Work Text:
I, Icarus
Late night and punch drunk on adrenaline and fear they touch and catch and hold and suddenly John finds himself falling and it goes against every instinct because he's not supposed to want Rodney's hands reaching under his clothes. Not supposed to want that sideways smile and sharp, quick tongue to open his mouth, to find their way inside so deep he's inside out and lost and falling and he's supposed to want pretty girls, like she had been but she's grown thin and fine in memory, pale blue and white like a summer sky and utterly intangible while Rodney is, god, hard and hot and saying things, earthy things into his ear, the curve of his neck, licking them along the bladed edges of his collarbones and wrists and the tender skin behind his knees and *god* but this is what he wants.
Somewhere between halfway and all the way he realizes what the difference is, where the balance shifts: he finds it in the way Rodney's body anchors him, holds him down, the way Rodney's mouth is hot and wide and hungry, opening him up and when he reaches out to touch him, hold him there's sweat and skin and surety. John is surprised by his own body, at how it folds and turns and blooms in unexpected ways. His back arches, shoulders pressed against a scratchy quilt and it's all sensation and it all hurts until Rodney kisses him hard enough, just hard enough to put it all in perspective. Perspiration follows the line of Rodney's jaw, drops down to his lips and he licks them, understands finally that this is the salt to the sweet, the taste of earth when she could promise only sky and Rodney moves into him so deep it feels like he's flying apart but ... he has lived the winds and stars and thought himself content but now, gasping each breath and arms wideswept and seeking for some purchase, to keep Rodney's body bound to him, he understands the lure of flesh and firmament, the longing for a weight to ground him, for if not for gravity why would there be wings?
John has spent his whole life slowly falling but only now has found a place to land.