sga_flashfic | Enclosed spaces challenge: Do-Over, by Carolyn Claire

carolyn-claire.livejournal.com posting in

Many years ago, I wrote to another enclosed spaces challenge, and it was silly and very, very bad. I'm taking another shot at it. I'm hoping this one, while riffing off that one and still being very silly, is better. It can hardly be worse.

McShep, somewhat porny, very silly, spoils for...I don't know, their names? The existence of balconies? No canon placement. More words than I'd planned. Many thanks to Jen for input and laughter. It's her fault I'm posting at the last minute, again, really. Mansquito!

~~~

"Okay, right here, just ease down." Rodney leaned into the wall and slipped John's arm from around his shoulders as he slid down with him to sit on the angled deck. The tilt of the jumper, tipped slightly up on one side on the rocky slope, eased their slide to the floor. The off-kilter angle made everything feel that much more surreal, like a fun house, only not so much fun, Rodney thought.

"I've got it, it's okay." John grimaced as he settled himself against the wall. He blew out a quick breath, then looked up into Rodney's eyes. "It's all right, it's not that bad. I just need something to tie it off with."

Rodney frowned down at the dark-stained hole in John's fatigues. A very un-fun house. Un-fun jumper. "Right, something to use as a bandage--"

"The med kit."

"Yes. Med kit." Rodney nodded quickly and stood, one hand braced on the wall as he searched the hatch above their heads. Calm, he was calm, he was practically Zen, his thoughts were clear and organized--

From below him, John snickered. "Or, we could use a piece of your clothing. If you had any."

--he was close to panic and still shaking from their stumbling, labored, near-miss escape and butt-naked, was what he actually was. And a little cold. Rodney glared down at John as he slammed the hatch shut and moved over to the next one. "Gosh, I wish I'd thought of that while I was letting them strip me at gunpoint and throw me into 'the box.' I'd have had some sharp words for them."

John snorted. "They only call it 'the box' in prison movies."

"Forgive me for not being up on the correct terminology. It looked like a box, to me." Rodney squatted next to him with the first-aid kit in his hands, his lips pressed tightly together as he rummaged.

John reached over and patted his forearm gently until he looked up into John's eyes. "Don't freak on me, Rodney. I've been shot before. This one's not that bad."

God save him from stoic, 'only hurts when I laugh' types. "'Only a flesh wound.' Right, Tex." He smiled tightly at John's grin, then pulled out a rolled bandage and began to unfurl it.

"Gauze pads, first." John unbuckled his belt and worked at sliding his pants down his hips.

Rodney leaned in to help him. "Here, you raise up and I'll pull them down." John nodded and moved his hands to the floor as Rodney gripped the waistband of his pants. "On three, lift up."

"Just do it, already." John's jaw muscles flexed and he inhaled sharply as he pressed his palms into the floor, taking his weight off of his hips. Rodney tugged the back of his pants past the curve of his ass, then wrestled them down John's thighs, revealing the bullet hole piercing the flesh high up on the front of his leg. John relaxed against the wall with a sigh, and Rodney glanced up at him, then down again as he folded the waistband and belt out of the way. The bottom edge of John's shorts, dark with blood, was stuck to the matted hair near the wound, and Rodney peeled the fabric gently back.

"It's not bleeding, anymore. It looks almost cauterized--" Rodney stopped abruptly and stared at the spot where the back of his hand had brushed against John's crotch. An unmistakable bulge was just visible in the olive-drab folds of his shorts. Son of a....

He sat back on his heels and stared at the other man. "What, now you get it up?"

John shrugged and glanced away from him, then back again, one corner of his mouth curling. "Well, you're naked. And there's, you know, adrenaline."

Rodney rolled his eyes. "Is that all it takes? I go all out with the moonlit balcony and the fine Athosian home-brew, and all I needed to do was drop my pants and yell 'boo'?"

"That...would have been scary, but in a different way." John grinned, and Rodney stared back at him, then shook his head. Once they were safely back in Atlantis, he intended to never let John live this down. The project of the moment, though, was to make sure John lived long enough for him to torment, later, and to get them all back in one piece. "Whatever. Next time, I'll just threaten to throw you off the balcony."

He heaved a put-upon sigh at John's chuckle and started working one end of the bandage between the other man's legs. John hissed as the movement pressed the edge of his pants into his thigh; Rodney sat back quickly, his hands in the air. "I'm so sorry."

"It's okay, I just, there's not much room to maneuver, there." John shifted and grimaced again.

"This is never going to work. We need to take your pants all the way off." And wasn't that the right plan at the wrong time. Silently cursing his wandering focus and John's instigating, inappropriate boner, Rodney slid backwards to John's feet and started tugging at the laces of his boots.

John chuckled again. "Will you still respect me in the morning?" He waggled the foot in Rodney's hand.

Idiot. Rodney glared up into John's smirk, then paused and looked more closely at him. For a man who usually looked really good...he didn't look so good. "I think you're turning gray."

John looked affronted. "Well, it's been a tough couple of months. You're thinning a little, yourself." He reached up toward his own head with one blood-sticky hand, looked at it and lowered it again.

"No, I mean, your face. I think you've lost more blood than we realized." Damn it. He reached forward to pull gently at John's knee, lifting it a few inches to reveal the gory deck underneath and frowning apologetically at John's stifled groan. The back of John's pants were heavy with blood; Rodney's stomach knotted. "I think the hole's much bigger, back here."

"Exit wounds usually are." That was true, of course, and he should have thought of it, himself; they'd been moving way too slowly, here. John shrugged, still trying to be reassuring. "It's good that the bullet's not in there, at least. We get it wrapped up, it'll be fine." He nodded toward his feet, and Rodney blinked and went back to work, moving faster, now. "Seriously, I've been hit worse. It'll be okay."

Where the hell were Ford and Teyla? They should have been close, by now. He wanted them to be on their way home and then out of this stifling, blood-smeared jumper so badly it ached. "I'm sure you'll be tangoing again in no time. I just, it's been a very full day, you know?" Breathe slowly and evenly, he thought, and don't think beyond the job at hand. He pulled one boot off, then the other, and crawled forward to kneel at John's side, again. "You know, I went from thinking I was about to become somebody's girlfriend to running for my life to watching you gradually bleed to death, all in a very short space of time. Forgive me for overreacting." He slipped his fingers inside the top of John's pants and began to gently work them down his legs.

"Rodney." John stopped him with a hand wrapped around the back of Rodney's neck, warm palm against his nape, and looked into his eyes. "Stop freaking." He pulled gently and brought Rodney's lips to his for a quick kiss, then let him go, smiling.

Rodney stared at him blankly for a moment, then sighed and shook his head. Idiot. Bleeding. Focus. "Not the proverbial time or place, lovely as the sentiment is. Can we stay on task with the shot-through-the-leg thing for a little while longer, please?"

"You don't want to be my girlfriend?" John grinned, then raised a hand at Rodney's eye-roll. "Okay, all business, here, sorry. Minister to me."

"You are the most contrary, frustrating man I've ever met. I hope you know that." Rodney scooted backwards, pulling John's pants with him, then worked them over his feet, one careful leg at a time. "When I'm practically throwing myself at you--in a highly romantic, well thought-out way, I might add--you go all deer-in-the-headlights on me. Now you're a lame, bloody Don Juan. Emphasis on the lame." He crawled back up to the med kit and began picking through its contents, again. Should he try to disinfect the wound, or leave that for Beckett?

John shook his head. "You just took me by surprise. If I'd had any idea up front what you'd invited me out there for, I'd have been totally up for it, so to speak."

"Yes, you've always struck me as the delicate, skittish type." He glanced at the bulge in John's shorts again as he motioned for him to move his good leg over. "Or not. Do you have some kind of danger kink? Blood fetish? What the hell is turning you on? You're not into pain, are you? Because that's really not my thing, at all. Hold this."

"I'm a pilot. I have a lust for adventure." He slipped his fingers out of the way as Rodney tightened the bandage over the gauze pads, closing his eyes and breathing in short, measured breaths until the wrap was finished.

"Too tight?"

He opened his eyes and shook his head. "It's good. You're a born medic. In a really great uniform."

"Thanks. I'm kind of attached to it, myself." Rodney smiled back at him, pig-headed, difficult hero-type that he was, then leaned in and kissed him. John's lips softened quickly under his, opening easily when Rodney licked at them. When he moaned, Rodney's pulse went dancing. Hopeless, he was absolutely hopeless.

He pulled back, and John smiled muzzily up at him, opening his eyes slowly. "Is it the time and place, yet?"

If only. "I hardly think so. I think you've lost all the blood products you can spare, for now."

John's eyes were illegally, liquidly dark. "Too bad. I mean, what with you already being naked, and all. And, oh, look at that." His eyes flicked down to Rodney's traitorous nether regions, and he grinned wickedly.

One day, they'd look back at this and laugh; right now, it was embarrassing and frustrating and just weird almost beyond his tolerance level. "Oh, hooray, it's another erection. Now we have bookends." John laughed. "I just, it's completely--"

"I am a good kisser, aren't I?" John cut off what would have been Rodney's brilliant come-back with another languid kiss. This time, he let his hands wander, too. Rodney gasped into his mouth and sat back quickly.

"C'mon, help a guy out." John glanced down into his lap and then up at Rodney's mouth, licking his own lips slowly. "I'll be your girlfriend," he murmured. If that wasn't eyelash flirting John was doing, Rodney would eat his missing shorts.

"No, I think that would still make me the girlfriend." Rodney moved out of goosing range and scowled. "You're incorrigible. And horny as a ferret, apparently."

John nodded. "You're going to like that about me."

Damn right he would. "Just give it a rest, Casanova. Teyla and Ford will be here, soon." Please let him not have to go out looking for them, especially in his current state of undress.

"Mmm." John dropped his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. "Damn radio silence. There are definite pros and cons to finding societies with some technological advancement, I'm thinking."

"Like long-range, projectile weaponry," Rodney agreed, looking down at John's leg.

"That, too."

A double click from John's shoulder made them both start. John sat up a little straighter and clicked his own mic twice, waited three seconds, then clicked it once. The answer came back immediately--click, two seconds, click click.

"They're here, and they're alone. Uncloak us."

Rodney whispered quiet 'thank you's to whomever might be listening as he hurried up to the cockpit and shut down the cloak. Through the windows, he could see Teyla and Ford moving quickly up the slope toward them, and he opened the hatch. They were going home, they were going to be okay. He was getting out of this blood-smeared tin can, and John was going to get medical attention. He was so relieved he could have wept.

John cleared his throat. "You might want to, uh, do something about the welcoming committee, there."

Rodney looked over at John, then down to where he was pointing. No, that wasn't a gun in his pocket. Even if he'd had pockets. "Shit."

John grabbed his pants up off the floor and threw them to him. Rodney clutched them gratefully. "Right. Thank you." Bless him, wonderful man, he thought of everything, he kept a cool head even under threat of total exsanguination, he...had much smaller hips than Rodney.

As Rodney struggled and cursed and John started to laugh, Ford and Teyla rushed up the gangplank. Teyla stopped abruptly and gazed, wide-eyed, at the scene in front of her, not seeming to notice when Ford bounced into her from behind. Both of them looked from one man to the other--John sitting pantsless on the deck, bare legs stretched out in front of him, and Rodney still hopping and tugging ineffectually, John's fatigues a vise around his thighs. Fortunately, his prior enthusiasm had waned, as it were.

"It's a long story," John offered, grinning.

Teyla smiled back at him, and then at Rodney, glancing quickly down and up again. "And an interesting one, I'm sure. Tell it to us when we're safely home." Ford was laughing openly, now.

Apparently, neither of them would be living this down for a very long time.

~~~

"So, this is better."

Rodney was nibbling his way back up John's neck to his ear. "Better than what?" Was he being critiqued? John had an ear fetish? Should he nibble faster? What?

John squirmed appreciatively, bunching the blanket a little under his back. "Better than the first time we were out here."

Rodney choked back a laugh. "That's so true, I have no words."

"And much better than the jumper." Rodney stopped nibbling, then rolled away and raised up a little. John looked up at him and made a sweeping gesture around the moonlit balcony with the arm that wasn't wrapped around Rodney's waist. "Don't you think?"

"Um, yes, very much better." Rodney frowned down at him. "Point?"

"There are also similarities." John nodded gravely.

Rodney shook his head. The man was amazing, but had to be the biggest dork he'd ever slept with. And that was saying something. "You've had too much to drink."

"Yes, I have, but, still." Alcohol affected John much like blood loss, Rodney decided; it made him horny and strange. "You're naked, for one."

"True. So are you." He ran a confirming hand down John's body, skirting and then teasing the ticklish area he'd found, just above John's hipbone.

"Yes, I am, but, more importantly, I'm not wearing any pants." He held up one finger, as though he'd made an important point.

"Oh, stop it. You're not that drunk." Rodney swatted his hand away.

John just moved it someplace more interesting. "And we have bookends."

Rodney rolled his eyes. "Please never say that again." John laughed and squeezed a little more firmly, and Rodney sighed and buried his face in John's neck. Whatever. His lover was weird. He wasn't going to sweat the small things when he had a big thing, one he could have lost, right there in the palm of his hand. Pretty much literally.

"And also," John whispered into his ear, "Ford is laughing at us."

Rodney scrambled to his knees and looked down at John in horror, then followed his gaze to the glass doors leading into the darkened interior. There was...no one there. He blinked, then looked down at John again, frowning.

"Made you look." John's grin was all smug satisfaction.

"You bastard." John laughed, and Rodney fell on him, wrestling for John's wrists, pinning him in place with his body. "I'm going to throw you off the balcony, you shit."

John's smirk went dirty. "Now you're talking."

~~~

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ship-recs.livejournal.com

haha, that was lovely!

"Oh, hooray, it's another erection. Now we have bookends." John laughed.

hehe

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