Vacation Hours by Slybrarian
Title: Vacation Hours (Second Verse Challenge)
Author: slybrarian
Rating: R
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Words: 2,888
Summary: In which John touches something, and finds himself with a few free days. Or one free day, depending on how you count it.
Author's notes: Beta by archae_ology. I figure it's totally fair to post two responses for this challenge, right?
John was having a boring day for any number of reasons. There were no missions to go on, no city exploration to oversee, not even any briefings about any interesting things that would be happening. John's morning was taken up with a meeting with his officers about minor scheduling and supply issues, and he spent the rest of the day working out, dodging the new psychiatrist, and playing video golf. The sole bit of excitement came just before supper when Rodney called him down to the one of the newly discovered labs. John found him standing at a console in front of a silver sphere on a pedestal, which reminded him of one of those weird garden things.
"Colonel," Rodney said as he came in. "Touch this."
"What's it do?" John asked. It wasn't that he was suspicious or anything, but experience told him it was a good idea to ask.
"I think it's some sort of quantum prediction tool," Rodney explained. "It might give us warning of an attack or that sort of thing. The diagnostics say it's on standby, but it won't turn on for me."
"Doesn't like your fake gene?" John asked with a grin.
"Hah hah. Just touch it, Colonel." John did so, and a few buttons lit on the panel. That was it.
"Well?" John asked after a minute of nothing. Rodney shrugged.
"Well, it says it's active. Give me a few minutes."
"Right. Have fun with the blinky lights," John said, knowing that a few minutes could easily turn into a few hours. John walked back towards the door and decided to see if Ronon was up for some sparring, making a note to return later and check if Rodney had eaten anything.
"Uh oh," Rodney said behind him, which definitely wasn't a good sign. "That looks like a countdown."
"Wait, countdown?" John turned around and started to run back to the machine. The world turned white.
Loop 1
"Huh," John said, realizing he was back in his quarters. He glanced around and checked his watch. It was almost twelve hours earlier, right after he'd finished showering from his morning run. He grabbed his radio and flipped through the channels, quickly coming to the conclusion that no one else seemed to have notice anything weird. Which meant he was probably in some sort of time loop.
Damn it.
John didn't know why this sort of thing always happened to him. No, he did - it was because he kept touching things that Rodney told him to. After his meeting with the officers, mostly because he'd already put it off twice and couldn't do so again without Lorne looking like a kicked puppy. He grabbed a quick lunch and checked out the room the machine had been in. There was no sign of Rodney there, so John headed up to the main lab.
As soon as he stepped inside, Rodney shouted, "Busy! Go away!"
"Rodney, have you noticed that," John began. Rodney turned and glared at him.
"I said busy, Colonel. Which part of that don't you understand?"
John tried again. "Look, McKay, I've got a little problem."
"Of course you do," Rodney snapped. "Is it a city-threatening crisis? No, it's not. Go away."
"Seriously, McKay," John said, getting exasperated. "There's something weird going on."
"The only weird thing here is your sudden inability to understand English, Colonel," Rodney returned. "Nothing is wrong. I checked. Go about your business."
John threw up his hands. "Fine, but when we all die, I'm blaming you."
He wasn't really that worried, though. He figured that as long as he didn't turn the machine on again, everyone could just continue on with their lives without knowing anything had happened and John could stick a "Danger - do not touch" label on the thing. It would probably be a hell of a lot easier to do things that way than to try to drag McKay out of his lab early.
A few hours, John was tired and sweaty from beating up marines with Ronon. He took a quick shower and got a sandwich, figuring that McKay would be calling him any minute and he'd need to eat then if he wanted food at a reasonable hour. No call came, and John found himself checking his watch as the original activation time grew nearer. For a few moments, John thought that maybe something he'd done differently during the day had changed history enough that McKay wouldn't mess with the device at all.
Loop 2
"So much for that," John muttered, in his room once more. Apparently the time loop machine was going to keep doing its thing until someone stopped it. He reached for his radio to call Rodney, with the intent of being a little less considerate and a little more forceful this time around.
Then an idea hit him.
John hadn't had a real vacation in almost four years. Every time he'd try to get one, something would inevitably come up and make sure his stress levels stayed high. Even that time he and Rodney had been on forced Earthside leave hadn't gone too well, because while visiting Jeannie's family Rodney had promptly gotten stung by bees and John had spent the next few days taking care of him and listening to his constant griping. Now, though, he had a chunk of time that he knew was completely safe. He could relax and unwind a little, and once he'd had enough he could just tell Rodney what was happening and he'd fix it in a couple hours, tops.
John went back to bed and slept for twelve hours straight, content in the knowledge he didn't need to worry about anything happening at all. It was wonderful.
Loops 3 & 4
John spent an entire loop doing nothing but flying, taking only a couple short breaks for snacks. There wasn't anything quite like that feeling of absolute freedom, and he had to admit he liked the feeling of ignoring the indignant squawks of flight control a little bit, too. The next loop he tried his hand at taking up some kind of craft as a hobby, but gave that up as a lost cause when even Teyla started to quietly laugh at his attempt at pottery. He spent the rest of the day playing all three Halo games straight through.
Loop 5
On his fifth day, John decided that he had few things to do of a more personal nature. The situation was pretty simple: he hated conversations that veered into the realm of things like 'feelings' because that made him confront those feelings at the same time he had to try to explain the stupid things, which inevitably resulted in a complete mess and horrible awkwardness. The problem was that he would have to talk about this particular issue sooner or later no matter how hard he tried. The time loop presented him with something great: a chance at as many practice runs as he wanted. It was wonderful. Painful, yes, but he didn't mind a bit of consequence-free pain. He decided to start off with a fairly easy person.
"Teyla. I'm gay," he told her, deciding to try blunt first. It didn't provoke quite the kind of reaction he'd been hoping for.
"Yes, John?" she said with a puzzled look. Thinking this was one of those times where the Mystery Translation Thing decided to suddenly stop working, he tried again.
"You know. Gay. Homosexual," he explained. "I'm attracted to men."
"Yes, you are," she said slowly. "Are you feeling well?"
John frowned. "You okay with that, right?"
"Even if I was not, it would not change our friendship." She stepped closer and felt his forehead for a moment. "No fever... are you sure you are all right?"
"Uh. Yeah. I'm just felt like saying something. Bye." John quickly retreated. That hadn't gone quite as planned, but at least it'd gone okay. With an upbeat feeling, he considered who to talk with next. He'd already had to do this with Ronon, after Great Aunt Margaret had asked Ronon if he was John's latest 'boy toy'. It was too bad he couldn't erase that wonderful conversation and replace it with one that didn't involve so much laughter. Eventually he settled on Colonel Carter. She was the boss, after all, and could make the most trouble for him if she unexpectedly turned out to be a complete asshole.
"Colonel," he said after slipping into her office. "I've got a confession to make."
"You're the one who flooded Linguistics with alien jello?" she asked, eyes narrow.
"No," he lied. "I just thought you should know that I'm gay."
She stared at him, then sighed and buried her face in her hands. "Of course you are," she mumbled. "It's like some kind of curse. All my male friends have to be gay."
John's eyes widened. "What? You mean... General O'Neill?"
"Was screwing around with Daniel all the damned time, yes," she said. "Cam's gay, too. And Jonas. And Teal'c grew up with some sort of Jaffa warrior bondage - bonding tradition. God, McKay's probably turning gayer every minute I'm around."
"Uh." John really hadn't needed to know that about O'Neill. "I'll just be going."
He fled, and after a few minutes forced himself not to find something alcoholic to drink and headed to the infirmary.
"Is that supposed to be news?" Keller said."Stay away from Ronon or else. And use a condom, damn it."
John didn't need to be told that, but he couldn't blame her for repeating it after what had happened to Corporal Bosworth.
"Hey Lorne. I need to talk to you about something."
Lorne looked up from John's paperwork and raised an eyebrow. "Sir?"
"Listen. I know this is kinda awkward, but you're a great XO, so I thought that even though there's the policy about telling and all that, I should say --"
"Oh god." John had never seen Lorne flustered or really anything but either calm or amused, except during that one little sleepwalking incident, so it took him a moment to recognize his expression as panicked. "Listen, sir. I'm trying to be discreet, really, I am, and I'm sorry if someone's come to your or you've noticed something. But I really like him, and it's not affecting my job at all, and Parrish isn't even really on my team anyways."
"Wait. What's he have to do with this?"
They looked at each other, and Lorne suddenly became his normal composed and innocent-looking self again. "Absolutely nothing, sir."
Things got stranger from there. Radek just shrugged, the mess cook rolled her eyes, Miko hugged him, and Chuck congratulated him on finally being open with himself. By the end of the day he was really starting to wonder if this entire coming out thing would even be necessary, because apparently the entire damned city already knew. He'd even announced it to a bunch of marines in the training room and none of them had so much as batted an eye.
He saved the most delicate person for last, of course, waiting right until about ten minutes before the reset. That would minimize the amount of yelling he'd have to endure. Rodney was still in his lab and writing out equations on the whiteboard. John waited for him to finish a line, then said, "Rodney. I wanted to tell you that, uh. I'm gay."
Rodney jumped and turned around. "What?"
"I'm gay," John repeated, and of course it figured Rodney would be the only one who didn't know.
"You. But. Why are you telling me this?" Rodney sputtered.
"Look, I'm in this time loop thing, and I figured I'd get it off my chest." John watched Rodney as the scientist stared back at him, and after a moment he hesitantly asked, "Are we okay?"
"Of course we're okay, but that is still the stupidest thing you've ever --"
"Rodney, shut up," John growled. Then he shoved Rodney against the wall, got down on his knees, and proceeded to give Rodney a wet and sloppy blowjob. It certainly wasn't the best one he'd ever given, but hell, he was under a time limit and couldn't be blamed for that. It was certainly pretty damned satisfying for John, especially when Rodney's fingers had tangled in his hair and he'd come chanting, "John, John, John."
Rodney was wild-eyed and beet red when John stood up again. John gave him a quick kiss and a jaunty wave as the reset came.
Loop 6
John could still almost taste Rodney's come in his mouth when he opened his eyes. He'd just had enough time to start feeling mildly guilty (only mildly, though) and incredibly pleased with himself when Rodney stormed into his room.
"What the hell was that?" he shouted, hands flailing madly.
John was completely thrown off balance by the sudden and unexpected change from usually happened. "What was what?"
"You just blew me in my lab! I reiterate: what the hell?"
"You remember that?" John asked with a sinking feeling in his stomach.
Rodney looked at him like he was an idiot. "Yes! Why wouldn't I?"
"But I'm the only one who's been remembering things." John stopped, narrowed his eyes as he reevaluated the situation, and then pointed an accusing finger at Rodney. "You're looping too! You bastard, why didn't you say anything?"
"Because I didn't think you were an idiot! Clearly I was mistaken. Of course I'm looping, we were both in the room with the machine!"
"You didn't act like you were in a time loop!" John protested. "You just kept working in your lab the entire time instead of trying to figure out what happened. What did you expect me to think?"
"I expected you to use your brain. It took me two minutes to look at the machine and see that it would automatically stop after a set number of cycles. It even said so on the display." Rodney crossed his arms. "Since there was no reason to worry, I decided to get some work done. Even without being able to save my work, I'm still getting an incredible amount accomplished on my new zero-point field theory. I'd like to point out you weren't exactly trying to get out either, Colonel Stunt Pilot."
"I figured I could just ask you after a little vacation." John scratched his head and looked down at the floor, his initial shock and annoyance turning to morbid embarrassment. "So... look, I'm really sorry. I shouldn't have done that, and if you're angry, I'll make it up somehow, even if you want me to leave or something."
"What? Leave? Are you insane?" Rodney looked like he was about to explode. "You brainless cretin, I'm angry because we could have been having sex this entire time!"
John's shot up and he stared at Rodney. "Really?"
"Yes, really! We probably could have been having sex for years if you weren't an emotional cripple, I've certainly wanted you that long." Rodney stopped and looked every bit as surprised by that admission as John felt. After a minute of silence, they simultaneously turned towards John's bed. Rodney frowned, and quietly snapped, "We're not sleeping on that thing. My back would never recover."
"It is a little small," John admitted. He paused on the way out the door just long enough to grab some lube and condoms.
Loop 17
John was on top of the world. He'd probably had more non-manual orgasms in ten days than he'd had in ten years. Sure, neither one of them were exactly young anymore, but the frequent physical resets had more than made up for that. Not only that, but they were having a hell of a lot of fun - for example, they'd just spent most of a day doing 'flight tests' on a jumper. Flying and fucking - what could be better than that?
They'd had to land just before time was up, because neither of them wanted to take a chance by being too far from the city, and John realized they had a few minutes left. He all but bounced down the stairs to the control room with an exhausted Rodney trailing along behind him.
"Excuse me," John said to Chuck, reaching for the communications control panel.
"Wait a second," Rodney said behind him. "I'm forgetting something."
John turned on the city-wide address. "Can I have your attention please? This is Colonel Sheppard. I just need to make a small announcement."
"Base-eight math, carry the one... sixteen," Rodney muttered. "Oh crap. Sheppard!"
"I just wanted to let everyone know that I'm totally in love with Rodney McKay. That's all, carry on." He started to turn around when Rodney smacked him on the back of the head. "Ow. What was that for?"
"We just finished the final loop, you dolt! It's not going to reset again!"
"Oh. Well, crap." John looked around the control room at all the wide-eyed techs. Over in her office, he saw Carter hitting her head on her desk. "So. Want to lock ourselves in your room?"
"Might as well," Rodney grumbled. As they left, the control room staff started clapping, and Chuck opened up his spreadsheet to see who'd chosen that day in the pool.
Author: slybrarian
Rating: R
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Words: 2,888
Summary: In which John touches something, and finds himself with a few free days. Or one free day, depending on how you count it.
Author's notes: Beta by archae_ology. I figure it's totally fair to post two responses for this challenge, right?
John was having a boring day for any number of reasons. There were no missions to go on, no city exploration to oversee, not even any briefings about any interesting things that would be happening. John's morning was taken up with a meeting with his officers about minor scheduling and supply issues, and he spent the rest of the day working out, dodging the new psychiatrist, and playing video golf. The sole bit of excitement came just before supper when Rodney called him down to the one of the newly discovered labs. John found him standing at a console in front of a silver sphere on a pedestal, which reminded him of one of those weird garden things.
"Colonel," Rodney said as he came in. "Touch this."
"What's it do?" John asked. It wasn't that he was suspicious or anything, but experience told him it was a good idea to ask.
"I think it's some sort of quantum prediction tool," Rodney explained. "It might give us warning of an attack or that sort of thing. The diagnostics say it's on standby, but it won't turn on for me."
"Doesn't like your fake gene?" John asked with a grin.
"Hah hah. Just touch it, Colonel." John did so, and a few buttons lit on the panel. That was it.
"Well?" John asked after a minute of nothing. Rodney shrugged.
"Well, it says it's active. Give me a few minutes."
"Right. Have fun with the blinky lights," John said, knowing that a few minutes could easily turn into a few hours. John walked back towards the door and decided to see if Ronon was up for some sparring, making a note to return later and check if Rodney had eaten anything.
"Uh oh," Rodney said behind him, which definitely wasn't a good sign. "That looks like a countdown."
"Wait, countdown?" John turned around and started to run back to the machine. The world turned white.
Loop 1
"Huh," John said, realizing he was back in his quarters. He glanced around and checked his watch. It was almost twelve hours earlier, right after he'd finished showering from his morning run. He grabbed his radio and flipped through the channels, quickly coming to the conclusion that no one else seemed to have notice anything weird. Which meant he was probably in some sort of time loop.
Damn it.
John didn't know why this sort of thing always happened to him. No, he did - it was because he kept touching things that Rodney told him to. After his meeting with the officers, mostly because he'd already put it off twice and couldn't do so again without Lorne looking like a kicked puppy. He grabbed a quick lunch and checked out the room the machine had been in. There was no sign of Rodney there, so John headed up to the main lab.
As soon as he stepped inside, Rodney shouted, "Busy! Go away!"
"Rodney, have you noticed that," John began. Rodney turned and glared at him.
"I said busy, Colonel. Which part of that don't you understand?"
John tried again. "Look, McKay, I've got a little problem."
"Of course you do," Rodney snapped. "Is it a city-threatening crisis? No, it's not. Go away."
"Seriously, McKay," John said, getting exasperated. "There's something weird going on."
"The only weird thing here is your sudden inability to understand English, Colonel," Rodney returned. "Nothing is wrong. I checked. Go about your business."
John threw up his hands. "Fine, but when we all die, I'm blaming you."
He wasn't really that worried, though. He figured that as long as he didn't turn the machine on again, everyone could just continue on with their lives without knowing anything had happened and John could stick a "Danger - do not touch" label on the thing. It would probably be a hell of a lot easier to do things that way than to try to drag McKay out of his lab early.
A few hours, John was tired and sweaty from beating up marines with Ronon. He took a quick shower and got a sandwich, figuring that McKay would be calling him any minute and he'd need to eat then if he wanted food at a reasonable hour. No call came, and John found himself checking his watch as the original activation time grew nearer. For a few moments, John thought that maybe something he'd done differently during the day had changed history enough that McKay wouldn't mess with the device at all.
Loop 2
"So much for that," John muttered, in his room once more. Apparently the time loop machine was going to keep doing its thing until someone stopped it. He reached for his radio to call Rodney, with the intent of being a little less considerate and a little more forceful this time around.
Then an idea hit him.
John hadn't had a real vacation in almost four years. Every time he'd try to get one, something would inevitably come up and make sure his stress levels stayed high. Even that time he and Rodney had been on forced Earthside leave hadn't gone too well, because while visiting Jeannie's family Rodney had promptly gotten stung by bees and John had spent the next few days taking care of him and listening to his constant griping. Now, though, he had a chunk of time that he knew was completely safe. He could relax and unwind a little, and once he'd had enough he could just tell Rodney what was happening and he'd fix it in a couple hours, tops.
John went back to bed and slept for twelve hours straight, content in the knowledge he didn't need to worry about anything happening at all. It was wonderful.
Loops 3 & 4
John spent an entire loop doing nothing but flying, taking only a couple short breaks for snacks. There wasn't anything quite like that feeling of absolute freedom, and he had to admit he liked the feeling of ignoring the indignant squawks of flight control a little bit, too. The next loop he tried his hand at taking up some kind of craft as a hobby, but gave that up as a lost cause when even Teyla started to quietly laugh at his attempt at pottery. He spent the rest of the day playing all three Halo games straight through.
Loop 5
On his fifth day, John decided that he had few things to do of a more personal nature. The situation was pretty simple: he hated conversations that veered into the realm of things like 'feelings' because that made him confront those feelings at the same time he had to try to explain the stupid things, which inevitably resulted in a complete mess and horrible awkwardness. The problem was that he would have to talk about this particular issue sooner or later no matter how hard he tried. The time loop presented him with something great: a chance at as many practice runs as he wanted. It was wonderful. Painful, yes, but he didn't mind a bit of consequence-free pain. He decided to start off with a fairly easy person.
"Teyla. I'm gay," he told her, deciding to try blunt first. It didn't provoke quite the kind of reaction he'd been hoping for.
"Yes, John?" she said with a puzzled look. Thinking this was one of those times where the Mystery Translation Thing decided to suddenly stop working, he tried again.
"You know. Gay. Homosexual," he explained. "I'm attracted to men."
"Yes, you are," she said slowly. "Are you feeling well?"
John frowned. "You okay with that, right?"
"Even if I was not, it would not change our friendship." She stepped closer and felt his forehead for a moment. "No fever... are you sure you are all right?"
"Uh. Yeah. I'm just felt like saying something. Bye." John quickly retreated. That hadn't gone quite as planned, but at least it'd gone okay. With an upbeat feeling, he considered who to talk with next. He'd already had to do this with Ronon, after Great Aunt Margaret had asked Ronon if he was John's latest 'boy toy'. It was too bad he couldn't erase that wonderful conversation and replace it with one that didn't involve so much laughter. Eventually he settled on Colonel Carter. She was the boss, after all, and could make the most trouble for him if she unexpectedly turned out to be a complete asshole.
"Colonel," he said after slipping into her office. "I've got a confession to make."
"You're the one who flooded Linguistics with alien jello?" she asked, eyes narrow.
"No," he lied. "I just thought you should know that I'm gay."
She stared at him, then sighed and buried her face in her hands. "Of course you are," she mumbled. "It's like some kind of curse. All my male friends have to be gay."
John's eyes widened. "What? You mean... General O'Neill?"
"Was screwing around with Daniel all the damned time, yes," she said. "Cam's gay, too. And Jonas. And Teal'c grew up with some sort of Jaffa warrior bondage - bonding tradition. God, McKay's probably turning gayer every minute I'm around."
"Uh." John really hadn't needed to know that about O'Neill. "I'll just be going."
He fled, and after a few minutes forced himself not to find something alcoholic to drink and headed to the infirmary.
"Is that supposed to be news?" Keller said."Stay away from Ronon or else. And use a condom, damn it."
John didn't need to be told that, but he couldn't blame her for repeating it after what had happened to Corporal Bosworth.
"Hey Lorne. I need to talk to you about something."
Lorne looked up from John's paperwork and raised an eyebrow. "Sir?"
"Listen. I know this is kinda awkward, but you're a great XO, so I thought that even though there's the policy about telling and all that, I should say --"
"Oh god." John had never seen Lorne flustered or really anything but either calm or amused, except during that one little sleepwalking incident, so it took him a moment to recognize his expression as panicked. "Listen, sir. I'm trying to be discreet, really, I am, and I'm sorry if someone's come to your or you've noticed something. But I really like him, and it's not affecting my job at all, and Parrish isn't even really on my team anyways."
"Wait. What's he have to do with this?"
They looked at each other, and Lorne suddenly became his normal composed and innocent-looking self again. "Absolutely nothing, sir."
Things got stranger from there. Radek just shrugged, the mess cook rolled her eyes, Miko hugged him, and Chuck congratulated him on finally being open with himself. By the end of the day he was really starting to wonder if this entire coming out thing would even be necessary, because apparently the entire damned city already knew. He'd even announced it to a bunch of marines in the training room and none of them had so much as batted an eye.
He saved the most delicate person for last, of course, waiting right until about ten minutes before the reset. That would minimize the amount of yelling he'd have to endure. Rodney was still in his lab and writing out equations on the whiteboard. John waited for him to finish a line, then said, "Rodney. I wanted to tell you that, uh. I'm gay."
Rodney jumped and turned around. "What?"
"I'm gay," John repeated, and of course it figured Rodney would be the only one who didn't know.
"You. But. Why are you telling me this?" Rodney sputtered.
"Look, I'm in this time loop thing, and I figured I'd get it off my chest." John watched Rodney as the scientist stared back at him, and after a moment he hesitantly asked, "Are we okay?"
"Of course we're okay, but that is still the stupidest thing you've ever --"
"Rodney, shut up," John growled. Then he shoved Rodney against the wall, got down on his knees, and proceeded to give Rodney a wet and sloppy blowjob. It certainly wasn't the best one he'd ever given, but hell, he was under a time limit and couldn't be blamed for that. It was certainly pretty damned satisfying for John, especially when Rodney's fingers had tangled in his hair and he'd come chanting, "John, John, John."
Rodney was wild-eyed and beet red when John stood up again. John gave him a quick kiss and a jaunty wave as the reset came.
Loop 6
John could still almost taste Rodney's come in his mouth when he opened his eyes. He'd just had enough time to start feeling mildly guilty (only mildly, though) and incredibly pleased with himself when Rodney stormed into his room.
"What the hell was that?" he shouted, hands flailing madly.
John was completely thrown off balance by the sudden and unexpected change from usually happened. "What was what?"
"You just blew me in my lab! I reiterate: what the hell?"
"You remember that?" John asked with a sinking feeling in his stomach.
Rodney looked at him like he was an idiot. "Yes! Why wouldn't I?"
"But I'm the only one who's been remembering things." John stopped, narrowed his eyes as he reevaluated the situation, and then pointed an accusing finger at Rodney. "You're looping too! You bastard, why didn't you say anything?"
"Because I didn't think you were an idiot! Clearly I was mistaken. Of course I'm looping, we were both in the room with the machine!"
"You didn't act like you were in a time loop!" John protested. "You just kept working in your lab the entire time instead of trying to figure out what happened. What did you expect me to think?"
"I expected you to use your brain. It took me two minutes to look at the machine and see that it would automatically stop after a set number of cycles. It even said so on the display." Rodney crossed his arms. "Since there was no reason to worry, I decided to get some work done. Even without being able to save my work, I'm still getting an incredible amount accomplished on my new zero-point field theory. I'd like to point out you weren't exactly trying to get out either, Colonel Stunt Pilot."
"I figured I could just ask you after a little vacation." John scratched his head and looked down at the floor, his initial shock and annoyance turning to morbid embarrassment. "So... look, I'm really sorry. I shouldn't have done that, and if you're angry, I'll make it up somehow, even if you want me to leave or something."
"What? Leave? Are you insane?" Rodney looked like he was about to explode. "You brainless cretin, I'm angry because we could have been having sex this entire time!"
John's shot up and he stared at Rodney. "Really?"
"Yes, really! We probably could have been having sex for years if you weren't an emotional cripple, I've certainly wanted you that long." Rodney stopped and looked every bit as surprised by that admission as John felt. After a minute of silence, they simultaneously turned towards John's bed. Rodney frowned, and quietly snapped, "We're not sleeping on that thing. My back would never recover."
"It is a little small," John admitted. He paused on the way out the door just long enough to grab some lube and condoms.
Loop 17
John was on top of the world. He'd probably had more non-manual orgasms in ten days than he'd had in ten years. Sure, neither one of them were exactly young anymore, but the frequent physical resets had more than made up for that. Not only that, but they were having a hell of a lot of fun - for example, they'd just spent most of a day doing 'flight tests' on a jumper. Flying and fucking - what could be better than that?
They'd had to land just before time was up, because neither of them wanted to take a chance by being too far from the city, and John realized they had a few minutes left. He all but bounced down the stairs to the control room with an exhausted Rodney trailing along behind him.
"Excuse me," John said to Chuck, reaching for the communications control panel.
"Wait a second," Rodney said behind him. "I'm forgetting something."
John turned on the city-wide address. "Can I have your attention please? This is Colonel Sheppard. I just need to make a small announcement."
"Base-eight math, carry the one... sixteen," Rodney muttered. "Oh crap. Sheppard!"
"I just wanted to let everyone know that I'm totally in love with Rodney McKay. That's all, carry on." He started to turn around when Rodney smacked him on the back of the head. "Ow. What was that for?"
"We just finished the final loop, you dolt! It's not going to reset again!"
"Oh. Well, crap." John looked around the control room at all the wide-eyed techs. Over in her office, he saw Carter hitting her head on her desk. "So. Want to lock ourselves in your room?"
"Might as well," Rodney grumbled. As they left, the control room staff started clapping, and Chuck opened up his spreadsheet to see who'd chosen that day in the pool.