fic: The Trick Is To (J/R, NC-17)

The Trick Is To

Happy Birthday, thegrrrl2002!

enname

“Come in, Colonel,” he’d say for the benefit of any passer-bys, and Sheppard would step inside and he could call him John.

“Is this okay?” Rodney would run his hands over John's body, feeling alternatively too hesitant or too greedy, at which point he’d reign himself in (whenever he remembered to), trying to be considerate while he was still aware of the newness of their situation.

Each night together still seemed fresh, the sheer amount of stimuli making what they said or did or felt too intense to remember, making their next time together new all over again.

He’d ask John, “What do you like?” but then get lost in the moment and not wait for an answer, too intent, too aroused, mumbling, “Oh, you like that, don’t you,” around John’s cock.

Through his restless fingers and lips, Rodney was learning the unfamiliar feel of muscles tensing under the will of a mind not his; of dips and hollows on John’s body created by skin and bone, a strange new land even if it was closely related to his own.

He’d sometimes relate his findings to John, saying “Of course your treasure trail had to have curves in it,” as if that were news to both of them. John would just grin and grab his hand to tug it a bit lower.

Everything about John seemed different now that Rodney touched him consciously. He had to adjust to seeing the familiar body with a lover’s eyes, which was a gradual process at best, hampered by being used to seeing his team mates’ torsos, limbs or faces as neutral zones. Irritatingly, that could not be done by flicking a switch in his brain.

It should have been liberating, this new freedom to touch, but it made them both shy at times, which Rodney overcompensated for by talking in staccato outbursts. It was exhilarating, but it gave Rodney a sense of
dissonance between what he’d been used to seeing and what he knew was there now, a disconcertingly different meaning that he had to consciously ignore; like the day he looked across their table in the mess hall and noticed how the hair along John’s ulna was forming a running-dog pattern and knew that he couldn’t touch it, mustn’t reach out to trace a fingertip along that ornate line.

That night though, Rodney left all the lights on for the first time. He watched John undress for a moment, barely suppressing a finger-snap or three, then decided to “help” him, throwing aside his jacket and shirt impatiently to get to bare skin. He wrapped one hand around John’s wrist and lifted his arm, but the neat line of curlicues had already reshaped itself and was lost for the moment.

“Hm.” Without letting go, Rodney wondered if the soft dark hair would look like it had this afternoon if he got John into the shower.

His not very subtle examination of John’s limb earned him an eyebrow raise, fond and questioning, so Rodney pressed his mouth to John’s and both their arms high up against the wall, pretending that had been his intention all along, before he embarrassed himself.

John went with the programme, parted his lips, tilted his hips and rubbed against Rodney’s groin. When Rodney leaned against him with his full weight though, John winced.

“Sorry, sorry, did I ...?” Rodney stepped back, confused, ready to be mortified, but John grabbed his arm and reeled him in.

“It’s just that damn Blade Runner -” John waved a scraped hand at the wall behind him. “Panelling.”

“Oh! Ow.” Rodney pulled John a bit to the side and pressed him against a less ornate part of the wall, his whole body craving the contact so badly he couldn’t make it to the bed. “You think Frank Lloyd Wright was an alien?”

Blue-tinted light shone sideways out of its hazardous casing, throwing the shadows of John’s fringe across his eyes, making them harder to read than ever, but the corner of his mouth turned up, so Rodney placed a quick kiss there before saying, “Of course, even if he was an alien doesn’t mean that he was an Ancient, and vice versa, maybe he only had the gene but didn’t know he was Ancient, hence wasn’t really an alien.”

John slung his arms around Rodney’s shoulders and angled his head to kiss him again; slowly, thoroughly, deeply. Rodney moaned in response and wrapped his arms around John’s waist, then slid his hands inside John’s pants without bothering to undo them.

He liked the curve of John’s ass, liked cupping the softly furred cheeks, trapped in the tight warmth of the straining cloth. As his hand glided over John’s buttocks again and again (because they felt really very nice), he slipped his fingers between them, where it got tight and damp. It wasn’t with any surprise or his earlier regret that Rodney felt the hair growing in his cleft.

John’s hips twitched at the touch, and his tongue thrust wildly into Rodney’s mouth, licking his palate, teasing him mercilessly. His hair was soft and tickled the tips of Rodney’s fingers, which really wasn’t so bad, not bad at all.

“I want to ... can I fuck you?” Rodney panted into John’s neck.

“Yeah,” John answered after a beat, his breath warm and moist against Rodney’s cheek.

“I don’t have to, I mean, you don’t have to.” Rodney pulled his hands out of their warm resting place to express himself more easily. “You ... or you could do me?” His voice broke in the end, and he hated that, because he hadn’t meant it to sound like it did, not at all, and just because he liked to be fucked didn’t mean that John did but John was already taking his shirt off ...

This was how they handled things, and Rodney thought he was glad that John had never been much of a talker. He could concentrate on touching and feeling, on rubbing and sucking and licking and even fucking him, without any distractions from (embarrassing) endearments or comments.

Tangled up in each other, the heat in Rodney’s belly grew stronger still. His dick throbbed painfully and he felt so hungry for it, for John, that everything become a blur of need and desire again.

He was hunting for the taste and smell and feel of John in the naked body beside him, underneath him, in and around him, trying to find him in the chest moving up and down under Rodney's hands, under the flesh and skin that covered a rapid heartbeat, looking for something he couldn’t name, too restless to stop.

He couldn’t remember how they got the lube and the condom and who decided they’d do it face to face, but John hadn’t let go of him until their positions made it impossible (when Rodney really should have known better not to do it like that the first time). They managed to get slick and ready and then Rodney was finally there, sliding in oh so slow, slower than he liked, until John relaxed and he was fully inside, deep and hot and still wanting more.

With John on his back, his long legs spread wide and his ankles held up by Rodney’s hands, deceptively fine bones barely fitting into his sweaty grip, John’s limber figure seemed just out of reach.

Rodney panted, “Are you okay there?” and John mumbled, “Mhm, fine.”

It was a terrible position.

Rodney dimly felt the need for more, something that he couldn't quite reach, something beneath the tangible body; the real John, whatever that might be, a bit of John that wasn’t there.

He wanted to get closer, so he thrust harder, put his knees into it the way he usually wouldn’t, his thighs bumping against the mattress, his cock buried as deep as it would go inside John, his pubic hair grinding into John’s crack, and as he felt the tingle down his spine he thought he’d managed.

John’s eyes went dark and he smiled and Rodney thought he came (or maybe not), but his own very vocal climax made Rodney momentarily forget. He had just enough energy left to pull out and let himself sink onto John.

John slung his arms around Rodney’s back and held him until he got back his breath.

Lying there between John’s thighs, pressed against his warm chest while panting through his aftershocks, Rodney started thinking about John’s quietness.

During their love-making, and wasn’t that an ironic term (that he refused to think about), John was always watching Rodney, silent except for the occasional gasp, half smiling and looking quite content, so Rodney had guessed it was ok (when he’d spared a thought). They were fine.

Rodney gingerly got up to throw out his condom; it would be beyond disgusting to drop the tied up bundle onto the floor, a small jellyfish waiting to make someone slip. He wiped himself clean and brought back a wet flannel, lingering at the foot of the bed, unsure what the polite thing to do was in such situations.

He wasn’t completely unobservant, he couldn’t afford to be, nor was he a cold man. In a moment of clarity that was very much like those during which he liked to observe himself in the mirror, only rather less pleasant, he realised that things weren’t quite right. John seemed happy and was content, Rodney was sure of that – but he somehow wasn’t expecting anything (more) from Rodney.

Ordinarily, that should have pleased Rodney. He’d never heard of anybody, at least no man, complain about his - lover? partner? - being too undemanding. But John just had to be contrary and infuriating by being non-infuriating, which all made perfect sense inside Rodney’s head.

They were both busy men, with little time for reflection let alone discussion of what exactly they were doing with each other, even if such unmanly pursuits had been on their agendas. Rodney decided that the source of his discomfort had to be lack of feedback rather than John’s quiescence, but it still niggled at him.

He might have tried to say something to this effect once or twice, perhaps ask ... but John never realised that, because he was busy sucking Rodney off, which always resulted in Rodney’s fingers tangling in John’s hair, and Rodney’s thoughts and words tangling up and tumbling out of his mouth as gibberish.

John had rolled over onto his side, then onto his belly, effectively making room (for Rodney?) in the bed next to him. There was no wet spot for him to avoid and Rodney suddenly knew John hadn’t come.

“John ...” He didn’t know what to say.

In the end, Rodney bent over him and ran the wet cloth up between John’s legs. John parted them further, and he silently washed off lube and sweat, which earned him a guttural rumble.

Rodney threw the cloth into the sink and stretched out alongside to John, tired but aware that he’d not get any rest while something was niggling at him. He opened and closed his mouth, one hand raised over the prone form next to him, so close, seeming so far away. He wanted to card his fingers through John’s hair or run his hands down his back, but most of all he wanted to understand, and he just didn’t know what John wanted

Absentmindedly, Rodney traced the wing of muscle spanning from John’s armpit down to his waist with the tips of his fingers.

John let out a soft sigh, obviously not asleep either, but since he didn’t turn around or move away, Rodney kept up his searching strokes, from the smooth peaks of John’s shoulder-blades to the hair-roughened skin of his thighs.

His fingers trailed along John’s gluteal fold and then paused. John’s legs were still spread, the cheeks of his bum slightly parted, revealing a slash of dark hair.

If Rodney had ever thought about it before, which hadn’t been that often, he would have said he preferred smooth young muscles. Similarly, he’d only (very gradually) come to be interested in men’s asses after he’d seen some boy’s clean little hole, the rosette suddenly inviting rather than an unhygienic turn-off.

His hands never stopped gliding over the curves of John’s buttocks, so unlike those of his fantasies. He was surely starting to become addicted to the feel of John’s flesh, firm yet giving, the short soft hair sending a tingle up Rodney’s arm and straight into his gut.

Whenever John minutely tightened his ass, it created another intriguing muscle definition to touch and circle and check for how Rodney’s palm would fit around it. His fingers gradually slipped down into the hairy cleft, that sweaty and secret place signalling more than anything the nature of what they were doing.

Rodney raised himself to dim the lights and ended up kneeling over John, where he had a perfect view of those buttocks. He didn’t know why he found the sight so appealing that he stopped doing whatever he’d intended to and just stared.

Looking always had to be followed by touching, at least in Rodney’s tactile world, and his hands moved again before he realised what he was doing.

When he spread Sheppard’s ass, fingers splayed on the warm-coloured skin covering the firm curves, the fine curly hair surrounding the puckered hole seemed to be bowing like polite sentries.

Rodney would have to hold it out of the way, since he supposed asking Sheppard (who couldn’t even manage to shave his face often enough to be smooth) to start shaving his bum was out of the question. He hadn’t really done this in the past, but before he could examine his motives any further, Rodney stifled a small manly shudder and brushed his thumbs up and down the cleft.

John twitched at the touch. His hair tickled the tips of Rodney’s fingers, which really wasn’t bad, not bad it all.

Rodney wet his index finger and carefully slid inside John. He was no stranger to fingering, but had never known it from this position, never for the sake of just pleasing someone, and the thought alone made something inside him go hot and cold. He’d fucked John, and yet he’d never ...

For the longest moment, he barely noticed that he was actually enjoying the sensory experience, of the firm flesh outside, enhanced by the springy hair, in contrast to the slick heat inside John, welcoming him, sucking him in.

And then it got even stranger, because this was Rodney McKay and he was looking at John Sheppard’s behind, where moisture made those short hairs stick together in dark curls, and they impossibly formed an oval that looked so pretty – Rodney had no other word for it – the sight suddenly was close to beautiful, with John’s sphincter dark pink and slightly swollen, no longer tightly closed but winking at him from the centre of those damn damp curls.

He wondered if he’d dare to bring up this subject in his next session with Kate, although for some reason, he’d stopped going to those. Rodney hadn’t even done that on purpose or to make sure his – whatever it was, sex-thing, affair? – with Sheppard wouldn’t come out. No, he’d just plain forgotten to go, just like he’d forgotten his back pain for a while, or to complain about something at least once every hour.

A small sound from the head of the bed dragged Rodney back to the present - and a woefully neglected behind.

And wasn’t that interesting. John had made a sound, one he couldn’t brush off as incidental, but something needy and clearly audible in the silence of Rodney not talking.

Realising the significance of that, Rodney’s first instinct was to turn John around - not an easy endeavour at the best of times, since the lanky guy could make himself even longer and heavier if he didn’t want to be moved – to accost him with Rodney’s new-found understanding.

His superior intelligence overrode that instinct as rather illogical and going against the very causality he’d just discovered, and since it wasn’t really a hardship and he’d been about to do it anyway, Rodney gently nuzzled into John’s crack.

His first lick was tentative, John’s responding twitch all the more surprising and satisfying.

Rodney always took to encouragement, so he lapped at the puckered skin of John’s hole with growing assurance, gratified to hear that John’s breathing had become heavier.

John’s cheeks pressed against his own, and whenever Rodney’s stubble scratched John’s most sensitive areas, he would emit a soft whimper that Rodney had never heard before – so he made sure to gently rub his chin against the underside of John’s balls, his grin hidden in John’s pubes.

John had started wriggling ever so slightly. His legs had been spread wide enough initially, but Rodney wanted, needed more access. As if he knew, John pulled one leg up to his chest, raising his hips in the process; Rodney gently tugged until they rose a bit higher and closer to him.

Licking broad swipes from John’s balls across his sphincter and up to his spine, the back of his tongue pressing down hard and moving easily over slick hair and skin, gave Rodney opportunities to come up for air and not miss any of the tiny sounds John made.

There were quick breaths picking up the rhythm of Rodney’s licking. There were all sorts of wonderful glottal stops of air released after being held too long. And there was a very soft, high-pitched nasal sound when Rodney finally stuck the tip of his tongue into John’s opening.

It made something in his stomach twist, painful for a second and then warming him throughout.

Rodney relaxed his tongue for a moment only to tense it and push its tip into John’s ass again, through the strong ring of muscle and into the wet heat, softer and smoother than the inside of John’s mouth and even more shockingly intimate.

Keeping one hand on a firm ass-cheek made Rodney notice every tiny tremor in John’s gluteus maximus, and the slight sheen of perspiration he liked to think was caused by what he was doing.

He had circled the puckered skin of the rosette hesitantly at first, but anything Rodney did well gave him confidence, so he soon used his mouth in any way he could think off to make John react, make him feel good.

He alternately kissed the sensitive flesh and nipped at the globes of John’s tensed ass, then went back to lapping at the pucker again, because it actually seemed to be pouting at the momentary neglect, hungry like John’s mouth and less able to disguise itself.

An odd sort of tenderness threatened to choke him. Forcing himself not to groan at each jolt of arousal racking his own body, Rodney slowly caressed John with his palms, with his fingers, with his lips and his tongue.

It was slightly awkward and not the best position, again (really, what was going on with them that they couldn’t get it right), but Rodney managed to put his weight on one elbow and slip his right hand around John’s hips to reach for John’s erection, warmer still than the rest of his body, but pulsing in the same rhythm.

Rodney would have liked to see John’s reactions, see the myriad changes in his eyes and mouth, but deep down he knew that he was privy to more exposure than if they’d been face to face.

His ears were full of sounds he had never been aware of before, and Rodney wanted to drown in them, wanted to hear them each night, listen to them forever.

But sensing what John wanted as clearly as if he had spoken, by the change in John’s breathing, the twitch of a muscle and the flutter of his stomach whenever the back of Rodney’s hand strafed it, Rodney sped up his strokes and thrust his tongue as deep into John as it would go.

John moaned and came liquid all over Rodney’s fist, clenching wildly around his tongue, his frenetic breathing evening out oh so slowly, changing in pitch as the blood pumping under John’s sweaty skin returned to a slower pace.

He collapsed, or rather deflated, onto the mattress, trapping Rodney’s hand underneath his shaking body.
His softening penis had slipped out of Rodney’s loosened grip, and Rodney’s palm was flat against John’s come-covered skin, John’s breaths pressing his hairy belly into it.

Rodney put his head on the small of John’s back and listened, feeling John’s tremors pass.

He felt like he had come, too, or run a marathon or solved the most difficult equation of his life in the most revealing and beautiful way. His mouth was dry, and soon John would get worried and turn around, but Rodney would only smile at him, breathless for not having spoken.