Author: miasnape
A/N: I'm terribly sorry for inflicting this mush onto the world, but I wrote it, so I'll post it.
Ring Cycle
The skin on John's lower lip is rough and broken. He's been biting it since he woke up at five-thirty am and realised what day it was. At least he's stopped pacing now. Teyla threatened him.
Ronon's with Rodney, somewhere. John's not going to think about that, because he'll just start pacing again.
"You have the ring, right? I mean, I know you checked to make sure you had the box, but the ring is in the box, right? We checked that?"
Teyla puts a hand on his shoulder and smiles serenely at him.
"John, the ring is in the box. It is the correct ring. Nothing is going to go wrong. You need to calm down."
John nods. "Right. I can do that. I'm calm. Never been more calm in my life." He knows he's being, well, annoying for one thing. Uncharacteristically hyperactive, for another. It's the nerves. If a man is ever entitled to nerves, it's on his wedding day, and oh, don't go there.
"Can I just check it myself? I think I need to check myself."
Teyla breathes deep, then shakes her head slightly, obviously greatly amused by him. "If it will help you, to do so, then yes you may."
She has a drawstring pouch attached to the waist of her skirt. The only thing in it is a jeweler's box, which hopefully contains the ring they chose. One of the rings. Ronon will have the other one secreted somewhere, probably in his hair. Just like this one will go from Teyla's pouch into his shaking hands and then onto Rodney's left hand, the other one will go from Ronon's hair into Rodney's hands, then onto his left hand. A few words and a kiss and presto, he'll be a married man. Oh god.
"Okay, okay, the ring. Right." The box opens and John sucks in an unsteady breath. "Great. Good. Okay. So we have the ring."
He hands the box back to Teyla, who sits beside him and looks at it.
"My people do not exchange rings at our marriage ceremonies. It clearly has a deep meaning to you."
John's known Teyla for long enough that he knows a question when it's not quite asked.
"Yeah. It's... Some people say it's just a way to mark someone as your property, but it's not."
He watches Teyla's long finger trace the curved metal. "What does it mean to you?" she asks.
John bites his lip again before haltingly trying to explain. "It's a symbol. The circle, it's an infinite loop. It's a forever thing. It's... a way to show everyone that... the person who put it on my finger wants to be with me for the rest of his life. And I want the same with him."
Trance-like, John reaches for the ring and tugs it gently out of the box, turning it over between his fingers. "It's how Rodney will always know that I love him," he says, more to himself than to Teyla, and yeah, that's what he wants.
He hands the ring back to Teyla, who puts it carefully away with a smile.
"It is time, John. Are you ready?"
John stands and brushes non-existent creases out of his dress uniform, straightening already-straight medals and pulling his shoulders back.
"Yeah," he tells her, "I'm ready. Let's get me married"
----
"Are you gonna throw up again?" Ronon asks, and Rodney looks up, indignant. It had been the toast at breakfast. He wasn't sure what exactly you could do to toast to make someone vomit after eating it, but somehow the people in the mess hall had managed it. It had absolutely not been nerves. And it certainly had nothing to do with the fact that he's getting married. Jesus, he's going to get married. And there's the nausea again.
"I'm not going to lie to you, big guy, it's a possibility."
Ronon snorts. "You'll be fine, McKay. Just don't faint."
Rodney hadn't even thought about that. "Oh god, I'm going to pass out. I'm going to be standing there in front of John and everyone and I'm going to faint like a little girl, and then John's going to think I don't want to marry him, and then--"
"McKay, calm down."
Ronon looks just as calm as he always does, but then again, for him this isn't the biggest day of his life. The most important. The one where if he messes it up, his whole life is just going to suck.
Rodney forces himself to breathe deep. He won't mess it up. He's a genius. If he can do things with physics that would make Einstein weep he can get through his wedding day without some kind of emotional breakdown.
"Right. Everything's organised and everyone knows what's going to happen. You do, right? You know what's going to happen?"
Ronon leans back against the wall, looking surprisingly natural in the suit they'd convinced him to wear, even with the hair. "I stand behind you and give you the ring when it's mentioned."
Rodney's mouth opens, then closes. "Actually, that's pretty much it, yes."
"You stand at the front and say what they tell you to say and do what they tell you to do, and then you're married."
Rodney blinked, his pulse slowing into the normal range for the first time since the toast incident. "Right."
Ronon comes forward and puts his hands on Rodney's shoulders. "This is the easy part, McKay. The hard part's living up to what you're about to promise."
Rodney nods. "That's actually the part I'm looking forward to."
Ronon claps Rodney's shoulder, for once not almost dislocating it. "Then you're set."
Rodney smiles. "Okay, big guy, it's time. Let's go."
----
When John sees Rodney he starts to smile, that big goofy smile that Rodney says makes him 'look like a doof, albeit a sexy doof'. Rodney smiles too, the breathtaking one that John hasn't and can't ever comment on, because he just doesn't have the words.
Rodney looks amazing in his tuxedo - his very expensive, perfectly fitted, classically-styled tuxedo. But then John thinks that Rodney looks amazing tangled up in sheets, asleep and drooling on John's chest, or in a sweaty science uniform, with his hair messed up and dirt smudged on his cheek after crawling around under consoles for two days straight. And John's pretty sure that Rodney's still going to be amazing to him when he's old and grumpy and bald.
John can't take his eyes off Rodney throughout the whole ceremony, not even when he's fumbling behind him for the ring in Teyla's hand. When he says 'I do' he's never meant any words more in his life, and when they kiss, their friends clapping and cheering in the background, John never wants it to end but he's still smiling when they break apart because he's going to have the rest of his life to keep kissing his husband, and wow, he's married.
----
They spend a lot of the reception being dragged in opposite directions to receive congratulations, but Rodney keeps gravitating back to John. John, who looks dignified and proud and almost glowing in his dress uniform, and who seems just fine with stopping mid-conversation to pull Rodney to his side with a quick kiss.
He's never been more beautiful, Rodney thinks, and he's his. His to kiss and argue with and make love to and fight alongside or just to stand quietly with eating cake while they watch their friends make fools of themselves on the dancefloor.
While Radek and Simpson hand jive like they're part of the cast of Grease, Rodney brings John's left hand up to his mouth and presses his lips to the metal band on his finger that's already skin-warmed like it's always been a part of him.
"I love you," Rodney tells John, who grins that stupid, attractive grin and pulls him close, chest to chest, and starts them moving together in their own dance, leading them in a slow side-to-side rocking that's not at all appropriate to the cheesy music that's pouring out of the speakers, but that feels great.
"Really?" John mumbles in his ear. "'Cause I'm not all that sure about you, you know."
When Rodney shuts him up, it tastes like white icing, and if John's never been more beautiful, Rodney's never been happier. Ronon was right, this is the easy part. He can't wait to get started on the hard part.
END