haute couture

[aesc]

John Sheppard has this tie. You must read the ad copy, because it's awesome.




from vintage_ads

He picked it up at a small curio/junk shop when he was stationed out in the middle of nowhere and going insane from boredom, because hey, it was cool and when he thought about it, it was pretty swank.

Unfortunately, most women didn't see it that way and anti-tieness was one of the major strikes against Nancy when they got engaged--Nancy even went so far as to tell him that under no circumstances would he wear it around her, with "under no circumstances will you wear it ever" strongly implied. But the drink dumped in his lap, the drink thrown in his face, or Nancy's inclusion of the tie in the prenup failed to shake his faith in the essential swankness of his tie.

So that brings us to now, when the tie becomes a crucial element in his seduction of Rodney McKay. You know that's what happens.

.eta: This possibly gives new meaning to "glowy sex" *muses*

In other news: New Hewlett icon! \o/

And, for those of you still around or just tuned in, model!John and reporter!Rodney improv with siriaeve.

Comments

[siria]

"Okay," Rodney says, pushing himself up off the ground so that he's sitting, John balanced on his lap. "Okay," he says to the soft curve of John's throat, the sharp line of his collarbone, "okay, I can listen." He swats very gently at John's shoulder when he hears the huff of laughter that earns him, because he can so listen when he wants to--Jeannie's told him as much on at least one occasion--and he's finding that he's strangely invested in this, in this man whose outline he knew before they ever met.

[aesc.livejournal.com]

And John tells him in awkwardly measured breath, the words themselves facts only, pain and anger buried so deep they might as well be on display.

"They dumped the other guy too, obviously," he says, pitching the words low, as though the flowers and long, slow day will overhear. "And the Academy kept it quiet because of my dad. He thought the best way for me to repay him would be to marry and at least pretend to be straight. It didn't work."

The question But all those women rises and dies on Rodney's lips. He's seen pictures of John with an endless procession of women, a list long as Rodney's arm... only, different women, never the same one twice.

"It's easy to keep people quiet if nothing happens," John says out of nowhere. "And that's really what I want."

"For people to shut the fuck up?" Rodney noses at the base of John's neck, a nexus of bone and firm muscle and soft skin.

"Yeah," John says, and his laughter vibrates against Rodney's mouth. "Yeah, pretty much."

[siria]

"You do realise," Rodney says between haphazard kisses, lazy strokes of John's tongue, "that no one has managed to shut me up since about 1971? There is actually a court-sworn affidavit to that effect. And I--"

"Rodney," John says, cupping Rodney's face in his hands; and all the breath catches in Rodney's throat, proves Judge Robson's words a lie. Rodney stares up at him, wide-eyed, at the five o' clock shadow that's gracing John's jaw at one in the afternoon, and exhales. "That's what I wanted. What I want. But trust me, if I ever want to make the front page..."

[aesc.livejournal.com]

"Yeah." Rodney nods to back it up, doesn't look away from the stripped-bare question in John's face. He's angry for John already, being robbed like that, and while he's used to this sort of anger, there's a new quality to it, something he can't examine and can't define. "Yeah."

[siria]

Because he has the feeling he could make headlines with this man, write a story he's never had a chance to tell before.

Rodney coaxes John off his lap, pulls them both to their feet with hands still pleasure-clumsy; tugs back on his shirt, wincing a little at fabric clinging to him in new and clammy ways, and carefully tucks John back into his pants, zips him up. "C'mon," he says carefully, not quite looking John in the eye, "in no set order, I need to go inside and shower, acquire new underwear, send Zelenka back to the office, write an article, and eat a sandwich approximately the size of my head."

John's eyebrows quirk upwards. "You sound like a man with a plan, McKay."

Rodney grins, smugness tilting the corners of his mouth just so, because he's always had the ability to calculate new positions on the fly, to factor in the new and the strange, a structure to his life that he can make and remake with the words he uses and how he uses them. "But of course," he says, and he takes John by the hand, and tugs him back up the gently sloping hill.