"McKay to Sheppard."
John was in his office (for once) trying to do paperwork. He sat stretched back in his chair with his legs crossed resting on the desk and his mission report resting on his thigh as he stared at the blank spaces on the page and chewed on his pen thoughtfully. He jumped at the transmission in his ear nearly sending the pen across the room. He threw the pen and the papers to the desk and tapped his earwig.
"This is Sheppard," he responded trying to keep the relief out of his voice.
"John I have something you have to see, are you busy?" Rodney sounded excited. The kind of excited he got when he figured out a new equation for maximizing shield output or the coordinates for a new ZPM. Whatever it was John wasn't going to miss it for some lame paperwork that he'd been sitting here for an hour doing nothing but staring at.
"Nah. Where are you?" John asked rising from his seat and stretching his arms.
"Hold on," there was a momentary pause filled with stumbling noises before Rodney asked, "Do you have your tablet near by?"
John looked to his desk where the barely used tablet sat underneath his scattered paperwork. "Yeah."
"Okay I just sent you transporter coordinates. I'll meet you there," was all Rodney said before he cut the channel. John raised a non-committal eyebrow as he fished out his tablet and switched it on. The message from Rodney was the first thing to pop up. It was a transporter map with nothing but a circle around one of the transporter dots and the word 'HERE' underneath it. It was in a smaller building just to the east of the main control tower. John memorized its place and headed to the nearest transporter. Once he got in he poked the dot and the door swished in front of him.
When the door opened again Rodney was standing right there in front of it, barely inches away from John, his face lit up brighter than a kid's on Christmas, with his tablet in hand. John instantly pulled back, nearly crashing into the back of the transporter.
"Rodney what's this about?" Rodney stepped back enough to let John out of the transporter before he began.
"So lately when I've had some free time I've been going over the transporters all over the city to see if they're all working and whatnot and if they don't I put them on a list to check out later when we send teams out to explore the city," the scientist said excitedly as he started to lead John down a long corridor. John just fell into step beside him and watched him talk.
"Anyway when I got to this one I ran all the necessary diagnostics and so forth but then I had to take a leak," they stopped outside a set of doors that were larger and somewhat more grand-looking than most of the insipid doors John had seen throughout the rest of the city. John kept looking at him intently as he continued.
"And I went through every damned door in this hallway before I made it all the way down here and I found this-"
"Rodney," John warned, beginning to get impatient, "what did you find?"
Rodney stopped his rambling and looked at John with excitement in his eyes.
"This," he said as he waved his hand over the door controls to the right.
The large double doors swished to the side like curtains being drawn back to reveal a Da Vinci masterpiece. John sucked in a breath as he laid his eyes on the massive room. At first he noticed its sheer size. It was bigger than any other room they'd found so far in the city, ten times the size of the gateroom easily. The ceiling was what caught his eyes next. It was a dome in the middle that spread nearly to the walls, and it was completely transparent. John didn't know if it was glass but it didn't seem likely. The half sphere was completely seamless, without any metal beams holding it together at all and it shone in a way that played tricks on your eyes, like it was made of billions of tiny diamonds that had come together to form one giant bubble. At the base of the dome were round posts made of an iridescent stone almost like marble with a hint of mother of pearl that connected to the floor. They arched into each other forming an open circle under the shimmering dome about twenty feet from the actual walls of the room. The floor was a mosaic made up of more of the iridescent marble material in all different shades and colours. Its surface was completely seamless as well, pieces of coloured stone fitting into each other so well it was as if it was one giant polished slab.
John let go of a breath he hadn't realized he was holding onto as he took another step into the room.
"Rodney this is amazing," he almost whispered. Rodney came to stand beside him once he'd wandered passed the column-enclosed circle.
"I know right. I couldn't believe it. All I wanted was to find a bathroom but instead I stumbled across this." Rodney's own voice was quieter than his normal boasting tone. Soft, it held in it awe and a touch of disbelief. John turned his head to Rodney who stared up into the not-glass dome. The brightness in his eyes had intensified and his bottom lip lay slack. John had the sudden urge to run his finger across it. He mentally shook himself.
"So what is it for? Is it a ballroom or something?" John's voice brought Rodney back to the surface of the planet.
"I think so," the genius started as he turned on his heels and headed to the left side of the room.
"I found this," he pointed to what looked like some sort of control console implanted into the wall not unlike the ones in the transporter but a little larger. "I haven't checked it out yet but I think it's just some glorified light switch or something…"
Rodney put his tablet down on the floor and started to poke at the dark screen. As it came alive he poked again and before either of them knew it the whole room changed.
The spherical skylight darkened, becoming opaque with a colour near black. Over the black, a visage of a beautiful night sky lit the room dimly with a single bright moon and plethora of stars. It was as if the dome had completely disappeared and it was suddenly night, except instead of New Lantea's two small moons only one hung it its place.
Suddenly, music seemed to come from all around them. Deep tones that vibrated somewhere between an electric guitar and a bell chime created a moving melody accompanied by an airy sounding harmony. It was like nothing John had ever heard before on Earth. But of course, this had to be Ancient music.
John watched as Rodney turned to him in shock. It was a good kind of shock though. The kind of face Rodney McKay only got when he hit a realization of great importance and helpfulness. With Michael reining terror over the whole galaxy and the Wraith still at their finest John hadn't seen that look on his best friend's face in a long while. It stirred a feeling of great longing in him he couldn't explain in words. That kind of thing happened a lot around Rodney, and perhaps that he could explain. Not that he wanted to. Ever.
"Music," Rodney said simply. "Of course," he began making his way over to John. "There must be tonnes of it in the Ancient database. All we've been focused on are the science things, things about Atlantis itself."
John thought he heard a hint of regret in the genius' voice. Rodney McKay, astrophysicist, PhD PhD regretted not finding music of all things in a database full of nearly infinite knowledge. But then John knew there was so much more to Rodney than just what he tried to make people think he was made of. Science and cactus spikes. John almost laughed out loud at the thought of Rodney as one of those big cacti with two arms that people associated with cowboys and Texas.
Rodney had come to rest beside John again like he had before he's poked at the glorified light switch.
"Wow, see I knew that couldn't be just glass up there."
John's eyes found the man beside him again as Rodney surveyed over the area, careful eyes picking up all the changed made by the new soft, silver light. He watched as Rodney's body swayed ever so slightly to the ebb and flow of the music around them. His shoulders shifted with a crescendo as his eyes met the ceiling again.
"Do you wanna dance?" The words came out of John's mouth without his permission and he felt his stomach twinge in panic before Rodney's eyes came down to him.
"What?" John shifted awkwardly.
"Well you know it's a ballroom right? That means it's meant for dancing, I just thought, I dunno maybe you'd want to…" John's eyes fell to the floor. No, no, no, this wasn't happening. He tried to cap his mouth. Rodney would know now. Rodney would know and he'd never look at John the same way again.
"Dance," Rodney said it like it was an affirmation other than an insult like John thought he would. "Yeah I suppose…Why not?"
John held back his surprise. Rodney wanted to? But then he took a moment to see it as Rodney would, just to friends having a little fun with their new discovery. To see it as it was. Just two friends dancing.
John offered his hand and Rodney took it with an upturn of his lips. Just a small, quick, tight-lipped smile that was just so McKay that John's heart caught in his throat. He felt Rodney's fingers slip through his and forced himself to focus on real life.
At first they just sort of swayed. Gently rocking, staying only as close as they needed to. But soon the music picked up a bit and Rodney's hand found John's waist and all of a sudden he was leading them in a simple almost-waltz. Rodney's dance coordination surprised John.
"I didn't know you could dance," the colonial said with a hint of intrigue.
"Yes well when I was in university my old roommate got married and invited me. I figured the best way to enjoy myself was to, well, entertain some female company. Plus there were free dance lessons with the invite so I thought why not?"
John wondered how many lessons were offered, then wondered how many Rodney made it through before getting kicked out.
The thoughts slipped away as Rodney led him around the room again, John's years of dance training forced upon him by his father kicked in as he let himself be carried around as seamlessly as the floor they danced on.
Rodney's gaze moved constantly from John, to the floor beneath their feet, to where he was about to lead John, while John's own eyes never left Rodney. He should move them he knows, before Rodney catches him staring and ends their dance for once and for all but he can't tear his gaze away.
This is how he seems not to notice the music slow down, his hand slip from Rodney's to down to his elbow, or Rodney's hand shifting from his waist to further around John's back, bringing them a lot closer together than when they started.
John didn't notice any of this until the music slowed to a completely different melody and he was left swaying only mere inches away from Rodney. And then finally Rodney found his gaze. John's pulse raced and he could hear the blood rushing through his ears. All the parts where he and Rodney touched seemed to a tingling current running through them. John knew he should look away, take a step back before he did something stupid.
But as Rodney held his gaze in the fake moonlight that was nearly real and music he had never heard surrounding them and as he felt Rodney's fingers curve into his back he found that he could do nothing to stop his hands from traveling across Rodney's shoulders to cup his face and bring it those few more inches to meet Johns.
He almost felt helpless in his own body until their lips met and he finally, finally took hold of his body just enough to have his hand shift to the back of Rodney's head. Then the terror took over.
It was short lived. Right after he pulled back, separating their lips once more, before he could say anything Rodney's arm tightened around his waist and pulled them together completely.
Now Rodney's soft, skilled lips captured his between them and John's mind went blank. Now there was only Rodney. Rodney's lips, Rodney's arm around his waist, Rodney's hand in his hair, John's hand in Rodney's hair. John's tongue slipped out passed his lips and grazed the crease between Rodney's to have Rodney melt against him and his own tongue slide out. John didn't think he'd ever had a kiss like this in his life. Like every action Rodney took pulled puppet strings in John's body, making his stomach drop, his heart race and his knees weak. Rodney's moan made John feel like he was flying.
When they parted, they only parted a fraction, breathing in each other's air. John ghosted his lips down Rodney's chin to his jaw then along to his neck until he rested his head on his shoulder. It was only then that John realized they were still slightly swaying with the music.
"Almost six years," John could feel the vibration of Rodney's words in through their connected chests. His voice was breathy, air caressing the skin at the back of John's neck. "I guess those dance lessons did pay off eventually."
"Six years?" John asked against Rodney's neck. It was so surreal it was like he needed Rodney to explain in detail just how they got there for him to really believe they were standing, swaying, there this close to each other.
"Ever since you sat in that damned chair and made the whole room light up I knew I was a goner." Rodney sounded amused by his own words. It left John to wonder, what about the others? What about the rest? What about Sam and Katie and Jennifer?
"And you know I did everything to fight it," Rodney continued. "I tried everything that would have done it before, and it almost worked a few times too. I almost forgot I was in love with you for a while."
John's head shot up from Rodney's shoulder so he could see his face.
"In love?" John asked in disbelief. A panicked look crossed Rodney's face, a fear of rejection, and he turned his eyes downward.
"Yes."
"When you said ZedPM. The first time I heard you and everyone looked at you funny. I couldn't help myself, I knew I'd already lost the fight. Even with that stupid orange fleece."
Rodney's eyes immediately lifted to John's in a defensive stance.
"Hey I will have you know that that is the warmest sweater I have every come to wear and Antarctica, for your information, is cold." John's lips curved up.
"And after that you saved the world, Atlantis, the whole galaxy, I knew I was in love with you," John left the last words lingering on his lips for a moment before he pressed them against Rodney's.