I am apparently enamoured of the cliche-fic. I can't help it!

1081 words, no spoilers.



Nothing Irreversible

They’ve been making out for almost an hour when Ronon and Teyla find them and pull them apart. Even then, they seem to keep gravitating towards one another, a constant slow-motion movie kiss with hands reaching to cup jaws and eyes looking like limpid pools and so forth. As a result, Ronon and Teyla end up having to frog-march them both back to the stargate, twisting their arms behind their backs and poking them often to keep them from making desperate, doe-eyed leaps into each others’ arms.

When they’re back in Atlantis, John makes his move, ducking Teyla’s grip and plowing into Rodney (and, by extension, Ronon) from the side. There’s a lot of rolling and grappling, and Rodney gets his tongue back into John’s mouth (god, god, hot wet slide so good) for two or three blissful seconds before they’re pried apart again. John curses and kicks, but this time Teyla’s got him pinned.

“Sex pollen,” Ronon says shortly, keeping a knee in Rodney’s back for safety’s sake.

“Ah,” Keller says, raising an eyebrow, and bundles them off to the infirmary, a small army of doctors and nurses between them to keep them apart.


-

Eventually, it wears off.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Lorne asks, sitting down next to John in the mess.

“No.”

“It happens to everyone, you know. My team hit some sex pollen a few months back. You wouldn’t believe what I did with my – ”

“I said, I didn’t want to talk about it,” John interrupts desperately.

“It’s just that – ”

“And we didn’t have sex.”

Lorne blinks. “If that’s how you want to play it, sir.”

John decides to be done eating.

-

“So, you and Doctor McKay were alone with the sex pollen for almost forty-five minutes, is that right?” Heightmeyer asks, concerned.

“Yes,” John says, through gritted teeth.

“John, I’m not going to force you to speak about your experience. But I’ve been with the SGC for a long time, and I’ve dealt with a lot of sex pollen cases, and I’ve found that it helps to talk about it.”

“We. Didn’t. Have. Sex.” John insists, crossing his arms over his chest.

Kate nods sympathetically and writes something down in her little notebook.

-

“So we’re going to have to change those IDCs,” John finishes, handing Chuck the list.

“Sure,” Chuck agrees, but keeps staring kindly at John, giving him that buck-up-trooper smile of his.

“We didn’t have sex,” John says quickly.

“You know, I had a friend who was on a team that got sex pollened . . .” Chuck begins.

That’s it. “We didn’t have sex!” he shouts.

The whole gateroom goes still.

Zelenka coughs. “Sex pollen is actually a well-documented – ”

“It wasn’t sex pollen!” Hearing the desperation in his voice, John deflates. “It was . . . making out pollen, or something. Nowhere past second base, okay?” He turns to survey the gateroom with a dark glare and raises his voice. “Is everyone okay with that?”

Silence.

“Great,” John mutters.

-

It was so hot in that field, the smell of the flowers heavy in the air, the warm bump of Rodney’s shoulder against his, the grass – the grass, which looked so soft, and John suddenly wondered what it would feel like on his bare feet, how it would feel to just dig his toes into the dirt and feel the cool green on his sun-warmed skin, and Rodney –

Rodney, when John turned, was smiling at him. Beaming at him, like he’d just figured out how to unlock the secrets of the universe. And it seemed like the most natural thing in the world, to reach out when he’s always chosen not to, to take Rodney’s hand in his like a completed circuit.

He felt himself grinning like a goof, but didn’t care. “C’mere,” he said, and Rodney did, and it was sweet, and soft, and John got lost in it.

“This is nice,” Rodney said against his mouth, a few minutes later. It was: warm sun, bright flowers, the cool long grass that they could sink down into while they lipped at each other, slowly, each soft little lick taking as long as it needed to take. Each moment was full of sensation: the caress of Rodney’s blunt fingers against his neck, the gentle, barely-there flicker of their tongues, the sound of their breathing, breathing into each other, like a heartbeat. Everything slowed down, and the whole world became one long, sensual press of their mouths together.

He’d barely had enough time to explore Rodney’s lower lip sufficiently, mapping it with his tongue; Rodney’s upper lip still had secrets to tell, though, and despite fifteen or so minutes spent exploring the area, John felt that his knowledge of Rodney’s jawline was still woefully incomplete.

He’d just slipped his fingertips under the hem of Rodney’s shirt – still slow, so slow, lost in the steady, shifting pressure of Rodney’s lips on his – when Ronon and Teyla showed up.

-

“I can’t take it anymore,” John says, face buried in his hands.

“I know,” Rodney mutters, pacing the floor of John’s room.

“They all assume we had sex.”

Rodney stops pacing and meets his eyes. “Well,” he begins.

“What? Rodney, don’t make me say it to you, too. We just made out!”

“Well, but, it was still quite – intimate, don’t you think? It was almost an hour, and you did that thing with your – ”

“Okay!” John interrupts, standing up and holding out his hands to forestall Rodney’s description. “Okay, fine, but it doesn’t mean the same thing. Everyone’s acting like it’s a big deal, and it’s not – we don’t have to – we’re not traumatized.” There’s nothing irreversible about kissing. There’s nothing final about it. It doesn’t require them to talk about it. “It doesn’t mean anything,” he finishes lamely.

“I, it doesn’t – ” Rodney’s mouth snaps closed on the mishmash of words that are trying to escape it. Then his brow furrows, and his hands still, and he leans in and kisses John.

Just like that, it all comes back with great crushing immediacy: the hour spent wrapped around each other caressing, the way their mouths fit together, the little sighs that Rodney breathed into his mouth, as if kissing John was the greatest pleasure he could imagine.

This kiss is like those ones: soft, slow, gentlemanly. World-changing.

“Oh,” John says, a few minutes later.

“Yeah,” Rodney agrees, nodding quickly.