Gigi Sinclair

Rodney had known it was only a matter of time before they were faced with this situation. He'd been hoping to put it off a while longer but, really, it was surprising that it had taken this long, nearly three years, before the first of their people succumbed to the inevitable. And, Rodney thought, grabbing at desperate straws, it could have been worse. After all, Dr. Rebecca Bergen and Captain Chris Vanderwall had been married for nearly three hours now, and "The Chicken Dance" had yet to make an appearance.

"Hello, Rodney." Rodney looked up from his slice of Athosian fruitcake. They were a little short of three-tiered cake moulds and thick white icing, but someone had made a miniature bride and groom out of what looked like empty shell casings and had stuck them on top of the dense wedding cake.

"Elizabeth." She sat beside him. She was wearing a black dress, just short enough to remind everyone that she had legs, and nice ones at that. Not so long ago, Rodney would have gladly ogled them. Now, though, his attentions were taken up by the man currently making a fool of himself on the dance floor, with a champagne glass in one hand and his other arm around Aiden Ford's shoulders.

"It was a lovely ceremony."

"Indeed." Halling had conducted it. He was apparently some kind of ordained minister in what Rodney assumed was the Athosian version of the Unitarians, due to the relaxed, thankfully secular feel of the wedding ceremony. Rodney had been in no mood to get reacquainted with kneeling and guilt of his church-going youth.

"Makes you wonder who'll be next," Elizabeth commented. Rodney knew it was paranoia, but it seemed like she looked pointedly at John and Aiden, swaying together to some tinny pop song that had been on the charts around the time they left Earth.

"Not me, I know that much." Rodney lay down his napkin.

"Oh no?" Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. "Not the marrying kind?"

"Not the love kind." He never had been. People loved him, of course, and he'd never been short on dates, but he'd never found anyone he could stand to be with for more than a few months, a year at the outside. Even this new thing with John, whatever it turned out to be, wasn't going to last forever, Rodney knew that. He was just enjoying it while it did last. "Not," he added quickly, "That I haven't had plenty of opportunities."

"Of course not." Elizabeth smiled, as the pop song segued into someone's Dusty Springfield MP3. She pushed back her chair and stood, extending a hand to Rodney. "Are you the dancing kind?"

On the dance floor, John had left Aiden and had his arms around Teyla. "Actually, I'm not really..." But Elizabeth had already taken his hand, and Rodney let her pull him out onto the floor.

She was a good dancer. Rodney was no slouch himself, naturally, but with her he felt stiff and awkward. Glancing around, he caught John's eye over Elizabeth's shoulder. John grinned widely and, eyes still on Rodney, he whispered something in Teyla's ear and let go of her. John swigged back the last of his champagne as Teyla laughed and moved over to take Jinto's hands. The boy looked like he had struck the Athosian wedding-dance equivalent of the jackpot, and John headed towards Rodney and Elizabeth. Which was fine. Rodney was ready to get back to his fruitcake.

"May I cut in?" John asked, as expected.

Rodney opened his mouth to respond and, for the first time ever, someone beat him to it.

"Sure," Elizabeth released Rodney's hand and stepped back. Before Rodney could react, John had taken her place, planting his hands on either side of Rodney's waist.

"What are you doing?" Rodney whipped his head around so quickly, he was sure he dislocated his shoulder. Courageously, if he did say so himself, he blinked through the pain to see just how many people were watching them. As far as he could see, no one was overtly staring, but that didn't mean they weren't looking.

"It's called dancing, Rodney," John replied, in his most patient voice. It didn't make Rodney feel any better.

"Are you insane? We're in public."

"You don't say." John grinned again, and Rodney realized his hands had, entirely of their own accord, migrated to John's shoulders. He took them down, leaving them hanging stiffly at his sides.

"People will see."

"I'll let you in on a little secret, Rodney." Without warning, John yanked him closer, their bodies colliding and John's lips nearly brushing Rodney's ear. Only the music and the shuffling of John's feet kept this from being just a couple of people standing too closely together in the middle of a room. "Being drunk," John whispered, his breath hot against Rodney's ear, "Excuses a lot of stuff."

"Like that shirt, I suppose. It must be visible from space." Rodney hadn't seen this particular bright green and orange travesty before, which led him to believe John must have been visiting the new mainland Athosian market again.

John laughed, then abruptly stopped moving. "You like this song?"

"I find it irritating and inane." If you didn't have to say you loved me, after all, then why would you bother being close at hand? Rodney would prefer to be as far away as possible.

"Then let's get out of here." John let go of Rodney, turned, and started to walk away. It was the best idea Rodney had heard all evening. Waiting a moment, until he was sure the people on the dance floor were thoroughly occupied with their partners and those on the sidelines were absorbed in their drinks and their cake, Rodney followed John. He was waiting in the hall.

"You think they've legalized it back home?" John asked, somewhat cryptically, as they headed down the hallway. Rodney wasn't sure where they were going, but he was happy enough not to question it just yet.

"What? Marijuana? You'd better hope so, if you're planning on taking that shirt back with you one day. I imagine that's quite an intriguing pattern if you're high as a kite."

"Funny." John grimaced. "I mean gay marriage."

"Oh." Rodney felt a sudden, inexplicable surge of embarrassment. "Well, my country was nearly there when we left. I don't know about yours, but I'd expect them to go for it about the time hell freezes over." Rodney expected that to launch one of their friendly, familiar "North American" debates, but it didn't. Instead, John said:

"It's legal here, you know. Teyla told me. Same sex Athosian couples have been hooking up for generations. I figure the Ancients probably did it, too, since they were so enlightened, right?"

"You know, funnily enough, I've never actually thought about it." They were heading towards Rodney's quarters, he could see that now. What they were going to do when they got there depended, Rodney supposed, on how drunk John actually was.

"Would you marry me?"

Something had apparently lodged itself in Rodney's throat. He suspected one of the larger nuts from the fruitcake, as he started to choke. John patted him on the back until whatever it was disappeared and Rodney could breathe again. "Hypothetically," John added, leaving his hand on Rodney's shoulder as they walked the last few feet to Rodney's door.

"Hypothetically?" Rodney turned his back, futzing with the door longer than was strictly necessary. Longer, even, than was reasonable, but John didn't seem to notice. He waited patiently, humming Dusty Springfield under his breath, until Rodney couldn't put it off any longer. He door opened and John, never one to let things go, said:

"Yes, hypothetically," and briskly kicked off his shoes. Apparently, Rodney thought, he wasn't that drunk.

"Hypothetically," Rodney repeated, and cleared his throat. "Huh. Well, what you're really posing there is a twofold question, or actually, maybe it's threefold..."

"You don't have to say yes to get some," John smiled easily and got to work on his pants, dropping them to reveal a pair of black bikini briefs. Tight black bikini briefs. "I'm just wondering if maybe one day, if nothing better comes along, you might want to think about the cake-and-dancing thing." His smile grew. "It doesn't have to be Dusty Springfield, either. You could play your Leonard Cohen files and clear the room. More cake for us."

For the first time in years, since they'd first sat him down and explained that the big circular thing in the basement of Cheyenne Mountain wasn't the lost centrepiece from Stonehenge, Rodney was speechless.

Fortunately, John was too busy hopping on one foot and fighting with his pants to notice.

"Here." Rodney reached down to unhook the pant cuff from John's foot. John steadied himself against Rodney's back. When Rodney straightened up, John's pants in his hands, John looked at him with what Rodney assumed was a combination of Athosian wine and Earth champagne, but he knew John well enough to know there was something else there, too.

Something a little more than hypothetical.

"'You don't have to say you love me'," John said, sliding his hands up Rodney's body until one landed on his cheek, and the other slid through Rodney's hair.

"I'm not going anywhere, John." Rodney kissed him, tasting the alcohol on his tongue.

"You know," John pointed out, when Rodney pulled back, "It is a wedding night."

"Not ours," Rodney replied, equally reasonably, but he couldn't help what he suspected was a slightly goofy grin of his own.

John shrugged. "That's no reason to let it go to waste."

"I like the way you think, Major."

He also liked the way John went down on his knees, a little shakily, dragging Rodney's dress pants with him. But he wasn't about to tell John that. After all, Rodney didn't want to end up marrying someone with a bigger ego than his.

Even if he did appreciate the finer points of Leonard Cohen.