First Contact Challenge: Later On by Springwoof--Repost
First Contact challenge: Later On by Springwoof--Repost
Title: Later On
Author: Springwoof
Warnings: slash, NC-17, McKay/Sheppard
Word count: 6248 (very sorry, got carried away. I really like aliens.)
Spoilers: anything up to late season one, before Letters From Pegasus. AUish…(you’ll see)
Notes: Not betaed. If you’d like to volunteer to beta future endeavors (if any), please let me know. First story posted to this community (waves!). First story on livejournal. First slash story. First fanfiction. First fiction I ever tried to write…. (nervous)
UPDATED NOTES: Deepest thanks to astolat for her kind assistance with posting this correctly.
Summary: "Are you and I having a three-way with an alien?"
Later On by Springwoof
Later on, Rodney McKay could never pin down in his own mind precisely when it had happened. One minute he had entered the dim confines of the new lab they'd discovered last week in the expedition's gradual exploration of Atlantis. He'd come in answer to Major Sheppard's summons, expecting that the Major had uncovered a problem that demanded his expertise, or had unearthed a new piece of Ancient technology for him to analyze.
The next thing he knew, he was pinned against the wall, being kissed by John Sheppard. He wasn't quite sure how that happened, exactly. There hadn't seemed to be any transition, any preparatory maneuvering, any discussion. He felt sure that there'd been at least some of those things before, when he'd been in similar situations. Except, he had never been in precisely this kind of situation before. Speaking of which….
"Um, Major," he panted, disengaging his mouth and pushing back with hands that had somehow gotten wrapped around Sheppard's shoulders.
"Mmm?" not discouraged in the slightest, Sheppard continued to kiss his way down McKay's neck, fingers of one hand playing distractingly in Rodney's hair.
"L-Listen. Could you…Major!"
Sheppard looked at him out of half-lidded, dreamy eyes, "Why are you calling me 'Major'? Could you maybe call me 'John' at a time like this?"
"A time like this is exactly what I wanted to talk about!" Rodney's voice ended up embarrassingly wavery and high-pitched as the Major had gone on to sniffing--sniffing!--his neck and ear. "D-Do you really like this? Want this? Are you under some kind of alien influence? Did you accidentally activate some Ancient technology?"
"Hmm?" John … Sheppard … the Major cocked an inquisitive eyebrow at him.
"Ah! I knew it!" and, really, Rodney needed to sound a bit more triumphant about that… "You touched some Ancient doohickey, and-"
John's--the Major's--warm chuckle stopped Rodney's diatribe before it really got going. "Is 'doohickey' one of those cutesy physics terms, like a 'charmed' quark?" Sheppard smirked.
"Well, without seeing said doohickey, what would you suggest I call it?" Rodney took comfort in the familiar sense of irritation with the Major's smug superciliousness, and in the fact that the weirdly unsettling kissing behavior seemed to be over. Although he probably should be taking more comfort in that. Not that it was unsettling, but that it had stopped, which, wait….it seemed it hadn't. Stopped. It had, in fact, escalated. The kissing had been sweet and distracting before, but now it was downright sexy and enthralling. And the touching. The earlier caresses had been relatively innocent, but these were rather…provocative…and there was--ohgod!--groping. Definitely groping.
He knew that the correct behavior in these circumstances would be to shove John--the Major away, inform him coldly that he'd made a mistake, maybe punch him in the nose or something. Or at least stiffen up, be less responsive than the melting puddle of sensation he currently seemed to be reduced to.
Oh parts of him had stiffened up all right, but not any parts designed to discourage the Major--John--from his current activities. In fact …. Ohyesohgod …. John had just discovered for himself Rodney's … Oh, come on, you know Mr. I've Got To Name Everything in Atlantis will want to call it a "rod." And he'll have that irritating smirk on his face every time he says it. And I really wish my Inner SarcastoMeter would just shut up sometimes and … OHSWEETHOLYGALILEO …Mouth!Mouth!Mouth!.... and that whining sound he was hearing, plus the light of unholy glee in John's eyes as he looked up at Rodney and did that clever thing with his tongue again to the part of Rodney currently in his beautiful, beautiful, wonderful mouth…told Rodney that he'd said at least some of that out loud--and he'd be embarrassed later, but right now … ohlovelyohgodohyes … he wound the fingers of one hand in John's dark hair, and shoved the other fist in his own mouth to keep from shouting as he came.
~~~
A few unfocussed moments later, he found that, apparently, he'd slid down the wall to sit his naked butt on the floor, bare knees propped in front of him, pants and underwear hobbling his ankles. John was curled against his side, holding his hand and nuzzling languorously against the side of his neck. It felt quite nice. His dick, rod--whatever its name was at the moment--was considering taking an interest in how good it felt, actually…. Which was absurd. What was happening, here? Why was it happening?
He turned to address a few pointed questions to the perpetrator of these bewildering events, but was again stopped in his tracks by John's chuckle, and the sweetest, sappiest smile he'd ever seen on the man's face.
"I love it when you get that gobsmacked expression on your face. I love that I can put it there. I guess I just love you, Rod," John grinned, the sincerity as evident as the teasing.
"B-But, John, what … why?" Rodney sputtered, hopelessly befuddled. John was still holding his hand, he noticed, still looking at him with that expression that was both teasing and adoring at once.
Rodney felt dizzy with confusion and speculation. He tilted his head and peered at John more closely. The man was dressed in (rather disheveled at the moment…had Rodney done that?) civilian clothing and wore his hair in his trademark messy style (Rodney firmly suppressed the thought that it had always looked as if John had just given somebody a blowjob.), and otherwise looked fairly normal. He smelled--they both smelled--strongly of sex, though. That was a scent he had never smelled on John Sheppard before. This was not the John Sheppard he knew.
Had Rodney walked into some alternate universe somehow? Maybe there had been some Ancient doohickey he had touched, or stepped through…
John lowered his face, looking up at Rodney underneath his lashes, expression a bit rueful. "I know, I know, we agreed, never at work. But this section of Atlantis is pretty isolated, nobody comes here much. And I was just dying of waiting, here!" And even though John scrunched up his nose in that cute way he had, the whining was still not terribly attractive.
"We haven't seen each other in weeks, and the first thing you have to do when you get back is take care of yet another emergency in the labs. Let me tell you, Babe, those geeks managed to handle plenty of emergencies just fine without you while you were gone. But now that you're back, they're suddenly helpless without you. Ya gotta stop letting them walk all over you like that, Rodney!" Nope. The whining still wasn't attractive, even though the hand not currently holding Rodney's own was tracing his collarbone, which felt soothing, pleasant, and a little shivery-making at the same time...
But, "Babe"?? People didn't tend to call Rodney by pet names--well, except for Mrs. Waltham in Cambridge, who'd routinely called him "Roddy-m'dear," but Rodney didn't think she counted, because she'd been over thirty years older than he was at the time, and in no way a lover. And speaking of which….
"John," he said seriously, reaching out and cupping John's jaw with the hand that was not currently imprisoned in John's clasp. He made steady, solemn eye contact. "John, I think we have a problem."
"Prob-?" began John, eyebrows climbing, before being interrupted by Rodney's startled shriek--no, it was a shout, a startled, but masculine, shout that in no way contained the horrified realization that he was sitting there bare-assed with that thing looking at him over John's shoulder.
It was human-sized but in no way human-looking; for one thing, the number of eyes and limbs were more numerous, and Rodney had never met a human or humanoid with tentacle-like appendages before. There was a suggestion of spider, and cat, and oddly, elephant (perhaps the trunk part) in its appearance and movements, and it was Wraith-pale, though it didn't resemble a Wraith either…
The thing made a musical-sounding burble, and John, who had reared back at Rodney's shout, looked over his shoulder at it. "Oh, hi, Annelien!" he smiled.
Another musical bubbling sound, as the thing--Annelien, apparently--finished crawling/flowing down the wall behind John and onto the floor beside him.
"Oh, yes, thank you, Annie, that would be very nice!" John finally let go of (a stunned, paralyzed, immobile) Rodney's hand and reached toward the beast. Who passed him a damp towelette.
~~~
While engaged in cleanup and re-clothing, a small part of Rodney's mind not engaged in whirling in concentric circles with ideas and conjectures, or gibbering with gradually-lessening terror about a catspider monster, was mortified that he hadn't even thought to offer to, well, reciprocate ….the, um, orgasm…. Apparently, John had taken care of that little problem on his own, though, somewhere along the line. Rodney watched bemusedly as John tucked himself away and straightened his clothes.
"What?" John said, looking up under the weight of Rodney's gaze. "Oh, ok, here, let me," he snatched the used wipes from Rodney and handed them off to Annelien, who tucked them away into another portion of the carryall, clothing, or anatomy (Rodney couldn't be sure which, at this stage) from whence they'd originated. "What's the matter, Babe? You seem really jumpy. You're acting a little weird and it's freaking me out here. What's the prob--"
"John," Rodney paused and scrubbed at his face with both hands. "John, I don't think I'm your Rodney."
"What do you mean, my Rodney?" Boy, he really was cute with that scrunched up expression. "Don't tell me you've met somebody else, I won't believe it! We haven't been married that long, dammit! A few weeks apart because of work does not damage the average relationship!" The incipient panic was not cute at all.
"John, no, wait, that's not what I meant!" Rodney's hands landed on John's shoulders, holding him in place. "I meant…married?... I meant that I really do think one of us had a run-in with an alien device, and that I'm not the Rodney McKay you know. In my reality, or whatever is going on here, we're not married. John. We're not involved romantically at all. I mean, we know each other, yes, sure. We're co-workers, friends, good friends, in fact," Rodney scratched the back of his head. "But we're, ah, straight. At least I am, and I assumed the Major Sheppard of my reality is as well."
Sheppard--no, John, he couldn't think of this man as "the Major"--stared at Rodney, eyes almost comically wide. He scrabbled frantically at his communicator. "McKay, come in, this is Sheppard. Rodney, answer me right now!" he tried a few more times, then determinedly switched channels and tried again. "Colonel Sumner, this is Major Sheppard, come in please, sir. Colonel, please answer." Grimly, he began again. "Rodney, it's John. Please answer, Sweetheart, please!"
At this point, Rodney thought to bring the earpiece of his own communicator to his ear. He clearly heard Sheppard calling to his spouse. He waved at John to get his attention, then indicated his own communicator.
"Dammit!" Sheppard savagely shut off his own system and pointed at McKay. "You try."
Rodney tried for a good 15 minutes, calling Ford, Teyla, his own Sheppard, Weir, Zelenka, Beckett, even Sergeants Bates and Stackhouse, anyone at all he could think of. He got nothing better than faint static.
He looked up at John. "Maybe the room is shielding transmissions somehow. If we stepped out into the hall--"
"No! That might be dangerous if--no, no, no! This can't be happening! This isn't happening!" John gripped his own hair in both hands and
then backed away from Rodney, shaking his head slowly from side to side.
Rodney took a step forward, only to be stopped by the expression on John's face. He stretched out a beseeching hand. "John, we can figure something out! We'll get back in touch with one of our teams, and then we'll get out of here and find Rodney--your Rodney. I'm sure your Rodney is somewhere. It's very likely we can get him back, once we know the mechanism of how we switched places, or whatever we did. Or, wait! Maybe he's still here somewhere and I'm just an additional Rodney…."
None of this babble was encouraging, apparently. John sank down onto his haunches and covered his face with his hands, still shaking his head. Annelien crawled/flowed partly onto his lap, crooning at him and wrapping several appendages around him.
~~~
Rodney settled on the floor as well, close, but not touching. Something told him that John couldn't bear to touch him right now. John had gradually buried his face into the fur? tendrils? of the alien catspider thing, his arms wrapping around to clutch it to him more closely, the creature crooning softly and rocking him in several of its limbs.
Rodney found his gaze focusing on John's hands, specifically the left hand, which bore a plain gold wedding ring. Married…. Something twisted in his belly, and he felt an eternal moment's jealousy and deep hatred for that other Rodney McKay, who had something, someone, that he hadn't realized he wanted, no needed, until right this moment….
John finally lifted his head, face turned away towards the far side of the room so that Rodney couldn't see anything but the shadowed outline of his profile. "I am such an idiot!" he said, voice thick and unexpectedly full of savage venom. "I am such a damned screw-up!"
"John? What--" Sheppard's hand held up in a "stop" motion towards him halted the flow of Rodney's words before they could get started. Good, because he had no idea what he'd been about to say.
"What do you know about this place, this room?" John continued, voice still thick, but leached of emotion now.
"This room?" Rodney peered around the dimly-lit interior. "Not much, we just found it last week. We think it was another Ancient laboratory, but we haven't had much of a chance to explore it yet, what with one crisis or another. There were some unusual energy readings in this section of the city, and Zelenka wanted a chance to analyze them before we did more than a cursory sweep. When you called me to come down here, I thought you'd found something that I needed to look at."
"Ah. So I got you into this too," sighed John. "And Annie…. Dammit, Sumner's right, he's always ragging on me for being a cowboy, for leaping before I look, for jumping in where angels fear to tread. But he's right.…"
"John, slow down! What are you talking about? I know I'm extraordinarily intelligent, but I need a little more data to go on…" Rodney stopped again as John finally turned to look at him, face bleak of all expression except for the self-loathing in his red-rimmed eyes. He disengaged from Annelien and stood, Rodney scrambling to stand as well.
"On the contrary, Dr. McKay, you've formulated what I suspect is an entirely correct hypothesis already, on the basis of the data you've been accumulating all along. It was some 'Ancient doohickey.' It was probably this room. You're in--we're all in--some kind of alternate reality."
"Well?" Rodney prompted, when John didn't seem to feel this statement needed further elaboration. He made a spinning gesture with his hand. "More! Why do you think we're all in some kind of alternate reality? Details, man! I can't get us out of this predicament without more information. Is there a particular device that was activated? What?"
John flashed the ghost of a grin before resuming that shadowed expression. He sighed deeply. "There is a reason people don't generally visit this section of the city. People have gone missing here. Just a couple, and it hasn't happened for a long time. We couldn't be sure why, or how. And there's a reason Rodney and I have a 'no nookie at work' rule. Besides being unprofessional," John grimaced. "It tends to shut our brains off. Especially mine."
He scrubbed his hands through his hair. "Those energy readings you were mentioning? Our people found them too. We think-- Listen, you know that the Ancients built the Gate system, right?" At Rodney's nod, he continued. "And you know they were fiddling around with time travel, right?"
"Yes, yes, you don't have to go over old--"
"But I do! That's the point of alternate universes. I don't know what things we've discovered that you haven't, and vice versa. You were acting weird earlier, like you'd never seen Annie before," John reached behind him, where the catspider--Annelien--was lurking, and it wrapped a tentacle around his hand and wrist.
"Um, you're right. I haven't. What is it?" Rodney eyed it nervously.
"She's a Dharmadhikary --at least, that's what Dr. Weir named them. They have their own name for themselves, but it's difficult for us to pronounce, we don't have the right vocal equipment," John's fingers were stroking the tentacle that wound around his wrist. The creature, Annelien, peered at Rodney from around John's hip, multiple eyes glittering.
"At home, Rodney, my Rodney, loved Annie. He used to lie on the sofa using Annie as a pillow and a laptop stand, with the kits crawling over them both. He used to sing the kits to sleep at night if Annie was working late in the Bio lab." John brought the tip of one tentacle to his lips and kissed it gently.
"Wait, she lives with you? Are you and I--McKay--having a three-way with an alien?" Rodney's mind boggled at the idea…
John snorted, "As if. Not that she cares if she walks in on us while we're busy," he glared down at the creature, obviously revisiting an old bone of contention. "But Annie has her own mates to keep her busy. Annelien, her mates, and their children--they lived with us--with Rodney and me--in our apartment; sort of like having pets and sort of like having your cousins staying with you. They were part of our family."
"Oh, God, Annie!" John turned to her suddenly, anguished. "How much are you understanding of this? Do you realize we may never see Adalbert, or Amanda, or the babies again?"
The musical vocalization which greeted this pronouncement sounded sad, a discordant warble in a minor key.
"Well, I'm glad you understand, but you don't have to be so damned forgiving. It's my fault, don't you get it? I deserve anything you want to do to me!" He whipped around to include Rodney. "You, too, Dr. McKay. It's my fault you may never see your friends again. If you want to beat the crap out of me, I'll deserve it!"
Annelien wrapped another tentacle around John's leg, and burbled forlornly again. John sagged, swaying, held up seemingly only by the Dharmadhikary creature's support.
"What did she say?" asked Rodney quietly, moving forward to touch John's shoulder, then encircling it with his arm. Cautiously, he reached two fingers towards the nearest tentacle and stroked surprisingly soft furry tendrils, the tendrils stroking his fingers back.
With a shaky sigh, John allowed himself to lean slightly into the other man's embrace. He used the heel of one hand to scrub impatiently at tears standing in his eyes. "She says I may be the only family she has left. She can't afford to damage me."
"Ah. Well, then, I agree with her," Rodney suppressed a startle when yet another tentacle came up and stroked the back of his hand, then curved loosely around his palm, asking to be held. He looked down into the many sad glittering eyes of an alien creature, and closed his hand gently around the warm tentacle. "Hey, Annie," he addressed her for the first time. "Do you happen to have anything to eat? I think my blood sugar's low."
~~~
Annie did make a nice backrest, Rodney decided, wriggling. The tentacle around his waist shifted slightly, holding him more securely against her. And she packed a delicious picnic lunch too, way better than a power bar. "This was really tasty," he told John, enthusiastically licking the tangy barbecue sauce off his fingers.
John swallowed the rest of the dinner roll he was chewing on and waggled his eyebrows. "Don't look at me, Annie made it." He looked like he felt a little less despairing. Food always helped lift the spirits, in Rodney's estimation.
"Thank you, Annie," he patted the tentacle around his waist and carefully did not look at Annelien ingesting her own food.
Rodney watched as John wrapped up and nested together the containers the meal had come in, doing the same with his own. Then, as he suspected it might, a tentacle came out to gather the detritus, and it was neatly stowed in Annelien's bag. (Now that he was closer, Rodney could see that it had been a bag and not part of the creature, although the bag rested in an oval-shaped depression on her dorsal side). "Ah! Cook and nanny both, I could get used to this," he grinned, and bumped John's shoulder with his own.
"Well, she's definitely nurturing. I guess it's because her gender is the one that bears and mostly raises the children," said John. Sharp, rapid burbling interrupted what he was going to say next. "Yes, Annie, I know that you're not only a child-minder, I know you're a trained scientist in your own right. Jeez! Ok! I'm sorry, ok!"
"Anybody who can both cook and serve the harsh mistress of science is a superior being in my book," averred Rodney. "What kind of scientist, Annelien? John said something about a Bio lab earlier."
An enthusiastic stream of musical babble erupted, swirling around them for a good five minutes, as tentacular appendages waved around for emphasis.
"She's a geneticist. She works with Dr. Beckett," translated John. Rodney raised his eyebrows as the musical tones got sharp again and the tip of one tentacle thwapped John on the chest. "Ow! I refuse to translate all that geekspeak! You can tell him yourself once he understands you better." The music trailed off to discordant jangles.
"Do you think I have a chance of understanding her?" asked Rodney.
"Oh, I'm sure you will. You're the one who helped crack the language, after all. Or, um, at least my Rodney did. When we first ran into the Dharmadhikary, he and Elizabeth figured out how to communicate with them. At first, Elizabeth was using recordings of their vocalizations played back to them, since we don't have the biological equipment," he touched his throat, "to make the same sounds. Rodney used one of those keyboard synthesizers to play a combination of musical notes and 'sampled' bits of their speech. It was really neat. And of course, at the same time, their folks were working like mad to understand our language as well. We finally got to the point where we mostly understand what they say and they mostly understand us."
"It's nice to know I'm a genius in every universe," admired Rodney brightly. "Even though linguistics isn't my field…." He trailed off, swallowing hard, and looked at John warily. "Linguistics isn't my field where you're from, is it? I mean, it has its place, but physics--"
"Physics is your first love. It's the glorious underpinning of the universe, blah, blah, blah," John droned, rolling his eyes.
"Precisely!" Rodney beamed, rubbing his hands together briskly. He stretched his legs out in front of him, crossing them at the ankles, and settled more comfortably against Annelien behind him. "So, let's talk physics," he said, over John's groan. "Or at least physics-lite. What about this room makes you think it's a gateway to alternate universes?"
~~~
"But what about the power source?" asked Rodney, slowly walking a circuit of the room, scanner in hand. "If we knew what the power source was, heck, if we knew where the power source was--"
"Again, I have no idea," sighed John wearily, trailing behind Rodney like a tagalong kid brother. "I told you, it wasn't my project. There was a lot going on back when this room was discovered, and then it was declared off limits when those two lab assistants disappeared and nobody really got back to it. I never had a lot to do with the project, just listened to Rodney talk about it a few times. It wasn't even his project, it was Dr. Zelenka's."
"Why would I let Radek have a project like this, when clearly--"
"Because a lot was going on!" John slapped a hand down hard on a nearby lab benchtop. "Even Dr. Zelenka didn't get to devote a lot of time to it. His oldest son was sick at the time, too, which didn't help."
"Wait, Radek's son? How could he tell his son was sick?" Rodney furrowed his brow in confusion. Zelenka's children were in an entirely different galaxy. He'd have to have SuperParent senses to be able to tell that something was wrong with one of them.
"Well, the high fever was a clue," said John. "I guess you guys didn't get the yellow-spot plague? It hit a lot of the Athosian kids first, and then the kids from Earth started to get it. We didn't lose anybody, though it looked really bad for awhile, Dr. Beckett was tearing his hair out."
"KIDS? You people brought children with you on a dangerous expedition to another galaxy?" Rodney's eyes bugged out with disbelief.
"Well, yeah, there was a real good chance it would be a one-way trip. Dr. Weir thought people should have the choice of bringing their families along--if they could pass the security clearance. It was one of the things she fought hard for. She wasn't about to leave her husband behind. I'm glad Simon's here, he keeps her centered, you know?"
John scratched his head. "And I'm very glad Nancy Sumner came along. I think Colonel Sumner would have tossed me off one of the piers before now if she didn't calm him down," he smirked. "She likes me, I think."
Enthusiastic trilling from Annelien got him nodding his head. "Annie's right, Mrs. S also bakes like an angel. She makes the best fruit cobblers. And her lasagna! The delegation from Helgia offered to trade for her when they found out she'd made most of the welcoming feast." He gave Rodney a sidelong glance. "Let's just say that Elizabeth did the fastest talking of her life to keep Sumner from kicking their asses right back through the wormhole. I bet he's a real bear where you're from if he didn't get to bring his wife."
Rodney spared a moment's melancholy thought for his own universe, wondering if there was a Nancy Sumner there saving a new peach cobbler recipe for a husband who'd never make it home.
He shook his head, "Spouses are one thing, but kids?"
"As if Eliska Zelenka was going anywhere without her boys," scoffed Sheppard. "People have always brought their families into hardship postings, Dr. McKay. Think of the frontier families…hey! What are you looking at in there?"
Sheppard crowded behind Rodney's shoulder to peer into the compartment McKay had just found behind the wall panel.
"Hmmm. Circuitry, I believe," said McKay, squinting at his scanner. "Can you turn on the lights, John?"
"Um, no," said Sheppard. "I've already tried. Either the mechanism that senses the ATA gene is disabled in here, or something else is going on. I can't think the lights on--or the doors open, either."
"Right. Of course. Because that would be helpful." McKay sighed. "Do you happen to have a flashlight in that pouch, Annelien?" A tentacle gripping a lit flashlight soon nudged John out of the way. "Thank you! Point it right in there, please. A little higher... Thank you. Hmm. Dammit. This is frustrating. I need at least three more pieces of equipment I don't have with me. And I could use my laptop, too."
"You don't happen to have a laptop in there, do you?" Rodney looked down into Annelien's eyes and raised one eyebrow interrogatively. He grinned broadly when a tentacle plunged once again into the bag of wonders and produced a smallish laptop computer, presented with a flourish. "Excellent! Thank you, my dear! John, make yourself useful and boot this baby up for me, will you?"
~~~
Several hours later, hope and determination had once again given way to disgust and frustration. "Aaargh!" growled Rodney, tossing down his scanner and slumping against a nearby lab bench. John looked up from the laptop, where he'd been crunching numbers. "I'm sorry," he offered in a small voice.
"I haven't given up yet, John," said Rodney. "It's just, I think my blood sugar's low again-sorry, hypoglycemic here-and my brain's just freezing up. Do you have anything else to eat, Annie?"
Annelien flowed down the wall from where she'd suspended herself over the access panel (how did she do that, Rodney wondered), turning off the flashlight and tucking it back in her bag as she went. She jangled at Rodney briefly as she reached the floor, one tentacle rummaging determinedly in her carryall.
"She says--" began Sheppard.
"Yes, yes, I realize you're not a mobile restaurant, and you couldn't have known to pack several meals," Rodney addressed the Dharmadhikary. "But do you have at least a power bar in there? Something? Anything? I'm getting pathetic, here."
"Getting!" snorted John, under his breath.
A "Watch it, you!" and an annoyed burble squelched him from two directions.
Annelien finally made a sort of triumphant blooping sound and presented Rodney with a piece of fruit that resembled an apple (but purple colored). "Ok, thanks, this will work," Rodney muttered around a mouthful as he crunched down the fruit. "Anything to drink?" After an aggrieved-sounding tone, and a rummage in the rapidly-depleted bag, a tentacle handed him a small drink container. Without being asked, Annelien offered one to John as well. Neither man failed to notice that she went without food or drink herself.
The Dharmadhikary slumped against John, who reflexively began to stroke her.
~~~
Several hours later, the situation looked even more grim. John and Annelien sat on the floor leaning against each other, taking a break. Rodney shut down the laptop to conserve battery power and rubbed his temples, trying to push back a headache.
He sighed. "We can't stay in here forever, John. And I don't think I'm about to pull off a technical miracle with a quantum mirror--quantum chamber?--that I've never seen before, with inadequate equipment, in the amount of time we have left before we starve or die of thirst or at least get seriously cranky. Honestly, I'm going to need to use the bathroom soon, and I'd rather use an actual bathroom to take care of business, if you know what I mean…"
"What do you suggest, Dr. McKay?"
"Well, what do you think would happen if we forced the doors open manually?"
"I don't know, actually," John said moodily. "It's just--it seems like there would be a reason the doors won't open on command. I'm just no good to you, am I?" he sighed.
"Well, let's be rational about this. The worst thing that could possibly happen if we went out that door. Hmm. I suppose we could destroy the fabric of space-time and collapse all the universes. Unlikely though. We could die horrible, painful deaths. Much more likely. We could land in either one of our universes. We could land in a completely different universe than either of ours. And there's always the likelihood of entropic cascade failure in case we're feeling too overconfident… Pitch in any time now with suggestions, either one of you…"
"I could go," offered John. "And you could see what happened to me. Maybe that would help you decide what to do."
"No. Very heroic of you, but there's no guarantee the same thing would happen each time to each individual that emerges from this chamber. Besides, I don't know that we could rig up any way to observe what happens without being drawn into it. We're staying together." Annelien offered a burble of agreement and tightened an appendage around one of John's legs.
"Yeah, ok. I'd rather stay together too. You know, Dr. McKay, after hanging around you now for the past few hours, I can tell pretty easily you're not my Rodney. Oh, you're a lot like him, but you're not him."
"Sorry," Rodney shrugged uncomfortably. "You're not quite the John Sheppard I'm used to either."
"I didn't mean anything bad," John hastened to reassure. "I mean, I miss my Rodney something fierce, but you're a good guy. I really like you. A lot. I mean, you said you were straight, but you didn't freak out over me basically sexually assaulting you earlier. A lot of straight guys would have punched my lights out, or at the very least been awkward around me. You've just been…normal, like it was no big deal, like you didn't mind."
"Hmmrrph," Rodney cleared his throat, blushing, and wiped his suddenly sweaty palms on his shirt. "Well, I wouldn't actually complain about good sex ….and, I don't blame you, I'm not angry or anything, it was a case of mistaken identity, really. So there's no sense in being upset about--"
"It was good? You liked it?" John tilted his head to the side, eyebrows climbing.
"Well, duh! Did I not just say that?" Rodney turned to address the Dharmadhikary, "Didn't I just say that? Does he go deaf sometimes?"
"But you said you were straight," John accused.
"Well, I assumed so. I've always liked women. You know!" He impatiently sketched out the curves of an invisible female in the air in front of him. "I've never thought about a man in that particular way before. It wasn't something I dwelled on," Rodney said defensively.
"Before? You mean you might, now?" asked John, curious.
Rodney sighed, covered his eyes, contemplated his getting-worse headache, and wished that the floor would open up and swallow him, the ocean come crashing in and swallow the city, a meteor crash into the planet, whichever was more convenient for the universe….
He sighed again and peeked. Nope. John was still there, waiting for an answer. The universe, as usual, was not keeping Rodney McKay's comfort or convenience in mind.
"Ok, yes, maybe. I don't know, I couldn't say for sure." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "I suppose we're all bisexual to some degree. Maybe the right man could 'convince' me."
"Convince you, huh?" John snickered.
"Oh, right. Now I'm amusing, is that it?" Rodney glared at Sheppard, who began to crack up with laughter, leaning against the Dharmadhikary and pounding her side lightly. "I'm so glad I'm entertaining! My purpose in life is fulfilled!" McKay huffed as Annelien joined in the amusement with little hoots of musical laughter, using a tentacle to slap the floor.
He leaned against the lab bench, glaring, waiting for them to control themselves, until finally John was sitting up with Annelien's help, wiping tears of laughter from his eyes.
"Sorry, sorry!" offered John, trying mightily to suppress his grin. "It's just that once upon a time, my friend Rodney decided he wanted me. He was a great friend, and I really cared for him, but I told him that I just didn't think of him that way, and no hard feelings. But he wouldn't leave it alone. He asked if he could try to 'convince' me!" He snorted, and then shook for a minute with laughter he was valiantly suppressing, one hand clapped over his mouth, the other waving in front of him, waggling the finger with the wedding band. "Ha! Well, we know--Hee!--how that turned out!"
Rodney felt a grin of his own escaping. "I was that good, eh? Amazing, not just a genius in every universe, but a sex god as well…"
"At least a minor deity," John agreed, eyes twinkling.
~~~
"Remind me why we're doing this again? Oh, wait, that's right, I have to use the toilet, so I'm risking our horrible deaths and the possible, though unlikely, dissolution of all realities, or at least our own."
"Jeez! Let's put a better spin on this, ok? If only to comfort ourselves. Maybe we’ll end up in my reality, or yours, or at least with somebody that can help us get home. Just think--if we find another you, you can help yourself find the answer. I’m sure you could do it. Twice the McKay, twice the brainpower! Now, hold my hand, so we go together."
"I've never found self-delusion terribly comforting. I did mention the possibility of dying horrifically from entropic cascade failure, didn’t I? Shouldn't we be helping her?"
"Nah. Annie's really strong. We just need to stay out of her way. Although, Annie? Can you reach back and hold our hands? Thanks. Go ahead whenever you're ready."
Rodney tightened his hold on John with his right hand, and on Annelien with his left. He took a deep breath as the Dharmadhikary wrenched open the door of the quantum chamber with a loud crash. Then, the three of them stepped through, hand in hand in tentacle. Together.
###
Title: Later On
Author: Springwoof
Warnings: slash, NC-17, McKay/Sheppard
Word count: 6248 (very sorry, got carried away. I really like aliens.)
Spoilers: anything up to late season one, before Letters From Pegasus. AUish…(you’ll see)
Notes: Not betaed. If you’d like to volunteer to beta future endeavors (if any), please let me know. First story posted to this community (waves!). First story on livejournal. First slash story. First fanfiction. First fiction I ever tried to write…. (nervous)
UPDATED NOTES: Deepest thanks to astolat for her kind assistance with posting this correctly.
Summary: "Are you and I having a three-way with an alien?"
Later On by Springwoof
Later on, Rodney McKay could never pin down in his own mind precisely when it had happened. One minute he had entered the dim confines of the new lab they'd discovered last week in the expedition's gradual exploration of Atlantis. He'd come in answer to Major Sheppard's summons, expecting that the Major had uncovered a problem that demanded his expertise, or had unearthed a new piece of Ancient technology for him to analyze.
The next thing he knew, he was pinned against the wall, being kissed by John Sheppard. He wasn't quite sure how that happened, exactly. There hadn't seemed to be any transition, any preparatory maneuvering, any discussion. He felt sure that there'd been at least some of those things before, when he'd been in similar situations. Except, he had never been in precisely this kind of situation before. Speaking of which….
"Um, Major," he panted, disengaging his mouth and pushing back with hands that had somehow gotten wrapped around Sheppard's shoulders.
"Mmm?" not discouraged in the slightest, Sheppard continued to kiss his way down McKay's neck, fingers of one hand playing distractingly in Rodney's hair.
"L-Listen. Could you…Major!"
Sheppard looked at him out of half-lidded, dreamy eyes, "Why are you calling me 'Major'? Could you maybe call me 'John' at a time like this?"
"A time like this is exactly what I wanted to talk about!" Rodney's voice ended up embarrassingly wavery and high-pitched as the Major had gone on to sniffing--sniffing!--his neck and ear. "D-Do you really like this? Want this? Are you under some kind of alien influence? Did you accidentally activate some Ancient technology?"
"Hmm?" John … Sheppard … the Major cocked an inquisitive eyebrow at him.
"Ah! I knew it!" and, really, Rodney needed to sound a bit more triumphant about that… "You touched some Ancient doohickey, and-"
John's--the Major's--warm chuckle stopped Rodney's diatribe before it really got going. "Is 'doohickey' one of those cutesy physics terms, like a 'charmed' quark?" Sheppard smirked.
"Well, without seeing said doohickey, what would you suggest I call it?" Rodney took comfort in the familiar sense of irritation with the Major's smug superciliousness, and in the fact that the weirdly unsettling kissing behavior seemed to be over. Although he probably should be taking more comfort in that. Not that it was unsettling, but that it had stopped, which, wait….it seemed it hadn't. Stopped. It had, in fact, escalated. The kissing had been sweet and distracting before, but now it was downright sexy and enthralling. And the touching. The earlier caresses had been relatively innocent, but these were rather…provocative…and there was--ohgod!--groping. Definitely groping.
He knew that the correct behavior in these circumstances would be to shove John--the Major away, inform him coldly that he'd made a mistake, maybe punch him in the nose or something. Or at least stiffen up, be less responsive than the melting puddle of sensation he currently seemed to be reduced to.
Oh parts of him had stiffened up all right, but not any parts designed to discourage the Major--John--from his current activities. In fact …. Ohyesohgod …. John had just discovered for himself Rodney's … Oh, come on, you know Mr. I've Got To Name Everything in Atlantis will want to call it a "rod." And he'll have that irritating smirk on his face every time he says it. And I really wish my Inner SarcastoMeter would just shut up sometimes and … OHSWEETHOLYGALILEO …Mouth!Mouth!Mouth!.... and that whining sound he was hearing, plus the light of unholy glee in John's eyes as he looked up at Rodney and did that clever thing with his tongue again to the part of Rodney currently in his beautiful, beautiful, wonderful mouth…told Rodney that he'd said at least some of that out loud--and he'd be embarrassed later, but right now … ohlovelyohgodohyes … he wound the fingers of one hand in John's dark hair, and shoved the other fist in his own mouth to keep from shouting as he came.
~~~
A few unfocussed moments later, he found that, apparently, he'd slid down the wall to sit his naked butt on the floor, bare knees propped in front of him, pants and underwear hobbling his ankles. John was curled against his side, holding his hand and nuzzling languorously against the side of his neck. It felt quite nice. His dick, rod--whatever its name was at the moment--was considering taking an interest in how good it felt, actually…. Which was absurd. What was happening, here? Why was it happening?
He turned to address a few pointed questions to the perpetrator of these bewildering events, but was again stopped in his tracks by John's chuckle, and the sweetest, sappiest smile he'd ever seen on the man's face.
"I love it when you get that gobsmacked expression on your face. I love that I can put it there. I guess I just love you, Rod," John grinned, the sincerity as evident as the teasing.
"B-But, John, what … why?" Rodney sputtered, hopelessly befuddled. John was still holding his hand, he noticed, still looking at him with that expression that was both teasing and adoring at once.
Rodney felt dizzy with confusion and speculation. He tilted his head and peered at John more closely. The man was dressed in (rather disheveled at the moment…had Rodney done that?) civilian clothing and wore his hair in his trademark messy style (Rodney firmly suppressed the thought that it had always looked as if John had just given somebody a blowjob.), and otherwise looked fairly normal. He smelled--they both smelled--strongly of sex, though. That was a scent he had never smelled on John Sheppard before. This was not the John Sheppard he knew.
Had Rodney walked into some alternate universe somehow? Maybe there had been some Ancient doohickey he had touched, or stepped through…
John lowered his face, looking up at Rodney underneath his lashes, expression a bit rueful. "I know, I know, we agreed, never at work. But this section of Atlantis is pretty isolated, nobody comes here much. And I was just dying of waiting, here!" And even though John scrunched up his nose in that cute way he had, the whining was still not terribly attractive.
"We haven't seen each other in weeks, and the first thing you have to do when you get back is take care of yet another emergency in the labs. Let me tell you, Babe, those geeks managed to handle plenty of emergencies just fine without you while you were gone. But now that you're back, they're suddenly helpless without you. Ya gotta stop letting them walk all over you like that, Rodney!" Nope. The whining still wasn't attractive, even though the hand not currently holding Rodney's own was tracing his collarbone, which felt soothing, pleasant, and a little shivery-making at the same time...
But, "Babe"?? People didn't tend to call Rodney by pet names--well, except for Mrs. Waltham in Cambridge, who'd routinely called him "Roddy-m'dear," but Rodney didn't think she counted, because she'd been over thirty years older than he was at the time, and in no way a lover. And speaking of which….
"John," he said seriously, reaching out and cupping John's jaw with the hand that was not currently imprisoned in John's clasp. He made steady, solemn eye contact. "John, I think we have a problem."
"Prob-?" began John, eyebrows climbing, before being interrupted by Rodney's startled shriek--no, it was a shout, a startled, but masculine, shout that in no way contained the horrified realization that he was sitting there bare-assed with that thing looking at him over John's shoulder.
It was human-sized but in no way human-looking; for one thing, the number of eyes and limbs were more numerous, and Rodney had never met a human or humanoid with tentacle-like appendages before. There was a suggestion of spider, and cat, and oddly, elephant (perhaps the trunk part) in its appearance and movements, and it was Wraith-pale, though it didn't resemble a Wraith either…
The thing made a musical-sounding burble, and John, who had reared back at Rodney's shout, looked over his shoulder at it. "Oh, hi, Annelien!" he smiled.
Another musical bubbling sound, as the thing--Annelien, apparently--finished crawling/flowing down the wall behind John and onto the floor beside him.
"Oh, yes, thank you, Annie, that would be very nice!" John finally let go of (a stunned, paralyzed, immobile) Rodney's hand and reached toward the beast. Who passed him a damp towelette.
~~~
While engaged in cleanup and re-clothing, a small part of Rodney's mind not engaged in whirling in concentric circles with ideas and conjectures, or gibbering with gradually-lessening terror about a catspider monster, was mortified that he hadn't even thought to offer to, well, reciprocate ….the, um, orgasm…. Apparently, John had taken care of that little problem on his own, though, somewhere along the line. Rodney watched bemusedly as John tucked himself away and straightened his clothes.
"What?" John said, looking up under the weight of Rodney's gaze. "Oh, ok, here, let me," he snatched the used wipes from Rodney and handed them off to Annelien, who tucked them away into another portion of the carryall, clothing, or anatomy (Rodney couldn't be sure which, at this stage) from whence they'd originated. "What's the matter, Babe? You seem really jumpy. You're acting a little weird and it's freaking me out here. What's the prob--"
"John," Rodney paused and scrubbed at his face with both hands. "John, I don't think I'm your Rodney."
"What do you mean, my Rodney?" Boy, he really was cute with that scrunched up expression. "Don't tell me you've met somebody else, I won't believe it! We haven't been married that long, dammit! A few weeks apart because of work does not damage the average relationship!" The incipient panic was not cute at all.
"John, no, wait, that's not what I meant!" Rodney's hands landed on John's shoulders, holding him in place. "I meant…married?... I meant that I really do think one of us had a run-in with an alien device, and that I'm not the Rodney McKay you know. In my reality, or whatever is going on here, we're not married. John. We're not involved romantically at all. I mean, we know each other, yes, sure. We're co-workers, friends, good friends, in fact," Rodney scratched the back of his head. "But we're, ah, straight. At least I am, and I assumed the Major Sheppard of my reality is as well."
Sheppard--no, John, he couldn't think of this man as "the Major"--stared at Rodney, eyes almost comically wide. He scrabbled frantically at his communicator. "McKay, come in, this is Sheppard. Rodney, answer me right now!" he tried a few more times, then determinedly switched channels and tried again. "Colonel Sumner, this is Major Sheppard, come in please, sir. Colonel, please answer." Grimly, he began again. "Rodney, it's John. Please answer, Sweetheart, please!"
At this point, Rodney thought to bring the earpiece of his own communicator to his ear. He clearly heard Sheppard calling to his spouse. He waved at John to get his attention, then indicated his own communicator.
"Dammit!" Sheppard savagely shut off his own system and pointed at McKay. "You try."
Rodney tried for a good 15 minutes, calling Ford, Teyla, his own Sheppard, Weir, Zelenka, Beckett, even Sergeants Bates and Stackhouse, anyone at all he could think of. He got nothing better than faint static.
He looked up at John. "Maybe the room is shielding transmissions somehow. If we stepped out into the hall--"
"No! That might be dangerous if--no, no, no! This can't be happening! This isn't happening!" John gripped his own hair in both hands and
then backed away from Rodney, shaking his head slowly from side to side.
Rodney took a step forward, only to be stopped by the expression on John's face. He stretched out a beseeching hand. "John, we can figure something out! We'll get back in touch with one of our teams, and then we'll get out of here and find Rodney--your Rodney. I'm sure your Rodney is somewhere. It's very likely we can get him back, once we know the mechanism of how we switched places, or whatever we did. Or, wait! Maybe he's still here somewhere and I'm just an additional Rodney…."
None of this babble was encouraging, apparently. John sank down onto his haunches and covered his face with his hands, still shaking his head. Annelien crawled/flowed partly onto his lap, crooning at him and wrapping several appendages around him.
~~~
Rodney settled on the floor as well, close, but not touching. Something told him that John couldn't bear to touch him right now. John had gradually buried his face into the fur? tendrils? of the alien catspider thing, his arms wrapping around to clutch it to him more closely, the creature crooning softly and rocking him in several of its limbs.
Rodney found his gaze focusing on John's hands, specifically the left hand, which bore a plain gold wedding ring. Married…. Something twisted in his belly, and he felt an eternal moment's jealousy and deep hatred for that other Rodney McKay, who had something, someone, that he hadn't realized he wanted, no needed, until right this moment….
John finally lifted his head, face turned away towards the far side of the room so that Rodney couldn't see anything but the shadowed outline of his profile. "I am such an idiot!" he said, voice thick and unexpectedly full of savage venom. "I am such a damned screw-up!"
"John? What--" Sheppard's hand held up in a "stop" motion towards him halted the flow of Rodney's words before they could get started. Good, because he had no idea what he'd been about to say.
"What do you know about this place, this room?" John continued, voice still thick, but leached of emotion now.
"This room?" Rodney peered around the dimly-lit interior. "Not much, we just found it last week. We think it was another Ancient laboratory, but we haven't had much of a chance to explore it yet, what with one crisis or another. There were some unusual energy readings in this section of the city, and Zelenka wanted a chance to analyze them before we did more than a cursory sweep. When you called me to come down here, I thought you'd found something that I needed to look at."
"Ah. So I got you into this too," sighed John. "And Annie…. Dammit, Sumner's right, he's always ragging on me for being a cowboy, for leaping before I look, for jumping in where angels fear to tread. But he's right.…"
"John, slow down! What are you talking about? I know I'm extraordinarily intelligent, but I need a little more data to go on…" Rodney stopped again as John finally turned to look at him, face bleak of all expression except for the self-loathing in his red-rimmed eyes. He disengaged from Annelien and stood, Rodney scrambling to stand as well.
"On the contrary, Dr. McKay, you've formulated what I suspect is an entirely correct hypothesis already, on the basis of the data you've been accumulating all along. It was some 'Ancient doohickey.' It was probably this room. You're in--we're all in--some kind of alternate reality."
"Well?" Rodney prompted, when John didn't seem to feel this statement needed further elaboration. He made a spinning gesture with his hand. "More! Why do you think we're all in some kind of alternate reality? Details, man! I can't get us out of this predicament without more information. Is there a particular device that was activated? What?"
John flashed the ghost of a grin before resuming that shadowed expression. He sighed deeply. "There is a reason people don't generally visit this section of the city. People have gone missing here. Just a couple, and it hasn't happened for a long time. We couldn't be sure why, or how. And there's a reason Rodney and I have a 'no nookie at work' rule. Besides being unprofessional," John grimaced. "It tends to shut our brains off. Especially mine."
He scrubbed his hands through his hair. "Those energy readings you were mentioning? Our people found them too. We think-- Listen, you know that the Ancients built the Gate system, right?" At Rodney's nod, he continued. "And you know they were fiddling around with time travel, right?"
"Yes, yes, you don't have to go over old--"
"But I do! That's the point of alternate universes. I don't know what things we've discovered that you haven't, and vice versa. You were acting weird earlier, like you'd never seen Annie before," John reached behind him, where the catspider--Annelien--was lurking, and it wrapped a tentacle around his hand and wrist.
"Um, you're right. I haven't. What is it?" Rodney eyed it nervously.
"She's a Dharmadhikary --at least, that's what Dr. Weir named them. They have their own name for themselves, but it's difficult for us to pronounce, we don't have the right vocal equipment," John's fingers were stroking the tentacle that wound around his wrist. The creature, Annelien, peered at Rodney from around John's hip, multiple eyes glittering.
"At home, Rodney, my Rodney, loved Annie. He used to lie on the sofa using Annie as a pillow and a laptop stand, with the kits crawling over them both. He used to sing the kits to sleep at night if Annie was working late in the Bio lab." John brought the tip of one tentacle to his lips and kissed it gently.
"Wait, she lives with you? Are you and I--McKay--having a three-way with an alien?" Rodney's mind boggled at the idea…
John snorted, "As if. Not that she cares if she walks in on us while we're busy," he glared down at the creature, obviously revisiting an old bone of contention. "But Annie has her own mates to keep her busy. Annelien, her mates, and their children--they lived with us--with Rodney and me--in our apartment; sort of like having pets and sort of like having your cousins staying with you. They were part of our family."
"Oh, God, Annie!" John turned to her suddenly, anguished. "How much are you understanding of this? Do you realize we may never see Adalbert, or Amanda, or the babies again?"
The musical vocalization which greeted this pronouncement sounded sad, a discordant warble in a minor key.
"Well, I'm glad you understand, but you don't have to be so damned forgiving. It's my fault, don't you get it? I deserve anything you want to do to me!" He whipped around to include Rodney. "You, too, Dr. McKay. It's my fault you may never see your friends again. If you want to beat the crap out of me, I'll deserve it!"
Annelien wrapped another tentacle around John's leg, and burbled forlornly again. John sagged, swaying, held up seemingly only by the Dharmadhikary creature's support.
"What did she say?" asked Rodney quietly, moving forward to touch John's shoulder, then encircling it with his arm. Cautiously, he reached two fingers towards the nearest tentacle and stroked surprisingly soft furry tendrils, the tendrils stroking his fingers back.
With a shaky sigh, John allowed himself to lean slightly into the other man's embrace. He used the heel of one hand to scrub impatiently at tears standing in his eyes. "She says I may be the only family she has left. She can't afford to damage me."
"Ah. Well, then, I agree with her," Rodney suppressed a startle when yet another tentacle came up and stroked the back of his hand, then curved loosely around his palm, asking to be held. He looked down into the many sad glittering eyes of an alien creature, and closed his hand gently around the warm tentacle. "Hey, Annie," he addressed her for the first time. "Do you happen to have anything to eat? I think my blood sugar's low."
~~~
Annie did make a nice backrest, Rodney decided, wriggling. The tentacle around his waist shifted slightly, holding him more securely against her. And she packed a delicious picnic lunch too, way better than a power bar. "This was really tasty," he told John, enthusiastically licking the tangy barbecue sauce off his fingers.
John swallowed the rest of the dinner roll he was chewing on and waggled his eyebrows. "Don't look at me, Annie made it." He looked like he felt a little less despairing. Food always helped lift the spirits, in Rodney's estimation.
"Thank you, Annie," he patted the tentacle around his waist and carefully did not look at Annelien ingesting her own food.
Rodney watched as John wrapped up and nested together the containers the meal had come in, doing the same with his own. Then, as he suspected it might, a tentacle came out to gather the detritus, and it was neatly stowed in Annelien's bag. (Now that he was closer, Rodney could see that it had been a bag and not part of the creature, although the bag rested in an oval-shaped depression on her dorsal side). "Ah! Cook and nanny both, I could get used to this," he grinned, and bumped John's shoulder with his own.
"Well, she's definitely nurturing. I guess it's because her gender is the one that bears and mostly raises the children," said John. Sharp, rapid burbling interrupted what he was going to say next. "Yes, Annie, I know that you're not only a child-minder, I know you're a trained scientist in your own right. Jeez! Ok! I'm sorry, ok!"
"Anybody who can both cook and serve the harsh mistress of science is a superior being in my book," averred Rodney. "What kind of scientist, Annelien? John said something about a Bio lab earlier."
An enthusiastic stream of musical babble erupted, swirling around them for a good five minutes, as tentacular appendages waved around for emphasis.
"She's a geneticist. She works with Dr. Beckett," translated John. Rodney raised his eyebrows as the musical tones got sharp again and the tip of one tentacle thwapped John on the chest. "Ow! I refuse to translate all that geekspeak! You can tell him yourself once he understands you better." The music trailed off to discordant jangles.
"Do you think I have a chance of understanding her?" asked Rodney.
"Oh, I'm sure you will. You're the one who helped crack the language, after all. Or, um, at least my Rodney did. When we first ran into the Dharmadhikary, he and Elizabeth figured out how to communicate with them. At first, Elizabeth was using recordings of their vocalizations played back to them, since we don't have the biological equipment," he touched his throat, "to make the same sounds. Rodney used one of those keyboard synthesizers to play a combination of musical notes and 'sampled' bits of their speech. It was really neat. And of course, at the same time, their folks were working like mad to understand our language as well. We finally got to the point where we mostly understand what they say and they mostly understand us."
"It's nice to know I'm a genius in every universe," admired Rodney brightly. "Even though linguistics isn't my field…." He trailed off, swallowing hard, and looked at John warily. "Linguistics isn't my field where you're from, is it? I mean, it has its place, but physics--"
"Physics is your first love. It's the glorious underpinning of the universe, blah, blah, blah," John droned, rolling his eyes.
"Precisely!" Rodney beamed, rubbing his hands together briskly. He stretched his legs out in front of him, crossing them at the ankles, and settled more comfortably against Annelien behind him. "So, let's talk physics," he said, over John's groan. "Or at least physics-lite. What about this room makes you think it's a gateway to alternate universes?"
~~~
"But what about the power source?" asked Rodney, slowly walking a circuit of the room, scanner in hand. "If we knew what the power source was, heck, if we knew where the power source was--"
"Again, I have no idea," sighed John wearily, trailing behind Rodney like a tagalong kid brother. "I told you, it wasn't my project. There was a lot going on back when this room was discovered, and then it was declared off limits when those two lab assistants disappeared and nobody really got back to it. I never had a lot to do with the project, just listened to Rodney talk about it a few times. It wasn't even his project, it was Dr. Zelenka's."
"Why would I let Radek have a project like this, when clearly--"
"Because a lot was going on!" John slapped a hand down hard on a nearby lab benchtop. "Even Dr. Zelenka didn't get to devote a lot of time to it. His oldest son was sick at the time, too, which didn't help."
"Wait, Radek's son? How could he tell his son was sick?" Rodney furrowed his brow in confusion. Zelenka's children were in an entirely different galaxy. He'd have to have SuperParent senses to be able to tell that something was wrong with one of them.
"Well, the high fever was a clue," said John. "I guess you guys didn't get the yellow-spot plague? It hit a lot of the Athosian kids first, and then the kids from Earth started to get it. We didn't lose anybody, though it looked really bad for awhile, Dr. Beckett was tearing his hair out."
"KIDS? You people brought children with you on a dangerous expedition to another galaxy?" Rodney's eyes bugged out with disbelief.
"Well, yeah, there was a real good chance it would be a one-way trip. Dr. Weir thought people should have the choice of bringing their families along--if they could pass the security clearance. It was one of the things she fought hard for. She wasn't about to leave her husband behind. I'm glad Simon's here, he keeps her centered, you know?"
John scratched his head. "And I'm very glad Nancy Sumner came along. I think Colonel Sumner would have tossed me off one of the piers before now if she didn't calm him down," he smirked. "She likes me, I think."
Enthusiastic trilling from Annelien got him nodding his head. "Annie's right, Mrs. S also bakes like an angel. She makes the best fruit cobblers. And her lasagna! The delegation from Helgia offered to trade for her when they found out she'd made most of the welcoming feast." He gave Rodney a sidelong glance. "Let's just say that Elizabeth did the fastest talking of her life to keep Sumner from kicking their asses right back through the wormhole. I bet he's a real bear where you're from if he didn't get to bring his wife."
Rodney spared a moment's melancholy thought for his own universe, wondering if there was a Nancy Sumner there saving a new peach cobbler recipe for a husband who'd never make it home.
He shook his head, "Spouses are one thing, but kids?"
"As if Eliska Zelenka was going anywhere without her boys," scoffed Sheppard. "People have always brought their families into hardship postings, Dr. McKay. Think of the frontier families…hey! What are you looking at in there?"
Sheppard crowded behind Rodney's shoulder to peer into the compartment McKay had just found behind the wall panel.
"Hmmm. Circuitry, I believe," said McKay, squinting at his scanner. "Can you turn on the lights, John?"
"Um, no," said Sheppard. "I've already tried. Either the mechanism that senses the ATA gene is disabled in here, or something else is going on. I can't think the lights on--or the doors open, either."
"Right. Of course. Because that would be helpful." McKay sighed. "Do you happen to have a flashlight in that pouch, Annelien?" A tentacle gripping a lit flashlight soon nudged John out of the way. "Thank you! Point it right in there, please. A little higher... Thank you. Hmm. Dammit. This is frustrating. I need at least three more pieces of equipment I don't have with me. And I could use my laptop, too."
"You don't happen to have a laptop in there, do you?" Rodney looked down into Annelien's eyes and raised one eyebrow interrogatively. He grinned broadly when a tentacle plunged once again into the bag of wonders and produced a smallish laptop computer, presented with a flourish. "Excellent! Thank you, my dear! John, make yourself useful and boot this baby up for me, will you?"
~~~
Several hours later, hope and determination had once again given way to disgust and frustration. "Aaargh!" growled Rodney, tossing down his scanner and slumping against a nearby lab bench. John looked up from the laptop, where he'd been crunching numbers. "I'm sorry," he offered in a small voice.
"I haven't given up yet, John," said Rodney. "It's just, I think my blood sugar's low again-sorry, hypoglycemic here-and my brain's just freezing up. Do you have anything else to eat, Annie?"
Annelien flowed down the wall from where she'd suspended herself over the access panel (how did she do that, Rodney wondered), turning off the flashlight and tucking it back in her bag as she went. She jangled at Rodney briefly as she reached the floor, one tentacle rummaging determinedly in her carryall.
"She says--" began Sheppard.
"Yes, yes, I realize you're not a mobile restaurant, and you couldn't have known to pack several meals," Rodney addressed the Dharmadhikary. "But do you have at least a power bar in there? Something? Anything? I'm getting pathetic, here."
"Getting!" snorted John, under his breath.
A "Watch it, you!" and an annoyed burble squelched him from two directions.
Annelien finally made a sort of triumphant blooping sound and presented Rodney with a piece of fruit that resembled an apple (but purple colored). "Ok, thanks, this will work," Rodney muttered around a mouthful as he crunched down the fruit. "Anything to drink?" After an aggrieved-sounding tone, and a rummage in the rapidly-depleted bag, a tentacle handed him a small drink container. Without being asked, Annelien offered one to John as well. Neither man failed to notice that she went without food or drink herself.
The Dharmadhikary slumped against John, who reflexively began to stroke her.
~~~
Several hours later, the situation looked even more grim. John and Annelien sat on the floor leaning against each other, taking a break. Rodney shut down the laptop to conserve battery power and rubbed his temples, trying to push back a headache.
He sighed. "We can't stay in here forever, John. And I don't think I'm about to pull off a technical miracle with a quantum mirror--quantum chamber?--that I've never seen before, with inadequate equipment, in the amount of time we have left before we starve or die of thirst or at least get seriously cranky. Honestly, I'm going to need to use the bathroom soon, and I'd rather use an actual bathroom to take care of business, if you know what I mean…"
"What do you suggest, Dr. McKay?"
"Well, what do you think would happen if we forced the doors open manually?"
"I don't know, actually," John said moodily. "It's just--it seems like there would be a reason the doors won't open on command. I'm just no good to you, am I?" he sighed.
"Well, let's be rational about this. The worst thing that could possibly happen if we went out that door. Hmm. I suppose we could destroy the fabric of space-time and collapse all the universes. Unlikely though. We could die horrible, painful deaths. Much more likely. We could land in either one of our universes. We could land in a completely different universe than either of ours. And there's always the likelihood of entropic cascade failure in case we're feeling too overconfident… Pitch in any time now with suggestions, either one of you…"
"I could go," offered John. "And you could see what happened to me. Maybe that would help you decide what to do."
"No. Very heroic of you, but there's no guarantee the same thing would happen each time to each individual that emerges from this chamber. Besides, I don't know that we could rig up any way to observe what happens without being drawn into it. We're staying together." Annelien offered a burble of agreement and tightened an appendage around one of John's legs.
"Yeah, ok. I'd rather stay together too. You know, Dr. McKay, after hanging around you now for the past few hours, I can tell pretty easily you're not my Rodney. Oh, you're a lot like him, but you're not him."
"Sorry," Rodney shrugged uncomfortably. "You're not quite the John Sheppard I'm used to either."
"I didn't mean anything bad," John hastened to reassure. "I mean, I miss my Rodney something fierce, but you're a good guy. I really like you. A lot. I mean, you said you were straight, but you didn't freak out over me basically sexually assaulting you earlier. A lot of straight guys would have punched my lights out, or at the very least been awkward around me. You've just been…normal, like it was no big deal, like you didn't mind."
"Hmmrrph," Rodney cleared his throat, blushing, and wiped his suddenly sweaty palms on his shirt. "Well, I wouldn't actually complain about good sex ….and, I don't blame you, I'm not angry or anything, it was a case of mistaken identity, really. So there's no sense in being upset about--"
"It was good? You liked it?" John tilted his head to the side, eyebrows climbing.
"Well, duh! Did I not just say that?" Rodney turned to address the Dharmadhikary, "Didn't I just say that? Does he go deaf sometimes?"
"But you said you were straight," John accused.
"Well, I assumed so. I've always liked women. You know!" He impatiently sketched out the curves of an invisible female in the air in front of him. "I've never thought about a man in that particular way before. It wasn't something I dwelled on," Rodney said defensively.
"Before? You mean you might, now?" asked John, curious.
Rodney sighed, covered his eyes, contemplated his getting-worse headache, and wished that the floor would open up and swallow him, the ocean come crashing in and swallow the city, a meteor crash into the planet, whichever was more convenient for the universe….
He sighed again and peeked. Nope. John was still there, waiting for an answer. The universe, as usual, was not keeping Rodney McKay's comfort or convenience in mind.
"Ok, yes, maybe. I don't know, I couldn't say for sure." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "I suppose we're all bisexual to some degree. Maybe the right man could 'convince' me."
"Convince you, huh?" John snickered.
"Oh, right. Now I'm amusing, is that it?" Rodney glared at Sheppard, who began to crack up with laughter, leaning against the Dharmadhikary and pounding her side lightly. "I'm so glad I'm entertaining! My purpose in life is fulfilled!" McKay huffed as Annelien joined in the amusement with little hoots of musical laughter, using a tentacle to slap the floor.
He leaned against the lab bench, glaring, waiting for them to control themselves, until finally John was sitting up with Annelien's help, wiping tears of laughter from his eyes.
"Sorry, sorry!" offered John, trying mightily to suppress his grin. "It's just that once upon a time, my friend Rodney decided he wanted me. He was a great friend, and I really cared for him, but I told him that I just didn't think of him that way, and no hard feelings. But he wouldn't leave it alone. He asked if he could try to 'convince' me!" He snorted, and then shook for a minute with laughter he was valiantly suppressing, one hand clapped over his mouth, the other waving in front of him, waggling the finger with the wedding band. "Ha! Well, we know--Hee!--how that turned out!"
Rodney felt a grin of his own escaping. "I was that good, eh? Amazing, not just a genius in every universe, but a sex god as well…"
"At least a minor deity," John agreed, eyes twinkling.
~~~
"Remind me why we're doing this again? Oh, wait, that's right, I have to use the toilet, so I'm risking our horrible deaths and the possible, though unlikely, dissolution of all realities, or at least our own."
"Jeez! Let's put a better spin on this, ok? If only to comfort ourselves. Maybe we’ll end up in my reality, or yours, or at least with somebody that can help us get home. Just think--if we find another you, you can help yourself find the answer. I’m sure you could do it. Twice the McKay, twice the brainpower! Now, hold my hand, so we go together."
"I've never found self-delusion terribly comforting. I did mention the possibility of dying horrifically from entropic cascade failure, didn’t I? Shouldn't we be helping her?"
"Nah. Annie's really strong. We just need to stay out of her way. Although, Annie? Can you reach back and hold our hands? Thanks. Go ahead whenever you're ready."
Rodney tightened his hold on John with his right hand, and on Annelien with his left. He took a deep breath as the Dharmadhikary wrenched open the door of the quantum chamber with a loud crash. Then, the three of them stepped through, hand in hand in tentacle. Together.
###