audio version (mp3, 5.4MB, 15:25 long - please right-click and save)
John took a swig from his canteen and leaned back against the wall at the bottom of the east pier. The makeshift chair, a couple of pieces of canvas tied to PVC tubing, was actually quite comfortable. Waves lapped gently at the soft sand of the artificial beach; the sky above was a deep cerulean blue, unrelieved by clouds, and next to him, in his own PVC-and-canvas chair, Rodney was slathering himself with something that smelled really, really terrible.
"Jesus, McKay," he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He'd spiked his iced tea with the Athosian equivalent of whiskey; not bad, although a cold beer would have been even better. "If you're going to cover yourself with stinky grease, would you mind moving downwind?"
"This is not stinky grease," said Rodney. "It's my special sunscreen formula. When you're red as a lobster tomorrow, don't come crying to me."
"I'll put some on after I take a swim. Not yours," he added. "Military-issue sunscreen will do just fine for me."
"That's only SPF 15," said Rodney scornfully. "Mine's SPF 100."
"I seem to remember reading in Consumer Reports that anything over 15 is a waste."
"Ah," said Rodney, holding up a sunscreen-coated finger. "That may be true on Earth. But this planet is only 2/3 the distance from its sun that Earth is from Sol, and right now it's the equivalent of, oh, mid-July, and I don't know about you, but I am not interested in getting sunburned. Very fair skin, here."
John shrugged. "Suit yourself." He started tugging off his clothes.
"Wait a minute, wait a minute. You're going in like that? Naked?"
"Excuse me if I didn't think to bring swim trunks through the stargate. I had other things on my mind, okay?"
Rodney ostentatiously turned his head, and John hid a grin as he skinned out of his boxer briefs. They were hidden from the city by the pier wall above the little beach; nobody around to see him but Rodney, and Rodney wasn't even looking. Piling his clothes on the sand, he waded into the cool water. The sand quickly gave way to concrete, or whatever the Ancient equivalent was, and only a few feet later the bottom dropped out from under him.
"You can look now. I'm decently covered by water," called John. He swam a few strokes to the side. It felt good, just being out of the city and in the ocean. He'd suggested this beach trip on a whim, not really expecting Rodney to take him up on it, but it was turning out to be a good idea, he thought. Maybe he could even get Rodney out of his t-shirt and shorts and into the water.
He swam underwater back toward the beach, and as he came up, Rodney was saying, "That's not going to do you any good, you know."
"Hmm?"
"Being underwater." He held up a hand. "Oh, sure, if you're deep enough it attenuates the ultraviolet, but when you're close to the surface the water actually acts as a lens. You really should have put some of this on first."
"Wouldn't want it to wash off."
Rodney gave him a smile that John recognized from countless meetings. Tight-lipped, just a quirk of the edge of his mouth, it was the smug look Rodney always wore when pointing out that he'd been right all along, of course, and that by not listening to him in the first place valuable time had been wasted, and so on. Needless to say, to John it was a very familiar smile. "Not a chance. It's completely waterproof," said Rodney, as he scooped a gob of sunscreen with his fingers and began industriously rubbing the smelly gunk onto his nose.
Watching him, John frowned. "Should you be putting that on your face?"
"That's the most important place to put it! Too much sun exposure prematurely ages the skin, you know." Rodney's fingers dipped into the sunscreen again, then returned to his face. "Not that I'm vain, or anything."
"Of course you're not," said John soothingly. "But you should be careful around your eyes. My mother always made me wear a hat when I was a kid. Never put sunscreen on my face, in case I got any in my eyes, so I wouldn't go blind."
"Oh, please. It might sting a little, if you were sloppy enough to get it in your eyes. But blind? Don't tell me you fell for that old urban legend."
"It's the chemical that makes it waterproof, that's what she said."
"Urban legend," repeated Rodney, rolling his eyes. "I'd have thought you were smarter than to fall for that."
"Hey, it was my mother who told me. I had to listen to my mother, right?"
Rodney snorted. "As if you ever listen to anybody. Well, I hate to tell you this, but she was wrong. Just like she was about the other thing that supposedly makes you go blind."
"What other thing?" said John in as innocent a voice as he could manage. He swam back over the shelving beach to where the water was only a foot or so deep and floated there, a hand in the sand to anchor him.
Rodney waved a vague hand in the air. "You know. Don't do it or you'll go blind, right?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about," said John. He let his feet sink to the bottom and then rose to his feet, naked and dripping, watching with amusement as Rodney's face reddened.
"Here," said Rodney, studiously looking off into the distance. He thrust the jar in John's general direction. "If you're not going to cover up, you'd better at least put sunscreen on."
Shaking his head, he waved Rodney away. "I'll use my normal sunscreen, thanks."
"No, seriously. The sun's stronger, and you're exposing, um. Parts. You know, sensitive skin, I mean, faces are sensitive, yes, but other body parts that don't normally see the sun, you're talking major risk, here."
"Body parts, Rodney?"
"You know." His face turned, if anything, redder.
"Well," said John, "I wouldn't want to risk any important body parts. How about rubbing some of your sunscreen on them for me?"
Rodney's head swiveled back around so fast that John was tempted to make a joke about whiplash, and the jar of sunscreen slipped out of his hand to land in the sand below. "I - you - you want me to rub, no, wait." Rodney's eyes narrowed. "Are you flirting with me?"
John smiled. "About time you finally noticed."
"What?" shouted Rodney. "This is, you can't, I don't -"
"Listen, Rodney," said John, advancing on him. Rodney leapt from his chair and backed against the wall, his eyes panic-wide, and John shook his head. "You do. I know. I heard you in the shower."
"You what?" Rodney's voice held mingled confusion and outrage; John pursed his lips, wondering where to begin.
"Sit down. Please." He slid into his canvas chair and patted the seat of Rodney's chair, beside him. "There you go," he said encouragingly as Rodney sank into his chair and buried his face in his hands.
"Please tell me you're joking."
"Look. We've tapped into the city's communications system with our radios, right? That's how we can broadcast citywide -"
"Excuse me, but who did that? I think I know more about -"
"No," said John. "You don't. That's what I'm trying to tell you. The underlying communications system is still there, in every room of Atlantis. We don't need to use our headsets to tap in. I mean, if you have the gene."
Rodney lifted his head and looked warily at him; John could see the emotions warring on his face, embarrassment combined with his excitement in learning something new about the Ancient technology. "You tapped into the city-wide communications system without your radio?"
"Right. It was after the mission to P3X-764; I was lying in bed and thinking about how that game the natives were playing reminded me a little of football, and that got me thinking about getting some people together to watch the latest highlight disk that came in on the Daedalus, so I thought maybe I'd give you a buzz, see if you were busy the next day. Except my headset was across the room and I didn't feel like getting up.
"So I was thinking, 'hey, I should talk with McKay,' and all of a sudden I could hear your voice."
"In the shower," said Rodney, his voice flat.
"Well, actually you were yelling at Dr. Kavanagh at the time. But I thought it was pretty cool, so I tried -"
"You thought eavesdropping on me was 'pretty cool'? Oh, fine sense of ethics you have there, Colonel."
He sighed. "I thought it was something you might be interested in. And I guess Atlantis interpreted that thought as the equivalent of leaving a message, because it opened a channel when you, um. When you called my name."
"Oh, God," said Rodney, burying his face in his hands again.
It wasn't a surprising reaction, thought John. After all, he'd been pretty embarrassed on Rodney's behalf when it had happened. But then he'd felt intrigued. And then he'd…well, he wasn't going to tell Rodney that he'd been listening in a lot more frequently since then. Just to make sure that it hadn't been a fluke. Just to make sure that if he was going to take the risk, was going to ask Rodney out to an isolated beach at the edge of the city, that he might have a chance.
He slid his chair a little closer to Rodney, close enough that he could reach out and put his arm around him. "How many times do I have to say it, Rodney? I'm trying to make a pass at you, here."
Rodney looked up at him, then, and John could see hope in his eyes, even as the corner of his mouth quirked downward and his chin jerked slightly as he shook his head with disbelief. "You're not just making fun of me, are you? Because I can understand, you're military, and every time we go to a planet you've got these women hanging all over you, and it's hard enough to look at that, really, without -"
"For God's sake, Rodney," said John, and pulled him close, and kissed him. When John released him he savored the dumbstruck look on Rodney's face, just for a moment. "Now do you get it?"
"Oh," said Rodney faintly. He reached out a hand, moist with sunscreen, and slid it down John's bare arm. Just a brief caress, his fingers tentative against John's skin, but John felt it all the way to his toes. "Do I get it?"
John smiled. "If you want it."
Rodney looked at him, and John could feel the weight of his gaze almost as though it pressed on his skin; from his shoulders, down his torso, lingering briefly, finally, on his groin, and back up to meet John's eyes. "Yeah," Rodney said thickly. "I want it."
"Okay, then," said John. "Maybe you're a little overdressed." He reached out to tug Rodney's t-shirt off, and Rodney slid his shorts down, and then they were tumbling against the canvas of John's chair, falling with it to the ground, pressing against each other urgently and without finesse. Rodney's body was sun-warmed against the cool droplets of ocean water still clinging to John's skin; his lips tasted like sunscreen and salt.
Rodney groaned as their bodies slid together, incoherent babble streaming from his mouth like the waves lapping on the shore, all oh God and yes John and for Christ's sake don't stop, music to John's ears after all those denials both spoken and unspoken. Rodney's cock lay hot and heavy against John's thigh, and John reached down to take it into his hand.
"Is this what you imagined?" he whispered into Rodney's ear. He curled his fingers around the shaft, slipped his thumb back and forth across the head. "Is this what you saw when you closed your eyes in the shower and touched yourself?"
Rodney's answer was a moan and a shudder, and a noise that sounded almost like a sob when John let go long enough to dip his fingers into the jar of sunscreen, and a long, drawn-out wail when he closed his slick fingers around him again. "Yeah," said John as he stroked, "come on, Rodney, come for me," and Rodney thrust into his hand and came.
"Oh, God," said Rodney finally, after he had uncoiled himself from where he'd collapsed in a heap in John's lap. "You - I can't believe it. You."
"Yeah, me," said John.
"You planned this. You - you seduced me!"
"Are you complaining?"
"God, no," said Rodney in a heartfelt voice. A hand fluttered across John's ribcage, dipped tentatively lower toward his erection. "I just can't quite believe it."
"What's not to believe?" said John, shifting a little in the direction of Rodney's questing hand, hoping he'd take the hint. "After I heard you -"
"Eavesdropped," muttered Rodney.
"Whatever. I couldn't get the image out of my mind - you, thinking about me, stroking yourself." He slipped his own hand between his legs and gave his dick a few lazy strokes. "It kind of turned me on, you know?"
Rodney was staring, seemingly transfixed by the movement of John's hand as it moved back and forth, up and down, still slick and slippery with Rodney's come. He licked his lips. "Yeah. I can see that."
"So I thought it was high time I did something about it," John continued. Then he paused in mid-stroke. "Actually," he said, "it's high time you did something about it." He reached for Rodney's hand and placed it exactly where he wanted it.
He heard Rodney catch his breath, swallow heavily. Saw him blink nervously a few times. Then Rodney smiled, and his fingers curled around John's cock and began to stroke. "You're right," he said softly. "I wouldn't want you to go blind."
"That's the spirit," said John, and closed his eyes.
audio version (mp3, 5.4MB, 15:25 long - please right-click and save)
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http://hieroglyfics.net/blind.htm | written March 2006 by Isis