Okay, so this was a bit of a problem. He liked to watch. He’d always liked to watch – hot, sweaty male bodies, quick, agile, muscular grunts, and the sound of flesh hitting flesh, like the best kind of sex – but with less moaning.

One of his best friends in the Academy, and the first guy he’d fooled around with, Tommy Lipton, had told him that ‘only gigolos make careers out of fetishes.’ He’d called Tommy, who quit the Air Force to have a sex change operation, ‘joyless.’ He knows he’s sick, but he can’t help it. It’s instinct.

Besides, it’s not like Rodney could tell him off for *looking.* Rodney sure as hell looked at Allina, and while they were on Earth, at Samantha Carter, and wasn’t it Rodney who insisted that he just had to go on this ridiculous awkward date with Katie Brown (could he please be any more generic?) to prove that he wasn’t actually fucking the head of military operations on this base practically every night, but struggling valiantly for a cute pair of tits? Not that Rodney didn’t have cute tits, but . . . what? Shit, Dex was distracting him.

But the thing was: Rodney wasn't so much his type. Well, he was brilliant and witty and sarcastic, brave and honorable and so *focused* sometimes. John loved Rodney. He loved him like he never even thought was possible. Rodney was the only person in the history of . . . well, everything, that John had ever truly considered a serious commitment to.

But, in terms of this one particular kink, . . . well, in a fight John only tended to see Rodney whining or Rodney freaking or Rodney talking when he was supposed to be in stealth mode. Rodney in a fight was utterly terrifying . . . and not in the way it should be.

Dex in a fight . . . well, if the raging hard-on that John was trying valiantly to conceal with his ‘I’m too cool, just like Samuel L. Jackson’ slouch was any indication, then Dex in a fight was damn hot.

The cute little pretty boy marines were on the floor gasping and panting, and even though John wouldn’t give these straight-laced dumb-as-dirt assholes the slightest glance before, put them in a room with Ronan Dex and they shone, like grandma’s old silverware at the Antiques Roadshow.

He saw Waterman grasping his side after a particularly exhilarating blow to the chest, and the perverted bastard in him couldn’t help but smile. It was kind of hot to see that bright-eyed well-muscled *boy* on his knees and gasping. It reminded him of Rodney, fascinated and giddy and amazed, tracing every inch of his skin before he’d memorized it and moved on. It wasn’t like Rodney could complain. They weren’t at the ‘can’t keep our hands off each other for five seconds’ phase anymore, but what they had now, just being happy to be in a room together, was much better than even the rampaging hormones of the early days.

“Alright, let’s try that again,” he said, doing his best to be casual. The quick eyebrow raise from Dex seemed to indicate that he wasn’t being as casual as he’d hoped.

“How about you try that again . . . Sir,” Waterman said with a wince. And, even if he happened to be a pervert (admittedly) John wouldn’t like to think that he was cruel.

“Let’s call it a day,” he smirked down on them, enjoying the position of power as much as he enjoyed the fight. Maybe Shannon rolled his eyes somewhere in the background, but John had always been willing to cut the young ones some slack. He used to be like that, after all.

Dex just smirked.

And John smirked right back, as they both watched the Marines limp away with their tails tucked between their legs.

“Good fight.” The first words that came to John’s mind. They weren’t particularly brilliant, but considering that he might as well be talking to one of those oddly dressed guards outside of Buckingham Palace, it really didn’t make a difference.

“Thank you.” Dex said with a nod, and not all that much sincerity. It might as well have been a grunt. John didn’t think that Dex was stupid by any means. He was, after all, the man who evaded and killed more Wraith than he even had the trophies for, and that’s probably the hardest thing John could imagine – other than the introduction of a strong third party into the American political system. But, no matter how many Wraith the guy might’ve outwitted, he was definitely not one for frill and circumlocution. He was a lot like Rodney that way.

“You’re welcome.” The sarcasm might as well have been deodorant – it was just about as lost on what Rodney called, ‘your new caveman.’ Why the man was still holding a grudge after Dex let him hang for the meager five minutes until John showed up was still beyond him. But Rodney was strange like that . . . or, as he loved to crow indignantly, ‘complicated.’

Dex watched the Marines like a hawk, dark eyes darting with an awareness that John only had when gripping the controls of the jumper, seeing with more than his eyes. But the look he gave them was like bunny rabbits compared to the predatory gleam turned on John the second the door shut.

“Are you that afraid to fight me, Sheppard?” Dex said with a grin, stepping closer. John smelled the thick musk of adrenaline and competition and couldn’t help but step forward. He was only human, after all.

“Of course not.” A drawl.

He saw the first blow coming, but that didn’t mean it stung any less when Dex’s strong fist intersected with his forearm.

They weren’t evenly matched. Even with people with more muscle on them, like Ford . . . though he never thought about that; or people with more skill, like Teyla, he still found that he could use his height and his reflexes to his advantage. Dex, on the other hand, towered over him like a giant (and that wasn’t even counting the hair). And though John was the fastest . . . Dex was faster, moving so that John didn’t even see the second stinging blow to the solar plexus.

His only solace as he felt the bruising crunch of his spine slamming hard into the back wall was that he could still fly damn-near everything and do it better and faster than anyone else . . . Grizzly Man included.

Before he could even catch his breath, Dex was pressed up against him, forearm held tight to his throat, stealing all the air away once again.

“Try again?” John gasped, hopefully.

But the responding grin was almost feral. “It has been a long time since I have been with anyone, Sheppard,” Dex said. God, he could imagine. If Dex hadn’t even seen people for years simply because his presence could bring the Wraith, would he really risk a lover? No matter how frighteningly independent and unpredictable the man happened to be, John was convinced that he was good. He was the kind of good that might sometimes go to extremes, unpleasant ones (like John himself), but he was a good man nonetheless.

If John’d had a hard-on before, it was nothing compared to now. And with Dex’s thigh pressed to his groin in what was a classic hand-to-hand posture, it could only get worse. John was positively aching, and yet . . .

“That’s too bad,” more a squeak than a brush-off, “but we’ve got a lot of trading partners, worlds where I’m sure . . .”

For that he earned himself a few more finger-shaped bruises on neck and hip. “Wrong answer, Sheppard. I thought you were a warrior.”

And while that was something he’d denied on multiple occasions, it was a statement that he couldn’t possibly back down from out of the mouth of this man that he already respected, respected more than even his father after just a few short days together (well, maybe that wasn’t all *that* hard, but still . . .).

“Don’t judge me,” he said, like he wanted to say to Sumner and Everett and Richards and his father and sometimes even Elizabeth. It was only Dex that he’d had the courage to say it to outright, somehow finding a growl between the choking and the hard-on and the seven-foot hunk of warrior pressing him up against the wall. It was only Rodney who he’d never wanted to say it to.

“You gave a politicians’ answer,” Dex said with a grunt, not releasing his hold.

John strained against him, causing Dex to shift and rub their erections together. God, it was good . . . too good, which is why he had to, “Stop!”

“Don’t pretend you haven’t been watching me, Sheppard. Don’t pretend you didn’t enjoy it.”

“I can’t,” he choked.

“A man can do anything. It’s a matter of what he is willing to let himself do.” So now Dex was a dreadlock-sporting New-Age Rastafarian as well?

“I can’t, because I’m already in a serious relationship with someone.”

“You are not the marrying type, Sheppard. Don’t pretend.” Dex had freed one hand from its hold on his hip and was now using it to rub him through his pants. John was surprised that he didn’t come right then and there.

“I’m not . . . we’re just . . .” his vision had started to grey, but Dex didn’t let up. He was going to have some serious bruises in the morning, but he found that to be sort of a turn on (or at least his dick did). “We’re serious.”

“You said that.”

“So I did.”

“It doesn’t look serious, or you wouldn’t have been watching me like that.” Dex had his fly unzipped, and if he didn’t come *then*, it was by divine intervention.

“It was just that . . . *watching.*”

Dex considered that for a moment, and John could almost see the wheels in his head turning, the rusty out-of-use ones that decided silly things like ethics and commitment and all the things he couldn’t afford to have when his only goals were to survive and to make sure that others did the same.

Dex seemed to switch gears. “I am not asking for your commitment. It’s been even longer since I’ve had one as pretty as you.” Romance in Cavemanland, he supposed. But hell, accompanied by those rough fingers pulling down his pants, brushing and circling his hole like that, it was hard to ask for more. “We are warriors, Sheppard. And aren’t team members supposed to help each other out?”

The grip of the hands tightened then released, leaving him panting for breath but with nowhere to go but to lean into Dex’s ‘warrior’ fingers. “And I thought you weren’t going to be political.”

That earned him more than a blow as Dex sent him slamming into the floor, straddling him quickly and roughly, grabbing his wrists and pinning them above his head, pressing down into John’s already aching organ.

“Order me to stop and I will.” Dex’s hot breath sent goosebumps down his neck.

John could only manage a whimper. He didn’t want it . He loved Rodney, goddamnit. Rodney meant the world to him. He’d give almost anything up for the man, and yet . . . in the moment where flesh meets flesh and adrenaline and sweat and this ruthless brutality that he and Rodney replaced with so much caring, there couldn't be anything else.

It was basic.

Dex didn’t wait long for him to answer and he didn’t waste too much more valuable time prepping John either. They both knew that John was already loose, though Dex was longer than Rodney, if not thicker.

He knew that flesh tore, and that somewhere there was pain, but he didn’t care. In that moment it was all heat and adrenaline and the years Dex spent away from civilization, honing the skills that man was born to. John liked to think that he could be like that, that he was that strong, strong enough to go without. Before, staring across the frigid plane of Antarctica, he would’ve had no trouble convincing himself that he could, but now . . . he had Rodney. Now, he couldn’t go without. It was only in the aftermath of pure moments like these, when he let out the beast he thought every man kept locked away, that he wondered if that small pause to worry about Rodney, or that odd pang of emotion as Dex softened inside him, would be his downfall.

He came like he hadn’t come since the first time he and Rodney had sex in Jumper One.

When he and Rodney made love, they lay curled together afterwards and it felt like apple pie and college football and necking at the top of a Ferries wheel at night. But Dex just slid out of him with a grunt, as taciturn as ever.

“I’m thinking about it,” Dex said, tossing John a towel and not commenting on the blood John felt dripping down his leg. It felt damn good, though he could still feel its stain now.

It was wrong on so many levels, he thought, dressing mechanically and trying to look normal ambling down the corridors at this late hour. He missed Rodney. That had to be it. Sure, they haven’t really been apart for even a single night, but he was missing out on their usual post-near-death frantic life-affirming sex. The very Freudian part of him almost looked forward to nearly getting killed, it was always that good.

But what could he do now with a third wheel hitching a ride in Rodney’s body?

All he needed was to get back to his room, shower, forget this had ever happened and then figure out how to tell Rodney about it.

Of course, that was when they ran into each other.

John was sitting impatiently on his bed reading about Russian love triangles and trying not to think about Rodney kissing Beckett. He knew that it wasn’t Rodney’s fault. He knew that Beckett was straight. He knew , more than anything, that Rodney loved him, but that didn’t keep that green-eyed monster from struggling in his chest, screaming ‘mine, mine, mine!’

He knew it was hypocritical, especially after what he did with Dex, but Rodney was supposed to be his. It wasn’t betrayal. It was jealousy, pure and simple.

But, as he shifted uncomfortably for the thousandth time that night, feeling the aftermath of his actions, he was faced with the painful reminder of who was the actual cheater in this relationship and who had the right to feel jealous.

Then the door opened and Rodney stormed in , wearing civilian clothes and a death-glare directed at no one in particular. “The best of the best . . . Elizabeth must be on crack. What happened to professionalism? Did he leave it behind with his Voodoo Dolls and his flock of sheep? Or maybe he just suffered blood loss the second he found out that he actually has a chance of getting laid on a regular basis from a woman who now knows a thing or two about men, thanks to my expert tutelage, thank you very much.”

John only managed to raise his eyebrows. He loved Rodney on a tirade like this. “I though she was the one teaching you a thing or two about women.” It wasn’t supposed to sound resentful, but that didn’t matter, because Rodney just ignored it and started stripping.

“Puh-lease, you know I could get a woman any time I wanted, if that was what I wanted.”

John snorted.

A peck on the cheek and a lecherous stare. “But I have other things on my mind.”

Usually, John would’ve said, ‘Like what kind of things?’ in a throaty bedroom voice, but instead he said, “But why are you so mad at Carson anyhow?”

Rodney looked a bit puzzled by the response, but didn’t pass up an opportunity to bitch as usual. “He was too busy making googly-eyes at his new girlfriend to come around to let his Spanish-Inquisition-certified nursing staff know that I was ready to be released.”

“Hmm . . .” John said, scooting a little away from Rodney. He had enjoyed it at the time, but now the pain from abusing his body the way he had was beginning to get to him. Maybe it was just guilt, though.

“And I was really anxious to get back here, so I could do this . . . “ Rodney inched closer, wearing nothing but his boxers now, and brought their mouths together for the kiss that had melted John, molded him and thawed him and made him new all at the same time. This kiss would never get old. There was something basic in it, primal and unshakeable as the core of the world.

John gasped, not in pleasure, but rather in pain as Rodney’s hands felt under his turtleneck and grazed one of the large bruises developing on his back.

Rodney pulled back, looking suspicious. “What happened?”

“Fighting practice with Dex.”

“This doesn’t feel like practice, unless you’re testing meat tenderizers.” Rodney scowled, tugging at John’s shirt. He could’ve resisted, but he wanted Rodney to know. He really did . Maybe he’d feel better then, purer. What was there to be ashamed of, after all . . . except everything?

John closed his eyes as Rodney’s careful fingers danced over the dark bruising on his neck. “Barbarian. We might as well call him Conan and give him a loincloth to run around in. Maybe a leash. Hey, there was this device we found on level twelve . . .” Rodney rambled. He always rambled when something made him extremely uncomfortable or emotional or both.

“It’s nothing.”

“Did you see Carson about this? Of course you didn’t . . . he’s off with his new bimbo and you’re you, so why should I expect that a man with possible internal bruising would go talk to his doctor? Swallow your pride, Colonel, and go see him. I’ll go extract his tongue from Cadman’s mouth myself if I have to.”

“Really, Rodney, I’m fine. I’ve had worse after a light football practice.” A blatant lie, but he couldn’t have Rodney see . . .

“Oh my God! What, does he have claws? I wouldn’t put it past him.”

Rodney kissed him again, in his ‘oh, you’re such an idiot, but I love you anyway,’ sort of way, moving his hands down to undo John’s pants, pushing at his hips for him to lift up, except John definitely couldn’t lift at this point. But certain things such as spatial logistics could never get in the way of a horny physicist, of course.

Rodney rolled him effortlessly over, pulling his pants down as he went. John winced, bracing for it.

A strangled squawk and then, “Oh my God, John, is that blood?! You *are* bleeding internally. Did he hit you in the kidneys? We need to call Carson. I hope he’s still not out on his date with Cadman . The East Pier is at least two minutes away if he runs and he’s not really that fast. Maybe I should call Biro and tell her to prep surgery . . .”

“Rodney. Rodney! Calm down.” God, how oblivious could he get? How much did he not want to see what was right in front of him? “I’m not bleeding out, Rodney. It’s just a little tearing.”

“A little tearing?! A little tearing, he says! You’re probably going to die, you idiot, and then what I am supposed to do then? The world’s a little short on cocky flyboys with mutant genes and sentient hair as it is . . .”

John gripped Rodney’s hands tightly in his own to keep them from flying about in panic. “Rodney. Rodney, listen to me. This isn’t from the fighting. It’s from . . . Rodney, Dex and I did more than fight.”

“Oh my God. He . . . he made you? He needs to be in the brig. You did lock him up, didn’t you? Please tell me you locked him up.”

It was almost painful, like watching a guy get kicked in the nuts. John winced, but he had to tell Rodney. He owed it to the man. “It wasn’t rape, Rodney.”

“But . . . but that means it was consensual . . . oh.” Strangled, small, beaten. John hated hearing Rodney like that. And he hated himself for causing it.

“Look, it happened. I’m sorry. Rodney, you have to believe, I’m so sorry.” He meant it. God, he’d do anything to take that hurt look off Rodney’s face.

“Jesus, John, can’t you keep it in your pants for two seconds?! One night . . . one night when I leave you and your overactive hormones alone and . . . unless . . . well, lately . . .” Rodney’s always been an open book. John could see, plain as day, the wheels turning, the mistrust growing and all the walls that they’d finally broken down going right back up.

“It was the only time, Rodney. I swear.” Yes, they hadn’t been having sex as often recently. They’d been together a while now, and were under a lot of stress. Hell, Ford leaving didn’t help things any. But that was normal, wasn’t it? John didn’t know – he’d never been in a relationship one-one hundredth as serious and a tenth as long and neither had Rodney.

“How do I know that?”

“C’mon, Rodney. I wouldn’t lie to you. You know that, right?”

Rodney didn’t say anything.

“God, Rodney, you know I love you.” Exasperated. One thing he absolutely hated about Rodney was how low his self esteem could sometimes go when not shrouded in pomp.

Rodney just jutted his chin out stubbornly, the way he did when he was refusing to believe someone.

John reached out, but Rodney pulled away. “I never I though I’d ever care about anyone this much, let anybody see as much of me as you have. You have to know that.” A whine, a plea, a prayer. “I’m sorry. It just . . . it happened.” What else was there to say? The anger and frustration finally built up to a boiling point. “You kissed Beckett.”

“Yeah, because having some overly hormonal perverted female security guard in my brain is completely the same as letting the pretty new human tank that you’ve taken on as your personal puppy dog fuck you up against the wall of the gym.”

“I don’t know it was her.” Petty. He disgusted himself sometimes.

Rodney gave this disgusted little huff and crossed his arms across his chest. “You are such an asshole.”

“That makes two of us,” John murmured, only realizing as Rodney stood to leave that he was taking the completely wrong tack .

He shouldn’t have to do this . . . explain this. It didn’t mean anything. It happened, but he loved Rodney. It couldn’t change that. Nothing could. Rodney had to know that. “I was just watching and he called me on it. He fucking pinned me to the wall of the gym and started stroking me.” This was all Dex’s fault, after all. John was only human. Rodney couldn’t possibly expect him to . . . then again, there was no such thing as a limit on Rodney’s expectations of people. “What was I supposed to do?”

“I don’t know, maybe, hmm . . . say ‘no.’”

John couldn’t remember that he was the one who fucked up. After all, there was no need for Rodney to get so damned derisive. John hated it when Rodney talked down to him. “I did!” Indignant.

“Then it wasn’t consensual.” Rodney crossed his arms over his chest expectantly.

“Well . . .” there went his easy out. Still, as pissed off as he was at Dex now, he knew that it took two to tango. He knew that Dex gave him plenty of opportunity to stop it. “He asked again, more forcefully.”

Rodney inched a little closer, compassion peeking out from beneath the cloud of morbid cynicism that previously encircled him. “John,” he sighed, “if someone forcefully asks you to have sex, it’s not consensual.”

“It wasn’t like that,” John snapped. Who did Rodney think he was , a fucking shrink?

“Then how was it, pray tell?”

“It was rough. I liked the rough.” And that was the thing, wasn’t it? They’d never really done rough. Rodney wasn’t the rough type. He was sensual and soft and so focused. John had loved that . . . hell, he still loved that, but sometimes he just needed more. He needed something as basic and primal as Dex’s time running, nothing but adrenaline and instinct. It ran deep in his veins with the part of him that loves to fly. He didn’t know if Rodney had that. And even if he did , John wasn’t sure he wanted to see it. Part of what he loved about Rodney was that he didn’t resort to charm or violence. He could move the world with tiny little pushes, or half-mad shouts. He loved Rodney for all the things that he himself wanted to be but couldn’t . Rodney was pure in a way beyond what he and Dex did. Rodney was better than that. He’d transcended it in a way that made John desperately want to follow. But he wasn’t a genius. He was only human, and he couldn’t .

Rodney stared off into space for a very long time, working things out. John wanted to get inside his head, like he always wanted to, in hopes that some of Rodney’s brilliance would wear off on him.

“Why?”

“What do you mean?”

“I accept that it happened, but why did it happen?” The scientist shining through, like hope.

Except John wasn’t brilliant. He wasn’t the Answer Man. “I don’t know.” He wasn’t used to tough questions like those . “But it doesn’t have anything to do with us, okay? I don’t love you any less.”

Rodney just shook his head and put on the look he used when chastising one of the triple PhD idiots on his science team. “But it has everything to do with us. If this happened the first month we were together, would you have gone along with it?”

John thought about it. “No.”

Rodney looked both devastated and smug at the same time – a unique talent. “So it *does* have something to do with us.” Expectant. This would make or break them.

“Maybe . . . maybe, don’t take this the wrong way, because I love you so much.”

“Already said that.”

“Yeah, I did.” John gave a small hopeful smile. “But maybe . . . with the sex . . .”

“I’m way too possessive a person for an open relationship if that’s what you’re thinking. And you are too.”

But he didn’t want that. Rationally, he didn’t ever want to be with anyone else other than Rodney. Rodney completed him on a basic level that no one else could possibly even find. But . . . but he remembered back to Catholic school, to the sins of the flesh, and wondered if maybe that fucking child-molester Father Roberts did have some truth in his sorry excuse for the things he wanted to do to John.

“I know. I know. But . . . but maybe loving each other isn’t enough. Maybe we have to . . . you know, work at it.”

And when he thought about it, he knew that neither of them had ever really had to work for anything in their lives. They’d either gotten things through intelligence or charisma or blind luck, or they’d simply given up on them. They were both spoiled, really. Sure, they had the Wraith and the Genii and a thousand other scary things pounding at the gate, but they always escaped. They fucked up, they accepted it, and they moved on. They fucked up and they saved themselves by something that seemed always like a miracle.

But this . . . maybe it wasn’t supposed to be easy. Maybe the reason why they’d never had it before was because they always gave up too soon. Maybe love wasn’t that first spark of passion that caused them both to break all their rules and just feel for once. Maybe love was every single once of determination that you used to stoke the fire that was left burning afterwards.

Rodney seemed to consider it for a moment, and then nodded. “What now?” he said.

Neither of them knew the answer, but somehow they found their way into each other’s arms.

FIN