At first, Rodney thought nothing of it: a hike here, a rock-climbing trip there. John was satisfying his perverse desire to interact with nature; Rodney was still basking in climate controlled glory?everybody was happy.

Then, after dragging in from the last day of finals and coming home to find the illegitimates beating the pants off of Rodney's high score on Super NES Tetris and John nowhere to be found.

"Daddy's out back," Joanna reported distractedly, fingers flying over the game controller.

"He gave us the Ipecac," Andy says brightly, holding out the bottle for Rodney's inspection.

Rodney rubs the bridge of his nose. "God," he says, and stomps out to the deck.

Where he finds John in khakis and a dark blue shirt, sleeves rolled up, rolling a sweating bottle of Molson's between his large brown hands with his legs kicked up on the wrought-iron Martha Stewart outdoor table Rodney had bought in a caffeine-induced delirium five years before.

What's different is the dark haired, pale-skinned man in a red flannel shirt sitting next to him, a matching bottle of Molson's but no feet on the table, strong legs in dark blue jeans. It takes all of ten seconds for Rodney to decide there's a whole bunch of devastatingly attractive on this deck and he's suddenly, irrationally pissed.

"You left our children unsupervised with Ipecac?" Rodney demands instantly, ignoring the stranger.

"Hi, Honey," John drawls, rolling his eyes. "How was your day?"

"Machine scored," Rodney snapped, and glared at the man in flannel. "Also, who are you?"

The man stares at him with startled eyes for a moment before he stands - oh God, how tall and hot can this asshole be? Rodney thinks in horror -- and introduces himself:

"My name is Benton Fraser of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. I first came to Chicago on the trail of my fathers killers, for reasons --"

"--- That he won't go into right now," John interrupts lazily, "he's settled down in these here parts and now lives down the street." John raises his eyebrow at Rodney. "Do you seriously tune out everything I ever say about our neighbors?"

Rodney looks between Hot Benton and Hot Husband and opens and closes his mouth several times before he says, annoyed, "Not...all of it." Irritated, he turns to Hot Benton, and through gritted teeth, he says:

"So, are you new in the neighborhood?"

Hot Benton looks chagrined. "Er. No. Not at all, actually." He smiled warmly at John and added, "Your partner has been a wonderful hiking companion. I must thank you for letting me eat up so much of your time together."

If Rodney starts choking on his own tongue, immediately overwhelmed by images of John and Hot Benton engaged in a woodsy tryst, John doesn't care and just dismisses it with a wave of his hand, smirking as he says, "Don't you worry about thing, Benton. Rodney hates nature."

Hot Benton stares at him in thinly veiled horror.

"It hated me first!" Rodney says defensively.

John laughs and shakes his head, pulling his legs off the table and saying to Benton, "Don't worry about him. He's been in subzero weather for a while." He slaps Benton on the back twice and says, "It was good seeing you around?say hi to Ray for me," and suddenly they're saying goodbye and John's making noises about putting the kids to bed.

"You went hiking with him?" Rodney hisses, trailing John into the living room, where Andy now has the controller and Joanna is reading John's old copy of Tales from Shakespeare, curled up in the big armchair by the window.

"I asked you if you wanted to come first," John says reasonably, and says, "Hey, come on guys, it's time for bed," which incites a loud round of complaining from the illegimates, who though they may be young and spry, have nothing on Rodney for sheer ability to whine people into submission.

"No, seriously, you went hiking with him?" Rodney demands later as they're getting into bed and turning off the lights. Rodney feels John's boney knees against his own boney shins and tries to work up his old complaint about how sharing a bed with John is like sleeping with a box of Legos but he just doesn't have the energy.

"Well, only if you're using hiking as a sexual euphemism," John says sarcastically, settling and resettling his pillow. "Yes, Rodney, I went hiking with him. We walked through a forest. With boots. It was all really National Geographic."

"I'm sorry, I'm sure it's really irrational for me to be a little annoyed that my life partner is off having little forest rendezvous with the hot, strapping neighbor," Rodney snaps.

"Life partner sounds pretty gay," John laughs, turning to Rodney in bed.

"Okay, you know what?"

"He is pretty hot and strapping, isn't he?" John muses drowsily, curling into Rodney's chest, resting his cheek on Rodney's shoulder, which always makes him a bit stupid and melty.

Rodney growls a little.

"And he's a Mountie. That's kind of sexy," John adds.

"This would bother me less if I didn't know you found Canadians irresistible," Rodney says fiercely, jabbing John with his knee.

John laughs, but Rodney can hear the exhaustion in his voice as he says, "How about I nurse your insecurities tomorrow?"

"Fine," Rodney says, going for irritable but mostly achieving contentment, given the way John's stroking his hand up and down Rodney's thigh. "But you better be fawning."

John murmurs something indistinct, and Rodney blinks once, twice, before he tips over into the muffled gray-dark and sleeps, one hand stroking through John's hair.