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"This is so not a two man tent," Rodney says. "When we get back to Atlantis, I am composing an email to whichever imbecile back at the SGC decided in favour of requisitioning these, and that email will be scathing. It barely fits you and your hair, let alone the two of us—I'm convinced that Ronon only managed to get inside his tent because he managed to fold at least forty per cent of his body mass into some as-yet-unknown dimension, and that just can't be good. Anything that requires quantum mechanics at bedtime can never be a good thing, and that goes double when said bedtime is occurring off-world on a camping trip because Teyla decided that this was an excellent time of year to go gathering the what's-its-face berry, which let's face it is—"
Rodney's hardly drawn breath for the last five minutes, which is impressive—though the real interesting thing, John thinks drowsily, is that he's learned to tell that this is just common-or-garden grousing on Rodney's part. There's no real rancour behind Rodney's words, no piss-and-vinegar rage, just a force-of-habit stream of words whose surface meaning is given the lie by Rodney's sleepy tone, by how he's pressed warm up against John's side, head resting on John's chest. Rodney isn't as angry as he used to be any more; he isn't even as angry as he thinks he is. He's just a warm, grumbling heap of McKay, slowly slipping into sleep by John's side—leaves from today's berry-gathering expeditions still caught up in the mess of his hair; the light of the bulging yellow moon overhead filtering through the tent sides and turning his face familiar and strange all at once.
"R'ney?" John mumbles, patting Rodney on the shoulder with a hand made sleep-clumsy and slow. "Emails t'morrow. Sleep now."
Rodney wriggles against him, lets out a sigh gusty enough to speak of tremendous world-weariness, and then subsides. "If you insist."
"Mmpfh," John says.
"It's just that my back is quite delicate, and you're far too bony to be an adequate mattress, so—"
From the next tent over, there comes an aggravated grunt that can only be Ronon. "Sheppard, either blow him til he falls asleep, or I'll shoot him."
There's a brief silence, and then a scandalised hiss of Ronon! that can only come from Jennifer.
"Stop being a public nuisance, Rodney," John says, without so much as opening his eyes. Kind of cheeky for Ronon to start insisting on public consideration now, when he's been known to walk around Atlantis without pants. John has views on pants.
"Always the scapegoat," Rodney says mournfully. "And, I will point out, not even a blowjob to show for it. If I were a Buddhist—which I'm not, though I do think the Dalai Lama seems a sensible kind of individual—I'd be inclined to think that a previous incarnation of me had—"
From the other side of their tent, Teyla speaks. Her words are muffled, as if her face is buried in a pillow. "If you do not stop talking, I will shoot everyone."
"Sorry, Teyla," Jennifer says meekly.
Rodney sighs.
"I'm pretty sure she means it," Kanaan says.
John decides discretion is the better part of valour and snickers softly to himself, pressing a kiss to the feathery hair at Rodney's forehead—and receiving a smooshy, vague sort of kiss to his chest in return—before letting sleep claim him; before he sleeps with his found-and-claimed family all around him, content and warm in his too-small tent under a too-bright moon.