The Athosians really knew how to throw a party, John thought appreciatively. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. Marines and scientists were mingling on the dance floor, almost indistinguishable in their best civilian clothes. He was glad about that - it had taken a while for the ice to break between Atlantis' resident geeks and their protectors, but all the dangers they had conquered together had turned them into a close-knit community. It was hard enough to live in such close quarters all the time, always seeing the same old faces, without rivalries and ill-will between the two groups. Weir was joking with Teyla, looking a bit flushed from the strong alcohol already. Good for her - she had so much responsibility resting on her shoulders all the time, sometimes John worried how she was coping with it all. He himself certainly had his fair share of lying awake and turning decisions over in his mind again and again. It was good to get away from all that for an evening.

The only one missing was Rodney. John figured there had to be some kind of emergency in the labs, because usually an army couldn't keep Rodney away from a well-stocked buffet like this one. He only hoped that whatever it was wouldn't keep him there all night. Rodney would hate missing the party. And John had been kind of hoping for a bit of nice, half-drunken sex afterwards. Unless Rodney decided he'd rather spend the night with Katie Brown, of course.

"Hey, did you hear about Harris and Trevell already?" Brown said directly behind him, as if conjured up by his thoughts, and he almost turned before he realized that she was talking to one of the female Marines sitting on the bench beside his.

"No, what about them?"

"He broke up with her. Must have been really ugly - yesterday she suddenly started crying in the lab, right in front of everyone, I felt so sorry for her..."

John rolled his eyes at the gossip. Brown's voice was full of honest kindness and empathy, not gloating or anything, but the woman just grated on his nerves in an entirely unreasonable way, these days.

He got up, mostly to get away from the gossip, and wandered over to the buffet. Maybe he should save Rodney something to eat, before it was all gone.

Right as he was thinking that, Rodney finally appeared, so he sat back down instead, at another table this time. Rodney was still in the science team uniform - not that he wore anything else all that often, but usually he did at least make an effort for parties like this. He grabbed some things from the buffet almost randomly and sniffed them suspiciously. They had yet to find anything even remotely resembling lemons in the Pegasus galaxy, but Rodney didn't seem to want to shake the habit of being careful.

John watched him down two glasses of the strong Athosian ale in quick succession, grimacing. All right, what was up with that? Usually Rodney didn't even like the stuff. Trying to catch up with the general level of drunkenness, or trying to fortify himself for something? In any case, Rodney didn't exactly look like he was enjoying himself.

He was distracted from the thought by Harris walking through his field of vision, standing next to Rodney - or rather, next to the bottles of ale - and taking a glass for herself. She was wearing a very short red dress that emphasized her long legs, and looked like she was making a very determined effort to have fun. John remembered that phase from some of his worse breakups, the stage of trying to prove to yourself that there were other nice people in the world, and most of them found you attractive, so why pine after the one who didn't?

He knew Harris only briefly, the same way that you knew pretty much everyone after months in the company of only a few hundred people - a few short conversations in the mess, a vague impression of a smart woman with a nice sense of humour - but it never hurt to be nice, and maybe it would make her feel a bit better. Her eyes did light up a bit when he came over and smiled at her.

"Enjoying the party?"

"Oh, sure, I'm having a great time," she said, with an enthusiasm that sounded almost like the real thing, if you squinted.

"That's a really nice dress," he said, letting his eyes linger on her shapely legs for moment, which made her smile look a bit more real. Which was what he'd been aiming for.

They exchanged a few more pleasantries, and then John extricated himself, walking over to Rodney, who had been watching them, and was now grimly throwing back another glass of ale.

Rodney was in that strange mood all evening. He sat down on the bench next to John and proceeded to fidget for the following two hours, picking at his food with a completely atypical lack of enthusiasm, not saying anything at all for long stretches of time and then suddenly segueing into restless babbling.

John tried not to let it distract him from having fun, because he'd been looking forward to this evening, and he deserved to kick back and relax occasionally, damn it. But usually Rodney was at least half his entertainment on events like this - bantering, complaining about the deplorable abundance of citrus on earth buffets and, once he had a few glasses down, making the most incredibly lame jokes. He missed that easy camaraderie, and Rodney's restlessness was starting to rub off on him, too.

It was pretty clear that Rodney had something on his mind that he didn't want to talk about on the party. John was starting to worry a bit - he was pretty sure that Rodney wouldn't have just sat around here if anything really dire had happened, and half of Atlantis would already know about it by now if he was sick, but still, Rodney's uneasiness was unsettling.

He seemed to be waiting impatiently for John to get up and leave, completely ignoring everything else around them - even Brown, who kept throwing him inviting looks from her table.

John gritted his teeth for a moment, and then gave her his best charming smile. No need to be petty - from the looks of things, Rodney would be coming back to his quarters tonight, if only to talk about whatever it was that had him so nervous - with the mood Rodney was in, the chances for sex didn't look too good.

Open relationship, John reminded himself sternly. You agreed to that right at the beginning, remember? So stop it.

Finally John figured it was late enough he could get away without being impolite and took mercy on Rodney, saying goodnight and hearing Rodney jump up and stammering some improbable excuse to their hosts on why he had to leave now now now, sorry, urgent experiment waiting for me behind him.

John expected him to blurt out whatever it was he had been quietly freaking out about all evening the minute the door to his quarters closed behind them. Instead he found himself pinned to the bed by Rodney, whose mouth was set in that determined expression it never paid to argue with. Whatever it was Rodney wanted to say would just have to wait, then. John could get with this program.

He traced a hand down Rodney's side and then reached for the shirt's zipper, but Rodney reached out and grabbed his wrists, gently pulling John's hand away.

"Can I - I'd like to take care of you, tonight. Will you let me?" he said, hesitantly. He tugged John's arms up over his head and held them against the headboard with a pleading look, until John nodded and left them there, gripping one of the bars lightly.

He wasn't really sure where Rodney was going with this. He'd played the occasional game with former lovers, and if this was just Rodney wanting to tie him to the bed, sure, he was game for that. But it didn't look like that was what Rodney had in mind. His whole demeanor, the way he was tenderly undressing and caressing John, didn't seem to fit in with a dominance fantasy. This seemed to be all about John's pleasure.

Although some of Rodney's weird mood seemed to carry over into the sex. He was uncharacteristically silent and serious about it, focused, concentrating on John's body the way he concentrated on interesting pieces of technology in his lab, trying to figure out their secrets.

It should have been weird, or clinical, but no one who had ever seen Rodney use all his brilliance, all his passion to take something apart and put it back together better could think that he was clinical about anything that caught his interest. John had always found himself turned on by that intense focus, and being treated like he was an Ancient artefact himself was indescribably hot.

John loved how inventive and playful Rodney usually was in bed, how sex with him was just so much fun in addition to being really good, but this was amazing, too, in a different way - exciting, and incredibly intense.

He could feel Rodney's cock leaking a wet trail across his thigh, but Rodney completely ignored it, concentrating instead on finding all the best ways to make John's body sing.

He was taking his time about it, too - John had never been seduced so thoroughly, so patiently and painstakingly carefully in his life. He was iron-hard from the second Rodney's lips touched his naked chest, but Rodney didn't so much as look at his cock for a long time after that.

John lost track of how much time had passed almost right away, but it seemed like Rodney spent an eternity teasing him, nibbling and stroking and licking. John was trembling, and his hands ached from being clenched around the headboard for so long. Rodney was driving him crazy, God, he couldn't remember ever feeling like that.

At some point he looked up, eyes automatically catching on the green fluorescence of the watch that was hanging lopsidedly on his wrist in the dim light, and it was almost an hour later. And John still hadn't gotten to come even once.

"Oh, Rodney, please," he begged, shamelessly, voice low and hoarse with sex and need. Rodney lifted his head and grinned up at him, eyes wide with fake innocence, spoiling the effect with his wet, swollen lips and the smug, excited little curl to a corner of his mouth.

"Feel good?" he asked, licking his lips slowly. John groaned.

"Oh, don't stop, why did you stop?" He was whining, he knew he was whining, and he just didn't care. This was so, so, good, or at least it had been until Rodney had stopped doing whatever wicked thing he had been doing with his mouth for some unfathomable, cruel reason.

"Tell me you like it," Rodney ordered softly, voice deep and low and eager. John's hips jerked.

"I love it," he said breathlessly, "It's great, best ever, don't stop, please." He gripped the headboard tighter and tilted his hips up, touched the head of his cock to Rodney's lips lightly, pleading, shuddering at the little pang of sensation.

Rodney laughed softly, warm exhalation of breath on John's wet, sensitive skin, making him shiver.

"Please," John said again.

Rodney lowered his head and brushed his cheek over the shaft, very, very lightly, stubble scratching just the tiniest bit, and still almost too much for nerves that were hypersensitive by now. And then Rodney grinned at him, licked his lips and made a little O with his mouth, let John's cock slip through it, tightly, wetly, his eyes still fixed on John's face.

John whimpered, arching his back and throwing his head back, mostly because he felt like it, and a bit because he knew Rodney liked to watch him like that.

Rodney's eyes went wide and dark, and he did something with his tongue that should have been illegal, or at least classified as a deadly weapon, because clearly it did horrible things to people's brain cells.

"Oh, so good, come on, please," John begged, trying once more to establish a rhythm that would allow him to come, and this time Rodney let him, swallowing him deep and letting him thrust like he wanted to, one hand stroking John's thigh and the other pressing up firmly behind his balls in the perfect place to make him see stars.

Three more thrusts and he was coming, forcing himself to keep his eyes open until his vision greyed out, because he wanted to see this, Rodney swallowing around him with a happy, satisfied sound in his throat, looking up at him with awe in his eyes.

John would never, ever fail to get the shivers at that look, not if he saw it for a thousand years. No one had ever looked at him like that before, like he was the most sexy thing, something amazing, and Rodney only ever did it when he thought John wasn't looking. But this time he held John's gaze and smiled at him with his eyes, and John felt his cock give one last, exhausted twitch in Rodney's mouth.

Rodney pulled off right before he would have become too sensitive to stand the touch. John unclenched his hands from the headboard and sprawled limply on the bed, promising himself just one minute to recover before he'd take care of Rodney.

Rodney didn't seem to need any help there, though - John heard the rustling plastic sound of a condom wrapper tearing, the tube of lube popping open, and then Rodney was sliding slick fingers between his legs.

John let his leg drop to the side, out of Rodney's way, but otherwise didn't move. Rodney was perfectly welcome to fuck him, but John hoped he didn't expect any active participation, because he was never, ever getting hard again, Rodney had broken him, he was all fucked out for the rest of his life. Or at least until tomorrow.

Rodney was opening him up with gentle fingers, easily, because John already was as relaxed as he'd ever been in his life. Rodney kept looking up at him as if to check that he was all right with this, sending him a hesitant smile.

"Is this good?" he asked.

John stretched lazily and flexed his stomach muscles, showing off a bit, and tightened around Rodney's fingers. Rodney gasped. John hid his grin in the pillow.

"I'm good", he said. "You just go on there."

Rodney nodded and knelt up, suddenly looking all focused again, lifting John's legs and putting them up on his shoulders. They didn't do it like that a lot. Rodney said just looking at John all folded up like that made his back hurt, but John secretly suspected that it was more because that way he had to hold himself and John's legs up, and he just preferred the less strenuous positions.

John himself liked it face-to-face, though. The angle was nice, he got to watch Rodney come, and he'd always been flexible, especially since he'd started training with Teyla, so it wasn't uncomfortable. Rodney was just indulging him in every way, tonight, wasn't he?

Rodney was gripping his own cock with fingers that were shaking slightly, and John suddenly realized that he, too, had been hard for over an hour by now. He'd been so cool about it, so patient, tending to John as if he had all the time in the world to do nothing but make John feel good. John hadn't even thought about how he must be holding back, himself.

Well, he'd get some of his own now. John arched invitingly, sliding a leg down to curl around Rodney's back and draw him closer.

Rodney stroked the inside of John's thigh tenderly, then he braced himself beside John's hip with one hand and slid into him, slowly, steadily, stopping when he was all the way inside. For a moment John held him there with his leg, breathing deeply and adjusting to the familiar pressure - a bit weird, now that he wasn't hard, but still deeply satisfying even like that - and then he let go and nodded.

He was expecting Rodney to start thrusting right away. He had to be hurting by now, after all. But Rodney stayed perfectly still, muscles trembling slightly, watching his own hand stroking John's chest. His lips were moving, John noticed after a moment. Reciting something - some kind of numbers, from the looks of it.

John knew that tactic from himself, when he was trying not to come too soon, but usually he did that when he wanted his partner to come before he did, not after he'd already spent an hour solely on the other's pleasure. Not when he wanted it as badly as Rodney obviously did.

Rodney's hand had wandered further down by now, into the crease between John's thigh and his crotch, his thumb tucked under John's flaccid cock.

"You're -" in for a disappointment with that, he'd meant to say, except his cock was already twitching again, impossibly, and Rodney smiled at him and closed his hand around it, tugging gently until John was almost fully hard.

He'd stopped reciting the numbers, but he was still breathing in harsh gasps, muscles bunched tight in his back. He was so obviously wanting to move so very badly. John tightened around him, encouragingly, making him moan, but Rodney held on stubbornly until John was fully hard again. Only then did he start moving, in slow, controlled thrusts, hitting him where it counted.

John was already moaning, Rodney's hand moving on his cock in perfect counterpoint to his thrusts, and he was going to come again any minute now, God, yes, now -

Rodney had obviously been paying attention, because he finally let go, bending John almost double and thrusting hard, reaching out blindly with his come-stained hand and grabbing John's, clutching and crying out and pulsing inside him for what felt like an eternity.

John watched him greedily, drinking in the sight of Rodney with his head thrown back, pale, sweat-glistening throat exposed, gasping for breath. Storing up memories for those nights when he was alone in his bed, when Rodney was - somewhere else. In the lab, or... elsewhere.

Finally Rodney pulled out and flopped down beside John, grinning at him giddily. "Liked it?" he asked.

John laughed, gesturing vaguely at his still come-spattered stomach.

"Like you even have to ask," he said affectionately, and then, because Rodney was still looking at him kind of hopefully, "Yeah, it was great. Best ever. Really."

It always was. Sex with Rodney had been amazing from the start. Which really wasn't all that surprising. He'd always known that Rodney was smart and creative, and having all that brilliance focused on his pleasure - well, it was just as good as he'd imagined. Even better, tonight, when Rodney had gone to such lengths to drive him out of his mind.

Rodney was curling up against him with a happy little sigh, one finger drawing aimless patterns on John's skin, his hand curling around John's biceps for a moment, then sliding up into John's hair, gently carding through the strands, and then down again to trace the shell of his ear.

He was touching John like he was trying to memorize the little details of him, like he thought there might be a test later. John suddenly recognized it as a continuation of the restless fidgeting from the party, in a different form. He had all but forgotten about that, what with all the amazing sex, but now it was coming back with a might. He was wondering whether Rodney would come out with it now, or whether he had lost his nerve.

"So, uh..." Rodney started, hesitantly. So that talk was still on, then. Rodney cleared his throat and started again.

"So, we've had some pretty spectacular sex, right?" Rodney said, and then paused, as if he really needed John to confirm that.

"Yeah, sure," John said, wondering where the hell Rodney was going with this.

"And, um, we've had some great times together, and I, I really like you - "

Oh God. John knew this speech. He'd heard it before, it was the "Dear John" speech, the one with the big "but" at the end. Rodney was breaking up with him. Fuck.

The air suddenly felt cold on his still sweat-damp skin, and he tugged the covers over himself with a jerky, angry motion.

Rodney paused to throw him a nervous glance, so John forced a tight smile, trying to look encouraging. He wanted this over with.

Rodney swallowed and continued, quickly, "So I, uh. I realize this is going to sound incredibly High School. Not that I ever had to say anything like this in High School, I mean, that was just one long row of girlfriends breaking up with me, well, at least that's the way I remember it, although my perception might be skewed by -"

"Rodney!" John said, but what he thought was Get to the damn point already, miserably, because as much as Rodney's babbling usually amused him, right now it just felt like getting his nails ripped out very slowly.

"Um, yeah. Sorry. What I wanted to say is - as I've said, I've thought about our relationship a lot, recently, and, um... I thoughtmaybewecouldbe exclusive?"

"Um, what?" John said, caught off guard. This was... not what he'd expected. He wasn't even quite sure what it was.

"Um, exclusive, as in, just you and me, no dating other people?" Rodney's eyes were darting around the room nervously, and he was twisting a corner of the sheet between his hands. "I mean, we don't have to, if you'd rather... I know you have this thing with that biologist, Harris something or other? So if that's, like, anything serious, or..." Rodney was getting more nervous by the second now, trailing off into blathering.

"I don't have a thing with Harris," John said weakly. He kind of felt like he'd been rolled over by the Rodney-truck. It wasn't exactly a new feeling, but he'd been steeling himself for a break-up, and this had thrown him for a complete loop.

Rodney rolled his eyes. "Oh, please, you were so totally flirting with her, I saw you."

"I was complimenting her dress!" John said, and he knew he was arguing about the wrong thing, who cared about fucking Harris, except he still didn't know what to say to the other thing.

"Brown was gossiping about how she's had this ugly break-up with her boyfriend last week, so I thought, be nice, make her feel better. Alright, maybe I ogled her legs in that dress a bit, whatever, it's not a thing."

"Oh", Rodney said, and then, "Oh!"

"Anyway, what's with you and Brown? I mean, I knew you weren't exactly all that serious, but..."

"There is no 'me and Brown'", Rodney said firmly. "She's still pining a bit, I think - I mean, who wouldn't?"

John rolled his eyes at him, and Rodney threw him a mock-hurt glance. "Hey! Oh, all right. So somehow she got the idea that I'm a sensitive and caring guy underneath it all -" he grimaced dramatically, and John, who knew that Rodney was a sensitive and caring guy underneath it all, but probably not in the way Brown imagined, smiled at him.

"And, well, you seemed to have your heart set on the open and casual relationship thing, what with Harris -" he held up his hand, making the 'Shut up, I already know' gesture that had used to piss John off, once upon a time, but only made him grin now - "yes, whatever, there is no you and Harris, but I didn't know that. So I thought I. Um. Didn't need to tell you. Because I was not going to be the only one who doesn't get to fuck around in this relationship. Speaking of that. I'll just take the lack of any detectable enthusiasm as a no, then? I mean, not that it's that much of a big deal, just forget I ever said anything, it was kind of a stupid idea, anyway...."

Rodney's mouth slanted in a tight, uneven line that was probably supposed to symbolize a smile. He'd looked a bit like that for a whole week, once, after they had lost that first ZPM - trying to pretend that it didn't matter, that it wasn't eating him up to have lost something that would have made their lives so much easier, safer, that he didn't feel like he had failed. Trying to hide that he was hurting.

John reached out and touched a finger to the corner of Rodney's crooked, unhappy mouth, tugging it upwards a little bit. "Good thing I like your stupid ideas, then, isn't it?" he said gently, and watched a small glimmer of hope light up in Rodney's eyes.

"So you want to -" Rodney prompted hopefully, and John sighed. There was just no way in hell the words "be exclusive" would pass his lips, ever.

"I don't want anyone else, Rodney," he said, seriously, feeling warmth spread through his body and letting a smile spread across his face, trying to make it mean all the things he couldn't quite say - love you, and no one, ever, and never been so happy.

Rodney grinned at him, and for a moment there was a sunrise of emotions right there on his face - relief, and his very own, dizzy kind of happiness. He flopped down on the bed and turned his face away. And then he looked right back up, as if he had to reassure himself that John was still there. John watched him trying to compose his face into the usual smug facade, and not really quite getting there.

"So there was never any chance of you saying no, right?"

John suspected that the "right?" came out a bit more questioning and less sure than it had been intended to.

"No," he said firmly. He assumed that Rodney would be impossible to live with for weeks, once he'd manage to convince himself that he'd known that from the start.

"Ah, I knew you wouldn't be able to resist my many charms." And that was relief, right there. John had spent years flying soldiers out of battle zones, he knew relief when he saw it. Clearly, this called for a bit more physical reassurance.

John tackled him, already laughing. Rodney wheezed breathlessly and started complaining about his back, but when John settled down on top of him, Rodney subsided, putting his arms around him. After a moment, he laced his fingers tightly behind John's back.

=end=