The Amazing Adventures of Me, Myself & I by trinityofone (Doppelganger Challenge)
Title: The Amazing Adventures of Me, Myself & I, or: Five Times John and Rodney Accidentally Cloned Themselves
Author: trinityofone
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Spoilers: I suppose tiny infinitesimal ones through the end of S3
Length: ~3000 words
Summary: Um. See subtitle?
A/N: As is so often the case, many thanks to wychwood and siriaeve for offering all the right suggestions and seeing what I can't.
THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF ME, MYSELF & I, or: FIVE TIMES JOHN AND RODNEY ACCIDENTALLY CLONED THEMSELVES
I. Multiplicity
"Ooops," said Rodney, in stereo.
"Muj ty boze, my worst nightmare has come to pass," said Radek.
"Shut up," said Rodney, at the same time Rodney said, "Quiet, you're not helping."
The device was more thoroughly examined. Rodney had often wished for extra hands, but found that in reality it was sort of annoying.
"No, no, move that crystal there-"
"Thank you," Rodney slapped Rodney's fingers away, "I'd figured that out." He turned his head and mumbled. "Backseat genius."
Finally, they were satisfied. There was a brief scuffle over who got to press the button. Then a bright flash-
"Aw, crap," said Rodney, a moment later. This sentiment was widely echoed.
Radek took some Tylenol.
The device was inspected again. Hands and elbows were jostled. Two heads were proved not to be better than one, not when they were accidentally cracked together with a sound like two coconuts being tested for the percussion section. Radek tried to hide his Tylenol but was quickly set upon.
"I've got it!" Rodney said finally.
There were, of course, some dissenting opinions.
"Excuse me? I think I was the one who figured it out."
"Oh, please-you went straight for Miko's Jell-O stash and then just sat there masticating. I stopped Mister No. 1 over there from electrocuting us all."
"I was not going to-"
"I'm not sure this is going to work. I haven't gotten to look properly, and I don't trust the rest of you idiots to-"
"Does our ass really look like that? I'm just surprised that our ass really looks like that."
"Please, I beg of you," Radek moaned, "one of you press the button already!"
A moment later, he rued these overhasty words.
"Crap," said Rodney.
"Aw, nuts," agreed Rodney.
"Ohgodohgodohgod," countered Rodney.
"I hate you all," said Rodney, on behalf of everyone in the room.
Radek buried his head in his hands.
An hour later, Radek got back from briefing Elizabeth and trying to stop her from bruising her skull too badly on the edge of her desk. He pushed open the door to the lab. "Elizabeth wants to know if you are actually solving problem or in fact creating a clone army. Oh." He looked around: the room was surprisingly empty, with just the one Rodney sitting slumped beside a lab bench, glaring at the device like he might be able to make it explode with the power of his mind. "You fixed it, then?"
"No," said Rodney. "The others just...wandered off. No commitment to the work! Honestly."
Radek reflected that this was perhaps not the best time to mention that this was himself he was insulting.
"...A couple of them went to get a sandwich. I said, could they bring me a sandwich? And they told me to get my own damn sandwich!"
"That is very, er."
"And where the hell is Sheppard? I've radioed him several times telling him I need him. He keeps saying he's coming, and the last time he giggled. But he still hasn't come down!"
Radek didn't really know what to say to this. Luckily, he was spared having to come up with something by Sheppard's arrival. "In the lab this time, Rodney?" the Colonel asked, posing-ah, pausing, Radek mentally corrected-in the doorway. "You're really insatiable toda-oh, er, hi, Radek."
Rodney looked put-upon. "What is the matter with you?" he asked, a question that in this case Radek had to appreciate. "Do you think I've been using the radio just to say hello?"
"Um." Sheppard looked over at Radek, shiftily. "I, um..."
"There you are!" Rodney waltzed back into the lab. "Why aren't you in your quarters? I've been waiting my turn for over an hour!"
"It's not your turn, it's my turn!" said Rodney, hot on his heels. "You, you-queue jumper!"
Sheppard made a squeaking sound that may have at one time been something in English. Rodney stared, then began blushing increasingly more violent shades of red.
"Well," Rodney told Rodney, "we could always share..."
Radek backed hastily out of the lab.
II. Erase/Rewind
"Have you read the SG-1 mission report about this?"
"Yeah. Or, well, I remember reading it, anyway."
"Yeah."
Rodney looked down at his hands. John watched him-he couldn't stop watching him. Rodney looked so different. For John, the physical part of this wasn't really what was bothering him. He himself was a little shorter, a little skinnier, a little more prone to pimples, but otherwise he had looked much the same at fifteen as at twenty-five as at thirty-five as at forty. People joked about the portrait he must have in his attic. Rodney, though...Rodney looked like an entirely different person. John couldn't get over it. And that was good; it gave him something to focus on, something that was actually of no consequence to him. Something that had nothing to do with...with the other him, the him talking in a low whisper at the opposite end of the room.
Rodney reached up to rub his temple and jerked back when his hand hit the tumble of blond curls there. He sighed. "Look," he said. "The number one thing is, we have to make sure they don't send us back to Earth. Okay? We have to stick together and not let them send us back."
John really did not want to think about this. And yet... "That is just...so not a possibility," he said. "Going to high school again? No."
Rodney snorted. It was such a different sound, coming from this skinny, almost cherubic face. "What, you weren't the type of guy who loved high school?"
John's smile was not pleasant. "Yeah, I was prom king and captain of the football team." Rodney actually spent a few second looking vindicated before he caught on. And he was supposed to be a genius. Right.
"Fine," he said with an eyeroll. "But the point is we're staying. Even if we have to hijack a jumper or, um..."
Rodney was clearly going to leave this part of the plan to him. But that was okay, because John was actually in complete agreement. He was digging his heels in, and man, was he glad to have Rodney with him in this. He looked over at his bent blond head, the set of his skinny little shoulders. So glad.
The others finished talking and crossed the room. Apparently the "kids" were to be allowed back in the discussion now. John could feel them watching. He could barely look at the other him. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that he was wearing his blankest, most controlled expression. So he was freaked out, too. Good, John thought. You stole my life.
McKay actually seemed less thrown, shockingly. He was squinting at Rodney, his mouth slanting down into a frown. "I can't believe I was ever actually that skinny."
Rodney glared. "Yeah, you actually had hair, too."
McKay didn't appear terribly bothered by this statement of fact. "Ah, yes," he said, rubbing his hands together. "That came in handy during my Flock of Seagulls phase."
"Your what?" This from the other him.
Oddly, it was Rodney and not McKay who looked like he wanted to die. He moved a hand to the top of his head then tried to discreetly pull it away.
John leaned in close. "I think it looks cool," he whispered. "They're just jealous 'cause they're old."
"You realize you're talking about us," Rodney whispered back.
John shrugged. He couldn't quite bring himself to say, Not anymore.
Elizabeth cleared her throat. "Gentlemen," she said, and John lost the first part of what she was saying trying to chase away the thought that she looked like somebody's mom.
"We're staying here," John interrupted firmly. "We can help, we know everything they know. Or we can stay out of your way. Whatever. But we're not leaving."
Rodney shot him a big, grateful smile. John felt himself flush.
Elizabeth raised an eyebrow at him. "As I was just saying, Doctor Keller says you're perfectly healthy, so I don't see-"
"You're sure there's no genetic decay?" Rodney said hastily. "I mean, I know this was an Ancient device and not an Asgard practical joke, but you never know with these things and-"
"-I don't see why you shouldn't stay here," Elizabeth pressed on, "if this is where you're most comfortable, and where you can be closest to the appropriate medical care should you need it. Which Doctor Keller doesn't think you will," she emphasized, for Rodney's sake.
Rodney let out a large, relieved breath, John a somewhat smaller one.
"I want you both to meet with Heightmeyer," Elizabeth continued, ignoring John's scowl. "Give yourselves a couple of weeks. Then we'll see about adding some light duties..."
John glanced briefly at the other him's face. His mouth was perfectly flat, the lips set. He didn't like this idea, John could tell. He'd wanted to send John back. He couldn't stand to look at him.
Well, it was mutual. John put on his most brilliant, falsely ingratiating smile and grinned at the other him for all he was worth.
*
The chime sounded in the middle of the night. John pulled wide the door to these new, bare quarters that didn't yet seem like his own; the other him had given him that damn copy of War and Peace and nothing else. Rodney looked worryingly small standing out there in the hall, blanket thrown over his shoulders, his skinny white legs sticking out of his boxer shorts. "I couldn't sleep," he explained-factually, without actually sounding apologetic about the interruption. "I'm worried I'm forgetting stuff."
John had felt that worry, too, teasing at his mind like the Wraith's misty illusions. "Naw," he said, like the mere thought was ridiculous. "I'm sure you still know pi to an insane number of digits, and all kinds of obscure laws of physics..."
"Yeah, but I knew all that stuff before I turned fifteen." Rodney tugged at his blanket. John thought, unflatteringly, of Linus van Pelt. "What about everything that came after? College and learning to drive and the dynamics of a wormhole and Ancient technology..."
"Sex," John suggested, because he was trying to keep things light.
Rodney scrunched up his nose. "What, you mean you hadn't had sex already by the time you were fifteen?"
John choked on the air in his mouth.
Rodney laughed. It was a light, easy laugh, one John hadn't heard often from him. Had never heard, technically.
"I'm kidding," Rodney said, sitting down on the edge of John's bed. The blanket slipped off his shoulders. "I can't believe you were that easy."
For a second John thought he meant something else. "Shut up," he said, and watched Rodney continue to try to smile, though his face looked strained.
"I don't want to have to start over," he said after a minute. "I liked where I was. I'd worked hard to get here. There. Sure," he coughed, "I hadn't yet received the appropriate acknowledgment from the scientific community, but as soon as we declassify, they're going to start throwing the Nobel Prizes at me, just you wait."
John was about to make a snarky comment like, "Won't that hurt?" when Rodney's faced clouded up again and he said, "I mean, at him."
John bit his lip, then released it and sat down beside Rodney. "But you have plenty of time to do more work now," he said. "You can win other Nobel Prizes. Hell, with multiple lifetimes at your disposal, you can probably set a record for 'em."
Rodney smiled, almost shyly, long lashes dark against his cheeks. God, at this age he was almost pretty. McKay had always had a, a weird sort of charisma to him, but now...
"Do you think we're really fifteen?" Rodney asked suddenly. And John had to stop himself from saying, God, I hope so! because that meant this was okay, that he wasn't being all gross and Humbert Humbert-y. "I mean, like," Rodney shifted a little, "like emotionally and stuff. Um. Hormonally."
"Hormonally," John repeated. He tried to remember how it had really felt to be fifteen, the first time, and couldn't recall much of anything good. He was pretty sure that he had hated himself: hated where he lived, and the oppressive quiet of the house he came home to, and the churning feeling deep in his belly that he wouldn't be able to escape it-not this place or anything else. Not himself and what his body wanted.
But now he was across the universe, in another galaxy with the waves lapping gently at the city just outside his window. He had thought, You stole my life, but Rodney had said Start over, and that was feeling less and less like an entirely bad thing.
Maybe he was losing his mind. Maybe he would forget: Afghanistan swirling away in a cloud of sand, Antarctica whiting out, along with the faces of everyone he'd lost. And then there'd just be-what? This moment? Rodney looking at him with his tousled hair and his wide, newly innocent eyes, his lips parted in an unspoken question.
So he said what he'd only thought before. "I don't know. I don't care. I'm just glad you're here with me."
Rodney's smile lit his whole face, made him look young and easy and oddly angelic. John inched his fingers across the cold stretch of mattress and grasped Rodney's hand. Palm to palm: like two boys making a vow of blood brothers.
They were together. Everything was going to be all right.
III. Service Industry
John was licking Rodney's ass, massaging Rodney's shoulders, tidying Rodney's room, doing some of Rodney's paperwork, dancing to bow-chicka-bow-bow stripper music while twirling his shirt above his head and rubbing his nipples, and getting soundly fucked by Rodney when Sheppard came into the room. "McKay!" he sputtered. "This is so..."
Rodney let John's cock slip out of his mouth and turned to face Sheppard, his dick still inside John. "Hot?"
"Inappropriate!"
"How so?" Rodney asked. He held up one finger to let the John whose cock he had been sucking know that he'd be with him again in a moment.
Sheppard gaped. "You're using my clones as your own personal harem!"
Rodney thought about this for a moment, easing in and out of John's ass a couple of times. "Sorry, I guess you're right. Hey," he said to the John who was doing the striptease, "why don't you go help the Colonel out?"
Sheppard's protests were quickly silenced as his shirtless clone sidled up to him and pressed his bare chest against Sheppard's body. He licked at Sheppard's bottom lip until Sheppard's mouth opened and John's tongue slid inside.
Rodney was fucking John again, and sucking greedily at John's cock. Sheppard could see them, feel their movements, even as John kissed along his throat, nuzzling his neck. Sheppard let his head fall back against the wall with a moan. He raised a hand and pressed on the top of John's head, pushing him down to his knees. John mouthed Sheppard's cock through the fabric of his BDUs. They both smiled.
The other Johns looked on with interest.
IV. Mathematics
John has always regretted that he has but one life to give for Atlantis.
That's not a problem anymore.
V. Progeny
John says to his son, Look up at the sky! Can you imagine soaring up there? Here, let me lift you up. Vrooooom. You're flying!
Rodney says to his son, Look up at the sky! Do you see the stars? They are actually amazingly far apart. I can teach you to calculate how far, how fast they're spinning. Your mind can hold all the stars.
Rodney says to John about John's son, Careful! You're going to scramble his precious brains! You don't have to teach him to be Captain Heroic, you know.
About Rodney's son, John says, That kid's going to end up being Captain of the Nerd Patrol if you're not careful.
John carries his son high on his shoulders. Rodney walks down the hall with one hand held carefully above his son's back, and catches him when the boy, entranced by some exposed web of circuitry, stumbles over his own studiously tied laces and nearly falls.
They watch their sons-Rodney's puffing up with pride when he asks the right question, knows the right answer; John's rushing bravely and wide-eyed with wonder to greet each day-they watch the two little boys, one tow-headed and one dark, brothers but related not by blood, and they know they made the right decision.
John knows his son is growing up unafraid, his wide blue eyes looking eagerly out at the equally blue ocean, bouncing with excitement on his father's lap as John takes the jumper into a spin. In the back, Rodney sits with his own boy by his side, and Rodney's son is not remotely embarrassed to prefer to continue studying his book, even when called by his peer to Come see! Come see!
They could have gone about this another way. It might have been easier, elicited fewer stares. But they didn't trust themselves, neither of them, not to make the same mistakes they had made before, that their parents made: doom the next generation to follow the one before.
And yet somehow, miraculously: they trusted each other.
John watches Rodney touch a gentle hand to his son's bent head, smoothing the dark strands, keeping near. His chest aches: that curious mixture of nervousness and pride and all-consuming love. He takes a breath; then, the jumper on autopilot, he guides his son's hands to the controls, watches his mouth slant up in delight.
John thinks, as he knows Rodney thinks, This time you'll be brought up right.
Author: trinityofone
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Spoilers: I suppose tiny infinitesimal ones through the end of S3
Length: ~3000 words
Summary: Um. See subtitle?
A/N: As is so often the case, many thanks to wychwood and siriaeve for offering all the right suggestions and seeing what I can't.
THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF ME, MYSELF & I, or: FIVE TIMES JOHN AND RODNEY ACCIDENTALLY CLONED THEMSELVES
I. Multiplicity
"Ooops," said Rodney, in stereo.
"Muj ty boze, my worst nightmare has come to pass," said Radek.
"Shut up," said Rodney, at the same time Rodney said, "Quiet, you're not helping."
The device was more thoroughly examined. Rodney had often wished for extra hands, but found that in reality it was sort of annoying.
"No, no, move that crystal there-"
"Thank you," Rodney slapped Rodney's fingers away, "I'd figured that out." He turned his head and mumbled. "Backseat genius."
Finally, they were satisfied. There was a brief scuffle over who got to press the button. Then a bright flash-
"Aw, crap," said Rodney, a moment later. This sentiment was widely echoed.
Radek took some Tylenol.
The device was inspected again. Hands and elbows were jostled. Two heads were proved not to be better than one, not when they were accidentally cracked together with a sound like two coconuts being tested for the percussion section. Radek tried to hide his Tylenol but was quickly set upon.
"I've got it!" Rodney said finally.
There were, of course, some dissenting opinions.
"Excuse me? I think I was the one who figured it out."
"Oh, please-you went straight for Miko's Jell-O stash and then just sat there masticating. I stopped Mister No. 1 over there from electrocuting us all."
"I was not going to-"
"I'm not sure this is going to work. I haven't gotten to look properly, and I don't trust the rest of you idiots to-"
"Does our ass really look like that? I'm just surprised that our ass really looks like that."
"Please, I beg of you," Radek moaned, "one of you press the button already!"
A moment later, he rued these overhasty words.
"Crap," said Rodney.
"Aw, nuts," agreed Rodney.
"Ohgodohgodohgod," countered Rodney.
"I hate you all," said Rodney, on behalf of everyone in the room.
Radek buried his head in his hands.
An hour later, Radek got back from briefing Elizabeth and trying to stop her from bruising her skull too badly on the edge of her desk. He pushed open the door to the lab. "Elizabeth wants to know if you are actually solving problem or in fact creating a clone army. Oh." He looked around: the room was surprisingly empty, with just the one Rodney sitting slumped beside a lab bench, glaring at the device like he might be able to make it explode with the power of his mind. "You fixed it, then?"
"No," said Rodney. "The others just...wandered off. No commitment to the work! Honestly."
Radek reflected that this was perhaps not the best time to mention that this was himself he was insulting.
"...A couple of them went to get a sandwich. I said, could they bring me a sandwich? And they told me to get my own damn sandwich!"
"That is very, er."
"And where the hell is Sheppard? I've radioed him several times telling him I need him. He keeps saying he's coming, and the last time he giggled. But he still hasn't come down!"
Radek didn't really know what to say to this. Luckily, he was spared having to come up with something by Sheppard's arrival. "In the lab this time, Rodney?" the Colonel asked, posing-ah, pausing, Radek mentally corrected-in the doorway. "You're really insatiable toda-oh, er, hi, Radek."
Rodney looked put-upon. "What is the matter with you?" he asked, a question that in this case Radek had to appreciate. "Do you think I've been using the radio just to say hello?"
"Um." Sheppard looked over at Radek, shiftily. "I, um..."
"There you are!" Rodney waltzed back into the lab. "Why aren't you in your quarters? I've been waiting my turn for over an hour!"
"It's not your turn, it's my turn!" said Rodney, hot on his heels. "You, you-queue jumper!"
Sheppard made a squeaking sound that may have at one time been something in English. Rodney stared, then began blushing increasingly more violent shades of red.
"Well," Rodney told Rodney, "we could always share..."
Radek backed hastily out of the lab.
II. Erase/Rewind
"Have you read the SG-1 mission report about this?"
"Yeah. Or, well, I remember reading it, anyway."
"Yeah."
Rodney looked down at his hands. John watched him-he couldn't stop watching him. Rodney looked so different. For John, the physical part of this wasn't really what was bothering him. He himself was a little shorter, a little skinnier, a little more prone to pimples, but otherwise he had looked much the same at fifteen as at twenty-five as at thirty-five as at forty. People joked about the portrait he must have in his attic. Rodney, though...Rodney looked like an entirely different person. John couldn't get over it. And that was good; it gave him something to focus on, something that was actually of no consequence to him. Something that had nothing to do with...with the other him, the him talking in a low whisper at the opposite end of the room.
Rodney reached up to rub his temple and jerked back when his hand hit the tumble of blond curls there. He sighed. "Look," he said. "The number one thing is, we have to make sure they don't send us back to Earth. Okay? We have to stick together and not let them send us back."
John really did not want to think about this. And yet... "That is just...so not a possibility," he said. "Going to high school again? No."
Rodney snorted. It was such a different sound, coming from this skinny, almost cherubic face. "What, you weren't the type of guy who loved high school?"
John's smile was not pleasant. "Yeah, I was prom king and captain of the football team." Rodney actually spent a few second looking vindicated before he caught on. And he was supposed to be a genius. Right.
"Fine," he said with an eyeroll. "But the point is we're staying. Even if we have to hijack a jumper or, um..."
Rodney was clearly going to leave this part of the plan to him. But that was okay, because John was actually in complete agreement. He was digging his heels in, and man, was he glad to have Rodney with him in this. He looked over at his bent blond head, the set of his skinny little shoulders. So glad.
The others finished talking and crossed the room. Apparently the "kids" were to be allowed back in the discussion now. John could feel them watching. He could barely look at the other him. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that he was wearing his blankest, most controlled expression. So he was freaked out, too. Good, John thought. You stole my life.
McKay actually seemed less thrown, shockingly. He was squinting at Rodney, his mouth slanting down into a frown. "I can't believe I was ever actually that skinny."
Rodney glared. "Yeah, you actually had hair, too."
McKay didn't appear terribly bothered by this statement of fact. "Ah, yes," he said, rubbing his hands together. "That came in handy during my Flock of Seagulls phase."
"Your what?" This from the other him.
Oddly, it was Rodney and not McKay who looked like he wanted to die. He moved a hand to the top of his head then tried to discreetly pull it away.
John leaned in close. "I think it looks cool," he whispered. "They're just jealous 'cause they're old."
"You realize you're talking about us," Rodney whispered back.
John shrugged. He couldn't quite bring himself to say, Not anymore.
Elizabeth cleared her throat. "Gentlemen," she said, and John lost the first part of what she was saying trying to chase away the thought that she looked like somebody's mom.
"We're staying here," John interrupted firmly. "We can help, we know everything they know. Or we can stay out of your way. Whatever. But we're not leaving."
Rodney shot him a big, grateful smile. John felt himself flush.
Elizabeth raised an eyebrow at him. "As I was just saying, Doctor Keller says you're perfectly healthy, so I don't see-"
"You're sure there's no genetic decay?" Rodney said hastily. "I mean, I know this was an Ancient device and not an Asgard practical joke, but you never know with these things and-"
"-I don't see why you shouldn't stay here," Elizabeth pressed on, "if this is where you're most comfortable, and where you can be closest to the appropriate medical care should you need it. Which Doctor Keller doesn't think you will," she emphasized, for Rodney's sake.
Rodney let out a large, relieved breath, John a somewhat smaller one.
"I want you both to meet with Heightmeyer," Elizabeth continued, ignoring John's scowl. "Give yourselves a couple of weeks. Then we'll see about adding some light duties..."
John glanced briefly at the other him's face. His mouth was perfectly flat, the lips set. He didn't like this idea, John could tell. He'd wanted to send John back. He couldn't stand to look at him.
Well, it was mutual. John put on his most brilliant, falsely ingratiating smile and grinned at the other him for all he was worth.
*
The chime sounded in the middle of the night. John pulled wide the door to these new, bare quarters that didn't yet seem like his own; the other him had given him that damn copy of War and Peace and nothing else. Rodney looked worryingly small standing out there in the hall, blanket thrown over his shoulders, his skinny white legs sticking out of his boxer shorts. "I couldn't sleep," he explained-factually, without actually sounding apologetic about the interruption. "I'm worried I'm forgetting stuff."
John had felt that worry, too, teasing at his mind like the Wraith's misty illusions. "Naw," he said, like the mere thought was ridiculous. "I'm sure you still know pi to an insane number of digits, and all kinds of obscure laws of physics..."
"Yeah, but I knew all that stuff before I turned fifteen." Rodney tugged at his blanket. John thought, unflatteringly, of Linus van Pelt. "What about everything that came after? College and learning to drive and the dynamics of a wormhole and Ancient technology..."
"Sex," John suggested, because he was trying to keep things light.
Rodney scrunched up his nose. "What, you mean you hadn't had sex already by the time you were fifteen?"
John choked on the air in his mouth.
Rodney laughed. It was a light, easy laugh, one John hadn't heard often from him. Had never heard, technically.
"I'm kidding," Rodney said, sitting down on the edge of John's bed. The blanket slipped off his shoulders. "I can't believe you were that easy."
For a second John thought he meant something else. "Shut up," he said, and watched Rodney continue to try to smile, though his face looked strained.
"I don't want to have to start over," he said after a minute. "I liked where I was. I'd worked hard to get here. There. Sure," he coughed, "I hadn't yet received the appropriate acknowledgment from the scientific community, but as soon as we declassify, they're going to start throwing the Nobel Prizes at me, just you wait."
John was about to make a snarky comment like, "Won't that hurt?" when Rodney's faced clouded up again and he said, "I mean, at him."
John bit his lip, then released it and sat down beside Rodney. "But you have plenty of time to do more work now," he said. "You can win other Nobel Prizes. Hell, with multiple lifetimes at your disposal, you can probably set a record for 'em."
Rodney smiled, almost shyly, long lashes dark against his cheeks. God, at this age he was almost pretty. McKay had always had a, a weird sort of charisma to him, but now...
"Do you think we're really fifteen?" Rodney asked suddenly. And John had to stop himself from saying, God, I hope so! because that meant this was okay, that he wasn't being all gross and Humbert Humbert-y. "I mean, like," Rodney shifted a little, "like emotionally and stuff. Um. Hormonally."
"Hormonally," John repeated. He tried to remember how it had really felt to be fifteen, the first time, and couldn't recall much of anything good. He was pretty sure that he had hated himself: hated where he lived, and the oppressive quiet of the house he came home to, and the churning feeling deep in his belly that he wouldn't be able to escape it-not this place or anything else. Not himself and what his body wanted.
But now he was across the universe, in another galaxy with the waves lapping gently at the city just outside his window. He had thought, You stole my life, but Rodney had said Start over, and that was feeling less and less like an entirely bad thing.
Maybe he was losing his mind. Maybe he would forget: Afghanistan swirling away in a cloud of sand, Antarctica whiting out, along with the faces of everyone he'd lost. And then there'd just be-what? This moment? Rodney looking at him with his tousled hair and his wide, newly innocent eyes, his lips parted in an unspoken question.
So he said what he'd only thought before. "I don't know. I don't care. I'm just glad you're here with me."
Rodney's smile lit his whole face, made him look young and easy and oddly angelic. John inched his fingers across the cold stretch of mattress and grasped Rodney's hand. Palm to palm: like two boys making a vow of blood brothers.
They were together. Everything was going to be all right.
III. Service Industry
John was licking Rodney's ass, massaging Rodney's shoulders, tidying Rodney's room, doing some of Rodney's paperwork, dancing to bow-chicka-bow-bow stripper music while twirling his shirt above his head and rubbing his nipples, and getting soundly fucked by Rodney when Sheppard came into the room. "McKay!" he sputtered. "This is so..."
Rodney let John's cock slip out of his mouth and turned to face Sheppard, his dick still inside John. "Hot?"
"Inappropriate!"
"How so?" Rodney asked. He held up one finger to let the John whose cock he had been sucking know that he'd be with him again in a moment.
Sheppard gaped. "You're using my clones as your own personal harem!"
Rodney thought about this for a moment, easing in and out of John's ass a couple of times. "Sorry, I guess you're right. Hey," he said to the John who was doing the striptease, "why don't you go help the Colonel out?"
Sheppard's protests were quickly silenced as his shirtless clone sidled up to him and pressed his bare chest against Sheppard's body. He licked at Sheppard's bottom lip until Sheppard's mouth opened and John's tongue slid inside.
Rodney was fucking John again, and sucking greedily at John's cock. Sheppard could see them, feel their movements, even as John kissed along his throat, nuzzling his neck. Sheppard let his head fall back against the wall with a moan. He raised a hand and pressed on the top of John's head, pushing him down to his knees. John mouthed Sheppard's cock through the fabric of his BDUs. They both smiled.
The other Johns looked on with interest.
IV. Mathematics
John has always regretted that he has but one life to give for Atlantis.
That's not a problem anymore.
V. Progeny
John says to his son, Look up at the sky! Can you imagine soaring up there? Here, let me lift you up. Vrooooom. You're flying!
Rodney says to his son, Look up at the sky! Do you see the stars? They are actually amazingly far apart. I can teach you to calculate how far, how fast they're spinning. Your mind can hold all the stars.
Rodney says to John about John's son, Careful! You're going to scramble his precious brains! You don't have to teach him to be Captain Heroic, you know.
About Rodney's son, John says, That kid's going to end up being Captain of the Nerd Patrol if you're not careful.
John carries his son high on his shoulders. Rodney walks down the hall with one hand held carefully above his son's back, and catches him when the boy, entranced by some exposed web of circuitry, stumbles over his own studiously tied laces and nearly falls.
They watch their sons-Rodney's puffing up with pride when he asks the right question, knows the right answer; John's rushing bravely and wide-eyed with wonder to greet each day-they watch the two little boys, one tow-headed and one dark, brothers but related not by blood, and they know they made the right decision.
John knows his son is growing up unafraid, his wide blue eyes looking eagerly out at the equally blue ocean, bouncing with excitement on his father's lap as John takes the jumper into a spin. In the back, Rodney sits with his own boy by his side, and Rodney's son is not remotely embarrassed to prefer to continue studying his book, even when called by his peer to Come see! Come see!
They could have gone about this another way. It might have been easier, elicited fewer stares. But they didn't trust themselves, neither of them, not to make the same mistakes they had made before, that their parents made: doom the next generation to follow the one before.
And yet somehow, miraculously: they trusted each other.
John watches Rodney touch a gentle hand to his son's bent head, smoothing the dark strands, keeping near. His chest aches: that curious mixture of nervousness and pride and all-consuming love. He takes a breath; then, the jumper on autopilot, he guides his son's hands to the controls, watches his mouth slant up in delight.
John thinks, as he knows Rodney thinks, This time you'll be brought up right.