Back from Africa! And I bring good tidings of great -- silliness.

Fandom: SGA
Rating: PG13
Pairing: John/Rodney
Length: 1500 words
Summary: The title pretty much says it all.

A/N: This fic should really be called, "I spent six weeks sharing hotel rooms and other accommodations with many many people and here are five ways we annoyed the hell out of each other."

Five Reasons Why John and Rodney Hate Sleeping Together

1.

“No, no, no,” said Rodney, as John pulled at the waistband of his t-shirt. “That stays on, Colonel.”

“What?” asked John, baffled. “What do you mean, it stays on?”

“I mean that I have certain rules about appropriate attire for sleeping partners, and one of them is that there must be clothing on the bottom *and* the top. I hate that -- that skin on skin feeling.” Rodney grimaced, as though he couldn’t imagine a more unpleasant sensation.

“Wow, remind why you’re single?” John said flatly, but let go of his t-shirt, going instead for the buckle of his pants. “Am I at least allowed to take off my BDUs, or are you worried about accidentally touching my knees?”

“Ha ha,” said Rodney, kicking off his own shoes. “You know, it’s bad enough having to share a bed on an off world mission. The least you could do is respect my boundaries.”

“Jesus, I wasn’t trying to spoon with you,” John complained, pulling off his socks. “I just like sleeping without a shirt.” He moved towards the bed.

“What are you doing?” Rodney demanded indignantly.

“Going to sleep?” essayed John, frozen with one hand on the covers.

“I told you, I have to sleep on the right hand side of the bed! My hips aren’t well aligned, I have to sleep on my right side, and I don’t want to spend all night facing you,” Rodney said. “Move, other side! Go!”

John went. “Seriously. How are you single?”

2.

“Shut up, shut up, shut *up*!” Rodney groaned, flailing his arm haphazardly again. This time he made contact with Sheppard’s arm but didn’t manage to move it. Exhaustion soaking down to his very bones, Rodney rolled over on his side and propped himself up on one elbow so he could glare balefully at Sheppard’s open snoring mouth. “Oh my god, shut up,” Rodney slurred, torn between weariness and the pressing need to kill Sheppard. “Shut up?” Rodney attempted pathetically, half sobbing, then went about the business of levering Sheppard onto his side.

Sheppard snorted awake just as Rodney succeeded. “What?” he sniped, cutting an accusatory look Rodney’s way.

“Your death rattle snore is capable of penetrating the hull of an Ancient warship,” Rodney said. “And you’re drilling a hole through my skull with every god awful breath.”

“Huh,” said John, drowsy and completely unrepentant. He punched his pillow and settled down again, undoing all Rodney’s good work. “Go back to sleep.”

“Not on your back, you freak of nature!” Rodney bellowed, pummeling Sheppard’s stupid head. “I’m *this close* to spooning you just to make sure you don’t roll over again.”

Sheppard sleepily grunted and rolled onto his side. “Least I don’t fart in my sleep,” he said, sounding not a little grumpy, probably because of the spooning threat.

“I do not,” Rodney said, indignant.

“It’s like a lethal nerve gas depth charge going off underneath the covers,” grouched Sheppard. “You’re not allowed to have those brussels sprouts things on off world missions anymore. Least, not on ones where you and I have to share quarters.”

Rodney subsided back into the mattress, too tired and ornery to argue inanely with Sheppard now that the snoring had finally stopped. “I bet Ronon and Teyla aren’t having this conversation right now in their room,” he sulked.

Sheppard opened one eye and looked at Rodney. “That’s because neither of them farts in their sleep.”

Rodney surveyed Sheppard for a moment. “If you snore again, I’m going to smother you with my pillow.”

“If you fart again,” said Sheppard, yawning, “you won’t even need to use your hands.”

3.

It seemed that Rodney was waking John up just to tell him all about how difficult it was to wake John up, which was a sort of logic that John thought maybe only geniuses and crazy people could comprehend. John pulled a pillow over his head and groaned, but Rodney’s voice carried irritatingly well.

“I’ve known 4000-year-old hibernating Wraith who were lighter sleepers than you,” Rodney was saying. “And, not to impugn your sunshiny nature, but they were more cheerful about waking up, too.”

John thrashed fitfully, hurting all over with the unpleasantness of being conscious, barely able to process the further unpleasantness of waking up to Rodney’s ranting.

“I just thought,” Rodney continued, “that you’d be more -- I don’t know. More James Bond, ‘I sleep with one eye open’, rolling to your feet with a dagger in your fist. Less like my Uncle Ted after Thanksgiving dinner and two glasses of port. I mean, don’t they train you to be more alert in the military?”

“Nuh,” said John, but he what he meant to say was die die die Rodney die. “What time’s it?”

There was a brief shifting sound as Rodney checked his watch, pausing in his typing. “Uh. Four thirty-two, local time. That’s seven twenty on Atlantis. I have a very finely tuned internal clock, this gate lag gets me every time.” He typed some more. “I suddenly feel much less secure about spending overnight missions with you. I mean, if you’re counting on *me* to be the one who notices nighttime intruders, then you should have said so before you dropped like a ton of lead.”

“It’s four thirty in the morning?” John asked, suddenly registering Rodney’s words. He pulled the pillow off his head and squinted across at Rodney, whose face was bluish and ghastly in the light off his LCD screen. “It’s four thirty and you’re awake? Four *fucking* thirty and *I’m* awake?”

“It’s like, like a Swiss watch in here,” Rodney said, waving at his head. “I can hardly help that my body operates on Atlantis time.”

“You could probably help the fact that you *woke me up* to talk about it!” John exploded, throwing the pillow at Rodney’s head.

Rodney batted the pillow aside easily, rolling his eyes. “Oh please, like you won’t be asleep again in ten minutes. Leaving me utterly defenseless against any hired guns who might decide to come in here and abduct me, I might add.”

“We’re on a food trading mission. On a farming planet,” John pointed out.

“Yes, because those missions have never gone south before,” Rodney scoffed. “Hello? Underground nuclear bunker on Amish world?”

John flopped onto his back and growled. “I hate you.”

“See?” said Rodney, waving a hand in John’s direction. “Crankier than a starving ancient Wraith.”

John pulled the covers over his head and grunted. “Wake me up when the hired guns arrive, I want to help them gag you and roll you up in a carpet.”

4.

When Sheppard wasn’t actively snoring, he made little snuffling noises. Rodney scowled at him because it was distracting Rodney from the very important and brilliant solution he was about to devise.

“That’s annoying,” Rodney told Sheppard’s sleeping form, sitting cross-legged up against the headboard and trying to get some work done in the pre-dawn hours.

Sheppard shifted a little and snuffled again, snuggling his chin up against Rodney’s knee.

“That’s very annoying,” said Rodney, determinedly. “And not at all endearing.”

Sheppard sighed in his sleep, moving his head again so his lips brushed against Rodney’s skin. “Mmm,” he said, and his lips curved in a sleepy dreamy way.

Rodney stared at Sheppard some more. “Very annoying,” he repeated, but even he could tell that he didn’t mean it.

5.

“Ha,” said Rodney, when John woke up again and it was daylight. “Look at your hair.”


...

(And One Reason Why They Don’t Mind So Much, After All

Sheppard wasn’t just grumpy in the morning, it turned out -- he was violent, too. “Ow, ow, ow,” Rodney yelped, because Sheppard had him pinned and was doing his level best to mess up Rodney’s hair even though it could never come close to the disaster of Sheppard’s bedhead.

“Not hurting you,” said Sheppard, settling all his weight down over Rodney’s hips and leaning forward, grinning and evil and wild-haired.

“Excuse me, I think I can tell if you’re hurting me or not,” Rodney complained automatically before he noticed that Sheppard’s face was inches away and his lips were back in that sleepy dreamy curve. “Oh,” he said, and tilted his chin up a little.

Sheppard had Rodney’s wrists pinned by his head and he held them there while he leaned in closer. “This okay?” said Sheppard, and kissed Rodney.

“It’s surprising,” said Rodney when Sheppard stopped. “But not in a bad way,” he added hastily.

“I guess I’m always a little horny when I wake up,” said Sheppard, matter-of-fact, trailing little bites along Rodney’s jaw. “It’s a drawback of sleeping with me.”

“Actually,” said Rodney, getting his hands free so he could stick them down the back of Sheppard’s boxers, “I was kind of thinking of it as being a big plus.”)