Title: Hands Away
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Category: Sheppard/ McKay
Rating: NC-17
Summary: "Rodney doesn’t kiss John."
Author's Notes: Thanks to Kat for betaing the
first (and very different) draft. Title from Interpol.
*
Will you put my hands away, will you be my man...
*
Rodney doesn’t kiss
John. John kisses Rodney sometimes, mouth against Rodney’s shoulder, neck, ear.
When he reaches Rodney’s face, Rodney turns away. John doesn’t seem to mind. He
rests his hand against Rodney’s jaw, goes back to kissing his neck.
Rodney pins John
against the wall, pushes John’s pants down around his thighs. He grinds his
hips against John’s ass, lets John feel him through his BDUs.
John says, “God –
Rodney – please…”
Rodney undoes the
clasp on his pants and lubes himself up with spit and semen. He pulls John’s
hips toward him and John bends, braces himself against the wall, angling his
ass for entry. John is always eager, always pliant and bending to Rodney’s
will. John always wants him. Rodney doesn’t think about what that means.
Rodney works his
fingers in first, flexing them, stretching John open. He enters John slowly, drawing out the sensation. He pulls out
again and repeats the process, his pace measured, controlled. He wills himself
to stay like this, stay in control.
It never works. One
hard thrust and Rodney’s gone, mindlessly fucking John like they’re sex-starved
teenagers. John makes a sharp noise, half-pleasure and half-pain. He pushes
back to meet Rodney, like he wants more.
When Rodney’s almost there, he takes John’s cock in his fist and jacks
him until John’s breath comes in short gasps and his ass muscles tighten.
“Say it,” Rodney
says. “Say it now.”
*
There was no kissing
Rodney’s first time. He was seventeen, living away from home for the first time
and sharing a dorm with a dark haired, blue-eyed and charming boy called
Harley. Rodney never met guys like Harley and he certainly never drank vodka
and apple juice with anyone remotely fitting Harley’s description. Harley drank from the bottle like a pro,
never even flinched. They talked about science fiction movies, girls and Pink
Floyd and Harley laughed at Rodney’s ignorance when it came to professional
sport. At the time, it was the best night of Rodney’s life.
Rodney
couldn’t taste the vodka in his juice so he drank it like it wasn’t there. He
didn’t notice an effect until he stood up and promptly fell down again. Harley
laughed and refilled Rodney’s glass. “I’ll make a man out of you, McKay,” he
said. “If it takes all night.”
Harley was compelling and Rodney was drunk. Harley easily convinced Rodney to
unzip his jeans so that Harley could dip his hand inside and massage Rodney’s
stirring cock. Rodney was too scared to speak, mesmerised by the hunger in
Harley’s eyes. Harley pulled Rodney’s jeans and underwear around his hips, took
Rodney’s cock in his mouth and gave Rodney his first blowjob, stopping only to
suck on his own fingers and trail them wet and slippery around Rodney’s ass
until they were pushing inside him, one digit at a time.
“Feels fucking
incredible, doesn’t it?” Harley said. Rodney concentrated on holding on to the
feeling, god, just holding on to that feeling a little longer. Harley
lazily finger fucked Rodney until Rodney came in his mouth.
Harley swallowed,
wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Now you do me,” he said.
*
John came to Rodney.
Rodney reminds himself that John came to him. It was after the suicide run on
the hive-ship. John got him drunk too, appeared at Rodney’s door with a bottle
of Johnny Walker and an invitation to drink John under the table. In Rodney’s
experience such incitement was akin to a pick-up line, a veiled proposal,
guaranteed to get the job done without asking questions.
Half a bottle later
and John says, “I want you.” He says, “want” like it’s profound, like it’s more
than sweat, semen and skin.
Rodney says, “What do
you want to do?” and John gets to his knees on the floor, undoes the clasp on
Rodney’s pants and frees Rodney’s cock from his boxers. John sucks Rodney until
he comes and then he sucks him dry. Afterwards John guides Rodney’s hand to his
pants and watches through lowered lids as Rodney jerks him off.
John comes back soon
after. They survive a wraith attack or a retrovirus or a violently xenophobic
Amish village and John is at Rodney’s door, sometimes knocking, sometimes
walking straight in. In the beginning John brought vodka or bourbon or gin and
they drank and talked about meaningless things like high school PE and the girl
across the street who stole her father’s cigarettes and taught Rodney to smoke.
But eventually the conversations grew shorter and shorter until the bottles
remained untouched and John started stripping as soon as he walked through the
door. It’s not really what John wants and John doesn’t like boundaries as much
as his icy cool exterior suggests but Rodney never asked for pleasantries and
he certainly never asked for a lover.
*
Harley fucked Rodney
at night. Only ever at night. Rodney would see him on campus sometimes and he
would acknowledge Rodney with a nod, saying, “that’s my room mate,” to whoever
he was with but never, “that’s Rodney.” To Harley Rodney was an abstraction,
part of Harley’s fantasy life, strictly distinguished from his college reality
despite appearances. Rodney hated him sometimes, but he wanted him more. Rodney
hated himself sometimes too.
Harley liked girls
and girls liked Harley. He talked about becoming pre-med and he surrounded
himself with smart, classy girls whose parents were doctors or lawyers or both.
He laughed about it, saying he had three girls and he couldn’t decide which to
choose. Then he’d push Rodney to his knees, unzipping his jeans. “Do it slow,”
Harley would say, and Rodney sucked slowly and carefully as instructed, until
Harley grabbed him by the head and frantically fucked his mouth. After Harley
came he would lean back against the wall and talk about his aspirations. He
wanted his father to approve of the girl he married. He wanted his parents to
think he was everything they wanted in a son.
“But it’s not real,”
Rodney said.
“Sure it is,” Harley
said. “Just as real as you and me.”
*
John doesn’t ask
questions but he sometimes he looks at Rodney like he has something to say.
Rodney blows up a planet and John doesn’t come. Rodney crashes into the ocean,
nearly drowns and John is there as soon as Rodney is released from the
infirmary. John says, “I never gave up on you,” and Rodney can hear relief in
his voice.
He pushes John to his
knees. “I know,” Rodney says. “You’re Colonel Never Give Up Never Surrender.”
“That’s me.” John
undoes the clasp on Rodney’s pants. “Seriously, Rodney. I don’t know what I –
what we would have done if you’d drowned back there.”
Rodney puts his hand
at the back of John’s head, urges him forward. John takes the hint and lets Rodney
fuck his mouth the way Harley fucked Rodney. John doesn’t protest. He puts his
hands on Rodney’s hips and presses his fingers into Rodney’s bare flesh. Rodney
finds marks there the next day.
Before John leaves,
he says, “You’re okay, right?”
“I’m fine,” Rodney
says. “Really. All systems normal.”
“I just thought…”
John scratches his neck, contemplating the floor. And then he nods. “Okay,” he
says. “Okay.”
*
Harley
bought Playboy and Hustler and a few other less tasteful magazines Rodney had never
heard of. They looked at them together, page after page of naked women wearing
lace and satin, eyes fixed on the camera, lids lowered like they were half
asleep. Harley would get turned on and want to fuck Rodney afterwards, face
into the pillow, ass in the air. Harley called him “bitch,” and yelled at him
to “shut the fuck up,” when Rodney protested. In the end, Rodney took it
because he always did.
One night Harley
produced women’s underwear: black bra and panties. He told Rodney to put them
on and Rodney, wordlessly, did as he was asked. The lace on the bra was stiff
and irritating but the panties felt cool against his skin. He remembered
feeling overly large and awkward, freakish. Harley told him to lie back on the
bed, knees raised and apart. He knelt between Rodney’s legs, ran hands up his
stomach and thumbed his nipples through the lace of the bra.
“Do you feel pretty,
Rodney?” he said and he laughed. He pushed the crotch of the panties aside and
worked his fingers into Rodney’s ass while he lubed up his cock. Harley fucked
Rodney, leaving the bra and panties on.
Harley told Rodney to wear them the next day under his clothes.
Rodney did as he was
told but it hardly mattered. The next day Rodney didn’t see Harley at all.
*
At first it was blowjobs
and mutual masturbation, hands in each other’s pants, always fully or partially
clothed. And then one night John says, “Fuck me,” in a low voice and Rodney
bends him over the desk, shoves his BDUs around his hips and fucks him,
covering John’s hand with his own as they brace themselves against the edge.
Rodney is too hard and too fast and John says, “Rodney – wait…” between gritted
teeth. Rodney doesn’t stop. John says, “Rodney,” and this time there’s
real pain in his voice. Rodney is too close to stop so he pulls out and
finishes himself off with his hand. He comes over John’s ass and his t-shirt
John leans onto his
elbows, catches his breath. “That hurt,” he says.
“You asked,” Rodney
says.
John gets dressed.
“You freak me out sometimes, McKay,” he says. He doesn’t stay long.
*
Rodney was caught
with his hands in Harley’s pants. It was bad timing, mostly. Harley had a date
with Gillian the doctors’ daughter and he wanted a blowjob to get him in the
mood. He was on the bed with his jeans undone and Rodney’s hand on his cock
when Gillian walked in.
“The door was open…”
she said, and then she put her hand to her mouth and made a strangled
sound.
Harley recovered
quickly. “What the fuck are you doing, McKay?” He jumped off the bed. “I told you
to stay on your side of the room when I’m sleeping.”
Gillian looked at
Rodney, wide-eyed, not knowing what to believe. Rodney retreated to his side of
the room, sinking down onto his bed, reaching for a pillow for security.
Gillian made up her
mind. “You pervert!” she said, eyes filled with hatred. Rodney blamed it on his
guilty demeanour but in retrospect he figured she believed what she wanted.
“You should report him,” she said to Harley.
“It’s okay,” Harley
said. He took a sweater off the back of a chair, swung it casually over his
shoulders. “He’ll get his.” He put an around Gillian’s shoulders and never
looked back.
Harley didn’t come
home that night. Rodney saw him on campus the next day, surrounded by his usual
adoring throng. He looked up and saw Rodney, his eyes glassing over the way
they usually did whenever he saw Rodney in public. And then smiled and waved
Rodney over, came toward him and put an arm around Rodney’s shoulder, asking
him how he’d been. It was all wrong and in the pit of Rodney’s stomach he knew
it was a warning. He just didn’t know what else to do.
They walked together,
Harley apologising for the night before. He said he needed to keep things a
secret. “You understand, right?” Harley said, and Rodney said he did.
They were walked away
from the dorms, followed a path that went past the track and behind the gym.
“Where are we going?” Rodney said.
They stopped. “Right
here,” Harley said, smiling at a spot behind Rodney. Rodney turned around to
see three of Harley’s friends, standing by the gym, like they’d been waiting
“Hey, fag,” one of
them said, and then they came toward him, slowly surrounding him. He backed
away instinctively until he felt Harley’s hand on his shoulders, holding him in
place.
“Sorry, Rodney,” Harley
said. “But someone has to teach you how to be a man.”
Rodney didn’t know
where the first punch came from, but it hit him in the jaw, dislodging a tooth
and filling his mouth with blood. The second sent him flying backwards and he
landed on his side, struggling for air. They kicked and punched him while he
was down, swore and called him names, some he’d never heard before. He pulled
himself into a foetal position, concentrated on breathing and not crying out.
Eventually it
stopped. He lifted his head and looked around, but they were gone. He closed
his eyes, rested his head back on the ground and lay, unmoving, listening to
the sound of far off voices and traffic. It was dark when the college grounds
keeper found him.
Rodney spent two days
in hospital with a cracked rib and a black eye he could barely see through. The
police paid a visit along with the Dean of the college and they joined his
parents in urging him to file a report. They said he couldn’t let them get away
with this and what if they did it to someone else? Rodney imagined his parents’ faces when he told them why he was
bashed, when he told them what college had done to him. He could never tell
them that.
Harley was gone by
the time Rodney was discharged from the hospital. Rodney heard that he’d moved
off campus and was dating Gillian.
Years later, Harley’s
wedding photos appeared in the college alumni magazine. Harley married a Dr
Lynda Myer who was blonde and neat in her off-white bridal gown. There was no
“Dr” before Harley’s name. Rodney kept the magazine.
*
There’s no real
resemblance between John and Harley but sometimes John smiles and Rodney
recognises Harley in the way John’s eyes shine and the corners of his mouth
curl upwards, seductively slow. Their charm is rare like John’s genes. Women and men and aliens flock to them,
basking in their glow.
Rodney knows there’s
a difference, and John would abhor the comparison, but John attracts
effortlessly and unabashedly and it’s too much like he’s laughing at Rodney,
putting Rodney in his place once more.
And then he comes to
Rodney like nothing has happened. He says, “You did good today.”
“Thank you,” Rodney
says. “Your approval makes it all worthwhile.”
John strips off his
t-shirt. “You’re not still pissed about Norina?” he says. “Because I told her I
wasn’t interested.”
It’s not Norina. “Of course not. What you do with your conquests is your
business.”
“Right,” John says
warily. “Because it’s not like we owe each other anything.”
“Nothing at all.”
John takes off his boots
and pants. When he’s naked he comes to Rodney, touches his shoulder and kisses
his neck, dips his fingers into Rodney’s waistband.
“Come to bed,” he
whispers into the spot below Rodney’s ear.
Rodney undresses
while John lies face down on the bed, chin resting on his folded arms. He
closes his eyes and hums to himself, waits patiently with his legs spread, his
hips occasionally shifting his erection against the mattress. The scene is
unbearably sweet, too much like trust. Rodney holds himself back a moment,
regains his breath. He never asked for this.
Rodney crawls between
John’s legs, lifts him onto his knees and spreads lube between his ass cheeks.
Rodney doesn’t waste time with foreplay. He fucks John without finesse, hard
and unforgiving. John’s used to it by now, even pushes himself into Rodney’s
hips, driving him deeper. When Rodney is close he slows down, takes John’s cock
in his fist and works him to a climax.
“Say it,” Rodney
tells him. “Say it now.”
“Rodney…”
“Say it.”
“I’m sorry,” John
says. He chokes a little. “God – Rodney -sorry…” He comes and Rodney lets go,
finishes himself off.
When it’s over John
gets up and goes to the bathroom, starts dressing when he returns. “I don’t
need to know what you’re about, Rodney,” he says. He sits down on the bed,
laces up his boots. “Some guys would ask questions. I’m not one of those guys.”
Rodney gets dressed
too; t-shirt and drawstring pants. “I know,” Rodney says. “Details can be so
consuming.” It sounds stupid. He doesn’t know what he’s saying.
John looks up. “But
you’ll tell me one day, right? What this is about?”
Rodney wishes he
knew. “There’s nothing to tell.”
John stands. “I guess
I should go,” he says, only he doesn’t. Instead he comes to Rodney, puts a hand
on the side of his face, thumb against Rodney’s cheekbone. Something holds
Rodney in place, transfixes him. He blames it on the volcano, on yet another
narrow escape from certain death. He blames it on anything but the warmth of
John’s breath against his face, the lightness of John’s touch as he brushes
Rodney’s neck with his fingers. John leans in and kisses Rodney on the lips,
mouth slightly open.
It’s over quickly. John steps back, makes eye contact. Rodney looks away.
John leaves and
Rodney turns out the light, climbs back into bed and lies awake listening to
night on Atlantis. In a city surrounded by water, he wonders why he can never
hear the ocean.
End