Rating: NC-17
Pairing: John/Rodney
Length: 2041 words. Yeah, that would be longer than the original. Heh.
Summary: John bends the space-time continuum in order to have an important talk with Rodney. Or at least, that's totally the plan.

A/N: partners4life asked for "what happened next" for I'm Taking This Loop Off. Will not make sense without reading that fic first.

1.

"It's two in the afternoon," Rodney said.

John twisted in the sheets and stretched appealingly.

"Oh, just. Fine," said Rodney, sighing heavily and pulling his shirt over his head. "Fine, then." He threw back the covers and crawled in next to John.

John reasoned that this would go better if they were both less sleep-deprived, even if Rodney didn't remember napping later. He tucked his chin into Rodney's neck and drifted off.

2.

"So, when you said 'nap time'," Rodney said, as John clambered back up Rodney's naked body, still swallowing and gasping, "you meant 'recumbent daytime fellatio hour'."

"Complaining?" asked John, and smirked.

"Oh, shut up," Rodney griped, and fit one big palm over each of John's ass cheeks, pulling him forward and down. "You have ten minutes to come, or I'm leaving you like this and going back to the lab."

"Hey now," said John, who thought that a well-fucked Rodney was always a more tractable Rodney (even if he wouldn't remember it), "that kind of talk is hardly in the spirit of recumbent daytime fellatio hour." He hooked Rodney's right knee over his shoulder and pressed down until Rodney squeaked.

3.

"Oh, sweet mother of Yoda," rasped Rodney, who couldn't remember that he'd already spent four hours in bed with John earlier today, but who looked incredibly fucked out nonetheless. His fingers skidded along John's perspiration-slick back, soothing and encouraging and pushing John along.

John, whose physical libido had reset but whose sexual energy was arcing into lazy drawn-out fucking, set his teeth in his lower lip and picked up the pace. Only half an hour left this time, and he really had planned to do it on this loop, he really had, he just needed to come and then he'd --

"What's the hurry?" Rodney asked, back arching sinuously in the sort of move John had never suspected Rodney could execute before they'd started sleeping together. "Fuck me slow."

"Don't you want to get back to the lab?" John panted, slowing nonetheless.

"What I want," said Rodney, lacing his fingers together behind John's neck, "is for you to show me how long you can last."

John blinked the sweat out of his eyes and half-sobbed, but his hips were settling down into a languorous tempo, little hitching sweet thrusts that led nowhere but felt amazing.

John would get around to it on the next loop, he decided, and began the slow crawl towards what would surely be a mind-obliterating orgasm.

4.

Back in the lab, hand resting on the time loop device, John blinked and shifted his shoulders experimentally inside the t-shirt that had magically reappeared on his body. Half a second ago, he was still shaking and coming inside Rodney's ass, and now he was abruptly clothed and standing and --

He cracked a huge yawn, and rubbed his fist over his eyes. Two lab benches over, Rodney looked up just as he had the last three times. "So sorry, am I keeping you awake in the middle of the broad daylight, Colonel?" he asked, rolling his eyes.

"I'm going for a nap," John said, thinking that it couldn't hurt to take this loop to recover from the exertions of the last two.

Rodney's expression flickered into mild interest. "Oh. Are you…"

"A real nap," John clarified, yawning again. "Alone."

"Fine," said Rodney, snippily. "Enjoy your foray into the world of a kindergarten student. Maybe later you can make me some macaroni art."

"Later, Rodney," John said, and stumbled out of the lab.

Next time he'd be ready.

5.

John thought it would be easier to avoid temptation altogether this time, so he suggested a walk around the south pier. It was quiet enough out there that they could talk without being interrupted, but public enough that John wouldn't feel comfortable kissing Rodney -- which was what had gotten them into this mess the second and third times.

They were waylaid en route by Simpson and Zelenka bothering Rodney with a maintenance issue they must have managed alone the last four times -- but John could hardly tell them that, so he slouched, bored, against the wall and watched for twenty minutes before giving up on Rodney entirely.

He spent this loop practicing his golf swing on the west balcony.

6.

"Not that way, this way," said John, and pushed Rodney down the corridor that led away from Simpson and Zelenka and their boring maintenance problem.

"That way's the quickest," protested Rodney, wheeling around and buzzing out of John's reach. "Simpson? Radek? I thought you were supposed to have this done three hours ago!" John heard Rodney say.

John sighed and headed straight for the west balcony. Check, no south pier next time.

7.

By now, Rodney had had three loops to get all tense and worked up and tired again, so John pulled him into a supply closet and sucked him off efficiently, wasting only eleven and a half minutes of his four-hour window.

"What the hell was that about?" said Rodney dazedly while John got back on his feet.

"We should move in together," said John in a rush.

Rodney blinked three times, flushed and open-mouthed and unfocussed. "What?" he said stupidly, and rubbed his index finger over John's lower lip. "You have come on your mouth," he said, and stumbled forward to kiss it away.

John decided that this was a decent first attempt and rewarded himself by making sure that Rodney got come on *his* mouth, as soon as humanly possible.

8.

"We should move in together," John said, as soon as he was back in the lab and his mouth tasted like lunch again instead of like Rodney.

"What?" said Rodney, distracted, staring at his computer screen.

"Because it would be more convenient for you when you decide to steal my favorite boxer shorts," John added hastily, cursing himself even as he spoke.

"You're *still* not over that?" Rodney replied. "Go away, Colonel, I'm busy."

John went away, his stomach cramping with disappointment.

9.

John went straight to the mess hall and got two cups of blue jello and two spoons.

"Oh," said Rodney, when John put the jello cups by his elbow. He blinked and looked up at John, as though just becoming aware of his presence. "Spoon?" he asked, hopefully, and John slapped the spoons down too.

Once Rodney's blood sugar was elevated, John braced himself and tried again. "Rodney," he said.

"Colonel," Rodney returned, his attention already drifting away from John and towards his monitor.

"The thing I'm about to say, it's not sarcastic or some kind of joke," John said, laying the groundwork to prevent his own cowardice.

Rodney looked back at John, then pointedly at his watch. "Yes?"

"No, seriously," John said, trying to look earnest. "It's important."

"You do realize," said Rodney, "that telling me you're about to be truthful convinces me that the exact opposite is in fact the case."

"No," said John, getting flustered, "no, this time I really mean it."

"Uh huh," said Rodney, crooking his mouth and beginning to type. "I'm all ears."

"I think," began John, but this wasn't going at all as he'd hoped, so he swerved and changed course at the last second. "I think that we should save the second season of Torchwood until we have the whole thing saved up on DVD."

"Are you insane?" Rodney squawked. "No, I mean, are you *demented*?"

John slumped down into the chair next to Rodney and sighed while Rodney's rant continued. It was a good thing he had two more do-overs to get this right before the real deal.

10.

Because John was about out of ideas, and because there wouldn't be any (direct) consequences, he raided the botany department's greenhouses and came to Rodney bearing flowers instead of jello.

"Oh my god, what did you do?" Rodney said, seeing John in the doorway of the lab with a bouquet in hand. "Did you break something important? Oh, god, did you get someone pregnant?"

11.

"I think we should break up," John told Rodney, getting depressed and not a little tired of the clothes he'd been wearing for forty plus hours.

"Shut up and hold this electrode," answered Rodney distractedly.

"Or we could go and have sex," John went on, despondently.

"Hmm," said Rodney, like he was considering it. "These readings are off."

"Or we could have a serious talk," John said, "about where this relationship is headed. Because I think we should move in together."

"Yes, ha ha ha," deadpanned Rodney, "now be quiet while I calibrate this diagnostic program."

12.

It was a bad idea, John decided, and definitely not worth the pain in the ass that would ensue when Carter dialed Earth the next morning and discovered that Atlantis had lost 48 hours mysteriously. All that planning, finding a neat four-hour window when the gate was down for repairs anyway, picking out his best BDUs and newest black t-shirt, even taking the time to find the perfect new quarters, complete with adult-sized bed and a kitchen. John took his hand off the Ancient time loop device and made a face at it. Tempting and ultimately useless piece of crap.

Well, not totally useless, John thought, his mouth twisting involuntarily as he remembered that first awful kiss from Rodney in the gate room in front of the assembled crew and marines. It had gotten them together in the first place, after all, and John had been stupid enough to think that it might bring them more luck, that it might be the way John finally got up the balls to ask Rodney something that had been on his mind for the past several weeks.

"I've gotta go," John said glumly, and it fit the way his (incredibly long) day was going that Rodney didn't even acknowledge his departure with a wave.

Rodney was folding socks into pairs in John's quarters when John got home that evening. "You're welcome," Rodney said, waving the socks around like he was some sort of textile miracle worker, not merely the one of them who had bothered to stop by Atlantis's laundry services and pick up their week-old bag of clean mingled t-shirts, socks, and underwear.

John grunted his acknowledgment and dropped facedown onto the mattress.

"Long day?" Rodney asked. "Did you have a hard time yelling at all the jarheads and whatnot?"

John grunted again, this time hopefully, and sure enough, Rodney's big warm hands suddenly descended on his shoulders and began rubbing the tension out of John's muscles.

"Between all the shouting and punching things, I don't suppose you bothered to process the requisition I filled out," Rodney said.

"Mmm?" John inquired, too massage-happy to really pay attention.

"Because I saw that you finally cleared the residential quarter with the western exposure and the cheater en suite bathrooms," Rodney went on, "and we need to snap up the prime suite, the one with the huge kitchen and the stained-glass window in the bedroom."

"We need to what?" John asked, abruptly stiffening up again.

"We need to get that place," Rodney said again, insistently, "before someone else does. Unless you want to spend the rest of our lives bouncing back and forth between one tiny bed and another, shuttling our dirty socks between our quarters."

John breathed in, held his breath, and exhaled slowly. "Rodney?"

"What?" Rodney answered, impatient.

"We should move in together," John said for the fourth -- or first -- time.

"What am I, talking to a wall here? What did I just say?" Rodney ranted, and dug his elbows into the small of John's back. "I was hardly going to sit around and hold my breath waiting for you to make a move on this. You're like the rock of Gibraltar when it comes to actually moving towards a commitment."

John groaned at the pain-pleasure of Rodney's weight digging into his deltoids.

"Shall I take that as a yes?" Rodney asked with a long-suffering sigh.

"You do know how to cut to the chase," John said appreciatively. "And yes, that's a yes."

"Good," said Rodney. "I'm weirdly exhausted tonight, mind if we skip the sex and go straight to the sleeping?"

"Long day," agreed John, and hid his grin in the pillow under his face.