Archive of Our Own

I. In Which John Meets His Destiny, Has a Bad Day, Receives an Indecent Proposal, and Is Not That Kind of Girl

It was both their faults. John wasn't looking where he was going, but neither was the other guy, and John was on the sidewalk already when the suit shot out the door of a restaurant and straight into him like a cannonball. There was just enough time kind of hovering in mid-air to think oh shit before gravity, John's momentum and the suit's momentum combined to drop them in the water. Of course the suit landed on top and flailed around in panic like a break-dancing octopus, hitting John with a folded umbrella and knocking him back in the water two different times.

The end result was that when John finally stood up he felt like a swamp thing, cold water streaming down his face and arms and legs, his pants soaked with murky grey ditch water, a clear line of brown mudpuddle stains across the chest of his white dress shirt. The suit's wool slacks were soaked almost to the knee and his blue silk shirt was covered with darker spots, but he'd gotten maybe a quarter as wet as John. He was also scowling ferociously from under a fringe of brown hair plastered to his forehead.

"Okay, it's clear that you're a complete and utter moron," spat the suit, "but if concepts like directionality, gravity, momentum, mud puddles and how to walk are beyond your understanding you should do the world a favour and not leave the house. Or better yet, remove yourself from the gene pool pre-emptively to spare the other people your stupidity would probably kill otherwise when natural selection eventually gets the better of you!"

John had never actually been told to kill himself by a complete stranger--fuck himself, yes, but not actually die--so it took him a second to come up with anything. By the time he got his mouth open, the suit was off again.

"I'm on my way to a very important meeting, which is probably a foreign concept to you, but this meeting is important enough that I should sue you for making me late, not to mention for ruining all my clothes and trying to drown me in a mud puddle. Obviously suing you would be pointless--" his eyes flicked quickly and expressively from John's dripping hair to the toes of his shoes where the sole was peeling off, and John finally got mad enough to stop gritting his teeth and answer.

"Look, I'm sorry I wasn't looking where I was going, yes, and I should've been, but I wouldn't have landed in the gutter if you hadn't come along, or even if you had come out of the door at the speed of a walk instead of a stampede. I'm also very sorry, now, that I didn't drown you in the damn mud puddle when I had the chance to save whatever part of humanity you're going to come in contact with for the rest of your miserable yuppie life, but unlike you I'm in the habit of apologising to people I knock over and not trying to beat them to death with a fucking umbrella. And good luck suing me, I'd be very interested to see who the judge has more sympathy for when the bruises from that start to come in--"

The suit's eyes widened and then narrowed; his eyelashes were dark and spiky with water. "Is that a threat--"

John gave a snort of disgust and pushed past the guy, shouldering him out of the way. "Don't worry," he said contemptuously, "it's not a threat," and stomped off down the street.

So really, the last thing John expected, when he ran into the guy again, was an indecent proposal.

If you'd asked him right afterwards what would probably happen, he would have guessed another harangue. And then he overheard someone say "Yes, that's him," and he looked up through the plate glass wall and saw the suit striding through the lobby with a cup of coffee in one hand and two donuts in the other, resplendent in a clean and dry suit that kind of made John, whose socks were still soggy, hate him even more.

The two full-time employees in front of him with their desks and coffee mugs and dry clothes--right now John really hated them too--kept whispering, and he kept overhearing--overhearing things like "Rodney McKay... the owner... like a millionaire!... I think he's kind of cute". The owner. The owner of this company, the one John was temping for, the one where he was planning to apply as a permanent employee. At that point John started expecting to be fired if they met again.

But that wasn't what happened at all. Instead he was subjected to a triple-take that ended in a long, considering look, with McKay drumming the fingers of his right hand on his left elbow. Then while John was taking a deep breath and preparing to grovel, McKay stabbed the "stop elevator" button and said abruptly, "I'll pay you five hundred thousand dollars to have sex with me every night this week."

John jerked his hands out of his (cold, clammy, wet) pockets in startlement. "I'm sorry, what did you just say?"

McKay rolled his eyes slightly, but he seemed to take the question at face value because he just repeated a bit slower, with clear enunciation, "I will pay you five hundred thousand dollars to have sex with me every night this week."

John blinked. "That's what I thought I heard."

"So?" said McKay impatiently. "I'm sure you could use the money."

John tilted his head a little and put his hands behind his back and wondered distantly if this was part of some cosmic plan to give him the worst day of his life. "Why?" he said.

"Why? I have a very demanding job, which requires a lot of travel, which leaves me with billions of dollars in spare change lying around and not very much free time, certainly not for the ordinary conventions of romantic relationships which I wouldn't have much patience for anyway. In spite of all this, being an adult human male, I still like sex--you're attractive, I'm in town for the week--"

"That's not exactly what I meant," John finally interrupted, since it seemed like the guy could just keep talking indefinitely.

"What, you're not gay? You are, aren't you? I can usually--"

"I am," said John, feeling a little dizzy. How did this guy ever manage to have sex, even if he was in the habit of paying a hundred thousand a pop?

And then John started to get an inkling, because the smug expression on McKay's already-smug face was really kind of charming--his jaw snapped shut and his chin came up, and that crooked mouth curled and his eyes crinkled a little like he was really, genuinely happy about that. "Hah, I knew it! I had you pegged the moment you threw yourself at me. I can always tell these things. I think it must be some kind of gift." He sounded genuinely introspective on the last sentence, as if he wasn't even talking to John anymore.

That still left the indecent proposal. "Mr. McKay--can I call you Mr. McKay?"

"It's doctor."

"Doctor McKay. On my way to work today, I bumped into you on the sidewalk. We fell in a mudpuddle, which you shoved me back into several times in your attempts to stand up. You beat me with your umbrella. We exchanged insults. You told me to commit suicide, and I said I was sorry I hadn't taken the chance to kill you. I then continued on my way to this office building, where I discovered that you are, in fact, paying my salary, and began praying that I would never see you again, and especially not get trapped in an elevator with you. Apparently there is no God, because just a few hours later, here I am in an elevator with you, being offered half a million dollars for a week of sex."

John felt like the situation was fairly self-explanatory, and that little recap should have brought McKay back to reality. Instead, he looked bored and impatient again and waved his hand at John in a little yes, yes, go on movement. "Yes, that's very astute, you may have a future as a newscaster. Did you have a point?"

John stared. McKay stared back. John crossed his arms over his chest--wet sleeves, wet shirt, still cold and wet. McKay's eyebrows were doing complicated acrobatics; he looked like he was going to hurt himself. His nipples made sharp points through the fabric of his shirt, even though again, he was completely dressed in clean and dry clothes. He had one hand on his hip, and an actual cufflink was flashing from the cuff there. All the talk about sex was making John notice the shape of McKay's hand--nice, big and elegant, long-fingered. He'd already noticed the ass. The only word for it was incredible.

Too bad the guy it was attached to was such a monumental asshole. John wondered if he would have slept with him for free, assuming he'd never been dropped in a mud puddle and told to kill himself and had instead been, like, asked on a date (by a multi-billionaire, yeah, right). He thought he might have.

"Okay, then," John said slowly. "It's like this. I'm an office temp. Not a hooker."

II. In Which John Might Be That Kind of Girl After All

The temp workers' tour John had been on hadn't even included the executive floors. It wasn't like he'd been warned not to go there, but he still felt like an intruder. Everything was uncannily silent, the wallpaper was some kind of textured silvery stuff, even the carpet looked expensive.

McKay's secretary's office was the kind of place you don't go without a sports jacket on, John could tell. Unfortunately he didn't own one anymore, and his dad had been a much bigger man than he was. He tried to walk so as not to draw attention to his feet. The secretary already looked surprised and wary; one look at his scuffed and disintegrating shoes and she'd probably call security.

"Hi," said John, trying a slow unassuming smile because it took longer and might distract her attention from his footwear. "Is Doctor McKay in today?"

"And your name is?" she said, with what John thought was impressive facial control. He betted she wanted to curl her lip, but there wasn't even the hint of a curl. Very professional.

"John Sheppard," John said. He would've tried a little explaining, but she looked down immediately to the ledger on her desk.

She lifted her head and fixed him with a look that seemed to indicate she would be keeping an eye on the silver. "Do you have an appointment?" she asked blandly.

"No, see." John stepped earnestly a little closer to the desk. "Not exactly, but I think Doctor McKay is expecting me, or he might be," he lied. "In the near future, generally, I don't mean right now or today. He probably wouldn't have written it in an appointment book."

"I haven't heard anything about any arrangement..."

"Oh, it's not really an arrangement," John explained, "more of a, you know, an understanding. If you'd just page him--"

"Doctor McKay doesn't see anyone without an appointment."

Desperate times, desperate measures, John thought. It wasn't like he wanted to be here. He was within reach of the intercom. He could just lunge across and press it. At least McKay would know he'd been here by the time security arrived. "He wouldn't have to see me, necessarily," John said hopefully. "If you just give him a call, you could ask him, and I really don't think he'd even be surprised to see me."

The big, sleek dark wood door behind her burst open, disgorging McKay into the room. He stopped in his tracks a few feet inside, though, staring at John curiously. "What are you doing here?"

But his eyes were sweeping up and down over John, head to foot, more than once, and he looked surprised, not angry. John would tentatively have guessed, if he had to, that he was in a good mood.

"I've reconsidered our conversation of earlier this week," said John, taking a deep breath. Okay, it was a little harder to say that than he anticipated.

McKay paused for a second, frowning into space, crinkling his forehead and pursing his mouth. Then he seemed to give himself a little shake and headed for the door. "Right, well, yes. Clarice, tell Doug when he drops those papers by later not to sign with Bullock yet, he might be getting a better offer. Tell him to put it off twenty-four hours past the deadline at least, no less. Oh, and send my mother some flowers, would you, anything but roses; she didn't like those last time for some reason." He stopped in the doorway and turned to look at John. "Well, come on! I've got a dinner meeting in a few hours, we haven't got much time."

John went after him, a little cautiously, because was that it, he was done with the subject? What, was he going to do John in the bathroom, a conference room? Did the executive level have a bedroom hidden away somewhere?

They actually went to the elevator. John was relieved when McKay just pushed the button for the first floor. "Where are we going?" he said.

"At the moment, the lobby," said McKay. "Then, the limo."

"Oh," John said. He had a bad feeling it came out kind of squeaky and nervous, too, so he cleared his throat. "Okay."

McKay steered John towards the limo parked at the curb with a hand on his elbow, then into the interior with a big hand low down on his back. It wasn't cold, but there was a brisk wind; the warmth of palm and fingers went right through the fabric of John's dress shirt, into, it felt like, the grain of his skin.

John sat on a deep soft leather bench seat with his hands clasped between his knees while McKay instructed the driver to take them to "that tailor who does my pants, the one with no nostrils". Then he turned back around, rubbing his hands together briskly. "Okay. You can talk now."

John took a second to ponder his life. If he'd lost his job this week like he'd originally thought he was going to it could hardly get worse. Now that they knew without a doubt the surgery his mother needed and what her life expectancy was without it, the mundane details his pitiful pay check covered seemed almost insignificant. With no credit and the utter impossibility of obtaining any kind of loan, and his own excellent understanding of the probability of his mother's lottery ticket winning, John was now in a place where his best hope was that a self-obsessed billionaire with no social skills would be willing to hire him as a trick.

Maybe McKay had already forgotten why he'd brought him along? "Well, if your offer that you made the other day is still open, I'd like to take you up on it."

"Hm, yes, I got that," said McKay. "What I'd like to know is--why?"

John blinked. "What do you care?"

"Oh, I'm naturally curious. The scientific mind. It used to get me into a lot of trouble when I was a kid. Well?"

He should just open his mouth and say it, John told himself. He'd already been so humiliated in front of McKay that a little bit more couldn't hurt anyway, assuming concepts like dignity had any relevance with him to begin with. But John didn't like talking about himself, he didn't like talking about anything personal and he didn't like talking about his mom's illness.

"It's a buyer's market," McKay reminded him pointedly.

Okay, fine. "My mother," John explained carefully. "She's sick. She's been in and out of hospitals for years. She's just been diagnosed with a rare genetic disease and is expected to die within the year if she doesn't get an experimental surgery in Norway in the next couple of months."

McKay was just looking at him while he talked. When John was finished, he only said: "How much?"

"You mean--"

"The whole treatment, of course," he snapped, with an irritable hand-wave. "How much for the whole treatment?"

John licked his lips, shifted a little on the seat. The leather really was silky, glove-soft. "One point two million."

"Hmmmm," said McKay as the limousine stopped, "I've got to think about this a little." The door opened. "Go on," he added, "get out."

John felt his shoulders tense a little in anticipation of the hand on his back again, but it didn't come. Instead McKay climbed out after him and headed straight for a plate glass door marked Tazo Tailoring tucked between two bay windows. "Um," he said, glancing around nervously inside. There were a few wooden mannequins wearing expensive suits set up in the middle of the hardwood-panelled room in lonely splendour, sort of like Christmas trees.

"Rodney McKay to see the owner, please," McKay told the first guy who appeared.

"What am I doing here?" John asked him in an undertone.

"Getting a suit on very short notice," said McKay, "because dinner is in--" he shook back the dove silk shirt, the flashing cufflink, with an expert twist of his wrist to consult a gold watch. "An hour and thirty-five minutes."

III. In Which Rodney Consumes One and a Half Desserts, John Receives a Slightly More Decent Proposal, and There Is No Origami

"The less you say, the more power everyone will assume you have," explained McKay on the way to the restaurant. "That is, as long as you don't start blowing bubbles in your chocolate milk or making airplanes out of the cocktail napkins. Within reasonable limits."

"No napkin origami, gotcha," said John. "But I don't know if I could restrain myself from the bubbles if I got too bored, so you're probably better off not giving me a straw."

The dinner wasn't as boring as he'd expected. McKay had seemed to think he wouldn't be able to follow anything, which was kind of insulting given how much of it was completely basic economics and computers. John was more concerned for most of the meal about keeping the suit completely spotless because he had a feeling it cost more than his mother's house, and maybe the other houses on the block too.

"I want him to look so intimidatingly rich and stylish that everyone will be afraid to talk to him," McKay had explained. "I need it within the hour."

The thin little man who owned the shop hadn't hesitated; he'd gone straight for the centre mannequin and taken this suit off it. "If I understand the look you're going for, Doctor McKay, and I think I do," he'd said a while later, "you might also want to consider his hair."

John would have reached protectively for his head if he hadn't had people attached to both his arms, pinning the sleeves of the jacket. But McKay had sniffed impatiently, "Please, this isn't Queer Eye for the Queer Guy. The hair stays," raking his eyes over John the same businesslike way he approached everything else. But when their eyes had met he'd surprised John a lot by ducking his chin and smiling a little.

John started wondering fairly early in the dinner why McKay was so incredibly rude and whether it worked particularly well for him as a business strategy. "This is why I have dinner meetings," he said in a confidential tone, leaning a little closer to John and quirking an eyebrow.

"What is?" John murmured back. "The atmosphere, the soup course, your friend Tom's metaphor about information systems as marching bands?"

"They don't have to be playing the same thing," the guy named Tom was saying for the third time, "they just have to be playing in the same key."

McKay snorted. "Because being surrounded by stupidity has less negative affect on me when I'm happy, and five-star cuisine makes me happy. --Tom. Thanks, could we save the music lesson for another day? Yeah."

He told a sweaty black-haired guy to use his professional expertise or "what there was of it" to make a recommendation because he'd feel better about the waste of his salary if he at least pretended to do his job, then told a short blond to shut up unless she had something genuinely brilliant to say, "which is about as likely as that we'll replace our training videos with Jane Fonda workout tapes". He'd insulted the intelligence of everyone at the table other than John separately and all of them collectively several times by the time the main course was served.

Watching the highly-paid executives in their expensive suits leave at the end of the meal, John decided he had sort of acclimatised to the weirdness of the day. He was past thinking about the suit, or the meal he'd just eaten with four different forks, or the fact that he was essentially an escort service at the moment. Instead he was watching out of the corner of his eye while McKay licked every last molecule of chocolate mousse, raspberry syrup, and coffee whipped cream from his spoon. Every now and then John wondered whether this was McKay's default level of assholishness or he'd been trying to impress John, but it seemed like a moot point. Mostly he was just looking fixedly at the tablecloth and not at McKay's tongue flicking into the bowl of the silver spoon or his big crooked mouth curling in contentment after each little bite.

"Did you want that?" said McKay, startling John.

"Um--sorry?" John blinked.

"The rest of your cake. You're not eating it."

"Oh--be my guest." He slid the plate to the side and McKay swooped down on the last few bites of chocolate cheesecake, brandishing his spoon, and finished it all off in about five seconds.

"So," he said, "how was dinner?"

"I didn't think about paper airplanes once," John said solemnly.

"Mmm," McKay hummed thoughtfully. "And everyone was much more subdued than usual. I've never sat through an entire meal with Ernie Piwonka without hearing at least one Army story before, and he barely even talked about his grandkids, unless I've finally started completely tuning that out--"

"No," John interrupted, since McKay was obviously used to that. "He only brought up his granddaughter once, that was it."

"Right, so it was totally worthwhile having you here and I was completely right about the effect. They probably think you're some kind of exorbitantly-priced jet-setting consultant or auditor or something." He was practically cackling. "I'd love to try this more often. If I saved twenty minutes at every meeting just for a couple of months that's more than a complete day's work, which is plenty of time to make a breakthrough worth hundreds of thousands if I could just spend it in research for once, so it would be more than worth the trouble, even if you couldn't pick out your own clothes--" he broke off, frowning.

"Uh, well--I can pick out my own clothes," said John cautiously.

"Yes yes, but that doesn't matter," said McKay, and propped one elbow on the table to wave his hand dismissively. "Your value as a wild card is completely gone if I marry you. Everyone will know what you were doing at this meeting then, too--or think they do, hah! Of course, all the better as far as I'm concerned. But I wonder if I could achieve the same effect with someone else--or for that matter it might not hurt to hire a consultant, I haven't done that for--"

"Wait, wait," John sputtered, when he finally managed to pick his jaw up from the tablecloth and reboot his brain.

"--at least five years, of course, the odds the consultant is as intelligent as I am are infinitesimal, but perhaps it was naive of me to think--what?"

McKay looked a little put out, and John could only stare at him for a second. "I'm sorry," he said carefully and evenly. "I probably misunderstood. It's just I thought I heard you say marry me."

"Oh." McKay seemed surprised. "Yes, well, I've given the matter some thought, and I think that's fair." He shrugged. "And it's really the only way it's worth it for me."

And John had thought he was accustomed to the surreality of today. He was starting to think it wasn't possible to get accustomed to McKay after all. He wasn't even sure how to start responding to that. Finally he came up with: "'Fair'?"

McKay rolled his eyes. "Well, this isn't exactly what I bargained for. I offered you half a million for five nights of sex, or a hundred thousand a night, on a whim. You had to know the offer wasn't necessarily intended to be open-ended, and you turned it down. Now you're asking for more than twice that amount of money and it's painfully obvious that your expenses will actually be much greater than that. Of course, I suppose I could just write you a check for part of the sum, but that's really not an appealing course."

He frowned to himself without seeming to notice John at all. "I couldn't just--anyway." It was just as well he wasn't looking at John. John was pretty sure he looked gobsmacked, and he wasn't at all sure that it was an attractive look for him. He didn't even know what he was thinking. All that was in his brain at the moment was what?, which was obviously the wrong response.

Luckily McKay still wasn't done. "Anyway, like I said, buyer's market; what really matters here is what it's worth to me, and I'm willing to completely take care of your mother--and yourself, of course--for the rest of your lives, but I'm not willing to do it without some more significant benefit than a few short sexual encounters. Which, okay, I don't mean like you'd be a sex slave or anything although of course this would be contingent on sex, partially, but marriage is scientifically proven to reduce stress and increase lifespan--well. So. Well, there would be some details to work out, of course, but that's essentially it." For the first time, he seemed really aware of John's presence, but there was nothing abstracted in his gaze when their eyes met. "What do you say?"

John still had the dessert fork in his hand; he'd been squeezing it so tightly the edges dug into his palm, and the silver was warm from his skin. He resisted the urge to clear his throat and kept his mouth closed on an "um" only with effort. Finally he said, "You seem to make a habit of inventing completely new social situations that no one could possibly know how to respond to."

First the right corner of McKay's mouth tightened; then the left corner of it twitched and drew down; then it slowly stretched out into an amused smile, as though he wasn't entirely convinced that smiling was what he wanted to do but had decided to go along with it anyway. "Well," he mused, "that wasn't my intent--at least not this time. But I do have to admit there's a certain--satisfaction in controlling the situation--watching that--flabbergasted expression which you're so attractively modelling spread across people's faces..."

John felt his face and neck heating stupidly. He couldn't believe he was blushing at a throwaway compliment while he was still entertaining--and oh, God, was that what he was doing, entertaining it--a marriage proposal.

But then, he wasn't sure the embarrassment was all from the compliment. The whimsical look and tone were something he hadn't seen yet from McKay, and John found them bizarrely charming, much like the big hands and long nimble fingers resting on the tablecloth between their two place settings. He reached for his water glass, drained the rest of it in one long slow gulp.

McKay was watching him drink.

John forced his hand to relax on the drinking glass and put it back on the table carefully, concentrated on keeping his face and hands and voice steady. "How negotiable is your offer?" he asked.

McKay said, "I'm sorry. Did I give you the impression I was the kind of person who did negotiable? Because I'm not. The offer is take it or leave it." After a little pause, he shook back his cuff to look at his watch. "And I can probably stay here a couple of hours--well, hmm, I could stretch to three, the owner's certainly not going to kick us out. And I'd prefer you decide in that time, although I understand you might need some more time to think about this, so I suppose you don't have to tell me tonight--heh, I don't want to rush you into a decision, but it would have to be tomorrow at the latest..."

John was barely listening to McKay anymore at that point. "So let me get this straight," he said. "You're proposing a bargain."

"Yes, that was a beautifully concise and pointed summary. You seem to have a real talent for that," McKay drawled.

"I would marry you--actually get married to you--we would be spouses--"

"Yes, yes, yes, holy matrimony, husband and husband, yes."

"And in return you would pay for all the medical care my mother needed."

"I think that's the point. Yes."

"So we would get married, and then I would, what, I would be your wife? You'd install me in your mansion somewhere and I'd cook dinner, keep the place tidy, go along as your date to parties, fuck you sometimes when you got horny?"

"Well, as for where you'd live, I expect you'll want to see your mother quite a bit while she's out of the country, and you certainly wouldn't have to clean or cook unless for some reason you wanted to, but I believe you've grasped the general drift of the thing, yes. Congratulations. You pass."

Oh. "We're not talking slave labour, imprisonment in the harem here."

"No!" McKay actually half-rose from his chair, all indignance. "You may be surprised to learn this, but I actually tend to frown on slavery!"

"So just the normal job description of the millionaire trophy wife, is what you're saying?"

McKay rolled his eyes. "You can buy pearls if you want to, but if you do I'm not sure I want to know about it. And look, we could always have a pre-nup drawn up. America might resemble a third-world country in many respects, but they have completely modern divorce laws, you're hardly in much danger even if you say 'I do' without reading all the fine print. For that matter, the marriage wouldn't even be legal in this country."

John had been wondering whether McKay knew that. "You thinking Boston?" he asked. "Canada?"

"Toronto," said McKay crisply. "Before the end of the week."

"Huh," John murmured. There didn't really seem to be a lot more to ask, did there? "Okay."

McKay leaned back in his chair and looked away from John very deliberately, but for almost half a minute of silence he was constantly looking over and back until he finally burst out, "What are you thinking? What is it? Is there something else? Or you don't have to decide now, I could just take you home if--"

"McKay. McKay. McKay?" said John, but McKay didn't stop talking until John's hand touched his.

Then his mouth snapped shut and his back straightened and he turned to stare at John in blank confusion. His eyes were kind of round, and wide, and very clear blue; and his long eyelashes, when not spiked and darkened with rainwater, were pale and almost transparent.

"I said okay," said John.

McKay opened his mouth and snapped it closed again. "Okay," he repeated. "Right. Okay, then."

IV. In Which John Is the Victim of Pleasant Bullying, the Titanium Is Aircraft-grade, and There Is No Replacement Underwear

The private plane was cool, but all the secretiveness was actually cooler. Of course, if he'd gotten to fly the plane it would have been different, but John had to admit that he didn't actually know how to fly a plane; he hadn't even ridden in one since he was a little kid. This time he spent the trip slowly nursing the cocktail McKay mixed him from the onboard drink cabinet, looking out the windows and finally falling asleep on the bed in the back.

John woke up disoriented, with a stiff back from lying funny. The lights all over the opulent cabin were tastefully dim, and McKay was leaning over him with his shirtsleeves rolled up over the elbow, his tie hanging loose and the top buttons of his shirt unbuttoned to expose a hint of light chest hair and the smooth hollow of his throat.

John blinked and yawned, and McKay said, "We're here," and handed him a black trenchcoat and a pair of sunglasses.

John cracked his neck and examined the sunglasses doubtfully. "Isn't it still night time?"

"Paparazzi," said McKay shortly, "put on your trenchcoat." Once they got out of the plane, and immediately into a dark SUV, he gave John a hat, too. "You'll need it when we change cars," he said.

"Change cars?" John laughed, but they actually changed cars twice, from the SUV to a limo to another SUV, once in a private garage and once underground.

He was completely surprised to eventually step out of a dark metal-walled elevator through a tiny anteroom and out into a hardwood-floored room the size of a ballroom, surrounded in so many windows that it was lit completely by the first weak pink light of dawn outside.

"Wow," John said almost involuntarily, drifting towards the nearest window. It stretched floor-to-ceiling and was clear as crystal, free of reflection because this early there was no glare. He felt like he could reach out and touch the piles of oyster-grey clouds. It looked like the spires of skyscrapers were within his arm's reach. "Nice, McKay."

"Mmm, yeah, isn't it?" said McKay, sounding completely, casually unconcerned. "I always like a room with a view. Gives you something to look at besides the fire or the television. Listen, do you want breakfast, or another nap? The courthouse opens in four hours officially. I was planning to be there half an hour early, get this over with, but if you're really tired I could make some calls and postpone it until eleven."

Food or sleep? John was pondering, when McKay added, "And we're probably going to be married in a few hours, so you could call me Rodney."

"Rodney," John said, testing it out. "I don't see any reason to delay a couple of hours, I guess, but I might like to take a sorta catnap in the meanwhile, if you can spare an alarm clock or something."

McKay had picked an apple out of a bowl on the table and taken a noisy bite, but he turned around quickly at that. "Mm, right, the bedroom's this way," he said with his mouth still full, and his hand landed on John's back to steer him down the little hallway and through a door.

His touch was surprisingly light, firm but gentle, warm through John's jacket and shirt. The sensation was starting to get familiar, but hadn't become any less unsettlingly pleasant. The bedroom was spacious and very dim, one whole wall hung in dark curtains, and neither of them turned on the lights.

"There's the bed," he said, but John was ahead of him, already sinking down on the edge. The sheets felt like cotton, but the smoothest cotton he'd ever touched, almost like silk.

"There should be more suits in the closet--anyway, nevermind, I'll send Mel around to wake you up in time and get you to the courthouse, I've, ah, got a few things to take care of..." McKay talked like he was in a race, like he was a champion runner with a strategy; started off strong but deliberate, put on a burst of speed and kept picking up the pace until he left you completely in the dust.

"So if you wake up," he continued, "as unlikely as that is considering--you didn't get that much sleep on the plane--Chris is around if you've got any questions, you can call me from the speed dial in the main room, make yourself at home, and I'll see you in a few hours." He darted tensely to the door and then hovered there for a second.

John didn't even know who Chris was, but it looked like McKay was waiting for something. "Okay," he said. "See you then. And M--Rodney? Thanks." He caught the tail end of a strange expression, and then McKay--Rodney--was gone.

He stripped to his boxers and put on the first clean t-shirt he found hanging in the closet ("What part of the quantum theory don't you understand?"), and slept like a baby between the clean, silky sheets until a rap on the door woke him up.

"Mr. Sheppard?"

"Yeah," John mumbled, going quickly through his reality inventory: sinful sheets, borrowed shirt, the nest of bedclothes smelling like expensive detergent and a hint of the scent of McKay (which he somehow already recognised); the limo, the private jet, the trenchcoat, the penthouse; none of it was a dream. John raised his voice to yell, "I'm decent. Go ahead, come in."

What came in was a tall woman with short dark hair, wearing thick-framed glasses, very high heels and a power suit. "Hi," she said, looking him up and down with a neutral face that made John instantly reach self-consciously for his hair. "You must be Mr. Sheppard. I'm Mel, and we've got a closet full of suits for you here which should all fit. Rodney tells me you like to pick your clothes for yourself--" she sounded far from approving of that peculiarity "--but I've got veto power in case you turn out to have the fashion sense of a home-shopping-network-watching mother-in-law from Minnesota."

This woman had a deadpan you had to admire. "Okay," said John, reaching up to scratch the back of his neck. What he really wanted to do was cover up his knees, which seemed hairy and bony and a little revolting next to what seemed like yards of thin female legs and pin-striped skirt. Jesus, wasn't McKay supposed to be queer? Did all his assistants look like fashion models?

"Okay," said Mel, "well..." she tilted her head and examined him critically from head to toe again, and threw open the half of the closet John hadn't opened before his little nap. There were six feet of suits hanging there, at least. John swallowed. "Go ahead," she said, "but hurry up."

Under the influence of her casual and pleasant bullying, John showered and shaved and climbed into and out of three suits in the space of fifteen minutes. The sun had come up while he was asleep, and clear morning light was streaming through long charcoal curtains down the length of one wall. "Look, I like this one," said John, mainly because it was grey and not some exotic shade of blue, and smooth wool instead of slick textured silk.

"Mm, boring can be good," she agreed easily, and John breathed out. "Now go back and take off your boxers," she continued, and John stopped breathing all together.

"I'm sorry, excuse me?"

Mel just sighed and tucked a sleek steel pen over her ear. "Boxers. Look at your legs." John did. "The wrinkle lines are not attractive."

"All right," he said. "Where's my replacement underwear?"

Mel glanced over her shoulder, pulled out a drawer on one side of the closet and poked through a stack of plastic-wrapped packages briefly. "Hmmm, nope, no," she said. "Looks like there isn't any. You'll have to go without."

"No. Way," said John firmly.

Twenty minutes later he was coming out of the service stairs next to the justice of the peace's office, clean and cologned and wearing yet another pair of extremely shiny shoes, but no undergarments.

Mel rapped softly on the door and touched a hands-free phone piece on her ear, and it opened with a sharp squeak, heavy wooden door, big brass hinges. McKay said something to the person behind the counter and made everyone wait while John read through the pre-nup one of McKay's lawyers gave him and ate a muffin and two donuts handed to him by an extremely tall guy with brown hair (so that was Chris).

Then he signed the pre-nup and a little form, swore a little oath and, well, was married.

"Okay!" said McKay, when the justice finished pronouncing. "Well, that wasn't too agonisingly slow, thank you, your honour. And now, we've got a couple of hours before we'll have to lunch and my next meeting, and I thought we'd do some shopping--oh, and, by the way, are you ever planning to call your mother?"

"I--" John started.

"Oh! Wait," McKay interrupted him immediately. "Forgot." He dug a cellphone, an iPod and two PDAs out of his pockets and thrust them into Chris's hands with a grimace. "Hold on a second--oh, yeah," and put his hand in the pocket of his jacket instead of his slacks and pulled out, okay, a little velvet box.

John reminded himself that they had passed "officially weird" a long time ago. "Honey," he drawled before he could stop himself, "you didn't say, I didn't get you anything."

McKay's fingers uncurled around the box, curled around it again. A little crease appeared between his eyebrows. "Hm, I didn't ask--do you want a ring?"

"Uh," said John. "Uh. Do you?"

McK--Rodney waved the hand with the box--not the left hand, the left hand was hanging by his side, and John couldn't help glancing at his ring finger. "I suppose my preference would be yes, but I asked yours."

"Then I'll have the ring," John decided.

"I asked what you--"

John took two quick steps forward and grabbed the box out of his hand. "Rodney. Give me my ring."

"All right, all right," he said, with a quick startled look to John's face, "give it here." John let him take the box back and flip it open with a few deft movements, carefully extract the ring and--he glanced up, arching his eyebrows, and put out his other hand expectantly. "Wrong hand."

"Oh. Sorry about that." John felt a little fumbling as he pulled his left hand out of his pocket and set it gingerly in Rodney's open palm, but he thought he might have managed to hide it.

The ring was wide but slim and mostly flat, matte silver. The metal was cool sliding over his finger, and fit snugly but comfortably. It was lighter than he expected, somehow.

"Titanium," Rodney whispered, still holding John's hand in both his own, and when John looked up to meet his eyes, he was grinning, quirking his eyebrow. "Aircraft-grade."

"Cool," John said appreciatively, and he could feel himself smiling back. He was awfully close to that lopsided grin.

"And that reminds me of something else," said Rodney suddenly. He cleared his throat. "Shouldn't someone have said a perfunctory 'you may kiss the bride'?"

"Maybe the lack of brides stopped him," John suggested, and received a withering glare.

"Maybe he figured you didn't need any encouragement," said someone behind them.

"Mmmm," said Rodney, "okay. Good point." He tangled the fingers of his left hand with John's and lifted his right to slide lightly along John's jaw--John found himself arching wordlessly into the touch--and around the back of his neck. Then they were kissing, and Rodney's mouth was warm and soft and kind of big, and he could feel the crooked outline of it against his lips, even when he tilted his head and Rodney's hand tightened at the nape of his neck and tugged him closer, crushing their mouths together a little too hard. John felt a slow shiver creeping down his neck that kept going when they pulled apart. Whoa, okay--that was a buzz.

He felt warm and shaky, like after a shot or a sugar rush or, God, Rodney was licking his lips, quick and nervous, but it was--

"So," said John, looking away and stepping back and putting his hands behind him, "Um. Shopping is fine with me."

Rodney lingered to thank the justice of the peace--John didn't look to see whether his thanks was monetary--while Chris and another guy went out for the car. They were in the service stairs when a little beep-beep-beep sound came from Mel's pocket. She touched her ear, grimacing. "Okay, okay, gotcha. Bad news, Rodney. They're here."

"Who are here?" John blinked.

"Who do you think is here? The Terminator? It's the paparazzi, of course, and they'll be at all the doors by now. Hats and trenchcoats and sunglasses at the door. God, this is such a drag," he griped. "I hate fedoras. They always make me feel like a mobster. I am just not a cigar-smoking kind of guy. I prefer shishkebabs."

"Hey," said John, "I like shishkebabs too."

"Great! Then our menu for tonight is settled. I'm so glad we could come to an easy agreement about that. Wouldn't want to spoil the honeymoon because we couldn't agree on the same dish at the first dinner. In the meanwhile, could you go to some trouble to cover up your face especially? I'd like to keep as much of this out of the papers as possible for as long as possible."

Mel's voice drifted up the stairwell from in front of them. "I could get you a newspaper or something."

John thought the crazy thing was that Rodney actually seemed to consider it. But, "No, I think we'll tough it out," he said.

And when they got outside John discovered that, in fact, the real crazy thing was that the newspaper probably would've been a good idea. They walked out surrounded by a knot of assistants. John had flipped the collar of the trench up around his face; he instinctively ducked down into it, tucking his chin, trying to cover his eyes with his hand. It wasn't that far to the limo, but with the jostling and flashing it seemed a lot further.

"Get back," Rodney was snapping the whole time, "back off, you idiots, sonofabitch, would you let go, excuse us, people, for God's sake!" When they were within a yard of the limo Rodney ran out of patience and elbowed a guy aside, then wrapped his arm around John to jerk him free from the asshole who'd latched onto his elbow. He put his body between John and the reporters, wrapped an arm around his waist, and as soon as Mel had the door open was half-lifting John through it and sliding in after him, so they sort of landed in a pile on the seat.

"Wow," John panted, without making any move to shove Rodney off of him. "That was the paparazzi, huh? You weren't kidding."

"I don't make a habit of kidding," Rodney informed him, and slid out of his lap. "Well, except when I do. Sorry, hope you're not too battered there."

"I'm very tough," John said, straightening his clothes. "Don't worry."

"Right," said Rodney, looking completely unconvinced. "So, shopping. Did you have anything in mind?"

John lifted both his hands deliberately and set them down in his lap; one of them caught the light as it moved. "You seem to be in need of some jewelry." Rodney looked a little surprised, but he didn't say anything. "And I," said John, "could really use some underwear."

"That's all you can think of? Underwear?"

"No, actually. I'd like to call my mother, since you mentioned it."

"All right, underwear and a phone--"

"--No, I just want to talk to her," John tried to say.

Rodney ignored him completely. "But that's still a little weird. Were you one of those kids who got socks in his Christmas stocking?"

"Let's just say," John replied, glancing at Mel only for a millisecond, "that you take underwear for granted when you have it but you really start to miss it when you don't. I could really use something for wearing under suits." Since it looks like I'm going to be wearing a lot of them, he didn't say. Since a whole boardroom could get dressed in my closet.

"Yeah, you could," Rodney said seriously, "I didn't want to say anything yesterday, I didn't notice until we were at the restaurant, but they were definitely interfering with the drape of the--wait--so what are you wearing now?"

John just smiled tightly and quirked an eyebrow in Mel's direction.

"I--what--you--" Rodney stammered, dropping his eyes down to John's lap like he just couldn't help it. "Um. Okay. We should definitely--do that then."

"And maybe some some ordinary clothes, too," said John, thinking about the t-shirt he'd left in the bathroom of the master suite.

"Yes, of course," Rodney said a little vaguely, shifting himself in his seat so the outsides of their thighs happened to brush against each other, and stealing another look at John's lap.

I'm in a limousine, John thought, in another country, with the billionaire to whom I've just sold myself as a sex toy, pretending not to notice as he puts the moves on me in front of one of his several secretaries, who knows that I am not wearing underwear.

He was a little nervous about the whole sex toy thing, to be honest, as far as he was feeling nervous about any of this crazy mess, which was not very far because he was still numb--probably with shock. But the thing was, nervous or not, he didn't mind.

When the limo went around a curve he felt the back of Rodney's hand brush against his knee, and he wondered if Rodney was horny or shameless enough to put his hand on John's knee, and he kind of hoped that he was. John reminded himself that as a not-yet-twenty-five-year-old male, he was pretty close to his sexual peak and should have a large, healthy sex drive of the kind not to be phased even by overbearing, eccentric billionaires.

The thigh touching his was warm, very warm, through two layers of slacks, and that kiss hadn't been nearly long enough. And John had eyes, he'd seen McKay's ass.

Speaking of which, when Rodney hung back a few steps to walk behind him up the stairs inside the mall, John started to feel like the slutty girl at the prom that all the guys are suddenly really nice to. He slid his hands into his pockets and looked over his shoulder at Rodney. "So, where are you taking me first? Jewelry store?"

V. In Which Rodney Has Read the Handbook

"I'm guessing your mother never told you not to waste food because of the starving children in Africa," John observed, and held out his glass for more champagne.

"Of course she did," Rodney snorted. "And she asked me if I would jump off a bridge just because everyone else did it too. Don't worry, all genius billionaires aren't culturally deprived." He poured the champagne from the bottle carelessly, splashing some on the carpet.

"I just wondered because of how much of the food on that room service cart you didn't eat," said John, and took a drink of champagne. It still tasted as good as the first three glasses had.

Rodney put down the champagne carefully and then collapsed back into a sprawl on the carpet like it was just too much effort to sit up. "I didn't think eating the entire room service menu at the beginning of my honeymoon would be the best idea. I'm pretty sure that's specifically mentioned in the don'ts list in the handbook for newlyweds who are hoping to get laid. And I didn't order the whole menu for me. You're the one who couldn't make up your mind."

"I didn't mean you should order me one of everything," said John, rolling onto his side to face Rodney. "I just wanted a minute to decide. Not that I don't appreciate the thought." He put his champagne glass down again an inch from the end of Rodney's tie, which lay discarded on the floor like a gold silk snake.

Rodney didn't appear to have even noticed John had said anything. "However," he continued, "if it would make you feel better I can call the concierge and demand they donate the leftovers to the hungry. They'd probably do it, too. I think I might own this hotel."

John rotated his neck a little, eyeing the shadowed sliver of neck and collarbone visible in the open collar of Rodney's shirt, and enjoyed his champagne-induced relaxation. "Hmmmm. Nah, that won't be necessary this time," he said. "Strawberry?"

Rodney's sprawl had landed him out of reach of the tray of chocolate strawberries, and he looked a little too comfortable there in his propped-on-elbows posture to move. "Mm, thanks," he sighed, and opened his eyes partway.

John crawled the couple of feet across the thick tasteful hotel carpet and leaned closer to hold the strawberry to Rodney's lips, which made Rodney's eyes widen a little, but he just tilted his head to take the strawberry from John's hand, nothing in his body moving below the throat.

John reached back blindly for another strawberry. "You know," he began, surprising himself by how low and uneven his voice came out, "I think it might also be in the handbook that you have your champagne picnic in the bed, and not on the floor."

"I'm pretty sure about that part actually," said Rodney, sitting up, his hand closing around John's wrist. "It was in Pretty Woman. I had Mel take notes."

"Ah," responded John intelligently, and Rodney licked experimentally at the chocolate before eating the strawberry, holding onto John's arm the whole time.

"If you want to move to the bed--"

"No, that's okay," John said absently. After the fourth glass of champagne--even if he hadn't finished it yet--he was feeling pretty good, warm and light and relaxed. He reclaimed his hand and lowered it the few inches to Rodney's belly. He could feel through the shirt how the flesh was firm and slightly soft and warm. "I was never a big fan of champagne," he confided.

Rodney's eyes were closed. "I'm starting to like it more and more," he sighed, bringing one hand up and setting it carefully over top of John's. "Not that I didn't like it before--I wouldn't say I was exactly a fan, but--umm."

John flexed and spread his fingers, feeling the slippery silk on his palm. He scooted a little closer and leaned into Rodney's shoulder. "I may be a convert," he mumbled, sliding his hand a little lower. The muscles tensed under his touch, and that was pretty cool. He pushed his fingers between two of the buttons and under Rodney's shirt to see if he could make it happen again.

The touch of skin on skin had a pretty big effect on both of them. Rodney gasped and grabbed John's hand, and John didn't do much except fumble one of the buttons undone and push his hand the rest of the way under the shirt, but he felt it down to his toes. More specifically, he felt a tense liquid melting in his stomach, heat rising to the skin of his face and neck, the tingling heaviness of arousal in his dick.

God, it was like being fifteen again, when just a couple of touches (four glasses of wine, John reminded himself, a whole day of tension) were enough to set him off. He hadn't had so much as a kiss for a couple of years, now, what with dropping out of school and multiple jobs and his mom. It felt like centuries. He made some kind of noise and let himself collapse against Rodney's chest.

"Four glasses, right," he heard from above his head, a little breathless. "You're easy to please. What would you do if I gave you a whole bottle?"

John wriggled a little to get more comfortable and move closer, and settled his hand against the curve of Rodney's side, just above his hip. "Probably," he mumbled into Rodney's shirt, "anything you want." He didn't mention that he was probably going to do that anyway.

Rodney's belly rose and fell under John's hand with each breath. John could feel that the skin was smooth and soft under the curls of chest hair. John wondered how pale it was, and thoughtfully dragged his nails against it.

"I--oh," said Rodney, wrapped his other arm around John, and dragged him the rest of the way down to the floor.

John wound up halfway on top of him, which he didn't mind at all. With a couple of little shifts, he got his leg over one of Rodney's solid thighs and finally got his cock pressed against Rodney's hip. "Oh, yeah," John said.

"Are you even--I can't believe you," Rodney said, pulled him in roughly by the back of the neck and kissed him.

So John had been waiting for it all day, maybe slightly longer, this one really, really good kiss. He remembered how good it had been that morning, that shock of heat, all his nerves lighting up, but still he was surprised. It was open-mouthed, slick, and Rodney licked John's lip like he was chasing the flavour of the champagne and sucked on his tongue, and when he tilted his head and slid his tongue wetly into John's mouth John's toes curled, there was this sensation like heat and shivering in the core of him. He groped at Rodney's hip and arched, pushing his body closer.

"Okay, okay," said Rodney against his mouth, and stopped to kiss him again, "I can--" and got John's shirt out of his pants and his hand on the skin of John's back.

"Mm," John said approvingly, and slid his hands along Rodney's sides, seeking skin himself. Rodney was fumbling at the silver buckle of John's belt with one hand and petting his back with the other, long matter-of-fact strokes that felt too firm and purposeful to be called caresses, that made John's skin too tight, his throat ache. He put his mouth muzzily on the point of Rodney's chin and tasted the cleft.

"Jesus," said Rodney, tilting his head back, and John kissed a line down his throat and sucked at his Adam's apple, thinking vaguely about the warm salty sweaty taste of skin, the slight hint of oil and of cologne. "Oh, oh, keep doing that," Rodney chanted, finally bringing both of his hands to the problem of the belt and getting it undone in record time.

John gave up on untucking Rodney's shirt and went for the belt buckle instead. The shirts turned out to be much easier to get off with their pants open, even though John got in the way by pressing himself back up against Rodney's chest as soon as his shirt was open, running his hand up to Rodney's tight nipple.

"Oh, God, would you please--I can't get your shirt off you if you won't let go--no, I can do this, you can stay," Rodney babbled, and grabbed John's hips when he started to move away.

John smiled at him. "Don't push the little wife away when she's got her hand in your pants?" He said. "Did you read that in the handbook too?"

Instead of an answer he got "I--oh yeah--do that, do that," because he really had put his hand in Rodney's pants and was investigating the fit of his underwear and the shape of his cock by feel. "I'm sorry, but I seem to have somehow missed the chapter on getting undressed without stopping making out--I don't suppose you've read that one?"

"Well," John said, cupping his hand over the hot bulge of Rodney's erection, "I was pretty sure I was going to get laid, so I didn't actually feel the need."

The noises Rodney was making, though, and the way his hips lifted off the floor to shove his cock into John's hand, were getting to him. "But actually, we could put that aside for the time being," John suggested. "Because I haven't been wearing underwear all day and--"

Rodney's eyes widened. "You haven't--you haven't," he said, "I can't believe I forgot that," and suddenly he was flipping them over, rolling John on his back, climbing on top of him and pinning him to the floor.

John meant to say something, but his brain whited out for a second when he felt Rodney's hand fumble in his pants, trace the crease of his thigh, tease along his cock and cup his balls, and oh my God, this was--

"Been driving--crazy--all day," Rodney was muttering, pushing John's legs apart with his thighs.

"Me too," John tried to say, but he was panting and it took two tries before he could get it out.

He'd thought going without underwear would be scratchy or something, but the lining of his pants was fine silk and instead it had been uncomfortable because it was too damn stimulating, especially with his newly-acquired husband staring at him and hovering and touching him possessively all day.

"Come on," he said, and hooked his ankle around Rodney's leg.

"Yeah," Rodney agreed, and jerked John's pants down, finally. He lowered himself carefully onto John, lining up their dicks, and started very slowly rubbing himself off against John's stomach. Rodney's cock was hard and leaking, leaving a trail of moisture on John's skin.

The brush of his chest hair and his dick next to John's felt amazing and crazy, so good John couldn't do anything but lie back and cling to the floor and lift his hips up pleadingly. One stroke would shoot him to the edge of coming, and the next would leave him hanging and starved for faster, harder, more. "Touch me," John choked.

Rodney laughed and whispered, "What's the matter? You didn't read this part of the manual?" Then he moved down and sucked John's dick into his mouth, quick and confident.

The back of John's head smacked hard into the floor. Rodney hummed around his dick and took it deeper.

Rodney pressed his tongue, slippery and clever, against the length of John's cock, sucking rhythmically and hard. His brain was going to be sucked right out through his dick. Oh, fuck.

John tried to ask for his own copy of the handbook, but discovered the only sound that came out was a confused whimper. He tangled his hands in Rodney's hair and tried really hard not to thrust too hard into Rodney's mouth.

But Rodney had hold of John's hips and was stroking his belly soothingly with tiny passes of his thumb, and he slid his mouth off wetly to pant, "Come on, come on, go ahead" before wrapping his lips around John's cock again and sliding down again, deeper and then all the way. John could feel throat muscles and tongue and hot and wet and soft all around and then Rodney swallowed, and John came.

"Oh," John breathed. "Man."

"Yeah," said Rodney, resting his forehead on John's stomach, "you want to try for the bed now?"

"Bed sounds nice," John mumbled. It did; he just really didn't want to move. He let his eyes slide closed, just for a second, to savour the thick, heavy contentment of a really incredible blowjob.

"If you go to sleep you're going to owe me twice as much sex later to make up for it," Rodney told John's stomach, so close his breath was warm and moist on John's skin. That felt really nice too.

"I'm not planning to fall asleep," said John, sitting up to take off his shirt. "But I'm young and my refractory period is good, so I probably wouldn't say no to twice as much sex."

The bed was huge, made up with shining white pillowcases and beige covers that looked like silk and puffed up around him when Rodney pushed him gently back into them. John wrapped his arms around Rodney's shoulders, wide and just slightly muscled; Rodney's skin was smooth and warm and pale everywhere, and sensitive, Rodney shuddered and arched into his touch and tried to press back into his hands and grind down against his body at the same time.

John had never felt like this before, which wasn't so surprising in one way since he could count on one hand the number of times his sexual encounters had made it to the naked stage, but he was absolutely positive that this was different in a very, very good way. And it wasn't just technique, although Rodney clearly knew what he was doing with his mouth on John's collarbone and his hands spread out and sliding soothingly up and down John's chest, the way he sucked at that single spot high on the inside of John's thigh until John was crazy for it before he pushed a wet finger into John's ass.

Rodney was mouthing his hip. "So hot," he said thickly, "had to have you--God, when you started yelling back at me--"

"Oh--okay, whoa, you have me, you have me," John pleaded, lifting his leg, "do I have to yell at you again?"

And Rodney raised his head and met John's eyes, smiling and looking just a little surprised--his eyelashes dropped, and his mouth was reddened and abused and still wet, and John made a stifled groan and lunged forward to kiss him.

"Ridiculous to think a handbook could possibly cover," Rodney was babbling as he finally pushed into John's body.

John's mouth fell open and he suddenly realised that every single nerve in his body was connected to every other one, as a relay of them going from the base of his spine slowly lit up one after the other as Rodney stretched him open for the first time. Nerves he didn't know he had were painfully awake, overloading with sensations.

He blinked up at the tastefully lit recessed ceiling and curled his hips up to take Rodney's cock deeper.

"God," Rodney said hoarsely, folding himself down over John, weight on his elbows.

It felt full, and tight, and the unaccustomed stretch burned a little, the good kind of burn. John was still pretty much dazed with sensory overload when Rodney started to move in him and he discovered there was even more to feel, and better. "Oh," said John, "yeah, Rodney, yeah--"

He could barely move, thighs spread apart and folded back to his chest, flat on his back and pinned to the bed, but he strained up into the hard purposeful thrusts, hungry. Then Rodney hit the exactly right angle and John thought his spine would dissolve, he was scrabbling at the sheets and making some kind of incoherent sound. Okay, yeah, twice as much sex, John thought vaguely, how about three times as much--sex was great, he was all in favour of sex.

"Okay," Rodney said shakily, "I'm gonna--I have to--okay--"

And John urged him, "Do it, McKay, fuck," and Rodney sat up and grabbed John by the hips and fucked him hard, shoving himself in with no vestiges of politeness or self-consciousness until he stiffened, freezing with his cock deep inside John while he came.

"Jesus," John gasped and wrapped a hand around his dick, and jerked himself off with just a couple of hard strokes.

Rodney had collapsed on top of him without even pulling out first. John took a long, deep breath and a moment to be thankful that he wasn't going to have to move for a while, because right now he wasn't sure of his hand-eye coordination, let alone whether his legs would hold him up.

Even though he was motionless flat on his back, he almost felt a little dizzy. Wow. Wow.

"I'm going to go to sleep now," said Rodney without lifting his face up from the mattress, so it sounded kind of muffled.

John straightened his legs out cautiously and pulled the covers up over both of them. "Great minds," he said. "That's just what I was thinking."

John woke up twice during the night. The first time he went into the suite's freakishly luxurious bathroom--it was completely made of golden marble, walls and floor and ceiling--to take a piss and wipe some of the sticky mess off his belly. Then he wandered back into the bedroom and paused on his way to the bed to eat a handful more chocolate strawberries and turn off all the lights, crawled back between the cool satiny sheets and pressed himself into the curve of Rodney's warm body.

The second time he woke up someone was nuzzling his shoulder. John slowly blinked awake, opening his eyes in velvety darkness. His body was still and heavy with sleep. The cosy warmth under the covers, the soft smoothness of the sheets, the feel of Rodney's skin and the weight of his body covering John were incredibly comfortable. He would have wanted to go back to sleep, bask in unmoving contentment, if he hadn't felt the open mouth on his shoulder and the hand spread possessively on his chest like two burning brands.

A few seconds passed in silence--John had to count them himself; there was no clock in the room but the sleek little electronic alarm on each nightstand, no noise but the whisper of air circulation, even softer than his breathing. There was no more movement from Rodney for almost a whole minute, just the tiny shifts of his body against John's with each sleeping breath. He seemed soundly asleep, although his position couldn't have been very comfortable. John, however, was awake.

He moved his arm close and wrapped it carefully around Rodney. The rich sheets slipping over his skin and the living flesh under his touch were novel feelings, and he just couldn't resist more.

Soon he was stroking gently down Rodney's long back, learning the shape of it in the dark, trying to keep his touch light. There were the broad shoulders, the slopes and sharp edges of shoulderblades, the elegant indentation of his spine and the smooth curve of muscles and flesh beside it tapering to slim hips and just a slight hint of pudge padding at his waist. The small of his back was a neat hollow John could fit his thumb in, feel the knobs of vertebrae trailing to the cleft between firm, round buttocks. John couldn't resist filling his hand with one and trailing his fingers up from Rodney's thigh to his hip.

Rodney sighed in his sleep, moist breath on John's neck, and nestled closer. John closed his eyes, tightening his arm, and shifted to press his hardening cock against the weight of Rodney's thigh before he got a hold of himself and relaxed his grip.

It seemed like hours that he lay still there, hardly moving except, every now and then, the tips of his fingers, his face tipped towards Rodney's head where it rested on his shoulder, his dick half-erect against the hot skin of Rodney's inner thigh. He didn't count the seconds that time, but he knew it had to be more like a minute.

Rodney started moving before he woke up all the way, first hitching his leg a little higher across John's thighs, then rocking his hips, then finally waking with a quiet murmur and rolling completely on top of John.

"Mmmm," John whispered rustily, "hey," and gave up trying to keep his hands away from Rodney's ass.

Rodney groaned wordlessly and lowered his head in the darkness, seeking blindly after John's mouth, sliding sloppily from the corner and sucking at John's tongue. John grabbed his ass and thrust up against him and breathed him in.

Oh, he liked this, he loved it already. He opened his legs to settle Rodney's weight in between them and rubbed his cock on Rodney's stomach. One of Rodney's long-fingered hands threaded into John's hair, tilting his face up while he licked and sucked John's mouth until John was breathless, torpid and boneless.

It felt a little like a dream, so John was surprised to hear Rodney speak and it took long moments for it to penetrate the fog. "This is okay," he was mumbling, stroking the crease of John's groin maddeningly with the pad of his thumb. "We can do this."

"No no," said John, "it's all right--"

"I just don't want to..."

"I want you to," said John, whose belly was hot and knotting slickly with arousal at the thought. He tilted his hips and rubbed against Rodney. "Twice as much sex," he mumbled, and reluctantly moved a hand from Rodney's ass to pull his head back down for more kissing.

"I fell asleep too," Rodney whispered against John's lips, but his hand was back behind John's balls again, thumb pressing in carefully.

"Mmmmmmm," John agreed.

"Not that I'm trying to talk you out of it," he said distractedly.

"I won't--ah--hold it against you," John said as he felt the dull ache of Rodney's cock pushing into him, slow and steady.

Rodney didn't speak for a minute, shifting his hips back and forward in tiny rocking motions until he was fully seated, buried inside with his balls against John's ass.

The first thrust must always be the best, John thought as Rodney pulled back. Wanting it and then feeling it, the exquisite shock of penetration, the moments before you have time to adjust. Then he was adjusted and Rodney felt it, bent forward over him and thrust in harder, and John pushed back against him, reached out and grasped for him, trying to pull him closer.

Rodney was intensely concentrated and absorbed, his eyes focused steadily on John while he fucked him slowly and carefully, stroking gently down the backs of John's trembling thighs while he moved deep in him and slid back, letting John feel every inch.

"Good?" Rodney whispered once, and John struggled up to kiss him, flung an arm around his neck. Rodney shuddered and curled against him, a couple of hard and fast straining thrusts that surged against John's prostate, and John came, panting. The pleasure shivered out to the tips of his fingers and toes, leaving him relaxed and eager, lifting his hips to take Rodney's last few strokes deeper.

"Oh my God," said Rodney, staring down at him and kissing him once, twice, again, then long and slow, intent, without breaking eye contact once, and John rolled them over and settled on top of him without pulling away or looking away, ran his hands down Rodney's arms, down his sides to his hips.

VI. In Which John Has an Important Realization and China Patterns Are Discussed

"No, bring it now, while he's still asleep, so that it's here when he wakes up," was the first thing John heard in the morning.

When he cracked an eye he spotted McKay--Rodney, he thought; he'd thought he'd trained himself already--standing in front of the crack in the classy brown curtains, speaking in what he probably thought was a whisper.

John couldn't remember the last time he'd felt so good. He wondered if he'd feel this good every morning if he started having sex every night. It was like his bones and muscles were candy left out in the sun, gone limp and stretchy and sticky. He took a long breath, inhaling sex and sweat and the same musky scent he'd recognised on the sheets in Rodney's penthouse, and closed his eyes again to let himself drift back under.

Somewhere in there he dreamed it was Saturday morning in his mom's house and he could hear her and dad talking in the kitchen, but when he finally stumbled down the stairs and through the door the room was empty, drenched with sun from the open window, with a skillet of scrambled eggs sitting on the table.

He sat in the chair at the table... the bed bent next to him and a shadow fell in front of John's eyes... the knot of dread in his chest loosened, and he felt a fingertip touch the corner of his mouth, jarring him gently out of the dream.

"Mm?" John sighed, and Rodney traced along the edge of his lower lip. It almost tickled; he wanted to look, wanted to say something, but he wasn't quite awake enough to open his eyes all the way, and then Rodney's head blotted out the light, and his mouth followed the path of his finger, tasting the corner of John's mouth first, lingering over the centre of his lower lip, and John melted all over again.

He could feel something quivering inside him, not in fear, but vibrating in sympathetic harmony, like an untouched guitar string singing with one that's been plucked. He was happy, relieved, to fall back asleep.

The scent of hot coffee finally woke John, hours later. There was a neat black folding table in easy reach of the bed--the side of the bed, not where John actually was, buried in a nest of tousled covers in the middle. He crawled out of them reluctantly, let his feet dangle over the side, rubbed his eyes, and reached for the polished silver lid of his breakfast tray.

The feeling didn't go away with his first sip of coffee or his first cup. It didn't go away when he threw back the curtains and let the sunlight pour into the room, so bright he flinched back and lifted his hand to shade his eyes.

"Maybe I'm wrong," John said out loud to himself, very reasonably. His voice was loud in the luxurious sound-proofed honeymoon suite.

After all, he'd never been in love before.

But, "They say you can't mistake the feeling," he muttered, refilling the gold-rimmed china cup. This time he took the time to add some cream from a little silver pitcher before he took a sip.

He wasn't wrong. They were right. John was willing to bet he'd know the feeling if he'd never even heard of love. It wasn't the kind of thing you mistake. He frowned, rubbing his palm absently over his belly; there seemed to be a little knot of it there, or maybe there, at the solar plexus, or a little higher.

The honeymoon suite was huge. He was in a hotel room the size of the whole upstairs of his mother's house.

John wished, briefly, that he'd slept a little longer, wrapped up in the bed, soothed (and he knew how illogical that was, but he'd noticed it, it was definitely true) by Rodney's smell.

Then he called room service and got in the shower.

The assistant who arrived a few minutes after John's breakfast took John to a bank (although not a bank like any of the ones John had been to before--in this bank you didn't wait for the tellers, they waited for you--and John wasn't sure the grey-haired woman behind that massive oak desk was any mere teller, either) to get his own accounts, and access to others, more than he could remember; to the showroom of a car dealership ("You can drive, can't you?") to get a car; and to a reassuringly ordinary restaurant for lunch ("Chinese okay?" "Chinese sounds great"), where he showed John the hand-written stickynote in his dayplanner: "HAVE HIM CALL ME".

John peeled the sticky-note out and stuck it to the tablecloth next to his plate. Rodney had surprisingly nice handwriting for a man who didn't have to insert his own cufflinks if he didn't feel like it. He'd probably got his practise with equations. (He'd invented the AI software that made McAI Corp a household name himself, John knew from the employee magazine.)

His whole life, John had never been sure how to call a waiter over. His dad had had the trick, mom told him, but John couldn't remember that kind of detail about his dad. The two of them had sometimes sat for half an hour waiting for the check.

Something about his surreal half week since coming into Rodney's orbit had changed him. He lifted one hand, just a little, and a waitress came to his elbow. John asked for chopsticks and got a tolerant little smile.

"Do you know if I need any of this?" John asked the assistant (who had introduced himself as Marcus), indicating a handful of wires and electronic bits Rodney had insisted on buying with his phone.

"To make the call, sir? No."

"Thanks." John had given up on getting the guy not to call him sir. He speed-dialled Rodney on his new phone, which looked like a flattened silver bullet, only slightly larger.

"Yes!" Rodney barked.

"Uh, I can call back if this is a bad time," said John. "There was a stickynote. I think the nanny ran out of planned activities."

"Oh, it's you! Sorry. No. I mean, no, I have time. I always have time. Usually, anyway. I'm not doing anything--it can wait. You're at lunch?"

"Chinese," John answered happily.

There was a little pause. "Oooh, good idea," said Rodney.

"Food hasn't arrived yet," John suggested casually, "you'd probably have time, we're in the city centre, you could--" that hard lump of love seemed to have moved up from his solar plexus to somewhere under his voicebox, near the base of his throat.

"Oh, I--I could always just--but--um. Actually, I don't want to delay your lunch and I'd like to just get this project out of the way--but, listen, I haven't eaten, and if you don't have anything you want to do you could come up here after you're done and bring something for me--?"

Anything I want to do? thought John. Like what? "Yeah, yeah." John wondered if he was actually relieved. "The whole menu again, or...?"

"I like pork," said Rodney, "and I don't have time for the whole menu, but if you feel like treating the whole floor--hey, did you get a car? You can drive, can't you? Oh god, you do know how to drive stick?"

John laughed so hard that Marcus came around the table and took the glass of water out of his hand. "What? What's happening?" Rodney babbled in his ear. "Are you having a seizure? Are you hysterical, is this a nervous breakdown? John--"

Rodney's voice was rising anxiously on his name, and John finally got a grip and managed to say, "I'm fine, sorry. Just a little--you know."

"I don't know!" Rodney snapped irritably. "I've never had a nervous breakdown in a restaurant!"

Marcus was hovering nervously. John wondered if he was naturally uptight, or just used to being around Rodney. It took two emphatic waves before he'd sit down again. "It wasn't a nervous breakdown, I'm just trying to adjust to some, ah, rapid changes in my life. You know, they were going to let me drive the car away from the showroom?"

"So you do know... ?"

"Yes, thank you, Rodney, I do know how to drive stick, although until this morning none of my experience of it involved a Porsche, but I don't think that mattered to them. I've never been in a city this big, let alone driven in one, and given that I haven't had any idea where I was or where I was going in a few days, it didn't seem like the ideal time to get acquainted with the experience of driving a sportscar. Then there's the fact that he took me straight to the Porsche showroom in the first place."

Rodney sounded incredulous. "You don't like Porsches? It seemed like a safe bet."

"...Nevermind," said John.

"I didn't think you'd have a lot of trouble, anyway, there's a Mercedes dealership right down the street."

"I like Porsches," John interrupted. "Thank you for the Porsche."

"Don't be stupid," said Rodney, "you have to have a car. So you had it delivered?"

"Uh, yeah," said John. "He said they knew where."

"Yes, they're going to deliver it to my place of residence, which is located at my address. I thought about telling them someone else's address when I called to let them know you were coming, but then I remembered how easy facts are to check in this day and age. --Oh, so, how do you feel about china patterns?"

From Porsche to china patterns, thought John. "Uh, the food's here," he temporised.

"Nevermind, it can wait. Don't forget--"

"Sweet and sour pork? Pork fried rice?"

"You pick--just nothing with citrus, I'm deathly allergic. Make sure you check."

"Okay..."

"Really, you might as well get used to making decisions on your own," said Rodney, who apparently didn't differentiate between "making decisions on your own" and "making decisions for other people on your own".

But if he was going to have to make decisions for Rodney, he could probably get used to that too, as long as he was getting used to things. "No citrus, check," said John, trying not to smile too blatantly in front of the assistant, not really knowing why he wanted to smile in the first place. "I'll think of something."

So it turned out that what Rodney actually wanted John to come in to the office for, besides bringing Chinese food, was to pick a hand-me-down personal assistant. "Do I get in the line, too?" said Marcus, and Rodney waved him to the other side of a conference table without looking up from his paper bag of food.

"So you just want me to go down the lineup?" John asked. "I don't even get a one-way mirror? What about mugshots?"

Rodney looked up at him confusedly, then back down at the bag. "You got eggrolls! I forgot to ask."

"Lucky guess," said John.

"So," said Rodney, "go ahead. I think you've met everyone already. But, ah, the giant is Chris, then there's Mel, you've just spent half the day with Marcus, that's Ricky and Jeremy--what? oh, sorry, whatever, Julian."

"Nice to meet all you guys." John nodded. "Um..."

"You can ask them questions," Rodney spoke up around a mouthful of eggroll. "Well? Oh, come on, you're not a complete idiot, not one question? If it doesn't make any difference you could just play eenie meanie minie moe."

"What exactly does a personal assistant do?" John finally said.

Rodney had taken a seat at one end of the conference table. He was the only one in the room sitting, and he waved his hand vaguely.

"Kind of makes things go smoother," Marcus offered.

"Arranges meetings, transportation..."

"Takes notes, runs errands--"

"The things you would do yourself if there were two of you," said Jeremy-sorry-Julian, winning points for imagination.

"Everything, you rich assholes can't do anything for yourselves," said Chris-the-giant, lacing his fingers together over his stomach. John liked him, but figured it'd be a shame to steal him since he and Rodney seemed to have a lot in common.

"The stuff you only do yourself because you don't have a personal assistant," said Mel, straightening one lapel of her jacket.

"Well, I guess--" John started, and then had a thought. "Wait--are these all of your personal assistants?"

Rodney rolled his eyes eloquently, looking affronted that he couldn't treat that comment with the scorn it deserved until he'd swallowed some of the food in his mouth. "Of course they're not. I have seven main corporate offices around the globe! There are four assistants permanently in New York alone."

"So, what, you guys are the Toronto chapter?"

"We travel," chirped Mel.

"Rodney," said John, "is there somewhere I can talk to you alone, please?"

Rodney raised his eyebrows, but when John raised an eyebrow back at him his face cleared a little and he quickly wiped his mouth on the paper napkin tucked into his collar. "Uh, right. Sure, yeah, in here."

If John hadn't checked ten times today to make sure that, yes, Rodney had left him alone in the marriage bed on his first day of married life to go to work on a Saturday, he would have figured it out by the fact that Rodney was wearing jeans.

The jeans were worn and faded and clung slightly to his thighs, and John found himself standing close to Rodney's side, trying repeatedly to tear his gaze up to Rodney's face. Then he opened his mouth to ask what the point was with the personal assistant idea, and instead accidentally said, "I didn't realise you were going to have to go in to work today."

"Well, I'm not exactly working a regular day, just trying to take care of some things." Maybe he was as oblivious as he looked and hadn't heard the silent "instead of spending the day acting out all your porny sexual fantasies with me". "But, uh, sorry about--I didn't mean to wake you."

"Oh, no, no," said John. "I don't mind. Being woken, that is. It was good."

"Oh. Good," said Rodney. Nobody said anything for a second.

"So--this personal assistant thing--what exactly am I supposed to say?"

"How about 'that one'?"

"No, I mean--what if I pick your favourite one?"

"Is that all that's bothering you?" Rodney said, in the horrified tone of voice John associated with Mom having found something dead she wanted him to get rid of.

John kept his mouth closed; he didn't want to open it to say yes and hear "no" coming out.

So it was quickly settled that Mel was to baby-sit John until they got sick of each other, and all the other personal assistants escaped, looking relieved. John was left wondering just what, exactly, an expensive sex toy-slash-trophy wife was supposed to do to indicate he would like some more sex, please, when Rodney brought up china patterns again.

"Don't you have dishes?" John finally asked, giving in to the urge to stick his fingers in his hair and pull. His opinion on china for his whole life had been confined to "I will be in trouble if I break it".

Rodney sniffed. "No, I eat off paper plates. Of course I have dishes, but it's not like I actually picked them out. And for formal parties you have party planners, and you pay them well and they take care of that for you. Now that I'm married I'd like to own my own, and look, I'm having a formal party tomorrow night--otherwise you could have as long as you want to decide."

John adjusted the position of his head in his hand and looked at Rodney out of the corner of his eye, thinking about what to say. What he needed was neither "Who gives a shit?" nor "Okay", but some delicate balance of the two. He said, "Why don't you come too?"

"Me?"

"Party tomorrow night," John pointed out. "We don't have a particularly long time to get to know each another. Now, I've read your profile in the employee magazine, but most of your guests are gonna know you better than that. I just assumed you were planning to keep the, ah, manner of our acquaintance a secret."

"I know," said Rodney. His eyes were really wide, almost round even when he wasn't making this particular face. "Listen, I'll meet you as soon as I can, all right? I'd gladly blow off this work except, well, I have to be in London most of next week and I'd rather not spend my nights in teleconferences. I was planning to have more time in Toronto this month but--anyway, you don't need me."

Except John was starting to be afraid that he did.

VII. In Which Rodney Treats John To a Romantic Lunch and a Game of Truth or Dare Without the Dare, and John Smiles and Looks Pretty

Rodney had a sister named Jeannie and two living parents, and a photograph of his childhood cat in his wallet; three houses in Canada besides the penthouse; very definite opinions about science fiction; over fifteen cars and SUVs scattered around the world but not a single convertible; an allergy to lemon and an obsessive love for peanut butter; a scar on his back from the removal of a mole; two entire rooms at his penthouse devoted to electronic equipment of various kinds; a slight stutter when he got really nervous; and, he insisted, no favourite colour.

John had a mother due to check into a hospital in Norway for an experimental surgery in one day's time, and he still couldn't remember a day as happily, lazily idyllic as that Sunday. It was like the responsibilities he'd felt his entire life were nothing now that he'd given up pretending to control or understand his fate for a while.

"You'll see," said Rodney smugly when John asked where they were going.

"Ohhhh, a romantic picnic for two?" said John. "Honey, how thoughtful."

Rodney looked at him and lifted one sardonic eyebrow. "Keep guessing. I'll give you a hint--I'm allergic to grass."

"So no walk through gently waving sweet-smelling meadows of wildflowers then."

Rodney shuddered.

"The top of the--do they have something like the Empire State Building in Toronto?"

"Guess again," Rodney hummed, lacing his fingers together.

"Well, you can't be whisking me away to the Bahamas or anything, because we have a dinner party tonight," John mused.

That made a dent in the calm, smug expression. Rodney frowned for a second like there was something he was trying to remember. "Did you pick out the china?" he asked.

"Yeah," said John, "I tried to make the guy you sent with me do it, but he kept asking leading questions about what I liked instead--I thought he was a secretary, not a shrink?"

"Peter? He's not a secretary. He's one of my department heads. He's an engineer."

John blinked. "I'm sorry. I just assumed because of the way you belittled him and abruptly ordered him on a meaningless errand having nothing to do with his job that he wasn't one of your more trusted and responsible employees--"

Rodney snorted. "I can see you haven't learned anything about me in the last couple of days."

"Well, I like to think of myself as a fast learner," John admitted. "I'll keep it in mind in the future. The plates have this kind of blue border with these swirly white things and gold."

Rodney said "Sounds good" in a way that made clear he couldn't think of anything more boring.

"And they were, in fact, delivered last night," John added, casually sliding his hand around the gear shift to rest on Rodney's thigh.

Rodney tried not to look like he was glancing down; it took him a second to say, "Oh?"

"While you were asleep." He followed a few inches of the outer seam of Rodney's pants with his thumb.

"Uh--I didn't--wasn't--I wasn't asleep last night. Not until very late. We didn't fall asleep until--"

"Three am, but before that," said John, "when you took your little nap on the couch--"

"I didn't--oh, that? That wasn't a nap," Rodney protested, "I barely closed my eyes for a second."

"Well, in that second while your eyes were closed the bell rang, and I very quickly crawled out from under you, put my pants back on, answered the door, signed for the package, and then returned to the couch." He inched his hand up a little higher on Rodney's thigh and said thoughtfully, "I think I might've set a new landspeed record."

"You're talented as well as pretty," said Rodney tightly, "and we're almost there but if you--ifyoudon'tjustletmedrive--let me drive we're never going to get there--"

John moved his hand down closer to Rodney's knee.

"Thank you," Rodney said, with an odd mixture of snappish sarcasm and genuine relief. He looked a little flushed as he pulled into a parking space.

"'Robbie's Steakhouse'?"

"It's my favourite restaurant," Rodney explained. There was a hint of wistfulness in his tone, as for the remembered flavours of good pseudo-homecooked meals past.

"Okay," said John, looking around. "Empire State Building was way off base."

"Well," said Rodney, getting out of the car, "I couldn't take you to your favourite restaurant because, having never been to Toronto before--" John only heard the rest by scrambling out his own door, since Rodney had shut his behind him "--you don't have a favourite yet."

John put his hands in his pockets--jeans, thank God, not the kind of pants that had to match your underwear in any way--and followed Rodney across the parking lot, through the Drive Thru lane, and up to the door. "Oh, steak is fine, I love steak."

He'd always been fond of mashed potatoes, gravy, macaroni and cheese, and green beans, too, which was a very good thing. With a little salt, it was fine, and the cherry pie was wonderful, and Rodney argued with himself for almost thirty seconds about whether he should get another helping even though he wasn't really hungry enough, just because he liked the food so much and didn't want to "waste the opportunity".

John watched this with wide eyes which he didn't have to fake at all and a straight face that took a little bit of effort. But by the time he was finishing his pie and Rodney was finishing his icecream, he had given up on not smiling. He thought he would smile all day. It felt good. And it was just a bonus that it made Rodney suspect he was up to something.

"What? What is it?" He asked all the way back out to the car. "What? Do I have something on my face? You're not planning some horrible practical joke, are you?"

"No, you can relax, you don't have anything on your face," said John. "No, actually, wait--just a--turn your head, you might have something right--" John swiped his thumb slowly over the corner of Rodney's mouth and down the edge of his bottom lip. "Nevermind." He cleared his throat. "You're, uh, fine."

Rodney stared at him. "Was there really something on my lip or was that a come-on?"

"I don't need come-ons," John pointed out, wiggling the fingers of his left hand in front of Rodney's face. "I'm your wife."

Rodney still looked suspicious. "If, hypothetically, you had not been my lawful wedded spouse, would that have been a come-on?"

"We-ellll," John said calmly, "I wouldn't say no if you wanted to kiss me or--"

Rodney kissed him. He seemed a little furtive at first, and he made up his mind to do it suddenly and dove in quickly, but John's hand was still on his jaw, so he kept them from breaking any teeth, and he slid his hand up under the loose buttoned shirt Rodney was wearing over his jeans, like he'd been wanting to do since Rodney put it on at the penthouse. There was no undershirt, like he'd suspected, just the soft skin above the waistband of his jeans.

Rodney's kissing wasn't smooth, but it was good. At the moment it was aggressive and a little urgent, and he had to wipe his mouth on the back of his hand after he pulled back.

"Tell me something else," said John in the car.

"My freshman roommate, Randy. Got teased about matching names. He was a stoner. Nice enough but, sadly, a waste of genetic material. He hardly left the room, except for one time he vanished for two weeks at a time. His parents showed up to visit the day before he resurfaced. I had to cover for him."

"Randy the anti-social stoner, waste of genetic material, two weeks," said John. "Check. Okay, sixth grade teacher, Mr. Howser. Practically blackmailed me into entering the science fair, then he tried to get me expelled after I saw him downtown cross-dressing one weekend and recognised him."

"I made an atomic bomb for my sixth grade science fair project," said Rodney. John blinked. "It wasn't a working model," Rodney said impatiently.

"I used orange juice to test the properties of laundry detergent. I bet you won."

"I didn't!" Rodney sounded like he was still angry. "Can you believe it? It was blatant favouritism."

"Clearly," John agreed. Well, unless Rodney had gone to a very special school, he couldn't imagine anyone had actually deserved to beat an A-bomb.

"Oh," said Rodney. "Right, check. Early formative sexual identity experience, pervy older man who forced you to join the science fair and then tried to get you kicked out of school. You Americans," he finished with an air of wonder, "are so sordid."

"Your turn," John reminded him, leaning back into the buttery leather of his seat.

"My parents are Presbyterians," said Rodney. "Not extremely religious, but I have vaguely unpleasant memories of falling asleep during the Easter service. My mother believes in ghosts. She thinks her laundry room is haunted by a ghost cat and a little boy named Wilbur."

"Anybody you know?" said John cautiously.

Rodney snorted. "Please, do I look like I know anybody named Wilbur? For that matter, who does? Do you know anybody named Wilbur? 'Wilbur' went out of fashion before we were born."

It seemed to be a touchy subject, so even though he was curious, John decided to move on. "Okay, haunted laundry room, check. Well--one of my happiest memories is my dad taking me up in a plane with him. It wasn't his, I think it must have belonged to a guy he knew; he was a pilot, but he still wanted to fly on his own time if he could. I must've been about four or five. I wanted to be a pilot, back then."

"You wanted to be a pilot? So your dad's crash, ah--"

"It pretty much ended any special relationship with planes for the whole family, yeah. My mom's afraid of heights now. She won't even use a ladder."

"Oh," said Rodney. "Right, I guess--that almost makes sense, in a way. I mean, not that a plane crash has a lot in common with falling off a ladder--I mean, falling off a ladder you might break an ankle or even your neck, but I doubt your dad died of a spinal cord injury, I mean, if he didn't blow up he was probably crushed, or I guess he might've bled out, but still--uh--" He was stuttering to a stop like a clockwork toy winding down, but apparently he couldn't actually stop. "If you don't hate heights too--I'm assuming from the way you said it that it's a problem your mother has and that consideration for her and the family dynamic were the real factors that, uh, do you want a plane?"

"I--" John just stared at him.

"To fly?" He tacked on hastily, sounding, if possible, even more embarrassed.

John blinked and tried harder to formulate a response, but once again, Rodney didn't give him a chance. "Not that you could fly it right away of course, and I'm sure we could arrange something in the meanwhile, I mean, I already have a private jet but it's a little large for personal recreational purposes. I mean that it would be easy enough to arrange some sort of flying lessons. Mel could arrange them for you. You wouldn't have to go through me at all, of course, you've got plenty of money in your personal accounts, let alone the joint accounts that you have access to, to buy a dozen planes if you want to. Not that I recommend it, I think one plane would be sufficient."

"Sufficient?" John finally got out.

Now Rodney looked very slightly offended. "More than sufficient."

"Maybe we should talk about this later," John suggested. "What with the party and all."

"Right. Good point," Rodney agreed. There was a little silence, just long enough for John to wonder what he was going to wear and whether everyone was going to hate him, and then hate himself just a little bit. "I'm allergic to wool," Rodney blurted.

"Okay," said John, "Wool... wait a minute--really?"

"Well, very mildly," Rodney admitted.

"Oh, mildly," said John. "So should I be worried about buying sweaters...?"

"It can be really itchy and I've been known to break out in hives. But I have this stupid attachment to cashmere, they just haven't invented an acceptable fibre substitute. Artificial fabrics feel horrible, cotton just isn't soft or warm enough and silk is too slippery. It feels gross. I mean, silk long underwear, fine, if you're going to the north pole, or a silk dress shirt, everybody wears that, but not a silk sweater. And I still buy wool suits."

John thought about that one in silence for a minute, struggling between the flabbergasted amusement he couldn't seem to get over with Rodney on one hand and the persistent knot of love on the other. (It kept reappearing at the strangest times, feeling heavy and tight and sometimes swelling so his whole chest and belly felt full of warmth.) In the end he managed to beat back the impulse to point out that Rodney had left out some kinds of natural fibres, and instead disclosed that he'd always been gay, but he'd fooled around with exactly one girl while hanging out with the drama geeks in high school.

After almost a whole day of playing truth or dare without the dare, John in a funny way felt kind of over-prepared for the dinner party. For one thing, his head was practically bursting with trivia about Rodney McKay. For another, he'd been distracted most of the day from thinking about the party at all.

"Shouldn't we be getting ready for the party?" John asked at one point, and Rodney stared at him blankly for a second before saying, "It takes ten minutes on a bad day to get dressed, assuming I'm not trying to do anything else at the same time, and until then I like to help by staying out of the way. You know, caterers can get remarkably snippy right before an event."

John wandered out and introduced himself to the caterers while Rodney was in the shower, mainly to find out what they were serving and where the liquor was, but also to issue a blanket apology for Rodney's, well, being Rodney.

It was a good thing he did that, because later John had cause to be very grateful that he knew the location of the liquor. After the executives and other polished rich people had been introduced to him and finished trickling into the penthouse's elegant common room, a strange kind of gravity seemed to go into effect, and Rodney and about half of the rest of the room got sucked into conversations about business or science or both, and somehow the new current moving people through the room deposited John right in a bunch of women in mysteriously engineered dresses and stunning jewelry. He tried to edge out, but it was no good. He was with the trophy wives. Because he was a trophy wife.

Of course, he already knew that, but it was a little hard to carry on a conversation with a redheaded Meryl Streep lookalike or a brunette wearing so much gold jewelry she looked like some kind of Aztec princess when he kept thinking, I should be cutting this woman's grass. It didn't help that fancy dresses and jewelry always made him feel sort of like china did--don't touch, dry clean only.

John didn't really know what anybody, let alone trophy wives, talked about at this kind of thing, but they seemed nice, if a little scary. So he was happy enough to refill their drinks, listen to their conversations, and occasionally deflect questions about himself; if the worst he had to do was talk about American high school football and his fondness for ferris wheels, and admit once that his father had been in the military, he figured he was getting out of his first formal dinner party relatively unscathed.

Then the redhead--her name was Robyn--brought up what she called "trading in", and the whole group went quiet and then started talking all at once, their voices lowered with anxiety. "It happens to more and more," Robyn said, "it seems like everybody I know is getting divorced, and how many men do you know over forty-five still married to their first wife?"

"It's catching," said the Aztec princess.

"It's like a trend," said a short blonde in a short white dress.

"That's it exactly, it's getting more socially acceptable," Robyn exclaimed, "and the more who do it the more it happens. I'm saying, it's almost not a question of if anymore, it's a question of when."

Most of the women seemed to think it was funny in a way. "I think I've still got a few years in me," said a woman whose name John hadn't caught because her dress showed way too much cleavage, and most of the others laughed.

While John was standing there horrified, and not sure if he was witnessing an example of sexism or reverse sexism or a reason to feel sorry for them, the short blonde--Mary, he remembered--noticed the look on his face and tugged him over by the elbow. "Look at this face," she said.

"We've scared him," Robyn laughed. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to mess up your honeymoon. You shouldn't be worrying about reality yet."

"You get a few weeks free," said the Aztec princess dryly.

"No, but seriously, some of us are very happy," said one of the women who had laughed--he thought it was Beverly. "You can't predict the future."

"And almost nobody gets traded in for the secretary--"

"--or the pool boy--"

"--in the first couple of years."

"What is the shelf life?" said the blonde.

"Seven years for perfume," someone suggested.

Robyn shrugged elegantly and bent her head to sip daintily from her martini. "The lifespan of a possession depends on how valuable it is," she said meaningfully. John decided he didn't like her.

"That's the problem in the first place," someone explained. "When they think of people as objects they treat them as possessions."

Fortunately the smalltalk portion of the evening didn't last too long, because John caught a caterer's eye and tried to mime "How long before dinner?" and she apparently thought he meant it was dinnertime. She winked at him and said something in Rodney's ear and a few minutes later they were all sitting down at the table.

"These are nice place settings," Rodney whispered in his ear. "I like the blue."

The table was glittering, in a very tasteful way, with glass and the gold on the plates, silver cutlery and candleflames. "Your caterer sure knows how to throw a party," John murmured back, taking the opportunity to rest his hand on Rodney's hip.

"Don't worry," said Rodney. "I don't do this often. Feeling a bit lost?"

John shrugged and put down his empty glass. "I'm fine," he said with less than complete honesty.

"I never get used to them myself," said Rodney. "I find the trick is to enjoy the food." There was a contemplative pause while they both looked appreciatively at the main dish on the table, which John happened to know was chicken breasts stuffed with chevre, spinach and roasted peppers.

"Shouldn't be hard," John admitted.

"Right, and you don't have to worry about being witty and charming yet," said Rodney. Up until that point he was fine. It was when he said "All you really need to do is smile and look pretty" that John started to get upset.

It wasn't rational to get angry at Rodney for regarding him as a trophy wife, John told himself calmly. He was a trophy wife, which he admitted, calmly. He was, in fact, a purchased wife, and he'd been willing to act as a hooker, which was a fact he certainly hadn't forgotten, so it wasn't like there was some moral highground for him to claim, John reasoned. Rodney had been very upfront about proposing to John based on aesthetics (that, and a whim, evidently, but those were apparently par for the course with him).

And also, it hadn't been quite two weeks since the first time he ran into Rodney outside that restaurant. That wasn't really long enough to form the foundation for an ordinary and sane relationship even if they had been going on dates instead of not speaking at all for the week until John ran out of cancer-expenses options.

And, well, this was Rodney.

Really, it could hardly be less rational to be angry at Rodney right now.

But that didn't stop John.

And that didn't mean he was going to let this continue.