Day One
Saturday

"Nine days!" Kayla says, doing a little boogie along one of the colored paths on the carpet as they walk down the long hallway from the parking garage. "Nine days, nine days!"

"Yes, yes, we heard you," Rodney says. "Everyone's heard you."

"What, I'm not allowed to be excited?" Kayla asks. She twirls -- John notes that her hair is getting really long -- and sticks her tongue out at Rodney. "Nine days off!"

"Should I point out that it's the middle of summer and she's had the past forty or so days off?" Rodney asks John, loud enough for Kayla to hear.

She rolls her eyes. "That's different. Now we all have nine days off."

"Yay, vacation," John agrees. 

Last summer they'd flown down to South Carolina and stayed with his parents, which was great, but this year they'd decided to try staying at home after Rodney's sister Jeannie had extolled the wonders of a vacation that didn't include traveling with young children. Of course, Kayla's not as little as Jeannie's kids, but sometimes traveling with Rodney, especially when it involves needing to be certain places at certain times, can feel like traveling with a five year old. 

John lets Kayla get a little bit further ahead of them, then says to Rodney in a low voice, "She's wearing a green t-shirt and jean shorts."

Rodney gives him an exasperated look. "She's not going to get lost," he says. "She knows the place better than some of the people who work here, and she's way too smart to fall for anything anyone tries. You need to relax before you give yourself an aneurysm."

John thinks that's pretty rich coming from someone who regularly shouts until his face is red, but Rodney probably has a point, and it's not like they haven't been to the museum a dozen times in the past couple of years. Kayla's always been careful not to walk off without them. Plus she's older now.

Taking out his wallet, Rodney flashes his lifetime membership card for the bored-looking museum employee and they get their hands stamped.

"Upstairs?" Kayla asks, gesturing to the left, and John nods.

"Sure."

They skip the animal habitat exhibits -- Kayla's going through a tentative vegetarian phase and refuses to look at their taxidermied "dead bodies" -- and go up to the Human Body Connection, which is one of Kayla's favorite parts. She likes the skeletons and the models of human systems. Sometimes John wonders if she'll be a doctor or some other kind of biological scientist when she grows up, although he's careful not to make suggestions because he wants her to make her own decisions.

On the way into the main part of the museum, John pauses on the bridge to look at the flying machines hanging from the ceiling. The Daedalus is his favorite -- he always stops and reads the little plaque, even though he practically has it memorized by now. He wonders what it must have been like to fly it, to feel the ground drop away, nothing but thin metal and your own power keeping you aloft. Like magic.

"You coming?" Rodney asks from in front of him, walking sideways so he can keep an eye on Kayla, who's already gone ahead.

"Yeah," John says, tearing himself away. "Sorry."

He sticks close to Kayla after that, reminded of meeting Rodney for the first time, and the sheer terror he'd felt when she'd had been missing. Rodney, on the other hand, disappears for long periods of time, and more than once John finds him muttering to himself at one display or another, complaining under his breath about inaccurate information and deliberate attempts to misinform the public.

Kayla glances up from a display that shows how sand dunes form and spots the Tyrannosaurus Rex across the way. "Look, the dinosaur!" She's grinning widely, and John sees why as soon as he looks -- it's got a huge paper flower between its teeth.

"Maybe he's in love," he says. "Have you seen any girl dinosaurs around?"

"Maybe that one's a girl dinosaur," Kayla tells him as she heads toward the dinosaur exhibit. "Or maybe he likes boys."

"It's not like he's going to be mating with anyone," John says, and Kayla gives him a look that's becoming more common these days -- one that says "Why do you have to be so gross?" --  much to John's dismay. He's still trying to deny that puberty's just around the corner.

She goes over to the skeleton puzzles and starts pulling them apart so she can piece them together again. "Where's Rodney?"

"I have no idea." John steps to where he can see more clearly and looks around, but can't see Rodney.

"I don't know why I have to stay with you every second, but he can go off as much as he wants," Kayla complains.

"Um, maybe because he's a grown-up?" John says.

Kayla sighs and doesn't say anything else. John isn't sure if he hopes this is hormones talking, or if he's terrified that it might be.

Appearing as if from nowhere, Rodney touches John's elbow. "I'll hang out with her for a while," he says. "Go check out that Star Wars exhibit -- it's really cool and it's only here for another month or something. Call when you're done and we'll meet up again."

"Okay." 

By the time John's done, Rodney and Kayla are back at the Human Body Connection. Kayla is standing in front of the skeleton case, her arms hanging weirdly from the shoulders and a blank expression on her face while Rodney points a camera at her and directs. "Let your mouth hang open a little bit more. Good, good. Now let your hands go limp... okay... perfect. Don't move..." He takes a few more shots.

"Should I ask what you guys are doing?" John asks, bemused.

Kayla goes from zombie-girl to normal in the blink of an eye. "Taking funny pictures," she says.

"And standing there with your jaw looking half-dislocated is funny how?" 

"I was copying the skeletons," Kayla says.

Like this explains everything, John nods. "We should get some lunch soon." It's getting late for lunch, so at least the crowds should have died down.

They eat in the cafeteria. Thank goodness Kayla got over her Dippin' Dots, the ice cream of the future obsession and eats normal food now, even if she's currently claiming to be a vegetarian and refusing to eat any meat. She and John both get salad from the salad bar. Rodney gets pizza from Wolfgang Puck's and sits on the other side of the table because lemon might have touched some of the fruit on Kayla's plate. Not that John doesn't understand his paranoia; actually, he's probably more paranoid than Rodney these days.

"What time is it?" Kayla asks.

Rodney checks his watch. "One thirty."

"I can go to Emily's at four, right?" she asks.

"Right," John says. They've had this conversation at least twice this morning -- Kayla's going to a sleepover with half a dozen other girls at Emily's house, and she's been kind of a wreck over it, to the point where John made the mistake of suggesting she didn't have to go if she didn't want to. Kayla had given him an angry look and burst into tears, leaving him perplexed.

By the time he drops her off at Emily's house at four, John has to admit -- to himself, at least -- that he's glad to be rid of her. He always feels guilty for thinking things like that, but he figures it's probably normal. Hopefully. It's not really the kind of thing you can ask other parents, right?

Rodney's not downstairs when John gets home, but he can hear him moving around on the second floor. John goes up and pauses at the top of the stairs. "Rodney?"

"Be right there," Rodney calls through the obviously closed door of his office. That's kind of weird; Rodney usually only shuts that door if John and Kayla are both home and distracting him from something he's working on.

Still. John shrugs and contemplates yard work -- the grass needs to be mowed, even though it's been dry and it's not growing all that much, and the tangle of raspberry bushes in the back is threatening to spill over the rock wall and onto the lawn if he doesn't do something about it soon.

The office door opens and Rodney is standing there holding a brown cardboard box with mailing tape half stuck all over it. Rodney's eyes widen like he wasn't expecting to see John right there. "Oh. There you are."

"Here I am," John agrees. "If I'm interrupting something, I can go --"

"No," Rodney says quickly. "No, this is for you. Well, for us, really, although I'd understand if you weren't interested, what with --"

It's John's turn to interrupt, apparently. "Rodney," he says. "Breathe. I can't say if I'm interested if I have no idea what you're talking about. Start again?"

Rodney's face has that flushed look it gets when he's embarrassed. Or when they're having sex. "Yes. Right. Can we?" He gestures toward the bedroom with his box, and John nods.

In the bedroom, Rodney sets the box down on the bed but keeps his hand on top of it, the weight holding it closed.

"It's not a puppy, is it?" John asks. Kayla's been asking for one for more than a year; he's still hoping it's an idea that'll die down if he ignores it long enough.

"No," Rodney says. "It's not a puppy." He hesitates, then abruptly slides the box toward John. "Here."

More than slightly curious now, John opens the box and looks inside. "Huh," he says.

"If you don't want to," Rodney says quickly, "that's fine. It was just an idea."

John reaches into the box and takes out the dildo, which is still in its plastic package. "Cyberskin?" he reads, sounding pretty much as amused as he feels.

"No, no, it's fine," Rodney says, grabbing for it, but John yanks it out of reach.

"Rodney, calm down. Have you heard me say no?"

Blinking, Rodney thinks for a few seconds. "Well. No. No, I haven't. Does that mean...?"

"Sure," John says. He sits down next to Rodney and rests the package on Rodney's thigh as he kisses him, then says in a low voice, "The question is, do you want to do me with it, or do you want me to do you?"

Rodney licks his lips and swallows. "Um... you. I was thinking you."

All alone in the house, they don't have to take any of the precautions they usually do. They don't have to lock the bedroom door -- in fact, they don't even have to shut it, so they don't. They undress each other quickly, eager now that the sex card's been placed on the table, and they kiss more than a little bit frantically. John goes from zero to sixty in about four seconds, his dick standing up. He rubs it against Rodney's thigh and then Rodney's urging him down onto the bed. 

"Like this," Rodney says, breathless with excitement. "Here, just put your... yes, like that."

John's on his hands and knees, horizontal on the bed, facing away from Rodney. When he feels the flared head of the dildo, slick with lube, press against him, he gasps and jerks. 

Rodney's hand settles on his ass, steadying. "Easy. Don't move." 

The dildo pushes steadily forward, breaching him, opening him up, and all the strength goes out of John -- he leans down until his forehead is resting on his arms and groans loudly. He remembers that he doesn't need to be quiet and groans again, reveling in the freedom of it, as Rodney slides the dildo deeper. It feels different in new and startling ways. It can't feel this, isn't taking its own pleasure from thrusting into him. "Rodney." It's a gasp.

"Is it good?" Rodney asks. "No, no, don't answer -- I can tell. Jesus, you have no idea how incredible you look like this."

"It feels..." He can't find any words. The fake dick pushes in as deep as it can go, then slides back out again, wet and --"God." And in, the angle different this time, making him whimper. Fucking whimper.

Rodney's left hand is on John's hip now, not really doing anything because his right has all his concentration as it fucks John relentlessly with the dildo, driving it against his prostate. There's heat all through John, spreading from his cock and balls down into his thighs and up into his belly, and he's shuddering and moaning, totally helpless and loving every second of it.

"Do you want to come?" Rodney asks, sounding excited at the idea.

"Yes," John says immediately. Now Rodney will touch his cock, and that's all it's going to take to push him over the edge.

Rodney's hand leaves John's hip, but instead of reaching around and grabbing onto his desperate erection like John needs it to, there's a weird twisting sensation and then the dildo shoved deep into him is moving, it's fucking vibrating, and John cries out in shock and comes, feeling his ass clench hungrily with each wave of pleasure.

"God," Rodney mutters. "I can't -- I have to --" The dildo pulls away, leaving John empty for a brief moment before Rodney's hard, hot cock takes its place. Another pulse of orgasm rolls through John, slow but devastatingly strong, and Rodney's hands clamp down on his hips and jerk him back onto the cock inside him, not once but twice, three times, four. Rodney comes with a choked groan, trembling, and by the time he pulls away John's limp with release, smiling stupidly against the blankets and feeling his heartbeat gradually slowing to something closer to normal.

"That was fantastic," Rodney says, collapsing down next to him sideways on the bed.

John mutters his agreement, not bothering to move.

"It was, wasn't it?" Rodney asks.

"Yes," John says. He forces himself to shift and turn until he's lying on his side facing Rodney. "It was fantastic." He suspects the blissed-out look he's wearing does more to reassure Rodney than his words, though.

"Oh. Good." Rodney kisses him and shuts his eyes for a lot longer than a couple of seconds, then opens them again and yawns. "I think we should take a nap, then go out to dinner."

"Mm," John says, hitching closer and throwing his arm over Rodney. "Nap sounds good." They're still on top of the crooked blankets and lying sideways across the mattress, but he doesn't care.

Day Two
Sunday

They sleep in, have slow, lazy morning sex with the bedroom door open and Mister Mew eyeing them disdainfully from the foot of the bed, then have lots of coffee and a package of those whack-em-on-the-counter cinnamon rolls while they argue over the Sunday paper.

"Here, have sports," Rodney says, shoving it across the table at him. "You like sports."

"I like lots of things," John says, then gives in and passes over the travel section anyway because it's easier. He eats three cinnamon rolls and drinks three cups of coffee, refusing a fourth when Rodney makes another pot. "You're going to be wired all afternoon."

"And that never happens," Rodney says. He puts the fresh cup down in front of John and sits in his own chair again. "We could go back to bed?" he suggests.

John grins. "We have to pick Kayla up in half an hour."

"Oh, fine, be responsible," Rodney grumbles.

After they pick up Kayla, they go to the grocery store. John usually shops on his own during the week, on his way home from work; it's faster and easier that way. When all three of them go it takes two hours, there are loud arguments in the aisles, and people look at them funny. Today is no exception.

"Cookies!" Kayla says.

"We still have those ones that are like Oreos," John says. He can never remember what they're called. "You know, the organic ones."

"They're not the same." Kayla holds onto the package of cookies stubbornly.

"The other ones are better," Rodney says, putting two boxes of crackers into the shopping cart and reaching for a third.

"No, these are," Kayla says.

"Just get them," John says, sighing. "And some frozen waffles, okay?"

In the next aisle, they get bar soap and shampoo and razor blades. "Vitamins?" Kayla asks.

"Sure," John says. 

"Can I get this new strip kind?"

"Strip vitamins?" Rodney asks, frowning. 

"They're these little film things," Kayla explains, showing him the package. "You put them on your tongue and they dissolve."

Rodney looks at it. "Hm. Interesting. Too bad they can't do that with vegetables and make them taste like chocolate."

"If you eat enough vitamins, you don't have to eat vegetables," Kayla says, glancing at John like she's anticipating his reaction.

He pretends to be looking at Band-aids, deliberately not commenting on how it's pretty funny that someone who wants to be a vegetarian doesn't want to eat vegetables. "Vegetables are gross," he drawls instead. "I think we should move to an all-candy diet."

"No way!" Kayla says. "There have to be cookies, too. And cake!"

"And ice cream," Rodney adds. "That creme brulee kind."

"What about shortcake?" John asks. "Can we have strawberry shortcake, even though there are strawberries in it?"

"Sure," Kayla says magnanimously. "Because it's dessert."

"Blueberry pie?"

"Yes."

"Apple crisp?"

"Uh-huh."

"Watermelon sorbet?" Rodney suggests. He has a strange fondness for the stuff.

"Okay," Kayla says. "Anyway, I think that's made out of juice, not actual fruit."

"I don't know if there's a difference where watermelon is concerned," John says. "Isn't it ninety percent water?"

"Ninety two percent," Rodney tells them as they round the corner into the next aisle. 

Kayla makes a circular motion in the air with one finger. "Skip!"

"We need the next aisle, though," Rodney says. "Cat litter."

"Yuck," Kayla says.

"You like the cat when he's sleeping on your bed," John reminds her.

"That doesn't mean I like his poop." Kayla waltzes off into the pet supplies aisle, ignoring the big bags of cat litter in every imaginable variety and going instead to the pet toy section.

"You're getting an attitude," Rodney calls after her, then looks at John. "She's getting an attitude."

"I can't imagine where from," John says, rolling his eyes and grabbing a twenty pound bag of litter. He shoves it on the rack underneath the cart, then gives it an extra push with his foot for good measure. The bag slides four inches, catches on a rough bit of metal, and tears open. Litter spills out onto the tiled floor. "Great."

"Here, hang on." Rodney turns to the other side of the aisle, where there are light bulbs and a very small paper and markers display. He picks up a roll of packing tape, removes a long piece, and bends down to stick it over the tear in the bag. "There." Looking pleased with himself, he hangs the roll of tape back up where it came from.

"You can't just take a piece and then put it back!" John protests.

"Oh, right, because the person who buys that tape is going to unroll it all and measure it to make sure no one had to borrow a piece." 

"Borrowing implies that you're going to give it back."

Rodney shoots John the look that clearly says he's being ridiculous, but retrieves the roll of tape and throws it into the cart as Kayla comes back. "There, we'll buy it. Happy now?"

"Comparatively," John says. "We're not buying cat toys."

Kayla looks disappointed. "Just one?" She's holding two.

"Have you seen the collection that's already under the couch because he doesn't care about them?" The cat only likes to play with plastic bags, and the playing is pretty much limited to licking them and trying to climb inside them. 

"He just forgot where he put them," Kayla says.

"He's not stupid, he's just lazy," Rodney says.

John decides to put his foot down. "No more cat toys."

"Okay..." Kayla draws the word out, sulking, but forgets all about it thirty seconds later when they move into the produce section. "Raspberries?"

"And blueberries," John says. They can go through a dozen pints a week between the two of them. "We need bananas, too, if you want to pick some out."

"I'll be at the bakery," Rodney says, gesturing. He doesn't like being near the fruit -- he worries about people touching citrus fruits and then other things that he might touch, and John's just as happy for him to be away from it. 

By the time they catch up with Rodney, he has a bag of hard rolls in one hand and a loaf of sourdough in the other.

"Oh, good, there you are," Rodney says. He puts the bread in the cart and grabs a package of toilet paper from an end display. "Are we done? Did you get peppers?"

"Yes and yes," John says. "We're doing pizza tonight, right?"

"Hm, yes. We should start the dough when we get back so it has plenty of time to rise." 

"Alton Brown says you should make the pizza dough a day in advance," Kayla says.

"Yes, well, Alton Brown has nothing better to do than cook." Rodney snaps his fingers suddenly. "Batteries. You two go get in line, I'll be right there."

This happens every time; Rodney doesn't show up until they've emptied everything in the cart onto the belt, and when he does he's got an armload of stuff ranging from batteries to canned chick peas to tahini to frozen chicken wings.

"We should make hummus," Rodney says. "The packaged kind always has lemon in it, but if we make it, I can have some."

"Okay," John says, because there's no point in arguing with Rodney when he's got his mind set on something.

It takes half an hour to unload the car once they get home, then Rodney takes out the  food processor that's been gathering dust for a couple of years and sits down with the little recipe booklet that came with it. "We need olive oil," he announces, and Kayla, well trained in the ways of Rodney, goes to retrieve it. 

John notices that the top shelf in the fridge is getting pretty sticky -- Kayla's a big fan of apple juice and it seems like the containers are always leaking just enough to leave drops on the glass shelf. He shuffles the stuff from the top shelf to other shelves, wipes the top one clean, and moves the stuff back. Of course, once he's done that, he can see that the other shelves now look dirty in comparison to the clean one, so he has to repeat the process throughout the whole fridge. The whole time, Rodney and Kayla are making hummus, talking about it and occasionally disagreeing on what step should come next.

"Isn't that what the recipe is for?" John asks.

"Well, when you can't put one of the ingredients in and it's a liquid, you have to put something else in to replace it," Kayla says. "Otherwise it'd be like cement instead of hummus."

"I thought hummus was supposed to be like cement," John says, grinning.

"Of course, because I love eating cement," Rodney says. He measures tahini into the food processor. "Don't put your fingers in there," he tells Kayla.

"I'm not four," Kayla says indignantly. "I know better than to stick my hand into a machine with sharp blades that go round and round."

"Fine, fine. All right, here, turn it on and I'll drizzle the olive oil in." 

John goes upstairs with a wrench slipped into the pocket of his jeans and fiddles with the bathroom faucet, which has been dripping off and on for months -- okay, more than a year. Rodney had wanted to remodel the bathroom when they'd put the addition on, but he'd already been paying for pretty much everything and John had a little stubborn streak that refused to let him agree to it. It had been bad enough that Rodney was giving up his huge, beautiful house to move into John and Kayla's little old one, and extra frustrating that Rodney was funding the addition that would make the space livable for the three of them -- he hadn't wanted Rodney to pay for a new bathroom, too.

He hears Rodney coming up the stairs and quickly shuts the cabinet doors, leaving the wrench under there and turning on the tap so he can pretend he's been washing his hands.

"What are you up to?" Rodney asks, coming in behind him and resting a hand at John's hip. 

"Nothing," John says innocently. He flicks water from his fingers and turns around, reaching past Rodney for a hand towel that's seen better days.

Rodney slips an arm around his waist and pulls him in close. He nuzzles John's throat. "Come down and have some hummus, and we can talk about getting some quotes on having the bathroom remodeled."

John stiffens and backs up. "Why do you ask me what I'm up to when you already know?" he asks. He shouldn't be a freak about this, but somehow he can't seem to help it. He's got all these tangled up feelings -- the ones that say he's supposed to be the one taking care of his partner, and then the ones that remind him he didn't do such a great job of that with Elizabeth. He knows that's stupid. She wouldn't have wanted him to still be beating himself up over the fact that he couldn't keep her alive by sheer force of will.

God, it's all so fucked up. Isn't it supposed to be easier by now? It's like he's always waiting for her to fade, to back off and give him some space, but of course it's not that he wants to forget her, even if it were possible. Which it's not.

"We should make pita bread," Kayla calls from downstairs, and Rodney, still standing there, yells back to her.

"Are you insane? That'd take all day." Rodney looks at him closely, wary. 

John hates seeing that look on Rodney's face; it makes him pissy and unreasonable. "Just back off on the goddamned bathroom renovation, okay?" he says, and pushes past Rodney into the hallway.

He only takes three steps, though, before he stops. Rodney deserves better, and John promised himself back when Rodney had almost died that he wouldn't shut him out, wouldn't walk away from him like that again, not if he could help it, and he can.

It's not easy, but he's done lots of difficult things in his life. He can do this, too.

Slowly, he turns around and leans against the wall, letting it prop him up. "Rodney," he says.

Rodney blinks and lifts his eyes, meeting John's gaze for a split second before looking away again. He doesn't say anything.

John wants to tell him come here, but that's not fair either. He's the one who should have to move. He does, walking to the doorway and touching Rodney's hand. "Sorry," he says, rough and awkward and just wanting things to be okay again. "I didn't mean -- I know I'm --"

"A moron?" Rodney suggests, but it's forced.

"That, too," John says, relieved that Rodney's not totally pissed off at him. "I don't want you to have to pay for stuff like that."

"You let me pay for the addition," Rodney points out.

John frowns. "Yeah, but that was mostly for you. Your office, you know?"

"Well, technically I suppose that's true, for the most part, but that doesn't change the fact that you're being a dick." Rodney's warming up. "Whatever fucked up ideas you have in your head, whatever screwy male chauvinist --"

"Fuck you," John says hotly, because it's not that he thinks men are better than women, it's that he thinks he's not supposed to be a -- 

Oh.

"Wait," he says, holding up a hand to forestall whatever it is Rodney's prepping for, and Rodney actually stops, blinking in surprise. "Just... give me a second here, okay?"

"Okay," Rodney says.

From downstairs, Kayla calls, "Are you fighting?"

"No!" Rodney shouts back. "We're just arguing loudly!" And, because they're them, Kayla knows what this means and accepts it without question.

John takes a slow, deep breath and lets it out, trying to think, but only because he needs a moment before admitting to the truth. "Okay," he says finally. "You're right."

Rodney blinks again, even though it shouldn't surprise him -- John tells him he's right a lot, because he is right a lot. "I am? I mean, yes, of course I am. About what?"

He looks so confused that John laughs. "About me being a dick. Yeah. Yes, let's call the guys that built the addition and see about getting the bathroom remodeled."

"You'll thank me when it's over," Rodney tells him. 

"I won't miss the leaky faucet, that's for sure," John admits, and wraps his arms around Rodney and holds on.

Day Three
Monday

"Funland is a stupid name," Kayla says as they're pulling into the parking lot.

"You think?" John says. He slows the car to a crawl, foot totally off of the gas pedal. "We can just go home..."

"No!" Kayla says, sounding upset even though she has to know by now that he's only kidding. "No, I want to ride those little cars!"

"Okay, okay." John pulls into a parking space and they all get out. 

"There's Skeeball," Kayla says. "Can I have quarters?"

"Can we do the batting cages first?" John asks hopefully.

Kayla groans. "They're so boring."

"You go," Rodney tells him. "We'll do the arcade, you do the batting cages and come find us when you're done."

"Okay," John says, because they only do this once a year and he's been looking forward to it for weeks. "Thanks."

Rodney and Kayla go off to the arcade and John goes and trades some cash for tokens. There's one batting cage free. He plugs in a token and jams a batting helmet that doesn't quite fit onto his head and he's off.

There's something exhilarating about standing there with the bat in his hands, balls shooting toward him at a shocking speed, and then the *crack* as he swings and bat and ball connect. He goes through three tokens without pausing. It's a perfect day, eighty degrees with a light breeze, the sky as blue as John remembers even if it looks a little different from down here on the ground. He glances up and can't help but stare at a small plane, sunlight glinting off it, and the next ball catches him off guard and clips the edge of the bat, making his hands sting.

"Hey!" 

John turns to look. It's a kid who might be about ten, wearing a baseball cap. His fingers are curled around the chain link fence. "Yeah?" John says.

"Are you going to bat, or what?"

Glancing around proves that the cages on either side of John are empty. "Why don't you use one of those?" he asks, gesturing.

"I like this one," the boy says. 

"Well, you're gonna have to wait," John tells him, and pushes another token into the slot, but after that he's aware of the kid watching him, and somehow that takes some of the magic out of it. He uses the last token anyway out of a sense of defiance, then takes his time leaving the cage. He lets the kid take his bat, though.

"You did good," the kid says grudgingly. "For an old guy."

"That's Mister Old Guy to you," John says, and shoves his helmet onto the shelf before going off to find Kayla and Rodney.

They're arguing over the best technique for getting a high score in Skeeball. Rodney insists that it's all in the wrist; Kayla thinks it's about strength. "Yes, and that's why your scores are so much higher than mine," Rodney says sarcastically. "Because you're stronger."

"Just because you outweigh me by two hundred pounds --" Kayla says.

"Two hundred?" Rodney sounds scandalized, even if he'll have forgotten the entire conversation in fifteen minutes (assuming it's over by then). "Please. Not even close."

"Fine," Kayla says. She crosses her arms and looks at him expectantly. "If your technique is so great, prove it. Score 450."

"All right, I will." Rodney starts up a new game and picks up the first ball, then, holding it, says, "You realize that there are variables here that I can't possibly be expected to account for. Warped floor boards, potential imperfections in the surface of the balls..."

"Now you're just making excuses," Kayla says, her tone of voice so like John's that he blinks in surprise. "Go on. Prove it."

Rodney makes a frustrated sound, but turns his attention to the lane and throws the first ball, getting fifty points immediately. "Ha!"

"That's one," Kayla says.

Not for long, though -- Rodney proceeds to get fifty points with each of his next seven balls. On the ninth, he fumbles the ball onto the lane and it ends up in the ten point section. 

"That was still pretty good." Kayla's nothing if not fair.

"I told you there were variables," Rodney mutters, and goes off without his tickets.

Kayla takes them from the machine and gives John a worried glance, and John has one of those moments -- which never last long, thank God -- when he hates Rodney for having the ability to put that look on Kayla's face. It's gone by the time they reach Rodney, though, who's standing at one of the token machines scooping a handful of tokens into his hand. 

"We were out," he explains, and gives most of them to Kayla. "Do you still want to play Dance Dance Revolution?"

Her eyes light up. "Yes!"

They watch her play for twenty minutes or so, then use the rest of the tokens on more Skeeball and trade in their tickets for a weird jiggly rubber yo-yo thing that John thinks is filled with either water or some kind of alien ectoplasm. 

"Twenty dollars worth of tokens for a toy that costs about fifty cents," Rodney says under his breath, and Kayla whacks him with the yo-yo. "Hey!"

"Don't be a grouch," Kayla says.

"Hello, have you met me?" Rodney asks.

Kayla's tall enough to drive the go-karts on her own now, and she's anxious to get behind the wheel. John grills her on how to be careful for the whole ten minutes they're in line, until she's completely exasperated and wants nothing else to do with him.

"I know!" she says. "I'm not stupid."

"I know you're not stupid," John says. "I just want you to continue to be not-stupid, which is going to be a lot easier if your skull's still in one piece."

"Well if you're going to be a freak about it, I won't go!" Kayla puts her hands on her hips and glares at him.

"Wait, wait," Rodney says, holding his hands up between them. "Everyone take some deep breaths, okay? Kayla, you're going to be careful, right?" He draws the world 'careful' out in emphasis.

"Yes," she says. "I'm going to be careful."

"There, you see?" Rodney looks at John hopefully. "She'll be careful."

"Okay," John says, because he knows he's being overprotective and that he needs to back off. "Okay. Good."

"Good." Rodney rubs his hands together briskly. "This is going to be great!"

As soon as they're on the track, pedals to the floor and the wind in their hair, John forgets about worrying. For about thirty-five seconds, because that's how long it takes Rodney to crash into one of the barriers and start swearing a blue streak. John's already halfway around the track before he realizes what's happened, and at that point he doesn't have much choice but to go the rest of the way around. 

By the time he gets there, one of the teenage employees has already run over and is rescuing Rodney, helping him get the go-kart off the old tires that make up the barrier. John slows down. "You okay?"

"Yes, yes, fine," Rodney says, irritated, waving him away, so John keeps going. Before he's made another lap, Rodney's crashed again. He crashes six times in all in the eight minutes or so in which they're driving, and only the promise of ice cream afterwards restores his good mood. "Those things are death-traps," he announces as they're waiting in line to order.

Kayla's smiling. She looks older, somehow. "No, they're not," she says. "No one got hurt. You're just really bad at steering."

"I think there was something wrong with the steering column." Rodney steps up to the window. "A large Coffee Oreo," he says. "In a cup."

"Would you like any toppings on that?" the girl with the white apron and the obnoxiously bright purple hat with the Funland logo on it asks. 

"Like what, Oreos?" Rodney says sarcastically, then stops. "Hm. Actually, that sounds good. Yes, with Oreo topping."

"Will that be all?"

Rodney gestures at John and Kayla like they're an afterthought. "And whatever they want." 

They sit at a picnic table to eat their ice cream. Kayla has vanilla; it's still her favorite flavor, although she's graduated to adding sprinkles now. John has mint chocolate chip with some of that hard-shell chocolate stuff on the outside, which sounded good in theory but ends up breaking into shards that slide off the ice cream faster than he can eat them.

"There's chocolate on your nose," Kayla tells him.

"Is there?" John turns his face toward Rodney for confirmation and rescue -- his hands are so sticky he's pretty sure the paper napkins would do more harm than good. 

"We can't take you anywhere," Rodney says, then licks his thumb and swipes it over the tip of John's nose. "There, that's better."

"Thanks." 

"We can play mini-golf, right?" Kayla asks. She has a wad of napkins wrapped around her cone to keep her hand clean -- John thinks maybe he should learn from her next time. Or at least skip the chocolate shell.

"Only if you're both prepared to be good losers." Rodney smirks.

She rolls her eyes. "Are you?"

"I don't need to be," Rodney says. "I don't plan to lose."

"What you plan and what takes place ain't ever exactly been similar," Kayla says, in her best Jayne imitation, and John grins.

"No grenades," Rodney says, before reaching over, grabbing onto John's wrist, and steals a lick of his ice cream.

"Hey!" John says.

"Oh, please. You can have some of mine." Rodney offers him the cup of mostly-melted coffee ice cream.

"I'll pass." John licks his own ice cream again, then makes a face. "You got your coffee in my mint." He knows Rodney remembers the old Reese's peanut butter cup commericals, even if Kayla doesn't.

She shifts away from them. "If you guys are going to have a food fight, I am so out of here."

"I can't imagine why you think we might do something like that," John says. Plus, now that she's mentioned it, he's considering it just to be contrary. "Rodney?"

"Oh, no," Rodney says. He quickly spoons the rest of his ice cream into his mouth, then shows John the empty cup. "There, see? I'm out of ammunition. It wouldn't be fair to start a fight with an unarmed man."

"It's not like you don't have plenty of money," John points out. "You could buy more ammuni-- I mean, ice cream."

"Mini-golf." Kayla goes over, dumps what's left of her cone into the trash, and looks at them expectantly.

Rodney's waving a hand toward the trash. "Did you just throw away perfectly good ice cream?"

Kayla pauses, then lies so blatantly that as far as John's concerned it doesn't even count as a lie. It's more like a challenge. "No."

"Did you hear that?" Rodney asks John. "Your daughter just lied to me."

"I love how she's only 'my' daughter when she's done something you don't like," John says, putting air-quotes around the 'my.' "Are you gonna call her that when she kicks your ass at mini-golf, too?" He gets up, turns with his head tilted to the side, lifts his eyebrows, and drops his own unfinished ice cream cone into the trash just to watch Rodney splutter.

"You're both insane," Rodney says when he's recovered from the horror of seeing food wasted. "I don't want to play mini-golf with insane people."

Kayla grins. "On the other hand," she says, "you could look at it this way -- your chances of winning are even better if you're playing against insane people."

"Hm," Rodney says. He licks his already-clean spoon thoughtfully and nods. "Okay. You're on."

Day Four
Tuesday

"I forgot my towel," Kayla says from the back seat.

"I didn't," Rodney says. "Don't worry, I have everything."

"Is it going to be really crowded?" Kayla asks. 

"It's the end of July and it's supposed to reach 85 degrees." Rodney glances over his shoulder at her. "What do you think?"

"They're used to crowded," John tells them. "It'll be fine."

Kayla hums the theme song from the commercial repeatedly as John guides the car along the dusty road that leads to the parking area. The first lot is full, but the second is just starting to fill up -- they've still got ten minutes until the park officially opens. 

"I want to go on the slides," Kayla says. "And in the wave pool. Can we do the Dragon's Den first? That's the new one. Stephanie said it's the coolest."

"Oh, well, if Stephanie said so, then we have to listen," Rodney says snidely. 

John pulls the car into a space and they pile out. Rodney pulls an armful of towels and a beach bag from the trunk, shoving the towels at John, who takes them automatically. They follow the other groups of people that are wandering like ants toward the entrance and Rodney pays. They get a locker -- Rodney pays for that, too -- and shove most of their stuff into it. Then Kayla and John wait while Rodney puts on a hat, sunglasses, a second layer of sunblock, a thick smear of zinc oxide over his nose, and the new beach shoes he'd bought at the drug store that morning. "Okay," he says. "Let's go."

They go to the Dragon's Den first. The line is long already, but not impossibly so, and Kayla's a lot more patient now than she was a couple of years back. 

At the last minute, Rodney tries to flake out. "I think I need some more sunblock."

John gives him a look. "You just put some on forty five minutes ago," he says in disbelief. "We're at the top of the platform."

"I don't think you could get back down now anyway." Kayla looks behind them at the people waiting in line all along the wooden staircase. "Unless you want to jump."

"Yes, very funny," Rodney says. "You can tell by the way I'm laughing."

"Come on." John curls his pinkie finger around Rodney's and tugs gently. "You can do it. It'll be fun." He stretches out the last word. 

"Well..." Rodney dithers, and the couple in front of them pushes off down the slide into the tunnel.

"I'll go with Kayla to prove it's safe, and you come next," John suggests. He knows once he and Kayla go, Rodney will, too.

"Fine," Rodney says. "But this better not suck."

Three minutes later, Rodney comes shooting out of the second tunnel, blinking water out of his eyes and wearing the biggest grin John's ever seen. "That was great!," Rodney says, fumbling over the edge of the tube. He snags his hat, which is floating, and splashes his way to the steps that lead out of the knee-deep water. "Let's do it again!"

They do, but only once more, because then Rodney spots a different water slide and they're off. The next three hours are practically non-stop, and John's feet are starting to hurt when they break for lunch. He collapses gratefully into a chair under an umbrella as Rodney and Kayla go off to find food.

"You look like you're having a busy day," someone nearby says, and he turns to see a woman sitting at the table next to his. There's a stroller beside her chair with a blanket half draped over it, shading the apparently sleeping baby from what little sun is filtering in between the umbrellas.

"Yeah," he says, grinning. "What about you?"

She's got a book open in front of her, and an empty iced coffee cup beside it. "I'm here with my sister. She took my other kids -- I have two -- so the baby could nap."

John nods. "How old?" 

"The baby? Five months. The other two are ten and seven." She waits a few seconds, then leans across the space between them and offers her hand. "I'm Hannah."

"Hi, Hannah; I'm John." Her hand is warm and dry. 

The sleeping baby's legs kick briefly and they both pause to see if it's waking up. When it's quiet, Hannah says, "What about you? Was that your little girl I saw running off with your friend?"

"Yeah, that was Kayla. She's twelve." John never knows when to bring up the whole 'he's not my friend, he's my partner' thing.

The baby squirms again and makes a small gurgling sound of protest, and Hannah pulls the stroller closer and picks it up. It's wearing a pink t-shirt, so it must be a girl. 

"What's her name?" John asks.

"Lizzy," Hannah says, smiling. "Elizabeth."

John feels something that might be his heart seizing up. Just for a second, and it's far from the first time it's happened, but somehow that really doesn't make it any easier. "That's nice," he hears himself saying.

Hannah keeps right on talking, so he must be wearing something like an actual smile on his face as he nods and makes encouraging noises, because hopefully as long as she's busy thinking about what to say next she won't notice that he might as well be a million miles away. It isn't until Rodney and Kayla come back, balancing lunch on a couple of plastic trays and arguing happily, that he manages to blink and drag his eyes away from the baby. He murmurs a "nice talking to you" to Hannah and turns his attention to his own family.

"You do realize that this child is clinically insane, don't you?" Rodney asks, setting down his tray. "She's trying to convince me that -- wait, what's wrong?"

"What?" John says weakly. He can't do this here -- doesn't want to, not in front of Kayla or this woman and her infant daughter -- and he prays that the way he's looking at Rodney will make that clear. "Nothing."

"Oh, please, don't give me that. I know everything about you; I know when something's wrong." Rodney's impatient now.

"Everything's great." John pastes on a smile and pulls the chair next to him out for Kayla. "Hey, honey, what'd you get?"

"French fries," she says. Her eyes search John's briefly -- she's way too smart, catches way too much that he wishes she'd miss -- but then she relaxes and sits down. "And salad. Rodney got barbecue pork, but he wouldn't believe me when I told him it was made out of a pig's behind."

John, who's just taken a sip of the soda Rodney passed to him, swallows wrong and chokes. "It's what?"

"Well, you know," Kayla says. "Pork butt. It's a pig's butt, right?"

"I guess," John says, as Rodney says, "There is a reason why they call it beef and not cow."

"So that people can fool themselves." Kayla takes a bite of salad. "It's still butt."

Rodney looks torn between whether to continue arguing with Kayla or go back to arguing with John about whether or not he's okay. Some time around then, Hannah's family comes back, her two boys dripping water everywhere and talking excitedly, and then they all go off somewhere. Hannah catches John's eye and waves a little bit, and he lifts his hand in return.

"Were you flirting?" Rodney asks, sounding scandalized.

John shakes his head decisively. "No. Not even close."

"Oh. Well, good." 

After they eat, they go off to the wave pool, where they have to wait for the next round of waves to start up. Kayla splashes around, inching her way toward the deeper water, and Rodney takes advantage of her distraction to move closer to John and ask, "Are you really okay?" The buzzer sounds and the wave machine starts up.

"Yes," John says. "Can we not talk about it now?"

"That means there's something to talk about," Rodney says smugly.

"Look," John says, blinking back sudden, unexpected tears . "Not now, okay? I can't do it right now."

Rodney looks startled, but nods. "Okay. Sure."

"Thanks," John says, just before a huge wave smacks him and knocks him right off his feet. He gets up, gasping air and shaking his hair out of his eyes. Rodney's already several yards away near Kayla, making sure she isn't in over her head both figuratively and literally, but he glances back to check on John worriedly. John lifts a hand in reassurance, coughs, and turns just in time to avoid getting another wave in the face. The water's warm and tastes faintly of chlorine. Okay, maybe not so faintly. But Kayla smiles at him and wraps an arm around his neck in a brief hug when he joins them, and they're all so wet that there's no need to explain away any of the water on his face.

"Ow, ow, ow," John complains, his skin protesting as he pulls his t-shirt off.

"I told you to put more sunscreen on at lunchtime," Rodney points out.

John glares at him. "Congratulations," he says. "You were right."

"Of course I was," Rodney says. "Go take a shower -- cold water -- and I'll put some aloe gel on you when you're done."

Mister Mew slips through Kayla's open bedroom door as John walks down the hallway to the bathroom. The cool water does feel good, he thinks grudgingly, but even his scalp is hot and painful when he tries to shampoo, so he gives up and just stands under the streaming water until he's totally waterlogged.

Rodney's waiting for him in the bedroom, tube of aloe vera gel in hand. "Get rid of that towel and lie down," he says, locking the door, then adds, "On your stomach."

John does, not sure whether to keep his elbows under him or lie flat, but it turns out they both hurt so he just sort of does a face-plant in the pillow and gives up. The first touch of cool gel on his shoulder makes him gasp and try to jerk away.

"Don't be so melodramatic," Rodney, King of the Hypocrites, says. His hands are incredibly gentle, though, as he rubs the aloe into John's hot skin.

"Ow," John says into the pillow anyway, experimentally.

The pressure of Rodney's hands eases off; his fingertips skate across John's back and shoulders so lightly that it almost doesn't even hurt. "Did you take any ibuprofen or anything?"

John shakes his head a little bit; inhales the scent of laundry detergent. 

"You probably should." Rodney's quiet for a minute, spreading the aloe around. "So what was up with you before?"

"Nothing," John says, but it comes out so muffled that it's more like a grunt.

"Who do you think I am? Someone who hasn't spent the last three years watching your every move?" Rodney squirts some more aloe directly onto John's back, and he flinches -- it's startlingly cool like that. "You know that you're going to end up telling me eventually, because I'm going to keep asking until you give in, so we might as well just get it over with now."

He has a point, unfortunately. John says, conversationally, "There was this woman with this baby, and it turned out the baby's name was Elizabeth, and I had a little melt-down, okay?" knowing that Rodney isn't going to be able to understand a word of it.

But Rodney says, "Oh," and his hands stop moving.

John turns his head to the side. "I can't believe you understood that."

"Again I remind you, three years," Rodney says.

"Three years during which I haven't been talking through a pillow," John points out. "Unless I talk in my sleep and you haven't mentioned it."

"No, no, you don't," Rodney says. He reaches out and traces the length of John's nose. "It's a little pink, too," he explains, then adds, awkwardly, "Do you not want to talk about it?"

John laughs even though he's not sure what's funny. "When I didn't want to talk about it before, you kept bugging me."

"That was before I knew what it was you didn't want to talk about." Rodney sighs, then gestures impatiently. "Here, sit up so I can do the tops of your shoulders."

Obeying, John closes his eyes and lets his head hang forward. "It's not that I don't want to talk about it," he says as Rodney smoothes aloe gel onto his shoulders. "Well, it is, but it's just... I don't know what there is to say. You know?"

And Rodney clears his throat and says, "I know." He leans in and brushes his lips against the edge of John's ear; it makes John shiver. "I wish... well, I guess I don't really wish you hadn't lost her, because if you hadn't I wouldn't be here, would I? And I can't imagine being anywhere else. Does that make me sound like a jerk?"

John nods, then shakes his head. He's not even sure what he's answering, really. "No."

"Hm, yes, thank you for the reassurance." But Rodney kisses the back of John's neck, his hand moving to rest against John's stomach. It's the spot that always turns John on as surely as if a button has been pressed; his cock stirs hopefully. Rodney's hand moves lower, fingertips brushing the tops of John's thighs, feeling things out. John makes a small, encouraging sound, and Rodney's hand closes around his cock.

This is what John wants, about a hundred times more than he wants to talk about babies or Elizabeth or babies named Elizabeth. "There's no way I'm lying on my back," he says, his voice thick in his throat. 

"Did I say anything about that?" Rodney moves him gently, gets him lying down on his side and sucks him off, slow and careful, lips stretched around John's cock. 

"Jesus," John says. He wants to shut his eyes, but he can't look away from what Rodney's doing. Rodney's mouth is incredible, perfect, and even though he's exhausted and his skin feels hot, like he might shed it at any moment, he wishes this moment could go on forever. 

It might. Rodney sucks him, licks underneath the head of his cock where it always makes his breath catch, but no matter how long he's on edge, John can't seem to come.

"I don't," he says finally, touching Rodney's hair, and Rodney pulls away. "I don't think it's gonna happen tonight."

"Don't be ridiculous," Rodney says.

John sighs. "I'm not. Maybe I'm just too tired."

"And stressed out, and sunburned." Rodney shakes his head and presses warm lips to  John's inner thigh. "Give it a little longer. You need to relax."

He closes his eyes and concentrates on how it feels, hot suction and the faint graze of teeth when Rodney really gets into it, but it's like the harder he tries to come, the further away he gets. He even starts to go a little bit soft. 

"You really are stressed," Rodney says. He strokes his hand up the back of John's leg and cups his ass. 

"Sorry," John says.

"Shut up." Rodney slides up and kisses him for a long time, then looks at him seriously. "I love you, you idiot. None of the rest of it matters."

"Somehow I don't think you'd be saying that if it was an ongoing problem." John sighs again. "It's not like I don't want to."

"God, when did you become so neurotic?" Rodney asks. He squeezes John's ass. "I can make you come, you know." He sounds so confident that John smiles.

"You think so?"

"Of course. I wouldn't have said it otherwise." Reaching for the lube, Rodney slicks up two fingers and starts to play with John's ass. At first just one fingertip pushes inside, teasing him before retreating, until John starts unconsciously lifting his hips, wanting more. His cock is getting hard again, too.

He moans when Rodney's fingers slides all the way in, putting pressure on his prostate until a drop of fluid forms at the tip of his cock. "Rodney."

"Shh," Rodney says. "Let me." And he adds a third finger beside the first two, rubbing, rubbing until John thinks he might explode. He can feel the tension all the way down into his toes.

Then, when John's quivering and gasping, Rodney bends and puts his mouth on John's cock, and John comes so hard he can feel it in every inch of his body.

Rodney kisses him with a mouth that's slightly sour-tasting afterward, while he's still boneless. "Better?" Rodney asks, and John nods gratefully and inhales the scent of Rodney's skin and somehow falls asleep before he can do anything else.

Day Five
Wednesday

John wakes up to an empty bed and a quiet house. He has vague memories of the night before -- waking in the middle of the night with chills, then feeling hot -- but they're all fuzzy and confused. His throat is dry and his thigh muscles ache a little bit, probably from all the stairs at the water park. 

Slowly, he drags himself out of bed to the bathroom, where the bottle of ibuprofen tablets is sitting on the sink along with a glass of water. There's a little piece of paper, too. In Kayla's handwriting, it says, 'Eat me. (Two pills. But don't chew.)' and 'Drink me. (You can figure it out.)' John does as instructed, smiling, and goes downstairs.

There's another note on the kitchen table. 'Gone to the library. Back later.'

It's almost ten, which is a surprise, but the coffee in the pot still tastes great when John pours himself a cup. He sips it slowly and reads the paper, a little weirded out by how quiet the house is. He even feels faintly guilty for being at home instead of at work on a week day, even though that's the whole point of vacation and he's certainly entitled.

He toasts an English muffin and spreads it with peanut butter, not interested in more breakfast than that. After he eats it, he goes out into the back yard and mows the lawn, wearing the old pair of jean shorts that are pretty threadbare at this point and therefore perfect for yard work. He weeds the small flower bed and cuts back the raspberry bushes before going back inside and taking a shower. He's thinking about lunch and drinking a glass of ice water when the front door opens and Kayla and Rodney come in.

"We're back," Kayla announces. "We brought pizza. Do you feel better, Dad?"

"Yeah," John says. "Thanks for letting me sleep."

"It's not as if we had a choice," Rodney says. "I was in and out of the room half a dozen times and you never even stirred." But he has that little pleased look, the one that makes little wrinkles appear around his eyes and at the corners of his mouth, and John knows it wasn't just an accident.

"We think we should have a movie day today," Kayla says. "We got movies from the video store."

"Haven't done that in a while," John says. They've got so many DVDs that renting more always seems like overkill, but he's still sorry he missed getting to see Rodney in the video store, where he's always bright-eyed and kind of manic.

"Yes, well, we know what you like," Rodney says. "How's your back?"

John shrugs his shoulders slightly, testing. "Okay. A little sore, but not too bad."

They spread out in the living room, Kayla commandeering the love seat and John and Rodney on the big couch, and eat pizza while watching The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Rodney picks it apart scene by scene, analyzing the changes made between the book and the film, until Kayla throws a pillow at his head.

"Hey!" Rodney says.

"Shut up," Kayla tells him. "You're ruining it."

"Are you going to let her talk to me like that?" Rodney asks, turning to John.

"Apparently," John says, grinning. "You are being kind of annoying."

"Fine," Rodney says, and stomps off to the kitchen in a huff, pausing long enough to grab one of the pizza boxes from the coffee table. It's the box that still has a slice of pizza in it, though, so John knows it's just an excuse to steal the last piece while no one's looking. Sure enough, Rodney comes back in two minutes, still chewing and holding an unopened bag of chips. "I'm not sharing," Rodney announces.

"Okay," John says.

"And I'm not talking anymore, since you're both so unappreciative of my insightful comments," Rodney adds.

"Starting now?" Kayla asks hopefully.

Rodney throws the pillow back at her and she tucks it under her head. 

"Thanks," she says.

By the time the movie's almost over, though, Rodney's watching intently, and John knows he's forgotten about the inconsistencies and been overcome by the magic of it. 

"Well, it could have been worse," Rodney says as the end credits roll, and gets up to switch the DVD. "Five minute intermission."

That's Kayla's cue to run upstairs to the bathroom. Rodney sits back down, aiming the remote at the DVD player, and John shifts on the couch and lies down with his head on Rodney's thigh. "You make a nice pillow," he says in explanation when Rodney looks at him.

Rodney doesn't say anything, but he pats John's hair gently.

They've finished watching Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by four, which is when the contractor is supposed to come look at the bathroom to give them a quote on remodeling it. The guys who built the extension are booked solid through the end of the year, and Rodney's too impatient to put the work off, so he called this guy instead. The guy's name is Harris something, or maybe Harrison something. Or maybe that's his last name. Whatever it is, he shows up twenty minutes late and stomps into the house like he's in a bad mood. Rodney, being Rodney, doesn't even notice the guy's scowl and leads him upstairs to see the bathroom.

"I think we should just gut the whole thing, don't you?" Rodney's saying as John goes up to join them. "It seems like it would be easier to start from scratch. Maybe the tub there against the back wall? And a new window, obviously."

"Yeah," Harrison grunts and scribbles a couple of notes down on his pad of paper, then pulls out a measuring tape. 

Rodney's still oblivious. "And a bigger tub, maybe with some of those jets? Like a spa. I think a double sink -- I don't know why there weren't two to begin with, the room is certainly big enough, but I'm sick of having to share. Granite countertops, and a tile floor. And a quiet exhaust fan. This one's so loud you can barely hear yourself think, never mind trying to have a conversation when one of us is in the shower..."

Harrison's gone all stiff in the shoulders and straightens up, letting the measuring tape slide closed. "Thought you were brothers," he says.

"Are you kidding? Do we look anything alike?" Rodney asks, not getting it. To John, he says, "How do you feel about a shower stall, in addition to a tub?"

"Faggots," Harrison hisses. Rodney's mouth drops open in shock as Harrison tears off the sheet of paper he'd been writing on and crumples it up, dropping it to the floor. He starts to push his way past John, but John, who has a dark red rage surging up through his chest and into his arms, shoves him against the wall, and not gently, either.

"Get the fuck out of our house," he growls, and Harrison's eyes go from disgusted to startled. "And don't you dare say another word on your way out. If our daughter hears any of the sick, fucked up things you're thinking, I'm going to beat the shit out of you. Don't think I won't." He gives the guy another shove into the wall, feeling a slow burn of satisfaction, and then releases Harrison. 

The man leaves without another word. John follows him, staying right at his heels and resisting the urge to shout, "And never come back!" before slamming the door.

"What happened?" Kayla asks.

"Some people are bigots," Rodney snaps.

Kayla looks confused. "About what?"

"About people being gay," John says. He feels okay now that the asshole's gone, although part of that is probably because he got some adrenaline out during the little shoving match.

Kayla makes a face. "Yeah, well, some people are stupid, too," she says. "Why do they think it matters?" 

"I don't know," John said. Rodney was standing at the window, presumably watching to make sure Harrison left. "Some men find it threatening, I think."

"But why?"

John sighed. "I don't know. Maybe because they have certain ideas about how men are supposed to be, you know, masculine."

"But it's not like you wear dresses," Kayla says. Without saying anything, Rodney goes off into the kitchen. "So how are you not masculine?"

"It's not that simple," John says, looking after Rodney, then checking to make sure the driveway is empty and the front door is locked. 

"You always say that when you don't feel like explaining," Kayla complains.

John sighs. "I say it when I'm not sure how to explain. It's hard to explain something you don't understand yourself."

"Well," Kayla says. "Forget about him. He's just a jerk, and it's not like we can't get someone else to fix the bathroom."

"Good thing," John agrees. "You want to put the last movie in? I'm just gonna go check on Rodney."

Rodney is straightening up the kitchen, which seems to consist of slamming things around.

"Hey," John says.

"I'm fine." Rodney crumples up the waxed paper liner from the bottoms of the pizza boxes and shoves them into the trash, then shakes the boxes out over the sink. 

"Yeah, I can see that."

Rodney glares at him. "I'm fine." He starts to bend one of the pizza boxes in half, but the cardboard is uncooperative and bends crookedly and at a diagonal. Rodney swears and wrestles with it for another second or two, then throws the mangled box down onto the floor. "Fuck."

"Hey," John says again, because it's worked for him in the past and he has to say something. "Relax, okay?"

"Relax?" Rodney repeats, loudly and disbelievingly. "That... that bastard just called us --"

"Rodney," John says in a warning tone.

Rodney lowers his voice to a furious whisper. "You heard what he called us!"

"I know," John whispers back, gesturing toward the living room where Kayla is. "He's an idiot. It doesn't matter what he calls us. He's the one with a shitty, shallow mindset, and he's the one who's going to miss out in life because of it. Him, not us."

"Well I'm glad it's so easy for you not to give a shit," Rodney says.

"It's not that I don't care," John says, going back to his normal voice because it's not like Kayla doesn't already know they're arguing, and she's just going to be more interested if she thinks they're trying not to be overheard. "Of course I care. I just don't want guys like that to win!"

"Says the man who had one of those guys by the throat!" Rodney says.

"Not the throat," John says. "More the upper arms. And, okay, that's really not the point. The point is..." Only he's not sure what the point is. He just knows he wants Rodney not to hurt over this.

"There, you see?" Rodney says wearily, picking up both cardboard boxes -- the busted one and the whole one -- and putting them into the recycling. "There isn't a point. It just sucks."

Not knowing what else to do, John goes to him, standing so close that they're almost touching, and after a few seconds Rodney sighs and leans on him, forehead on John's shoulder.

"Yeah, buddy," John says comfortingly, stroking Rodney's hair. "You're right. It sucks."

"I just --" Rodney starts, then stops.

John rubs the back of Rodney's neck. "Yeah?"

"I wanted to think we're safe here." Rodney doesn't lift his head and John wonders if he thinks he can pretend the conversation's not happening if their eyes don't meet. "Not, you know, here here, but here in general. It's... it's been a while since someone reminded me there are people who hate us."

"They don't hate us," John says. "Not really." He aches for the younger man Rodney used to be, the one who'd been told people hated him because he was gay. "It's their loss."

Rodney makes a short, sharp bark that's nothing like a laugh. "That's funny. It doesn't feel like it. It feels like ours."

"Because we don't have assholes like that in our lives?" This part of it is simple for John: he's always known that there'll be people who dislike him, for a variety of reasons, and he's never let it bother him because the people who do like him are the ones that matter.

"Usually you have some kind of warning," Rodney says, and finally lifts his head. His eyes are a little red, but he looks more irritated than sad. "You know, I really, really hate people like that."

"Best way to go about it," John agrees, slinging an arm around Rodney's neck, and kisses him before they go back to the living room to join Kayla.

Day Six
Thursday

"There's a rat!" Kayla says, pointing. 

Rodney twitches on John's other side. "Why am I not surprised this place is crawling with vermin?"

Kayla gives him a look. "Not a rat. You know, a pet one. It was doing a trick."

"Stealing food isn't really a trick," Rodney tells her.

"It wasn't -- look, there it is again!" Over near the stage area there's a rope hung between two poles; at first glance it looks like it's designed to keep people from crossing into the area behind it, but now that there's a beige and white rat using it as a tightrope its actual purpose is obvious. "She's so cute!" Kayla says.

Kids all around them on the zoo's outdoor auditorium benches are pointing and laughing. The rat disappears around a corner, then reappears a minute later on the other side again, and there's more laughter.

Rodney glances at his watch. "They're late. The show was supposed to start four minutes ago."

"Relax," John advises.

"I could be at work right now," Rodney says. "I could be discovering something incredibly important to the future of human existence. Instead I'm watching a rodent perform circus tricks."

"It's cute," Kayla says. "Don't be so impatient -- the show will start soon."

"Yeah. Maybe the birds are being uncooperative," John says.

"Don't they live in cages?" Rodney asks. "I wouldn't think they'd have an opportunity to be uncooperative."

"You haven't seen those big parrots' beaks," Kayla says. "Oh, here's a girl."

A short blonde woman -- she can't be more than five feet tall -- comes out. She's got one of those microphone things looped over her ear, and she immediately introduces herself and launches into the wild bird show. It's interesting in an aimed-at-kids kind of way, but John's attention wanders and he finds himself leaning back against the step behind him and watching Kayla instead as she smiles and laughs. There's something incredibly peaceful about being able to see her enjoy herself like this, without any worries or stresses. The period of time in which Elizabeth was sick feels, sometimes, like it stretched out forever, years in which Kayla didn't smile much. He can remember Kayla clinging to Elizabeth's thin hand, pressing her face against Elizabeth's side and hugging her.

"Hey," Rodney says, resting a hand on John's thigh, and John blinks and turns to look at him. "You okay?"

"Yeah," John says. He puts his own hand down on top of Rodney's, warmed by the attention and the worry in Rodney's eyes. "Yeah, I'm good."

After the bird show, they check out the rest of the zoo, which is less than impressive but still fun. They walk up to the top of a long hill to the wolf exhibit, where there are glass panels through which to see the animals.

Kayla puts her hands over her eyes and peers in. "I don't see them."

Neither does John. There are trees and rocks and bushes, but no wolves. 

"There's a squirrel," Rodney says, pointing it out.

"Wouldn't the wolves have eaten it?" Kayla asks. "I mean, if there are wolves."

"It says there are." John steps back to read the sign, which is old but still legible. "I don't know -- do wolves eat squirrels?"

"They're carnivores," Rodney says. "They probably eat anything they can catch."

Another family comes up the hill, the woman pushing a stroller with a little kid who looks about two in it. They let the kid out and he -- or maybe it's a she, with the short haircut and green t-shirt it's kind of hard to tell -- runs around, banging on the glass panels with flat palms and  then going into the stucco 'den' where there's a statue of a mother wolf and her pups. "Doggy!" the kid exclaims, pointing.

"Wolf, Brandon," the mother corrects, smiling indulgently.

Brandon seems to think this is what the doggy's supposed to say. "Woof! Woof!" 

"There it is," Kayla says. Her hands are above her eyes, shading them from the light so she can see better.

John squints; he can't see anything but trees and rocks and -- oh. 

The wolf is taller than most dogs, and thin. There's something rangy about it. Its feet are huge, legs hardly more than bone under the fur, which is a weird combination of whites, browns and grays. It looks like a gangly teenager wearing its father's too-large clothes.

Until it moves, pacing silently up the hill, practically floating between steps. Then it becomes something incredible, a primal sort of ghost haunting the forest exhibit. It disappears behind a tangle of trees. John hadn't realized he'd been holding his breath until he lets it all out at once.

"Wow," Kayla says, barely above a whisper.

"Yeah," John says. Rodney's hand settles on his shoulder.

Brandon comes over and smashes his nose to the glass. "Woof?" he asks, and looks up at John.

John nods. "Woof."

They see ducks, otters, some kind of spotted leopards, and llamas. On the way out of the zoo, Kayla and Rodney exchange a glance John doesn't like the look of, but before he can ask what they're up to, they start waving their arms over their heads and running across the parking lot.

"Run for your lives, they're loose!" Rodney shouts, with Kayla adding, "Run! Run!" Everyone nearby looks startled, and a couple of people who are in the process of buying tickets actually back away from the entrance.

"It's okay," John tells them, holding up a placating hand. "Everything's fine." Other than the fact that his family is crazy.

By the time he gets to the car, Rodney and Kayla are draped over it, laughing. "Did you see their faces?" Rodney asks, and Kayla collapses in a fit of hysterical giggles.

"Very mature, guys," John says. He unlocks the car and manages to keep a straight face when they all get in, because otherwise he'd just be encouraging them. "Where'd you get that idea?"

"Website," Rodney says smugly.^[*]

"I'm glad you're using your online time so productively," John says. 

Rodney grins. "Please. It was hilarious. Admit it."

"Just promise me this website doesn't also suggest yelling 'fire' in a crowded theater," John says. He starts up the car and glances in the rearview mirror before backing out of the parking space. 

"We promise," Kayla says.

"In accordance with the prophecy," Rodney adds, and they both start laughing again.

John chuckles -- it's hard not to with both of them laughing, even if he has no idea what's so funny. "It's going to be a long day, isn't it."

"It's vacation," Kayla tells him. "Long days are good things."

"Not if I have to listen to the two of you acting like crazy people," John says.

On the way home they stop at the bank so Rodney can use the ATM. When the machine spits his money out, he starts shouting, "I won! I won!" Kayla laughs so hard that tears come to her eyes. Then at Friendly's, with a completely straight face, Rodney requests a 'diet water.' The waitress starts to write it down, blinks, then looks up at him, confused. "Diet water?" she repeats.

"Yes, please," Rodney says, more polite than usual.

The waitress goes away to get their drinks, and Kayla says, "That was awesome."

"In accordance with the prophecy," Rodney intones. 

John wonders if he can get away with moving to another table.

"I can't believe we're cooking," Kayla says, carefully scraping potato peelings into the trash. "It feels like all we've been doing is eating out."

"Part of the fun of being on vacation is not having to cook." Rodney finishes pouring an entire bottle of canola oil into the deep fat fryer.

John glances at him. "Because you spend so much time cooking otherwise?"

"It's not my fault my talents lie elsewhere," Rodney grouses.

"You're very talented," John says soothingly. He's up to his wrists in sticky egg and cornflake crumbs -- there's a plate of now-breaded chicken strips on a plate in front of him, and one last bare strip in his left hand. He dips it into the egg mixture, then drops it into the almost empty bowl of crumbs. "That thing's plugged in, right?"

"Of course it is." Rodney surreptitiously plugs in the fryer while pretending to wipe up a non-existent spill from the countertop. 

"These are done." Sliding the trash can back into its spot, Kayla brings the bowl of peeled and cut potato wedges to the sink and turns on the tap. "Now we rinse, right?"

"Right," John tells her. "Rinse, then spin dry in the salad spinner --"

"That's the best part," Kayla says.

"-- then pat them dry with a towel so we don't have any incredible fat explosions."

"In accordance with the prophecy." Kayla laughs a little bit.

"You two are nuts," John says affectionately.

"What, you think the prophecy should include fat explosions?" Kayla asks.

"Not our prophecy," Rodney says. "Our prophecy doesn't include injuries of any sort. It's written right in there."

"Well, that's good to know." John moves to the sink to wash his hands, and Rodney yelps and reaches for the faucet handles.

"Wait! God, don't go touching things when your hands are all covered with raw egg. Do you want us to get salmonella?" Turning on the water for him, Rodney steps back and lets him go to it.

"It's not like I was going to leave the handles all gooey," John says mildly. He squirts hand soap onto one palm with the inside of the opposite wrist. "See? I'm pretty coordinated, you know."

"Of course you are," Rodney says, patting John's hip.

They cook the food, a process that always takes a lot longer than John expects it to, which probably explains why they don't do the fried food thing all that often. That and because he figures -- when they're not on vacation, at least -- that part of his job is to take care of Rodney, and that includes making him eat things like vegetables and salads and fresh fruit at least a couple of times a day. It's almost seven-thirty by the time they sit down. The fries are already cold, not that that matters since they've all been eating them since they came out of the fryer and they're half gone anyway. 

"They're still good cold," Kayla says, squirting a small puddle of ketchup onto her plate.

Rodney nods. "They're kind of greasy, though. There must be a way to avoid that."

"Yeah, there is," John says. "Next time Alton Brown's doing an episode about frying, we should stay awake instead of dozing off in the middle."

"That's the whole point of watching TV in bed," Rodney says.

"So you can only watch half a show?"

"No, so you can fall asleep to the sound of something other than your own racing thoughts," Rodney says through a huge mouthful of chicken. "It's soothing."

Kayla blinks at him. "Food Network is soothing?"

"Maybe not when you're a twelve year old girl," Rodney says. "Well, I don't know... maybe that Naked Chef guy... what's his name again?"

"Rodney," John says warningly, because he doesn't want Kayla getting any ideas about naked anybodys.

"No, I'm pretty sure it's not... oh." Rodney frowns. "It's not like she's never had a crush before. What about that Jack Estrogen?"

"Zac Efron," Kayla says, with a withering look.

Rodney snaps his fingers. "And that other one... Luciano Grabowski!!"

"Lucas Grabeel." Kayla snags the last fry off the plate in the center of the table and eats it, glaring at Rodney.

"Well, excuse me for not being able to keep track of hundreds of teenaged, acne-ridden heartthrobs," Rodney says.

With her chin in the air, Kayla picks up her plate, takes it to the sink, and turns around to look at Rodney. "It's not hundreds, it's just a few. Sometimes I think you're not as smart as you're pretending to be."

That's enough to set Rodney off, of course -- insulting his intelligence is the hottest hot button he has. "What, just because I can't be bothered to remember the names of a bunch of snot-nosed teen actors? I'll have you know I have better things to do with my brain."

"Whatever. I'm going to play Webkinz." Kayla flounces off into the other room, and Rodney throws John a frustrated glance before following her.

"Wait a minute!" Rodney says. "You don't get to make accusations like that and then run off without finishing the conversation."

"I don't?" There's a pause, and John can picture the expression on Kayla's face before she says, "Oh, look, actually, I do."

Their voices lower after that, for the most part, and John gets to work cleaning up the kitchen. He knows they'll work it out -- they always do -- and what's even more amusing is that they seem to enjoy the process. He usually thinks of Kayla as being more like Elizabeth than himself, but she gets as much of a kick out of arguing with Rodney as he does. (Unless it's about something serious. Then he doesn't like it at all.)

Rodney comes back into the kitchen when John's closing the dishwasher. "I was going to help!" he says.

"Right," John says. He's had a few years to get used to the fact that Rodney's not a household chores kind of guy, and he's okay with it. "Is she still mad?"

"No." Rodney leans against the sink next to John. 

John shoots him a glance. "Are you?"

"I never was. She's the one that was being irrational." That's Rodney's regular complaint whenever someone says something he doesn't agree with -- John doesn't take it seriously anymore, even when there's a chance Rodney might be right.

Still. "She'll probably start actually being irrational on a monthly basis pretty soon," John points out, because he's been thinking of doing it and now's as good a time as any.

"Why, is she switching to the calendar method?" Rodney says grumpily, then his eyes get wide and he looks somewhat horrified. "Oh, no. Already? Isn't she too young?"

"Nope. The average age is eleven and a half." John dries his hands on a dish towel and then hangs it back up. 

"Oh, God," Rodney moans. "That means it could be any time. Why didn't you say something sooner?"

"Pretty much because I knew you were going to freak out," John says. He's an expert at handling Rodney now, and he knows that Rodney's response will be to stand up straighter and deny that he's freaking out.

Rodney straightens his spine and shoulders. "I am not freaking out," he hisses. "I'm just surprised, okay? You could have given me some warning."

"This is the warning," John says patiently. "Nothing's happened yet."

"Oh." Rodney blinks. "Oh. Right. Hm. Well, maybe I was freaking out. You know -- just a little bit."

"Just a little," John agrees, and rubs Rodney's back. In the other room, he can hear the sounds of the Wheel of Wow clicking its way to yet another prize. 

"Yes!" Kayla cries. "Random cash of the day is eight hundred and seventy three!"

"They aren't kidding when they say 'random'," John says.

Rodney kisses him and then runs the fingers of one hand through John's hair, messing it up. He ignores John's protest and kisses him again, long enough to be distracting this time. "I promised I'd play Lunch Letters," he says. "She's saving up to get some kind of cheerleader bed."

"Save the cheerleader, save the world," John intones, and grins as Rodney goes off to play a game meant for pre-teens.

Day Seven
Friday

On Friday, they go to the beach with Sam and Sam's new friend Aaron, who under no circumstances is to be referred to as Sam's boyfriend.

"Why not?" Kayla asks.

"Because he's not," Sam says. "We're just friends."

"But you go on dates." Kayla sounds confused.

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean he's my boyfriend. He's a friend."

"A friend that you date," Kayla says.

"Right." Sam makes a face at her as Aaron comes back from his car with a towel slung over his shoulder. "Okay, cool. We ready to go?"

"I think so," Rodney says, checking the beach bag again. "Um, wait -- I forgot the zinc oxide."

"That white stuff?" Kayla asks, sighing. "Do you always have to use that?"

"If I don't want to burn, yes." Rodney's already heading for the stairs. "Go ahead, I'll be right there."

It's early enough that they don't have any trouble parking, although there's a brief confusion when they discover that they need tokens for the parking meters and no one has enough change. Aaron runs across the street to the nearest store and buys a can of soda, then jogs back with the can in one hand and a palm full of change in the other. 

"They wouldn't give change unless I bought something," Aaron explains, offering the soda to Kayla, who takes it. He's some kind of scientist -- John and Rodney were actually the ones who inadvertently introduced him to Sam. Aaron's kind of little, wears glasses, and has a receding hairline. Even though he seems like a nice enough guy, John's still surprised to have learned that he's Sam's type. Sam's previous boyfriends -- friends that he's dating -- have all been kind of like Sam: tall, muscular, good-looking.

Rodney's muttering under his breath and struggling to get the umbrella out of the back of the SUV. "Can you imagine trying to do this with a smaller car?" he asks John.

It's a pointed comment on how they've been talking about replacing the SUV -- it's got over a hundred thousand miles on it and there've been a couple of costly repairs in the past year. Rodney wants to get another SUV. John's pushing for a smaller car; nothing tiny, but something that gets better mileage and is better for the environment.

"Should we go close to the water?" Aaron asks as they step onto the sand. "Or keep further back?"

"Hm," Rodney says. "Close, I think. The tide's going out; we don't want to have to walk a mile to the water."

"I'm not planning on walking to the water at all," John says. He used to surf, back when he was single, but it's been years and this isn't the right kind of beach anyway; it's all rocky. He's pretty sure he sold his surfboard at a yard sale he and Elizabeth had right after Kayla was born.

"You're not going in the water?" Kayla asks as they pick a spot and Rodney plants the umbrella.

"I'm napping," John tells her. It's his vacation, too, and he figures he's entitled to spend it dozing in the shade.

"Besides," Rodney says, "I told him if he got sunburned again I'd kill him."

"That might have something to do with it," John agrees.

Rodney frowns and fusses with the umbrella, trying to get it up. Sam sighs and moves to open it for him, and Rodney steps back, willingly letting someone else deal with it. 

After it's secure and they've spread out the towels, Kayla submits to an application of sunblock. Then John settles down to 'read' (aka nap with a book draped over his face) and the rest of them go off to the water.

Rodney doesn't actually swim in the ocean -- he doesn't go out past his waist, at least -- but he and Kayla share a love of tide pools, and they've brought plenty of buckets for carrying their finds. John drifts off to the sound of their voices carrying across the sand and the waves hushing gently onto the shore.

He wakes up to the shock of cold water dripping onto him and Kayla saying... something. He shoves the book aside and hitches himself up onto his elbows. "I was sleeping," he says plaintively, squinting up at Kayla and Rodney, who are bleached white by the late-morning sunshine.

"You have to come see!" Kayla says. She sets her bucket down, water sloshing near the top of it, and pokes him with her toes. "There's a sea anemone. It's totally cool!"

"Can't you bring it here?" John knows he's perilously close to whining.

"Are you kidding?" Rodney asks. "Anemones have tentacles. Do you really want one of us to end up in the news as the latest person who had to have their leg urinated on because they got stung?"

John sits up, blinking. "What?"

"The pee is to neutralize the nematocysts," Kayla says.

"Okay..." John gets up, because there are times when you can argue and times when you can't, and he's pretty much mastered the ability to tell which is which. "Show me."

"Uh-uh," Rodney says. "No way. Not until you put sunblock on." 

He does, and then when they get down near the water he has to roll up the bottoms of his khakis so they don't get wet. He's wearing a loose-fitting white gauze shirt -- at Rodney's insistence -- to help prevent another accidental sunburn, and it flaps a little bit in the wind as they step up onto the crooked ring of stones circling the largest tide pool.

"It's over here," Kayla says. "Oh! A starfish! Can you get it?"

John pries it gently off the rock it's clinging to, easing it up one arm at a time. The faint ripples on the surface of the water distort his vision, and he doesn't realize that something's different until he lifts it suddenly from the water and sees its misshapen body.

"It's hurt," Kayla says, leaning against him and looking. "It only has four arms."

"Yeah," John says.

"It'll grow it back," Rodney says. He reaches out and touches it with a fingertip -- John can feel it recoil, tiny suctions cups crawling across his skin like a freaky, external kind of goosebumps. "Echinoderms can regenerate lost arms, given enough time."

They all stand there, looking down at the tiny creature cradled in John's hand. "That's so cool," Kayla breathes finally, and John looks up into Rodney's eyes and smiles.

Twenty minutes later, he's back under the umbrella, shamelessly stealing the chair Sam brought and getting comfortable so he can pretend to read his book for ten minutes before falling asleep again. But of course, because he has a plan, the universe has to conspire against him, and before he's read half a page of Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods, Sam and Aaron appear, soaking wet and grinning like a pair of idiots.

"You stole my chair," Sam says mildly.

"Yeah," John says. "Having fun?"

"I'd be having more fun if I was sitting in my chair." Sam settles a hand on Aaron shoulder. 

Aaron's glasses are so freckled with drying salt water that John's surprised he can see. "I thought we came to persuade him to swim," Aaron says.

"Yeah, well now that I'm here I want to sit in my chair," Sam says. He's still grinning. It's in his nature to play like this -- to see how much it takes to get John riled up.

"That's too bad," John says. "'Cause I'm not moving."

"We'll see about that," Sam says, and then there's a hand around John's wrist and the chair tips sideways, dumping him onto the sand with a jolt. He grabs for Sam, but the guy's like a fucking tree and there's nothing to get hold of except swim trunks, and John's pretty sure he'd be more embarrassed than Sam if he managed to yank those off him. He shifts his weight and tackles Sam instead -- they both hit the sand, feet tangling in one of the towels as they roll into the shade.

John cracks his elbow against the metal frame of the chair and yelps. Sparkles of white-hot pain dance up and down his arm, and he stops caring about what Sam's doing in favor of rolling around groaning. By the time he's recovered, Sam's righted the chair and is sprawled in it.

"You okay?" Sam asks.

Sitting up, John nods. "Ow."

"Looked like it."

"I don't think the two of you should be left unchaperoned," Aaron says. He's still standing there, looking amused. "It seems that something terrible could happen."

"Like me hitting more than one funnybone?" John asks, just as Kayla and Rodney come running up.

"What the hell is going on here?" Rodney says, hands on hips.

"Dad, are you okay?" Kayla's glancing at all their faces, trying to figure out if the situation calls for worry or humor.

"I'm fine," John says, getting up and brushing off sand. "I hit my funnybone when Sam here decided he didn't feel like sharing his chair."

"What are you, some kind of Neanderthal?" Rodney confronts Sam hotly. "I don't care what you think he's misappropriated, you keep your hands off him."

Sam grins, his teeth white against his darker skin. "Okay, okay," he says. "Don't hurt me, McKay. I'll lay off your boyfriend."

"Oh. Well, then." Mollified, Rodney turns his attention to John. "You said you were going to stay out of the sun."

"That was before Gigantor here stole my seat," John says. Sam lifts an eyebrow and he adds, "The seat that I'd previously stolen from him. Hey, does anyone want lunch?"

As usual, the offer of food is high on the list of successful distractions -- they pack everything up and trudge across the sand to the parking lot, then find a small restaurant close by. 

"I can't have anything with citrus," Rodney says to the waitress who seats them. "I'm deathly allergic."

She looks taken aback. "Okay."

"I'm serious," Rodney says. "Nothing that's even come close to a lemon slice or a segment of orange."

"Right," she says. She looks over her shoulder toward the kitchen. "You know, I'm just going to go get Charlie." Before any of them can say anything else, she's gone.

"This is asking for trouble," Rodney announces. "They probably have crates of lemons back there."

"We can go somewhere else," John offers.

A tiny blonde girl appears tableside. "Hi, I'm Charlie."

Rodney looks at her. "What are you, fifteen? Is it even legal for you to be working here?"

Charlie seems unfazed by the question. "I'm twenty-two. Karen says there's somebody here with food allergies? Citrus, right?"

"Yes, but you hardly seem qualified to deal with the situation," Rodney tells her.

"I don't think you're qualified to make that judgment," Charlie says calmly. "I'm allergic to five of the eight most common food allergens including dairy and tree nuts. Don't worry, I'll make sure whatever you get is safe for you."

John's impressed -- there aren't many people who can shut Rodney up that quickly. Rodney looks at the menu and then tilts it toward her. "What about this wrap?"

She nods. "Sure. No problem." Holding up her order pad and a pencil, she jots it down, and then says, "What would everyone else like?"

The food's good, and having a relaxed Rodney next to him, one thigh resting against John's, is even better. Kayla's flushed from the sun, her hair drying in interesting tangles from all the salt. On the other side of the booth, Sam and Aaron are sitting close together, too, and every once in a while their hands touch. 

"Sam thinks we should go to the Caribbean this winter," Aaron says at one point. "I've never been. It's supposed to be really beautiful."

"I like the beach," Sam says, as if that's all there is to it, but he ducks his head and there's a shy smile tugging at his lips.

John thinks things are just about perfect.

That night, with his cock buried in Rodney's hot, tight body, he knows they are. Rodney's face down on the bed, muffling eager cries in the pillow as John fucks him very, very slowly.

"Yurra baffard," Rodney says, and John stops moving altogether.

"What?"

Rodney turns his face to the side and says, clearly this time, "You're a bastard."

"My parents might have something to say about that," John tells him, and eases out again one millimeter at a time. There's sweat prickled on his lower belly and balls, and he has to keep consciously reminding himself not to grip Rodney's hips so hard he'll leave bruises. 

"Jesus," Rodney says. "Would you just fuck me already?"

"Don't be so impatient," John says. He starts to slide back in and Rodney moans and tightens around his cock. When he leans down, draping himself over Rodney, and nuzzles Rodney's neck and hair, he can smell salt. "You smell like the ocean."

"I took a shower." Rodney makes a protesting sound when John rocks his hips back, but there's not far for him to go in this position; it's more like scratching an itch than actual fucking. "God, that's good."

John mumbles an agreement and keeps it up. Rodney's hot inside, and for once there's just the right amount of lube -- sometimes he uses too much, but this is... He loses track of what it is, loses track of thought altogether, and just moves, little pushes of his hips until he's on the verge, tilting, teetering, crashing. He shudders and gasps when he comes, kissing Rodney's shoulder, and as soon as it's over Rodney takes charge. 

"Here, just -- move --" Rodney says, squirming, and John obeys, still caught in a daze of pleasure that might be close to unconsciousness. 

He lets Rodney take his hand. Watches Rodney's thick cock thrust between their entwined grip, then looks up at Rodney's face when he comes, loving the blissful expression and the way Rodney's eyes close, long lashes against his skin. 

"Yes, God," Rodney says.

They lie there recovering for a while, then John snuggles closer, tucking his nose into Rodney's hair. "You still smell like the ocean," he says.

"I don't see how that's possible." Rodney sounds sleepy. "Maybe you're just crazy."

John smiles. "Maybe. I like it," he adds, in case Rodney thinks it's a complaint.

"Oh," Rodney says, mollified. "Well. Good." He sighs and reaches down, tugging the sheet up over them even though it's warm enough that they don't really need it. "You smell like sunblock."

"I'm not surprised. You made me put it on about five times today." Not that John's upset about that, since a second sunburn on top of the first one wouldn't have been fun.

"Mm, so sorry. Wouldn't want me to be concerned for your well-being or anything." Rodney's half asleep already, John can tell, but even so he's still trying to have a conversation.

He pats Rodney's hip with just his fingertips. "Shhh," he murmurs. "Go to sleep," and Rodney does.

Day Eight
Saturday

The towels they left draped over the front porch railing to dry are crumpled on the porch instead. "I don't remember it being windy last night," Rodney says as John bends to pick them up. 

"You were distracted," John tells him, and calls back through the screen door. "Kayla!"

"Two minutes!" she calls back from upstairs, where she's doing whatever almost-teenaged girls need to do before they leave the house.

"What do you mean I was distracted?" Rodney hisses indignantly. "You were the one coming so hard he almost passed out."

That's true enough, but John still remembers the wind and the brief period of raindrops hitting the leaves outside the window. Now, though, it's looking like it's going to be a beautiful day.

Kayla's footsteps thump down the stairs and she comes out onto the porch. "I'm ready," she says, then pauses as she sees John holding the towels. "I'll take those." She lifts them from his surprised but unprotesting hands and goes back into the house.

John blinks and looks at Rodney. "Am I dreaming, or did she just --?"

"Not dreaming," Rodney says, looking as stunned as John feels.

Kayla comes back outside and shuts the door behind her, checking to make sure it's locked. She stops when she sees the way they're both standing there. "What's going on?"

"Um. Nothing." John manages to recover from the shock of her actually volunteering to help and checks his pockets for his wallet and keys even though he'd done the same thing a few minutes before. "Okay. Ready?"

They drive to the garden center in Rodney's SUV because there's more room in the back, a fact that supports Rodney's argument that they should replace it with another vehicle bigger than a sedan. 

"I like those pink ones," Kayla says as soon as they step through the gate, and John looks at Rodney. 

"Go, go," Rodney says, waving his hand. "I'll stay over here with the non-blooming things." They still haven't figured out why some flowers set off his allergies and not others.

"I wish we could get some," Kayla says mournfully, touching the little blossoms.

John nods. "They're pretty. But I like Rodney better when he's not sneezing and miserable."

"Oh, me, too." Kayla pets the flowers one more time, then straightens and gestures toward the section with the trees and bushes. "We'd better go with Rodney or he'll be complaining all day about how we abandoned him."

She's not wrong, so they go off and join Rodney in choosing some new plants for the yard. It's needed some real landscaping for a while -- it was one of the things John and Elizabeth had always meant to get around to, but somehow never had, and John thinks he's been looking at the scraggly wild bushes long enough. 

They end up needing to grab an employee for advice, which turns into the employee making all the decisions for them, with some input from Kayla, who actually seems to listen to what the woman is saying. Rodney's just impatient; he would have rather hired someone to make these decisions and do the work, but John's working under the theory that this kind of thing is good for the soul. Plus it'd be good for Rodney to get some fresh air once in a while.

"Which one do you like better, Dad?" Kayla asks, gesturing, and John turns his attention back to the bushes they're standing in front of. "I like the yellow flowers."

"Yellow's good," he agrees.

"Wait, what?" Rodney says. "What about flowers?"

"They aren't real flowers," Kayla says. "Well, they're real, but they're just tiny. Besides, these bushes are going to go near the wall and it's not like you ever go back there."

"I'll have you know I'm familiar with every inch of that yard," Rodney says, sounding offended.

"Maybe, but you don't go back there," Kayla says. "If you want to decide about the stuff near the house, fine, but I think I should be able to choose what goes back near the wall."

Rodney sighs. "Fine. Just don't expect me to weed or fertilize or whatever else it is people do to gardens."

They end up with two wheeled carts full of plants. John is torn between watching Kayla tow the second one so he can give instruction and refusing to look out of fear that she's going to run the thing right into someone's car. Amazingly enough, she gets the cart to the SUV without incident. Rodney takes over then, fitting all the pots and containers into the back so that there's as little space between them as possible.

"And then that one there," he says, pointing. "No, no, there! It's a miracle you can tie your shoes!"

"Thanks, Rodney." John slides the pot four inches to the right, hoping that's what Rodney meant. "Okay, here's the last one."

"Well, don't put it near me! I'll be sneezing for the rest of the day!" Rodney backs up abruptly and a car driving past beeps its horn at him. "Oh for God's sake! Mind your own business!"

"Rodney, you're in the road," Kayla tells him.

"Technically, it's a parking lot, and they shouldn't be going so fast," Rodney huffs. "Someone could get killed."

At home, Rodney abandons them to unload the SUV and do the gardening on their own, retreating to his office, where he swears he's only going to check his email before joining them. John's surprised it's taken this long for Rodney's work to intrude upon their time off -- when they went to Little River last summer, Rodney'd spent the equivalent of at least a day on his cell phone, hunched in front of his laptop and muttering about the elder Sheppard's lack of wireless internet.

It's more than an hour before Rodney appears in the back yard, still not having changed out of the tan khakis he was wearing earlier.

"Those aren't gardening clothes," Kayla says, brushing dirt from her gloved hands.

"What?" Rodney looks down at himself. "What do gardening clothes look like?"

"Something you don't wear to work." Kayla frowns and points toward the house. "Go change."

"I don't think I have anything that isn't clothes I wear to work," Rodney says.

"Sure you do," John says. "What about those old jeans?"

"The ones that are even more threadbare than yours?" Rodney asks. "Those are indecent."

"No they're not." John looks from the pot sitting next to him to the hole he's been digging and decides it needs to be wider. "They're fine."

"That's what gardening clothes look like," Kayla says. "Go change and then you can help me with these."

"I'm not helping with the flowered ones," Rodney says, but he goes back inside and comes back out five minutes later in the jeans, which are maybe half a size too tight and so thin across the ass that they're almost transparent. He's wearing boxers underneath, so they're definitely not indecent, but John likes looking at him anyway. "What do I do? Do I have to get my hands dirty?"

"No, that's what the gloves are for," John says patiently. "But if you want to dig, I'll do the planting part and you can stay three feet from the dirt at all times."

They finish up and go inside to change, leaving their shoes on the front porch so they don't track too much dirt into the house. After a quick scrub to his hands, John goes back outside to start up the grill so he and Rodney can have burgers for lunch -- Kayla wants sliced portobello mushrooms, grilled, on a roll, which sounds pretty gross to John, but as long as she's eating he tries not to complain. 

The grill, which is gas, won't start up. There's propane in the tank, so it's not that, but every time John tries to light it, it won't catch. He can smell the propane, just faintly, so he knows there's not a clog in the line or whatever. 

Rodney opens the kitchen window. "Are you ready for the burgers?"

"Not yet," John says, frustrated. "I can't get the damned grill to light."

"Well, be careful," Rodney says. "Don't blow it up or anything."

"I won't." Irritably, John shuts off the gas valve, then turns it back on again. He crouches down, lights the long-handled lighter and sticks it into the grill again, and there's a sudden, startling *whoosh* sound and a blast of heat and flame that knock John onto his ass. "Ow." He's still holding the lighter, but as the surprise fades he starts to feel the pain in his hand. "Ow."

"You okay?" Rodney calls from the kitchen.

"Yeah." John stands up and sets the lighter on the ground. Carefully, using his left hand, he shuts off the propane valve again, then goes inside to the kitchen. "Stupid grill."

"What did you do?" Rodney asks mildly. He turns, sleeves rolled up, freshly made burgers sitting on a plate on the countertop, and gets a look at John's face. "Oh, shit. Sit down."

Burns really, really hurt, John realizes, sitting because he's shaking a little bit now. It's just adrenaline. Rodney washes his hands and brings a bowl of cool water, sets it on the table, and makes John lower his hand into it. At first it feels worse, and he winces, but then the pain retreats slowly. 

Rodney's rolling up John's sleeve. "Are you hurt anywhere else?"

"No," John says. "It's just my hand. I don't even know what happened."

"You're an idiot, that's what happened." Rodney grabs John's forearm, lifts his hand from the water, and looks at it. As soon as the air touches it, it hurts again, worse than before. "We're going to have to go to the emergency room -- it's already all blistered and we don't want to take any chances with infection."

"It's not that bad," John argues, which is stupid because it hurts like hell and if nothing else the ER doctors might give him some good drugs. 

Rodney gives him an incredulous look. "It's not that bad? What, are you brain damaged, too? I didn't think that was a likely accompanying injury to a burn on your hand, but trust you to figure out a way. Kayla!" This last is aimed toward the stairs.

"Can't we just wrap it up with gauze or something?" John asks.

"Wrap it up with gauze?" Rodney has a tendency to repeat whatever other people say when he's freaking out. "Are you going to suggest we rub butter on it next? You do realize this is the twenty-first century; medicine has advanced beyond leeches and blood-letting. I hope. Kayla!"

"What?" Kayla calls from upstairs.

"Come get your shoes on, we need to go to the emergency room!"

She appears in the kitchen doorway in fifteen seconds. "What happened?"

"Just a little accident with the barbeque grill," John says, trying to sound reassuring. "It's not serious."

"Did you get burned?" Kayla comes closer and looks at his hand, which is in the water again. "I'll get my shoes."

"I'm fine," John says. He says it a few more times, until they're in the car, and then he gives up and shuts up, cradling the bowl of cool water in his lap as they drive. Rodney goes too fast and when they go around a corner the water slops over the edge into John's lap. "Great."

Rodney glances over. "Yes, because when you're injured and on the way to the emergency room is the time to worry about a wet spot on your jeans."

"It's going to look like I wet my pants," John says.

"You're ridiculous. You know that, don't you?" Rodney looks angry, and even though John knows he's really just worried it's hard not to take it personally.

They sit in the waiting room for a long time before it's John's turn, and by then the water is room temperature instead of cold, and it's not helping with the pain all that much. He has to take his hand out of the bowl to walk, and he feels nauseated when he sits down on the gurney. He must look a little green or something, because Rodney looks at him, then takes out his wallet and shoves some money at Kayla. "Go find some vending machines and get us some food, okay?"

She looks surprised, but nods. "Okay. What do you want?"

"It doesn't matter," Rodney says. "You know what we like. Heck, go to the cafeteria if you can find it -- if the amount of time we were in the waiting room is any indication, we're going to be here for a while." Once Kayla's gone, he says, "You look like you're going to be sick."

"Feel like it," John says, using as few words as possible.

Rodney goes to the door and looks around. "Excuse me, there's an injured man in here!"

"Rodney."

But a few seconds later a man in a white coat comes bustling in. "Hello, I'm Doctor Beckett. So, you've given yourself a wee burn?" He has sharp blue eyes and a thick Scottish accent.

"Yeah," John says, and leans forward and throws up all over the floor.

After that things get a little hazy. Someone injects something into his arm, and people are talking, and the gurney gets adjusted so he's leaning back against it, which is a relief. He blinks and realizes the bowl in his lap has stopped being the plastic one from home and started being a metal one that he's pretty sure in there in case he throws up again. "Sorry," he says.

"Don't be stupid," Rodney snaps.

"It's perfectly natural under the circumstances," Dr. Beckett says. He has a chair pulled up beside the gurney and is smearing some white cream onto John's thumb and his first two fingers. "Just let me know if you think you'll be sick again, all right?"

John makes a muffled affirmative noise and turns his head to look at Rodney, who's standing at his other side. "Where's Kayla?"

"Our daughter," Rodney explains when Dr. Beckett glances at him questioningly. Then, to John, "She's sitting outside in the hall with a magazine. I can see her elbow from here." 

As Dr. Beckett finishes up with the burn cream, John is feeling kind of hazy, like he's supposed to be remembering something but failing. His brain has latched onto the words 'our daughter' and is playing them over and over again, in a sing-song kind of way.

It's not that Rodney's never called Kayla that before, because he has. Just maybe not in such a casual kind of way, like he hadn't even had to think about it. It's nice.

"I'm just going to wrap this up," Dr. Beckett says. "There'll be some prescriptions for you to fill, and you'll need to keep this hand dry and get it looked at again in a few days by your own doctor."

John hopes Rodney's taking notes. "Do I get the good drugs?"

Beckett chuckles softly. "Aye, you'll have some painkillers, although in a day or two I'd expect something over the counter would do just as well." 

His hand gets wrapped up, Rodney takes the inch-thick pile of paperwork from the nurse, and they drive home. Rodney walks John into the house and up to bed, then gets him settled with pillows and the can of warm ginger ale Kayla bought from the vending machine at the hospital. "Stay here," Rodney tells him firmly. "You, watch him and make sure he doesn't get up."

"What if I have to pee?" John asks. "Can I get up then?"

"No," Rodney says. "You can hold it until I get back from the pharmacy."

Kayla turns on the TV and sits with him, but John can barely keep his eyes open. He drowses off in the middle of some comedy about teenage boys and doesn't wake up until Rodney's standing in the doorway with a white paper bag from the drug store.

"Are you drinking that?" Rodney asks, pointing at the ginger ale.

"Um..." John can't remember.

"I'll put it in a glass with some ice." Rodney comes around the bed and gets the can. "I'll be right back."

There's some joke there -- it might be an Arnold Schwarzenegger one -- but John can't figure out what it is. By the time Rodney comes back with a tray and a sandwich and the ice-cold ginger ale in a sweaty glass, he's stopped trying. "We missed lunch."

"Very good, Einstein," Rodney says, but there's affection in his voice. "Here, take your pills and eat this -- you aren't supposed to have them on an empty stomach -- and then you can go back to sleep. Kayla, there's a sandwich for you in the kitchen, if you want it."

She's twelve and so far, thankfully, doesn't seem inclined toward skipping meals, so she gives John a quick kiss on the cheek, says, "I'm glad you're okay, Dad," and goes downstairs.

There's a thin layer of melted ice at the top of the ginger ale when John washes down the pills. It's a little awkward, using only his left hand, but the right one isn't hurting much if he doesn't move it at all, so it's worth the effort. He only manages half the sandwich before he has to give up, though; he's too tired. "The good drugs suck," he mumbles, slumping back against the pillows.

"Yes, well, they're better than being in pain," Rodney says. "Unless you have some affinity for it you haven't mentioned before now. What is it with you and burns this week, anyway?"

"It was an accident," John says.

"Are you done with that?" Rodney takes the tray and puts it on top of the dresser. "It was a stupid accident. You need to start being more careful."

John's eyelids feel heavy. "I am careful. It's not like I knew that was going to happen."

"You could have anticipated the malfunction," Rodney insists.

"Maybe if I was paranoid," John says. He gives Rodney the best pitiful look he can dredge up. "I'm all hurt. You're supposed to be nice to me."

Rodney frowns. "Trying to drill it into your head that you should be more careful is being nice to you."

"Only on crazy backwards planets," John complains. "Read to me?"

As always, Rodney is flattered at the request. "All right. What do you want?"

"I don't care," John says. It's the sound of Rodney's voice he wants, not whatever dry, scientific article he know he's going to get if he doesn't specify something in particular.

"Okay. Give me a minute." Rodney goes away and comes back with a magazine, gets himself comfortable on the bed, and starts to read.

John falls asleep like that, flat on his back with his bandaged hand resting on his chest, listening to Rodney's voice telling him about the solar masses of black holes and something about them not having any hair. Or maybe that last part's a dream.

Day Nine
Sunday

"Do we have to do this today?" John asks, looking at his jacket and trying to figure out if he could get his hand through the end of the sleeve. He'd put on a short-sleeved shirt that buttoned down the front that morning, then had to have Rodney button it for him, and he's starting to see how his injured hand is going to be more inconvenient and less an excuse to be lazy than he'd previously imagined.

"Yes," Kayla says for about the third time.

"But I'm wounded." John hangs the jacket back up instead of fighting with it. 

"Are you sure you aren't whining?" Rodney comes into the foyer with the cat trailing after him, looking up him hopefully like it wants food. "Because that's what it sounds like from here. Kayla, would you please feed the cat? He's in danger of taking over your father's job of driving me crazy."

Kayla finishes tying her sneakers and makes a clicking sound at the cat. It immediately turns its attention from Rodney to her and trots after her into the kitchen. 

"I swear that's the only time that cat runs," John says.

"Well, he's old. What's your excuse?" Rodney's in fine form this morning. "Are you ready? Kayla, come on, we're going to be late!"

"I'm feeding Mister Mew!" Kayla sounds aggrieved. "You just told me to feed him." She comes back and glares suspiciously at Rodney. "Are you getting senile?"

John winces, knowing how sensitive Rodney is about that particular possibility.

"I'm trying to organize this so that we get there on time," Rodney snaps. "I thought you were helping. This was your idea, too, in case you've forgotten. Oh, hm, maybe you're the one experiencing early senility."

Kayla's not stupid, though -- even she realizes she's hit a sore spot. "I'm sorry," she says, going to Rodney and hugging him. Rodney sighs and pats her hair briefly.

"Yes, yes, apology accepted. Let's just go," Rodney says.

"Where are we going again?" John asks it innocently, hoping one of them will let it slip.

"Oh, no." Rodney gestures at the door. "How stupid do you think we are? Out, out!"

Knowing when there's no point in arguing, John obeys.

Ten minutes after they're left the house, Rodney pulls over and gives him a bandanna that looks like it came from a dollar store. "Here, put this on."

"Are you kidding?" 

"Yes, of course I am, I'm kidding -- I'm well known for my practical jokes. Oh, wait, no, I'm not. Put it on!"

"I can't," John says, holding up his bandaged hand.

Rodney blinks. "Oh, right. Sorry. Here." He leans in close to John and does it himself, securing the bandanna around John's eyes.

"Are you sure you don't want to put one of those black bags over my head?" John asks dryly.

"This is fine, as long as you can't see. Can you see?"

John doesn't shake his head because it might dislodge the makeshift blindfold. "No. Plus my eyes are closed. You could have just asked me to do that."

"No peeking," Rodney says firmly, then, worriedly, he adds, "You aren't feeling sick again, are you?"

"I'm fine," John says. "You did see the breakfast I ate this morning, didn't you?" His stomach recovered from the day before, he'd had three scrambled eggs, two pieces of toast, and a huge bowl of sliced peaches. 

It's weird to ride in the car without being able to see. After a little while, John starts trying to guess where they are -- without much luck -- and once he abandons that idea he guesses where they're going, which annoys Rodney. 

"To the movies?"

"Don't be stupid -- the movie theater is five minutes from our house. What, do you think we're driving around and around in circles just so I can confuse you?"

Kayla chimes in. "Anyway, we go to the movies all the time, so how would that be special?"

"Who said this was supposed to be special?" Rodney asks, in the 'trying to keep a secret' voice that's never, ever convincing. He's the worst liar John's ever met, which is incredibly reassuring -- it makes him that much more dependable.

"If this whole blindfold thing is part of our new routine, people are going to start looking at us funny when we leave the house," John says.

Rodney makes a snorting noise. "Yes, yes, you're hilarious. Your next career can be as a stand-up comedian."

There's the sound of the turn signal clicking on, then the engine slows gradually as Rodney takes his foot off the gas pedal. They roll to a stop, then start moving again and turn left. 

"There it is," Kayla says.

"I see it." Rodney sounds tense now.

They turn and slow and stop again, and Rodney shuts off the car.

"Can I take this off now?" John asks hopefully, reaching for the makeshift blindfold.

"No!" Rodney yelps. "God, can't you be patient for twelve seconds?"

"Please tell me you're not going to lead me across some parking lot wearing this thing," John says, but the driver's side door is opening and closing already. He can hear Kayla get out, too, then his own door opens. 

"Here," Rodney says, familiar hand at his elbow urging him out onto pavement beneath his feet. "Careful. Okay, ready?"

A sound fills his ears; it's familiar, too, so familiar that it makes his stomach tighten in anticipation. Rodney fumbles with the knot at the back of his head and pulls the bandana away from his face, and John blinks at the sunshine and stares at the small air field in front of him. 

"We're going to fly!" Kayla says, bouncing on her heels a little bit. "In a plane!"

"Oh," John says weakly. He feels overwhelmed. "Rodney, don't take this the wrong way, but... why?"

"Are you serious?" Rodney says. "You think I haven't seen the way you look at those plane things at the museum? Not to mention you always stop whatever it is you're doing and look up when a plane flies overhead." Close to John's ear, like it's a secret being shared, he murmurs, "I know you miss it."

And John does -- it hurts how much he misses it sometimes, even though it's been years and he's moved on and he knows what's more important. "Okay," he says, his voice hoarse. "Let's do it."

He sits beside the pilot, with Kayla behind him and Rodney next to her. It's a small plane, a Piper Warrior with dual controls, and he knows he'll feel it all the way down into his toes when they take off. He does, and all the way to the tips of his hair, too, and his stomach lifts just like it always did. 

It's amazing.

John closes his eyes for a few seconds, just feeling it. 

"This is so cool!" Kayla sounds excited. 

"Look, there," Rodney says to her. "There's our car."

"It looks so small," Kayla says.

"That's nothing. Wait 'til we get up higher." The pilot's name is Dustin something; he seems like a pretty good guy. Laid back. "So I hear you used to fly," he says to John.

"Yeah," John says. "A long time ago. Feels like it, anyway."

"Well, this is a trainer plane," Dustin says. "Dual controls. Any time you want to take over..."

John bites his lip and considers his bandaged hand. "I don't know."

"Don't be ridiculous," Rodney snaps. "You could probably do it in your sleep. You can certainly do it one-handed."

"You sure he's talking about flyin' a plane?" Dustin asks, grinning.

"Yeah," John says. "I mean, yeah, I'd like to fly her." He's rusty, but that shouldn't matter -- these trainer planes are designed so the actual pilot can take control in an instant, so it's about as safe as it can get. 

The yoke feels strange in his grip, like he's forgotten how to fly, but he takes a slow, deep breath and relaxes, and gradually it starts to come back to him. The control panels, the way the Piper responds to his touch. It's nothing like driving a car; it's more like sex, like fantastic, mind-blowing sex with a partner whose reactions he's come to anticipate.

Like Rodney.

It's a realization that strikes him so powerfully that John's good hand tightens on the yoke. The Piper's nose pitches up -- not a lot, but enough that Dustin takes over and evens it out again, glancing at John. "You okay there?"

"Yeah," John says. "Sorry. One hand." As far as explanations go, it's a reasonable one. Dustin lets him take the controls again, and for what feels like a long time, John flies, the earth far below him and the sky all around. And he's free.

On the ground again, the air smells sweet. John's heart is beating fast, pounding in his chest like he just ran a marathon, and he feels like shouting. Instead, not caring who's around, he pulls Rodney into his arms and kisses him. Rodney's lips are cool, and he looks startled when John lets him go.

"What was that?" Rodney asks.

"That," John tells him, grinning so hugely it feels like his face might split, "was thank you." He grabs Kayla up in his good arm, awkward as it is, and spins her around. Her hair flies out, the edges of it illuminated gold by the sunshine, the sky incredibly blue behind her. They let out identical whoops of joy, the sound echoing back at them from the hanger off to the left -- right -- left.

"You're both crazy," Rodney says, and John laughs.

"Daddy?" Kayla says, and John pauses in her bedroom doorway. She doesn't call him that much anymore -- she's made the switch to 'Dad' and pretty much sticks to it. "Your hand's okay, right?"

"Are you kidding? Do you think I could have flown that plane like that if there was something really wrong?" He goes back to her bedside and leans down, adjusting the blanket that doesn't need adjusting. "It's no big deal. It'll be healed up in no time."

She doesn't say anything, but looks troubled.

"I guess you didn't like going to the hospital," John says.

"We went before, with Rodney," Kayla reminds him. 

He nods. "But this was different."

Kayla hesitates, then says, "I remember what it was like, with Mommy."

It makes John's chest ache to hear that. "Yeah," he says. "Me, too. I wish... I wish we didn't have to."

He kisses her goodnight and goes downstairs. Rodney's sitting on the couch with the remote, and curls up beside him, then lies down and puts his head on Rodney's thigh.

"Hey," Rodney says.

"Hey." He doesn't say anything else, and after a minute Rodney shuts off the TV.

"Thanks," John says. "For today."

"You're welcome." Rodney traces a fingertip along the outside edge of John's ear, making him shiver in a way that's not entirely unpleasant. "When I saw you looking at that antique plane thing at the museum --"

"It's not an antique," John interjects. It seems important for Rodney to know that, for some reason. "It's a human-powered aircraft. They made it at MIT in the late 80s and it crashed into the Aegean sea. They were trying to get it to Santorini."

Rodney snorts. "Well, I'm glad I didn't know about that part, or I might not have thought it was such a good idea to taking you flying."

"The Daedalus still holds the world's record for distance and duration for a human-powered aircraft," John says, because that part's important, too. "It's pretty cool. I've thought about that -- Santorini, I mean. It's supposed to be amazing. I've never been to Greece." He's never been a lot of places.

"Do you want to?" Rodney asks. "We could go. In the spring, maybe. May? How does May sound?"

It sounds like a hell of a different kind of vacation than the one they've just taken, that's for sure. Different from any of the ones John's ever taken, really. Good, though.

He says so. "Good. It sounds good."

"Then we'll go." Rodney pats John's hair. "And today wasn't a bad idea? I was a little bit worried. I just wanted you to have a good time."

"I did," John says. "I really did." Thinking about it -- about what it had felt like to fly again, to be the one piloting the plane -- well. It feels like Rodney has given him a little piece of his life back, whether he realized it or not. "You didn't hate it, did you?"

"I didn't hate it." Rodney's arm settles across John's lower abdomen. "But even if I did, I would have suffered through it, for your sake."

No doubt accompanied by constant complaining, John thinks but doesn't say. It's not important. He knows Rodney loves him and would do pretty much anything for him, and that goes both ways. He also knows that with both of them looking out for her, Kayla's going to be okay -- even if puberty will be sheer hell.

Life is good. He has everything he needs.



End.