A/N: This story was written for the satedan_grabass thing-a-thon community in LiveJournal
Pairing: Sheppard/Ronon (slash)
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: happy ending, a bit of trust and a light mention of Ronon's family
Disclaimer: SGA is so not mine
Notes: Thanks, as always, to my wonderful beta, aviss , for her patience and her help.
And to zvi_likes_tv , I hope you enjoyed as much as I did while writing it. I'm kind of a football fan and John and Ronon enjoy sports too much in the show, so I couldn't resist the temptation^^
Warnings: Set immediately after Midway 04x17 Sports discussing? A light bias towards football, European football for the author's part maybe?
~ Ten days to Atlantis ~
To be locked in a jumper with four annoying scientist was on the top of a long and extensive list of worst-experiences-ever according to John Sheppard. The endless discussions and verbal fights were enough for him to reach the point where shooting them seemed a really good idea, especially at times when McKay and Kavanagh started some random and useless disagreement.
By the time the Daedalus arrived to their location John was so grateful that he even contemplated the possibility of kissing Colonel Cadwell as a very big thank you, but just a peek at the always serious and "I-mean-business" colonel's face made John discard the idea. Especially when he could still feel the tingle of Ronon fingers tickling his nose.
Speaking of Ronon, John was never going to allow him to go to Earth alone again. For some inexplicable reason the full SG command was taken with Ronon, and all of them had decided to introduce him to the goodness of Earthy life. Which was all nice and good, if it wasn't because John had been doing the same since he met Ronon three years ago, and some SG members were goingto undo all his work.
Yes, John had no doubt about that.
He got the first clue on the fourth day at the Daedalus. By that time Ronon had already run out of marines to torture, or according to him to spar with, and they had done all the catch up the first day already. So he was taken aback when Ronon appeared on his cabin with a set of DVD with several Premier League matches recorded, and also from the quarters-finale onward of the last Champions League.
"Soccer? ¿Where the hell did you get soccer matches?" John asked in disbelief.
"I've been told the correct name is football," Ronon answered nonchalantly, sprawling on John's bed like it was his own. "Lieutenant Lloid and doc Grimau were arguing about the outcome of last year's Champions finale in the gym. I asked about their teams because I haven't heard about them before, and they were nice enough not only to tell me about real football but to show me some recorded matches as well."
"Oh please, real football? Real football my ass!" John exclaimed just a little bit annoyed. "I'll show you what real football is, I'll show it to all of them." John went on rambling, walking around in the cabin. He didn't see how Ronon smirked at his words.
"I'm sure you will," Ronon said, a hand lazily scratching his beard and the smirk on his face even wider if possible.
John stopped dead on his wandering and looked down at Ronon. "I will exactly what?" he asked with no idea what Ronon was talking about, even if it was an answer to something he had said.
"Show me." Ronon replied, his long body too big for John's small bed.
There was something in Ronon's pose and tone that made John cringe inwardly. The smirk plastered on this team mate's face giving him chills without any reason. Or a reason he could not allow himself to think about.
"Yeah... right... Let's see if we can snag a projector from McKay or some of the other scientist..." John replied suddenly feeling awkward. He held a hand to Ronon to help him get up and they got out the cabin to pester some poor technician. If John's hand felt tingly for a while, he preferred no to read too much on that.
On the sixth day on board the Daedalus John spent all morning – or what they had decided was morning – and the two days before that one discussing plans, stock, strategies and other things he wasn't listening at all, with McKay and Cadwell. The last meeting had barely finished and John was already running out the room before the colonel or McKay could stop him to discuss another boring subject. After all he already had plans. He was going to show Ronon what football really was, and why it was the best sport on Earth, on the Milky Way. Even better, it was the best sport in the whole universe!
What John hadn't expected was to find Ronon playing basket with three other marines in one of the exercise rooms. Part of John's mind was blown by Ronon's astonishing body. It was always like that; he would watch Ronon spar, exercise or fight for hours or just seeing him passing by, and the reaction was the same: an intense rush of arousal coursed through his entire body. John was used to that, he had learnt to control it and calm it. And even if that reaction was the kind of thing that John preferred to deny it had happened at all, in Ronon's case he just shrugged it off and convinced himself he wasn't alone on that boat, everybody was a bit Ronon-sexual, so no harm done.
The other part of John, though, was feeling extremely annoyed. After watching several soccer matches with Ronon the previous days, John decided he needed to convince Ronon of how much greater was football than soccer, so he spent the rest of the day asking around for Superbowl videos. It was not a surprise to find out several of them, specially from the last finale. That was what one could expect in a spaceship where half the crew were US' males.
'Is Ronon doing this on purpose?' John wondered. It felt almost like Ronon was cheating on him... which was a stupid though if he ever had one.
For the last two years John had been trying to get Ronon interested in football – American football – and golf. And had his friend shown any interest? No, nothing, zero. And now for some reason Ronon was watching bloody soccer and playing basketball like a pro.
'But by God, what a pro!'
John considered leaving for a while but in the end decided not to, and waited for Ronon to win the match. Because obviously Ronon was going to win.
'There hasn't been invented yet a sport in which Ronon can't excel.' John though, a smile on his lips at the vision of Ronon jumping and scoring in an impressive smash.
"Twenty one to fourteen," Ronon said.
"Yeah man, I think we have won," the marine playing with Ronon said.
"Oh really major?" John asked, making himself known. "And how many of those points have you scored?" John added with a smirk.
Ronon barked a laugh and threw a dirty towel to John.
"Come on Sheppard, let's go to eat something," Ronon say, waving goodbye to the marines and pushing John softly so both of them could go out the room.
"So... are you planning to play all the Earthly sports just to annoy the hell out of me?" blurted John suddenly. He knew Ronon was a straightforward kind of guy, so there was no need to not be blunt.
"Not really, I'm just trying to find the most similar sport to the one we use to play in Sateda," Ronon answered shrugging his shoulders.
"Oh..." John said, he had not contemplated that possibility. "And have you?"
"Not exactly, but I think football is the one with most similarities, except for the part where our messat was as brutal as your rugby is," Ronon explained. "I used to play it with my father and brothers when I was a kid, and later I was in one of the army teams."
"Well, you need to show me how is played one of these days," John replied brushing shoulders with Ronon. "It might not be as good as real football is, being a mix between soccer and rugby as you say, but better that than let you play lower sports..." John concluded with a smirk.
"I don't know Sheppard, I think I'm quite liking some of those lower sport," Ronon said, both men getting into Ronon's cabin. "And everybody in SG command seemed so eager to play their own national sport. You earthlings are kind of weird sometimes."
"You have been working with McKay for the last three years and you realize that just now?" John asked, his eyes fixed on Ronon, who was throwing off his shirt, while putting away the rest of his gym stuff.
"Good point," Ronon agreed.
"So any other sport you wanna try? Because well, I'm an old-fashioned-football-American kind of guy, but... you know... you just need to ask," John said. He had sat down on Ronon's bed, and was feeling a bit uncomfortable under Ronon' intense eyes.
"Now that you mention it... I caught Mitchell and Jackson playing together in Jackson's office and I thought that maybe..."
"What!? Wait a second! You caught Colonel Mitchell and Doctor Jackson doing what?" John interrupted, sitting all straight up suddenly.
"Eeerr... I thought you weren't supposed to ask so I wouldn't be supposed to tell, you know?" was Ronon's answer, an eyebrow arched up to underscore the question.
"No shit... try half my life and you won't be near enough of how well I know DADT," John replied, trusting Ronon with one the most shadowed part of himself.
"I thought so..." Ronon said. He started slowly walking towards John, a wide smirk on his face. "Mitchell also told me, once he and Jackson stopped being hysterical about losing their jobs, that if you Don't Tell, nobody Does need to Know."
By the time Ronon finished talking he was kneeling in front of John, hands on the other man's knees, and an eager and hopeful look in his eyes. John swallowed anxiously, he had denied and fought that part of him during years, too scared to lower his guard and get caught. With Ronon though... He trusted Ronon with his life, surely he could trust him to be discrete enough about something as personal as that. Military discipline in his own planet being really helpful in this case.
Ronon seemed to feel John's inner dialogue, because pressing lightly in one of his knees he told him "You know I'm a man of a very few words, you don't need to worry about me telling anyone".
John smiled at his friends' words, it seemed so easy, so damn easy.
"And our cabins in Atlantis are next to each other," Ronon added, this time winking mischievously.
At that John started laughing. To hell with all. He wanted this so much, he wanted Ronon so much that it was even frightening. It had been so easy to fall for the other man... So why not? It wasn't like he wasn't used to live dangerously, was it?
He smiled, the confident Sheppard smile trademark, and grabbed Ronon by his dreadlocks.
"And poor me worrying about how not to get bored for the last three days of journey..." John said just before mashing their mouths in a fierce kiss.
'Still four days to go,' John thought. 'Four lazy days with nothing to do days but spend as we wish... And after these ten days, we'll always have Atlantis".