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John finds Rodney sitting on the floor of the Ancient tech lab beneath the planet’s surface, fiddling with some glowing object and looking sweaty and frantic. John doesn’t think much about it, though, because Rodney is usually sweaty and frantic, that’s just sort of his natural state of being. “We just finished up trade negotiations topside,” he reports. “Teyla and Ronon are loading grain into the Jumper now. I figure I can head up with them and pilot another down so we can pack this stuff up, think it’ll take more than one trip?” he asks as he approaches. Rodney doesn’t look up, though, busy muttering to himself in an increasingly squeaky whisper, eyes wide as they volley between heaps of dusty wires. “Hey. McKay, did you hear me? How’s it going down here? Find anything cool to geek out about? Need me to activate—”
“I need you to shut the fuck up,” Rodney snarls. And Jesus, it comes out hostile, even for him. John purses his lips, taking an affronted step back and making a face. He tries not to let it get to him when Rodney lashes out like this because he knows it’s not worth taking personally, but still. Sometimes it stings. Rodney is the exception to a lot of his rules, so it’s annoying when Rodney treats him with the same unchecked cruelty he treats everyone else. John knows he’s not special, but he does not need such frequent and bitter reminders of this.
“O-kay, well, I’m guessing it’s not going so well down here.”
“Wow, incredible, give him a medal for his remarkable deductive reasoning,” Rodney bites out as he stands without looking up from the thing he’s messing with. John tries to get a good look in, tries to assess the situation, but Rodney is pacing the floor so wildly he can’t make sense of anything but the jerky blur of his hands. “You should leave,” Rodney shoots at him in a clipped voice.
“What did you do…?” John ventures, anxiety beginning to spike in his chest. “Do I need to call Teyla and Ronon? Is there a bomb? Are we gonna blow up?”
“No, nothing is going to blow up, Jesus, why is it always explosions with you?!” Rodney yelps, finally tearing his gaze up to meet John’s. His eyes are wide and panicked, and it becomes clear from this angle that there’s some sort of collar thing around his neck, connected to the mass of wires and lights in his hands. The anxiety turns to dread as John stares, mind leaping to the worst-case scenario because since being in the Pegasus galaxy, he’s sort of figured out that’s a reasonable first place to go. Especially where Rodney is concerned, since he’s a fucking lightning rod for catastrophic, universe-threatening trouble.
“What the hell is that?” John asks, raising his gun.
“Do not! Point that thing at me, are you fucking crazy?! It’s some interrogation device, I think, some Ancient tech that forces the wearer to tell the truth. Fascinating, actually, but not practical or ideal for me to be wearing in this moment, and now I cannot get it off, meaning I cannot lie, exaggerate, or obfuscate the truth, as evidenced by my inability to sugarcoat the situation or blame someone save for myself for deciding to wear this stupid thing in the first place.”
“Okay, back up, let me get this straight,” John says, shaking his head. “It’s not a bomb? You're not in imminent danger?”
“No, to the best of my knowledge, it’s not a weapon, it’s not that sort of dangerous.”
The worry drains out of John’s body, leaving him feeling the very distinct brand of weariness that comes from being in love with the most impulsive, egotistical, self-absorbed person he’s ever met. “Jesus, Rodney. Calm down. I thought something was seriously wrong,” he gripes, flicking the safety back on his gun and setting it down so that he can wipe the sweat from his palms onto his trousers. “The truth isn’t so bad, it’s not like you’re getting interrogated right now. Do you lie so much that this is even an issue?”
“Yes! It is an issue! It’s stuck to me!” he snaps. “And I don’t lie, but I do rely rather heavily on hyperbole, and I feel fucking awful without it. Not like myself at all.”
John rolls his eyes. “Wow. Must be hard for you.”
“Yes! Yes, it is hard, you insensitive jerk, if you recall, this is the second time I’ve been saddled with some aggressive, clingy, embarrassing piece of Ancient tech, and it’s truly getting old,” he sputters before dramatically unzipping his pack of rations and tearing into a Powerbar.
“Well, hey, at least you can eat with this one on,” John offers. “The forcefield was stuck because you were subconsciously holding onto it, remember? So maybe you subconsciously want to stop embellishing all your accomplishments. Or maybe you subconsciously want to tell me the truth about something,” he offers with a hopeful grin.
The color drains from Rodney’s face, leaving him even more pasty and blanched than he usually is. He stops eating the Powerbar. “John, I need to get this thing off,” he says very gravely.
“Okay, you want me to try and pry it from your neck?” John asks, flexing his fingers and taking a cautious step toward Rodney.
“No!” he yelps, darting away. “Absolutely not! In fact, I would really, really appreciate someone else helping me with this. Anyone else, really. Even Ronon.”
And well, John is offended, because he knows that this is not just Rodney mindlessly shooting off some dumb barb for the sake of making him feel bad—it’s the truth. “Why?” he says, hurt. “What’s wrong with me?!”
Rodney is pacing again, yanking the fistfuls of wires until they disconnect and tossing them to the floor before hooking his fingers into the collar and tugging at it fruitlessly, the skin around his neck red and irritated from the motion. “Nothing is wrong with you, that’s the problem!” he snaps before cursing, covering his mouth. “You need to leave,” he says urgently. “Right now.”
But John is not having any of it. It’s dawning on him, now, that this is actually a situation he could use to his advantage. “Um, care to elaborate?” he asks casually. “On the bit where nothing is wrong with me, but you still don’t want my help?”
Rodney’s eyes flash with something like fury, something like panic. “It’s just! You’re infuriatingly perfect! You’re a goddamned Mary Sue!”
John freezes. “I’m a what?!” he chokes out, not sure if he should be offended yet, or flattered.
“A Mary Sue, have you honestly not even heard that term?! You know, Mary Sues, like, characters who are flawless and likable and heroic to the point of being unrealistic?”
John frowns. “I’m not a character?! I’m a real person.”
“Exactly! That's why it's so annoying! How are you so good?! “
“I’m not that good,” John counters, somehow baffled and touched and uncomfortable all at the same time.
“As much as it pains me to say this, you’re right. You actually fall more into the category of a tragic Mary Sue, where you’re fucked up but only in a poetic, contrived, charming, solitary-man-tear sort of way. One of the Han Solo-type Mary Sues. The handsome rogue,” Rodney explains, looking all the while like it’s killing him to do it. Each word comes out staccato and painful, like plucked hair, pulled teeth. John tries to make sense of Rodney’s deluge of truth, but he’s too blinded by a throat-stinging disappointment to assemble anything cohesive or conclusive. This was not what he was hoping for when he decided to dig—he thought maybe he’d find something comforting—that Rodney really cares for him, under the layers of irritation and superiority, or that he wants to impress him, that the clock-defying, world-saving feats he does over and over again are somehow, secretly, all for John’s benefit. Instead, he’s just insulting him, how he always does.
“So what, you’re saying I’m two-dimensional?” he asks.
“No! I wish! I used to think that, but of course you’re all deep and mysterious and gorgeous and it's terrible,” Rodney grits out before doubling violently at the waist, yanking helplessly at the collar with a flash of sheer panic in his eyes. “John, I’m begging you to get someone else in here before I—”
“Before you what!” John barks, heart still clenching. He hasn't quite caught up yet, hasn’t even tried to figure out what it means that Rodney resents him for being too perfect, whatever the fuck that means. He’s too occupied nursing the sting. “Before you tell me you’ve secretly hated me all this time we’ve worked together?”
“Oh my god, no! Before I tell you I’ve been secretly in love with you all this time we’ve worked together!” Rodney screams, breath coming fast, knuckles bloodless and white where they clutch the collar. “Are you happy!?”
John is too caught off guard to be happy. “Wait. You—you are? You’re not.”
“Yes, I am, of fucking course I am, you idiot, everyone is,” Rodney sputters, which is, well, news to John.
“They are?” he asks, dazed, in shock, hands numb and tingly.
“You know, actually, they probably aren’t, that’s likely just something I tell myself so I can feel better about it. God,” Rodney chokes, pacing again. “I’m sorry, I never would have told you, but this stupid thing—” and then, there’s an abrupt mechanical whirring sound as the collar powers down, stops glowing, and falls off.
They both stare at it as it clatters to the ground. “I guess you did subconsciously want to tell me the truth about something,” John says, chest tight as a building pressure expands inside it, tight with a vast, nameless feeling. Maybe elation, maybe fear, maybe madness. He swallows thickly and turns to Rodney, taking a step, then another.
Rodney backs away, hands up, eyes wild. “Please don’t hit me, I told you, it’s because you’re inconceivably cool and hot, which means it’s not my fault! And trust me, despite the troublesome feelings, I do value my life and our professional dynamic, and I would never act on it, just please, please don’t—”
But John is not listening. His blood is a deafening rush in his ears, and that’s all he can hear, the surge of it drowning out the innumerable questions he has, but they can wait because there are more urgent matters at hand. He pushes Rodney up against the stone wall, thumbs over the inflamed ring of skin around his neck, hot and tender and razor-burn rough. Then he kisses him.
Rodney makes a sound into his mouth—something between shocked protest and a hungry groan. John doesn’t give it space to grow, though, he crushes it like a dented beer can beneath a boot, drowns it in spit until Rodney opens up and lets him lick inside. He isn’t kissing back as much as he’s letting John kiss him, and god. John can taste his fear, his disbelief, and he will stay here with his hands firm around the bobbing jut of Rodney’s throat until he accepts that this isn’t just his problem, it’s a shared fucking affliction, and John never lets him do anything on his own.
“You should tell people,” John mumbles eventually, breaking off the kiss with a gasp to mouth down Rodney’s throat, sweep his tongue over the scrape of stubble, and scour his lips raw. He unzips Rodney’s stupid lycra shirt and kisses him there, too, the sparse hair and pale skin of his breastbone, which feels fragile compared to the wild thump of his heart. “When you love them. Especially if you are, usually, really fucking mean to them.” He bites Rodney’s collarbone to drive the point home.
Rodney’s hands are doing restless things in John’s hair, over his shoulders, like he’s checking if he’s really there and not a hologram. “I’m not mean to you,” he says faintly, thumbing questioningly beneath John’s eyes. “Or I’m not especially mean to you, I don’t think.”
“You are a fucking liar,” John says before he kisses him again, and this time, Rodney kisses back, rough like he’s proving a point. Or else, like he’s telling the truth.