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The first thing he became aware of was a hard surface underneath his cheek and the fact that his neck hurt like hell.
Rodney grunted with the futile hope that if he tried hard enough he might be able to fall back to sleep, but after a long minute it became apparent that it wasn’t going to happen. With a disappointed sigh he shifted a little bit and oww, his neck really didn’t appreciate him falling asleep on his desk.
He blinked slowly, as awareness came back gradually, and Rodney was glad that the lights in the room were dimmed. He sat up and rubbed his numb cheek absentmindedly as he took stock of his surroundings, his senses coming back one by one as he woke.
The laptops he had spread out on the desk all had black screens - an obvious sign that they had gone into sleep mode along with him at some point earlier in the night. The tablets he had stacked haphazardly somehow managed not to tip over; though by the looks of it that could change at any moment.
As he straightened up in his seat something shifted on his back and with a soft sound of surprise Rodney discovered a jacket draped over his shoulders. Someone had used it to cover him and ward off the slight chill that was always present in the lower level labs. The jacket had black panels, which meant it was military, which meant…
Rodney looked around, still blinking sleepily. Sitting at one of the spare desk just slightly to his left he found who he was looking for.
Sheppard was leaning heavily on one of his arms, his head supported by his hand. He must have dozed off as well, although why he was in here so late into the night was a mystery.
But then Rodney’s gaze fell to the edge of his desk and he blinked, confused. Reaching out he touched his World’s best astrophysicist mug and the coffee in it was cold. He was convinced he left it back in his quarters earlier, or maybe in the briefing room? Either way, he sure as heck didn’t have it with him down here, so that meant that Sheppard brought it.
Which would explain the plate with the sandwich as well. Rodney raised one eyebrow skeptically as he prodded it, taking a peek under the top slice of bread. Lettuce, tomatoes, mayo and the weird not-really-turkey they traded for on P4X-782 (or, as John had helpfully called it, the planet of Space Smurfs, thanks to their inhabitants and their blue-tinged skin).
Still. Fake turkey was better than no turkey.
Rodney took the sandwich and chewed slowly while powering down his computers. John was snoring lightly next to him and somewhere in the back of his mind Rodney knew that Sheppard probably hadn’t had that much rest lately. They’ve been busy with a trade deal. The council of elders on Alnera promised them a fair share of crops in exchange for a shield that would protect their farmlands from predators.
And by ‘predators’ they meant huge, man-eating reptiles that were too similar to dinosaurs for anyone to be comfortable with.
It took Rodney way too long to install the shields, mostly because the Alnerans had complicated protocols for accepting gifts and trade goods, but with the shared efforts of the military and science departments they’d managed to do it in the end. It was an exhausting undertaking that left them drained both physically and mentally, and they were still paying for it days later.
Rodney polished off the sandwich and chased it down with coffee. It wasn’t fresh anymore, but it would be a cold day in hell before Rodney turned down coffee. With a deep sigh of wariness, Rodney stretched out, winced when his back popped painfully and finally stood up.
“Wake up,” he said, leaning on Sheppard’s desk and touching his face gently, careful not to startle him. John opened his eyes immediately, coming to a sudden awareness in the same way that all the soldiers on Atlantis did.
“Hey,” John replied after a moment, blinking a couple of times as if to get his mental faculties back online.
“You let my coffee get cold,” Rodney’s words were scolding but there was no real bite to them, “pretty sure that’s a capital offense somewhere in this galaxy. Or at least it should be.”
“I bet you would love that.” John gave him a lazy smile and Rodney rolled his eyes. “You’re finally up.”
“You could have woken me,” Rodney countered, even as his hand reached out to comb through the unruly mass of Sheppard’s hair. “What time is it anyways?”
“Too late to be working.” Sheppard shrugged, leaning into Rodney’s touch, like a giant cat. “Can we go to bed now?”
Rodney nodded and made a move as if to get up, before John’s hand shot out and wrapped around his wrist. Rodney just raised an eyebrow, before he let himself be pulled down and kissed.
It was a tender, slow kiss, the kind that spread out through both body and soul in a wave of warmth and affection. The type of kiss that meant so many things at once. ‘I love you’ and ‘I missed you’ and ‘I don’t like falling asleep in our bed without you’.
They separated after a long while, Rodney’s eyes still closed as he pressed their foreheads together.
“You taste like the not-turkey,” John said and Rodney couldn’t help the snort he made in response.
“Shut up, you love the not-turkey.”
“Mhm,” John smiled softly. “That I do.”