He thinks that John Sheppard must have been a secret agent in his past life. Not because Sheppard is particularly subtle or even coordinated at anything that’s not flying or good with snazzy little gadgets that defy the laws of physics (though the image of John driving a supped-up BMW a million miles an hour down a windy road in the hills of Italy or France, if there’s anything there other than smelly French people and cigars, does come to mind). No. Sheppard was a secret agent because he’s good a keeping secrets. That sounds stupid. Why is he so stupid? He’s not stupid, he’s a genius, he just sounds stupid sometimes because he’s thinking too fast for his mouth to process – that’s it. Except he’s not actually speaking out loud right now.

Anyway, about Sheppard and secrets and secret agents . . . Sheppard might be charming – he’s probably got a gaggle of busty Bond bimbos stashed in a closet somewhere – and he might have the looks to kill or something or other stupid Bond movie title . . . On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, what the hell kind of title is that? And that guy, whateverhisnamewas – Dodger Morehouse or something . . . needed acting lessons, big time. But that’s the thing that Sheppard’s good at: acting. He’s acting because today at the briefing he had this look. This look of almost . . . well, Rodney’s not going to hope. Of course, the look disappeared, buried beneath the sexy façade of spyish charm and nonchalance. Rodney hates him.

The man is . . . inscrutable. He’s beat Rodney enough times at poker for Rodney to know. Even when Rodney was cheating, he got slammed by that easy smirk, that charming smile. If Rodney wants to win he needs some of those impossible x-ray glasses that Pierce Brosan had in the one about all the oil with that hot evil chick and that bimbo Denise Richards giving nuclear physicist a bad name. You’re no Samantha Carter, Denise, go back to making porn. And you were not the hottest Dr. Jones around. That title is reserved for Harrison Ford. Man, that guy knew how to wear a tight pair of pants and a gunbelt . . . gunbelt, is that what it’s called? Oh, holster . . . yes, John has a holster . . . with a loaded weapon.

But, you know what Sheppard needs if he wants to be a real secret agent? Besides a BMW convertible, which actually scares the shit out of Rodney – the jumper’s bad enough and the thing has inertial dampeners? Sheppard needs tighter pants. He needs the European-style package-hugging tight grey slacks, because Rodney’s sure that under the many layers of sagging fabric somewhere, Sheppard has an ass to kill for. There’s a title of a Bond flick: An Ass to Kill. A License to Fuck. Goldmember . . . wait, Austin Powers already stole that one – too bad. Thunderballs. Octo . . . hmm . . . it doesn’t really work without the pussy, does it? And Rodney’s not so into pussy right now. Nope. Not that pussy isn’t nice. Sex is nice. Sex is more than nice and pussy can be involved in sex. But even Pussy Galore can’t hold a candle to Sheppard, John Sheppard: sexy secret agent.

You know what? Sheppard would suck as a secret agent. He’s revised his opinion. Sure, he’s got the charm and the secrecy, but the look’s all wrong. It’s too mischievous and juvenile. One look at Sheppard and you just know that he’s breaking the rules. He can be cool as a cucumber, but it’s more a ‘I’m up to something and you’ll never prove it, look at my sexy smile and weep’ kind of cool than a ‘I’m British Royalty, look at my car not my covert operations’ kind. Nope . . . that looks better suited to . . .

Sheppard wasn’t a secret agent . . . he was a gigolo! That’s it. That requires secrecy and mischievous glances and flirtation – because Sheppard sure as hell does know how to flirt. And pole dancing. Yes, pole dancing. Sheppard would look good pole dancing. He would look good stripping too – nice and slow with that easy grin and that look of ingenuous surprise: ‘Oh no, I seem to have misplaced my underwear! Oops . . . I must have slipped and impaled myself on your cock. I didn’t mean to . . . really.’

He’d wear his dress blues . . . yes, Sheppard in one of those sexy hats, a bright blue uniform showing off his trim physique. Rodney’s never seen Sheppard in formal uniform, but he was pretty sure that he’d wear it sarcastically, if you can wear clothes sarcastically. He’d wear his uniform like a stripper wears a uniform, because Rodney sure as hell doesn’t care for uniforms in their actual context. People only wear dress uniforms when someone dies, or at some stuffy official function, which means that Rodney has to wear a suit. And Rodney hates suits, not just because they make his butt look big, but because he has to wear a tie. He can’t believe women complain about high heals when men have to wear ties. His always practically chokes him. It could actually choke him if he happened to eat some lemon and his throat swelled up and . . . choking.

He’d like to choke John Sheppard. He’d like to choke his cock in his fist, hold it at the base and keep Sheppard from coming, bring him to the edge and back edge and back and not let him come until he begs. That would teach Sheppard a lesson for all the times that he’s made Rodney’s heart stop – almost getting killed and all sorts of discourteous things like that. Except it really wouldn’t teach Sheppard a lesson, because Sheppard doesn’t learn lessons. It’s almost as though the man likes being punished. Yes, he likes being punished. He’s a once-gigolo, after all, all wanton and begging for it. He’d beg to be tied up. He’d beg to be choked, the bastard, because he’d know that Rodney wants it and wouldn’t even give him the benefit of coming up with the idea himself.

Rodney wonders about that little fantasy of his, his hands around Sheppard’s long neck, feeling the dips in his collarbones as he’s feeling Sheppard’s warm heat clamping down on him. Squeezing Sheppard even as Sheppard’s squeezing him, because that’s his greatest fantasy – that Sheppard will trust him. Rodney knows that Sheppard trusts him to save the day, to pull the magic technobabble bunny out of his ass come every disaster, but Sheppard doesn’t really trust him. He doesn’t trust Rodney enough to let him choke him, though Rodney trusts Sheppard enough to let him shoot him, and he definitely does not trust Rodney enough to tell him all the secretive secret agent secrets he has running through his head.

Sheppard is a gigolo, because the first rule of gigolodum is to never let it be personal – never give them you real name (though he knows Sheppard’s name, obviously, not that he uses it. Never John . . . always Major). And Sheppard never lets anyone see.

That bastard. He’s going to strangle him. Or he’s not going to, actually. He’s going to do something . . .

“Rodney?”

“Hmmmmm?”

Sheppard smirks. He smiles the ‘I know something you don’t know’ smile. “You were doing it.”

Rodney panics. “Doing what? I wasn’t doing anything. I was just thinking!”

“You were spacing out.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Major. I don’t space out. I just got caught up some very complex technical problem . . . beyond your understanding, of course. I was distracted yes, but rightfully so, seeing as how this problem could be the secret to solving . . . to solving . . . I almost had a theory of unification . . . that’s it. You made me lose it.”

Sheppard smirks again – mischievous gigolo smirk. “That’s why you were felating the poor defenseless rook, is it Rodney?” Sheppard looks pointedly down at the chessboard, where Rodney is, indeed gripping a rook that doesn’t even belong to him. Rodney’s always black, and this one is white.

“Oh . . . that . . . er . . . yes . . . nervous habit. I was not felating, Major, though I’m sure to a mind as dirty and distracted as yours, I’m sure that’s what you would think. I’m . . . um . . . I’m . . .”

“What were you really thinking about, Rodney?” Sheppard’s look is hard. It’s his interrogation face. Rodney doesn’t like that face. It’s very un-gigolo of him. How inconsiderate.

“I was thinking about James Bond, if you must know.” Rodney does his best at indignance, though he’s not sure if he succeeds.

“Hmmm . . .” Sheppard looks skeptical, but seems to let it slide. “I like James Bond.”

“You would.”

“What’s your favorite?”

For some reason it’s slipping his mind at the moment. All he can think about is Octopussy and he knows that’s not right because he hasn’t even seen that one – on principle. Actually when it came out he was dating a girl who was all prim and proper and into decency and said that the title was lewd and she’d break up with him if he saw it, so he didn’t. Okay, think, McKay, another title. The one you like the one with Fort Knox and the Japanese guy with the hat of death, despite the ridiculousness of it . . . “Goldmemeber.”

John raises his eyebrows at that; Rodney wonders why. “Really? I think my favorite is Moonraker, even though nobody can beat Connery. I guess I just like the idea that the big brawny guy with the metal teeth could get together with the cute blonde chick with all the brains and the perfect genes.”

Perfect genes indeed. Maybe Sheppard was Spiderman or something . . . no, with that hair he had to be Wolverine. Yellow spandex . . . hmmm . . . Wait, Moonraker? “That’s absolutely the worse one? The guy can’t act, the villain is just some huge Swedish guy with dental problems, there’s a totally phallic spaceship that eats things . . . the scientific . . .”

“I think you must being thinking of Gold*member*, Rodney.” Sheppard winks. His wink is downright pornographic. The man should be rated NC17.

“I was not . . . “ he stops, realizing what he said just a minute ago . . . oh shit. He blanches. “I . . . um . . .”

He looks over and now Sheppard’s felating his rook own, a devilish grin on his face.

“Rodney?”

“John.” He knows his name, after all. Sheppard’s still a mystery, but deep in the depths of Rodney’s mind, some things are coming clear, like he has a great big supercomputer set to help him in his quest for world domination and it’s spitting the numbers out on that archaic messagey paper one at a time.

“For Your Eyes Only.” And that’s the look – the gigolo look. But this one’s the one Rodney’s been waiting for.

As he leans across the chess board he thinks, ‘Oh, well. You Only Live Twice.’

FIN