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The latest data burst from Earth brings the news that the long awaited DADT repeal has officially been signed into law. Rodney is glad in an abstract way.
He also nudges John, who is sitting next to him during Woolsey’s weekly conference room round table meeting. “Congrats,” he says, and he means that in a pretty abstract way too, mostly because John is the only military guy he would call a friend and because John’s country has finally decided to be ever so slightly less backward.
“Thanks,” John says, who seems to mean it in a much more concrete way.
*
That is, concretely speaking, John starts to kiss guys.
The first time it happens the team is on a diplomatic outing, a first contact type thing. Rodney is desperately bored, sitting at a table in a corner with some drunk farmer because he was originally sitting there alone and that’s enough to make some people think you’re in dire need of hearing that very funny story about their nephew’s neighbor’s friend’s sister-in-law who stepped in some alien cow pie equivalent, even though you are not, at all. So he’s not listening, and his eyes are going around the room again to find something that doesn’t make him want to bash his head into a wall, and then he spots John, at a different table, not even a little bit in a corner.
John is leaning in, head bent low towards the curly-haired guy he’s talking to. Rodney is a little annoyed instantly because hey, what’s so important they would need to whisper it? Why isn’t John pulling him into this?
And then John reaches out and pulls the other guy in. Over the table, by his neck, and suddenly this other guy is kissing John, or maybe John is kissing him, or maybe Rodney is dreaming because he fell asleep from sheer boredom.
He’s probably dreaming.
He’s not dreaming, because pinching his arm really hurts. Ow.
*
“What was that?” Rodney asks, when they’re walking back to the gate in the dark and quiet, Ronon and Teyla right behind them. The corners of John’s mouth have been doing something suspiciously close to a smile since they left the village, and that’s odd, because John doesn’t just smile for no reason.
John doesn’t even look at him. If possible, his lips twitch a little more smugly, and then- Then he doesn’t even pretend not to know exactly what Rodney is talking about. Who is this man? “He bet me I wouldn’t.”
“So you did,” Rodney summarizes.
“So I did,” John agrees.
“What did you win?” Ronon asks, from behind, and John’s almost-smile turns into a definitely-smirk and he says nothing.
*
So that’s the start of it, but it’s not the end.
When John kisses guys he doesn’t do it just randomly, and never on Atlantis, but every once in a while a mission takes them to a harvest festival or friendship ceremony or some other excuse by the locals to invite the Atlantians to drink crude alcoholic brew and eat a lot of bread. When that happens, in the past John would be accosted by the prettiest girl in the room and spend the rest of the evening looking surprised in an uncomfortable sort of way while she tried to grab his ass. Rodney always thought it was a little ridiculous.
Now, though-
Let’s just say now is different.
*
Now, John accosts the prettiest guy in the room, except that’s the wrong word because there’s always some fully reciprocated eye-fucking across a lot of unsuspecting people’s heads before any approach is made. Rodney thinks it’s a lot ridiculous, and also improper maybe, and probably a danger because who knows who those guys are or what kind of mouth-to-mouth transferable diseases they could carry, but he’s smart enough not to give voice to those thoughts anymore after he tried it once and John gave him a strange look and reminded him the same could be said for all the pretty alien women Rodney has ever lusted after.
He does make sure to keep an eye on John and whatever local yokel is pushing him up against the wall in a dark portion of the room. For safety.
*
“Are you okay?” John asks, once, falling back from where he was walking with their guide around the village, who’s been flirting with John outrageously pretty much since the team set foot through the gate. Rodney’s been watching the back of their heads, not really hearing a word the guy’s been saying even though most of his planet’s development seems to be fueled by some kind of magnetic rock that could potentially have some interesting applications on Atlantis.
“Yeah!” Rodney yells now, surprised to suddenly be seeing John’s face instead of his neck, and feeling weirdly caught out about it. It’s not like being in a bad mood is a crime. “I’m fine! Why do you ask!”
“You’ve been-” John frowns in a curious sort of way, looking Rodney over head to toe. Rodney promptly forgets how to walk without thinking every movement he makes is deeply awkward. “Jumpy,” John decides.
I’m not the one who’s been jumping people, Rodney thinks, and then thinks what the fuck and most certainly does not share that thought out loud. “I’m fine,” he repeats, at a less suspicious volume this time.
John studies him for another tingly moment and gives a single up and down nod, like he’s chosen to accept this. Then he takes a few extra long strides (jumps, Rodney’s brain unhelpfully jokes) and catches up with their guide, who has a face that lights up and a hand that immediately lands on John’s shoulder.
John, who is famously awkward about being touched, does not shake him off. Rodney goes back to watching the back of John’s head.
*
In truth, it all makes Rodney feel a little sick with concern. Luckily he’ll only have to wait until the novelty wears off and John goes back to being himself. He thinks he can bear that, probably.
*
But then time passes, and John doesn’t.
And then it gets worse.
John disappears from the next party without a word. He’s gone with no trace; nowhere to be found and nobody can point to where he’s gone, because everyone’s half-drunk at least. Rodney is just about to throw all of Teyla’s reassurances that these are not hostile people to the wind and call in to Atlantis for backup with lots of guns so they can mount a search and rescue for their obviously kidnapped military commander, when John comes ambling down the central staircase in the tavern. He’s loose-limbed and once again too quick to smile at anything and everything and his hair is even more ridiculous than usual and Rodney is definitely sick this time.
Doesn’t help when Ronon leans towards him and says, “Told you he was just having sex with that guy.”
*
So that’s the setting and the pattern and the problem: John kisses some guy, and Rodney wants to maybe throw up.
Which is not normal. He’s aware of that – he may be socially inept to some degree, but he can tell that this is a pretty disproportionately strong response, and also that the issue, tempting as it may be to think so, probably doesn’t lie with John. John is allowed to kiss whoever he wants.
Legally. And morally. Technically, philosophically, and so on.
It’s just- Bad. Rodney thinks it’s really bad.
*
He thinks it’s so bad that he starts to avoid John, even when they’re not on harvest festival missions, because it’s uncomfortable to have to deal with all of these feelings all of the time. They lodge themselves in his chest, making his heart beat in a weird, way too noticeable sort of way. Fretting about it is a lot of work and takes up too much brainpower and the city of Atlantis and all the people in it really can’t afford that, not from Rodney McKay.
Yeah. He’s just being reasonable. It’s all in the name of keeping their people safe, an objective John understands and supports wholeheartedly.
Or would, if it were something Rodney could tell him.
*
He can’t, which leads to John stepping into his path in the hallway just outside the labs before Rodney can evade by pretending he very urgently needs to make a U-turn. It’s not John-related at all, no, why would anybody think that?
John, arms folded, looks him up and down critically and asks, “Have you been avoiding me?”
“No,” Rodney flat-out lies. It hurts a little, but less so than the truth would.
“Good. Then you won’t mind coming with me to run some diagnostics on the jumper Zelenka fixed.”
Rodney saw that item on the science department’s to do-list this morning, and ‘fixed’ is too big a word. The portable life signs detector stopped popping out by itself, however hard anyone tried to think at it, but pushing the manual release button never hurt a soul. It’s very like John to escalate some minor routine maintenance into an excuse to aimlessly fly around for an hour or two.
“Shouldn’t Radek be doing that?” Rodney asks, in a last ditch effort to ditch John. “This is his project, and really this kind of thing is beneath me, so I’m sure he, uh, he really wants-”
“It’s his afternoon off,” John says, which Rodney is pretty sure it isn’t. Radek really isn’t that much better at scheduling free time than Rodney himself. “I need you.”
Rodney’s latest objection dies in his mouth. It tastes foul. “Okay,” he hears himself say.
John gives him a lopsided smile that looks like he’s relieved, and pats his back in passing as he leads the way to the jumper bay, and that’s that, really. Even Rodney can’t kick a gay puppy in the face.
*
It makes no sense to go through the gate just to run diagnostics on a jumper that had almost nothing wrong with it in the first place, but John packages it nicely. They’re not just doing their due diligence when it comes to jumper maintenance, they’re also checking that this utterly deserted planet with a toxic atmosphere is still, three months after their last visit, an utterly deserted planet with a toxic atmosphere.
Toxic to humans, anyway. There are a lot of reddish-orange trees. Endless, endless trees, but Rodney was barely able to pretend plants don’t bore him to death even when he was dating Katie Brown.
It’s a total waste of time, and Rodney has very strong feelings about that, and he makes very sure to bite down on all of them hard enough that they can be swallowed. It’s dangerous. If he starts to give his opinion on John’s silly plan, he may accidentally say something about John’s silly men.
The flaw in his throw-away-the-key approach becomes apparent when ten minutes out from the gate, John looks over and says, “You’re being very quiet.”
Rodney panics a little. “Just hard at work.”
“On those diagnostics you said were beneath you? The ones that are almost done?”
Rodney grasps at straws, but he keeps drawing all of the shortest ones. “Yeah, about that, don’t you think we should turn back now? The jumper hasn’t crashed, the planet has nothing but autumn decoration, I don’t see what-”
“You okay, Rodney?” John asks, right in the middle of one of Rodney’s sentences. It’s very rude, and exactly the right way to get Rodney to talk about things he may be avoiding, and also a huge relief, because Rodney was running out of bullshit anyway.
He’s a scientist, not an actor or a construction worker. There’s only so long he can keep up a façade.
He sneaks a glance at John, who seems to be earnestly waiting for a reply. Who’s always been a really good friend to him. “No, I’m not okay,” he admits, miserable. He’s rarely felt such shame. That must mean he’s growing as a person, but he doesn’t feel very good about that yet, because he’s starting way lower down than he would have thought.
John nods at all the tree tops flitting by below them, though it’s probably meant for Rodney. “Anything I can help you with?”
Would that it were. Rodney takes a deep breath. He closes his mouth and then opens it again and closes it and opens it and wonders if he could modify a life signs detector to not register him and make John think he’s dead, and then he closes and opens his mouth again and finally blurts, “I think I might be homophobic.”
John stills. John does not immediately throw him out of the jumper, which by all rights, he probably should. John says, carefully, “What?”
That’s the million dollar question, isn’t it? “I’ve been feeling really weird about you kissing any guys,” Rodney says, thinking out loud. He does that a lot, but it’s usually not about… this. “I don’t like it. My chest feels tight and my heart gets stuck in my throat, like I might accidentally spit it out.” It’s an awful, uncanny feeling.
John is stoically silent for a long moment as he keeps watching the window. His eyebrows have settled into a frown, but it’s not an angry one. Rodney thinks, dejectedly, that John is a really great guy. “Are you sure you’re not coming down with something?”
“I thought so too, but it makes no sense. I only get like that when I see you and another man together.”
John bobs his head. “Okay.” His face is grim now, which makes sense for when your best friend informs you he’s a bigot. Rodney feels awful. “Have you considered you might be jealous?”
Rodney feels so awful, in fact, that he almost misses what John is saying. His brain needs to double back and go over it again to figure out John’s meaning, and then it needs to do that a few more times, because that’s a strange question. What would Rodney have to be jealous about? It’s not the abstract act of getting to kiss someone, it’s not the guys John is kissing, and it’s certainly not John, who-
Who-
“Oh my God!” Rodney yells, and then there’s a wobble in the jumper’s flight, so he grabs whatever is closest and repeats at an only slightly lowered volume, “Oh my God! Watch what you’re doing!”
“I am!” John yells back. “What are you doing!”
Rodney spares a moment to be glad John still seems to be engaged in the flying process, because it would be tragically ironic to have realization hit like a bomb and then sail straight down to the planet and die the same way. After that moment, he considers John’s barely-question. More of a shouted observation, really.
Upon reflection, it’s probably related to Rodney apparently having grabbed hold of John’s lower arm when he was scrambling for purchase. He lets go and flexes his hand. Out of the corner of his eye he can see John do pretty much the same on the jumper controls.
John sneaks over a glance, appearing unwillingly freaked out. “Are you alright?”
“No,” Rodney says, but when that gets John to whip his head around again, he amends, “Yes? Both.” He can hear the whine in his own voice, but he doesn’t know how to turn it off. “Physically I’m fine, but I feel like the biggest idiot that’s ever lived.” Which is a notably rare occurrence, and also demonstrably false. He has a wall full of degrees to prove it, but then again, none of those required him to take a course in figuring out his own latent homoromantic feelings for a guy that keeps shooting energy vampire aliens for him. This is unprecedented on several levels. “How did you know?”
“Know what?”
Rodney gestures for John to get on with it. “That I’m in love with you.”
There’s not a single hitch in the flight path of the jumper this time, but John’s hands on the controls are suddenly white-knuckled and there’s an audible hiss of air being sucked into his body through his teeth. It doesn’t seem to come back out.
Rodney watches him and John is just sitting there, flash frozen. What now?
“You’re in love with me?” John asks, like he thinks he might be getting pranked and while staring right ahead, still absolutely unmoving. He barely even moves his mouth. Rodney needs to watch his chest for a long moment to confirm he’s still breathing – having to do CPR right now would be really awkward.
“Wait,” Rodney says, because he’s picking up on some signals here. “You didn’t know?” That makes no sense. “Then why would you ask me if I’m jealous?”
John’s tongue flickers out to wet his lips, and hm, yeah, Rodney should definitely have noticed some stuff earlier. “I meant, like, envy that I was trying to have fun, or friendship jealousy, or something,” John says. “You always complained about women coming on to me, too. What do I know?”
Okay, now it does make sense again. It seemed like a suspicious amount of emotionally honest insight coming from John to begin with.
Which does leave Rodney with an entirely new problem. He’s not homophobic, but he does have strong feelings for his colleague and best friend, which is morally a huge relief but personally disastrous.
Legally fine, though. At least that’s still good.
“Ugh,” he says. “Of course. Of course I would discover my own bisexuality by figuring out I have feelings for a smart handsome guy with good hair, and of course that would be you, because there’s nobody on Atlantis like you, and of course I’d then end up stuck in a jumper with a hopeless crush that’s still new to me that I’ve already told you about, of all people, because why not? Why shouldn’t that be how my afternoon is going?”
John makes an odd noise. A kind of one note laugh that gets stuck in his throat and dies there. “Rodney,” he says, but Rodney’s not done yet.
“Do you even know how unlikely this is? I mean, assuming that ten percent of the population is attracted to their own gender, even though realistically those statistics are lowballing it by an order of magnitude because as your trouble with your chosen career exemplifies perfectly there is all this stigma around sexual identity in Western culture, so, say it’s twenty, right, twenty percent of people, what do you think the odds are of someone with my considerable intellect being part of the, what, point zero zero zero one percent of those twenty percent that only figure it out when they’re thirty and in another galaxy? Which is of course not even accurate, because there’s nearly seven billion people on Earth, and if you do the math, which I know you can, that would mean 139 people experienced the same thing, and there are barely that many Earthlings on Atlantis, let alone that they’re flying in a spaceship and figuring out they could have been broadening their playing field their whole life, but only right when the playing field has narrowed – temporarily, I hope, I assure you I fully intend to get over this – to essentially just a single player, who’s also their best friend that they’re very afraid to lose because that would be bad, honestly, and what are you doing? Why are you flying us so low?”
John doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t really have to, because a few seconds later he’s putting the jumper down in the only mostly open clearing they’ve seen for miles. He mows down a bright orange sapling tree in so doing, but the landing is smooth.
Rodney is still a little impressed by their jumper, and thinking he wouldn’t want to be that tree, when John gets up. He stalks to the jumper hatch, like he’s very determinedly about to step outside and choke to death, but then he turns and marches back, like he’s actually pacing. It clear he’s working on something, though Rodney is at a loss as to what.
John comes to a stop, puts one hand in his side and uses the other to rub his mouth, and then he finally says, “Rodney.”
“Yeah, right here.” And getting increasingly worried that he should call this odd behavior in to Atlantis so they can send backup ahead of the big reveal that John’s body was taken over by yet another alien life form that doesn’t understand the concept of bodily autonomy.
Rodney knew all that kissing was dangerous.
“It’s not hopeless,” John(’s body, potentially) says, and that’s very cryptic and cause for further concern, until something niggles at the back of Rodney’s brain. He used that word, somewhere in the middle of a hundred others, very recently. “It’s really not hopeless. And if you want- If I’d known- I didn’t know you’d be jealous.”
Okay, so Rodney is willing to entertain the possibility that he’s not currently in mortal danger from some incomprehensible brain alien. Which would mean- Which would mean it’s John saying all of that. “And that matters?”
“Yeah,” John says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world and he can’t believe Rodney doesn’t know that.
It’s pretty sweet, actually. Rodney is propelled out of his seat by a sudden rising feeling of hope. “So you wouldn’t have been kissing all those guys if you had known?”
“Well,” John says, and waves one hand a little, “that depends.”
“On?”
John stares at him and waves the hand a little more.
Rodney wonders how John got any guy to kiss him, with seduction techniques like that, and then realizes that he really wants to kiss John and figures that answers the question. Can’t be that dumb, if Rodney wants to do it. “So-” He almost gets stuck there, until he flashes back to John, smiling and smug on their way back to the gate in the dark that very first time. “So if I bet you that you wouldn’t kiss me-”
“You’d lose. Big time.”
“Would I?” Rodney asks, because that doesn’t sound right to him at all.
John doesn’t just smile, he grins.
*
The harvest festivals don’t stop just because John kisses guys (one guy) on Atlantis now. They keep happening, but Rodney’s perspective on the whole thing changes drastically the first time he catches John making eyes at someone across a lot of unsuspecting people’s heads and that someone is him.
Not so ridiculous after all, maybe.
*
And more harvest festivals, and more, and more, until Rodney is almost forced to gain an abstract appreciation of them.
More concretely, he appreciates being able to sit back while John deals with the drunk and handsy bartender, polite and a little awkward as always, and maneuvers through the crowded room without bumping into anyone and spilling the two beers, even though he has to slip past a busty brunette who looks very willing to help him change his shirt. John seems relieved to escape.
Rodney is still watching the woman, who has given up on John and is now perched on the edge of Ronon and Teyla’s table, when John puts a tankard of beer down in front of him. John sits down, not on the chair at the other side of the table, but next to Rodney on the wooden bench that runs along the wall. “You look like you’re thinking,” he says, taking a swig from his beer that leaves him with a moustache for a second.
Rodney watches him and feels warm and thinks well, shit. “Look,” he says, figuring out how to tame the wild thing that’s caught in his ribcage this time. He’s had a little practice at that since his most epic failure with a really good outcome, but it’s still a tricky endeavor every single time. “It’s not that I’m jealous-”
John slides a look at him. “Sure.”
“It’s just that I think, you know, while we’re waiting for your country to figure out its next legal step in inching towards the right side of history with regards to gay rights, we might as well get married in Canada.”
John slowly puts his beer on the table, next to Rodney’s, which is going untouched. “You know we live in another galaxy.”
“Yes.”
“And that the people on all these planets we visit are aliens, who are not going to know what a ring on my finger means.”
It’s just like John, really, to poke right through Rodney’s carefully constructed excuses. The worst of it is that he’s learned a lot too: he’s doing it on purpose now. “Yeah,” Rodney says, and realizes he may have to actually say what he means. “But we’ll know.”
There are a lot of things that can make John smile these days, but the one he gets now is slow and private and makes Rodney’s gut quake, even now. “You know,” John says, deliberately picking his beer back up, toasting Rodney’s with it, leaning back and stretching out and ending up with an oh-so-casual arm on the wood just behind Rodney’s shoulders. “I’ve been feeling a little homesick for Earth recently, anyway.”