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“I think, in the grand scheme of things, we’re… we’re good, aren’t we?”
John wasn’t sure why it hit him so hard; why it split him open, like the last decisive tap of a chisel, and forced him to watch his own long-suppressed feelings sproinging out of him, like a snake in a can; like some high pressure explosion in garish colours.
Maybe because Rodney was so open and vulnerable himself; maybe because it obviously mattered so very much to him, that he and John were right with each other, with no grudges left on the slate. Or because it was wrong, in some heart-twisting way, that he didn’t already know the answer, didn’t know quite how good he was with John and always would be.
Maybe, just maybe, because it was at that precise moment that it really hit home that Rodney was going to die.
John rallied pretty well, considering.
But, inside, he was panicking that everything he had been trying to hide from everyone - from himself - for so long, was slathered all over him now like a stain, indelible and public, and if it wasn’t for that much worse terror, that slow gradual ripping out of his insides while Rodney was visibly dying in front of him, and the need to ignore even that because Rodney needed him; had trusted him, John, at the very last; then he might have bolted to some private place and quietly folded under the weight of it all.
When Rodney asked:“You love me? Really?”, John didn’t fully take in the last part, the ‘All of you?’ because ‘love’ and ‘Rodney’ combined felt so personal, as though it applied peculiarly to him and he was being asked to proclaim that from the rooftops, to sing out his love and grief as blatant and bold as if he were to perform an actual song and dance number, right there in front of everyone, with spats and a cane.
He’d thought that would be the most painful, the most mortifying thing he could do. But it turned out that denying what he felt - cravenly, and quite unnecessarily, qualifying his love to his dying friend, just when he needed it most - that was what burned him up from the inside out; settled into his body like an eagle which was quite prepared to gnaw at his liver all day long and never get bored of the diet.
And when Rodney lived, pulling off one of those last-minute saves he specialised in, as though his sense of drama was directly wired into his problem-solving capabilities, John felt such relief that it almost knocked him clean out of himself; but that eagle didn’t budge an inch, or pause for more than a moment, to appreciate the news, before getting its beak stuck back in again.
He wanted to run around Atlantis until he dropped. He wanted to attach himself to Rodney and never let go.
What he did was offer jokes and platitudes and a firm ‘like a friend loves another friend’ pat on the shoulder. What he did was goof around and pretend that he wanted to be a superhero, as if the machine wasn’t something he had vivid daydreams about smashing into pieces, about blowing comprehensively to so many harmless atoms, in case Rodney got any ideas - now he knew there was a get-out-clause - about trying again, so he could get back, for just a short while, the math and the advanced understanding, which he’d held so briefly and lost.
Because Rodney was physically okay again, but emotionally bashed around and bruised by it all. Dying was an undeniably unsettling experience, but John thought it was also partly an aching for something just beyond his grasp; like being invited into a secret realm of wonders and then cast out of it abruptly, with the door slammed shut.
Ronon had hugged Rodney, after, like it was the easiest thing in the world. As though it was possible to say ‘I love you’ in a straightforward unapologetic fashion, without any complications to it, without any shame at being so open with your feelings, at putting them out there to be stared at and pawed through and gossiped over, until they didn’t belong to you any more.
Ronon didn’t want to fuck Rodney - at least John didn’t think he did, was suddenly consumed by a fear that he might, as if he needed one more thing to angst over - so maybe that was why it was so easy for him.
But John did, badly. It was threaded through everything else like a beating pulse - all of their friendship, all of the feelings John had for him, of caring, companionship, affection, annoyance, anger, need, protectiveness, love (stupid multi-faceted love) - and John couldn’t hide it from himself any longer, couldn’t pretend that what he wanted from Rodney didn’t include sex. Sweet, hot, dirty, gentle. Skilled, clumsy, goofy, desperate. Long and slow on the bed; hard and fast against a wall; warm and hilarious on a cliched bear-skin rug.
And, even more than that, was an acknowledgment that he wanted Rodney to be that person, his person, the one who slotted into his life like there was a gap just waiting for him, and, hey, wouldn’t you know it, had himself a John-shaped gap, all ready and waiting, in turn.
John had managed for so long not to completely be aware of this. And, now, it was if everything that he’d tried so hard not to see, not to feel, had swollen in the darkness of the prison he’d made for it and grown stronger, larger and perhaps a little vengeful, so that he couldn’t escape it.
It was two weeks now since Rodney didn’t die and there hadn’t been a day on which John hadn’t wanted to scoop him up and kiss him, good and deep, and then ask him to ask John why: because he stumbled and stuttered at speaking things straight out, or even thinking them, but there was something about Rodney’s questions, his particular way of asking, which opened up new things in John, just as it opened up the world around them and cracked open shafts of light in the universe.
He wasn’t quite sure what stopped him, apart from the practical difficulties - Rodney didn’t exactly lend himself readily to a scoop - and the fact that he’d always stopped himself before, for so long that it was almost a reflex; as hard to overcome as the act of sneezing.
But there was that eagle, gnawing, and there was Rodney, living. Bright and vibrant and achingly desirable, and deserving of knowing that he was loved, and would be loved, until the universe lay down and rested its well-used bones.
It was going to come out of him in some way, somehow; so it was just as well they were alone, talking about something, nothing, John wasn’t sure what, because he was suddenly consumed by this entirely, by this unleashed weight of love, and he needed to share the burden.
There was a brief, wild, moment in which John seriously considered the logistics of scooping, before he knocked that out of his head, put the kissing reluctantly aside as well, and simply rested his forehead against Rodney’s, fiercely grateful to Teyla for giving him something so intimate, without being invasive.
There was silence for a second, both of them resting against each other, arms lightly touching arms, in a moment of connection, like a circuit being completed.
“John?”
“Rodney.”
John expected him to pull away, to bluster, to ask ‘what the hell?’. But Rodney didn’t move.
“Are you okay? Did you want to tell me something?”
“I want to tell you everything.”
And it was only right there and then that he realised it was true; and it wasn’t just his own love, but everything he was - he didn’t want to hide any part of him in front of Rodney, to clutch his barriers and smokescreens around himself, with tired and aching fingers, for a moment longer.
“I want to tell you everything.”
Soft and low, like a revelation, and he didn’t even know how that progressed to kissing, but somehow it did, soft, careful lips against each other, arms wrapping them closer and closer, as they opened up and let each other in.
***
In the grand scheme of things, John reflected, a long while later - after they’d shared words, halting and flowing in turn; wondering touches; ragged messes of emotion; and a tsunami of bodily fluids - in the grand scheme of things, he and Rodney were a binary star system, bound to and in orbit around each other; a bright, searing force of nature; a private place, just for two.
But, if anyone actually asked, he’d probably say, Yeah. Yeah, they were good.