Teyla
I am unsure what it was that Rodney said to John, but the camp fell silent upon his rushed exit. I heard Ronon investigate and follow after John, and took it upon myself to speak with Rodney. I let myself into his tent and sat down on John's vacant bedroll. "Rodney," I said, attempting to catch his eye. He refused to meet my gaze. "Rodney, you must look at me. John is hurt."
"Yes, that's painfully obvious," he returned, scowling. It is not an attractive look for him. "It's not about me or him, Teyla. It's about the city. And all the people in the city."
There are times when Rodney surprises even me with the depths of his kindness and caring for those he calls friends, and I told him so. He scoffed.
"Look, despite the fact that we need Ancient tech to do it, we are so much better at this Wraith-fighting thing than they were. With a couple of extra ZPMs, we actually stand a chance of winning this thing."
I wanted nothing more in that moment than to offer Rodney a comforting embrace, but I suspected he would not accept one. "And what is the victory for John if he wins this war and loses you?" I had not meant to reveal John's obvious affection in such a manner, hoping to adhere to Jeannie's scheme, but I could not take it back.
"Lose me?" Rodney nearly squawked. "I -- we're not -- why would you even think that -- he doesn't have me!"
"Then that is a shame. It is clear to many that John cares for you very deeply, and I suspect this is not unrequited. It seems tragic that such emotion cannot be expressed. Life is, as Carson's passing has shown us all, too short." Before I could stop myself, my hand ghosted reflexively over my abdomen as it did each time I thought of Carson.
Rodney was silent. I suspect it was as painful for him to recall the day Carson lost his life as it was for me. He was a sweet, generous man who brightened all our lives, and the only man who was as close to Rodney as John, if not perhaps closer. It was during this brief silence that a loud crash came from the forest nearby, followed by an agonized moan and Ronon chuckling.
"Don't be such a baby," Ronon said loudly, only moments later. I excused myself from Rodney's tent to see who was hurt. I certainly had my suspicions.
"That was my ass."
"Yeah, and I told you I was gonna kick it."
John glared at Ronon and I smothered a grin. "Somehow I didn't think you meant literally."
There was, in fact, a large, muddy boot print on the back of John's BDUs. The smile became harder to conceal.
Rodney
As much as I so didn't need a pep talk on my love life from Teyla, I guess it made me feel a little better to know that John really did care for me. Not as much better as I felt when I heard John's voice outside the tent, even if he was whining. Sometimes I still find it difficult to understand why he feels the way he does about me; at that point, I was completely baffled.
"Even McKay knows better than to turn his back on me when we're sparring," Ronon told John, who was holding his rear end rather comically. I was sure I didn't want to know.
"I thought we were done," John insisted. "We got any ice packs in the first aid kit?"
Teyla looked like she was trying not to laugh, and I couldn't blame her. John had this big Ronon-sized boot print on the ass of his pants, and I wondered what he'd done to deserve that. According to Ronon, I was the one being an idiot. "Perhaps Rodney can see to your injuries. Ronon and I have some matters to discuss with Dr. Zelenka. Ronon?"
Ronon gave her this blank look for all of two seconds and then nodded. "Right. Because I wanted to know about that thing."
Oh, please. Apparently, with the obvious exception of the Genii, most people from the Pegasus galaxy are just bad liars.
John gave me this pitiful look that made it hard to remember that he was the one who was supposed to be mad at me. "Fine," I sighed, searching my pack for the first aid kit. "But I'm telling you right now, regardless of ridiculous childish superstitions, I am not kissing your ass. Literally or figuratively."
I heard Zelenka snort in his tent, but Teyla and Ronon looked at each other with that "Earth people are weird" look they share sometimes. I rolled my eyes as I followed John into the tent. He was on his knees undoing his BDUs already. I wasn't prepared for that. More accurately, I wasn't prepared for the sight of him doing that making my mouth go dry. Sleeping together was one thing. Sleeping together was something else entirely. "What the hell are you doing?!"
"I'm icing my ass," John sighed, laying down on his stomach with his pants pulled down to mid-thigh. I began to understand why I wasn't the only one getting dirty poems from Vala Mal Doran. "You wanna hand me an ice pack or are you just gonna stare?"
There was already a bruise coming up on his pale right cheek, and while I knew I should have felt bad that he was going to have a rough time sitting for a couple of days, all I could think of was that I kinda wanted to bite the left one. "I should take a closer look," I told him, scooting toward him with the requested ice pack in my hand. "Make sure there's nothing seriously damaged."
John smirked. I could hear him smirking. "You do that."
Radek
It looked as though I was not going to get a chance to irritate Rodney. The plan which had seemed so clever, which had caused both Teyla and Elizabeth to squeal and say how romantic, was falling through. Rodney, predictably, was not cooperating. Rodney does not cooperate unless he knows there's something in it for him, and the motivation this plan provided was not positive. Rodney would respond to a reward better than the threat of dire consequences. This is not to say that Rodney cannot be inspired to do great things when faced with death, but death and being left behind are not the same thing. They are not even close.
Deep down, I suspected, the idea that the villagers wanted to keep him was simply stroking Rodney's ego. Which was all well and good, really, if it had not been a fabrication worked up between Teyla and Rodney's sister. The native language on P7A-935 was not unlike Czech; by no means close enough to converse, but with similar sentence structure and verb tenses. It was not so difficult for me to gather what it was they had truly said to Teyla.
I longed to be the one to tell Rodney that the villagers didn't want him; they wanted coffee. As the settlers brought disease to the New World, we had brought caffeine addiction to the Pegasus galaxy. There were worlds which cultivated the highly prized beans now, and the people of P7A-935 had traded with such worlds recently; now, they longed for the ability to grow their own.
Were I not so amused, I might have felt sorry for him.
Ronon
"Well, it is not likely to happen now," Teyla almost yelled at me. Almost. Her voice was too soft to really call it yelling, but she was angrier than I've seen her in a while. "Have you no concept of the ways in which two men make love?"
I had a concept, all right. "What makes you think Sheppard's gonna be the one who... takes it?"
"The measure of a man is not decided by his sexual practices," she said, her tone dangerously low. "But I doubt greatly that Rodney is secure enough to be the one who, as you have so eloquently put it, takes it."
"I didn't break anybody's hands, split any lips or kick anybody in the groin. They're big boys, Teyla. They'll work it out."
I really, really hoped they wouldn't prove me wrong, because that would just be pitiful.
John
So, like I said. It sounded like a good idea at the time. But Ronon was right: trees don't hit back, and they sure as hell don't try to shove a size twelve up your ass when your back is turned.
And laugh about it.
I was sure Rodney was going to have a field day. If it was him, I probably would have got in a few digs myself. I wouldn't have meant any harm, but it would have been compulsory. Teyla was trying not to laugh, and I loved her for it, but Rodney didn't even look like he wanted to. He just had that unreadable Rodney face where you can't really tell if he's about to spill his guts or chew you a new one.
The look on his face was a lot more easily readable when he caught me dropping trou. I knew that look. I got that look when Rodney ate jelly donuts and then slowly, deliberately licked every trace of the filling and the sugar off his fingers. That was a want look. That was an "I want to be that goddamned donut" look, an "I want to bite your ass" look.
Under the circumstances, I wasn't exactly down with the ass-biting. Any other time, I might have been inclined to offer it up.
So Rodney wanted a closer look. Who was I to deny him? Apart from the fact that I'm pretty sure my rear end hadn't had that much close scrutiny since I got over my last diaper rash, it wasn't as weird as it could have been. When I realized I could feel his breath on my skin, that was a little... unsettling, though.
Suddenly my right ass cheek was getting the ice-pack equivalent of the cold shower I was about two seconds from praying for. Rodney's timing is scary good sometimes.
"Do I even want to know why?"
"I wanted to hit something."
Rodney balked at me. "And you picked Ronon?"
"He offered." I shrugged. The ice pack felt pretty good, but I was gonna be sore for a while. "He fights dirty."
"Well, of course he fights dirty. That's why he's so good at it." Rodney let out a puff of air, like an irritated sigh. "You wanted to hit me."
"No!" I said, maybe a little more forcefully than I'd meant to. "That was the point."
I could feel him staring at the back of my head. "John."
"Yeah, I wanted to hit you." I thought about it for a minute. "I still do, so don't push your luck."
"Aha, but currently you're at the mercy of my ice pack hand," Rodney pointed out, amused. "You wouldn't hit the man giving your poor, bruised bottom a modicum of relief, would you? That would be counterproductive, because then I'd have to hit you back, and as it stands, I've got the perfect target very close at hand."
I scowled. "I can hold my own damn ice pack, Rodney."
"If you think I'm giving up my strategic advantage and my relatively unobscured view, you're sadly mistaken. Besides, Teyla told me to see to your injuries." Okay, so maybe he was having a little fun at my expense. "Where else did the big, bad Neanderthal hit you?"
I snatched the ice pack away from him and pulled up my pants, stuffing it into the back of my shorts so I could sit on it. "Here," I told him, indicating my stomach, then my shoulder. "And here. Oh, and... right here," I said, pointing to my mouth. It was a fib, but I figured I could get away with it.
Rodney leaned in to look closely. "No swelling, no blood..."
"Still hurts."
"Strange."
"Maybe you could..."
Rodney gave a long-suffering sigh. Then he grinned, and then he kissed me. "Better?"
"Little bit," I conceded, looking hopeful.
"Repeated applications?"
Yeah, I figured that'd probably do the trick.