East Coast Gazette

“And,” John said, beaming, “then! Then he let me drive the replica moon rover.”

Rodney stared at him, fingers frozen on one of his cufflinks. “Excuse me?” he asked.

“The lunar rover!” John repeated, still grinning. “Go-cart for outer space. It rocked.”

Rodney was torn between shouting that in all his years with the Stargate program, hadn’t John driven slash flown slash crashed slash piloted with his brain things much cooler than a moon go-cart? But the more important question that filtered in was:

“Who’s he?”

John was sitting on Rodney’s bed, shoes kicked off and bow tie undone, the first two buttons of his tuxedo-shirt undone. John looked slightly drunk and happy, loose and shaken out, like if Rodney ran a finger down the curve of his spine now—all John would do was purr, indulgent like a cat. Rodney pulled off his tuxedo jacket; that was an interesting hypothesis that deserved further research, he decided.

“Dr. Tyson,” John told him, smile going a little blurry. “He runs the joint.”

“Neil?” Rodney said. “DeGrasse Tyson?”

John snapped his fingers and pointed at Rodney. “That’s the one. Very cool guy.”

Smirking, Rodney said, “Yeah, you’re drunk.”

“Oh yeah,” John agreed, and reached out his arms, making grabby hands—and Rodney went, without resistance and laughing, because he’d realized years ago he and John were opposite polarities. There was no reason to fight physics.

*

TBC