propinquitine | fic: The Bad Day Reflex

Title: The Bad Day Reflex
Pairing: John/Rodney
Rating: PG/PG-13
Word count: ~1,600
Summary: Rodney uses John as a pillow. John's okay with that.
A/N: Total fluff, written to try my hand at Rodney's p.o.v. again and to distract myself from academia (and because the radio in the coffee shop just had to play Ring of Fire on Valentine's Day). Beta thanks to

winkingstar.

Rodney waves a hand in front of the sensor by John's door. God, today had been tedious. He just wants to sleep.

"Hey," John says when he stalks in, looking up from his book (a biography of Tesla, this week). "What's up?"

"Ugh," Rodney sighs, setting his laptop down on John's desk. "Not the IQ of the morons working on the air filtration systems." He drops his chin, stretching the back of his neck. "They seem to think that they're doing sufficient maintenance of the CO2 scrubbers if they're capable of operating at 60% efficiency." Rodney takes off his radio and sets it on top of his laptop; they'd learned the embarrassing way that neither of them are very good at figuring out whose radio is whose in the middle of the night. "That's fine if we're, say, floating in the middle of an ocean on a planet with favorable atmosphere. CO2 problem? Hey, just open the windows!"

"But if we have to move the city again, or land on a less-than-hospitable planet . . . " John trails off.

Rodney points at him. "Then we'd be screwed," he finishes. He shrugs out of his jacket and toes off his shoes. "So of course it turns out that three of the filter set-ups actually need full overhauls, which we do have the equipment for--"

"But there's no way you're going to trust them to do it now, so you're going to have to oversee the whole boring process." John's watching him, Rodney can tell, as he shucks his pants, but Rodney's too exhausted to make a show of it. (Also, nowhere near drunk enough, unlike that night with the gin and his discovery of several different playlists of '90s technopop on John's laptop.)

Rodney sighs, a half-moan, half-whine sound, as he kneels on the bed and crowds John over to his side. "And it's going to be even worse, because clearly they're morons," he groans, tugging at John until he's stretched out more horizontally along the bed. Rodney rests his head just below John's ribcage; he's carefully determined that this is the best spot: comfy, not too bony, but not liable to make John have to spring up in five minutes to empty his bladder. He noses into the soft fabric of John's t-shirt and wraps his arms as far as he can around John's middle. John obliges him by arching his back a little so Rodney can snake his hands underneath him.

Rodney closes his eyes. He's bobbing gently up and down as John breathes, and it's very relaxing. John brings a hand up to cradle the back of his head, and Rodney relishes the warm and heavy weight of it. They lay like that for a while, and he's half asleep when John rumbles a quiet, "Hey, buddy," at him.

"I know, I know, I shouldn't fall asleep without brushing my teeth and I didn't plan ahead and bring my toothbrush with me so I'll have to borrow yours," he huffs into John's stomach. He can feel John's belly twitch at the puff of hot air. "I'll give you back your personal space in a minute."

"It's cool," John says, a smile in his voice. Rodney lifts his head to look at him, and John's go this look on his face, soft and open and warm, eyes crinkling at the corners the way they do when he's really grinning, but his lips are just barely turned up at the corners. He looks sleepy and amused and, and happy, and Rodney feels something turn over inside of him.

"Um," Rodney says, "Hi."

John's smile deepens. "Hey. Feelin' better?" His hand slips to Rodney's neck, and he strokes his thumb along Rodney's hairline.

"What?" Rodney thinks it over for a minute, trying not to get distracted by the slow drag of John's thumb, back and forth. "Oh, mmmm, yes, I suppose I was kind of pissed off, wasn't I?"

John chuckles. "Just a bit, maybe."

"Well, what about you? What's with the --" and he wiggles his fingers in the direction of John's face, but his hands are still under John's back, so John just squirms a little against the flutter and shoots him a mock glare.

"Don't even think about it, McKay," he says, squeezing the back of his neck a little. "And what are you talking about?"

"Your face, it's all . . . I mean, you're looking at me like that, like, like --"

John drops his gaze. "Sorry," he says, his hand going still on Rodney's neck.

Rodney pushes himself up with his arms and hauls himself toward the head of the bed. This makes his chest slide interestingly against John's, but John's still not looking at him, so he'll have to explore that later. "Hey, no," he says, and his hands are busy holding him up, so he nudges John's face with his nose to get his attention. "It's a good look. A great look," he adds when John meets his eyes.

They haven't been together for that long (at least, not in the "I'll just climb into your bed and get horizontal" sense), and neither of them has said much about boundaries or feelings or anything, so he's not really sure how to proceed. "Really love the look," he says softly. "I just wanted to know what I did to put it there. So I can duplicate the effect in the future." He blinks, suddenly unsure. "Um, unless it had nothing to do with me. Probably, I mean, you were almost asleep, and I didn't, it didn't, of course it didn't mean --" He pushes himself up, away, because really, how much of a presumptuous ass can one man be?

But John wraps his arms around Rodney's waist and tugs, keeping him from moving too far. "No, you're right. It, uh -- it was you."

"Oh." Even though he was expecting (hoping for) that answer, Rodney's still a little stunned. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," and the look's creeping back onto John's face now, bringing a pink tinge across his cheeks with it this time.

"But why?" And Rodney thinks maybe he shouldn't press the issue; they clearly kind of suck at this (though, no one's yelled or stormed out or gone silent, and he's still got John warm and firm beneath him, and John's arms strong around him, so really, they can't be doing too badly). He's got his confirmation, and now would be a great time for some of that really fantastic sex they have, but Rodney's got to know. "What did I do?" When John starts to frown, Rodney asks, "What should I do? You know, so that you're," he sort of gestures at John's face with his chin, "Again, in the future?"

John chuckles, patting Rodney on the back. "This is good," he shrugs, only a little hitch of his shoulders because of how Rodney has him wedged against his pillows.

"But I didn't do anything!" This is, no, he needs to know what he did, how he should act -- this is too important not to figure out.

"Sure you did." John grins, and now the bastard's just teasing Rodney. "Just keep on doing this."

"'This', what, you mean the dropping by unexpectedly and interrupting your reading so that I can bitch about stuff and then use you as a pillow?"

"Yeah, if you want to," and John's smile turns almost shy. "If, you know, it seems like a good idea to you. Or whatever."

Oh. Rodney thinks he might be getting it, now, what's got John all lit up. It's not the trying, or it's the not-trying, or something equally John-ish that shouldn't make sense, but does. "I didn't even think about it, you know," Rodney tells him, settling back down on the bed. He's stretched out alongside John now, head propped up on one hand.

"No?" John asks. He slips a hand under Rodney's t-shirt, trailing his fingers along the curve of Rodney's spine.

Rodney runs his knuckles down John's chest. "Nope. Didn't have to think about it. There was no conscious 'Today was crap, must see John now' decision. It was pure reflex."

John shivers a little, inching closer. "Yeah?" He's smiling, pleased, as he palms the soft skin at the small of Rodney's back.

"Mmmm, yes. Or maybe instinct," Rodney says, sliding his hand up along John's neck and into his hair.

John groans, eyes slipping closed for a moment. "I've got some instincts," he growls, and then Rodney's suddenly flat on his back and being thoroughly kissed. John's got a hand on his face, fingers curling behind his ear, and Rodney opens his mouth, sliding his tongue out to lick at John's lips. John licks back, pressing in with his tongue to sweep along Rodney's upper lip, then drawing back to nip at Rodney's lower one. Rodney tugs gently at his hair to pull him closer, and John writhes against him in a full-body grind.

As Rodney starts to tug John's shirt up and off, John breaks the kiss. "Hey, Rodney," he says once he pulls his head free from his t-shirt, his hair not much more wild than usual. "I'm glad you're here."

Rodney looks up at John, who's grinning and golden and straddling his hips with that look on his face. "Oh, you just try getting rid of me now," he answers, and pulls John back down.