John arches his back, drawing in a deep breath as the stretch of his muscles makes the rope that ties him to the headboard pull at his wrists. He shifts a little, rolls his head on his shoulders before letting his face sink back down into the pillow. He feels boneless, weightless, as he always does when Rodney has taken him this way, as if everything that strains inside his body has been drained away, has been set free.
He hears the footsteps as Rodney comes back from the bathroom, and then the bed dips with his weight. A warm hand strokes down the center of John’s back, and deep within him something purrs, spinning with contentment.
Then the hand disappears, and he expects Rodney to start undoing his bonds, but instead there is a metallic click he doesn’t recognize, before something touches his skin. Moves across it; a tingling, scraping, ticklish sensation across his shoulder blades.
"Rodney," he says, lifting his head, and he puts a hint of annoyance, a hint of warning in his voice, because he might beg for McKay to do this to him, but there are still limits. "How about you untie me now?"
"Not yet," Rodney says. "I’m not done here." His tone is superior and detached, the way he might sound in the lab when someone has the nerve to bother him while he’s tinkering with some complicated piece of Ancient technology.
From his awkward angle, John can see him sitting on the bed beside him, still naked, a look of concentration on his face. His hand is moving over John’s back, but there’s no way John can turn his head enough to see what he’s doing. He can feel it, though, the quick, sure glide of something hard and pointed on his skin, a series of short, irregular lines purposefully drawn. It feels like…
"Rodney. Are you writing on my back?"
The scraping continues undeterred, shifting down towards his loins, the pace unhesitating even while Rodney answers him.
"Yes, Colonel. I’m writing on your back. How very perceptive of you to notice. Now, if you’d kindly refrain from making any more keen observations and let me get on with it. You usually show a remarkable talent for post-orgasmic stupor; I suggest you use it."
For a second, John considers asking for an explanation or demanding his release, but Rodney sniping at him is oddly reassuring, and post-orgasmic stupor really is one of his favorite pastimes.
"That had better not be permanent marker," he says and lets his head drop back to the pillow, eyes falling shut.
The thing within him keeps purring under the touch of the pen.
It feels like a long time later when Rodney presses a hand to his flank and tells him "Roll over." But he’s still tied up and still drifting in the state of mind where his body leaps to do what Rodney says, and he pulls his knees up beneath him without really thinking, getting the leverage to flip over onto his back without use of his hands.
There is a peculiar, unexpected sensuality in the steady brush of Rodney’s writing over every available inch of his skin, from his bound wrists to the back of his calves, and by now he is half hard, tingling with the beginnings of new arousal. When the motion of turning over makes the rope dig into his flesh, his cock jerks and he lets out a sharp, shuddering breath.
Rodney reaches for him instantly, with his left hand, the one that doesn’t hold the pen, and there is a rather insufferably smug smile on his lips, but his fingers on the side of John’s face are gentle, reverent, his thumb tracing the curve of John’s lips with slow precision. The look in his eyes makes John’s heart falter, hover for a second between one beat and the next like a jumper by the gate before the wormhole settles. Then Rodney shakes himself, shifts his focus, and the writing resumes.
He can watch now, see the signs take shape, and of course they aren’t words but numbers, equations, scrawled in oxblood ink across his torso. Not general formulas, he realizes, but specific calculations. Row upon row of them, in Rodney’s strong, untidy handwriting, flowing from him at the speed of light like the stream of his thoughts, the rush of his speech. The characters are upside down to John, many of them half obscured or cut through by the dark hairs on his chest, and most of it makes no sense. Except…
"Rodney. Did you finally snap under the weight of your own unparalleled genius, or is there actually a reason why you’re using my chest to calculate the escape velocity of a puddle jumper?"
Rodney waves an impatient hand, keeps writing, a different equation spilling down the ladder of John’s ribcage.
"I had to pick something to write. It seemed appropriate. And as for the burden of genius, I‘d have you know…"
"Rodney."
That tone of voice gets him Rodney’s attention, as it always does, even if there are bullets flying around their ears or the city is about to blow up any minute, and the writing stops.
Rodney looks at him, grey eyes calm and warm and knowing, and lets his hand settle in the center of John’s chest, a solid weight splayed across the arabesque of numbers, holding him in place through the mathematical certainty of the jumper soaring into space.
"It’s all right, John," he says. "You’re going to like this, I promise. Just lie still for me a while longer."
And John does, while the pen caresses his skin and the calculations spread over his body, although he has no idea what it is he’s going to like.
His arms are numb by the time Rodney puts the pen aside, and the only part of him not covered in writing is his hardened cock. That’s more than all right, though, because Rodney bends to paint it with his tongue, breathes words of appreciation along the length of it before taking it all the way inside.
John comes with every inch of his skin still tingling, strangely alive with Rodney’s scribbling.
When he wakes up in the morning, Rodney is gone. Which is more common than not, and what John has said he prefers, anyway. It’s not as if they can make a habit of walking over to breakfast together, and - though that’s not something he’d say - it’s easier not to miss, not to provoke Rodney’s touch in the daylight when he’s already started the day without it. There’s nothing odd about Rodney being gone.
There’s something decidedly freakish about the fact that the writing is gone, too.
John ends up spending nearly as much time searching his body for non-existent traces of ink as he would have spent in the shower scrubbing it off, had it actually been there, and as a result he doesn’t arrive in the jumper bay until the rest of the team is already assembled and ready to go. Which in turn means that he doesn’t get a chance to corner Rodney on his own to ask him about magically disappearing ink and what the hell last night was for, anyway, before they’re seated on opposite sides of a conference table on MX6-279, immerged in scheduled trade negotiations with representatives of the Langovian government.
Negotiations that, by the sound of it, are going to drag on until the end of time.
"Yes, that is highly interesting," the Langovian consul says, three hours in, nodding at Beckett’s description of the medical knowledge they’d be willing to share in exchange for a supply of the superconducting mineral that Rodney has his heart set on, "but if you look at it from the point of view of my people, the questions we have to ask ourselves are several…"
John shifts in his chair and lets his eyes wander around the table. Takes in the faces of the Langovian officials who haven’t changed their expression of polite but guarded interest since they entered the room; Teyla, serene and understanding, perfectly on top of the conversation, waiting to guide it back in the direction they want it to go with a soft-spoken remark; Ronon, seated far down the table, looking, if possible, even more bored than John feels; Rodney…
Rodney, sitting directly across from him, turned towards the speaking consul, wearing the expression that passes for polite on him in situations like these, but must read as open annoyance to anyone who hasn’t seen him - or, more importantly, heard him - openly annoyed. His right forearm is resting on the table, his fingers silently tapping an impatient rhythm on the polished wood.
John shifts again, fighting back the sudden ache to feel those fingers on him, broad and strong and demanding.
"We recognize the validity of your concerns, Consul," Teyla says, "but let me reassure you…"
It comes out of nowhere, a light brush of heat down the length of his arm, beneath his shirt, slowly travelling from shoulder to wrist, and he sits up straight, scans the room again with slitted eyes. But nothing is different, no one has made any move at all; everyone’s attention is still on Teyla, on the calm, honey-gold flow of her words.
Then he feels it again. Stronger this time, a firm, fiery touch tracing a pattern over his skin.
He lifts his hand from the armrest of the chair, pushes the sleeve of his jacket back a little, as if checking his watch. On his arm, half obscured by the wristband, a capital sigma flashes deep orange like the glow of a dying flame, and he feels it there, unmistakably, tangible and warm on his flesh, before it fades into nothing.
So much for disappearing ink.
When he raises his head, Rodney is watching him from across the table. John holds his arm up, sends Rodney a hard look that he hopes properly conveys What the fuck?
Rodney smiles at him. Slow and smug and every bit as pleased with himself as the last time he’d managed to hotwire a DHD with guns pointed at his head, using spare parts from a civilization at roughly the developmental level of Earth in 1903.
John narrows his eyes.
A warm, intricate caress runs up the inside of his thigh, melts into the sensitive skin. Like invisible fingers sliding beneath the fabric of his pants, beneath the straps of his holster. He has to clench his jaw against the sigh that wants to escape.
"Perhaps this would be a good time to break for lunch?" the consul says.
There is a lot of mingling in the hallway, obligatory small talk with their hosts that would make John fidget on the inside even on the best of days, and by the time he catches up to McKay by the buffet table, Rodney is already holding a plate overloaded with what looks like pot pies.
"You should try these, Colonel," he says between bites, waving a half-eaten pastry in his hand. "They’re quite delicious, if you don’t mind the sort of mango-meets-Dijon mustard quality of the…"
John grabs him by the elbow and steers him roughly away from the crowd, towards a quiet spot by the French doors that lead out onto the terrace. One of the Langovian women gives them an odd look as they pass, and he shoots her what is hopefully one of his more charming smiles before letting go of Rodney’s arm and turning on him.
"What the hell did you do?" he demands under his breath.
Rodney pulls himself straighter, striking a pose as if about to launch into a particularly impressive scientific explanation.
"Well, the pen I used last night, obviously…"
"Obviously was not a pen, but some kind of previously unknown Ancient device that you decided to test on my body, without my permission. Do you even…"
"Oh, please." Rodney waves the pastry again, and this time the gesture speaks volumes on his opinion of John’s intelligence. "Like I would expose you to this without having tested it first. It’s perfectly safe, it will come off after a few showers, and it actually is a pen. The Ancient version of invisible ink, it would seem. The writing disappears, then reappears when you think of what you’ve written. Intended for some kind of secret intelligence work, no doubt. I was thinking of using it for my notes on reversing the neutron flow in the shield generators. Kavanagh always seems to turn up, looking over my shoulder when I’m working on them. I wouldn’t put it past that little weasel to…"
"Rodney."
"Yes, right. I haven’t worked out yet whether the physical sensation associated with using the pen on skin is a deliberate function, or merely a side effect. It’s a pretty interesting side effect, though, wouldn’t you say?"
And that smile isn’t as much smug as it is perfectly wicked.
"So you…what? Scribbled all over me so you can feel me up from across the room when you’re bored at meetings? Don’t you have better things to do?"
"It’s what you want, though, isn’t it?" Rodney says, placing the pie back down on his plate, taking a step closer. Fixing John with a gaze that is suddenly razor-sharp. "It’s what you need, but won’t let yourself have. To be felt up, to be touched, to be acknowledged and owned, even where everyone can see it. To feel my hands on you and know that you belong, remember that something anchors you, holds you here, won’t let you fly away. Tell me that’s not what you want, John."
There’s not enough oxygen in the room, and Rodney is too close, far too close for comfort.
Not close enough.
He swallows down the sudden, irrational wave of fear. Tilts his head speculatively.
"So you just have to think about something you wrote? Like…"
"Like the escape velocity of a puddle jumper," Rodney supplies, the curve of his lips all self-assurance and suggestion.
Touch flares across John’s chest, intimate and solid and there.
And there is light rain against the window and the smell of mango in his nostrils from the pie, and in this room with them are twenty people who should never see the things he wants.
For a moment, he closes his eyes and lets the warmth of Rodney’s scribbles, Rodney’s thoughts, wrap around him like an embrace.
When the consul comes over and asks how they’re enjoying the food, his smile feels genuine, and his mind almost doesn’t fidget at all.
Rodney, however, takes the opportunity to give an enthusiastic speech on how the Atlanteans and the Langovians alike, not to mention the entire galaxy, would benefit from the unthought-of uses his exceptional mind would find for the superconducting mineral. Teyla appears at his elbow to smooth things over just before he actually calls the entire Langovian population idiots in so many words.
The pot pie, it turns out, really is quite good.
That night, Ronon rides shotgun as John flies them back to the gate, but Rodney’s touch rests on his thigh through the half-light, all the way home to Atlantis.
