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Rodney munches his sandwich, standing in the middle of the hallway, paper bag swinging from the fingers of one hand. It's a really good sandwich – the sprouts are fresh, not too bitter, and, sweet Jesus, what the fuck is he doing? This isn't my sandwich, he thinks a little desperately. As philosophical statements of mid-life crisis go it lacks a certain something, a level of catchiness he could spin into a marketing coup, plastering the fruits of his addled, sex-deprived brain across t-shirts and bumper stickers the length and breadth of the lower forty-eight states, but no, no, this is not the time to think about the fact that he's fairly sure he coined shit happens long before some punk copyrighted the phrase and made a small fortune that he no doubt squandered on sub-standard cars that were red and shiny and went really fast so what did it matter that the engine was manufactured by stoned Buddhist monkeys – actual monkeys! – in Cincinatti?
He lets out an unsteady breath. This isn't my sandwich, he thinks again, and – reminding his brain that this is not the fortune-generating moment its been waiting for – licks his fingers, and throws the empty bag in the trash.
It takes him less time than usual to drive the distance between his house and John's –if you factor in that it's not his fault at all (although just his godforsaken luck) that a gull has dumped on his windshield, forcing him to pull over at the bottom of the drive and hustle to the house again, search for Windex, search for Windex upstairs as well as down, search for Windex in the basement, give up and soak a dish towel in water, scrub at the windshield, swear at the toxic glue-like properties of gull shit, and imagine the various diseases he could contract from the stuff. He constructs a touching death-bed scene wherein John apologizes profusely for being an unmitigated bastard who imagines everything can be solved with sandwiches and there, finally, finally the windshield's clean again and he can throw the towel in the trash can, stare at his hands for a second, fish some sanitizer out of the glove compartment and re-script his untimely end to involved death by sexual exhaustion after the best make-up sex anyone has ever felt urged to bestow on anyone's worthy ass.
And by god, his ass is worthy.
Less time, then, to drive the stretch of ill-repaired concrete between his place and John's; less time than perhaps he needs to formulate the perfect words to convey how fucked in the head John Sheppard is, and how a man could get a goddamn complex from sleeping with someone who then decides he can do without. It's possible, he muses as he slams the car into park, that he's in over his head; that he needs to call in FEMA and the National Guard and other more qualified entities because what the hell? What the fucking hell, and he's so angry and so pleasantly full of sandwich that his brain can't decide what to do.
Which is probably why he bursts into John's place unannounced, jabs a finger in his direction and yells, "Fuck me! Fuck me right this minute!"
John blinks and stares for a second. "I didn't realize it was that good a sandwich," he says.
And Rodney hates him, hates him with the light green hue of an illicit barium flame, coaxed to lab at the back of the chemistry lab when everyone's supposed to be learning about the pH table and some people just have to ruin it for everyone; hates with because he brought him a sandwich, a really very good sandwich, a sandwich John should have eaten himself because when was the last time he ate? Rodney doesn't know – experience would suggest John doesn't keep anything in the fridge save beer unless Rodney has a say in the matter and there was an excellent wedge of cheese in the cooler the last time he was here – when they had The Sex, the goddamn Sex! – and if that went to waste, if that molded, well wouldn't that be a metaphor for everything? This is not my sandwich and you molded my cheese!
(Luckily he keeps the words inside his head, and not outside of it where they could scare Cash and probably John too – perhaps even Rodney. He's come to respect that his mouth's an unpredictable, sentient thing).
"Well?" he sputters, instead of saying things about dairy products or meals between breakfast and dinner.
John gets up slowly, and it's a beautiful thing the way he uncurls and pushes up to his full height, thigh muscles bunching and releasing as he moves. "Rodney – "
Rodney lifts his chin. "If you say no again, I swear to you, I'll – you brought me a sandwich, there is no no after sandwiches!" He flails a finger with a theatrical flourish because yeah, that's what this little experience has lacked, drama. He pulls a face and stares at his own hand.
"Hey," John says, and slides his hand around the back of Rodney's neck. "Steady."
And oh, oh, it's so familiar, the callused press of John's fingertips against Rodney's skin, and if he weren't so emotionally stunted and quite likely insane, plus very aware that he's just eaten a large helping of turkey on wheat and he doesn't want to puke, he could consider, in a roundabout way, bursting into tears of relief and home, but instead he just presses his lips together and arches an eyebrow as if to say – and?
John brings their foreheads together, breathes against him. "I'm – it was shitty. What I. You know."
Rodney hmmphs.
"And I don't – it wasn't that – "
Rodney waits as John shuffles his feet.
"You know?"
And he is monumentally fucked, because he does, he does know, and he's shifting – screw this forehead business - so that he can graze a kiss to John's temple. "I was serious about the fucking," he says, and his voice doesn't sound exactly like the one he's used to.
"Right here?" John asks, voice light with something that could be relief.
"I'm not opposed to beds," Rodney offers.
John's stomach rumbles and he flushes guiltily. "Could I – maybe grab a sandwich first?"
And Rodney's open-mouthed, no-holds-barred, feverish kiss is 'yes' and 'no' in exactly the same breath, but he's tired of being the smart one, so he's just going to let John Sheppard figure it out.