SGA snippet: The Thing With Sheppard and Toolbelts
Continuing with the toolbelt theme...here's some John/Rodney.
The thing with Sheppard and toolbelts (Rodney refuses to call it an obsession, "enthusiasm" if it must be labeled at all) starts with a random observation when he stops by Sheppard's room one evening to discuss improvements he's planning to make to the jumper's navigational system.
"Shelves? You have shelves? How exactly do you rate that when I don't, and I'm head of the science team and you own exactly one book?"
Sheppard rolls his eyes. "Relax, McKay. It's not some sign that Elizabeth loves me more than you. I built them myself."
This is all it takes for the images to start flying behind Rodney's eyes, some remembered, some imagined, a sudden awareness of the faint scent of varnish lingering in the air, possibly a hallucination, and Rodney feels light-headed very fast, as if he's some sad case who sniffs wood glue in his spare time.
"I, uh--" He edges toward the door. "There's something I have to-- somewhere else."
"But I thought you wanted to talk about--"
Rodney doesn't run back to his room, mostly because that would attract attention he really doesn't need right now, but he doesn't tarry, either. Once safely locked inside, he gets right down to it, wasting no time taking off his clothes or lying on the bed. He just pushes his pants down his hips, spit slicks his fingers, wraps his other hand around his cock. The burn of not enough lubrication comes close to the raw freefall of getting fucked. Sheppard in nothing but a thigh holster has been the marquee attraction of Rodney's masturbatory fantasies since they met, but now it's Sheppard naked except his toolbelt who parades around in Rodney's head. Rodney squeezes his eyes shut and comes all over himself, and a new star is born.
It seems harmless enough--Rodney is only human, and what Sheppard doesn't know won't hurt him, and various and sundry other rationalizing platitudes--but then Sheppard has to go and start caring about Rodney's comfort.
"Jesus, it looks like a paper factory exploded in here," Sheppard says when he comes over to watch DVDs, casting a baleful glance at the heaps of journals and notebooks and crumpled napkins with brilliant insights scribbled on them.
Rodney bristles, because it's not so much a mess as organized chaos, and the last thing he needs is for Sheppard to remind him of his mother.
Sheppard narrows his eyes. "You're trying to make a point, aren't you? About shelves."
Rodney shakes his head emphatically. "Absolutely not--"
Sheppard sighs like he's being persecuted. "Fine. You can dial down the melodrama. I'll build you some damned shelves. I've got a little time off this weekend."
All through three episodes of Doctor Who, Rodney wonders, What just happened here?
A lot can change in the span of a few days, especially in a galaxy of life-sucking monsters and vengeful artificial life forms and various other forces that are out to get them. By the time Saturday rolls around, Rodney has managed to convince himself that Sheppard was only joking anyway. At least, until Sheppard shows up at his door with a toolbox and a neat stack of lumber, and then Rodney's certainty slips sideways a little. Sheppard comes in, drapes a dropcloth over Rodney's piles of papers because, "I know I'll never hear the end of it if any works of genius get damaged. So, where do you want them? I was thinking this wall." He points. "You'll be able to reach your books without getting up from the desk, which I figure is pretty key, given how you like to conserve energy."
Rodney nods--he'd agree to just about anything right now--and Sheppard digs around in the toolbox, comes up with a measuring tape. The metallic whoosh as Sheppard unreels it makes Rodney jump, every nerve in his body suddenly as strained as an overstretched rubber band.
"I'll just leave you to it." Rodney starts backing toward the door.
Sheppard puts his hands on his hips. "Oh, no, you don't. You're going to stay right here and tell me exactly how you want this and not complain there's something you don't like after it's finished."
"I wouldn't!" Rodney huffs.
Sheppard points a finger at the bed.
It's at this point that Rodney begins to consider that maybe he's been wrong all along and there is a God, a miserable, son-of-a-bitch of a higher power who's big on temptation and really does have it in for gay men. Sheppard totes and heaves, bends and saws, twisting this way and that, giving Rodney a quick refresher course on the many wonders of the male body. Rodney has been hard pretty much from the moment Sheppard appeared at the door, unbearably so since Sheppard began having his way with the lumber, and then the hammering starts. Rodney wouldn't have expected to find anything erotic in such clatter, but the vibrations from each stroke travel across the floor, up his legs, straight to his cock. When Sheppard hits a particularly stubborn part of the wall and has to put some extra muscle into it, Rodney actually whimpers, out loud.
Sheppard stops, looks around. "Did you say something?"
Rodney shakes his head miserably. "No. Just-- you know, good job." He offers the thumbs up and a feeble smile.
The last straw is when Sheppard casually flings off his shirt, not so much as a "would you mind?", just suddenly the T-shirt is on the floor and Rodney's got an eyeful of naked back, muscles flexing as Sheppard lifts a high shelf into place.
"I can adjust the climate controls," Rodney blurts out, scrambling over to the panel, stabbing his finger at the down arrow. He figures fifty or sixty degrees below zero should just about do it.
Sheppard waves his hand. "I'm good like this."
And yes, yes, he really is. That's precisely the problem. Rodney sinks back down onto the bed and suffers through a storm of sanding, having to remind himself again and again that licking the sweat off the back of Sheppard's neck doesn't exactly qualify as teamwork. He starts mentally cataloging all the reasons it's a bad, bad, the worst idea ever to hit on a straight guy, especially a straight guy who's your friend and occasionally the only thing standing between you and certain death. Best not to jeopardize that, even if Rodney's erection has started to chafe against the buttons of his pants.
At last, Sheppard puts down the steel wool and takes a step back to admire his handiwork. "So, what do you think?"
"Yes, yes, wonderful. Thank you. Don't let me take up any more of your valuable Saturday, Colonel. I can get the books arranged myself."
Sheppard shoots him a highly exasperated look. "You can't see anything from over there. You need to appreciate the workmanship up close."
He stands there radiating insistence until Rodney sighs and gets to his feet and stomps over. "Beautiful. Perfect. A masterpiece of shelf-building. Can you go now?"
Sheppard smiles and takes Rodney's hand and runs it along one of the boards. "Feel how smooth that is? I went the extra distance just for you." Sheppard's chest is pressed tight to Rodney's back, and Rodney's practically drowning in his scent, and the heat from Sheppard's body is making him sweat rather too tellingly.
"Please. Go away?" Rodney begs in a small voice.
"Why?" Sheppard presses his nose into Rodney's hair. "Do you want to be alone with the shelves?" He puts his hand on Rodney's hip and lets it creep around to his fly, stroking Rodney's cock through his pants. "You seem kind of into them."
"I'm not-- I don't--" Denial takes too much brainpower, especially when Sheppard is unbuttoning his pants and then pushing his underwear out of the way, but at least Rodney still has some survival instincts left. "Sleeping with straight guys is bad!"
Sheppard closes his hand around Rodney's cock. "Funny. I always say the same thing myself. Good thing there aren't any straight guys here, huh?" He keeps a perfectly serious expression for a beat, and then cracks a big grin, his green eyes bright with amusement.
Rodney can only stare. "You knew! The whole time. What you were doing to me. You set this whole thing up! You were torturing me on purpose!"
Sheppard laughs, and Rodney huffs, his dignity injured, although not so much that he actually steps away from the circle of Sheppard's hand. He's never had that much dignity.
Sheppard kisses him, lingering and kind of lewd. "Yes, you're so horribly mistreated, Rodney. First, I build you shelves. And now I--" Sheppard sinks down to his knees.
Rodney's voice cracks, "Okay, okay, so I'll let you make it up to me." He runs his hands through Sheppard's hair as Sheppard kisses his belly. "Later, though, we're going to have to talk toolbelts."
The thing with Sheppard and toolbelts (Rodney refuses to call it an obsession, "enthusiasm" if it must be labeled at all) starts with a random observation when he stops by Sheppard's room one evening to discuss improvements he's planning to make to the jumper's navigational system.
"Shelves? You have shelves? How exactly do you rate that when I don't, and I'm head of the science team and you own exactly one book?"
Sheppard rolls his eyes. "Relax, McKay. It's not some sign that Elizabeth loves me more than you. I built them myself."
This is all it takes for the images to start flying behind Rodney's eyes, some remembered, some imagined, a sudden awareness of the faint scent of varnish lingering in the air, possibly a hallucination, and Rodney feels light-headed very fast, as if he's some sad case who sniffs wood glue in his spare time.
"I, uh--" He edges toward the door. "There's something I have to-- somewhere else."
"But I thought you wanted to talk about--"
Rodney doesn't run back to his room, mostly because that would attract attention he really doesn't need right now, but he doesn't tarry, either. Once safely locked inside, he gets right down to it, wasting no time taking off his clothes or lying on the bed. He just pushes his pants down his hips, spit slicks his fingers, wraps his other hand around his cock. The burn of not enough lubrication comes close to the raw freefall of getting fucked. Sheppard in nothing but a thigh holster has been the marquee attraction of Rodney's masturbatory fantasies since they met, but now it's Sheppard naked except his toolbelt who parades around in Rodney's head. Rodney squeezes his eyes shut and comes all over himself, and a new star is born.
It seems harmless enough--Rodney is only human, and what Sheppard doesn't know won't hurt him, and various and sundry other rationalizing platitudes--but then Sheppard has to go and start caring about Rodney's comfort.
"Jesus, it looks like a paper factory exploded in here," Sheppard says when he comes over to watch DVDs, casting a baleful glance at the heaps of journals and notebooks and crumpled napkins with brilliant insights scribbled on them.
Rodney bristles, because it's not so much a mess as organized chaos, and the last thing he needs is for Sheppard to remind him of his mother.
Sheppard narrows his eyes. "You're trying to make a point, aren't you? About shelves."
Rodney shakes his head emphatically. "Absolutely not--"
Sheppard sighs like he's being persecuted. "Fine. You can dial down the melodrama. I'll build you some damned shelves. I've got a little time off this weekend."
All through three episodes of Doctor Who, Rodney wonders, What just happened here?
A lot can change in the span of a few days, especially in a galaxy of life-sucking monsters and vengeful artificial life forms and various other forces that are out to get them. By the time Saturday rolls around, Rodney has managed to convince himself that Sheppard was only joking anyway. At least, until Sheppard shows up at his door with a toolbox and a neat stack of lumber, and then Rodney's certainty slips sideways a little. Sheppard comes in, drapes a dropcloth over Rodney's piles of papers because, "I know I'll never hear the end of it if any works of genius get damaged. So, where do you want them? I was thinking this wall." He points. "You'll be able to reach your books without getting up from the desk, which I figure is pretty key, given how you like to conserve energy."
Rodney nods--he'd agree to just about anything right now--and Sheppard digs around in the toolbox, comes up with a measuring tape. The metallic whoosh as Sheppard unreels it makes Rodney jump, every nerve in his body suddenly as strained as an overstretched rubber band.
"I'll just leave you to it." Rodney starts backing toward the door.
Sheppard puts his hands on his hips. "Oh, no, you don't. You're going to stay right here and tell me exactly how you want this and not complain there's something you don't like after it's finished."
"I wouldn't!" Rodney huffs.
Sheppard points a finger at the bed.
It's at this point that Rodney begins to consider that maybe he's been wrong all along and there is a God, a miserable, son-of-a-bitch of a higher power who's big on temptation and really does have it in for gay men. Sheppard totes and heaves, bends and saws, twisting this way and that, giving Rodney a quick refresher course on the many wonders of the male body. Rodney has been hard pretty much from the moment Sheppard appeared at the door, unbearably so since Sheppard began having his way with the lumber, and then the hammering starts. Rodney wouldn't have expected to find anything erotic in such clatter, but the vibrations from each stroke travel across the floor, up his legs, straight to his cock. When Sheppard hits a particularly stubborn part of the wall and has to put some extra muscle into it, Rodney actually whimpers, out loud.
Sheppard stops, looks around. "Did you say something?"
Rodney shakes his head miserably. "No. Just-- you know, good job." He offers the thumbs up and a feeble smile.
The last straw is when Sheppard casually flings off his shirt, not so much as a "would you mind?", just suddenly the T-shirt is on the floor and Rodney's got an eyeful of naked back, muscles flexing as Sheppard lifts a high shelf into place.
"I can adjust the climate controls," Rodney blurts out, scrambling over to the panel, stabbing his finger at the down arrow. He figures fifty or sixty degrees below zero should just about do it.
Sheppard waves his hand. "I'm good like this."
And yes, yes, he really is. That's precisely the problem. Rodney sinks back down onto the bed and suffers through a storm of sanding, having to remind himself again and again that licking the sweat off the back of Sheppard's neck doesn't exactly qualify as teamwork. He starts mentally cataloging all the reasons it's a bad, bad, the worst idea ever to hit on a straight guy, especially a straight guy who's your friend and occasionally the only thing standing between you and certain death. Best not to jeopardize that, even if Rodney's erection has started to chafe against the buttons of his pants.
At last, Sheppard puts down the steel wool and takes a step back to admire his handiwork. "So, what do you think?"
"Yes, yes, wonderful. Thank you. Don't let me take up any more of your valuable Saturday, Colonel. I can get the books arranged myself."
Sheppard shoots him a highly exasperated look. "You can't see anything from over there. You need to appreciate the workmanship up close."
He stands there radiating insistence until Rodney sighs and gets to his feet and stomps over. "Beautiful. Perfect. A masterpiece of shelf-building. Can you go now?"
Sheppard smiles and takes Rodney's hand and runs it along one of the boards. "Feel how smooth that is? I went the extra distance just for you." Sheppard's chest is pressed tight to Rodney's back, and Rodney's practically drowning in his scent, and the heat from Sheppard's body is making him sweat rather too tellingly.
"Please. Go away?" Rodney begs in a small voice.
"Why?" Sheppard presses his nose into Rodney's hair. "Do you want to be alone with the shelves?" He puts his hand on Rodney's hip and lets it creep around to his fly, stroking Rodney's cock through his pants. "You seem kind of into them."
"I'm not-- I don't--" Denial takes too much brainpower, especially when Sheppard is unbuttoning his pants and then pushing his underwear out of the way, but at least Rodney still has some survival instincts left. "Sleeping with straight guys is bad!"
Sheppard closes his hand around Rodney's cock. "Funny. I always say the same thing myself. Good thing there aren't any straight guys here, huh?" He keeps a perfectly serious expression for a beat, and then cracks a big grin, his green eyes bright with amusement.
Rodney can only stare. "You knew! The whole time. What you were doing to me. You set this whole thing up! You were torturing me on purpose!"
Sheppard laughs, and Rodney huffs, his dignity injured, although not so much that he actually steps away from the circle of Sheppard's hand. He's never had that much dignity.
Sheppard kisses him, lingering and kind of lewd. "Yes, you're so horribly mistreated, Rodney. First, I build you shelves. And now I--" Sheppard sinks down to his knees.
Rodney's voice cracks, "Okay, okay, so I'll let you make it up to me." He runs his hands through Sheppard's hair as Sheppard kisses his belly. "Later, though, we're going to have to talk toolbelts."