the hottest chocolate chip cookie dough-making boyfriend prize

Rodney never won the Nobel Prize. Sam Carter did and Daniel Jackson, after declassification, for Physics and Literature respectively. Jackson's history of the Stargate Program was shelved next to Emmet Bregmann's on the bookshelves in the living room. He knew John had read both, but Rodney hadn't even opened them. It bothered him and he hadn't been particularly subtle about that.

In fact, he'd been bitching and sulking since the announcements were made.

"I just can't believe she screwed me over like that," Rodney had said after reading the paper Carter had presented, the one that had revolutionized the concepts of physics held by everyone on Earth. The one he wrote shortly before leaving.

The one that used everything he'd developed from studying wormholes at Area 51, the stargate at Cheyenne Mountain and then working with Ancient technology for four years in Atlantis. All of it abandoned due to nondisclosure agreements when he resigned from the Stargate Program.

"That bitch," John had agreed, deadpan, but his eyes were full of mirth. He'd bent closer, kissed the corner of Rodney's eye and escaped the living room, grabbing his jacket from the closet and calling from the door that he had to go out for a while.

"Yes, yes, whatever," Rodney had replied, waving his hand, intent on the article describing the beauteous and brilliant Samantha Carter. "This was my work," he muttered to himself, and if his tone was more hurt than angry, well, even John wasn't there to hear it. He'd thought better of Sam. It wasn't as though she didn't have more than enough of her own discoveries and papers to present, most of which were outstanding enough to kick every other physicist to the curb in any competition anyway. It was like a slap to the face. Another one, in addition to the way he and John had been ostracized and blackballed after it had become clear why they'd resigned. He'd ended up teaching basic physics at a podunk community college while John flew helicopters for the local TV news.

Somehow, they'd both managed to not become bitter, even when the man John had interviewed with for a chance to fly Search & Rescue for the Forest Service had quietly told him that word had come down from high up not to hire him. Maybe they'd just burned out on rage when Atlantis had been destroyed. John's only comment had been that at least they weren't being shot at anymore.

But this, this was an insult not just to John or Rodney, but to everyone who had served in Atlantis. When declassification opened up the Stargate Program to the public, Rodney had looked for any mention of Atlantis.

It had all been gone, every mention of it and everyone who had been there.

He hadn't been able to read Jackson's book; unwilling to discover that even he had bowed to pressure and erased their contributions.

He forced himself to put down the newspaper with its painful article and color photograph of Sam: blonde, blue-eyed, all-American Colonel Samantha Carter of the USAF, with her equally handsome husband, Colonel Cameron Mitchell, their two cherubic children, and their freaking Golden Retriever. He still had exams to grade.

Rodney occupied himself with a red pen for several hours. The sound of the apartment door unlocking made him look up. John clattered through the hall to the kitchen, then came back and poked his head into the living room. "Hey," he said, smiling easily, hair a wind-tossed mess.

"Hey," Rodney replied, smiling back despite himself.

"Still seething?"

Rodney shrugged. "Grading."

John smirked. "Worse."

"Infinitely. Each semester I'm amazed all over again that the students manage to get stupider. I'm convinced that by next year there will be a lobotomized chimp in my introductory class and it will be the bright one."

John leaned against the doorway, head tipped to the side, studying Rodney. "I'm sorry," he said.

"For what?"

He gestured toward the newspaper. "If you'd stayed with the program, you know, instead of—"

"Don't be ridiculous," Rodney snapped. "That is petty and vicious and counts for nothing." He lifted his chin. "I'm glad I quit."

"Yeah?" John looked a little doubtful, then a small smile appeared. Five years together and Rodney wondered when or if John would ever stop worrying that Rodney regretted his choices. Ironic knowing he'd inspired that doubt with a single careless revelation: he'd bought the house in New Zealand during his Antarctic exile, never intending to return to Colorado, never realizing John had been waiting for him. He'd been glad to leave Colorado Springs and the apartment there because it reminded him of that over and over. The part that hurt was knowing John hadn't hesitated to give up everything to be with Rodney, even believing Rodney didn't feel the same.

"Yes," he declared.

"Okay." John jerked his thumb in the kitchen's direction. "I picked up some stuff. I better get it put away."

"I hope you got Cat's turkey burger."

"Like I'd forget," John called and ducked back into the hall. Rodney went back to his grading. The apartment fell quiet, no TV or radio playing, just the background noise of refrigerators and water pipes, passing cars, the subliminal hum of civilization that surrounded them unnoticed every day. Rodney stuck with it through five more exams, until he thought his head might explode. He looked around the room and found no John.

With a sigh and a clutch at the small of his back after he stood up, Rodney abandoned the grading and went in search of John or at least a cup of coffee.

He found both in the kitchen. The groceries had been put away, but John was still doing something at the counter. He only glanced at Rodney.

Rodney crossed his arms, taking in the mixer and the bowl set on the counter, cannisters of flour and granulated sugar, brown sugar and other ingredients set out with military precision. John cooked like he stripped and cleaned a gun, careful prep, everything laid out and ready before he began, each step in order, no mess, no fuss. Rodney found it incredibly sexy and John's cooking always tasted good.

"Am I allowed to watch?" he asked. He loved to watch John's hands measuring and pouring and stirring. Watching him make bread never failed to get Rodney hard. Not that he'd ever told John that, but there was something distinctly erotic about John's hands, flour caught in the dark hairs on their backs, kneading and pressing a ball of dough or swiping olive oil over it just before setting it aside to rise. Rodney usually had to look away then and shift in his seat. He had very visceral associations with John's fingers glistening with oil that really didn't belong in a kitchen. John had caught him out the last time and declared him a pervert between choking bouts of laughter and asking if Rodney wanted him to 'bake his bread'.

"Sure," John said.

Rodney found his favorite mug on the drainboard, filled it from the perpetually in use coffee maker, and sat down at the kitchen table. Sure, there were fifteen more exams to grade, but he could always make time to watch John. He had priorities.

John doled out flour into one bowl, then added baking powder and salt to it, stirring the dry mixture together. Two eggs were cracked into a second bowl, vanilla extract added and whisked casually together.

"What are you making, if I may ask?" Rodney asked.

John pushed one of the bowls out of alignment, picked up a bag and held it up. Telltale yellow made Rodney's taste buds sit up and take notice. Nestle's chocolate chips. John wouldn't make cookies with any other product, no matter how much better the quality of the chocolate. Rodney couldn't convince him to change.

"What's the occasion?" he asked as John began creaming the butter. He had to swallow a mouthful of coffee or choke as his gaze drifted to the way the muscles in John's bare arms worked. John had on a faded gray t-shirt and the sleeves cut off right over his biceps, clinging to the muscle. John was ticklish along the inside of his upper arms and Rodney loved to curl his hands around John's arms right there. John would jolt, tense against a potential tickle attack, then his eyes would go unfocused as Rodney rubbed circles on his skin with his thumbs. John reacted so sensually to every touch it made Rodney ache for all the years he hadn't had anything.

"No occasion," John said. He padded around the kitchen on bare feet, somehow never stepping on Cat as she twined between his jean-clad legs, meowing plaintively. "Bribe your cat, would you?"

With a put-upon sigh, Rodney left the table and went to the refrigerator. He grinned as he looked inside. John had remembered and purchased the organic whole milk. Rodney took out the bottle, peeled the foil seal away and spilled the plug of cream and a not so generous amount of milk into a saucer that he set on the floor for Cat. He returned to the table and John-watching.

The faded denim covering John's backside outlined it fetchingly. It would be worn soft under his hands later, when he got his hands on John's ass, skin warm.

Eggs and vanilla were added to the butter, then the brown and granulated sugar. Rodney refused to criticize the order John put the ingredients together. The one time he had, John had simply stopped and walked out after telling Rodney to do it his way if he wanted.

The scent of vanilla and brown sugar filled the kitchen and the oven ticked comfortingly, the little click of the thermostat that meant it was hot. John began adding the dry mixture to the wet. Rodney sipped his coffee. The light outside deepened to a heavy yellow and a siren wailed somewhere in the distance. Neither of them had to pay any attention to it, they had no duties and no obligation to respond to every emergency.

A car parked and went silent nearby and the next door neighbor's German Shepherd began barking in excitement. Rodney glanced at the clock. Alonzo was home early. The dog quieted and a door closed. He looked back to John and found him turned around, leaning against the counter, the bowl of cookie dough held in front of him.

"Everything's okay," Rodney assured him.

John dragged a finger through the dough and held it up with a glop of dough. "Want a taste?"

"Raw eggs," Rodney objected.

John lifted the dough to his lips and licked it off, then sucked the last sticky remnants off his finger. Rodney's mouth went dry. "Come on, live a little," John taunted with a wicked smirk. His finger still rested on the center of his lower lip. His eyebrows went up when Rodney shook his head, then he shrugged, turned back to the counter and began doling out cookies onto a stainless steel pan. "More for me."

Those words only made Rodney's mouth drier as he imagined the taste of sugar and vanilla and chocolate on John's lips, in his mouth, and kissing him until every hint of it was gone and John was melting like butter in the sun.

The cookies went into the oven and John set the timer. Then he snagged another dollop of dough and stalked over to the table. He dragged Rodney's chair away from it with a horrendous shriek of the feet over the floor tiles, since Rodney was still in it, then straddled Rodney's lap. He kissed Rodney fast and light, then pulled back and proffered his finger with the cookie dough again.

"Come on," he entreated.

Rodney eyed him then opened his lips and let John slide his finger between them. The grainy, butter smooth dough settled onto his tongue, sweeter for the wrongness of consuming it raw. John grinned as Rodney moaned and licked the last traces from his finger. The grin became a sigh as Rodney sucked on his finger. He scooted  closer, thighs tight around Rodney's hips, one arm wrapping around his neck. Rodney sucked on John's finger harder, setting up a rhythm and John bent his head, resting it against Rodney's, shifting his hips restlessly and hissing. His erection pressed against his fly and through it against Rodney's belly. Finally, he pulled his hand away from Rodney's lips and replaced it with his mouth, licking delicately until his tongue brushed Rodney's and they both forgot anything but kissing and the sweet press of John rocking against him, his own cock hard and wet at the tip, rubbing against his underwear. A little more, just a little more and they'd both come in their pants like teenagers and laugh, red-faced with embarrassment and a little pride that they still got each other that excited.

"Better than chocolate," Rodney moaned between kisses. John clutched at his shoulders and shimmied against him. Rodney got his hands on that tight, denim-covered backside and squeezed, pulling a sound enough like a whimper from John that Rodney would tease him over it later. The chair creaked under their combined weight and Rodney spared a thought for how distressing it would be if it collapsed, then John's mouth was on his again and he needed to suck on the lush lower curve of it. He forgot the chair.

Forgot the cookies, too. The buzz of the oven timer didn't even register. The smoke did as the detector mounted over the door began to wail.

"Shit!" John yelled, nearly falling off Rodney's lap. Only a quick grab for his hips saved him. They both flailed to their feet. Cat screeched and streaked out of the kitchen and, next door, Alonzo's dog started barking wildly. "Crap, crap—"

"Get the detector," Rodney yelled, "before Alonzo calls the fire department!" He really didn't want another visit from the fire department. The last time John had gone to get Cat down from the roof, he'd slipped and fallen off, stopping Rodney's heart and necessitating a panicked call for an ambulance. The fire department had ended up responding faster, for which he was grateful, but he never wanted to need to see them again.

He dived for the oven and tried to jerk the burning cookies out out only to yell as his bare hands barely brushed the hot tray. He jerked them away fast, before he made real contact, but the smooth tray came sliding out anyway, landing with a ringing clatter on the tile floor, flinging blackened cookies everywhere. "Jesus on a pogo stick! Ow, ow, ow, ow!"

John was standing on the chair, tearing the smoke detector off the wall and still cursing. "What?" he yelled. "Are you okay? What happened?"

Rodney lurched to the sink and shoved his hands under the cold water with a hiss, ignoring the clatter of the cookie tray falling to the floor, but not John's shout. He turned in time to see the chair skid out from under John's feet and wondered how many times his heart could stop before it refused to start again as John started to fall. His hold on the still shrilling smoke detector kept him from going over backwards. It tore loose as John dropped to his feet, giving out a last, strangled shriek in conjunction with Rodney.

In the silence that followed, his ears still ringing, the dog shut up and Alonzo hammered against the wall and yelled,"Is everything okay!?"

John skirted the burnt pieces of cookie spread over the floor, the now dented cookie sheet, and tossed the gutted smoke detector on the table. He grabbed Rodney's wrists, turned him bodily and shoved his hands under the cold water again. The he raised his voice and shouted, "Just fine, Alonzo! Sorry for the racket!"

"No problem, just don't complain about my music next time!" Alonzo yelled back.

John bent closer and studied Rodney's hands. They were red and stinging, but he could already tell they were all right. He flexed his fingers. They were a little flushed, but the pain was already fading. He'd been lucky. Even a second more and he'd have had real burns. Hah. And John thought his reflexes were slow.

"You really okay?" John breathed into his ear, pressed close to his back, looking over Rodney's shoulder and still cradling his wrists as the water gushed from the faucet. His hands were dark in contrast to Rodney's paler skin.

"Yes, I—I'm okay," Rodney stuttered.

John threaded their fingers together and then lifted them to his lips, kissing away each droplet of water, so careful of Rodney's sensitized skin it made him ache and shudder with the combination of tenderness and renewed arousal. "Oh," he whispered, "oh, please, can we—"

John's other arm came around his waist and he gently tugged Rodney back, leaving the kitchen with its smoky mess behind, only pausing to snag the bowl with the rest of the cookie dough and shut off the oven.

They ended up in the living room again. The ungraded exams were pushed off the end of the couch in a flurry of papers and they curled up together, casually feeding each other cookie dough and groping under their clothes.

"Okay, new rule," John murmured against Rodney's throat at one point. "No cooking and making out anymore or we'll end up burning the kitchen down."

"Agreed," Rodney said, more intent on thumbing open John's jeans and wriggling his hand under them to close on his cock. John's hips stuttered forward when he did, accompanied by a rumbling moan that buzzed against Rodney's collarbone. He had his other hand down the back of John's pants and was teasing the cleft of his buttocks, loving the way John seemed caught between pressing forward or back, the way his breath sawed in and out and his hands roamed over Rodney in return, finally settling on his chest to scrape and pinch at his nipples.

Two more strokes of his hand and John was writhing against him, too turned on to coordinate his hands anymore and that never, ever got old, because John giving up his control was a gift.

"Kiss," John whined against his neck, then gasped as Rodney pushed his fingers deeper and teased him a little. He pulled himself together enough to crawl up Rodney enough to mouth his jaw and chin and then his lips.

Rodney kissed him and ground his own erection against the thigh John had slipped between his legs. They were both so close, just another breath, another bit of friction and it would be all over.

The phone rang.

"Ignore it," Rodney muttered into John's mouth, though he wasn't sure John had even heard it, the way he was moaning and panting and fucking into Rodney's hand.

After five rings, the answering machine picked up anyway.

He heard John's voice tell the caller to leave a message at the tone if they wanted to contact Rodney McKay or John Sheppard. At the same time, John gasped and twisted his hips. Rodney swirled his thumb over the tip of John's cock awkwardly and used his wrist to force the zip of his pants down further. "Please, Rodney, please," John muttered, moving frantically against him.

Sam Carter's voice made them both freeze.

"Rodney? This is Sam. Damn, I wanted to actually talk to you. I know you must have heard by now. I'm so, I'm so sorry. The SGC had no right to strip your name from those papers and submit them as mine. I'm going to refuse the award. It isn't right, just because they want to present some kind of image that they think Cam and I fit and you don't—"

She sounded hurried, her voice higher than Rodney remembered, but that might have been embarrassment. The answering machine's speakers were cheap and made everyone sound tinny and weird, too.

John pulled away from Rodney's mouth and they both craned their heads to stare at the phone on the side table.

On the phone, Sam cleared her throat, a small cough of embarrasment.

"Look, will you just call me? Please. I think you should come to Stockholm. Someone needs to straighten this out and I'd like—you deserve better than the way you've been treated, I know that. Now that the program is declassified, you should get proper credit for everything you accomplished, no matter what policies are still in place."

"I suppose that's the one that says I can't be a soldier and cocksucker," John muttered, "Go ahead, answer it." He pulled away from Rodney and that was it, that made Rodney want to talk to Sam, to yell at her and Mitchell and everyone who had turned their back on them, pretending John didn't exist after he resigned and made it clear he was sleeping with Rodney. John had insisted he didn't care. Rodney did, because he hated knowing John hurt.

Rodney managed to sit up, not without a twinge from his still hard cock, and pick up the phone. He caught John's hand with his other as he said, trying to sound normal until he caught his breath, "Carter. Long time."

"Rodney—"

"I mean, really, years, and now you're calling? Are you sure you just don't want me making a stink?" He hunched over a little, because his hard-on kept poking at his fly and it had become damned uncomfortable. "Because you don't have to worry. John and I already got the message, more than once. We'll keep our heads down and our mouths shut." John squeezed his hand and Rodney squeezed back, hard. He heard his voice turn squeaky, giving away a little of how angry he really was. "After all, the next step would be to have John's pilot's license yanked or maybe get me fired. Or maybe even both."

John sat up and shook his head.

"Rodney—"

"The truth is, I don't give a damn about the Nobel Prize, anyway. I've got better things to do than talk to you, too."

"What?" A muffled giggle followed her exclaimation.

Rodney squeezed John's hand again. It hurt a little because his palms were still sore from the hot cookie tray. He'd never been one to just let anything go, so he had to make himself plain to Sam and John.

"I've already won the Hottest Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough-Making Boyfriend Prize and I'm busy making out with him right now."

Rodney hung up on Sam while she was still spluttering with laughter.

John smiled like sunrise.