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The first time, neither of them pretend it’s anything other than what it is.
The first time is a hard, desperate fuck that happens over the hood of John’s car out in the Nevada desert night when McKay comes to see him, to check up on John’s recovery, find out why he’s still in Vegas when he could be anywhere else with the money the SGC had given him.
It’s raw and dirty and brutal: John’s pants bunched around his ankles, thighs spread wide, McKay fucking into his splayed body with a short, hard grate of his clothed hips against the bare skin at John’s waist, the hollow of his spine. This, the stretch and thrust and grit, was between them the first time they faced each other: John knows McKay could have had this, had him then – the air between them in the tiny room had been alive with the promise of it. But it didn’t happen that way, it’s happening like this: the metal of the bonnet is engine-warm against John’s stomach when McKay presses him down, holds him there when John braces his palms so he can push back into each thrust, each blade of pleasure that knifes through his gut. Rodney slides three fingers of his left hand into John’s mouth when John’s ass tightens around him; John comes hard over the car and himself, untouched, sucking McKay’s fingers, mouth tight and right down to the wedding band that catches gold in the corner of John’s eyes. McKay twists his other hand into John’s hair, bites into the nape of his neck when he comes, shoved up inside John, mindless.
The mark is conspicuous above the collar of John’s shirt for days.
The next time is no different, nor all the times that follow in that first year. Rodney finds John every few weeks, wherever John has lost himself, and just takes: up against the wall in a back alley with a heavy bass beat thrumming up John’s spine from the dance floor inside the building he’s pinned against, John’s legs up around McKay’s waist where McKay holds him open, rough brick grazing John’s back; John on his knees in the bathroom at an airport, Rodney moving slow and deep in his mouth, his throat; over John’s desk so late one night it was early morning when they were done, John’s legs hooked over Rodney’s shoulders, papers sliding everywhere.
It’s the time after that, after John has to hide the stains on his case notes and photographs, that’s when it changes.
McKay doesn’t find him. John isn’t even trying to hide anymore but a month goes by, almost two and there’s nothing. And John is left stuck out in the sand again, weighted down against the open spread of the sky.
It’s somehow harder to take than it had been before.
John decides he’s had enough of just taking it.
Three days later, McKay shows up at John’s new apartment on the California coast with stitches etched into his brow, bruises purpling every part of his skin John can see. His eyes show John the same thing he sees reflected back at him in mirrors whenever he dares to look.
That’s the first night they talk. Very little is actually said, but there are sentences, which is more than they usually have. The words are hard, jagged things that twist painfully between them like a bird with a broken wing. It’s not easy, but then the cut of McKay’s suits, the shadows beneath the blue rims of his eyes had told John that nothing about McKay was easy.
It’s the first night they actually undress, awkward and shy despite everything they’ve done, and angry to be so naked, so exposed this way when it shouldn’t really matter. It’s brittle, for all the strength they have between them. John feels… delicate, like the force of this will crack him open; the shiver that runs up through his spine as he slides down McKay’s cock, rides steady and slick and so fucking deep, hips rolling into the pleasure of the other man inside him, it’s a shudder of sensation that feels like a tremor, feels dangerous.
Rodney looks shaken with it too, at the way he shapes John’s name for the very first time, at the impact it has: the sound, “John”, low and desperate making them both groan from the strain of holding themselves together.
Rodney always comes to John at home after that, and it’s always different between them: Rodney kisses John for the first time, a dry press of lips to forehead when they stand in the kitchen eating pancakes with their fingers; they make out one rainy afternoon, slick tongue and soft lips licking together, a slow, intoxicating mouth to mouth that feels necessary, good, that makes words slide easier and talking less difficult, less pained; the day McKay becomes Rodney, oh my God, Rodney, when he brings John off with his mouth, the mouth he’s so shy with, and grinds himself to orgasm against John’s thigh. It’s always new, and it always feels like parts of them are falling away. It’s terrifying.
It’s nothing like how it started. Rodney stills wears his wedding band: John doesn’t ask about it (even though he thinks he could do that now). Rodney never volunteers what John would like to know.
Sometimes, Rodney comes to John with sweet perfume and long, blonde strands of hair exactly like Jennifer Keller’s shimmering against the black of his overcoat, clinging. John has always known about them, saw it in the flick of Rodney’s eyes back when he was still just McKay, just a stranger telling John unimaginable things, saw it in the sway of Keller’s hips in the hallway. John knows he’s not the only one that Rodney has.
They don’t pretend it isn’t true, except when they do. It's not that they're scared of what they have. Just the way it's breaking them open, breaking them apart. It doesn't feel so delicate if they make-believe.