Winter in Ventura means rain instead of snow, and for all Rodney claims not to miss the freezing winters of his childhood, John has seen the faintly wistful look in his eyes when he thinks no one is looking.

"C'mon," he says, the morning after Rodney's turned in his grades for the semester. "Get up and throw some clothes on."

And yeah, technically, 3:00am is morning, but still, while John knows Rodney didn't take anything specific to help him sleep last night, he also knows Rodney isn't going to be at all coherent.

"Fuck off," Rodney slurs before rolling back over and pulling the covers up until only a tuft of brown hair shows above the comforter.

"You can sleep in the truck," John says. "C'mon, I promise you're gonna like this." He pauses but the Rodney lump in the bed doesn't move. "We'll stop at an IHOP."

"An'a Starbucks?"

"We'll get coffee on the road, yeah. And I have some of your own blend brewing right now."

"I hate you." But the covers are coming down and Rodney hates John at least once a day, so all in all, it's a victory.

One of the many secrets John's learned about Dr. M. Rodney McKay, PhD, PhD is that he's surprisingly tractable when he's mostly asleep. Now, he pulls on the clothes John hands him without really asking about them and in surprisingly short order, Rodney, his pillow and a thermos of coffee are ensconced in the cab of John's truck.

By the time they hit the 101 heading south, Rodney's fast asleep and John's drinking his coffee.

It's a weekday and insanely early, so the traffic is nice and light. John keeps the volume down and, mostly, doesn't sing along too loudly. He drinks all of the coffee in the thermos, but it doesn't matter; Rodney sleeps deeply, not even waking for the occasional pit stop.

"Hey buddy, wake up," John says, once he's pulled into the parking lot.

"Huh? Izzit food?" Rodney mashes his face further into the pillow.

"We can get some, although you were still sleeping while I drove past the last IHOP. But there's coffee here."

"Where's here...oh wow, snow!" Rodney looks around and John tries not to find the sight of him--blinking rapidly, hair sticking up every which way and lines on his face from the pillowcase--cute, but he fails utterly.

"Yeah, snow."

"Where are we?" Rodney rolls down the window and takes a deep breath. "How long did I sleep?"

"Only about three hours," John says. "We're up at Big Bear." He gets out of the truck and comes around to Rodney's side. "Before you start wondering; I got us rooms for two nights and the pancakes here are better than IHOP. Also, I packed clothes and some gear for you if you want to ski, and your laptop's back there in its bag with all your journals."

He's drawing breath to say more, something about this being a slightly early Christmas present for both of them and, more importantly, how there's coffee, good coffee, within walking distance, but Rodney reaches out and curls one hand around the back of John's neck. As a means of shutting John up, the pressure of those long blunt fingers is pretty effective.

"Thank you," Rodney says with a broad smile that makes him look a little like a kid.

He tugs John closer and then they're kissing slow and comfortable and easy through the open window of the truck, and the morning/coffee breath thing doesn't matter, because the clean smell of mountain air is all around them, and the sun is coming up and edging the mountains with color, and...and John made Rodney smile.

It's going to be a gorgeous day.

-end-

Notes: Big Bear is one of the more popular So Cal ski resorts. It's about a three hour drive--if the traffic's good and you drive like John Sheppard probably drives--from Ventura. This takes place in December of 2007. The title is from "Here Comes the Sun" by The Beatles. Written for the mcsmooch winter holiday festival thingie.

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