Probed

"I am not touching that," Rodney said, crossing his arms in front of his chest and glaring at the object hovering in front of John.

"Do you want the nice natives to show you their Ancient toys?" John asked.

"If they were nice, they wouldn't make us submit to this probing."

John sighed. He didn't exactly want to touch it himself. It had a single large bulb in the back, slightly smaller than Rodney's head, and a long shaft about three inches in diameter sticking out in front. The thing reminded John of an attachment his ex-wife had had for her vibrator. It had been scary, too. Well, he'd done worse things than touch an oversized, floating sex toy. "It's not going to probe you."

"Then how come the Lorvians called it a probe then, hmmm? Last time I checked probes were used for probing."

Rodney had a point, not that John would admit it. "Look, these people have been perfectly nice. I'm sure they wouldn't ask us to do anything harmful."

"Perfectly nice? Since when does locking us in a room," Rodney gestured at the windowless gray room around them, "to be probed count as being nice?"

"Fine. I'll go first." The chancellor had said that all they needed to do was touch the probe to be, well, probed. John reached out, not quite touching it. "Maybe they used it to tell the Ori from the Ancients," he suggested, which would make sense since only those with the Ancient gene were required to touch the·c thing.

"The Ori never made it to this galaxy, remember?"

"Maybe it was a precaution in case they did."

"Maybe," Rodney agreed, but John was sure he was humoring him.

"Here goes." He closed his hand around the shaft and felt·c nothing.

"Well," Rodney demanded, coming to stand next to John, but keeping John between himself and the device.

"Nothing." John let go. "I didn't feel a thing."

"No probing? Nothing poking into your head or other places?"

John turned to look at him. "Other places?"

"Look at it." Rodney waved his hand in the direction of the probe. "It could have simulated something."

"Uh-huh. Just touch it so we can get out of here."

Edging up next to him, Rodney reached toward the probe then stopped. "You really didn't feel anything?"

"Now that you mention it, I do have a funny taste in my mouth."

Rodney licked his lips. "Really?"

"Just touch the damn thing."

"Fine." Reaching toward the shaft, Rodney hesitated.

"Oh, for--" Grabbing Rodney's hand John pressed it to the shaft. "See, nothing." Nothing except the feel of Rodney's hand beneath his, curled around the probe.

Rodney nodded and looked up at John. They were facing one another, close enough that John could feel Rodney's breath ghosting across his lips. Rodney's eyes were insanely blue this close up or maybe that was just the bright light over the floating probe. Swallowing, John tried to look away, but Rodney's eyes were kind of mesmerizing and really close.

And inching closer.

John closed his eyes as their lips met. The kiss was slow. Slow and easy. Rodney had really nice lips, firm but giving.

John drew back to find Rodney staring up at him.

"We--" The door slid open, cutting off whatever Rodney had been about to say.

"Congratulations," the chancellor said. "You passed."

John let go of the probe and turned to smile at him.

"How can you tell?" Rodney asked before John could say something friendly. He had let go of the probe and was shaking his hand as if it had been burned.

"The light."

Looking over his shoulder, John realized that the bright, almost glaring light, had been transformed into a soft purple.

"Come," the chancellor said, "we have much to discuss."

With a quick glance at Rodney, John followed him from the room.

***

The rest of the mission was smooth as silk, as long as John didn't dwell on the way Rodney kept glancing at him. Something John wouldn't have noticed if he hadn't been glancing at Rodney. It was just, well, they'd kissed. Even weirder, it had been good.

He and Rodney had shared a good kiss.

Now they'd have to talk about it. Just because John didn't like talking about this stuff that didn't mean he wasn't smart enough to recognize when it was necessary.

The debrief was brief, fortunately. Rodney described the probe, getting a smirk from Elizabeth that made John suspect she owned the same vibrator as his ex-wife. The kiss wasn't mentioned.

John waited until 2000 when Rodney was usually alone in the lab to go looking for him. As expected Rodney was sitting at his lab station, typing away on his laptop. "Hey," John said, stepping into the room.

Rodney looked up at him. "Hey."

Crossing the room, John stopped about a foot away from Rodney, not that he was afraid to stand close to him or anything. "I thought we should, you know, talk."

"The probe," Rodney said.

"What?"

"The probe. That has to be the reason for--" Rodney waved a hand back and forth between them. "You like women. I like women. So it must've been the probe."

"Right," John said, catching on. "The probe."

Rodney nodded. "Exactly."

"So we're--" This time John waved a hand between them.

"Yup."

"Good," John said, relieved. "That's good."

"Right," Rodney said. "Good."

"Wanna play golf?" John asked.

"Sure." Rodney closed his work and opened the game while John drew up a stool. Soon he was too focused on trying to get under par to think about the kiss.

***

He didn't think about the kiss that night or the next day. Okay, maybe he thought it for a moment in the shower, but it had been the only sexual contact he'd had in months, and it's not like he jerked off to thoughts of Rodney or anything.

Walking across an open field on MR9-337, following Rodney who was hot on the trail of an energy signature, the last thing on John 's mind was the kiss.

He thought about the feel of the sun and the breeze, and how much better it'd feel without his tac vest. He thought about the breadth of Rodney's shoulders, which it was hard not to do when following him. Even if you were looking right at the center space between them, which John was, you couldn't help but notice the expanse of muscle and bone on either side.

John shifted his eyes away.

Only to have them land on Rodney's ass.

John looked to the right. There wasn't anything to see on the right except more grass, and his eyes slid back to Rodney's ass.

Rodney's full, curving ass. That flexed in all kinds of interesting ways when Rodney walked.

This was worse than looking at Rodney's shoulders. Breaking into a jog, John closed the small distance between them, falling into step next to Rodney. "Anything promising?"

"Just an energy signature off that way," Rodney said, pointing, same as before.

"Maybe we should go back and get a jumper."

Rodney gave him a weird look, and, okay, so it had been John who'd suggested that it was a good day for a walk. "We're over halfway there now."

"Right," John said and tried to think of a way to pass the time that wouldn't have him looking at parts of Rodney he wasn't supposed to notice. "I spy with my little eye something yellow."

"The grass is more of a yellow-green."

"I spy with my little eye something yellow-green."

"Oh, for--" Rodney said.

John grinned.

"Fine, is it the grass?"

"Hey, you're good at this game," John said.

"Either that or you're a moron."

Bumping Rodney with his elbow, John said, "Come on, Rodney, your turn."

Rodney huffed. "I spy with my little eye something blue."

"The tree."

"Yes, Colonel, the trees are a lovely shade of blue."

John grinned, Rodney's ass all but forgotten.

***

In the end the power signature had been more minerals. While it was nice to see the geologists excited, just once John wanted to find a weapon, preferably one they could bring with them and use to take out a hive ship at several thousand kilometers.

Yup. That was what he wanted, John thought, ducking his head beneath the spray.

All that walking had left him kind of sweaty, and he was meeting Rodney for dinner and some chess.

And it wasn't polite to go to dinner stinky.

***

Rodney pressed his lips together when he was concentrating.

John had known this for a while. Rodney leaned forward, over the chess board, and he pressed his lips together. It had never been a distraction before, not the leaning, or the lips, or the way he sometimes opened and closed his hand while he thought.

The thing was now John knew that Rodney's lips were fuller than they looked.

Because he'd kissed them.

Rodney finally moved his bishop and looked up at John, a smug grin on his face. Their eyes locked and it took John a moment to remember what he was supposed to be doing.

He reached for his queen.

***

"It's all your fault."

Sitting up, John reached for his gun.

"It's all your fault."

John let go of the gun and blinked up at Rodney in the darkness, his startled awake brain shifting slowly out of fight mode.

"Yours and that, that probe, that you made me touch."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

Rodney's hair was disheveled, and he was wearing sweats and a t-shirt that was stretched out in odd places. "The probe. On MJ8-747. The one that looked like a penis. The one with the purple light. The one that made me gay."

John sat up. "You think the probe made you gay."

"It's the only explanation that makes any sense. Before I touched the giant, floating penis--"

"It looked more like a vibrator attachment than a penis," John said. Rodney stared at him for a long moment and John waved his hand. "Never mind."

"The probe that looked like a vibrator attachment, before I touched it I liked women. Tall, preferably blond women, with nice breasts. Now, now I like--" Rodney gestured at John.

Oh. So it wasn't just him. Maybe the probe had done something. But that was crazy. An alien probe couldn't make them gay. "The probe didn't make us gay, Rodney. That's ridiculous."

"Oh, really, and I suppose you have a better-- Wait, did you just say us?"

"Yes," John said slowly, reluctantly. "I may have had some, you know, thoughts."

"Oh my god, you jerked off while thinking about me."

"No, I did not jerk off while thinking about you. I stared at your ass a little, that's all."

"That's all?" Rodney asked with a suspicious tilt of his head.

"I may have looked at a few other things, but that's it. All I did was look. I didn't..." John moved his hand in the universal symbol for jacking off. "You didn't, did you?"

"No." Rodney waved his own hand dismissively. "No." He sat on the edge of John's bed, facing away from John and out into the room. "I just couldn't stop thinking about the kiss."

"It was a good kiss." It had been good, sweet in a way John would never have expected, if he'd expected kissing Rodney, which he hadn't.

"Stupid probe," Rodney muttered.

"Yeah."

Rodney's shoulders rose and then fell as he sighed.

"But the kiss was good," John said. He should probably stop repeating himself, but the least Rodney could do was agree with him.

"It was. You have really soft lips, and their sort of..." Rodney pointed at his own mouth and moved his finger back and forth. "Giving."

"Yours are too," John said, because Rodney had really kissable lips.

"Oh, well, um. thanks."

"You're welcome."

The silence was starting to get oppressive when Rodney said, "How do you think it did it? Made us gay."

"Maybe it didn't." Rodney turned to look at him, and John swallowed. "Maybe it was just us."

Rodney leaned close, his eyes bright in the semi-darkness. "You think what, that we like each other?"

John tried not to squirm. "What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing, I guess." Rodney pressed his lips together, clearly thinking. Then he leaned closer, and closer still, until his lips met John's.

Something sparked between them and they jerked apart.

"Ow," Rodney said, lifting a hand to his lips.

John started to laugh. Because these things could only happen to them. First an alien probe, then static electricity.

Rodney glared at him for a moment before giving in and chuckling.

Wrapping an arm around Rodney's neck, John pulled him closer, resting his forehead against Rodney's. "It wasn't the probe, Rodney. It was us."

"You sure?"

"Pretty sure, yeah."

"Because you like me?"

"Yup. And because you like me."

Rodney kissed him again, but this time the sparks were strictly metaphorical.

Mostly.