Balancing Act

Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Sheppard/McKay
Word Count: ~7000
Summary: Food, porn and food porn. Atlantis is a restaurant in Manhattan. Rodney is the chef. John is the bartender. Sequel to The Opening.
Disclaimer: These characters do not belong to me, nor to I derive any profit from them.
Warning: No one, including the author, is very nice to Carson in this fic.

"God, Elizabeth, if you send me to one of those conferences again . . ." Sheppard flings his leather jacket up on one of the high shelves in the coat-closet.

Elizabeth stands at the hostess station going over the night's reservations. "That bad?" she asks, but Rodney can tell by the quirk of her eyebrow and the smile dancing on her lips that she finds Sheppard's dramatic delivery entertaining.

"It lasted years." He walks behind the bar, glares at Rodney and swats Rodney's hand away from the mixed nuts.

"I'm hungry," says Rodney with his mouth full of the cashews he picked out.

"Aren't you a chef?" asks Sheppard. "Cook yourself something."

Rodney glowers at him, which Sheppard seems to find charming because he smiles, flirtatious and sweet, like he and Rodney are alone in the room. Rodney can't maintain his sour expression at all with Sheppard standing there, grinning like a loon.

Sheppard wears the standard black-on-black-on-black that Elizabeth requires for all of the front-of-house staff, but his black t-shirt has a subtle sheen to it, and the pants, which Rodney examines carefully when Sheppard turns around to check the liquid levels in the opaque bottles, are tailored a little too tight through the ass and crotch region.

"Was it really that bad, John?" asks Elizabeth, breaking through Rodney's reverie.

"The woman who led the morning session, Teer, had this whole spiritual take on bartending." John shudders theatrically. "Not helpful. She went on and on . . . ." He reaches idly into the same bowl of mixed nuts that Rodney still searches through for more cashews, and their fingers meet briefly. Oh God, get a grip, Rodney scolds himself. Sheppard pops the nuts into his mouth one at a time and then licks the salt off his fingertips.

"Well, I'm glad the conference was free, then," says Elizabeth with her hard little smile.

"Was she hot?" asks Rodney. Hearing Sheppard talk about women is half torture and half pleasure, and Rodney can't resist.

"Who, Teer? Yeah." Sheppard shrugs, and Rodney watches as the shirt ripples across his chest. "Sometimes hot's not all it's cracked up to be, you know?"

"Some day," says Rodney as he hops down off his bar stool, "I'd like the opportunity to give you a definitive answer about that. Right now, everything I'd have to say on the subject would be theoretical." Sheppard raises an eyebrow and makes one of his goofy, questioning faces that would look utterly ridiculous on anyone else, but on him just looks endearing.

"Okay, people, we're pushing scallops tonight," says Rodney when he goes over the specials with the wait-staff before the doors of Atlantis open for the evening. It's a Tuesday night, and all the seafood from the Saturday morning fish auction is starting to get old.

"No lawsuits, Rodney," says Elizabeth from where she stands behind the cluster of waiters.

"Have I ever given anyone food poisoning? No." Elizabeth narrows her eyes at him. "No, I haven't," says Rodney indignantly, "so trust me."

***

"How's it going with you and Carson?" asks Dr. Heightmeyer. She twirls a strand of her long blonde hair around her finger.

Rodney sighs and crosses his arms over his chest. "He's seems kind of obsessed with this little twink, Michael. I mean, he's the same age as me, he should get over chasing club kids."

"And how's the sex?" Her voice has this overly solicitous tone to it, like she's doing Rodney a favor to ask him about it.

"Fine," he says shortly. "Not as often as I'd like but we have very different hours." The restaurant business has never been good for relationships, and Carson . . . . He's so darn polite—who knew Scots were almost as bad as Canadians? Sex with him involved a lot of "do you want me to. . . ?" and "does that feel alright . . .?" And Rodney eventually gave up and fantasized about Sheppard taking him and pushing him up against the bar. In his fantasy, glasses would break, crash to the floor, but that wouldn't matter, because John would be kissing him, and Rodney would be running his hands through that crazy hair, and maybe John's arms aren't all for show and he'd half-lift Rodney up onto a barstool . . and that was when he came.

"Was that alright, Rodney?" Carson asked after.

If he and Carson weren't still at the painfully polite beginning, Rodney would have said something like, "Oh, for fuck's sake, it's alright, it's fine, just stop fucking asking." But he could already picture the wounded look in Carson's eyes and he didn't quite want to end it then and there.

"Rodney?" asks Dr. Heightmeyer. "Where did you go just then?"

"Where did I go?" he says with a grim laugh. "Nowhere good, that's for sure."

***

Whenever the bar is slow, which isn't often enough, John watches the action in the kitchen. It's twenty yards away, and sometimes the Plexiglas wall that separates it from the rest of the restaurant fogs up, but he can still see Rodney in there, constantly in motion.

John also gets to watch him during the golden hour from five to six, after Rodney arrives but before they have any customers. Rodney keeps a stack of spoons in his back pocket, some ceramic, some metal and tastes everything with them: he pulls a spoon out of his back pocket, takes a bite, then flings the spoon, without looking, at the whomever is working the dishwasher. They learn to catch the missiles, or they quit.

John watches him go from station to station, tasting everything from slices of meat to the water for blanching the pasta. "What did you put in this?" he asks.

"Uh, nothing," says the hapless line-cook.

"Nothing. Exactly, and it tastes like nothing too. Your pasta water should always taste like you want your pasta to taste." He tastes some stock with another spoon, then throws them both over his shoulder. The dishwasher catches them without looking up, as if this is some circus routine they've perfected. "See, this stock has flavor," says Rodney.

The line cook looks chagrined—he should know this—and Rodney moves on to the saucier's station.

"Why metal and ceramic spoons?" John asks when Rodney is having an iced tea at the bar before a big Friday night.

"Do you have a plastic cup back there? And a coffee mug?" Rodney snaps his fingers a couple times and John rolls his eyes as he puts them out in front of Rodney. "Now, hand me a regular wine glass. What are we serving as the house Shiraz? A Mondavi? No, open the Mondavi Reserve." John raises his eyebrows—they sell that by the bottle, and no other way, but Rodney gestures impatiently. "Yes, open it. You can serve the rest to the next person Kavanagh pisses off. Or we can drink it after work."

John shrugs and opens the bottle, then puts it next to the cup, the mug, and the wine glass. Rodney pours a finger's breadth of wine into each container. "Now taste them," he commands. "See, the one in the plastic tastes different than the ceramic, and different than the glass. If we had crystal here, that would taste different too, but someone doesn't want to spend the money." Rodney directs his volume at Elizabeth, but she doesn't even look up. She became used to Rodney's complaints long ago.

John sips, and Rodney's right—the wine out of the plastic cup tastes flat, the wine out of the ceramic mug tastes a little better, but it's the glass that brings out the flavor. "So, the ceramic and the metal . . . ?"

"People eat off ceramic plates with metal flatware. And I know exactly what they're going to taste."

***

‘Ino is a crowded little restaurant and wine bar with chairs too small for Rodney or Carson, but with some adjustment, they wedge themselves into their seats. Rodney takes the chair against the wall even though he hates to be enclosed like that. His claustrophobia leaps up and makes him feel itchy and uncomfortable all over.

"This is Mario Batali's new place," says Rodney over the din. "I think he's overrated, but Elizabeth wanted me to check it out.

Carson scans the menu and sighs. "What?" asks Rodney, sharper than he intends. If there's anything that's going to make him end it with Carson it's his pickiness, but what did he expect, dating a nutritionist? Nutritionists and chefs are like oil and water—no, not oil and water, because that can make a pleasing emulsion. Like peanut butter and tomato, two tastes never meant to mix.

Carson shrugs and sighs again, and even though Rodney can't hear the sigh over the loud voices in this close space, he can see the slump of Carson's shoulders when he lets out his breath. "There are hardly any vegetables on this menu."

"There's salad," says Rodney flatly. He is trying his hardest not to be drawn into this discussion.

"No, no," says Carson in his accent that Rodney still finds a little charming, even when Carson is difficult. "Why don't you order for me?" He sounds put upon, but Rodney isn't going to argue, not when he's been given free reign over the food.

He licks his lips. Choosing dinner is like being on top in bed—sure, you're in control, but guessing what someone else wants can make it so much work sometimes it's better just to relinquish control. Carson has his arms crossed over his chest and his lips pursed, and Rodney wonders if he'll be able to please Carson at all. Or Rodney can just cater to himself, order what he wants and Carson can choose to enjoy it or not.

"We'd like the antipasti plate, a mortadella and goat cheese panini and a fennel and fontina panini—oh, and can you put some truffle oil on that—and a bottle of the Sangiovese." Rodney finishes his order and Carson looks pained. Probably the red wine. Carson has admitted he should like it, since it's full of antioxidants and good for the heart, but he doesn't, and now Rodney's the asshole who forgot that.

"Can you make that a bottle of Prosecco instead?" Rodney calls out to the waiter as he's almost out of ear shot. Carson rewards him with a little smile.

The antipasti course works for Carson—ten little tidbits arrayed around the plate: caponata, asparagus salad, caramelized onions and several others. The portions are too small for Carson to complain and each bite is so highly flavored that Rodney's good cheer comes back.

"See, they used some balsamic vinegar and sugar to speed the caramelizing of the onions. They're better if you just let them caramelize their own sugars but this is faster. Aceto, I should say, not balsamic vinegar." Rodney warms to his subject, and once they find some common ground, like onions, they discuss recipes amicably and wrangle over exactly how much butter is necessary for flavor.

Then the paninis arrive. "This is awfully oily, Rodney," says Carson, pulling up the top slice of bread.

"Cheese has a lot of oil in it. Fontina is a cheese. Ergo, oil." Rodney digs into his own sandwich with gusto. The combination of the salt of the cured meat is married perfectly with the sharp creaminess of the goat cheese and the sweet-sour flavor of the aceto. "Have a taste of mine."

Carson wrinkles his nose. "No thank you, Rodney. Mine is just fine." Rodney restrains himself from saying something unforgivable and they finish their paninis and the wine in silence.

"That was good," said Rodney accusingly when they were out on the relative quiet of the West Village street.

"I can feel my arteries clogging," says Carson. "You should be more careful of your health."

***

"Well, is he a good nutritionist?" asks Sheppard. He lounges against the bar like he's a patron, not the bartender, but that's probably why he gets such good tips.

"What? How would I know? We're dating, not consulting." Rodney swipes a lime and starts sucking on it. "Did you know I used to be allergic to citrus? What a disaster for a chef, right? Ten years of allergy shots later, and I can do this." The lime tastes good, strong and refreshing, and it will help keep him on his feet during the long Saturday night shift.

"I'm looking for a new program," says Sheppard.

"You have a program? You don't have a program. Your program is begging for me to make you up special plates from the kitchen—which I do without complaint, by the way—and drinking until all hours most nights of the week and letting your annoyingly good genetics keep you looking dewy and young." Rodney looks up and down Sheppard's trim body.

"Like I said, I need a new program," drawls Sheppard.

"Do you really want to give all this up?" Suddenly Rodney gets worried. He'd like Sheppard a lot less if he were into fitness and nutrition.

Sheppard shrugs. "No, it just seems like a good way to meet the guy. You never bring him here."

***

John hangs out with Rodney after work most nights. Rodney looks at him curiously whenever John suggests it, as if he expects John to have better things to do.

John does end most shifts with numbers of men and women shoved into his pants pockets. It was flattering at first, but now it's become dull. There are pretty people here every day of the week: the just-out-of-college girls with daddy's credit card, the models, the actors, the sexually ambiguous advertising executives, but it gets boring, knowing that they want John for exactly the same reason he wants them. Looks and nothing more.

For the first few months he accepts a lot of offers, and regales Rodney later with stories of, "Yeah, that was George Clooney's publicist."

Rodney snorts, "Like he needs one."

But he finds after a while he doesn't want them, except as another story for Rodney.

***

"Look, maybe you should choose the restaurants from now on, is all I'm saying," says Rodney. The night is still as hot as Atlantis's kitchen at 9:00pm on a Saturday, and Rodney's shirt sticks to his back.

"That was fine, Rodney, really." Rodney can feel Carson wrinkling his forehead without looking at him.

"No, it wasn't, you complained the whole time."

"And you complained about me complaining. I thought that was our thing."

"Well, it's becoming our thing," says Rodney under his breath. It won't be too long before he's saying it out loud, damn it, and this relationship will set a new record for brevity. Hell, he's been with Zelenka longer; he's been with Kavanagh longer.

"What was that, Rodney?" Carson's accent is still kind of exciting, even when he says prissy things like that.

"I said it's becoming our thing, and it's boring already." Rodney speaks louder this time, and he knows he sounds petulant, but he doesn't care.

Carson stops and looks at him, and as he does a breeze comes through the quiet West Village street, fluttering leaves and cooling them. "I bore you, is that it?"

"Nutrition bores me. Nutrition is the opposite of food."

"I'm glad you shared how you feel about my work." Carson sounds put upon.

"You sound like my shrink," says Rodney.

Carson smiles unexpectedly. "No, I sound like my mother."

Rodney smiles back, a little hesitantly. "My shrink should talk to her, then. They would have a lot in common."

"Can I make it up to you?" Rodney doesn't know where Carson's anger went, but he looks rather alluring standing there in the shadows, and just a bit mischievous.

"Really?" says Rodney. "I'm sorry about what I said, I'm sure you do good--."

Carson presses him up against the brick wall of the townhouse next to them, and kisses him a bit more forcefully than usual. And when they go back to Rodney's place, this time, Carson doesn't stop to ask if everything feels alright.

***

John asks what are probably stupid cooking questions just so Rodney can explain things to him. Sometimes he doesn't even have to ask. "So," John says, "I was watching this thing on the cooking channel about bacon-wrapped scallops . . ."

Rodney rolls his eyes. "Okay, cooking?" he says. "Is all about balance. Bacon-wrapped scallops—what does that give you really? You have the crunchy saltiness of the bacon—nice, right? And then you have the scallops—nice creamy cool texture, but also salty. So it's totally unbalanced."

John makes a dismissive face, because he knows that will make Rodney even more incensed.

"No, here's what you do," says Rodney. "You take prosciutto, which is milder, and you wrap a shrimp, with a basil leaf, and you grill that, and then you have the sweet shrimp, the salty pork, and the fresh basil leaf—that's balance. Like the classic—goat-cheese stuffed dates, wrapped in bacon. You have to balance intensity also, and that's the most intense sweet, salty and creamy all together."

Rodney licks his lips, like talking about it is making him salivate, and John is salivating too, but it's not about food, at least not totally. Rodney's lower lip glistens and looks every bit as delectable as anything he's been describing, and John indulges in a quick fantasy of what it would be like in bed with someone this dedicated to pleasure. Rodney's made a fucking study of it.

***

During the busy, hot nights of summer, a good bartender can make the difference between a tough night and disaster.

John can sense when things are starting to go to hell. The waiters start to look a little more harried. A sweat breaks out on Lorne's forehead, and his normally fast but relaxed pace becomes hurried. Parrish loses his customary goofy smile, and looks closer to tears, and Elizabeth's mouth gets tighter and tighter.

One night everyone orders pork chops when they only budgeted for twenty plates, one of the waiters has an off night and gets everyone's order wrong, and the mood in the dining room gets worse and worse. Like scared animals, the customers sense the fear and anger around them and react accordingly. Suddenly no one is happy with his meal. John can hear the bus-boy who clears the bar grumbling under his breath in some Spanish dialect. John can only make out a few words, but he understands the sentiment.

He learns the best way to prevent things from getting any worse is to send a pitcher of Rodney's sweet mint tea back to the kitchen. It's so sugary no one else can bear to drink it (and John means to ask him one of these days how that plays into his theory of ‘balance'), but the sugar energizes him, and he never keeps enough of it in the kitchen. At first Lorne had to raise his eyebrow at John to tell him the pitcher was needed, but now John has learned to read the signs in the dining room, and can head things off at the pass.

Rodney comes out angry and shouting at the end of that night. "Kavanagh, if you fucking plate any more fucking parsnips for people who ordered potatoes, I'll do them myself and you can do the table visits."

"Fine," says Kavanagh. "If the prep guy labeled things correctly, I wouldn't get confused."

"Parsnips have a sweet odor, potatoes earthy. If you can't tell the difference . . . ." says Rodney, but he runs out of steam. Kavanagh makes a face like he's heard it all before, and he probably has.

"Why do you keep him around if he's so incompetent?" asks John. He serves Rodney a leftover glass of white wine, while Rodney blots off the sweat on his forehead with a clean bar rag.

"Kavanagh? Oh, he's great. Certainly better than the last guy."

John doesn't know what to say to that. If Kavanagh is great, how does Rodney treat the real fuck-ups? "Just tonight," Rodney's saying, "we ran out of lobster, and Kavanagh—I don't know how he does this—he broke into the Chelsea Lobster Place and stole an extra 10 pounds so we could make the rest of the lobster mashed. I'm sure he left money, or something, but that's hard core, real Systeme D."

John doesn't know what that means, but it seems to be something good, and Rodney's good cheer is coming back after the night from hell, full of dropped dishes, plates sent back, and so many meals comped that John can hear Elizbeth's teeth grinding from across the room. Rodney's mood sets the mood of the whole place, and John finds himself perking up along with him.

"You have tomorrow off, right?" John asks. "You should come out with me to the beach in the morning."

Rodney looks skeptical. "Have you seen my skin, Sheppard?" he asks. "Do you know how easily I burn?"

"We can grill afterwards—I have a back yard."

Rodney's eyes widen at that and he grins, a slow grin that John likes a little too much. "Okay, it's a deal," he says.

***

Being on the back of Sheppard's motorcycle is terrifying. Sheppard brings an extra helmet when he picks Rodney up, and it's big, sized for a male head. Rodney tries not to read anything into that.

It's not terrifying because Sheppard is a bad driver, but he does drive fast, and he drives between the nearly-stopped cars, stuck in traffic on the Southern State, and their side mirrors pass within inches of Rodney's legs. Eventually Rodney just leans into Sheppard's back, grips the bars under the seat, and tries to enjoy the feeling of the air rushing by him.

They drive past the exit for Jones Beach and on to Robert Moses State Park. "You're bringing me to a nude beach?" asks Rodney incredulously when they pull up in the empty parking lot.

"Clothing optional. Some people don't like tan lines." Sheppard smiles and tilts his head to one side, and then peels his shirt off. He's hairier than Rodney pictured, and his stomach isn't quite perfectly flat, but for some reason, that makes him even more attractive.

Is he trying to kill me?. "Are you trying to kill me?" asks Rodney. Shit, he didn't mean to say that out loud. "I mean, haven't you ever heard of ultraviolet radiation? Sunburn? Skin cancer?"

Sheppard shrugs fluidly. "Doesn't run in my family. There are some beach umbrellas you can sit under."

He tells Rodney there won't be too many people, just the occasional Jeep full of Long Island surfers, or what passes for surfers anyway. The waves here don't get above four feet, and the beach has an unfortunate tendency to smash people into the sand.

"You surf?" asks Rodney. Of course Sheppard does.

"Yeah, but I left my board at a friend's beach house down the shore for the week."

Sheppard strips down to the altogether, and Rodney tries to look without looking. Long tan legs, curly brown hair, and no tan lines. Rodney looks away before he says something else embarassing.

Rodney keeps his swim trunks on, and a button-down shirt and a hat for good measure. He already put on a layer of sunscreen before leaving his apartment, and now he applies another. Can't be too careful.

"If you take off your shirt I'll get your back," says Sheppard, reaching out for Rodney's bottle of sunscreen.

"No, no, I'm fine." He wouldn't be here except that Sheppard looked extra pouty when he asked Rodney to come along and Rodney couldn't resist. And he can't resist the siren song of Sheppard's grill. He's been begging Elizabeth to upgrade the one in Atlantis to something wood- and charcoal-burning, but the renovations necessary to bring the building up to code are more expensive than they can afford.

Rodney pulls out a stack of cooking magazines from him backpack and starts to read through them. Most of it is derivative shit, but occasionally something sparks his imagination.

"Are you really reading those that fast?" asks Sheppard after Rodney has gone through a few. Rodney has a system, flipping through the pages quickly enough that he can absorb pictures and titles, folding down corners of any pages that grab his attention. Then he goes back through and reads in more detail.

"No, I'm just looking at the pictures," he says, half-sarcastic.

"Anything good?" asks Sheppard. He seems unaffected by Rodney's sarcasm, and Rodney can't decide if it's annoying or endearing the way he won't rise to the bait.

"Idiots are putting roast peppers in everything. They overwhelm the flavor of almost anything they're put in. And that's the big idea this month."

"They'd be good with the tuna," says Sheppard. "Maybe a roast pepper salsa with the seared tuna?"

"Blue Water Grill did a roast onion salsa last year. Tuna is too mild for roast peppers, and I am not stealing from the hacks at Blue Water."

Sheppard shrugs—he doesn't seem to have a lot invested in his suggestion. "Oh, well."

***

Rodney makes him drive into Flushing, Queens before they go back to where John lives in Great Neck. "Trust me," says Rodney, you'll like this. They walk down a street of fish markets. All the signs are in Chinese characters and the wares are packed in crates ice sitting out on the sidewalk. They all look the same to John, but Rodney seems to be looking for something special.

He orders mostly by pointing and holding up his fingers, and the Chinese man waiting on them packs some whole calamari into a bag. "Ice, please?" says Rodney impatiently. "Is your kitchen stocked?" Rodney asks John.

John shrugs. "I have . . . condiments and things."

Rodney rolls his eyes. "Where's the best grocery store near your house?"

"Come on, I have stuff. Try me." John crosses his arms over his chest.

"At least a half pound of butter? Fresh parsley? Bread crumbs? Feta cheese? Fresh mint?"

John nods at each item, and Rodney looks incredulous. "I'm not a professional or anything," says John, smirking a little. It's fun to surprise Rodney.

When they get back to John's place, Rodney puts him to work rinsing the calamari out several times in ice water and picking off any stray membranes. They look like little, rubbery wind-socks, and are slippery in the water. Rodney mixes up various fillings with his hands and when he's done, tastes with his fingers instead of the stack of spoons. "You don't have a dishwasher," he says when John looks at him questioningly. "You don't mind, do you?"

"Nah," says John. He watches Rodney suck the feta filling off his fingers.

Rodney washes his hands then says, "Okay, we need to stuff these, then close off the ends with a skewer. Uncooked spaghetti works best." John gets the some out of cabinet. "You can use a spoon, but it's easiest to use your hands. Although it's still not easy."

Rodney holds one of the little squids in loosely in one hand and picks up a finger-full of the feta-mint filling and pushes it into the creature's cavity. John is slightly mesmerized by the sight of Rodney's blunt fingers working the filling into that small space. Rodney does it deftly, but the calamari is slippery, the filling rather wet, and it makes an intriguing squishing noise when Rodney pushes his fingers in.

That is nothing, however, to actually doing it himself. John scoops up some filling and pushes it into a calamari, and the sensation, the action, is so akin to foreplay that he feels his face heating and he presses his dick against the counter to avoid making his response obvious. He's getting turned on by squid? Except it's not the squid, it's the overwhelmingly sexual nature of stuffing these little things, and watching Rodney's fingers go into them.

The silence becomes oppressive and John wonders if Rodney is thinking the same things as him. He sneaks a glance at Rodney's face, but it is bent down in concentration over the bowl of filling. If this affecting him like it is John, he doesn't show it.

"Why don't you make these at Atlantis?" John asks. His voice sounds thick.

"Well, I suppose we could, if we filled them with a pastry cone."

"Why not fill them by hand?" John pitches his voice low. It sounds like a come-on, more than he intended, but if Rodney takes it that way, John doesn't plan to complain.

"Well, it's slow," says Rodney. Then he looks up and gives John a grin. "And, I wouldn't want to incite an orgy in the kitchen."

Now John feels free to laugh, and it dispels the tension a little. Rodney is flushed too, although he's standing on the opposite side of the island in John's kitchen, and John can't tell if he had quite the same reaction. He debates making a move then and there, twining his fingers through Rodney's in the feta filling and seeing what happens next, but the moment passes while he tries to gather his nerve.

Rodney grills the stuffed calamari for a few minutes, after basting them with olive oil. When cooked, they are little, flavorful balloons decorated with perfect grill-lines, but no longer seem like alien sex toys.

They sit out on the patio drinking beers and watching the fireflies come out and then Rodney takes the train back to Manhattan.

***

"I have to end it with Carson," says Rodney. Dr. Heightmeyer is wearing yet another of her pale blue suits today. "The sex is only good when we're fighting."

"Why do you think that is?"

"Because he's prissy and annoying when we're not fighting."

"Do you think it could be because you tell him the truth when you're fighting."

Rodney fixes her with a look. "Kate, it's me. I always tell the truth. You said that was one of my main problems."

***

Late Saturday night—really, early Sunday morning—is Sheppard's favorite time to wander Manhattan and find fun places to hang out. Rodney knows all the places the cooks go, and John soon acquires a sixth sense for finding them as well.

They stumble into little two-star Spanish restaurant on the Lower East Side, after sipping some expensive tequila with Sam at Mesa. They always invite her along, but tonight she says she's beat, and so they find this place on their own. Sam swears by good tequila, and even though Rodney likes to infuriate her by saying it's all the same, this stuff tasted nutty and citrus-y all at the same time, like a the crust Rodney's been trying to perfect on his cashew-dusted salmon. Mesa lists this tequila at thirty dollars a glass on the menu, so Elizabeth is never going to go for basting fish with it, but it gives Rodney an idea, and he bounces and hums his way down the street.

His feet are killing him from spending ten hours on them in the kitchen, but a new cooking idea always gives him energy, and he half wishes he could go home to his kitchen and start trying things out right now. He looks over at Sheppard, whose face is as unreadable as always, and then they find the place. It's called Saffron or something like that—Rodney won't remember in the morning. It looks just like any other place on the block, except salsa music pours out of the open door.

This restaurant would never be competition for Atlantis, although the food is probably tasty enough, but tonight it's drawn the service crowd, the bartenders and waiters and cooks who need somewhere to wind down from their shifts. Someone pushed the tables out of the way, and set up a turn-table in the back. A few civilians have wandered in off the street, and five-foot-tall, skinny Mexican bus-boys are dancing with whatever girls they can grab.

Rodney knows some dark-eyed Spanish waitress will attach herself Sheppard the moment they push their way past the crowd thronging the door. Rodney will get to enjoy watching him dance, at least. Sheppard moves his hips like no straight boy Rodney's ever seen, at least no straight white boy. Sure enough, once their eyes adjust to the dark red light inside, a tall woman with long black hair and full lips approaches Sheppard and grabs his hand. He shrugs and lets her lead him into the tiny bar space full of swaying bodies.

Plates of leftover tapas dishes and pitchers of sangria line the top of the bar. Rodney scoops up one of the slices of chorizo with his fingers, since there are no plates or forks to be seen, and he's about to put it into his mouth when he feels someone tugging on his shoulder.

Sheppard's other hand still holds the woman's and she dances up against him even as he tries to get Rodney's attention. Rodney waves piece of sausage at him, by way of explanation for why he can't join them dancing right this minute, but Sheppard seems to understand the gesture differently, and he opens his mouth expectantly.

He wants me to feed him. He wants me to feed him. Rodney lifts up the chorizo to Sheppard's mouth. Maybe he should hold it by the edge, so that Sheppard doesn't have to put his lips right around Rodney's fingers to suck the sausage and the sweet, port-infused oil off his fingers, but Rodney doesn't have time to think about it.

He slurps the chorizo from Rodney's fingers like it's a sex act he just invented, and god, his tongue feels good against Rodney's fingers. His fingers have always been hardwired directly to his cock, and that starts to respond like Sheppard's tongue is there instead.

"Was it good?" yells Rodney over the loud music. Sheppard just smiles and Rodney thinks that probably Sheppard can't hear him, and his smile is his way of saying, okay, let me get back to the pretty lady now, but then he disengages his other hand from hers, picks up another slice from the plate and starts moving it toward Rodney's mouth.

The journey from the plate seems to take forever, or time slows down, because Rodney has time for all kinds of thoughts.

This is Sheppard seducing you.

This is John Sheppard seducing you.

Why on earth is he working so hard?

Rodney has to fight back a nervous laugh. I'm a sure thing, he thinks. He and Carson aren't exactly exclusive. Not with Carson spending all his spare time with that Michael. And even if they were . . .

The chorizo is good—the sweetness of the port used for braising contrasts perfectly with the salty, crunchy flavor of the flesh, and Rodney risks a little nibble on one of Sheppard's fingertips before he takes his hand away.

"Come on," says Sheppard. He takes Rodney's hand. "Dance." He pulls Rodney out onto the dance floor. Rodney knows he's an enthusiastic, if not terribly gifted, dancer and salsa in quarters this close requires nothing besides a little wiggling to the beat. The woman Sheppard was dancing with before slithers in between as soon as they step away from the bar, and Sheppard shrugs and motions for Rodney to dance with her too.

That works okay, and if the woman thinks it's sexy to have two men with erections pressed up against her, she probably doesn't mind that at least one of them isn't for her. Sheppard deftly spins her off after the song is done, and gets a couple glasses of sangria from the bar. He hands one to Rodney and they drink, but the moment is gone, and Rodney doesn't want to press for anything, in case he read Sheppard wrong.

The long night starts to catch up with Rodney, the pain from his feet penetrates through the fog of alcohol and arousal, and he is thinking again about going home, when Sheppard hands him a spoonful of Spanish potato salad, wonderfully fatty and creamy after the sweetness of the sangria. Rodney tastes it and rolls his eyes happily. Sheppard smiles then serves some for himself. He reaches over and past Rodney for another pitcher of sangria, the one they were drinking from now empty, and brushes up against Rodney, the whole front of his body against Rodney's side. Rodney can feel something harder than Sheppard's long, lean torso pressing into his hip.

"God," Rodney says finally, after Sheppard stays like that far too long for it to be an accident, "are you fucking trying to drive me crazy?"

Sheppard sticks his finger in his mouth and licks off a piece of potato. "Yes," he says. "I'm glad you noticed."

"Really?" asks Rodney before he can stop himself. Suddenly he doesn't feel tired anymore.

Sheppard nods solemnly. Then he pulls Rodney out onto the dance floor again, and this time there is no one between them, just Rodney up against Sheppard's firm torso and that shiny black t-shirt sliding against Sheppard's skin, under Rodney's palms when he puts his hands on John's back.

They don't dance for long before Sheppard leans in close to Rodney's ear, close enough that he can feel Sheppard's lips brush against his skin. "You want to go back to Atlantis?"

Rodney's stomach does flip flops, but he's not about to object to suggestions that might get him alone with Sheppard. "Okay," he says.


***

The night crew has left by the time they get back to Atlantis. John takes Rodney by the hand and leads back into the pantry. He opens the door of one of the huge fridges, Zelenka's fridge, and takes out a container.

"That's Zelenka's pastry cream," says Rodney, but not like he cares, more like he doesn't like the silence of restaurant with just the big kitchen fans whirring in the background.

John doesn't care either. Zelenka is a weird little man and as touchy as any pastry-chef John's ever worked with, but he'll get over it. John dips his fingers into the sweet pastry cream and licks it off, enjoying the way Rodney follows each motion of John's tongue with his eyes.

"It's good," says John. He takes another finger-full and this time Rodney licks it off. He traces his tongue over each of John's fingertips and nibbles them slightly for good measure.

They sit on the stacks of flour in the back of the pantry. The whole place is quiet. They could fuck on top of the bar and no one would see. Maybe they will, but not now. For now Rodney just watches John like John's the most exciting thing he's ever seen, cooler than Star Wars, sexier than 9 ½ Weeks.

Rodney already has his shirt off so John smears some of the cream across his chest and bends down to lick it off, paying extra attention to Rodney's nipples. Rodney stiffens and mutters, "Oh god, yeah, oh yeah," every time John flicks his tongue against them

John feels a little nervous suddenly, because while he's hooked up with plenty of guys, it was always just hooking up, and this doesn't feel like that. Rodney doesn't just hook up, he dates people, has a boyfriend, isn't just another pretty, horny surfer boy. And John wants to kiss him, taste his mouth sweet with the pastry cream, his sarcastic, well-educated mouth, and that's new for him too.

So he does, nervousness be damned. He feels like Rodney is tasting him when they kiss. He's watched Rodney slurp so many things off spoons, he wonders if Rodney is going to pause meditatively and say something like "more salt." Rodney is tasting him, and letting John taste him back, and John doesn't want to let go. Rodney's mouth is delicious, more than anything Rodney's ever fed him. John puts another spoonful of custard in his mouth and kisses Rodney again, so he can taste the cool pastry cream as it warms up on their tongues.

The custard is cold right out of the fridge, and very sweet, but it balances well with the hot, salty flavor of Rodney's skin. And it feels incredible when Rodney smears some on him. Rodney frowns, lines of concentration on his forehead, when he bends over John. The fifty-pound stacks of flour and rice under John's back aren't very comfortable, but god, the sound of Rodney slurping the custard off John's nipple is one of the most arousing things he's ever heard.

John pushes Rodney onto his back and works Rodney's trousers down to his ankles. He looks up at Rodney's face and sees a mixture of anticipation and worry on it. He had planned to go down on Rodney but now he wants to kiss him again first, until he stops looking anything but happy. Rodney bites gently on John's lower lip, cups his face and pulls him forward. Rodney's kisses make the hairs on the back of John's neck stand up, make his fingers tingle, and he can't even imagine what the rest is going to be like.

Rodney's hand finally finds John's cock and sends a warm jolt through his body. John doesn't think he'd have to do more than thrust against that big palm to come, but Rodney's hand wraps him around tightly, and John can't think of anything besides Rodney's tongue in his mouth, and Rodney's hand around him, the sweet smell of pastry cream and the salty smell of sweat. He comes a few seconds later.

"Well, I'll never be able to look at one of Zelenka's éclairs the same way," says John shakily. He looks down at Rodney's hands, which are sticky with pastry cream and come.

Rodney glances around the pantry and looks chagrined. "We should clean all this up," he says, but he can't hide his grin. John looks around. There are dollops of the light yellow pastry cream on the sacks of flour and even a few on the walls.

"What about you?" asks John. He didn't mean to be selfish, and Rodney looks so enticing this way, flushed and hard, his hair messy from John's hands.

Rodney shrugs. "Well, if you want . . ."

"You know what else would taste really good with pasty cream?" asks John, and then he kneels down and shows him.


***

I should be feeling guilty, thinks Rodney when he goes into work the next evening. We work together, that could be bad. And it didn't feel like a one-night stand, but Rodney has to remind himself that's what it was. Or maybe they'll cook together occasionally and trade blowjobs on the couch, but it isn't a relationship. He has a relationship. Not exclusive, but still a relationship.

John is fun, that's all. Pretty, sexy, and almost as obsessed with food as Rodney is, but still just fun. Just fun.


Read Comments | Leave A Comment


Home | Pirates of the Caribbean | Hornblower | Master and Commander | Hellboy | Daily Show RPS | Batman Begins | Crossing Jordan | NCIS | Stargate: Atlantis | Firefly | Coldfire | Top Gun | House | Battlestar Galactica | Heroes | Heroes RPF | Dexter | Torchwood | Sports Night | Yankees RPF