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Coping With John
bykass
1869 words
John/Rodney
"I'm not into him," Rodney said to the wall of his room.
Coping With John
1. Denial
"I'm not into him," Rodney said to the wall of his room. Outside his window, a faintly bluish moon was rising. The wall didn't respond, which was on the whole not surprising, though given how many other bizarre things they'd experienced since walking through the gate a few days ago there was a part of Rodney that half-expected the room to light up and start talking back.
"I mean, yes, he's good-looking, if you go for that kind of thing." Rodney paused. "Which I emphatically do not. Brains over brawn, thank you."
Well. Brawn wasn't the word. Sheppard wasn't a big man. But he was military, and he had that military air, which had never been Rodney's cuppa. Strangely slouchy and smart-aleck for a career Air Force guy, but still, military, and he obviously knew where to put his hands on a gun. Which Rodney did not find remotely attractive. Because he wasn't into that kind of thing.
Though Sheppard did seem somewhat brainier than the average grunt. Calculating the number of possible permutations of the six gate symbols Lieutenant Ford had provided, on the fly, without even hesitating -- that was reasonably impressive. It was possible he had some facility with math.
Rodney had the slightly sickening feeling that he was losing an argument with no one. "In any event," Rodney said hastily, "I'm not interested."
Outside, the moon crested the alien sea and twinkled at him as though it were laughing.
Rodney toed off his boots and flopped back on his tiny Lantean bed, wishing he had an extra pillow to pull over his head.
2. Avoidance
Stupid off-world mission. Stupid distilled cactus juice; it hadn't tasted that strong, but it had loosened Rodney's inhibitions substantially and caused entirely inappropriate things to come out of his mouth.
Teyla was both beautiful and easy to talk to even when Rodney was sober. Which was most of the time. But the local booze had gone so quickly to his head that he hadn't even realized he was drunk, which meant he hadn't realized he was being quite so loud -- and Teyla hadn't given him any clues; she'd just nodded her head with sage understanding as he said things like "I can't help having eyes" and "he's smarter than he looks, which has always been a turn-on" -- until Sheppard himself sat down on the bench beside Rodney and picked up Rodney's glass and sniffed at it.
"Hi," Rodney had said happily, because here was the very person he'd been thinking of, and what were the odds of that?
But Sheppard's smile was slightly strained when he asked, "How many glasses of this has he drunk?" -- talking to Teyla, not even to Rodney, as though Rodney weren't capable of responding on his own. Which, point of fact, he kind of wasn't; he had no idea how many glasses he'd consumed.
"Perhaps too many," Teyla agreed, and then they were showing him to a pallet in the corner and when he woke up his mouth tasted like fur and Sheppard was nowhere to be seen.
Sheppard didn't make eye contact as they headed for the gate, or walked back through. "Everything's fine," he said to Elizabeth, who was coming down the stairs to greet them. "They're happy to be our new allies."
"We enjoyed their hospitality," Teyla said smoothly, "though I for one did not sleep well; I could use a rest."
"Sounds good," Elizabeth said, and just like that, Sheppard nodded and walked away, leaving Rodney feeling like a complete idiot with a wildly inappropriate crush.
Rodney would just have to avoid him for a while. Or hope that maybe Sheppard didn't exactly remember what he'd heard Rodney say.
3. Repression
"I'm not interested in men," Rodney told Heightmeyer. She just looked at him, expectantly.
"Okay, I have been a little bit interested, at one time or another -- I did kind of date one of my TAs when I was an undergrad, which was, well, nice isn't exactly the word, but it had its upsides," Rodney admitted. Was he blushing? He really hoped he wasn't. Though remembering Rob inevitably seemed to mean remembering the way Rob had sucked dick -- with a ridiculous enthusiasm that never failed to turn Rodney's crank -- and wow, his therapist's office was really not the place to be thinking about that.
Not that Heightmeyer was his therapist, exactly. She was there for everyone. He'd just made one appointment. Big deal.
"But now," she prompted.
"Yes. Right. Now," Rodney agreed, and then stalled out. Damn it. "That was an earlier chapter of my life; it's not one I'm interested in reopening."
"Do you think someone else might be?"
"I'm sorry?" Rodney blinked.
"Interested," Heightmeyer prompted. "In reopening...?"
"No," Rodney said quickly. Maybe too quickly. Well: that was exactly the problem, wasn't it? Sheppard wouldn't be interested in reopening that chapter of Rodney's life. For all sorts of reasons, top on the list being that Sheppard wasn't gay.
Of course, Rodney wasn't either. He stood up abruptly. "Thanks for your time," he said.
Heightmeyer looked like she was fighting a smile. "You're welcome," she said.
"I have -- things to do," Rodney said, making a beeline for the door.
"You can use the other 20 minutes of this session anytime," she called, as the door whooshed shut behind him, but he was already halfway down the hall.
4. Substitution
Katie Brown was a good catch. She had reddish hair and breasts which were perky, if a bit on the small side, and she was obviously intelligent, even if her interests were a bit more... biological than Rodney was used to.
After Katie figured out that Rodney was an unbearable pessimist and hypochondriac, and Rodney figured out that maybe just because his sister said he ought to jump on the chance to have a family didn't mean he actually had to agree with her, he was single for a while again. And that wasn't bad. Actually it was kind of nice.
But not as nice as Jennifer Keller. Keller was terrific. Smart and quirky and capable and good in a crisis, which Rodney actually was too when he wasn't locked in a botany lab without access to a single networked datapad. Keller went with him to Earth and kissed him on Malcolm Tunney's private jet, and she had great hips, and for a while Rodney thought he'd hit the jackpot.
But she seemed to want him to be humble, which was...not exactly his strong suit. And the downside of spending a lot of time with her was, he didn't have as much time to spend with John, which meant their car-racing languished and their chess habit dwindled.
One night Rodney went to take Keller to the northwest pier -- he and John had sat there often, drinking and laughing and looking at the stars -- but as they approached he realized John was there. Not with anybody; just sitting alone with a bottle of wine. His shoulders were slumped and he looked lonely.
Rodney grabbed Keller's wrist and led her back to the transporter before she could see, but it bothered him the rest of the night.
After they decided to call it quits, he saw her talking earnestly with John across the mess hall, gesturing in what might have been his direction. But by the time he carried his tray across the room she was gone.
5. Fantasy
John on his back, his head thrown back to expose the line of his neck, his thighs splayed and his hard cock in Rodney's hand. The way Rodney would slide his mouth down. How John's voice would break as he begged for more...
At first he'd felt guilty. Fantasizing about a team-mate wasn't exactly an example of stellar boundaries, was it? But it turned out he was perfectly able to treat John normally during the day, when they were offworld, at meals, even on team movie night -- and then come back to his quarters and shove his hands down his pants and imagine that John was jerking him off, fist just loose enough to drive Rodney crazy, oh, God, yes, like that.
But lately his fantasies had taken a turn toward the troubling. Not that they were getting explicit, or rough -- they'd always been both of those things, at least sometimes. No: lately Rodney was catching himself fantasizing after his orgasm had flattened him. Imagining John spooned around him, pressing a small kiss to the back of his neck or biting lightly at his earlobe.
Funny how picturing intimacy felt like a far worse transgression than picturing sex. Rodney tugged his jacket on and walked down the corridor at a fast clip. He didn't want to talk to anyone, but his quarters were too constraining. He needed air.
He wound up on the pier. Shivering a little at the cold breeze off the water, Rodney sat down at the edge of the city and stared into the sky.
It was hard to shake the mental images. Maybe one day they'd be drinking beer on the pier and John would ask what was on his mind, and Rodney would be brave enough to say something. But how do you casually come out to somebody you've known for five years?
Maybe he would say exactly that. And John would roll his eyes and say, "did you think I didn't know?"
And then Rodney would reach around the back of his neck and pull him close, and they could sit out there and neck until they couldn't stand it anymore and had to race to John's room -- it was closer -- so they could shed their clothes and tangle their bodies on his bed.
"What're you thinking about," John said quietly, and Rodney's brain was so caught up in his imaginings that he didn't realize John was actually honest-to-God standing behind him.
"You," Rodney said, a little bit wistfully.
"Huh," John said, and sat down next to him, and Rodney flinched. Holy shit, John was right there.
"I, ah, wow, I didn't actually mean to say that," Rodney backpedaled hastily.
Though John didn't look distressed. "You think about me often?"
Rodney's mind was racing. Was there a right answer to that question?
"'Cause I think about you," John offered.
The words were innocuous, the tone was light, but Rodney felt suckerpunched. In a good way. "You -- you do?" Rodney straightened his spine, looked John right in the eye.
John's sly little smile made Rodney's heart somersault. Rodney leaned in and weathered an instant of searing panic before John matched his movement, zeroing in to brush his lips across Rodney's.
It wasn't nearly enough. Rodney licked at John's mouth and John opened to him instantly, one arm pulling him close. John kissed like he was hungry for it. For him.
"This is...real, right?" Rodney murmured when they broke apart for breath.
John rested his forehead against Rodney's. "Pretty sure it is, yeah."
"Good," Rodney said, and kissed him again.
sihayab for beta suggestions!Coping With John
by
kass1869 words
John/Rodney
"I'm not into him," Rodney said to the wall of his room.
Coping With John
1. Denial
"I'm not into him," Rodney said to the wall of his room. Outside his window, a faintly bluish moon was rising. The wall didn't respond, which was on the whole not surprising, though given how many other bizarre things they'd experienced since walking through the gate a few days ago there was a part of Rodney that half-expected the room to light up and start talking back.
"I mean, yes, he's good-looking, if you go for that kind of thing." Rodney paused. "Which I emphatically do not. Brains over brawn, thank you."
Well. Brawn wasn't the word. Sheppard wasn't a big man. But he was military, and he had that military air, which had never been Rodney's cuppa. Strangely slouchy and smart-aleck for a career Air Force guy, but still, military, and he obviously knew where to put his hands on a gun. Which Rodney did not find remotely attractive. Because he wasn't into that kind of thing.
Though Sheppard did seem somewhat brainier than the average grunt. Calculating the number of possible permutations of the six gate symbols Lieutenant Ford had provided, on the fly, without even hesitating -- that was reasonably impressive. It was possible he had some facility with math.
Rodney had the slightly sickening feeling that he was losing an argument with no one. "In any event," Rodney said hastily, "I'm not interested."
Outside, the moon crested the alien sea and twinkled at him as though it were laughing.
Rodney toed off his boots and flopped back on his tiny Lantean bed, wishing he had an extra pillow to pull over his head.
2. Avoidance
Stupid off-world mission. Stupid distilled cactus juice; it hadn't tasted that strong, but it had loosened Rodney's inhibitions substantially and caused entirely inappropriate things to come out of his mouth.
Teyla was both beautiful and easy to talk to even when Rodney was sober. Which was most of the time. But the local booze had gone so quickly to his head that he hadn't even realized he was drunk, which meant he hadn't realized he was being quite so loud -- and Teyla hadn't given him any clues; she'd just nodded her head with sage understanding as he said things like "I can't help having eyes" and "he's smarter than he looks, which has always been a turn-on" -- until Sheppard himself sat down on the bench beside Rodney and picked up Rodney's glass and sniffed at it.
"Hi," Rodney had said happily, because here was the very person he'd been thinking of, and what were the odds of that?
But Sheppard's smile was slightly strained when he asked, "How many glasses of this has he drunk?" -- talking to Teyla, not even to Rodney, as though Rodney weren't capable of responding on his own. Which, point of fact, he kind of wasn't; he had no idea how many glasses he'd consumed.
"Perhaps too many," Teyla agreed, and then they were showing him to a pallet in the corner and when he woke up his mouth tasted like fur and Sheppard was nowhere to be seen.
Sheppard didn't make eye contact as they headed for the gate, or walked back through. "Everything's fine," he said to Elizabeth, who was coming down the stairs to greet them. "They're happy to be our new allies."
"We enjoyed their hospitality," Teyla said smoothly, "though I for one did not sleep well; I could use a rest."
"Sounds good," Elizabeth said, and just like that, Sheppard nodded and walked away, leaving Rodney feeling like a complete idiot with a wildly inappropriate crush.
Rodney would just have to avoid him for a while. Or hope that maybe Sheppard didn't exactly remember what he'd heard Rodney say.
3. Repression
"I'm not interested in men," Rodney told Heightmeyer. She just looked at him, expectantly.
"Okay, I have been a little bit interested, at one time or another -- I did kind of date one of my TAs when I was an undergrad, which was, well, nice isn't exactly the word, but it had its upsides," Rodney admitted. Was he blushing? He really hoped he wasn't. Though remembering Rob inevitably seemed to mean remembering the way Rob had sucked dick -- with a ridiculous enthusiasm that never failed to turn Rodney's crank -- and wow, his therapist's office was really not the place to be thinking about that.
Not that Heightmeyer was his therapist, exactly. She was there for everyone. He'd just made one appointment. Big deal.
"But now," she prompted.
"Yes. Right. Now," Rodney agreed, and then stalled out. Damn it. "That was an earlier chapter of my life; it's not one I'm interested in reopening."
"Do you think someone else might be?"
"I'm sorry?" Rodney blinked.
"Interested," Heightmeyer prompted. "In reopening...?"
"No," Rodney said quickly. Maybe too quickly. Well: that was exactly the problem, wasn't it? Sheppard wouldn't be interested in reopening that chapter of Rodney's life. For all sorts of reasons, top on the list being that Sheppard wasn't gay.
Of course, Rodney wasn't either. He stood up abruptly. "Thanks for your time," he said.
Heightmeyer looked like she was fighting a smile. "You're welcome," she said.
"I have -- things to do," Rodney said, making a beeline for the door.
"You can use the other 20 minutes of this session anytime," she called, as the door whooshed shut behind him, but he was already halfway down the hall.
4. Substitution
Katie Brown was a good catch. She had reddish hair and breasts which were perky, if a bit on the small side, and she was obviously intelligent, even if her interests were a bit more... biological than Rodney was used to.
After Katie figured out that Rodney was an unbearable pessimist and hypochondriac, and Rodney figured out that maybe just because his sister said he ought to jump on the chance to have a family didn't mean he actually had to agree with her, he was single for a while again. And that wasn't bad. Actually it was kind of nice.
But not as nice as Jennifer Keller. Keller was terrific. Smart and quirky and capable and good in a crisis, which Rodney actually was too when he wasn't locked in a botany lab without access to a single networked datapad. Keller went with him to Earth and kissed him on Malcolm Tunney's private jet, and she had great hips, and for a while Rodney thought he'd hit the jackpot.
But she seemed to want him to be humble, which was...not exactly his strong suit. And the downside of spending a lot of time with her was, he didn't have as much time to spend with John, which meant their car-racing languished and their chess habit dwindled.
One night Rodney went to take Keller to the northwest pier -- he and John had sat there often, drinking and laughing and looking at the stars -- but as they approached he realized John was there. Not with anybody; just sitting alone with a bottle of wine. His shoulders were slumped and he looked lonely.
Rodney grabbed Keller's wrist and led her back to the transporter before she could see, but it bothered him the rest of the night.
After they decided to call it quits, he saw her talking earnestly with John across the mess hall, gesturing in what might have been his direction. But by the time he carried his tray across the room she was gone.
5. Fantasy
John on his back, his head thrown back to expose the line of his neck, his thighs splayed and his hard cock in Rodney's hand. The way Rodney would slide his mouth down. How John's voice would break as he begged for more...
At first he'd felt guilty. Fantasizing about a team-mate wasn't exactly an example of stellar boundaries, was it? But it turned out he was perfectly able to treat John normally during the day, when they were offworld, at meals, even on team movie night -- and then come back to his quarters and shove his hands down his pants and imagine that John was jerking him off, fist just loose enough to drive Rodney crazy, oh, God, yes, like that.
But lately his fantasies had taken a turn toward the troubling. Not that they were getting explicit, or rough -- they'd always been both of those things, at least sometimes. No: lately Rodney was catching himself fantasizing after his orgasm had flattened him. Imagining John spooned around him, pressing a small kiss to the back of his neck or biting lightly at his earlobe.
Funny how picturing intimacy felt like a far worse transgression than picturing sex. Rodney tugged his jacket on and walked down the corridor at a fast clip. He didn't want to talk to anyone, but his quarters were too constraining. He needed air.
He wound up on the pier. Shivering a little at the cold breeze off the water, Rodney sat down at the edge of the city and stared into the sky.
It was hard to shake the mental images. Maybe one day they'd be drinking beer on the pier and John would ask what was on his mind, and Rodney would be brave enough to say something. But how do you casually come out to somebody you've known for five years?
Maybe he would say exactly that. And John would roll his eyes and say, "did you think I didn't know?"
And then Rodney would reach around the back of his neck and pull him close, and they could sit out there and neck until they couldn't stand it anymore and had to race to John's room -- it was closer -- so they could shed their clothes and tangle their bodies on his bed.
"What're you thinking about," John said quietly, and Rodney's brain was so caught up in his imaginings that he didn't realize John was actually honest-to-God standing behind him.
"You," Rodney said, a little bit wistfully.
"Huh," John said, and sat down next to him, and Rodney flinched. Holy shit, John was right there.
"I, ah, wow, I didn't actually mean to say that," Rodney backpedaled hastily.
Though John didn't look distressed. "You think about me often?"
Rodney's mind was racing. Was there a right answer to that question?
"'Cause I think about you," John offered.
The words were innocuous, the tone was light, but Rodney felt suckerpunched. In a good way. "You -- you do?" Rodney straightened his spine, looked John right in the eye.
John's sly little smile made Rodney's heart somersault. Rodney leaned in and weathered an instant of searing panic before John matched his movement, zeroing in to brush his lips across Rodney's.
It wasn't nearly enough. Rodney licked at John's mouth and John opened to him instantly, one arm pulling him close. John kissed like he was hungry for it. For him.
"This is...real, right?" Rodney murmured when they broke apart for breath.
John rested his forehead against Rodney's. "Pretty sure it is, yeah."
"Good," Rodney said, and kissed him again.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-13 02:41 am (UTC)Who is also great here. With the pier pining and mild embarrassment/disappointment at Rodney's drunkenness and, and stuff.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-13 12:39 pm (UTC)And yay! I am so glad you enjoyed!