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fiercelydreamedAnd it's a whole month and a half ahead of schedule -- I'm as shocked as you are. Less shocking is that the word counts is more than 300% overbudget (a trend that will be continuing for the other stories), but I figure that the recipient isn't likely to complain. :)
Title: The Convocation
Summary: The idea was so startling that Rodney actually shut the laptop and pushed it aside. "You're serious," he said to Teyla. "Someone in the Pegasus Galaxy is hosting a scientific conference?"
Details: SGA, McKay/Sheppard, light R, ~3,500 words.
Notes: The first of my three Sweet Charity fics, written for the wonderful and generous![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
amberlynne. A., I threw a twist on your prompt, but it gave me a new way to work in the ingredients you were hoping for. I sincerely hope you like it, and thank you so much again for doing this with me. Additional thanks to shaenie for the beta.
Two miles out from the gate, they detour to the cave where they've hidden their things under the portable cloak and change back into their uniforms. Head still buzzing with everything he's seen, Rodney reaches automatically for John's hand, and it's only when he looks up to find John staring at him that he remembers: right, they don't have a reason to do this anymore.
They hike back in silence as night folds over the fields. Rodney's cold the whole way.
*
The idea was so startling that Rodney actually shut the laptop and pushed it aside. "You're serious," he said to Teyla. "Someone in the Pegasus Galaxy is hosting a scientific conference?"
She nodded once, looking relieved to have gotten the idea across properly. "It involves areas of study you would not consider purely scientific, but yes. The Durfa'a host it every five years, each time in a different location. There have been no Athosian delegates for ten years, since my mother passed away."
Rodney's eyebrows shot upward; he could see that he wasn't the only person in the meeting caught off-guard by that tidbit, but before he could ask, Teyla leaned forward and wove her fingers together on the table. "Rodney," she said, and her inflection changed, became more formal. "I would ask you to attend the Convocation as the proxy for Athos." As he straightened reflexively and opened his mouth to say: well, yes, of course you -- I mean, thank you, yes, it's an honor, I won't let you down, her eyes shifted to his left and she added, "And I believe you should take John."
*
They come through the wormhole at 23:07 Atlantis time, the control room humming quietly as the smaller swing shift crew goes about their business. On the upper level, Carter saunters into view at the balcony railing. "Welcome back, gentlemen," she calls down to them. "Find anything good?"
"Yes -- actually, yes," Rodney says, the question kick-starting him out of his distraction. He feels his hands jump up to circle and sketch in the air, pulling his thoughts into order. "Much more than I was expecting -- there's a man named, ah, Olna -- Holla? -- from ... Colonel, where was it--"
"It's nothing that can't wait until tomorrow to debrief." John's voice rolls out low and lazy over his stammering, as though Rodney isn't talking at all. He lifts his P-90 from around his neck to loop the strap over his shoulder instead.
Above them, Carter cocks her head to the side. "Tired?"
John gives her a look of deep reproach. "That was five days at a galactic conference," he answers, and then he jerks a thumb in Rodney's direction. With McKay, unstated but implicit. Rodney pivots to stare at him, stung: as though John hadn't been right there with him, dragging him from one table to the next like a kid at a carnival, as though they hadn't--
John's face is tipped up towards Carter. "Go get some rest," she agrees, "you can fill us in at staff tomorrow," and John sketches an unserious salute, turns and walks away without looking at Rodney.
*
"They are a partnered society," Teyla explained. "They believe that the vitality needed for great work cannot be sustained without a strong bond to another, so they restrict participation in government and research to those who have already cemented such bonds."
"Makes sense," Carter mused, mouth curving, and when she caught Rodney's eyes he knew they were thinking of the same thing: all those ABDs and consultants they'd known back on Earth, who had started so strong and then fizzled out by forty, bodies worn out by years of uninterrupted junk food and careers sabotaged by their atrocious people skills. Without Atlantis, there was half a chance he might have been there himself by now. "And if we can only send two people, I'd want the second to be military anyway. But just how -- hmm." She looked from Rodney to John and back again, clearly weighing her words. "What exactly are they going to have to do to sell this?"
Ronon snorted. John threw a pen at his head.
*
In the next morning's briefing, John sidelines every explanation Rodney tries to give while offering the appearance of being priority-driven and well-informed. From a tactical standpoint, it's simple and devastatingly effective: just as Rodney's about to get into the detailed merits of the exhibitors' work, John's right there with the names of potential contacts or some key political factoid he managed to pick up over the buffet table. By the end of the meeting, they've got the next month's mission schedule reworked and Sam's tapping her notebook on the table and telling Rodney, "I know we didn't get to cover things in as much detail as you would've liked -- how about you write down the key points and send me a memo later this week?"
A memo. Jesus. Rodney ends up sitting alone in the conference room after they've all left, disoriented by how fast he'd been knocked down from main point to sidebar to footnote and feeling very, very small.
For the next two weeks they're out in the field every other day doing diplomatic follow-up, all to planets where the only people who've met John and Rodney before think that they're -- and the thing is, John acts like everything's normal and no one seems to question a thing. He skates through negotiations on slacker charm and increasingly barbed jokes at Rodney's expense, and their new allies just laugh and shake their heads.
On M7Y-738, Rodney spends the festival meal giving the engineer he'd met at the Convocation a crash course in fluid dynamics, while John and her partner Iyan sit on the far side of the table trading stories from their early military training. Between the third course and dessert, Zola's frowning her way through the Reynolds transport theorem when Rodney hears Iyan laugh and murmur, "Let's head out to the courtyard, those two will keep going till the lamps burn out. Ancestors love Zola -- and I do too -- but you can only spend so much time around around a technico in one sitting."
Rodney turns his head in time to catch John looking at him. "I know exactly what you mean," John answers, eyes fixed on Rodney's, and he dips his head with a shuttered smirk before sliding off the bench and following Iyan away. The edges of the table bite into Rodney's fingers and the air tastes thick in his mouth, and then Zola murmurs, "Rodney?" and Rodney jerks his gaze back and says, "Yes, I--"
*
It wasn't a short walk to the meeting site, and when they rounded the top of the hill and got their first look at the city, Rodney was convinced that they'd gotten something wrong. Teyla's contact had told them the city would look like a ruin, but this place was ruined, full stop: huge stone buildings collapsed in on themselves, columns toppled sideways across the road. It looked older than Pompeii and in scarcely better shape. They picked their way down the path, Rodney not missing the way John had moved in front of him, hand hovering discreetly over the slit in Halling's coat where he'd strapped his sidearm. As they passed the first building, a voice suddenly issued from behind them. "Delegates?"
Rodney stumbled, surprised, and John put a hand up to steady him. "For Athos," he said, eyes flitting over the structure, and pulled on one of those smiles that looked friendly if you didn't know him. "This is Rodney, and I'm John. Teyla sent us?"
There was a liquid glitter in the doorway -- crap, that was some kind of cloak -- and the opaque shadow melted into ordinary shade, revealing a broad-shouldered woman in a bright set of robes. "Welcome!" she grinned, and stuck her stunner into a holster before tapping a shoulder in greeting. "I am Taldi, from Durfa'al. If you'll come with me, I'll escort you to the central hall ..."
She took them down two flights of stairs and through a long tunnel lit at regular intervals by some kind of small lamps with plasticine shades. The underground system looked like it must have been original to the city, and Rodney studied the new metal bracings that even his claustrophobia had to admit looked structurally sound, wondering just what it had taken the Durfa'a to get this place ready without disrupting the disarray above-ground--
--and then he quit wondering entirely, because Taldi tapped a code into a pad on the wall and a second cloak shimmered, and then they were both staring gape-mouthed into a huge, bright hall with a lofted ceiling. There were tables and benches lining the walls and ringing the center of the room, and every available corner was crammed with people: studying schematics traced on velum, holding small pieces of tech up to catch the light, scribbling together on big sheets of paper pinned down with mugs and jars of water. The crowd was wearing countless variations on what Rodney recognized as the Pegasus equivalent of business formal, but three people out of five were hopelessly rumpled and the ones who weren't didn't appear to give a shit.
Whatever Rodney had been expecting, this wasn't it -- god, it was so much better, better even than the conferences back on earth, because there were no podiums, no one droning through poster presentations. Just several hundred people arguing and gesturing and grinning, completely consumed in whatever they were doing -- if this looked like anything, it was the fantasies he'd had back in grade school, dreaming of professional symposia and never guessing what a disappointment they'd turn out to be.
And there was another difference, too -- the small knots of people were all in multiples of two, or when they weren't, there was a second set watching in fond exasperation as the first group bickered and hand-waved. All around the room, people were moving together in pairs, guiding their companions from one exhibit to the next. Rodney remembered what Teyla had said -- that they didn't need to put on a show, but that onlookers should be able to tell on sight that they were there together -- and he reached down to take John's hand in his, because seriously, there was no way he was going to risk missing this.
John's palm was unexpectedly warm, and Rodney glanced up to see John staring at him with an expression that was almost comically blank -- not his usual deadpan, but simple surprise. It rocked him back a little; he felt his own ears start to go red for no good reason whatsoever, but before he could start stammering, John licked his lips and said, "Okay. So what first?"
And just like that, Rodney was tugging him forward and they started weaving their way through the crowd together, John's fingers curled through his.
*
In between missions, Rodney's positive John's avoiding him, only he has no way to prove it to anyone else. They're in the same place all the times that they have to be -- meetings, briefings -- and all the usual times when they don't -- meals, team nights. But whenever everyone else leaves, John just melts off with them. No video golf, no chess, no whale-watching off the north pier. It's a demonstration of the applicability of quantum observation processes to a human being: John's there like always whenever a third party's around to witness it, but he vanishes the second that there's no one but Rodney to notice him go.
Maybe it's their friendship that's blipping out of existence, and John's presence or absence is just an indicator of the underlying principles involved.
Three weeks after the Convocation. Teyla's running them through sparring practice together, to get John used to fighting an opponent who is, quote, less predictable, unquote, and to give Rodney a chance at a relative novice -- apparently, so he can feel even more humiliated when he still can't connect a single hit. After half an hour, he's dripping sweat and John, who's barely breathing hard, tosses one of his sticks out of the way. It's not a teasing gesture -- he just looks bored, like he's going for the path of least resistance in hopes it'll make this end faster, and Rodney arcs one stick out in blind anger and nearly knocks John's other stick out of his hand. John twitches, startled, and then tightens his grip and gives him a look so neutral that Rodney swings the other stick around.
John blocks that hit, and the one after it, but Rodney keeps going, bashing at that stupid stick over and over again, trying to knock the damn thing out of John's hand. He knows he's leaving himself wide open with every strike -- Teyla's calling out instruction he isn't listening to -- but John doesn't to a thing until Rodney swings wild and clips him across the shoulder by accident. A dark flush surges through John's face and then he's moving, single stick a blur, beating Rodney back step by step. Rodney parries clumsily, catching one blow on the wrist, deflecting another down against his knuckles, hands slick with sweat and grip slipping until finally he manages to get both sticks up at once and lock John's in the V they form. Then the two of them are just shoving into each other's space, muscles locked and breathing hard, and Rodney stares into John's red face only inches from his own, both of them panting through gritted teeth and thinks, fuck you, asshole, just fuck you--
"John!" Teyla snaps, "-- Rodney!" John pushes himself back so abruptly that Rodney nearly falls, tosses his stick down with a clatter, and doesn't wait for the door to open all the way before he's gone.
*
The hours and days blurred together in an overload of discourse, argument, discovery, all dials turned up to eleven. Rodney went through it all at top speed, trusting that his recall wouldn't fail him later, just wanting to see more, learn more. They were always within earshot of each other, John scrawling equations at the next table over and hauling Rodney in to check the math, or bumping past with an extra mug of the coffee-analogue their hosts keep making by the gallon, their paths criss-crossing like a double helix.
On the fifth day, Rodney ended up commandeering a table with Hadrio, who was working on a really interesting variation of passive photovoltaic cells, and Ista, who'd been studying some Ancient files on hive ship biorhythms, and Cade, who had an almost-working prototype of a weather satellite even though her people had barely mastered radio transmission, and they clicked into this rhythm and stayed there for hours, until Rodney blinked at the schematics in front of him and said, "Wait, I have to--"
He went to the corner where John was chatting with a gray-haired woman and grabbed him by the arm and shoulder. "Jeez, Rodney," John complained as Rodney pulled him through the crowd, but he looked amused, "do that again and I'm sending you through Teyla's offworld etiquette course with the next new bunch of--" Then he trailed off as he saw the papers strewn over the table. He turned one sheet around, then the next, reshuffling them, and Rodney and his co-conspirators all watched because John was the first to get a look at it. After a minute of squinting, John's eyes went wide, and Rodney knew that he'd put it together: this was a Wraith-sensing satellite, tiny and nearly undetectable, which would hang silently in orbit until a hive ship came within two days' flight of its position. There was an alert system half-sketched out, just a basic transmitter, solar-powered, and Rodney could see John arrowing straight to the conceptual bulls-eye, because they could manufacture these things using only Pegasus tech, put them in orbit over every inhabited planet--
John smoothed the edges of the paper out, and his hands were steady but his voice shook. "Jesus -- Jesus, Rodney," and Rodney reached out to touch the drawing too, just to feel it under his hand. Their fingers touched, and John turned his head, grabbed him by the collar and kissed him.
All around them people were talking, bickering, but Rodney's ears rang like the sound had cut abruptly out. John's lips were soft and dry, and for a second after John pulled back they just looked at each other, the only point of stillness in the room. Then Hadrio cut in, saying, "That's very sweet, but our hosts will be evicting us in roughly four hours, so if we could please get back to work--" And just like that, they were back in the flow of it, like the switch had been flipped and the ride had come back on, the conversation whirling, whirling, and Rodney didn't come out of it until they were in the woods, in the cave, and he turned without thinking and reached for John's hand.
*
"So that's how this works now?" Rodney demands as he barges past John and into his quarters. "You show up like things are normal, kick the crap out of me, and then leave?"
John's jaw clamps down hard, and for a moment Rodney thinks John's going to chuck him bodily back out the door, but then he palms it shut instead and crosses his arms over his chest. The lights are at three-quarters, and it takes all the highlights out of the room, making John's expression flat and grim. "McKay--"
"I suppose I shouldn't be surprised," Rodney cuts over him, hands waving as he paces back and forth in front of the bed, "since that's essentially what you've been doing for the last three weeks now, but it honestly hadn't occurred to me that the present hostilities were going to escalate to physical violence."
He brandishes his split knuckles, physical proof after almost a month of barbs and absences, and John rolls his eyes and says, "Look, I'm sorry, okay--"
"No, I'm sorry," Rodney snaps, turning and taking two sharps strides forward, just enough to push into the edge of that buffer John's been keeping since they got back from the Convocation, the one he'd dropped with Rodney years ago -- the John Sheppard Demilitarized Zone. "I'm sorry you had to spend five uninterrupted days in my company, I'm sorry you had to act as if you enjoyed it, I'm sorry that the brighter minds of several dozen planets are now laboring under the misapprehension that we're anything other than colleagues, but seriously." He jerks himself back a step, because it's that or get in John's face, and he's seething but not so pissed to forget how well that'd worked out before. "If I'd known it was going to be so abhorrent to you, I would've, I would've--"
His hands flail, groping for something sufficiently dire, and right as he comes out with, "well, I would've taken Ronon--" John throws his own hands out wide and spits, "I'm not that good of an actor, Rodney!"
They both wind abruptly to a stop, staring at each other. Rodney's heart is pounding loudly and he can almost see the blood draining out of John's face. Rodney jerks his chin up and takes a slow breath in through his nose. "Yes, well," he tells John, and his own voice is quiet through the ringing in his ears. "Neither am I."
John swallows, Adam's apple bobbing. "Ronon would've been bored stupid," he says, a transparent fumble for safe ground that doesn't work because they can both hear the implicit negative: unlike me. John's eyes flicker to one side, and now it's his turn to circle one hand in the air, the other jamming itself into his pocket. "He probably would've gotten grabby just to keep himself entertained."
Rodney stares at him. "You're changing the subject," he says. John opens his mouth to counter him, but Rodney catches the twitch it doesn't entirely cover -- an imperfectly masked flinch -- and it knocks his brain out of the holding pattern it's been in for the last six seconds. Before John can get a word out, Rodney steps across the distance between them, wraps his hand in John's collar, and pulls him deliberately in.
*
They both say a lot of things over the next few hours, none of which Rodney will remember, because none of them matter compared to the feel of John's fingers digging into Rodney's back, the taste of the sweat that collects in the hair of his chest and in the crease of his hip, the sound of John's breath catching mid-word the first time they roll against each other, skin to skin. Rodney's memory for important things is perfect because his brain knows to overwrite the irrelevancies, conserving space for the rasp of John's hand curving around the outside of Rodney's thigh, the sharp scrape of his teeth over Rodney's nipple, the helpless way his head drops back the first time Rodney wraps his palm around John's cock and pulls.
What matters, what Rodney will remember, is this: that when he wakes up the next morning, it's to the loose curl of John's long body against his back, one hand tucked against Rodney's chest, and to the warm puff of John's breath against his neck as he murmurs, consonants still blurry, "Hey, do you remember the one woman there -- what was it, Lisgroh? -- I don't know if you talked to her, but she had these little things. Kind of like mechanical dragonflies, they took barometric readings all the way up to the tropopause ... we should go visit her, those things were neat ..."
---
Title: The Convocation
Summary: The idea was so startling that Rodney actually shut the laptop and pushed it aside. "You're serious," he said to Teyla. "Someone in the Pegasus Galaxy is hosting a scientific conference?"
Details: SGA, McKay/Sheppard, light R, ~3,500 words.
Notes: The first of my three Sweet Charity fics, written for the wonderful and generous
amberlynne. A., I threw a twist on your prompt, but it gave me a new way to work in the ingredients you were hoping for. I sincerely hope you like it, and thank you so much again for doing this with me. Additional thanks to shaenie for the beta.Two miles out from the gate, they detour to the cave where they've hidden their things under the portable cloak and change back into their uniforms. Head still buzzing with everything he's seen, Rodney reaches automatically for John's hand, and it's only when he looks up to find John staring at him that he remembers: right, they don't have a reason to do this anymore.
They hike back in silence as night folds over the fields. Rodney's cold the whole way.
*
The idea was so startling that Rodney actually shut the laptop and pushed it aside. "You're serious," he said to Teyla. "Someone in the Pegasus Galaxy is hosting a scientific conference?"
She nodded once, looking relieved to have gotten the idea across properly. "It involves areas of study you would not consider purely scientific, but yes. The Durfa'a host it every five years, each time in a different location. There have been no Athosian delegates for ten years, since my mother passed away."
Rodney's eyebrows shot upward; he could see that he wasn't the only person in the meeting caught off-guard by that tidbit, but before he could ask, Teyla leaned forward and wove her fingers together on the table. "Rodney," she said, and her inflection changed, became more formal. "I would ask you to attend the Convocation as the proxy for Athos." As he straightened reflexively and opened his mouth to say: well, yes, of course you -- I mean, thank you, yes, it's an honor, I won't let you down, her eyes shifted to his left and she added, "And I believe you should take John."
*
They come through the wormhole at 23:07 Atlantis time, the control room humming quietly as the smaller swing shift crew goes about their business. On the upper level, Carter saunters into view at the balcony railing. "Welcome back, gentlemen," she calls down to them. "Find anything good?"
"Yes -- actually, yes," Rodney says, the question kick-starting him out of his distraction. He feels his hands jump up to circle and sketch in the air, pulling his thoughts into order. "Much more than I was expecting -- there's a man named, ah, Olna -- Holla? -- from ... Colonel, where was it--"
"It's nothing that can't wait until tomorrow to debrief." John's voice rolls out low and lazy over his stammering, as though Rodney isn't talking at all. He lifts his P-90 from around his neck to loop the strap over his shoulder instead.
Above them, Carter cocks her head to the side. "Tired?"
John gives her a look of deep reproach. "That was five days at a galactic conference," he answers, and then he jerks a thumb in Rodney's direction. With McKay, unstated but implicit. Rodney pivots to stare at him, stung: as though John hadn't been right there with him, dragging him from one table to the next like a kid at a carnival, as though they hadn't--
John's face is tipped up towards Carter. "Go get some rest," she agrees, "you can fill us in at staff tomorrow," and John sketches an unserious salute, turns and walks away without looking at Rodney.
*
"They are a partnered society," Teyla explained. "They believe that the vitality needed for great work cannot be sustained without a strong bond to another, so they restrict participation in government and research to those who have already cemented such bonds."
"Makes sense," Carter mused, mouth curving, and when she caught Rodney's eyes he knew they were thinking of the same thing: all those ABDs and consultants they'd known back on Earth, who had started so strong and then fizzled out by forty, bodies worn out by years of uninterrupted junk food and careers sabotaged by their atrocious people skills. Without Atlantis, there was half a chance he might have been there himself by now. "And if we can only send two people, I'd want the second to be military anyway. But just how -- hmm." She looked from Rodney to John and back again, clearly weighing her words. "What exactly are they going to have to do to sell this?"
Ronon snorted. John threw a pen at his head.
*
In the next morning's briefing, John sidelines every explanation Rodney tries to give while offering the appearance of being priority-driven and well-informed. From a tactical standpoint, it's simple and devastatingly effective: just as Rodney's about to get into the detailed merits of the exhibitors' work, John's right there with the names of potential contacts or some key political factoid he managed to pick up over the buffet table. By the end of the meeting, they've got the next month's mission schedule reworked and Sam's tapping her notebook on the table and telling Rodney, "I know we didn't get to cover things in as much detail as you would've liked -- how about you write down the key points and send me a memo later this week?"
A memo. Jesus. Rodney ends up sitting alone in the conference room after they've all left, disoriented by how fast he'd been knocked down from main point to sidebar to footnote and feeling very, very small.
For the next two weeks they're out in the field every other day doing diplomatic follow-up, all to planets where the only people who've met John and Rodney before think that they're -- and the thing is, John acts like everything's normal and no one seems to question a thing. He skates through negotiations on slacker charm and increasingly barbed jokes at Rodney's expense, and their new allies just laugh and shake their heads.
On M7Y-738, Rodney spends the festival meal giving the engineer he'd met at the Convocation a crash course in fluid dynamics, while John and her partner Iyan sit on the far side of the table trading stories from their early military training. Between the third course and dessert, Zola's frowning her way through the Reynolds transport theorem when Rodney hears Iyan laugh and murmur, "Let's head out to the courtyard, those two will keep going till the lamps burn out. Ancestors love Zola -- and I do too -- but you can only spend so much time around around a technico in one sitting."
Rodney turns his head in time to catch John looking at him. "I know exactly what you mean," John answers, eyes fixed on Rodney's, and he dips his head with a shuttered smirk before sliding off the bench and following Iyan away. The edges of the table bite into Rodney's fingers and the air tastes thick in his mouth, and then Zola murmurs, "Rodney?" and Rodney jerks his gaze back and says, "Yes, I--"
*
It wasn't a short walk to the meeting site, and when they rounded the top of the hill and got their first look at the city, Rodney was convinced that they'd gotten something wrong. Teyla's contact had told them the city would look like a ruin, but this place was ruined, full stop: huge stone buildings collapsed in on themselves, columns toppled sideways across the road. It looked older than Pompeii and in scarcely better shape. They picked their way down the path, Rodney not missing the way John had moved in front of him, hand hovering discreetly over the slit in Halling's coat where he'd strapped his sidearm. As they passed the first building, a voice suddenly issued from behind them. "Delegates?"
Rodney stumbled, surprised, and John put a hand up to steady him. "For Athos," he said, eyes flitting over the structure, and pulled on one of those smiles that looked friendly if you didn't know him. "This is Rodney, and I'm John. Teyla sent us?"
There was a liquid glitter in the doorway -- crap, that was some kind of cloak -- and the opaque shadow melted into ordinary shade, revealing a broad-shouldered woman in a bright set of robes. "Welcome!" she grinned, and stuck her stunner into a holster before tapping a shoulder in greeting. "I am Taldi, from Durfa'al. If you'll come with me, I'll escort you to the central hall ..."
She took them down two flights of stairs and through a long tunnel lit at regular intervals by some kind of small lamps with plasticine shades. The underground system looked like it must have been original to the city, and Rodney studied the new metal bracings that even his claustrophobia had to admit looked structurally sound, wondering just what it had taken the Durfa'a to get this place ready without disrupting the disarray above-ground--
--and then he quit wondering entirely, because Taldi tapped a code into a pad on the wall and a second cloak shimmered, and then they were both staring gape-mouthed into a huge, bright hall with a lofted ceiling. There were tables and benches lining the walls and ringing the center of the room, and every available corner was crammed with people: studying schematics traced on velum, holding small pieces of tech up to catch the light, scribbling together on big sheets of paper pinned down with mugs and jars of water. The crowd was wearing countless variations on what Rodney recognized as the Pegasus equivalent of business formal, but three people out of five were hopelessly rumpled and the ones who weren't didn't appear to give a shit.
Whatever Rodney had been expecting, this wasn't it -- god, it was so much better, better even than the conferences back on earth, because there were no podiums, no one droning through poster presentations. Just several hundred people arguing and gesturing and grinning, completely consumed in whatever they were doing -- if this looked like anything, it was the fantasies he'd had back in grade school, dreaming of professional symposia and never guessing what a disappointment they'd turn out to be.
And there was another difference, too -- the small knots of people were all in multiples of two, or when they weren't, there was a second set watching in fond exasperation as the first group bickered and hand-waved. All around the room, people were moving together in pairs, guiding their companions from one exhibit to the next. Rodney remembered what Teyla had said -- that they didn't need to put on a show, but that onlookers should be able to tell on sight that they were there together -- and he reached down to take John's hand in his, because seriously, there was no way he was going to risk missing this.
John's palm was unexpectedly warm, and Rodney glanced up to see John staring at him with an expression that was almost comically blank -- not his usual deadpan, but simple surprise. It rocked him back a little; he felt his own ears start to go red for no good reason whatsoever, but before he could start stammering, John licked his lips and said, "Okay. So what first?"
And just like that, Rodney was tugging him forward and they started weaving their way through the crowd together, John's fingers curled through his.
*
In between missions, Rodney's positive John's avoiding him, only he has no way to prove it to anyone else. They're in the same place all the times that they have to be -- meetings, briefings -- and all the usual times when they don't -- meals, team nights. But whenever everyone else leaves, John just melts off with them. No video golf, no chess, no whale-watching off the north pier. It's a demonstration of the applicability of quantum observation processes to a human being: John's there like always whenever a third party's around to witness it, but he vanishes the second that there's no one but Rodney to notice him go.
Maybe it's their friendship that's blipping out of existence, and John's presence or absence is just an indicator of the underlying principles involved.
Three weeks after the Convocation. Teyla's running them through sparring practice together, to get John used to fighting an opponent who is, quote, less predictable, unquote, and to give Rodney a chance at a relative novice -- apparently, so he can feel even more humiliated when he still can't connect a single hit. After half an hour, he's dripping sweat and John, who's barely breathing hard, tosses one of his sticks out of the way. It's not a teasing gesture -- he just looks bored, like he's going for the path of least resistance in hopes it'll make this end faster, and Rodney arcs one stick out in blind anger and nearly knocks John's other stick out of his hand. John twitches, startled, and then tightens his grip and gives him a look so neutral that Rodney swings the other stick around.
John blocks that hit, and the one after it, but Rodney keeps going, bashing at that stupid stick over and over again, trying to knock the damn thing out of John's hand. He knows he's leaving himself wide open with every strike -- Teyla's calling out instruction he isn't listening to -- but John doesn't to a thing until Rodney swings wild and clips him across the shoulder by accident. A dark flush surges through John's face and then he's moving, single stick a blur, beating Rodney back step by step. Rodney parries clumsily, catching one blow on the wrist, deflecting another down against his knuckles, hands slick with sweat and grip slipping until finally he manages to get both sticks up at once and lock John's in the V they form. Then the two of them are just shoving into each other's space, muscles locked and breathing hard, and Rodney stares into John's red face only inches from his own, both of them panting through gritted teeth and thinks, fuck you, asshole, just fuck you--
"John!" Teyla snaps, "-- Rodney!" John pushes himself back so abruptly that Rodney nearly falls, tosses his stick down with a clatter, and doesn't wait for the door to open all the way before he's gone.
*
The hours and days blurred together in an overload of discourse, argument, discovery, all dials turned up to eleven. Rodney went through it all at top speed, trusting that his recall wouldn't fail him later, just wanting to see more, learn more. They were always within earshot of each other, John scrawling equations at the next table over and hauling Rodney in to check the math, or bumping past with an extra mug of the coffee-analogue their hosts keep making by the gallon, their paths criss-crossing like a double helix.
On the fifth day, Rodney ended up commandeering a table with Hadrio, who was working on a really interesting variation of passive photovoltaic cells, and Ista, who'd been studying some Ancient files on hive ship biorhythms, and Cade, who had an almost-working prototype of a weather satellite even though her people had barely mastered radio transmission, and they clicked into this rhythm and stayed there for hours, until Rodney blinked at the schematics in front of him and said, "Wait, I have to--"
He went to the corner where John was chatting with a gray-haired woman and grabbed him by the arm and shoulder. "Jeez, Rodney," John complained as Rodney pulled him through the crowd, but he looked amused, "do that again and I'm sending you through Teyla's offworld etiquette course with the next new bunch of--" Then he trailed off as he saw the papers strewn over the table. He turned one sheet around, then the next, reshuffling them, and Rodney and his co-conspirators all watched because John was the first to get a look at it. After a minute of squinting, John's eyes went wide, and Rodney knew that he'd put it together: this was a Wraith-sensing satellite, tiny and nearly undetectable, which would hang silently in orbit until a hive ship came within two days' flight of its position. There was an alert system half-sketched out, just a basic transmitter, solar-powered, and Rodney could see John arrowing straight to the conceptual bulls-eye, because they could manufacture these things using only Pegasus tech, put them in orbit over every inhabited planet--
John smoothed the edges of the paper out, and his hands were steady but his voice shook. "Jesus -- Jesus, Rodney," and Rodney reached out to touch the drawing too, just to feel it under his hand. Their fingers touched, and John turned his head, grabbed him by the collar and kissed him.
All around them people were talking, bickering, but Rodney's ears rang like the sound had cut abruptly out. John's lips were soft and dry, and for a second after John pulled back they just looked at each other, the only point of stillness in the room. Then Hadrio cut in, saying, "That's very sweet, but our hosts will be evicting us in roughly four hours, so if we could please get back to work--" And just like that, they were back in the flow of it, like the switch had been flipped and the ride had come back on, the conversation whirling, whirling, and Rodney didn't come out of it until they were in the woods, in the cave, and he turned without thinking and reached for John's hand.
*
"So that's how this works now?" Rodney demands as he barges past John and into his quarters. "You show up like things are normal, kick the crap out of me, and then leave?"
John's jaw clamps down hard, and for a moment Rodney thinks John's going to chuck him bodily back out the door, but then he palms it shut instead and crosses his arms over his chest. The lights are at three-quarters, and it takes all the highlights out of the room, making John's expression flat and grim. "McKay--"
"I suppose I shouldn't be surprised," Rodney cuts over him, hands waving as he paces back and forth in front of the bed, "since that's essentially what you've been doing for the last three weeks now, but it honestly hadn't occurred to me that the present hostilities were going to escalate to physical violence."
He brandishes his split knuckles, physical proof after almost a month of barbs and absences, and John rolls his eyes and says, "Look, I'm sorry, okay--"
"No, I'm sorry," Rodney snaps, turning and taking two sharps strides forward, just enough to push into the edge of that buffer John's been keeping since they got back from the Convocation, the one he'd dropped with Rodney years ago -- the John Sheppard Demilitarized Zone. "I'm sorry you had to spend five uninterrupted days in my company, I'm sorry you had to act as if you enjoyed it, I'm sorry that the brighter minds of several dozen planets are now laboring under the misapprehension that we're anything other than colleagues, but seriously." He jerks himself back a step, because it's that or get in John's face, and he's seething but not so pissed to forget how well that'd worked out before. "If I'd known it was going to be so abhorrent to you, I would've, I would've--"
His hands flail, groping for something sufficiently dire, and right as he comes out with, "well, I would've taken Ronon--" John throws his own hands out wide and spits, "I'm not that good of an actor, Rodney!"
They both wind abruptly to a stop, staring at each other. Rodney's heart is pounding loudly and he can almost see the blood draining out of John's face. Rodney jerks his chin up and takes a slow breath in through his nose. "Yes, well," he tells John, and his own voice is quiet through the ringing in his ears. "Neither am I."
John swallows, Adam's apple bobbing. "Ronon would've been bored stupid," he says, a transparent fumble for safe ground that doesn't work because they can both hear the implicit negative: unlike me. John's eyes flicker to one side, and now it's his turn to circle one hand in the air, the other jamming itself into his pocket. "He probably would've gotten grabby just to keep himself entertained."
Rodney stares at him. "You're changing the subject," he says. John opens his mouth to counter him, but Rodney catches the twitch it doesn't entirely cover -- an imperfectly masked flinch -- and it knocks his brain out of the holding pattern it's been in for the last six seconds. Before John can get a word out, Rodney steps across the distance between them, wraps his hand in John's collar, and pulls him deliberately in.
*
They both say a lot of things over the next few hours, none of which Rodney will remember, because none of them matter compared to the feel of John's fingers digging into Rodney's back, the taste of the sweat that collects in the hair of his chest and in the crease of his hip, the sound of John's breath catching mid-word the first time they roll against each other, skin to skin. Rodney's memory for important things is perfect because his brain knows to overwrite the irrelevancies, conserving space for the rasp of John's hand curving around the outside of Rodney's thigh, the sharp scrape of his teeth over Rodney's nipple, the helpless way his head drops back the first time Rodney wraps his palm around John's cock and pulls.
What matters, what Rodney will remember, is this: that when he wakes up the next morning, it's to the loose curl of John's long body against his back, one hand tucked against Rodney's chest, and to the warm puff of John's breath against his neck as he murmurs, consonants still blurry, "Hey, do you remember the one woman there -- what was it, Lisgroh? -- I don't know if you talked to her, but she had these little things. Kind of like mechanical dragonflies, they took barometric readings all the way up to the tropopause ... we should go visit her, those things were neat ..."
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