aesc | haute couture

Rodney's never seen the point of outdoor kitchens, and he says as much, loudly. After all, they're in a private bungalow on the grounds of one of the most obscenely expensive hotels that LA can provide, with a kitchen full of chefs only a phone call away--the kind of chefs that specialise in using half a pound of Kobe beef and three tins of caviar to make a dish that'd fit onto an average sized spoon, let alone a plate; the kind of chef that Rodney can effortlessly brow-beat into making mac and cheese--not to mention the fact that the whole point of having a kitchen inside is to keep nature out.

John shrugs again. "Hey," he says, "you guys wanted this photo shoot. Me doing normal stuff, you know. Normally."

Rodney folds his arms. "You often cook steak outdoors half naked?"

John shrugs. Again. Rodney strongly suspects it's a nervous tic, and tells himself that those aren't supposed to be sexy.

"If it's nice out, sure," John says after a moment that he apparently needs to check the grill temperature and pull a beer out from the refrigerator. Next to the refrigerator is a wine storage unit that costs more than Rodney's car. Rodney scowls at it, and then at John when he doesn't offer one.

"Thought you were on the clock," he says, nodding to Radek, who's taking shots of the pool.

"I need alcohol to deal with this," Rodney says. "Hand it over."

John rolls his eyes but, being a bit more sensible than Rodney originally gave him credit for being, pulls out another bottle and hands it to him, and his fingers are hot and startling against the slick of frost.

"Okay," Rodney says, hopping up to sit out of the way on the edge of the rustic-style dining table. Radek's checking the light levels and getting ready to shoot, fiddling with the settings on the big, expensive digital camera that he's going to use to turn the sight of a guy cooking dinner in his back garden into moody, black-and-white pictures of supermodel John Sheppard being broody and manly with steak.

He waits until Radek's started snapping, and John's slinking around the kitchen in a variety of poses that don't look studied but that involve far too much hip action to be anything but, to flip open his notebook and start with the questions.

"So, Mr Sheppard," he says, affecting an admirably bland voice, "I have lots of questions here from some of your most admiring fans. Maybe we'll start with them." He's absolutely not imagining the way that the line of John's back stiffens at that, before smoothing out far too quickly to be natural. "Laurie from Boca Raton wants to know what it was like to be picked for the Calvin Klein ad?"

That gets him a look, quick and focused, tossed over John's shoulder; Radek's camera goes click click click. "They went with someone else for that campaign."

"Oh, that's right, so they did," Rodney says airily, flipping to the next page. "What's next?"

"You're the one with the notebook," John says with a lightness that warns Rodney not to push. It's not a voice that belongs with long, loose muscles and bare feet.

"Okay, here's one from me," Rodney says, not because he wants to, really, but because he's compelled by John's complacency and his eloquent spine and he's still pissed enough at the world to turn lust into anger, and anger into impulse, "Why'd you drop out of the Academy?"

John drops the tongs and whirls, no keeping back any kind of reaction to that question. Rodney wants very badly to gloat, finally, finally something other than nonchalance and Sheppard's endless laziness and someone in this stupid place is as pissed as he is.

"Should I punch you on the record or off?" John takes two stalking steps toward him, feline and dangerous, close enough that Rodney rethinks the wisdom of his question. "I'll give you the choice... that's more than other people have had."

"Should I take that as confirmation of the rumours?" Rodney sneers, chin tilting upwards. "Daddy must have paid a hell of a lot of money to keep everything hushed up." It was a risk bringing up the Academy, and Rodney knows it's an even bigger risk to mention Patrick Sheppard. The father gets column inches in the 'Wall Street Journal' and the son graces the front cover of 'Vogue', and it's an open secret that never the twain shall meet.

This close, he can see John's eyes, a thin ring of hazel around a dark pupil that's dilated with anger and with something else; he can hear John's breathing, too, a rapid rasp that's too shallow and loud enough to be heard over the sound of Radek's camera whirring away. The bastard's still taking photos; Rodney's got no idea what those photos are going to show, but he's willing to bet a whole lot of Canadian dollars that they'll be good.

Radek's camera, though, doesn't see what he sees--John's eyes, the fine tension in shoulders more used to Sheppard's trademark sprawl--and Rodney doesn't want it to, and not only because he doesn't want Sheppard decking him saved in Radek's image files. Theoretically, pain and arousal--and sudden regret, despite his promise not to feel bad about provoking Sheppard--don't go together, and he tries to remember this.

"Well, McKay?" John's head tilts, eyes narrow and appraising and seemingly studying Rodney's mouth. Rodney swallows and doesn't shift back on the table.

"You said it was an all-access interview," he says. "I'm perfectly within my rights to ask these questions."

"Because shit-stirring is really what a guy who asked the President about abuses of executive power in front of a national audience should be doing with his time." John smiles, thin and cold. "What's that about, McKay?"

"Good journalism," Rodney snaps back.

Both John's eyebrows shoot upwards. "In a puff piece for the weekend supplement? Last time you guys interviewed me, your most in-depth question was 'just how does your hair do that?'" he says, his tone no less angry for all that there's a thread of irritation to it now. "The stylist wanted more info from me, and that's because she didn't know what size pants I wear. And now I'm getting an investigative journalist asking me about what happened back then? Come the fuck on, McKay."

Okay, he has to admit John has a point. Not a lot of people tend to open up around a man who has a reputation for terrifying anxious whistleblowers into telling him everything about their company's questionable financial practices. Not that he's going to tell John that.

"Well, if nothing "happened back then,"" Rodney says, and is sure to use the airquotes, which make John snort, "then you don't need to worry about my asking, and you don't need to stand half on top of me and threaten me with physical violence."

"I don't need to?" And John shifts closer, voice lower, thicker, and Rodney, helplessly (inevitably) zeroes in on the arc of John's collar bone.

"No," Rodney says, struggling for investigative superiority, aware his thighs are slightly open and that if John takes three more steps he'd be between Rodney's knees. "No need at all."

From somewhere to his right, Radek coughs pointedly and mutters something about having to go back into the bungalow to get a spare battery. Rodney's dimly aware that he's in for a world of trouble when he gets back to the office--if he's lucky, just from Elizabeth; if he's not, from Radek and Cadman and their combined powers of Photoshop and a gossip network that would put Joan Rivers to the blush--but he's more aware of the sun slanting obliquely through gaps in the thatched roof to gild the line of John's neck.

Rodney clears his throat; he's painfully aware of how very still he's holding himself, of the way he's got a white knuckled grip on the edge of the table. "So," he says, "you want to start this over from the beginning? Fair deal--I promise to ask no questions about pants size if you promise not to break my nose?"

John straightens, smiles briefly, but the tense, wary edge to his body doesn't soften by much.

"It's the other questions," he says, and fortunately for Rodney's nose he sounds a lot less pissed. "Stay away from them, and you have a deal."

Realistically, Rodney knows, the odds of Sheppard giving himself up (not like that) on the first try was about a billion to one, the same odds Radek's used to putting down when wondering if Rodney will manage not to insult yet another politician or newsmaker. He allows himself some annoyance at the fact that John hadn't let himself be pushed or pissed off into saying anything... Anything what? Rodney turns the question over. Incriminating? He'd been hoping for that, something, anything other than pants size.

He allows himself some disappointment, too, but doesn't examine that too clearly.

"So," he coughs to clear his throat and makes himself loosen his death grip on the table. "What do you like to do besides..." He waves his hand to indicate the general attractiveness of John's body. "That."

John's mouth quirks up into an odd, lopsided grin; Rodney doesn't get the impression he's terrifically amused by anything. "What do you mean, that?" he says, turning back to switch off the grill and throwing the now slightly charred steak into the trash. Rodney feels a slight twinge of regret because, well, steak. "Cook badly?"

"Yes, it's exactly that kind of pretend obliviousness which is going to serve you well in this interview." Rodney rolls his eyes, before hopping off the table and following John away from the kitchen towards a patch of neatly-tended lawn that's bathed in sunlight.

Rodney sits down cross-legged, but John sprawls out on his back, wriggling his shoulders against the grass like he's trying to get more comfortable. John squints up at that peculiarly flat, blue Californian sky, and this close to, Rodney can see the network of tiny, fine lines around his eyes, creasing skin that Rodney's sure would feel soft to the touch.

He's never been very good at this kind of interview, truth be told--investigative journalism, yes; digging up evidence and bludgeoning his subjects with the force of undeniable fact, yes--but finding that rich seam that lies between personal and public, the place where all the most human stories lie--he's never been much good at that. Rodney looks down at John for a long moment, considering. This is the guy who went from cotillion in Virginia to the Air Force Academy to runways in Milan; the guy whose face looked down at Rodney from no fewer than three billboards when he drove down Santa Monica on the way here; who gained more notoriety from that "College football, ferris wheels and things that go more than two hundred miles" crack than Linda Evangelista ever did with her talk of not getting out of bed for anything under ten grand.

Rodney tosses his notebook over his shoulder, and clears his throat when that makes John tilt his head to look at him, raising an eyebrow. "Okay," he says, "We're going to start from the beginning, I'm going to ask only the questions I need to ask, you're going to answer me honestly. Or," he tilted his head, "as honestly as you can, whichever, and we'll come out of this with an article which'll make the front page and make that publicist of yours faint. What do you say?"

"I say...." John trails off in a huff of breath. "I say you're too goddamn persistent for your own good, McKay."

"I've been told that before," Rodney says, and John laughs, a terrible, unattractive braying laugh that seems startled out of him.

When John recovers, after a hiccoughing har har that grates against Rodney's eardrums, he slants a look at Rodney, eyes squinted against southern Califiornia sun.

"Front page, huh?"

Rodney nods.

John turns back to the sky, laces his fingers across his belly. Rodney firmly ignores the sudden desire to trace out the grain of the hair on John's torso, run with it down to the border of denim. "Shoot," John says, not looking at him, and Rodney's so caught up in not wanting that he needs a moment to process John's just given him permission.

(Permission to ask questions, not to... to ogle like the billions of fan's he's acquired, Rodney tells himself. But John doesn't seem to mind him looking, and the open sprawl of him on the grass seems to invite it.)

"What... after your life, your background, I guess, what made you decide to do this?"

It's a standard question and one he knows John's answered before, but he holds his breath as John's forehead furls in consideration. He knows the answer, It looked like fun, and I wanted to try something new, and thought why the hell not?

"I was angry," John says at last. He blinks, quickly closes his eyes again, as though surprised at his response. "I was pretty pissed off at everything. The world in general."

And yeah, Rodney gets that. On the good days, it's irritation; on the bad, it's something else.

"Only pretty pissed off?" Rodney says softly. "I've seen your senior yearbook, you know. You seemed pretty set on the Academy--uno ab alto as your motto and buzz-cut and all that--and everyone in your year seemed sure you'd succeed. Then four years later you turn up out of nowhere and do that photo shoot with Chaya Sar in Milan, and all of a sudden everyone's spouting hyberbole about you as the first male supermodel."

John snorts softly, shrugging his shoulders loosely in a gesture which speaks eloquently of the fact that he's heard all this before and doesn't particularly care to get into it all again.

"Which made me--" Rodney tugs at the grass with one hand, pulling up individual blades one by one, "You know, I looked at your Wikipedia article before I came over here. Some particularly, uh, devoted fan has cited about fifteen different interviews with you where you say that you took up modelling because, and I quote, you kind of like it. You are quite demonstrably not stupid, so I'm not buying an answer that facile. What are you getting out of this?"

"This, for a start." John gestures absently to the opulence of architecture and water.

"You could have had this growing up."

"If I'd stayed in the family business," John corrects. He sits up, a flow of muscle that dries Rodney's mouth, curls his legs under him, mutters something about how lying down felt like being on a fucking psychiatrist's couch. "My dad wanted my brother and I to run the family store, you know? I didn't want to be tied down. You know?" When he turns to face Rodney again, shadows run across his eyes, obscuring them, but John seems strangely open.

"I've never been good about doing what people tell me to do," Rodney offers, which is true enough.

"That's what they say." John plays with the grass, plucking at a few stems; their little bit of lawn, except for the two of them, is immaculate, the grass so evenly cut Rodney suspects the gardener must have used a laser level. "I read your Wikipedia article too."

"I have one?" Actually he knows this, and is pretty sure Radek and Laura are behind a lot of it, and probably Sam. She's almost as good as walking the libel/sedition line as he is. But, Rodney thinks with pride, she never got banned from the White House press room for the duration of a president's tenure.

"People who tell the President that exile to Elba would be a great way to finish out his term usually do." The smile riding John's lips is playful now; when he lifts his head, Rodney can see that same teasing, uncovered, in hazel. "That's one of my favorite Daily Show clips."

Rodney takes a moment to preen and imagine that John's interest in him isn't purely intellectual before reminding himself they need to get back on track, and really, John hasn't answered him.

"And traveling," John says abruptly. "It isn't really... Fuck. It's moving, you know. I hate staying still."

"Two hundred miles an hour," Rodney murmurs, and John's smile this time is relief.

There's silence for a moment, before Rodney smirks a little and says in a mock serious voice, "Is this where I ask you if it's the destination or the journey?" He stresses his words in that pseudo-empathic way he's heard Heightmeyer use when she's interviewing the latest C-Lister looking for their fifteen minutes of fame after their even briefer period of time spent in rehab.

John's smile broadens a little, and next thing Rodney knows, John's throwing a handful of plucked grass at his head. Blades of grass catch in his hair and go into his mouth and one even, improbably, flies up his nostril. Rodney spits, gracelessly, and mumbles "Oh, because that's mature."

John squints over at a red bougainvillea nearby and then says, out of nowhere, "Bit of both, actually.

"The travelling or the destination thing," he says, when he sees the raised eyebrow Rodney shoots at him. "I like moving. Love it. But with this, I get to see all kinds of places I'd never have time to see if I'd stayed. That shoot in New Zealand... but that Snake River Canyon one, that one was awesome. You know I got to ride one of Knievel's actual bikes for that one?" John looks back over at Rodney, and his expression is strangely youthful, lit-up at the edges, and for a moment it's like looking back in time at that boy with the mess of dark hair and the open-guarded expression that had caught the world's imagination.

"Awesome," Rodney replies softly, but his tone is nowhere near as sarcastic as it could be.

"Yeah." John's leaning toward him, one hand planted on the grass to support his weight. "It was pretty great," and in those words there's nothing of the polished confidence that had greeted Rodney and Radek at the door.

Rodney fights not to lean in, but John is brilliant and magnetic, the expression on his face nothing like the one that had gazed down on Rodney from thirty feet above the highway. It's something that hasn't seen a photo shoot or a runway, something new, not for you, not for you, he reminds himself, except that he wants it to be.

His hand is right there, he could reach out and touch John's hand, except there's touching and then there's touching, like looking and looking, and he really has no idea where the line is between those things, between being the guy who stares at and gropes something pretty and the guy who, unsure, can't look away, and when he does touch, doesn't know what to do.

"I..." He licks his lips, so sexy, McKay, and thinks about saying something about how it really isn't ethical for journalists to kiss/have intimate relations with the people they're interviewing, and he has a slight grass allergy, instead of, "You're... I want..."

John shifts closer, looking up at Rodney from underneath the heavy fringe of dark hair, and Rodney's allergies must be flaring up, because all of a sudden it's perilously hard to breathe.

"Off the record, McKay?" John says conversationally.

"Uh huh," Rodney replies thickly, hoping against hope that he's not staring at the curve of John's lower lip and despairingly realising that that's what he's doing anyway. "What?"

And John reaches up with one grass-stained hand to cup Rodney's cheek, and then he's pulling him closer and kissing him. His mouth is intimate and warm, and when his tongue curls around Rodney's, Rodney moans.

The breath of John's soft laughter is warm too, and the fingers stroking, pressing Rodney's cheek are silent agreement, and Rodney chases his own breath back into John's mouth, a nip to the damp curve of his lower lip. Leaning in he needs balance, and finds it in threading his fingers through John's, so they press firmly into soft dirt. The skin under his fingers is rougher than he expected, faint calluses, strength when John twines their fingers together like there's never going to be any letting go.

John licks the questions from Rodney's mouth, and the sudden assertion of muscle against his chest, the curve of John's body into his, are answers that are so, so far beyond words.

Rodney hiccups softly when John pulls back just a little, an unexpected exhalation of breath that's matched by John's soft shhh against his mouth. "Okay," Rodney whispers, and kisses him again; slower this time, and inexorable, because his eyelids feel heavy, his limbs leaden, all of him feeling as if he's being pulled by a strange new gravity into John Sheppard's bright orbit.

John slides his free hand around to curl at the nape of Rodney's neck, calluses snagging in the fine hair there, rough against soft skin, and Rodney shivers. Against him, he can feel John tremble in response, once and hard, before he's being pressed back against the manicured lawn and John's propping himself up over head him, a dark shape silhouetted by the sun and outlined by the cloudless sky.

Rodney lies there and squints up at him. "Can I ask you a question?" he says. "Off the record."

John shudders again, not precisely arousal but not precisely fear, and it's a bit late, Rodney thinks for either of them to back off now.

"Is this..." It's the question that will probably send John running back inside, or will make John punch him. It's the question no one's asked but everyone's speculated about, the one he can't write down. "Is this why you left?"

"Old history," John says, shadow of bitterness and regret in his voice, but his hand stays, stays, stays on Rodney's neck. "But yeah."

"Okay then," Rodney says, "For the record? I highly approve of your decision making abilities."

John huffs out a laugh, but doesn't look like he's about to get back to the kissing right away, which is the kind of shoddy prioritising that Rodney just doesn't hold with. "Approve of your decision making, but not your time management. C'mere." He wraps both arms around John's back, sliding his palms along warm skin that's slick with summer sun and arousal, and presses him closer.

"Okay then," John says softly, near-sarcastically, and comes, smooth smooth under Rodney's hands, a slow settling of muscle and weight between Rodney's legs and along his chest.

John kisses him, kisses like he isn't sure this is happening, something not done in so long--that kind of desperation, this complete giving-over that makes Rodney go dizzy and breathless, and his heart thump weirdly in his chest. Beautiful people aren't supposed to go without this--being able to smell the humid curve of neck, explore what lies hidden by clothing--they're supposed to have it all the time, and Rodney's had years to get used to this fact.

Only there's nothing smooth about John, not much practiced, no perfection beyond neglected stubble and a soft, needy sound to answer Rodney's palm against his chest. Rodney shifts up, shudders as John's breath drops a notch into a groan that comes up from somwhere deep.

Rodney's button-down, and the worn green shirt beneath it, come up and off, tangling briefly around his wrists before John flings them away to land somewhere in a distant patch of shrubbery. "Hotel," Rodney protests briefly, suddenly, shockingly aware that he's half-naked with the hottest human being he's ever seen; that they're rutting up against one another, John's denim-clad thigh pressed in between his own, right out where anyone can see them.

John's grin is wicked, and he presses it against Rodney's mouth, the line of his jaw, scrapes his teeth against Rodney's stubble. "The agency's paying these guys five grand a day, Rodney. The concierge could stumble across me doing coke from a Russian hooker's bare ass, and he'd just blink and ask me if I wanted a higher denomination bank note to snort with."

Rodney stares at him. "That's, uh..."

Eeee, thank you! It is still going! :)

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