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"John...."
He surfaces slowly, so slowly. He never wakes up this slowly. Hasn't since before ... well, before the military at all, really. But here he is, all soft body and soft limbs and soft mind. "Mmm."
Fingers card through his hair, and he hums quietly. "John, come on, your neck's got to be killing you."
"M'okay." He doesn't move.
His pillow shakes the slightest bit as he hears a chuckle. "Well, my back is starting to protest in the way that means it'll lock up completely in the morning if I don't move soon."
"Mm."
"John."
"Mm." He still hasn't found the energy to open his eyes, and part of his mind recognizes that he feels safe now in a way he hasn't since he was very, very young.
"I don't want to say this, but I need you to get off me."
He sighs, the meaning filtering in. He's on top of someone? It feels like he's sitting on a bed. Slumped against the headboard with his head tipped at a truly awkward angle.
Oh. His head is on someone.
Oh. His head is on Rodney.
Memories start to trickle in: Batman, the last of Rodney's secret popcorn stash (and seriously, the man had a secret stash of everything), his eyes growing heavy in the dim light of the credits.... Rodney, an unknown amount of time later, waking him up gently to move because of back pain. He cracks his eyes open to find pitch blackness. The screen of the laptop they were watching the movie on has gone dark, or maybe Rodney closed it. Its weight no longer half rests on John's outstretched legs. Then again, John's legs are no longer outstretched; they're curled up under him, his knees resting on Rodney's nearest hip and thigh. He investigates his arms with a dim, distant horror, not very surprised at this point to find them wrapped firmly around Rodney's middle. He is well and truly cuddling his friend.
He shifts his head, slowly pulling his skull up and up, stacking cervical vertebrae one atop the other as slowly and carefully as if they were made of jello - which it feels like they are. Rodney chuckles again and cups his chin in one large, strong hand, setting his head upright and holding it there for a long moment. "You got it?" he asks.
"Uh. Maybe," John replies. He feels his cheeks heating under Rodney's thumb and ring finger, hastily unwinds his arms from Rodney's stomach. "Sorry."
"Don't be." And it's Rodney's turn to be soft voice, soft hand, soft gentle rub of his thumb along John's jaw for half a second as he draws away, soft bump of his shoulder against John's chest. "I was good until my back."
John feels the mattress shift and wills the light on the barest amount, just enough to see Rodney arch his back and hear him groan deeply. "Uh," he says intelligently, still trying to wake up enough to stop wondering which one of us is the cat, the one who arches like that or the one who purrs when he's petted? "I'll just. Um. Good night."
And he falls inelegantly off the bed in his attempt to leave the room before asking Rodney out loud what kind of cat he is.
After that first time, it somehow becomes commonplace for Rodney to wake John up just enough to change position when a movie ends. Sometimes he wakes up fully and heads back to his own room, sometimes he wakes up enough to grumble and kick his shoes off, and sometimes Rodney manages to pull his shoes off and shove him under a blanket without him stirring.
And sometimes, when Rodney's particularly lucky, John wakes up just enough to have a mumbled, half-coherent, always entertaining conversation with him before falling asleep again once they're horizontal.
"M'a t'ger."
"You're not a tiger."
"Y'like. Cat. Bu'i'm big. Pre'tor."
"You're a tiger because you're a big predator but I like cats?" Rodney asks for clarification, grinning in the darkness.
"Mmm."
"Then you'll have to be a panther. A black panther."
"M'y'r panth."
Rodney doesn't laugh, but it's a near thing. "Yeah, you're my panther."
"Good." John inhales deeply and seems to fall asleep the rest of the way between one breath and the next. He goes limp with his head on Rodney's shoulder, his right arm wedged awkwardly between them, his left arm tossed across Rodney's stomach, and his left leg hitched up over Rodney's thighs. Rodney closes his right hand over John's elbow, tangles the fingers of his left into John's hair, and tilts his head to breathe in the scent of John's shampoo. Sleep is longer coming for him, but eventually, he's dreaming of riding a panther through the jungle in which they first met Ronon.
John's not sure when waking up wrapped around Rodney became a necessary component of watching a movie, but the first time it happens during a team movie night, he wakes all at once, muscles tense and mind racing.
"--heard about it," Ronon's saying quietly.
"It is barbaric by Athosian standards," Teyla says, "but I understand how it works and not to say anything."
DADT, then. He's been treated to Teyla's opinion on it before. He waits without breathing for Ronon's verdict.
"Stupid. But I'll keep quiet. Not like you're doing anything."
Fingers curl into his hair, and he inhales. Sharper than he intended. Surely they know he's awake now. But Rodney presses lightly against his skull, and he doesn't move. "There are those who would take any excuse to get John out of his position. Whether or not we ever ... do anything. Which we won’t, because we’re not … but some people won’t care about facts if they get in the way of whatever agenda they have.”
Ronon snorts. "Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Just fuck him so at least you two get something out of the shit situation."
John can't keep from snorting himself at that, but he doesn't particularly want to unwind from Rodney, so he just turns his head to look at Ronon. "What makes you think he'd be the one fucking me and not the other way around?"
To his embarrassment, there's a beat of silence before Teyla and Ronon are both laughing. "Please," Ronon scoffs, waving a hand at John as though that answers anything.
Which, to be fair, it kind of does.
Rodney tries to keep from bringing up the conversation they'd had as a team about Don't Ask, Don't Tell. He tries to let it go entirely. He tries to hint at wanting to talk about it with nothing but telepathy (which he doesn't have) and body language (which he doesn't understand). He tries to leave it up to John to broach the subject.
So naturally, John's shifting from upright to horizontal, most of the way asleep, when he brings it up.
"W'ld y'really deny me f'we were fucking?"
Rodney sighs and cups the back of John's head, pretends it's to keep him from hitting it against the wall, revels in the way John relaxes into his grip. "To protect you, yes. Not because I would be ashamed of you, because I wouldn't."
"M'not 'shame'a you either."
"But we're not fucking," Rodney says gently.
John sighs gustily and cracks one eye open, fails entirely at focusing on Rodney, and lets it slip shut again. "Cuz yer straight."
“Yeah.” Rodney smiles sadly down at John’s closed eyes, wishing he weren’t for the first time in his life. He’d never needed one more reason to be picked on - being a genius, being younger than anyone else in school, being autistic; he’d given the bullies more than enough ammunition as it was.
"S'okay," John mumbles, somewhere between sad and passed out entirely. "Love you 'nyway.”
And just like that, he’s asleep, and Rodney’s left to slide down beside him, wrap his arms around the pliant man, and breathe in the scent of his shampoo.
And just like that, Rodney realizes that maybe he’s not heteroromantic, even if he is still, to his surprising regret, heterosexual.
John’s used to waking up in just his boxers sprawled halfway across Rodney by now, but waking to Rodney sprawled halfway across him is new. Not unpleasant at all. Just … new. And surprising. He curls the fingers of his right hand into Rodney’s hair and rubs his left thumb across the elbow cradled in that hand.
But somehow not as surprising as Rodney speaking to him almost right away, without lifting his head from where it’s pillowed on John’s right pec. “The thing is,” he says without preamble, no trace of sleep in his voice, “I love you, too.”
“What?”
Rodney blinks; John can feel his lashes move on his chest. “Uh, last night you told me you loved me despite me being straight,” he fills John in, sounding a little worried.
“Oh. I mean … yeah. Of course I do. You’re … you know, you. I know it’s only as friends, but you’re kind of the best thing to ever happen to me, and I don’t want to give this up.”
“That’s what I’m saying,” Rodney says, heaving a deep sigh that actually doesn’t arouse John despite blowing straight across his bare nipple. “I love you, too. But. I kind of had a bit of an identity crisis last night. I mean, I’m still heterosexual, so I’m sorry for that. And I mean it - I am sorry. I wish I weren’t, because you’re also, you know, you.” John can feel the small smile as Rodney mimics John’s inability to say emotional words when not mostly asleep. “But I’m not … I mean, I don’t know if I’m biromantic or if you’re just the exception to my heteroromanticism, but I’m definitely in romantic love with you.”
John stares at the ceiling and absently massages Rodney’s scalp. “Um. Maybe I’m showing my age here, but what does that mean? Romantic love without sexual attraction? For you. For me. For … this.”
“It means I want this. You. Like this. Forever. I want you to be my first priority, and I want to be yours. I want casual touches and spending time together and just … I just want to be near you, all the time. Obviously within the bounds of not getting you in trouble with the military, I know there are limits here, but that’s what I want. Every part of a … traditional … relationship, except the sex.”
John stares harder at the ceiling, looking for the downside. He can’t remember the last time he had a sexual partner, anyway, and he is truly gone for Rodney at this point. “Okay,” he says simply.
Rodney finally pushes up onto his left elbow and right palm. “Okay?” he asks incredulously, raising his eyebrows at John. “I pour out my heart, and it’s just … okay?”
John grins up at him unrepentantly. “What do you expect? This is me. Okay is … a yes. It’s a yes.”
Rodney studies his face with a slight frown, then nods once. “Good. Okay then. We’re agreed. Can I kiss your forehead? Is that okay?”
“As far as I’m concerned, you can kiss me anywhere you want to. I’ll do my best not to take it sexually unless instructed otherwise.”
Rodney blinks at him. “Oh. Huh. I guess we could try… Maybe you’re an exception to….”
“Another day, Rodney.” John strokes his boyfriend’s cheek with the backs of his fingers. “After all, we have forever now.”
Rodney’s smile lights up the room.