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“You need to get some sleep,” John says, sitting up from the control chair. It dims beneath him almost instantly—but it had barely been there to begin with.
The chair doesn’t feel like the one back in Antarctica, full of energy and buzzing around in his head. This one is slow to wake, its lights dull rather than sparking with life. It doesn’t even allow him to pull up a star chart, let alone gather any information on the shield’s power requirements.
In the end, Zelenka storms off, hands up, leaving John alone with McKay and whatever puzzling data the chair has spit out on his tablet.
McKay makes a noise like he’s agreeing, but he’s clearly not listening, absorbed in the information in front of him.
“McKay,” John says, turning it over more like an order than a question.
This time, McKay’s head comes up to look at him, squinting at him in confusion like he’s forgotten that John was there. “What? Are you getting something?”
John rubs a hand over his face, biting back a sigh. “You need a nap,” he says, nudging at McKay with his foot.
“I’m not a toddler,” Mckay snaps, attention back on his tablet.
Standing up, John steps off the platform and grabs McKay by the arm. “We’re going to go see Weir, tell her what you found, and then you’re going to go to bed.”
But McKay is staring at John’s hand on his arm, clearly zoning out again. “McKay,” John says, squeezing just slightly.
McKay’s eyes jump up to his face briefly, but then they’re dropping, stopping on his lips and—okay. It’s not like John’s never thought about it before. A lot. Many times. Even today. Just now. While Rodney’s entire attention had been on him and the chair.
“If I kiss you, will you get some rest?” John asks, adjusting his grip on McKay’s arm.
Blinking up at him, McKay says, “What?”
So John kisses him, leans in and presses his lips to the corner of McKay’s mouth, shifts over until McKay meets him, opens up and—McKay puts a hand on his chest, pushing him back.
“Are you bribing me with sex?” he asks, the flush high on his cheeks turning John’s stomach into all sorts of knots.
“Maybe?” It’s all John can think to say because yes, he kind of is, but also he’d do this in all sorts of other circumstances, too. “It was just a kiss.”
McKay’s eyebrows slant together and he looks more offended than John’s seen him in a while. “Just a kiss?” he asks, and the hand on John’s shirt curls into a fist, twisting the fabric tight across his chest. “I’ll show you a kiss.”