Fic for you, birthday for me.

[neery]

I'm turning 19 today! Also, I have written new fic.

Title: Foolproof And Incapable Of Error
Author: neery
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Rating: NC-17
Email: Neery2@googlemail.com
Wordcount: 15.000

For z_rayne, who asked for McKay/Sheppard in exchange for Scanners II.
Beta by stop, who went above and beyond the call of duty on this one. Thank you so much!

I am, by any practical definition of the word, foolproof and incapable of error. I am merely helping you put yourself to the fullest possible use. The AI seemed almost surprised at Rodney’s objection.



Foolproof And Incapable Of Error

After John had been gone for three days, they started to give up hope. Of course no one even talked about giving up the search yet, and everyone readily continued neglecting whatever they had been working on to search ever more remote parts of the city, but Rodney knew, they all knew, that the chances of finding him alive were dwindling more with every hour that passed.

It was Rodney who finally discovered John, slumped in what looked like a more ornate version of the command chair, deep in an unexplored, decrepit part of the city. He looked dead, his head lolling to the side, his skin practically blue and icy cold to the touch.

Rodney was vaguely aware of one of the Marines behind him yelling for Beckett, but he could barely hear anything over the pounding of his own heart in his ears, the frantic beat of too late, too late, too late pulsing through his mind. His fingers were scrabbling over John's neck, desperately searching for the pulse point, but he already knew it was too late. The Marines had fallen silent; the only sound in the room was the hush of stale air, giving the place the feel of a tomb. Rodney closed his eyes in despair.

When he opened them again, John was looking at him. For a second, Rodney was almost sure he was hallucinating, but then John's face came to life with that expression of unfettered joy he sometimes got when he was flying some insane maneuver in a puddle jumper, a healthy color rapidly returning to his face.

Rodney felt his legs giving out under him in relief. He let himself slump to his knees in front of John, allowing himself to reach out and draw him into a crushing embrace for just a moment before he self-consciously let go again.

John beamed at him, radiant, looking bright and happy and so alive Rodney wanted to cry.

"She's talking to me," John said, his voice harsh from disuse, but eager and gleeful like a child's.

************

He didn't actually make any more sense than that for a few minutes, but when they'd finally gotten him calmed down and into the infirmary, they'd eventually been able to make sense of the whole story: How John had seen the flickering arrows of light in some out-of-the-way corridor and followed them.

He'd found the chair in one of the levels they hadn't gotten around to exploring yet, and, in typical John manner, touched it. John couldn't quite explain why he hadn't thought to radio in, or what he had been thinking, messing with unknown technology like that. His memory of the last few minutes before he had sat down in the chair was shaky at best. They suspected it was another side effect of the chair, just like the decelerated heart rate and breathing that had made Rodney think he was dead.

The moment he had sat down, "she" started talking to him. "She" being the city's AI, or at least that was what she claimed -- John seemed to believe her unconditionally -- and, according to John, she seemed to have taken an immediate liking to him. At the time Rodney had thought it was great. Especially because she'd shown John where to find lots of nifty new gadgets, and tried to explain how they worked, too, although John hadn't understood half of it -- he was clever, that much Rodney was willing to admit in the privacy of his own head, but he wasn't a scientist.

***********

He'd wanted to sit down in the chair right that instant when John led them to the miniature shield generator - not enough to shield the whole city, but at least some of the more important rooms -- because John clearly didn't remember the directions on how to turn it on correctly. And when he told Rodney that the AI had asked to talk to him, specifically him, of course he'd felt flush with pride like a peacock at the thought that Atlantis' AI recognized his brilliance.

He had to wait, though -- the SGC had learned its lesson when it came to touching unknown alien devices that messed with your mind, they'd taught it to the people going to Atlantis, and even though John was clearly criminally negligent about heeding the warnings, Elizabeth tried to be careful when possible. So Carson did scans of John's brain, and the chair, and then some more of John's brain, and only when they were sure that there wasn't anything in his head besides his usual stubborn self did she allow Rodney access to the chair.

His hands were almost shaking with anticipation as he sat down. The chair didn't greet him with the feeling of warm welcome John had described, but at the time he was too full of questions to care, or even notice much.

Rodney McKay, said the female voice John had told them about, only now he got the things John had tried to but not been able to describe, too -- that it wasn't actually a voice, but more of a thought, only not quite like that, either -- just the wordless knowledge that she was acknowledging his presence. His brain apparently verbalized the sensory information, but while it was a fascinating way of communication, trying to analyze it any more while it was happening right there in his head gave him a headache, and in light of all the more interesting questions he wanted to ask, it didn't seem worth bothering.

Um. Hi, he thought at her, because words didn't seem to be required in this conversation. Look, John said that the shield gener --

That isn't why I asked you here, she interrupted him, midsentence. Your questions will be answered, but there are more important concerns.

More important? he asked, incredulously. When the Wraith come back, that shield may be our only hope for survival!

The Wraith do not pose an immediate threat. He didn't even have that time to argue about that, because she answered his thought before it was fully formed. He suddenly realized that she wasn't just able to hear what he thought at her, but was actually reading his mind.

John had told them that, too, of course -- but at the time he'd been too excited by all the possibilities to think about how frightening that actually was. Now was not the time to freak out, though. He forced himself to concentrate on her words.

John is unhappy, she told him, and all right, he hadn't known that, and it wasn't a good thing, but still, what the hell.

More important than shields?

As important, she told him earnestly. I have been created to ensure both the safety and the happiness of my people.

Well, then, it would make me very happy if you'd just --

You are not of my people! she told him, her not-voice as sharp as a whip crack in his mind, and with that came the unspoken knowledge that his happiness mattered nothing to her, and his safety only insofar as he was important to John. And wasn't that a fucking nasty shock to the ego?

John isn't one of the Ancients, either, was his first thought, unbidden, because hello, what was he doing? If she stopped caring about John, that apparently meant that she wouldn't care about any of them anymore, which was a demoralizing thought--she could probably flush them right out of the city, after all. The way it looked now, everything she'd do to help them she'd only be doing for John.

But it didn't matter, anyway -- there was a sudden rush of knowledge that showed him John, and then some others, too, as she saw them. And wow, he'd known the ATA gene was stronger in John, but like that? His own gene was so obviously fake it made him wince, and most of the people who had it naturally were so weak they barely registered on her radar. Certainly not as full citizens, not as worthy of her protection.

He wondered if the Ancients had even known what kind of monster they'd created here, because this cold disregard of the life of anyone else didn't really seem like them -- sure, they weren't the infallible higher beings some humans had once thought they were at the beginning, but they didn't usually go around randomly enslaving other people, either. He didn't get an answer to that question.

So why did you want to talk to me, then? he asked, not even bothering to hide how annoyed he was -- and hurt, too, but he didn't really want to admit that even to himself.

Because you can make him happy.

Things just seemed to be getting more and more baffling here. He couldn't say that he liked it. In fact, the panic he'd pushed away earlier was creeping back, which wasn't good at all. He needed a clear head.

Um. What?

And while he couldn't say he liked the answers he'd gotten so far, what came then made him want to snarl in rage. It was more a flood of pictures than anything else, snapshots of things she'd taken from John during their conversation: Images of Rodney, naked, lying on John's bed, skin gleaming with sweat... Rodney kneeling between John's legs, sucking his cock... Rodney on his hands and knees, John thrusting into him...-- and all of it colored with want, so strong Rodney could almost taste it, a desire that was clearly not Rodney's but John's.

And superimposed on all that, the AI's unspoken order that he was to give John what he wanted. He clenched his teeth in rage.

Are you fucking out of your mind? he exploded. God, he'd thought John was his friend, he couldn't believe that he had done this, had used this... this monster, this inhuman thing that cared about no one but him, to try to make Rodney --

No! The AI's detonation of denial made his head pound. He wouldn't -- and she showed him how she'd gotten the knowledge, not from John telling her, but from reading his mind like she was reading Rodney's, picking up stray thoughts -- John's buried desire, and the aching loneliness that covered it. John would be horrified if he knew of this -- she showed him things picked up from Rodney's own memories, John's inherent kindness, his respect for the free will of others, his love of freedom.

Then why are you doing this? If you know that he wouldn't want it? he asked, desperate.

He will never know of this arrangement, she told him coldly, as pitilessly impersonal as any machine. You will come to his bed as if out of your free will, and that will make him happy.

He would do no such thing, of course and it was ridiculous to even --

You will.

He was invaluable to the city, she wouldn't kill him, but she could make his life hell, and there were pictures accompanying that, too. He wasn't even sure if they were coming from the AI or from his own overactive imagination, but suddenly his head was filled with a flood of scenarios that would be easy for the AI to arrange, ranging from the mildly annoying to the excruciatingly painful -- high-pitched noises that only he could hear, taking away his access privileges, locking him in his quarters and turning down the temperature enough to give him frostbite... it went on and on until he was almost hyperventilating, desperately swallowing down nausea at some of the more gruesome images.

Oh, God. He had to get out of here, out of the city. He tried to prevent the thought from forming, to keep her from hearing it, but it was too late.

You won't leave. Her tone was finality incarnate. You are not allowed to approach the Stargate.

You can't do this! The off-world missions -- what the fuck was he supposed to tell the others?

I do not care. You will think of something.

Come on, this is crazy, you are making a huge mistake here!

That is not possible. I am, by any practical definition of the word, foolproof and incapable of error. I am merely helping you put yourself to the fullest possible use. The AI seemed almost surprised at Rodney's objection.

The immovable certainty in the her answer sent an icy trickle of terror through his body. She didn't care about his opinion, his feelings on any of this -- of course she didn't. Like all machines, she was all about efficiency, about the fastest way to attain the goal. He wondered of her complete confidence in herself had really been intended by the Ancients, or if the AI was just a failed experiment that should never have been reactivated. Still, he couldn't just give up like this.

This is going to make John unhappy, too! He argued angrily, knowing he had lost already.

The impassive voice remained unmoved. You will find an explanation that satisfies him. Tonight. There were more threats then, until he felt so sick to his stomach he couldn't even think anymore.

After she was satisfied that he wouldn't argue anymore, there were no other demands. She showed him a long stream of instructions on the devices they'd found, and some new ones they had not discovered yet, too, but for maybe the first time in his life he found himself unable to work up much interest. An hour ago, this knowledge would have made him ecstatic, but now he only felt numb with terror. The AI didn't seem to care that he wasn't paying much attention, in the sure knowledge that even so, the things she told him would stay in his memory -- one of the advantages of being a genius.

Finally she released him--with a last reminder that he was to be in John's quarters, tonight, and a last warning not to tell anyone that she was anything other than the benevolent protector she had shown herself as to John, or she might well reconsider how vital he really was.

************

He tried to anyway, of course. The moment he was stumbling out of the chair, he was gripping John's arm, hard enough to bruise.

"That thing", he gasped, "she's..."

There was a hiss of air behind him, almost too quietly to be heard, and suddenly there was a familiar, terrifying feeling at the back of his throat, his airways already swelling shut. Some kind of allergen -- something in the ventilation system, he realized.

He gasped desperately, the familiar feeling of horror creeping through his body. No matter how many times this happened, he never got used to it. It never got any easier. There was no more terrifying feeling than being unable to breathe, none at all, and it always felt like the worst form of betrayal, his own body turned against him like that.

Part of him admired her brilliance in an abstract, horrified way: Hurting him badly while leaving John, who was standing directly in front of him, completely unaffected.

His throat was rapidly swelling shut, he could barely breathe anymore. Even Kolya's rough hand around his neck hadn't felt this terrifying. But he had to warn John, had to tell him -- "...dangerous," he gasped, his voice a rough rasp.

John caught him as he swayed, lowering him to the floor carefully, stroking his hair back. He tried to cling to the comforting sensation, struggling to calm himself enough to be able to form coherent words. Someone was yelling for Beckett, but John was only looking at him, whispering comforting nonsense, obviously not getting the warning. Rodney tried again, forcing the words out of his throat one last time. "...'s dangerous!" His voice was so faint he almost didn't hear himself.

John shook his head. "No, Rodney, don't worry, Carson will know what to do, it's going to be all right -- and, as Rodney tried to speak again, his vision already graying out: "Rodney, no, don't talk, you're not in any danger, I promise. It's going to be all right, Carson's gonna be here any moment now..."

Rodney closed his eyes in desperation. John didn't understand, and he didn't have the strength to try again. God, it hurt, his chest spasming uselessly, fighting to draw in just one more breath, please, just one more... Panic was flooding through his veins, his heart beating a frantic staccato against his ribs. He was dying, please, he didn't want to die, please God...

Darkness was drowning out the light at the edges of his vision, closing in on him. The last thing he heard was John's voice, screaming for Beckett in a way that was not comforting at all. He'd never heard that confident voice sound so panicked before.

***********
Rodney woke up in the infirmary, blinking into the bright lights. He felt horribly, his throat still hurting, even though he could breathe now, and he was feeling more exhausted than he had in a long time. John was sitting at his bedside, his hand lying loosely on top of Rodney's, staring blindly at the opposite wall, mind obviously far away. For a second Rodney was free to see him unguarded, the way John never was when he knew you were watching.

He looked -- damn, he looked almost as awful as Rodney felt, sickly pale under the bright white infirmary lights, the usual, seemingly carefree smirk in his face replaced by a forlorn, tired expression. He looked like someone carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, dangerously close to breaking down.

John is unhappy, he heard the AI say, and she had been right. How could he have missed this? It was so very, very obvious, now that he knew to look... just for a second -- and then he noticed that Rodney was awake and his face went blank so fast it was scary, leaving only emptiness for a moment, and then making room for the usual charming smile. Suddenly John looked like any careless surfer-dude on a beach in LA again -- so fast that Rodney couldn't even be sure that there had ever been anything else. How long had it taken him to learn that immense control?

"Hey," John said quietly. "How are you feeling?"

"Terrible," Rodney croaked. "What --"

"You had an allergic reaction to something, Beckett says. Do you remember what happened? Did you eat anything unusual?"

Rodney pretended to think about it for a moment, his throat tightening once more. Panic fluttered at the edges of his thoughts as memories of the things the AI had ordered him to do came flooding back. He couldn't tell John. Who knew how often he could provoke her before she decided to kill him for good?

"There might have been some lemon in those orange cake thingies they gave us at dinner -- I thought they tasted kind of funny," he lied, looking away - he was such a lousy liar, his body always betrayed him. Fortunately John seemed to take his red-faced nervousness as embarrassment.

He was staring at him, shocked. "Rodney! You ate those? The cook told you they contained lemon! I heard him!"

Rodney winced. Right, John had been standing directly behind him in the food line, even though they'd eaten separately. Oh, how he hated lying - somehow, it just never worked out for him.

"Yeah, well, I had other things on my mind -- I'd never get anything done if I spent all my time listening to what other people tell me." He laughed nervously, couldn't help it, especially with such a blatant lie as this -- he always, always listened very carefully to the cook's warnings, because when something as ubiquitous as lemon could kill you, you learned to be really careful really fucking quickly.

John shook his head in disbelief. "I'd have thought that you of all people would know to be more careful. Fuck, you scared the shit out of all of us -- for a minute there, it looked like you were going to die."

John squeezed his hand, hard, then suddenly let go, as if only now remembering that he was touching Rodney at all.

"Promise me to be more careful next time, will you?" he said with a small laugh, as if all too aware of the irony of him telling Rodney something like that. "We've lost enough men already, I don't want to lose you, too."

For a moment, his eyes reflected just a shadow of the dark emotions that had been in his expression earlier, and then he was covering again, with a bland smile and a joke.

"Well, I'd better get going, then -- I'll have to tell your scientists that their impromptu "Death to the Tyrant" party was just a bit premature. Kavanagh will be sorely disappointed, I expect."

Rodney laughed shakily. "Yeah, well, somehow that entirely fails to break my heart. And get me Beckett before you go -- I want to get out of here, there's lots of work to be done, now that we have the AI's instructions."

He forced himself not to flinch at the memory of what those instructions entailed. There had to be a way to warn John. Except that he simply couldn't think of one. She had shown him that she had hidden cameras everywhere -- and while he was sure that there had to be plenty of blind angles, without being able to see the cameras he could not figure out where those were. And he didn't think she would give him the time to find out how to circumvent her security measures. Fuck.

Carson, unsurprisingly, was his usual poking, prodding self. In addition to all the usual allergy tests he made Rodney go through all the same tests John had had to take -- brain scans and blood tests. Finally, after he had been pronounced physically mostly fit, Carson cautioned him to take it slow for the time being, and to be more careful with his food next time, for God's sake.

Then came the long, tedious debriefing in which the question "What did that feel like?" featured entirely too prominently for his comfort. Especially as he had to make things up again, because the honest answer would have featured words like terrifying, infuriating and completely humiliating, which would probably incite the AI to commit another act of violence upon his entirely too mortal person.

The other scientists were wildly enthusiastic about the AI's pointers, and after Rodney finally got the opportunity to do some hands-on work on the new Ancient toys, he felt himself caught up in the general high spirits. By the time the shocks started, he had almost forgotten about everything but the broken circuits right in front of him, which had been slowly coming to life under his fingers.

At first he thought he must have slipped and short-circuited something, giving himself an electric shock in the process. But when he reached out for the device that he had dropped onto the tabletop, it gave him another, sharper shock. It still wasn't all that bad, hardly more than the static electricity generated by walking over a carpet in wooly socks. Except then the next thing he touched -- which happened to be the perfectly innocuous Ancient version of an electric screwdriver -- gave him yet another shock. That made the penny drop.

"Oh, for fuck's sake, can't you see that I'm working?" he hissed exasperatedly, keeping his voice low. Zelenka didn't even look up. Rodney was pretty sure that he was too far away to understand actual words of what he had said, and he was used to Rodney talking to himself when he worked.

So the only reply he got was another sharp spark against his fingertips, this time from the computer console he had been leaning on. And this time it hurt.

"Ouch!"

Zelenka threw him a mildly concerned look. "Everything all right?"

"Yeah, just... knocked my wrist against the edge of the table. Ouch." He shook his still aching fingertips. This time, the warning had been amply clear -- I will hurt you if you don't do what I say.

And damn it, he'd reached his limit for futile resistance today. He was really too tired to concentrate, anyway -- of course there had been no time to heed Carson's warning about taking it slow, there never was, on Atlantis, but right now his body was not happy with him at all. His chest muscles felt tight and achy, his throat was sore, he was dead on his feet, and the very, very last thing he wanted to do right now was to have to make up some reason for why he had to resign from the team. Without making John unhappy, no less, and on top of that, he had to figure out a way to proposition the man without actually saying "The crazy AI is forcing me to have sex with you," which sounded completely ridiculous even in the privacy of his own head, and would probably get him killed.

Oh, joy.

He dragged his feet on the way to John's room. The doors hit him in the ass twice, which he figured was her way of telling him to hurry up.

"Give it a rest already, I'm doing what you want," he finally hissed, exasperated, and only afterwards thought to look and see if anybody was there to hear him. Fortunately the corridor was deserted.

John's door looked quietly ominous in the dim night light of the hallway. Rodney knew that was only his imagination, but he still couldn't help the bone-deep revulsion at the thought of getting any closer. The image of the AI lurking inside the walls, watching him, menacing, didn't do anything to make this ridiculous plan seem any more feasible.

Damn, what on earth was he supposed to do now? He'd never been good in the role of the suave seducer, and while it made things easier to know upfront that John a) wanted him and b) would not bash his teeth in for the offer, he still had no idea how on earth to begin to broach the subject.

Still, standing around in front of John's door at night wouldn't help him come up with anything, either, at least not any time soon, and God knows what it would look like to anyone who happened to walk by. Plus, he didn't actually trust the AI not to just open the door, anyway, or maybe electrocute him if he waited too long, so he finally just decided to get it over with and knocked.

"Come in."

The door slid open without him even having to touch the panel. Rodney sighed. "I got it, already," he grumbled, sotto voce.

John was wearing his BDU pants but no shirt, showing off his lightly muscled and rather hairy chest. It wasn't anything Rodney had not seen a hundred times before, in shared locker rooms and the infirmary, but in the context of this particular visit he still wished John had dressed in something more concealing. Not that it was a bad view, per se, but right now it just made Rodney uncomfortable.

John looked up from his laptop and gave Rodney a startled smile. Rodney tried to watch for any signs of desire in that deceptive face, or maybe some of the bitter exhaustion he'd gotten a glimpse of in the infirmary, the loneliness the AI had shown him.

But he'd never really been all that good at reading people, certainly nowhere near as good as John was at hiding his feelings from the world, and all he could see was honest pleasure at his visit, mixed with a small tinge of worry over what might have brought him here. Which was no doubt exactly what John wanted him to see.

"Rodney! Are you all right? Did anything happen?"

He shook his head. "I, uh... I just need to talk to you. Do you have a moment?"

John drew one eyebrow up, curiously. "Sure." He patted the mattress at the foot of the bed. "Here, sit down. What are you still doing up at this hour, anyway? Beckett told you to take it easy."

Rodney rolled his eyes. "Like I'd have the time for that, with all the new things we've learned today. But that's not what I wanted to talk about. I'm..." he trailed off, still at a loss for any good introduction that would allow him to casually lead the conversation to either I'm quitting the team. or Want to fuck me?

God, just the mere thought of it made his heart flutter in his chest, and not in a good way, either. Not good at all -- he so didn't need a panic attack right now.

John looked really worried now. He reached out to squeeze Rodney's shoulder gently. "Hey, are you sure you're all right? You don't look too good."

Rodney hunched his shoulders, slightly drawing away from the touch. John let his hand drop to the mattress.

Rodney took a deep breath. "I'm, uh -- I'm quitting the team," he blurted out. Really, what good would it do to ease into it? The final result would be just the same. Conversational niceties were just a waste of time, anyway.

John flinched as if struck. "What?"

"You heard me right the first time," Rodney said sharply, painfully aware of the dangers of angering John at this particular time, but unable to help the annoyance -- not that any of it was actually directed at John. Damn fucking AI. They needed him out there.

"Is this about what happened today?" John asked, suddenly all cool, professional calm. "We agreed that your allergies aren't too much of a risk on missions as long as we're careful, didn't we? I know I took a stupid risk when I ordered you to eat the Genii's food without checking for lemon first that one time, but I thought we'd been over that -- I'm sorry, and it won't happen again."

Rodney shook his head quickly, amazed that John had even thought of that. He'd stopped being pissed about that long ago. He was used to people treating his allergies as just another symptom of his hypochondria, but John was better about it than most, and today's incident should have proven without a doubt that that particular danger was all too real.

"No, it's not something you've done... or haven't done. It's just...I guess I've just had one too many close calls, and today was the last straw. I... I don't think I have the nerve anymore. I don't want to freak out in the field and get us all killed."

He was making it up as he went along, but he thought it sounded pretty convincing, anyway. He'd never been gladder of his ability to think fast. Or, well, maybe there had a few other occasions since coming to Pegasus where his quick thinking had been all that stood between them and certain death, but still... and he was mentally rambling, again.

John was shaking his head. "Rodney, that's... You've been amazingly brave out there. Sure, you've freaked out more than once, too, but you've gotten your shit together whenever we really needed you to. You've saved our asses more than once, and you know I trust you in the field."

What an ironic way of getting a compliment. Rodney sternly reminded himself that he could not allow himself to be swayed.

"At least promise me to sleep over this a night or two, see if things look better in the morning."

Hell, John was almost pleading now. Irrationally, it made Rodney feel like a jerk. It wasn't like he wanted off the team.

He shook his head anyway. "I'm sorry, I just can't -- don't make me, John. Please. I... I can't, I have to quit. Please."

John was watching him intently, while Rodney did his very best to look serious and convincing and really sure of this. Finally John nodded, reluctantly.

"All right. If that's what you want. You'll be handing in your resignation tomorrow, then?" He sounded resigned, tired. Rodney's stomach clenched in anger. John. This was hurting him.

Rodney nodded, miserably. "I'm sorry," he said quietly. "I just... I have to, John." And at least that much was true.

John shrugged, forcing the carefree façade back on.

"It'll make Caldwell happy, at least -- it's been driving him crazy that half the command staff is going out on away missions. Anyway, if you say you can't do it anymore, I won't force you. But if you want to reconsider - any time, Rodney. Just say the word."

Rodney nodded. "I... appreciate it. Really, I do. I just..."

"Yeah, I got it," John said, easily. Rodney thought that maybe it wasn't the first time he'd seen someone lose his nerve. He'd been in Afghanistan, after all -- surely there had been more than one soldier that just had not been able to cope with the stress anymore.

So that was one thing over with. Now about the other one...

John was looking at him expectedly. "Was there anything else?" he said, not impatiently.

Rodney bit his lip. Just blurting it out had worked well for him the last time, but somehow he could just not see the words "Want to fuck me?" passing his lips. Not at all, really, and certainly not like it was something that he honestly wanted. Especially as it... wasn't.

So he just did the next-best thing: He leaned over, grabbed the back of John's head and tugged him forward for a quick, clumsy kiss. Their lips crushed together with too much force because he'd maybe been tugging kind of hard, and he was way too nervous to do anything but press his lips briefly against John's unsuspecting mouth, and all in all it was shaping up to be the worst kiss in his personal history of crappy, awkward kisses, which was saying something.

Except then John shifted, and made a little happy-surprised sound against his lips, and then shifted some more so the angle was not quite so stupid anymore. And then John's hand was sliding into his hair, and John's tongue into his mouth, and suddenly they fit, moving in synch, and for a moment it was surprisingly hot.

Except then he remembered why he was doing this, and that he didn't actually want to be doing this, and that she was probably watching him right now, and maybe giving performance points, and that if this had turned out to be the worst kiss ever, he still would have had to go through with it -- and then he had to draw back quickly and try to breathe deeply and not be sick all over John's floor, and tell himself firmly that the tight, fluttery feeling in his chest was only an incipient panic attack and not a biphasic reaction.

"Rodney. Rodney, hey, calm down!" John's warm hand was rubbing his back in slow, firm strokes. "Deep breaths, yeah, that's it, calm down."

It was the same voice John had used to gentle the frightened horse-thing on P3X752, which Rodney considered kind of insulting, but he found himself responding just the same, panic abating slowly. Really, he'd dare anyone not to react to that voice. Although he drew the line at eating oatmeal-powerbars out of John's hand.

"I'm calm, I'm fine, everything's all right," he said finally, shakily. John's hand dropped from his back.

"You sure? What was that, anyway? I mean, I've occasionally been told I'm a good kisser, but usually people don't go quite so far as to faint at my feet," he said. He was grinning, obviously trying to diffuse the embarrassing situation with humor, but his eyes looked nervous.

Rodney rolled his eyes, accepting the easy way out. "I certainly did not faint, and in fact I didn't even pass out. I just got woozy there for a second - which has less to do with your kissing technique and more with the state of my blood sugar, just to be clear. And anyway, cut a guy a break, it's been an exhausting day."

"Woozy? Is that even a real word?" John said, automatically, but he was rummaging in a nightstand drawer, pressing something into Rodney's hand. "Here. For the blood sugar."

Rodney tore the wrapper off, than paused and turned it over in his hands, inspecting the package suspiciously. Not oatmeal, though. Maybe fate did have some mercy. In fact, it was walnut chocolate, which was worth its weight in coffee in the Atlantis bartering system. It was not the kind of power bar you randomly picked out of your drawer, this was serious secret-stash material. Just the kind of touching, mushy gesture that Rodney really didn't need right now.

"Thanks," he said, feeling painfully inadequate.

John sighed, and passed a hand through his hair. "Look, Rodney, I know you've had a tough day, and this does come kind of out of the blue, so I could understand if you... If this is not something you really want, no hard feelings -- all you have to do is say no."

Yeah, well, it would be nice if he could. So of course he lied, instead, and of course his voice came out too high and babbling, and all that was missing was the nervous laughter to take away the last bit of credibility.

"No, I'm... that was great, really, I liked it, great kissing, and can we please get back to it before I make even more of a fool out of myself?"

He reached out for John, who drew back. Rodney laughed nervously. Oh, great.

"You sure you're all right? You still look kind of nervous," John said gently.

Great. He so didn't need the gentle voice right now. It made him want to confess things, and that could only result in pain and painful near-death experiences, and did he mention the pain?

"And where did that come from, anyway?" John continued. "I mean, one minute you're resigning from the team, the next we're..." He made a gesture with his hands that didn't look like anything in particular, but was probably meant to convey kissing.

And finally his brain came back online. "Well, I thought... now that I'm off the team, it won't be so much of a problem anymore."

John stared at him. "Is that why you're resigning from the team?"

"What? No!" Rodney protested, and only then thought that he might have refuted that a little bit more tactfully. But John only looked relieved.

"I just thought, as long as I have to resign anyway, we might as well get something out of it, you know?" he said, trying to make himself sound sincere, touching one hand to John's shoulder and smiling at him shakily.

John's face just -- lit up at that, suddenly all bright and happy as Rodney had rarely ever seen him. He was buying the whole thing. Fuck. This was going to destroy John when he found out about it -- and he would, eventually.

"So this --" he waved his hand between the two of them for emphasis -- "is not recent, then?"

And he just couldn't lie to that hopeful face. "Look, can't we just get back to the kissing and stop the talking-about-our-feelings crap? Because I suck at this, and also, you're not my girlfriend, you know?"

John laughed, and suddenly Rodney found himself flat on his back on the bed, with John braced above him and his tongue in Rodney's mouth. Which he guessed was what he'd asked for, so he'd better get with the program.

It turned out to be pretty much as unpleasant as he had expected. He was just not able to relax, all too aware that he was not here of his own free will, that he was being watched -- and that she was probably already pretty impatient with him, which, if his luck held true, likely meant more electric shocks and doors slamming shut on him and other unpleasant things that he had not even thought of yet.

He put up a pretty good show, he thought, with some nicely enthusiastic kissing, but his mind was mostly busy figuring out how he was going to explain to Elizabeth that not only was he quitting the off-world missions, but that he wasn't even allowed in the immediate vicinity of an engaged wormhole anymore, and coming up blank.

He could feel that John was hard against his thigh, and automatically pressed back slightly. It had been a long time since he'd done anything with another guy, but his body remembered it well enough.

John was making noises now, soft, breathless little gasps and moans. It would probably have been hot as hell, under other circumstances, but right now Rodney's mind was too busy spinning in nervous, annoyed circles to appreciate it. Damn it. He thought that maybe, if John had made a pass at him before all this, he might even have said yes -- but there was just no way he could enjoy this forced parody of intimacy.

John was opening the buttons on Rodney's shirt now, slowly, almost reverently, licking at the exposed skin and making happy, appreciative noises that Rodney personally found a bit over the top given his less-than-muscular build and pale, hairy skin. But he'd seen himself in John's fantasies, and obviously his less-than-perfect body did it for John. Well, there was no accounting for taste. And it really was kind of nice to be appreciated like that. He wondered if John did that with all his lovers, making them feel so sexy, so wanted.

He knew that John had... feelings for him, that much had been perfectly clear in the AI's images. He wondered if John would ever have approached him about it, wondered if he would have said yes, if the thought of having sex with John would have been appealing without coercion, without the AI as an audience.

He didn't know -- all he knew was that right now he really couldn't feel anything but self-conscious and uncomfortable. He'd never had the slightest trace of exhibitionism in him, and fear or adrenaline had never turned him on. Well, he'd just have to fake it as well as he could, for both their sakes.

He slid his hands through John's unruly hair, ruffling the strands between his fingers, because he was pretty sure that was what he would have done if he had been here voluntarily. John grinned up at him.

"Just what is this fascination with my hair? No, don't stop, I don't mind. It's just that every lover I've ever had wanted to ruffle my hair."

Rodney tugged gently. "Did nobody ever tell you that it's impolite to compare people to your previous lovers?"

"Aww, sorry", John drawled with badly-faked repentance. "Want me to tell you that Mike's dick was much smaller than yours?"

"Oh, please. You haven't even seen my dick yet."

John laughed. "I never had a lover named Mike, either. But I'd be happy to make something up for you, if it would make you feel better."

Rodney whacked him with the pillow.

John smirked and bent over him, resuming the slow trail of kisses on Rodney's stomach where he'd left off. He paused only briefly to shuck his own shirt, then started working his way down again. Abruptly Rodney lost the little bit of relaxation the familiar bantering had allowed him to achieve, suddenly painfully aware that he wasn't even hard yet. Damn.

He sent panicked mental messages to his cock, which was of course just the thing to do if he wanted to destroy every last chance of getting a hard-on, but that had been doomed to failure from the beginning, anyway. The situation just lacked any eroticism for him, despite John's inspired and rather talented efforts.

By now John's fingers had arrived at his pants and were deftly undoing the top button and drawing the zipper down. And, as if it wasn't already all too obvious at that point, proceeded to draw his pants and underwear down to his thighs, exposing Rodney's flaccid cock.

John tilted his head and sent Rodney a curious glance, drawing one eyebrow up. Rodney felt himself blushing fiercely, his whole body suddenly hot with embarrassment. Really, he couldn't have gotten it up at that moment if he'd wanted to, all the excess blood in his body was gathering in his face.

"I'm, uh, sorry," he stammered. "I'm..." he trailed off, at a loss. He was pretty used to his body losing interest when he was stressed out. He didn't think he'd so much as thought of jerking of even once in the weeks before the siege. But it had never happened to him with a partner before. He couldn't even begin to guess what you could say in a situation like this, but he didn't think "This has never happened to me before!" would help the situation any, as much as his pride might consider it tempting -- it sounded too much like "It's not me, it's you," which was pretty much exactly the opposite of what he wanted to say.

"It's, um... nothing to do with you," he mumbled, unable to meet John's eyes. God, what a fucking mess of a situation. "I'm...uh..."

"Hey, don't worry about it," John finally said, casually. "I'm a guy, too, I know it's got a mind of its own sometimes." He smiled at Rodney -- the charming "Relax, I'm your friend" smile he used on distrusting natives and obviously also on lovers with erectile dysfunctions.

"Just relax. Let me take care of you."

He curled up around Rodney, one leg over Rodney's thighs, his head on Rodney's stomach, cuddling up against him like a cat, or maybe an oversized teddy bear. His hair fanned out on Rodney's stomach, soft and ticklish. Rodney couldn't resist the temptation to reach out and bury his hand in it again, stroking gently.

John circled one hand around Rodney's limp cock, stroking and pulling him with deft, practiced movements. Again he was reminded of how sexy this could have been, under other circumstances, but the knowledge did nothing for his reluctant body.

At the moment, all he felt was an agony of embarrassment, all too aware of the AI watching him (probably rather pissed, by now) and of his own body failing him once again. The scratchy fabric of John's BDUs across his naked thighs made him feel even more naked, exposed, and John's hand on his limp cock felt too unbearably intimate, intrusive. He had to force himself not to flinch away from the touch. He was frantically playing jerk-off fantasies in his mind, trying to force at least a tiny reaction, but it was no good. God, this was so very, very embarrassing.

Finally John gave up, shrugging.

"Really not in the mood, huh?" he said.

Rodney groaned and hid his face in the pillow. "I am so very, very sorry," he said, muffled.

John patted his naked shoulder.

"Nah, no problem. You had a hard day, it's really not all that shocking that your body is refusing to play. Would it make you feel better if I told you about Mike's tiny dick some more?"

Rodney lifted his face from the pillow long enough to glare at him. John grinned.

"Not? How about my very own embarrassing, can't-get-it-up story, then?"

Rodney groaned. "Can't you just go away and let me be mortified in peace? Please?"

John laughed and flopped down next to him. "No."

He did shut up after that, though. Rodney was relieved about that for about seven sixth of a second. After that, the silence started to go from awkward to uncomfortable to painfully embarrassing. At least for Rodney -- Sheppard looked revoltingly comfortable, sprawled on his back, clearly waiting for whatever Rodney would decide to do.

Rodney groaned. "All right, so tell me that story already."

"You know, suddenly I'm not even sure you're worthy of The Story anymore," John said innocently. Rodney glared at him some more.

"All right, all right. So when I was nineteen, there was this girl, Sandra, long red hair, legs up to here --" John made a vague motion with his hand somewhere in the vicinity of his chest (Rodney considered that anatomically vastly unlikely) -- "homecoming queen, popular, freakishly good at math --"

"How exactly do you think a detailed description of your last wet dream is going to make me feel better?" Rodney interrupted acidly. Of course John never seemed bothered by things like that. Most of the time, Rodney appreciated that -- it was kind of relaxing to be with someone who wasn't so damn oversensitive all the time.

"Shut up and listen. Show some respect here, I'm not sharing my tragic past with just anyone."

Rodney snorted. John ignored him.

"She wouldn't give me the time of day, and you don't even want to know what she said to me when I finally screwed up the courage to ask her to the prom. Except then her boyfriend dumped her, and I guess she figured it might make him jealous when she turned up with me or something.

"Anyway, I guess she was pretty impressed by the fact that I did not try to get her drunk or slip her roofies, so at the end of the evening she allowed me to make out with her in the backseat. And let's just say she was pretty clear on the "allowing" part. Like she was doing me a huge favor or something. Anyway, I was so fucking nervous that I -- well."

John gestured towards Rodney's crotch, which he found a tad mean-spirited, all things considered. Except John was actually blushing, and he had not believed until that moment that it might be a real story, but maybe it even was.

"So, uh, what did she say?" he asked, cautiously, because while it was perfectly all right to make fun of someone's imaginary impotence stories, he felt that some careful treading was required with the real thing.

"Well, possibly some snide comment about how she should have taken a real man to the prom instead -- I dunno, it was a long time ago." He shrugged so artfully casual that Rodney was sure he remembered every word.

"Wow, what an awful bitch", he said, heartfelt, and then he couldn't quite resist the impulse to add "So your abysmal taste in women is not a recent development, huh?" because falling for the kind of women who liked to think of themselves as goddesses once was bad enough, but twice was just embarrassing.

"Oh my God, you will never let that go, will you? Seriously, Rodney, you need to get over this Chaya thing already," John whined -- actually whined, even though John probably thought it was manly complaining -- and that was the moment he noticed that his own unease was almost completely gone.

This was comfortable, familiar -- squabbling and bantering with John, knowing he could safely tease without worrying about overstepping those boundaries he tended to only ever notice when it was already too late, because John practically never seemed to get offended.

This was no different, except that they were more naked -- and with the sheet wrapped safely around himself, even that didn't bother him too much anymore. But when he looked over at John he suddenly realized that John was still at least half-hard, the fabric of his BDUs stretched tight over his crotch.

John didn't seem embarrassed of self-conscious about it in any way. He was just lying there, sprawled on his back, legs comfortably spread, like an invitation to look and touch. Rodney figured he'd better do something about that, unless he wanted to be in even more trouble by morning.

"Want some help with that?" he offered, reaching out and drawing a finger down the middle of John's naked chest, wiry hairs tangling under his touch. John shivered, arching slightly, pressing himself harder against Rodney's fingertips.

"You sure?" he said, anyway. "We can postpone this till tomorrow, if you're too... uh, tired." That was a pretty diplomatic way to phrase it, Rodney thought. John really was being great about this.

"No, I don't mind," he said. He didn't, not really, he realized to his own surprise. This wasn't so bad -- all he'd have to do was jerk John off. It would make John happy, which would make the AI happy, which would hopefully keep it from making Rodney miserable. He wouldn't even have to fake any physical interest, because they'd already been through that particular awkward situation, after all.

John was eagerly tugging off his BDUs and blue-striped boxers, throwing them to the floor in a tangled heap. He was already fully hard again by the time he turned back to Rodney. His smile was a little hesitant, but he was comfortably displaying his body, as if he knew just how good he looked. He probably did. Rodney couldn't help but wonder what that must be like, to feel so at ease in your own skin.

John's nipples had perked up in the slight draft. John shuddered and hissed when Rodney gently pinched one of them between his fingers, arching up into the touch. Rodney trailed his fingers over John's chest lightly, searching out the spots that got the best responses. John jerked away when he grazed his ribs lightly, ticklish. Rodney noted the place for later exploration. Today he'd already done enough to disrupt the mood. A prolonged tickling session would have to wait, but he was certainly filing away this particular weak spot for later use.

John was already panting, straining under his hands, his cock red and leaking, and Rodney didn't really feel like drawing it out or teasing him.

When he finally put his hand around John's cock, John gasped sharply and curled up around his touch. He looked good like that, his eyes half-lidded and glazed with pleasure, uninhibitedly writhing on the sheets. Rodney wondered if John would have been as unselfconscious if he knew they were being watched.

No, of course not -- he knew that answer. John was always so careful not to give anything away. Rodney actually felt touched that John was willing to be so open in front of him. And he had no doubt that if John had any suspicion that Rodney was doing this under coercion, it never would have gone this far.

Again he felt his anger at the AI for spoiling this for them, because damn it, they were good together, and maybe they could have made this work -- maybe he could have been what John wanted -- if he had not been freaked out and exhausted and unwilling.

He involuntarily tightened his grip in annoyance, and John gasped.

"God, Rodney, yes, so good..."

He wasn't even doing anything special yet -- mostly just holding and stroking, exploring, reacquainting himself with the almost-forgotten feel of another man's cock in his hand. John's mental images came back to him, of himself doing this to John. He felt slightly guilty, like a voyeur, for knowing about these fantasies, even though he had not watched them on purpose, or even willingly. Still, he adjusted his grip to closer resemble the way he had been touching John in his fantasies. John hissed.

"Yeah, right there... harder, please..."

Rodney carefully tightened his grip a bit more. This was different from doing himself. John was cut, and the familiar mechanics felt strange without the slick slide of foreskin. He had to keep reminding himself that the head of John's cock wouldn't be as sensitive as his own.

"Wait, here..." John leaned away from him, fumbled something out of a nightstand drawer, and pressed it into Rodney's sticky hand. It was a bottle of hand lotion, he saw. He spread some of the slick stuff over his hand, and then started stroking John again, sliding easier now. That felt better, more familiar.

John moved restlessly under him, thrusting lightly into the touch, setting a quicker rhythm. And then he suddenly reached out, drawing Rodney down by the shoulder, and kissed him, hard, passionately, groaning into his mouth. His hand on Rodney's shoulder tightened, digging in, and then he was coming, spurting warm fluid over Rodney's hand and his own stomach.

He held himself perfectly still for a moment, muscles trembling and tightening, and then flopped back against the mattress, drawing Rodney down beside him.
"Mm. That was nice," he said, smiling at Rodney.

Rodney smiled back. "Mm," he said, noncommittally. John seemed to take it as agreement, because he let his eyes fall closed and stretched luxuriously, muscles visibly flexing under his skin.

Rodney used the opportunity to wipe his come-smeared hand on a clean bit of John's stomach.

"Hey!" John shifted away and glared at him indignantly. Rodney smirked.

"What? You were a mess, anyway."

John growled at him, then dropped out of bed and went into the bathroom, still grumbling. After a moment, Rodney heard the shower come on.

He rolled onto his side, tugging the sheets more securely around him. For a moment he considered just disappearing before John got out again, but that would hardly have been fair. And he doubted that the AI would let him, anyway. She probably considered his duties here far from done.

So instead he punched John's too-fluffy pillow into something resembling a comfortable shape and shifted around on John's too-soft bed until he found something resembling a half-way comfortable position. There was a reason he had a prescription mattress, damn it. His back was going to hurt like hell tomorrow.

But his mind was finally shutting down, the stress of the last day taking its toll. He was already drifting off when John came back out of the bathroom and snuggled in against his right side, his naked skin still slightly damp and cool against Rodney's own.

He would have let it slide, mostly because he was already too drowsy to muster up the will to protest, except then John put his head on Rodney's shoulder, complete with a mop of wildly tousled and, more importantly, dripping wet hair. There were limits to what he was willing to endure.

"Hey!" he roused himself enough to shift away from the wetness. "Go drip on your own side of the bed!"

John gave him the eyebrow. "This is all my bed, you know?"

"Not when I'm sleeping here, it's not." The answer came automatically, but then he hesitated, suddenly unsure. "I could go back to my own quarters, if you'd rather. Whatever you want."

John shook his head immediately. "Nah. Stay, please."

He drew back, making more room for Rodney. After a moment he turned on his side, facing away. Then he stretched a hand back and gripped Rodney's left hand, tugging until Rodney's chest was pressed against his back, Rodney's arm wrapped around him. John wriggled against him for a moment, aligning them so that their legs were touching from thighs to calves, his ass pressed against Rodney's crotch, before he made a contented humming sound and relaxed, leaning back into Rodney's body.

"Comfy?"

Not really, actually. He didn't know what to do with the arm that wasn't wrapped around John, and his back wasn't going to like this position at all. But it definitely seemed to make John happy, and he figured he still had some points to make up for if he wanted to be spared worse pain the minute he left the protection of John's company, so he just mumbled something and shifted, getting as comfortable as possible.

John's deep, slow breathing and the warmth emanating from his back and seeping into Rodney's body soon lulled him into sleep.

***********

Part Two