With thanks to the very, very awesome ladies purna and stillane, for going above and beyond the call of beta-duty on this thing, and for everyone who poked me with sticks waited very patiently for me to get it done.

Length: 7000 words. More, even.
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Sheppard/McKay
Spoilers: The Return part 1.



16 hours, 23 minutes

Rodney cracks open his hotel-room door, mouth slanted downwards. "Let me in?” John says. There's no one else in the corridor behind him, but Rodney still looks left and right before nodding tightly and pulling him inside.

John has no idea how General Landry managed to get accommodation for two hundred-plus scientists and personnel inside of forty-eight hours, but he didn't skimp for them. This is a good room, in a nice hotel: spacious, well-lit, cable TV in a glossy mahogany cabinet, double bed with crisp cotton sheets and chocolates on the pillows. Complimentary bathrobe. Room service. All the comforts of home.

There are French doors leading to a small concrete balcony. The ceiling is stucco. There's a Tiffany shade over the hanging light.

Rodney stands in the middle of the room, hair damp, wearing boxers covered in binary code and one of the black t-shirts that John's seen him wear a hundred times offworld. John meets his eyes; Rodney's staring at him, clear and assessing. “So,” John says, flicking his gaze at the ceiling again and trying on a lopsided grin, “find any bugs?”

And he voiced it like a joke, but Rodney says, businesslike, “No. There are three security cameras in the hallway, but they can't pin anything on you for staying the night,” and John hears himself blow out a breath, feels his shoulders slump in relief. Rodney's hand darts out and takes his, and John lets himself be led; Rodney's neck smells clean and damp and good, and his arms wrap solid bands of warmth around John's back.

“It's all—” Rodney's hands come off the small of his back; John can picture them fluttering restlessly in the air, before they settle again, fingers drumming a tattoo on his spine. He mouths the spot under Rodney's ear, clutches his hands against the back of his neck. “I keep thinking of it as a mission,” Rodney says, voice muffled against John's shoulder. “That we're going back soon.”

John pulls back, finds his mouth and kisses him. Rodney's hands oblige him, drift up around his shoulders, palm his chest, stroke his face, pull him onto the bed. They part briefly, and John pulls off his clothes, his military-issue boots, and drops them by the side of the bed, the one he's already thinking of as his side, at least for tonight. Rodney fluffs the pillows in a determined way, then rids himself of his own clothes and crawls over to kiss John's naked shoulder, press his face into the curve of John's neck and pull him into an embrace.

(It's been a random, idle fantasy of his for a while, to have fantastic sex with Rodney in a plush hotel suite, on a bed the size of an ocean – or at least big enough that they could both sleep there without the fear of falling out of it – and then eat incredible food off the room-service menu, sleep 'til whenever they wanted, maybe see a movie, and there was something in there about surfing and a Cadillac and Ronon and Teyla appeared at some point and then they all went home.)

He can hear the walls humming and he knows it's air-conditioning and electrical wire. If he steps onto the balcony and leans out, he'll see the distant glow of a Mickey D's, the hard, black asphalt six stories down and the curve of the world shoving up the sky beyond it. The sprawl of civilisation looks like a half-assed apology, and he's fairly sure someone, possibly Ascended, is laughing at him right now.

He twists in Rodney's grip and pins him to the bed, kissing him fiercely; he straddles him and shoves against him, hard and demanding, and Rodney takes it, kissing him back with all that passionate sweetness like John isn't biting his mouth savagely or gripping his wide shoulders hard enough to mark the skin. He just kisses John back and reaches down to jerk him off, and when John pulls back with a gritted hiss, he sees Rodney looking at him like he's some mathematical proof that he already has worked out in his head but just needs to get down on paper, right before John comes and everything goes white and still.

Rodney makes a satisfied noise, pets the small of his back and then unceremoniously pushes him off.

John... doesn't feel relaxed, exactly, or off his guard, but he does feel like something inside was making noise and has now gone quiet; so he lands on his back with a small “oof,” and only grins a little when Rodney makes grumbling noises and disentangles their limbs so he can get up. He's still completely hard, rummaging in his backpack with the filtered night lights casting stained-glass shapes on his pale skin; John rolls over on his stomach, rests his head on his folded arms to wait.

Rodney finds the lube with a small “Aha!” and crawls back onto the bed, on top of John, and spends a good long time working on it, sliding two fingers in and out of him and pressing kisses along his spine, in no obvious hurry - long enough for John to get back into it, smiling and arching his spine, pushing back against Rodney's slick fingers. When Rodney finally pushes in he goes just as slowly, is just as thorough, making pleased little murmurs into the nape of his neck; John manages to shift their balance just right, grabs Rodney's wrist and wraps their joined hands around his dick.

Rodney thrusts harder, panting against his shoulder, tightens his grip; he comes, and John follows a few strokes later, breathing out one long moan that makes him sound like he's been punched in the stomach.

There's a few moments of floating silence before gravity becomes kind of an issue, and then there is ungraceful flailing of limbs and panted curses as they part, stickily, and negotiate the bed. The clock on the nightstand tells him it's 20:08. John says, “Hey, have you eaten yet?” and finds the room-service menu.

They order obscene amounts of food – wings, wedges, salads, cheeseburgers, three types of cake – and take turns in the shower. The food arrives while John's stripping the cover off the bed, and when Rodney comes out of the bathroom he makes a beeline for the TV remote and holds it hostage while they eat on the bed.

About halfway through his burger, Rodney runs out of cable channels, and drops the remote between them with a sigh. “This sucks,” he says.

John makes a quiet noise. He lost his appetite about three news reports ago.

Rodney is staring remotely at the television. The Shopping Channel flickers in his pupils. “I mean... in my brain, it's two in the morning right now, and I should be—”

“Yeah,” John says, and starts gathering up plates.

“Do you want to go to sleep?” Rodney says. His mouth is set in that worried tilt, the one that John has no idea how to get rid of when there's no looming threat of death. (It's just them and a hotel bed, and John doesn't know what he's supposed to be doing.)

“Yeah.” Everything's cleared off the bed; he makes a point of tugging out the hospital corner on his side. “It's two in the morning.”

“No it's not,” Rodney says. He's not moving. “It's only nine o'clock.”

“So we'll get an early start.” John turns off the lamp, so the only thing lighting the room is the glow of the street outside. Rodney huffs and gets under the covers.

It's the first time John's slept with Rodney in a bed so big that they can lie side-by-side without even touching, let alone having to press together, twine their arms and legs around each other, just to fit. There wasn't even room to sleep this far apart in the tents offworld.

In three days, he's going back to the SGC to find out exactly where he's being posted next. He needs to buy a car. He needs to buy clothes. He doesn't even have anything in storage; the only thing waiting for him is his bank account, which he hasn't looked at in years, and all his stuff boxed up and sitting on the Daedalus. Rodney's going to be in Nevada, Elizabeth's been fielding offers since she came through the gate, and John... John has no idea.

Rodney has about as much stealth as a cow, but he still manages to be fairly unobtrusive, shuffling across the bed to creep an arm over John's side, to bump his knees against the back of John's thighs and tuck his face into John's shoulder. John plucks at the loose fist Rodney's fingers make against his stomach, curls his hand around it and pulls it up over his chest. It's more comfortable that way, he thinks, and then he goes to sleep.




Day One (26 hours)

He snaps awake at 0500 and can't slip back under. He watches the sky get lighter until the clock's ticked over to 05:12, and Rodney moans and gropes for the lamp beside him and says, “Oh, Christ, go for a run or something.”

And he can't actually think of a better thing to do at this hour, so he wedges Rodney's door open, goes back to his own room and pulls on some sweats, then brings his pack with him back to Rodney's hotel room when he retrieves his boots. Rodney watches him from the bed, slit-eyed and flushed with sleep. John ties the last knot in his laces, turns back and kisses him, slow and deep and sleep-warm. Rodney grumbles something about brushing his teeth before he comes back, and John pockets both their keycards and a bottle of water from the minibar on his way out.

Once he steps outside and onto the sidewalk, there isn't a soul around. It's chilly, and he starts to jog, breath steaming out of his mouth with every exhalation.

The concrete feels wrong under his running feet – it used to be familiar and now it's not, so it feels a little like deja vu, jarring and dense. It's still dark enough that everything looks monochrome, a faint peach light crawling down the buildings on his left, casting the aerials and fire-escapes on the right into shadow. There's a thick, heavy smell in the air, bitter and slightly rotten. In the grey light, the whole towering concrete sprawl looks like the ruins of Sateda.

He picks up the pace.

~*~

By six thirty he's gone through a park, cooled off to a chill on a wooden bench with the light slanting pink and golden through the evenly spaced trees. It takes him a long, weird moment to recognise the fauna scurrying up and around the tree to his left as squirrels.

As he picks his way back to the hotel, he passes a tiny bakery just opening up. It's five minutes to seven. He buys a cinnamon roll the size of his head and asks about the citrus content of the fruit pastries before he can stop himself, and then waits by a white wooden post while the beaming, sleepy-looking middle-aged woman behind the counter makes him two towering cups of French roast to go.

Rodney is staring bleakly into a cup of instant when John gets back, looking up muzzily at his entrance like he can't quite figure out why John's there. Then John puts the French roast and two chocolate danishes between him and his humming laptop, and Rodney's expression changes to one of stunned gratitude before he dismisses John's existence entirely for the coffee and his e-mail.

~*~

John doesn't see Zelenka leave; he stays in his room and channel-surfs instead, waiting for the inevitable. At 20:45, Rodney knocks on his door, reeking of very expensive vodka and looking lost. “There's no-one around to properly appreciate my genius any more,” he says, sounding genuinely mournful, and John leads him into the bathroom to shower off the evening – not saying anything about loud and frequent arguments in the labs of Atlantis which Rodney lost an average half of the time, since those are probably exactly what Rodney is referring to.




Day 2

Carson knocks on Rodney's door at midday; he doesn't look the least bit surprised to see John there, but invites them both to dinner – he's catching the red-eye home that night. Rodney, still slightly hungover, answers yes for both of them – which pisses John off in a vague, useless way because it's not like he has any plans and Rodney knows it and Carson's his friend anyway, but still, hey – and summarily dismisses Carson before things can get in any way emotional or unmanly. Carson's so cheery about going home that he just waves at both of them on his way out.

An hour later, Rodney has realised that if he doesn't call Jeannie soon and fill her in on the situation she's going to hold it against him forever, and John decides to give him some privacy for an hour or two. He gets it into his head to knock on Elizabeth's door, see how she's doing, ask her if she's coming tonight.

She stands in the half-open door, smiling calmly, saying no, unfortunately, she has a prior arrangement with a friend, and John smiles back before he beats his retreat, his mind on the way her hand clenched white-knuckled on the door frame.




Day 3

Ten-hundred finds the three of them standing dumbly in the lobby, half of Atlantis' senior staff; they're meant to just nod and scatter. Elizabeth looks grimly cheerful and Rodney's glancing awkwardly between the two of them, shifting on his feet. “Well,” John starts, and doesn't manage anything else. If Teyla were here, she'd say something graceful.

Elizabeth huffs something between a sigh and a laugh, says, “Gentlemen,” the way she always says it, and gives them both a fond and gracious smile before she turns away, leaving John and Rodney side by side.

Rodney manages, “Well, that was easy, I guess.”

John's the only one of them staying behind in Colorado Springs – Carson will come back to the SGC eventually, but in the meantime, there's a military escort outside to take Rodney to Nevada, while John's expected at Cheyenne mountain in an hour and then who the hell knows where.

“You have my cellphone number, don't you?” Rodney blurts out. John rolls his eyes; yes he has it, on at least three different pieces of paper, along with Rodney's gmail address and detailed instructions on how to find his apartment in case of emergency. “Right,” Rodney says, nodding. “Well—”

“Yeah. See you,” John says, and stands in the middle of the lobby watching Rodney walk away, feeling suddenly unmoored.

~*~

General Landry just gives him this weird little smile that is probably meant to look friendly, saying, “Well, given how well you adapted to the Pegasus galaxy, I thought you could show one of our new teams a thing or two.”

John tries not to look thrown. “A... team? Sir?”

“Well, of course, Colonel.” Landry's giving him that smile again; the eyes above it are sharp and unfriendly. He says, in a jovial tone, “You didn't think we'd send you back to Antarctica, did you?”

And now John's struggling to not say something like, Actually, that's exactly what I expected you to do, because he can imagine the General might take something like that the wrong way.

“None but the best, of course,” Landry continues. “You can pick them yourself, if you like.”

New team: that means third-string, patrol and collection, no planet not explored already, at least for a long while. No first contact, because this is the SGC, made up of the best and the brightest rather than the freaks and Earth's Least Wanted – it's careful with its resources.

John smiles charmingly. “I think I can trust you, sir.”

He doesn't have it in him to look at a bunch of kids lined up and shiny-faced with enthusiasm and try to pick out the three least likely to die, because the odds that he'd be right are negligible anyway, and he's pretty sure Landry knows it.




Day 4

The office has a desk and a chair and a phone; he has a whole morning with nothing to do except get acquainted with Cheyenne Mountain and unpack his stuff into the (indefinitely temporary) quarters they've assigned him here. He dismisses the Airman and does the first thing that jumps into his head.

“I have an office.”

“Oh my God,” Rodney squawks. “Do you have any idea what you just interrupted?”

“Nothing important, or you would have turned off your cellphone,” John points out. He sits gingerly in the chair. It's okay. It doesn't squeak like it should. “They've assigned me a team.”

Rodney is quiet on the other end. Then he says, “Well, obviously. It's the best use of your skills.” A pause, then: “Um. Congratulations.”

“Yeah,” John says flatly. “I can't wait to go offworld with them.”

Rodney snorts, sounding weird and tinny in another state and above a few thousand tonnes of rock. “Don't tell me: they gave you a botanist and two guys who were such apes that even the Marines wouldn't take them.”

“Zoologist, actually,” John says, tone as mild as milk and thrilling on the inside to hear Rodney make those choked, disgusted noises and curse biology and all its ilk for five minutes straight. Somehow, it's easier to think about taking Babiss on his first venture offworld in two days' time. They're having a 'team-building' period first. John fully intends to run those assholes into the ground.

There's a silence once Rodney runs out of steam. John looks at the floor, the bare walls, his feet propped up on his desk. “So. What were you doing?”

“Oh. Uh... meeting my lackeys. They're... enthusiastic about working with me.”

John snorts.

“No, I mean it.” And John feels a smile grow, because Rodney sounds so bewildered. “They – they all said it was an honour – three of them brought me coffee. Stop laughing!”

There's a wild note in Rodney's voice. John hasn't heard it since the last time they almost died. It's out of place: they're back. Nothing to kill them here except the everyday things.

“They—” Rodney swallows on the other end, voice low. “They're all— I keep looking at them and thinking, they'd be eaten alive in Pegasus. Literally. They all think it was some amazing adventure and it's over now, and they have no idea – none of them, they—”

His breathing crackles over the line. John hears a noise, like something wet, convulsive, but he's willing to give Rodney the benefit of the doubt this one time.




Day 6

“Hey, Elizabeth. It's me. I, uh, got your number from Carson, I hope you don't mind. I was just calling to see how you were, say hi. Call me when you get this, okay?”




Day 8

The first time he steps out of Cheyenne mountain and onto the wet grass of another forested planet, John has to stop and take one long, deep breath, letting it curl out of his mouth again like savouring smoke. There's no comfortable looming presence behind him, no one bitching about the humidity or talking warmly or with caution about the people here.

He doesn't have to win over these Marines: Corner spent an hour interrogating him about the Wraith and sincerely asking for reports of the last three years, and Wallace brought him coffee this morning with a hopeful and terrifying smile. Babiss is nervous and awed, new to the program, staying quiet and wide-eyed and two steps behind everyone else. Apparently, there are some fascinating animals sacred to the local population that don't seem to belong to any known phylum, and they've won an overnight stay so Babiss can photograph specimens from a colony very near the Stargate, take samples of fecal matter and record, if possible, what they eat.

It's just a trial run. They're not all going to be like this.

God, John's never wanted a habit more than he does right now.




Day 9

Sam Carter smiles kindly at him when he steps onto the ramp under Cheyenne mountain, leading his straggling team. Wallace is soaking wet, Babiss still smells like the feathered-baboon crap he spent two hours collecting, and Corner keeps touching the two long scratch marks on the side of his face. The elderly priest promised they weren't toxic. John can only hope, because his track record with US military teams is bad enough as it is.

Corner is sent to the infirmary; Wallace and Babiss are sent to the showers. John gives Landry a pithy rundown of the mission, which he testifies was a success – in that no-one pissed off the natives and Babiss got all the samples he wanted and some working theories which he spent the entire evening, morning and trek back to the gate telling the rest of the team about. Landry covers his surprise and promises that tomorrow, they can back up SG-23 on one of their missions to catalogue the flora and fauna of M5X-546. Then they get five days off so Babiss can do lab work.

John sublimates his desire to punch someone by requisitioning a dartboard.

After the briefing, he locks the door to his office and calls Area 51.




Day 11

John starts house-hunting in his spare hours. Something serviceable, something to buy and keep permanently instead of something to rent and move out of as soon as possible, though it's hard to kick the habit of looking at anonymous, eggshell-coloured boxes. He knows he should just find a place that suits him and move in his crap, but he keeps looking anyway.




Day 14

It occurs to John, three days into it, that he's looking for something specific. Four days in, he finds something very close.

The place is in a building on a hill. The front of the building faces a mellow incline, five minutes' walk from a damned nice coffeehouse and ten from a public library. It has a smooth sidewalk that he could skateboard down if he wanted – there are no signs up. The back, where the empty apartment is, overlooks a sharp drop and a view that's 90% sky with the rolling swell of Colorado stretched out underneath it. The hillside is covered by a very small woodland with a hiking trail through it.

The apartment itself is bright with sunlight, pouring in through the wide windows on every west- and north-facing wall. There's a kitchen with soft yellow walls and smooth wooden cupboards, open-plan with the dining room, which leads to the living room through an archway so huge the connecting wall may as well not be there. There are two bedrooms, one of which has the previous tenant's soft, inviting queen-size bed still in it. The other one could be a guest room. Or a study – there's a desk in the living room, and one cheap but sturdy-looking bookcase made of pine planks and metal brackets.

Even John's quarters in Atlantis were small, easier to fill with the few things he had, cosier than one wide, yawning place like the series of rooms Elizabeth had to herself. He's one guy, living on his own, and this is far more than he needs. He should find a box, and fill it with clutter. He can't take up all this room on his own.

It's for sale, closing in one week - quick sale, a last-minute kind of thing, and John takes a moment to wonder if there are bodies rotting under the brand new hardwood floor. The real-estate agent, all teeth and tiny pencil-skirt, tells him it's a lucky catch and informs him of the asking price; he puts in an offer and drives back to the mountain, pretending it's not blind hope he can feel fluttering its wings against his ribcage.




Day 21

He comes back from a mission, dirty, sweaty and frustrated, takes his clothes from his locker in his quarters (a box with a light and a bed and a desk, kind of like being in college again), rinses the grime off in the public showers, and treks to his office feeling only slightly more human. The briefing was mercifully short, and his report is due tomorrow. The good news is that the Daedalus is three hours out, an ETA of 1930 or thereabouts.

His cellphone, sitting on his desk, is blinking a voicemail alert at him. It's Candice the real-estate agent. He has an apartment.

He spends a long time blinking at the cell in his hand, wondering how they even get reception down here. His other hand moves of its own volition towards his landline.

It's Pavlovian.

“Hey, Rodney,” he says, and makes his chair swing from side to side until he feels almost sick with it. “Are you doing anything this weekend?”

“Am I— what kind of question is that? I'm trying to unlock the secrets of the universe from the confines of a sunless hole in the ground, and you're asking me if I have anything to do?”

“Rodney,” John says, slow and calm, “You go home at five o'clock these days.”

“I could have been doing something,” Rodney sulks.

“Lackeys still convinced of your godhood?” John asks. If he tucks his feet against his thighs, he can spin all the way around.

“I miss Kavanagh,” Rodney says, dark and doom-laden. “He was a whiny idiot, but at least he had occasional fits of competence. You could work a proof better than these idiots. I think the most meaningful conversation I've had today was with my cat.”

(Rodney, convinced that years of separation had damaged their relationship almost beyond repair, and fearing for Isaac's future in the event of something eventful, now has a contract with his 50-year-old landlady that she or her grown daughter would take care of him in the event of Rodney's sudden death or disappearance. Rodney says that he leaves work at normal hours because of the mind-numbing drudgery of his current research, but John is convinced that it's at least a little to do with that cat.)

“I have a new apartment,” John says, since he can't think of a way to subtly approach the subject and this is Rodney, anyhow. “You could come visit.”

“Oh?” Rodney says, a little confused, and then says in a completely different tone, “Oh my God. You probably want me to help you lift furniture into a concrete box on the 10th floor with no elevator, and it's still more exciting than what I had planned. How did this happen to me?”

“Hey,” John says feelingly. “If I wanted someone to cart my stuff around for me, I'd bribe some marines.” He waits until Rodney makes the smug noise before adding, “They'd be much more efficient than you.”

“On the other hand, staying in bed with my cat and a laptop is starting to sound more fun,” Rodney says meanly.

John grins stupidly at his phone, rolling darts across his palm. He hefts one, hits the 60 mark from his chair. “Honest to God, Rodney, I'll be all moved in before you arrive. Most of the furniture I need is already there – previous tenant left a lot of stuff. Even the bed.”

“Oh,” Rodney says, a little breathy.

“There's a spare room and everything,” John adds, not for Rodney's benefit. “I'll e-mail you the address.”




Day 24

Rodney shows up at ten a.m. on Saturday with a backpack over one shoulder and a laptop bag over the other, and John swears the laptop bag bulges more. Rodney's bitching even as John opens the door. “Stupid turtle-brained cab-driver wouldn't come up the driveway – who the hell had the bright idea of putting a hill here?” and then he shoulders his way inside and says, “Oh—”

He stands in the middle of John's living room, luggage hanging off his arms, looking flight-rumpled and irritable as hell and suddenly surprised, turning 360 degrees to take in the room: the blue walls, the giant couch that John found in another tenant's garage sale, the bright sunlight flooding through the tall windows and lighting up the whole place.

Rodney looks good, standing there. He fills it up. “Huh,” he says, dropping his bags. “This is nice.”

“Thanks,” John says, like it's a personal achievement, and goes to make Rodney some coffee in his equally nice kitchen.

~*~

John has the ingredients for every sandwich known to man in his refrigerator. Rodney bitches about his shameful lack of a television until John points out that he moved in two days ago, and therefore lacks a lot of things, and then sets up his laptop and presents Rodney with all the new TV shows they've missed in the last three years. Rodney is grudgingly impressed, and they spend the afternoon camped out on John's couch, eating sandwiches and picking random episodes.

“Dear god, Wormhole X-Treme is still running?”

“Yeah. You'd think they'd have axed it by now,” John says, barely looking up from his sandwich. God, he's missed mayonnaise. He's missed real mayonnaise like a limb.

It's three o'clock when they finally get bored with mocking all that the SciFi Channel has to offer, by which time John is sprawled across the sofa with Rodney's head on his chest. When Rodney starts looking way more interested in John's hands than the screen, John turns off the media player (with the tiny, tiny remote control that slots into the side of the computer, and no, he will never stop being pleased by that, because he still remembers 8-bit) and jostles Rodney's shoulder, saying, “Hey. Wanna see the bed?”

“You never mastered subtlety, did you?” Rodney grumbles, pulling John up with him.

“Never,” John lies.

~*~

Rodney looks good in John's bedroom, too.

(“Is that a Wolverine t-shirt?”

“Yes. Your problem?”

“Oh, nothing. It's... nerdy, yet patriotic.”

“Die. Wait, come here first—”)

And in John's bed.

(“Oh— wait! I have stuff!”

“So do I. And it's on the nightstand, so will you get back here?”

“Oh. Ooh!”)

And they haven't seen each other in three weeks – their one attempt at masturbation over the phone collapsing when they realised how hilariously bad they both were at talking dirty – so once they get started it's over fast, jerking each other off and kissing furiously. Hasty, yes, clumsy even, but enthusiasm makes up for a lot.

“And here I thought you were going to hold out on me,” Rodney pants, spread-eagled underneath him. John laughs quietly, and kisses him some more. They're probably not going to be doing that again for at least a couple hours, so he figures he can get away with collapsing for a while.

“Where's your bathroom?” Rodney asks. John waves a vague hand to the right; Rodney rolls his eyes and says mean things about John's sense of direction, but apparently finds it, and comes back with a damp cloth for John. He is now master of his own domain: he'll shower when he can't stand to smell himself. Or when Rodney's bitching reaches toxic levels. Well, maybe before then. Even his shower is good. Excellent water pressure.

John stares at his ceiling while Rodney insinuates himself under the covers. It's smooth plaster, and the fine cracks all across it are like the outlines of strange continents. When he turns his head, Rodney's watching him, eyes blue and curious; he murmurs, “I mock myself for asking this, but – what are you thinking about?”

John frowns. “Suite on the South-East pier,” he admits. “The one with the kitchenette and the stained glass windows in the living area.”

“I liked those rooms,” Rodney says, wistful.

“Yeah,” John says. So did he. Too far from the labs, the gate room, everywhere. But damned nice. Balcony and everything. Not too high up, not too low down; caught the sun in the mornings and most of the day. He'd meant to come back to that suite, maybe when the Wraith were all dead. (Which would be the time he was a two-star General and had a unicorn named Sparkles.)

Rodney pokes John in the ribs; John affects a frown and bats Rodney's hand away. He smiles, a little crooked. “It's weird, you know. That you're the one doing better than any of us. Well, aside from Carson, I mean, but Elizabeth's gone into hiding and I'm terrifyingly close to bringing my sidearm to work, but... you're fine.”

John blinks at him. “Sure I am. Why wouldn't I be?”

Rodney stares at him, frowning.

“C'mon, Rodney, I—” John tries to smile, but he can feel it won't fit right on his face, keeps sliding the harder he tries to keep it there. “I've been moving on and off bases my whole life. I'll adapt. It's not like the end of the world.”

Then he breathes out, one harsh, hoarse breath, and the smile slips off his face for good, because it felt like a betrayal just saying it. Rodney looks worried now. There's this agonising, drawn-out pause, and then:

“I miss Teyla,” John says suddenly, and once he's started he can't stop, like he's standing over himself and triple-dog-daring him to wimp out now. “I really— and Ronon. You should have your labs back, and Zelenka, and I – Teyla, we fucking left them behind, Rodney, they made us leave them there,” and he scrubs his hands over his face and his mouth but Rodney's face tells him that he heard it, he hears it, he hears him: this is as far from John's version of okay as it gets, but he can't do anything, neither of them can do anything but call each other up and pretend together that this, too, shall pass, and one day soon the SGC and the Ancients together will stop being assholes, and that they didn't leave half their team behind at the mercy of the Wraith.

He misses Teyla's warmth, the instant connection, the little-brother feeling of knowing someone was around who would kick his ass and cover him in the same minute; he misses Ronon eating with his fingers just to gross Rodney out and the rare, still-new rumble of him laughing. He misses them more than he misses the city, and he feels guilty about that but fuck Atlantis anyway; it rolled over like a dog as soon as its old masters showed up, it slid out of his head and left him behind like he'd been second best the whole time. Now the SGC won't even give him clearance to see the puddlejumpers.

“Sorry,” he says into Rodney's neck.

“Shut up,” Rodney says briskly, and pulls the blanket over them both.




Day 30

The coffee table that came with the house has a scarred, scratched wooden surface, like someone used it for some pretty serious craftwork or, possibly, dismembering small animals. John drags it as close to the couch as he can, and covers it with newspaper.

There's a plastic bag by his foot; he takes out seven tiny bottles of paint, turpentine, a cheap set of brushes, and three boxes. Laying it all out on the table, he picks a Tamiya kit at random, takes the lid off the F-16 and starts work.

The phone rings just as he's started with the Camouflage Gray; he lets the machine get it.

“Sheppard? Pick up, I know you're home today. Oh, unless you're doing something outdoorsy, then I guess you wouldn't come to the phone. And you probably are, I mean—”

John hits the speakerphone and drags it over to the couch. “You know, most people think of something to say before they call someone,” he says, covering Rodney's increasingly agitated ramble.

“Oh, like I don't have better things to waste my brain on,” Rodney snorts. John can hear the soft clatter of keys in the background. “What are you doing?”

John pauses, and then decides he doesn't have much to lose with the self-titled King of Nerds (true, Rodney was drunk at the time, but he didn't recant it in the morning). “I'm making an F-16,” he says gloomily, finishing the first layer of Camouflage and swishing the brush through the turpentine. The smell reminds him that he should probably get some air in here.

Rodney is silent for a moment, during which John gets up and cracks two windows, letting in the rich smell and soft shush of rain. It isn't that heavy, but he's still not going for a run in it. He gets enough of that offworld.

“This is really depressing,” Rodney says finally.

John sits back down on his sofa, shins pressing against the hard edge of the table. “It's not that bad. I used to make 'em when I was a kid.”

“And not involved in the exploration of alien worlds and protecting the galaxy.”

John makes a face. “Somehow, I don't think the flying monkeys care about how I spend my days off.”

“Still cataloguing fauna, huh?”

“I don't want to talk about it,” John mutters.

“Well, this isn't fair,” Rodney says. “I don't even get to live vicariously through your exploits.”

John can hear the tiny smile in his voice, feels an answering smile grow. “Well, you could. I just don't know that you'd want to.”

Living for the weekend isn't so bad.




Day 39

Rodney dozes next to him, face slack and peaceful, smushed against the pillow with his hair sticking up in tufts. John's only looking because he's too sleepy to think of anything else to do; it's not like he's watching Rodney sleep or anything.

Rodney snuffles a little and cracks an eye open. He squints. “That's really creepy,” he says, voice hoarse and quiet.

“I'm not watching you,” John says automatically. His legs are still twined with Rodney's.

“Sure,” Rodney mutters, sneaking a hand across the gulf of cool sheet between them, tugging John closer for a kiss.

After they've gotten that close together, chest to chest and mouth to mouth, it's just too damn much effort to move away again. So the kiss lasts kind of a while, lazy and gentle, John sucking softly on Rodney's lips, tongues barely flicking out to taste. Rodney's broad palm sweeps his side absently, like he's petting his cat, touching warm and sun-drenched on the bed.

Lazy doesn't bother John. Rodney's going back tonight, and frankly, he can't think of a better way to spend the afternoon.

Maybe later, if they're adventurous, they'll order Chinese and watch Doctor Who on the Tivo Rodney hectored John into buying. And Rodney will panic because he's left packing to the last minute, and John will point out that he only brought a backpack and a laptop bag anyway and not point out that Rodney can pack like the wind these days. Then Rodney will leave a crapload of dirty laundry behind anyway, which John will wash and put away and forget to give back to him, but which will come in handy the next time Rodney's here and hasn't brought enough underwear.

He likes to think of it as a cunning and dastardly plan, and if Rodney's caught on yet, he hasn't said anything. He hopes Rodney brings Isaac one weekend, and leaves him here, too. He hopes one day that he'll just forget to go back to Nevada.




Day 40

John eyes the locked door carefully. Wallace has been hinting about personal one-on-one unarmed combat training for the last week, and while Wallace is a marine and this is a military base, John's taking precautions until he's sure of the situation. Unfortunately, this means that he's trapped in his office with nothing to do except finish the inventory report. When the phone rings, he can hardly pick it up fast enough.

“Hey. What are you doing?”

“Very important things,” John says happily, minimising the report and calling up a game of Spider Solitaire. Hey, it's not like he's going to get any work done while talking to their consult at Area 51. “What's up?”

“Carson's coming back,” Rodney says, and there's the muffled thud and click of a door shutting. “He just called me.”

“Oh, yeah?” Four suits: it's going to be a long call. “How is he?”

“Unintelligible. I think his accent has actually gotten thicker while he was away.”

“Rodney.”

“He sounds good,” Rodney relents. “There was something about multiple siblings and their offspring; it took about half an hour to make him shut up. Anyway, he'll be back in three days. He wants to take us all to dinner.”

“Really?” John says. “Where?”

“What do you mean, 'where'? How should I know? He'll pick a restaurant when he gets there.”

“Rodney.” John is more patient and mature than Rodney. He repeats this to himself every day.

“Oh— well, obviously Colorado Springs. He's going to be working in the base.”

There's a wistful note in Rodney's voice that makes something curl sadly in John's stomach. “I didn't know,” he says.

“Yes, well. Once again, you're going to be attended by a Scottish mosquito every day. I'm sure it will be comforting,” Rodney says snippily, all bluster again. “At least I— we don't have to worry about you being in vaguely competent hands.”

John doesn't react to the slip, and Rodney's secured this line anyway. “I thought it was all voodoo.”

“And it is therefore all the more important that the witch-doctor dealing with hideous off-world parasites and so on has an idea of what they're doing.”

It's Saturday in three days. John doesn't have the weekend off until the week after, but barring emergencies, he'll have the night. His voice is idle. “So, you'll be coming down?”

“What?”

“In three days,” John says. “For Carson.”

“Oh,” Rodney says. “Yes. Well, obviously. For Carson,” and John attaches a Ten of Hearts to a Jack of Clubs and smiles like a goof.




Day 43 (1051 hours, 18 minutes, 36 seconds and counting)

It's a single moment in time, when he finds himself about to step into the puddlejumper resting on the damp grass of the Athosian's new planet, feeling the alien planet turning under his numb feet and thinking about court-martial and Landry's face and his own, inspired plan to attack a base overrun by Replicators with six people, four of whom can fire a gun without flinching and three of whom can aim.

Then he turns and looks at the group coming up behind him: Elizabeth, eyes glinting fervently, more alive than she's been all evening, all Earthside. Carson cradling a gun, looking white but determined. Teyla, smiling at him. Ronon, ready. He thinks about cold morning sunlight streaming through the high windows of his apartment, a tiny substitute for the bright, open spaces and glittering sea of home.

Rodney, at the front of the group, glances up from his laptop, looking puzzled and impatient and completely natural toting a P-90. “What are you waiting for, galactic peace? C'mon, you're blocking the ramp.”

John's insides swoop and settle like birds coming to rest. He's used to leaping off the cliff and just hoping that there was something to cushion the landing, but he's never dragged a bunch of people over the edge with him – yet all the same, they're right behind him, and he just had to take a moment to savour this feeling, of falling, falling, falling on his feet.




END