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Radek doesn’t lie down so much as collapse onto his bed. It has been a long, terrifying day and all he wants to do is sleep. His eyes close before his head hits the pillow, but sleep doesn’t immediately follow. There is too much adrenaline still coursing through his body, or maybe the jitters in his limbs are from the eight cups of coffee he drank to warm himself after he left Rodney with Dr. Beckett. Radek still feels cold.
He shivers at the memory of Rodney’s cold body wrapped around him. Rodney was wet and shivering in the back of the puddle jumper. They needed the power for the shield to get them back to the surface, they couldn’t spare any for heat. Rodney’s fingers shook so much as he fumbled with the catches and zippers in an attempt to get out of his sodden clothes that Radek took pity on him. Radek brushed away Rodney’s hands and stripped him coldly, efficiently, afraid that his hands would wander of their own accord, their desire to touch so strong.
Radek had never seen Rodney naked before. The parts of his anatomy that Radek had previously been allowed to see in private had always been obscured by the angle and Rodney’s hand. In the cold all Rodney’s skin was covered in goose flesh and parts more familiar to Radek had shrunken away from the cold, small and shriveled, vulnerable, and Radek had to look away as he passed Rodney the emergency blanket. That was not how he wanted to remember seeing Rodney’s body for the first time.
But Rodney continued to shake, teeth chattering so hard his speech stuttered when he begged Radek for another blanket. "So c-cold." There were no more blankets in any of the compartments; Radek searched them all. "P-p-please, Rad-d-dek." No power to spare, no blanket, Radek did what he had to do. He pulled off his own shirt and flinched as he pressed his chest into Rodney’s cold, cold back. Rodney snuggled in close, leaching away Radek’s warmth, then twisted around to face Radek and tried to burrow his way into Radek’s body.
It was too much, too cold, too intimate to chafe his fingers up and down the curve of Rodney’s spine with Rodney’s face tucked into his throat, breathing against his skin. He couldn’t just lie there in a puddle jumper, which scared him under the best of circumstances let alone submerged under thousands of feet of water, naked chest pressed to naked chest with Rodney. Radek shivered and rolled away, but Rodney followed him across the floor, chasing the heat of his body. When a solid, cold arm wrapped around Radek’s waist, he shuddered but found his nerve and pressed back into Rodney.
They lay there for what seemed like forever, time stopped with Rodney’s palm splayed over Radek’s belly, rubbing circles into the line of hair dipping into his waistband with his thumb. Radek forgot to breathe until Rodney nuzzled his neck and whispered, "I knew you’d find me." Then Radek’s stomach fluttered with more than his sharp inhale. How many times had Radek wished for just the simple pleasure of Rodney’s body draped over his? But not like this. There was no danger that any inappropriate reactions might be aroused, not with Radek’s terror, not with Rodney still so fragile, still so very, very cold.
Still, the skin of Radek’s stomach burns as he lies safe in his bed, alone, a perfect imprint of Rodney’s hand. Radek reaches down and covers the palm print with his own, feels the flutter as he brushes the little trail of hairs. Rodney is safe, piled in blankets, warm saline pumping through his IV, far away from Radek at the other end of Atlantis in the infirmary. It’s safe for Radek to let go of the icy calm he’s felt since the jumper lifted off. It’s safe for Radek to remember the curve of Rodney’s back, the feel of Rodney’s hard nipples against the skin of Radek’s chest, the moist warmth of Rodney’s breath across Radek’s throat as he whispered. Safe for Radek to imagine Rodney just as he was, but warm, pressing into Radek’s body in Radek’s bed, not for survival, but something almost as primal.
Radek loses himself imagining the heat of Rodney’s mouth on his, that sharp tongue demanding entrance. He’s never done this before, never let himself imagine Rodney when Rodney wasn’t there, never fantasized about that mouth anywhere but on his dick where Rodney likes it. It’s not safe to want this, to want more, to want anything from Rodney at all, but he can’t help himself. Rodney was naked in his arms today, naked and vulnerable and clinging to Radek and god help him, Radek wants more, wants Rodney naked and vulnerable and clinging to Radek with desire.
The want is so strong, so hot and tight in his chest that it overshadows the throbbing ache in his dick. Rodney hasn’t come to him telling him he needs him and begging to suck his dick in weeks, not since the night after the children attacked him and he told Rodney to go away and meant it. It’s been longer between visits before, when Rodney was back on Earth, or those weeks he was missing. It was always easier not to think about it when Rodney wasn’t there. Since Rodney escaped from Lieutenant Ford, though, he has come to Radek three, sometimes four times a week, needier than ever for human contact and Radek has been, if not happy to provide, at least willing. After all the times he’s told Rodney to go away and Rodney came back, it never occurred to Radek that Rodney might not one day.
Radek hasn’t done a thing to relieve the omnipresent need himself for fear of where his mind might go if he let his hand go there. He’s still not touching, not his dick anyway. He’s touching his chest, his belly, his nipples, his throat and the place on his neck where Rodney’s lips almost touched. He’s warm, no, hot, hot enough to sweat. He’s hard and he’s already lost the battle with his mind, lost the fight with his better judgment, lost control of his sense of self preservation, but he can still control his hands.
Or maybe not, because his fingers are pushing down the waistband of his briefs, his ass is lifting off the bed and his dick is lying hard and heavy against the crease of his thigh. Radek forgets why this is a bad idea when his hand wraps around his erection and jerks, forgets everything for four minutes while he slides his fist up and down his cock, as that hot ache spills from his chest and out the end of his dick, right up until the room stops spinning and he feels the come cooling in the short hairs on his belly.
Huddled under the blankets, naked and shivering alone in his bed, Radek is cold.