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“Uh.” Rodney’s brain shorted out as he took in the room they’d been given in the small inn that P4X-679 had to offer. “Uh.”
John poked him in the back of the head. “Are you planning to loom in the doorway all night, or are we getting some sleep at some point?”
He took a hesitant step into the room, then another, feeling oddly like something was going to jump out and bite him. More specifically, that the bed was going to jump out and bite him.
The bed.
The one bed.
The only bed.
“Seriously, McKay, what—” John stepped around him and finally entered the room as well. “Ah. I see. Are you worried that I’m going to take your virginity in the middle of the night?”
“Excuse me, I’ll have you know I’ve slept with plenty of women!” Rodney retorted, his voice a full octave higher than normal.
John smirked at him and dumped his bag by the door. “Yeah, I’m sure your falsetto wins them over every time.”
Rodney spluttered wordlessly, then flipped him off for lack of anything to actually say to that.
“Seriously, though. You’re safe,” John said, almost soothingly. “I don’t like you that way. Not to mention a certain law that would stop me, even if I did.”
“A barbaric law,” Rodney muttered, finally shedding his own pack to rest next to John’s. “I’d rather trust you than some archaic homophobic bullshit.”
“Then trust me,” John said simply. He sat on the edge of the bed nearest the door - no shock to Rodney, given that he always took the bed closer to the door when they’d shared a room offworld in the past - and started the process of untying his boots.
Rodney awkwardly sat on the foot of the bed. “I do,” he told John. “I just … wasn’t expecting this.”
“They’re not exactly rolling in luxury hotels,” John pointed out. “Be glad we have beds instead of bags in a tent, like normal.”
“Yeah.” He turned his attention to removing his own shoes, then hesitated when he got to his belt. A quick glance out of the corner of his eye showed John already stripped to his boxers, sliding his sidearm under his pillow. “I hope you have the safety on,” he couldn’t stop himself from saying.
John shot him a look that Rodney knew he deserved. Of course John had the safety on. He always did. He was the one who’d drilled into Rodney that the safety was always on, right up until the moment you were ready to kill your opponent.
“Sorry,” he muttered.
John shrugged and slid under the top sheet and light blanket. “Oh, that’s better than expected.”
“Yeah?” Rodney stood up to slide his pants off, then hesitated again with his hands on the hem of his shirt.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, take it off and get in bed.”
He snorted. “Talk to your conquests that way?”
John shrugged, the move making him look like he was burrowing into the mattress. “What few I bother with … no.”
“Few?” Rodney asked, tugging his shirt over his head.
“Yes, few, Rodney. Not all of us have the sex drive of a desperate rabbit.” John actually looked uncomfortable. “Do you really want to talk about sex before you share a bed with me? Weren’t you just worried I was going to jump you, five seconds ago?”
He rolled his eyes and turned back the covers on his side of the bed. “I was not,” he argued. “And you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. And I do not have the sex drive of a … a … a desperate rabbit!”
“Oh, I’m sorry, would you rather a lordly lion?” John asked him in a mockingly solicitous voice.
“Shut up.”
John snorted. “It’s fine, Rodney. Your sex drive really and truly could not interest me less.”
“I am a very virule man,” he said in as pompous a tone as he could muster as he slid into the bed and settled himself onto his side, facing John. “The world must be peopled, and I happen to think it could use a few more geniuses.”
John snorted again. “Shakespeare, really?”
“Shut up.” Rodney watched John’s eyes close, but he couldn’t settle in yet. “You really don’t have much of a sex drive?”
“I really don’t,” John replied without opening his eyes. “Probably wouldn’t bother at all if that didn’t invite questions.”
Rodney hummed. Stupid American military. “Are you interested in women? Like, outside of sex.”
John opened his eyes and rolled onto his side to face Rodney. “As in, do I think women have value, or as in, do I want a sexless relationship with a woman?”
“The latter, obviously.”
He shrugged. “It’s not like anyone else is interested in that, regardless of gender. Never bothered to think about it. Why decide I want something I already know I can’t have?”
Rodney didn’t have an answer to that, but it seemed to be rhetorical, because John kept going.
“Sex is … it is what it is. Not my thing. But a necessary evil, sometimes. So yes, I do use it. Yes, I flirt with women, especially now, to help us get food and maybe access to ZPMs. If I were the only military person on the team, I’d flirt with the men, too. If someone walked up to me, someone I genuinely liked, and offered a sexless relationship, their gender wouldn’t be a factor. So there, Rodney, I guess I’m technically bisexual, as much as someone who doesn’t care about sex can be anything-sexual. Does that answer your question? Does that make you feel better about sharing a bed with me?”
There was something on John’s face that Rodney couldn’t name but knew he didn’t like. “I was never worried about sharing a bed with you,” he said quietly. “It took me by surprise. I would have had the same reaction if Samantha Carter herself were the one in the room with me. And I didn’t … I mean, I guess I was prying, but you can always tell me to stuff a sock in it and just not answer me. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
John’s face shifted to something closer to normal. “Yeah,” he said just as quietly. “I don’t know why I dumped all that on you. Sorry.”
“And there is a word for it, by the way,” Rodney added. “Asexual. Not interested in sex. You could be biromantic, though, if you have romantic feelings for men and women both.”
John stared at him for a long moment. “Why the hell do you know that?”
Rodney felt his face heat. “Uh. I know a lot of things.” He closed his eyes. “Because I’m bisexual, and I like to know what’s happening in my community.”
A hand landed on his shoulder. “Sorry,” John said again. “Didn’t mean to pressure you into coming out or anything.”
He blinked his eyes a couple of times on the way to opening them fully again. “To be fair, the only reason you didn’t already know was because I didn’t want to scare you off. Knowing you’re … well, I was going to tell you soon.”
“Asexual, huh?” John asked.
Rodney nodded and only barely kept himself from infodumping everything he’d ever learned about the orientation. “I can tell you more. If you want,” he compromised with himself.
“Another time. We should sleep now.” John’s hand squeezed his shoulder before retreating.
“Right. Yes. Good night,” he offered, smiling at his friend as he rolled onto his back.
“Good night.” John turned off the light, rolled over himself, and if it took Rodney longer than usual to turn off his brain and fall asleep, that wasn’t something anyone else needed to know.
A soft knock on their door woke Rodney far too quickly, and he grunted in response. “Our hosts wanted to let you know that breakfast will be ready in twenty minutes,” Teyla called through the door.
“Thanks,” he replied, and as her footsteps faded, he slowly became aware of being pinned down.
And of a bunch of short hair in his face.
And of an arm slung across his chest, hand wrapped around his shoulder.
And of a leg slung across his thighs, awfully close to the erection he really, really, really wished hadn’t made its morning appearance, especially given the fact that John very clearly didn’t have a matching one; he could feel John’s soft cock pressed tightly against his hip. He didn’t want to give John the wrong idea, not after their talk the previous night, and he didn’t want to scare him away.
And then he became aware of the fact that his own arms were wrapped just as tightly around John, right hand resting on his waist and left holding his bicep where it lay on his chest.
“John?” he asked quietly.
John mumbled something unintelligible. It was the first time he’d ever actually been awake before his friend on their overnight missions, and he felt a smile tug at his lips as John burrowed deeper into his shoulder. It was kind of sweet, that John was so relaxed around him that he shed his solitary-man persona and clung like a sloth. That he was so relaxed he wasn’t rolling up into instant action-man mode but was instead still at least mostly asleep despite Teyla’s interruption.
“John,” he said again, rubbing his arm gently with his left thumb.
“Mmmno,” John slurred.
He shook with silent laughter. “Mmmyes,” he replied. “We need to get ready for breakfast.”
“Not hungry,” John mumbled.
“I’m fairly certain you are,” he pointed out. “I’ve seen the way you eat breakfast most days. Anyway, I’m hungry.”
John’s arm tightened on him. “Noooo.”
“Unless you think we can swing breakfast in bed….”
“Yes please.”
The silent laughter was back. “That might be an entirely new concept for the Trellians.”
“Good for them.”
Well, he was up to three words, even if he did still sound more asleep than awake. “Yes, yes, a very worthy cultural exchange, but I’m afraid explaining it might require us to be first out of bed.”
“Noooo.”
“You are an absolute teddy bear.”
“M’not.”
“Yeah, you really are,” he said fondly, sliding his hand up John’s arm to scratch lightly at his scalp. John practically melted against him. “Definitely a teddy bear.”
“Don’t stop,” John demanded sleepily.
Rodney stopped immediately. “If it’s going to put you back to sleep, I think it’s my sworn duty to stop.”
“Hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
John sighed deeply against his shoulder. “No. I don’t.”
“What if I make you a deal?” Rodney suggested, once again speaking before really thinking out his words. “If you get up now and go to breakfast, you can come cuddle me on Atlantis any time you want.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
John’s head lifted slowly, and he blinked drowsily down at Rodney. “Really?” he asked again.
Rodney could only smile softly at him. “Really,” he confirmed. “It’s not a hardship for me. I haven’t slept that well in … well, too long … and I doubt it’s because of the mattress.”
John let out a huff that Rodney only interpreted as a laugh because of the upward tilt to his lips that appeared a moment later. “Promise?”
“Cross my heart, etc etc.”
“I’ll stick something in your eye if you go back on this,” John warned him. “Nothing as permanently damaging as a needle, but … I’ll think of something.”
“Duly noted.”