The Janxnuy shield was pliable, but invulnerable to punctures, to energy weapons, to fire and flood, and even though it stretched against John's hand like the skin of a popped balloon, it was clear as glass.

Every now and again, teachers in school had tried the "heart to heart" approach with John, encouraging him to get involved in more extracurricular activities. "You're always on the outside," they'd say, and he'd nod a little, sympathetically. They were trying; they didn't know he'd made a habit of sitting in the desks nearest the classroom doors because quick exits were just easier, that his childhood had been a series of car trips, driving away from base housing, staring out the back window as his latest school, his most recently mowed lawn, his last skateboard half pipe got smaller and smaller in the distance.

He thinks they could appreciate the irony about now.

Behind him, Ronon and a handful of unlucky stragglers stood around on the shadowless plain, most with an anxious eye turned to the white sky. Rodney was maybe three feet away from him, in the wide plaza that opened out from the main building, but on the other side of the shield's bubble, and therefore utterly, eerily silenced. John couldn't hear the scrabble of polymers on metal as Rodney worked frantically at the guts of a console, or the rumbling buzz of the blinking timer that meant it was time for Rodney's next hit of lal. Eventually, the Janxnuy had resorted to force-feeding Rodney the piss-yellow tea in an effort to keep him conscious enough to fix their failing shield before the Hive ship loomed into visible orbit.

John himself had been awake for going on 32 hours, and the world was grainy and unreal behind him. One of the smaller kids slapped his hands against the shield, calling for his mother. On the other side, a woman with the kid's curly, reddish hair was crying, her face wet and contorted, and John didn't need to hear her to know she was screaming. Rodney flinched a little, giving her an anxious glance, before hunching over the machine to jimmy a long wire into a crack in the mechanism.

Teyla had her back to Rodney, but John could see enough of her profile to make out that she was giving the five large, unarmed guards who'd been dosing Rodney a look that promised them a world of pain. They herded her aside easily enough, just the same. Two of them dragged Rodney away from the console and a third clamped a hand around his jaw, prying his mouth open enough to tip a vial of lal past his teeth—the Janxnuy apparently knew nothing of needles, no matter how advanced their chemistry. Rodney didn't put up much of a fight; John figured he was just as frantic to fix the shield as the Janxnuy were to have him do it.

He could hear the whine of the incoming darts, but didn't bother to look up; Ronon had that covered, and it wasn't like they had their weapons, anyway. John gave a brief thought to the civilians. The city was in the middle of a desert plain. No trees to shelter under, not so much as a patch of tall grass to stash the kids in, and John would have tried hiding them in shallow pits dug in the sand, but the soil was hardpan, blue-gray clay baked into giant cracked plates by the parching sun.

They had about ten or twelve seconds before the culling beams would hit them.

On the other side of the shield, they'd let Rodney go and he'd flung himself over the console again, his face pink with feverish concentration. Teyla was speaking to Rodney, and John imagined her low, soothing voice under the building screech of the darts.

"Sheppard," Ronon said tightly, and John could feel the squall of heat and kicked-up grit that meant the darts were already closing on them.

And then, just like that, John was on the other side of the bubble. The shield overhead seemed to magnify the sound of frightened, weeping evacuees, until the plaza was roaring with the sound, the shrill of the darts still in his ears. Rodney gave him a goggle-eyed stare before reaching out to press a forefinger into the hollow of John's shoulder, just past the gap of his tac vest.

"You were standing right there the whole time?"

"What just happened?" Feeling punchy, John glanced around the room, catching Teyla's look of exhausted relief, the mother-who'd-been-screaming burying her face in her little boy's hair, and a glimpse of his own shadowed face in the low, curved ceiling of the shield.

"It's sort of like one way glass," Rodney explained. "You can see in but we can't see out. I mean that metaphorically, too. The sensors are beyond repair on this piece of crap, so I had no idea where you were. We thought—we thought you'd already been culled."

"A few seconds more and we would have been. What did you do, anyway?"

Rodney blinked at him. "I extended the shield out about a mile in every direction."

John smiled a little.

"Of course you did."

"But it's not going to hold," Rodney said, eyes getting huge. "And if we can't convince the Anphur Fil to let me restore power to the gate, we're all pretty much just a buffet table for the Wraith out there."

"How long?"

"Ten minutes? Maybe fifteen?"

"To fix the gate?"

"Before the shield fails again," Rodney croaked. The lal made him hoarse-- or maybe he'd strained something yelling at the guards.

Luckily, Teyla was already explaining this to the ashen-faced leader of the Janxnuy, who only nodded weakly and waved the guards aside so that Rodney could access the gate.

In what seemed like seconds, the wormhole gushed into the room and splashed back into itself: a ring of shivering light.

*

In the end, they evacuated to the beta site with what stores the tiny population could carry, and John promised to bring them back the gate addresses of worlds that would agree to take the refugees. The desolate look on the Anphur Fil's face made John agree to let Teyla offer tents and bedding for the children and elderly. He figured this was downright neighborly, considering that he and his people had been little better than hostages for the last three days.

Then he turned his back on them and brought his team home.

*

"... and while we were not formally prisoners, they had confiscated our weapons, and when Rodney tired too much to complete his work before the Wraith came, the Anphur Fil saw fit to force him to continue," Teyla explained. She was still in her scrubs from her own exam, and Carson was fussing over Rodney on the table behind her.

Elizabeth's face showed her concern.

"She didn't seem too happy about it," Ronon added.

"She did not. I believe it was an act of desperation, and not borne of malice."

"And when you were trapped outside the shield?" Elizabeth tipped her head back to study Ronon.

"I'm pretty sure that was an accident. Some of her people were still with us. We'd gone to help evacuate the village and when we got back, the shield was up." Ronon gave an eloquent shrug.

Elizabeth turned to John, with a question in her eyes.

"And what's your opinion, Colonel? Are the Janxnuy to be considered hostiles?"

John considered a moment before grudgingly admitting, "I think they were doing the best they could in a bad situation. I say we leave 'em alone for now. I don't think they'll come looking to cause us any trouble."

Rodney made a peevish little huffing sound and frowned at nothing in particular.

"His heart rate's fine, thank goodness," Carson said, lifting his stethoscope from Rodney's bare chest. "And your blood pressure's quite good, Rodney," he added approvingly.

"He makes me jog now," Rodney intoned, giving John a dark look. John gave him a bland smile in return. If Rodney was going to go off-world, he was going to be fit for it.

"There's hardly a trace of it in his bloodstream. It seems to break down quickly. That's something, at least."

"You better believe it breaks down quickly," Rodney pointed out irritably. "Remember the part where I got dosed every two hours? I'll have bruises until I'm eighty-five, thanks to those no-necked thugs."

John remembered standing there, trying to unclench his hands every time the goddamned timer rumbled and cued another round of force-feeding. Déjà vu all over again—at least it was only one member of his team, this time. Except it was probably the one member who would take it the hardest.

"And no side-effects, aside from the wakefulness? No shakes, no headaches or problems with your vision?"

"Not that I can tell," Rodney reported, rubbing at an eyebrow with the heel of his hand. "In fact, if I wasn't so full of incredibly violent loathing of those people at the moment, I'd suggest that we trade with them for some of it. It could come in handy the next time Radek and I have to whip up a nice apocalypse on a moment's notice. Besides that, I could make a mint if I brought some back to Earth and sold it on college campuses. Better living through chemistry. Now leave me alone; I've got a nice cozy coma coming to me, and I won't let your womanish hovering keep me from it."

He curled up on the cot with his back to Carson, yanking the sheet to his neck and screwing his eyes shut. John and Elizabeth shared an amused look and left him to his rest.

*

They were on stand-down for the next two days while they all caught up on sleep and Lorne's team relocated the Janxnuy to a cool, boggy planet called Haliead.

After 24 hours, Rodney was released from the infirmary and brushed past John in the hallway at a brisk clip, a haggard, determined look on his face. As John was going in that direction anyway, he followed after him, walking into Rodney's room a few seconds after the door had closed behind Rodney to find him on his knees with his face pressed into the rucked up blankets of his bed.

John's first thought was, Jesus, is he having—what, a heart attack? A seizure?

John was halfway across the room before he realized the tight, desperate moan wasn't pain, before he recognized the quick, practiced motion of Rodney's mostly hidden hand, and his ears went red and his stomach did a weird, tilting cartwheel and his dick gave a hopeful, sympathetic twitch. But before he could give in to his next impulse, which was I should help the guy out, Rodney turned his head a little and his eyes flew open, his expression stricken, the wet head of his red cock just visible in his clenched fist.

"Jesus, doesn't anyone knock anymore?"

For a long moment, John just stared at him stupidly, and Rodney scrambled to his feet, tucking himself away and buckling his belt, his face scarlet and his mouth slanted down.

"I'm a little bit busy dying of humiliation over here, so excuse me for not being a better host, but what the hell were you thinking, barging in here—"

John held up placating hands.

"I saw you in the hallway and you looked a little freaked out. I just followed you in to see how you were doing. I had no idea you were—and I mean, seriously, you're pretty quick on the draw, Rodney. I was just a few steps behind you."

Rodney seemed to count this as an apology and his forbidding look crumbled; his face was waxy and hollow-eyed.

"I couldn't—I can't sleep. I haven't slept in—god—four days now. And fucking Carson won't give me sedatives, says he can't predict how they'd interact with the lal they gave me, and I just. I just wanted to sleep a little. I thought, you know. It would help me relax. And I wasn't about to give Carson's nurses a free show," he said, raising his chin. "So I was, uh, kind of in a hurry."

"Okay, buddy," John said kindly. "I'll just, uh, leave you to it then," and he backed up a few steps toward the door.

Rodney sighed and scrubbed his face with his hands. "No, no, my mood is shot now. And anyway, I'll probably never be able to jerk off again without being convinced that someone will walk in on me in the middle of it."

John gritted his teeth and said, finally, "How about some exercise then?"

"Tell me you're kidding," Rodney said dully.

John clapped him on the shoulder. He reached for the sweats Rodney had hung over the back of a chair and tossed them over. "Best thing for you," he said sagely.

*

But while a few miles of jogging around the city and finishing up at the gym had Rodney sweaty and panting, he shook his head when John asked him if he thought he could sleep.

"If anything, I'm more awake than ever," he said with a poisonous glare.

He dropped heavily onto a nearby mat in the gym and was still laying there, bloodshot eyes on the ceiling, his face curdled in bitchy disgust, when Elizabeth came in wearing track pants, with a purple mat rolled up under her arm. She was tying her hair up into a ponytail before she noticed Rodney on the floor. She gave John a questioning look and John shrugged.

"He can't sleep," he explained.

"I'm going to die," Rodney said with dark certainty. "On top of fatal exhaustion, Slim Goodbody here thought it would be healthy to make me run a marathon. At this point, I'm just waiting for the inevitable heart attack. At least death will be restful," he added bitterly.

Zelenka, Cadman, Miko, Ronon, Teyla, Heightmeyer, Simpson and a clump of the marines John commanded filed in, each one carrying a mat. They formed a little half circle around Rodney, still on the mat, peering at him with curious faces.

Zelenka prodded Rodney in the shoulder with his bare foot, and Rodney scowled at him, but made no effort to get up.

"What? Jesus, I should I charge admission! Don't you people have some place to be?"

"Rodney," Elizabeth said, now seated on her own mat in the lotus position, "I lead a yoga class here every other day, time permitting. Why don't you join us?"

"Hmm, let me think," Rodney said brightly. "No."

Heightmeyer and Elizabeth shared a speaking look, and Heightmeyer knelt beside Rodney, tucking her light hair behind one ear and said, "Rodney, I think you could really benefit from this class. It'll be good for you."

"Your back frequently pains you," Teyla chimed in, her voice kind. "I believe you will find the stretching very beneficial."

"And Carson says you're not sleeping well," Elizabeth added.

"Try at all," Rodney clarified.

"So you should try this," John said reasonably. "Unwind, and hopefully sleep."

"Oh my god, it's like the Spanish Inquisition, only with draw-string pants!"

"I can make it an order," John said evenly.

"Fine," Rodney said, holding out a hand so John could haul him to his feet. "But if I have to suffer, you have to stay, too."

"I think that would be a good idea, John," Elizabeth smiled.

John made himself smile back.

*

Elizabeth led everyone through the poses, and Rodney muttered darkly through every Downward Dog, but he stuck it out. When Elizabeth encouraged Rodney to lay on his back with his legs outstretched against the gym wall, Rodney said, "I've never been more glad that this room isn't mirrored," and "This is strangely comfortable," and later, when Zelenka demonstrated shoulder stands, he commented, "I admit it. I'm impressed. And yet also distracted." John perked an eyebrow in question and Rodney added, "He kind of has hairy feet."

It was true.

John liked it a lot more than he'd have thought, not just because he was glad to see his friends all around him stretching and winding down. Teyla flowed through each movement with her familiar, quiet grace. Ronon's actions were halting and seemed to require a lot of concentration. He was clearly new at this, and he kept his eyes on Teyla rather than Elizabeth for his cues. John felt kind of relieved to see that Ronon wasn't particularly flexible, and that his arms trembled a little when he reached for his toes. The stretches and breathing and shifting, fluid motion beat the hell out of meditating with Teer, clearing his head and unlocking his lower back.

After a little over an hour, Elizabeth had everyone stretch out for the cool-down Elizabeth called "Shavasana" and opened the windows, letting in the smell and sound of the sea. Then, much as she had during the practice when she'd helped Ronon align his feet, gently pressed a hand to the small of Cadman's back to encourage a deeper stretch, she walked through the rows while everyone else stretched out with their eyes closed and bent down to touch each person in the class. Out of the corner of his eye, John saw her stroke the fingertips of both hands lightly against Rodney's forehead, and when she came to kneel behind him, her cool fingers cupped the back of his head briefly and she pressed her thumbs against the muscles at the base of his neck. Eventually, there was a soft chiming and the rest of the class stirred again, stretching and finally rolling up their mats...except for Rodney, who was conked out on his borrowed rush mat, his mouth slack, his sweaty hair mashed down at his temples.

Elizabeth gave John a serenely proud little smile and held a finger to her lips, leading the rest of the class out of the room. John stayed where he was, cross legged on his own mat, just keeping an eye on the guy, just listening to the ocean.

*

If Rodney thought it was weird that John was still there when his grumbling stomach woke him for dinner, he didn't mention it. John had draped a clean towel over him and had done some push-ups and sit-ups to kill time, figuring he'd let Rodney nap a while before waking him and seeing that he got back to his room for some real sleep.

When Rodney's eyes slipped open, he looked at John and said, "What day is it?"

"It's still Tuesday," John assured him.

"Good, good. Wait—do you think there'll be any pizza left?"

"Probably," John allowed.

"God, I'm starving." His stomach rumbled again and John slapped it in a friendly way.

"Tell me something I don't know," he said.

Rolling neatly to his feet, John watched Rodney stretch cautiously, as if checking to see if Sun Salutes had caused him any lasting damage, before pressing himself up onto his hands and knees and standing up. He staggered a little and John slipped a supporting hand under his arm.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," Rodney said peevishly, but he let John steady him and then rubbed at his eyes. "Head rush," he reported.

"And manly hunger," John suggested.

"Probably," Rodney allowed, giving him a narrow look. He made for the door and John ambled after him, smiling.

*

The next day, he found Rodney at lunch in the mess, looking better rested, but still a little pale.

"How you doin', Rodney?"

"I have a headache," Rodney announced, focusing on a bowl of canned peaches. "But that's only to be expected, I suppose."

"Maybe you're dehydrated. You slept, what, sixteen hours?"

Rodney had all but pulled a face plant in his pizza after sucking down four slices of pepperoni and extra cheese. Ronon had half-carried the guy back to his quarters, and John hadn't seen any sign of him until now.

"Mm," Rodney agreed listlessly, and swallowed his cooling coffee.

John rolled his eyes.

"Coffee won't help with the dehydration, you know."

Rodney ignored him, but Ronon showed up with a tall glass of ice water.

"Drink it," he rumbled.

Rodney looked at him askance but gulped it down anyway.

"Teyla thinks you should keep coming to the yoga practices," Ronon said.

"I'm sure she does," Rodney said, rolling his eyes. "Nevertheless, I feel my time will be better spent keeping the city afloat. I'm funny that way."

"You can make the time," John said in his most reasonable you'll-do-it-and-shut-up-about-it voice.

"Christ, it's like gym class all over again." He looked genuinely dismayed. "At least you don't have a whistle," he sighed.

"I can get one," John said sweetly.

"Ha. Very ha," Rodney said.

Ronon cocked his head and asked, "Whistle?"

*

The next morning, they had a briefing before heading out to G6F-762.

"The Batisni people are known for their weaving. They have crops that yield a thread that is much like your silk," Teyla explained. "And they are skilled builders as well."

"Oh, goody. I can hardly to wait to see Planet Macramé."

Generally, Rodney waited until he was actually planetside to begin pissing and moaning about it, so John shot him a quelling glance and gave Elizabeth a small, practiced smile.

"Maybe we can score some tablecloths. Class up the mess a bit."

"Maybe," Elizabeth said with a quirk of her lips.

*

"Anything?" John hadn't really thought there'd be any Ancient energy signatures around, but it was always worth checking out.

"Nothing worth mentioning," Rodney returned, frowning at his laptop screen. Ahead of them, Teyla was bartering for a bolt of orange cloth that lightened to canary at the edges. Ronon was running a hand along the polished woodwork displayed in front of one of the many market tents.

John shrugged and nodded toward a potted plant hanging from a wrought iron tripod by finely braided cords.

"You totally called the macramé," he pointed out.

"Apparently," Rodney said. He walked over to a bench and sat down heavily. John took a long hard look at him: a little pale, maybe, but he wasn't sweating or coughing or in any other way showing signs of ill health. Still, he was a little off somehow.

"You feeling okay?" He wondered if Rodney's headache from yesterday was back.

"Fine," Rodney said shortly, but he cut his eyes away and stared with some concentration at a row of fantastically complex tapestries hung on the tent flap beside him.

John decided to let it go for the moment, and Teyla walked back toward them with a smile, the cloth tucked under her arm.

*

After they got back and apprised Elizabeth of the lack of Ancient Tech and the abundance of tablecloths to be had, John rounded up some of the newest marines and spent the afternoon getting thrown by Sergeant Bethany Kincaid while Ronon took on the rest of the class two at a time.

*

Walking back to his room for a shower, he found Zelenka in the hallway, talking down a red-faced Simpson.

"Hey, Doc. What's up?"

"McKay is a grade A asshole," Simpson snapped. John blinked at her; usually, Simpson ranked up with Teyla and Heightmeyer when it came to professional zen. Rodney must have really outdone himself this time.

Zelenka shrugged and held up his hands.

"He is being snippy and interfering even for Rodney," he explained.

"Uh, he's been a little under the weather lately," John offered lamely. "And I'm sure he's... probably sorry about yelling at you. Or doing whatever it was he did."

Simpson just glared at him, clearly still seething, and even Zelenka looked stony.

"Maybe I'll swing by the lab, see what's up with him."

"I think that would be a good idea," Zelenka said crisply.

*

He was hunched over his keyboard when John found him.

"Hey, Rodney."

"Go away. I'm incredibly busy."

"I can see that. You're busy acting like a jerk and pissing off your co-workers."

"Oh, who's maligning me now?"

"I found Simpson and Zelenka plotting against you in the hallway, so you'll probably want to apologize for whatever it is you did."

Rodney gave him a brief, bored glance before ducking back to tap at his keyboard.

"I mean it, Rodney."

Still typing, Rodney said, "I'm very, very, very sorry. Awully, terribly, extremely sorry. And I'll never do it again. Promise."

Rolling his eyes, John poked Rodney, hard, in the shoulder.

"What did you do, anyway?"

Rodney actually looked vaguely guilty for a moment and admitted, "I may have accidentally told Lt. Kuring that Simpson's carried a torch for him since day one." At John's look of incredulity, Rodney stammered, "What? I was only trying to be helpful. I mean, Kuring's totally oblivious and—"

John broke in, compelled to ask, "How did you even know?"

"I overheard her and Miko talking about it two or three times. A day. Honestly, you'd think my lab was a cheerleader camp for all the giggling that goes on in there—and that's just Zelenka."

Giving Rodney a stern, assessing once over, John noted the empty coffee mug on the bench, the dark smudges under Rodney's eyes, the slight tremor in his hands.

"You should probably apologize some more, anyway. And maybe knock off a little early. A little more sleep wouldn't kill you."

"Yeah, sure, fine," Rodney said, waving him out of the lab with more eagerness than John felt the situation warranted.

*

John found himself flashing on that image of Rodney—on his knees, making small, urgent sounds, the nearly hidden motion of his hand, that raw glimpse of skin—at random times of the day. In the cockpit of the jumper, just about to land, in the middle of a set of push-ups, while folding his laundry. Each time, there was a prickle at the back of his neck, and a disturbing tug of interest in his dick and it all made him feel uncomfortable and vaguely guilty.

*

They'd been back from Janx for five days when Rodney didn't show for a morning meeting with the electrical engineers, and Dr. Fulgher called John to tell him that Rodney wasn't answering pages. John ignored a sudden wave of unease and promised to hunt Rodney up for them.

When he got to Rodney's quarters, Rodney answered the door about two seconds before John would have forced it.

He looked sweaty and pale, but characteristically annoyed.

"What what what?"

"You missed a meeting with Fulgher and his guys," John said, trying for casual.

Rodney frowned and scrubbed at his face with his hands. "I must have overslept," he said vaguely. "I'll send them an email. We can reschedule it." He shuffled back to his bed and opened his laptop. John followed him in to stand over him with crossed arms.

"Rodney, what is up with you?"

"What are you talking about?"

"I don't think you're feeling well. And since it's not like you to not tell everybody within shouting distance about your possible hangnails, I've gotta say that I'm starting to get a little worried."

"That's very touching, Colonel Cares-A-Lot, but I can assure you that you have nothing to worry about." It might even have been convincing, if Rodney hadn't been so careful to keep his face turned towards the blue glow of his laptop screen.

"Rodney," John said.

"Fine!" Rodney snapped, finally looking up. "Fine, I've been having headaches. All right? Nothing a few ibuprofen won't take care of."

"For how long?"

"Since I got back from Janx, pretty much."

"Do you think it could be from the lal?"

"How the hell would I know?"

"Why didn't you tell Carson?"

Rodney didn't answer right away, and John began to seriously worry.

"Rodney, is that all? Just headaches?"

"Yeah. But they're pretty much constant. Not quite migraines, but."

"But?"

"That's it," Rodney said stolidly.

"Rodney, quit holding out on me!"

"It's a brain tumor, okay?" Rodney said, in a strangely small voice.

John's stomach clenched.

"What?"

"Headaches, sluggishness, buzzing in the ears. They're all symptoms of a brain tumor." John was about to snap that, yeah, they were all symptoms of a hang-over too, but Rodney didn't drink much and anyway his eyes were huge and his mouth was tight and John didn't doubt for a minute that he believed it.

John himself wasn't quite ready to go there yet, though.

He keyed his com and said, "Carson, Rodney and I are gonna meet you in the infirmary in ten minutes."

Carson didn't ask any questions, just agreeing to see them when they got there.

*

An hour later, Carson had proclaimed Rodney brain-tumor free.

"It's possible this is a lingering effect of withdrawal from the chemicals the Janxnuy gave you. In fact, that would be my official medical opinion. Your blood pressure's fine, you're sleeping again—I imagine it's just a case of waiting it out, lad."

"See? It's not a tumor," John said with satisfaction. Rodney scowled at him and didn't look appeased.

"It's not a baseless fear, Colonel. After Arcturus—I mean, who knows what kind of effects those particles could have on the human body." He peered anxiously into John's face. "In fact, seriously, you should have Carson give you the once over, too. Check your white blood count."

"Rodney, you and I practically get our blood drawn every 48 hours," John countered in a soothing tone, but Carson gave John an assessing look, and John felt a little nervous despite himself.

"Even so. He's not wrong, Colonel." He signaled to a nurse and patted the cot next to Rodney. "Up you go," and so John had blood drawn, too, while Rodney fretted beside him.

*

In the mess at dinner that night, while Rodney was reviewing some notes and complaining about Miko's "incredibly tiny" handwriting, Zelenka led a rebellious looking Simpson over to their table and said, "Rodney, Karen has something to say to you."

"I'm sorry you thought you had a brain tumor," she said stiffly.

"Uh. Okay," Rodney said.

"Tell him why you're sorry he thought he had a brain tumor," Zelenka prompted. She gave him a narrow-eyed glare but continued.

"The headaches may have had something to do with the fact that you've been drinking decaf for the last four days." She crossed her arms and smirked at him. "I switched your stash in the labs and I talked Shu and Morrison into serving you unleaded here in the cafeteria."

Rodney gaped at his current mug of java in horror and shoved it away from him as if he'd been poisoned.

"Conspiracy!" he yelped, stabbing a finger at Zelenka.

"I knew nothing of it until today," Zelenka said. He gave Simpson a small, disappointed shake of his head. "Never would I sanction such behavior. You do not tamper with a man's coffee. It is simply not done."

Simpson looked unrepentant, and John did his best not to laugh.

"I am here only to see that this dispute ends here, without further reprisal," Zelenka said gravely. "Rodney, you are sorry, I know, for speaking out of turn concerning topics you had no business repeating. Karen, you will return Rodney's coffee and see that this never happens again, yes?"

"Yes," Simpson bit out finally, and when Zelenka directed them to shake hands, they did so, although with a lot of suspicious glaring. The moment she left, Rodney sprinted to the food line and browbeat the hapless Morrison into brewing him a fresh pot, insisting that he open a new package of beans where Rodney could see him. He walked back to the table with exaggerated care, black coffee shivering to the very lip of the thick ceramic mug.

"Come to papa," he murmured tenderly, and threw his coffee back so hot John half expected steam to come curling out of his ears.

*

But two days later, although the other symptoms had apparently stopped and Rodney was highly caffeinated once again, Rodney was still having constant headaches, so John hauled him back to the infirmary.

Carson sighed.

"I'm afraid I'm not sure why they're persisting, but it's likely that they'll fade just as the other symptoms have."

Rodney was already ignoring Carson, curled over the laptop he'd brought with him, nose nearly brushing the screen. John studied him a moment, turned back to Carson and said, "Hey, what about his eyesight? Have you tested his vision?"

"Oh, aye. He had an eye exam not a month ago."

John glanced over at Rodney who was busy scowling at him.

"Test him again," John said.

Rodney breezed through the test.

"Twenty-twenty," Carson smiled.

Rodney gave a proud little wag of his head and John just knew.

"You sneaky little—You memorized the eye chart!"

"I have no idea what you're talking about!" Rodney yelped and John was sure he was right.

"Rodney!" Carson admonished, "Have you really been reciting it from memory all this time?"

The stubborn chin and sullenly crossed arms told John all he needed to know.

"That's a yes," John told Carson, with a smug little head wag of his own.

"Oh, shut up," Rodney muttered.

While Carson set up for round two, John fixed Rodney with a prim smile and Rodney flipped him the bird.

When the test was over, Carson gave Rodney a bracing pat on the shoulder.

"Crafty old thing. You were right, Colonel. He's probably needed glasses for some time. Now that we've run through the test properly, maybe we can stop these headaches of yours. Of course, you have some options. Contacts—"

"Ah, yes, scratches on the cornea and the likelihood of disgusting infection. No thanks."

"Lasik surgery—" Carson continued.

"As far as I'm concerned, lasers should only ever shoot out of one's eyes," Rodney returned grimly.

"Glasses it is then," Carson sighed.

"See you later, Rodney," John smirked.

"Not if I see you first," Rodney promised darkly.

*

Reviewing Ronon's reports always made John feel a little weird; he knew they were a lot of work for the guy, and even though he knew for a fact that Ronon used spell check before he turned his reports in, sometimes the words in the sentences were just sort of...random.

Teyla ducked in to walk him to their stick fighting lesson, and John waved her toward a chair and leaned forward, licking his lower lip before saying, "What do you think Ronon's literacy level is?"

The Athosions, he knew, traditionally drilled their kids on all aspects of history and literature and math, every day. On the mainland, they even had a little formal school—the first of its kind since the First Fall of the Old Cities, according to Teyla.

He thought maybe Teyla would look uncomfortable, but instead, her expression was cool and her eyes were hard and disapproving.

"Sateda was known for its universities, especially for medicine and engineering. In days past, there were many worlds that trained their best scholars in hopes that they might be accepted there. It is very unlikely that Ronon Dex became a Specialist without the benefit of an extensive education."

"Hey, take it easy, I'm not saying he's stupid or anything! It's just—I know the gate translates spoken languages, I was just wondering if he needed some coaching with his reports because of the language barrier, or whatever."

Now John noticed a flicker of unease on Teyla's face.

"I have noticed that as well," she said softly. "But I believe... I think he merely has trouble with his eyes," she said finally. She spread her hands apologetically. "I had not wished to say anything before now, because I believe that Ronon sees it as a terrible weakness, and I have not yet been able to persuade him that it can be overcome."

"They were known for medicine and technology on Sateda, but nobody wore glasses?" John squinted at her.

"I do not know," Teyla sighed. "Before it fell, I had never been to Sateda—but whether they had them or not, I suspect that Ronon's refusal to wear them is little more than a warrior's pride, rather than distrust or tradition. He refuses even to adjust the size of the text on his computer screen."

John laughed and Teyla gave him a reproving glance.

"It's just—I just left Rodney in the infirmary, and he needs glasses, too."

Teyla did not look surprised.

"You could have told me," John said, a little annoyed.

"You know now," she answered serenely, and held out his set of sticks with a little smile. "And it is time for our practice," she reminded him.

She kicked his ass all around the gym for the whole hour and a half.

*

Ronon looked vaguely pissed but mostly guilty when John talked to him about seeing Carson for an eye exam, and it turned out he was far-sighted. Carson set him up with the only eyeglass frames that they had on hand that actually fit the guy, and the next day at breakfast, Ronon was tapping at his laptop with a donut in one hand, wearing wide, square glasses with thick black plastic frames. Ronon was too wild and freakishly good looking to have even ugly glasses so much as dent his powers of intimidation, but they tamed him a little, gave him a weirdly civilized Drama School Student look. And then he saw Rodney sitting beside him. He'd been eclipsed by Ronon at the angle John had approached the table. He, too, was wearing glasses with thick black plastic frames, but they were rectangular, and smaller, obviously, than Ronon's, so that Rodney looked almost, well, stylish in comparison. Far from giving Rodney the Geek Extraordinaire look John had been expecting, Rodney looked sober, dressed up somehow. The glasses lent his face a sort of focused formality that John wasn't all that sure he liked.

When he set his tray on the table, Ronon looked up briefly and grunted a hello, and Rodney shot him a poisonous glare that was somehow more effective than usual. John figured that was the glasses, too.

"Well, if it isn't Colonel Twenty-Twenty."

"Good morning to you, too, Rodney. And it's Twenty-Ten, thanks," John couldn't help adding. "How're the headaches?"

"Better," Rodney admitted shortly. "Although I'm not sure that it's worth the incredible inconvenience of wearing these things."

Ronon closed the lid of his laptop and took his glasses off, folding them carefully and tucking them in his shirt pocket.

"I only have to wear mine for reading," he explained, giving Rodney a look that was half sympathy, half brag.

"How nice for you," Rodney returned.

"Your aim should be better now," Ronon continued thoughtfully. "You'll need retraining."

Rodney looked surprised.

"You're right. I hadn't thought about it." John had; he was pleased to see that Ronon had gone there, too.

Bumping Rodney's shoulder with his own, Ronon said, "Let's go."

"What, now?"

"Sure. Why wait?"

"I suppose you're right," Rodney sighed, sounding put upon. "And you, stop smirking."

John grinned at him and took a big bite of his waffle.

"Have fun, kids," he called after them.

Rodney's sour expression told John what he could do with his fun.

*

Rodney was standing over a hot plate while Ronon and Teyla looked on with interest when John arrived for that week's team meeting.

John noted a toaster, two cartons of eggs, a block of butter, a packet of Velveeta Singles and a bag of Wonder Bread.

"Whatcha doin'?"

"The Daedalus arrived today with the supplies I ordered. I'm introducing Teyla and Ronon to the wonders of fried egg sandwiches," Rodney said, flipping a fried egg onto a piece of buttered toast. He slapped some cheese and another slice of buttered toast on top and squashed it with his spatula in the frying pan for a minute or so before he slid it onto a plate and proffered it to Teyla.

She took it with a wary look.

"I'm telling you, these are nothing like the eggs served here in the mess hall. You'll like it, I promise."

She took a small bite, then smiled and gave Rodney an approving nod.

"It is very rich," she said, after she'd swallowed.

Ronon looked on with envy before turning to address John. "McKay was telling us about these birds you have, that lay eggs every day?"

"Chickens," John said knowledgably. Ronon looked suitably impressed.

"On Sateda, we only ever had eggs in the spring. Little kids would climb trees for kuro eggs, to sell at the corner fair. They were a lot smaller than these."

"They were a great delicacy on Athos as well," Teyla said, taking a second bite of her sandwich with every show of enthusiasm. Rodney handed the next sandwich to Ronon, who wolfed it down in three bites, and John watched Rodney pause in the middle of peeling cellophane off a Velveeta single to adjust his eyeglasses, clearly annoyed.

"I suppose you want another one," Rodney said, giving Ronon a dubious look.

"Sheppard hasn't had one yet." Ronon pointed out. "You, either."

"Just keep the toast coming, will you?" Rodney sighed.

Chatting up Teyla while Rodney made him a sandwich (crisp and buttery with the yolk just a little runny, the white browned at the edges—perfect), John got caught up on the Athosian plans for building a Meeting House, while Ronon watched Rodney butter toast like lives were at stake.

When Rodney had tucked the last crust of his own sandwich in his mouth, he swallowed noisily and made a grand gesture. "As long as you make them yourself, you can eat as many as you want."

Ronon lost no time in cracking open an egg with delicate precision, setting a pat of butter to bubble on the pan and slipping the egg out of its shell to fry.

Before long, the air was heavy with the fragrance of frying butter, John and Teyla had eaten two sandwiches each, Rodney had put away three and a half and Ronon was working on number six point five while John and Rodney watched him with something like admiration.

After a while, Ronon seemed to notice that they were staring at him.

"What? They're good," and he gave a little shrug.

Rodney smiled a little, a buttery smear on the left lens of his glasses. "Aren't they, though?"

Ronon grinned back, crumbs in his beard.

*

The first three days Rodney had his glasses, he lost them twice, dropped them three times and managed to scuff the hell out of the allegedly scratch-resistant lenses. John had come by the lab to get Rodney for a mission briefing when Rodney yanked his glasses off and massaged the bridge of his nose with pinching fingers, half-shouting, "How do people live like this!?"

"He doesn't seem to be adjusting," Zelenka said in a stage whisper, as Rodney muttered savagely at something and began to stab at the keys of his laptop, having abandoned his glasses dangerously near the edge of the lab table.

John had to agree.

"I'm blind, not deaf," Rodney snapped, not bothering to lift his head.

"You're also late," John pointed out.

"Fine." He picked up his glasses again and put them on with a longsuffering sigh.

On the walk to the meeting, John asked, "Are they really that bad?"

"Well, they keep the headaches at bay, and I can, you know, see, which is nice, but—they're so uncomfortable. The backs of my ears hurt," Rodney said, sounding betrayed. "They're heavy, and they get in the way, and—and they're such a cliché, don't you think? The genius in glasses."

"I think they make you look... distinguished," John tried. Which was sort of true. Mostly, they made Rodney look a little distant, walled off. His eyes didn't seem as expressive behind a sheen of glass.

"Really?" Rodney seemed pleased. "Well."

He walked a little taller the rest of the way, and John glanced at him, smiling.

*

The thing was, John had dated a fair share of girls who wore glasses. Maybe it was a holdover from crushing hard on Marilyn Monroe when he was thirteen, watching "How To Marry a Millionaire" with his mom one afternoon when he'd been home from school with the flu, or maybe Gillian Bixby in AP Physics was just cute as hell, in her hip little tortoise shell glasses or out of them, with her killer hookshot and head full of tiny braids. The same had gone for Nina Hui in college—she had worn little wire-framed rimless ovals, and would take them off and fold them and unfold them when she was planning a paper or freaking out about exams and he had gotten pretty good at nabbing them from her and kissing her until the freak out had passed. In flight school, he'd dated a cocktail waitress named Angie DuBois for a while. She'd had hot pink plastic cat-eyed frames and a platinum blond mohawk, which somehow only accentuated her huge blue eyes, her soft arms, her sweet, kittenish face.

And even though John knew perfectly well what Rodney looked like with or without glasses, he found that, more and more, he wanted to be the one who took them off.

And that was... well, it was weird.

*

The people of Planet Macramé sent an envoy asking the team to return for the First Moon, and Teyla explained that this was the final step in negotiating formal trade. John had figured as much.

"We don't have to name any new babies or anything like that, do we?" John asked.

X25, for example, now had three Jennifers and a Dave. "I panicked," Rodney had moaned. Considering that the people of X25 had names that usually took about three minutes to pronounce, John figured the new names would catch on. "As a matter of fact, I wouldn't be surprised if we go back and find fifty or sixty Jennifers by then," he'd said by way of encouragement, and Rodney had only slapped a hand over his eyes.

"Not that I am aware," Teyla said with an arch look at Rodney.

Rodney closed his eyes and lifted his chin, pretending to ignore her.

"Why do we even have to go?" Rodney complained. "The Ancients were big on flowing linen garmentry. We've got enough cloth to sail a fleet of ships with. What do we need more for?"

Teyla's voice was cool.

"It is true that Atlantis does not suffer for lack of cloth. However, my people prize their weavings, and we hope to establish trade. The Batisni do not venture from their planet as a rule, and their cloth will bring high prices at market on other worlds. If it is so inconvenient, perhaps it could be arranged that—"

"No, no, shutting up," Rodney promised quickly. "In fact, I'm looking forward to it. I appreciate, uh, handcrafted... crafts as much as anyone."

Favoring him with a smile, Teyla said, "Perhaps we could barter for some wall hangings. To make your quarters more homelike," she added.

Rodney looked strangely interested.

"I actually took a course in interior design once." When John just stared at him, Rodney blinked for a moment and then explained, "It was to meet a girl. Her name was Stephanie Coulter. Blonde. Miniskirts. Legs like you wouldn't believe." When John didn't look convinced, Rodney gave him a dismissive wave and insisted, "I needed an elective anyway. And from a purely architectural standpoint—anyway, I could use some curtains. If I could get something dark enough to block out the windows, I could sleep later. The Ancients seem to have balked at any shades deeper than taupe."

John considered that; those embroidered wall hangings would be just the thing, really, to keep the morning sun out of his eyes on the rare days when he did get to sleep in.

"So we're a go, then," he said, and Teyla gave him a single, amused nod. "First Moon." He paused. "When is that, anyway?"

"It is four days away," Teyla said.

*

Over the next couple of days, John started to notice that Rodney and Ronon were together more often than not. Mostly at the shooting range, but Ronon had started hanging out in the labs, too, probably playing Halo on his laptop while Rodney and Radek fine-tuned the naquadah-enhanced laptop batteries they were engineering. "These bad boys will keep a laptop running for months," Rodney promised, "None of this redlining in four hours crap."

John still had to strongarm Rodney to get him to attend Elizabeth's yoga classes, but while Ronon still ran with John in the morning, he now also rounded up Rodney for an evening jog, leaving John free to... just hang out. But as he'd ordinarily spent most of his free time hanging out with Rodney, it made him feel a little twitchy. Even the yoga classes were beginning to make him feel twitchy, because there was something hellishly appealing about watching Rodney bend almost double to touch his hands to the floor, and seeing Rodney flushed with exertion and relaxed in sleep at the end of class made him feel... definite feelings. John was almost glad that he wasn't seeing as much of Rodney as he was used to, and he was pretty nearly to the point of asking Ronon to cover yoga duty, too.

He found himself wondering what Teyla did in her free time. Meditation? Reading? Bubble baths?

When he knocked on her door, she didn't answer, and John was making his way back down the hall when she stepped out of the transporter in her training skirt.

"Colonel."

"I was gonna ask if you were feeling up for sparring, but it looks like you just got back from a round."

"I have just been with Dr. Heightmeyer. She is teaching me aikido." Smiling a bit ruefully, she rubbed at her shoulder. "It is similar in many ways to a discipline my people call Nuli. I have never studied it seriously, although Hisia and Fridda know it well. They are training several of our youngsters, in fact. Jinto is quite adept now, I am told."

"Maybe you should set up a match between him and Heightmeyer," John suggested. "Get a little of your own back."

"Perhaps," Teyla allowed. "John. Are you well?"

"Me? Sure. Just... a little at loose ends. It's weird not to be buried alive in work, you know?"

She tilted her head.

"Perhaps we could watch a film? Or play a boardgame?"

"A boardgame? I thought chess bored the hell out of you."

Ronon had had a bout of brief yet intense curiosity about the game, and after a while he'd exhausted everyone else's interest in it and had stopped bothering to challenge Rodney, who not only crushed Ronon every game, but gloated about it. Every time.

"I am proposing a game of Monopoly."

John blinked at her. A two person game of Monopoly could take hours.

"I call dibs on the car."

"I prefer the thimble," Teyla answered. "Although I am also fond of the tiny dog."

*

By day three, John caught up with Ronon at lunch.

"Hey, what do you say we go out to the mainland and I teach you how to surf?"

"I can't swim," Ronon said flatly, and the look on his face said he didn't plan on learning to any time soon. "Besides, I've got stuff to do."

John was tempted to ask what kind of stuff—apparently, boredom made him an incredible busybody—when Rodney rolled in, stopped short at their table and said, "You should come see this. Zelenka has the castings ready for the first prototype."

John looked up with interest, and was about to push away from the table when Ronon bounded to his feet and he and Rodney all but scurried out the door together.

What the hell?

*

Figuring that crowding Teyla's all-too-rare downtime two nights in a row would come off as downright pathetic, John held off until about 9 or so.

This time, she answered her door. But she had company and was dressed to kill, besides: her pants clung like they loved every inch of her and her red top plunged here and cropped there until it was really more of a concept than an actual shirt. John caught a glimpse of Lorne's profile before he backpedaled in earnest.

"Sorry to bust in on you like this. I was gonna see if you wanted to catch a movie." Although both Ronon and Rodney claimed they didn't "get" Monty Python, the eps he'd shown her had made her laugh; he thought she'd get a kick out of the Knights who said "Ne".

"Another time, perhaps," she said, her voice warm—but her eyes were telling him to make tracks and forget he'd seen anything.

"Sure."

The door closed behind him and he found himself heading towards the labs. At the very least, maybe he could get Ronon to go head to head with him on Burnout 3.

When he got there, Ronon and Rodney were pressed shoulder to shoulder, poking at something on the lab benches that John couldn't see, and for a moment, John felt a weird pang of huge, unreasoning jealousy.

He'd spent a fair amount of time poking at things in Rodney's lab—although not lately.

Rubbing his face and drawing the line at storming into the lab, shoving Ronon and calling him a—what? A homewrecker? A best-friend stealer? A stupid stupidhead? John decided to call it a night.

He lay awake in bed until well past three, and did not jerk off thinking about Rodney showing up in his room, taking off his glasses and folding them very carefully, with intent, before setting them on John's bedside table and reaching over to run a hand down John's chest.

*

At the end of the pre-mission briefing ("The Batisni request that all potential traders accept the hospitality of one of the villagers for an evening." "We don't have to put out, do we? I mean, we won't be expected to parade around like Chippendales dancers while hungry-eyed village women look on—" Teyla didn't answer him, but she did roll her eyes. John and Ronon traded a look; that was only the second eyeroll Rodney had ever gotten out of her.) Rodney grabbed his sleeve and shot Ronon an eager, anticipatory grin.

"Oh, hey, wait up. We've got a little something special here," and he reached under the desk for a sleek case. Setting it on the table, he waved his hands at John. "Go ahead. Open it."

Ronon was doing that not-smiling thing he did, and Teyla tilted her head and looked on with frank interest. Elizabeth smiled, and prompted, "John?" so he flipped the case open. Inside, was Ronon's blaster.

He blinked at Ronon, baffled.

"I... I can't take this. This is your gun," he said helplessly.

"No no no no no, it's yours. I made it!" Rodney said. When Ronon cocked his head and crossed his arms, Rodney amended, "Okay, fine, we made it."

John's fingers itched to touch it, so he did. After all, it was his. Picking it up, he weighed the heft. "It's lighter than Ronon's."

"Smaller, too," Ronon smirked.

"We used new polymers, obviously. Ancient tech—you've got to hand it to them. The stuff's called adian, it's thin as an eggshell with the tensile strength of—"

"It makes a bigger hole than mine, though," Ronon admitted.

John looked down at his new gun and fucking beamed at it.

"Cool." He wondered if it would fit in his thigh holster, and Ronon handed him a handful of braided leather straps. But it's not even my birthday, John didn't say. "I can't believe you let him mess around with your gun," he said instead.

"He didn't!" Rodney insisted. "He wouldn't let me take it apart, can you believe that? So I taught him the basics of AutoCAD and he drew up the plans for me. Apparently he took a lot of engineering courses in school."

John felt his eyebrows raise and felt Teyla giving him a pointedly "told you so" look.

"Guys. This is just... so great. I don't even know what to say."

"Let's go to the mainland and shoot at stuff," Ronon suggested.

"I'm right there with you, buddy."

Rodney gave him an indulgent smile. "You two run along. Try not to shoot your eye out." He patted Teyla's arm. "Don't worry, we're making you one, too," and Ronon nodded earnestly and John tried to stop grinning like an idiot. He knew it was just a matter of time before the whole thing ended in a group hug, so he tossed Ronon his shiny new raygun and said, "You can practice that two handed thing," and Ronon's eyes went speculative and he said, "Yeah," and Elizabeth glowed at all of them like a kindergarten teacher whose class had just handed her a handful of macaroni necklaces.

*

762 was in the middle of its winter, and Rodney's breath puffed in the air as he detailed the work he'd put into the gun, and the improvements he'd come up with for Teyla's model. Ronon was ahead, talking to Teyla in a low, teasing voice—John bet Ronon knew a fair bit about Lorne's visits to Teyla's place. They had about three miles walk ahead of them before they got to the Batisni village, and it was beginning to snow.

Rodney stopped and muttered, grabbing at his glasses and pointing accusingly at the flakes sticking to his lenses.

"See? Now this is what I'm talking about. The constant inconvenience. They should at least come with tiny windshield wipers. Or, huh, maybe I could rig a force field that would keep the water from condensing—" There were snowflakes in his eyelashes.

For a moment, John could only see Rodney, pointy chin rough with stubble, his mouth red with the cold, cheeks all rosy, eyes clear and bright, and it was as if he was seeing Rodney for the first time, almost at the molecular level. Rodney dissolved into a blur of pixilation, like pointillism or an eye test for color blindness, Rodney's image splintering and resolving again in his mind's eye as the face of a guy who built him a raygun, the face of a man he trusted, as the face of someone he was beginning to realize he was kind of in love with.

John grabbed the glasses and unzipped his jacket. Cold banged on his chest, but he ignored it, untucking his T-shirt with a jerk and using the hem to wipe the lenses clear. Then he handed them back and said, "Suck it up, Rodney," and Rodney put his glasses back on with a chastened look.

The rest of the walk was much quieter.

*

"We have to what?" John said again.

"I'm not ironing," Ronon said. He crossed his arms. "You can't make me." He sounded like he'd choose death first.

"Being at the sexual mercy of desperate housewives would have been way better," Rodney said despondently, shouldering his broom.

At first, John had been a little flattered at the way all the villagers had vied to keep them as guests for the night, but then Teyla let slip that the Batisni idea of hospitality was decidedly... refreshing. Guests earned their keep by doing household tasks, and the guy that had won out over the rest was a widower who apparently hadn't washed a dish since the Bears had won a Super Bowl.

"Ronon will cook, I will weed the hothouse garden and Colonel, Gswa asks that you and Dr. McKay sweep and make the beds," Teyla said smoothly. John suspected she'd assigned them the chores herself, but didn't argue. At least Ronon could fry an egg; he'd tried Teyla's tuttle-root soup, and he wasn't anxious to try it again.

Dinner was companionable enough. Gswa wouldn't have passed the White Glove test, but he was a nice enough guy, generous with the ale and the little neon green berries he grew in his hothouse. They tasted like cherry sodapop and Rodney ate them by the double handful. Ronon had roasted some birds on a spit and steamed some pink vegetables; Gswa was a baker, and he'd provided the dark, chewy bread. Rodney washed the dishes with a weird intensity, his head down and up to his elbows in lavender suds that smelled like fresh corn. Teyla dried them and put them away and John and Ronon beat a few rugs on the front porch while Gswa played them some music on something that sounded a lot like a harmonica, only sweeter.

When they retired for the night, John was incredibly grimy from cleaning soot out of the hearth with a rag tied to a stick, and Rodney was looking a little green.

"I can't believe I just cleaned an alien outhouse," he muttered.

"Running water would be nice just about now," John agreed, rinsing his forearms in the wide clay bowl on the low table by the bedroom fireplace.

"At least we didn't have to do laundry," Rodney sighed. "The neighbor lady, Crayon? Whatever. She lent Teyla clean sheets for us, anyway."

"Yeah, but we still have to make the beds."

Rodney sighed again.

The beds themselves were biggish, and made of heavy, brightly painted wood. Gswa had three sons and a daughter who had all emigrated to other villages, leaving him pretty well suited to serve as a local bed and breakfast.

Shrugging, John shook out a sheet and let it float down to the mattress. He shoved a clump under one corner and started tucking the rest under.

"What are you doing?" Rodney sounded appalled.

"I'm making the goddamned bed, Rodney." John was pretty much done with housework.

"Aren't you in the Armed Forces? Don't they make you, I don't know, bounce a quarter off your Spartan cot?"

"I don't think Gwsa has a quarter, and even if he did, he doesn't strike me as being all that persnickety." John didn't even want to think about all the cobwebs he'd swept off the ceiling over the course of the day.

"You want something done right," Rodney muttered and all but yanked the sheet out John's hand. A minute later he stepped back, hands on his hips, proudly surveying his work.

"Hospital corners?" John said faintly.

"Fine. If you must know, my mother was sort of a neatfreak. Shut up," Rodney said preemptively. John just shook his head, fluffed the down comforter a bit and then smoothed it over the bed. When he stood up, Rodney was frowning at the bed as if unsure it would pass muster. He had a little yellow pinfeather caught in his hair. The whole thing felt almost creepily domestic, and John was about to edge away to make the other bed when Rodney took his glasses off and blew some lint off of one lens.

Oh come on, John thought. Maybe he'd even said it out loud, as Rodney was giving him a puzzled look.

"What?"

John sighed and moved to pluck the feather out of McKay's hair, but Rodney apparently misinterpreted the motion, because he dropped his glasses on the freshly made bed and pressed the side of his face into the cup of John's reaching hand. Then he grabbed at John's shoulders, tugging him forward and landing a clumsy, hasty kiss on John's mouth, which happened to be open with surprise.

The second kiss was better; John was ready for that one, and Rodney's mouth was warm and wet and his hands were greedy.

"I don't care if it's a fetish," Rodney was murmuring, "So what? I mean, just take your thigh holster, for example. I wouldn't say it's a fetish, exactly, Colonel, but the whole gun thing—I admit it, it works for me." He swept his tongue into John's mouth and withdrew it, softly bit John's lower lip, and totally groped his ass.

He shut up after that, and John hoped the log walls were thick enough to keep Ronon from overhearing the choked little gasp Rodney made when John sucked on his neck. "Jesus, let me suck you—" Rodney said, scrabbling at the zipper of John's pants. Even with his dick practically standing up, John tried to pull himself together.

"I dunno Rodney. I'm—" still new at this. Still on duty. Still mostly straight. Historically, anyway.

"No, no trust me, this is the easiest way. After all, we just made the bed, and I am not boiling sheets on Planet Housekeeping, so if you don't like it, you can just keep it in your pants, Colonel." He paused then, as if considering. "But honestly, you'll like it," and he stuck his hand down the front of John's pants and started to slide to the floor before pausing to say anxiously, "You don't have a thing for Zelenka, do you? I mean, it's obvious you have a thing for Ronon, but I can let that go, because he's seriously hot, but you're not just making out with me because I'm easy and I wear glasses now and you've been eating your heart out with unrequited lust for him?"

Shaking his head, John closed his hand on Rodney's wrist and pulled him off. Before Rodney could register it as rejection, John had stepped back and behind Rodney, manhandling him until he was folded over the foot of the bed. Then he knelt on the floor behind him and unbuttoned Rodney's pants, jerking his boxers down, before finally curling a hand around the thick weight of Rodney's stiff cock. He jacked him slowly, his mouth mashed against the nape of Rodney's neck, scraping his jaw against the sensitive skin there and Rodney shuddered and sighed and when John lipped his ear, Rodney blurted, "This this, wait—you wanted—" and John bit down on Rodney's ear and he bucked in John's hands. John had gotten his own pants down far enough that he could feel the flex and curve and heat of Rodney's ass, the hot little gully where Rodney's thighs touched, where the wet head of John's cock nudged against Rodney's skin. Rodney came all over the warped wooden floor boards John had just mopped, groaning into the mattress. John stroked his thigh and nosed the hair behind Rodney's ear, letting his own hard-on ride, but Rodney turned around, awkwardly, sweatily, and kissed John like he needed to do it, like he wanted nothing more on this planet or any other, and while Rodney kissed him, John ground himself against the crease of Rodney's thigh, slick and urgent and sucking on Rodney's tongue, and it was perfect.

*

"It's a light pen that actually generates a new optic nerve and the corresponding muscles and tissues," Rodney said excitedly. The object in his hand was about the shape and size of a stick of Juicy Fruit, but it glowed like phosphorous. He brandished his folded, now entirely unnecessary, glasses. "At last, I have cast off these shackles!"

"I will keep mine, I think," Radek said, eyeing the machine warily.

"Look, it's perfectly safe and anyway it's already been tested on a human subject. As much as Kavanagh can be considered human," Rodney added.

Simpson gave him a "humoring my boss" sort of smile and said, "I have to say that Kavanagh seems a lot happier since."

"Beckett's been looking at the stuff we found on the database. The Ancients used them all the time offworld, dispensing healing and neutral earth tones to the unwashed masses. Ronon's gonna jump at the chance."

John knew he would.

"In fact, let's go tell him!"

Following Rodney down the hall, John let him rattle on.

"We've already got a waiting list. I was first, of course."

"Of course," John agreed.

"But next we've got McKenna, Aspen, Kulmala, Ye—"

Peering at the screen in Rodney's hand, John said, "What about Miko?"

"She's not on the list."

"I can see that."

"No, I mean, she doesn't need to be. Miko's glasses are pure affectation, can you believe it? Her vision's 20/10, I've seen her file."

Huh.

"Anyway," and Rodney's voice dropped, "I went with 20/10 myself."

John nodded a little; 20/10 was the way to go, if you had the option. He caught Rodney's lens-free profile out of the corner of his eye. They'd been back from 762 for six weeks, and he'd gotten used to handing Rodney his glasses first thing in the morning. Well, second thing in the morning.

"I mean. I'll need to retrain at the shooting range again." He gave John a significant look. "I thought maybe you could give me some pointers. Help me feel out my new lease on depth perception."

"I could probably do that," John said easily. He let his elbow brush Rodney's and Rodney went a little pink and fumbled something out of his tac vest pocket.

"Here."

They were the frames of Rodney's glasses.

"I took the lenses out. But I figured I could leave them with you. You know, as a sort of... keepsake, or something."

"Well. Thanks," John said cautiously.

"I also thought, uh, that maybe you could try them on. Sometime."

Uh huh.

"But it's such a cliché, don't you think, the genius in glasses?" John said, cramming every word with earnest, wide-eyed sincerity.

Rodney tried to scowl, but blushed instead.

*

Now that they all had energy pulse weapons as cool as Ronon's, John figured he could help Rodney figure out how to actually use his.

"The sight's different than what you're used to," John explained, his hand hovering just over, but not actually against the small of Rodney's back. Rodney tensed up, predictably, automatically, even though it was only Ronon shadowing Teyla next to them, even though the shooting range was otherwise empty. "Take it easy, McKay," John complained, and settled his hand on Rodney's back after all.

Rodney threw him a testy glance, shielded behind the tinted bat-wing safety glasses. "It just so happens that I actually built this thing, so I'm uniqely capable of understanding just how much damage it could do should the distribution coil overload--"

"Exactly. You built it yourself, and you know you can trust your own work, and therefore you can, you know, actually shoot it."

Teyla's gun (which was, John had noticed, pink) let off three flashing bursts of energy and sound, and Ronon clapped her on the back so hard she almost stumbled. She gave John a look of arch satisfaction, her small, pretty teeth gleaming.

Ronon had submitted to the light-pen doohickey pretty much as soon as Rodney had explained it to him, and then he suggested they round up Teyla, and Rodney's own new raygun, for some celebratory target practice. John had to admire the guy's idea of a team-bonding exercise.

Shoulders locked, arms holding the gun out before him in classic Charlie's Angels style, Rodney kept glancing over at John.

"What?"

"It's just..." And Rodney dropped his gun, waving vaguely with his free hand. "I find it hard to concentrate when you're... You know."

John quirked his eyebrows at Rodney.

"Wearing those," Rodney hissed.

John blinked.

"Those," Rodney insisted again, this time indicating the general area around John's face.

"The safety glasses?" John realized.

Rodney flushed to the tips of his ears.

"Is there anything you don't look good in?" Rodney asked helpessly.

Pretending to consider, John said, "I've been told that even I can't work the Emperor's robe."

Rodney just looked bitter, and holstered his raygun.

Ronon said, "Hey. Watch this," and he tossed his gun and Teyla's in the air, catching one lightly in each hand before decimating the target at the end of the range in a hail of deafening gunfire.

Aside from the fact that one of the guns was, well, pink, it was pretty much one of the coolest things John had ever seen.

"See," Rodney said thoughtfully. "He makes that work."

"I think I'm a little jealous, McKay."

Rodney looked pleased. "Really?" Clearly, the idea appealed.

"No." John admitted. "Not really."

Rodney sniffed, and then Teyla snatched both guns from Ronon's hands and did a spinning move that ended with her strafing the hapless paper target in a savage, graceful arc.

She blew a puff of air across the narrow barrel of her pink gun and gave them all a dazzling smile when the bottom half of the target, neatly perforated, drifted lazily to the floor.

END


I made a cover, too, and if you are so inclined, you can check out my "sad mad skillz" in photoshop, as the kids say.