Work Text:
John likes to coax Rodney out of bed in the pale-gold morning, before the sun has crept high enough to burn away the last of the fog, or to draw the most intrepid of the tourists out to walk along their strand. Not every morning, but enough: enough that it's no longer a surprise for Rodney when John tugs the covers from around his legs; no longer a surprise that John seeks out his company at this early-awful hour, or that he would have some of Rodney's favourite coffee waiting for him, steaming-hot and in a travel mug that's just the right size for Rodney to wrap his hands around.
John pads down onto the beach in varying states of undress and bare feet: a wet-suit with a surfboard tucked under one arm for the days when he wants to feel like he's still in Hawaii; an old pair of khaki shorts and a white tank top on the days when the sun comes burning up over the horizon fierce and hot; jeans and a black t-shirt for the days when he and Cash will spend hours chasing a worn old football together, up and down the broad stretch of sand.
Rodney inevitably wears a hat and a long-sleeved shirt and a thick layer of sunscreen, no matter what the weather. John always teases him for it, and Cash yelps and runs circles around his feet, spraying sand and salt-water in equal, enthusiastic measure; and Rodney always harrumphs, and settles his hat more firmly on his head, and follows behind John as he leads them down the short path to the sea.
He never follows John into the water, preferring to settle himself down on a dry patch of sand, or on a convenient rock; he never follows, but he always watches, his book or his pad of paper soon lying forgotten in his lap. Physics in theory is nothing to physics in motion, to watching how John's body twists and turns in the blue-grey water of the Atlantic, sending up clean arcs of white spray in his wake; to watching how John splashes his way back out through the surf after an hour or so, Cash running on feet made quick by affection to meet him; to watching their reunion at the point where the water's ankle high, the dog jumping up to plant sandy paws on John's bare chest. To sitting and watching John walk back to him.
John likes to stand over Rodney and shake his hair dry, to scatter quantities of salt-water and sand all over Rodney and his papers. John laughs every time, deep and satisfied and goofy, at the way Rodney tries to avoid this unwanted shower—at how he yelps and mutters, as if the water could cause him harm, as if Rodney doesn't seek out its traces every afternoon, every night. As if his tongue doesn't skate over the salt-warm expanse of John's stomach, the rise of his hipbones; as if he doesn't look for all the ways that John tastes like ocean and sky and chalky earth, like all the things that surround this home they're making together.
Rodney squints up at him, backlit as he is by the sun, and tells him he's an idiot. John flops down next to him on the sand, smirks, and says "If I'm an idiot, then what are you?"
"Clearly," Rodney sneers, "clearly I'm..." Voice trailing away because now the only thing clear is that John's pushing him down against the soft, clean sand; the only thing clear is John tossing his books and his papers to one side, John's heavy, damp weight settling between his legs, bearing him down and holding him up.
"I'm..." Rodney manages, reaching up with one hand to push a lock of wet hair out of John's eyes, to run his fingertips down a stubbly cheek that's tan with a summer's laziness. His breath catches, the desire to speak and the desire to stay silent, to close his eyes and hide, at war in him; his chest burns with it, this thing like a fire that takes all oxygen with it, that makes it so that Rodney can't breathe for want of him. John presses closer, brushes a kiss to Rodney's forehead, and murmurs "Clearly."
They lie there like that for an age, Cash twitching in his sleep nearby while they trade soft kisses and softer sounds, Rodney wrapping his arms around John and rubbing circles into the soft skin of his shoulder, along the smooth length of his spine. John kisses his mouth, his jaw, the curved line of his collarbone, and it feels like an indulgence for Rodney to have this. It feels like an indulgence, and it feels like something blessed—that after all that he's had taken from him, after all that he's given away, he gets to have this. To have John Sheppard on a beach in Nantucket in May; to have care in the holding and a sense of wonder in every breath; to have John know him and not pull away.
After a time, the sun fades away, light chased by rain as the heavens open in one of those swift weather changes that Rodney's grown used to living with here—warm rain on his face, on John's back, making his clothes cling to his skin. "We should go inside," John says, pulling away just enough that he can murmur his words against the curve of Rodney's jaw, "'s'raining, we should—"
"Stay," Rodney says, curling the palm of one hand around the nape of John's neck, tugging him close, "We should stay"; speaking against John's mouth, writing his intent with clumsy hands on John's skin, spelling out all the words he wants John to hear; and all the world around them is nothing but blue and grey and gold, the quiet sound of rain falling on water, the tide pulling them closer together.