At first, John had thought getting out of the hive ship would be the hard part. And he certainly hadn’t thought there could be anything worse than seeing Ford fall to the Wraith, but when it’s all over and they’re safely back in Atlantis, he realizes that the worst part has just begun.

Teyla and Ronon haven’t even been back for six hours before they start to fall apart. Even from behind locked doors, Ronon’s anguished roars carry through the corridors. Teyla’s utter silence is just as worrying—maybe more. The last time John sees her, she’s wild-eyed and shaking, scratching at her own skin until Dr. Beckett gently restrains her with the help of only one marine. Beckett says he doesn’t know how long the withdrawal period will last, and advises that John hunt down McKay, who will likely need the same treatment.

McKay is easy enough to find. He’s in his room with the lights off. John lets himself in when McKay doesn’t answer, and at first he’s met with a rush of relief so intense he sags a little against the door frame, because McKay doesn’t have any of the twitchy, restless symptoms that the others are displaying. In fact, he appears to be lying in perfect restfulness on his disheveled bed until John takes a step closer and sees his face, tucked halfway into the pillow and lined with pain.

“You all right?” he asks, a mere formality. He’s already trying to figure out the best way to get McKay to the infirmary.

McKay manages a small, wet gasp and presses his left hand to his eyes.

John taps his radio. “Beckett? Sheppard, here. I’m in McKay’s quarters and he’s…” he glances at McKay, assessing. “…not so good.”

***

“It’s the enzyme,” McKay grinds out as John half-carries him down the corridor. His hand clutches blindly at John’s shoulder, clenching as tightly as his jaw, every muscle tight with pain. “I know it is,” he gasps. “But…” He stops, breathing hard through his nose.

John stops for a moment and tightens his arm around McKay’s waist. “But you still want it,” he finishes grimly.

“Yes,” McKay exhales in a defeated rush. His eyes are still shut-- sensitive to the light, John thinks, and the corridor dims.

“Well, don’t worry, because we don’t have any,” he replies. “So you’re gonna be off that stuff before you know it.”

“Great. I would really like to be unconscious, right now,” he mutters, sounding so unlike his usual self that John quickens his pace, steadfastly ignoring the sound of Ronon’s outraged pleas for more of the enzyme that has poisoned them all.

***

Three days later, Teyla and Ronon are dragging wearily around Atlantis, tired but pain-free. They seem a bit sad, and when John asks, Teyla admits that though she knows the enzyme was harmful, she still thinks of it often, and with longing. They don’t talk about Ford at all.

Every time he checks in on Rodney, the tension is still there on his face, his shoulders taut with pain, and it doesn’t make sense; it has Beckett and his staff running around like crazy people trying to figure out what’s going on that has Dr. McKay so debilitated he can’t even yell at them for their lack of progress.

“It just didn’t affect him the way it did the others,” Beckett says helplessly. He and John both stand at the foot of Rodney’s bed and watch him breathe through the pain.

“Yeah, it didn’t do much for him, performance-wise,” John recalls. He remembers everything about Rodney working out in the sun, the light reflecting yellow-white on his pale forearms and the way he had squinted at John in so many pauses, sharing his uneasiness without words, and then with a lot of words that all ran together in one frantic rush.

And he remembers the way McKay had begged for the enzyme when they’d come to retrieve him.

“Just until we get back,” John had said irritably, because he wasn’t going to put up with McKay’s pestering for the rest of their time on the planet. Then they’d been delayed rounding up the rest of Ford’s men for questioning, and that day had turned into two, and what it all came down to was the fact that there had been something vaguely, harmlessly gratifying about the worshipful look in McKay’s eyes every time John had doled out the remaining enzyme-fortified food.

“All it did was get him addicted,” Beckett agrees with a nod.

John crosses his arms over his chest when his stomach bottoms out like a reckless nosedive. “Do you, uh, think he’d be this bad off if he’d stopped taking it sooner?”

“It’s hard to say,” Beckett says thoughtfully. A medic approaches with a chart, which he scans briefly, still talking as he signs off on it. “Of course, prolonged exposure would further the damage, but it’s impossible to know when the damage was done or even what the damage is, at this point. He complains of headaches and eye pain, and every time he gets them he experiences problems with his memory and train of thought. It’s not at all consistent with Teyla’s and Ronon’s symptoms, so it’s impossible to know whether it’s withdrawal or damage from the enzyme.”

“Damage?”

“I don’t know, Colonel,” he sighs. “Give us some time.”

John hates waiting. This is one of the reasons Atlantis is so perfect for him, because everything they do is hurried by limited resources. Everyone works twice as quickly as they would on Earth, which means the exciting moments have far less waiting between them. Waiting for McKay is even worse than the other kind of waiting—the boring kind—because the only thing to do is to remember the way he’d stopped making McKay ask for the enzyme, how he’d sat down next to McKay and casually handed it over as though it were a piece of perfectly normal food.

What if Teyla and Ronon are fine because they stopped taking the enzyme in time? What if those two extra days really made a difference? It doesn’t seem possible, but the proof is in Rodney’s lack of recovery, in his shadowed eyes and infrequent, stilted speech.

That night when he’s sorting his laundry, he finds a scrap of enzyme-fortified bread in his pocket and disgusted, flings it across the room. Teyla and Ronon would probably kill one another for that tiny morsel, and McKay would probably want it, too. McKay, who is in so much pain that he can’t even leave the infirmary, would never have a chance. It’s a sick thought, but John thinks it takes a pretty sick person to feed a drug to an addict, so it shouldn’t be all that surprising after all.

***

“You should take advantage,” Teyla says playfully. “I will not be weak for much longer, and you will lose the opportunity to beat me.”

John taps his sticks on the ground and shrugs with a half-smile. Any other time, he’d be happy to take her down, but she’s weak, like McKay. He didn’t give Teyla any of the enzyme, he reminds himself, but still feels guilty enough that he lets her kick his ass.

“Something is wrong,” she says while he lies on his back, chest heaving for breath.

“No.” He doesn’t try to get up.

Teyla peers down at him with concern. “Perhaps not, then,” she agrees. “But you should stop treating me as though I cannot hurt you. I am fine,” she insists. “As is Ronon. Even Dr. McKay has been back to work for days, now.” When she pulls him up, he can feel the strength in her grip.

“Dr. McKay isn’t fine,” he finds himself saying, slowly, every word a question. Who else is he going to say it to? Elizabeth demands too many explanations, and no one else really cares.

“He still has pain,” Teyla agrees. “It is not constant. Perhaps you should talk with him. You will see that he is well today. I have heard many people complaining about him already.”

“Maybe,” John replies, and leaves her to her next victim.

***

McKay does seem well when John tracks him down in the dining hall. Just to be sure, he takes the seat across from McKay and studies him carefully.

“How’s it going?” he asks, impressed with his own casual tone.

“Oh, apart from the occasional excruciatingly debilitating headache, I’m fantastic.” McKay says lightly, then attacks his dessert with a fork.

John winces. “Did you ask Beckett how long it might last?”

McKay glares across the table. “No, I didn’t. I thought it would be more fun to just be surprised.”

“Okay, okay.” John is greatly cheered by Rodney’s meanness, which is pretty pathetic, he knows, but he still can’t help smiling and pissing Rodney off more. “And did he know how long…?”

“No,” he replies curtly. His mouth is turned down unhappily, and John can’t stand that.

“Look, McKay,” he sighs, but doesn’t know what comes next.

“I remember what you did for me.” McKay stops eating. When he looks at John across the table, he looks comfortable and whole, and John can’t believe this is even real.

“What I did?”

“On the planet.” McKay glances around and lowers his voice. “The enzyme. I know you didn’t give any to the others, and believe me, I know how much they wanted it. But you gave it to me, and I appreciate it. I would’ve been in bad shape without it.”

John gapes, and pulls back, away from McKay. “In bad shape without it? Have you not seen yourself lately? You should be kicking my ass right now, not thanking me.”

“Oh, please. I can be very persuasive,” McKay says smugly. “My argument about withdrawal being more comfortable if it were postponed until Atlantis was pretty much indisputable. I would have done the same for you.”

“Thanks.” John stares at Rodney in disbelief. “But I didn’t do it because…”

Rodney waves his protest away. “Back to work,” he says, and rises to leave.

“But-“ It’s not that John wants Rodney to be angry with him. It just seems wrong that Rodney thinks he was doing something kind and noble when, okay, he didn’t want to see Rodney suffer, but he’d been addicted, too; addicted to the way Rodney had looked when he gave him what he wanted so badly. And there hadn’t seemed to be any danger at the time, because Ford’s men had been taking the enzyme for months, so what was a couple extra days?

John is afraid they’re finding out exactly what the extra couple of days can mean.

***

“Sorry I’m late, sorry sorry sorry.” McKay slides into the meeting fifteen minutes late, his laptop tucked under his arm. His eyes are alight with excitement, his mouth turned up in an honest-to-god smile. “But I think you’re all going to be very happy with what I’ve been doing.” He pauses and glances around the table. “Okay, most of you won’t understand what I’m doing, but I think you’ll understand the end result.”

“Let’s hear it, then.” Elizabeth sits back in her chair, arms crossed over her chest in anticipation. McKay nods at her, then glances at John for a wordless, split-second exchange. John just tips his head expectantly.

“I haven’t worked out all the final figures yet, but I’ve done them in my head, which is more than sufficient for early speculation. And if I’m right…” McKay pauses, a frown creasing his forehead as he stares at the table in front of him. “Uh, oh no. No no no.” With a hiss of pain, he puts his palms to his temples and holds them there.

John tenses in his seat, not quite sure what he’s watching unfold. A cold trickle of fear works it way down his spine, because this isn’t normal. McKay can work through anything: thirty six hours without sleep, back pain, knife wounds, and everything else. He can, and has.

“Your idea, Dr. McKay?” Colonel Caldwell reminds him.

McKay staggers to his feet, eyes focused downward. “I don’t remember it,” he says in a high, panicked voice. “I can’t- oh God, it’s gone.” His voice breaks on the last word.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Caldwell mutters, but Zelenka comes to Rodney’s defense.

“He cannot think when he has the headaches. Nothing. They are bad,” he explains to Elizabeth.

“Blackouts?” she asks. Zelenka shrugs.

John just watches, his heart thrumming in his throat. Rodney stands alone, hunched over the table, his knuckles pressed to the glossy surface, and he is heartbreakingly silent while they talk about him as though he’s not there. John’s throat goes tight at the furious bewilderment in McKay’s eyes, at the unguarded disappointment and loss he sees there, far worse than the times he’s seen McKay fail through his own merits. The light from a few minutes ago is gone. It’s the worst thing John has ever seen, and he’s seen a lot of terrible things in his life but he doesn’t ever want to see Rodney McKay with his confidence ripped out from under him again.

“It’s all right, Rodney” Elizabeth says softly, like somebody’s mother. She leaves her place at the table and goes to McKay, touches his shoulder. “We can talk about it later. Colonel Sheppard, would you escort Dr. McKay to the infirmary, please?”

He hears her say it, but he’s already halfway out of the doorway so he figures it doesn’t count.

***

By the time he tracks down Dr. Beckett, there’s already a crowd, which is typical. There’s no such thing as privacy on Atlantis, and John doesn’t want to wait until later.

“Look, can’t you do some kind of brain scan? An MRI?” he cajoles lightly.

“Colonel Sheppard…”

“I fed Rodney the enzyme for two extra days,” he blurts suddenly.

“John!” Rodney yells, outraged.

“You what?” Ronon growls, but Teyla just glares at him.

John gapes at her, betrayed. “Hey, you said you didn’t want it anymore!”

She places her hands on her hips and gets in his face for the first time he can ever remember. “I do not want it any longer, but that does not mean I cannot remember how badly I wanted it at the time!”

“Traitor,” Ronon says dangerously, and Teyla nods in fierce agreement.

“Whoa, calm down,” John says helplessly, but the two of them are already stalking out of the room, completely disgusted.

***

If John hadn’t already known it was serious, he would have known by the way that no one utters a word of complaint about McKay’s perpetual rants that describe the possible deterioration of his brain and how it will inevitably be the downfall of Atlantis. No one tells him to shut up, and Dr. Beckett addresses every one of Rodney’s panicked visits to the infirmary with a battery of patiently administered tests.

John has the feeling that everyone else had been as frightened by McKay’s lapse as John had been. He’s seen McKay physically cut down before, but his brain is their failsafe, and now it turns out that brain is vulnerable. Rodney is vulnerable.

Apparently, Elizabeth agrees.

“You need to think about replacing Rodney on your team,” she tells him later. “Until his headaches start tapering off, he’s at risk on missions, and so are the rest of you.” Elizabeth’s suggestion is threaded through with compassion, but it does nothing to soften the blow.

“Understood,” he replies stiffly. “We done here?”

She tilts her head, probably searching for the perfect way to show him she cares about him as a person and as a part of the team. “You know I don’t like this any more than you do. But Teyla and Ronon are at full capacity, now, and we’re going to need a prepared off-world team. Rodney isn’t the only scientist.”

“No, but he’s the best.”

What John isn’t expecting is Elizabeth’s slight pause, her high eyebrow as she gathers her thoughts.

“Oh, don’t even-“

“It’s probably just temporary,” she says, talking over him. “But he is compromised for the time being. Still brilliant, but only when he’s not in pain.”

“Which is still ninety-five percent of the time!” John protests. He doesn’t even know what point he’s arguing, only that he has to, for Rodney’s sake.

“I can’t believe what I’m hearing.”

John can’t, either. This is crazy. McKay can’t be on the team anymore and John knows it. He just doesn’t want to tell him, so onward he goes. “Do you really want to do this to him right now? It’s bad enough that he can’t think.”

“You just said he could.”

John rolls his eyes. “He can. Most of the time. We don’t have to make it official just yet. If you replace him, I guarantee he’ll feel like he’s being demoted, or punished.”

“I sympathize, John, but I can’t run this mission based on people’s feelings. Find someone else,” she says, and this time it’s an order.

***

Atlantis is nearly deserted this time of night, but McKay is there alone in the half-lit lab, seated at a console, running his fingers over the keypad without actually pressing anything. He looks up bloodlessly when John sits down next to him.

“Looks like it’s time to call it a day,” John says cautiously, taking in the bruised hollows beneath Rodney’s eyes, the miserable set of his mouth.

“I can’t do it,” McKay touches the console longingly, and then folds his fingers into a fist.

“Sure you can. Just get up and walk out; you don’t even have to lock up.”

“Not that. The new codes for the…” He clenches his jaw and averts his eyes.

John thinks. “…for the upper power grid?”

“Yes,” McKay whispers hoarsely.

John wants to hit something. “Where are the codes?”

I don’t know. Oh God, I can’t work like this. I can’t live like this,” he sputters, terrified. “I don’t even know what I’m saying. It could be something incredibly stupid and I wouldn’t even know.”

“No more stupid than usual,” John assures him. “Jesus, McKay. Did you take something for the pain?”

“I’m about to,” McKay snaps. “Forgive me if I don’t jump at the prospect of becoming dependent on…” Instead of finishing his thought, which he probably can’t, he makes a frustrated sound and waves his hand wildly in the air.

“I get it.” John pats McKay’s shoulder in what he thinks is a supportive manner, lets his fingers mold to the comforting curve of flesh and bone, and realizes that it’s more for his own comfort than Rodney’s. Still, McKay doesn’t protest—doesn’t do anything at all except sigh loudly and pull small blue capsule out of his pocket.

John, simmering with some indefinable rage, watches him swallow the pill.

“What?” McKay asks, but John just shakes his head. He can’t even begin to process what he just witnessed. There’s no telling how long Rodney had been sitting there alone, grappling with his broken mind.

He shuts his eyes and remembers the ecstatic flutter of McKay’s eyelashes every time he’d bitten into the stale enzyme-fortified bread that John had been carrying in his pack for a week. It makes his chest ache, but he can’t get rid of the image. He’s not sure he wants to.

It’s just, there aren’t very many instances in which Dr. Rodney McKay has an ecstatic reaction to anything—other than his own moments of genius, that is, and that’s just another twist of the knife, because he’s being slowly robbed of those. Rodney’s ability to think is his entire reason for living; it’s the standard to which he holds every person he meets, and is happy to find most of them lacking. It’s the only thing that can make him pleased with himself, pleased with his surroundings. It brings him pleasure.

It’s like flying.

That thought delivers a blow that hits John right in the gut. McKay is staring that possibility right in the face, and it hurts to watch it happen in a series of cruel, incremental ambushes. Even now, John recognizes the self-loathing on Rodney’s face, had heard it earlier in his tone.

“Rodney-“ he starts to say, but his voice cracks and he snaps his mouth shut, horrified, and leans back against the wall instead. The wall is cool and smooth like the rest of Atlantis when he slides slowly to the floor and comes to rest with his forehead pressed to his knees like he’s some stupid scientist trying to avoid a fainting spell.

If he’s torn up about this, he knows that Rodney is probably worse, but there’s nothing he can say to make it better. Instead, he wraps his arms around his knees and presses his face there, because he can’t seem to stop the quivering in his belly that shakes it way up and out of him as though he’s been holding it there for years. He’s hot all over and doesn’t dare risk swallowing, much less speaking, so he doesn’t offer the words he wants so much to give, just breathes wetly into the space where his arms are cradled around his knees.

It’s almost funny, McKay’s reaction. He can tell as soon as the drugs start to kick in, because first there’s the predictable, slightly narcotic-subdued rambling that cuts off abruptly when he notices John.

“Umm…” McKay puzzles for a few moments, and John doesn’t blame him. He knows how it looks, and he wants to explain, but he can’t risk speaking. McKay is pretty much on his own. “Are you…okay, no. Stupid question,” McKay says, sounding genuinely confused. He’s talking to himself, which is a good thing because John isn’t expected to answer. “And you’re—wow. You know, I have to say I’d never have believed it if I weren’t seeing it right now. You really work that strong, silent thing, though not so much with the silent now that I think about it.”

Fuck you, John thinks dispassionately.

“So…you probably want to be alone right now,” Rodney says uncertainly. “I’ll give you a moment.”

John very nearly lifts his head at that. McKay can’t leave yet. There’s no way he’s letting Rodney out of this room without having the chance to first explain himself, to explain that this isn’t some kind of breakdown, that it’s nothing at all. Especially when Rodney might go straight to Weir, which is the last thing he needs.

“Wait,” he chokes out somewhat normally, meaning that he only sounds hoarse and not like he’s dying, which isn’t so far from the truth. A little part of him does feel like it’s dying, a small world of sorrow in the pit of his stomach that’s making him act this way when he’s never…well, almost never.

In his own restless, curious way, McKay waits.

John relaxes slightly. In just a minute, he’ll have everything back under control and he can assure McKay that everything is fine. He can also bribe him not to tell anyone about this, though he really doesn’t think McKay would.

“I guess I’ll just have a seat while I’m waiting,” McKay says, finally. John hears the squeak of the chair near the console. “And if you don’t mind, I think I have to ask what’s going on. Did you do something exceptionally foolish?”

John shakes his head slightly and is rewarded with an impatient sigh. “Fine. Are you seriously injured or in need of medical attention?” Another shake of his head.

“Do you know something I don’t? Incoming Wraith attack? Accelerated ZPM depletion? Oh my God, is it Earth?”

John starts to open his mouth, but it’s still lurking there, a whole chest full of emotion that wants something he’s not willing to give, so he shuts it and shakes his head again, aching all over.

“Oh. Good,” McKay muses. “Because, I mean, Earth is no Atlantis, but it still has several things I’m not ready to let go of yet. Hmm,” he says after a pause. “Not that many, really. That’s interesting.”

It’s really not; John thinks it’s a little sad, but he’s willing to admit his judgment is somewhat compromised at the moment. He might be able to stand up and shake it off, but he’s afraid it wouldn’t work and then Rodney would see everything.

“I’m not even going to guess woman trouble, because the only woman trouble you’ve probably got is having too many of them. You didn’t get someone pregnant, did you?” he asks sharply.

He rolls his head side to side again, just enough of an answer to keep McKay going, even though he’s not really sure why he wants him to keep going. Already, something inside him is loosening, uncoiling ever so slightly.

“Did you touch something you weren’t supposed to?”

John feels, deep down, that the answer is yes. Still, he shakes his head and lets McKay continue.

“Mid-life crisis? You’re not turning forty soon, are you?”

John manages a snort, and the room falls silent just as he sniffs pathetically into his sleeve.

McKay seems to have given up. There is a measure in his silence, and John feels it heavily even without seeing.

“John…” he says uncertainly, a quiet defeat.

And for that, there is no answer.

***

From then on, there is only the click of idle typing from McKay’s side of the room. It’s oddly comforting in that the silence somehow feels like acceptance, and John finds himself almost dozing, exhausted from the past week. It’s so late, they should both be in bed. When he jerks back from the edge of sleep, he’s saturated with such a groggy lassitude that he doesn’t want to move. But he has to move, and when he looks up, McKay is staring at him with an off-putting level of scrutiny that he ought to have expected.

“I waited.”

“So I see.” John voice is rough, which he hates. But there’s nothing he can do about it, so he meets McKay’s eyes. It’s easy enough, and McKay’s expression is as open as always. John can read a hundred emotions there, and while none of them can be considered good, he also sees caring and concern mixed in with the discomfort and confusion and annoyance and something else he can’t quite place. “You okay?”

“Ahhh, so we’re going to make this about me? All right, then. Yes, I’m very well, thanks for asking.”

“The codes?”

McKay looks away, his cheeks flushed to a deep pink. “Radek can take care of it.”

“Oh. Sorry. You’re taking this awfully well.”

“I’ll have you know I’m heavily sedated at the moment.”

“You probably won’t even remember this,” John says hopefully.

“You’d like that,” McKay scoffs. “I’ve learned my lesson. From now on I’ll be writing down every thought as it comes to me. Of course, when you do that then you run the risk of someone stealing your work and passing it off as their own, so I’ll have to be careful.”

“Riiight.” His face feels stiff when it breaks unexpectedly into a smile. Rodney. John suddenly feels extremely generous. “Look, about all this.” He waves his hand in the air. “I was just kind of.”

“Having a bad night?” McKay suggests.

“Exactly.”

“Mm. Still, it probably wouldn’t hurt to see a professional.”

“I don’t need a professional!” John scowls. He deals with a lot of stuff most people never have to, and the fact that he’s made it this long is pretty damn impressive. “I’ve seen you worse off than that,” he mutters.

“Oh, sure, at gunpoint. Or knifepoint. Or, you know, when a Wraith has its fingers inches away from my life-force.”

“We all have our breaking point,” John says tightly, in a low, dangerous voice that usually shuts people up. But Rodney is not other people, so he nods intently and looks distractedly around the room as though he can find a better answer there.

“And yours is...what, exactly?”

“Rodney,” he warns, not because it’s off-limits but because he doesn’t have it entirely figured out, about the way he can’t stop thinking about those two long, sunny days when he’d doled out food to Rodney on the sly. And he certainly doesn’t know what it means that he wants Rodney to come sit next to him, now, to sit close enough to touch. For them to sit together.

Judging by Rodney’s extended silence and the thoughtful expression on his face, he’s already figured out John’s breaking point and if he’s anything like John, can’t make sense of it. “Regardless,” Rodney finally says. “You’ve broken the no crying in the science lab rule, which means you have to get coffee.”

“What?” John says incredulously, but Rodney just shrugs.

“Oh, please. With all those thin-skinned junior scientists who can hardly take a word of criticism, it was a necessity. Plus, you’d be surprised how many people can’t produce quality work under the threat of impending death.”

“I don’t believe you,” John says, but Rodney rummages around in a drawer until he finds a worn, wrinkled paper that bears, in Rodney’s own bold lettering, an adamant There is to be absolutely no crying in the labs. John thinks he remembers seeing it once, a long time ago when he used to dread even setting foot in the labs. Before he knew Rodney. “It’s too late for coffee.”

“I know.”

“Tomorrow, though. Maybe.” John gets to his feet and starts thinking about bed, but Rodney doesn’t move from his chair.

“I’m leaving,” he says bleakly. His eyes are dilated and ringed with shadows. Drugged or not, John knows McKay has made up his mind.

“What?”

“What did you expect? I don’t want people to see me like this.”

“That’s a hell of a reason to leave!”

“It’s not the only reason, Colonel. My work is suffering, and I don’t want it to affect the mission.”

“It doesn’t have to.”

Rodney gives John a pointed look. “I think we both know it already has.”

***

McKay has always been good at getting people in an uproar, and the grand announcement of his plan to leave Atlantis is no exception. There are, John notices, a few people who look suspiciously hopeful, but the loudest voices are the ones that matter most.

“This is pointless,” Beckett pleads with Rodney, who has taken the posture of a man who has clearly made up his mind. “The tests all show that the damage is healing! You’ll eventually be fine, Rodney.”

By the time Elizabeth gets to her case, McKay is strung tight and completely defensive. John doesn’t even know why people try, when he gets like this. “I am well within my rights!” he yells. “I refuse to have the whole of Atlantis gawking at me when I can’t even remember my own access passwords.” He’s right; the whole thing is a spectacle.

Later, when Rodney is presumably packing up his belongings in private, John goes to Elizabeth. She is sitting at her desk, looking the way she always does when things aren’t going well and her options are few. Basically, she looks the way she always does.

“Let me go with him. I’ll bring him back,” he tells her. She takes a moment to look down at her clasped hands, and then shakes her head.

“I can’t stop you,” she says, “but I can’t afford to lose you.”

“You can’t afford to lose him, either,” he reminds her. “I can do it. I’ll have him back as soon as possible, you have my word.”

She stares at him with a strange expression for a moment before sighing in defeat. “Now you sound like Rodney,” she says dubiously, but in the words are her consent, no matter how reluctant.

***

John thinks it’s best not to let McKay know until absolutely necessary. He lays low, kills time at SGC until he gets confirmation that McKay is home, and then shows up at his door after dark, duffel bag in hand.

“I’m here for the sleepover,” John says with his most charming smile, when McKay opens the door.

“They sent you? I can’t believe it. They sent someone to- to guard me like I’m some kind of flight risk?”

“Calm down.” John rolls his eyes and peers over Rodney’s shoulder into the apartment. “I’m not here as a guard. I’m here as a friend,” he adds lightly, knowing it will shut McKay up for at least a few seconds. “You busy?”

“Of course I’m busy. I’m always busy.” Rodney looks down at his pajama pants and bare feet. In the background, the television is blaring out a commercial advertising Downy softness. “But I suppose I can call it a night, providing you bypass the speech you’ve prepared.”

John pretends to think about it. “Beer?” he says hopefully, and McKay steps aside with an air of annoyance that John suspects is completely manufactured.

***

The kitchen is tiny, so there’s a lot of side-stepping as they clean up their mess of beer bottles, napkins and pizza remnants. Eventually, John gives up and leans against the counter to watch McKay throw the empties into the recycling bin one at a time. As he watches, he rolls his shoulders and tries to figure out the restless tension in his body that keeps him hovering close when he knows he ought to call it a night. He feels like things ought to be different, somehow, now that he and McKay are finally alone. Some things are different, he supposes. Rodney is peaceful and unrushed for a change as he moves around the kitchen, and his mouth, the most expressive part of him, is a soft, contented line.

In fact, Rodney is entirely softened by his surroundings. Maybe it’s the lack of impending doom, or the lack of pressing responsibility, or maybe it’s just the four and a half beers buzzing pleasantly through John’s system. Whatever the cause, John is drawn to it, and when Rodney turns on the tap to wash his hands, John reaches out and puts his hand on Rodney’s side. He can feel warmth with his fingertips even through the t-shirt, and his hand fits the curve perfectly, another unexpected softness.

Rodney turns his head sharply. “What are you doing?”

John shrugs and changes the touch into a light pat that ends when he drops his hand away. Things are different here, all right, and not entirely in a good way. Here, he doesn’t feel like Lt. Colonel John Sheppard, superhero, although to be honest, he hasn’t felt that way since his team returned to Atlantis strung out on alien enzymes.

“Do you still want the enzyme?” he asks, studying Rodney’s face, waiting for the lie.

“Do I—are you joking?” Rodney turns off the tap and shakes his hands into the sink before wiping them on his pajama pants. His mouth is no longer contented; it’s thinned, downturned, hurt. “Not that it’s any of your business, but yes, sometimes I still have the occasional wistful thought about the enzyme. Why do you think Teyla and Ronon are still giving you the cold shoulder?”

“Really? Huh.” John hadn’t realized.

“You didn’t-“ Rodney’s eyes change suddenly, darkening with interest. “bring…?”

“No! Jesus, McKay!”

“No, no, right.” He slumps against the sink. “Of course you didn’t.”

John swallows hard and wishes they could go back to a minute ago, when he could enjoy Rodney’s methodical kitchen-work and work his way up to the apology this was supposed to be. He takes a deep breath. “Just so you know, I’m sorry. About my part in it.”

Once, a scrap of enzyme-laced bread had fallen due to Rodney’s trembling hands. John had retrieved it, and holding Rodney’s hand steady in his own, deposited the bread in Rodney’s empty, needy palm. “So fucking sorry,” he adds.

McKay studies him for a moment before nodding slowly. “Ahh, I see. This is your big apology?” He laughs, a short bark of amusement. “All right, all right. You’re a lot more complicated than you look, you know that?”

“Thanks?”

“The only thing is, I’ve seen you apologize in the past without…this.” His hand is both smooth and startling on John’s waist, where it lingers for a moment while they both stare at the place where Rodney is touching him.

“I just wanted…” John can’t think of an explanation when his pulse is thumping in the oddest places. He shifts, but not away. If anything, the movement presses Mckay’s palm more firmly against his body. “To know that you were all right,” he finishes unconvincingly.

“I know what you wanted,” McKay says, blushing furiously. John can see the color deepen high on his cheekbones right before he steps forward and pulls John into an awkward embrace.

At first John isn’t sure what to do, where to put his hands, but McKay’s arms are wrapped around his torso so he circles McKay’s shoulders with his own and it’s suddenly comfortable, not at all the embarrassing ordeal he’d expected it to be. The position brings his cheek to rest on the slope of McKay’s neck, a scarily intimate place that John has never contemplated.

McKay was right, he realizes. This is what he wants- what he’s wanted for all the weeks that he’s been circling McKay with a vague, inexplicable sense of duty. This is more than knowing that McKay is going to be fine, it’s feeling the strength in his shoulders and the warmth of his skin, which smells a little like beer and a lot like Atlantis.

“I guess this proves you really are smarter than me.”

“Even with my current limitations.”

“And that you accept my apology.”

“Such as it was,” McKay says dryly, and then they move slowly apart. It’s past zero two hundred, and suddenly feels it. “The sofa pulls out. Let me get the sheets.”

John steps aside for McKay to pass, then brushes his teeth and changes into a different t-shirt and boxers while McKay fixes the sofa bed. When it’s finished, John crawls onto the bed, which is predictably lumpy, and then turns off the lamp.

He sleeps reasonably well, and it’s raining when he wakes up, so he naps on and off all morning. When he finally wakes up, McKay is lying next to him, propped up on a stack of pillows and flipping through channels with the remote.

As soon as John opens his eyes, McKay starts talking. “Earth is weird, outside SGC.”

“Yeah?” John asks sleepily, rubbing his face into the pillow. “How so?”

“For starters, once you’ve been through a Stargate, there’s suddenly nothing else to talk about with anyone else.”

“I wouldn’t say nothing,” John says reluctantly, but he sees McKay’s point. “God, that’s depressing. This is what you think about?”

“Not all the time. At times, I can be surprisingly optimistic.”

John finds that hard to believe. “Like when?”

“Like now,” McKay says, right as he traces a path down John’s stubbled cheek with the pad of his thumb. And okay, maybe John had started the whole unauthorized touching thing in the kitchen, but this is face-touching, which is a completely different realm than a harmless side-pat, especially when it’s taking place in a bed.

He looks to McKay for an explanation, but McKay is watching the slow journey of his thumb, which raises a frantic flock of goose bumps all the way down John’s neck, and a second later, McKay’s mouth follows to raise a thousand more. Reflexively, John’s head jerks to the side, exposing the sensitive column of his neck even further for the warm, wet exploration of Rodney’s lips and tongue.

“Um. What-” he rasps, but then Rodney’s tongue flicks into the hollow of his throat and the protest tapers off into a moan. His entire body a contradiction of sensation; he is all at once suffused with heat and prickling with cool shivers of pleasure, particularly in the places where Rodney’s mouth paints a surprising montage of lust on his neck, jaw, and—oh God, the ear is too much. John wrenches away, panting for breath.

“What are you-“ he begins, then stops. It’s pretty clear what McKay is doing. He’s still crouched over John, half-lying down, and if his mouth was expressive before, then now it’s articulate; red and swollen and very sure of what it wants.

“God, you don’t even know,” McKay says breathlessly, and somehow manages to still sound annoyed. “How astonishingly obtuse, even for you. I mean, you actually think you hand-fed me in secret for two days because I’m part of your team?”

“Hey, I wasn’t-“

“You didn’t do anything wrong.” McKay shakes his head and shifts his weight so that he’s lying half on top of John. “I’m not saying that. But you, you think you’re here to bring me back? You know I’m coming back. You’re not here for that; you’re here for me.”

It’s entirely possible. Probable, even, but John hasn’t thought it all the way through yet. And if he had, he certainly wouldn’t have thought it through all the way to this place where McKay is leaning in with intent while John does nothing to resist, in order to kiss him directly on the mouth. Rodney kisses like he’s delivering an explanation. The initial gentle press of lips is enough to talk John into listening, and the restrained scrape of teeth enough to keep his attention.

Still taken aback, John lies there and lets himself be kissed until Rodney’s tongue pushes into his mouth, a sweet wet glide that wrings a choked sound out of Rodney, then suddenly they’re both in on it together, eager open-mouthed kisses that are so much better than words between them have ever proven.

John barely notices Rodney’s grappling with the covers until he’s pulled them off John completely. Thinking of his flimsy boxers, John almost protests, but then Rodney slides on top of him and the warm press of his body against John’s addresses every vague dissatisfaction he’s ever felt regarding Rodney and their entire relationship.

It’s never occurred to John that Rodney’s head might be as full of the same relentless, repetitive interest that he carries in his own head for Rodney, but he’s glad, so glad. Just to show Rodney how glad he is, he hooks one leg around the back of Rodney’s knees and lifts his hips, then lifts them again until Rodney is rocking back down against him with grateful, ecstatic murmurings.

Finally, Rodney sits upright, eyes bright, hair mussed. His pajama pants are barely hanging onto his hips where he straddles John’s thighs, and John’s t-shirt is twisted uncomfortably somewhere above his belly. “Are we on the same page, here?” Rodney asks. When he puts a questioning hand on John’s waistband, John holds his gaze and rolls his hips so that the wet, swollen tip of his cock bumps Rodney’s fingers.

“I’ll take that as a yes, then.” Rodney sounds a bit panicked—maybe just exhilarated—when he rubs his clever fingers over the small patch of damp, clinging fabric.

Urgent tension bolts through his balls and down John’s thighs. “Yeah, yes. Hell, yeah.” John untangles himself from his own shirt and then pushes at Rodney’s until Rodney takes over and they’re both undressed.

“Look at you.” McKay’s gaze darts from John’s face to his chest, between his legs, everywhere, with a ravenous expression that John recognizes. He’s seen it before, and is almost annoyed with his predictable reaction, to give Rodney what he wants, now, now, now. “I always suspected,” Rodney adds.

“Not me,” John admits. “I thought we were…” He sits up and strokes up the length of Rodney’s cock. “very good friends.”

Rodney’s eyes flutter shut. “Oh God. We are, we are, especially if you keep doing that.”

“Can do.” John tightens his grip and feels Rodney swell in his fist. Rodney’s hands come down on his shoulders, steadying himself, coming in for a hard, desperate kiss, and oh, the position—John growls against Rodney’s mouth, because in this position Rodney could ride him, just like this, enough with the foreplay, they could just fuck like this while he licks into that obstinate mouth until it can’t make any sound but the high, frantic sounds he’s making right now, in time to John’s strong, steady strokes.

And maybe Rodney is thinking the same thing because he doesn’t just sit passively; he rocks on John’s lap, into the friction of John’s fist, until he comes in quick throbbing pulses right in John’s hand.

“Fantastic, wow, that’s good,” McKay pants hoarsely, and then goes to work laying a line of slow, sucking kisses on his jaw until John lets his head fall backward, positive he’s going to come from this alone. He glances down in time to see Rodney swipe his fingers through his own spilled semen and take John in hand, short, jerky, slippery-wet motions that pull the pleasure out of John faster than he can stand. There’s no slow build, just spike after spike of sensation that’s so much sharper than the usual ache of arousal, and Rodney’s mouth has to be part of it, all teeth and hot breath until John can’t keep up.

He falls back onto the mattress, writhing into Rodney’s touch, and it’s not a hint, he doesn’t want Rodney to think he’s being pushy, but Rodney takes it as an invitation to bow his head and suck at the head of John’s cock. That soft suction pushes him over the edge, as does the fact that Rodney keeps sucking even after the first spasm, which means he’s coming in Rodney’s mouth, and John trembles through his orgasm with his eyes shut because he knows what he’ll see if he looks down at Rodney right now. This isn’t the same thing, he tells himself, and then Rodney crawls up for one last, careful kiss, and he knows it’s not.

***

John has got to admit, it is a lot easier dealing with McKay’s lapses when removed from the demands of Atlantis. When it happens, he brings Rodney his pain capsule, lays cold washcloths on his forehead, and fills the silence with small talk until it passes and Rodney feels well enough to speak again.

“I think it was slightly less agonizing this time,” Rodney observes, still flat on his back. It’s true; the confusion hadn’t been as severe as the first couple episodes, and his recovery time had been shorter. Beckett is right, then; the damage isn’t irreparable. Up until now, John hadn’t known what to believe.

“Agreed. We’ll be home before you know it.” He nudges McKay over on the sofa bed. “You do have an actual bed in that bedroom of yours, don’t you?”

McKay only budges the barest inch. “I like this one better. You’re in it.”

John squints at him. “Must be the drugs talking.”

“I certainly hope so. However, if I truly am recovering as quickly as we think I am, then you’ve got other things to worry about, such as how you’re going to get back into Teyla’s and Ronon’s good graces.”

“That’s the good thing about being here on Earth. I can load up with enough bribe fodder for at least six months worth of transgressions.” He pauses, then adds, “I’d better stock up for you, too. You know, on the off chance that you piss somebody off.”

“Which is likely only because people are far too sensitive,” McKay says dismissively.

“So I’ve heard, Rodney,” John replies flatly, and then flagrantly steals most of the covers. “So I’ve heard.”