Work Text:
Parrish spoiled things for everyone the day a five-mile dash from spear wielding natives on P4A-332 ended in him throwing up and passing out in the gate room. Sheppard used it as an excuse for a vicarious health kick, implacably demanding gym attendance from everyone who – quite normally, McKay felt – got sweaty and faint from ten minutes on a treadmill. McKay had already sent twelve emails to Colonel Carter begging her to give Sheppard some real work. The man clearly had too much time on his hands.
Sheppard must have had Atlantis snitching on the scientists, because anyone who didn’t work out three times a week tended to be hunted down and dragged away. Several of the scientists were developing a nervous twitch when they passed Sheppard in the corridors. If McKay wanted to get his heart rate up he just had to hang around in the experiment suites on xenomunitions day, he didn’t need to pant and sweat in the city gym. At the very least, McKay figured that running for his life on PM4-678 two days ago was a sufficient workout to count for one of his mandatory three, but Sheppard apparently disagreed.
“I’m busy,” McKay argued.
“It’ll only take an hour, then you can come right back,” Sheppard replied cheerfully.
McKay scowled, because after an hour of working out, there was no way he’d be coming straight back to work. Showers would be involved, and muscle relaxants, and an extra meal maybe, to replace the calories. “I don’t have an hour!”
“Is the city about to blow up?”
“Well, that’s not the-- Hey!” Sheppard made to close McKay’s laptop; Rodney snagged it and spun in his chair so that his back was between Sheppard and the computer. “What’ve I told you about touching my computers! That’s how fingers are lost, Colonel.”
Sheppard walked around to face him, obviously holding back a grin. “Come on McKay, it’s not going to kill you.”
“No? If I don’t finish this proof, ‘it’ could very well kill all of us!”
Sheppard’s brows raised, impressed. “Really?”
McKay maintained his outraged conviction for a beat, then slumped, sighing. “No.”
He let Sheppard snap his laptop closed and take it from him, and grimly followed Sheppard out of the lab. “I don’t get why you hate it so much,” Sheppard was saying. “I’m not going to torture you.”
~*~
In Sheppard’s world, a five minute jog was a warm up. McKay was already red faced and sticking to his shirt. Then, Sheppard led him through ten minutes of stretches, which is where the torture really began.
Sheppard demonstrated each stretch, all co-ordinated and limber and graceful. Sheppard kept up a drawling, low voiced monologue telling McKay which muscles he should be feeling the pull in. The one where Sheppard’s shirt hitched up lopsidedly and showed an inch of skin was supposed to be stretching his sides. The one where Sheppard’s biceps drew his short sleeves taut, complementing the bulges in his musculature perfectly, was the upper arms. The one where Sheppard’s shirt drew tight over his pectorals was meant to be his shoulders and chest. And the one where his clenching ass seemed to be holding half his body weight was meant to be the abs and lower back, but when McKay followed him onto forearms and toes, head bowed, he couldn’t tell if it was working because the only sensation he was aware of was the ache in his cock.
Sheppard squatted down beside him and pressed a palm lightly on McKay’s lower back to reposition him, explaining what McKay was doing wrong in that low voice that made him sound half asleep. McKay couldn’t tell if his trembling muscles were caused by the exertion or the warm, solid touch. He let himself drop abruptly, climbing back to his feet because if he got any harder people were going to notice.
“Right!” McKay said. “Cardio?”
Sheppard eyed him strangely, but nodded. McKay hurried over to the nearest exercise bike, where he could hide his problem with a strategically raised knee. Sheppard flirted with Atlantis until McKay’s heart rate came up on the console. Sheppard frowned at it. “You know, your recovery rate is terrible.”
McKay willed his heart to slow down, and when that didn’t work, mentally begged Atlantis to lie for him. He was blithely ignored – Atlantis had apparently been watching the show as well, because her loyalties were unshakeable. Sheppard was starting to look like he wanted to drag McKay to the infirmary. “I was thinking about everything I need to get done before Zelenka’s power test tomorrow,” he lied. “Which is what I should be doing right now, instead of sweating in the gym. You do realise that this is why you people came along?”
Sheppard rolled his eyes. “’We people’ are along to protect you people. And if you want to go off-world, that means you need to be able to keep up while we’re strategically retreating.” He set up the bike and added cheerily, “It’s exercise or evisceration,” and patted the machine expectantly, prompting McKay to peddle.
Some bright spark had hooked up the PA system in the gym to the music on the city’s shared network. At a thought from Sheppard, it started up, matching the beat of McKay's heart. It was malicious, Rodney decided. Unnecessarily intrusive, to advertise to anyone who came into the gym how hard McKay was working. It meant that when Sheppard stepped onto a treadmill with his back to him, Rodney couldn't slack off.
The muscles in Sheppard's back flexed when he ran, each side alternating between lean and stretched, and hard and bunched. Or, McKay imagined they'd be hard; tense and solid under Sheppard's skin. But still soft when Sheppard was relaxed, McKay thought, the kind of musculature that would be comfortable if McKay happened to be draped over it post-coitally.
Jesus-fuck, the gym was a hideous, hideous place.
The display on the bike said that McKay still had nineteen minutes to go. Then it would probably be the treadmill for him, too. Sheppard was running easily, just killing time while McKay sweated. If Sheppard amused himself at 8mph and a five percent incline while all the scientists worked out, he must be fitter than Ronon.
Except... there were at least twenty scientists on Sheppard's hit list. Three times a week for each scientist made it more than a full time job for Sheppard to coach and pace and harangue them all. McKay figured he was either delegating or doubling up victims... but not with Rodney. This was the third enforced exercise period, and Sheppard had been there all three times. McKay frowned at Sheppard's back, irritated and suspicious, arousal under control for the first time since they got there. Because Sheppard had been leading him to think that McKay was getting the same treatment as everyone else. And if Sheppard was actively singling him out, then McKay hoped he had a damn good reason.
The track changed, slower and more forbidding. Sheppard reached a hand to the console in front of himself to slow the treadmill so that he could glance over his shoulder at McKay without risking slapstick. McKay met his eyes with a glare, thinking that if Sheppard didn't like what McKay's heart beat did while he cycled, perhaps Sheppard should get a flunkie to oversee McKay's training. Or, alternatively: not.
Sheppard prodded his treadmill to a stop, not breathing hard after just a couple of minutes on it. He stepped off the back just as it halted, letting the belt carry him off. He pinched his T-shirt's hem and flapped it a couple of times to cool himself. He had to know what he looked like. McKay glared harder, and stopped his own machine.
“You alright, McKay?” Sheppard asked: curious; friendly; ever-so-slightly concerned.
The bastard. The music was some sort of ominous, Ancient classical thing full of foreboding and heavy basslines, and it was grating on McKay's nerves. He spared a sharp, wrathful thought to Atlantis to please shut-the-hell-up before he made a minion purge the entire music database, preservation of dead civilisation be damned.
He was a little bit surprised when it did. And then it started up again, something softer and more energetic, the sort of thing Sheppard would probably choose. McKay stepped down from the bike, fuming.
Sheppard cocked an eyebrow.
“You!” McKay sputtered, poking him in the chest. “Don't give me the eyebrow, you manipulated me!”
Sheppard tilted his head: innocent; bemused. “When I told you the cafeteria was out of cheesecake? You're right. But it would have gone straight to your hips.”
“Do you have stock in the concept of levity? If someone on P4X-134 leans on something and smirks do you get a dollar?”
Sheppard stared for a second, good mood visibly wilting, then shot a glance around the gym, checking for an audience. “Okay,” he allowed when he saw that they were still alone, furrowing his brow and stepping a little closer. “What's going on?”
The music lowered in tone, if not volume, slipping down a register as the energetic motif faded out. It wasn't just tracking beats, McKay realised; it was mood music. And it was picking up Sheppard. He narrowed his gaze, considering Sheppard. He looked a little concerned, expectant.
“I don't think you're in the gym all week supervising while my minions sweat for your stupid new rule.”
Sheppard blinked at him, face turning blank. “I don't--”
“I think you've made an exception for me. Is it because you enjoy making me suffer? Or do you think I'm a particular liability?”
“Rodney, you--”
“Because if you want me to be some sort of athlete, I might as well quit the team now.”
“That's not--” Sheppard broke off, as if he had fully expected Rodney to interrupt him. When he realised Rodney had paused, he scrambled to continue before he lost his opening. “I don't want you to be an athlete. I was kidding about the cheesecake.”
“I don't care about the cheesecake!” McKay yelled, and unusually, that was true.
Sheppard's brows met, uneven lines scrunching up between them. “Look, I'll tell Carter I don't want to make it mandatory anymore.”
“What?!” McKay exclaimed. “That doesn't make any sense! You're caving because I'm yelling at you? That's- You're-” And he noticed that the music was thumping, low and fast like a herd running for its collective life. If he wasn't hearing it, he would have thought Sheppard was as calm and unruffled as he looked. He might have stormed out, leaving this latest, impenetrable argument with Sheppard behind him like he had dozens of others in their years on Atlantis. Instead, he threw up his hands. “What the hell is with you?!”
“Jesus, McKay, it's just a workout once in a while. It doesn't matter.” Sheppard was glaring, now, and it was only because McKay was looking for it that he could read the lines of tension in his easy posture.
“It mattered this morning when you shot my concerns down to Carter! It mattered when you frog-marched me out of my lab half an hour ago, where, by the way, I was actually achieving something.” He let his tone clearly suggest that he did not consider that to be the case right then.
“Well, it did seem like a good idea for everyone to be action-fit off world,” Sheppard drawled. “Because of the spears. And the vomit.”
“Do you hear me debating that?” McKay asked acerbically – ignoring the fact that if Sheppard cast his mind back twelve hours he would hear exactly that. McKay had adapted; Sheppard needed to keep up. “No, you do not. It's actually one of your less stupid ideas, you moron. Spears, bad. Escape, good. I hereby declare that if I find haven't run for my life at least twice in a week, I will come to the gym and attempt to replicate the experience. At my convenience. We are arguing, Colonel, about why you're singling me out.” He raised his brow in a 'so?' expression.
Sheppard ran a hand over the nape of his own neck. “You're on my team,” he said. “I kind of have a vested interest.”
As if Sheppard didn't feel just as responsible for everyone else on Atlantis. The music thundered on, a panicked thrum in the background. McKay tipped his chin up. “That's not it. Try again.”
Sheppard narrowed his eyes at McKay, signalling exactly how much patience he had for McKay ordering him around. “And you're my friend, McKay.” He cleared his throat. “I'd rather not go back to Earth to have That Conversation with Jeannie.”
McKay recoiled, stunned that Sheppard would go there, in no doubt that Sheppard had brought lost friends into this to make Rodney drop it. And it would have worked, if the PA system wasn't beating out an evasion-detector in leitmotifs.
“You're an ass, Sheppard,” McKay ground out. “And you could have one of your marines cracking the whip and have the same results. So give me the damn truth,” he hissed.
His own heart was pounding with adrenaline. Their arguments never gained momentum like this; like it had gone too far to be ended by a well-chosen sentence. Because, McKay realised, he had always bought it when Sheppard talked him down before, with his hair-rubbing and thoughtful frowns. This fight had taken on its own path and McKay was suddenly uncertain whether he would like where it ended up.
“What's gotten into you, McKay?” Sheppard asked, eyes flashing. “You can't be this worked up because I've been making you get on the treadmill a couple times a week.” A jab skywards indicated the music.
McKay huffed, not with laughter but with unadulterated annoyance, because as much as Sheppard liked to feign it, he was not normally oblivious. Sheppard took a half step back when McKay grabbed his hand but McKay followed him, pressing Sheppard's fingers into Sheppard's own throat. Comprehension dawned on Sheppard face like wild panic. “That's not me,” McKay gritted out, and he turned on his heel and stormed out.
~*~
They avoided each other for a couple of days. McKay tracked John's movements, of course, and was not surprised to see that he didn't set foot back in the gym.
On the second day, they crossed paths at a staff meeting. Rodney had tried and failed to get out of it, and from the way Carter was looking between them, it seemed Sheppard had as well.
Sheppard smirked in all the right places, doodled and argued and zoned out at the particularly boring parts. If he hadn't seen Sheppard's life sign take a u-turn around the corner from him that morning, or seen him bus a lunch tray with half a sandwich still on it, Rodney would wonder if he was imagining things. Sheppard was totally normal. There was nothing to see.
And McKay started to wonder. How could he ever know what Sheppard was really thinking?
~*~
On the third day, just as Rodney was planning out how to adapt his radio to catch Sheppard's mood-music-frequency, Sheppard showed up at his door.
Rodney stared for a second, surprised. Not because Sheppard had been the one to break the deadlock, because he was the consummate pacifier whenever there was conflict in the team; mediating and cajoling and harassing. But McKay was surprised that Sheppard had come to his quarters. Not just plonked himself down with McKay in the mess hall, or shown up in the labs with a coffee and a muffin. Actually come to his room.
Sheppard fidgeted under his gaze, until McKay stepped to the side to invite him in.
“Hi,” Rodney said, just to break the silence.
“I like hanging out with you,” Sheppard said, keeping eye contact at the same time as looking like he wanted to bolt.
“Um, okay?” McKay replied. Perplexed, he added, “I like hanging out with you, too.” Pathetically, he had actually missed Sheppard these last couple of days.
“No, that's not...”
Sheppard winced. He glanced at the door, just a flick of the eyes. McKay stalked over and insinuated himself into Sheppard's escape route, standing with his back to the door, arms crossed over his chest.
“What's not?” He had no idea what Sheppard was thinking, and had little faith any more that he could read it from Sheppard's body language.
Sheppard took a breath and looked hard at McKay, as if trying to project himself telepathically. “I like hanging out with you. That's why I made you go to the gym with me.”
McKay frowned at him. “We hang out all the time,” and then he couldn't help adding, “Unless you're off sulking somewhere, avoiding me.”
“Hey, you were avoiding me t– look, that's not the point.”
“There's a point?” And McKay felt a jolt of understanding. It was unprecedented: Sheppard came here to talk about his feelings. No wonder he looked queasy.
“Yes. God.”
“That you like hanging out with me,” McKay checked, because Sheppard sort of deserved it.
Sheppard glared at him. “You know what? Never mind. You can get Radio Sheppard to clear things up for me.”
McKay backed himself up to stand right at the door, outstretched palms pressed to it as if physically blocking it would stop Sheppard from leaving. “Okay, fine, wait. So, what, you drag me to the gym when you're bored? What's wrong with making yourself useful in the labs? Or finding a marine to spar with, or whatever it is you do.”
“Working out is useful,” Sheppard argued.
“Right. Evisceration,” Rodney confirmed.
“Are you doing this on purpose?” Sheppard asked, irritation obvious on his face.
“Doing wh--” but then Sheppard's face was closing up, and Rodney hadn't even noticed it was open. He backtracked. “Sorry. But I really have no idea what you're so eloquently trying to say.”
Sheppard's jaw clenched. “I'm trying to say, Rodney, that I like you. I hang out with you in the gym because I like you.”
“Sheppard, I think we've established that we like...” he trailed off. “Oh my God. Is this some sort of inept declaration of, of intent?”
Sheppard pursed his lips. “I'm gonna go back to work now.”
“Seriously?” McKay squawked. “Seriously?”
Sheppard sank his hands into his pockets, tense and unhappy. “Seriously,” he confirmed. Then he muttered mutinously, “But, God knows why.”
McKay felt his face break into a grin. “You like me!” he crowed. He closed the gap between then, and had pressed his lips to John's before he had even thought about it.
John stiffened up, surprised. Neither of them moved as their brains caught up, but neither of them backed away; lips touching but motionless. They just stood, breathing a little too fast, inhaling one another and exhaling warmth. Sheppard liked him, and his lips were right there, and okay, maybe that had happened a bit abruptly and it was going to be very awkward, very soon, but Sheppard wasn't pulling back.
And then they were kissing, and someone's hand moved and suddenly McKay had a handful of soft, thick hair and Sheppard was cupping the back of his neck, pulling Rodney closer. Their chests and thighs and lips moved sinuously together, both of them rapidly getting hard, and Sheppard felt so much better than McKay had imagined; warm and solid and real.
Eyes closed, McKay could feel the possessive curl of Sheppard's hands, the frustrated flick of his tongue, the uncertain thrust of his hips. He replied in grabby, exploratory hands and the hard press of as much body-to-body contact as he could get. Sheppard grinned, eloquently, into his mouth.