On the Brink, Part 2 by simonesimone
"Nonsense words?"
"Yeah, I only let a couple of real words through..."
"Atlantis. War and Peace." John smiled. "It's funny, because I didn't even recognize the nonsense words...they just kind of made the other stuff stand out more..."
"I was afraid that would happen. Your brain would rationalize the surreal aspects...that was another reason I tried to keep my inteference to a minimum."
"Have you been...staying here, the whole time?" John asked.
Rodney snorted again. "Of course not," he said scornfully. "Do I look like a grieving widow to you? This past week we finally got some higher level brain activity. Somebody's been here with you twenty-four hours a day, in case you decided to wake up."
He didn't know whether he was relieved or disappointed. He didn't miss the phrasing though. "I'm sorry," he said quietly.
Rodney looked angry. "Why are you sorry?" he snapped, standing up. "It's my fault you're here," he said, and his voice was awful, simultaneously furious and near tears. "I'm the one that--"
There was a sudden crackle over Rodney's radio. "Rodney," a voice said. It was Beckett, and he sounded pissed. Rodney shut it off in irritation. "I don't understand why those people can't keep their mouths shut," he said, changing gears completely. "Honestly, John, do you find Carson threatening? Like, maybe the way stuffed animals are threatening?"
"And yet you're still leaving," John said, watching him carefully. He thoroughly wished Carson hadn't interrupted just then--but he'd have time to straighten Rodney out later.
"Only because I have better things to do than sit here and watch you convalesce. I'll see you at the party tomorrow." He smiled, and disappeared.
****
John was amazed at what they'd managed to pull together at such short notice--there were balloons, and banners, and champagne, and chocolate cake and cookies and ice cream. John felt a pang of regret that this was probably their dessert budget for the next six months, but he looked over and saw Rodney gorging himself in ecstasy, and then he thought, 'Hey, we might not even be here in six months,' and he drank some more champagne.
Everyone hugged him, and in some cases there was kissing and drunken pawing. Even the new arrivals from the Daedalus embraced him like an old friend, and after his initial amusement and enjoyment he was starting to get a little freaked out. A lot had changed in three months. And looking at the power distribution around the room made him feel a little nervous; it was like starting all over again, he was going to have to fit into this again. It did help that every member of the military team came up to him though, even the ones he hadn't met before, and every one of them seemed genuinely pleased he was up and around. He remembered what Rodney had said about everyone's attempts to bring him back.
Eventually the champagne and the food started to run out, and people started staggering back to their rooms. John looked around, but Rodney had already disappeared, along with everyone else worth talking to, so he walked outside to one of the balconies and stood there, listening to the water. It felt real, and it felt like home, in a way that his dream never had.
*****
Around lunchtime he wandered over to the labs. It felt kind of weird to be bothering Rodney at work, even though it never had before. He'd spent the whole morning checking in with the marines though, and talking to the new people, getting a feel for them, and he needed a break. Zelenka and Rodney were off in a side room. Rodney was asleep on the table; Zelenka was typing on a laptop. He greeted John exuberantly but silently, nodding gently to Rodney's sleeping form, and led John out of the room. They had briefly seen each other the night before, but there had been too much going on, and too many people vying for John's attention, for them to greet each other properly.
"It is so good to see you back Colonel," Zelenka said, and those actually looked like tears in his eyes. John was a little embarassed, but mostly weirdly touched. "Yeah, well Rodney said I had you to thank for a lot of that."
Zelenka made dismissive motions. "It was entirely his doing. I helped where I could."
"I'm sure you did," John said, as he watched a woman he recognized as being part of the science team enter the lab with a large tray. "Quietly," Zelenka said, nodding to the other room. She returned the nod, and disappeared inside. John raised an eyebrow.
"He is at his best after eating. Blood sugar, you know. No one minds helping out." Zelenka beamed in a way that John found vaguely unsettling.
"You guys do it in rotation, huh," John said as the woman slipped out of the room and returned to a workstation. "Is he really that bad?"
Zelenka frowned. "Colonel," he said carefully. "It seems you bring out the best in Rodney. He is more patient with you, and so perhaps you do not see...other parts of his personality--"
"Oh, hey, hey," John said, getting defensive. "He's plenty cranky with me!"
"Of course! I did not mean to imply--"
"Radek!" a voice yelled from inside the room.
"Excuse me," Zelenka said, but that was unneccessary, because John followed him in. Rodney scowled at both of them, but it seemed more from grogginess than any actual complaint. Zelenka pushed food towards him, the way John had once seen a zookeeper push food towards a lion on a field trip to the zoo in fourth grade.
"Rodney, why do you terrorize the science staff?" John asked.
Zelenka gave him a horrified, betrayed look, before slowly backing away. Rodney stopped buttering a roll, and he turned suspiciously to Radek. "Who's been spreading lies about me?" he demanded. He turned back to John. "Where are you getting your information?" .
John left pretty soon after that.
*****
Rodney had gone to take a nap before dinner, so John was able to catch Zelenka alone later on. "Look, I'm sorry about earlier," he said apologetically.
Zelenka gave him a long-suffering look. "It's fine," he said. "He is mostly bark." He reflected, briefly. "Mostly."
"Don't you mind?"
"It is the way he is," Zelenka said, slightly puzzled. "I've worked with far more difficult people, to be honest. But don't tell him that. You must know all this though, Colonel," and Zelenka seemed a little surprised. "Your relationship with Rodney...you have firsthand experience of what he can be like. The good and the bad."
A lot of things happened in the space of that phrase, from the beginning of that sentence to the end. The first one was that John realized exactly what it was Zelenka, and by extension the rest of the science staff, and by extension all of Atlantis thought was going on. The blush started before he could even fully take it all in. How could they think-- How long-- Did Rodney--?
"I--" he started to say, but Zelenka saw his discomfort, and hurriedly continued, "I did not mean--everyone is very grateful for your friendship with Rodney," he stressed. "You have been a very good influence on him. He is far less cranky. We all missed you during your illness, but on Rodney it was hardest of all."
John didn't know what to say. "Nobody minds?" he managed finally. He wanted to say, who else knows? Who else thinks they know?
Zelenka seemed to understand though. "No, no!" he said, appalled. Then, scrupulously honest, he added, dismissively, "Well, Kavanagh. But the others are bludgeoning him into submission."
*****
John left the conversation feeling off-balance--he could never seem to gain any kind of equilibrium before something else hit him. He didn't know where to even start thinking about it. So the science staff thought he had been sleeping with Rodney (which wasn't entirely false, he reflected bitterly), and as a result of this Rodney yelled less. So they thought it was a Very Good Thing. And, since they probably wanted it to continue for as long as possible, they were doing their best to cover John and Rodney's asses, just in case it turned out to be a problem for John's superiors. It was really unbelievable.
He thought about everything that had happened while he was asleep, the things he had been going to tell Heightmeyer that afternoon, but the idea suddenly seemed about a thousand times less appealing. He decided he couldn't remember anything after all.
*****
After that he tried not to avoid Rodney, but it happened anyway. He was busy with work, and Rodney was busy with work, and Carson wouldn't clear him for missions yet so their work paths didn't cross. He didn't go to Rodney's quarters, and Rodney didn't come to his. The only place John saw him regularly was meetings, and there weren't many of those. When he did see him, John felt horrible because Rodney always looked pinched and tired and guilty.
When the science staff saw him, they gave him nasty or hopeful looks, depending on how vindictive they were. John spent a lot of time working out with Teyla, and a lot of time being grateful for whatever Ancient devices Carson and Rodney had put to work to keep his body from atrophying, and a lot of time feeling guilty for being a jerk. His reflective mood did nothing to keep him from getting his ass kicked.
"You need to focus," Teyla told him, after one particularly trying work out.
"It's hard," he said. She was standing over him, but he was still lying on the floor, trying to get his breath back.
"What's bothering you, really?" she asked, and her dark eyes were glittering and warm. She's your friend, he thought, trying to get that thought through. She's probably one of the best friends you've ever had. That was when he had his sudden epiphany--how many hundreds of millions of light years did it take you to find friends and a place that feels like home? In that moment, he would have told her everything, because she was his friend and she cared about him, because she was discrete, because he trusted her with his life.
Both of their radios beeped at the same time, and then they were running for the door.
*****
By the time they arrived, everything was pretty much under control, and after taking a look around and trying not to get in anyone's way they went to the infirmary. Zelenka and Rodney and Beckett were arguing all at once, Beckett running a relay between the hospital beds, going from patient to patient. Zelenka was the first one to notice John; "Good!" he said, viciously satisfied. He grabbed John with surprising, wiry strength and yanked him over to Rodney's bedside. "Calm him down!" he instructed, and he disappeared, Rodney yelling instructions after him.
"I need to get out of here--" Rodney said, only slurring the words a little bit as he tried to sit up. John pushed him back down. "Rodney. You're staying in that bed."
Rodney gave him a look that was half irritation, half misery. "What the hell happened?" John asked. Rodney and the other scientists were all covered in various bruises and contusions--it didn't look like anything too serious, thank god, but Rodney seemed extremely wound up.
"There was an explosion. I don't know whose fault it was yet--" he said in a menacing tone, "but," and his voice cracked, he sounded on the verge of tears. "It broke the ZPM."
"What?"
Rodney started crying. Carson looked up from what he was doing long enough to mouth, 'It's the drugs,' and John patted Rodney on the arm, ineffectually. Teyla came around to his other side and put her arm around him. The scientists were casting him sympathetic looks from beneath their bandages.
"It--it's a little crack--" Rodney said between sobs "Atlantis has some kind of pr-provision--these shields came up--but we need to fix it--" Rodney dissolved into tears.
*****
The third planet on their list also had a gate in space. There had been no jokes when they'd gone through about dying; John had found out a lot more about what had happened in the time he'd been gone, and there were plenty of reasons Rodney and a lot of other people were looking worse for the wear. Rodney stared moodily out the window; John imagined he could still see Rodney's eyes red from crying.
John landed the jumper and they got out, sticking close together. The scenery was familiar; like the first two planets they'd visited it was a mix of desert wasteland and lush vegetation. They had landed near, though not on top of, a settlement, and it wasn't long after they'd started walking that a man and a woman approached them. They were dressed simply in loose, drab clothing., and they were watching them suspiciously.
"Hello," John said, stepping forward. "We're visitors here. We are hoping to trade." John introduced everyone, and the man and the woman watched them coolly.
"I am Jutta and this is Reiterr," the woman said. "We greet you. You must meet the Queen."
*****
Jutta led them as far as the 'castle'--a dilapidated stone building, filled with livestock and more curious, vaguely hostile people dressed like herself.
"Only two of you may visit the Queen," a man who'd introduced himself as a guard informed them. John glanced back at Teyla and Ronon; they nodded, and the guard led John and Rodney up a series of stone staircases. Inside one of the upper levels, the conditions started to get a little more hospitable--there were some mouldering, shaggy carpets on the floor, as well as threadbare tapestries on the walls. John stuck close to Rodney, who watched everything with dull, incurious eyes.
"Are you all right?" John asked softly, while they were left to wait on rough wooden benches. Rodney nodded. "We're not going to find anything here. Just like the last two planets. And one of us is going to get killed while we find that out."
John touched the small of his back, and Rodney let out a tiny, shuddering breath. A door in front of them opened and a young, stocky man in his twenties exited. He was better dressed than anyone they'd seen so far. He bowed them towards the open door in a way that was almost ironic. "The Queen will see you now," he said with a smile. John and Rodney exchanged looks.
The room inside was surprisingly neat and clean compared to everything else they'd seen. There weren't as many carpets, but they were of better quality, and the air smelled cleaner. There was a vase of purple flowers on one table. Aside from the furniture there were two fishtanks in the room; a small girl of eleven or twelve was watching one of them. She looked up when they came in.
She had long brown hair that looked as if it hadn't been washed recently, and she was wearing an ankle-length purple garment like a choir gown buttoned up to the neck. She had reed woven sandals on her feet, and her face was sad and pudgy. She stood up when they entered the room, and John politely introduced them both, even as he wondered if this was the Queen's daughter, or a trick being pulled on them by the surly natives. When he had finished she gave a surprisingly elegant curtsy, and said simply, "I am Queen Deatti. I do not know what we have that you could want in trade, but I am happy to assist you in any way I can."
Rodney started by asking her if there were any caves on the planet; they were both unsurprised when Deatti shook her head apologetically. Rodney asked her about Ancient technology next, and showed her the scanner. Deatti's eyes brightened up and her face was suddenly lit with interest and intelligence as she leaned over the table to examine it.
"I have seen things like this before," she said eagerly, suddenly seeming her age again, "but not for many years. There is a holy place near here my old advisor used to take me to when I was very small--"
John hid a smile. "I can take you there, easily. I am afraid there is nothing as grand as this there, though, so if you are looking for more you will be disappointed. There may not be anything left at all now."
Rodney said they'd like to see it anyway; Deatti led them out the back.
"Will anyone mind you just leaving like this?" John asked. They had gone out a servant's staircase through the back of the 'castle,' and they were heading downhill, along a small river. It was a warm day, and Deatti stopped once they were on level ground to drape her robe over a tree branch. Underneath she had on a plain white blouse and a white knee-length skirt of the same material.
"Oh, no," she said simply, and Rodney and John exchanged significant looks again. What kind of people left their eleven-year-old queen alone with complete strangers? Deatti asked a lot of questions about the scanner as they walked; they grew increasingly detailed and penetrating. She listened eagerly to all of Rodney's explanations, with a kind of breathless wonder, even the long and boring ones. Then she asked questions about how they'd travelled here, and her eyes widened when they told her about the ship. "You mean you can leave here?" she said, giddily.
They asked her about the wraith, and she nodded glumly, saying they'd been here a few months earlier. By this time they'd reached the clearing. It formed a large ring surrounded by stones and trees and flowers. "Every few years, some men come here to clear up any saplings that have grown up," Deatti said.
"They come and weed, huh," John said looking around.
"No, they never pick the plants here," Deatti replied placidly.
Rodney walked around, watching the scanner. "Nothing," he sighed at last. "There's nothing here."
"Maybe we should head back, then," John said. Despite Deatti's assurances, he was afraid of what would happen if the guards found the three of them gone. Teyla and Ronon were still back there.
Deatti seemed inclined to dawdle though; she walked slowly by the river, firing question after question at Rodney. He walked beside her, explaining about stars and space travel and electronics. "Are those the fish in your fishtank?" he asked suddenly, pointing to a flash of movement in the water. A strange look came over Deatti's face; she nodded, tiredly.
Rodney didn't seem to notice. "Those ones were all alone. The other tank had all different fish in it."
"They eat the other fish. They begin to eat each other too, after a while."
"Why don't you just feed them something else, then?" John asked.
"They are fed. They do not eat each other out of hunger. They do it out of boredom." They had reached the bottom of the castle hill; Deatti retrieved her robe and buttoned it up as they walked.
"Deatti," Rodney said slowly, "How did you become queen? Were your parents taken by the wraith?"
Deatti was silent for a moment. She reached down and adjusted a strap on her sandal. When she straightened up her face was expressionless. "When I become a woman, the prince will beget me with child," she said in a flat voice. "If the child is male, he will be the prince, and another woman will produce the next queen. If it is female, she will take my place."
"Who is the prince?" John asked. He could feel hairs rising on the back of his neck, a chill despite the heat of the day. "That man we saw outside your room?"
Deatti nodded, silently. "When do you come of age?" Rodney asked. "In a few years?"
"They tell me it will happen any day now," she said carefully, climbing the stairs back to the room.
*****
No one seemed to notice, or care, that they had left the castle. The room was exactly as they had left it. Deatti told them, in a subdued voice, that she was going to pray before dinner; she left them alone.
"How are we going to get her out of here?" Rodney demanded, as soon as she was gone.
John didn't respond; "Don't look at me like that!" Rodney hissed. "You can't honestly be thinking of leaving her here--"
"They'll do it to someone else if we take her," John replied. "You heard what she said--"
"Well, it will probably be someone more deserving of the prince," Rodney sneered. "These are the most backward people we've ever come across. They rape, impregnate, and murder children because they think it keeps the wraith away, even though the wraith come here as much as they go anywhere! She's an aberration, and we need to save her."
"We don't know that they murder--"
"Oh yes we do, I think it's pretty clear! They have plenty of young fertile women around; they didn't mind leaving two armed men with her. They were probably hoping we'd take her off their hands so they could put someone with less intelligence and will to live in her place!"
John sighed. They'd both been able to read between the lines; Deatti hadn't told them everything, but she hadn't needed to.
"How are we going to get her out?" Rodney asked.
"We have no idea what we're walking into here!"
"Hello, since when has that ever bothered you before!" Rodney demanded.
Deatti returned sometime later. Her face looked freshly washed, but even so her eyes were still a little red. When they explained things to her, she raised her head and looked at them with such hope and deseperate joy that John had to look away. "What's the best way for all of us to get out of here?" Rodney asked her. "We have two people your guards forced us to leave behind."
Deatti chewed her lip. "You should wait for darkness," she said. "The guards are very lax...there is nowhere for anyone to go. They would notice now, but tonight everyone will be asleep. We can escape then."
John contacted Teyla over a silent frequency on the radio, and they agreed to meet later that night. John and Rodney had been allotted a small room, and a few hours after it was completely dark they slipped out of it, back to the room they'd first met Deatti in. She was sitting in the same place they'd first seen her, crouched between the two fishtanks. The room was illuminated by the moon outside, and it gave everything an eerie cast. John watched her, wondering how much longer she'd have sat between those fishtanks before she was sacrificed to the gods, or the wraith, or just to her people's own ignorance. He was savagely glad they were taking her.
She led them down a small staircase near the front, whispering that part of it had collapsed but that it was still possible to get through to the outside. They climbed over the broken steps, and the part of the wall that had caved in, and they slipped past the two guards sleeping by the main gate. It was locked, but there were some loose stones further along the wall that Deatti removed and they went through, pulling them back in behind them.
After that, Deatti was running down the trail, silent on her reed sandals, and John could see her face in the moonlight, looking up at the sky and grinning. He and Rodney followed at a quick pace, keeping her in sight. They had agreed to rendezvous with Teyla and Ronon at the jumper, and they had already checked in to report they'd made it there safely. They were near the spot where they had first met Jutta and Reiterr that morning, when Deatti screamed. They both ran forward, and there was the Prince in the darkness, an arm around Deatti's neck, his free hand holding a long knife blade that glinted in the moonlight. John reached for his gun, but the Prince saw him and grinned, shaking his head. His teeth glittered wolfishly, and John felt a pounding start in his head, the sound of the blood in his ears suddenly a thousand times louder.
This is a no-win situation. She's going to die because of you, because of your interference, you didn't help at all--
Rodney threw a rock at the Prince's head, and--who would have known?--Rodney had fabulous aim. The Prince staggered, losing his hold on Deatti, who dashed away, "Run ahead, follow the trail," John said to her--she was already gone--as he called Teyla up on the radio and told her to watch out for the little girl.
The Prince had charged Rodney; there was blood streaming from his forehead and he was staggering; John fumbled, trying to get a clear shot. He was shaking and his body felt slow and unresponsive.
Rodney struggled with the Prince, trying to keep the blade away; he had the advantage of height and weight, but the other man was ferocious, almost berserk. John was raising his gun just as Rodney suddenly slipped on the leaves and went still.
"No," John screamed and suddenly there was an enormous, cavernous hole in the Prince's chest, and Rodney was lying on the ground with the blade handle sticking out of his stomach. He didn't remember pulling it out, but Ronon was there suddenly, helping him apply pressure to the wound, and then they were carrying him back to the jumper. He left Rodney on the floor in the back, Teyla and Deatti leaning over him--they'd given Teyla first aid training, she'd learned a lot--
They were in space. John dialed Atlantis and went through the gate.
****
He couldn't handle anything after their arrival; everything was too bright and too loud. He ignored Elizabeth and everyone else, and he went down to the infirmary. He hid out in Beckett's office, huddled up in the rolling chair, and the lights dimmed without him asking them to. Beckett came by eventually and gave him a sedative, and put him to bed on the cot he kept in his office.
When he woke up nothing was better; he still felt guilty and ashamed, with the added bonus of now having had a nervous breakdown. He'd never thought that would be something that would happen to him, he reflected, as he lay there on the cot. He'd known it happened to normal guys who just snapped, sometimes, but he'd never thought it would be him. He'd always thought he had too much self-control. He closed his eyes, remembering the tight-rope.
Carson came in, and sat next to him on the cot, his body warm and solid and steady. "You want to tell me what's going on, Colonel?" he said, and John did.
They all made fun of him for being afraid of the jumpers and the Ancient technology, but here he was like John's drill sergeant back in basic training, and like every tough, hard-ass commander he'd ever served under. It was weird--it was how Carson was in the infirmary, how Rodney was in the lab, how he was supposed to be in the field...
So John started talking, clutching the pillow to his chest. Every so often, Carson would interrupt with a question, or he'd say You have to tell Rodney. It became a litany--tell Rodney, tell Rodney, tell Rodney. But he couldn't.
"He feels the same way you do, Colonel, in fact we all feel the same way you do. We've all made mistakes here, and we all feel that guilt because the consequences are so much worse."
John pressed the pillow to his face. Carson gently moved it away, and handed him a box of tissues. "I want you to talk to Rodney, and I want you to talk to Dr. Heightmeyer," he said in his prescription voice. John looked skeptical. Carson sighed. "She's very good, Colonel. But if you don't feel comfortable talking to her, you can always talk to me. I haven't had her training but we all have to wear many hats here...I'll do my best." He stood up, and John thought that would be it, but Carson threw him out. "I need my office."
His feet went unwillingly over to Rodney's bed, but Rodney didn't seem unhappy to see him. "Hey, are you all right?" he asked, pushing away the laptop he'd been working on and reaching for John at the same time.
"Are you all right," John countered. "Should you be working right now?"
"It's not real work. Zelenka locked me out of everything important." He took a deep breath. "This is all stuff I work on in my free time."
John remained unconvinced. "I can't just sit here and stare at the walls, Colonel." It had been a while since Rodney had called him by his first name, he realized with a pang. And whose fault was that?
"I'm sorry, Rodney," he said. "I don't know what happened to me last night--I wasn't fast enough, and I should have been--"
"Hey, hey," Rodney said. "If it's anybody's fault, it's mine, I should have shot the guy after he let go of Deatti--I wasn't thinking either, and now I'm going to miss about a week's worth of work--you killed him right?"
"Yeah--"
"Well, that's the important thing. Where is Deatti, anyway?"
"I don't--"
Rodney reached for his radio. "Zelenka?"
There was a pause. "Yes?"
"The little girl we brought back with us--"
"She is here. You are supposed to be resting, Rodney," Zelenka said reproachfully. The radio went dead. "Goddamnit," Rodney said. He put it aside. "Hey, though, while we're on the subject of apologies, I, um, I don't know if I ever really--back when we were with the Trebtians--I'm sorry, I should have listened--"
John stared at him in disbelief. "Rodney," he said. "After the lengths you went to to save my life, I think I should be apologizing for not thanking you sooner--"
"It was my fault you were there to begin with!"
"Yeah, and if I hadn't been, you would have been killed, and then where would we be?" He gripped Rodney's hand, suddenly, pressing his thumb into the web of skin between Rodney's thumb and first finger, and he heard it, Rodney's tiny hitching breath. He hadn't known he'd been waiting for it until it was over. He inhaled; Rodney smelled clean and warm and faintly sweet, with no trace at all of the coppery blood from last night. "Let's say we're even for fucking up, okay?"
"Okay," Rodney said numbly. John let him go and headed for the door.
****
Teyla was more worried about him than annoyed with him for leaving her to explain to Elizabeth alone--Carson had contacted them all to tell them John was staying in the infirmary overnight. And John was glad, in a cowardly way, that he had missed the scolding for ruining trade relations with yet another planet and kidnapping their queen. Teyla had already told Elizabeth what Deatti's fate would have been if they'd left her behind.
Since Rodney had seemed to be Deatti's de facto guardian she'd been put into the reluctant care of the science team while Rodney recovered. When John went down to the labs to check on her he found Zelenka and Pirelli teaching her calculus, and most of the other scientists casting envious looks over in their direction that clearly said 'My turn! My turn!' Someone had given her a t-shirt to wear with a robot on it. From time to time, especially when Deatti found something confusing, someone else would break in and try to explain, and a vicious argument would ensue. John left them to it.
****
When Rodney was well enough to leave the infirmary he informed the science staff of his intention to leave Deatti in the care of the Trebtia. They were not pleased.
"My god, people! This is not the Starship Enterprise!"
"You cannot leave her with a primitive people--she has a brilliant mind--"
"They're not primitive! And they live in a goddamn paradise! You do realize this is a child we're talking about, not a puppy. It's fun for you all to have a little mascot now, but what happens when the wraith attack again and we're all working 32 hour shifts? We are not equipped to take care of children here. She can come visit on weekends, all right?"
That was not the end of the argument, and Deatti herself didn't seem happy about being told she was going to be sent away, but Rodney sat her down and talked with her. Her hair hung in a short, clean bob around her head now, and someone had cut down a uniform for her, and she had a full array of science t-shirts. "Look, I know this seems unfair, but believe me I've given it a lot of thought and this is the best possible outcome. We're sending you to live in an intellectual paradise with a waterpark. At your age, I couldn't have dreamed of a better scenario than that, unless it involved superpowers. And here, you'll at least have the opportunity to build a jetpack." Deatti still seemed doubtful. "Look, I'll make you a deal," he sighed. "Just try it out for a couple of weeks. If you still think you'll be happier here with a bunch of neurotic scientists and the omnipresent prospect of near-certain death, you can stay, all right?"
Deatti hugged him, to his embarassment.
****
They were in the jumper, on their way down to the planet, when Rodney said, "Uh," and a manic gleam came into his eyes. He spent the rest of the flight engrossed in his datapad. Teyla was talking to Deatti in a soft voice in the back; Deatti seemed on the verge of tears, and she was clutching a large knapsack that had been filled with going-away presents. Rodney ignored everyone, even when they landed and the Trebtia ran up to meet them. Groshen beamed when he saw John, and actually lifted him off his feet in his delight. He started babbling about the wonder and glory of the Star People's technology, and John looked around for Rodney and Deatti. They had agreed that Rodney would be the one to explain, but...he was already several hundred feet away, stalking purposefully, eyes glued to the datapad. John turned back to where Deatti was clutching Teyla's hand (but already looking around her with more curiosity than fear) shot Teyla an apologetic smile, which she understood perfectly, and raced after Rodney.
When John caught up with him, Rodney was standing in a field of the purple flowers John remembered from their first visit. "So, uh," Rodney said. He cleared his throat. "The, um, Ancient word that we came across--excavate is actually the secondary meaning. Uh. Cultivate is the primary meaning."
John looked around at the purple flowers, their heavy heads nodding in the breeze. "Huh," he said. Then he knocked Rodney to the ground.
****
When they caught up with Groshen the first thing Rodney asked was if they could take some of the purple weeds home with them. Groshen raised his eyebrows, and looked at him in a way that John found vaguely insulting. Groshen had a lot of nerve to think that they were crazy. He told them, in a kind voice, that they could take as many of the flowers as they liked, and that they would all grow back anyway. He said that Teyla and Ronon and Deatti were already over at the 'baths,' so the three of them headed that way.
"Hey, did you ever find out what powered the shields?" John asked Rodney in an undertone. Rodney sighed.
"Yes, it is the sun like they said. I think this was a research outpost for the Ancients. From the data we recovered, I don't think the Ancients ever got the shields fully functional, but the Trebtia apparently stumbled upon a cache of Ancient technology a few hundred years ago--maybe when that earthquake happened. They somehow got the shield generator to work, and we're trying to reverse-engineer our own, but it's practically impossible. We're running into all the same problems the Ancients did. I don't know how the Trebtia got it to work. It's very Rube Goldberg," Rodney grumbled.
By this time they had reached the baths, and it was just like John remembered it--the hazy, shimmering rainbow, the cold, inviting water. He could see Deatti splashing around with some other children, happier even than he'd seen her in the lab, and he said, "I don't think we're going to have any trouble convincing her to stay here."
"Didn't I tell you?" Rodney asked smugly, and he belatedly started explaining to Groshen.
****
They swam until it got cold, then they filled up the jumper with the purple flowers, Deatti happily talking all their ears off about the other children. Groshen had magnanimously said she could stay with them as long as she wanted--he'd actually seemed a little surprised they'd bothered to ask. On John's other side, Rodney was talking about processing the flowers, and what chemical properties they were likely to have, and how long it might take them to repair the ZPM.
John felt quietly, blissfully happy. For once, he was working towards a purpose, and they'd accomplished what they'd come here to do. They had valuable allies, and he'd saved someone's life. A little of the weight he'd been carrying around fell off him, and at the celebratory dinner the Trebtia threw them he joked and laughed with Teyla and Ronon in a way he hadn't in a long time. Rodney was deep in discussion with Groshen and the other scientists.
John looked over at him from time to time, and then he noticed that Teyla and Ronon noticed him, and were smiling at him, and he felt a little embarassed, but it didn't interfere with his happiness much. The Trebtians' wine had warmed him up, and so had the company. He felt exposed, but not in a bad way.
A few hours later, after Deatti waved goodbye to them from the arms of her new adoptive family, and they had gone through the gate, and staggered out into the jumper bay, a little drunk, their arms full of flowers, John thought about going after Rodney. But Rodney was already heading for the lab, dragging a bag of flowers with him, so John headed for his own room instead.
****
The next night, he was nervous enough that he wished he'd done it when he was drunk. Because he knew, but he didn't know, and he vascillated back and forth, trying to decide if he was right or wrong. All this time he'd been waiting to be ready he'd--what?--assumed Rodney already was? Not assumed, exactly, just hadn't given the matter any thought from Rodney's perspective.
He did now, though, and he thought of Rodney fighting for him, when they'd brought him back from Trebtia, thought of Rodney trying to wake him up, pushing everything else to one side while he worked to save John. He thought of the way Rodney had looked when he'd woken up, haggard and pale, but so pleased to see him, the hurt way he'd looked later when John had been avoiding him.
He was still a coward though. He checked the life scanner and found Rodney alone in his quarters, probably sent home to sleep by Zelenka, and he had another momentary floundering pause--if Rodney was asleep, or on the verge of exhaustion--but he could go on like this forever, because there was never going to be a perfect moment, and they were only as good as the next crisis, and he'd wasted enough time already.
****
Rodney gave him a bleary look when he walked in--he was reading a print-out.
"Your eyes bothering you?"
"Well, I've been staring at a computer screen for fourteen hours," he rasped. He leaned back, eyes closed, so he missed John stalking over to the bed, missed the way he hovered there for a second before descending; the next thing he was aware of was John's weight bearing down on him, one knee between his thighs, and he gasped that beautiful little hitching shudder of breath before John was full on top of him, keen on finding out if he tasted as good as he smelled.
Rodney shook underneath him, and John brought his thumb up to rest on Rodney's neck, underneath his ear, feeling the thundering pulse there. Rodney clutched at him compulsively, arms and legs wrapped around him, as John kissed him long and deep. Rodney did taste faintly sweet, he thought, as they pressed their mouths together, warm and slow and lingering. He was faintly shaking in John's arms, and John pulled away enough to kiss Rodney's neck, around his ear, where the warm smell was concentrated. When he started sucking, pulling gently at Rodney's skin with his teeth and his tongue, Rodney shuddered violently, like he was going to fly apart at the seams.
John seperated them, Rodney scrabbling at him a little wildly, just far enough away that he could get both of their jackets and pants and boots off, and then there was only warm skin and soft cotton left as they clutched each other. Rodney was already hard against him, painfully hard from the sound he made when John rubbed the small of his back, and pulled him closer. This was already the hottest thing he'd ever done with any clothes still on. It felt almost obscenely good to be holding each other like this, with only thin layers of cotton keeping them apart; it seemed like every nerve in his body was tingling with anticipatory pleasure. John nuzzled Rodney's forehead while Rodney breathed harshly into John's neck, face buried.
His hands were busy, touching Rodney all over, his soft skin, the knobs of his spine, the little pinches of fat by his hips. It was nice to have someone to hold onto, someone he didn't have to worry about breaking or squeezing too hard. He pushed Rodney onto his back and climbed on top of him, mouth finding his as he shifted, and they both groaned at that first touch of their cocks together. Then Rodney had gripped his hips, was rubbing them together frantically and sucking John's tongue into his mouth, and it was so good, so good, his hips moving rhythmically in time to Rodney's thrusts. Rodney pushed past John's boxers suddenly, and his own, and then his big hand was wrapped around the two of them, firm and warm, rubbing, creating the best friction John had ever felt in his life. He had to moan, had to pull away from Rodney's mouth, to look down at that hand, cradling them both as they moved against it. Rodney's hand, on him, Rodney's cock against him, and under other circumstances he might have waited, he usually had more self control, but watching Rodney's hand rub them together, thrusting against that tightness, in that fast, sweet, perfect rhythm he couldn't imagine anything worth waiting for.
He pushed up hard, one last time and he came, shivering with a moan, oh god, so good, slick against Rodney's belly, and when he opened his eyes--oh, Rodney was watching him, with a burning intensity. He had stopped moving, but when John's hand came down on him, slick with his own come, gliding up and down Rodney's cock, his eyes closed, face contorted in almost agony as he thrust up, his hands coming to grip John's forearms almost hard enough to bruise. He got to watch Rodney through the whole thing, his head thrown back, his breath coming short and hard, the expression on his face, all through the build up, all the way through to the end when Rodney cried out and clung to him.
And he wouldn't have thought it possible, but after that performance he was half-hard again already.
****
Rodney was sucking him almost immediately afterwards, his mouth so wet and hot, and, oh god, slickly taking him all the way in, deep, pulling off again until it was just his tongue swirling around the crown, sucking it, and, god, god, god, he stretched it out, longer than John wanted, made him beg for it. He brought him to the brink and back what felt like a thousand times, and John was sobbing for it, pleading for him to let him, "Rodney, Rodney, Rodney," like pain and pleasure altogether because it was so good, he wanted it so much. Rodney was relentless, and stronger than he would have expected; he held him down easily.
He could tell the second Rodney's intentions changed though, and it was such a relief, and he was so grateful, then Rodney pulled back to look at him suddenly. It was a perfect moment, because he could see everything he felt loved about Rodney, his humor, his intelligence, his warmth, and Rodney knew that he knew, and then his mouth was back on him, so hot and slick and perfect, alternating between gentle and almost punishing until he came, just this beautiful, gorgeous crest of heat washing over him, like tumbling beneath the waves.
They each had more sex in the next 24 hours than in any previous period of that time. They had sex so many times that John actually lost count, and in later arguments they could never come to a consensus on what the number had actually been. After Rodney had sucked him off he'd fallen into an exhausted sleep, Rodney wrapped around him, but a few hours later he'd woken up to Rodney's cock bumping against his hip, and Rodney was, ohhhhh, kissing his way across his chest, sucking one of his nipples. And he hadn't thought it would happen like that, especially not so soon, and he hadn't thought that Rodney would be the one to do him first, either, but two exquisite orgasms in as many hours, after such a long dry spell, had short-circuited all brain function higher than Yeah, yeah, stick it in me...
He was reckless, so it could have been a lot worse and he wouldn't have minded, but it wasn't bad at all. Rodney licked him down there, and he was still trying to process that when Rodney's slick fingers started touching him, and then it was his cock, pushing deep inside, Rodney breathing loud and noisy over his head, his whole body bent like a bow with the strain. Then, somewhere in there, in time to Rodney's thrusts, the whole world had disappeared, leaving only that agonizing pleasure, and John was pretty sure he'd been screaming harder, harder, harder, but he couldn't fully remember. Everything had dissolved, melted, white hot and unbelievably good, timed with the deep, scraping way Rodney pushed into him, so hard he could feel it in every part of his body. He only had a dim memory of Rodney's slick hand touching his cock near the end, and he was almost positive he'd blacked out within seconds of orgasm.
After that they were both useless for a while, but when the dawn sun came in through the window John woke up and started thinking about what they'd been doing all night, which, along with the time of day, had him fucking Rodney within twenty minutes. Listening to Rodney moan underneath him he realized that he'd been wrong about the wraith and everything else--that he and Rodney were actually going to die from being unable to leave this bed. He wasn't sure if the successive orgasms would trigger a heart attack, or if they would just die of dehydration, or what, but unless someone came in and tore them apart there was no way he was going to be able to stop doing this.
"John," Rodney was saying beneath him. He twisted his hips, and pushed hard, and Rodney cried out and arched up beneath him, the room flooded with his low moan.
Christ.
****
There didn't seem to be anything to say, when they'd finally finished. The had reached a point where starving to death had become a real possibility, so they had showered, holding each other up, and dressed, and left Rodney's rooms together. Rodney had a faint smile on his face and his eyes were far away. "Rodney, the mess hall is this way," John pointed out.
"Is it?" Rodney asked. John steered him back in the right direction. There was a little murmur when they walked in--it was after 18:00, and later than that by Atlantean time, and no one had seen them since the day before. Rodney ignored them all and headed for the food. They ate together quietly, and then Rodney said he was going to the lab. "All right," John said. He figured he'd better go and explain himself to Elizabeth.
She gave him an amused look when he walked in, and in the bright light of her office things were a little different. "I told everyone you had the day off," she said drily.
"Thanks," he said, staring at the floor, not the way he'd say it to a commanding officer, but the way he would to a friend.
"I hope--" she said, at the same time he said, "I, uh--"
Elizabeth tried again. "One time occurrence?"
He looked at her blankly, and she sighed. "Advance notice, then?"
****
The science team were convinced that someone was drugging Rodney. John had heard it or overheard it from half a dozen people by the end of the next day. Zelenka had given him a deeply suspicious look the one time he'd stopped by the lab, and he wasn't sure what to do about it.
He and Rodney had managed to talk later, telling each other more about that awful three months, and John told him more about everything else, and Rodney said that he was Actually Crazy and had to start seeing Heightmeyer right away. Rodney apparently went to see her three times a week, which John hadn't known.
Rodney's baseline seemed to have switched--he was several orders of magnitude happier than he had been a couple of days ago. Pretty soon he started snapping at the science staff enough that their feathers were unruffled, but he still seemed basically content with life in a way that made John both smug and envious. He was happy that Rodney was happy, especially since it was because of him. But he wished it were that easy for himself. He talked to Rodney, and he talked to Heightmeyer, and he talked to Carson, and it was getting better, but outside of the wild sex (that couldn't have been any better without actually resulting in death) he found it hard to achieve the smug serenity that Rodney was walking around with.
"How do you keep from feeling it then," he demanded one night, a little impatiently. They were lying in bed, head to foot, Rodney working on his laptop. He glanced up at John. "Because I'm too busy to constantly dwell on it. Do you have any idea how much work I do?" and John did, actually, because he talked about it constantly. "Those damn flowers alone, I almost wish we never brought them back. The synthesis process is coming along, but we still have no idea how the application itself is going to work, because--"
"Rodney!"
"Well, how did you deal with it before? It didn't seem like you were always this miserable."
John groaned, and buried his face in a pillow. "I'm not miserable."
Rodney put the laptop down and came up to sit next to him, pulling John's head into his lap. "No, you're depressed," he agreed. "Have you thought about drugs?"
"I was in denial before," John said. "I guess that's what I always did. I just seperated myself out from everyone else, but I can't anymore."
"That's not actually a bad thing, you know."
"Except that I'm miserable."
"Hmm. Well, now you have to learn how to be a human being like the rest of us." He gave John's shoulder a tight squeeze.
"Ever since I was in the coma...when I was in it, I saw what I was doing," he said. "None of it felt really real, and I knew it, what was happening there was exactly what I was doing in real life, not really feeling it..."
"And feeling guilty about it anyway, compensating with your hero antics," Rodney said, nodding sagely. John hit him with the pillow.
"What do I do?" he asked.
"What everybody else does. You have to do your job. Get to know the marines, even though some of them are probably going to die, and that will suck, keep going on missions, try to come up with a fucking offensive plan so we're hopefully less screwed the next time something horrible happens to us, help the Athosians bring in the crops, socialize more with the people here--"
John snorted. "You're giving me advice on socializing--"
"Well, you haven't been doing a very good job of it lately, have you? Anyway, if you still have time left over after all that to worry and feel guilty in, you can come down to the lab and do some work for me, all right?"
And John thought about making a joke about that, but the grim look on Rodney's face, and the way he was hunched back over the laptop, and thinking of the way Rodney treated the scientists like galley slaves, stopped him. He really wouldn't enjoy whatever work Rodney came up with for him.
He closed his eyes and made two mental columns, the way he had in his dream, and he shivered suddenly, thinking of that, and the voice that had said you have to choose one. Because it wasn't a choice at all, and he didn't even need to make the fucking columns. He had friends here, across a whole galaxy, and a purpose, and a job he loved, and it had been worth fighting for them to come back from his dream, and it was worth fighting for now. And--he looked down, to where Rodney was typing away--he had Rodney, who loved him, really loved him, in a way he almost couldn't comprehend except that he felt it from the other side. And he smiled.
"Okay," he said, and Rodney turned around and flashed him a grin that was genuinely happy.
"Okay," he said back.
"Yeah, I only let a couple of real words through..."
"Atlantis. War and Peace." John smiled. "It's funny, because I didn't even recognize the nonsense words...they just kind of made the other stuff stand out more..."
"I was afraid that would happen. Your brain would rationalize the surreal aspects...that was another reason I tried to keep my inteference to a minimum."
"Have you been...staying here, the whole time?" John asked.
Rodney snorted again. "Of course not," he said scornfully. "Do I look like a grieving widow to you? This past week we finally got some higher level brain activity. Somebody's been here with you twenty-four hours a day, in case you decided to wake up."
He didn't know whether he was relieved or disappointed. He didn't miss the phrasing though. "I'm sorry," he said quietly.
Rodney looked angry. "Why are you sorry?" he snapped, standing up. "It's my fault you're here," he said, and his voice was awful, simultaneously furious and near tears. "I'm the one that--"
There was a sudden crackle over Rodney's radio. "Rodney," a voice said. It was Beckett, and he sounded pissed. Rodney shut it off in irritation. "I don't understand why those people can't keep their mouths shut," he said, changing gears completely. "Honestly, John, do you find Carson threatening? Like, maybe the way stuffed animals are threatening?"
"And yet you're still leaving," John said, watching him carefully. He thoroughly wished Carson hadn't interrupted just then--but he'd have time to straighten Rodney out later.
"Only because I have better things to do than sit here and watch you convalesce. I'll see you at the party tomorrow." He smiled, and disappeared.
****
John was amazed at what they'd managed to pull together at such short notice--there were balloons, and banners, and champagne, and chocolate cake and cookies and ice cream. John felt a pang of regret that this was probably their dessert budget for the next six months, but he looked over and saw Rodney gorging himself in ecstasy, and then he thought, 'Hey, we might not even be here in six months,' and he drank some more champagne.
Everyone hugged him, and in some cases there was kissing and drunken pawing. Even the new arrivals from the Daedalus embraced him like an old friend, and after his initial amusement and enjoyment he was starting to get a little freaked out. A lot had changed in three months. And looking at the power distribution around the room made him feel a little nervous; it was like starting all over again, he was going to have to fit into this again. It did help that every member of the military team came up to him though, even the ones he hadn't met before, and every one of them seemed genuinely pleased he was up and around. He remembered what Rodney had said about everyone's attempts to bring him back.
Eventually the champagne and the food started to run out, and people started staggering back to their rooms. John looked around, but Rodney had already disappeared, along with everyone else worth talking to, so he walked outside to one of the balconies and stood there, listening to the water. It felt real, and it felt like home, in a way that his dream never had.
*****
Around lunchtime he wandered over to the labs. It felt kind of weird to be bothering Rodney at work, even though it never had before. He'd spent the whole morning checking in with the marines though, and talking to the new people, getting a feel for them, and he needed a break. Zelenka and Rodney were off in a side room. Rodney was asleep on the table; Zelenka was typing on a laptop. He greeted John exuberantly but silently, nodding gently to Rodney's sleeping form, and led John out of the room. They had briefly seen each other the night before, but there had been too much going on, and too many people vying for John's attention, for them to greet each other properly.
"It is so good to see you back Colonel," Zelenka said, and those actually looked like tears in his eyes. John was a little embarassed, but mostly weirdly touched. "Yeah, well Rodney said I had you to thank for a lot of that."
Zelenka made dismissive motions. "It was entirely his doing. I helped where I could."
"I'm sure you did," John said, as he watched a woman he recognized as being part of the science team enter the lab with a large tray. "Quietly," Zelenka said, nodding to the other room. She returned the nod, and disappeared inside. John raised an eyebrow.
"He is at his best after eating. Blood sugar, you know. No one minds helping out." Zelenka beamed in a way that John found vaguely unsettling.
"You guys do it in rotation, huh," John said as the woman slipped out of the room and returned to a workstation. "Is he really that bad?"
Zelenka frowned. "Colonel," he said carefully. "It seems you bring out the best in Rodney. He is more patient with you, and so perhaps you do not see...other parts of his personality--"
"Oh, hey, hey," John said, getting defensive. "He's plenty cranky with me!"
"Of course! I did not mean to imply--"
"Radek!" a voice yelled from inside the room.
"Excuse me," Zelenka said, but that was unneccessary, because John followed him in. Rodney scowled at both of them, but it seemed more from grogginess than any actual complaint. Zelenka pushed food towards him, the way John had once seen a zookeeper push food towards a lion on a field trip to the zoo in fourth grade.
"Rodney, why do you terrorize the science staff?" John asked.
Zelenka gave him a horrified, betrayed look, before slowly backing away. Rodney stopped buttering a roll, and he turned suspiciously to Radek. "Who's been spreading lies about me?" he demanded. He turned back to John. "Where are you getting your information?" .
John left pretty soon after that.
*****
Rodney had gone to take a nap before dinner, so John was able to catch Zelenka alone later on. "Look, I'm sorry about earlier," he said apologetically.
Zelenka gave him a long-suffering look. "It's fine," he said. "He is mostly bark." He reflected, briefly. "Mostly."
"Don't you mind?"
"It is the way he is," Zelenka said, slightly puzzled. "I've worked with far more difficult people, to be honest. But don't tell him that. You must know all this though, Colonel," and Zelenka seemed a little surprised. "Your relationship with Rodney...you have firsthand experience of what he can be like. The good and the bad."
A lot of things happened in the space of that phrase, from the beginning of that sentence to the end. The first one was that John realized exactly what it was Zelenka, and by extension the rest of the science staff, and by extension all of Atlantis thought was going on. The blush started before he could even fully take it all in. How could they think-- How long-- Did Rodney--?
"I--" he started to say, but Zelenka saw his discomfort, and hurriedly continued, "I did not mean--everyone is very grateful for your friendship with Rodney," he stressed. "You have been a very good influence on him. He is far less cranky. We all missed you during your illness, but on Rodney it was hardest of all."
John didn't know what to say. "Nobody minds?" he managed finally. He wanted to say, who else knows? Who else thinks they know?
Zelenka seemed to understand though. "No, no!" he said, appalled. Then, scrupulously honest, he added, dismissively, "Well, Kavanagh. But the others are bludgeoning him into submission."
*****
John left the conversation feeling off-balance--he could never seem to gain any kind of equilibrium before something else hit him. He didn't know where to even start thinking about it. So the science staff thought he had been sleeping with Rodney (which wasn't entirely false, he reflected bitterly), and as a result of this Rodney yelled less. So they thought it was a Very Good Thing. And, since they probably wanted it to continue for as long as possible, they were doing their best to cover John and Rodney's asses, just in case it turned out to be a problem for John's superiors. It was really unbelievable.
He thought about everything that had happened while he was asleep, the things he had been going to tell Heightmeyer that afternoon, but the idea suddenly seemed about a thousand times less appealing. He decided he couldn't remember anything after all.
*****
After that he tried not to avoid Rodney, but it happened anyway. He was busy with work, and Rodney was busy with work, and Carson wouldn't clear him for missions yet so their work paths didn't cross. He didn't go to Rodney's quarters, and Rodney didn't come to his. The only place John saw him regularly was meetings, and there weren't many of those. When he did see him, John felt horrible because Rodney always looked pinched and tired and guilty.
When the science staff saw him, they gave him nasty or hopeful looks, depending on how vindictive they were. John spent a lot of time working out with Teyla, and a lot of time being grateful for whatever Ancient devices Carson and Rodney had put to work to keep his body from atrophying, and a lot of time feeling guilty for being a jerk. His reflective mood did nothing to keep him from getting his ass kicked.
"You need to focus," Teyla told him, after one particularly trying work out.
"It's hard," he said. She was standing over him, but he was still lying on the floor, trying to get his breath back.
"What's bothering you, really?" she asked, and her dark eyes were glittering and warm. She's your friend, he thought, trying to get that thought through. She's probably one of the best friends you've ever had. That was when he had his sudden epiphany--how many hundreds of millions of light years did it take you to find friends and a place that feels like home? In that moment, he would have told her everything, because she was his friend and she cared about him, because she was discrete, because he trusted her with his life.
Both of their radios beeped at the same time, and then they were running for the door.
*****
By the time they arrived, everything was pretty much under control, and after taking a look around and trying not to get in anyone's way they went to the infirmary. Zelenka and Rodney and Beckett were arguing all at once, Beckett running a relay between the hospital beds, going from patient to patient. Zelenka was the first one to notice John; "Good!" he said, viciously satisfied. He grabbed John with surprising, wiry strength and yanked him over to Rodney's bedside. "Calm him down!" he instructed, and he disappeared, Rodney yelling instructions after him.
"I need to get out of here--" Rodney said, only slurring the words a little bit as he tried to sit up. John pushed him back down. "Rodney. You're staying in that bed."
Rodney gave him a look that was half irritation, half misery. "What the hell happened?" John asked. Rodney and the other scientists were all covered in various bruises and contusions--it didn't look like anything too serious, thank god, but Rodney seemed extremely wound up.
"There was an explosion. I don't know whose fault it was yet--" he said in a menacing tone, "but," and his voice cracked, he sounded on the verge of tears. "It broke the ZPM."
"What?"
Rodney started crying. Carson looked up from what he was doing long enough to mouth, 'It's the drugs,' and John patted Rodney on the arm, ineffectually. Teyla came around to his other side and put her arm around him. The scientists were casting him sympathetic looks from beneath their bandages.
"It--it's a little crack--" Rodney said between sobs "Atlantis has some kind of pr-provision--these shields came up--but we need to fix it--" Rodney dissolved into tears.
*****
The third planet on their list also had a gate in space. There had been no jokes when they'd gone through about dying; John had found out a lot more about what had happened in the time he'd been gone, and there were plenty of reasons Rodney and a lot of other people were looking worse for the wear. Rodney stared moodily out the window; John imagined he could still see Rodney's eyes red from crying.
John landed the jumper and they got out, sticking close together. The scenery was familiar; like the first two planets they'd visited it was a mix of desert wasteland and lush vegetation. They had landed near, though not on top of, a settlement, and it wasn't long after they'd started walking that a man and a woman approached them. They were dressed simply in loose, drab clothing., and they were watching them suspiciously.
"Hello," John said, stepping forward. "We're visitors here. We are hoping to trade." John introduced everyone, and the man and the woman watched them coolly.
"I am Jutta and this is Reiterr," the woman said. "We greet you. You must meet the Queen."
*****
Jutta led them as far as the 'castle'--a dilapidated stone building, filled with livestock and more curious, vaguely hostile people dressed like herself.
"Only two of you may visit the Queen," a man who'd introduced himself as a guard informed them. John glanced back at Teyla and Ronon; they nodded, and the guard led John and Rodney up a series of stone staircases. Inside one of the upper levels, the conditions started to get a little more hospitable--there were some mouldering, shaggy carpets on the floor, as well as threadbare tapestries on the walls. John stuck close to Rodney, who watched everything with dull, incurious eyes.
"Are you all right?" John asked softly, while they were left to wait on rough wooden benches. Rodney nodded. "We're not going to find anything here. Just like the last two planets. And one of us is going to get killed while we find that out."
John touched the small of his back, and Rodney let out a tiny, shuddering breath. A door in front of them opened and a young, stocky man in his twenties exited. He was better dressed than anyone they'd seen so far. He bowed them towards the open door in a way that was almost ironic. "The Queen will see you now," he said with a smile. John and Rodney exchanged looks.
The room inside was surprisingly neat and clean compared to everything else they'd seen. There weren't as many carpets, but they were of better quality, and the air smelled cleaner. There was a vase of purple flowers on one table. Aside from the furniture there were two fishtanks in the room; a small girl of eleven or twelve was watching one of them. She looked up when they came in.
She had long brown hair that looked as if it hadn't been washed recently, and she was wearing an ankle-length purple garment like a choir gown buttoned up to the neck. She had reed woven sandals on her feet, and her face was sad and pudgy. She stood up when they entered the room, and John politely introduced them both, even as he wondered if this was the Queen's daughter, or a trick being pulled on them by the surly natives. When he had finished she gave a surprisingly elegant curtsy, and said simply, "I am Queen Deatti. I do not know what we have that you could want in trade, but I am happy to assist you in any way I can."
Rodney started by asking her if there were any caves on the planet; they were both unsurprised when Deatti shook her head apologetically. Rodney asked her about Ancient technology next, and showed her the scanner. Deatti's eyes brightened up and her face was suddenly lit with interest and intelligence as she leaned over the table to examine it.
"I have seen things like this before," she said eagerly, suddenly seeming her age again, "but not for many years. There is a holy place near here my old advisor used to take me to when I was very small--"
John hid a smile. "I can take you there, easily. I am afraid there is nothing as grand as this there, though, so if you are looking for more you will be disappointed. There may not be anything left at all now."
Rodney said they'd like to see it anyway; Deatti led them out the back.
"Will anyone mind you just leaving like this?" John asked. They had gone out a servant's staircase through the back of the 'castle,' and they were heading downhill, along a small river. It was a warm day, and Deatti stopped once they were on level ground to drape her robe over a tree branch. Underneath she had on a plain white blouse and a white knee-length skirt of the same material.
"Oh, no," she said simply, and Rodney and John exchanged significant looks again. What kind of people left their eleven-year-old queen alone with complete strangers? Deatti asked a lot of questions about the scanner as they walked; they grew increasingly detailed and penetrating. She listened eagerly to all of Rodney's explanations, with a kind of breathless wonder, even the long and boring ones. Then she asked questions about how they'd travelled here, and her eyes widened when they told her about the ship. "You mean you can leave here?" she said, giddily.
They asked her about the wraith, and she nodded glumly, saying they'd been here a few months earlier. By this time they'd reached the clearing. It formed a large ring surrounded by stones and trees and flowers. "Every few years, some men come here to clear up any saplings that have grown up," Deatti said.
"They come and weed, huh," John said looking around.
"No, they never pick the plants here," Deatti replied placidly.
Rodney walked around, watching the scanner. "Nothing," he sighed at last. "There's nothing here."
"Maybe we should head back, then," John said. Despite Deatti's assurances, he was afraid of what would happen if the guards found the three of them gone. Teyla and Ronon were still back there.
Deatti seemed inclined to dawdle though; she walked slowly by the river, firing question after question at Rodney. He walked beside her, explaining about stars and space travel and electronics. "Are those the fish in your fishtank?" he asked suddenly, pointing to a flash of movement in the water. A strange look came over Deatti's face; she nodded, tiredly.
Rodney didn't seem to notice. "Those ones were all alone. The other tank had all different fish in it."
"They eat the other fish. They begin to eat each other too, after a while."
"Why don't you just feed them something else, then?" John asked.
"They are fed. They do not eat each other out of hunger. They do it out of boredom." They had reached the bottom of the castle hill; Deatti retrieved her robe and buttoned it up as they walked.
"Deatti," Rodney said slowly, "How did you become queen? Were your parents taken by the wraith?"
Deatti was silent for a moment. She reached down and adjusted a strap on her sandal. When she straightened up her face was expressionless. "When I become a woman, the prince will beget me with child," she said in a flat voice. "If the child is male, he will be the prince, and another woman will produce the next queen. If it is female, she will take my place."
"Who is the prince?" John asked. He could feel hairs rising on the back of his neck, a chill despite the heat of the day. "That man we saw outside your room?"
Deatti nodded, silently. "When do you come of age?" Rodney asked. "In a few years?"
"They tell me it will happen any day now," she said carefully, climbing the stairs back to the room.
*****
No one seemed to notice, or care, that they had left the castle. The room was exactly as they had left it. Deatti told them, in a subdued voice, that she was going to pray before dinner; she left them alone.
"How are we going to get her out of here?" Rodney demanded, as soon as she was gone.
John didn't respond; "Don't look at me like that!" Rodney hissed. "You can't honestly be thinking of leaving her here--"
"They'll do it to someone else if we take her," John replied. "You heard what she said--"
"Well, it will probably be someone more deserving of the prince," Rodney sneered. "These are the most backward people we've ever come across. They rape, impregnate, and murder children because they think it keeps the wraith away, even though the wraith come here as much as they go anywhere! She's an aberration, and we need to save her."
"We don't know that they murder--"
"Oh yes we do, I think it's pretty clear! They have plenty of young fertile women around; they didn't mind leaving two armed men with her. They were probably hoping we'd take her off their hands so they could put someone with less intelligence and will to live in her place!"
John sighed. They'd both been able to read between the lines; Deatti hadn't told them everything, but she hadn't needed to.
"How are we going to get her out?" Rodney asked.
"We have no idea what we're walking into here!"
"Hello, since when has that ever bothered you before!" Rodney demanded.
Deatti returned sometime later. Her face looked freshly washed, but even so her eyes were still a little red. When they explained things to her, she raised her head and looked at them with such hope and deseperate joy that John had to look away. "What's the best way for all of us to get out of here?" Rodney asked her. "We have two people your guards forced us to leave behind."
Deatti chewed her lip. "You should wait for darkness," she said. "The guards are very lax...there is nowhere for anyone to go. They would notice now, but tonight everyone will be asleep. We can escape then."
John contacted Teyla over a silent frequency on the radio, and they agreed to meet later that night. John and Rodney had been allotted a small room, and a few hours after it was completely dark they slipped out of it, back to the room they'd first met Deatti in. She was sitting in the same place they'd first seen her, crouched between the two fishtanks. The room was illuminated by the moon outside, and it gave everything an eerie cast. John watched her, wondering how much longer she'd have sat between those fishtanks before she was sacrificed to the gods, or the wraith, or just to her people's own ignorance. He was savagely glad they were taking her.
She led them down a small staircase near the front, whispering that part of it had collapsed but that it was still possible to get through to the outside. They climbed over the broken steps, and the part of the wall that had caved in, and they slipped past the two guards sleeping by the main gate. It was locked, but there were some loose stones further along the wall that Deatti removed and they went through, pulling them back in behind them.
After that, Deatti was running down the trail, silent on her reed sandals, and John could see her face in the moonlight, looking up at the sky and grinning. He and Rodney followed at a quick pace, keeping her in sight. They had agreed to rendezvous with Teyla and Ronon at the jumper, and they had already checked in to report they'd made it there safely. They were near the spot where they had first met Jutta and Reiterr that morning, when Deatti screamed. They both ran forward, and there was the Prince in the darkness, an arm around Deatti's neck, his free hand holding a long knife blade that glinted in the moonlight. John reached for his gun, but the Prince saw him and grinned, shaking his head. His teeth glittered wolfishly, and John felt a pounding start in his head, the sound of the blood in his ears suddenly a thousand times louder.
This is a no-win situation. She's going to die because of you, because of your interference, you didn't help at all--
Rodney threw a rock at the Prince's head, and--who would have known?--Rodney had fabulous aim. The Prince staggered, losing his hold on Deatti, who dashed away, "Run ahead, follow the trail," John said to her--she was already gone--as he called Teyla up on the radio and told her to watch out for the little girl.
The Prince had charged Rodney; there was blood streaming from his forehead and he was staggering; John fumbled, trying to get a clear shot. He was shaking and his body felt slow and unresponsive.
Rodney struggled with the Prince, trying to keep the blade away; he had the advantage of height and weight, but the other man was ferocious, almost berserk. John was raising his gun just as Rodney suddenly slipped on the leaves and went still.
"No," John screamed and suddenly there was an enormous, cavernous hole in the Prince's chest, and Rodney was lying on the ground with the blade handle sticking out of his stomach. He didn't remember pulling it out, but Ronon was there suddenly, helping him apply pressure to the wound, and then they were carrying him back to the jumper. He left Rodney on the floor in the back, Teyla and Deatti leaning over him--they'd given Teyla first aid training, she'd learned a lot--
They were in space. John dialed Atlantis and went through the gate.
****
He couldn't handle anything after their arrival; everything was too bright and too loud. He ignored Elizabeth and everyone else, and he went down to the infirmary. He hid out in Beckett's office, huddled up in the rolling chair, and the lights dimmed without him asking them to. Beckett came by eventually and gave him a sedative, and put him to bed on the cot he kept in his office.
When he woke up nothing was better; he still felt guilty and ashamed, with the added bonus of now having had a nervous breakdown. He'd never thought that would be something that would happen to him, he reflected, as he lay there on the cot. He'd known it happened to normal guys who just snapped, sometimes, but he'd never thought it would be him. He'd always thought he had too much self-control. He closed his eyes, remembering the tight-rope.
Carson came in, and sat next to him on the cot, his body warm and solid and steady. "You want to tell me what's going on, Colonel?" he said, and John did.
They all made fun of him for being afraid of the jumpers and the Ancient technology, but here he was like John's drill sergeant back in basic training, and like every tough, hard-ass commander he'd ever served under. It was weird--it was how Carson was in the infirmary, how Rodney was in the lab, how he was supposed to be in the field...
So John started talking, clutching the pillow to his chest. Every so often, Carson would interrupt with a question, or he'd say You have to tell Rodney. It became a litany--tell Rodney, tell Rodney, tell Rodney. But he couldn't.
"He feels the same way you do, Colonel, in fact we all feel the same way you do. We've all made mistakes here, and we all feel that guilt because the consequences are so much worse."
John pressed the pillow to his face. Carson gently moved it away, and handed him a box of tissues. "I want you to talk to Rodney, and I want you to talk to Dr. Heightmeyer," he said in his prescription voice. John looked skeptical. Carson sighed. "She's very good, Colonel. But if you don't feel comfortable talking to her, you can always talk to me. I haven't had her training but we all have to wear many hats here...I'll do my best." He stood up, and John thought that would be it, but Carson threw him out. "I need my office."
His feet went unwillingly over to Rodney's bed, but Rodney didn't seem unhappy to see him. "Hey, are you all right?" he asked, pushing away the laptop he'd been working on and reaching for John at the same time.
"Are you all right," John countered. "Should you be working right now?"
"It's not real work. Zelenka locked me out of everything important." He took a deep breath. "This is all stuff I work on in my free time."
John remained unconvinced. "I can't just sit here and stare at the walls, Colonel." It had been a while since Rodney had called him by his first name, he realized with a pang. And whose fault was that?
"I'm sorry, Rodney," he said. "I don't know what happened to me last night--I wasn't fast enough, and I should have been--"
"Hey, hey," Rodney said. "If it's anybody's fault, it's mine, I should have shot the guy after he let go of Deatti--I wasn't thinking either, and now I'm going to miss about a week's worth of work--you killed him right?"
"Yeah--"
"Well, that's the important thing. Where is Deatti, anyway?"
"I don't--"
Rodney reached for his radio. "Zelenka?"
There was a pause. "Yes?"
"The little girl we brought back with us--"
"She is here. You are supposed to be resting, Rodney," Zelenka said reproachfully. The radio went dead. "Goddamnit," Rodney said. He put it aside. "Hey, though, while we're on the subject of apologies, I, um, I don't know if I ever really--back when we were with the Trebtians--I'm sorry, I should have listened--"
John stared at him in disbelief. "Rodney," he said. "After the lengths you went to to save my life, I think I should be apologizing for not thanking you sooner--"
"It was my fault you were there to begin with!"
"Yeah, and if I hadn't been, you would have been killed, and then where would we be?" He gripped Rodney's hand, suddenly, pressing his thumb into the web of skin between Rodney's thumb and first finger, and he heard it, Rodney's tiny hitching breath. He hadn't known he'd been waiting for it until it was over. He inhaled; Rodney smelled clean and warm and faintly sweet, with no trace at all of the coppery blood from last night. "Let's say we're even for fucking up, okay?"
"Okay," Rodney said numbly. John let him go and headed for the door.
****
Teyla was more worried about him than annoyed with him for leaving her to explain to Elizabeth alone--Carson had contacted them all to tell them John was staying in the infirmary overnight. And John was glad, in a cowardly way, that he had missed the scolding for ruining trade relations with yet another planet and kidnapping their queen. Teyla had already told Elizabeth what Deatti's fate would have been if they'd left her behind.
Since Rodney had seemed to be Deatti's de facto guardian she'd been put into the reluctant care of the science team while Rodney recovered. When John went down to the labs to check on her he found Zelenka and Pirelli teaching her calculus, and most of the other scientists casting envious looks over in their direction that clearly said 'My turn! My turn!' Someone had given her a t-shirt to wear with a robot on it. From time to time, especially when Deatti found something confusing, someone else would break in and try to explain, and a vicious argument would ensue. John left them to it.
****
When Rodney was well enough to leave the infirmary he informed the science staff of his intention to leave Deatti in the care of the Trebtia. They were not pleased.
"My god, people! This is not the Starship Enterprise!"
"You cannot leave her with a primitive people--she has a brilliant mind--"
"They're not primitive! And they live in a goddamn paradise! You do realize this is a child we're talking about, not a puppy. It's fun for you all to have a little mascot now, but what happens when the wraith attack again and we're all working 32 hour shifts? We are not equipped to take care of children here. She can come visit on weekends, all right?"
That was not the end of the argument, and Deatti herself didn't seem happy about being told she was going to be sent away, but Rodney sat her down and talked with her. Her hair hung in a short, clean bob around her head now, and someone had cut down a uniform for her, and she had a full array of science t-shirts. "Look, I know this seems unfair, but believe me I've given it a lot of thought and this is the best possible outcome. We're sending you to live in an intellectual paradise with a waterpark. At your age, I couldn't have dreamed of a better scenario than that, unless it involved superpowers. And here, you'll at least have the opportunity to build a jetpack." Deatti still seemed doubtful. "Look, I'll make you a deal," he sighed. "Just try it out for a couple of weeks. If you still think you'll be happier here with a bunch of neurotic scientists and the omnipresent prospect of near-certain death, you can stay, all right?"
Deatti hugged him, to his embarassment.
****
They were in the jumper, on their way down to the planet, when Rodney said, "Uh," and a manic gleam came into his eyes. He spent the rest of the flight engrossed in his datapad. Teyla was talking to Deatti in a soft voice in the back; Deatti seemed on the verge of tears, and she was clutching a large knapsack that had been filled with going-away presents. Rodney ignored everyone, even when they landed and the Trebtia ran up to meet them. Groshen beamed when he saw John, and actually lifted him off his feet in his delight. He started babbling about the wonder and glory of the Star People's technology, and John looked around for Rodney and Deatti. They had agreed that Rodney would be the one to explain, but...he was already several hundred feet away, stalking purposefully, eyes glued to the datapad. John turned back to where Deatti was clutching Teyla's hand (but already looking around her with more curiosity than fear) shot Teyla an apologetic smile, which she understood perfectly, and raced after Rodney.
When John caught up with him, Rodney was standing in a field of the purple flowers John remembered from their first visit. "So, uh," Rodney said. He cleared his throat. "The, um, Ancient word that we came across--excavate is actually the secondary meaning. Uh. Cultivate is the primary meaning."
John looked around at the purple flowers, their heavy heads nodding in the breeze. "Huh," he said. Then he knocked Rodney to the ground.
****
When they caught up with Groshen the first thing Rodney asked was if they could take some of the purple weeds home with them. Groshen raised his eyebrows, and looked at him in a way that John found vaguely insulting. Groshen had a lot of nerve to think that they were crazy. He told them, in a kind voice, that they could take as many of the flowers as they liked, and that they would all grow back anyway. He said that Teyla and Ronon and Deatti were already over at the 'baths,' so the three of them headed that way.
"Hey, did you ever find out what powered the shields?" John asked Rodney in an undertone. Rodney sighed.
"Yes, it is the sun like they said. I think this was a research outpost for the Ancients. From the data we recovered, I don't think the Ancients ever got the shields fully functional, but the Trebtia apparently stumbled upon a cache of Ancient technology a few hundred years ago--maybe when that earthquake happened. They somehow got the shield generator to work, and we're trying to reverse-engineer our own, but it's practically impossible. We're running into all the same problems the Ancients did. I don't know how the Trebtia got it to work. It's very Rube Goldberg," Rodney grumbled.
By this time they had reached the baths, and it was just like John remembered it--the hazy, shimmering rainbow, the cold, inviting water. He could see Deatti splashing around with some other children, happier even than he'd seen her in the lab, and he said, "I don't think we're going to have any trouble convincing her to stay here."
"Didn't I tell you?" Rodney asked smugly, and he belatedly started explaining to Groshen.
****
They swam until it got cold, then they filled up the jumper with the purple flowers, Deatti happily talking all their ears off about the other children. Groshen had magnanimously said she could stay with them as long as she wanted--he'd actually seemed a little surprised they'd bothered to ask. On John's other side, Rodney was talking about processing the flowers, and what chemical properties they were likely to have, and how long it might take them to repair the ZPM.
John felt quietly, blissfully happy. For once, he was working towards a purpose, and they'd accomplished what they'd come here to do. They had valuable allies, and he'd saved someone's life. A little of the weight he'd been carrying around fell off him, and at the celebratory dinner the Trebtia threw them he joked and laughed with Teyla and Ronon in a way he hadn't in a long time. Rodney was deep in discussion with Groshen and the other scientists.
John looked over at him from time to time, and then he noticed that Teyla and Ronon noticed him, and were smiling at him, and he felt a little embarassed, but it didn't interfere with his happiness much. The Trebtians' wine had warmed him up, and so had the company. He felt exposed, but not in a bad way.
A few hours later, after Deatti waved goodbye to them from the arms of her new adoptive family, and they had gone through the gate, and staggered out into the jumper bay, a little drunk, their arms full of flowers, John thought about going after Rodney. But Rodney was already heading for the lab, dragging a bag of flowers with him, so John headed for his own room instead.
****
The next night, he was nervous enough that he wished he'd done it when he was drunk. Because he knew, but he didn't know, and he vascillated back and forth, trying to decide if he was right or wrong. All this time he'd been waiting to be ready he'd--what?--assumed Rodney already was? Not assumed, exactly, just hadn't given the matter any thought from Rodney's perspective.
He did now, though, and he thought of Rodney fighting for him, when they'd brought him back from Trebtia, thought of Rodney trying to wake him up, pushing everything else to one side while he worked to save John. He thought of the way Rodney had looked when he'd woken up, haggard and pale, but so pleased to see him, the hurt way he'd looked later when John had been avoiding him.
He was still a coward though. He checked the life scanner and found Rodney alone in his quarters, probably sent home to sleep by Zelenka, and he had another momentary floundering pause--if Rodney was asleep, or on the verge of exhaustion--but he could go on like this forever, because there was never going to be a perfect moment, and they were only as good as the next crisis, and he'd wasted enough time already.
****
Rodney gave him a bleary look when he walked in--he was reading a print-out.
"Your eyes bothering you?"
"Well, I've been staring at a computer screen for fourteen hours," he rasped. He leaned back, eyes closed, so he missed John stalking over to the bed, missed the way he hovered there for a second before descending; the next thing he was aware of was John's weight bearing down on him, one knee between his thighs, and he gasped that beautiful little hitching shudder of breath before John was full on top of him, keen on finding out if he tasted as good as he smelled.
Rodney shook underneath him, and John brought his thumb up to rest on Rodney's neck, underneath his ear, feeling the thundering pulse there. Rodney clutched at him compulsively, arms and legs wrapped around him, as John kissed him long and deep. Rodney did taste faintly sweet, he thought, as they pressed their mouths together, warm and slow and lingering. He was faintly shaking in John's arms, and John pulled away enough to kiss Rodney's neck, around his ear, where the warm smell was concentrated. When he started sucking, pulling gently at Rodney's skin with his teeth and his tongue, Rodney shuddered violently, like he was going to fly apart at the seams.
John seperated them, Rodney scrabbling at him a little wildly, just far enough away that he could get both of their jackets and pants and boots off, and then there was only warm skin and soft cotton left as they clutched each other. Rodney was already hard against him, painfully hard from the sound he made when John rubbed the small of his back, and pulled him closer. This was already the hottest thing he'd ever done with any clothes still on. It felt almost obscenely good to be holding each other like this, with only thin layers of cotton keeping them apart; it seemed like every nerve in his body was tingling with anticipatory pleasure. John nuzzled Rodney's forehead while Rodney breathed harshly into John's neck, face buried.
His hands were busy, touching Rodney all over, his soft skin, the knobs of his spine, the little pinches of fat by his hips. It was nice to have someone to hold onto, someone he didn't have to worry about breaking or squeezing too hard. He pushed Rodney onto his back and climbed on top of him, mouth finding his as he shifted, and they both groaned at that first touch of their cocks together. Then Rodney had gripped his hips, was rubbing them together frantically and sucking John's tongue into his mouth, and it was so good, so good, his hips moving rhythmically in time to Rodney's thrusts. Rodney pushed past John's boxers suddenly, and his own, and then his big hand was wrapped around the two of them, firm and warm, rubbing, creating the best friction John had ever felt in his life. He had to moan, had to pull away from Rodney's mouth, to look down at that hand, cradling them both as they moved against it. Rodney's hand, on him, Rodney's cock against him, and under other circumstances he might have waited, he usually had more self control, but watching Rodney's hand rub them together, thrusting against that tightness, in that fast, sweet, perfect rhythm he couldn't imagine anything worth waiting for.
He pushed up hard, one last time and he came, shivering with a moan, oh god, so good, slick against Rodney's belly, and when he opened his eyes--oh, Rodney was watching him, with a burning intensity. He had stopped moving, but when John's hand came down on him, slick with his own come, gliding up and down Rodney's cock, his eyes closed, face contorted in almost agony as he thrust up, his hands coming to grip John's forearms almost hard enough to bruise. He got to watch Rodney through the whole thing, his head thrown back, his breath coming short and hard, the expression on his face, all through the build up, all the way through to the end when Rodney cried out and clung to him.
And he wouldn't have thought it possible, but after that performance he was half-hard again already.
****
Rodney was sucking him almost immediately afterwards, his mouth so wet and hot, and, oh god, slickly taking him all the way in, deep, pulling off again until it was just his tongue swirling around the crown, sucking it, and, god, god, god, he stretched it out, longer than John wanted, made him beg for it. He brought him to the brink and back what felt like a thousand times, and John was sobbing for it, pleading for him to let him, "Rodney, Rodney, Rodney," like pain and pleasure altogether because it was so good, he wanted it so much. Rodney was relentless, and stronger than he would have expected; he held him down easily.
He could tell the second Rodney's intentions changed though, and it was such a relief, and he was so grateful, then Rodney pulled back to look at him suddenly. It was a perfect moment, because he could see everything he felt loved about Rodney, his humor, his intelligence, his warmth, and Rodney knew that he knew, and then his mouth was back on him, so hot and slick and perfect, alternating between gentle and almost punishing until he came, just this beautiful, gorgeous crest of heat washing over him, like tumbling beneath the waves.
They each had more sex in the next 24 hours than in any previous period of that time. They had sex so many times that John actually lost count, and in later arguments they could never come to a consensus on what the number had actually been. After Rodney had sucked him off he'd fallen into an exhausted sleep, Rodney wrapped around him, but a few hours later he'd woken up to Rodney's cock bumping against his hip, and Rodney was, ohhhhh, kissing his way across his chest, sucking one of his nipples. And he hadn't thought it would happen like that, especially not so soon, and he hadn't thought that Rodney would be the one to do him first, either, but two exquisite orgasms in as many hours, after such a long dry spell, had short-circuited all brain function higher than Yeah, yeah, stick it in me...
He was reckless, so it could have been a lot worse and he wouldn't have minded, but it wasn't bad at all. Rodney licked him down there, and he was still trying to process that when Rodney's slick fingers started touching him, and then it was his cock, pushing deep inside, Rodney breathing loud and noisy over his head, his whole body bent like a bow with the strain. Then, somewhere in there, in time to Rodney's thrusts, the whole world had disappeared, leaving only that agonizing pleasure, and John was pretty sure he'd been screaming harder, harder, harder, but he couldn't fully remember. Everything had dissolved, melted, white hot and unbelievably good, timed with the deep, scraping way Rodney pushed into him, so hard he could feel it in every part of his body. He only had a dim memory of Rodney's slick hand touching his cock near the end, and he was almost positive he'd blacked out within seconds of orgasm.
After that they were both useless for a while, but when the dawn sun came in through the window John woke up and started thinking about what they'd been doing all night, which, along with the time of day, had him fucking Rodney within twenty minutes. Listening to Rodney moan underneath him he realized that he'd been wrong about the wraith and everything else--that he and Rodney were actually going to die from being unable to leave this bed. He wasn't sure if the successive orgasms would trigger a heart attack, or if they would just die of dehydration, or what, but unless someone came in and tore them apart there was no way he was going to be able to stop doing this.
"John," Rodney was saying beneath him. He twisted his hips, and pushed hard, and Rodney cried out and arched up beneath him, the room flooded with his low moan.
Christ.
****
There didn't seem to be anything to say, when they'd finally finished. The had reached a point where starving to death had become a real possibility, so they had showered, holding each other up, and dressed, and left Rodney's rooms together. Rodney had a faint smile on his face and his eyes were far away. "Rodney, the mess hall is this way," John pointed out.
"Is it?" Rodney asked. John steered him back in the right direction. There was a little murmur when they walked in--it was after 18:00, and later than that by Atlantean time, and no one had seen them since the day before. Rodney ignored them all and headed for the food. They ate together quietly, and then Rodney said he was going to the lab. "All right," John said. He figured he'd better go and explain himself to Elizabeth.
She gave him an amused look when he walked in, and in the bright light of her office things were a little different. "I told everyone you had the day off," she said drily.
"Thanks," he said, staring at the floor, not the way he'd say it to a commanding officer, but the way he would to a friend.
"I hope--" she said, at the same time he said, "I, uh--"
Elizabeth tried again. "One time occurrence?"
He looked at her blankly, and she sighed. "Advance notice, then?"
****
The science team were convinced that someone was drugging Rodney. John had heard it or overheard it from half a dozen people by the end of the next day. Zelenka had given him a deeply suspicious look the one time he'd stopped by the lab, and he wasn't sure what to do about it.
He and Rodney had managed to talk later, telling each other more about that awful three months, and John told him more about everything else, and Rodney said that he was Actually Crazy and had to start seeing Heightmeyer right away. Rodney apparently went to see her three times a week, which John hadn't known.
Rodney's baseline seemed to have switched--he was several orders of magnitude happier than he had been a couple of days ago. Pretty soon he started snapping at the science staff enough that their feathers were unruffled, but he still seemed basically content with life in a way that made John both smug and envious. He was happy that Rodney was happy, especially since it was because of him. But he wished it were that easy for himself. He talked to Rodney, and he talked to Heightmeyer, and he talked to Carson, and it was getting better, but outside of the wild sex (that couldn't have been any better without actually resulting in death) he found it hard to achieve the smug serenity that Rodney was walking around with.
"How do you keep from feeling it then," he demanded one night, a little impatiently. They were lying in bed, head to foot, Rodney working on his laptop. He glanced up at John. "Because I'm too busy to constantly dwell on it. Do you have any idea how much work I do?" and John did, actually, because he talked about it constantly. "Those damn flowers alone, I almost wish we never brought them back. The synthesis process is coming along, but we still have no idea how the application itself is going to work, because--"
"Rodney!"
"Well, how did you deal with it before? It didn't seem like you were always this miserable."
John groaned, and buried his face in a pillow. "I'm not miserable."
Rodney put the laptop down and came up to sit next to him, pulling John's head into his lap. "No, you're depressed," he agreed. "Have you thought about drugs?"
"I was in denial before," John said. "I guess that's what I always did. I just seperated myself out from everyone else, but I can't anymore."
"That's not actually a bad thing, you know."
"Except that I'm miserable."
"Hmm. Well, now you have to learn how to be a human being like the rest of us." He gave John's shoulder a tight squeeze.
"Ever since I was in the coma...when I was in it, I saw what I was doing," he said. "None of it felt really real, and I knew it, what was happening there was exactly what I was doing in real life, not really feeling it..."
"And feeling guilty about it anyway, compensating with your hero antics," Rodney said, nodding sagely. John hit him with the pillow.
"What do I do?" he asked.
"What everybody else does. You have to do your job. Get to know the marines, even though some of them are probably going to die, and that will suck, keep going on missions, try to come up with a fucking offensive plan so we're hopefully less screwed the next time something horrible happens to us, help the Athosians bring in the crops, socialize more with the people here--"
John snorted. "You're giving me advice on socializing--"
"Well, you haven't been doing a very good job of it lately, have you? Anyway, if you still have time left over after all that to worry and feel guilty in, you can come down to the lab and do some work for me, all right?"
And John thought about making a joke about that, but the grim look on Rodney's face, and the way he was hunched back over the laptop, and thinking of the way Rodney treated the scientists like galley slaves, stopped him. He really wouldn't enjoy whatever work Rodney came up with for him.
He closed his eyes and made two mental columns, the way he had in his dream, and he shivered suddenly, thinking of that, and the voice that had said you have to choose one. Because it wasn't a choice at all, and he didn't even need to make the fucking columns. He had friends here, across a whole galaxy, and a purpose, and a job he loved, and it had been worth fighting for them to come back from his dream, and it was worth fighting for now. And--he looked down, to where Rodney was typing away--he had Rodney, who loved him, really loved him, in a way he almost couldn't comprehend except that he felt it from the other side. And he smiled.
"Okay," he said, and Rodney turned around and flashed him a grin that was genuinely happy.
"Okay," he said back.