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“For God’s sake, I don’t need—”
“Quiet,” John mumbled. His face was inches away from Rodney’s face, his body pressed snugly in the V of Rodney’s legs, and his hands were slowly tilting Rodney’s face to the left. Rodney shut up and tried to take a breath. Then froze when John tightened is grip slight. “And stop moving.”
Sitting on the bathroom counter, Rodney slowed his swinging legs to barely twitching; for god’s sakes he couldn’t stop moving. It was taking everything he had not to tremble under John’s watchful eye and his too slow movements. It was taking everything (and more) not to lean into the heat between them.
“Well maybe if you’d hurry up,” he whispered, his voice shaking slightly when John pressed in closer and slid the blade down in a single, smooth movement.
John stopped, the blade hovered between them, and looked at him, “I could stop.”
Rodney rolled his eyes and kicked out at John’s knee (the good one, not the bad), “Yes, and then I’d look even more ridiculous.” He held his hands up, showing his bandaged fingers and wrists. “Because nothing says professional, intergalactic astrophysicist like a bandaged man who can’t use either hand and can’t even finish shaving himself.”
“Then,” John leaned closer and Rodney tried to distract himself from breathing in aftershave and sweat, “Stop. Talking.”
Rodney closed his eyes and let his head be moved. This was easier, in a way. He could feel the hot puffs against his skin whenever Sheppard breathed, could feel Sheppard's strong fingers pressing into Rodney’s skin, the cool slide of the razor followed by the damp cloth after each slide. Before he had been watching; watching John’s hazel eyes focus on him, watching the flush from the heat between them darken John’s cheeks, watching the absolute concentration that sent a shot of awareness down Rodney’s spine and made him spread his legs slightly wider. Which John had stepped into, God help him.
With his eyes closed he could almost imagine he was getting a professional shave.
Almost.
He heard the soft clang of the razor touching the countertop, then the rush of water and felt the warm, damp cloth press against his skin. John’s hand ran down his cheek then along his jaw, but Rodney didn’t open his eyes until he felt John’s forehead rest against him and shake slowly.
When he did open his eyes John’s were locked on his, they were too drawn and weary. He shook his head again and for a moment looked like he would break.
“Don’t,” John licked his lips and tightened the hand that now rested on Rodney’s (good) thigh, “don’t do that again. You know we don’t leave men behind. You know, I won’t—”
“I know. I know,” he repeated. He raised one of his hands, careful to avoid messing up the bandages and rested it on John’s neck, pulling him closer. “John, they were…”
He couldn’t say the rest. John knew what they had done, what they had planned to do. Just like John knew bandages didn’t stop at Rodney’s wrists: one stretched under his shirt to his shoulder, another wrapped tightly around his belly, and a third covered his left thigh. No, John knew what they had walked in on.
“We, um, we took the address off the gate list,” Rodney said, trying to lighten the mood.
John pulled back, then stepped back and wiped his hands on his pants, and Rodney watched Lt. Col. John Sheppard piece himself together until the Military Commander of Atlantis and his team leader stood in front of him.
“We debrief in twenty,” he saw John’s gaze flick to the bandages at his hands, “Woolsey wants to know what went wrong.”
Rodney slid off the counter, cursed and favored his good leg as he walked past the crutches leaning against the wall; he stood in the doorway between his bathroom and quarters and watched John hesitat at the closed door leading our. He turned back, “Are you—”
“I’m okay, Colonel. I’ll be in the conference room in twenty minutes.”
They stared at one another and Rodney heard a dozen unspoken words in that moment, he watched grief and anger and fear pass over John before he locked down. The good soldier.
“Twenty minutes.”
He left and Rodney nodded. He looked down and slowly walked towards the door. Sometimes, he knew, they only got small moment to break the characters Atlantis had molded them into. He didn’t look back at the bathroom, the abandoned razor and washcloth, or the crutch. He stepped into the hallway Dr. Rodney McKay, Chief Science Office of Atlantis and followed in the footsteps of Col. Sheppard. But knew that he would replay this moment a dozen times tonight when the images of the Genii and their persuasion tactics threatened.