Here there be sex.
The city is like cut glass, like so many stained glass windows, with the glitter of water and light playing on each wall. John feels like each hallway goes forever, it feels like freedom, beautiful like the sky. He's wearing the uniform the projection had worn, gray and black, it feels like he belongs in it. He knows this is all just how McKay feels, but he cant help but think that maybe this was how he would have felt too. Like everything had so many possibilities, like the sky was waiting for him with open arms.
He explores the empty hallways till he finds what must have been a set of labs. He knows before he enters them he'll find McKay working in them. The man is all static-lines and excitement scribbling things on a dry-erase board. "Hey there McKay." John drawls, leans against a table and reads the equations Rodney is writing. He knows the answers, the math, he's always been good with numbers, no one would play black-jack with him. "Hey John." Rodney doesn't bother turning around, still scribbling, and it aches inside of him, because he knows now, -this- was what Rodney had wanted from him all along. Friendship, faith, he'd just wanted a fucking friend, for John to fill up that hole by just -being there- and fuck, was it really that much, really that scary to just be there?
"Would you turn these on for me?" Rodney looks back at him, still holding his dry-erase board pen, and pushes little things across the table toward him. "I think this one might be a game or something, but I cant get it to work, and you probably could, and you'd probably like it, I don't know know, seeing as of course I cannot get it to turn on, or I wouldn't be asking you to turn it on." John knows Rodney had seen the other John, his memories of everything were colored by him, and wonders if this was a replay of something, or just wishful thinking. "Better idea, lets grab some lunch." John prompts and watches blue eyes light up with unbridled glee. He knows the McKay outside, the one curled up on the examining table, that he'd never show that much open emotion, couldn't afford to, and it twists John up so much, how hurt and hateful McKay was out there.
"I think they have the blue jello today, with the lemon cubes, god I love that stuff." Rodney grabs his arm, tugging him along, and John smiles slowly, following. "You know that other universe version of me was allergic to citrus, wait I've probably told you that before." McKay frowns tugging them into a transporter. John reaches out and ruffles McKay's hair before the door shuts all the way. When it opens again, McKay still looks pleasantly shocked a soft smile on his lips. John cant help it, he grins and tilts Rodney's chin up, pressing their lips together softly. "You have, but I don't mind." John says quietly against the scientists' lips, and it's true, he wants to listen to Rodney ramble all day, learn everything he can, and he has every intention of doing so. For as many days as he wants, for weeks and it's just them, just the two of them. He lives this with Rodney, so much perfection.
John listens to him talk about work, finds himself arguing about which Doctor was best, about how Ledger was so obviously the best Joker and Christopher Nolan was a genius. Rodney preferred Ten to Five which was blasphemy, and liked the television series' version best, but John found he could forgive him when he had him pinned down on the floor beneath him, finally, after months together. Almost a year of listening and learning, and getting into each others skin, taking his time because there isn't any rush, not yet.
Rodney made soft little gasps against John's hair as he bit and sucked, made little keening noises and squirmed his hips when John pulled at delicate flesh with his teeth. He bit till Rodney's neck and shoulders were a mess of bruises and marks, and then he moved down. Rodney was a vocal and open lover, and John knew it was only because he didn't know, didn't know this wasn't what he thought it was. John found the lube in his pocket where he wanted it to be, and felt guilt when he looked up to see the open need and wonder in warm blue eyes.
When he presses the first finger deep into Rodney he leans over him, watches as the emotions filter across his face, hungrily eats up the passion and pleasure. "Your eyes are like the sky." The words slip out before he can stop them, saying it makes it true, makes John know it, he'll never forget it. Rodney's eyes are like freedom, when he thrusts inside, slow and steady, he can't look into them or he'll fucking come right there, so he doesn't. He hides his face against Rodney's shoulder instead, tastes the bruises he left on soft skin and just pushes, pushes till he's all the way in, till it feels like he's going to shake apart. Rodney is tight and perfect, makes such beautiful noises under him, and John can't help it, he thrusts and thrusts long before either of them are ready for it.
Rodney whimpers with each movement, and when John starts pounding into him, he's making strangled little shouts that completely undo John till he's just slamming into that tight heat, claiming and taking. His fingers dig into Rodney's hips, into the inside of his thighs, he leaves marks wherever he touches, leaves a trail of his desire and need till Rodney is sobbing with pleasure beneath him.
John opens his eyes to look down at Rodney, wanting to see him, to see the way those thin lips parted to sob out his name. But all he can see is blue, eyes so blue he can barely breathe, looking up at him with so many promises and so many secrets willing to be laid bare, and that is all John can take. He comes, so hard everything turns black, and when he can breathe again, it's to find Rodney is wrapped so tight around him, holding him close, holding him so that John is still pressed so fucking deep inside of him.
"F-fuck Rodney... did you come?" John shudders with the effort to speak and doesn't even try to move yet. "Y-yeah." Rodney laughs, it's a warm sound, John can feel it against his cheek. When John pulls his gun from the holster, he knows Rodney isn't expecting it, doesn't know. John moves, changes his angle, and his cock is so fucking sensitive it almost makes him loose his balance. John braces himself above Rodney on one arm, looks down at him, at the rise and fall of his chest, at the open expression of joy in tired blue eyes. "Good bye Rodney." John shoots him, watches the light die in those eyes, before sliding out and shooting himself.
Rodney is too groggy to realize at first, he hasn't been trained like John has, to move through the after-effects of the drugs. So John has the PASIV packed up by the time Rodney has stopped throwing up into the waste-basket near the examination table. He cant afford to wait around for Rodney to identify him, for the drugs to clear enough. He doesn't want to wait around, doesn't want to see understanding dawn, doesn't want to see pain snap into place before being hidden. John runs, runs from the guilt and runs from the memories, runs from what he'd given up without ever wanting to have. He can still feel the after-shocks, the glow of pleasure on his skin, of what he'd taken and could never give back.
They had a rendezvous point tomorrow, but until then John is on his own, alone with the knowledge of what he'd help to do, and even more, of what he'd taken from Rodney. Trust and emotion, and so much understanding that he was starting to doubt even the man's mistress had seen that deep, and wasn't that just like him, to fuck up someone who didn't even know him. He isn't allowed much time to feel sorry for himself though, the bitter cold smacks him back into reality, and he navigates the city, avoiding the heavier trafficked areas. He wanders aimlessly for awhile, till he adopts the guise of the businessman, rents out a room, and locks himself in the thick heat a dozen floors up. The world is dark by the time he puts the PASIV down on the bed. He sits in front of the heater, watches the moon rise into the clouded night, and lets himself feel the sense memory of Rodney beneath him as his body warms back up. It's something he doesn't ever want to forget, even though it was just a dream, even though he could never have it out here where it mattered. He never wanted to let it go, and when he can taste McKay's skin with each breath in, he knows now Rodney isn't the only one to be haunted.