Archive of Our Own ^beta

"I'm bored," Ronon growled, but softly, so the Enarian priests chanting outside the hut's door wouldn't hear. 

John held his breath, carefully finishing the last few glyphs of the line he was working on. The tracery of dark green ink was clear on Ronon's golden skin, sparkling with faint iridescence in the light of several lanterns positioned around the bed of furs on which Ronon lay, face down, head pillowed on his arms. John sat back and inhaled deeply, setting aside the small, fine-tipped brush on a wooden tray. 

"You know what Teyla said, buddy," he reminded Ronon. "We've gotta show respect for Enarian culture by writing out their ancient texts." He shook his wrist out to ease a slight cramp. "Specifically, those of us not from around here have to write them out on you guys from Pegasus, 'to cement the bond'." 

Not that the Enarians knew where John and Rodney came from or even had the concept of "another galaxy". Teyla had simply said their home world was "very far away". In contrast, Athos and Sateda were known; Enaria had traded with both in the past. Before the Wraith culled them, John's mind added. He shut the thought down. 

"It's still weird," Ronon grumbled, "and boring. Can I move?"

"Yeah, sure," John said, sitting back. "I'm on break, resting my arm. Just don't touch your back, okay?"

Ronon came to his knees, arms held out a little from his sides. John had so far covered his shoulders and back, down to the dimples either side of his spine, above his ass. John saw, to his relief, that Ronon wasn't hard, despite having undergone what amounted to pretty intense sensation play while lying on furs in a room with mood lighting. 

Well, that made two of them. John was fully dressed—the writing was the point for the Enarians, not the nakedness, so he hadn't been expected to strip—but he'd still basically been stroking Ronon's skin for the best part of an hour, running the delicate brush over every inch. He appreciated Ronon aesthetically and loved him as a friend and brother, but he almost never got sexually aroused. Chaya had been an exception, and he figured that was some sort of mind whammy she'd used on him, trying to get her way. At least the sex had only been a glowy ascended thing, not anything gross or messy.

"Okay if I sit?" Ronon asked, turning to look over his shoulder. 

"Whoa, don't twist like that," John said quickly. "Might smear it, near your shoulder blades." He looked around the hut and pointed. "And yeah, you could perch on the edge of that stool. That'd be okay."

"Nah, no worries," Ronon said, pushing up fluidly to stand. He stretched, careful not to bunch up his back muscles too much, then wandered around the edge of the pile of furs, cracking his neck. He was completely naked and utterly unselfconscious. Well, they were both soldiers, and you got over embarrassment about undressing in front of other guys fast, in the military. 

"Not too ticklish, with the brush?" John asked, enjoying the view in an abstract kind of way. 

"Yeah, at first. I got used to it," Ronon said. He grinned down at John, gesturing with his chin at the entirely quiescent cock in John's pants. "You're really not into guys, huh? Lot of people would be getting worked up from this."

John didn’t want to talk about it, but the ritual was intensely intimate and he found he didn't want to bullshit Ronon, or tease him about being vain. "I'm wired a little... different. Not really into all that stuff. With men. Or, um, women." Ronon raised an eyebrow at him and of course, he'd been to John's father's funeral, had met Nancy. "Yeah, I was married, but that was when I was trying to be 'normal'. Didn't last, for a whole bunch of reasons. These days I don't give a fuck about 'normal'." John gestured around at the hut, the ink, the Enarians outside, at Ronon, covered in sacred script. 

"Point," Ronon said, grinning. 

"Works for me," John said, doing some arm and shoulder stretches to avoid eye contact. "Especially as I'm in a leadership position."

"Too much of a loner?" Ronon sounded sympathetic. He'd been alone himself, of course, terribly alone for seven years as a runner. 

"I guess it looks like that from the outside," John admitted, and it had been true for a while, especially in Antarctica after Holland’s death. AR1 meant everything to him now though, and Ronon needed to know that. "But I don't want to be all alone." I love you guys. You're my family. The thought came unbidden, but even now he couldn’t speak it. He bit his lip. "I mean, I... I care about you guys a lot. I want to hang out, and talk, and we've got each others' backs. I just don't wanna... fuck any of you." There, he'd said it. "Or, um, anyone else," he added awkwardly, picking up the brush and fiddling with it. "Always been that way."

Ronon grinned down at him fondly. "Aw, Sheppard, I'd hug you if it wouldn't smudge the paint."

"Yeah, no thanks, big guy." John said hastily, relieved Ronon had rolled with it. "I know your sort of hugs—throw me across the room is what you mean."

"Sometimes you need it," Ronon said cheerfully. He stretched again, then lay down on his front, sighing. John stood and worked the kinks out of his legs, then sat back down on the low stool. 

"McKay's gonna be in such a bad way," Ronon said, laughter rumbling in his voice. "He'll have a hard-on the size of the East Pier after painting Teyla head to toe."

John cracked up. "He so will!" Rodney really liked women and only held back from hitting on Teyla because she was his friend and teammate, and, more importantly, because she could snap him like a twig. "Lucky he got to keep his clothes on, but the poor bastard's gotta be in agony over in the other hut."

Ronon snorted. "We should give him some private time in the back of the jumper on the way home."

"Sure, suggest that with Teyla standing right there, if you’ve got a death wish," John said, grinning as he dipped his brush in the ink again. "Now don't make me laugh. I've got another hour of this to finish and I don't want to have to redo any of it."

He painted quietly for several minutes, then found he was curious about Ronon’s reaction, or lack of it. "What about you? You don't seem to be getting hot and bothered from this either."

"Training," Ronon said. "Did get turned on when you first started, but I got myself under control soon enough. Had to learn not to notice my body when I was running. Pain, discomfort, insect bites, pleasure—couldn't have distractions if I wanted to stay alive and kill Wraith."

"That's kinda sad, buddy," John said, but he understood. He carefully drew a complicated glyph on Ronon's left butt cheek. 

"Yeah, but it's getting better," Ronon said. "I can let myself feel the good things, these days. Can touch myself if I want to, and I like physical stuff in general, you know."

"Mmm," John said thoughtfully. He was into sparring and sports as well, but not the other kind of... touching. He added a row of dots above an s-shaped character on Ronon's hip. He had no idea what the glyphs meant, but he was copying them faithfully from the scroll the priests had given them. "Yeah, you're good at the physical stuff, like fighting and wrestling. And you like holding Torren, right?"

"He's so small," Ronon said, his voice dreamy. "He smells good, and his skin's so soft and perfect."

John nodded. "Like a baby, as they say. Yeah, holding him is nice." John hadn’t known how much he was going to love it. "Thank Christ we got them both back."

"Would have done anything," Ronon said, his voice a rumbling whisper. 

"Me too, buddy, and we did," John murmured, fitting the next row of characters around one of Ronon's many scars. He swallowed, his voice low, barely audible. "I'd do anything for any one of you." 

Ronon didn't reply. A moment later a faint snore drifted out from under his dreads. 

John smiled. In a while he'd wake Ronon and get him to stand up so as to paint the last set of glyphs across his chest and arms. He could rest until then.

"You're okay, buddy, I got you," John said quietly, touched that Ronon felt safe enough with him, even off-world, to fall asleep. 

Filling his brush with ink, he bent to his task.