Challenge #51 ficlet: That thing. John/Rodney. PG-13.

Title: That thing
Author: velocitygrass
Pairing: John Sheppard/Rodney McKay
Rating: PG-13
Warnings/Content notes: (skip) A bit sad in its implications about John, but the two of them are happy.
Word count: 688
Summary: "Your hands. They're always doing this thing."
Note: Many thanks to neevebrody for the beta!


That thing


"Your hands," John said, taking Rodney's right hand into his own two.

Rodney let him. He'd quickly noticed that John was... different after sex.

Sometimes he turned mushy. Rodney still recalled when John had turned his face into Rodney's neck and murmured, "Love you." For a moment Rodney had wondered how a person over forty could be so adorable. Then he'd realized what John had said.

At other times after sex, John simply made inane observations or became downright weird. It was as if the filter that usually prevented him from talking was switched off. It had taken some time for Rodney to get used to this and stop thinking "What the hell is up with you?", but now he hardly noticed it.

"They're always doing this thing," John went on, running his fingertips up and down Rodney's thumb before moving on to the next finger.

Rodney had no idea what he was talking about.

"They move and then..." John frowned and turned Rodney's hand around. "When you're working on something. Or when you touch me." He lifted Rodney's hand.

Apparently, today was one of the endearingly weird days. Rodney let John pull his hand to his chest and place it over his heart. He still didn't know what "thing" he supposedly did with his hands, but he certainly liked to touch John and since John had put his hand right there on his skin, he did just that.

He ran his fingers in a circle over John's heart, then drew a line towards one of his nipples.

Rodney loved this. To be able to lie together after having sex, but specifically to be able to touch John. He'd been surprised by how much he wanted it when they'd first gotten together after what John teasingly called Rodney's Big Gay Epiphany. Which was wrong on several accounts, because it would have been his Big Bisexual Epiphany but wasn't even that because it wasn't as if Rodney had been a complete virgin to gay sex.

But John... Touching him, watching him, smelling and tasting, learning every bit of his body with all his senses... It had been a rush for Rodney when he'd first realized he wanted that and it had never stopped once he'd begun to do it. He still loved to touch John, to see how he reacted.

Rodney carefully ran his finger around John's nipple, smiling when John's eyes fluttered closed for a second and his mouth opened up a fraction. Oh yes.

He let his finger draw a line down John's stomach and up again to his other nipple and then he suddenly saw it. His hand was... He couldn't really describe it, but he realized what John meant by that "thing" now. It was the way his hand tensed when he was concentrating on being very precise. It was the way he handled things that mattered.

"Ancient devices, delicate equipment and you," he agreed.

"Things that are broken," John said.

Rodney's head whipped up to look at his face. "No," he said without thinking. John was smiling a self-deprecating smile, but Rodney knew he wasn't joking. At least not just joking. "Things that are important." He felt that he should say more, but he wasn't sure how. So he wrapped his arm around John instead, moving them so that John was lying back onto the bed, Rodney at his side. John looked content, but Rodney couldn't quite shake what he'd said. "You're not broken," he whispered.

"You fixed me up good," John said, so matter-of-factly it hurt Rodney.

"You didn't need fixing," Rodney insisted, looking at him.

John held his gaze for a moment. "Maybe you're right," he eventually said. Then he grinned. "But it was one hell of an upgrade."

Rodney couldn't help snorting. He still didn't like how John seemed to think that he had to be grateful to Rodney when Rodney hadn't really done anything other than stop standing in the way of their happiness, but he didn't know what to say to convince him.

He'd just have to keep trying to show him.

Rodney's fingers tensed in preparation.