Life in Pegasus was unpredictable. One day you could find yourself running from life-sucking aliens in fighter jets, and the next you could be constructing tree huts in the forest for people who hunted with bows and arrows. And maybe that turn of events wasn’t entirely incidental - when the kids of M7G-677 had invited them to help build their first village in a new area made safe by the boost McKay had given their energy shield, it had struck John as just the kind of thing that might help his team unwind and lift their spirits after yet another stressful near death experience - but it was still cool. Because some days he had to watch people be culled like cattle and know that he was responsible for their deaths, but today he could be among these children who would have gone to their graves prematurely if his team had never set foot here, but would live now to turn twenty-five, thirty-five, God help them, forty.
And yeah, maybe being forty and closer to the retirement home than anyone who’d lived on this planet for thousands of years was part of why he wasn’t up in a tree top with Ronon and Teyla, building a house, but down on the ground with McKay, who’d declared that he had no problem risking his neck to save the day at the last minute, oh, a couple of times a week, but he was not going to break said invaluable neck in the Pegasus galaxy version of a barn-raising, thank you very much. Or perhaps John staying ground-side had nothing to do with getting (more) lazy with age. Could be it was just down to the lure of hanging out with McKay.
The two of them had been left in charge of putting together the suspension bridge that would run between the two highest trees. They’d started out with a couple of kids assigned to showing them how it was done, but Rodney had chased them off within the first ten minutes ("I have a PhD in mechanical engineering. I think I can somehow manage to grasp the finer points in the constructional achievements of the Ewoks."), and now it was just him and John, working together in the open glade between the trees, surrounded on all sides by bustle and laughter and the sounds of carpentry, but essentially left to their own devices.
To begin with, John had ventured his own opinions on the design, bickering for the sake of bickering, because some perverse part of him loved the way Rodney would call him an idiot and launch into a lecture on all the ways in which he was wrong, purred under that acknowledgment as much as under the wide-eyed look McKay never failed to give him when he did math in his head. (Building a bridge actually provided plenty of opportunities for math. He was getting that look a lot today.) But it turned out - to John’s complete lack of surprise - that Rodney really did have a firm grasp on what they were doing here, and after a while he just let himself go with the flow, following Rodney’s instructions without objection. It was easy, restful, not having to be in charge. Just letting himself do what McKay told him to, enjoy the basic physicality of the work without too much thought, be a tool for Rodney to use in carrying out his plans. Truth be told, he’d probably volunteered the team for this outing more for the sake of diminishing his own stress levels than anyone’s, and the longer the day wore on, the more the tension inside him seemed to uncoil.
And besides, there wasn’t really anything in Rodney’s designs to object to. If their craftsmanship came anywhere close to the specs in McKay’s head, John was pretty sure they’d end up with the most secure bridge in the history of rope-based architecture. Which, granted, probably didn’t say much, except about McKay’s perfectionism.
"You don’t think we’re over-doing it a bit here, McKay?" John said, settling down on the grass in front of Rodney, taking a break from sawing planks into pieces for the walkway. "This thing will take days to get done."
"We have days, Colonel, did you forget? You’re the one who thought spending a week affirming our friendship with these people through physical labor was such a great idea. And chances are I’m actually going to have to cross this thing myself; I might as well make sure it’s structurally sound."
John raised an eyebrow at that and rolled his eyes, though McKay didn’t look up from his work to see it.
He was sitting on the stump of a felled tree, tying the rough ropes they’d been provided with together into what would become the side railings of the bridge. His broad hands were as quick and efficient with the knots as with everything else, sure and oddly graceful. Skilled.
"You know," John said, "we’ve gotten so much into the habit of having to pull things off at the last second that I think maybe we’ve forgotten what it’s like to take our time doing them right."
Rodney snorted.
"Speak for yourself. It’s always you military people coming up with these arbitrary time constraints. If it makes you feel better, why don’t you tell yourself you have to saw the next board in 10.2 seconds, or you will be vaporized in a nuclear explosion. That one always works wonders for me."
John leaned back on his hands, stretched his legs out in front of him on the grass. His crossed ankles came to rest between McKay’s feet.
"We all know you do your best work under the threat of imminent doom, Rodney."
"Hah," McKay said, reaching for another length of rope from the pile they’d measured and cut that morning. His face said there was a longer reply, but he didn’t voice it.
The early summer sun was sinking now, falling at an angle through the woods, shadows of foliage, patches of light playing across Rodney’s face, across his bare arms. John could see the shift of muscles as he worked, the contract and release beneath the skin of his forearms as he tied the new rope to the long, thick one that would stretch between the trees. His fingers never hesitated, practiced and knowledgeable as with Ancient crystals. Competent and strong, twisting the ropes to their will.
John wiggled his feet from side to side a little, just to be annoying.
"Never knew you were that good with knots, McKay. Got a merit badge on your wall next to the PhDs?"
"Oh, please. Like you really think I was ever a boy scout. We both know I never went hiking of my own free will in my life until you told me to." Rodney’s hands stilled on the rope and he looked up, sharp blue eyes meeting John‘s, a challenge in them, in the softer tone of his voice. "There are far more interesting reasons to learn about knots, you know."
The images came unbidden, flashing, flickering through his mind, brief and bright as if lit by lightning. The things you could do with knots. The things Rodney could do with knots. All the things he might have done, back on Earth, with knots and rope and willing bodies caught and held. The bodies of people like John, who wanted, needed…
"Didn’t you hear knowledge is its own reward, McKay?" he said, aiming for teasing, hitting something far too close to breathless. He was suddenly aware of how he was laid out at Rodney’s feet, on display, crossing the line of personal space. And Rodney was still looking at him, eyes at once intent and distant, like when he was working something out. John pulled himself upright, brushed grass off his pants to cover for the impulse to fidget. "Those planks won’t saw themselves, I guess. I should…" He made a vague gesture with his hand in the general direction of the planks; he was pretty sure it looked pathetic. "…get on that."
"If you really want this cozy little DIY project to only take days, that might be a good idea, yes. Some of us have actual meaningful work waiting for us back in Atlantis, so finishing up here sometime this century would be preferable."
And like that, Rodney’s eyes were gone, focused again on the tangle of ropes in his lap. John resisted the urge to get McKay’s attention back, turned to his work instead. Got on with the task at hand.
But of course McKay was right there, only a few feet away, with his knots and his reasons and his random topics of conversation. And if John kept stealing glances at his fingers sliding over the ropes during "best non-robot Asimov story" and "incredibly complex reasons why Stephen Hawking is a moron", and if he actually resorted to staring during the more complicated moves that accompanied "Crisis on Infinite Earths - a physicist’s perspective", he seemed to be the only one disturbed by it. They were safe, they were among good people, they were building a bridge and having fun doing it. The unexpected hunger that flared up, over and over, in John’s veins, couldn’t make this day any less calming and right.
Every time he heard Teyla’s laughter drifting down from somewhere in the trees above, he knew it had been good for them to come here.
They saw too little of simple happiness. Felt it far less.
He looked at Rodney, at the way his lips curved when he talked, the angle of his thumb when he waved his hand to make a point. They deserved more of it, even if it was just for a few days. Even if it was just a single moment when Rodney let himself relax completely, when John perhaps dared to do the same. They could all do with that.
He shifted his feet and kept sawing, listening to the rise and fall of Rodney’s voice. Watching his hands.
They were put up for the night in a nearby village, in small huts on the ground rather than up in the trees, John sharing accommodation with Rodney as he usually did. And if John felt a certain relief when Rodney - unconcerned with diplomatic socializing unless it involved the promise of a ZPM or remarkably tasty citrus-free meals - went to bed early, he tried not to think about it, tried not to dwell on how they wouldn’t be getting undressed together in the cramped space, how much easier it would be to pretend the hunger from before wasn’t still there when McKay was already asleep.
But when he went back to their hut himself, not really all that much later, Rodney was still awake. Sitting on the edge of his low cot by the far wall of the room, still fully dressed, apart from his bare feet.
"I thought after all that ‘physical labor’ you’d be out like a light by now," John said, closing the door behind him. His own cot was only a step away, the one closest to the entrance through tactical assessment long since become habit, his body and weaponry automatically positioned between McKay and any threat that might come through the door. He slipped his jacket off, dropped it on the bed. "I got caught up talking to the elders. Those kids, they always make me feel like I’ve got one foot in the grave. But at the same time, if I live to be a hundred, I don’t think I’ll ever be that much of a ‘full-grown’, you know?"
Rodney gave a low chuckle, shifting on the cot.
"I doubt they have your unique affinity for the concept ‘young at heart’, no."
It was the same cutting sarcasm as always, but there was something else in Rodney’s voice, something he couldn’t quite pin down.
That was when he looked down and saw it, laid out in a neat coil on his bed. A length of rope, one of the many from that morning.
He reached for it without thinking, picked it up in his hands. The surface texture was rough, but the coil hung soft between his fingers, pliable like jute. (The kids had told them what it was made from, named and described the plant. He’d only half been listening, but Rodney would know.) The weight and feel of it meant something different here in the shadows of the hut than it had in the sunlight.
"Rodney…" he said. His mouth was suddenly dry, his heart pounding in his chest.
"Okay, look. I know I might be wrong about this, and then we can just forget it. You can just, you know, toss the rope over and go to sleep and I’ll take it back to the building site tomorrow and it’ll go in the bridge and we’ll pretend it was never here. I’ll never mention this again. But I thought I saw something today, the way you kept looking at me, and when you asked about the knots, and there was this thing in your eyes, and maybe I misunderstood you completely, or… Oh God, I misunderstood, didn’t I? I’m such an idiot, I know I always…"
And McKay was babbling, flapping his hands around and babbling, nervous and eager and himself, and somehow that made it easier. Somehow that made John brave.
"Rodney," he said, cutting short the flow of words. "You didn’t misunderstand."
"Oh," Rodney said, hands tumbling down in his lap, falling still. Looking at John, searching his face. A second, two, and then a smile flashed across his lips. "That’s good. That’s really very…good." Something changed, then, shifted. As if Rodney had understood, and understanding made him certain, confident. Made him the man who had worked with John in the forest that day, the man who gave orders and knew he’d be obeyed. "Put down the rope and take your clothes off."
John didn’t hesitate. He grasped the hem of his shirt and pulled it over his head, toed off his boots, stepped out of his pants and underwear. He could have gone slowly, made a show of it, but this was Rodney, and somehow that wasn’t what they did. He didn’t need to put on a performance.
His watch was last to go, followed by his wristband.
"Over here," Rodney said. "On your knees. Bring the rope."
And fuck, the room was so small, all it took was a couple of steps around the corner of his cot, and then he was there, he was kneeling, on the wooden floor at Rodney’s feet, before he could think about what he was doing, and Rodney was taking the rope from his hands, placing it across his thigh, and John’s fists flexed in his lap, empty, restless.
"Ssh," Rodney said, reaching out, cupping his face in his hand, thumb stroking his cheek. "It’s all right."
John bit his lip and nodded, leaning into the touch. Just a tilt of his head, but he felt like he was listing, out of balance, stalling into a spin, the first moment of uncontrolled descent. The rush of his pulse was so loud.
"You’ve done this before?" Rodney asked.
He gave another nod.
Stalling, spinning. There was a crash at the end of this; he’d been there, done that.
"With men?"
Too many questions, and he needed to just fall already, needed this to happen now.
"Yes, McKay, I’ve been on my knees for other men." He could hear the insolence in his own voice, the bite of sarcasm. "You don’t have to be careful."
Rodney’s hand moved so quickly he barely had time to register the cool air on his cheek where Rodney’s palm had been, and then fingers closed around his jaw, iron grip forcing his chin up. Making him look.
"I decide how careful I have to be, John. You understand that?"
Oh. Oh, fuck.
Rodney’s voice was harsh, clipped and arrogant and dressing him down. But his eyes.
From his position on the floor, he could see Rodney’s face clearly for the first time, the oil lamp that was burning on the low table between the beds illuminating him obliquely from below, chasing the shadows away. And his voice was harsh, but his eyes were so gentle it hurt.
And John was stalling, spinning, falling, but maybe he wasn’t going to crash. Maybe Rodney had the controls.
"Yeah," he said. "Yeah." He couldn’t get anything else out.
Rodney’s fingers relaxed, thumb rubbing along the edge of his jaw.
"Tell me your safe word, John."
Safe, John thought, and he wanted to talk about spinning, falling, about all the times he’d been on his knees, fighting for control while he was crashing, burning, knowing his controls were dead. He wanted to say something about what he saw in Rodney’s eyes, but he’d never known how to say anything that mattered.
But he could give a safe word; Rodney had told him to.
"Queen," he said, and watched it register, watched Rodney get it.
Warmth and more gentleness and a fury that wasn’t for him. A wry, lopsided smile that made his back feel straighter, his heartbeat settle.
"No, you’re right," Rodney said. "This will be nothing like that."
John bent his head, pressed a kiss to the ball of Rodney’s thumb where it rested against his chin.
"God," Rodney said. "How are you so gorgeous? I mean, I knew you were gorgeous, but…seriously."
It came out kind of high-pitched and awe-struck and so much like the rapture Rodney would display when faced with a previously unknown Ancient power source that John wanted to curl up at his feet and never move.
Except that then Rodney let go of his face and said, "Turn around," in a voice that was possibly an entire octave lower, and John was moving from pure reflex. Shifting on his knees until his back was to Rodney, and he knew what was coming next, but his whole body still shivered with the anticipation of it.
"Hands behind your back," Rodney said, and John complied.
There was a creak of the cot behind him as Rodney scooted forward, and he felt the warmth of Rodney’s legs on either side of him, the left one lightly touching him, BDU fabric against his flank, bare ankle against his upper thigh. Just that taste of skin on skin was like electricity.
Then Rodney’s hands were on his shoulders, wide and heavy, sliding down his arms, all the way down to his wrists. The press of Rodney’s thumbs against his pulse points, and he dropped his head back, moaning. Wristband, watchband, covering him up, and it had been so long since someone truly touched him there that he’d almost forgotten the response they’d get.
"Hmm," Rodney said, like there was a strange fluctuation in his energy readings he wanted a closer look at.
Fingernails scraped over the insides of John’s wrists.
He arched upwards, off the floor, body straining in a sudden curve, but Rodney still had his wrists, and the tug was like the closing of a circuit, another jolt that set him off again, arching, groaning. His cock had gone rock hard.
Rodney let his wrists go, and he made a sound that might have been a whimper.
Rodney’s hand found the back of his neck, stroking firmly, gentling him.
"I know, I know," he said. "You ready for the rope?"
John nodded quickly, not trusting his voice. A last squeeze to his neck, and then the rope was there.
Pulled around his wrists in a lark’s head, looped once, twice, and then the loose ends were wound around the rope stretched between his arms, over and over until he was caught, locked in rope handcuffs that wouldn’t yield, that would leave marks when he struggled but wouldn’t burn, wouldn’t hurt him. He felt Rodney tie the last knot, fingers fast, steady, the way he’d seen them in the forest.
"Not too tight?"
John flexed his arms, his hands, and the rope caught him, held him, rough press on his wrists like an embrace.
He bit his lip to hold in the words that wanted to come, the words of praise and relief and thanks.
He shook his head.
"Good," Rodney said.
Then Rodney gripped his upper arms and yanked them back, and it hit him that the rope was longer, that there would be more, and a low keening noise escaped between his teeth, around his bitten lip, as the rope was stretched upwards and wrapped around his arms right above the elbows the same way it had gone around his wrists. Forcing his elbows together behind his back, keeping them there. Robbing him of mobility and balance and, Christ, Rodney did know what he was doing, better than anyone who’d tied him up in a long, long time.
Another knot tied, the last and final one, and Rodney grabbed the rope between his elbows, used it to pull his arms back until he had to struggle not to fall, stretched in a helpless, awkward arch that brought his head tipping back against Rodney’s shoulder, Rodney’s lips brushing warm against his ear. He could feel drops of wetness leaking from his cock, running down the length of it.
"What’s your safe word, John?"
He swallowed hard, managed to say it.
"Queen."
"Do you want to use it?"
Oh, and he still had it in him to smile, to make a smirk seep into his ragged voice.
"Hell, no."
"Didn’t think so," Rodney said, and he could hear the smile there, too, the breath of laughter. Rodney’s free hand stroked down John’s chest, across the chain of his dogtags, fingertips toying with a nipple. He spread his legs wider, fighting for enough balance to hold this position a little longer, press up into the touch. "I bet you want more," Rodney went on. "You always do; always pushing the limits, bending the lines, behaving like an obnoxious five-year-old - not to mention displaying the mental faculties of one - just to get that little extra thrill you‘re itching for. Of course you want more. And this ridiculously boneless body of yours…the things I could do with it…" A sharp twist to his nipple, making him shudder, and the images were flashing through his mind again, like promises: himself spread-eagled…hogtied…suspended like that bridge… He wanted… "Only this one rope tonight, though," Rodney said. "I guess you’ll have things to look forward to."
Which meant… Which meant not just tonight but…
A firm push between his shoulder blades and he was kneeling upright again, panting and shivering and bereft of Rodney’s hands.
"Turn to face me," Rodney said.
He did.
Rodney’s hand found John’s face again, the soft pad of his thumb trailing across his lips. John couldn’t breathe.
"Do you like to suck cock, John?"
A shaky moan escaped him, eager and hungry like an animal in heat. He mouthed at Rodney’s thumb, not quite daring to lick, dragging his parted lips along it. Reflex and demonstration and plea.
"I’ll take that as a yes." Rodney’s voice was amused, and not quite steady. "You want to try being a good boy for once and suck mine for me?" Rodney pulled his hand away, and John’s lips were suddenly naked, wanting. His eyes flicked to the bulge in Rodney‘s BDUs. "Tell me in actual words. I know you don’t have many of those at the best of times, but make an effort."
"Bastard."
"Oooh, two whole syllables." Rodney’s hand settled in his own lap, rubbing himself through his pants, his hips twisting upwards into the touch. "Tell me, John."
"I…"
Stalling, spinning, and every muscle in his body said fight, fight for control.
The rope tugged at him, tugged into him as he stiffened and strained.
Then Rodney‘s hands were there, cupping his head, fingers buried in his hair. Rodney leaning over him, eye to eye, so close that he could feel warm breath across his face. Holding him.
"All you have to do," Rodney said, "is tell me."
"Yes," John said, falling. "Please."
That was the first time Rodney kissed him.
Soft touch of lips to lips, chaste and intimate and spinning through the sky, and John gave in, gave up, let it all go, relaxing blindly into his bonds, into Rodney’s hands.
Stopped fighting.
Said it again, when Rodney pulled back, when Rodney reached for the fastenings of his pants, when he shoved them down and off, yanked his t-shirt over his head. Said it because he could, because he’d wanted to for such a long time and now he had, now he could, the word tumbling out of him over and over, mantra and prayer and explanation. Please. Please, please, please.. Everything he was made up of spilling through the cracks, drop by drop by drop. And he thought he couldn’t stop, couldn’t stop asking, couldn’t stop admitting, until Rodney’s hand tugged him forward, and he did.
Rodney’s cock against his lips, between his lips, hard and thick and perfect, large enough that when he went down (down, down) he was filled and stretched and opened. Reduced to this, to the sensation of hot flesh on his tongue, the smell of sweat and arousal and sunlight that lingered on skin, the softness of Rodney’s belly against his forehead when he opened his throat and let himself have every last inch. There were sounds, when he did things right, moans and gasps and words of approval, and he chased them, clung to them, with swirls of his tongue and slides of his lips and cheeks hollowed out with suction.
He existed here as this man who knelt on the floor, with his arms tied behind his back, with Rodney McKay’s cock in his mouth, with Rodney McKay’s hand in his hair, and he didn’t need to be anything else.
Not falling, but floating.
Time lost, hours or minutes slipping by unmarked, until Rodney pulled his head back, pulled him off, both of them groaning at the loss of contact, Rodney’s cock wet and glistening and jerking in the cool air, inches from John’s face. He tried to tip his head, reaching for it, whimpering in frustration when a grip in his hair held him still.
"No, John."
Rodney’s voice was breathless, but firm. John glanced up through his lashes, seeking eye contact. Bright, bright blue, wide and hazy with pleasure, with hunger, but he didn’t see any anger.
This time, when Rodney ran fingers over his lips, he didn’t think, simply let his tongue out to do what it wanted, licking at the square tips.
"I mean," Rodney said, "you’re stupidly good at that. Really. If you want to make it a regular event, you’re going to kill brain cells. Enough to cost me a Nobel prize, probably, if, obviously, I hadn’t earned one several times over by now. Which, you know, works out well for you, if you like doing that as much as you seem to. But John…" The fingers slid away from his mouth, gripped his jaw again, holding him steady. "I decide how you make me come. Okay?"
The thought of making Rodney come, any way at all, any way Rodney wanted, made his whole body shiver, eager and aching. There for whatever Rodney demanded. His voice wouldn’t work, but he managed a shaky nod.
There was a crooked quirk of Rodney’s lips, somewhere between amused and awed.
"Good boy," he said.
He let go of John and pulled his legs up on the cot, stretching out. The kids had provided very little in the way of pillows, but Rodney lifted his backpack up from the floor, placing it against the wall, leaning back against it, half sitting, half lying on top of the woolen blanket. He patted the bed beside him, a brisk, authoritative motion of his hand.
"Come here. I want you to straddle me."
John hurried to obey, pushing himself upright. His knees and thighs protested, after so long on the floor, and he caught himself swaying, but the hard part was finding enough muscle control to get onto the cot and swing one of his legs over Rodney’s without use of his arms for support or balance. He doubted for a second that now and here he had the coordination, but then he was there, he was settled, with the heat of Rodney’s body between his thighs and Rodney looking at him as if he were a fully charged ZPM.
"Seriously," Rodney said. "You…" And there was a complicated, over-enthusiastic hand wave that contained more words than a thousand pictures. "Get down here."
A hand on his shoulder, another at the nape of his neck, and he was bending his back as Rodney leaned forward, meeting him in a kiss. Nothing chaste about it, this time, Rodney’s tongue invading his mouth, staking claim, hard and thorough and unrelenting. John closed his eyes and let it take him.
Forehead to forehead, afterwards, tasting each other’s air, Rodney’s breaths quick and shallow as his own. Close, so close together, and he couldn’t remember why that was a bad thing, why he shouldn’t let it happen.
"Trust me, here," Rodney said, and grabbed him by the arms, leaning back again, pulling John with him, and John went, let himself be guided. Ended up poised on his knees above Rodney, ass in the air, his upper chest resting against Rodney‘s shoulder, the stubble of Rodney‘s cheek against the curve of his neck, and it was awkward, uncomfortable, straining to hold himself up with no hands to brace with, until Rodney said, "Relax, you moron, I’ve got you," and he did, and Rodney’s shoulder took his weight, solid and stable, and all John had to do was be there.
Falling, floating, Rodney’s hands stroking over his body as he knelt there, boneless, head bent so that his face brushed the smooth, pale skin of Rodney’s back.
"Yes, yes, that’s it," Rodney said, scratching John’s scalp as if he were a kitten, fingers trailing down his arms, checking the ropes, and, God, he’d survived being tied up by enemies and madmen who couldn’t care less about burns or strangled circulation enough times for that gesture to be ridiculous, but it made him want to purr, want to stay here like this forever.
Then Rodney’s hand squeezed his wrist and moved lower, palm caressing the curve of his ass, fingertips slipping into the crack, and suddenly he wanted a whole lot more than that.
"Please," he said again, need rough like sandpaper in his voice, his cock a heavy weight between his legs. When he tried to press back against the touch between his cheeks, the tip of his erection slid wet across Rodney’s stomach, and every breath he took was fire.
Rodney’s hands disappeared, fumbled somewhere away from his body, and for a minute he felt lost, helpless. But then there was reassuring warmth on his back again, and Rodney’s right hand came up between his legs from below, wrist and forearm rubbing against his balls on the way, slick, slick fingers circling his opening, a single digit pushing inside. Breaching him, stroking him open, slowly, slowly making his body yield.
By the time the second finger went in - deeper, so maddeningly gentle - he moved on reflex to take his weight back, shove down onto it.
Rodney’s free hand closed instantly on the rope between his arms, holding him in place, keeping him right there while fingertips brushed over his prostate. He didn’t know which made him moan louder - the bright flare of touch inside or being held down for it, being made to accept what Rodney gave.
"You were wrong this afternoon, you know," Rodney said against his shoulder. "I do brilliant work under the threat of impending doom, but for my best work, I like to take my time." Lazy, perfect caress, precise and excruciating, mapping that spot inside him, and John gave up on movement, on thought, the sound that escaped him something beneath, beyond human. Rodney pressed a kiss to his shoulder. "Now you’re getting it. It’s not really that complicated, is it?"
It was simple, easy, fall and flight, nothing existing but the drawn-out, boundless soar of pleasure, and the need for more. Nothing in his world but Rodney - holding him up, holding him together - and the mindless drive to take, to do, to be whatever Rodney told him to, the feeling pure and clean and crystal sharp. He was weightless.
When at last Rodney moved him again, rearranged him - light-years later, on the other side of endless space - when Rodney drew his fingers out and pushed him upright, he was clay that could be molded, kneaded into shape like plastic explosives, formed by Rodney’s hands. He didn’t even think about what Rodney was guiding him towards, until he felt the blunt, slick head of Rodney’s cock against his opening, and the downward pull on his body let him know he was allowed it, let him know he could sink down and accept it.
Wide and hot and so deep, and Rodney said, "Move, God, just move, John," so he did. Grinding himself onto it, somehow finding a balance and a rhythm that worked, despite his bound hands, despite the ache in his thighs, riding on the slide and stretch of Rodney inside him, on the sounds Rodney made every time he squeezed down. On the look on Rodney’s face, and there was an edge here, the final one, the two of them teetering on it together. He dropped his head back, going faster, reaching for it.
Hard and fast and, Christ, he was so grateful that Rodney let him have this, let him just go for it, and then Rodney’s fist closed around his cock and he was screaming, shaking, there, right there, too much, and Rodney said, "It’s all right, John, it’s all right, you’re so perfect," and he was coming, spilling over Rodney’s hand, over his belly and chest, and Rodney’s other hand had hold of the rope, was tugging him down, was keeping him down, while Rodney thrust up into him, rough and ragged and letting go - falling, too - and there was heat and wetness inside him, flooding him, and Rodney’s arms were around him, and John was flying, and he couldn’t see the ground.
The clearing lay mostly in shadow as they gathered for the day’s work, but John found a spot where the early morning sun broke through the trees and settled himself on the grass, leaning back against the massive trunk of a sort-of oak tree, legs outstretched, arms crossed, soaking in the soft warmth, in the unexpected lightness of his own body. He was wearing his watch and his wristband again, and had opted for the button-down uniform shirt which had sleeves long enough to hide the rope marks on his upper arms that a t-shirt would have revealed. There were no visible signs of what had happened, but he could feel it in each and every muscle, an ache left from the unaccustomed strain, along with a contradictory looseness, as if he’d never known tension or stiffness.
He hadn’t been sure whether he was - very ineffectually - trying to hide or not, but the quick skip in his heartbeat when Rodney found him and sat down by his side didn’t feel like fear, so apparently he wasn’t. Which was…kind of a relief.
"Everything all right, Colonel?" Rodney said.
They were sitting so close that they were bumping shoulders, and when Rodney crossed his arms, too, his hand brushed up against John’s elbow. Fingers slipped beneath the sleeve of John’s shirt, knuckles stroking lightly across the bruises on his arm. Instinctively, he leaned into the touch.
"Yeah," he said. "I just…needed some time to get things together." Around them, the kids were starting back in on the construction, moving about the glade with organization and purpose. On the far side of the open space, he could see Ronon handing planks up to Teyla, who was already settled on the floor of a half-finished tree hut, her legs dangling off the side. He and Rodney should get working on the bridge again, but there was no particular hurry. "I don’t think I’ve quite come down yet," he admitted, glancing at Rodney, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
Rodney looked predictably (flatteringly) smug, but also searched his face in a way that wasn’t unlike Carson checking his pupils for signs of head injury.
"All the more reason for you not to wander off on your own at the crack of dawn without waking me."
Which was ridiculous, because Lord knew John wasn’t the one who had to be watched over in the field, and he’d needed the distance this morning, an hour to himself before Rodney caught up with him. But he could still feel the care with which Rodney had untied his bonds and rubbed sensation back into his arms, the surprising gentleness with which he’d guided his limp body under the blankets and wrapped him up. He wasn’t completely averse to that.
"Okay, okay," he said. "Next time I promise to stick around and let you pamper me. You can make me breakfast in bed; I hear they’re bringing in real bacon on the Daedalus this run."
Rodney raised a foot and very deliberately kicked him in the ankle. It would totally have hurt, only the combat boots were pretty thick.
"Next time, if you’re going to be this much of an obnoxious brat, I’m going to have to think of ways of punishing you."
John raised his eyebrows and widened his eyes in mock horror.
"Whoa, there, McKay. If you’re going to be that frightening, there might not be a next time."
