SGA Fic: Waltz, Tango, Foxtrot (Part 1/2)

[out_there]

Title: Waltz, Tango, Foxtrot
Fandom: SGA
Pairing: Rodney/John
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: The boys aren't mine.
Authors Notes: Originally started for the Harlequin challenge, but certainly not finished in time. It's an AU, so no spoilers. I completely blame Patrick Swayze and Dirty Dancing for this. Thanks to mecurtin for a careful beta and scribewraith for listening, prodding and offering editing solutions as I wrote. Without those two, this would be a lot shorter and make far less sense. ETA: also thanks to kmousie who has discovered my lack of knowledge when it comes to the possessive apostrophe.

ETA: Now also available in audio form, thanks to hack_benjamin22. How cool is that?

Summary, courtesy of delurker:
Life is great for Dr Rodney McKay, a research theorist at Berkeley. He's managed to arrange it so that he sees students only rarely, and he's getting laid frequently by fellow MENSA member and ecology professor Christine. What more could a man want?

Unfortunately for Rodney, it turns out that Christine wants more. Faced with her demands that he learn to dance or she'll dump him, Rodney turns to John Sheppard: part-time dance instructor and full time bank-teller, with a dream of becoming a pilot.

John's supposed to be teaching him how to waltz, but Rodney's learning a lot more than that! But what will happen when the music ends?

Cover by tardis80:






When Christine had told Rodney that he had no sense of rhythm, his response was a withering: "Duh." He was a scientist. It went without saying that he'd spent more time in a lab than on a dance floor.

Christine had pursed her raspberry-glossed lips and pushed back a strand of hair. Her hair was currently a short, dark bob, cutting sharply across her long neck. Last month it had been champagne-white to her shoulders, and the month before that had wheat-golden curls falling down her back. Rodney couldn't shake the suspicion that if he stuck around long enough, she'd eventually come back from the hairdresser's completely bald.

"My cousin's getting married in two months' time," she'd tossed over her shoulder as she walked up the steps to her apartment. "If you want to come, you need to be able to dance."

That had been the heart of the ultimatum. Christine was smart enough not to mention it again, but when tapes of musicals started mysteriously appearing in Rodney's VCR and a business card for a local dance school showed up in his wallet, Rodney understood the implications.

He weighed the pros and cons. Pro: he'd continue to see Christine, which meant semi-regular sex with a fairly attractive member of Mensa. Con: dancing -- voluntarily dancing -- and doing it in front of total strangers. It was a scary reminder of gym class in high school, and while Rodney didn't think adult education would regress to the same level of pointing and laughing, the possibility of public humiliation was enormous.

He was fast-forwarding through "West Side Story" and skimming over the latest Galactic Center newsletter when Christine called.

"I'm free on Wednesday night."

"Okay," he'd said, flipping over to the Physical Review, and snorting at the supposed stability of phantom wormholes.

He could hear papers rustle from Christine's end. She was probably knee-deep in midterms completed by idiots: it explained her tight, clipped tone. It also explained why he was never, ever going to sink to lecturing. "Are you going to book in for the lessons?"

"I'll do it later."

He'd said it without thinking, suddenly distracted by imagining an exterior vacuum spacetime at a finite junction interface, and wanting Christine off the phone. It wasn't until he'd read the article twice and looked closely at the math (p=omega with omega<-1: hah!) that he realized what he'd agreed to do.

He dithered over calling now or putting it off until morning, but if he put it off he might forget it and have to deal with a tired, cranky Christine with a valid complaint. If he called now -- at a few hours past midnight -- he could leave a message and truthfully tell Christine that he was waiting for them to call him.

The business card was all shades of grey: dark silver lettering on a pale grey card, with words and phone numbers printed in curled, excessive-serif font. He dialed the number, and was fairly annoyed that a person actually picked up the phone.

"Pegasus Dance School," drawled someone who was definitely not a message service.

"Aren't you supposed to have a machine on at this time of night? This is way out of business hours."

There was a slight pause, and then the guy said, "Yes, it is. How can I help you?"

"You have classes, right? On Wednesday nights?"

"We have beginner's ballroom dancing on Wednesdays. It starts at eight o'clock."

"Um, no, that's far too early." Rodney had lab time, and research, and moronic grad students that apparently absolutely needed to see him at least once a week, and that day of hell was known as Wednesday. There was no way he'd be able to get out of Berkeley by eight, let alone get halfway into San Francisco. "Do you have any later classes?"

"We don't have any at two a.m."

"Well, no, of course not. Why should you have time when I'm awake and not needed in at least two other places? That would be asking far too much."

"We also have private lessons, if you really can't make the group class. But it costs more."

Rodney snorted. He would have rolled his eyes, but that was fairly pointless when you were on the phone. "Yeah, that's the issue here. The cost."

"What is the issue?"

"Publicly taking lessons to learn how to do something I really don't want to do, and will never use in any practical way, all because my girlfriend wants to look good at her cousin's wedding. Which is somewhat ridiculous because she doesn't even like her cousin -- she doesn't like any of her family -- so it's not as if gliding across a dance floor is going to make the day any less of an endurance trial. Also, she's going with me and while there are a good number of reasons why I should impress anyone she's ever met, my ability to dance will never be one of them." Rodney sighed. "Really, that's the tip of the iceberg."

"Okay, then. If you do need private lessons, feel free to call during the hours that normal people are awake. If you can make the group class, come along this week and see what you think."

When Rodney explained it to Christine, she gave a short nod, pushed her ironically thick-framed glassed up her small nose and told him to meet her in the staff car park at seven. Before he could complain about grad students and wormhole theories, she raised an eyebrow and said, "Maybe you should see if you can meet your grad students on Tuesday. It might make the timing easier."

She was right. Instead of spending Wednesday evening surrounded by a crowd of masters' students who couldn't tell the difference between a black hole and a wormhole, he spread the appointments over Tuesday. Only two overlapped to Wednesday morning, and one of those was Peter -- who had trouble following Rodney's calculations, but could follow the theories of astrophysics with ease -- so Rodney wasn't in a particularly bad mood when he headed down to Christine's practical, midnight-blue Volvo.

After forty minutes of not-quite-rush-hour traffic, his almost good mood had settled back into general annoyance with the world. Christine's five minute parking space search didn't help.

When they finally got there -- after two narrow flights of stairs that left Rodney muttering about "those new-fangled devices known as elevators!" -- they were greeted by a guy in faded denim jeans, a black T-shirt and a red clipboard who half-smiled and waved them into the studio proper. Rodney had hoped for someone who looked like a young Alice Faye, and was expecting one of the extras from "Fame", but the guy looked like any one of the hundreds of students on campus, from his scruffy off-white sneakers to his dark, unkempt (read: I couldn't be bothered finding a comb this morning) hair.

He was going to be taught -- and probably mocked -- by the type of ignoramus who'd fail Intro Geology. It was beyond depressing.

And thinking of depressing, here came the idiot in question. "My name's John," he said, holding out his hand. Rodney gave it a quick shake; Christine held his hand for noticeably longer. "I teach most of the beginner classes."

"I'm Christine." John smiled, both corners of his lips quirking up, and Christine beamed back at him. It was enough to make Rodney roll his eyes. "I lecture at Berkeley."

"Really? What subject?"

"Ecology," Rodney answered for her. If John wanted to fake an interest in counting bugs and caring for ecosystems, he didn't understand the boring agony of a bioecologist with a captive audience. "Dr Rodney McKay. Is the 'Pegasus' an astronomy reference?"

"Mythology. Winged horses, winged feet. It's a thing," John said, rolling his hand in small circles.

Other people came in: middle-aged men in suits, their wives in skirts and low, practical heels; a few pairs of early-twenty-somethings in jeans and torn tops. Rodney counted eight couples, including them, which must have been all because John stood in the centre of the room and got their attention by yelling out over the chatter.

"Hey!" Heads turned to John and the noise quieted. John smiled, showing a flash of very white teeth. "As most of you know, I'm John and this is the beginner's ballroom class. Tonight, we're concentrating on the waltz, and if we get time, I'll show you a few steps of the jazz waltz, too."

From there, things got worse. There was John casually calling out pointers as he demonstrated the steps and other couples producing their own clumsy version, and being rewarded with a few soft words and John's wry grin. There was the loud way that Christine kept saying, "Ow!" every time Rodney stepped on one of her feet. And the way that John came over to them and winced, saying, "Maybe you should have opted for the private lessons."

"Thank you," Rodney snapped, trying to remember to keep his back straight, and his shoulders back, and step with his left foot, and keep his hand up. He stepped on Christine's foot -- again -- and decided it was too hard to imitate dancing monkey and talk at the same time. He stopped moving. "That's very encouraging. No wonder this class is so popular."

"I mean that you need to loosen up." John put his hand over Rodney's and pried his white-knuckled grip off Christine's hand. "This is supposed to be fun."

"Fun? This is not fun, this is--" Rodney looked up in time to see Christine's blue eyes narrow. Semi-regular sex was only a selling a point if he kept getting some. "This is a learning experience. The fun will come when I know what I'm doing."

"Watch me, okay?" John took Christine's hand and she beamed again. Rodney noticed the way her eye-teeth weren't quite straight and the slight gap between her bottom centre teeth. John either didn't notice or didn't care, as he curled his fingers around her waist and started moving.

Christine hadn't been lying when she said she could dance. She followed John's lead easily, their feet landing together -- in perfect time and without any of those distracting "ow"s -- and their bodies mirroring each other.

Rodney crossed his arms and loathed his life.

The pair of them kept moving and John started counting out, "One, two-three. One, two-three. Watch my feet, Rodney. One, two-three." Which didn't help, because John didn't move to time. Oh, sure, his feet touched the ground as he counted but it was nothing like Rodney's robotic march towards rhythm. It was graceful and swaying; John's whole body slid and flowed from one step to the next like mercury gliding up a thermometer. He made it look as easy as breathing.

That was somewhat appropriate. Rodney remembered being six and drinking lemonade, he remembered feeling his throat close up, and his pulse start to race, and not being able to breathe, no matter how hard he tried. John danced like he was breathing; Rodney danced like he was gasping his last breath.

An hour later, after the first lesson was finally ended and Christine was muttering about buying steel-capped boots for next week, he wasn't any better. He couldn't hold the rhythm; he couldn't get the steps in the right order, at the right time. It was hopeless. But that night Christine sucked him until his eyes rolled back in his head, and he found himself agreeing to the second lesson.

The second lesson was the same. Fewer "ow"s -- because he'd found the best way for him to learn to dance was to watch his feet and avoid Christine's -- another fun moment of watching John dance with Christine like it was the most natural thing in the world, and that irritating and overwhelming sense of failure at the end of the night.

When the third lesson followed this pattern again, Rodney swallowed his pride. He waited until the other couples dawdled out and then told Christine he'd meet her at the car. He felt a little guilty watching her hobble away.

John looked up from his clipboard and smirked. It was welcoming and friendly, everything a smirk shouldn't be. "Is there something you wanted, Rodney?"

"I want to be able to dance in public without looking like a barely trained baboon."

John almost laughed. "You're not that bad."

"Oh, please," Rodney said, rolling his eyes, "don't humor me. It demeans us both."

"You have promise. You're just really, really tense."

"I live tense. That's not going to change. I need to find a way to fake the looseness thing." Rodney shifted on his feet. He hated this feeling of asking the teacher for extra help. He'd never had to do it in school: he'd always been the one ahead of the teacher, finishing the extension work with ease. But they were subjects that made sense -- English, math, physics, chemistry -- not irrelevant, meaningless things like dancing. "That's where you come in."

"You want me to loosen you up?" John asked, his hazel eyes twinkling. There was something in his smile that made Rodney forget to breathe for a nanosecond, made him almost forget what he was going to ask. It was odd.

"No. I want private lessons. Without, you know, having to mention it to Christine. Because it's bad enough that something this stupid and pointless is somehow beyond my intellectual ability to master. I don't need my girlfriend knowing that too." Rodney pulled at the hem of his Oxford shirt. "Are there any nights you're free?"

John smiled. It wasn't the same species as the thought-stopping one, but it was in the same genetic line. "How about Fridays? Or Mondays? Those are my best nights."

"How about both?" Rodney asked, and John blinked. "Oh, come on. The wedding is five weeks away. I think I need all the lessons I can get."

"Christine won't mind?"

Rodney snorted. "She's always busy grading papers. She wouldn't notice if I was abducted by aliens three nights a week."

They worked out the boring details of time and place, and then the cost. John half shrugged as he explained that it was a better quality of lesson -- a stronger focus, more personal attention -- but Rodney waved that away. He lived in a run-down apartment twenty minutes from campus with one greedy cat. He had a good job, few expenses and was regularly hired as a consultant for various government agencies. The cost wasn't a problem.

To prove that, he paid in advance at his first lesson. When he pressed the check into John's hand, John's eyes went wide. "I think you wrote an extra zero on here."

"No. Five weeks, two private lessons per week, that's ten lessons," Rodney corrected, setting his backpack down on one of the chairs lining the studio. "It seemed easier to get it out of the way now."

John grinned and Rodney could almost see the dollar signs light up in his eyes. "Okay."

While Rodney pulled off his red and black Hockey Canada jacket, John fiddled with the stereo until it played a low piano-and-drums blues song. "What is that?"

"It's Aretha Franklin," John said, tapping his foot in time with the beat and remaining utterly serious. "'I Never Loved a Man.'"

Rodney raised his eyebrows. "And I'm supposed to dance to it?"

"It's got a standard waltz beat. It's the less boring alternative to spending an hour bored by classical music."

Of course. You could teach the monkey to dance, but you couldn't teach him to appreciate music. "I am surrounded by philistines and morons."

"I can put 'Fly Me To The Moon' on, if you'd prefer." John smirked and gestured for him to come closer. "And while you still need me to teach you, care to lighten up on the insults?"

He could have pointed out that the insults were deserved but that was probably a waste of time when he was paying for the lesson. Plus, he'd never hear the end of it from Christine if he got them banned from classes. "I'll try."

"Now apply that attitude to dancing."

That was easier said than done.

The first problem was John's height. Objectively, he wasn't that much taller than Rodney. But John was inches taller than any woman he'd dated, and that was where the trouble came in. Rodney wasn't used to reaching up to rest his hand on his partner's waist so he kept being distracted by it, by the awareness of raising his arm, of the thin cotton and solid warmth beneath his hand. It was unnerving.

"I think you should be leading," Rodney muttered, after the third time he tried to turn in the wrong direction. "You're too tall for this to work."

John blinked, and then moved his foot back a moment before Rodney stomped on it. "Too tall?"

"Well, yes. I can't see over your shoulder to see where we're going, when I try to watch my feet I nearly headbutt you, and your waist should be lower. It's throwing out my entire sense of balance and co-ordination."

"I wondered what was."

Rodney pulled his hands back and settled them across his chest. "We should swap positions. You should try leading for a while. It's not as easy as it looks!"

"Dr McKay, I already know how to lead and I can't really see the point in teaching you to follow. Besides, you don't seem like the type who's easily led." John smiled widely, eyes crinkling in amusement and for a moment, Rodney forgot to be annoyed.

"Well, I'm not, I mean, generally speaking, I don't follow the crowd, but that's mainly because the crowd tends to be very loud and very wrong--" Rodney snapped his mouth shut. It was the quickest way to stop babbling.

That was where the second problem came in. John laughed. It wasn't the cruel, taunting laughter Rodney had spent most of his pre-adolescence ignoring. It wasn't the tight, annoyed laughter that came with professional jealousy and grudging respect.

It was… well. Kind.

John laughed like he was having fun, like he'd just discovered the coolest tree house and wanted everyone to come play. John laughed with tiny almost-dimples in the corners of his smile, and crows' feet at the outside edges of his eyes. And when John laughed, Rodney had to smile back.

Rodney hadn't gotten where he was -- research theorist in a well-funded university, the minimum number of grad students and contact hours, his own completely private office and a corner of the lab that was always miraculously empty when he wanted to run simulations -- by smiling back. He'd got there through scowling and glaring, and pointing out why everyone else was wrong. The hard work and superior intelligence had played their part, too, but most of the credit belonged to the scowling.

But here was John, laughing and taking Rodney's hand, counting softly and forcing Rodney to move again. It went against all natural laws. No one could be enjoying themselves while trying to follow Rodney's directionally-challenged steps and avoid Rodney's feet.

"You don't have to enjoy this, you know."

"It's my job." John smiled, and the almost-dimples nearly made an appearance. Rodney tried hard to keep his scowl.

"Precisely. It's your job. Therefore, you are paid for it and do it because you are paid for it. No one is asking you to fake enjoyment." Rodney realized he'd lost count of his steps again, and stopped. "You are certainly not being paid enough to fake it."

"Maybe I find you amusing."

"And maybe sus scrofa domesticus will be considered avian." When John continued staring blankly at him, Rodney clarified, "Maybe pigs will fly."

"They're making leaps and bounds in the field of genetic manipulation." John rolled his shoulders beneath another form-fitting black T-shirt. It was possible that the man only owned one style of T-shirt, which was beyond sad. Everyone should have at least one bright, witty and oversized shirt. "It could happen."

"It seems more likely than me learning to dance," Rodney said, glancing at the clock in relief, "but at least that's one lesson over. Without any marked improvement, I might add."

"I'll try to think of something different for Monday."

Rodney rolled his eyes. Then he picked up his backpack and left while John was fiddling with the stereo. 'Something different' wasn't going to fix this, but he suspected that sheer determination (or bloody-mindedness as his sister described it) would. So he told Christine he was busy on Saturday, bought three brightly covered 'Teach Yourself to Dance in 10 Easy Lessons!' tapes, and swore that he wouldn't leave the house until he mastered the second lesson.

The first tape was thrown across the room at eleven a.m. on Saturday. It hit his kitchen bench sharply and the back plastic bracket snapped off.

The second tape lasted until three p.m., when Rodney ejected it out of the machine, threw it to the floor and proceeded to jump up and down on it until it was nothing more than a black broken case and dark magnetic tape pooling across his carpet.

As for the third one, it died a ceremonious death at eight-fifteen. Rodney carefully and solemnly fed its tape down the garbage disposal, listening for the satisfying whirr of perky voices and ridiculously instructions being decimated.

He called Christine, but only got her answering machine. Calling John seemed like a perfectly rational idea after that, but John didn't seem to agree.

"Christ, McKay, what time is it?"

"It's nine o'clock on a Saturday night." Rodney almost felt bad. "Most people are awake at this time."

"Most people haven't spent a week working two jobs and then had to work overtime on the third one." John's voice was scratchy, like two-day-old stubble. He didn't sound pleased.

"I woke you up?"

"Yes, Christ." The sound of John yawning carried cleanly down the telephone line. "What did you want?"

"I wanted another dance lesson."

"You're having one. On Monday." There was a slight pause, a small rustle, and then a sigh. "So why did you call me?"

"I wanted to see if you were free this weekend." Rodney had a guilty flash of John asleep and in bed, stretched out and lying face-down, covers twisted and caught around his legs, his arms wrapped around the pillow. He grimaced; his perfectly reasonable idea wasn't looking so reasonable anymore. "For another lesson."

"I'll see you on Monday."

"But--"

"Monday, McKay."

Rodney was left holding the phone with a dead dial-tone and slight suspicion that he might have really annoyed the one person who thought dancing was something he could actually learn. He considered calling back to apologize but he never did apologies well -- or congratulations, or thank-yous, or condolences -- so he'd probably make it worse.

He considered telling Christine about it and asking for her opinion -- which was, occasionally, helpful -- but that required telling her about the private lessons. He still had a shred of pride; the apology could wait until Monday.

He wasn't looking forward to it but that little, annoying voice of conscience kept pointing out that he should, so he did. He swallowed that last glimmer of pride, walked over to John and said, "I'm sorry about calling you. I didn't think you'd be asleep -- I didn't think anyone between the ages of twelve and seventy went to bed before nine o'clock -- so it wasn't like it was done on purpose or anything."

"Don't worry about it." John shrugged and unzipped his leather jacket. Underneath -- oh, big surprise -- was another tight, black T-shirt. "Now take your shirt off."

"What? I apologize and you tell me to undress? What is this, Haze the Geek Day?"

John took a deep breath and spoke slowly. "We're trying something different."

"If this something different involves me getting naked, there is something very, very wrong with your teaching techniques. This is a dancing lesson, this is not--" Rodney lost his train of complaint when John wrapped his arms around his own midriff, took hold of the infamous black T-shirt and smoothly pulled it over his head and off.

Rodney would have wagered good money that those T-shirts gave a very accurate impression of John's body. Broad shoulders, flat abs, defined chest: the T-shirt made all those points very clear. But it hadn't even hinted at the dark hair sneaking down towards John's waistband or the tan that seemed impossibly even. Or precisely how low John's pants sat. Rodney wouldn't have guessed that without the T-shirt, he'd be able to see the top curve of John's hipbones -- although he had noticed that the guy was fairly fit -- and the V of muscle that framed the bottom of his stomach.

That was when Rodney realized he was staring. "You're not, like, a hooker in your spare time, are you?"

John blinked. Rodney was getting used to those slow blinks: they seemed to be John's way of buying time before he reacted. "Excuse me?"

"Well, I show up, I pay you money, you strip and try to get me naked. I'm just wondering," Rodney said, both hearing his voice get higher and being powerless to stop it, "if you've mixed up your part-time jobs and forgotten that you were supposed to be teaching me to dance!"

This time, John laughed and Rodney saw the muscles in John's stomach move. It was distracting and oddly mesmerizing, nearly as bad as the almost-dimples.

"I'm not a prostitute, except in the most corporate of ways. I work at First National. I'm a teller." It was hard to imagine that shock of messy hair and cheeky eyes behind some bank counter, counting out change and typing in figures. Rodney barely had time to consider the image, let alone shift his entire paradigm of who and what John was, before John made a 'come here' sign with his hand. "Now, take your shirt off."

"Why?"

"Because we're trying something different," John said, only rolling his eyes for a moment. "And I don't want to spend another hour avoiding your Doc Martins."

Rodney was tempted to correct him: they were not Doc Martins and he was not wearing big, bulky shoes to be ironic. He happened to have dropped arches. Instead he heard himself say, "But… clothes?"

"McKay." John's hands settled on Rodney's shoulders, but Rodney didn't object. He didn't know why, but he didn't. "Trust me."

Then John pulled back and grinned. "I have a plan."

"And in this plan I'm naked?" Rodney said, and then wished the earth would open up and swallow him whole. Some sentences were so stupid the brain shouldn't be allowed to think them. "I mean, what the hell is this plan?"

"This is the plan," John said, pressing one palm over Rodney's mouth and stepping close enough that Rodney could smell the beach-citrus-vanilla scent of him, "where you stop complaining and do what I tell you."

The man had no concept of private space and interpersonal boundaries. With a deftness that Rodney would have envied at any other time, John's fingers skipped down the front of his shirt, flicking buttons open. Then John's hand slipped to Rodney's left wrist; then his right. Rodney was still trying to think of an appropriate insult -- because, really, a hand over his mouth! Like he was a dog that needed to be muzzled! -- when he noticed John was pushing the shirt off his shoulders, tugging the sleeves off his arms, leaving Rodney standing in his blue T-shirt (the one that proclaimed, "There are 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary and those who don't.").

John draped the shirt over his very bare arm, like he was a waiter for the weirdest topless restaurant ever. Rodney wondered if he'd be asked to order something.

"Rodney?" John made a 'gimme' motion, lazily curling those long fingers towards his palm. "The T-shirt, too."

Rodney objected to commands on general principle; it was a personal goal to never be any more agreeable than absolutely necessary. On the other hand, John was holding his favorite Oxford shirt hostage and apparently had no compunctions about undressing other people. He had a short premonition of John pushing up his T-shirt, those narrow hands running up his ribcage, sure and certain and…

Rodney scrambled out of the T-shirt.

"There, fine. Can I ask if there's going to be any more insane ideas? Should I be practicing how to hop on one leg and sing your national anthem backwards?"

"I don't think so," John drawled, all smirking lips and crinkled eyes, "but you never know." He took the T-shirt from Rodney's unresisting grip. Then he had the nerve to saunter over to the stereo and stand there, promenading the smooth, toned lines of his back as he folded Rodney's clothes and placed them neatly on a chair.

It was irritating to have to acknowledge the differences between them, but it was unavoidable. Where John was tanned and sleek, Rodney was… not. He was pale and white, and not in the alabaster, skin-of-cream way. The romanticism of that notion was spoiled by the blue-green and indigo of veins beneath the skin, the freckles splattered across his shoulders and arms from family vacations long ago, and the handful of red spots beneath his collarbone. (It was monstrously unfair that when you grew out of being a teenager, when your face finally cleared, the pimples didn't go away: they moved.)

The fish-belly white skin tone wasn't the only flaw. He had a soft stomach, and small love-handles, and the only exercise his body knew was walking from his office to the candy machine. Those were objective facts that he'd come to accept, like hay fever and allergies, like a low immune system and weak ankles. It didn't bother him.

Unless he had to stand half-naked next to a guy who could bend down to play a CD and still look like something out of Playgirl. An assumption, true, but if Playgirl wasn't filled with pictures of guys who looked like John -- who made every movement full of grace and sexual promise -- publishing houses were run by complete imbeciles.

"Today, we're going to work on your posture," John announced. Rodney pulled his shoulders back and tried to discreetly suck in his gut. John fiddled with the stereo volume one last time before turning around. "You understand signal-to-noise ratio, right?"

"Please don't say something monumentally stupid. I've already had to deal with students' attempts to break very simple laws of physics. There's a limit to how much idiocy-masquerading-as-scientific-theory I can take in one day."

"A simple 'yes' would have been fine."

"I'm employed by the highly regarded science faculty of a large university," Rodney crossed his arms and was reminded once again: yep, no clothes. He'd agreed to undress; he hadn't agreed to be nice. "I think I have a grasp of very, very basic communication theories."

"You know, if you're going to be like that about it, I don't think I'm going to explain this to you."

"Please." Rodney rolled his eyes. "How did I offend your delicate sensitivities?"

For a moment he was worried that he actually had. Then John smirked and he knew it was okay. "I had a valid point to make. You assumed I was an idiot."

"I assume everyone's an idiot. It saves a lot of time that way. There's nothing worse than expecting the slightest amount of competence. Take, for instance, the school's administration department. I tell them a month in advance -- a month, mind you -- that I'll be out of the country between semesters. You would think they'd take note of it but, no, instead they send several highly important documents to my apartment -- where I'm incapable of even knowing they exist -- and then blame me for not returning them in time." Rodney stopped his hands churning the air, and chose to believe that John's bright smile -- and, yes, almost-dimples -- signaled agreement. "Anyway, you're a dance instructor. I highly doubt that electronic communication was part of the syllabus for whatever qualifications you've got. Wait. You do have qualifications, don't you?"

It was another one of those slow blinks, long enough that Rodney had to notice the charcoal black of John's lashes. "I have a Bachelors."

"In dance?"

"In Applied Mathematics."

"From where?" Some backward community college was Rodney's guess.

John rolled his shoulders: bare skin over smooth muscle, and Rodney was absolutely not staring. "M.I.T."

Rodney really wanted to hate John. It wasn't enough that he was lithe and gorgeous, not enough that he had a dazzling smile and a body that allowed Rodney to count the separate muscle groups. Not enough that John managed, despite his appearance, to be interesting, but he had to be smart, too?

It was such an insult.

But that was a flawed deduction. A bachelor's degree didn't automatically make John a Mensa candidate. After all, Rodney's grad students proved that. It probably meant that John had a reasonable short-term memory, didn't do terribly bad in exams, and was able to charm lecturers into letting him pass.

That made Rodney feel a little better. "So why are we working on posture and not, say, teaching me steps so I stop tromping on everyone's toes?"

"Dancing isn't steps."

"It isn't? I must have been confused by all those lessons where you taught us steps. Now I see the error of my ways. Nothing to do with steps, it's clearly all about, about-- penguins and sea-monkeys!" It wasn't the best insult he'd ever come up with, but this was frustrating. "I swear, this is like playing Monopoly with Jeannie. She'd always change the rules half-way round the board."

"Steps are a part, a small part, of dancing. The more important part is the connection, the bond between the dancers."

"You're not going to suggest super-glue, are you?"

"Look--" John hissed in a sharp breath -- not a happy sound, but one that Rodney was used to getting from people -- and then sighed. "It's like music. You like music, right?"

That seemed too obvious. "Yes."

"Dancing isn't steps performed in sequence. The same way that music isn't notes played in order. Memorizing it, reciting it, doesn't make it beautiful, doesn't make it enjoyable. Or fun." A hopeful expression settled on John's face and the earnestness of it was painful. "You have to feel it."

Rodney considered telling John about his piano lessons. It had taken years of careful practice, of meticulous mimicry, to learn how to fool people, to learn how to keep them captivated and amazed, to make them respond on an emotional level. It took someone with real musical skill to recognize that his technical brilliance only pretended to be heartfelt.

He doubted John would understand. It didn't matter; he was smart enough to find a way to fake this, too. "Sure, you have to feel it. Fine."

"You have to feel your partner," John said, and then flushed slightly, "and that sounded a little dirtier than intended. You have to feel the connection. You need the right posture so that when you move slightly, when you try to lead, you know how your partner will react."

"I'd rather learn how to stop stepping on Christine's toes," Rodney muttered under his breath.

John ignored him. "That's where the signal-to-noise ratio comes in. To reduce interference, to transmit the most information you can -- without words -- you need good posture, you need a firm dance frame."

"That sounds vaguely familiar."

John raised an eyebrow. "Because I discussed it with you at the last group lesson?"

"Maybe." He'd been too distracted watching Christine. She'd tilted her head and smiled that fascinated, adoring smile that she normally reserved for self-sustaining micro-ecologies. It had been disturbing to see her aiming that expression at their dance instructor, clear for all to see.

It hadn't helped that John smiled back at her. Christine seemed to find those almost-dimples as distracting as Rodney did.

"Since you completely tense up dancing with someone else, I thought it might be best to work on your posture first." John slinked around beside him and settled a hand on Rodney's sternum, like, like-- Rodney didn't know what it was like, but it wasn't expected and it certainly wasn't acceptable. Except John, apparently, thought nothing of it.

"You need to lean forward here," John said, pressing lightly against the not-so-firm muscle. "And lean your shoulders back."

John's other hand pressed against the side of his collarbone, forcing him to lean away. Rodney wasn't going to object because he wasn't a prude, and it wasn't like he had a problem with being touched or anything, but still. The whole thing was surreal. Wrong and very surreal.

Then John pulled away his hands, which was fine -- great, even -- until he walked behind Rodney and the hands were back: one curled around his waist and the other snaking over his shoulder. "Is this the plan for today? Inappropriate touching?"

"The plan is that you learn the basic box steps of the waltz and you learn to do them right." John leaned closer, pushing his chest against Rodney's back -- warm, smooth skin, just as Rodney had surmised -- forcing Rodney to tilt his torso forward. The hand on his shoulder kept his body tight against John's. "You need to shift your weight onto your toes."

"I'm not planning to pirouette across the room."

"Not all the way up, just enough that your heels aren't taking your weight."

Rodney tried it. "There is no way normal people dance like this."

John laughed and dropped his head, meaning that he snuffled warm and moist air against the back of Rodney's neck. Rodney shivered, which John must have felt even as he ignored it.

"You'll get used to it. After a while, it'll feel less strange," John said, and Rodney highly doubted it. "Now raise your hands, as if you're dancing with Christine."

"But I'm not."

"Then pretend." The hands left his skin -- for a second, Rodney felt cold -- and then John was holding his hands up, holding him by the wrists like he was a mannequin. "Raise your hands. Like this. See? Easy as pi."

"Oh my god," Rodney said, spinning around and almost catching John's shoulder with his elbow, "that was a math joke, wasn't it? The oldest and most pathetic math joke ever."

John didn't look repentant. He should have been ashamed to have sunk to such a sad, clichéd level. "Turn around and keep your hands up."

"I cannot believe I'm actually paying money to do this." Rolling his eyes, Rodney turned around. Then John's hands were back on his wrists, John's warmth was solid against Rodney's back, and John was counting steps into his ear.

That was the entire lesson. John behind him, counting as Rodney moved, sliding into the next step a moment before (or a moment after) Rodney did. Rodney got used to the occasional tutting sound -- so soft he wouldn't have heard it if John's mouth wasn't inches from his ear -- when he turned the wrong direction; almost got used to John's fingers skating across his neck, gentle and sure, and tilting his chin up as John drawled, "Look ahead, not down."

He'd almost mastered the waltz -- well, the most basic of basic steps, at least -- managing to move when John moved, to feel the angle and distance through the shift of John's hips or the press of a shoulder, when John stepped back. "Time's up, McKay."

"What? But we only just--" Rodney glanced down at his watch. Unbelievably, John was right. "Huh."

"Couples class. Wednesday," John said, turning off the stereo and flipping out the CD.

Rodney made a vague noise of agreement as he scurried into his clothes. He very carefully didn't watch John pull the black T-shirt over his head. In fact, he made a particular effort not to watch.

For a moment, he wondered why that took a specific, conscious effort. Then he shook it off as unimportant.

The private lessons did help. Rodney calculated an improvement of approximately twenty-six percent, based on the number of "ow"s from Christine. He felt inverted, like he was doing everything backwards. The basic steps -- the steps he'd practiced with John -- those he got right. Most of the time. Well, half of the time.

But when John showed the class a new turn, an added twist and spin, Rodney managed to screw up the basic steps as well. And there was one time -- one time! -- when he accidentally let go of Christine's hand, mid-spin, and she toppled to the floor. After that, John came over, all tight jeans and black T-shirt, and gave Christine his hand.

John pulled her up, then said rather pointedly to Rodney, "Maybe you should stick to the basic steps." Then he turned his gentle smile on Christine (she literally puffed up with self-importance; it was pathetic) and held onto her hand far longer than necessary. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah." She bit her lower lip and pushed back a strand of hair. During the week, her hairdresser had talked her into getting caramel streaks through the espresso-dark hair. Rodney wasn't convinced that it did her any favors -- it actually made her look a bit sallow -- but the over-long bangs gave her something to fiddle with while she grinned dopily at John. "I bruised my dignity, but other than that, I'm good."

"Good to hear."

"It's not like I meant to," Rodney objected. "I never claimed to have any skill in this, and I'm only learning it because you wanted me to. It's incredibly unfair to expect me to suddenly gain the knowledge of a professional when it's clearly not within my natural abilities."

The dopy grin left Christine's face. "I don't expect you to be Fred Astaire, Rodney. I'd just like to get through the lesson without any permanent damage."

"I really didn't mean to," he muttered as a pseudo-apology.

"I'm sure he didn't," John said, even though Rodney didn't need John defending him. "It takes real skill to be so spectacularly clumsy on purpose. I don't think Rodney has the coordination to do it."

Rodney scowled. "You know, I'm a little speechless. I don't know how to thank you for that compliment."

"No thanks necessary," John said with a wave of his hand. "I'm sure you won't mind if I borrow Christine to demonstrate a few things. Right?"

There was no way he could say no without looking like the ridiculous, jealous boyfriend. "Sure."

So he stood at the side of the room and tried not to glower at John and Christine, at the easy way he walked her through the steps, at the comfortable way she copied and followed, spinning around effortlessly. If he ignored the way that John grinned and laughed -- and the way Christine simpered in return -- and concentrated on watching them move, it was incredible. There was poetry in the way that Christine's skirt flared up and blossomed as she twirled, in the inevitable gravity of the spin that returned her to John's waiting embrace.

Rodney sighed. He'd never been a poet. He was a scientist; he liked experiments and theories, equations and logic. There was a beauty to science, to that perfect equation, to the experiment that proved a theory right, but it was nothing like this. This was sound and sight and movement: as primal as touch, as delicate as spun glass.

He was so screwed.

John and Christine demonstrated and twirled, and Rodney managed to get to the end of the lesson without having to dance again. It was a relief to get out of there. That night, Christine dropped him home and ignored the possibility of coming up to his apartment. He probably deserved it.

Over the next two days, a knot of dread settled in his stomach. By the time Friday night rolled around, the knot had solidified into gut-deep knowledge that he was -- for the first time in his adult life -- setting himself up for complete and utter failure.

Rodney and failure were not on close, personal terms. They were like two people who lived on the same block, but had never even nodded as they passed one another. He guessed that they were going to jump to a first-name basis pretty soon.

"Is there any possibility that you can actually teach me to dance?" Rodney blurted out as soon as John started pulling CDs from his beat-up backpack. "Contrary to popular belief, I am not a pessimist. I'm a realist. I have a strong faith in the principle of acknowledging reality as quickly and as efficiently as possible. So if I can't learn to dance -- and at this stage, barring a miracle, I think that's a certainty -- I'd like to know now. That way, I can calculate how much groveling I'm going to need to do to Christine and maybe find a believable medical condition that would prevent me from attending the wedding, or at the very least, having to dance at it."

John turned around slowly and the almost-dimples made an appearance. "And you're sure you're not a pessimist?"

"That doesn't answer my question." Rodney crossed his arms. "Do you really think it's possible for me to learn to dance capably?"

"Well," John said, hazel eyes crinkling, "very little is technically impossible."

"I don't find myself reassured by that."

John laughed, which for some reason was reassuring. "What will it take to make you optimistic?"

"Normally? Very good coffee."

"In that case," John said, and Rodney found himself staring at John's hand, at the way he pressed the palm flat against the thigh of his jeans, "fake the optimism for this lesson, and I'll take you to a great little coffee house afterwards. My treat."

"Your definition of a 'great little coffee house' isn't going to be Starbucks, is it? Because if so: no."

"It's an actual coffee house, free of franchises." John turned back to the stereo and played the CD, as if it was already decided. Honestly, it was. There was very little Rodney wouldn't do for a good cup of coffee. "Deal?"

"Only if I get to keep my shirt on." John frowned, lips drawing into a shapely pout, and Rodney had to take a quick breath to manage the right level of sarcasm. "You're not five. You can't win an argument by pouting at someone."

The pout disappeared. "You'd be surprised how often it works."

Rodney almost said that he really wouldn't have been surprised, but stopped himself just in time. "The clothes stay on, or no deal."

"Fine."

Despite Rodney's doubts, John did keep his word. Shirts remained on and the lesson was… not as bad as it could have been. Maybe he'd gotten used to dancing with someone John's height or maybe he was actually getting better, but either way, he managed an entire hour of leading John around the dance floor without stepping on John's feet. He did steer John into the back of a chair and there was a nasty instant where he tried to cross one leg in front of the other and ended up stumbling and falling against John's chest, but it was still a huge improvement.

It could have been because they stuck to the simpler steps. Once Rodney stopped trying to work out how the spins fit into the rest, it became almost zen-like in its repetitive pattern. Even John's occasional, "Head up, Rodney," seemed to slip into a relaxed rhythm: forward, across, back, a slight turn here, a small twist there.

It was an hour that deserved very good coffee. He said as much, and John led him downstairs. Then he showed Rodney his motorcycle.

"Are you insane? Do you know the lethal consequences of an accident on one of those things? They're deathtraps. The amount of spinal damage you can get from a relatively minor fall, even riding at a slow speed, makes them beyond impractical," Rodney said, when John asked him to get on it. "If I wanted to take my life in my hands like that, I'd try eating oranges. At least that can be done in the pleasure of my own home."

John raised an eyebrow. "I didn't know peeled fruit was so deadly."

"I'm allergic to citrus, in that it stops me breathing and causes permanent death," Rodney said, eyeing the black and chrome machine before him. "That doesn't change my point. There is no way in the world you are getting me on the back of a motorcycle."

"It's only four blocks. You could trust me for four blocks." John threw him a black helmet and Rodney was forced to catch it -- well, fumble for it -- to stop it hitting the ground.

"I don't think I can."

John pulled a helmet on -- and, huh, that probably explained the mussed hair -- and strode over to Rodney. He took the helmet out of Rodney's hands and settled it, surprisingly gently, on Rodney's head. "You can trust me. I promise I won't get you killed."

Scowling, Rodney let John fasten the helmet and adjust the straps. "Do you always carry a spare helmet?"

"You never know when you need to give someone attractive a ride." There was a hint of a smile on John's lips, and Rodney wasn't sure whether or not he was being mocked. "I take safety concerns seriously."

Rodney snorted. "If you did, you wouldn't ride a motorcycle."

"Sometimes, the thrill of going fast is worth it," John said, snapping his own straps into place. Before Rodney had a chance to dispute that statement and point out the many, many logical flaws in John's assumptions, John was stepping over the bike, straddling the leather seat, and pulling Rodney on behind him. "Just try to keep your balance, and we'll be fine."

"Oh, god," Rodney said as John started the engine. He could feel the vibrations through the seat, so he wrapped his arms around John's waist and clung on for dear life. "We're going to die. I can see my life flashing before my eyes. This is so unfair to the scientific community."

He couldn't hear John's laugh, but he could feel John's chest shudder with it. "Relax. It's four blocks."

"I've changed my mind. I want to walk!"

"No, you don't," John said, and Rodney felt a hand quickly squeeze his.

"Hands on the handlebar! Hands on the handlebar!"

The motor revved, becoming louder, and suddenly it was all wind and rushing sidewalks and the certainty of oncoming death. He closed his eyes and buried his head against John's back, waiting for it to be over. His fingers were clawed, probably gripping John's stomach painfully, but imminent death outweighed petty concerns like bruises.

He'd never been happier to get off anything in his entire life.

"Did your life really flash before your eyes?" John asked when they were seated inside.

"Yes, it did." Rodney breathed in deeply, savoring the smell of coffee grounds and sweet, sweet caffeine. The coffee house almost made up for the terrifying ride over. It was half-lit: a necessity for any place that could be serving the first coffee of the day. There was nothing worse than trying to stumble into one of those shockingly bright corporate, yuppie coffeehouses that tried to use fluorescent lighting when dealing with the under-caffeinated. That was plain wrong.

This place was decked out in low armchairs, covered with soft cottons in dark, muted tones. They were grouped in threes and fours, sharing coffee tables that actually matched the armrest height of the chairs.

Also, they made good coffee. Rodney was on his second cup.

"So what were the highlights?"

Rodney blinked. "Of my life?"

"Yeah."

"Getting my PhD, being valedictorian of my high school -- and when I say high school, I mean a highly, highly competitive grading system that made your SATs look damn easy -- and, hmmm, building the nuke in sixth grade. Those would be the top three moments."

"I'm tempted to ask about the nuke," John said with a concerned expression, "but, no. I think there are some things I'm better off not knowing."

"It was a non-working model. I swear, you tell people you built a non-working nuclear bomb in elementary and they have the weirdest reactions." Rodney was soaking in too much delicious coffee to express the proper level of annoyance regarding that topic. "But, yeah, when I say I'm smarter than most of the people you'll meet, I'm really not lying."

John smiled, playing with his untouched cup of coffee. "I assumed you weren't."

"I'm going to win a Nobel, you know," Rodney said and then wished he could go back in time and kick himself. It was one thing being smart and acknowledging the fact; bragging about what you planned to do was asking for bitterness and jealousy. Which Rodney was generally used to, but he didn't want to encourage that reaction from John. "I mean, I plan to. Within the next fifteen years."

"What will you win it for?"

"Astrophysics, obviously. I have some theories about wormhole physics. I just need to be able to prove them." When Rodney looked up, John's eyes were bright and wide. He looked interested, and that was unusual enough to make Rodney stop and choke on his coffee in surprise. When he'd finished coughing -- and that was okay, after all, he didn't need both lungs -- he changed the subject. "Why are you doing this? I mean, the teaching thing. Why put up with this week after week? The pay can't be that good."

John hid his laugh in his coffee cup. When he looked up, there was a blob of foam on his nose. Rodney passed him a napkin and John wiped it off with a disgustingly cute smile, saying, "It's convenient."

"For what? Staying in practice? Don't tell me your life's ambition is to win some competition and be crowned Belle of the Ball."

"I can't resist the sparkling tiara, Rodney. It would suit me."

"In the way that it would cause people to point and laugh at you, yes." Rodney took another mouthful and thanked God for moccachinos with extra chocolate syrup. "You work three jobs. You've got to have some kind of plan."

John licked his lips, and Rodney guessed he was sending a thankful prayer to the coffee gods, too. "You want a Nobel. I want to soar," John said, his eyes glued to the pile of empty sugar packets -- courtesy of Rodney -- that littered the table. "I want to fly."

"Really?" Rodney asked, more than a little charmed by the whimsical, earnest expression on John's face.

"I'm working towards my pilot's license. It's not cheap, so I need the extra income."

"You never thought about, you know, joining the air force?" It was surprisingly easy to imagine John in uniform. Hard to imagine him in such a strict, serious role, but easy to see him in those sharp lines. "Seems like the cheaper way to do it."

"I swore I'd do it on my own." John met Rodney's gaze. His expression was sharp and sure, and Rodney wondered what had forged that angry determination. "I swore I wouldn't follow my father into the military, wouldn't spend my life following someone else's orders."

"Then what? You spend you life flying for Pan Am?"

"Their pilots are all ex-military," John said, his carefree nonchalance back in place. "I want to run my own charter business, fly around California and down to Mexico. Become filthy rich, buy a house on the beach and spend the rest of my days flying and surfing."

"You surf?" It was rhetorical, but John still nodded. "Of course, you surf. I don't know why I'm surprised. You probably go out and purposely taunt the sharks. You're insane."

"No," John said, with a bright grin and a slight tilt of the head, "I'm charmingly eccentric."

"Insane," Rodney repeated, and then emptied his cup.

John looked at him a little funny -- far less offended than most people would be -- then sat up tall and peered over the edge of Rodney's cup. "I'm amazed you can talk and inhale coffee simultaneously."

"It all comes down to efficiency. Careful application of time and motion studies." And slight nerves -- no, nerves wasn't the right word: being around John didn't make him feel nervous. Not exactly. But it make his hands jitter, his gestures grow wilder, and his mouth a little dry.

Being around John brought out his innate showmanship and made Rodney want to be brilliant, and funny, and interesting (whereas normally he only had to be brilliant). Wanted to make John smile, make him laugh, make him stick around a little longer, even while a small part of Rodney's brain -- the shrill voice that niggled at him when a theory was wrong -- was questioning his actions. He was Dr Rodney McKay: he had no need to impress some almost-stranger. Why should he care what John thought of him?

Also, John was… John. And that little part of him wondered why John was still here. He had three jobs and a motorcycle. He must have better things to do with his time than sit around drinking coffee with a glorified T.A.. (And if anyone at Berkeley ever called him that, Rodney would inflict serious damage to someone's teaching career.)

"Do you want another?" John asked. He obviously didn't share Rodney's distrust of the situation. Reaching over for Rodney's cup, John tilted his head and deviously whispered, "They make a fantastic peppermint mocha."

"Sure, I--" Then Rodney spotted the LED display of John's watch. He grabbed John's arm, pulling the red plastic wristband closer. With one hand on John's forearm and the other grasping John's hand, Rodney squinted at the time. "Is that correct?"

"Should be," John said, apparently content to let himself be manhandled by a panicking astrophysicist. He didn't pull away and it took Rodney a moment to remember to let go. "Why?"

Groaning, Rodney dropped his head to his hands. This was so typical of his life. "It's Friday, right? I've been seeing the date all day long, and I somehow completely forgot it was the twenty-second."

"What's so special about it?"

"Christine's birthday," Rodney muttered, feeling like an idiot, "but that's not the problem. The problem is that she's having friends for a dinner party and I completely forgot. I think I was supposed to buy the wine. I was concentrating on calculations that seemed far more important at the time, but I'm sure I was supposed to bring something."

"Maybe you can pick up a couple of bottles on the way over?"

"Are you kidding?" Rodney demanded, glaring up at John -- that was willful stupidity, Rodney was sure -- and trying to work out what would be worse. "You think I'm going to leave here, drive around, buy a cheap, nasty bottle of wine and be forgiven for arriving two hours late? I'd be forced to sit at the dinner table and discuss blue-green algae. Algae. Pond scum that they can't describe with one color."

The corner of John's mouth quirked up. "As punishment?"

"No." Rodney waved a hand. "Most of Christine's friends are scientists who couldn't handle actual science and retreated to ecology. Last time, they sat around and discussed the mating habits of pandas and dragonflies. Do I look like I would ever, ever want to know about that? No. Because it reaches an incredible, mind-dissolving level of boring that belongs to operating manuals and Johnny Cash songs."

"Rodney." John looked unhappy, mouth caught in a tight frown.

Rodney blinked. "You like operating manuals?"

"I like Johnny Cash." John looked annoyed to have to admit that in public. Rodney understood completely.

He spent a moment debating what to do. He was very, very tempted to call and tell Christine that he'd spent tonight making a theoretical break-through -- theoretical meaning, in this case, imaginary -- and needed to keep working on it while the ideas were clear in his head. She'd believe it. He was pretty sure she'd believe it.

But he'd still have to deal with her sometime, and he didn't want to spend Saturday apologizing for blowing her off. It wasn't worth the extra mocha. Even if it was peppermint with a good reputation -- even if it was free, which automatically made it far sweeter than coffee bought with his own money -- he knew it wasn't what he was supposed to do.

Being a good boyfriend sucked.

"Look, I've got to give Christine a call," Rodney said as he stood up and felt his pockets for his cell. "I'll see you on Monday."

John winked at him. For a moment, he seemed more like a high-school senior than a college graduate. "Good luck."

Rodney nearly dropped his phone, and ended up fumbling for it in an embarrassingly uncoordinated way. Before he could humiliate himself further, he walked out of the coffee house and headed back to his car. On the way, he called Christine and cringed when he got her machine.

"Hey, Christine? I'm sorry. I really am. I completely forgot that Friday was today, and that this Friday was the twenty-second. I'm on my way over to your place now and--"

"Don't bother, Rodney." Christine's voice sounded blurred and distant, but her anger was clear. "Really. Don't do me any favors."

"I didn't do it on purpose. I meant to be there, I just forgot--"

"Yeah, you forgot. Of course, you forgot."

Rodney rubbed a hand hard across his face. This was precisely the conversation he'd wanted to avoid; it was the conversation that made staying with John and having another mocha look so appealing. "Christine--"

"Don't. Okay, Rodney? Just don't." There was a quick sigh, and then Rodney could hear someone laughing and calling for Christine in the background, and then he was left listening to nothing as the line went dead.

He flipped his cell over, making sure the battery hadn't come loose again, and then realized she'd hung up on him. That was never a good sign.

On the other hand, it meant he could turn around and walk back to the coffee house without guilt. Christine hadn't wanted him to come over. She'd made that very clear. So he was free to spend his Friday night however he wanted and if that meant harrying John into buying him more coffee, so be it.

Grinning, Rodney hurried his steps, scurrying like the last coffee beans in California were hoarded in that shop. Then he got around the corner and saw that John's motorcycle was gone.

There was nothing stopping him from going inside and buying himself a peppermint mocha. It would still be the same coffee, the same barista, but Rodney wasn't in the mood for it anymore.

The drive home was uneventful, as were Saturday and Sunday. He spent hours proof-reading theses, scribbling heavily in red pen and going so far as to correct their grammar. (The ignorance defied belief: he had grad students who didn't seem to understand that it's was a contraction.) The highlight of his day was feeding Angstrom, who would take a moment to purr and rub against his legs after eating.

The lowest point was calling Christine and trying to apologize. He called four times. Each time, he got the machine and was left with a strong suspicion that Christine was standing there, listening to him verbally trip over himself. After the fourth call, where he berated her machine and called it a 'rude, insulting, lumbering waste of electricity and plastic' for beeping at him, Rodney decided to take the defensive, self-righteous position and wait for Christine to contact him.

She found him in the physics lab on Monday afternoon. Her hair was pixie-short and fire-red: she looked like a walking warning of explosive materials.

Continued in Part Two