[SGA fic] The Best Things in Life are Free (8a/8)
Part 8 is too big to fit in one LJ entry. Anyone surprised? :) Many thanks to reccea for beta, miss_porcupine, control_freak80, and lilac_way for being my sounding board, special thanks to shetiger for reading through the entire thing this weekend in a quest for internal consistency, and love to everyone who pre-read various parts for me. You all rock my world. Everyone who left feedback, made icons, drew me pictures, designed coverart, and listened to my babble on endlessly for over a year, thank you. I couldn't have done it without you.
The Best Things in Life are Free
by Smitty
SGA High School AU
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard, with all the twists and turns and pitstops along the way that make high school so embarrassing to talk about twenty years later.
Part Seven-C
Rodney straightened his bowtie and studied his reflection in his bedroom mirror. His hair was all wrong. It was flat and floppy and close to his head. He turned away from the mirror and crossed the hall to the bathroom but the door was closed. Rodney sighed and leaned against the opposite wall. After a minute, he heard his father's newspaper rustle and his mother bustling around in the kitchen, so he knew it was Jeannie who was holding him up.
"Jeannie!" he hollered, waited a beat, then pounded on the door. "Get a move on! I'm going to be late!"
The toilet flushed and then the water in the sink ran for far longer than Jeannie usually needed to swipe her hands over a bar of soap and rinse off the residue. "Stop stalling!" he called, shifting impatiently from foot to foot.
Finally (finally!) the door opened and Jeannie came out, chin tilted, face tight, eyes red like she'd been crying.
"Thank you," Rodney said distractedly, pushing past her into the bathroom. "You can try on makeup elsewhere. You have your own room, you know." He ducked his head under the running water and heard the door to Jeannie's room slam. Unconcerned, he rubbed a dollop of Dep -- the bottle he'd bought at the drugstore that morning because he didn't want to use John's anymore -- between his fingertips and started arranging his hair. He was nearly done when he caught a reflection of the wastebasket in the mirror.
"What's -- ?" he asked, leaning over the counter to peer inside the plastic can. He recognized the pastel plastic wrapper from that horrible, horrible movie they'd all had to watch in sixth grade, but his mother'd had a hysterectomy after they moved and Rodney had been spared the awkwardness of living with a menstruating woman. Until now. "Oh, of all the things I should absolutely not have to do," he said aloud in horror, but sucked it up and went over to Jeannie's room. Wham! was playing on the tape deck when Jeannie opened the door, holding her latchhook puppydog pillow across her stomach.
"What do you want?" she asked, eyes watery.
Rodney sighed. "Are you okay?" he asked, glancing down the hall. Their parents certainly seemed oblivious to all the banging of doors and crying going on but then again, with Rodney and Jeannie they were probably used to it. Rodney tried to pitch his voice low so it wouldn't carry out to the living room where their father sat with his newspaper. "Mom, you know, talked to you about it and stuff, right?"
"I did go to health class you know," Jeannie said disdainfully and then promptly burst into tears and threw her arms around Rodney's waist.
"What is it?" he asked anxiously. "Does it hurt? Do you faint at the sight of blood?"
"N-No," Jeannie blubbered. "But it's stupid and now I have to have it every month for the next fifty years!"
"That's not bad," Rodney said.
"That's forever!" Jeannie wailed.
"You could be like Mom and get a hysterectomy," Rodney offered helpfully.
Jeannie pulled back, wiping her nose on her sleeve and glaring at him. "I'm not ever going to be like Mom," she said stormily.
"Well, that's good," Rodney said, trying to imagine Jeannie making meatloaf and putting up with a bunch of screaming kids. "You're way too smart anyhow."
Jeannie sniffled.
"Look," Rodney said, aware he was running short on time. "It'll be great. You'll have a whole new excuse to eat chocolate and you get to be a pain in the ass -- more of a pain in the ass than usual -- once a month."
Jeannie glared up at him, eyes big and skeptical, like she wanted to believe him but had the cramps and misery to prove otherwise. Rodney patted her shoulder awkwardly.
"Trust me," he said grandly, as if he knew anything about it. "A whole new world has just opened up to you."
"Smile!"
John did his best to beam happily at Katie as the camera flashed and whirred.
Smiling hurt like hell.
"Okay, just one more!"
It turned out that Mrs. Brown meant one more roll instead of one more picture but finally Katie's corsage was on her wrist and John's boutonniere was in his button hole and it looked like they might be able to make a run for the car.
"Go kiss your mother goodbye, sweetie," Mr. Brown said, slinging his arm around John's shoulders. "I want to have a word with John, here."
John stifled a sigh and let himself be led into the foyer. He thought parents only did this in the movies, still -- he'd certainly never had to field this kind of discussion before. Even Elizabeth's dad had just quizzed him on local sporting events and a few major world events before Elizabeth had dragged John away.
"Yes, sir," he said, hoping to ward off whatever was coming with impeccable manners.
"So," Mr. Brown started. "You seem like a nice enough kid, but you're probably thinking you're a big football star now -- "
I think I got sacked and would have thrown an interception in the second quarter if that guy hadn't fumbled, John thought to himself, but Mr. Brown was on a roll and John knew better than to interrupt fathers on a roll.
" -- but my Katie is a good girl and I'll be waiting at this door at midnight for her, so don't think you can try any funny stuff, you understand me?"
"Yes, sir," John said on cue with a bob of his head.
Mr. Brown settled back into a good glower until Katie ran up to him and threw her arms around his neck. He melted visibly when she kissed him on the cheek and said, "See you later, Daddy!" John grinned and tossed off a cheery salute as he escorted Katie out the door and down the front walk.
"Is he always like that?" John asked, wondering how Rodney made it out the door with Mr. Brown looming over him.
"Well," Katie said, blushing. "I guess he never really had to worry about anything before."
"Oh," John said, and didn't mention that Mr. Brown really didn't have anything to worry about now.
"Tell me I look pretty!" Vala ordered as soon as she'd opened the door. She struck a pose, arms flung wide and waited expectantly.
Rodney stared at the strips of vinyl that made up the top of her dress. "Wow."
"Thank you!" Vala said brightly, and pulled the door closed behind her. "Now. Where are you taking me for dinner?"
"The Il Fiore Bianco," Rodney said grandly. He'd gone through the phone book for the place with the most foreign-sounding name, and stocked his wallet accordingly.
"Ooh. Sounds elegant and expensive," Vala said, wrapping her arm around Rodney's and dragging him off the porch.
Rodney remembered to open the car door for Vala and got a substantial flash of thigh for his trouble. He closed the door after her and stopped to hyperventilate for a moment before pasting a polite smile on his face and getting in the driver's side.
Much to his relief, Vala talked about herself for the entire fifteen minute ride from her house to the restaurant and for a fleeting moment, Rodney thought he was actually going to be able to pull off one date all on his own.
And then he tried to claim their seats.
"What do you mean there's no reservation?" Rodney demanded. "I called two days ago and made a reservation for 6:30!"
"I am quite sorry, Mr. McKay," the maître d' said, not sounding terribly sorry at all. "I am afraid there is no reservation under that name."
"Look," Rodney said, trying to be reasonable when his blood pressure was clearly climbing through the roof and wow, even Vala wasn't going to put out if he couldn't at least buy her a decent dinner. And to not get any from Vala was pretty much a sign of social retardation from which he would never recover. "What if I…threw in an extra ten, just for you?"
The maître d' -- Over-glorified waiter, Rodney thought meanly -- looked down his long aquiline nose. "We have no more seats for the evening," he said archly as if Rodney hadn't just resorted to petty bribery. "Perhaps you should make alternate arrangements."
Rodney glanced over at Vala, who was blowing the biggest pink bubble he'd ever seen. The candlelight from the tables reflected off the shiny material of her dress and Rodney looked desperately back at the maître d'. "Okay," he said, caught halfway between yelling and begging, but the maître d' just turned his head and said, "Next?" and Rodney had nothing to do but turn away and walk back to Vala.
"Fancy," she said, still glancing around the place. "Did you get us a good table?"
"Um," Rodney said. "The thing is -- I got us a great table, but the regular guy is, uh, out sick, and um, they lost the reservation."
"The bastards!" Vala exclaimed, snapping straight and tall. "Wait 'til I give them a piece of my mind!"
"Oh, um, no, no, you don't want to do that," Rodney said quickly. "I mean, they're all full up and they already feel really bad…uh, really…and well, there's pretty much nothing they can do. We're just going to have to find someplace else, but I swear, I will totally make it up to you -- "
"Oh, don't worry about it now," Vala said, relaxing and waving one hand carelessly. "Come on, I know a great little place, it's just around the corner."
Vala's great little place around the corner turned out to be Sol's Diner, and she knew everyone who worked there, including the owner -- Sal.
"He bought the place from Sol," she explained in his ear as Sal tapped the flat of a meat cleaver against his palm and sized Rodney up.
"So, you're taking out our little Val?" he asked, squinting.
"Um," Rodney squeaked, temporarily lost for words.
"We're going to the Homecoming Dance," Vala said, absorbed in the menu and completely oblivious to Rodney's distress.
"And he's bringing you here?"
"I'm bringing him here," Vala said, setting the menu aside and flashing a wide smile at Sal. "He was going to take me to this frightfully expensive place, with white roses, and candles, and -- but really, I just really wanted to go someplace I knew, so I asked if we could just come by. Can we both get the Blue Plate Special?"
"Sure thing," Sal said. "Two BP Specials, coming right up. But don't you think you're off the hook, kid! You better be treating our girl Val right!"
Rodney cleared his throat painfully. "The, uh, Blue Plate Special?" he said. "That doesn't happen to have any lemon, does it?"
John walked into the darkened gym and paused to blink at the transformation from dodgeball stadium to dancehall. The partitions had been folded all the way back, leaving the room wide open and double the size it had been when John had taken PE last spring.
A cluster of freshmen were already perched on the lower steps of the bleachers, pulled out for the occasion.
Radek Zelenka was already there among them, looking miserable in a khaki suit and blue shirt. His hair was smashed down flat.
"Hey," John said, nudging Katie in the side with his elbow before he remembered that you didn't do that with girls you were taking out. "There's Radek. You want to go say hi?"
Katie glanced in the direction he indicated and said, "Oh, yes, let's! I mean, if it's all right with you."
John wouldn't have said anything if he didn't want to, but he wasn't going to tell Katie. He'd have said so to Rodney, but there were a lot of things he'd say to Rodney that he'd never say to Katie Brown. "You're the boss," he deadpanned instead, taking her elbow and clearing a path through the clots of people who were standing near the doorway, not yet brave enough to venture closer to the dance floor. "Hey, Radek!" he called when they were in earshot.
Radek looked up and glanced around if he was surprised to hear his name. Katie pushed a little ahead of the crowd and called his name, too, and this time Radek's face lit up in recognition. "You look very pretty tonight," he told her. "At least someone is here," he added to John. "Rodney insisted that I attend and yet he has failed to make an appearance."
Rodney was probably in the parking lot, getting the answers to certain questions from Vala, but John wasn't about to say so in front of Katie. He was saved from having to say anything at all by the appearance of Elizabeth and Simon.
"John! There you are!"
Elizabeth looked fantastic in a red silk dress that John had never seen before -- and once upon a time, he'd seen all her dresses. "Hey," he said. "Elizabeth, you remember Katie and Radek, right?"
"Of course," Elizabeth said, turning bright smiles on each of them in turn. If she was curious about who was with whom, it didn't show on her face. "Katie, how are you? Did you do the flowers for the dance again?"
"Oh, well, the Horticulture Club did," Katie said, flushing a little. "We had a really good crop of Saguaro blossoms this year so the creative types designed the decorations around them."
"Well, they look wonderful," Elizabeth said. "And Radek? How is Mr. Simmons treating you? I guess you're looking into colleges now, aren't you?"
"Mr. Simmons is much nicer when he is not talked back to," Radek said. "I have no complaints."
Elizabeth nodded but Radek didn't say anything else. "Well, everyone, this is Simon Wallis. Simon, this is Katie Brown and Radek Zelenka, and you've already met John." The last words had a touch of warning to them and because John was very carefully not looking at Simon, he saw Radek's face dim a little and Radek's eyes cut away.
Well, that was interesting.
But before John could dwell on it further, a commotion from the doorway drew everyone's attention and John stepped up on the lowest bleacher seat to see over the heads of the crowd.
Mitch and Dex were arm-in-arm in the doorway, and Dex was dressed in a suit almost identical to John's, right down to the crooked knot in his tie. Mitch, however…Mitch was wearing a tea-length satin dress in a lovely shade of seafoam green and a blonde wig that had to be modeled after Farrah Fawcett's hairstyle. He was absolutely the ugliest woman John had ever seen.
John cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed, "Show us some leg!" over the rest of the laughter and catcalls. He rocked back on his heels and cheered with everyone else as Mitch coquettishly tugged the skirt over one hairy knee, then dropped it in a display of ridiculously exaggerated modesty.
Katie was straining to see through the shoulders of the crowd, her head tilted back, so John tapped her on the shoulder and helped her onto the bleacher next to him. They watched as Hammond and Landry fought their way through the sea of teenagers to reach the unlikely couple.
"You know," Katie said thoughtfully and with such a straight face that it took John an extra minute to realize she was kidding, "I really think seafoam is Mitch's color."
"Hey, that was really good," Rodney said when they were getting back in the car, having escaped alive from Sal and the rest of Sol's Diner. "I guess you go there a lot, huh? Everyone seems to know you." Vala shrugged and smiled.
"Yeah," she said, running her fingertips along the edge of the window. "Sal lets me wait tables there on weekends, for tips and food. My evil stepmother sometimes forgets to cook."
"Oh, um, I'm sorry to hear that," Rodney said awkwardly.
"Look, I -- " Vala took a deep breath, then paused to uncross and recross her legs, then tugged at the hem of her very short skirt. She looked up at him, her eyes large and serious. "Look, Rodney, I would appreciate if you didn't divulge the location of Sol's Diner to your friends. A girl's got a reputation to uphold, you know."
"Not a word," Rodney swore, miming zipping his mouth shut and throwing away the key. "I promise, I won't tell anyone, not even John."
Vala tilted her head and smiled but it was puzzled. "All right, then," she said. "Thank you."
"Or, uh, Laura," Rodney covered, badly. "Or Teyla, or Radek or anyone."
Vala nodded. "Thank you." The silence in the car was awkward for a moment and then she said, "We're going to make the biggest scene walking into that dance, aren't we?"
"Yes!" Rodney said, grabbing onto that idea. "Yes, we are. I mean, hey, your dress…."
"Oh, this old thing?" Vala said coquettishly, but she gave Rodney a big smile over her shoulder and he couldn't help but grin back.
As it turned out, they didn't make a scene at all. When they walked into the gym, everyone's attention was directed at the pull-out stage where Elizabeth Weir was settling a fancy tiara on Teyla Emmagan's head.
"Now that's a pretty bauble," Vala said wistfully as Teyla curtseyed and smiled at everyone.
"It's fake," Rodney assured her. "Paste and aluminum."
Vala sighed dramatically. "The least you could do is let a girl dream," she scolded.
But Rodney wasn't really listening. Because Jack O'Neill was fumbling with a thick, white envelope. It slipped from his hands and hit the floor but instead of going after it, Jack just rolled his eyes and leaned over the microphone.
"They told me before I came up here," he said. "That you guys all voted for John Sheppard. If you don't believe me, you can check the envelope." And then he sat a crown on John's head. "Don't let it go to your head," he murmured with a slap to John's shoulder. Jack looked up in alarm as the microphone caught his last comment. "Um. Did you all hear that?"
Applause drowned him out and he stepped back to stand with Elizabeth, leaving John front and center with Teyla. John smiled and tossed off a thank-you salute to the crowd.
Rodney looked carefully but even he couldn't tell if John's expression was real or just another stunning mask.
"The floor is yours," Principal Hammond announced with a sweeping gesture of his arm.
John smiled, an expression that came easier two months back, before Rodney had turned his life upside down. He held out his arm to Teyla and escorted her down the side steps of the stage to the dance floor.
Teyla smiled up at him as he put his arms around her and the first notes of the music started. John relaxed a little. Teyla had been a good sport about everything up to and including that night. This part wouldn't be bad.
And then he recognized the song.
"Uh. This is awkward," he said helplessly as "Take My Breath Away" filtered through the speakers of the sound system. "Who picked this song?"
Teyla smiled weakly. "I -- believe it might have been my idea," she admitted. "The theme was chosen…a few weeks ago."
"Oh," John said lamely. Awkward didn't even begin to cover this. He licked his lips and decided that as long as his life was sucking, he might as well get out a few things he'd been meaning to say. "Look," he said, suddenly hyper-aware of the entire gymnasium watching them. "I know the last few weeks have been kind of…."
"Weird?" Teyla supplied.
"Weird," John agreed reluctantly. "I just wanted to let you know it wasn't that I -- you know."
Teyla tilted her head. "I do not believe that I do."
John bit his lower lip. "Okay, well…let's just say I haven't quite been myself in the past couple of weeks and, well, I didn't want you to think it was your -- that it had anything to do with anything you did. Did that make sense?"
"John," Teyla said, with a little smile. "You are my friend, and you have always shown yourself to be. Things…." She rolled her head back a little and shrugged. "Things did not work out as either of us expected. Think of it no more."
"Ah. Well. Okay, then," John said. And then, "Thank you."
Teyla leaned forward in his arms and hugged him. "And thank you for the dance," she said.
John hugged her back and released her. He glanced over and saw Aiden Ford hovering at the edge of the crowd, waiting for her. "Ford, huh?" he asked, squeezing her arm.
Teyla glanced over her shoulder as she pulled away and deliberately kicked him in the shin.
"Hey!" he called, but he couldn't help but laugh and that ruined the entire effect.
John glanced around, looking for Katie because it just wasn't fair to leave her alone. Her red hair wasn't hard to find -- she was dancing with Radek. They were both grinning and chatting but they weren't especially close together. John was debating whether or not to cut in when he felt a hand on his shoulder and the familiar scent of Elizabeth's perfume.
"They're playing our song," she said when he turned to her.
He snorted out a laugh. "Sea of Love" was not in any way, shape, or form, their song. In fact, as a couple, they had never really been sentimental about those sorts of things. But Elizabeth had dragged John into the Student Government Association the previous fall and they'd spent countless hours planning a prom around an undersea theme. By the time they were actually wrapped together in the last hours of the dance, they were both thoroughly sick of the song.
And not long afterward, they were back at John's house, peeling off Elizabeth's dress and making love for the first time.
"Well, then," he drawled. "May I have this dance?"
"I thought you'd never ask," Elizabeth said. She fit against his body, thin and delicate, and wrapped her arms around his neck. John rested his cheek against her hair and closed his hands over her hips, guiding her with the movements of his own body. He closed his eyes for the length of a stanza and when he opened them again, the first thing he saw was Rodney, dancing awkwardly with Vala.
John smiled to himself and lifted his hand to tuck Elizabeth's hair behind her ear.
"John?" she said, and he could feel the weight of her next words.
"Shh," he said instead.
Elizabeth drew back and cupped her hand around John's cheek, her fingertips brushing over the bruise there. Her forehead creased in concern and she studied him intently. It was an expression he recognized well. "John," she finally said. "I am sorry. I shouldn't have -- "
John shook his head. "Yeah, I'm sorry, too," he admitted. "I was an asshole."
"Yes," Elizabeth agreed, a smile finally breaking over her face. "You were."
John shrugged, self-effacingly. "I thought you were being -- you know." He glanced over at Rodney. Vala was leading. John turned Elizabeth quickly so Rodney didn't look up and think John was laughing at him. "I think I understand what you were saying, now. About things being different. And…learning about yourself."
"So you were listening," Elizabeth said, sounding pleasantly surprised. "That's a new one."
John made his who knew? face as the last notes of the music drifted away. Another song started and John glanced over to where Katie and Radek were still dancing.
"Hey," he said. "C'mere. You remember Radek Zelenka, right?"
"Of course I do," she said, because Elizabeth knew everyone. "We were talking to him earlier."
"Oh, right, of course." He started steering her deliberately toward the bleachers. "You know, his family speaks Czech exclusively when they're home. I bet he could teach you a few things."
"Teach me a few things?" Elizabeth asked, tilting her head and narrowing her eyes at John.
John shrugged. "I'm just saying," he said as ingenuously as he could manage. "I don't think he would mind."
Elizabeth nodded slowly. "Oh, you don't, do you?"
"Not at all." John glanced over his shoulder and yes, perfect. "Radek!" he called, releasing Elizabeth and stepping to the side. "Trade you." And he swept Katie away from Radek in a move that would have made Fred Astaire envious.
"John!" she exclaimed, totally flustered.
"Check it out," he told her, craning his neck to look around her head where Elizabeth and Radek were settling awkwardly into a rhythm. He steered Katie around until she could see, too, and felt extremely satisfied to hear her giggle.
"Radek had the biggest crush on Elizabeth last year," she confided in him. "Oh. I mean. Um."
"It's cool," John assured her. "Radek's a good guy. I like him better than the dipstick she brought home."
Katie just smiled and blushed, and whispered, "Me, too!" John grinned at her. At least someone agreed with his somewhat sketchy and ill-advised matchmaking attempts.
They danced to a few more songs and then, after a round of the Electric Slide, Katie pulled away, red-faced and laughing. "I need to take a break," she said, staggering back a few steps toward the bleachers.
"You want something to drink?" he asked her, a little thirsty himself.
"Yes, please," she agreed, nodding, and John excused himself to shoulder through the crowd toward the tables stretched across the back of the room.
"Shep!"
"Mitch!"
Mitch had ditched the seafoam green and was wearing dress pants, a button-down shirt, and a tie at half-mast. John didn't bother to ask where his jacket had gone.
"They let you guys back in?" John asked, checking over the selection of beverages.
"They made me lose the dress," Mitch said around a handful of peanuts, as if that wasn't obvious. "But yeah, Hammond's an all right guy."
"You guys are crazy," John muttered. "And lucky. And did I mention crazy?"
"Dude," Mitch said in an entirely different tone of voice. He elbowed John in the side. "Where did you find her? She's hot."
"It's Katie Brown," John said, bypassing the punch -- if Mitch was already there it was at least 70 proof -- and pouring 7-Up into two plastic cups. "You know her. She's in our homeroom."
"Wait. No way. That's Katie Brown?" Mitch whistled long and low. "Man, she cleans up nice."
John lifted an eyebrow and looked across the gym to where Katie was standing. She did look nice, actually. Out of baggy jeans and oversized t-shirts, she had some pretty nice curves, and with her hair clipped back from her face, her eyes were big and bright. She still looked awkward, rubbing her arm and shifting her weight, spine curled forward as she hovered by the wall.
"You want me to introduce you?" John asked, taking a handful of snack mix and popping a pretzel into his mouth.
"I thought she was here with you," Mitch said suspiciously.
"Just friends," John said with a shrug. He lifted his palm and dumped the remaining cereal and nuts into his mouth. "She's cool." And then a peanut and a square of Corn Chex stuck in his throat as he remembered saying the same thing about Rodney more than a month ago.
"So, you don't uh, mind if I take her something to drink?" Mitch asked in that casual way that meant he was either trying to imitate John or tell a stupid joke.
"Yeah, sure. I mean, go ahead." John handed Mitch one of the cups of 7-Up he'd poured and took a sip of the other one. He had to use the restroom anyway. He'd meet up with Katie when he was done and save her from Mitch then, if she needed it.
John wandered away from the food table and headed for the lobby of the gym where the bathrooms were located. But before he reached the door, a figure in a shiny vinyl…dress…and a high ponytail moved into his personal space.
"Well, if it isn't John Sheppard!"
"Vala," John growled as she hooked an arm around his neck and used her body to push him back into the crowd of dancers. "What do you want?"
"Why would you say such a thing?" Vala pouted as she relieved him of the plastic cup of 7-Up. "Is this for me?" she asked, taking a sip. "Hmph. It's not even spiked."
"Oddly enough," John said dryly, "I don't really feel the need to get you drunk. In fact, I don't think anyone does."
"Oh," Vala said. "That was a little bit mean."
There was a beat when Vala looked at him with serious doe eyes and John almost started to feel bad. But then she opened her mouth again.
"I'm sure it's just because you're a little jealous about my coming with Rodney," Vala sighed, her delicate fingers fiddling with the points of John's collar. John tried very hard not to think about coming with Rodney.
"I'll get over it," he assured her.
"I just don't want you to think that what we had wasn't special," Vala continued.
"It was seven minutes in a closet," John pointed out.
"It was a rather pleasurable seven minutes," Vala corrected. "For me, at least. Plus a not-insignificant time up in someone's guest bedroom. Most boys your age? Pop! Just like that." She flicked her fingers outward and regarded her splayed hand thoughtfully.
"Vala, what do you want from me?" John groaned, rolling his eyes. He was hard. The galaxy hated him. The universe hated him. His entire night was just completely unfair. And if Vala rolled Rodney's name out of her mouth one more time, John wasn't going to be responsible for his actions.
"I want you to stop being angry with him," Vala said suddenly, her voice quick and serious. "Ordinarily, I wouldn't care, but Rodney's a good person, even if he does have ridiculous hair, and he seems to think the world of you."
John wondered what happened to the dances he spent sipping spiked drinks and talking about normal things like football and movies.
"Why do you think I'm angry with him?" John asked, trying to imagine what Rodney could have said to make Vala say he thought the world of John.
Vala looked at him as if he was being stupid. "You two were inseparable for weeks," she said. "And now you're never together. I can only assume it's because of me."
John blinked and scratched the back of his head.
"I, uh, I tried talking to him. About…it. Once," he prevaricated.
"Try again," Vala implored.
"I -- " John groped for something to say and came up empty. "Yeah, okay."
"Good boy," Vala beamed, and goosed him as she ran off, taking his soda with her.
John blinked and shrugged and then wandered into the restroom in a daze. Jack O'Neill was there, zipping up, and raised his eyebrows at John's gobsmacked expression.
"Woman trouble?" he asked.
"They're all crazy," John said.
Jack nodded and clapped John on the shoulder. "Sucks to be the man, doesn't it?"
John shook his head. "You have no idea."
"What was that about?" Rodney asked when Vala slid back into his arms. He craned his head to look over her shoulder to where John was disappearing into the locker room area.
"Nothing to worry about," Vala said, pressing her body full-length against Rodney's. "I requested a song for us."
"Really?" Rodney asked hopefully. This had to be promising. "A song? For us."
"One of my favorites," Vala said as Sting belted out,
"Rooooooooooxanne!"
"Why am I not even surprised?" Rodney asked rhetorically. Rodney was a great connoisseur of irony and he filed this moment away as a stunning example.
But then Vala snuggled her shoulders up against his and tucked her head against his chin. He breathed in the warm, musky scent of her perfume and tried not to sneeze. He looked past Vala's cloud of hair and saw John, leaning against the wall near the bleachers, tossing pretzels into his mouth and laughing with Radek.
Rodney felt a stab of jealousy, wishing he was over there with them, happy and easy, and felt odd and adult with Vala sliding up against him. Later tonight, probably in his father's car, he was going to roll on one of the condoms he'd bought -- he'd practiced with that, too, in the bathroom before leaving to pick up Vala -- and have his first Sexual Experience.
His heart pounded and his skin tingled just thinking about it…but -- and he snuck another look over to where John and Radek, and now Jack O'Neill, were hanging out -- some part of him was still wistful for their easy comradery.
"I wanted to propose a little tradeoff," Vala murmured in Rodney's ear.
"Really? Uh. What kind of tradeoff?" Rodney asked, his heart thudding in his chest. This was it! This was the proposition.
"We-ell," Vala cooed, drawing the word out, "you do want to…get out of here, don't you? With me?"
Rodney's mouth went dry. "Er, well, of course," he said smoothly. (In his head it was smooth.)
"So maybe we could just slip on over to the main building -- "
Sex in the school! Kinky! Rodney had visions of losing is virginity on Simmons's desk. Wouldn't that make physics class more endurable for the rest of the year!
" -- and you can give my grades a little boost in the computer -- just enough so I can graduate, you know -- and then we can go have a good time in that rather sizable back seat of yours." Vala beamed at him and tapped his nose with her fingertip.
"Oh, yes," Rodney said breathlessly, diving in to kiss her, but as he pressed his mouth against hers, her words hit him. "Wait, what?"
Vala blinked long lashes, thick with blue mascara, at him. "It's fairly simple, really," she said. "I just feel that we should get the boring technical things out of the way first and then I will…take…care…of…everything!"
"No, no, no, no," Rodney said, stepping back out of the circle of her arms. "You want to sleep with me as payment for boosting your grades in the school computer? Not because I'm cool and good-looking?"
Vala raised her eyebrow and looked at him for so long, Rodney thought he'd missed something vital. "I think that being able to break into the school's computer is very cool," she said placatingly.
"Oh, this is just perfect," Rodney snapped. "I am not Roxanne! The red light is not out tonight, you, you temptation!" He turned and stomped blindly through the crowd until he found the food table.
There were chips and pretzels and little hot dogs in puff pastry and oh, hey, chicken on a stick. Rodney took a skewer and a can of soda and nodded to Carson Beckett, who was also hanging around the table, collecting a stack of cookies wrapped in a napkin.
"Why so glum?" he asked cheerfully, rounding the table to where Rodney was standing.
"I'm never getting laid," Rodney announced, nibbling on one of the chunks of chicken. It was tasty.
"You need to get out more," Carson advised.
Rodney almost said, How much more out can I get? and then remembered he wasn't talking to John and he couldn't just say things like that. He swallowed hard.
"Rodney, Carson," Radek said, appearing at the table and loading up a plate of pretzels and tucking two sodas under his arm. He paused and regarded them carefully. "Why does Rodney look so morose? What has he done this time?"
"He thinks he's never going to get laid," Carson confided.
"And it's all your fault," Rodney added, his mouth full.
"So many things are," Radek agreed dryly.
"Seriously, if you hadn't insisted on everything being so…deep and meaningful, I totally could have gotten into Vala's pants."
"Vala is not wearing any pants," Radek observed, peering through the crowd. Rodney followed his line of sight to see Vala using Mr. Dixon, the history teacher, as balance while she fussed with her shoe.
"No," Rodney agreed with a sigh, thinking longingly of the flash of thigh she'd given him in the car. "She most definitely is not." He regarded the chicken with suspicion and set it aside in favor of one of the cookies Carson was hoarding. "Anyway, if Laura hadn't already made plans with some idiot, I wouldn't even be in this fix. She would totally sleep with me." He blinked at Radek, who had apparently taken up stage direction or maybe flight control as a hobby. "What?"
Radek sighed and shook his head in defeat.
And then Carson Beckett, mama's boy and wimp of every gym class they'd ever been forced to take together, hauled back and punched Rodney square in the nose.
"Ow! Ow ow ow ow ow!" Rodney clutched at his face, the pain running in bright streamers through his face. He felt something liquid flowing through his fingers and felt faint. "Oh, my God, I'm bleeding!"
"Try keeping your mitts off other people's girlfriends!" Carson shouted and the gym erupted in a din of gossip and humiliation.
"Oh, my God! Carson!" Laura -- just to add insult to injury! Where had she come from? And since when was she Carson's girlfriend? "Rodney!"
"All right, all right." It was John's voice cutting through the uproar and Rodney nearly whimpered, the sound was so welcome. "Carson, simmer down and sort this thing out with Laura. I'll take Rocky here to plug up his nose." A firm hand clamped down on Rodney's shoulder and steered him away from Carson and Laura and the rest of the murmuring crowd and off toward the bathrooms.
"This is so not my fault," Rodney protested nasally as John bypassed the bathrooms and steered him outside. "Wait, where are we going?"
"Out where the bad people can't find you," John said wryly. "Carson? I mean seriously, if you're going to get your face punched in by someone, Carson?"
"It wasn't like I had a choice," Rodney sulked, accepting the handkerchief John offered him and tilting his head back. "I didn't know they were getting back together. I didn't know they ever went out"
"Yeah," John said, and put his hands in his pockets. "I'm sorry. About Laura, I mean. You really seemed to like her."
Rodney sniffed experimentally and didn't feel anything moving or liquid so he tilted his head back up cautiously and dabbed at his nose. John's handkerchief had large patches soaked red, but there were no new droplets. "Yeah, well." He shrugged. He had liked Laura, but she wasn't John and really, even getting punched in the nose was worth it to have John standing out there with him, talking again. "Hey, um." He looked at John, thinking unmanly things like, I'm glad we're talking again, or I missed you. "Wow, the other team really did a number on you, didn't they?"
John quirked up one side of his mouth ruefully -- the undamaged side. "Yeah," he said, touching his swollen mouth cautiously. "Still hurts like a bitch. Can you see the bruise on my cheek?"
"Who could miss it?" Rodney asked. The bruise wasn't deep, but the side of John's face was definitely discolored from cheekbone to jaw.
John's fingers moved from his mouth to his face and he sighed. "We both look like shit," he said resignedly, his eyes going right to Rodney's nose. "Your eyes are going to black up good." He reached out and let his fingertips drift along the swell of Rodney's cheek between his nose and his eye. "You said, once," he said in a voice that sounded a little broken, "that you could look at a woman and think she was hot, and look at a man and feel the same way."
Rodney swallowed hard. He'd never been more than a half-breath away from giving in to John at any given moment, but John had only asked once and never again. He nodded.
"So, if that works for you," John said, his eyes bright and steady, "why can't it work for me? I did some reading up on those studies you were talking about. There's this theory, you probably know it, it says that everyone's at least one percent gay and -- see, the way I figure it, maybe you're my one percent."
Rodney's breath stopped in his throat and for a desperate moment he wondered if he was having an allergic reaction. But there was too much air instead of not enough so he stepped forward, heart pounding, and curled his hand around the back of John's neck.
John didn't wait for him, just leaned over and kissed Rodney, hard and tender, and desperate and tentative, and a lot of other words that shouldn't have gone together but did anyway. Rodney brushed his hand over the bruises on John's face and John made a soft and vibratory noise against Rodney's mouth.
"Oh, wow," Rodney said, words coming concurrent with his thoughts, still breathing John's air. "This must hurt like hell."
"It stings a little, yeah," John agreed, kissing Rodney again, once. He tilted his forehead into Rodney's and sighed.
"I can kiss you other places," Rodney whispered and felt John tense up against him. "No, I mean like, I just -- " And he leaned forward and kissed the side of John's neck, up in the hollow between his jaw and his ear. He felt the muscle of John's jaw tightened under his lips and then John's throat ripple as he stuttered and then swallowed. Rodney took a deep breath and brought his hand up to the other side of John's neck, cupping his hand around the warm skin and stroking the line of John's jaw with his thumb. "Is this okay?" he murmured when John inhaled sharply.
John nodded too quickly, his head bobbing awkwardly. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I just -- " He brought his hand up and brushed his palm against Rodney's cheek.
Rodney felt his eyes go round at the slide of calluses over his skin and his breath came faster against John's neck. He squeezed his eyes closed and pressed his mouth against John's pulse. John's hand was still hovering in mid-air near his face when he found it and tangled his fingers with John's, bringing both their hands to the back of his own neck.
"Oh," John said, sounding surprised, and then his hand tightened not-quite painfully around Rodney's, and his other hand came up to touch Rodney's side, sliding inside his jacket and closing around a handful of shirt.
Rodney measured careful kisses down the side of John's neck while John's hands turned restless, the one at his neck sliding up into his hair, and the one on his side unclenching and skating up and down his ribcage. He reached the base of John's neck and pulled his collar aside to lick down to the collarbone.
"Oh, wow," John sighed, his body leaning into Rodney's. "That feels good."
Rodney lifted his head and beamed at John, so, so pleased for the confirmation that John at least didn't mind being touched by boys.
"That didn't mean stop," John said with a lazy grin, poking Rodney in the chest with two fingers. Then, his eyes going serious, he hooked those fingers into the open "v" of Rodney's dress shirt and traced them up and down, drawing patterns on Rodney's skin. "C'mere," he whispered. He still had one hand on Rodney's side and he slipped it to the small of Rodney's back, drawing Rodney closer between John's legs, spread wide as he braced himself against the side of the building. "You know," he said softly, looking up through his lashes and letting his thumb stroke into the dip at the apex of Rodney's collarbone. "You know I wouldn't -- "
The sound of the fire door unlatching startled them and Rodney jumped backward, his hands scrabbling at his rumpled shirt and jacket. John straightened up from his sprawl against the wall and looked disconcerted for all of a split second before Elizabeth poked her head out.
"Last dance is about to start, John," she said. She glanced over and Rodney and smiled. "Feeling better?"
"Um. Yeah," Rodney said lamely. He held up John's handkerchief, still crumpled in his fist. "I stopped bleeding."
"Good." Elizabeth nodded at him and looked back at John. "Coming?"
"Yeah," John said, taking the weight of the door from her. "On my way." He glanced back at Rodney.
Rodney glanced at the ground. He was hard and overheated, despite the cool air, and he didn't know what John had been about to say but he felt awkward for the interruption.
"Hey," John whispered. Rodney looked up, faithfully drawn by his voice. John's eyes were level on him, and serious. "You know I wouldn't jerk you around, right?" John said quietly, too quietly for Elizabeth to hear.
Rodney found himself nodding, although he knew no such thing and he didn't even know what that was supposed to mean --
"Okay," John said with a familiar smirk. "So trust me."
The door closed behind him and Rodney was left standing outside, alone with the wind in his hair and a small, thoughtful smile on his face.
Part Eight-B
The Best Things in Life are Free
by Smitty
SGA High School AU
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard, with all the twists and turns and pitstops along the way that make high school so embarrassing to talk about twenty years later.
Part Seven-C
Rodney straightened his bowtie and studied his reflection in his bedroom mirror. His hair was all wrong. It was flat and floppy and close to his head. He turned away from the mirror and crossed the hall to the bathroom but the door was closed. Rodney sighed and leaned against the opposite wall. After a minute, he heard his father's newspaper rustle and his mother bustling around in the kitchen, so he knew it was Jeannie who was holding him up.
"Jeannie!" he hollered, waited a beat, then pounded on the door. "Get a move on! I'm going to be late!"
The toilet flushed and then the water in the sink ran for far longer than Jeannie usually needed to swipe her hands over a bar of soap and rinse off the residue. "Stop stalling!" he called, shifting impatiently from foot to foot.
Finally (finally!) the door opened and Jeannie came out, chin tilted, face tight, eyes red like she'd been crying.
"Thank you," Rodney said distractedly, pushing past her into the bathroom. "You can try on makeup elsewhere. You have your own room, you know." He ducked his head under the running water and heard the door to Jeannie's room slam. Unconcerned, he rubbed a dollop of Dep -- the bottle he'd bought at the drugstore that morning because he didn't want to use John's anymore -- between his fingertips and started arranging his hair. He was nearly done when he caught a reflection of the wastebasket in the mirror.
"What's -- ?" he asked, leaning over the counter to peer inside the plastic can. He recognized the pastel plastic wrapper from that horrible, horrible movie they'd all had to watch in sixth grade, but his mother'd had a hysterectomy after they moved and Rodney had been spared the awkwardness of living with a menstruating woman. Until now. "Oh, of all the things I should absolutely not have to do," he said aloud in horror, but sucked it up and went over to Jeannie's room. Wham! was playing on the tape deck when Jeannie opened the door, holding her latchhook puppydog pillow across her stomach.
"What do you want?" she asked, eyes watery.
Rodney sighed. "Are you okay?" he asked, glancing down the hall. Their parents certainly seemed oblivious to all the banging of doors and crying going on but then again, with Rodney and Jeannie they were probably used to it. Rodney tried to pitch his voice low so it wouldn't carry out to the living room where their father sat with his newspaper. "Mom, you know, talked to you about it and stuff, right?"
"I did go to health class you know," Jeannie said disdainfully and then promptly burst into tears and threw her arms around Rodney's waist.
"What is it?" he asked anxiously. "Does it hurt? Do you faint at the sight of blood?"
"N-No," Jeannie blubbered. "But it's stupid and now I have to have it every month for the next fifty years!"
"That's not bad," Rodney said.
"That's forever!" Jeannie wailed.
"You could be like Mom and get a hysterectomy," Rodney offered helpfully.
Jeannie pulled back, wiping her nose on her sleeve and glaring at him. "I'm not ever going to be like Mom," she said stormily.
"Well, that's good," Rodney said, trying to imagine Jeannie making meatloaf and putting up with a bunch of screaming kids. "You're way too smart anyhow."
Jeannie sniffled.
"Look," Rodney said, aware he was running short on time. "It'll be great. You'll have a whole new excuse to eat chocolate and you get to be a pain in the ass -- more of a pain in the ass than usual -- once a month."
Jeannie glared up at him, eyes big and skeptical, like she wanted to believe him but had the cramps and misery to prove otherwise. Rodney patted her shoulder awkwardly.
"Trust me," he said grandly, as if he knew anything about it. "A whole new world has just opened up to you."
"Smile!"
John did his best to beam happily at Katie as the camera flashed and whirred.
Smiling hurt like hell.
"Okay, just one more!"
It turned out that Mrs. Brown meant one more roll instead of one more picture but finally Katie's corsage was on her wrist and John's boutonniere was in his button hole and it looked like they might be able to make a run for the car.
"Go kiss your mother goodbye, sweetie," Mr. Brown said, slinging his arm around John's shoulders. "I want to have a word with John, here."
John stifled a sigh and let himself be led into the foyer. He thought parents only did this in the movies, still -- he'd certainly never had to field this kind of discussion before. Even Elizabeth's dad had just quizzed him on local sporting events and a few major world events before Elizabeth had dragged John away.
"Yes, sir," he said, hoping to ward off whatever was coming with impeccable manners.
"So," Mr. Brown started. "You seem like a nice enough kid, but you're probably thinking you're a big football star now -- "
I think I got sacked and would have thrown an interception in the second quarter if that guy hadn't fumbled, John thought to himself, but Mr. Brown was on a roll and John knew better than to interrupt fathers on a roll.
" -- but my Katie is a good girl and I'll be waiting at this door at midnight for her, so don't think you can try any funny stuff, you understand me?"
"Yes, sir," John said on cue with a bob of his head.
Mr. Brown settled back into a good glower until Katie ran up to him and threw her arms around his neck. He melted visibly when she kissed him on the cheek and said, "See you later, Daddy!" John grinned and tossed off a cheery salute as he escorted Katie out the door and down the front walk.
"Is he always like that?" John asked, wondering how Rodney made it out the door with Mr. Brown looming over him.
"Well," Katie said, blushing. "I guess he never really had to worry about anything before."
"Oh," John said, and didn't mention that Mr. Brown really didn't have anything to worry about now.
"Tell me I look pretty!" Vala ordered as soon as she'd opened the door. She struck a pose, arms flung wide and waited expectantly.
Rodney stared at the strips of vinyl that made up the top of her dress. "Wow."
"Thank you!" Vala said brightly, and pulled the door closed behind her. "Now. Where are you taking me for dinner?"
"The Il Fiore Bianco," Rodney said grandly. He'd gone through the phone book for the place with the most foreign-sounding name, and stocked his wallet accordingly.
"Ooh. Sounds elegant and expensive," Vala said, wrapping her arm around Rodney's and dragging him off the porch.
Rodney remembered to open the car door for Vala and got a substantial flash of thigh for his trouble. He closed the door after her and stopped to hyperventilate for a moment before pasting a polite smile on his face and getting in the driver's side.
Much to his relief, Vala talked about herself for the entire fifteen minute ride from her house to the restaurant and for a fleeting moment, Rodney thought he was actually going to be able to pull off one date all on his own.
And then he tried to claim their seats.
"What do you mean there's no reservation?" Rodney demanded. "I called two days ago and made a reservation for 6:30!"
"I am quite sorry, Mr. McKay," the maître d' said, not sounding terribly sorry at all. "I am afraid there is no reservation under that name."
"Look," Rodney said, trying to be reasonable when his blood pressure was clearly climbing through the roof and wow, even Vala wasn't going to put out if he couldn't at least buy her a decent dinner. And to not get any from Vala was pretty much a sign of social retardation from which he would never recover. "What if I…threw in an extra ten, just for you?"
The maître d' -- Over-glorified waiter, Rodney thought meanly -- looked down his long aquiline nose. "We have no more seats for the evening," he said archly as if Rodney hadn't just resorted to petty bribery. "Perhaps you should make alternate arrangements."
Rodney glanced over at Vala, who was blowing the biggest pink bubble he'd ever seen. The candlelight from the tables reflected off the shiny material of her dress and Rodney looked desperately back at the maître d'. "Okay," he said, caught halfway between yelling and begging, but the maître d' just turned his head and said, "Next?" and Rodney had nothing to do but turn away and walk back to Vala.
"Fancy," she said, still glancing around the place. "Did you get us a good table?"
"Um," Rodney said. "The thing is -- I got us a great table, but the regular guy is, uh, out sick, and um, they lost the reservation."
"The bastards!" Vala exclaimed, snapping straight and tall. "Wait 'til I give them a piece of my mind!"
"Oh, um, no, no, you don't want to do that," Rodney said quickly. "I mean, they're all full up and they already feel really bad…uh, really…and well, there's pretty much nothing they can do. We're just going to have to find someplace else, but I swear, I will totally make it up to you -- "
"Oh, don't worry about it now," Vala said, relaxing and waving one hand carelessly. "Come on, I know a great little place, it's just around the corner."
Vala's great little place around the corner turned out to be Sol's Diner, and she knew everyone who worked there, including the owner -- Sal.
"He bought the place from Sol," she explained in his ear as Sal tapped the flat of a meat cleaver against his palm and sized Rodney up.
"So, you're taking out our little Val?" he asked, squinting.
"Um," Rodney squeaked, temporarily lost for words.
"We're going to the Homecoming Dance," Vala said, absorbed in the menu and completely oblivious to Rodney's distress.
"And he's bringing you here?"
"I'm bringing him here," Vala said, setting the menu aside and flashing a wide smile at Sal. "He was going to take me to this frightfully expensive place, with white roses, and candles, and -- but really, I just really wanted to go someplace I knew, so I asked if we could just come by. Can we both get the Blue Plate Special?"
"Sure thing," Sal said. "Two BP Specials, coming right up. But don't you think you're off the hook, kid! You better be treating our girl Val right!"
Rodney cleared his throat painfully. "The, uh, Blue Plate Special?" he said. "That doesn't happen to have any lemon, does it?"
John walked into the darkened gym and paused to blink at the transformation from dodgeball stadium to dancehall. The partitions had been folded all the way back, leaving the room wide open and double the size it had been when John had taken PE last spring.
A cluster of freshmen were already perched on the lower steps of the bleachers, pulled out for the occasion.
Radek Zelenka was already there among them, looking miserable in a khaki suit and blue shirt. His hair was smashed down flat.
"Hey," John said, nudging Katie in the side with his elbow before he remembered that you didn't do that with girls you were taking out. "There's Radek. You want to go say hi?"
Katie glanced in the direction he indicated and said, "Oh, yes, let's! I mean, if it's all right with you."
John wouldn't have said anything if he didn't want to, but he wasn't going to tell Katie. He'd have said so to Rodney, but there were a lot of things he'd say to Rodney that he'd never say to Katie Brown. "You're the boss," he deadpanned instead, taking her elbow and clearing a path through the clots of people who were standing near the doorway, not yet brave enough to venture closer to the dance floor. "Hey, Radek!" he called when they were in earshot.
Radek looked up and glanced around if he was surprised to hear his name. Katie pushed a little ahead of the crowd and called his name, too, and this time Radek's face lit up in recognition. "You look very pretty tonight," he told her. "At least someone is here," he added to John. "Rodney insisted that I attend and yet he has failed to make an appearance."
Rodney was probably in the parking lot, getting the answers to certain questions from Vala, but John wasn't about to say so in front of Katie. He was saved from having to say anything at all by the appearance of Elizabeth and Simon.
"John! There you are!"
Elizabeth looked fantastic in a red silk dress that John had never seen before -- and once upon a time, he'd seen all her dresses. "Hey," he said. "Elizabeth, you remember Katie and Radek, right?"
"Of course," Elizabeth said, turning bright smiles on each of them in turn. If she was curious about who was with whom, it didn't show on her face. "Katie, how are you? Did you do the flowers for the dance again?"
"Oh, well, the Horticulture Club did," Katie said, flushing a little. "We had a really good crop of Saguaro blossoms this year so the creative types designed the decorations around them."
"Well, they look wonderful," Elizabeth said. "And Radek? How is Mr. Simmons treating you? I guess you're looking into colleges now, aren't you?"
"Mr. Simmons is much nicer when he is not talked back to," Radek said. "I have no complaints."
Elizabeth nodded but Radek didn't say anything else. "Well, everyone, this is Simon Wallis. Simon, this is Katie Brown and Radek Zelenka, and you've already met John." The last words had a touch of warning to them and because John was very carefully not looking at Simon, he saw Radek's face dim a little and Radek's eyes cut away.
Well, that was interesting.
But before John could dwell on it further, a commotion from the doorway drew everyone's attention and John stepped up on the lowest bleacher seat to see over the heads of the crowd.
Mitch and Dex were arm-in-arm in the doorway, and Dex was dressed in a suit almost identical to John's, right down to the crooked knot in his tie. Mitch, however…Mitch was wearing a tea-length satin dress in a lovely shade of seafoam green and a blonde wig that had to be modeled after Farrah Fawcett's hairstyle. He was absolutely the ugliest woman John had ever seen.
John cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed, "Show us some leg!" over the rest of the laughter and catcalls. He rocked back on his heels and cheered with everyone else as Mitch coquettishly tugged the skirt over one hairy knee, then dropped it in a display of ridiculously exaggerated modesty.
Katie was straining to see through the shoulders of the crowd, her head tilted back, so John tapped her on the shoulder and helped her onto the bleacher next to him. They watched as Hammond and Landry fought their way through the sea of teenagers to reach the unlikely couple.
"You know," Katie said thoughtfully and with such a straight face that it took John an extra minute to realize she was kidding, "I really think seafoam is Mitch's color."
"Hey, that was really good," Rodney said when they were getting back in the car, having escaped alive from Sal and the rest of Sol's Diner. "I guess you go there a lot, huh? Everyone seems to know you." Vala shrugged and smiled.
"Yeah," she said, running her fingertips along the edge of the window. "Sal lets me wait tables there on weekends, for tips and food. My evil stepmother sometimes forgets to cook."
"Oh, um, I'm sorry to hear that," Rodney said awkwardly.
"Look, I -- " Vala took a deep breath, then paused to uncross and recross her legs, then tugged at the hem of her very short skirt. She looked up at him, her eyes large and serious. "Look, Rodney, I would appreciate if you didn't divulge the location of Sol's Diner to your friends. A girl's got a reputation to uphold, you know."
"Not a word," Rodney swore, miming zipping his mouth shut and throwing away the key. "I promise, I won't tell anyone, not even John."
Vala tilted her head and smiled but it was puzzled. "All right, then," she said. "Thank you."
"Or, uh, Laura," Rodney covered, badly. "Or Teyla, or Radek or anyone."
Vala nodded. "Thank you." The silence in the car was awkward for a moment and then she said, "We're going to make the biggest scene walking into that dance, aren't we?"
"Yes!" Rodney said, grabbing onto that idea. "Yes, we are. I mean, hey, your dress…."
"Oh, this old thing?" Vala said coquettishly, but she gave Rodney a big smile over her shoulder and he couldn't help but grin back.
As it turned out, they didn't make a scene at all. When they walked into the gym, everyone's attention was directed at the pull-out stage where Elizabeth Weir was settling a fancy tiara on Teyla Emmagan's head.
"Now that's a pretty bauble," Vala said wistfully as Teyla curtseyed and smiled at everyone.
"It's fake," Rodney assured her. "Paste and aluminum."
Vala sighed dramatically. "The least you could do is let a girl dream," she scolded.
But Rodney wasn't really listening. Because Jack O'Neill was fumbling with a thick, white envelope. It slipped from his hands and hit the floor but instead of going after it, Jack just rolled his eyes and leaned over the microphone.
"They told me before I came up here," he said. "That you guys all voted for John Sheppard. If you don't believe me, you can check the envelope." And then he sat a crown on John's head. "Don't let it go to your head," he murmured with a slap to John's shoulder. Jack looked up in alarm as the microphone caught his last comment. "Um. Did you all hear that?"
Applause drowned him out and he stepped back to stand with Elizabeth, leaving John front and center with Teyla. John smiled and tossed off a thank-you salute to the crowd.
Rodney looked carefully but even he couldn't tell if John's expression was real or just another stunning mask.
"The floor is yours," Principal Hammond announced with a sweeping gesture of his arm.
John smiled, an expression that came easier two months back, before Rodney had turned his life upside down. He held out his arm to Teyla and escorted her down the side steps of the stage to the dance floor.
Teyla smiled up at him as he put his arms around her and the first notes of the music started. John relaxed a little. Teyla had been a good sport about everything up to and including that night. This part wouldn't be bad.
And then he recognized the song.
"Uh. This is awkward," he said helplessly as "Take My Breath Away" filtered through the speakers of the sound system. "Who picked this song?"
Teyla smiled weakly. "I -- believe it might have been my idea," she admitted. "The theme was chosen…a few weeks ago."
"Oh," John said lamely. Awkward didn't even begin to cover this. He licked his lips and decided that as long as his life was sucking, he might as well get out a few things he'd been meaning to say. "Look," he said, suddenly hyper-aware of the entire gymnasium watching them. "I know the last few weeks have been kind of…."
"Weird?" Teyla supplied.
"Weird," John agreed reluctantly. "I just wanted to let you know it wasn't that I -- you know."
Teyla tilted her head. "I do not believe that I do."
John bit his lower lip. "Okay, well…let's just say I haven't quite been myself in the past couple of weeks and, well, I didn't want you to think it was your -- that it had anything to do with anything you did. Did that make sense?"
"John," Teyla said, with a little smile. "You are my friend, and you have always shown yourself to be. Things…." She rolled her head back a little and shrugged. "Things did not work out as either of us expected. Think of it no more."
"Ah. Well. Okay, then," John said. And then, "Thank you."
Teyla leaned forward in his arms and hugged him. "And thank you for the dance," she said.
John hugged her back and released her. He glanced over and saw Aiden Ford hovering at the edge of the crowd, waiting for her. "Ford, huh?" he asked, squeezing her arm.
Teyla glanced over her shoulder as she pulled away and deliberately kicked him in the shin.
"Hey!" he called, but he couldn't help but laugh and that ruined the entire effect.
John glanced around, looking for Katie because it just wasn't fair to leave her alone. Her red hair wasn't hard to find -- she was dancing with Radek. They were both grinning and chatting but they weren't especially close together. John was debating whether or not to cut in when he felt a hand on his shoulder and the familiar scent of Elizabeth's perfume.
"They're playing our song," she said when he turned to her.
He snorted out a laugh. "Sea of Love" was not in any way, shape, or form, their song. In fact, as a couple, they had never really been sentimental about those sorts of things. But Elizabeth had dragged John into the Student Government Association the previous fall and they'd spent countless hours planning a prom around an undersea theme. By the time they were actually wrapped together in the last hours of the dance, they were both thoroughly sick of the song.
And not long afterward, they were back at John's house, peeling off Elizabeth's dress and making love for the first time.
"Well, then," he drawled. "May I have this dance?"
"I thought you'd never ask," Elizabeth said. She fit against his body, thin and delicate, and wrapped her arms around his neck. John rested his cheek against her hair and closed his hands over her hips, guiding her with the movements of his own body. He closed his eyes for the length of a stanza and when he opened them again, the first thing he saw was Rodney, dancing awkwardly with Vala.
John smiled to himself and lifted his hand to tuck Elizabeth's hair behind her ear.
"John?" she said, and he could feel the weight of her next words.
"Shh," he said instead.
Elizabeth drew back and cupped her hand around John's cheek, her fingertips brushing over the bruise there. Her forehead creased in concern and she studied him intently. It was an expression he recognized well. "John," she finally said. "I am sorry. I shouldn't have -- "
John shook his head. "Yeah, I'm sorry, too," he admitted. "I was an asshole."
"Yes," Elizabeth agreed, a smile finally breaking over her face. "You were."
John shrugged, self-effacingly. "I thought you were being -- you know." He glanced over at Rodney. Vala was leading. John turned Elizabeth quickly so Rodney didn't look up and think John was laughing at him. "I think I understand what you were saying, now. About things being different. And…learning about yourself."
"So you were listening," Elizabeth said, sounding pleasantly surprised. "That's a new one."
John made his who knew? face as the last notes of the music drifted away. Another song started and John glanced over to where Katie and Radek were still dancing.
"Hey," he said. "C'mere. You remember Radek Zelenka, right?"
"Of course I do," she said, because Elizabeth knew everyone. "We were talking to him earlier."
"Oh, right, of course." He started steering her deliberately toward the bleachers. "You know, his family speaks Czech exclusively when they're home. I bet he could teach you a few things."
"Teach me a few things?" Elizabeth asked, tilting her head and narrowing her eyes at John.
John shrugged. "I'm just saying," he said as ingenuously as he could manage. "I don't think he would mind."
Elizabeth nodded slowly. "Oh, you don't, do you?"
"Not at all." John glanced over his shoulder and yes, perfect. "Radek!" he called, releasing Elizabeth and stepping to the side. "Trade you." And he swept Katie away from Radek in a move that would have made Fred Astaire envious.
"John!" she exclaimed, totally flustered.
"Check it out," he told her, craning his neck to look around her head where Elizabeth and Radek were settling awkwardly into a rhythm. He steered Katie around until she could see, too, and felt extremely satisfied to hear her giggle.
"Radek had the biggest crush on Elizabeth last year," she confided in him. "Oh. I mean. Um."
"It's cool," John assured her. "Radek's a good guy. I like him better than the dipstick she brought home."
Katie just smiled and blushed, and whispered, "Me, too!" John grinned at her. At least someone agreed with his somewhat sketchy and ill-advised matchmaking attempts.
They danced to a few more songs and then, after a round of the Electric Slide, Katie pulled away, red-faced and laughing. "I need to take a break," she said, staggering back a few steps toward the bleachers.
"You want something to drink?" he asked her, a little thirsty himself.
"Yes, please," she agreed, nodding, and John excused himself to shoulder through the crowd toward the tables stretched across the back of the room.
"Shep!"
"Mitch!"
Mitch had ditched the seafoam green and was wearing dress pants, a button-down shirt, and a tie at half-mast. John didn't bother to ask where his jacket had gone.
"They let you guys back in?" John asked, checking over the selection of beverages.
"They made me lose the dress," Mitch said around a handful of peanuts, as if that wasn't obvious. "But yeah, Hammond's an all right guy."
"You guys are crazy," John muttered. "And lucky. And did I mention crazy?"
"Dude," Mitch said in an entirely different tone of voice. He elbowed John in the side. "Where did you find her? She's hot."
"It's Katie Brown," John said, bypassing the punch -- if Mitch was already there it was at least 70 proof -- and pouring 7-Up into two plastic cups. "You know her. She's in our homeroom."
"Wait. No way. That's Katie Brown?" Mitch whistled long and low. "Man, she cleans up nice."
John lifted an eyebrow and looked across the gym to where Katie was standing. She did look nice, actually. Out of baggy jeans and oversized t-shirts, she had some pretty nice curves, and with her hair clipped back from her face, her eyes were big and bright. She still looked awkward, rubbing her arm and shifting her weight, spine curled forward as she hovered by the wall.
"You want me to introduce you?" John asked, taking a handful of snack mix and popping a pretzel into his mouth.
"I thought she was here with you," Mitch said suspiciously.
"Just friends," John said with a shrug. He lifted his palm and dumped the remaining cereal and nuts into his mouth. "She's cool." And then a peanut and a square of Corn Chex stuck in his throat as he remembered saying the same thing about Rodney more than a month ago.
"So, you don't uh, mind if I take her something to drink?" Mitch asked in that casual way that meant he was either trying to imitate John or tell a stupid joke.
"Yeah, sure. I mean, go ahead." John handed Mitch one of the cups of 7-Up he'd poured and took a sip of the other one. He had to use the restroom anyway. He'd meet up with Katie when he was done and save her from Mitch then, if she needed it.
John wandered away from the food table and headed for the lobby of the gym where the bathrooms were located. But before he reached the door, a figure in a shiny vinyl…dress…and a high ponytail moved into his personal space.
"Well, if it isn't John Sheppard!"
"Vala," John growled as she hooked an arm around his neck and used her body to push him back into the crowd of dancers. "What do you want?"
"Why would you say such a thing?" Vala pouted as she relieved him of the plastic cup of 7-Up. "Is this for me?" she asked, taking a sip. "Hmph. It's not even spiked."
"Oddly enough," John said dryly, "I don't really feel the need to get you drunk. In fact, I don't think anyone does."
"Oh," Vala said. "That was a little bit mean."
There was a beat when Vala looked at him with serious doe eyes and John almost started to feel bad. But then she opened her mouth again.
"I'm sure it's just because you're a little jealous about my coming with Rodney," Vala sighed, her delicate fingers fiddling with the points of John's collar. John tried very hard not to think about coming with Rodney.
"I'll get over it," he assured her.
"I just don't want you to think that what we had wasn't special," Vala continued.
"It was seven minutes in a closet," John pointed out.
"It was a rather pleasurable seven minutes," Vala corrected. "For me, at least. Plus a not-insignificant time up in someone's guest bedroom. Most boys your age? Pop! Just like that." She flicked her fingers outward and regarded her splayed hand thoughtfully.
"Vala, what do you want from me?" John groaned, rolling his eyes. He was hard. The galaxy hated him. The universe hated him. His entire night was just completely unfair. And if Vala rolled Rodney's name out of her mouth one more time, John wasn't going to be responsible for his actions.
"I want you to stop being angry with him," Vala said suddenly, her voice quick and serious. "Ordinarily, I wouldn't care, but Rodney's a good person, even if he does have ridiculous hair, and he seems to think the world of you."
John wondered what happened to the dances he spent sipping spiked drinks and talking about normal things like football and movies.
"Why do you think I'm angry with him?" John asked, trying to imagine what Rodney could have said to make Vala say he thought the world of John.
Vala looked at him as if he was being stupid. "You two were inseparable for weeks," she said. "And now you're never together. I can only assume it's because of me."
John blinked and scratched the back of his head.
"I, uh, I tried talking to him. About…it. Once," he prevaricated.
"Try again," Vala implored.
"I -- " John groped for something to say and came up empty. "Yeah, okay."
"Good boy," Vala beamed, and goosed him as she ran off, taking his soda with her.
John blinked and shrugged and then wandered into the restroom in a daze. Jack O'Neill was there, zipping up, and raised his eyebrows at John's gobsmacked expression.
"Woman trouble?" he asked.
"They're all crazy," John said.
Jack nodded and clapped John on the shoulder. "Sucks to be the man, doesn't it?"
John shook his head. "You have no idea."
"What was that about?" Rodney asked when Vala slid back into his arms. He craned his head to look over her shoulder to where John was disappearing into the locker room area.
"Nothing to worry about," Vala said, pressing her body full-length against Rodney's. "I requested a song for us."
"Really?" Rodney asked hopefully. This had to be promising. "A song? For us."
"One of my favorites," Vala said as Sting belted out,
"Rooooooooooxanne!"
"Why am I not even surprised?" Rodney asked rhetorically. Rodney was a great connoisseur of irony and he filed this moment away as a stunning example.
But then Vala snuggled her shoulders up against his and tucked her head against his chin. He breathed in the warm, musky scent of her perfume and tried not to sneeze. He looked past Vala's cloud of hair and saw John, leaning against the wall near the bleachers, tossing pretzels into his mouth and laughing with Radek.
Rodney felt a stab of jealousy, wishing he was over there with them, happy and easy, and felt odd and adult with Vala sliding up against him. Later tonight, probably in his father's car, he was going to roll on one of the condoms he'd bought -- he'd practiced with that, too, in the bathroom before leaving to pick up Vala -- and have his first Sexual Experience.
His heart pounded and his skin tingled just thinking about it…but -- and he snuck another look over to where John and Radek, and now Jack O'Neill, were hanging out -- some part of him was still wistful for their easy comradery.
"I wanted to propose a little tradeoff," Vala murmured in Rodney's ear.
"Really? Uh. What kind of tradeoff?" Rodney asked, his heart thudding in his chest. This was it! This was the proposition.
"We-ell," Vala cooed, drawing the word out, "you do want to…get out of here, don't you? With me?"
Rodney's mouth went dry. "Er, well, of course," he said smoothly. (In his head it was smooth.)
"So maybe we could just slip on over to the main building -- "
Sex in the school! Kinky! Rodney had visions of losing is virginity on Simmons's desk. Wouldn't that make physics class more endurable for the rest of the year!
" -- and you can give my grades a little boost in the computer -- just enough so I can graduate, you know -- and then we can go have a good time in that rather sizable back seat of yours." Vala beamed at him and tapped his nose with her fingertip.
"Oh, yes," Rodney said breathlessly, diving in to kiss her, but as he pressed his mouth against hers, her words hit him. "Wait, what?"
Vala blinked long lashes, thick with blue mascara, at him. "It's fairly simple, really," she said. "I just feel that we should get the boring technical things out of the way first and then I will…take…care…of…everything!"
"No, no, no, no," Rodney said, stepping back out of the circle of her arms. "You want to sleep with me as payment for boosting your grades in the school computer? Not because I'm cool and good-looking?"
Vala raised her eyebrow and looked at him for so long, Rodney thought he'd missed something vital. "I think that being able to break into the school's computer is very cool," she said placatingly.
"Oh, this is just perfect," Rodney snapped. "I am not Roxanne! The red light is not out tonight, you, you temptation!" He turned and stomped blindly through the crowd until he found the food table.
There were chips and pretzels and little hot dogs in puff pastry and oh, hey, chicken on a stick. Rodney took a skewer and a can of soda and nodded to Carson Beckett, who was also hanging around the table, collecting a stack of cookies wrapped in a napkin.
"Why so glum?" he asked cheerfully, rounding the table to where Rodney was standing.
"I'm never getting laid," Rodney announced, nibbling on one of the chunks of chicken. It was tasty.
"You need to get out more," Carson advised.
Rodney almost said, How much more out can I get? and then remembered he wasn't talking to John and he couldn't just say things like that. He swallowed hard.
"Rodney, Carson," Radek said, appearing at the table and loading up a plate of pretzels and tucking two sodas under his arm. He paused and regarded them carefully. "Why does Rodney look so morose? What has he done this time?"
"He thinks he's never going to get laid," Carson confided.
"And it's all your fault," Rodney added, his mouth full.
"So many things are," Radek agreed dryly.
"Seriously, if you hadn't insisted on everything being so…deep and meaningful, I totally could have gotten into Vala's pants."
"Vala is not wearing any pants," Radek observed, peering through the crowd. Rodney followed his line of sight to see Vala using Mr. Dixon, the history teacher, as balance while she fussed with her shoe.
"No," Rodney agreed with a sigh, thinking longingly of the flash of thigh she'd given him in the car. "She most definitely is not." He regarded the chicken with suspicion and set it aside in favor of one of the cookies Carson was hoarding. "Anyway, if Laura hadn't already made plans with some idiot, I wouldn't even be in this fix. She would totally sleep with me." He blinked at Radek, who had apparently taken up stage direction or maybe flight control as a hobby. "What?"
Radek sighed and shook his head in defeat.
And then Carson Beckett, mama's boy and wimp of every gym class they'd ever been forced to take together, hauled back and punched Rodney square in the nose.
"Ow! Ow ow ow ow ow!" Rodney clutched at his face, the pain running in bright streamers through his face. He felt something liquid flowing through his fingers and felt faint. "Oh, my God, I'm bleeding!"
"Try keeping your mitts off other people's girlfriends!" Carson shouted and the gym erupted in a din of gossip and humiliation.
"Oh, my God! Carson!" Laura -- just to add insult to injury! Where had she come from? And since when was she Carson's girlfriend? "Rodney!"
"All right, all right." It was John's voice cutting through the uproar and Rodney nearly whimpered, the sound was so welcome. "Carson, simmer down and sort this thing out with Laura. I'll take Rocky here to plug up his nose." A firm hand clamped down on Rodney's shoulder and steered him away from Carson and Laura and the rest of the murmuring crowd and off toward the bathrooms.
"This is so not my fault," Rodney protested nasally as John bypassed the bathrooms and steered him outside. "Wait, where are we going?"
"Out where the bad people can't find you," John said wryly. "Carson? I mean seriously, if you're going to get your face punched in by someone, Carson?"
"It wasn't like I had a choice," Rodney sulked, accepting the handkerchief John offered him and tilting his head back. "I didn't know they were getting back together. I didn't know they ever went out"
"Yeah," John said, and put his hands in his pockets. "I'm sorry. About Laura, I mean. You really seemed to like her."
Rodney sniffed experimentally and didn't feel anything moving or liquid so he tilted his head back up cautiously and dabbed at his nose. John's handkerchief had large patches soaked red, but there were no new droplets. "Yeah, well." He shrugged. He had liked Laura, but she wasn't John and really, even getting punched in the nose was worth it to have John standing out there with him, talking again. "Hey, um." He looked at John, thinking unmanly things like, I'm glad we're talking again, or I missed you. "Wow, the other team really did a number on you, didn't they?"
John quirked up one side of his mouth ruefully -- the undamaged side. "Yeah," he said, touching his swollen mouth cautiously. "Still hurts like a bitch. Can you see the bruise on my cheek?"
"Who could miss it?" Rodney asked. The bruise wasn't deep, but the side of John's face was definitely discolored from cheekbone to jaw.
John's fingers moved from his mouth to his face and he sighed. "We both look like shit," he said resignedly, his eyes going right to Rodney's nose. "Your eyes are going to black up good." He reached out and let his fingertips drift along the swell of Rodney's cheek between his nose and his eye. "You said, once," he said in a voice that sounded a little broken, "that you could look at a woman and think she was hot, and look at a man and feel the same way."
Rodney swallowed hard. He'd never been more than a half-breath away from giving in to John at any given moment, but John had only asked once and never again. He nodded.
"So, if that works for you," John said, his eyes bright and steady, "why can't it work for me? I did some reading up on those studies you were talking about. There's this theory, you probably know it, it says that everyone's at least one percent gay and -- see, the way I figure it, maybe you're my one percent."
Rodney's breath stopped in his throat and for a desperate moment he wondered if he was having an allergic reaction. But there was too much air instead of not enough so he stepped forward, heart pounding, and curled his hand around the back of John's neck.
John didn't wait for him, just leaned over and kissed Rodney, hard and tender, and desperate and tentative, and a lot of other words that shouldn't have gone together but did anyway. Rodney brushed his hand over the bruises on John's face and John made a soft and vibratory noise against Rodney's mouth.
"Oh, wow," Rodney said, words coming concurrent with his thoughts, still breathing John's air. "This must hurt like hell."
"It stings a little, yeah," John agreed, kissing Rodney again, once. He tilted his forehead into Rodney's and sighed.
"I can kiss you other places," Rodney whispered and felt John tense up against him. "No, I mean like, I just -- " And he leaned forward and kissed the side of John's neck, up in the hollow between his jaw and his ear. He felt the muscle of John's jaw tightened under his lips and then John's throat ripple as he stuttered and then swallowed. Rodney took a deep breath and brought his hand up to the other side of John's neck, cupping his hand around the warm skin and stroking the line of John's jaw with his thumb. "Is this okay?" he murmured when John inhaled sharply.
John nodded too quickly, his head bobbing awkwardly. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I just -- " He brought his hand up and brushed his palm against Rodney's cheek.
Rodney felt his eyes go round at the slide of calluses over his skin and his breath came faster against John's neck. He squeezed his eyes closed and pressed his mouth against John's pulse. John's hand was still hovering in mid-air near his face when he found it and tangled his fingers with John's, bringing both their hands to the back of his own neck.
"Oh," John said, sounding surprised, and then his hand tightened not-quite painfully around Rodney's, and his other hand came up to touch Rodney's side, sliding inside his jacket and closing around a handful of shirt.
Rodney measured careful kisses down the side of John's neck while John's hands turned restless, the one at his neck sliding up into his hair, and the one on his side unclenching and skating up and down his ribcage. He reached the base of John's neck and pulled his collar aside to lick down to the collarbone.
"Oh, wow," John sighed, his body leaning into Rodney's. "That feels good."
Rodney lifted his head and beamed at John, so, so pleased for the confirmation that John at least didn't mind being touched by boys.
"That didn't mean stop," John said with a lazy grin, poking Rodney in the chest with two fingers. Then, his eyes going serious, he hooked those fingers into the open "v" of Rodney's dress shirt and traced them up and down, drawing patterns on Rodney's skin. "C'mere," he whispered. He still had one hand on Rodney's side and he slipped it to the small of Rodney's back, drawing Rodney closer between John's legs, spread wide as he braced himself against the side of the building. "You know," he said softly, looking up through his lashes and letting his thumb stroke into the dip at the apex of Rodney's collarbone. "You know I wouldn't -- "
The sound of the fire door unlatching startled them and Rodney jumped backward, his hands scrabbling at his rumpled shirt and jacket. John straightened up from his sprawl against the wall and looked disconcerted for all of a split second before Elizabeth poked her head out.
"Last dance is about to start, John," she said. She glanced over and Rodney and smiled. "Feeling better?"
"Um. Yeah," Rodney said lamely. He held up John's handkerchief, still crumpled in his fist. "I stopped bleeding."
"Good." Elizabeth nodded at him and looked back at John. "Coming?"
"Yeah," John said, taking the weight of the door from her. "On my way." He glanced back at Rodney.
Rodney glanced at the ground. He was hard and overheated, despite the cool air, and he didn't know what John had been about to say but he felt awkward for the interruption.
"Hey," John whispered. Rodney looked up, faithfully drawn by his voice. John's eyes were level on him, and serious. "You know I wouldn't jerk you around, right?" John said quietly, too quietly for Elizabeth to hear.
Rodney found himself nodding, although he knew no such thing and he didn't even know what that was supposed to mean --
"Okay," John said with a familiar smirk. "So trust me."
The door closed behind him and Rodney was left standing outside, alone with the wind in his hair and a small, thoughtful smile on his face.
Part Eight-B