Alone in Your Mind, 10/12
Mar. 9th, 2005 10:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gilascaveChapter Eight which contains links to all the previous bits as well.
Chapter Nine
Alone in Your Mind
Chapter Ten
Life, John thought, was pretty damn good. Granted there were those life-sucking aliens to contend with and a constant diet of MREs and bizarre Athosian dishes, and the strain of being acting commander when really he still hated authority and didn't find that being one made him like it any better. The rooms were not all that comfortable, and there was no ESPN and the thing they called 'beer' was like drinking herbal tea.
But really, in spite of all that, life was pretty damn good. He got to save the world. He got to fly the coolest damn aircraft in the universe. He got to visit alien planets in a galaxy no one had ever even heard of a half-dozen years ago.
And he was sleeping with two really hot guys who were handsome, intelligent, and had evil senses of humour.
He and Carson were sitting at a table in Carson's repair workshop. Carson was fiddling with a gizmo, and they were both keeping an eye on Rodney, on the other side of the wide table, who was also fiddling with a gizmo. Different sort of gizmo, and Carson had named it when he'd handed it to Rodney to play with. John couldn't remember more than the first two syllables of the words he'd used, so he just called it the gizmo.
He couldn't for the life of him figure out what it did, and, it seemed, neither could Rodney. He'd been poking it, turning dials, making lights come on and go off. He'd talk to himself excitedly, then frown, then start again. John had given Carson a raised eyebrow earlier, wondering if he was going to offer Rodney any help. Carson had just grinned in a way that made John realise that something was up, and didn't say anything.
"OK, that's it," Rodney finally said, tossing the gizmo back onto the table. Carson stopped what he was doing and looked up. Rodney shook his head. "I don't have a clue."
Carson set down the tool he'd been using. He opened his mouth and Rodney raised a hand.
"Ah! No, wait. Don't tell me. I'll get this. I...." He looked down at the gizmo, glumly. "I don't have a clue. How does it work?"
"It doesn't," Carson said.
Rodney and John both stared at Carson, who just sat there looking for all the world like he hadn't just said what he'd said.
"Excuse me?" Rodney asked.
"It doesn't work."
"It's broken?" Rodney looked dumbfounded. John stifled a grin.
"No," Carson said, shaking his head. "It never worked. It's a dummy."
There was a long silence. Rodney looked down at the gizmo, back at Carson -- over to John apparently to check if he'd fallen into an alternate universe where everybody spoke their own brand of English -- then back at Carson. "A dummy."
"Aye. It's designed to be a model, to demonstrate what a real working unit would look like. The lights go on to make it look real, but it doesn't actually do anything."
John was impressed at how straight Carson was keeping his face. Rodney looked like he was about to leap over the table onto Carson. Rodney moved his jaw up and down a bit, and they both waited patiently. Eventually, Rodney managed, "You let me sit here for an hour fiddling with a dummy unit that doesn't work?"
"It doesn't even have internal components, except the lights." Carson was still remaining very calm. John found himself wanting to leap on him, too, but for a wholly different reason than Rodney probably wanted.
"You..." Rodney stopped. He tried again. "You--" he looked down at the dummy gizmo and picked it up. "An *hour*??"
Carson shrugged. "It kept you busy and happy and I got some work done." There was an ominous pause, then he added, "It was John's idea."
Which let John know just *exactly* how evil Carson was. How he'd ever thought the man was mild and gentle? "It was *not* my idea!" He turned to Rodney. "I swear!"
Rodney wasn't buying it. He was glaring at John, and folded his arms across his chest. Carson went back to tinkering on his gizmo, and didn't even crack a smile.
"It was *not* my idea," he said again because -- it really hadn't been. He reached over and poked Carson hard in the arm. "I am going to get you for this."
Carson raised his head and gave John an extremely innocent look. "You're denying it?"
"Of *course* I'm denying it! I had nothing to do with this! Rodney, I really didn't."
"Like you had nothing to do with the toothpaste incident?" Rodney arched an eyebrow at him.
"That was to get you back for pretending my football tape got "accidently" erased!"
"Which was my revenge for you sneaking in and erasing half of my equations from the desktop!"
"I saved those to disk, first. I mean -- I was just getting *you* back for getting friendly under the table during that meeting with Weir."
Rodney blinked at him. "That actually wasn't a joke. I really meant that."
"You *meant* to get me hard during a staff meeting?"
Rodney shrugged. "I was bored."
"So you thought you'd make me want to throw you down onto the table and suck you off while Elizabeth was talking about trade schedules with the Anergini?"
Rodney grinned happily. "Woulda been more fun, don't you think?"
John shook his head. And he'd been thinking how nice it was to have two lovers with an evil sense of humor? He wasn't sure what revenge to take with Carson -- it would take some careful thought. He looked over to see if Carson was showing any signs of breaking, and admitting the truth.
He frowned. Carson was concentrating on his gizmo, but his face.... He looked like he was having a conversation. He wasn't talking out loud, but he was making expressions that made John think he was watching a tv show with the sound turned off.
Or that he was watching someone have a telepathic conversation. John didn't like that at all. He knew that Carson could interact with that interface thing he called Murdoc. Why he'd named it after a villain from MacGyver, John didn't know. But he'd assured them it wasn't at all sentient.
So why have such a long conversation with it? John reached over and nudged Carson. "Hey. Turn that thing off for a second."
Carson blinked at him as though refocusing his eyes. "What?" He glanced down at the gizmo he was working on. "It isn't--"
"No, the interface. Murdoc. Turn it off for a second."
Carson just stared at him for a second without saying anything. His eyes looked sad. "It doesn't turn off."
"I know you can't take it off or de-activate it or anything. But just...turn off the screen and radio and whatever. Just for a bit." He wasn't even really sure why he was asking -- except that it creeped him out to be reminded that there was something in Carson's head besides Carson.
But Carson shook his head. "It doesn't turn off. The interface is always displayed."
"It's always on?" Rodney repeated. "The...stuff you see in your head, the list and diagrams and instructions?"
"It isn't always all of them on at once, but...yes. The display is always on."
"Even when we... Um..." How Rodney could be shy about saying the word 'sex' when he freely engaged in it, John didn't know.
"Always, Rodney." That explained the sadness in his eyes, John thought.
"Oh." Rodney subsided, and simply looked at him. He glanced at John, and John could clearly see the demand there. Fix this. Help me fix this. It was the same look he'd had when he'd come and told John that Carson couldn't go home. The same reason why John had agreed to help, agreed to stay on Atlantis, when all he could have said about Carson at the time was that they were friendly acquaintences.
What Rodney wanted, John tried to give him. Trouble was, he had no idea what they could do.
"It's all right," Carson said in what was meant to be a reassuring tone. The quiet upset was gone and he looked for all the world like there was nothing more wrong than a gizmo that wasn't working yet.
John reached over and took Carson's hand. "It never shuts off?"
"Well...if there's nothing left to do, then it would shut off. Until something needed repair. But that's only happened a dozen times or so. A city the size of Atlantis -- and there only one of me -- chances are I'll not get everything fixed." He shrugged as though it didn't bother him.
"It's already happened a dozen times?" Rodney asked, in that 'seizing upon an idea' tone he got.
But Carson shook his head. "Back when they had a full staff."
He was staring at his gizmo again, and John wondered if he or Rodney would be the first one to get the question out.
It was him. "How do you know?" John asked, trying to remain calm.
"Hm?" Carson looked up. Then he frowned, confused. "It's in the reports."
"*What* reports?" John asked.
"The maintenance reports."
"From...back when the Ancients lived here?" John clarified. Rodney was still gaping, speechlessly.
Carson nodded slowly, still looking confused. John looked over at Rodney to make sure *he* hadn't slipped into the alternate-English dimension. "And you didn't think to mention this?"
"Mention the reports? But they-- oh." Carson blinked. "Oh, no -- they've not got anything in them that would help. Just lots of 'we fixed this, we fixed that, Gjurshin broke his damn telescope again and we've asked Cuttler to take it away from him.' There's nothing about...the sort of things you need. History or culture or--"
"Gjurshin? Telescope?" Rodney interrupted.
"I don't know," Carson said. "That's what the report says, but I couldn't tell you any more than that. I don't have access to Atlantis databases, Rodney. Just the reports -- which were written for people who knew what they meant."
"Oh." Rodney nodded and sat back. "I guess it would be rather like trying to figure out a world's culture by reading the cliff notes from a single book."
John watched as they both dropped the issue. Carson was about to go back to his gizmo, and Rodney looked like he was going to jump up and find some other thing to play with. For a moment, John felt like the only genius in the room. He cleared his throat. When they both looked at him, he asked, "You can *read* the reports?"
***********
After that, the schedule changed. They didn't let Carson do repairs unless he insisted they were urgent -- which they hadn't been, so far. They didn't have nearly as much sex, either, which John couldn't say he *liked* but as he'd been the one to help Rodney yell at Carson about it, he couldn't really complain.
Instead, for the last few days, they would get up early -- for sex -- then grab breakfast before heading to the archives. Then they'd sit Carson down and open up a database pretty much at random. Carson would start reading and Rodney and John would start typing. John was taking the straight dictation and Rodney was making notes about anything and everything that occurred to him about whatever Carson was saying.
Carson had explained how he *didn't* read Atlantean, that Murdoc was the one putting everything into Gaelic for him. John pointed out that Carson could translate from Gaelic to English. Then Carson had gone on for ten minutes about how limited the vocabulary was, that it was only words relevant to the maintenance work. Rodney had fielded that one, saying that even if he only translated every tenth, twentieth, or hundredth word, it would give the linguists enough to go on to figure out the rest, eventually.
So now they were spending their time going through as much of the database as possible. When they'd stop for a break every couple hours or so, he and Rodney would take turns glaring at Carson before deciding who got to run down for snacks.
The second time he and Rodney had played rock-paper-scissors over errand duty, Carson had piped up.
"There's a food and beverage dispenser right over there." He'd pointed to a flat panel on the wall. John had wondered if the phrase 'strangle you if you don't start telling us stuff' hadn't penetrated Carson's head. But then Carson had sighed. "No, it'd not be stocked any longer. Never mind."
He and Rodney had sent Carson out for snacks, that time.
Since then, John had to admit, Carson was getting better about saying things out loud. Not the translation stuff, but things that apparently Carson thought too trivial to notice. They'd walk down the hallways on their way back to Carson's room and he'd stop, and activate a panel or odd looking gizmo and explain what it did.
Rodney had taken to carrying about a datapad. John had taken to carrying around cough drops, because he'd figured out that positive reinforcement was probably helping Carson remember to share. One blowjob per Ancient secret revealed was a pretty fair trade -- especially since Rodney would get so aroused from watching them that pretty much every night ended in fucking.
Which generally led John back to the affirmation that life was pretty damn good. Even better, when Weir and the rest of the team returned, they'd find several months' worth of work done for them, and the geeks could go off and play with partially translated files for weeks to come. That would, he hoped, distract anybody from noticing that the three of them had moved in together.
Well, no, it probably wouldn't. But it would at least give folks a reason not to say a damn thing to their faces.
John hoped. He'd never been twisted up about the fact he was into guys -- kept it a secret when necessary, and didn't when it wasn't. And Elizabeth had done a good job of creating a pretty non-bigoted group of people who only cared who was sleeping with who because it was something to gossip about, and not because they thought it should stop.
He didn't know if that extended to group sex, though. He hadn't heard about anyone involved in anything like this before the team had left for Earth. Teyla had talked about her own people's acceptance of homosexual couples, but never mentioned groups.
John hadn't thought about it much himself after the first day. As the day of the team's return drew closer, though, he found himself thinking about it more. The only thoughts he found himself having involved it maybe not even working once everyone returned. So he distracted himself by pretending that giving Weir several gigs of translated information would stop anyone from asking why Rodney and John no longer slept in their own rooms.
There was always the alternative of them going back to a twosome. John didn't seriously think that would happen because -- Rodney wasn't giving Carson up anytime this century. Rodney didn't seem to have a clue, of course, genius that he was. He acted like this was just because it was fun, and because he'd been coveting Carson's ass for months. But John could see the funny, soft look in his eyes when he was watching Carson sleep.
And John wasn't going to give Rodney up without a fight that had no business being fought. He might not be twitterpated like Carson was, but this whole insane affair was the best thing he'd ever had, and he wasn't going to let bad attitudes, or even potential bad attitudes, ruin it for him.
But maybe if they could keep everyone going in a few new directions when they first got back, they could put off the shocked revelations and stares for awhile. Long enough that by the time anyone realised it, it would be too late to do anything about it.
Until then, he was going to enjoy himself as much as he could -- in as many places as he could while there was no one to threaten to drop him into the ocean for having sex on her desk.
***********
Chapter Nine
Alone in Your Mind
Chapter Ten
Life, John thought, was pretty damn good. Granted there were those life-sucking aliens to contend with and a constant diet of MREs and bizarre Athosian dishes, and the strain of being acting commander when really he still hated authority and didn't find that being one made him like it any better. The rooms were not all that comfortable, and there was no ESPN and the thing they called 'beer' was like drinking herbal tea.
But really, in spite of all that, life was pretty damn good. He got to save the world. He got to fly the coolest damn aircraft in the universe. He got to visit alien planets in a galaxy no one had ever even heard of a half-dozen years ago.
And he was sleeping with two really hot guys who were handsome, intelligent, and had evil senses of humour.
He and Carson were sitting at a table in Carson's repair workshop. Carson was fiddling with a gizmo, and they were both keeping an eye on Rodney, on the other side of the wide table, who was also fiddling with a gizmo. Different sort of gizmo, and Carson had named it when he'd handed it to Rodney to play with. John couldn't remember more than the first two syllables of the words he'd used, so he just called it the gizmo.
He couldn't for the life of him figure out what it did, and, it seemed, neither could Rodney. He'd been poking it, turning dials, making lights come on and go off. He'd talk to himself excitedly, then frown, then start again. John had given Carson a raised eyebrow earlier, wondering if he was going to offer Rodney any help. Carson had just grinned in a way that made John realise that something was up, and didn't say anything.
"OK, that's it," Rodney finally said, tossing the gizmo back onto the table. Carson stopped what he was doing and looked up. Rodney shook his head. "I don't have a clue."
Carson set down the tool he'd been using. He opened his mouth and Rodney raised a hand.
"Ah! No, wait. Don't tell me. I'll get this. I...." He looked down at the gizmo, glumly. "I don't have a clue. How does it work?"
"It doesn't," Carson said.
Rodney and John both stared at Carson, who just sat there looking for all the world like he hadn't just said what he'd said.
"Excuse me?" Rodney asked.
"It doesn't work."
"It's broken?" Rodney looked dumbfounded. John stifled a grin.
"No," Carson said, shaking his head. "It never worked. It's a dummy."
There was a long silence. Rodney looked down at the gizmo, back at Carson -- over to John apparently to check if he'd fallen into an alternate universe where everybody spoke their own brand of English -- then back at Carson. "A dummy."
"Aye. It's designed to be a model, to demonstrate what a real working unit would look like. The lights go on to make it look real, but it doesn't actually do anything."
John was impressed at how straight Carson was keeping his face. Rodney looked like he was about to leap over the table onto Carson. Rodney moved his jaw up and down a bit, and they both waited patiently. Eventually, Rodney managed, "You let me sit here for an hour fiddling with a dummy unit that doesn't work?"
"It doesn't even have internal components, except the lights." Carson was still remaining very calm. John found himself wanting to leap on him, too, but for a wholly different reason than Rodney probably wanted.
"You..." Rodney stopped. He tried again. "You--" he looked down at the dummy gizmo and picked it up. "An *hour*??"
Carson shrugged. "It kept you busy and happy and I got some work done." There was an ominous pause, then he added, "It was John's idea."
Which let John know just *exactly* how evil Carson was. How he'd ever thought the man was mild and gentle? "It was *not* my idea!" He turned to Rodney. "I swear!"
Rodney wasn't buying it. He was glaring at John, and folded his arms across his chest. Carson went back to tinkering on his gizmo, and didn't even crack a smile.
"It was *not* my idea," he said again because -- it really hadn't been. He reached over and poked Carson hard in the arm. "I am going to get you for this."
Carson raised his head and gave John an extremely innocent look. "You're denying it?"
"Of *course* I'm denying it! I had nothing to do with this! Rodney, I really didn't."
"Like you had nothing to do with the toothpaste incident?" Rodney arched an eyebrow at him.
"That was to get you back for pretending my football tape got "accidently" erased!"
"Which was my revenge for you sneaking in and erasing half of my equations from the desktop!"
"I saved those to disk, first. I mean -- I was just getting *you* back for getting friendly under the table during that meeting with Weir."
Rodney blinked at him. "That actually wasn't a joke. I really meant that."
"You *meant* to get me hard during a staff meeting?"
Rodney shrugged. "I was bored."
"So you thought you'd make me want to throw you down onto the table and suck you off while Elizabeth was talking about trade schedules with the Anergini?"
Rodney grinned happily. "Woulda been more fun, don't you think?"
John shook his head. And he'd been thinking how nice it was to have two lovers with an evil sense of humor? He wasn't sure what revenge to take with Carson -- it would take some careful thought. He looked over to see if Carson was showing any signs of breaking, and admitting the truth.
He frowned. Carson was concentrating on his gizmo, but his face.... He looked like he was having a conversation. He wasn't talking out loud, but he was making expressions that made John think he was watching a tv show with the sound turned off.
Or that he was watching someone have a telepathic conversation. John didn't like that at all. He knew that Carson could interact with that interface thing he called Murdoc. Why he'd named it after a villain from MacGyver, John didn't know. But he'd assured them it wasn't at all sentient.
So why have such a long conversation with it? John reached over and nudged Carson. "Hey. Turn that thing off for a second."
Carson blinked at him as though refocusing his eyes. "What?" He glanced down at the gizmo he was working on. "It isn't--"
"No, the interface. Murdoc. Turn it off for a second."
Carson just stared at him for a second without saying anything. His eyes looked sad. "It doesn't turn off."
"I know you can't take it off or de-activate it or anything. But just...turn off the screen and radio and whatever. Just for a bit." He wasn't even really sure why he was asking -- except that it creeped him out to be reminded that there was something in Carson's head besides Carson.
But Carson shook his head. "It doesn't turn off. The interface is always displayed."
"It's always on?" Rodney repeated. "The...stuff you see in your head, the list and diagrams and instructions?"
"It isn't always all of them on at once, but...yes. The display is always on."
"Even when we... Um..." How Rodney could be shy about saying the word 'sex' when he freely engaged in it, John didn't know.
"Always, Rodney." That explained the sadness in his eyes, John thought.
"Oh." Rodney subsided, and simply looked at him. He glanced at John, and John could clearly see the demand there. Fix this. Help me fix this. It was the same look he'd had when he'd come and told John that Carson couldn't go home. The same reason why John had agreed to help, agreed to stay on Atlantis, when all he could have said about Carson at the time was that they were friendly acquaintences.
What Rodney wanted, John tried to give him. Trouble was, he had no idea what they could do.
"It's all right," Carson said in what was meant to be a reassuring tone. The quiet upset was gone and he looked for all the world like there was nothing more wrong than a gizmo that wasn't working yet.
John reached over and took Carson's hand. "It never shuts off?"
"Well...if there's nothing left to do, then it would shut off. Until something needed repair. But that's only happened a dozen times or so. A city the size of Atlantis -- and there only one of me -- chances are I'll not get everything fixed." He shrugged as though it didn't bother him.
"It's already happened a dozen times?" Rodney asked, in that 'seizing upon an idea' tone he got.
But Carson shook his head. "Back when they had a full staff."
He was staring at his gizmo again, and John wondered if he or Rodney would be the first one to get the question out.
It was him. "How do you know?" John asked, trying to remain calm.
"Hm?" Carson looked up. Then he frowned, confused. "It's in the reports."
"*What* reports?" John asked.
"The maintenance reports."
"From...back when the Ancients lived here?" John clarified. Rodney was still gaping, speechlessly.
Carson nodded slowly, still looking confused. John looked over at Rodney to make sure *he* hadn't slipped into the alternate-English dimension. "And you didn't think to mention this?"
"Mention the reports? But they-- oh." Carson blinked. "Oh, no -- they've not got anything in them that would help. Just lots of 'we fixed this, we fixed that, Gjurshin broke his damn telescope again and we've asked Cuttler to take it away from him.' There's nothing about...the sort of things you need. History or culture or--"
"Gjurshin? Telescope?" Rodney interrupted.
"I don't know," Carson said. "That's what the report says, but I couldn't tell you any more than that. I don't have access to Atlantis databases, Rodney. Just the reports -- which were written for people who knew what they meant."
"Oh." Rodney nodded and sat back. "I guess it would be rather like trying to figure out a world's culture by reading the cliff notes from a single book."
John watched as they both dropped the issue. Carson was about to go back to his gizmo, and Rodney looked like he was going to jump up and find some other thing to play with. For a moment, John felt like the only genius in the room. He cleared his throat. When they both looked at him, he asked, "You can *read* the reports?"
***********
After that, the schedule changed. They didn't let Carson do repairs unless he insisted they were urgent -- which they hadn't been, so far. They didn't have nearly as much sex, either, which John couldn't say he *liked* but as he'd been the one to help Rodney yell at Carson about it, he couldn't really complain.
Instead, for the last few days, they would get up early -- for sex -- then grab breakfast before heading to the archives. Then they'd sit Carson down and open up a database pretty much at random. Carson would start reading and Rodney and John would start typing. John was taking the straight dictation and Rodney was making notes about anything and everything that occurred to him about whatever Carson was saying.
Carson had explained how he *didn't* read Atlantean, that Murdoc was the one putting everything into Gaelic for him. John pointed out that Carson could translate from Gaelic to English. Then Carson had gone on for ten minutes about how limited the vocabulary was, that it was only words relevant to the maintenance work. Rodney had fielded that one, saying that even if he only translated every tenth, twentieth, or hundredth word, it would give the linguists enough to go on to figure out the rest, eventually.
So now they were spending their time going through as much of the database as possible. When they'd stop for a break every couple hours or so, he and Rodney would take turns glaring at Carson before deciding who got to run down for snacks.
The second time he and Rodney had played rock-paper-scissors over errand duty, Carson had piped up.
"There's a food and beverage dispenser right over there." He'd pointed to a flat panel on the wall. John had wondered if the phrase 'strangle you if you don't start telling us stuff' hadn't penetrated Carson's head. But then Carson had sighed. "No, it'd not be stocked any longer. Never mind."
He and Rodney had sent Carson out for snacks, that time.
Since then, John had to admit, Carson was getting better about saying things out loud. Not the translation stuff, but things that apparently Carson thought too trivial to notice. They'd walk down the hallways on their way back to Carson's room and he'd stop, and activate a panel or odd looking gizmo and explain what it did.
Rodney had taken to carrying about a datapad. John had taken to carrying around cough drops, because he'd figured out that positive reinforcement was probably helping Carson remember to share. One blowjob per Ancient secret revealed was a pretty fair trade -- especially since Rodney would get so aroused from watching them that pretty much every night ended in fucking.
Which generally led John back to the affirmation that life was pretty damn good. Even better, when Weir and the rest of the team returned, they'd find several months' worth of work done for them, and the geeks could go off and play with partially translated files for weeks to come. That would, he hoped, distract anybody from noticing that the three of them had moved in together.
Well, no, it probably wouldn't. But it would at least give folks a reason not to say a damn thing to their faces.
John hoped. He'd never been twisted up about the fact he was into guys -- kept it a secret when necessary, and didn't when it wasn't. And Elizabeth had done a good job of creating a pretty non-bigoted group of people who only cared who was sleeping with who because it was something to gossip about, and not because they thought it should stop.
He didn't know if that extended to group sex, though. He hadn't heard about anyone involved in anything like this before the team had left for Earth. Teyla had talked about her own people's acceptance of homosexual couples, but never mentioned groups.
John hadn't thought about it much himself after the first day. As the day of the team's return drew closer, though, he found himself thinking about it more. The only thoughts he found himself having involved it maybe not even working once everyone returned. So he distracted himself by pretending that giving Weir several gigs of translated information would stop anyone from asking why Rodney and John no longer slept in their own rooms.
There was always the alternative of them going back to a twosome. John didn't seriously think that would happen because -- Rodney wasn't giving Carson up anytime this century. Rodney didn't seem to have a clue, of course, genius that he was. He acted like this was just because it was fun, and because he'd been coveting Carson's ass for months. But John could see the funny, soft look in his eyes when he was watching Carson sleep.
And John wasn't going to give Rodney up without a fight that had no business being fought. He might not be twitterpated like Carson was, but this whole insane affair was the best thing he'd ever had, and he wasn't going to let bad attitudes, or even potential bad attitudes, ruin it for him.
But maybe if they could keep everyone going in a few new directions when they first got back, they could put off the shocked revelations and stares for awhile. Long enough that by the time anyone realised it, it would be too late to do anything about it.
Until then, he was going to enjoy himself as much as he could -- in as many places as he could while there was no one to threaten to drop him into the ocean for having sex on her desk.
***********