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Mind reading isn't at all like Star Trek led Rodney to believe.
It's nothing like a Vulcan mind-meld and everything like a shocking variety of forehead billboards—some just images, others nothing but words on a blank background, and combinations in every ratio in between. And it only seems to be a person's immediate thoughts; nothing deeper, not their memories or their katras. If he really focuses, he can sometimes pick up on feelings that aren't his own, though those are harder to parse out into useful information.
But John had dragged Rodney to his pointless mandatory daily checkup with Carson and isn't even having the decency to keep him occupied—the last time he'd tried to read John's mind all that had been on his brain-billboard was the requisition form on his tablet and soul-crushing boredom. Intellectually, Rodney is aware that John has a tremendous number of emotions, but proof is hilariously difficult to come by. His deeper thoughts and feelings weren't anywhere near the surface, and since Rodney could not give a single fuck about ordnance, he's since moved on to mentally spying on Carson.
Not that that's all that interesting, either; all he can see is whatever medical mumbo-jumbo test results Carson's looking at on his computer, and his emotions are frankly depressing. There's a sense of grimness at the forefront of his mind, twined with worry that Rodney's 86% sure is about him, but he can feel those feelings reflected back by his own brain, creating a sort of echo chamber that he very much does not want to be in.
But there must be a way to go deeper; he just needs to figure it out. Visualization is a bunch of hippie nonsense, but Elizabeth's already threatened him with meditation so it's been a banner week for that sort of thing. If she were here she'd probably say something like, picture a door and then let yourself in that door, and Rodney… well. He pictures a door, and lets himself in that door.
It's not even locked.
The first thing he sees is, inexplicably enough, a memory from that time the Genii screwed with Wraith technology and made John shoot a bunch of people, Rodney included. Rodney grabs onto that thought and keeps following it, like, like—if he were forced to explain it in woefully inadequate metaphorical terms—unrolling a ball of yarn in a labyrinth, but in reverse, to see where it leads. There's no language for this kind of thing, and Rodney throws words around a lot, but when it comes to experiments he does prefer to be precise. Should he invent the words for it, he wonders as he continues to probe, like some kind of scientific Shakespeare, or—
Suddenly, and without warning, he knows what John Sheppard's dick tastes like.
And not just the taste of it, he realizes as he sits up straighter from sheer surprise. What it looks like. How it feels, hard and hot in the palm of his hand, and the way John likes for it to be touched.
Under the circumstances, Rodney thinks the squeaky whimper that comes out of his mouth is more than excusable. His hands clench fistfuls of scratchy, standard-issue hospital sheets in a futile, scrabbling bid to return to reality.
Unfortunately, it dislodges his pulse oximeter and the resulting flatline on the monitors catches Carson's attention—"Rodney? What is it?"—and Rodney's still stuck in his mind and the many and varied X-rated images it contains and cannot figure out how to free himself. Distance will probably work, but scrambling backward does nothing because he's already sitting against the wall, and every technique he's been using to block out people's thoughts apparently doesn't work when he's in someone's thoughts.
Carson's coming closer, radiating concern because of course he is, he's kind and compassionate and good, on top of—apparently—being extremely well-acquainted with John's dick.
"McKay?" John sounds worried now, too; he's put down his tablet and stood up on the other side of the bed. Rodney attempts to back up further and shoves out a hand toward each of them, feeling like he's directing traffic. A hysterical laugh is bubbling up from somewhere deep inside him that he just barely manages to choke back.
"You—" his eyes dart between them, both comically frozen in place, "Your mind, mind reading, I don't—"
And of course neither of them have actually stayed stopped. Carson is now pushing right into his personal space, the friend-fucking traitor, with that ballsy confidence that never seems to extend beyond the doors of the infirmary. John's inching closer too, wary now, palms visible like Rodney's a wounded animal, which is… upsettingly apt, actually.
Carson grabs his cheeks and peers at his pupils like this insane behavior can be explained by a fucking concussion of all things and through their connection a surge of worry hits Rodney with all the grace and mercy of a tsunami; he can feel how much Carson cares about him as easily as he can feel his own borderline-hysteria. Unfortunately, what he can see, superimposed on top of all that, is—
"Penis," Rodney blurts out, and immediately cringes. "Oh god. Oh god. Please stop thinking about—that."
He can feel his eyes straying toward John and forces them to snap back, just in time to see Carson's go wide. He lets go like Rodney's red-hot mortification has scalded his palms and hisses, "I wasn't thinking about that, what are you—"
"Stop, just. Stop."
Carson looks outraged. "Well stop looking then!"
"I can't, don't you get that? Your mind is like quicksand, or, or, a bog or something. Are bogs wet?" Oh, god, he should not have said wet. "Marshlands? Fens?"
"Rodney, focus," Carson orders, with admirable backbone for someone who is literally, at this moment, thinking about the punched-out sound of pleasure that John Sheppard makes when someone sticks their dick in him.
This is not fair. This is so not fair. Rodney has never done anything to deserve this: the sting of betrayal and the world's saddest boner. Is it even legal to get hard while your heart is cracking in two? There has to be someone with whom he can lodge a formal complaint.
"I am trying, Carson," he snaps, as a slideshow of John naked and in deeply compromising positions shuffles inexorably onward like a pornographic View-Master. "Do you think I'm enjoying witnessing this?"
"Witnessing what?" John interrupts, voice hard with suspicion.
Carson sways back infinitesimally and something between him and Rodney slams shut, truly slams like a door, and oh, that would be so very, very interesting if he weren't on the verge of hysteria. At least the unexpected peep show has stopped, though that's cold comfort considering the way John's looking between the two of them with dawning realization.
After a couple of seconds, their conspicuous lack of answer becomes answer enough.
"Oh, shit," John says.
*
The next few minutes go not at all like Rodney would have guessed, if you had for some reason asked him what he thought would happen if he developed unwieldy mind-reading powers and discovered that his two closest friends were having a tremendous amount of athletic gay sex behind his back.
Instead of taking charge of the situation, John looks for all the world like a startled deer, frozen and convinced of his impending doom. Rodney's insulted for half a second before he connects the American military's absurd stance on homosexual behavior to the situation. Once he gathers in the additional facts that 1) John had a black mark on his record before he even came to Atlantis, 2) he narrowly and inexplicably escaped court-martial a few weeks ago and 3) they're in an extremely public place and Rodney could have blurted out something much more incriminating in his surprise, he revises his opinion.
John is not nearly worried enough.
Carson steps forward and puts a quelling hand on Rodney's forearm, like he needs to be told to be discreet or kind or whatever about this. "Colonel Sheppard, I'd like a moment alone with my patient."
"I don't think that's a good idea."
"You've trusted me this far," Carson says, steadily. "And I think it's best that this conversation stays between civilians."
John grimaces, but backs up a few steps. Rodney is frankly planning never to read his mind again, because there are some things he emphatically does not need to know about Carson, and also because there are some things about himself he's not sure he wants John's unfiltered perspective on. He doesn't need his (extremely cool!) new powers to understand the wariness in John's eyes, though.
"Fine," John says eventually, in the tone of someone who wants you to know that this is not, in fact, fine.
*
While Carson is unhooking Rodney, John sort of…slouches away with extreme reluctance. Rodney doesn't watch his ass as he leaves.
Much.
Whatever, can you blame him? He now knows what it looks like outside of those offensively unflattering BDUs. He knows what it feels like, too, which is so far beyond the scope of what he thought he'd learn in his lifetime that it almost feels like opening a thrifted notebook and finding the solution to a Millennium Problem.
Carson unceremoniously drags Rodney into his office and forces him into a chair like Rodney has personally offended him—which, rude, considering Rodney's sensibilities are the ones that have been trampled all over—and begins his interrogation.
Through several minutes of conversation which repeatedly and uncomfortably bumps up against the well-endowed elephant in the room, they determine that Carson was not, in fact, actively thinking about fucking Colonel Sheppard while he was supposed to be attending to Rodney's urgent medical needs. Rather, by Rodney pushing through the 'door,' he was metaphorically let loose in the library of Carson's memories and just happened to choose an extremely licentious stack to wander down.
Carson spends a very boring tangent drawing fascinated conclusions about Rodney's billboard analogy and the explanation that he, Carson, thought primarily in pictures—as opposed to Elizabeth, whose billboard is an endless scroll of words like the opening crawl of every Star Wars movie. Rodney does his best to be patient about this but with every passing second they stray further from the purpose of this excruciating sitdown, and so finally he snaps,
"So how long has this been going on?"
Trailing off mid-sentence, Carson frowns at him. "I don't see that it's any of your business, Rodney."
"Why the hell did you pull me in here, then? I thought I was going to get an explanation."
"I pulled you in here so you didn't tank our mutual friend's career by blurting out something ridiculous in the middle of the infirmary."
Rodney finds this inordinately offensive considering he was worried about the exact same thing ten minutes ago. "Well, I think I deserve an explanation."
Carson studies him for a long moment, but they've been friends a long time and Rodney is certain he knows he won't win.
"Fine," Carson says, settling back in his chair and looking worryingly pleased. "But you'll have to read my mind for it."
Rodney blanches. "No way. I am not diving back in there."
"Just the surface, Rodney. Go on, ask me a question and read the answer off my... face billboard, or whatever you called it. I'll try to make a little picture out of the words so you can see it clearer, too."
"…Fine," Rodney says, making sure to frown very emphatically. "So how long?"
ON AND OFF SINCE HOFF.
Rodney rears back a little, unconsciously.
"What?"
"Nothing. The blinking red letters were a nice touch, I guess."
"Oh, so you did see it," Carson says, sounding both pleased and scientifically intrigued.
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure they saw it on the Daedalus." He picks at some definitely not imaginary lint on his pant leg. "Why would you… how could you keep it a secret this long?"
IT'S JUST CASUAL.
The letters are sparkly now, too.
"Okay, now you're just being obnoxious on purpose. Hey, speaking of which, didn't you date Cadman for a while?"
YES, RODNEY, THAT'S WHY I SAID ON AND OFF.
Blinking, red, sparkly, and wriggling like a worm.
Rodney narrows his eyes. Carson remains silent, looking extremely entertained by all this, which in itself is a bit odd. He usually isn't this stubborn, unless—
Huh. This is payback for the telekinesis demonstration, isn't it?
"Look," Rodney says, extremely frayed patience and nerves finally snapping, "I'm starving and a little cranky about all the deception and subterfuge, so you'll excuse me if I'd rather not experiment on top of it. Just—tell me why you didn't think I deserved to know my two closest friends were… y'know, together."
Carson gives in, because of course he does. He always does.
"Together's a mighty strong word, Rodney." He sighs, leaning back in his chair. "Look, normally I wouldn't even begin to consider telling you this, but—you've seen far worse already, I think. A lot of the time he shows up already… prepared, if you get what I mean. He doesn't hang around after to chat. I mean, he's totally compartmentalized it away from everything else."
And that sounds… well, horrible, actually. He can't say he wouldn't do the same if John offered, because sex is sex and Rodney's type is 'consenting adult' but he can imagine how it would go. Carson's never struck him as the type who would volunteer to torture himself like that, but for someone as hot and cool and did Rodney mention hot as John Sheppard?
He could see it.
"So why do you keep doing it if it's so bad?"
"It's not bad. It's quite good, actually."
"Yeah, I've seen the highlight reel," Rodney mutters. Enthusiastic, flexible, sweaty. Surprisingly uninhibited—the way John's voice cracked in desperation as he moaned in me, in me, don't pull out is probably going to dampen Rodney's dreams for years to come. "I mean—what do you even get out of it?"
Carson looks at him like he's an idiot. "I should think that would be obvious." When Rodney doesn't answer, he says, "Oh for god's—orgasms, Rodney. Orgasms is what I get out of it. Look, whatever you're thinking about it being some passionate, torrid affair… stop. He doesn't want it to be like that, and that's fine by me. He was very clear about the sort of arrangement he wanted, and if I had a problem with it I'd've turned him down."
Yeah, right. Rodney knows what 'fine' means, and it doesn't actually mean fine. Carson is the softest touch he knows: he coos over every Athosian baby he inoculates and always gives in when people really want something and once, on P9X-893, they came across a fawnlike creature learning to walk, tottering around on gangly limbs with its mother nosing it forward occasionally, and the man actually cried. Over a freakish baby ruminant! In front of three marines!
He harbored tender feelings for Cadman, for god's sake, who is assertive and scary and entirely too boldly sexual. There's no way he's been sleeping with John Sheppard for most of the expedition and somehow avoided falling completely, irrevocably in love.
Rodney managed it in just under six months and he's never even gotten laid for his trouble.
*
Elizabeth tells him in no uncertain terms that he is to report to John's quarters at six that evening for meditation classes, which even without the whole accidental-voyeurism snafu would sound like an appallingly terrible idea, but in light of recent events, Rodney mentally upgrades it to 'unmitigated catastrophe in waiting.'
He still goes, of course.
And he makes it all of thirty second before he buckles under the weight of the suffocating tension and blurts out, "The, ah, mind-reading thing. What I saw."
John goes completely still, once again like some kind of prey animal, which Rodney finds unsettling in the extreme. John looks one wrong word away from leaving his own quarters to escape him, and frankly, Rodney's right there with him. He doesn't know why he feels so utterly compelled to say this, but he does, and so he soldiers on as bravely as anyone in two universes ever has.
Feeling somehow like a captain at the helm of his sinking ship, he says, "I will apologize if you want to hear it but I'm pretty sure if I even try you'll break out in hives or… I don't know, pull a Yoda and die to avoid the conversation, so. Should I?"
John doesn't even hesitate. "No."
"Okay." It doesn't feel like enough, so he adds, "And I'm not going to read your mind."
John gestures vaguely toward his head. "Beckett already taught me the door thing."
"Oh. Uh, good."
Silence falls between them, awkward in a way that it hasn't been since fucking Doranda. Rodney fiddles with the headband in his hands and considers and discards several conversation openers.
Looking at his knees, John grits out, "Do we have a problem?"
It shouldn't be like this. Rodney should be lording his superpowers over John or reenacting Sarek and Kirk's mind meld from The Search For Spock (he spoke of your friendship—asked you not to grieve—'I have been, and always shall be, your friend'). He should be pretending he can't read John's mind at all because there's nothing but gun schematics and a Barbarella barbie between his ears.
Rodney sighs. "Don't be an idiot."
"Because you seemed pretty freaked out back there," John continues, as if he's not said anything. Rodney can't figure out if the edge in his voice is defensiveness or anger or both—or maybe even some secret, fourth thing. "And Beckett seemed to think you needed to be managed."
"Well, he was wrong. Look, my reaction was entirely—you have to understand, it was like flipping channels and suddenly finding porn, of people I know and in technicolor, all sound and fury and it—it just caught me off guard, you know?"
"So we're…"
"We're good, Rodney promises. "We're fine. Everything's fine. Aren't we supposed to be meditating?"
*
Everything is not fine.
In fact, everything is basically shit, and Rodney can't even complain about it to anyone for many, many reasons. He has entirely new branches of science to invent and a legacy to solidify, thank you very much, but instead of doing any of that he's worrying about feelings, and not just his own.
Also, he has suddenly and completely lost the ability to jerk off without guilt.
Rodney is distantly aware that a nonzero percentage of the population considers masturbating to thoughts of people they know to be distasteful and disrespectful, some kind of invasion of that person's privacy or personhood or whatever, but that isn't a stance he's ever understood. It's all just stimuli to him—they aren't going to know, fantasy can't hurt anyone, and it certainly doesn't change the way he views or treats them. He's perfectly capable of getting off to thoughts of that tetchy sergeant with the incredible cheekbones and justifiably calling her an idiot the next day. He's not going to begrudge himself whatever he needs to get off.
And what he needs to get off is, frequently, the thought of John wanting him back.
Now he knows exactly what that would look like, but the thing is that these feelings, these sensations, these memories are Carson's, which feels dirty and voyeuristic. Nobody would be more surprised than Rodney has been to discover that when he is basically handed high-definition video that includes not just sight and sound, but taste, smell, and touch of his most cherished fantasy—namely, John Sheppard naked beneath him, willing and downright wanton—he cannot stop thinking about the way that footage was obtained for long enough to come.
Because there is nothing remotely hot about the fact that John knows he knows and is extremely unhappy about it. It's not like Rodney was unaware his feelings were unrequited, but there's a big difference between knowing that and being faced with the reality of it. John so emphatically does not want him that he feels violated by the fact that Rodney has seen him like that. It's enough to kill even the most determined erection and it's extra annoying because Rodney is likely to die soon. At some point he jerked his last off and never even knew, meaning he didn't get the opportunity to savor it.
In a frankly pathetic attempt to distract himself, he's thrown himself into Elizabeth's suggested project of finding peace with himself by making amends with the people he loves. He's had a surprisingly smooth conversation with Radek, an emotional afternoon with Teyla, a hit-and-run book drop-off with Elizabeth, and an even more blink-and-you'll-miss-it healing session with Ronon.
Carson's gift, though… that's a little more complicated.
And John's? Well. That's the hardest of them all.
*
It is a testament to John's borderline-unhinged determination never to leave anyone behind that he continues trying to help Rodney achieve ascension despite not being able to fully look him in the eyes anymore.
With the patience of many saints, Rodney suffers through this suffocating atmosphere for the length of yet another terrible meditation class before putting his own plan into action. First, he requests that John speak at his funeral—that's not John's gift, that is a selfish present to himself—and then moves on to the next thing on his list.
"I need to say something."
"Okay…" John says, looking wary.
Not the most encouraging opening, but at least it isn't another door in his face. He takes a breath and says, "You are… the bravest person I've ever known."
John recoils like Rodney's hit him. "What the fuck," he says—and, like, leave it to him to get spooked over a compliment. What a ridiculous man Rodney's fallen in love with.
"Just shut up and listen to me, okay? You're ridiculously cool and handsome, and somehow smart on top of all that, even though you're an idiot, and despite the fact that we live in another galaxy sometimes the most unbelievable thing in my life is that we're friends. Nobody's ever gotten me the way that you do, on the level that you do. Or they have, but that's right around the time that they decide they don't want to know me that well. They don't like what they find, and—it's becoming apparent to me that I contribute to that, but. This isn't about me for once."
"So what's it about?"
Rodney takes a deep breath. "You make out like you're this open book, but you're not, you keep parts of yourself back. You're careful about what you let people see, and I just wanted—if you're at all like me, and you do that because you think they won't like what they find, or that you're hard to love in some way, uh. Just know that people will. And I know that because I, uh… do."
And this is... wow, this is incredible, setting down his defenses, reaching out for connection. All week he's been doing it on some level, with Radek and Elizabeth and Teyla and even Ronon, and it had always felt good, if too raw to sustain for very long, but this.
None of it has felt like this. Never has that rawness felt so, so right.
Slowly John repeats, "You love me." He says the words like he's tasting them, holding them in his mouth and learning the shape of them, and Rodney grows suddenly, irrationally frightened that John can read minds too.
"Yes," he says quickly. "You are the best friend I've ever had."
Something in John's face closes down, granite and unreadable, and the joke, Don't tell Carson, he thinks he is dies on Rodney's tongue. He's losing him. They're both terrible at feelings, but this is important and it might be his last chance to say it, so.
"Look," he says, maybe a little desperately. "I just, I know what it is to feel alone. And sometimes you're alone so long that anything else seems too much like a risk. But I don't want you to die one day with the same regrets that I'm going to."
John catapults himself out of his seat and throws out, "Jesus Christ, Rodney, I thought I told you we're not discussing—"
"Don't do that. We have to talk about it, John. I have to let go, and I can't do that if I think you're going to keep living this… this small, curled-up life because you're too damn stubborn to even be open to the possibility of falling in love with someone."
"You don't need to worry about that," John says. His voice is strangely hollow, and oh, that raw, vulnerable feeling is back, but it's terrible now, like an exposed nerve being flicked.
"Yes, I do." He briefly considers stopping there, but presses on. "Carson is—a great person. Truly. One of the best of us, and you're keeping him at arms' length but I think, if you took a chance and let him in a little, you could really love him. Be happy with him."
"If you like him so much why don't you fall in love with him?"
But Rodney is in Sincere Mode, which is his only mode with a built-in shield against kindergarten playground bullshit, so—for once!—he doesn't take the bait. He remains perfectly calm while John paces like an insane person, and he feels extremely evolved about it, too. "You're hurting him and you're hurting yourself too, and there's no need for any of it. He really cares about you, you know?"
"I don't want to hear this. I don't want to know this." John goes stock-still for a moment before whirling around to fix Rodney with a hard, leveling gaze. "How do you know it?"
"I—"
"Jesus, you read his mind, didn't you? And then you ran over here to tell me like I wanted to hear anything about it. The fuck is wrong with you, McKay?"
"Oh, excuse me for being selfless for once!" Rodney cries, because all shields fall eventually and John's being a real dick right now. "So sorry for trying to do the right thing—"
"The right thing would be staying the hell out of my sex life. There's a reason you didn't know anything about it before now." John's eyes flash with something dangerous—something he has never, in earnest, directed toward Rodney before. "Back off, I mean it."
"Fine," Rodney says, marching toward the door with the mean scraps of what's left of his dignity. "Die alone and miserable for all I care, I'll be long gone."
John inhales sharply as he passes, but Rodney doesn't look back to see if the hit landed. Scientific rigor be damned. He already knows he's managed to tear his own heart out somehow; the only way he's going to survive it is blind faith in the hypothesis that John doesn't have one at all.
*
Rodney lets the momentum of his righteous indignation propel him from John's quarters straight to Carson's office, because somewhere deep beneath the sinking feeling in his gut is the certain knowledge that if he doesn't do this now, he will chicken out of doing it at all.
Carson takes one look at him and sighs. "Rodney, what have you done?"
"Who says I've done anything?"
Carson gestures from his head to toes, and—fine, okay, Rodney might be twisting his hands together, and might have a worried frown on his face, and is possibly shuffling his feet a little, but that doesn't mean he's done anything.
"I…" Right, he's supposed to be trying to ascend. Speak his truth and shed his burdens and all that. Before he can lose his nerve he blurts out, "Okay, fine, I tried to do something and it went horribly wrong and I think you need to know about it. Personal, not medical."
Carson stares at him for a moment, then touches his headset. "Biro? … I'm leaving for the day. Radio me if you need me." He looks back at Rodney. "D'you have anything to drink in your quarters?"
"Beer, maybe?"
"We're going to mine. Come on, then."
With the mercy of an angel tending to a dying man, Carson waits until Rodney is safely ensconced on the couch in his quarters with half his drink gone before saying, "Now then. What's all this about?"
"Ah." For the briefest of seconds, Rodney considers dying to avoid the conversation. He's got a built-in mechanism for it at the moment. "I… may have told Colonel Sheppard about your feelings for him."
Carson stares at him like he's some kind of horrifying medical mystery, which is extra insulting considering Rodney's been a horrifying medical mystery all week and he's been perfectly professional about it up until now. "What feelings, pray tell?"
"The…" he gestures. "You know, the romantic ones."
"You mean the ones that don't exist?"
Rodney rolls his eyes. "Try to remember I read your mind, I know they do!"
"No, Rodney, they do not. I'm a grown man; I know what I'm about!"
He sounds and looks more appalled than angry, which Rodney supposes is the best he can hope for, but he doesn't have time to handhold Carson through the denial phase. "Look, I know how this sort of thing works. One person doesn't want more and the other figures they'll take what they can get and maybe things will change down the line, and then they don't, because they never do, and it's awful."
Only after Carson looks at him does Rodney realize exactly how much he's revealed of himself. If it were anyone else he wouldn't take the pity in his eyes lying down, would puff up and bluster and make the quickest escape humanly possible, but as it is he just squirms a little.
Carson appears to be selecting his words very carefully. "Rodney, how much or how little you choose to accept from partners is your business, but I've more self-respect than to invest emotionally in someone who won't reciprocate."
"Of course he can, have you met him? He's like… five hundred pounds of emotion in a two hundred pound sack. I have this theory, actually, that he thinks if he expresses any of them the rest are going to bust out, like a dam breaking or—"
Carson holds up a hand to stop him, which is just as well because Rodney's thinking about things that are wet again. "I didn't say can't, I said won't. I know perfectly well for the right person it'd be different, but that's not me and never has been."
"You say that like he's been pining after someone."
Carson coughs. "That's ridiculous," he says, after just a beat too long.
Rodney's already metaphorically reaching out to Carson's mind as he demands, "Tell me what you know."
"Rodney, no." A metaphorical door slams shut in his metaphorical face, and Rodney is really regretting teaching him that.
"Oh come on! How did you even know I was trying to?"
"Oh, I don't know—because I've met you? Your bloody mind-reading business is what got us into this mess in the first place! You manufactured this crisis out of whole cloth because you couldn't separate how you feel about the Colonel from how I feel about him."
Rodney sets his drink down. The room has grown very quiet, but he doesn't know what Carson's thinking because mind reading or even just expression-reading would require Rodney to be able to look at him. That happens to be a little difficult as Rodney is very busy reevaluating all his collected data and finding his initial hypothesis rendered invalid. He combs frantically back through his memories of Carson's memories, trying to filter out his own biases and feelings, but the dataset is so hopelessly tainted all he knows for sure is that he'll never know for sure.
He feels the couch dip as Carson sits beside him. "I shouldn't have said that."
"It's probably true," Rodney mutters sullenly to his hands.
"It was also unkind. And I believe your heart was in the right place."
"See, that's—" Rodney tries to collect his thoughts. "You see the best in everyone. How could you not see it in him?"
Carson pats his back. "I do see it, I just didn't fall in love with it. And I don't care what you thought you saw in my mind, you had no right to be sharing it with him."
"I know, but you're my friend and I wanted to make sure… since I might not be around, you know. I wanted you to be happy."
The hand on his back withdraws. Sounding baffled, Carson says, "Rodney, that's downright sweet of you."
"I know," he groans, "and it turns out actually telling your loved ones you love them is excruciating. You know Teyla made me cry? Please don't look at me for at least five minutes."
Carson huffs a laugh, leaning over to press his shoulder against Rodney's. "You have to tell him you were wrong, you know."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"No, I mean—you really don't have any deeper feelings for him? When we were on M1B-129. You were worried about Keenan—"
"Kagan."
"—and you went to him for comfort and he totally blew you off. I saw that memory. I felt the way it made you feel!"
Carson looks at him like he's grown another head. "Rodney, I was just doing my job. I wasn't looking for comfort. And if I was, I wouldnae have gone to him."
"So you… don't. Love him."
"No, Rodney." Carson smiles at him kindly. "He's a friend, I suppose, and I wouldn't want anything bad to happen to him, but I just don't have those kinds of feelings for him."
"I just didn't realize that was possible." When Carson looks at him blankly, Rodney elaborates, "To, uh—well. To know him and not… y'know. Love him. Oh, god," he groans. "What the hell am I going to do?"
"I have an idea. Come on," Carson says, patting his back with a sympathetic smile. "Let's get you another drink."
*
The next morning Rodney finds John alone at their usual table in the mess and joins him without waiting for an invitation.
John grabs his tray and stands. But before he can leave:
"I was wrong," Rodney says. It's a sufficiently novel sentence to give John pause, and that's all Rodney needs, a second's opening to wedge the rest of this apology through the door. "I talked to our mutual friend. Who said that I misinterpreted, uh, basically everything I thought I understood."
John's posture loosens a little.
"And I am… sorry. For interfering in that thing which you very rightly stated was none of my business."
John turns a little more toward him, but Rodney notes that he's still clenching his tray so tightly his knuckles are white.
"I understand that you're mad at me," he recites, watching John's hands relax more with each word, "and I'm open to a longer conversation about everything but I, er—humbly ask that it wait until after we resolve the current, more pressing issue."
John eyes him suspiciously for a minute, then sits back down. "How much of that did Teyla write for you?"
"The whole thing," Rodney admits, unashamed in his relief: Teyla's a diplomatic genius and it worked even better than he thought it would. He was expecting slightly more groveling to be necessary. "And then she made me practice it in front of a mirror until I knew it by heart, probably because that was funny for her. I, uh, didn't tell her specifics. Just that I did something extremely stupid and pissed you off in the process. She wasn't surprised."
John smirks. Rodney's fight or flight reflex ebbs back in increments.
"She also told me not to say this next part, but I'm going to anyway, so. If you want to pretend that whole conversation never happened, we can do that."
"What conversation?" John deadpans, shoving a forkful of scrambled eggs into his mouth. And then, like the uncultured heathen that he is, he doesn't wait to finish chewing to add, "I'm still mad at you, by the way. You better live through this so I can kick your ass."
*
Halfway through Rodney's pointless daily checkup that afternoon, to which he was escorted by a marine and then abandoned, Carson says, offhand, "I had an excruciating chat with our mutual friend last night."
Well, that explains why John accepted the apology so easily.
Rodney winces. "I did talk to him this morning."
"Yes, well." Carson raises an eyebrow, but doesn't look angry at all. "You managed to get me dumped by someone I wasn't even dating, so. Impressive."
"Are you… do you want to talk about it?"
"Would serve you right," Carson says cheerfully, because he knows Rodney very well indeed. "But no, thank you. All good things must come to an end. I just wasn't expecting the end to look quite like this."
"Yeah, well, I wasn't expecting my end to look like this, and here we are." Rodney swallows and tries not to wonder if maybe they'll hook back up once he's gone. If it doesn't work.
Carson sobers. "You're not dead yet, Rodney."
"I know," he says, standing to go—and then, like a pillbug with excellent dramatic timing, collapses onto the infirmary floor instead.
*
Rodney lives through it, and John does not kick his ass.
About a week after this latest brush with death, John insists that Rodney and nobody else accompany him on a routine jumper test. Rodney long ago determined that John is mostly bark when it comes to the citizens of Atlantis, and mostly bite when it comes to outsiders, so he is not actually worried for his life, but he is fairly certain that it will be an uncomfortable couple of hours.
It's not, though that has nothing to do with Rodney, who is stiff and awkward in the face of what is his first extended stretch of time alone with John after the meditation debacle. John, though… John is acting totally normal. Like they never had a knock down drag out fight, like Rodney doesn't know where every scar on his body is and the way they feel under someone else's hands.
After completing the outside checks when they reach the mainland, John returns with an unsettlingly determined gleam in his eye, but he doesn't do anything with it, just slouches against the open back hatch and watches Rodney for a while. Rodney valiantly attempts to ignore him and continue on with his diagnostics, but they're incredibly boring and John's gaze is laser-focused on him and he makes it all of sixty seconds before he metaphorically, if not physically, throws up his hands.
"Yes? This is extremely distracting, you know."
On account of the artful slouching and the lanky lines of his body and the intentional muss of his stupid hair and—
"I'm pretty good at math, you know."
"…Congratulations?" Rodney's not sure what he was expecting, but he knows it didn't open with that. "You're not actually an idiot; I've known that all along. Well. Mostly all along."
"It just took me a little while to collect all the variables," John continues, coming forward into the jumper. He plucks the tablet from Rodney's unresisting hands, not breaking eye contact. "That conversation we never had. What did you mean, when you said that thing about being selfless?"
Rodney freezes. "I don't know what you're talking about."
John tilts his head, an uncomfortably knowing look in his eye. "Yes, you do."
Rodney backs up as far as humanly possible, which isn't very far at all before his head hits the wall with a gentle thunk. "You know, we don't need to do this."
"I watched you die last week, Rodney. We're doing this."
This is—apparently—John tossing Rodney's tablet onto the seat, sliding one hand behind Rodney's neck, and yanking him forward into a hard, deep kiss.
When Rodney pulls back, he finds that one of John's hands is between him and the wall, cupped protectively around his head—and it's this, more than John Sheppard's mouth on his mouth, that causes him to mentally stumble trying to catch up.
"Are you pranking me right now, some kind of twisted payback thing, because that kind of middle school—"
John rolls his eyes. "Not a prank, Rodney."
Rodney absorbs this for a moment. "So what was that crack about 'how friends feel about friends' or whatever?"
"That was the payback," John says, and kisses him again. "And maybe some other stuff. Y'know. Panic, grief, denial, all of the above and then some."
Five hundred pounds of feelings in a two hundred pound sack. Rodney called it.
"Oh." Rodney clears his throat. "Well. Um. Care to show me what you know about multiplication?"
John groans, resting his forehead against Rodney's. It's not as romantic as he thought it would be. He's going cross-eyed just trying to look at John, never mind gaze longingly into his eyes and all that sappy shit. "That's the line you wanna go with?"
"Oh, please," he says, unthinking. "If you wanted romance you fell in love with the wrong person."
Before he's even done saying it the bottom falls out of the world; fuck, fuck, fuck. He waits, heart pounding, for John to back off like Rodney's burned him, hands up in surrender, poorly-concealed panic on his face. Waits for You've got this all wrong, McKay, I just—, waits for whatever speech John gave Carson—
"Hm," John says, instead of any of that. "I know exactly who I did, thanks."
*
"There's one thing I don't get," Rodney begins, much, much later. After the kissing, and the groping, and the multiplication, which Rodney is not above feeling smug about, because hello: years-long fantasy finally satisfied, and also he's pretty sure Carson and John never so much as kissed in a jumper, let alone mutually exchanged blowjobs.
(Later, he will think of at least one occasion where that scenario could have plausibly happened and will—briefly but genuinely—consider re-ascending himself so he could go digging around for the truth. But for now? He's smug.)
"Just the one?" John mumbles, and Rodney is so pleasantly boneless that he does not even rise to the bait.
"If you weren't into Carson in a… a feelings way, why pick him and not someone else? He said you came on to him?"
"Came on to," John scoffs. "I just… offered him an apology blowjob for volunteering him to go to Hoff."
Rodney chokes on thin air. "And that worked?"
John shrugs.
"Of course it worked," Rodney mutters. "How come you never incentivized me with sexual favors?"
"Well," John drawls, "not to put too fine a point on it, but I kind of thought you'd clutch your pearls and get a little hysterical. Feelin' pretty vindicated about that, by the way."
"I had a perfectly justified reason to—!" Rodney stops when he sees the tiny smirk pulling at John's mouth. "Oh, shut up. Seriously, why him?"
John gives him a sidelong glance that is somehow suspicious, like he thinks Rodney is trying to trick him. "Couple reasons," he eventually says, shrugging. "Figured he'd be cool about it if he turned me down, and I already knew he was into guys, and he's a civilian, and senior staff, so it wouldn't feel like a power abuse thing. And, y'know. He's hot."
Rodney has not been a stranger to jealousy at, oh, any point in his life, and especially these last few weeks, but it claws into him again. "Oh?" he asks, very casually. "How, uh. How so?"
John grins at him like he sees right through him, slipping his hands up Rodney's shirt. "I like his body," John says, which is the very last thing Rodney would have expected him to say. "I like it a lot. It's, y'know… a little soft, but still strong. Good combo." He pinches Rodney's belly, and Rodney opens his mouth reflexively to shout, but before he can his brain catches on a thought and stutters to a halt.
"And you like that?" he presses, like John is not, at this exact moment, groping a fistful of Rodney's stomach fat with every indication of enjoyment. This is another one of those things about human sexuality that Rodney learned but never knew how to believe: that someone lacking a magazine-perfect body could ever be desired for it and not in spite of it. Rodney licks his lips and tries not to look like he wants to take notes as he ventures, "Do you like… my body?"
John's expression implies that this is the most outrageous question Rodney has asked in a long line of increasingly outrageous questions. "Obviously?"
Rodney harrumphs. "There's no obviously about it! I'm certain you're used to people wanting you for your body but this is an extremely novel experience for me!"
"Well get used to it, because I only want you for your body."
Rodney opens and closes his mouth a few times without any words emerging. He's not even sure there are words. He should have invented them while he was on his deathbed. What's the good in being mostly-ascended if you can't foresee conversational hiccups like this?
John smirks. "So do you want me to objectify you, or do you want me to love you so much I don't care what your body looks like?"
"I…"
"'Cause the truth is somewhere in between." John takes one look at whatever is happening on Rodney's face and groans. "Jesus, Rodney. Just… stop overthinking it and c'mere so I can kiss you stupid. Stupider," he amends, and swallows Rodney's yelp of indignation with a very indulgent kiss.
*
About a week later—falling asleep crammed together on John's ridiculous tiny bed in a way that Rodney will regret in the morning but is secretly enjoying now—John presses a shockingly tender kiss to his shoulder and mumbles,
"I think I deserve a different present."
"What?"
"When you were mostly-ascended-Rodney. You'd been going around telling people how much you cared about them, making these grand gestures, and when you said all that stuff about Carson I thought at first you were telling me—shit." He breaks off, but Rodney's heard enough to recontextualize that conversation and want to die. "That was a terrible fucking present."
"That was supposed to be Carson's gift, actually. You."
John raises his eyebrows. "Classy," he drawls.
"Yeah. Not my most evolved moment. But also, kind of, my most evolved moment? Sacrificing my happiness for yours and his and all."
"You're a paragon of goodness and humility," John says with a straight face. "And you didn't get me an ascension present."
"False!" Rodney says triumphantly. "I meditated and stuff. For you."
"That was so you didn't die."
"Yeah, but you wanted me to fight and I, uh. Didn't want to leave you behind."
John pushes up onto one elbow and stares down at him for long enough that Rodney begins to wonder if he's said something unforgivably sappy or maybe just deeply weird. Maybe both?
Suddenly John pushes his whole body forward, his kisses desperate and deep like he can't get close enough. One hand slides into Rodney's hair, the other busy running over his side, his hip, back up again like to settle in one place for too long would be unbearable, like John can't decide which part of him he wants to touch the most. And then John's wriggling onto his back and taking Rodney with him, still kissing him sloppy-sweet and desperate like his life depends on it.
"Christ," John says as he breaks the kiss, voice wrecked, tipping his head up to mouth at Rodney's neck, yank away the collar of his shirt and bite at his shoulder. All of this would probably be easier if John were the one on top, but it had taken no time at all for Rodney to learn, and fully onboard, the fact that he really, really likes being surrounded by Rodney's bulk. "You can't just—you can't go around saying shit like that."
If this is the outcome? Rodney categorically disagrees. He'll say shit like that every day for the rest of their lives, just see if he won't.
"John, John—ah, fuck, Jesus—you're going to leave a mark," he manages, squirming in a very unmanly way.
"Mm-hmm," John says, and moves on to the next square inch of skin.
Rodney slaps at him. "Stop it, you're being greedy, let me kiss you back—"
It all escalates quite pleasantly from there, and it is not until much later, when Rodney glimpses himself in the bathroom mirror, that he remembers John's singular determination to wreak havoc on his neck, shoulders, and chest. (And stomach, and thighs, and…)
He claps his hand over the highest of the marks, as if that will mean it's no longer there. "God, it's like I've been gnawed on by a wild animal—why would you do that?"
"Take a wild guess," the reflection of an extremely nude John says, stepping into the shower.
"Oh," Rodney says, watching his cheeks redden until they are nearly as dark as the hickies strewn liberally over his person. "Well then. That's—fine."
Better than fine. Absolutely incredible, in fact.
John rolls his eyes. "Get in here."
*
Rodney lives in a galaxy that is constantly trying to kill him in increasingly inventive and implausible new ways, and he's never been happier in his life.
Still, there is one loose end that he cannot quite feel easy about never having tied up; though he will never say it to Carson's face without the threat of imminent death bearing down upon them, Carson's friendship means an absolutely tremendous amount to him, and Rodney cannot suffer this unfamiliar, unwelcome attack of conscience for much longer.
Truth be told, he'd assumed Carson would have begun the conversation whether Rodney wanted him to or not, and at least a week ago, but when no such eventuality occurs, Rodney makes up his mind.
There's nothing for it. He will have to clear the air. He's so mature and evolved he could probably ascend right now if he wanted to, Elizabeth, but instead he barges unceremoniously into Carson's office at midday on a Wednesday and says, "I have to ask you something. Non-medical."
"Sure, Rodney, it's not like I have anything better to be doing," Carson says dryly, and does not stop typing or even glance in his direction.
"Great," Rodney says, and makes himself at home. He leans forward onto his elbows, steepling his fingers. "You knew all along the way our mutual friend and I felt about each other, didn't you?"
The click-clacking of the keyboard ceases, followed by a sigh as Carson pushes it away. "Suspected," he stresses. "I suspected."
"Why didn't you say something?"
"Because until one of you was ready to do something about it, it wasn't any of my business." He looks at Rodney over the top of his monitor. "Am I to take this to mean you two actually had a conversation about your feelings?"
"Well, you don't have to sound so surprised about it," Rodney grumbles, sitting back.
"And...?"
"And what?"
Carson rolls his eyes. "For god's sake, Rodney. Are you together now?"
"I don't see how that's any of your business," Rodney sniffs, like this isn't the exact topic he came here to discuss.
"This from the man who barged into my brain and went straight for the sex memories like some kind of pervert!"
"You say that as if I did it on purpose," Rodney protests, "which I categorically did not!"
"You know, I've been wondering about that," Carson says, because he is extremely good at straying from the topic. "Did you ever stop to consider why you might have ended up in that part of my mind?"
"No, why would I? I assume it was just something close to the surface. I told you, I kind of… grabbed on and kept walking."
"Yes, but might your starting point have been influenced by your own mind? Like seeing like and that sort of thing."
"Well, I certainly hadn't been thinking about Kagan. I'd been, uh—"
Generally bemoaning the need to be in the infirmary, yet secretly pleased that John was sticking close to him no matter how much Rodney outwardly complained about it; he'd always found it easier to be sick or injured if John was around, even that time John himself had been the reason Rodney was injured, because he'd actually shot him with an actual gun and—oh.
Oh.
"Look," he says, because he is not about to admit to any of that out loud. "Are we okay?"
Carson looks at him oddly. "Yes, of course we are. Rodney, what prompted that?"
"I don't know, I just. Feel like I stole your man or something."
"Ah." Carson gets up, walks around his desk, and hauls Rodney up by the bicep. "I'll be just fine, now if you'll excuse me, I have actual work to be getting on with…"
Rodney allows himself to be towed along toward the door as he protests, "Yes, well, I've come to realize that 'fine' is an extremely imprecise word, so you'll appreciate that that does not make me feel better."
Carson pauses in the doorway. "It's too bad you can't still read my mind."
And—Rodney can't say, later, why he thinks to do it, but he reaches out and says, "My mind to your mind; my thoughts to your thoughts."
Carson laughs, eyes crinkling, and mirrors the gesture, the pads of his fingers coming to rest on Rodney's mouth, his cheek, his temple. With a gentle squeeze, his other hand settles on Rodney's shoulder: "I have been, and always shall be, your friend."