1. Message in a Bottle

The sand was blisteringly hot, even through the blanket Rodney had set up under the umbrella John had miraculously secured in the shifting sand so that it did not blow away. Rodney wandered down to the water's edge to cool his feet, looking around in surprise at their cozy picnic set up. Rodney was not sure how they got all that crap to such an isolated spot anyway.

It was a pretty location nestled against a volcanic cliff. The waves were tall and incredibly regular, which was all John needed to keep him happy for hours. Rodney would never openly compare John to a Labrador Retriever, but the analogy was stuck in his brain. He wondered if that made himself some kind of water-averse breed like a bulldog. Not that bulldogs were known for their intelligence, though, so he stood with his feet cooling off in the surf ticking off dog breeds in his head for a more suitable match to his personality, although he supposed he was too much like a cat.

Which was some kind of proof that the sun was rotting his brain, even under his protective, wide-brimmed hat. He contemplated returning to the umbrella.

John was frolicking—no other word for it, at all—in the surf with his large surfboard, looking sleek and slick as he emerged from the waves. That was the real reason Rodney kept migrating back to the water, to get closer to John's mostly-naked body.

He thought the sun should have felt hotter against his skin, given how the sand was burning his feet, but it was bright and the glare made it hard to stare at the water too long. The neon-blue sea glinted like a diamond, and the softest point in it was the hardest man Rodney had ever met: hard to know, hard to love, and hard as steel in battle. Rodney could easily watch John for hours, because despite how close they were, he was still a mystery in a so many ways, and Rodney loved puzzles. He sometimes wondered if he would lose interest in John once he figured out the enigma.

John, though, seemed to understand Rodney completely and naturally with no effort, just like all the other impossible things that were the hallmarks of John's career (good and bad). So at least Rodney had hope that John was maybe more like a Lab than even his love of water and continuous retrieval of his surf board would indicate, and would never let Rodney wander too far. Even so, the thought brought up a small twinge of discomfort, something pinging somewhere deep in Rodney's prodigious (if he did say so himself) brain—that, like the crystal waters and the lonely beach and John's endless smiles, things that looked perfect often were hiding critical fault lines. It bothered him, but there was not much to do about it, like wiring the jumpers with a flawed Ancient crystal: it would fly, or it wouldn't, but the crystal was beyond repair either way.

"Whatcha thinkin'?" John drawled, suddenly in front of Rodney, water peeling off him and his board slung under one straining arm.

"That I'm getting sun stroke. And burned. Do I look burned?" He peered at his pale arms.

"You look hot."

"Of course I look hot! It's a million degrees out here in the sun. Did you miss the big yellow thing in the—mph!" Rodney tried not to squawk as John assaulted him with a bruising kiss.

"Not what I meant, Rodney," John whispered when he pulled off, trailing kisses along Rodney's jaw.

"What? Oh…oh!" He noticed peripherally that the board was floating motionlessly in the water, dropped by John and staying where it lay. Then he was distracted by John sucking on his earlobe. "Oh, God, John!" Rodney grabbed for John's waist, dragging him in closer until their bodies were pressed together. John smiled against his skin, and Rodney reveled in it. Neither of them were particularly fond of PDA, and John often acted more like a maiden aunt than Rodney's lover when it came time to get physical, preferring to let Rodney drive things along. It had surprised Rodney at first, but he just assumed that John was used to letting other people do all the work, which was fine with Rodney since once he got John's motor going things became more reciprocal. But John actually walking up and kissing him was unusual enough to get Rodney from 0 to 60 in seconds.

John pushed forward, obviously expecting resistance that Rodney was not physically or mentally willing to give, so when Rodney faltered backwards without letting go they ended up tumbling into the surf while kissing like a retread scene out of From Here to Eternity. Rodney started laughing, causing John to pull himself up on his arms over Rodney while the small waves tumbled around them.

"What?"

"That movie! That movie!" It was all Rodney could gasp out through his laughter.

To his credit, John only looked around them once before understanding lit up his face. "Burt Lancaster."

Rodney grinned. John could mean Rodney was Burt, or that John himself was Burt, or maybe that John had a crush on the movie star once. There was no point in asking, because John would not explain, but it was enough that they shared the joke. John settled back down slowly, pressing their bodies together inch by inch from top to bottom, the water turning warm and sloppy around them.

As slow as he was to start, John had a tendency to get very pushy once things got going, something Rodney had expected from the beginning but it was one of those revelations that had happened only after a while, when John reached some incommunicable comfort level and long past the time John had discovered all Rodney's secret erogenous zones. He was attacking one right then, a small spot just below Rodney's right ear that was lately in a state of perpetual bruising because, apparently, John liked the "marking" thing. Not that Rodney complained, except when he shaved every morning, but that was just for form anyway.

Rodney tried to use his weight to leverage John over but John wasn't having it, planting his legs wide and bearing down, anchoring himself in the surf as he nipped and sucked at Rodney's neck while Rodney moaned and squirmed under him.

"John!" Rodney wrapped his arms around John's back and squeezed, melding them together. The water came and went and cooled things down every few seconds, but the rhythm was having its own effect on them. John rolled his hips into Rodney's every time the water splashed up around them, then he let up when the water receded. Rodney's hips stuttered, trying to find a faster rhythm. Their cocks were pressed together through their wet swim trunks, adding a heavy weight that made everything twice as intense. Rodney squeezed again, and that time John got the message, thrusting harder against him.

"Fuck, Rodney, you piss me off so much, you know that?" John complained against Rodney's neck as their pace picked up. Rodney shifted his hands down to grab John's ass.

"Now you bring this up?" Rodney tipped his back to give John access and thrust his hips up hard at the same time, keeping John's ass cheeks firmly in hand. John groaned and pressed down with his whole body, shoving Rodney into the sand that was, surprisingly, not getting anywhere uncomfortable.

John shifted to nuzzle Rodney's ear. "This is the only way I can talk to you. I've missed you."

A lonely ache burned in Rodney's heart at the words, although it was confusing. John brought up the strangest things when they were having sex, but Rodney learned to just railroad past the weird and get to the good stuff.

He concentrated on slipping and sliding under John, rubbing their cocks together. "But I'm…oh! I'm here! Just a little more…fuck! John!"

John was gasping, short little hiccups of breath that Rodney recognized as the early stages of John's orgasm, so he held on as John hammered down on him until he came with a quiet grunt. Groaning loudly after the fact, John tipped to one side and with little finesse shoved his hand down Rodney's trunks.

"Yes, yes please yes—" Rodney babbled, still mostly held down by John's weight even as he tried to thrust his dick up into John's warm, tight hand.

"Come for me, Rodney. Do it." John stripped his dick hard and fast, just the way Rodney loved it.
"Yes! John! OH!" Rodney spasmed as a rush of water swirled around him, his orgasm making him as warm as the water he was in.

"Yeah, Rodney." John's voice was a whisper over the waves.

"Oh yeah. Yeah." Rodney grinned foolishly behind his closed eyes.

"Rodney?" John's voice faded in and out like the sun behind the clouds, distant yet loud. "Rodney!" Hands slapped lightly at his face until Rodney opened his eyes to the gloom. The lid of the cyrostasis unit locked into place over his head with a dangerous sounding pneumatic cough. Rodney blinked rapidly, his conscious mind convinced that there should be signs of sleep to clear away. Cryo didn't work like that though, and intellectually Rodney knew it. One moment Rodney was basking under John and the sun and the sea water in sated bliss and then in a fraction of a blink of time he was staring up at Lt. Col. John Sheppard, who looked pissed and bedraggled and exhausted. Rodney was disoriented and disappointed, but not sleepy.

He wasn't looking forward to sleep.

"Rise and shine, sleepy head." Sheppard's drawl was crusted and hoarse, and unamused. It took Rodney a few moments to realize that John probably had not spoken aloud since the day—night?—he closed the cover on Rodney's stasis unit.

"Uh, hey." Rodney stayed still, feeling limp.

Sheppard parked a hip on the edge of the unit. He had a five-day beard, or more like a two-day one given Sheppard's chia-like tendencies. It was still better than Rodney would look in a month, and he allowed himself a small moment of envy.

Sheppard quirked an eyebrow.

"Yes, yes, I know. Give me a damn minute."

Sheppard put both hands up in mock surrender but stayed put on the edge of the unit. Rodney rolled his eyes. "I'm fine. Just…it was a good one." He felt himself flushing. Sheppard noticed, of course.

"I guess she was blond, huh?"

Rodney lifted his chin, going for the challenge. "Brunette, if you must know."

Sheppard nodded his head thoughtfully, started to speak but coughed hard instead. Taking a deep breath, he tried again. "Good to mix it up."

The humor was there, but Rodney missed the spark. The strain between them had not abated in the four weeks Rodney had lived in the virtual reality of the stasis unit, making the memory of his time there with John sour.

Instead of answering the smirk that Sheppard was trying too hard to wear, Rodney concentrated on moving. The units were old even by Ancient standards and "defrosting" often resulted in pins and needles in weird places.

Sheppard peeled himself off his perch. He moved fluidly, strength coiled uselessly in every gesture. Rodney suspected Sheppard spent his shift going on long runs and doing calisthenics. It wasn't as if there was much by way of reading material on the particularly ancient Ancient starship, and the tasks Rodney left as instructions for Sheppard were never very time consuming, no matter how critical.

Rodney felt lost, but Sheppard looked like a soldier on a remote posting. Both facts were true: they were lost, and it was a very remote posting by any standard.

"Anything important?" Rodney snapped as he slowly sat up, his disappointment and despair finally pushing forward. Sheppard did not move a muscle to help, which was about what Rodney expected.

"Nothing. Everything went as scheduled." Sheppard's voice was flat.

"You checked Teyla and Ronon?"

Sheppard actually snarled at him. "I checked, McKay."

"Fine! Far be it for me to ask about my friends."

Sheppard had the grace to look chagrinned for a moment, flicking his eyes to the side. "They're fine. Sleeping soundly."

"Technically, stasis isn't sleeping, per se, it is—"

"I know what stasis is, McKay. They're fine," Sheppard repeated with a roll of his eyes.

Rodney nodded, too busy trying not to fall out of the unit to snap back as Sheppard so richly deserved. Sheppard watched his progress carefully with calculating eyes. Once, Rodney would have believed it was out of concern, but he knew better.

This marked their eighth month on the derelict ship. They were there because of Rodney: on Z7A-37B, he mistook a one-way transporter as a harmless scanning device. Could have happened to anybody, he reminded himself, but the fact was that it happened to him, less than four weeks after the disaster at Doranda. Whatever Rodney believed about Sheppard's own responsibilities in that fiasco paled under the unflinching glare of the Colonel, who took their stranding on the lost ship as a personal betrayal. It seemed to Rodney that Sheppard took all of Rodney's mistakes personally, which he did not consider entirely fair but it wasn't as if he had an argument to stand on because Sheppard would just deny it and that would be the end of that.

It had taken Rodney his first month rotation on duty to figure out they were, at least, still in the Pegasus galaxy. It wasn't until his second rotation that he got a general idea of where they were, which meant they weren't completely lost, just mostly.

It pained him to admit how much he missed his otherwise useless linguistics department. The ship ran on an old variant of Ancient that was markedly different from what had been lingua franca on Atlantis, and Rodney was spending the majority of this time translating crap before touching anything, just in case. It made Sheppard even more impatient since after eight months on board, Rodney had spent all four of his shifts elbow deep in the ship's computer but was only a fraction of the way towards getting the FTL engines online and ready to fly to Atlantis.

If it still existed.

The thought burned through his stomach. "How's stores?"

Sheppard shrugged. "The ship keeps making food. I'm trying not to think about it."

Rodney got his legs under him at last, but he clung to the unit for support. "Believe me, that's one section of the database I'm not translating."

Sheppard nodded. "Good." He shuffled closer, as if readying to catch Rodney if he tipped over. Rodney wondered if he actually would.

There was a hand at his elbow, startling him. "McKay—"

"I'm fine." Rodney pulled his arm back. Sheppard stepped away, putting several feet of space between them.

"I ran the tests you set up. Everything went by the book."

He looked expectant, and Rodney rolled his eyes. Sheppard was nothing if not subtle. "I just woke up. I don't know what the outlook is yet."

His shoulders sagging a bit, Sheppard studied the wall. "The outlook is long and boring."

Rodney stretched one leg out, then the other. "Maybe for a jarhead like you, but believe me, I've got plenty to keep me occupied."

"Marines are jarheads, McKay. I'm Air Force."

"Right, right; because that is what is important right now." Rodney rubbed his arms.

"I'd say so, given that I'm the pilot for this bucket."

"Which is ninety percent automated."

"Feel free to let me sleep through the next course correction."

"I've told you, it's not sleeping—"

"Shut the fuck up, McKay." Sheppard turned and walked out of the tunnel.

It was a marker of the ship's age that the stasis room was not a room, but something like an alleyway between cargo areas, obviously shoe-horned in after construction. On one hand, Rodney was humbled at being inside a time capsule of Ancient history, but on the other hand the damn crappy antique was annoying as piss. It had taken him several days to get the stasis chambers cleaned out (their occupants long, long dead) and restored, with Ronon pacing in frustrated boredom behind him the whole time. Everything about the relic took three times as long as Rodney estimated, which had not helped put Rodney in anyone's good graces.

He limped out after Sheppard, his legs still trying to remember how to work.

Sheppard was shaking out his sleeping bag in the erstwhile HQ they had set up in the main cargo area, foregoing the small and slightly creepy private bunks elsewhere. Rodney had thought when they put Teyla and Ronon in stasis that Sheppard would decamp for the bunks anyway, but he should have known that Sheppard would not willingly move far from his team during a crisis, even if the crisis could last for years and his team included Rodney.

After eight months of Rodney and Sheppard living there in turn, the cargo area was the only place on the ship that smelled human, something Rodney was unwilling to think about too much.

"Ah, home sweet home." Rodney grimaced as the meat-locker chill finally hit him. The whole ship was cold, because Rodney kept the life support to "just what we need and not one iota of energy more than that." By the end of the month, Rodney knew he'd be desperate to get back into the cyrostasis unit just to feel warm; the irony was not lost on him, but neither did he find it very funny.

"You'll get lots of rest."

"Hardly, I'll spend most of my time trying to fix the FTL drive."

"Good."

Rodney rolled his eyes again. The distance between them hurt, but that did not mean Sheppard wasn't over-acting the role of pissed off former friend. Anyone could make a mistake, including Rodney, and his mistakes were bound to be spectacular because it wasn't as if he was the damn janitor: he was dealing with the building blocks of whole sciences. Anyone with a brain could see that.

Except, obviously, Sheppard.

Sighing, Rodney unpacked his own sleeping bag, trying not to remember the warmth of affection he got from his private version of John in the VR. It wasn't much more than cold comfort, echoing the temperature of both the ship and their friendship. Sheppard seemed determined to hold Rodney at a distance as some kind of punishment, without noticing (or worse, caring about) the damage it was doing to them. Rodney knew Sheppard would just blame him for it anyway. He sighed as he unpacked his things from his backpack and wondering for the thousandth time why the damn ship did not have a laundry room. His clothes reeked; they could not spare much of the potable water the ship scrubbed for them to cleaning anything other than their bodies, and Rodney already had put them on once-a-week shower schedules.

The routine was they would spend two days "socializing" (it was Teyla's idea; despite the fact that she was in stasis, neither Rodney nor Sheppard wanted to be held responsible for disobeying her instructions). They were taking turns doing month-long rotations manning the ship and trying to get it back up to full capacity. Sheppard was driving, dealing with the direct ATA interface needed to steer the wash tub of a ship while Rodney spent his time playing Scotty. Teyla and Ronon had wanted to help, but they were worse than useless in the circumstances, using up life support energy that was needed elsewhere for no return since they could not give Rodney the help he needed. Not to mention they had been bored crazy after the first week. None of them argued when Rodney suggested they use the stasis units, because it was that or have Ronon start ripping the place apart with his bare hands.

The fact was, as Rodney explained at the time, that they were well and truly trapped, possibly for years depending on how much work it would take to get the FTL drives running. Rodney hoped for better, but that depended on whether the delicate machines needed a simple kick in the ass or complete overhauls. Rodney was on his fourth month-long rotation and he still could not answer that question. Every time Rodney got out of stasis, Sheppard looked more and more angry, but Rodney could not give him miracles this time. Another strike against their friendship, Rodney mused, fair or not.

Once Rodney got his own nest arranged (his sleeping bag and Ancient, indestructible thermal blankets to ward off the chill of the ship), it was the start of two long days of mostly not talking. They ate the highly suspicious and overly salty food that came out of the boxes in the ship's cafeteria, with only one joke from Sheppard about soylent green.

Rodney checked the stasis systems first, because those were clearly their highest priority and Sheppard knew jack shit about them. He noticed some interesting spikes in the VR data on Ronon and Teyla, spending half a day chasing them down just in case it was a glitch. It wasn't, but that did not tell Rodney much other than some information was being traded back and forth between the units. He decided to flag it to come back to, wondering if maybe the VR was designed to adapt environments based on multiple user input. It would be really handy for video game development, he decided as he made a note to himself.

The second day started the heavy lifting of going over the numbers from the tests Rodney had Sheppard run through the nav and engine systems. There were a lot of them, and a quick glance told him that the news was good, but he wanted to parse it out while Sheppard was there to answer questions.

As Rodney dug into the test results, Sheppard sat next to him, uncomfortably close so they could both watch the screens full of barely intelligible data. Rodney tried not to remember Sheppard panting against his skin as he was close to orgasm, or the feel of John sliding down Rodney's body to take him into his mouth. The VR system was hardly lacking in detail, and the memories were vivid. Rodney was constantly scooting away from Sheppard's proximity.

Finally, Sheppard noticed. Or maybe he always noticed, and finally got around to saying something. Either way, Rodney knew the jig was up.

"You got a problem with me, McKay?" Sheppard said, following along as Rodney skootched away. His voice was hard and there was a distinctly unbalanced look in his eye. Rodney cursed himself for not realizing that "stir crazy" might be a real condition, and that Sheppard was bruising for a fight with Rodney because he had no one else to take out his frustration on, among other reasons.

"You're breathing down my neck! It's not going to make anything go faster, so just, just, back off!"

"I like you better in the VR," Sheppard grumbled, his lips a tight line. Rodney opened his mouth for a comeback, but shut it quickly. Sheppard's body language was less "fuck off" and more "fucked up," and Rodney did not want to go there. He suspected Sheppard probably spent all his time in the VR finding ways to make Rodney pay for his sins, which should have been a terrible thought to consider except Rodney immediately married that idea to leather restraints and anal plugs, causing him to push Sheppard back so hard they both fell out of their chairs.

"Damnit, McKay! What the fuck?"

Rodney had unwisely forgotten just how good Sheppard's reflexes were; he wasn't a top gun pilot for nothing, and landed on Rodney, shaking him by his shoulders before Rodney could get his feet under him. "Let go!" Rodney yelled and struggled, his efforts at least dragging Sheppard off his knees to tumble them down again.

Instead of answering Sheppard flipped him over onto his stomach and tried to twist Rodney's arm up, but this was one move Ronon had drilled into Rodney during their training sessions. Rodney rolled into Sheppard's grip, pushing back with his elbows as his feet scrambled for traction. Sheppard cursed, spinning like a damn top to fall right back down on Rodney, pinning his arms while Rodney kicked out futilely.

It was in that moment, with a red faced and furious Sheppard staring down at him and their bodies pressed together in a way eerily reminiscent of their beachside tryst, that all the dominoes fell over in Rodney's brain, clicking one after another in a chain of insight. He worked best under pressure, and a slightly homicidal Air Force Colonel was exactly the key his brain needed to unlock the mystery. He gaped up at Sheppard.

"Burt Lancaster!"

Sheppard flinched as if stung before his eyes went wide, comprehension kicking through his brain where reason and sense failed.

"Ha! I was right!"

Sheppard was off him so quickly Rodney was still kicking before he realized he was free.

"I don't know what you're talking about, McKay," Sheppard said slowly, pulling one leg up to rest an arm over his knee. The pose was casual, but he was blushing red to the tips of his tippy ears and his eyes were guarded and suspicious.

"Oh no, you totally do! That stupid film, I hate it! But it's right up your alley, isn't it? All about military men sacrificing everything for honor or whatever. With Burt Lancaster getting lucky on the beach. That set up was all you!"

Sheppard continued staring at him, motionless as if carved from marble.

"I thought it was weird, that whole beach thing, you getting all handsy in the surf, not to mention the hickey fixation which is really not my usual style—"

"What the fuck, McKay?" Sheppard was going from cautious to pissed off again. Rodney started talking fast instinctively.

"The data exchange between Teyla and Ronon: it's not just info dumping, it's sharing their virtual realities! They're in there eating roast beast together while we suffer reconstituted muck out here!"

"We're not sharing realities. We can't. We're not in stasis at the same time." Sheppard looked like he was trying to convince himself of it.

"True, true. But I bet the VR system is saving up our experiences and feeding them back and forth between us. Hence, Burt Lancaster." Rodney waved a hand around, pleased with his deductions until he saw Sheppard's expression of horror, a look that bordered between utter betrayal and complete devastation. They sat staring at each other in silence as the weight of what Rodney had stumbled over hit them both like a really large hammer.

Finally Sheppard moved his mouth. "So you've been spying on me." He said it flatly, a statement of accusation drawn like a sword between them.

Rodney saw red. "What the fuck, Sheppard? Where do you get that?" He stood, pointing down at Sheppard who tensed up but did not move. "Is that really what you think of me? That I'm so goddamn desperate that I'd spy on a friend? Not that we're friends, I mean it doesn't really matter how many times we fuck in the VR it's not going to change your pathetic need to punish me for being human, is it? Because I have so many friends, I can just go around betraying their trust, out in the middle of fucking nowhere with this piece of crap starship—Hey!"

Sheppard had rolled forward, grabbed Rodney's pants, and with a quick pull Rodney was falling down again. He was about ready to continue his rant until John grabbed his face and kissed him.

And kissed him. And kissed him.

"John!" Rodney gasped, feeling dizzy from lack of oxygen.

"You piss me off so fucking much, McKay," Sheppard growled before slamming back down to kiss him again. Rodney was not too keen on dying from asphyxiation, but if he had to, then getting all the air sucked out of his lungs by John was the way to do it.

After another too-short break to drag air into their lungs, Sheppard started again, but slowly, mouthing his lips over Rodney's, his body relaxing inch by inch in Rodney's arms. Rodney wanted to ask what the hell was going on, but his libido overruled the idea by pushing his hips up to meet John's long, strong thigh.

"Oh, fuck. Fuck! John—"

"Shhh, shhhh. Shut up for once." John's fingers pressed against his lips in an unmistakable signal to be quiet as John turned his attention to Rodney's neck. "That spot, here." John sucked on the precise point of skin below Rodney's ear that he lavished so much attention on in Rodney's VR dreams, and Rodney shook with the realization of just how much of his private sexual fantasies had been revealed to John. He hadn't known, he had no idea, he did not even know how to look for those kinds of damn connections between the statis units, and—

"Shhhhh," John repeated, lifting his head up to ghost his lips over Rodney's mouth. "You really know how to get at me, don't you?"

John was too close to actually focus on, but Rodney shook his head. "Wasn't me, I'd never, it was the stasis units…John, please believe me, I know you won't, but damnit." Rodney thumped his head against the floor.

"Wasn't talking about the stasis units, Rodney," John whispered then kissed him again.

Rodney shoved him back. "What?"

John raised an eyebrow, obviously hoping that Rodney was fluent in semaphore.

"No really: what?"

John's jaw clinched for a moment before he answered. "Do I need to spell this out? Why the hell do you think you make me so fucking mad? I thought you were a genius." He stopped there, done with his less-than-in-depth explication. Rodney had seen Firefly fanvids on Youtube that were less cryptic.

"Never mind. Can we get back to the kissing?"

John snorted and obliged.

It almost felt the same as his memories of in the VR, but with an added dash of dirty reality. John stank of dirt and grime, and there was no pounding surf to wash away their sweat, nor was there a perfect and sun-burn-less Sun shining surreally above them. John's teeth hurt when they gnawed at Rodney's neck and he was heavier than Rodney had thought he was.

Rodney yelled out as John put the finishing, painful touches on the hickey, but the pain was dampened by John pressing his cock hard against Rodney's. As Rodney gasped for air and sanity, John pulled back, swiftly opened Rodney's pants, pulled them down his thighs and then tossed him onto his stomach like a trussed turkey.

"Hey!" Rodney pushed up on his hands, but John put one hand in the middle of Rodney's back and shoved him back down. "Oh my God, you were never this aggressive in the VR!" Rodney yelled, his voice muffed by his mangled sleeping bag.

"You were never aggressive enough, McKay."

"I don't…ugh! I don't do rough sex!"

John stretched out over his back, and Rodney felt John's naked cock against his ass, nestling up between his cheeks. "This isn't rough," John whispered in his ear.

Rodney was going for a caustic, withering reply when John started kissing across his shoulder to his spine, where he lovingly mouthed and sucked the skin until Rodney was practically undulating, trying to hump his sleeping bag. John's hand reached out blindly and grabbed Rodney's back pack, dragging it closer.

"Find your damn sunscreen."

"What? The beach was in the VR, Sheppard, in case you forget we're stuck in the cold, dark cargo hold of—"

"You are so fucking dense, McKay. It's for your ass," John hissed.

"Oh? Oh!" Rodney pulled frantically at various zippers until the jar tumbled out. "Just so you know, while I'm not opposed to getting tied up every once in a while—which, ah, I guess you know already—I'm not usually into this whole cave man thing."

John stopped cold behind him, his dick still pressing against Rodney's ass, hot and throbbing. "Is that what you think this is?"

"Er, no?"

John snorted then kissed the knob of Rodney's spine. "I want to feel this. I want to know we're not in that damn VR. I want…" He trailed off, apparently reaching his limit of emoting for the time being.

Rodney got it, though. Rodney knew John, who was still an enigma but not in this: John needed to know that Rodney wanted this as much as John did, wanted it enough to let John have whatever he needed. It wasn't about forgiveness or making up or fixing things; it was about moving on into something new.

It was so cold in the cargo space that Rodney's breath misted. He looked over his shoulder. "We're good. I'm good. Do it."

"Ever the romantic, McKay." John reached for the jar.

"Would you call me by my fucking name, Sheppard?"

John grabbed his arm and yanked it up, pulling Rodney's upper body into a twist so John could reach his mouth while still shoving his dick at Rodney's ass. The kiss was nearly frantic, all tongue and teeth, until John suddenly slowed it down, pulling away gently to nuzzle at Rodney's ear, nipping and licking at it until Rodney was shuddering.

"Rodney."

"John, John, John—"

"I got this," John said, lowering Rodney's arm down and sitting back on his heels. The cold air assaulted Rodney's ass for far too long before John's hands moved over him, one stroking his skin while the other moved slickly in between to nudge at Rodney's hole.

"We're going to use some of that precious water for a shower after this," Rodney moaned.

John laughed, and Rodney had to twist back again just to see it.

"Sex is supposed to be dirty, Rodney." John pushed two fingers in quickly, making Rodney curl up in surprise. "Shhhhh, breathe out. Shhhhh." John's other hand stroked his back and hips with firm, calming sweeps.

Rodney took big gulps of air, knowing that John wasn't going to slow down. He didn't want him to, but for all the sex he had imagined in the VR he was pretty damn close to being a born-again virgin physically, and it took all of his concentration to calm down. John didn't talk but went at opening Rodney up with a steady stroke of his fingers.

"John, fuck, do it!"

John chuckled. He grabbed Rodney's hips hard enough to bruise and Rodney was clutching at the material in his hands as he was breached wide open. John pushed his cock in slowly in one long stroke, holding Rodney steady as he bucked.

"Fuck! Fuckity fuck!"

"That's the idea," John gasped, breathless and hot behind Rodney.

Rodney let out a long moan as his body collapsed into the feeling of being penetrated. John settled close, his own hips nestled against Rodney's ass, holding still for whatever reason. Rodney whined a complaint, then scrabbled for purchase as John started fucking.

He fucked like a steam-powered porn star, or it felt that way to Rodney under him, nearly blinded with the sensations and sweat dripping down his face. John dropped his hips down, spreading his knees wide under Rodney's thighs. He yanked Rodney's shoulders up until Rodney was speared on John's lap, John thrusting up and kissing his back while holding Rodney in place.

It was all a blur from there, especially when John put one of Rodney's hands on Rodney's dick with a mumbled order to jack himself. Rodney was glad to oblige, unbalanced and fucked to the point of insensibility until he came with a shout of John's name. John clenched his arms tight around Rodney's chest and thrust up hard three times, coming with his usual breathless grunt. Rodney reached out in front of himself blindly as they fell forward, John shaking and unwilling to let go.

"Missed you," John gasped as they managed to settle, John still fully seated inside of Rodney and sprawled over his back.

It was the John Sheppard version of a declaration of love, and Rodney knew it. He said the first thing that came to his mind. "It was cold."

John kissed his neck. "We'll be home soon."

Rodney nodded, basking in the warmth.

#