((Lawr not being nice obviously as per the title, read at your own risk))

Lawrence had been out of the hospital a few days, and although Lawrence...tolerated his company, it seemed increasingly that Rodney was being more irritating than helpful. He kept a low and quiet profile, warm with Lawrence when they talked but respecting his space.

Lawrence's mind had also been...elsewhere.

Rodney didn't know if it was to do with the (brief) period of chastity, or if it had somehow increased even more in the wake of the mission.

Rodney avoided sex as much as possible. He couldn't always. But the thing about...relieving certain tensions was, well. It never helped. He knew that, and yet... occasionally...

The first problem was the fantasies. It would (he felt) be alright if he stayed on track. He didn't use anyone he knew, because that felt somehow...invasive. And as long as the context was right. A girl, obviously. After the wedding. During the wedding night. Something ike that. He could start off alright, but in the middle things definitely tended to wander.

The second problem was that after he finished, there was only a brief respite, and instead of being left relaxed and satisfied, he only felt relaxed and...sensitive. On the edge of anticipation for something else. It was all just twice as worse. Like waking everything up instead of putting it to sleep.

So he didn't do it very often. Especially not thinking about certain alternative realities (although there was marriage, and in the middle, he found himself making compromises).

This morning, he had made a lot of compromises. He already had his morning run. After finishing the shower, he dressed warmly (long-sleeve shirt, jeans), and stepped out of the bathroom. He was feeling irritated with himself, and was determined to read some more mission files. He was especially interested in the ones that described (more than battle techniques or results) culture. Preferences. What he was accumulating all this case history for, exactly, he couldn't say.

It didn’t matter what Lawrence did, nothing would get rid of the persistent and relentless itch that beset him in his every waking moment. Butch had fixed the injuries, pulling them back to mere scars which he assured the vain man were hardly visible (they weren't). He had also had to remind Lawrence on several occasions since then that he really couldn’t fix them any more tidily than he already had and that the scars were simply an inevitability and that he should be glad he was alive and didn't need a colostomy bag (though he had put it in much cruder terms), this had provoked threats, scolding and what seemed like a sulk for a time. He hadn’t been able to do anything about it, he'd done his best. The ghost also had not been able to fix the lingering restlessness that left Lawrence tense and wild like a caged animal, pacing when he was able and pacing mentally when he was not. He didn’t cope with it well, in fact he couldn’t cope with it at all and no matter how much he harassed those who would permit him to spend some time with them it only got worse and worse and worse. It was the worst arousal he'd had to deal with, like an insatiable hunger that dogged his thoughts as much as America did.

On that particular day he was sitting on the couch trying to ignore his tangled thoughts the way he'd been doing for days and the first realisation he even had that Rodney had been in a shower was the warm clean scent that always went with someone coming out of a long bout of bathing accompanied with the tangled scent of something ..else rendered heavy in the humidity. Pushed to the limit of his endurance and beyond, he stood up straight, his posture rigid, eyes cold.

He made his way to the other man, cutting him off.

“You know I can smell when you do that.” He said darkly.

Rodney seemed slightly spooked by the comment. He was still drying his hair with a towel. Considering the amount of guilt weighing on him already, he had absolutely no doubt what Lawrence was talking about.

"Wh-what?" He asked anyway, just in case he hadn't heard correctly. He felt overwhelmingly self-conscious.

"S-sorry," he apologized quickly, "Sorry, I don't have to, I won't..."

Lawrence narrowed his eyes further, stripped of his usual smiles and niceties by sheer frustration-forged need.

"Do you." he said with a shivery intake of breath. "Do you know how hard it is? To know you are right there but I can't see you or hear you, only what comes after and what it does to me?" He was angry, angry at being made to look a fool, the tension spilling over the way it often did.

"And then you act innocent, oh I won't, oh I don't have to." And he bitterly hissed the last few words.

"All while I suffer. Well I can't stand it."He leapt and it was without warning, summoning both claws, twisted all the way up to his shoulders, strong, stronger than they had been, pinning the other man to the wall and seizing his lips in a kiss that despite all the violence of the rest of the gesture, was as delicate and careful as most of the things that Lawrence did.


Rodney, obviously, did not respond well at all to this. His eyes went wide with panic at the weapon, and the claws were the only thing keeping his shivering and now completely limp body from curling up into a ball on the floor. Irrationally, he was back in his old house. They knew, they knew, and he was weak as always, and he knew that the strikes would come any time and that they wouldn't stop until they stopped being angry.

He didn't even register that he was being kissed.

"I won't," he sobbed, "I won't, I won't, I'm sorry, don't - please don't! I won't, I won't, I'm sorry


Lawrence narrowed his eyes even further at this, even more irritated and impatient but what to his addled mind was a deliberate attempt to torment him further. He leaned back, cold and disappointed in this particularly emotional turn of events. It was enough at least to puzzle his forcefulness and derail the aggression into something else, something more quizzical. He hadn't expected a positive response, but he hadn't expected this either.

Setting his mouth in a thin line he relaxed his grip on Rodney somewhat but still stayed pressed up against the other man but in a gesture more of exasperation than anything else. "Stop." he said calmly. "Stop. What are you panicking about?" And this was all asked as if what Lawr was doing was completely one hundred percent normal.

And he knew even that the pause, and the loaded question, were all a trap, that there were no right answers, that they'd find some way to twist it into him being mocking, arrogant, needing a lesson.

"Don't hit me, please don't. You don't need to. I won't do it again! Please, please, I won't-"

Although he knew even those promises wouldn't matter, and even if he didn't, they'd find something else, it would be anything else...

He didn't understand. This wasn't right, it was as if everything had veered off in some direction he didn't understand and couldn't navigate and he let go as if Rodney had burned him. "I wasn't going to hit you." he said, as if this was radically different from his actual intentions, his tone implying that people who hit others were crass and uncouth. Rodney didn't really know him either he realised then, that or he was some sort of sounding board for someone else, just an echo. He could feel the hollow of what he was expected to be looming large over him.

Backing up, he shook his head, the desires not fully abated but dimmed like embers. He desummoned. "I have never hit you."


Rodney sank to the floor, vastly upset and no longer on the edge of anything except a breakdown.

He's not going to hit you, okay. Geez, Sorrow said. Shield is un-dented. Plus, as I've told you about a thousand times, I can handle a hit or two. Like a guardian angel, okay. Magic wings, protecting you from blows, yadda yadda. That's me.

"Sorry," Rodney whispered again, wiping his face and trying to get control of himself. This had, so far, been his reaction to every single battle situation. If Lawrence made any sudden movements, he flinched.

Lawrence could feel the tension coiled up in him like a snake, primed to strike at any given moment. In a whim of cold inconvenience he wondered if hitting Rodney would actually help, if it would solve any of this, answer the strange response which seemed to set him as an assailant when he had had no intention to actually strike him in that way. It always felt so natural to reply to an answer with the question he thought was being asked.

But he didn't.

Butch agreed that he shouldn't, stating that Rodney had properly submitted, he was like another dog. One you wouldn't even fight because it would piss on you in fear and it wasn't worth it.

He didn't know what to do, left stranded without a map.

He didn't move suddenly but slowly, turning to leave without a word.

"I know," Rodney said, "Sorry. It's...it's not you, it's me, I just, I'm sorry."

And that was it, wasn't it, so much as a raised hand, and...why had Lawrence summoned? He seemed so...Rodney knew it was wrong. No, it wasn't all wrong. If they'd known, they would have...

He sniffed and picked up the towel from where he'd dropped it, and buried his face in that.