Chapter Text
It started, as so many mistakes do, with alcohol.
They were recovering from their latest brush with death with some of Zelenka’s best moonshine, and to say they got carried away would be a gross understatement. It began with all four of them, just a quick toast and an early night. But then the war stories came out, followed by a card game which quickly became a drinking game, and it spiralled from there. Teyla gracefully slipped away around midnight, flushed and smiling but still walking straight. Ronon left two hours later, barely walking at all. He turned out to be extremely bad at high-low and ended up drinking twice as much as anyone else, which was apparently enough to render soused even someone of his size. John offered to walk him to his room half a dozen times, but Ronon kept saying he’d gotten further drunker than this, and wouldn’t accept the indignity of being escorted home.
So that left John and Rodney, pink and jovial, sitting on John’s bed watching Caddyshack for the twentieth time. John kept quoting along with the movie, and Rodney kept telling him to stop in an irritated tone but with a smile on his face. When John started practising his golf swings along with the characters, Rodney grabbed his hand to stop him, pulling it back down to the bed between them, and then he didn’t let go.
The atmosphere in the room changed drastically. John suddenly went quiet, and Rodney began to feel a little too warm. He kept waiting for John to yank his hand away, or to make a joke about Rodney being weird or clingy. But instead, John began to stroke his pinky along Rodney’s palm, setting the skin tingling. Rodney held his breath. He knew he was pushing it, knew John didn’t think of him the same way. But as the screen faded to black and the credits rolled, he did the most daring thing he’d ever done. He turned to face John. Finding John facing him too, he locked eyes with him. He began to inch closer. He waited and waited for John to turn away, to get angry, to leave. But John stayed where he was, just looking at Rodney. When Rodney got close enough to brush their lips together, John shuddered. Rodney pulled back, sure the shudder was one of disgust. But John gripped his hand so tightly he nearly crushed it, pulling it closer to him and Rodney with it.
John kissed him. The breath stopped in Rodney’s chest, his heart pounding as adrenaline raced through his veins. He couldn’t believe it was happening. He thought he must have passed out and was having yet another pleasant but bittersweet dream about it happening. But John gripped his shoulders and pulled him closer, pushing down into his lips like Clark Gable, stealing away what little breath he had left. Rodney knotted John’s shirt in his hand and kissed back, parting his lips as John’s tongue pressed up against them. He made an embarrassingly soft, breathy noise as John’s tongue slid across his.
John continued to push against him, push down, until Rodney was flat on his back with John hovering over him, warm and heavy across his chest. Rodney slid his hands up John’s shirt and across fever-hot skin, making him groan deep in his chest. John slid one leg between Rodney’s, and ground his erection against Rodney’s hip. Rodney bucked up into him greedily, rubbing his own erection against John’s thigh.
It was happening fast, too fast, and Rodney couldn’t think. He could only gasp as John suddenly grabbed him through his pants, tracing the outline of him with his fingertips. John broke away from his lips to kiss up the line of his jaw and down his neck, nipping gently at his earlobe as he went. It set Rodney’s skin vibrating, electricity crackling down his spine and straight to his cock. Fumbling, he got his hand between their two bodies and attempted to slip it under John’s waistband. John let go of him, got partway onto his knees, and undid his pants, all without removing his mouth from Rodney’s neck. He took Rodney by the wrist and slid his hand into his own pants until Rodney’s fingers closed around the hot, velvet flesh of his penis. Rodney groaned in shock and pleasure. He couldn’t believe he was living out his own fantasy in real time: after years of being friends, without any trouble, any embarrassment, any guilt, they just gave in.
John was now fumbling at Rodney’s fly, awkward and distracted as Rodney stroked him continually. Rodney let him fumble, unwilling to remove his hand. He couldn’t catch his breath. It felt like if there was any pause, any lapse in the urgency, the spell would break and it would all slip away from him. Then John’s hand was sliding into his pants, and all rational thought ceased to exist.
He groaned into John’s mouth as their lips met once more. John climbed fully on top of him, sliding between his legs like a puzzle piece locking into place. Rodney ran his free hand around John’s back and down over his ass, squeezing the hard muscle he’d admired from afar for so long. John’s other hand joined his, and together they pushed his pants and underwear down his thighs. Then they worked together to do the same to Rodney’s. At last they were both bared, and John was falling back between his legs, and Rodney’s eyes were rolling back in his head as warm skin met warm, sticky skin. John grabbed Rodney’s right hand, brought it to his mouth and licked it. Rodney quivered. John put the hand on his cock, licked his own palm and laced their fingers together, enclosing them both tightly in their fists. Rodney moaned helplessly as John began to rut against him, spit and precum lubricating the slide of flesh over flesh.
John fucked into their hands hard and fast, burying his face in Rodney’s neck, sweat slicking his forehead. Rodney grabbed at him like his life depended on it; he had to hold on– to him, to this moment. He hooked one foot around John’s bent knee for traction and began to thrust up against him. John growled with pleasure.
“Rodney-” he hissed it in his ear, hot and visceral in a way that went straight to Rodney’s cock.
“Oh, fuck, John,” Rodney gasped. He wanted to say more. He wanted to say: you have no idea how much this means to me. You have no idea how much I’ve wanted this. You have no idea how much I’ve wanted you. But instead he bit down on his lip and sank all his feelings into his movements- into the way he clutched John desperately to him, arched up into him, matched him step for step like it was a dance.
John thrust against him harder and faster, over and over, his rhythmic groans starting to blend together. Rodney’s stomach clenched as he realised John was about to cum; he was about to see John Sheppard cum. He had to see it. He tried to manoeuvre John so that he was fully overtop of him, so he could see his face. John stayed buried in the crook of his neck, thrusting wildly until he came in hot spurts across their hands and Rodney’s stomach. Rodney moaned in ecstasy, the sight and sensation making him cum instantly. He hooked both heels behind John’s knees and drew him in closer, trying to increase the friction between them as both of them shuddered, twitched, then went still.
John rolled off of him and onto his back, still panting. Rodney’s left leg and arm were pinned under him, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t catch his breath. He still couldn’t believe that had just happened. He wondered if he should say something, or if he should quash his natural inclination and just be quiet– just exist in the moment.
His question was answered by the sound of soft snoring. He turned in disbelief to see John with his eyes closed, jaw slack, completely unconscious. So he’s one of those, Rodney thought huffily. He roughly yanked his limbs out from under John’s dead weight, got up and washed himself off. He begrudgingly cleaned John off as well; the man never stirred. Rodney climbed back into bed. His irritation quickly faded as he looked down at the person he had loved for so long, naked, in bed with him. His head was spinning with alcohol, and post-coital relaxation combined with the oncoming hangover were dragging him down into sleep. He lay down, but kept his eyes on John until they at last became too heavy to hold open. It had really happened.
“Oh, shit.”
Rodney opened his eyes to see John sitting up in bed, looking down at him in unmistakeable horror. He went cold. He bolted upright as well, making an attempt to seem as surprised as John. The other man leapt up quickly, snatching up his pants and holding them in front of his privates.
“Oh man, I’m so sorry, McKay.”
“What do you mean?” Rodney said, disoriented.
“I was so, so drunk, I didn’t… What happened?”
Rodney’s stomach sank. He didn’t even remember.
“We had sex,” he said slowly, watching carefully to see John’s reaction. John closed his eyes and cringed. Rodney felt it like a slap in the face.
“Shit,” John breathed. “Uh… okay. It’s okay, it’s not your fault.”
Rodney bristled.
“Why would it be anybody’s fault? What, you didn’t actually want to have sex with me?”
John’s eyes widened.
“What? No!”
Rodney choked out a laugh.
“Well, it didn’t seem that way last night.” He jumped up from the bed also, and began searching for his pants, suddenly incredibly self-conscious about his naked body.
“Oh, god. Look, McKay-”
“Oh, it’s ‘McKay’ again now, is it?” Rodney snapped without looking at him. John pinched the bridge of his nose.
“It’s always been McKay. McKay and Sheppard, right? Look, if I gave you the wrong idea-”
“Well I’m definitely getting the idea now,” Rodney said, finally locating his pants. He shoved his legs viciously into them, nearly toppling over in the process.
“Don’t be that way,” John said pleadingly, hastily putting on his own pants. “Look, it’s been a while, for both of us, hasn’t it? It happens all the time in the barracks; guys just need to blow off steam. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Yeah, sure,” Rodney mumbled. He felt his eyes prickling uncomfortably. He bit down hard on his tongue to ground himself. He dug his tee-shirt out from under the pillows.
“Man…” John miserably scrubbed a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry. I know this is a hell of a way to wake up.”
“You have no idea,” Rodney said bitterly.
“McKay, come on. It’s not like we’re– well, we’re not. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Why doesn't it?” Rodney snapped without thinking. The question echoed in silence. John blinked.
“Wh- you want it to?”
“No,” Rodney said reflexively. “I don’t know…” He turned away, the prickling in his eyes coming back. “I just thought…” He literally felt John stiffen behind him. He gritted his teeth and pushed away all his feelings except for irritation and anger. “You know what? Forget it.” He sat and began jerkily lacing his boots.
“I’m sorry,” John said again. Rodney said nothing. “Look, I- you know that I could get in serious shit for this. You know how the Air Force is. And I’m your CO for god’s sake-”
“Not my CO,” Rodney snapped. “I’m not military.”
“Team lead, whatever,” John corrected tiredly. “My point is… shit. No one… I’m sorry, there’s no other way to say it. No one can know about this.”
Rodney stilled for a moment and then continued lacing his boot. So, there it was. He had gone from happiest man alive to drunken mistake and dirty little secret. ‘A hell of a way to wake up’ didn’t begin to cover it.
“Okay. Got it.” He straightened and grabbed his jacket, avoiding looking at John, who stood shirtless, hair still tousled from the night before. It should have been the best sight in the world. He turned away.
He was halfway to the door when John called out.
“Wait!”
Rodney’s heart leapt and he turned back. John was rifling in the desk, and when he turned he was holding a lifesigns detector. Rodney tasted bile. Oh yes. The walk of shame.
“Ok,” John breathed in relief. “You’re clear.”
“Great,” Rodney muttered. He squared his shoulders and stuck out his chin. He didn’t have any dignity left, but he could fake it. He strode out the door without another look back.
When Rodney got to his room, he collapsed onto his own still-made bed. It wasn’t even seven a.m.. The incipient hangover was looming in the pit of his stomach and on the back of his tongue, but the bitter taste wasn’t all alcohol.
That had been the most humiliating episode of a long and bully-ridden life. He would never shake the memory of John standing looking at him with pity and embarrassment, apologising to him for all the wrong reasons. Why hadn’t he played it cool– shaken it off as an awkward mistake, a one-time slip-up? He had let entirely too much of his feelings out; he’d shown his hand and he lost, big time.
He’d never been someone who could hide his feelings. He couldn’t hide irritation or impatience as others struggled to keep up with his brain; he couldn’t hide tiredness or hunger behind a mask of stoicism like John could. He couldn’t keep his hurt and disappointment from showing on his face like a stage actor projecting it for everyone to see. John knew he wanted that to be something, and he knew John emphatically didn’t. How did a friendship recover from that?
He didn’t want to think about it. He got up, downed about a litre of water, and then went to shower. He needed to wash John off himself for good.
The next few days were a delicate dance of denial, on both their parts. Luckily, they didn’t have an off-world mission scheduled for nearly a week. That made it easy for Rodney to avoid John, hiding away in his labs for sixteen hours a day, even taking his meals there. John, for his part, allowed himself to be avoided. He didn’t actively run the other way when he saw Rodney, but he didn’t seek him out, either. Perhaps if they each pretended the problem (the other) didn’t exist, it would just go away.
Naturally, Teyla and Ronon noticed the rift immediately. They questioned them both on it, but both suggested they talk to the other. Their teammates knew better than to push the subject, and let it drop in favour of waiting for whatever it was to blow over. Rodney knew it wasn’t going to blow over. His weren’t the kind of feelings that just went away; he was stuck with them.
Hurt and humiliation morphed into anger easily, and anger felt less helpless, so he got angry– really, really angry. He shouted and snapped at his colleagues and assistant at the slightest provocation, until everyone started to avoid him like the plague. He broke a tablet and a keyboard on the same day when they wouldn’t work as he wanted, and yelled at the quartermaster when questioned on why he needed replacements. He had never been able to contain his emotions, so unfortunately, everyone else would just have to suffer right along with him.
When he tried to sleep, he just endlessly played and replayed the argument in his head, charting permutations and berating himself for not saying this or that in response to this or that. So, for days, he didn’t try to sleep. He downed cup after cup of coffee, which only made him more jittery and irritable. He developed a permanent headache, which just worsened his foul mood.
By the time they were scheduled to go off-world, his nerves were stretched paper-thin. He was so exhausted, his eyes kept closing on their own. He knew it was a bad idea to be in the field in such a state, but he would rather die than show any weakness in front of J- in front of Sheppard again. He went to gear up, and found himself in a room with Sheppard for the first time since the incident. His adrenaline went into overdrive.
Rodney could feel Teyla watching them as they navigated carefully around each other, never allowing less than two feet of space between themselves, even in the narrow locker room. He could feel his skin burning, both from her gaze and from Sheppard’s nearness. He was immensely glad when they could get out of close quarters. He kept his eyes forward all the way to the gate room, his back rigid. He just had to make it through the next few hours, then they could return to their old strategy of pretending the other didn’t exist.
It was another boring survey and diplomacy mission in some little agricultural town that grew wheat or its equivalent. There was absolutely nothing for Rodney to do, and he resented that more than usual. He just stood self-consciously to one side while Teyla and Sheppard gabbed away with the mayor or chief or whoever it was. Why did Sam insist on sending him along on these dumb diplomatic things anyway?
Then, horror of horrors, he heard the last thing he wanted to hear: they were staying for dinner. As happened all too often on these missions, the locals insisted on holding a minor feast as a sort of peace-pipe, hand-shake, contract-signing stand-in. He hated them at the best of times; weird food of dubious origins, some sort of bizarre entertainment, and small talk with strangers with whom he couldn’t have a single point of commonality. But now, with everything going on, the prospect was positively hellish. It meant more time spent in proximity to Sheppard, without even the threat of impending death to cut the awkwardness.
He made sure to take the seat farthest from Sheppard when they were escorted to the high table of the banquet hall. The man Rodney had decided to call the Mayor was seated in the centre of the table, and between him and Sheppard, of course, was sat the Mayor’s beautiful daughter. She was tall and willowy with strawberry-blonde hair and big green eyes, and she’d been staring at John since the four of them arrived. Rodney watched from the corner of his eye with growing rage as she threw back her head and laughed, Sheppard once again apparently having said something hilarious.
Rodney glared down at his plate of food instead, unable to watch any further flirting. John was doing this on purpose, he had to be. He was rubbing it in Rodney’s face just how desirable he was, how heterosexual. As if Rodney hadn’t already gotten the message of just how repulsed John was by him, and by what had happened between them.
Rodney felt like he was back in high school, or even college, surrounded by much older people who all resented him and made sure he knew it. He’d never even dared to make a romantic advance on anyone, not just because of the age difference, but because he fully expected to be rejected and didn’t want to make his social situation any worse. Even as an adult, when he’d brashly decided to break his rules for Samantha Carter, she’d practically laughed in his face, and kept him at a wary distance ever since. How had he not learned his lesson yet? How did he not know by now that, if he wanted to keep someone around, he’d better not let himself feel too much? How had he not gotten the message that nothing like that was ever going to happen to someone like him, and the best he could hope for was to be tolerated?
Rodney stabbed his fork viciously into whatever dead animal was on his plate, pretending his eyes weren’t burning as he masochistically thought about spending the rest of his life alone. He heard another high, tinkling laugh from down the table, and he gritted his teeth. Fine. That’s just how it was, then; Sheppard got the girl, and Rodney got nothing. Life wasn’t fair; it had shown him that a million times. But, apparently, it was a lesson he was going to have to learn all over again.
- - - - - - - - - -
John really hadn’t meant to be a dick, but he knew he had been. He’d just been so shocked when he awoke with McKay of all people in his bed, that he hadn’t been able to put on his cool facade before his reaction was already out in the open. In his defence, he had really expected Rodney to react the same way he did– surprise, horror, maybe even a little bit of disgust. They were, after all, two straight men– two straight friends, if he had to admit it– who had drunkenly slept together. It was like a bad sitcom.
The hurt on McKay’s face had come as a complete shock to him. It seemed so inexplicable, so out of place, he hadn’t known how to handle it. At first he thought the hurt was a sense of being taken advantage of (god, John, you don’t sleep with people when they’re drunk). Then, when he brought up the blatantly laughable concept of the two of them becoming a thing, McKay hadn’t laughed. He’d looked confused, and maybe a little sad.
The man’s face had always read like a billboard, every emotion playing across it in large print. John had thought that meant he knew everything about McKay: knew everyone he liked and didn’t like, knew his opinion on every topic, knew exactly what he was feeling at all times. Apparently he was mistaken. Not only had McKay not thought that night was a mistake, he thought it meant something. John didn’t know what to do with that knowledge. There obviously was nothing like that between them– could be nothing like that between them, even if he felt the same way. But now that the knowledge was out there, how could he un-know it?
McKay had been hiding from him since that night, which he felt was fair. There was nothing worse than putting yourself out there and getting shot down. He didn’t know what their next steps were, though. How did they go back to being friends? He did actually like McKay. Not like that, of course, but enough to not want him to be suffering like this. How did they get out of this awkward limbo where he knew, and McKay knew he knew, and the embarrassment of all that was too big to be in a room with? For now, he had no idea.
So he gave McKay the space he wanted. He let him dodge him in the hallways, in the cafeteria, pretending not to see when he suddenly turned and went the other way. When they went on a boring trade mission, he didn’t try to strike up the banter they usually amused themselves with, the games of prime-not prime, the I-spy; certainly not the sly chat about the appearances of whatever local women happened by, which he now found bitterly ironic. He missed it all more than he thought he would. He couldn’t stop himself from occasionally glancing over at the other man to see if he had thawed a little bit, and would be open to picking up where they left off. McKay never looked back.
Ultimately, though, he was glad McKay was dodging him. It saved him the headache of wondering if the other man’s eyes were on him, what he was thinking or imagining. He had been embarrassingly relieved that McKay didn’t arrive in the gear room that morning until after he’d gotten dressed. It was uncomfortable.
He didn’t think of himself as homophobic, but maybe this proved he was. He had been one of those guys he mentioned, blowing off steam in the barracks, at least early on in his career. But as he began to gain negative attention in other ways, he knew he couldn’t risk it. The memory of the fumbling encounters in the showers or the bunks late at night made him uneasy now in a way that he couldn’t pin down. Not that he would ever turn anyone in for it, but the sense of discomfort persisted.
And the simple fact was, he couldn’t afford not to be homophobic– not when everyone else around him so blatantly was. He’d spent his entire adult life in the military, and he knew exactly what messing around with this stuff would get him. The disgust, the derision, the outright hatred with which many soldiers spit the word ‘fag’ let him know just what kind of reaction he would get if anyone found out about that night. It told him what to expect if any of the soldiers under his command got wind of it– even a hint of it. Just a hint was all it would take for him to be mysteriously ‘transferred’ to some shit assignment guarding decommissioned planes in butt-fuck Ohio. This may be an international mission, but he was still an American soldier.
He trusted McKay– as much as he trusted anyone, that is. But McKay was not known for his tact, or his self-control. He wouldn’t do it on purpose, but when he got into one of his moods, or had one of his tantrums, you never knew what might slip out. Get someone mad enough…
The whole situation made him so nervous it was like being in a warzone again, like the fatal blow could land any moment. He would hear marines talking after he’d passed, and half-expected to catch one word in a conspicuously elevated volume. He kept wondering if he’d get a call from Earth, letting him know his talents were better suited to Siberia. He kept worrying, bizarrely, that somehow his father was going to appear and beat him black and blue. He had to keep telling himself that it was all fine. It would blow over soon. McKay would go chasing after some busty blonde chemist or something, and he’d forget all about that night in John’s room. He hoped.