You're Pretty Good Looking (For a Girl) by trinityofone (Amnesty 2006/Not Happening Challenge) 2/2
CONTINUED FROM PART I
YOU'RE PRETTY GOOD LOOKING (FOR A GIRL), PART II
"You and Cadman seem...chummy," said Sheppard, tightly.
"Yes, well, we've come to an understanding," Rodney said with an equal lack of warmth. He consulted the scanner in his hands (the fact that he was wearing clear polish seemed enormously, embarrassingly apparent to him, but he really needed to stop biting his nails and anyway, no one had said anything). "Right," he said. "This way."
"That's left."
Rodney glanced over his shoulder. Sheppard had his hand on his P-90, but otherwise he was sauntering down this intensely creepy and disgustingly smelly underground corridor as casually as if he were walking across the mess. "I know."
"You said 'right.'"
"I said-" Rodney stopped. "What is this, an I Love Lucy routine? Are you auditioning for the part of Ricky Ricardo? Just shut up and follow me!"
Sheppard did-for about two steps. Then a sarcastic, high-pitched "Yes, mother," slithered across the slimy corridor and into Rodney's ear. He lost it.
"What the hell is the matter with you?" he demanded, wheeling on him. Cadman's fists felt ridiculously tiny against Sheppard's chest, but damn, she was strong, and it wasn't difficult to shove Sheppard back against the wall. "Do you have some sort of problem with women? Because you flirt with anything in a skirt and you're always crowing about how hot some native floozie is, but to me you're completely cold-and we're talking deep-core ice sample cold, fucking Hoth cold. So if it is me, if I made you uncomfortable and ruined whatever's left of this supposed 'friendship' of ours, well then you should just come out and tell me instead of dragging it out like this is some stupid Lifetime movie we're starring in." Sheppard opened his mouth. "And!" Rodney said quickly, "If you make one goddamn crack about 'Television for Women,' I swear I will knee you in the balls."
Sheppard's Adam's apple bobbed. "You really have gone to the dark side, McKay."
"Oh, fuck you," Rodney said. He pushed away and started back down the corridor, not really caring if Sheppard followed; he was too distracting, anyway. "Some of us have actual work to do!" he called back, the echo making his voice sound funny. "You know, maybe it would be better if I switched to Cadman's team."
Suddenly Sheppard was right behind him, his breath hot on Rodney's neck. "Did she say something to you? Make you an offer?" Rodney could hear the That bitch, the all-too-obvious undercurrent to his tone.
"Oh, lay off Cadman, would you?" he snapped. "What did she ever do to you?"
"A favor!" hissed Sheppard. Then he was quiet again, his jaw slamming shut with an almost audible click.
Rodney stared at him. "What the hell does that mean?"
Sheppard looked away. "Nothing. Rodney..." He swallowed. "I'm sorry, okay?"
"Yeah, right." Rodney fixed him with an inquisitive, unashamed stare. "Tell me what's gnawing away at that pathetic little mind of yours. I am a genius," he added-a threat. "I will figure it out."
"McKay." Sheppard stepped back, a cease-and-desist gesture ruined by the squelching sound made by Sheppard's boots. "She just made things easier for me. To ignore...stuff."
"What?" said Rodney, feeling frustratingly less than brilliant. "How did Cadman..."
It came on him like a bright flash of light, a wave of dizziness. When he could see again, he had a whole new perspective; everything was clear.
"Oh my God, Cadman was right! You are gay! You're gay for me!"
Sheppard looked like he couldn't tell what about this pronouncement horrified him the most. He finally settled on, "You were talking to Cadman about my sexual orientation?"
"It's okay, she's gay now, too." Rodney waved the worry away. "Well, kind of. Anyway-you did want me! I mean-before, you wanted me. When I was a man. Because you like men. Oh." He touched a hand to the wall for support and immediately regretted it when his fingers came away stained. "Fuck."
Sheppard blinked slowly. Rodney was relieved to note he still had the P-90’s safety on. "That would sum it up, yes."
Rodney crossed his arms under his breasts. "Well, this is stupid. And typical. Both my opportunities for hot gay sex and hot heterosexual sex are ruined." He thought for a moment. "Could I interest you in a little speech about my recent discovery of the wonders of bisexuality?"
"McKay," said Sheppard, looking pained. He was saved from further discourse by the sound of both their radios crackling to life. "Sheppard, McKay," said Ronon's voice. "What's keeping you?"
"McKay took a wrong turn," Sheppard lied smoothly. Rodney glared at him.
"Women have no sense of direction," said Ronon, contemplatively. Then he grunted in pain.
Rodney tapped his earpiece. "Thank you, Teyla."
"My pleasure."
Over the next few days, Rodney began to initiate a plan he nicknamed 'Straighten-Up Sheppard.'
"You realize," said Radek, "if it were only a question of posture, still it would never work."
"Shut up. Why do I even tell you anything?"
"Because if you get cranky with me, I will never ask you, 'Is it that time of month?'"
"Ha ha," Rodney said. "And how's your romantic life lately? Still not having sex with Elizabeth?"
"I told you, it is five-year plan! Slow seduction. Courtly. Gentlemanly. Works every time."
"First time trying it, is it?"
"Zticha. Go cure Colonel of his sinful sodomite ways."
"Fine." Rodney hopped off his stool. "Oh, and by the way, I'm borrowing your collection of porn. Bye!"
Yes, Radek had definitely proved to be a good friend.
Sheppard stormed into Rodney's room waving a tattered Czech copy of Jugs. "Stop leaving porn in my locker!"
Rodney looked up from his laptop. "Don't you want to know how I figured out the combination?"
"No. Just quit it. Lorne thinks I'm a big pervert now."
"And are you? I mean, have you been having any...heterosexual urges?"
Sheppard rubbed his forehead with the base of his palm. "This is really messed up, McKay." He looked at Rodney, sitting there in one of Cadman's tank tops and her favorite old workout shorts. (They'd eventually just caved and traded wardrobes, with the exception of underwear-"I think we've done enough sharing, thanks"-and certain t-shirts Rodney claimed had "sentimental value.") "Just...really, really messed up."
"Excuse me," Rodney said. "If I can switch sexual orientations-not to mention bodies, thank you-then I think you can, too. Just put a little effort into it!"
Sheppard's eyes went dark. "Right, well. That's what my father said, too." He dropped the magazine to the floor. "Didn't take then, either."
Rodney's stomach dropped. "Sheppard-"
"You know, I really thought you'd have access to better porn than this," Sheppard said, giving the magazine a kick as he strolled toward the door. "These girls aren't even pretty."
"'These girls aren't even pretty'? Huh?"
"Don't look at me!" Rodney said. "Up until then, I hadn't thought the quality of the porn was the problem."
"Men," Cadman scoffed. Then she frowned. "You know, I really need to stop looking at everything in such sex-based terms."
"Gin," Rodney said. He grinned. It pleased him far more than it should to have found a card game he could consistently beat her at.
Cadman narrowed her eyes. "Are you counting cards?"
"Um. No?"
"Hmph. Don't make me tell Heightmeyer on you."
Rodney glanced at his watch. "Ah- We missed our session again."
Cadman turned her shrug into an impressively fancy shuffle. "Whatever. I'd rather just talk to you anyway."
There was a moment of awkward silence. Eventually, Cadman set the cards down in front of him. "So," she said pointedly. "You gonna deal?"
"Yeah," he said, slim fingers moving over the cards. "I'm dealing."
"Look, I'm sorry," Rodney said.
Sheppard didn't look up. "About what?"
"Don't be deliberately obtuse." Rodney stopped fiddling with the jumper crystals he was messing with-it was just busy work, killing time until Ronon and Teyla got back after getting delayed by a hill that had proved much easier to go down then get up. He turned to face Sheppard, who was cleaning his gun, inserting the slim metal rod into the barrel and pumping it up and down with an intense expression on his face-and really, Rodney should have known.
"I wasn't trying to, you know, ‘cure you’ or anything. I just thought...it would be fulfilling for both of us if you explored the full range of your options? And I'll admit, maybe bad Czech porn wasn't the most subtle or beguiling approach, but I couldn't exactly show up at your door in a skimpy negligee because for one I don't have one and neither does Cadman, and two, my feet get really cold and I think I'd look stupid if I wore a negligee with wool socks."
Sheppard didn't say anything for a moment. Then he said, "I really didn't need that mental image, McKay."
Rodney held up a placating hand. "Oh, I get it-girl parts are scary." He ruminated. "Although, actually, they're not; just somewhat more difficult to clean."
Sheppard put down his gun, which thankfully he had yet to reassemble. "Why are we still having this conversation?"
"Because I was hoping we could go back to what you said after M4I-759? You know, the planet where you stopped me from scoring with Ralan?"
Sheppard's frown deepened. "That was a joke!" Rodney said. "All I mean is, I'd like to try that again. Being friends. Friends with no sexual tension between them."
"Right," said Sheppard, flatly. "Because we used to excel at that."
"Exactly!" Rodney said, but only because the way Sheppard had his hands braced against the bench made his chest ache. He'd agree to almost anything to stop him from looking like that.
Sheppard opened his mouth as if he were going to say something else, then paused to tap his earpiece. "Teyla, how’re you guys doing?"
"We are fine." Teyla sounded out of breath. "We are making...progress."
There was a tightness in her voice that in anyone else would have manifested itself as full-blown annoyance and in Rodney as a nuclear-grade explosion of bile. Sheppard raised an eyebrow. "Want us to come get you?"
"Tree cover's too thick," supplied Ronon. He also sounded like he would be requiring the opportunity to hit something in the near future.
"Okay," Sheppard said, sounding unusually hesitant. "We'll just wait here then."
He moved his hand away from the radio, but it buzzed to life one more time. "And Sheppard," said Ronon, "next time you can 'just check out that little valley over there.'"
"Uh-huh, you're breaking up, see you soon," Sheppard said. He took the earpiece off and set it beside him on the bench. The gun sat beside it, half-cleaned, but Sheppard remained still, his hands folded in his lap.
"What were you going to say?" Rodney asked.
"Huh?"
Rodney twirled his finger: Stop bullshitting and get on with it. "Before."
"McKay..."
"What? We're friends. Friends tell each other things. Like, like earlier I told you about, um..."
"The difficulty you experienced cleaning your vagina?" Sheppard said dryly.
Rodney flushed. "Okay-ground rules of this new boy-girl platonic friendship thing? There will be no discussion of either party's vagina. Sheesh, you're worse than Cadman."
Rodney sat down on the bench opposite Sheppard and scratched at a scuff mark on the jumper's floor with the toe of his sneaker. "We used to talk about stuff," he said. "We used to... Why don't you tell me some of your favorite science fiction movies, and I'll tell you why you're stupid to like them?"
"Gee, that does sound fun," Sheppard said. But the drawl was back in his voice; he sounded almost normal again.
"I bet you like all those bad '70s Charlton Heston movies. You do, don't you? You like The Omega Man and Soylent Green. You started a rumor in your high school cafeteria that the mystery meat was people."
Sheppard's eyes did that thing where they crinkled a little around the edges, which had the odd effect of making his whole face look warm. "Who told you that?"
"Wait, you did? Seriously?" Rodney gaped. "I think I-" He bit down quickly on what he was going to say. "I can't believe you ever fool people into thinking you're cool."
"I fool people about a lot of things," said Sheppard, with a lightness Rodney no longer believed in. Good call: "Why me, Rodney?" Sheppard said, leaning forward suddenly. "There are plenty of people on Atlantis who would have done almost anything for a crack at Cadman's body, no matter who was inside. Why make it complicated? Why choose me?"
Rodney knew the answer; for once, this was not gratifying to him. "Who says I didn't? Maybe I'm just finally getting around to you."
Sheppard just looked at him. "Is that your skeptical face?" Rodney said snappishly.
"Yes."
He huffed. "Well, whatever, Scully. You were just convenient, all right?"
Rodney didn't even want to look at Sheppard long enough to glare at him; he stood up again and returned his attention to the panel of crystals, which wouldn't even do him the courtesy of malfunctioning so he could have something other than the man sitting across the far-too-narrow jumper compartment to concentrate on.
He could hear Sheppard making some shuffling noises; apparently he'd returned to performing suggestive actions with phallic-shaped objects. Was it so much to ask for the man to be bi-curious? Life was really unfair.
Rodney studied the crystals for a while and eventually concluded that exchanging two of them could either improve the efficiency of the drive pods or cause a small explosion. Both options seemed preferable to continuing to stand here awkwardly like this; Rodney was just adjusting his clamps when he heard Sheppard let out a frustrated little sigh. "So how would you grade this friendship so far? Maybe a 'D'?"
Rodney let go of the wires and turned around. "That's generous. I knew you'd be soft."
"You're all bark, McKay." Sheppard shook his head. "This was supposed to make things easier."
"Not having to spend so much time looking at my handsome, manly form? Yes, that's clearly solved all your problems. And hey! Since when is this all about your issues, as innumerable as they may be? I have issues, too! I mean, just look at them!"
"I think those are called breasts, Rodney."
"Thank you, yes; I'm shocked you never went into medicine." He looked down at the once-odd rise of his uniform jacket (science blue, naturally, donated by a surprisingly speechless Miko); they no longer bothered or astounded him like they initially had-nor did they arouse him, except in the pleasurable-painful way they did under his touch, squirming and biting his lip in the dark.
"They're rather nice ones, too," he commented, "and I say this as someone who was once a bit of a bosom connoisseur. I suppose I...I just got a little overexcited at the thought of introducing you to them. I-I just wanted this to be okay."
Sheppard's eyes narrowed-a small change of expression that Rodney had nevertheless learned to recognize. "You mean straight."
Rodney felt his hands start moving without having sent them any sort of conscious signal to move. "Oh, stop being so simplistic! This isn't about gay or straight-as Cadman wisely deduced, pretty much any sexual activity either of us engages in from now on is going to be in some way queer. No, I just meant...before, you were my friend." He hated the way his voice went small on that word. "We were guy friends. Buddies." He tried to still his fingers. "I hadn't had much experience with that. It was nice."
Sheppard didn't say anything, but Rodney had long since stopped expecting him to help him through these sorts of conversations. Mocking Charlton Heston, Sheppard could do. Deep emotional probing? Not so much.
"But, well. With Cadman's and my little accident, there was naturally going to be a paradigm shift. I thought, if we couldn't be guy friends..."
"We could be 'special friends'?" Sheppard did him the courtesy of not actually making air quotes, but his tone was harsh. Then almost immediately it was even again, almost gentle. "Men and women can be friends. I think I saw a whole movie about that once-and it didn't star Charlton Heston."
Rodney pinched the bridge of his nose. "Okay, one, I'm now picturing Charlton Heston faking an orgasm in a crowded diner, and that's an image that will haunt me until I die, and two, you clearly weren't paying very much attention since there were no vampire-zombie things to shoot, because they get together at the end of that movie. They don't stay just friends."
"Because if Nora Ephron said it, it must be true. Wow, you really have-" Sheppard cut himself off and ducked his head. "Okay, I'm just going to stop with the 'you're a girl' jokes,'cause it's really not funny anymore."
"Thank you!" said Rodney. "I'm so glad you caught up with the rest of the class! It only took you, what? Eight months?"
Sheppard got to his feet, slow and menacing. "And how many times do I have to say 'I'm gay' before your genius brain registers that I don't-" He stopped. He wasn't that close to Rodney, not really, but Rodney could feel every inch of space between them, like the empty air was charged. "I don't want to fuck you," he said. "I don't want..." He waved his hand; his lip curled, disgusted. "...Cadman."
Rodney sucked in a breath. "I'm not Cadman," he said quietly. "This isn't Cadman. This is..."
He reached out and took Sheppard's hand in his much smaller one; their eyes met for a moment, full-on, and Rodney realized that he couldn't remember another time when Sheppard had met his gaze completely, without making a face or narrowing his eyes or looking away. For a long moment, for the space of a held breath, Sheppard stared at him, into him, like he was searching for the last remaining spark of light at the center of a black hole; Rodney didn't break the gaze as with a sigh he stepped forward into the palm Sheppard instinctively uncurled, cupping it gently around Rodney's breast. "This is me."
He felt them both shudder-a gorgeous, painful quiver-and then suddenly Sheppard was jumping back like a man burned. Rodney felt a stab of fear and anger and rejection, but he saw that Sheppard's head had turned swiftly to the jumper's entrance, and a second later Rodney heard why: a shuffling in the undergrowth, Ronon and Teyla returning.
"W-what took you so long?" he said with barely a quaver. "Sheppard and I were reduced to discussing the film oeuvre of Charlton Heston. Do you have any idea how torturous that can be?"
"No doubt much worse than climbing up a cliff in the hot sun," said Teyla, tartly.
"I don't know, have you seen Earthquake?"
The look Sheppard shot him was grateful.
They debriefed and went their separate ways, with Rodney unable to tell whether or not Sheppard's claim of needing to meet with Lorne was just a ploy to avoid talking about his feelings or-Rodney's preference-skipping to the sex and seeing how it went from there. He tried to track down Cadman because he figured she'd have some good advice, at least on what to wear for a possible seduction, but she wasn't in her room or the mess or the gym or the shooting range, and she wasn't answering her radio. There was a small chance that she could be in the infirmary mooning over Carson (despite what she claimed, Cadman mooned with the best of them) but going to check would involve having to engage the good doctor in conversation, and Carson still had a tendency to slip and call Rodney 'lass.' (Although Rodney was beginning to suspect that he was doing it on purpose.)
Well, fine. His libido had had a long enough run; it was time for his intellect to get its well-deserved turn. He went down to the labs and immersed himself in work. Some time later he felt a hand on his shoulder, and there was Sheppard looking hot and inscrutable and annoying as always. Rodney's mouth formed a reflexive smile.
Sheppard didn't mirror it. "I thought, maybe, you'd come by later."
Rodney's breath caught, thinking, Oh, please let him mean what I think he means. "I thought you were meeting with Lorne," he managed to say, relatively coolly.
"I couldn't find him. Besides, that was hours ago."
Rodney brushed his hair out of his face and glanced at the clock. "Oh. Well. I've been working."
Sheppard jerked his head toward the door. "Do you wanna, maybe, take a break?"
That's very suave, Colonel. Rodney bit his lip to keep himself from saying it.
"I could use a break," he admitted, stretching. He rubbed at his eyes. "I think I'm giving myself eyestrain; Cad-I might end up requiring glasses in my old age."
Sheppard was quiet for a long moment. Rodney could feel the weight of the silence between them as they stepped into the transporter. When the doors opened again it was like the sound had been switched back on.
"It may not be permanent." Sheppard's voice was low, like he was afraid of jinxing himself. "You might still figure out a way to switch yourself back."
Rodney threw up his arms. "And we might all die tomorrow in a bizarre botany accident! Besides," he swiped open the door to his rooms, "I've always said, 'Why put off until tomorrow sex you could have today?'"
"Poetic," said Sheppard, immediately finding a wall against which to lounge. "Is this all about sex to you?"
"Aren't I supposed to be asking you that? After all, you're the man."
Rodney meant it to be light, but Sheppard didn't smile. He missed Sheppard's smiles, even his stupid, meaningless ones. If only, he thought, if only he could figure out the right thing to say like he could produce from nothing, in the face of insurmountable odds, the incredible ideas necessary to save them. What kind of genius did it take to save this?
He closed his eyes. "It wouldn't mean..." He opened them again; he had to look, had to see Sheppard's face. "Wanting me, like this-it wouldn't mean giving into your father, or society, or...or The Man. It would just mean..." He shrugged, helplessly, giving up. "It would mean whatever you want it to mean." A breath. "It would mean a lot to me."
"To be wanted?" said Sheppard.
To be wanted by you, stupid! Rodney hesitated for a moment, then thought, Fuck it. "To be wanted by you," he said; finishing with, unable to help himself, "Don't be stupid."
"Why change what I'm good at?" Sheppard said, but he was smiling a little now. "God, I feel like such a teenager."
"Horny?" said Rodney, hopefully.
"Awkward." A beat, then Sheppard grinned. "But also horny."
"Ha, I knew it!" Rodney sat back on the bed and kicked off his shoes. "Being bi-curious is ‘in.’"
"Of course," said Sheppard, "I'm having sex with you to be stylish." He stopped. "Can I-can I look at you?"
"Um. You mean you want me to-" Rodney pulled his shirt a few inches up his stomach and then let it drop.
"Yeah."
"All right." Rodney was about to make a joke about previewing before you buy, but then he saw that there were beads of sweat standing out on Sheppard's forehead. Silently, he drew his shirt up over his head and dropped it on the floor. He kept his eyes on Sheppard as he ran his hands up his sides, over the smooth muscle broken only by the points of his ribs, around back and to the little dip between his shoulder blades where his bra clasps joined. He unhooked them with practiced ease (there were anxious backseat fumblings he remembered, and more recent exhausted nights, feeling the relief of no more straps cutting into his back before tumbling into bed); Sheppard watched him. Sheppard watched as he slowly pulled each strap over his shoulder, first the right and then the left. Without anything remaining to hold it up, the bra slipped easily off his breasts with as little motion as it took to breathe. He tossed it aside; a scrap of fabric on the floor, virginal and white.
He breathed deeply, felt his breasts rise and fall. It wasn't particularly cold in the room, but his nipples had hardened to small sharp peaks. Was Sheppard looking at them, or was he staring at Rodney's face, or even over his shoulder? He wouldn't quite meet Rodney's eyes; Rodney couldn't quite be sure.
He reached for the button on his pants.
"Stop," Sheppard said. Rodney's heart lurched. "No, I mean...I want to touch you. Can I touch you?"
"Yes!" Rodney scooted back on the bed, shaking with equal parts relief and anticipation. "God, yes already. Please."
There was a pause while Sheppard fumbled with his boots. "Bye bye, wool socks," he said, and Rodney laughed as he felt the mattress shift under Sheppard's weight. Rodney was propped up on his elbows, so he got to watch as Sheppard crawled up his body, and as Sheppard's eyes scraped up his body, roving over the curves of him, the soft places and the hard. He braced himself with one hand on either side of Rodney's torso and looked down. "Hi," Rodney said.
"Hi," said Sheppard. "Is this you?"
Rodney swallowed the lump in his throat. "This is me."
Sheppard shifted his weight onto his knees. He raised his freed hand to Rodney's cheek. "This is your face?"
Rodney nodded. "Yes."
Sheppard's hand moved down, sweeping Rodney's hair aside, cradling the back of his neck. "And this is your throat, Rodney?" he said, lips hovering above the frantic pulse of Rodney's jugular.
"Yes."
Sheppard scooted down, dropping his head to Rodney's midsection. Rodney couldn't stand the temptation anymore: he touched a hand to the back of Sheppard's head, curled his fingers into his hair. He felt the catch of the soft strands and the warmth of Sheppard's scalp, hot like Sheppard's breath on Rodney's belly.
"This is your stomach?"
"Yes." The skin was sensitive, the feel of Sheppard's breath and the barely-there scrape of his stubble making Rodney's breath catch, his body move under Sheppard's hands. He fell back flat against the bed and Sheppard grabbed at his free fingers. He spread them apart, tracing over each one with his own hand, with the air from his mouth. "These are your fingers?"
"Yes," Rodney breathed, "they're mine, this is me."
"These are your breasts?"
Rodney could hear the doubt, hear the skepticism in Sheppard's voice. Reluctantly, he released his hold on Sheppard's head and touched himself, cupping and shaping a soft mound of flesh with each hand, taking pleasure in them as part of himself.
"Yes."
Sheppard's breathing had become irregular. There was a slight tremble to his voice when he spoke. "And is...is this your mouth, Rodney?"
Rodney let his 'yes' be buried in the meeting of their lips, gasping in relief as he found Sheppard's mouth and married it to his. At first he felt at a disadvantage, less in control without such wide, strong lips, but Sheppard was demanding and then gentle, moving like the tide, and when Rodney pushed on his shoulder his body moved, tumbling onto his side and then his back, kissing up into Rodney's mouth as Rodney's hair fell in honeyed waves around them.
Rodney moved so he was straddling Sheppard's hips. He felt so unbelievably sexy, bare-chested and covering Sheppard's clothed body. He laid his hands on Sheppard's chest and sat back, breaking into a wide smile when he felt the press of Sheppard's erection against his ass. "You want me!" he said, delightedly.
"Rodney-" Sheppard panted.
"It's me." He shook his hair over his back. "Take off your shirt."
He leaned forward to help Sheppard get the cloth over his head. He felt his breasts swing forward, and when the fabric had cleared his eyes, Sheppard was staring at them. He still looked hesitant. "Touch me," Rodney said, and Sheppard did: a gentle, exploratory touch that Rodney knew, first from the irritated instructions of a college girlfriend and now from personal experience, was better than a forceful grab. He sighed happily when Sheppard's thumb scraped against his nipple, and rewarded him by grinding back against his cock. Sheppard groaned, but more incredible and gratifying was the look of stunned pleasure on his face. "Have you ever?" Rodney asked. "With a woman?"
Sheppard's manly pride managed to look somewhat wounded. "In high school and college, yeah, when I still wasn't sure." He paused. "Even after I was sure, just to-to try-" He shook his head. "And at least once when I was really bored."
"You're not bored now, are you?" Rodney asked, grinding back against Sheppard's cock again.
"Umm...no," Sheppard said, and then he smiled, full and real and genuine. Rodney's heart soared.
"I want you to..." He rolled off Sheppard and lay back against the pillows. 'Make love to me' sounded ridiculous. 'Fuck' was equally wrong. "You know, do me."
"'You know, do me'?" Sheppard was laughing; he sounded like a dirty old man with a nicotine habit, and it was still a glorious sound. "Romantic, McKay."
"Hey, I am Mister Romance. Missus Romance?" He shrugged. "Sexually-Confused Romance, anyway."
"Well, that makes two of us," said Sheppard. He leaned down and placed a kiss above Rodney's bellybutton; the memory of the earlier, almost-kisses made the brief contact even hotter. "I'd be honored to 'do you,' Rodney McKay. Or do I have a legitimate excuse to call you Meredith now?"
"I don't care what you call me, as long as you take off my pants," Rodney said. Sheppard grinned and complied.
From the look on his face, some part of Sheppard's brain must still have been convinced that Rodney would be wearing loose boxers with pictures of smiley-faced atoms on them under his BDUs; he caught sight of Rodney's plain blue cotton panties and made a strange choked sound. He pulled the elastic down, revealing the soft curls of Rodney's pubic hair. Then suddenly Sheppard was shoving Rodney's legs apart, pushing his nose into the rapidly dampening fabric. "You make pussy so hot, Rodney," Sheppard said.
Rodney thought this was pretty much the best compliment ever.
"There are condoms in the drawer," he said. His voice sounded faint. "Come on," he said, pushing his panties off the rest of the way. "I want, I want-"
Sheppard found a condom and shucked his pants. "C'mere," said Rodney, grabbing the waistband of his boxers and tugging. "I wanna do it." He pulled the boxers down and grinned as Sheppard's hot dick found its way into his hand. "Nice," Rodney said, stroking experimentally. "Though mine was bigger."
"Now Rodney," Sheppard said, "let's not be nostalgic for what we can't have."
Rodney stopped. He looked up at Sheppard's face. "Are you?" he asked.
"No," Sheppard said firmly. He tucked Rodney's hair behind his ear and kissed him-gentle, reassuring, hungry. "I want this now. I want you."
Rodney took a deep breath. "Well, you're a lucky man, 'cause you have me." His hands barely shook as he tore open the package and unrolled the condom over Sheppard.
Sheppard looked down at himself. "I feel like such a breeder."
"Uh, you're wearing a condom, you're not going to be breeding anything." Rodney tried to quell the rising tide of panic he felt at just the thought. "Also, I'm on enough birth control to make the entire population of several small islands sterile. Let's never talk of this again!"
"Sorry. Wasn't thinking." Sheppard positioned himself. "Do you really want to do it like this? Missionary?"
"How else am I supposed to close my eyes and think of Atlantis? Yes, let's just do it already, and yes, like this, I want to see you." He ran out of breath. "John."
"Rodney," John said, with so much tenderness Rodney almost couldn't stand it. He spread his legs wider, gasping a biting his lip when John pushed his cockhead against his opening. He wound his fingers through the sheets. The move inside was surprisingly smooth; inexorable, Rodney thought. Also, Cadman hadn't exactly been a virgin.
For Rodney, though, everything felt new and yet familiar. This feeling of fullness was new, this slower-building, shockingly intense pleasure that made him moan and press his heels into John's back, trying to bring them closer. John at first was biting his lip in concentration, but then he let it go, started moving with Rodney's body, sliding slickly in and out. "You're so wet," he said. "God, Rodney, you're so wet for me. I didn't-"
"Aaahngh," said Rodney, articulately. "John, yes. Finally, finally, yes-"
"I wanna make you come," John said. He shifted a little, sliding up to take Rodney's mouth. His right hand fumbled above the spot where their bodies were joined. "There's this 'clitoris' I've heard rumors about..."
"Oh, God, don't make me laugh-" Rodney said, laughing; and it was his laughter that metamorphosed when John found the right spot, and he came laughing and crying and muttering John's name like a perfect new formula he was trying to remember.
John's hips jerked, then stilled, and Rodney got to hold his shaking back as John spilled inside him, muttering a few formulas or prayers of his own.
"So," Rodney said, after a minute. "Were you bored?"
John laughed; kissed Rodney's throat, his collarbone, his breast.
Rodney raised a hand, touched it lightly to John's hair, feeling his heat through his scalp. "And are you still...sure?"
He worried right away that it was too soon for such a question. But John just shook his head, a little sadly, and looked at Rodney with a shocking honesty in his eyes.
"I've never been more unsure in my life," John said, touching three fingers to Rodney's cheek. "But that's okay."
"I know that smirk!" Cadman said. "I recognize that smirk!"
"Who, me?" said Rodney, innocently, hoping Cadman's features were more adept at poker faces than his had been.
Cadman grinned. "What's the proper guy response here? Do I give you a high five? Say," she lowered her voice to a deep bass Rodney had saved for Darth Vader impersonations, "'Good man!'"
Rodney shook his head. "That is disturbing. No."
Cadman shrugged. "Well, the only other response that I know is to buy you lunch and demand that you spill."
"Actually," Rodney said, "that works for me."
They brought their food up to Cadman's room. Rodney sat comfortably at one end of the little table. It was hard to believe sometimes that the first time he had been in here, he'd been naked and furious with Cadman jabbering away in his head. At the time, he would hardly have thought of his current situation as an improvement, but... Well. He could live with it.
"You seem awfully happy," he said, watching Cadman eagerly work her way through a generous portion of meatloaf. "I know my good news is cause for rejoicing, but I hardly think that you'd be so altruistically-minded that it would have you...glowing? Oh my God, you got laid too!"
"Maaaaaybe," Cadman said, slurping her drink. "You're right," she said a second later, "I totally did!"
"Who?" he demanded. He kicked her shin. "Tell me now. Who?"
She set her fork down. "I don't know if I should..."
"Oh, come on! I've told you everything, so you have to share, too! It's only fair!"
"Well..." She dabbed daintily at her mouth with a napkin-making him suffer, the witch. "You have to promise not to tell."
"Oh, please-who would I tell?"
"Sheppard!" Her eyes narrowed. "Maybe even Zelenka."
"Fine, who would I tell besides Sheppard and Zelenka-who are both very discreet, by the way."
She rolled her eyes. "Fine." She tried to keep the put-out expression on her face, but at the last second a grin slipped back in. "It was Evan."
"Who the heck is Evan?" demanded Rodney, nearly upsetting his Jell-O. "Wait. Is that that control room guy?"
Cadman shook her head. "Major Lorne," she said, flushing. "God, you are hopeless."
"Lorne? You- With Major Lorne, with my body, you- I think you've damaged my brain."
Cadman raised an eyebrow. "With the icky gay sex? Which is astoundingly hot, by the way."
"No," Rodney said. "I'm just-" He tried to picture having sex with Major Lorne, his own body, and was alarmed when the first mental image his brain provided was a large hand caressing his breast and someone moving in him-John; of course he was all caught up in John; it didn't mean that he'd stopped thinking of himself as himself and started thinking of himself as...her.
Cadman was still watching him, and when he looked up at her, he no longer felt the dizzying sensation that he was looking in a mirror. "Huh," he said.
"Confused?" asked Cadman.
"Less so," Rodney said. "Less and less, all the time."
"I thought of a great plan to mess with my father," John said.
"Mmm, what's that?" Rodney didn't look away from where he was playing with their hands, holding them palm to palm, twining their fingers together into different patterns.
"I could send him a note to apologize for being out of touch for so long and for my generally abhorrent behavior, and include in the package some lovely photos of me and my new girlfriend. Then in the letter I could subtly imply that you used to be man."
Rodney propped himself up onto his elbow and craned his neck to look at John. "You want to make your father think that I'm a transsexual?"
John’s face broke into a devious grin. "Yeah."
"Ingenious!" said Rodney. "I like the way your mind works. You know, on the rare occasions that it does."
"Hmm." John chuckled and wrapped his arm around Rodney's waist, tugging him closer.
They breathed deeply for a while, Rodney enjoying John's warmth and his presence and his scent. It was nice to be still sometimes-it happened so rarely-but his mind could never stay quite as quiet as his body.
"You don't...you don't feel like you're settling, do you? Compromising? Succumbing to the will of the patriarchy?"
It was John's turn to boost himself up and peer down his nose at Rodney. "What does that even mean?"
Are you happy with me? he thought. "I don't know," he said.
John kissed a favorite spot behind Rodney's ear. "I never expected this," he said. "That doesn't mean I don't like it.
"What about you?" he asked a moment later. "If you could switch back tomorrow, would you?"
"Of course!" Rodney said, so sure; and then an instant later, not so sure, "I think so."
"It's amazing what you can get used to, isn't it?" John said. "What you can be happy with."
Rodney's eyes narrowed. "With or in spite of?"
"With." He touched Rodney's belly, protectively, possessively.
"I don't think I'll ever get used to you," Rodney said.
"I wouldn't want you to," said John. "You might get bored and go off in search of hot lesbian sex."
"On my schedule for tomorrow," Rodney said. "Along with saving the galaxy from the Wraith and taking cheesy photographs to send to your dad."
"Excellent. We can get Cadman to snap us sharing a milkshake, taking a walk on the beach holding hands, slow dancing to Cyndi Lauper..."
"You really haven't dated a woman since the '80s, have you?"
"Shut up," John said. Then he pressed a kiss to the back of Rodney's head. "I'll even take you on a moonlit picnic, if you want."
Rodney smiled and gave John's hand a squeeze. "I bet you say that to all the girls."
NOTES:
1. I'm so happy this is finished! Seriously, it was last Easter that I started it. In an entirely different country, no less!
2. Back in 1974, my mom was working at Universal, and she did publicity for Earthquake. This amuses me greatly.
3. You're Pretty Good Looking (For a Girl) - The White Stripes
YOU'RE PRETTY GOOD LOOKING (FOR A GIRL), PART II
"You and Cadman seem...chummy," said Sheppard, tightly.
"Yes, well, we've come to an understanding," Rodney said with an equal lack of warmth. He consulted the scanner in his hands (the fact that he was wearing clear polish seemed enormously, embarrassingly apparent to him, but he really needed to stop biting his nails and anyway, no one had said anything). "Right," he said. "This way."
"That's left."
Rodney glanced over his shoulder. Sheppard had his hand on his P-90, but otherwise he was sauntering down this intensely creepy and disgustingly smelly underground corridor as casually as if he were walking across the mess. "I know."
"You said 'right.'"
"I said-" Rodney stopped. "What is this, an I Love Lucy routine? Are you auditioning for the part of Ricky Ricardo? Just shut up and follow me!"
Sheppard did-for about two steps. Then a sarcastic, high-pitched "Yes, mother," slithered across the slimy corridor and into Rodney's ear. He lost it.
"What the hell is the matter with you?" he demanded, wheeling on him. Cadman's fists felt ridiculously tiny against Sheppard's chest, but damn, she was strong, and it wasn't difficult to shove Sheppard back against the wall. "Do you have some sort of problem with women? Because you flirt with anything in a skirt and you're always crowing about how hot some native floozie is, but to me you're completely cold-and we're talking deep-core ice sample cold, fucking Hoth cold. So if it is me, if I made you uncomfortable and ruined whatever's left of this supposed 'friendship' of ours, well then you should just come out and tell me instead of dragging it out like this is some stupid Lifetime movie we're starring in." Sheppard opened his mouth. "And!" Rodney said quickly, "If you make one goddamn crack about 'Television for Women,' I swear I will knee you in the balls."
Sheppard's Adam's apple bobbed. "You really have gone to the dark side, McKay."
"Oh, fuck you," Rodney said. He pushed away and started back down the corridor, not really caring if Sheppard followed; he was too distracting, anyway. "Some of us have actual work to do!" he called back, the echo making his voice sound funny. "You know, maybe it would be better if I switched to Cadman's team."
Suddenly Sheppard was right behind him, his breath hot on Rodney's neck. "Did she say something to you? Make you an offer?" Rodney could hear the That bitch, the all-too-obvious undercurrent to his tone.
"Oh, lay off Cadman, would you?" he snapped. "What did she ever do to you?"
"A favor!" hissed Sheppard. Then he was quiet again, his jaw slamming shut with an almost audible click.
Rodney stared at him. "What the hell does that mean?"
Sheppard looked away. "Nothing. Rodney..." He swallowed. "I'm sorry, okay?"
"Yeah, right." Rodney fixed him with an inquisitive, unashamed stare. "Tell me what's gnawing away at that pathetic little mind of yours. I am a genius," he added-a threat. "I will figure it out."
"McKay." Sheppard stepped back, a cease-and-desist gesture ruined by the squelching sound made by Sheppard's boots. "She just made things easier for me. To ignore...stuff."
"What?" said Rodney, feeling frustratingly less than brilliant. "How did Cadman..."
It came on him like a bright flash of light, a wave of dizziness. When he could see again, he had a whole new perspective; everything was clear.
"Oh my God, Cadman was right! You are gay! You're gay for me!"
Sheppard looked like he couldn't tell what about this pronouncement horrified him the most. He finally settled on, "You were talking to Cadman about my sexual orientation?"
"It's okay, she's gay now, too." Rodney waved the worry away. "Well, kind of. Anyway-you did want me! I mean-before, you wanted me. When I was a man. Because you like men. Oh." He touched a hand to the wall for support and immediately regretted it when his fingers came away stained. "Fuck."
Sheppard blinked slowly. Rodney was relieved to note he still had the P-90’s safety on. "That would sum it up, yes."
Rodney crossed his arms under his breasts. "Well, this is stupid. And typical. Both my opportunities for hot gay sex and hot heterosexual sex are ruined." He thought for a moment. "Could I interest you in a little speech about my recent discovery of the wonders of bisexuality?"
"McKay," said Sheppard, looking pained. He was saved from further discourse by the sound of both their radios crackling to life. "Sheppard, McKay," said Ronon's voice. "What's keeping you?"
"McKay took a wrong turn," Sheppard lied smoothly. Rodney glared at him.
"Women have no sense of direction," said Ronon, contemplatively. Then he grunted in pain.
Rodney tapped his earpiece. "Thank you, Teyla."
"My pleasure."
Over the next few days, Rodney began to initiate a plan he nicknamed 'Straighten-Up Sheppard.'
"You realize," said Radek, "if it were only a question of posture, still it would never work."
"Shut up. Why do I even tell you anything?"
"Because if you get cranky with me, I will never ask you, 'Is it that time of month?'"
"Ha ha," Rodney said. "And how's your romantic life lately? Still not having sex with Elizabeth?"
"I told you, it is five-year plan! Slow seduction. Courtly. Gentlemanly. Works every time."
"First time trying it, is it?"
"Zticha. Go cure Colonel of his sinful sodomite ways."
"Fine." Rodney hopped off his stool. "Oh, and by the way, I'm borrowing your collection of porn. Bye!"
Yes, Radek had definitely proved to be a good friend.
Sheppard stormed into Rodney's room waving a tattered Czech copy of Jugs. "Stop leaving porn in my locker!"
Rodney looked up from his laptop. "Don't you want to know how I figured out the combination?"
"No. Just quit it. Lorne thinks I'm a big pervert now."
"And are you? I mean, have you been having any...heterosexual urges?"
Sheppard rubbed his forehead with the base of his palm. "This is really messed up, McKay." He looked at Rodney, sitting there in one of Cadman's tank tops and her favorite old workout shorts. (They'd eventually just caved and traded wardrobes, with the exception of underwear-"I think we've done enough sharing, thanks"-and certain t-shirts Rodney claimed had "sentimental value.") "Just...really, really messed up."
"Excuse me," Rodney said. "If I can switch sexual orientations-not to mention bodies, thank you-then I think you can, too. Just put a little effort into it!"
Sheppard's eyes went dark. "Right, well. That's what my father said, too." He dropped the magazine to the floor. "Didn't take then, either."
Rodney's stomach dropped. "Sheppard-"
"You know, I really thought you'd have access to better porn than this," Sheppard said, giving the magazine a kick as he strolled toward the door. "These girls aren't even pretty."
"'These girls aren't even pretty'? Huh?"
"Don't look at me!" Rodney said. "Up until then, I hadn't thought the quality of the porn was the problem."
"Men," Cadman scoffed. Then she frowned. "You know, I really need to stop looking at everything in such sex-based terms."
"Gin," Rodney said. He grinned. It pleased him far more than it should to have found a card game he could consistently beat her at.
Cadman narrowed her eyes. "Are you counting cards?"
"Um. No?"
"Hmph. Don't make me tell Heightmeyer on you."
Rodney glanced at his watch. "Ah- We missed our session again."
Cadman turned her shrug into an impressively fancy shuffle. "Whatever. I'd rather just talk to you anyway."
There was a moment of awkward silence. Eventually, Cadman set the cards down in front of him. "So," she said pointedly. "You gonna deal?"
"Yeah," he said, slim fingers moving over the cards. "I'm dealing."
"Look, I'm sorry," Rodney said.
Sheppard didn't look up. "About what?"
"Don't be deliberately obtuse." Rodney stopped fiddling with the jumper crystals he was messing with-it was just busy work, killing time until Ronon and Teyla got back after getting delayed by a hill that had proved much easier to go down then get up. He turned to face Sheppard, who was cleaning his gun, inserting the slim metal rod into the barrel and pumping it up and down with an intense expression on his face-and really, Rodney should have known.
"I wasn't trying to, you know, ‘cure you’ or anything. I just thought...it would be fulfilling for both of us if you explored the full range of your options? And I'll admit, maybe bad Czech porn wasn't the most subtle or beguiling approach, but I couldn't exactly show up at your door in a skimpy negligee because for one I don't have one and neither does Cadman, and two, my feet get really cold and I think I'd look stupid if I wore a negligee with wool socks."
Sheppard didn't say anything for a moment. Then he said, "I really didn't need that mental image, McKay."
Rodney held up a placating hand. "Oh, I get it-girl parts are scary." He ruminated. "Although, actually, they're not; just somewhat more difficult to clean."
Sheppard put down his gun, which thankfully he had yet to reassemble. "Why are we still having this conversation?"
"Because I was hoping we could go back to what you said after M4I-759? You know, the planet where you stopped me from scoring with Ralan?"
Sheppard's frown deepened. "That was a joke!" Rodney said. "All I mean is, I'd like to try that again. Being friends. Friends with no sexual tension between them."
"Right," said Sheppard, flatly. "Because we used to excel at that."
"Exactly!" Rodney said, but only because the way Sheppard had his hands braced against the bench made his chest ache. He'd agree to almost anything to stop him from looking like that.
Sheppard opened his mouth as if he were going to say something else, then paused to tap his earpiece. "Teyla, how’re you guys doing?"
"We are fine." Teyla sounded out of breath. "We are making...progress."
There was a tightness in her voice that in anyone else would have manifested itself as full-blown annoyance and in Rodney as a nuclear-grade explosion of bile. Sheppard raised an eyebrow. "Want us to come get you?"
"Tree cover's too thick," supplied Ronon. He also sounded like he would be requiring the opportunity to hit something in the near future.
"Okay," Sheppard said, sounding unusually hesitant. "We'll just wait here then."
He moved his hand away from the radio, but it buzzed to life one more time. "And Sheppard," said Ronon, "next time you can 'just check out that little valley over there.'"
"Uh-huh, you're breaking up, see you soon," Sheppard said. He took the earpiece off and set it beside him on the bench. The gun sat beside it, half-cleaned, but Sheppard remained still, his hands folded in his lap.
"What were you going to say?" Rodney asked.
"Huh?"
Rodney twirled his finger: Stop bullshitting and get on with it. "Before."
"McKay..."
"What? We're friends. Friends tell each other things. Like, like earlier I told you about, um..."
"The difficulty you experienced cleaning your vagina?" Sheppard said dryly.
Rodney flushed. "Okay-ground rules of this new boy-girl platonic friendship thing? There will be no discussion of either party's vagina. Sheesh, you're worse than Cadman."
Rodney sat down on the bench opposite Sheppard and scratched at a scuff mark on the jumper's floor with the toe of his sneaker. "We used to talk about stuff," he said. "We used to... Why don't you tell me some of your favorite science fiction movies, and I'll tell you why you're stupid to like them?"
"Gee, that does sound fun," Sheppard said. But the drawl was back in his voice; he sounded almost normal again.
"I bet you like all those bad '70s Charlton Heston movies. You do, don't you? You like The Omega Man and Soylent Green. You started a rumor in your high school cafeteria that the mystery meat was people."
Sheppard's eyes did that thing where they crinkled a little around the edges, which had the odd effect of making his whole face look warm. "Who told you that?"
"Wait, you did? Seriously?" Rodney gaped. "I think I-" He bit down quickly on what he was going to say. "I can't believe you ever fool people into thinking you're cool."
"I fool people about a lot of things," said Sheppard, with a lightness Rodney no longer believed in. Good call: "Why me, Rodney?" Sheppard said, leaning forward suddenly. "There are plenty of people on Atlantis who would have done almost anything for a crack at Cadman's body, no matter who was inside. Why make it complicated? Why choose me?"
Rodney knew the answer; for once, this was not gratifying to him. "Who says I didn't? Maybe I'm just finally getting around to you."
Sheppard just looked at him. "Is that your skeptical face?" Rodney said snappishly.
"Yes."
He huffed. "Well, whatever, Scully. You were just convenient, all right?"
Rodney didn't even want to look at Sheppard long enough to glare at him; he stood up again and returned his attention to the panel of crystals, which wouldn't even do him the courtesy of malfunctioning so he could have something other than the man sitting across the far-too-narrow jumper compartment to concentrate on.
He could hear Sheppard making some shuffling noises; apparently he'd returned to performing suggestive actions with phallic-shaped objects. Was it so much to ask for the man to be bi-curious? Life was really unfair.
Rodney studied the crystals for a while and eventually concluded that exchanging two of them could either improve the efficiency of the drive pods or cause a small explosion. Both options seemed preferable to continuing to stand here awkwardly like this; Rodney was just adjusting his clamps when he heard Sheppard let out a frustrated little sigh. "So how would you grade this friendship so far? Maybe a 'D'?"
Rodney let go of the wires and turned around. "That's generous. I knew you'd be soft."
"You're all bark, McKay." Sheppard shook his head. "This was supposed to make things easier."
"Not having to spend so much time looking at my handsome, manly form? Yes, that's clearly solved all your problems. And hey! Since when is this all about your issues, as innumerable as they may be? I have issues, too! I mean, just look at them!"
"I think those are called breasts, Rodney."
"Thank you, yes; I'm shocked you never went into medicine." He looked down at the once-odd rise of his uniform jacket (science blue, naturally, donated by a surprisingly speechless Miko); they no longer bothered or astounded him like they initially had-nor did they arouse him, except in the pleasurable-painful way they did under his touch, squirming and biting his lip in the dark.
"They're rather nice ones, too," he commented, "and I say this as someone who was once a bit of a bosom connoisseur. I suppose I...I just got a little overexcited at the thought of introducing you to them. I-I just wanted this to be okay."
Sheppard's eyes narrowed-a small change of expression that Rodney had nevertheless learned to recognize. "You mean straight."
Rodney felt his hands start moving without having sent them any sort of conscious signal to move. "Oh, stop being so simplistic! This isn't about gay or straight-as Cadman wisely deduced, pretty much any sexual activity either of us engages in from now on is going to be in some way queer. No, I just meant...before, you were my friend." He hated the way his voice went small on that word. "We were guy friends. Buddies." He tried to still his fingers. "I hadn't had much experience with that. It was nice."
Sheppard didn't say anything, but Rodney had long since stopped expecting him to help him through these sorts of conversations. Mocking Charlton Heston, Sheppard could do. Deep emotional probing? Not so much.
"But, well. With Cadman's and my little accident, there was naturally going to be a paradigm shift. I thought, if we couldn't be guy friends..."
"We could be 'special friends'?" Sheppard did him the courtesy of not actually making air quotes, but his tone was harsh. Then almost immediately it was even again, almost gentle. "Men and women can be friends. I think I saw a whole movie about that once-and it didn't star Charlton Heston."
Rodney pinched the bridge of his nose. "Okay, one, I'm now picturing Charlton Heston faking an orgasm in a crowded diner, and that's an image that will haunt me until I die, and two, you clearly weren't paying very much attention since there were no vampire-zombie things to shoot, because they get together at the end of that movie. They don't stay just friends."
"Because if Nora Ephron said it, it must be true. Wow, you really have-" Sheppard cut himself off and ducked his head. "Okay, I'm just going to stop with the 'you're a girl' jokes,'cause it's really not funny anymore."
"Thank you!" said Rodney. "I'm so glad you caught up with the rest of the class! It only took you, what? Eight months?"
Sheppard got to his feet, slow and menacing. "And how many times do I have to say 'I'm gay' before your genius brain registers that I don't-" He stopped. He wasn't that close to Rodney, not really, but Rodney could feel every inch of space between them, like the empty air was charged. "I don't want to fuck you," he said. "I don't want..." He waved his hand; his lip curled, disgusted. "...Cadman."
Rodney sucked in a breath. "I'm not Cadman," he said quietly. "This isn't Cadman. This is..."
He reached out and took Sheppard's hand in his much smaller one; their eyes met for a moment, full-on, and Rodney realized that he couldn't remember another time when Sheppard had met his gaze completely, without making a face or narrowing his eyes or looking away. For a long moment, for the space of a held breath, Sheppard stared at him, into him, like he was searching for the last remaining spark of light at the center of a black hole; Rodney didn't break the gaze as with a sigh he stepped forward into the palm Sheppard instinctively uncurled, cupping it gently around Rodney's breast. "This is me."
He felt them both shudder-a gorgeous, painful quiver-and then suddenly Sheppard was jumping back like a man burned. Rodney felt a stab of fear and anger and rejection, but he saw that Sheppard's head had turned swiftly to the jumper's entrance, and a second later Rodney heard why: a shuffling in the undergrowth, Ronon and Teyla returning.
"W-what took you so long?" he said with barely a quaver. "Sheppard and I were reduced to discussing the film oeuvre of Charlton Heston. Do you have any idea how torturous that can be?"
"No doubt much worse than climbing up a cliff in the hot sun," said Teyla, tartly.
"I don't know, have you seen Earthquake?"
The look Sheppard shot him was grateful.
They debriefed and went their separate ways, with Rodney unable to tell whether or not Sheppard's claim of needing to meet with Lorne was just a ploy to avoid talking about his feelings or-Rodney's preference-skipping to the sex and seeing how it went from there. He tried to track down Cadman because he figured she'd have some good advice, at least on what to wear for a possible seduction, but she wasn't in her room or the mess or the gym or the shooting range, and she wasn't answering her radio. There was a small chance that she could be in the infirmary mooning over Carson (despite what she claimed, Cadman mooned with the best of them) but going to check would involve having to engage the good doctor in conversation, and Carson still had a tendency to slip and call Rodney 'lass.' (Although Rodney was beginning to suspect that he was doing it on purpose.)
Well, fine. His libido had had a long enough run; it was time for his intellect to get its well-deserved turn. He went down to the labs and immersed himself in work. Some time later he felt a hand on his shoulder, and there was Sheppard looking hot and inscrutable and annoying as always. Rodney's mouth formed a reflexive smile.
Sheppard didn't mirror it. "I thought, maybe, you'd come by later."
Rodney's breath caught, thinking, Oh, please let him mean what I think he means. "I thought you were meeting with Lorne," he managed to say, relatively coolly.
"I couldn't find him. Besides, that was hours ago."
Rodney brushed his hair out of his face and glanced at the clock. "Oh. Well. I've been working."
Sheppard jerked his head toward the door. "Do you wanna, maybe, take a break?"
That's very suave, Colonel. Rodney bit his lip to keep himself from saying it.
"I could use a break," he admitted, stretching. He rubbed at his eyes. "I think I'm giving myself eyestrain; Cad-I might end up requiring glasses in my old age."
Sheppard was quiet for a long moment. Rodney could feel the weight of the silence between them as they stepped into the transporter. When the doors opened again it was like the sound had been switched back on.
"It may not be permanent." Sheppard's voice was low, like he was afraid of jinxing himself. "You might still figure out a way to switch yourself back."
Rodney threw up his arms. "And we might all die tomorrow in a bizarre botany accident! Besides," he swiped open the door to his rooms, "I've always said, 'Why put off until tomorrow sex you could have today?'"
"Poetic," said Sheppard, immediately finding a wall against which to lounge. "Is this all about sex to you?"
"Aren't I supposed to be asking you that? After all, you're the man."
Rodney meant it to be light, but Sheppard didn't smile. He missed Sheppard's smiles, even his stupid, meaningless ones. If only, he thought, if only he could figure out the right thing to say like he could produce from nothing, in the face of insurmountable odds, the incredible ideas necessary to save them. What kind of genius did it take to save this?
He closed his eyes. "It wouldn't mean..." He opened them again; he had to look, had to see Sheppard's face. "Wanting me, like this-it wouldn't mean giving into your father, or society, or...or The Man. It would just mean..." He shrugged, helplessly, giving up. "It would mean whatever you want it to mean." A breath. "It would mean a lot to me."
"To be wanted?" said Sheppard.
To be wanted by you, stupid! Rodney hesitated for a moment, then thought, Fuck it. "To be wanted by you," he said; finishing with, unable to help himself, "Don't be stupid."
"Why change what I'm good at?" Sheppard said, but he was smiling a little now. "God, I feel like such a teenager."
"Horny?" said Rodney, hopefully.
"Awkward." A beat, then Sheppard grinned. "But also horny."
"Ha, I knew it!" Rodney sat back on the bed and kicked off his shoes. "Being bi-curious is ‘in.’"
"Of course," said Sheppard, "I'm having sex with you to be stylish." He stopped. "Can I-can I look at you?"
"Um. You mean you want me to-" Rodney pulled his shirt a few inches up his stomach and then let it drop.
"Yeah."
"All right." Rodney was about to make a joke about previewing before you buy, but then he saw that there were beads of sweat standing out on Sheppard's forehead. Silently, he drew his shirt up over his head and dropped it on the floor. He kept his eyes on Sheppard as he ran his hands up his sides, over the smooth muscle broken only by the points of his ribs, around back and to the little dip between his shoulder blades where his bra clasps joined. He unhooked them with practiced ease (there were anxious backseat fumblings he remembered, and more recent exhausted nights, feeling the relief of no more straps cutting into his back before tumbling into bed); Sheppard watched him. Sheppard watched as he slowly pulled each strap over his shoulder, first the right and then the left. Without anything remaining to hold it up, the bra slipped easily off his breasts with as little motion as it took to breathe. He tossed it aside; a scrap of fabric on the floor, virginal and white.
He breathed deeply, felt his breasts rise and fall. It wasn't particularly cold in the room, but his nipples had hardened to small sharp peaks. Was Sheppard looking at them, or was he staring at Rodney's face, or even over his shoulder? He wouldn't quite meet Rodney's eyes; Rodney couldn't quite be sure.
He reached for the button on his pants.
"Stop," Sheppard said. Rodney's heart lurched. "No, I mean...I want to touch you. Can I touch you?"
"Yes!" Rodney scooted back on the bed, shaking with equal parts relief and anticipation. "God, yes already. Please."
There was a pause while Sheppard fumbled with his boots. "Bye bye, wool socks," he said, and Rodney laughed as he felt the mattress shift under Sheppard's weight. Rodney was propped up on his elbows, so he got to watch as Sheppard crawled up his body, and as Sheppard's eyes scraped up his body, roving over the curves of him, the soft places and the hard. He braced himself with one hand on either side of Rodney's torso and looked down. "Hi," Rodney said.
"Hi," said Sheppard. "Is this you?"
Rodney swallowed the lump in his throat. "This is me."
Sheppard shifted his weight onto his knees. He raised his freed hand to Rodney's cheek. "This is your face?"
Rodney nodded. "Yes."
Sheppard's hand moved down, sweeping Rodney's hair aside, cradling the back of his neck. "And this is your throat, Rodney?" he said, lips hovering above the frantic pulse of Rodney's jugular.
"Yes."
Sheppard scooted down, dropping his head to Rodney's midsection. Rodney couldn't stand the temptation anymore: he touched a hand to the back of Sheppard's head, curled his fingers into his hair. He felt the catch of the soft strands and the warmth of Sheppard's scalp, hot like Sheppard's breath on Rodney's belly.
"This is your stomach?"
"Yes." The skin was sensitive, the feel of Sheppard's breath and the barely-there scrape of his stubble making Rodney's breath catch, his body move under Sheppard's hands. He fell back flat against the bed and Sheppard grabbed at his free fingers. He spread them apart, tracing over each one with his own hand, with the air from his mouth. "These are your fingers?"
"Yes," Rodney breathed, "they're mine, this is me."
"These are your breasts?"
Rodney could hear the doubt, hear the skepticism in Sheppard's voice. Reluctantly, he released his hold on Sheppard's head and touched himself, cupping and shaping a soft mound of flesh with each hand, taking pleasure in them as part of himself.
"Yes."
Sheppard's breathing had become irregular. There was a slight tremble to his voice when he spoke. "And is...is this your mouth, Rodney?"
Rodney let his 'yes' be buried in the meeting of their lips, gasping in relief as he found Sheppard's mouth and married it to his. At first he felt at a disadvantage, less in control without such wide, strong lips, but Sheppard was demanding and then gentle, moving like the tide, and when Rodney pushed on his shoulder his body moved, tumbling onto his side and then his back, kissing up into Rodney's mouth as Rodney's hair fell in honeyed waves around them.
Rodney moved so he was straddling Sheppard's hips. He felt so unbelievably sexy, bare-chested and covering Sheppard's clothed body. He laid his hands on Sheppard's chest and sat back, breaking into a wide smile when he felt the press of Sheppard's erection against his ass. "You want me!" he said, delightedly.
"Rodney-" Sheppard panted.
"It's me." He shook his hair over his back. "Take off your shirt."
He leaned forward to help Sheppard get the cloth over his head. He felt his breasts swing forward, and when the fabric had cleared his eyes, Sheppard was staring at them. He still looked hesitant. "Touch me," Rodney said, and Sheppard did: a gentle, exploratory touch that Rodney knew, first from the irritated instructions of a college girlfriend and now from personal experience, was better than a forceful grab. He sighed happily when Sheppard's thumb scraped against his nipple, and rewarded him by grinding back against his cock. Sheppard groaned, but more incredible and gratifying was the look of stunned pleasure on his face. "Have you ever?" Rodney asked. "With a woman?"
Sheppard's manly pride managed to look somewhat wounded. "In high school and college, yeah, when I still wasn't sure." He paused. "Even after I was sure, just to-to try-" He shook his head. "And at least once when I was really bored."
"You're not bored now, are you?" Rodney asked, grinding back against Sheppard's cock again.
"Umm...no," Sheppard said, and then he smiled, full and real and genuine. Rodney's heart soared.
"I want you to..." He rolled off Sheppard and lay back against the pillows. 'Make love to me' sounded ridiculous. 'Fuck' was equally wrong. "You know, do me."
"'You know, do me'?" Sheppard was laughing; he sounded like a dirty old man with a nicotine habit, and it was still a glorious sound. "Romantic, McKay."
"Hey, I am Mister Romance. Missus Romance?" He shrugged. "Sexually-Confused Romance, anyway."
"Well, that makes two of us," said Sheppard. He leaned down and placed a kiss above Rodney's bellybutton; the memory of the earlier, almost-kisses made the brief contact even hotter. "I'd be honored to 'do you,' Rodney McKay. Or do I have a legitimate excuse to call you Meredith now?"
"I don't care what you call me, as long as you take off my pants," Rodney said. Sheppard grinned and complied.
From the look on his face, some part of Sheppard's brain must still have been convinced that Rodney would be wearing loose boxers with pictures of smiley-faced atoms on them under his BDUs; he caught sight of Rodney's plain blue cotton panties and made a strange choked sound. He pulled the elastic down, revealing the soft curls of Rodney's pubic hair. Then suddenly Sheppard was shoving Rodney's legs apart, pushing his nose into the rapidly dampening fabric. "You make pussy so hot, Rodney," Sheppard said.
Rodney thought this was pretty much the best compliment ever.
"There are condoms in the drawer," he said. His voice sounded faint. "Come on," he said, pushing his panties off the rest of the way. "I want, I want-"
Sheppard found a condom and shucked his pants. "C'mere," said Rodney, grabbing the waistband of his boxers and tugging. "I wanna do it." He pulled the boxers down and grinned as Sheppard's hot dick found its way into his hand. "Nice," Rodney said, stroking experimentally. "Though mine was bigger."
"Now Rodney," Sheppard said, "let's not be nostalgic for what we can't have."
Rodney stopped. He looked up at Sheppard's face. "Are you?" he asked.
"No," Sheppard said firmly. He tucked Rodney's hair behind his ear and kissed him-gentle, reassuring, hungry. "I want this now. I want you."
Rodney took a deep breath. "Well, you're a lucky man, 'cause you have me." His hands barely shook as he tore open the package and unrolled the condom over Sheppard.
Sheppard looked down at himself. "I feel like such a breeder."
"Uh, you're wearing a condom, you're not going to be breeding anything." Rodney tried to quell the rising tide of panic he felt at just the thought. "Also, I'm on enough birth control to make the entire population of several small islands sterile. Let's never talk of this again!"
"Sorry. Wasn't thinking." Sheppard positioned himself. "Do you really want to do it like this? Missionary?"
"How else am I supposed to close my eyes and think of Atlantis? Yes, let's just do it already, and yes, like this, I want to see you." He ran out of breath. "John."
"Rodney," John said, with so much tenderness Rodney almost couldn't stand it. He spread his legs wider, gasping a biting his lip when John pushed his cockhead against his opening. He wound his fingers through the sheets. The move inside was surprisingly smooth; inexorable, Rodney thought. Also, Cadman hadn't exactly been a virgin.
For Rodney, though, everything felt new and yet familiar. This feeling of fullness was new, this slower-building, shockingly intense pleasure that made him moan and press his heels into John's back, trying to bring them closer. John at first was biting his lip in concentration, but then he let it go, started moving with Rodney's body, sliding slickly in and out. "You're so wet," he said. "God, Rodney, you're so wet for me. I didn't-"
"Aaahngh," said Rodney, articulately. "John, yes. Finally, finally, yes-"
"I wanna make you come," John said. He shifted a little, sliding up to take Rodney's mouth. His right hand fumbled above the spot where their bodies were joined. "There's this 'clitoris' I've heard rumors about..."
"Oh, God, don't make me laugh-" Rodney said, laughing; and it was his laughter that metamorphosed when John found the right spot, and he came laughing and crying and muttering John's name like a perfect new formula he was trying to remember.
John's hips jerked, then stilled, and Rodney got to hold his shaking back as John spilled inside him, muttering a few formulas or prayers of his own.
"So," Rodney said, after a minute. "Were you bored?"
John laughed; kissed Rodney's throat, his collarbone, his breast.
Rodney raised a hand, touched it lightly to John's hair, feeling his heat through his scalp. "And are you still...sure?"
He worried right away that it was too soon for such a question. But John just shook his head, a little sadly, and looked at Rodney with a shocking honesty in his eyes.
"I've never been more unsure in my life," John said, touching three fingers to Rodney's cheek. "But that's okay."
"I know that smirk!" Cadman said. "I recognize that smirk!"
"Who, me?" said Rodney, innocently, hoping Cadman's features were more adept at poker faces than his had been.
Cadman grinned. "What's the proper guy response here? Do I give you a high five? Say," she lowered her voice to a deep bass Rodney had saved for Darth Vader impersonations, "'Good man!'"
Rodney shook his head. "That is disturbing. No."
Cadman shrugged. "Well, the only other response that I know is to buy you lunch and demand that you spill."
"Actually," Rodney said, "that works for me."
They brought their food up to Cadman's room. Rodney sat comfortably at one end of the little table. It was hard to believe sometimes that the first time he had been in here, he'd been naked and furious with Cadman jabbering away in his head. At the time, he would hardly have thought of his current situation as an improvement, but... Well. He could live with it.
"You seem awfully happy," he said, watching Cadman eagerly work her way through a generous portion of meatloaf. "I know my good news is cause for rejoicing, but I hardly think that you'd be so altruistically-minded that it would have you...glowing? Oh my God, you got laid too!"
"Maaaaaybe," Cadman said, slurping her drink. "You're right," she said a second later, "I totally did!"
"Who?" he demanded. He kicked her shin. "Tell me now. Who?"
She set her fork down. "I don't know if I should..."
"Oh, come on! I've told you everything, so you have to share, too! It's only fair!"
"Well..." She dabbed daintily at her mouth with a napkin-making him suffer, the witch. "You have to promise not to tell."
"Oh, please-who would I tell?"
"Sheppard!" Her eyes narrowed. "Maybe even Zelenka."
"Fine, who would I tell besides Sheppard and Zelenka-who are both very discreet, by the way."
She rolled her eyes. "Fine." She tried to keep the put-out expression on her face, but at the last second a grin slipped back in. "It was Evan."
"Who the heck is Evan?" demanded Rodney, nearly upsetting his Jell-O. "Wait. Is that that control room guy?"
Cadman shook her head. "Major Lorne," she said, flushing. "God, you are hopeless."
"Lorne? You- With Major Lorne, with my body, you- I think you've damaged my brain."
Cadman raised an eyebrow. "With the icky gay sex? Which is astoundingly hot, by the way."
"No," Rodney said. "I'm just-" He tried to picture having sex with Major Lorne, his own body, and was alarmed when the first mental image his brain provided was a large hand caressing his breast and someone moving in him-John; of course he was all caught up in John; it didn't mean that he'd stopped thinking of himself as himself and started thinking of himself as...her.
Cadman was still watching him, and when he looked up at her, he no longer felt the dizzying sensation that he was looking in a mirror. "Huh," he said.
"Confused?" asked Cadman.
"Less so," Rodney said. "Less and less, all the time."
"I thought of a great plan to mess with my father," John said.
"Mmm, what's that?" Rodney didn't look away from where he was playing with their hands, holding them palm to palm, twining their fingers together into different patterns.
"I could send him a note to apologize for being out of touch for so long and for my generally abhorrent behavior, and include in the package some lovely photos of me and my new girlfriend. Then in the letter I could subtly imply that you used to be man."
Rodney propped himself up onto his elbow and craned his neck to look at John. "You want to make your father think that I'm a transsexual?"
John’s face broke into a devious grin. "Yeah."
"Ingenious!" said Rodney. "I like the way your mind works. You know, on the rare occasions that it does."
"Hmm." John chuckled and wrapped his arm around Rodney's waist, tugging him closer.
They breathed deeply for a while, Rodney enjoying John's warmth and his presence and his scent. It was nice to be still sometimes-it happened so rarely-but his mind could never stay quite as quiet as his body.
"You don't...you don't feel like you're settling, do you? Compromising? Succumbing to the will of the patriarchy?"
It was John's turn to boost himself up and peer down his nose at Rodney. "What does that even mean?"
Are you happy with me? he thought. "I don't know," he said.
John kissed a favorite spot behind Rodney's ear. "I never expected this," he said. "That doesn't mean I don't like it.
"What about you?" he asked a moment later. "If you could switch back tomorrow, would you?"
"Of course!" Rodney said, so sure; and then an instant later, not so sure, "I think so."
"It's amazing what you can get used to, isn't it?" John said. "What you can be happy with."
Rodney's eyes narrowed. "With or in spite of?"
"With." He touched Rodney's belly, protectively, possessively.
"I don't think I'll ever get used to you," Rodney said.
"I wouldn't want you to," said John. "You might get bored and go off in search of hot lesbian sex."
"On my schedule for tomorrow," Rodney said. "Along with saving the galaxy from the Wraith and taking cheesy photographs to send to your dad."
"Excellent. We can get Cadman to snap us sharing a milkshake, taking a walk on the beach holding hands, slow dancing to Cyndi Lauper..."
"You really haven't dated a woman since the '80s, have you?"
"Shut up," John said. Then he pressed a kiss to the back of Rodney's head. "I'll even take you on a moonlit picnic, if you want."
Rodney smiled and gave John's hand a squeeze. "I bet you say that to all the girls."
NOTES:
1. I'm so happy this is finished! Seriously, it was last Easter that I started it. In an entirely different country, no less!
2. Back in 1974, my mom was working at Universal, and she did publicity for Earthquake. This amuses me greatly.
3. You're Pretty Good Looking (For a Girl) - The White Stripes