the mess hall, or the jumper bay, so Rodney went to one of the lower corridors that had the longest straightaway in the city. He heard the whine of the RC car long before he located John.

"Hey," Rodney said.

John's shoulders went rigid for a second before relaxing. "Hey."

"I know it's not exactly a Sophie's Choice, but I was hoping you'd weigh in on this, help me make a decision," Rodney said. "I can pretend to be dying if it'll help you emote."

John grunted. "Not funny."

"I just want to know what you think."

"You want to know what I think," John echoed, looking off to the side. "You'd be weakening my team if you --"

"Would you stop talking about the team?" Rodney demanded. "It's all 'team this' and 'team that' and 'blah blah team'. I don't want to talk to my team leader right now, I want to talk to you."

"Me," John said. His voice was rough. "Who's that?"

"My best friend, you moron," Rodney said.

"I don't know," John said, shrugging and wrinkling in his nose.

"Oh, no no no no," Rodney said, pointing his finger and advancing on John to poke him in the chest. John flinched away from Rodney, which was weird, because although John wasn't a touchy-feely guy in general, he didn't seem to mind being handsy with his friends. John backed away from Rodney until he hit the wall, and Rodney tried to keep him from escaping by putting his hand on John's chest. "Talk to me, John Sheppard."

"What," John said tonelessly.

Rodney put more of his weight behind his hand; John was breathing fast and wouldn't meet Rodney's eyes, and he wondered if he should back off, because cornering Sheppard usually led to bloodshed and things exploding.

"Just talk to me," Rodney said, exasperated. "Staying, going, yes, no, good idea, bad idea, you'd be an idiot to stay, you'd be a moron not to. Do you seriously think that I can make this decision without you? Because I've been treating you like a reasonably intelligent human being for the last five years, and I'd hate to be proven wrong --"

"Rodney," John interrupted.

"Yeah?"

When John finally looked at Rodney, he was upset, eyes a little red, looking like he did when ships were blowing up or people were dying and there was nothing he could do to save them. Rodney didn't know what was the matter, but it hurt to look at him.

"I don't think I can do this without you," John said. "I don't think I want to find out. That's what I think."

It was exactly what Rodney hadn't known he'd always wanted to hear. "Then I'm not staying."

"Yeah?" John asked softly, swaying forward.

"Yeah," Rodney said. "Of course not, are you kidding me?"

John grinned suddenly, and something fluttered in Rodney's gut like the weirdest case of indigestion ever.

"Oh, god," Rodney blurted. "I have to break up with Jennifer. I've never done this before!"

"You just let her down gently -- wait, you've never broken up with a girl before?"

"Only one, and in the process I found out that she didn't even realize we were dating," Rodney babbled. "Either they dumped me, or the relationship just sort of... ended."

John patted Rodney's shoulder and sighed. "I'm sure you'll think of something."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Rodney muttered.

Rodney took Jennifer for dinner, and then a walk that quickly turned into a stop for ice cream so Rodney could catch his breath. The sun had gone down and the air was crisp; Rodney ended up giving Jennifer his suit jacket when she admitted that her cardigan wasn't doing the trick and that she was freezing.

Jennifer finished the last of her waffle cone. "So. I sense that there's something you want to tell me."

"Yes, right," Rodney said. "I've made a decision."

"Okay," Jennifer said. She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. "Hit me."

"I can't stay," Rodney said in a rush. "This isn't home anymore; it hasn't been for a long time. My life is on Atlantis. When she goes, so will I."

Jennifer folded her hands together tightly and looked down. "I was afraid you were going to say that."

"I'm sorry --"

"No, Rodney. It's okay," she said. She lifted her head. Her smiled was a little wobbly. "I guess I won't be taking you on a road trip to the Wisconsin Dells after all!"

"Why on Earth would you want to do that?" Rodney scoffed.

Jennifer opened her mouth but nothing came out for a moment. "Well, my dad wants to go, and I thought I'd bring the boyfriend along. You know. Like you do."

"Oh," Rodney said.

They stood there in silence for a while until Jennifer shivered. "I'm tired."

"Right," Rodney said. "Let's get you back to the hotel."

Outside of the Hilton, Jennifer took off his jacket and handed it back. Rodney touched her hair and kissed her cheek.

"Goodbye, Rodney," Jennifer said. She squeezed his hand and then turned around and went inside the hotel lobby.

Rodney stood on the sidewalk for a while until the cold got to him. He put on his jacket and discovered that it smelled like her perfume. He thought about getting a drink, and he thought about going up to her room and taking it all back, but in the end, Rodney went back to Atlantis and hibernated in his room for four days.

On the fifth day, John came looking for him. He kept waving his hand over the command crystals to Rodney's door, causing the Ancient chimey noise to sound for a good five minutes until John changed tactics and wouldn't stop pounding on his door until Rodney got up and answered it.

"What," Rodney said. He was wearing robe and slippers and hadn't bathed in a couple of days.

Barefoot and wearing civvies, John held up a case of beer and his bootleg Batman DVDs. "I'm not taking no for an answer."

Wordlessly, Rodney turned around and left the door open, crawling back into bed. He watched John poke around his room, saw him noticing the small garbage can overflowing with MRE wrappers, empty water bottles, and used Starbucks VIA packets, which he'd ordered in bulk online the moment he'd discovered that they existed.

John came over to the bed and nudged at Rodney with his knee. "Smelling kind of ripe there, buddy."

"Nobody asked you," Rodney muttered, but dragged himself out of bed and into the shower. He washed but didn't bother to shave, darting out of the bathroom in just his robe for some clean pajamas.

John was on Rodney's couch, sucking on a Tootsie pop and looking ridiculous.

"Beer?" John asked around his sucker.

Rodney flopped down next to him. "Keep 'em coming."

John hit play on the DVDs and kept Rodney well supplied with beer, so much so that Rodney shot past buzzed and 'it seemed like a good idea at the time' and went straight to maudlin.

"Did I do the right thing? What if she was the one?" Rodney wondered aloud. He rolled his head around to look at John. "I mean, you were married."

John grimaced. "Right."

"Sorry," Rodney said. "I'm getting old. Nobody as hot as Jennifer is going to want me. I don't even know why she wanted me."

"Shut up, Rodney." John was slouching, beer cradled between his legs, his eyelids at half-mast.

"Oh, please," Rodney said, warming to the subject. "You can't tell me I'm wrong."

"Yeah, I can," John growled. He put his beer on the table, and Rodney noticed that John must have been matching him beer-for-beer, because there were a lot of empty cans.

The couch creaked and John's face loomed in Rodney's vision; he looked angry and a little drunk, and Rodney was gaping at him when John put his hands on Rodney's face and kissed him. It was wet and fierce and very thorough, like John was trying to make a point with his tongue and his teeth to a soundtrack of Catwoman on the TV, rasping stubble and the dirty, liquid sound of John sucking at Rodney's bottom lip.

"What was that?" Rodney said when John pulled away.

"Something to think about," John said as he got up and left.

Rodney sat there touching his mouth until his beer went warm and the DVD menu appeared on the screen.

"Didn't see that coming," Rodney finally said to the empty room, and wondered if this was the reason why John always looked so gobsmacked when sexy alien ladies slipped him some tongue. In hindsight, a significant portion of the last five years of his life suddenly made a lot more sense.

Rodney thought about it. He thought about it for an entire week while John avoided him, which took some serious skill even when there wasn't a skeleton crew on Atlantis. Ronon made Rodney spar, which ended in disaster and bruises and pain and Ronon telling him to stop whining, as usual. Teyla invited him to meditate, and oddly enough he did a lot better at clearing his mind, almost as good as when he'd been on the fast track to ascension; it was as if he'd been missing a puzzle piece in his brain and didn't even know it until it had snapped into place.

Personnel began trickling back to Atlantis. When Zelenka finally reappeared in the command tower, he actually hugged Rodney and chattered some greeting in Czech. Rodney had only ever been able to pick up a word or three over the years; the grammar escaped him completely.

"Are you drunk?" Rodney said, patting Zelenka's back.

"It's good to see you, too," Zelenka said.

"Yeah," Rodney said.

Zelenka squinted at him. "Are you all right, Rodney?"

"What, me? Fine," he bluffed. "How were the, ah, pigeons?"

"I see," Zelenka said. "I could discuss my pigeons in exhaustive detail, including their breeding patterns and individual plumage, or you simply could tell me what's wrong and save us all the trouble. I haven't unpacked yet."

Rodney sighed. His friends were manipulative bastards. "Jennifer's staying on Earth. I'm not. End of story."

Zelenka tutted. "That wasn't so difficult, was it?"

"Hmph," Rodney said.

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry," Zelenka said.

"Thanks," Rodney said.

As the departure day loomed, things got insanely busy. Every system needed to be checked in triplicate, returning and new personnel needed to be welcomed aboard and briefed, and Woolsey had his hands full cockblocking the IOA so that they wouldn't change their minds about letting the city of Atlantis return to the Pegasus galaxy.

And suddenly the day arrived. John was in the command chair, and Rodney was asking him over the comm, "How do we look?"

"Ready to blow this popsicle stand," John said.

"Then I think it's time to go home," Rodney said, and nodded at Woolsey. Woolsey gave the signal and John engaged the thrusters, and Rodney clutched at a console as the city rose and rose. When they left Earth's atmosphere behind and John put them into hyperspace, Rodney released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. Hovering behind him anxiously, Ronon and Teyla made similar noises.

"Status," Woolsey requested.

Rodney sat at a terminal. All the levels were good, numbers were holding. "We're good. Better than."

"That's what I like to hear," Woolsey said, and Rodney forgot himself enough to smile at the man.

The trip back to the Pegasus galaxy didn't take that long, but neither John nor Rodney really slept so it seemed like it took forever until they were back on the right planet. John set the city onto the ocean with such a light touch that he basically kissed the water, and the command tower erupted in cheers. Rodney beamed at Teyla as she kissed his cheek, and his feet left the floor when Ronon hugged him.

Rodney left Zelenka running long-range scans in the command tower and staggered off to find John. John wasn't in his quarters, and Rodney was too exhausted for internal logic to kick in, so he figured John's bed was as good as any and crashed on it. He didn't know how long he'd been asleep when the light came on next to John's bed.

"Hey," John said. He was sitting on the mattress, his hip pressing against Rodney's knees. He looked pale, and the bags under his eyes had their own luggage.

"Hey," Rodney said, throat scratchy.

"I, uh," John said. He cleared his throat. "I took Teyla to the mainland to see Torren and Kanaan."

"Oh. Good. That's -- good," Rodney said, because he had no idea what it must be like to be away from your baby for that long, but he imagined that Teyla was pretty happy right now. The bed wasn't big enough for the two of them, but Rodney budged over and dragged John next to him. "Sleep."

John huffed a laugh, but a second later, Rodney was asleep again.

Rodney woke up in stages. His back ached and he needed to pee. He was hot and sweaty and still wearing his uniform, and his position on the bed felt precarious, like if he moved the wrong way he'd be on the floor. As he woke up some more, Rodney realized that he wasn't alone, that he and John were in fact spooning and he was rubbing his nose against John's nape. John twitched in his sleep and then seemed to wake up all at once, groaning.

Rodney tried to hold very still, but John rolled over onto his back and Rodney flailed, clutching uselessly at the blanket as he went over the side and landed on his ass.

"Ow," he said from the floor.

Still on the bed, John said, "Huh."

Rodney rolled onto his side and initiated the painful process of standing up. "I'm using your bathroom."

John grunted and flapped his hand. Rodney shuffled into the bathroom, peed, rubbed some of John's toothpaste on his fuzzy teeth, and washed his face. John's bathroom smelled of hair product and aftershave, and there was a spot of crusty, dried shaving cream on the sink. When he came out, John was leaning against the wall outside the bathroom, head down and his arms crossed. John's shoulder brushed against Rodney's as he went into the bathroom, exchanging positions like Ralph and Sam.

Rodney stood anxiously in the middle of the room. He didn't want to sit on the bed and presume, but he also didn't want to leave this unfinished. When the shower came on, Rodney almost took it as his cue to go, but instead he dug around for John's laptop and checked to see if anyone had done something spectacularly stupid while he slept.

When John came out of the bathroom, his hair was wet and sticking up randomly in some places and weirdly flat in others. His beard was coming in gray, and he looked far too good in a wrinkled black T-shirt and dirty tac pants.

"Hey," Rodney said.

John shifted uncomfortably. "Hey."

"I can go," Rodney offered. When John didn't respond, he stood up. "I'll go."

"Rodney, wait," John said, grabbing Rodney's arm and reeling him in.

"I, uh... that thing you wanted me to think about? I had no idea," Rodney said.

"You weren't supposed to," John said. He released Rodney's arm and took a step back.

"Wait, what are you -- would you stop that?" Rodney closed the distance between them. "Are you always this difficult to get into bed?"

John stared at him. "What?"

"I don't think sex with men has changed that much since I was a grad student, but granted, it was only the once and a very long time ago, so maybe I need a refresher," Rodney was saying as he reached for John.

John shied away. "Look, Rodney. You only broke up with Jennifer a few weeks ago, and --"

A terrible thought flashed through his brain, and Rodney startled as if someone had set off a firecracker. His hands shook, and he stuffed them in his pockets. "Was it a pity thing, you kissing me?"

John rolled his eyes. "Rodney."

"Wow," Rodney said numbly. He turned around and headed for the door.

"Oh, for crying out loud," John said. He grabbed Rodney and twisted somehow, flipping Rodney onto the narrow bed. Rodney gaped as John straddled his thighs. He leaned down and kissed Rodney hard and fast, then grabbed Rodney's hand and pressed it against his crotch. He was half hard. "Does this feel like pity?"

Rodney squeezed John's dick. John squeaked, and Rodney burst into giggles. "I can't believe you just said that."

John held it together for a moment before cracking up, sinking forward until his forehead touched Rodney's. When their laughter finally died down, Rodney found himself staring into John's eyes.

"Hi," Rodney said.

John waggled his eyebrows and said, "Come here often?"

That set them off again. He clutched at John's shoulders and howled until his eyes were wet and his belly ached, and then just as suddenly they were kissing, deep, urgent kisses that made Rodney whine low in his throat and grab at John's clothes. Rodney kissed John's mouth and his jaw and his throat, and John made a soft noise and craned his neck, which made Rodney need to kiss him there some more. Sitting up abruptly, John stripped off his T-shirt. Rodney did the same, and John had to help him when his T-shirt got caught somewhere around his ears. John's dog tags bumped against Rodney's chest when John leaned down to suck on his tongue. Scrambling to be more naked, Rodney unbuttoned and unzipped his pants and then helpfully did the same for John. John's dick was big and heavy underneath his black boxer briefs, and Rodney just had to touch him. John gasped and thrust into Rodney's hand a few times.

Compared to the average guy of Rodney's acquaintance, John hardly ever talked about sex, and he hadn't ever considered how odd that was until suddenly they were having it.

"I'm just gonna --" John said, scooting down the bed. He shoved Rodney's pants and boxers down his thighs, wrapped his hand around Rodney's cock, and just sucked it into his mouth. Rodney felt his face go hot and stared, because wow.

John was blowing him, head bobbing up and down, forehead wrinkled in concentration. His wet mouth, soft lips, and slick tongue were driving Rodney crazy. He pushed his fingers into John's damp, crazy hair, and rambled aloud about how good it felt, how he had no idea that John could suck cock like this, how he was never going to be able to look at John's mouth the same way again, how he really wanted to fuck John and hoped that was okay. He kept talking and talking until John moaned around Rodney's dick and Rodney realized that John was jerking off to Rodney's voice.

"John," Rodney said, tugging at his shoulders. John backed off, his lips red and shiny, and stroked himself while he watched Rodney come. Rodney made grabby-hands at John. "C'mere. Come on."

John slithered up the bed awkwardly so that Rodney could jerk him off. He'd been watching John touch himself and he was very good with his hands, if John's "Jesus, Rodney!" was anything to go by. It didn't take long before John was coming quietly, eyes closed.

John flopped on top of him. He was thin, hairy, and beautiful. Rodney wiped his hand on the blanket.

"Well, this is weird," Rodney said. John pulled back and frowned at him. "It's a good weird!"

"It had better be," John said menacingly. "Pity, my ass."

"Where did we leave off on the Batman DVDs?"

"Julie Newmar, second Catwoman episode." John's voice was muffled because his face was smashed against Rodney's neck.

"Wanna?" Rodney asked.

"Yeah," John said. "Maybe a little less beer this time."

He smiled, and Rodney found himself grinning back like an idiot.

the end.

**

Poll