Back from the Well - 5/6

[xanthefic]

Back from the Well
Part Five
By Xanthe

Home. Rodney walked through the old, familiar city, trying to remember what it had been like to live here, in this beautiful place, away from the constant fear of beatings, rape and death. How had they never appreciated the peace and beauty of Atlantis before – why had they always taken it so much for granted? The marines had secured the city and even John, prowling, restless, relentless John, was satisfied that it was safe. Even so, he had posted a dozen armed guards in the gateroom and instituted new gating protocols before he'd allowed any of the civilian staff to return.

Some of the Atlanteans were in tears, while others just wandered around the place, looking bemused. Some people were laughing, excited, while for others it was all too much, and they retreated to their quarters for some time alone. Rodney went straight to his lab and paused in the doorway, Radek right behind him.

"What is it? Is it okay?" Radek asked, trying to peer over his shoulder.

"They trashed the place," Rodney said quietly, unsurprised; the Karkarans had trampled roughshod over everything else in his life – why should this room be any different? Everything was a mess; chairs and tables upturned, spillages everywhere. Rodney stepped inside, hearing glass break under his boot. "Stupid, imbecilic savages," Rodney muttered, finding equipment destroyed, computer screens in smithereens on the floor, naqada generators shattered.

"Ah well. We can tidy up," Radek said, with a resigned shrug of his shoulders.

"Oh for god's sake – look around you! It's a complete and utter mess!" Rodney snapped, turning on Radek angrily, only to find himself looking into the same hero-worshipping eyes that had gazed on him so hopefully back on the plantation, and he bit back the tirade he'd been intending to unleash on the hapless scientist. "Yes. Of course," he said, in a softer tone. "We'll tidy up. Yes."

"We're home, Rodney," Radek said, his eyes shining happily as he gazed around the room. "Because of you," Radek added. "See, I said you would save us, Rodney and you did. We're home." He beamed a smile of utter sincerity and Rodney had a sudden memory flash of Radek, dressed only in a pair of ragged pants, his body covered in cuts and bruises, lying on his side, sick and wheezing, and telling Rodney that he'd save them. Rodney blinked the memory away, reached for an upturned chair, righted it, and sank down into it, feeling utterly drained. All his life he'd wanted people to recognize his brilliance but somehow, now it had happened, it didn't mean anything. Instead of basking in the glow of Radek's admiration it just felt like a burden, as if he somehow had to take responsibility for Radek's good opinion and live up to it. He tried to say something, to answer Radek, but when he looked up at the other scientist all he could see was the half-starved, whimpering man who had huddled on the ground beside the well and sobbed throughout Rodney's worst suffering, and the memory was so real and vivid that for a second it threatened to overwhelm him. Rodney got to his feet abruptly and walked out, leaving the lab in Radek's insanely cheerful hands.

Rodney wandered along the hallways to Carson's quarters – the rooms they'd all shared before this whole ordeal had begun - and paused in the doorway. Nobody was there – he presumed Carson was in the infirmary and god knew where John was, probably scouring the city looking for someone to fight, Rodney thought wearily.

Rodney pushed the door open and stepped inside, and his breath caught in his throat. Unlike the lab, this room was exactly the same as when they'd left it; clearly the Karkarans hadn't used it. Carson's quarters were bigger than most and comprised a small living room, a bathroom, and a bedroom off to the side. Rodney walked over to the bedroom and peered through the open door. Carson's lamp lay smashed on the floor and there were signs of the fight that had taken place here that night. Rodney paused, crouched down on John's side of the bed and touched his hand to the streak of dark red blood that still stained the floor; John's blood, from where they'd hit his head with the butt of a gun.

"Rodney, are you all right?" a soft Scottish voice asked behind him. "Radek radioed me."

"I'm fine." Rodney stood up. "It's just the same as when we left it, Carson," he murmured.

"I wish I could say the same for the infirmary," Carson replied, coming to stand beside him.

"The lab was a mess as well," Rodney said. "Radek was being all upbeat about it and I wasn't in the mood. That's why I left."

Carson put a hand on Rodney's shoulder as they looked around the room, and Rodney knew Carson was remembering the events of that night, nearly a year previously, just as he was. The large bed they had shared was rumpled, the sheets pulled back, half of them trailing in a heap on the floor and Rodney remembered the shock of waking to find the Karkarans in the room. John had leapt into action, fists flailing in all directions, fighting against the intruders and there had been that loud crack as they hit his head and then he had gone down and Carson had been screaming as he tried to scrabble over the bed to get to him and Rodney had been caught in some kind of net and he kicked and fought but then there had been a loud crunch and everything had gone black…Rodney saw something lying under one of the upturned chairs and fished it out; it was John's thigh holster. He remembered John with short hair and no scar, wearing a uniform with this strapped to his thigh, lying on the bed laughing at something Rodney had said, but that seemed like a lifetime ago and a different John altogether.

Rodney threw the holster onto the bed and turned and went over to the closet. He found his uniform hanging in there and swiftly divested himself of his Karkaran clothes, anxious to be rid of the last trace of that planet. He caught sight of his scarred back in the mirror, and his jaw tightened. He quickly pulled on his black shirt to hide the sight of it and then dragged his pants on – only to find they gaped around his thin waist and resolutely refused to stay up. Angrily, he searched for one of John's belts and slid it through his pants and then tightened it viciously. Then he looked at himself in the mirror, longing to see the man he'd once been now that he was dressed in his old clothes - and his breath caught in his throat. Even with the uniform he still didn't look like himself; his shirt hung off his shoulders and his pants looked as if they belonged to someone else entirely. He looked like a child playing at dressing up in his father's clothes. Rodney gazed at himself sourly, hating the way his jaw jutted out and his cheekbones sunk in. The uniform didn't feel as familiar as he'd hoped – it felt strange, heavy and constricting after so many months of wearing a thin tunic, when he'd been allowed clothes at all.

"Ah – Dr McKay. Nice to have you back," Carson said, brushing Rodney's shoulders with his hands affectionately, trying to lighten the mood.

"I don't feel very back," Rodney muttered.

"Well, at least our quarters haven't been trashed," Carson said, changing the subject as he gazed around the room again. "We can tidy up."

"I wish everyone would stop damn well saying that!" Rodney growled, and he kicked the Karkaran clothes he'd just discarded out of the way, and turned and stalked out of the room and out of Carson's quarters. "We can tidy up," he mimicked under his breath as he strode off down the hallway. "That's all it'll take, just a tidy up, and then everything will be the same as it was, only it won't." He came to a sudden stop, his breathing coming in fast gasps, and he leaned against the wall and tried to steady himself.

"Rodney." Carson ran down the hallway after him. "We could choose different quarters," he said, crouching down so that he could make eye contact with Rodney.

"I don't want different quarters, Carson," Rodney said helplessly, still struggling for breath. "I just want it back to how it was before. You, me, John…nothing good like that ever happened to me before and it's all falling apart. I can't look at Radek without remembering the plantation and being thrown down against that bloody well and, and…and you're walking around with the weight of the entire galaxy on your shoulders and John…John isn't John at all! There are some things you can't just tidy up, Carson." He took a deep gulp of air, pushed himself to his feet again and ran off down the hallway, and this time Carson didn't follow him.

Rodney walked around for an hour or so, trying to get himself under control. When he finally thought he could trust himself not to have another outburst he returned to the lab to find Radek overseeing his team of scientists in the clear up.

"Good. Great," Rodney said tightly.

"McKay." John appeared in the doorway. "I need you to start work on the gate defences," he said tersely. "I want to know precisely how the Karkarans got round the gate's shield and how we can stop anything like that happening again."

"Fine." Rodney was relieved to leave the lab and he followed John out into the hallway. "Our quarters weren't trashed," Rodney said, by way of conversation as they walked back to the gateroom.

"What?" John turned to look at him with a distracted frown.

"Our quarters. I mean…Carson's quarters. They're the same as when we left them," Rodney said, wondering if John even intended sharing them again. It had been something that had happened by mutual unspoken consent the first time around – he and John were both spending every night there anyway that it seemed simpler to move all their stuff in. John made no reply, leaving Rodney with no idea where they all stood. "Did you find any sign of the Karkarans?" Rodney asked, as they entered the gateroom.

"Several of the rooms in the city are trashed and a lot of stuff has been stolen but there's no sign of them apart from that."

"So why did they leave?" Rodney asked.

"I don't know. That's what you're going to find out," John told him, striding up to the gate controls.

"Would this be before or after I fix the gate?" Rodney snapped.

"Well you're the genius – I'm sure you can do both," John replied, slapping a hand on Rodney's shoulder and guiding him into his seat. Rodney flinched away from the touch, and John recoiled and charged off back down the stairs again without saying another word. Rodney gazed after him glumly.

"I don't want to be a genius any more," he muttered sullenly as he started to run his fingers over old, familiar symbols.

It took several hours for Rodney to figure out how the Karkarans had by-passed the gate's defences all those months ago, but John wouldn't let him even take a break until he had a working theory. Then he spent a few more hours working on a way to ensure it could never happen again. Rodney was convinced he'd cracked that a good couple of hours before John was convinced and the colonel made him go through it with him three times before he was finally satisfied that the gate was secure. After that, Rodney was exhausted – it had been a long time since he'd been forced to use this much grey matter and he was thrown by the sudden change of pace in his life. He knew he needed to sleep but he wasn't entirely sure where to go. He still had his own quarters but he hadn't even checked those out and had no idea what condition they were in. In the end, he found his feet wearily taking him back to Carson's quarters, and he knocked on the door, uncertain if this was where he was supposed to be. Carson opened it and gazed at him with a worried frown.

"Sorry about earlier," Rodney muttered contritely. "I was...in a panic. Am I allowed in?"

"Of course, Rodney." Carson stood back and Rodney entered the room, and paused.

"So…you…uh…tidied up," he mumbled, flushing slightly, glancing around. Carson had done a good job of it as well, he thought to himself. There was no broken glass, the bed had been completely remade with clean sheets, and even the dark red, dried bloodstain beside the bed had been scrubbed away.

"Well I thought the infirmary could wait until tomorrow – especially as all our patients are currently being cared for on the Daedalus. We need somewhere to sleep tonight after all," Carson replied. "Have you seen John?"

"Yes…he's…" Rodney twirled a hand around distractedly. "Well, you know, rushing around trying to keep things safe."

"Aye. I thought he might be."

Rodney was too tired to make conversation and too depressed about his deteriorating relationship with John to want to talk about it, so he just stripped off his uniform and crawled into bed. Carson undressed more slowly, and Rodney watched him, waiting for him to be done so he could turn the light off and get some sleep. He noticed a bruise on Carson's thigh, and another on his arm, yellowing now, not recent, and he wondered if Carson had been hurt in that final showdown on Karkara and that made him feel even more out of touch with his lover that Carson hadn't told him. Carson slipped into the bed beside him a few seconds later and put a questing hand on Rodney's thigh. Rodney froze. Was this one of the reasons why it was all going wrong, he wondered? Was sex all they'd ever had in common and now that he was no longer in the mood, maybe there was nothing left? How long could he ask them to be patient, after all? And he had no idea when he was going to feel like being touched in a sexual way again – if ever.

"Sorry, Carson," he said, brushing the hand away. "I'll sleep on the side. Maybe when John comes in you and he…"

Rodney usually slept in the middle, but this way if John was actually still living with them and did come back to the quarters, then at least he and Carson could have some fun.

"Rodney – I didn't mean to pressure you," Carson said as Rodney shifted over. "You just looked like you needed some stress relief."

Rodney closed his eyes, having no reply. He knew this must be confusing for Carson but it was confusing for him too and he had no idea how to deal with it. Back when they'd last shared this bed, Rodney had been up for anything. In fact both his lovers used to joke that he got an erection if they so much as touched his arm by accident when reaching for the salt when they ate. Rodney was a high-strung man and Carson was right – sex in one form or another had been a very efficient way of bringing him down and keeping him calm back in the old days and both Carson and John had been extremely efficient at using it for just that purpose.

Rodney fell into an uneasy sleep, from which he awoke with a startled gasp and a strangled cry when the door opened a few hours later, memories of the Karkaran invasion flooding back. He took a moment to focus and realized it was John.

"Easy, Rodney. Only me," John said, stripping off his clothes and jerking a hand through his braid to release his hair. Rodney watched as John slid a knife under his pillow, and put his newly reclaimed P90 on the nightstand, then he slipped in beside Carson, turned his back on both of them and they all laid there, in silence. Was this the way it was going to be, Rodney wondered, remembering that warm, loving bath they'd shared back on Karkara. There was no lack of love here, surely – just too many no-go areas and three block-headed men who didn't have the faintest idea how to navigate the complicated emotional terrain in which they were currently stranded.

Rodney woke again early in the morning to find the bed empty. He heard muted voices and gazed blearily across the room to see Carson, clad only in a pair of boxer shorts and an open bathrobe, standing over a seated John braiding his hair.

"Now we're home I could cut this off for you," he suggested.

"No," John said curtly.

"Why not? It's not really a standard military haircut…" Carson began.

"Because I have to go back to Karkara," John told him.

"What?" Carson's fingers stopped what they were doing and he gazed at John, aghast.

"Some of our people are still missing, Carson," John said in a low, hard tone. "And I don't leave people behind. I'm just going to stay here long enough to make sure Atlantis is safe and then I'm going back to Karkara and this time I'll have Caldwell's men with me and we'll be sure to kick some Karkaran ass if they don't give us back everyone they took."

"Okay. I understand. Just be careful." Carson's fingers resumed their work, nimbly plaiting the hair so it hung down the side of John's face. He finished what he was doing, tied it off, and then his fingers gently examined John's scar. "You don't need to keep this though," he said. "Why don't we schedule you in for some surgery to take care of it?"

"No," John said, catching Carson's hand in his own to stop the doctor's probing.

"Why not? You don't need that for your trip to Karkara."

"I'm not getting rid of it."

"But why?"

John paused for a moment, and then looked up at Carson with a dark expression in his eyes.

"Rodney won't ever be able to get rid of the scars on his back," John said, in a low, fierce voice. "Why the hell should I be able to get rid of this?"

Carson rocked back on his heels and stared at John. "John, you having a scar or not having a scar won't make any difference to what happened to Rodney," he said.

"No," John said bitterly. "Nothing I do can make a difference to what happened to Rodney. It's too late for that. Every time he looks at me I can see that."

"John…he doesn't blame you for what happened," Carson said, taking John's face in his hands and gazing at him urgently.

"Yes he does – and he should," John rapped out.

"No. You're wrong. He's just having a hard time dealing with what happened to him."

"Did he tell you any of what happened?"

Carson hesitated. "Nothing beyond the obvious, no. He doesn't want to talk about it and there's no reason why he should if this is the way he wants to deal with it."

"Every time I look at him I can see those bastards and imagine them…damnit, I can't forget the way he looked lying in that cage," John growled.

"John, he honestly doesn't blame you and you need to forgive yourself too," Carson whispered, taking hold of John's face and kissing his lips gently. John's hands slid around Carson's waist and he kissed him back, eagerly, hungrily. Rodney lay there, just watching them kiss, envying them their intimacy, and suddenly resenting the fact that they'd had four months alone together during their time on Karkara; while he'd been rotting on that plantation, they'd been sharing a bed, and making love, and becoming close, and now he felt left out.

He watched as John pulled Carson towards him and captured one of the doctor's nipples with his tongue, latching on and sucking down hard. Carson moaned and put his hands on John's shoulders and John slid his hands under Carson's robe and tightened his grasp on him. Carson gave a little cry and John got up and pushed him against the wall, holding him there while he bit a line of kisses across his chest, leaving red marks in his wake.

"Ssh…" Carson whispered. "Don't wake Rodney. He was stressed out last night and I want him to get his rest."

"Did you try the time-honoured Rodney McKay method of stress relief?" John asked, with a wicked grin, as he pressed Carson into the wall, tangling his hand in the other man's hair.

"Yes, I tried – he won't let me touch him."

John banged Carson's head back against the wall with a thud that made Rodney wince. "Damn it…he should talk to someone. Heightmeyer…"

"He hasn't asked to see her and he doesn't have to if he doesn't want to. Besides, she has a list of patients as long as your arm and demons of her own she's struggling with," Carson panted, squirming in John's fierce grasp. John didn't say anything, but he looked angry. He pulled Carson towards him by his hair, and devoured his mouth roughly, his hands moving furiously beneath Carson's robe.

"I want you," John said fiercely when he released Carson. "Now."

"Fine – just keep it quiet so Rodney can sleep," Carson whispered. John let go of Carson's hair and strode over to the nightstand to retrieve some lubricant. Rodney closed his eyes, not wanting John to see that he was witnessing this, but John was preoccupied elsewhere. Rodney opened his eyes again and saw Carson swiftly stripping off his boxer shorts and bath robe, and then John was on him once more. He grabbed Carson bodily and turned him around and then shoved him against the wall, face-first this time. Carson fell against it with a clunk, and then John pounced on him, kicking his legs open and pushing him up against the wall. Carson rested his head on his hands and John slicked lube over his fingers and slid them fast into the doctor's ass. Carson gave a little cry and his head jerked back and now Rodney found that he was fully awake, transfixed by the scene that was playing out in front of him.

John finger-fucked Carson for a few minutes, and then withdrew and slicked his hard cock with the lube before grabbing Carson's hips with his hands and sliding home with a force that was one shade short of brutal. He slid one of his arms around Carson's body to keep him upright and then proceeded to pound into him, back and forth, fast and hard. Rodney could feel the angry urgency that was radiating off the colonel and he had the distinct impression that this wasn't about sex – this was something else, and he was surprised Carson had agreed to it. It was clearly consensual, but Rodney knew that Carson didn't particularly like rough sex. Rodney, on the other hand, loved it, and he and John had frequently had quick, rough, down-and-dirty fucks that they both enjoyed, and afterwards they'd grinned at each other wildly, exhilarated, like they'd just shared a secret joke. Carson preferred slower, more sensual love-making though, and Rodney wondered why the hell he was agreeing to this. Perhaps he was enjoying it because his cock was hard, and John was stroking it in time to his savage thrusts, but Carson's eyes were wide open, staring at the wall with a blank, resigned look on his face. John's thrusting became more urgent, and he came with a muffled cry, burying his face in Carson's neck to stifle the sound. His panting breath had a ragged, sobbing quality to it, and it was only then that Rodney realized that there were wet tears falling unchecked down John's cheeks. John came to a halt, still buried deep inside Carson's body, the tears still falling, silent and unnoticed, and John continued stroking Carson's cock until Carson came too, and then they both stood there, panting, the urgency over. John withdrew from Carson's body with a soft thwumping sound, swiping an arm over his wet face to remove all trace of the tears as he drew away. He stroked Carson's hair and kissed Carson's cheek, softly, gently, in stark contrast to the way he'd just made love to him, and then turned on his heel and left.

Only once he'd gone did Carson move. He backed away from the wall and Rodney noticed that he was shaking. He retrieved his bathrobe and put it back on, then sat down gingerly on the chair and wrapped his arms around his body, staring into the distance while he struggled to regain his composure.

Rodney didn't know what to do. He wasn't even entirely sure what he'd just witnessed. A part of him was jealous and a part of him was even turned on, mentally if not physically. He had loved it on the many occasions when John had pushed him against a wall, or back onto a table, and made fast and furious love to him, but this hadn't exactly been like that. Part of him wanted to experience that again, but his body was resolutely uninterested, and, apart from anything else, he was too scared of the John he'd just witnessed to want him playing rough with him in his current state of mind. He felt too fragile, and his body felt too raw for Rodney to want to expose it to that kind of extreme sexual thrill. He watched as Carson got up and left the room, and a few seconds later he heard the sound of the shower running next door and Rodney closed his eyes again, wondering how the hell this was all going to end.

~*~

They were all so busy that they barely saw each other for the next couple of days, and then John left to go back to Karkara and Rodney hoped that he'd at least get a chance to speak to Carson now that they were alone together but Carson seemed busier than ever. He'd got his infirmary up and running again, and, even though he wasn't a psychologist, he was doing his best to help Heightmeyer deal with her massive workload and as a result he was getting in late every night and he left early each morning. Not that that mattered because Rodney was busy himself; they were all working on an inventory of what had gone missing, and the Science team had the most equipment so Rodney was kept busy with that, in addition to overseeing the clear-up and trying to figure out why the Karkarans had left the city.

"Maybe they never intended to stay," Radek said when they were alone in their lab, trying to fix the general Atlantis maintenance logs so they could at least see what systems the Karkarans had accessed while they'd been here in case that gave them some clue.

"Well then why did they?" Rodney asked. "Why didn't they just leave once they'd got a new supply of slaves and plundered the place? Caldwell says they were still here four months' ago, so they stayed for six – why leave after six?"

"Maybe that's just what they do," Radek shrugged. "Maybe they only ever stay anywhere for six months."

"Oh for god's sake, that doesn't explain why…" Rodney paused and caught himself, feeling guilty as he saw Radek's eyes widen in response to his irascible mood. Every time he wanted to snap, which was his usual working style, Radek's eyes would gaze up at him, like a rabbit caught in a trap, and Rodney would see that skinny, sick man from back at the plantation, and hear those wrenching sobs and then he'd be back out by the well again and that was the last place he wanted to be. "No. Of course, maybe they do only stay in one place for six months," Rodney said in a soothing, conciliatory tone, trying to keep calm. "But that doesn't explain why they trashed the place when they left. Why not sell this stuff? Not on Karkara, obviously, because technology isn't allowed there, but I'm sure there are plenty of other people who'd be interested in it – the Genii for example."

"Well, they're bandits," Radek shrugged. "Maybe that's just what bandits do."

"Well maybe it is," Rodney said, smiling through gritted teeth, trying to keep a grip on his temper. "But we need a better explanation for why they left the city because until we know why they left, we can't be sure they won't come back and somehow I don't think the explanation 'maybe that's just what bandits do' will satisfy Colonel Sheppard."

"No," Radek agreed. "What did you tell him, Rodney?" he asked. Rodney felt himself go cold. Surely Radek wasn't asking him about what he thought he was asking him about? They'd neither of them mentioned the plantation and Rodney didn't want to start talking about it now.

"What do you mean?" he asked, as kindly as he could, struggling to keep a grip on his emotions. Damn but he didn't want to think about the rapes, and it was so hard to avoid thinking about them when Radek was standing right here and Radek had witnessed every single one of them.

"I mean about what happened to you back there," Radek said, in a frightened whisper. "What did you tell Colonel Sheppard because when he came to rescue me I almost didn't recognize him. I thought maybe you'd asked him to kill the people who hurt you, because he wouldn't stop until they were all dead and he was like a crazy beast. I would never have thought Colonel Sheppard could be like that. I was scared that if I got in his way he'd put his sword through me too."

"I didn't tell him anything," Rodney said, desperately not wanting to have this conversation. "I didn't tell him to kill anyone."

"Only…Ronon had me on the horse and we could have got away without a fight…but the Colonel wouldn't leave it. He went after all the overseers. He wanted them all dead," Radek muttered.

"He told me…" Rodney frowned. "He told me that his team made too much noise in the rescue, and that brought the overseers down to investigate and then he had to kill them to make sure they didn't alert the guards at the big house."

"Ah. Well. I was very ill and it was dark. Maybe I misunderstood what happened," Radek muttered unhappily.

"What do you think happened?" asked Rodney, unsure whether he wanted to know the answer to that question.

"No, no – maybe it was that way. I just remember how he seemed possessed and hunted those men down to kill them. He was like some kind of one man killing machine with that sword, covered in blood…I was afraid of him. To tell the truth…I still am."

"Yeah. Me too," Rodney muttered. "Look, Radek, we don't need to talk about this. We should get on with figuring out why the Karkarans left Atlantis."

"You don't like looking at me," Radek said sadly. "You don't like working with me. When you look at me your eyes pass over me as if you don't want to see me clearly."

"Don't be absurd!" Rodney snapped, and then, with a huge effort, he tried to adopt his soothing voice once more. "I'm just tired. I'm not, you know, doing that thing with the eyes that you said."

"And you keep being nice to me. You keep talking to me in that stupid voice like I'm a child."

"Trust me, this is not the voice I use for children," Rodney said. "And what's wrong with being nice to you?"

"You aren't behaving like you any more!" Radek protested, his face going red and upset. "You, Dr Mckay, you are not nice! You have never been nice! You snap at me and call me names – that is Dr Rodney McKay. He isn't nice!"

"Oh thank you very much!"

"I don't want you being nice! I want you to be how you were before! I don't want you to look at me with those eyes and speak to me with that voice!" Radek was genuinely upset, and his hands were scrunched into fists at his side. "I was there too! They hurt me too! Just because I saw them hurt you doesn't mean you should treat me like this. You will drive me away with all this 'yes, Radek, you're probably right, Radek' stuff and that stupid voice and I don't want to be driven away! You have to work with me and I have to work with you and I want things back to how they were before!"

He looked as if he was about to burst into tears and before Rodney could make a reply he turned around and ran out of the lab.

"We all want that, Radek," Rodney muttered to the empty room.

He felt utterly drained by the argument and sat down with a heavy thump on the nearest chair and buried his head in his arms on the table. Atlantis hummed around him, serene as ever, but he felt as if he was barely holding himself together. It was like he was being dragged underwater and only his head was above the surface and he was struggling to breathe, and then he felt himself crying, big, shattering sobs that he couldn't hold back. He'd cried before, back on Karkara, but those had been tears of sheer physical release at being safe and being held in his lovers' arms once more. Now he cried for what had happened to him. Not to Radek, or to John, or to Elizabeth, or anyone else but purely and selfishly for what had happened to him. He cried because he was a proud man who had been stripped naked and sold, and he cried because he'd been whipped and beaten and hurt, and he cried because he'd been thrown over the wall of a well and raped, not once, but several times, sometimes two or three times in succession as if he was a piece of meat, and each time afterwards he hadn't allowed himself the luxury of falling apart. He'd had to be the strong one, for Radek's sake as well as his own, so he'd just got up and grabbed Radek and gone to do a full day's work in the fields as if his body wasn't sore and aching from the abuse and his dignity shattered into too many shards for him to ever gather it together again. He could remember the smell of blood and semen as it dried on his body and how he'd had to live with that smell all day under the baking hot sun because he couldn't wash it off until the evening. He could remember how it hurt to pour the cold water from the well over his torn body, and how he couldn't give into despair, not even when they broke his fingers one by one, or strung him up and whipped him until the blood ran down his back, because if he gave in then he'd give up and he couldn't give up while he was holding onto the hope that Carson and John were still alive. But now it was all over, now they were all safe…now it was harder to keep going. Now he wanted to collapse and give in to all those emotions he'd only just been keeping at bay for these past few weeks, and he hit his fists on the lab table, over and over again, ignoring the raw pain in his hands, wanting it to hurt as much as he hurt inside.

Then the frenzy was over, and he just sat there, crying, for very long time. Nobody disturbed him – he wasn't sure whether anyone came to the door of the lab and saw him, but nobody came in and he was grateful for that. He sat there, quietly sobbing for a very long time. Finally, the sobs subsided through sheer exhaustion because god knows the misery was still there, seemingly inexhaustible, but he just didn't have the energy to cry any more. Then he just sat there, staring into space, because there was nothing left to feel. An hour passed, maybe two, and then he heard a voice on his radio. Elizabeth. Asking him to go to her office. That was fine. He could do that. Rodney slid off the chair and walked unsteadily towards the door. He didn't care that his face had to be blotchy and his eyes red raw, or that his hands were bruised and cut in places. He just walked through the hallways, in a dream. People passed him by, and some looked at him and some looked away but nobody said anything.

He found Elizabeth sitting in her office and he went in, closed the door behind him, and sat down. He could see his reflection in the glass window in her office; he looked dishevelled and it was totally impossible for anyone not to know that he'd just spent the past several hours crying. Elizabeth gazed at him steadily for a moment and then smiled. She didn't mention how he looked, she just treated him like normal, for which he was profoundly grateful.

"I was wondering how that inventory was coming along, Rodney," she asked him in a soft, warm voice.

"Ah, the inventory. Yes." Rodney gazed at a spot somewhere over her left shoulder for a long moment.

"Do you have any idea when it'll be done?" she prompted gently. He dragged his gaze back to her and frowned, trying to concentrate on the question.

"I don't know. Sometime soon I think. We…that is, Radek and I…we hit a hitch with the maintenance logs and that's distracted me. I'm sorry if it's taking too long. It's…I'm feeling sort of…slow," he finished.

"Well, that's okay," she said kindly. "I think we're all feeling a little…slow…these days."

"Good. Okay." Rodney nodded. "Did you hear anything from Colonel Sheppard?" he asked her. Her lips gave that little quirk they always did when he called John 'Colonel Sheppard' so formally. She knew about the unusual living arrangement he had with John and Carson, although she'd never asked any of them about it directly. The entire base knew, but as far as Rodney was aware nobody had a problem with it - although he guessed that some of them had a hard time actually believing it. At first he'd hidden the relationship, finding it awkward, and they'd all been very careful to keep things strictly professional during their working lives. Carson though, was constitutionally incapable of living a lie, and when they were off duty he made his feelings towards his lovers very clear with little touches and the occasional kiss, which Rodney had at first found intensely embarrassing. He had no idea why now, looking back. So many so much more embarrassing things had happened to him on Karkara that the small matter of an affectionate kiss on the hair or cheek between lovers hardly seemed worth the paroxysms of embarrassment he'd initially suffered, early on in their relationship.

"As a matter of fact I did," Elizabeth told him. "We heard from the Daedalus a couple of hours ago. They're on their way home – and Colonel Sheppard is safe. Apparently they have some interesting news to share with us – but we have to wait until they get back to hear it."

"Good." Rodney nodded. "Interesting news? Well that's very…interesting." He gazed blankly at Elizabeth again and she got up, limped over to him, put her hand very gently on his shoulder, and squeezed.

"Stay for coffee," she said softly. "I don't want you to go back to work just yet."

He nodded, and she poured some coffee for them both and handed him a cup. "When the inventory is done I'm going to ask everyone for a report," she said softly. "People can tell me as much or as little as they want about their time on Karkara, but we do need some records, even if it's just the basics. I very much doubt we'll have any recourse to justice from the Karkaran government, but I want to investigate the possibility all the same."

"Of course." Rodney nodded. He sipped on the coffee and felt it warming him which was a good thing because he thought there was the vaguest possibility that he might faint.

"Have you eaten today?" Elizabeth asked him. Rodney tried to remember but found he had no idea which was very possibly the first time in his life that had been the case.

"I don't believe so," he frowned.

"Then let's walk down to the mess hall in a minute," she said. "You have hypoglycaemia remember, and you're looking a little pale."

His pallor was by no means the worst thing about his appearance, Rodney thought to himself, glancing at his reflection in her window again, but he realized that she was worried about him, and she was being nice and she was trying to take care of him without drawing attention to his suffering, and he was very grateful that she was so understanding.

"I am feeling hungry," he lied.

"Good. We need to feed you up," she said with a smile. "I could stand to gain a few pounds myself and that's probably the first time you've ever heard a woman say that!"

He managed to smile at her, and the kind, sensitive human contact slowly began to warm him and the numbness dropped away and with it came back the misery but when he looked into Elizabeth's eyes he saw that she understood in a way that Carson didn't, and John didn't, because their misery was of a different kind, and he knew then exactly what had been done to her and he knew she knew exactly what had been done to him and while they might never talk about it to each other, that didn't mean they didn't understand.

"I'm sorry," he said, rubbing a hand over his red-rimmed eyes. "I know I look a mess."

"It's okay." She smiled again. "We all have our bad days."

"It's just…stuff," he said.

"Yes. Just stuff." She nodded, and he felt better than he had for several days. It was as if he'd started to feel human again. Not everybody was like the Karkarans. These people, his people, the Atlanteans, didn't view him as a piece of meat, as something to be sold and beaten and hurt. They hadn't stolen his pride and dignity and robbed him of his humanity, but they could give him those things back, if he let them; and Elizabeth, with her quiet sensitivity was trying to do just that.

"When we've eaten perhaps you should find Doctor Beckett and get him to look at your hands," Elizabeth suggested kindly, patting his bruised and scratched hands, and Rodney felt slightly ashamed of himself for creating more work for the already over-worked doctor but at least it would give him a chance to see Carson again and he realised he'd missed his lover and desperately wanted to talk to him. Maybe it was time to tackle the silence that had grown between them.

Both the tears and Elizabeth's kindness seemed to work some magic on him, and after they'd eaten together in the mess hall he went to find Carson, as she'd suggested. The doctor was bouncing around his infirmary, looking both cheerful and energetic, much to Rodney's surprise.

"Och, Rodney, what have you done to yourself?" he exclaimed, sitting Rodney down on the side of a bed and examining his hands.

"I just had…a bad moment. Carson…I really want to talk to you," he said urgently.

"I need to check those fingers – make sure you didn't break them all over again," Carson said with a bright smile.

"Okay, but can we talk later, Carson. I really want to…"

"Just some bruising and a few scratches. You'll be fine," Carson announced, finishing examining Rodney's hands in lightning quick time, and turning to grab some gel which he smoothed onto Rodney's hands.

"Carson – when will you be back this evening?" Rodney asked impatiently. It seemed to him like Carson had been waiting for weeks for him to talk and now he was finally ready to do so, the doctor was brushing him off.

"Late, Rodney. There's a pile of things to do around here. We still aren't properly cleaned up and I need to finish going through our medicine inventory - we'll need to get new supplies from Earth before too long because the Karkarans destroyed or stole so many of our stocks. Well there you go, Rodney. You'll do fine now." Carson finished with Rodney's hands, patted him absently, then got up and bounded over to the other side of the infirmary to check on one of his other patients. He barely seemed to notice that Rodney was there so Rodney got up and left.

Rodney went back to their quarters and paused for a moment in the bedroom doorway, a little flash of memory washing over him. These rooms had other, happier, memories associated with them than just the night they'd been abducted; for instance there had been the night they first made love…Rodney leaned against the door, a slight smile hovering on his lips. Carson had invited him and John to his quarters for a meal. They'd eaten together before, so Rodney hadn't thought anything of it, although he did remember thinking that Carson seemed nervous, and the meal had been extremely delicious, as if Carson had made a special effort in preparing it. Carson also pulled out all the stops with the wine, which was in short supply on the base, so Rodney remembered being pleased and surprised that Carson had somehow managed to filch a couple of fairly good bottles from somewhere. They ate in a relaxed mood, laughing and joking, and Rodney had felt happier than he'd ever felt in his life. He'd acknowledged to himself, in his most private moments, and often when his hand was wrapped around his own cock, that he was in love with both these men, but he would never, in a million years, have said anything to them. He'd have settled for either of them, had never expected to have both of them…in fact sometimes he still couldn't believe that he *did* have them both. After the meal Carson had told them he had something to show them, and they had all got up and followed him to the bedroom.

"Hey, how come you get to have a room with a separate bedroom?" Rodney complained.

"These quarters are near the infirmary," Carson replied with a shrug. "You lads all wanted quarters near the control room so I helped myself to these as they were going spare."

He opened the door to the bedroom and John, who was a little way ahead of Rodney, laughed out loud.

"Damnit Carson, where the hell did you get that fuckoff great bed?" he asked, with a crooked little grin. Rodney craned his neck to see over their shoulders and caught sight of the enormous bed that filled a large part of the room. Carson flushed and mumbled something – to this day Rodney still wasn't sure where he'd got the bed from.

"What on earth do you need such an enormous bed for anyway, Carson?" Rodney asked, in a somewhat cross tone.

"Well…" Carson put a hand on each of their shoulders. "I was kind of hoping that you'd both share it with me."

Rodney stared at Carson, utterly aghast and completely speechless, but John merely let out a roar of laughter. "Carson Beckett, you sly old dog," he said, sliding an arm around Carson's waist. "Well, it seems a shame to let a good bed like that go to waste, wouldn't you say, Rodney?"

"What? No! I mean yes! I don't know what I mean. What are you both talking about?" Rodney stammered, knowing he had flushed as red as a tomato.

"I was hoping you'd want to, Rodney," Carson said with an agonised look. "You're always flirting with John, and, well…you and I spend a lot of time together so you can hardly be unaware of my feelings for you…"

"What? Flirting with John? When?" Rodney asked, bemused. "And yes I'm unaware! What feelings? Why…what…when did…?"

"Rodney, it's a simple question – yes or no?" John said, cutting to the chase as usual. He leaned across Carson and ran a gentle hand down the side of Rodney's cheek and Rodney felt a shiver of sheer sexual attraction run through him. "I think that's a yes," John said to Carson.

"Both of us, Rodney?" Carson asked anxiously. "Or is it just John that you want?"

"I…I…I…" Rodney gazed from one to the other, still completely befuddled.

"Just kiss him, Carson," John urged. "You'll soon find out. Otherwise we could be here all night and seeing this bed has made me damn horny."

So Carson turned to him, put a hand around the back of his head, pulled him close and kissed him. Rodney was aware of John, standing behind Carson, his hands fondling Carson's butt and he was aware of Carson's soft lips against his own, and then he was melting into Carson's embrace, melting into both Carson and John, and he felt as if he'd lost the power of coherent speech.

When Carson released him, the first thing Rodney saw was John grinning away behind the doctor.

"I think that's settled then," John said, grabbing both their hands and leading them towards the bed. Rodney went willingly, but he still felt like he was existing in some kind of weird alternate reality as John stripped off his shirt as if he was a child and then leaned in for a kiss of his own, a deep, devouring, utterly sexual kiss that made Rodney blush all the way up to the roots of his hair. Carson wrapped his arms around him from behind and undid his pants, and then suddenly he was naked and the two of them were now kissing over his shoulder and he could feel two hard erections digging into him, one from behind and one in front, and he was so excited he thought he might come there and then. Luckily he hadn't disgraced himself; he had the feeling they were both more experienced than him though, as they pushed him down on the bed and silenced any more blithering on his part with their tongues and hands.

Rodney felt lost in a wonderland of beautiful, naked bodies. John's chest was hairy and sexy, and Rodney ran his fingers over it like a starved man at a feast. He'd broken off from that only to run a hand over Carson's thick, hard cock, noticing that John was longer and cut, while Carson was thicker and uncut, and he loved the contrast, loved both their cocks immediately. Then John was taking Rodney's cock in his hand and that finished off any further coherent thought for awhile. He was vaguely aware of being pressed between two hard, handsome bodies, of being held in muscular arms and of having his cock sucked by warm, insistent lips. The next thing he remembered, John was holding him down, kissing him deeply on the lips while Carson licked his neck and kissed his throat…and then a lubed finger suddenly pressed against his anus and he bucked up in surprise.

"Hey…you can trust us," John whispered, kissing his hair, his hand firmly stroking Rodney's cock. "You do trust us, don't you, Rodney?"

'With my life', his brain said, but no words came out of his mouth; he just opened his legs wider, allowing John to lift his ass up to meet Carson's questing fingers, desperately wanting to feel Carson's thick, hard cock move inside him, and he'd been rewarded a few minutes later when Carson had slipped on a condom and finally slid into his body. He'd come with Carson inside him while John jerked him off and kissed him, and then John had been inside Carson while Carson sucked Rodney and then…Rodney lost track of all the tongues and fingers and hard, pulsing cocks but he did know they made love for a very long time and only stopped when they were completely and utterly sated. He'd never had so many erections in one night and he remembered them all lying in a sweaty, exhausted heap on the bed, John behind him, his arms wrapped loosely around Rodney's waist, Carson in front of him, his blue eyes gazing fondly at him, and Rodney had flung an arm over Carson's thigh and that was pretty much the way they'd slept almost every night they'd spent together since.

Rodney savoured the memory of that first night, mentally reclaiming the bedroom back from the night the Karkarans had taken them; their first love-making was a better memory to dwell on. He removed his uniform and hung it up, then took a long shower and fell into bed. It had been an exhausting day and he felt wiped out and yet curiously optimistic at the same time, considering the circumstances. Somehow the argument with Radek and the long sobbing session had been cathartic. Like Radek, he wanted things back the way they were too, and now he saw that if he didn't make an effort to make that happen then it wouldn't happen and that was too terrible a thought to contemplate. So he just had to be brave and somehow work through this mess, however painful it might be. In fact Rodney suspected that it had to be painful – he doubted this was a situation you could skirt around. You had to just walk right through it, even if it felt treading on broken glass every step of the way. The alternative simply wasn't worth thinking about though. He was aware of Atlantis, pulsing around him the way she always did and he allowed himself to relax for the first time since returning home. And this was home after all! He wasn't back on that plantation on Karkara; he was here, with the people he loved, and that was something that was worth feeling happy about. He felt almost as if the city was his cradle and she was surrounding him, rocking him gently, trying to take care of him, and he fell into a deep, refreshing sleep.

He woke in the early hours with a vague, nagging sense of unease in his stomach. Something wasn't right…Carson still hadn't returned, and Rodney had a sudden fuzzy image of the doctor sitting in his infirmary holding a syringe. He wasn't sure where it had come from but the image galvanised him into action, and he jumped out of bed, pulled on his bathrobe, and ran out of the door. The infirmary door was closed when he got there and he opened it silently and slipped inside. Carson was sitting on one of the beds, and, just like in his image, he was holding a syringe, filling it from a little vial, his sleeve rolled up to his elbow. Rodney shut the door loudly and Carson jumped and turned.

"Oh, Rodney! You startled me," he said.

"Yeah. I bet I did," Rodney growled. "What's the matter, Carson – did I disturb your quality time with the happy drugs?"

"What?" Carson stared at him. "This isn't…" he gestured towards the syringe. "It's just a wee stimulant, Rodney, to keep me awake."

"It's an upper," Rodney snapped, knowing he was right. "That's how you've been keeping going and being so bloody cheerful these past few days. It's a damn sight more than just something to keep you awake."

"It's…it's only for a short time. While things are so difficult," Carson said, dropping all pretence.

"It won't solve anything and none of our problems will go away – you'll just feel like you can fly until you come down with a crashing great bump after each hit," Rodney told him in an angry voice. "Come on, Carson – you know that. You're the damn doctor here. If I was taking that stuff you'd be locking me in a room and making me go cold turkey."

Carson spread his hands helplessly. "Everyone is hurting so much, Rodney, and there's so little of me to go around," he whispered. "I can't help everyone. I thought everything would be better once we got home, but if anything it's worse. Atlantis is a city full of shadows and ghosts. We're all wraiths now, Rodney, just a different kind of wraith. We've had the life sucked out of us; we're just pretending to go on as usual but we're all just drifting along, locked in our own little bubbles of pain."

"You can't mend everyone, Carson. That's not your job," Rodney told him, coming to stand in front of him. He swiped the syringe out of Carson's hand and threw it angrily into the nearby waste basket.

"Well, it is kind of in the job description, Rodney," Carson told him apologetically.

"No it isn't. Not what you've been doing. You're feeling so guilty because you weren't beaten, or raped, or humiliated, or otherwise hurt back on Karkara that somehow you feel you have to make it up to everyone who was," Rodney told him firmly. "Well you can't, Carson. You just can't. People are feeling lousy, yes, but they'll just have to work through that for themselves! You can't wave a magic wand and make it all go away, no matter how many drugs you take and how brilliant a doctor you are."

Now, suddenly, Rodney understood why Carson had those bruises on his body.

"I saw you and John the other morning," he said. "Against the wall." Realisation flooded into Carson's eyes and he flushed slightly. Rodney wondered how long this had been going on – it clearly dated back to well before they'd left Karkara. "I wondered why you let him do that to you when you and I both know that you don't like rough sex. I thought he was using you and he was – but you were using him every bit as much."

"He's angry and he's hurting. He needs the release and you can't give it to him right now," Carson said defensively.

"And you just want to be there for everyone to help make yourself feel less guilty about not having suffered as much as we did," Rodney told him brutally. "Well it doesn't help, Carson. It just makes you feel worse to the point where you need the happy drugs to keep going. What the hell point is there to that? Don't you understand that we'd be lost without you? We need you to be you, not some junkie martyr who thinks he can take all our pain on himself!"

Carson looked down, away from Rodney's searching gaze, his cheeks flushed with shame. Rodney stepped between his legs where they were hanging down over the side of the bed, and pulled Carson's head towards his own, so their foreheads were resting against each other.

"I need you, Carson. Don't do this again," Rodney said fiercely, stroking Carson's hair. "Promise me you won't take the drugs again."

"I…I promise, Rodney," Carson muttered, his hands coming to rest on Rodney's hips.

"Good." Rodney leaned in for a kiss; he captured Carson's mouth with his own and explored it softly, gently, sensuously. Carson sighed and leaned into him and they nestled against each other for a long time, kissing slowly. "I wanted to speak to you earlier," Rodney said when the kiss came to an end. "I need you to make love to me, Carson. I need to feel you inside me again. I need to feel like I used to feel. I can't be a hostage to what happened to me for the rest of my life."

"Are you sure?" Carson's hands stroked his butt affectionately, sending a shockwave of desire to Rodney's groin.

"Yes. I'm very sure," Rodney replied, his breath catching in his throat as his cock started to stir for the first time in nearly a year. "Come to bed." He took Carson's hand and pulled him off the infirmary bed, and they walked out into the hallway, still holding hands, and didn't part until they got to their bedroom. Then Rodney pulled Carson close and kissed him again. Carson was shaking slightly, whether from the after-effects of the drugs, or from emotion, Rodney couldn't tell, but he wrapped his arms around Rodney and returned the kiss eagerly. They moved apart only so that Rodney could divest himself of his bathrobe and retrieve some lubricant from the nightstand, and then he lay down on the bed, waiting while Carson quickly got undressed. Carson sat down on the bed beside him, leaned over Rodney and kissed him again, deeply and slowly. Rodney moaned and ran his hands over Carson's solid back, enjoying the feel of that familiar skin under his fingertips. They kissed for a long time, pausing only to take in air and then going back for more, enjoying the sensuous pleasure that they hadn't experienced for so long. Carson drew back and put gentle fingers on Rodney's body, stroking him as if he was a cat. Rodney sighed – he loved being stroked and both his lovers knew exactly how to turn him on. Carson teased his nipples into little points with his fingers, and then his hand dipped lower, stroking a line down to Rodney's groin. Rodney gasped as Carson's fingers ghosted gently over his cock and trailed over his balls. He was relieved to find that he was now rock hard and Carson looked pretty pleased about it too because he lowered his head, took Rodney's cock in his mouth and sucked. Carson was very good at giving head – Rodney had forgotten just how good - and his lover's talented mouth soon had him gasping with pleasure. It was so good that Rodney nearly allowed it to go on too long, but eventually he pushed Carson away.

"I want to come with you inside me," he told the doctor. Carson blinked.

"Are you sure, Rodney? I could just suck you off…" he said uncertainly.

"No. I want you in me," Rodney said impatiently. This had to happen at some point, and besides, he was longing to feel Carson moving inside his body again. It had been so long. Too long. Rodney liked to bottom almost exclusively, and as John pretty much exclusively topped and Carson happily switched, they'd always been well matched, whether all making love together or in various combinations of two. Now Rodney was longing to become intimately acquainted with Carson's meaty cock again. "Not from behind though," Rodney said, because he was worried that might freak him out. "I want to be able to see you when you make love to me. I need to know it's you."

"All right. I'll go slow. Just tell me if you feel any discomfort," Carson said, stroking his hair and gazing deep into his eyes. Rodney nodded, and caught Carson's lips with his own for another searching kiss. "I love you, Rodney," Carson whispered when they finally parted. His lips nuzzled the side of Rodney's neck and he sucked his way down to Rodney's chest, murmuring as he went, his voice full of love and erotic promise. "You're so hard…so sexy…" Carson said, his finger sliding into Rodney's anus. Rodney loved being talked to like this during sex as much as he loved being stroked and petted, and he sighed and opened up to Carson. "I want you, Rodney," Carson whispered, sliding a second finger into Rodney's ass. "I want to feel you, warm and tight around my cock, Rodney…"

"Call me dautie," Rodney said suddenly. Carson glanced up at him in surprise. "I like the way your voice sounds when you call me that," Rodney explained, with a shy grin.

"Dautie," Carson said immediately in a deep Scottish lilt, smiling up at him. "My dautie, my darling one…open up for me, dautie…let me inside…" His fingers were firm, sliding into Rodney with rhythmic thrusts that made Rodney pant with desire and long for more. Now he knew he'd been stupid to worry about Carson examining him back on Karkara. This man here, plunging his fingers into Rodney's body so erotically, was his lover not his doctor, and this was being done entirely for pleasure; it was nothing like a clinical examination. Rodney opened up even more, moaning ecstatically, but Carson continued finger-fucking him for a long time, until finally Rodney nudged him with his foot.

"If you don't get that big, hard cock of yours inside me sometime soon, Carson, then there's no way in hell I can hold on," he said impatiently. Carson gazed at him.

"Are you sure you're ready?" he asked.

"I'm practically bouncing off the ceiling!" Rodney protested. "If you don't do me within the next 2 minutes I'll very likely expire."

"Aye, dautie…very likely," Carson said, with a slight roll of his eyes. "Okay. Just let me know if you change your mind."

Rodney very much doubted that would be the case. He lifted his hips and placed his legs on Carson's shoulders and Carson positioned himself between his legs and parted Rodney's buttocks with his hands. They'd made a group decision, awhile ago, to dispense with condoms, as they'd all been tested before they came to Atlantis as a prerequisite for being on the team and none of them had any inclination to take other lovers. Carson nudged his cock into Rodney's anus, and Rodney relaxed, any last fears he'd had melting away. This was nothing like being thrown down and brutally raped and it didn't bring back any memories of the rapes either. Instead it just brought back memories of the many times Carson had done this to him before and how much he loved it and how very much he'd missed it. Carson slid in all the way and Rodney squealed loudly, loving the sensation. This was Carson after all, Carson who he loved and trusted. Carson paused, his body leaning over Rodney's, his face just above Rodney's face.

"Is this good, dautie?" he asked softly.

"Oh god yes," Rodney whimpered, raising his face for a kiss, with which he was duly obliged. Carson stayed there for a long time, his cock embedded to the hilt within Rodney's body, his mouth pressed to Rodney's mouth, their tongues sliding ecstatically against each other, and then, finally, he drew back, slid out, and slid straight back in again. Rodney threw his head back, feeling the sweat drip down the side of his face. Oh god this was good! Carson started to go faster now, still keeping an even, steady pace, nothing too fast, nothing to spook Rodney or cause him pain, and Rodney reached down and wrapped a hand around his own cock and slid it up and down in time to Carson's slow, measured thrusts. He looked up into Carson's eyes as he made love to him, and Carson was whispering, "Dautie…my dautie…come for me, dautie," over and over again, and then Rodney was coming and Carson stayed in him a little longer, until he came too, and then he carefully withdrew and threw himself down beside Rodney and took him in his arms so that they were lying there, face to face.

"I will tell you about it, one day," Rodney said softly, resting his hand on Carson's thigh and nuzzling the other man's neck. "When I'm ready. I will tell you."

"Aye, Rodney, I know. Take your time, dautie," Carson whispered, his hand rubbing soothing circles on Rodney's back. "Take your time."

End of Part Five

Friendly feedback much appreciated!

Back from the Well - Part Six

If you enjoy my stories, you might like to buy my original character BDSM slash novel, Ricochet