Stargate: Atlantis fic!
Title: Polynomials and Fixed Points
Rating: Teen
Category: Slash, Humor
Disclaimer: Not mine, no money.
Warnings: Implied Het, implied multi-person canoodling
Spoilers: Uh... mid second season? Through Aurora, to be safe.
Summary: Atlantis does the math.
Author's Notes: Inspired by a line from mirabile_dictu's lovely and completely unrelated Rodney/Daniel "Two Galaxies" -- and then she was kind enough to help catch my errors. Cuisine-related kink reference blatantly stolen from seperis's RL journal entries, hope she doesn't mind.
Polynomials and Fixed Points
Something was weird in the mess hall, and for once it wasn't the food. Initially John couldn't tell what it was, but as soon as he arrived something tweaked him. So he did a surreptitious threat assessment of the thin early dinner crowd as he slid through the line, getting a plateful of not-turkey and sorta-potatoes, with bonus real Earth-type gravy.
Ronon and Teyla eating together companionably, check.
McKay and Zelenka mid-argument, Rodney talking through a mouthful of food and waving at a laptop screen with a thankfully empty spork, check.
Carson marginally nervous, Kavanagh frustrated and suspicious, and over in the corner four Marines were busy passing around papers and laughing, noisily one-upping each other about something that John couldn't quite hear but probably had to do with injuries, firepower, or both. Check, check, double check.
Heightmeyer usually sat by herself, looking lonely but resigned in her space bubble of everyone else's psychoanalytic paranoia, but instead was murmuring to that Japanese scientist, Miko Something-or-other with the bug-eye glasses. Currently Miko seemed depressed, reluctant to do anything other than stare into her cup of green tea getting her lenses fogged up. Heightmeyer looked earnest and supportive, pausing to sip at some coffee and then launch back into another round of benevolent browbeating.
Unusual setting for that kind of talk, but not enough to set off the alarm bells.
Elizabeth was spooked.
Okay, that was weird.
It was only an impression, considering all he could see was the back of her head and shoulders above the chair she was seated in. Then he realized her normal picture-perfect posture was absolutely rigid, she was eating almost mechanically, and the reflection of her face in the window... her eyes darted from her laptop, to her left, then wrenched back to her plate. Her ultra-fascinating, almost empty plate. The meaningful bouncing-ball screensaver on her laptop. And to her left again.
Hmm. Elizabeth had an unusual problem. One she didn't know how to handle.
Two options. Either he could go straight to the source, or he could try the grapevine first. Listening to mangled rumors gave him a better chance of actually eating some food, since it looked like whatever was bugging Weir wasn't suitable for public consumption.
Most lines of communication passed Teyla's way at some point, since the Marines respected her, the scientists were generally friendly, and she had access to the command structure via the team. And Elizabeth's eyes had shot over to the left again, which, given the angle of her reflection, meant her problem was in Teyla's quadrant of the room anyway. John ambled over and sat down next to Ronon.
Minor pleasantries were exchanged since they hadn't seen each other since their 9AM debriefing, then John poked a toe in the pool. "What's going on?," he asked, and fed himself his first bite of dinner, certain he had at least a minute before Teyla wound down.
"It seems that one of the scientists created a computer program to predict the best romantic partners for everyone in Atlantis, and there is some... dispute about the outcome."
Caught mid-swallow, John choked. Ronon helpfully thumped his back. Out of the corner of one watering eye, John saw Elizabeth striding with confidence out of the mess hall, projecting her best diplomat's 'I am calm, cool, and collected' attitude.
She was totally running away.
**********
By the time John cleared his airway and finished laughing himself sick, Rodney was bearing down on their table with Zelenka in his wake. Zelenka had a crazed grin that was -- really damn frightening. Rodney stalked over, crossed his arms defensively, stuck his chin in the air and announced, "I had nothing to do with it."
"With what, McKay?" John asked.
"You haven't checked your email lately?"
"No, I've been meeting with Lorne all afternoon."
Rodney slumped into the chair next to Teyla. "Oh, thank god."
Zelenka plopped down at the head of the table, the very picture of manic glee, but before he could say a word Rodney stuck a pointed finger in his face and hissed, "Shut up or I will make the remainder of your very short life full of excruciating pain and unbelievable misery."
He shut up and frowned at the laptop he'd been clutching to his chest. John had never seen Zelenka pout before; it was brain-bendingly cute.
Haughtily ignoring his fellow scientist, Rodney explained, "It's come to light that shortly after we arrived, *someone* created a database of personality traits and preferences, with the goal of pairing everyone up to get married. At some point, the database got --" punching gesture that might have been How To Stuff a Turkey If You're Really Into Necropheliac Bestiality, "--sucked into the Atlantis mainframe and it went ballistic."
A little distracted by the hands, it took John a moment to zero in. "Atlantis took over?"
Violent nodding. "Yes! The database is *huge,* with variables and algorithms I've been reverse engineering all afternoon. It's chaos theory the likes of which I've never seen before, talk about literal strange attractors -- and the *implications*! I've always thought there was some sort of proto-AI lurking in the mainframe somewhere, and this *almost* confirms it, but then again it's kind of creepy to think that Atlantis has been keeping tabs on us, maybe 24/7, at least in the areas with power, talk about Big Brother, but more like Big *Sister,* since I've always thought Atlantis was more of a 'she,' what with the floating and being a spaceship and ships are always female, at least in modern Western parlance, I should look that up--"
"Can we get back on track here?"
"Right. Yes. It seems the Ancients were a little more... freeform about their social customs than most Earth cultures."
"And?" Man, it was like pulling teeth.
Zelenka couldn't stand it any more. "Everyone was sent email with suggestions for short-term and long-term liaisons. Since many of the arrangements involve more than two people--"
Rodney butted in, "Not all of which are heterosexual pairings to begin with--"
"--a few people from more conservative countries, and several who are already sleeping with the 'wrong' partners are... unhappy."
"Shocked," said Rodney, complete with eyeroll.
"Apeshit," interpreted John, which got raised eyebrows from both Teyla and Ronon.
Come to think of it, neither of them seemed disturbed at all. Both of them tended to be kind of unflappable, but it made John curious. Where else could he find this caliber of teaseworthy material? "Who'd you guys get?"
Teyla did her Mona Lisa impression. "I was listed as 'Insufficient Data.'"
Damn. "You?" he prompted Ronon.
"Weir."
Holy shit.
"And Zelenka. All together."
Holy holy holy shit.
Speechless, John watched Ronon and Radek leer at each other. Rodney rubbed his eyes while grumbling, "Yeah, like everyone didn't already know you two have been making like bunnies for months."
************
It took a while for John to get over the brain cramp, but eventually he had to ask. "Who did I wind up with?"
Before he'd even ended the sentence Rodney was levitating out of his seat and rushing for the door. "Gotta go check on that project now, critically time-sensitive, bye!"
Right in time for Elizabeth's voice over the radio. "Doctor McKay, Colonel Sheppard? My office, now please."
Rodney stopped in his tracks. "Crap." He touched his earpiece and growled, "On my way," changing direction and heading for the transporter.
That gave time for John to catch up and hop in, sending his own acknowledgement as the doors closed.
McKay did a complicated fingertip dance against the map's edge, the doors made a thunking noise, and John braced himself as McKay whirled around to get right in his face, arms akimbo and chin jutting out. "Don't make me explain this before we get to Elizabeth's office because I don't want to waste valuable time going through it twice. But," and then he drooped, looking as uncertain as John had ever seen him, "I have one word to say to you right now."
The anticipation was kind of scary. "Okay."
McKay straightened up again, looked John in the eye and said, "Dibs."
Later, John was able to remember each movement, each discrete touch, but at the moment it all washed over him in a slam of sensation. Warm: hand at the back of his neck, chest pushing him against the door, thigh wedged between his own. Hot: mouth, tongue stroking in; groin, rubbing. Sharp here, hard there, rough and solid everywhere.
Oh. Wow.
Then, cold.
Lips, neck, cascading down the front of his body.
Rodney backing away.
***********************
It took profound concentration to keep his comprehension at the level of the words being said, when what his ears insisted on hearing was, "Wah wah, wah wahwah wah." Piecing the words together required all the unsexy thoughts John could summon. After an image of Mrs. Kiesel, his seventh-grade English teacher, he was mostly back on board.
From the other chair, Rodney was saying, "Fortunately it seems only a few of us had access to all the results, all in the Science division entirely so they're under my supervision anyway, and I locked down the database and took the precaution of scrubbing the email system and the backups, so I can only think of two other people who *might* be able hack in but that'd take a concentrated effort and I'll monitor how they use their time anyway--"
Fidgeting with a stylus, Elizabeth interrupted, "Rodney, focus."
"Okay, right, and everyone else was only emailed names pertinent to their own."
Elizabeth did that squinty thing with her eyes. "So there is *some* containment, right? People would have to voluntarily share their results for them to become public knowledge?"
"Yes. Kind of. *Un*fortunately, some people were, uh," snap snap snap of fingers, then a shrug, "-- popular? Especially with the short-term list." Rodney flicked his eyes over at John.
John felt that at this point he could wade into the conversation with some certainty of not looking like a complete head case. "Oh?"
"Elizabeth, if I may?" At her nod, Rodney commandeered her laptop, swiveling it around on the desk and keying some passwords. A new window popped up, Rodney turned the screen some more, and John was looking at his own email.
The message header was relatively succinct, but all that registered was, "Blah blah blah sexual encounters with the following are given a better than 85% chance of satisfaction for all parties involved."
There was a list of names. A long list.
John hit the Page Down button.
He hit it again, then again, and reached the section where the database presented threesomes.
Page Down. Foursomes.
Page Down, moresomes.
Numbly, John paged down one more time and -- thank god -- reached another block of regular text. "Blah blah blah 98% probability the following are your ideal lifemate(s)."
There was one name: Rodney McKay.
Who was staring at him with irritation. "Yeah, yeah, you're the man. The only guy who comes close on the short-timers list is Ronon, but he's been boinking Radek."
Somewhere in his otherwise paralyzed brain, a neuron fired. Oh, shit, Elizabeth.
A glance across the desk showed that she was completely poleaxed. John felt a little better, knowing he wasn't the only one who hadn't noticed.
Then Rodney went on, "But Heightmeyer has you *both* beat for sheer quantity. Whoo! Can't wait to decode the criteria Atlantis assigned *her.*"
Elizabeth's tone was the perfect combination of drill sergeant and Mom. "Rodney!"
"Oh, like I'd say that anywhere else. I'm not *completely* stupid about social mores. Besides, I think it's because Atlantis is a little unclear about her job description." Rodney's smirk was the filthiest thing John had ever seen.
Covering her face, Elizabeth took a deep breath. Then another, and let her hands drop. "Okay. I'm still not clear on how this happened in the first place."
For the first time, Rodney hesitated, then forged ahead. "Miko confessed to Heightmeyer, who -- with consent -- passed along to me, that shortly after we arrived she, Miko, in her *copious* spare time," rolling of eyes, "made a program for pairing everyone off, should we fail to reestablish contact with Earth."
John thought about the male-to-female ratio of the initial staff. "Why? So we could have kids and pass our knowledge on to our children? You'd think there would be some sort of genetic mix and match, not marriages."
"No, actually I had one of the biologists working on that already, officially even. This was more like something out of Glamour or Cosmo." At John's expression of sarcastic inquiry, Rodney snapped, "What? I have a sister, and we've all had to wait in dentists' offices." With a dismissive wave of a hand, he continued, "Apparently Miko was dealing with panic in her own weird way. Far from Earth, threatened by the Wraith, time passing fast... and I've heard that traditionalist Japanese have this thing where if a woman's not married by her mid-twenties she's past her sell-by date, gone stale or something."
Elizabeth looked supremely offended.
"Hey, not my idea, don't shoot the messenger and all that. But Miko just wanted everyone to be happy. She wasn't pleased with her own results -- and Heightmeyer wouldn't tell me what *that* was supposed to be, by the way -- and abandoned the whole thing. Somehow it got uploaded to the Ancients' mainframe, and boom, instant dating service." He fidgeted, then said, "Fortunately there aren't the usual percentage of homophobes around as there would be on Earth, but it's still a concern."
Sitting up in alarm, Elizabeth asked, "Rodney, I don't mean to pry -- well, pry *more* than this situation has already imposed -- but how would you know?"
"Turns out that both Heightmeyer and I have been keeping tabs on Radek, ever since he got involved with Ronon. If someone was going to try gaybashing, of those two, obviously Radek would be the target. We're not sure, but we think the main thing protecting them is that Ronon could take out, well, anyone. There have been some rumblings according to various sources: Teyla's network, hearsay from Carson via Cadman, and from Parrish via Lorne.
"Radek and Ronon have been discreet, in public, but the evidence is obvious if you watch. I admit, I only clued in because Ronon kept asking Radek to lunch and then neither of them were in the mess hall when I got there. And I suspect Ronon's spending most of his nights at Radek's quarters. Heightmeyer tells me they're not the only gay couple, but I don't know who the others are."
Sighing tiredly, Elizabeth said, "I'll send out an all-hands email, that these announcements were *not* sanctioned and there *will* be repercussions if any form of harassment results from this fiasco. It wouldn't hurt to remind everyone that we have international cooperation here in Atlantis, reinforce the idea that any one group's attitudes aren't to be enforced -- or oppressed -- with violence."
"You might also want to suggest counseling," Rodney said brightly, bouncing up from his chair and blithely ignoring the wry glare Elizabeth tried to pin him with.
***********
It was purely coincidence that John arrived at Rodney's quarters just as Elizabeth was knocking on Radek's door. It was plain luck that, from where he stood, he could see Ronon sitting on the bed and looking hopeful when Radek let her in.
Cool.
He knocked on Rodney's door.
"Yes yes, come in, talking and then, according to my calculations, sex."
"Jeez McKay, stop mincing words and get to the point."
Rodney beamed. "Already? All right! C'mon over here--" and the lights turned way down while Rodney flung himself onto his bed.
Commanding the lights back up, John walked over to the desk and sat in the chair instead. "Just saw Elizabeth taking some R&R."
Rodney's expression had dimmed in inverse proportion to the lights, but he perked up again. "Really? It worked! I so totally rule!"
John's own personal lightbulb blinked on. "You told her about them on purpose!"
"Well, *yeah*! Neither one of them would make a move on her, they're both too -- courtly. Chivalrous? Anyway, Radek's my friend, Ronon's my friend, and Elizabeth... well, she's been through a lot and deserves a shot at being happy as much as anyone else around here."
"Do you think... we... could be happy?"
"Well, I'm pretty sure that kiss this afternoon qualified as scorching hot, eh?"
"I liked it," John admitted. "But the military thing could cause problems. Besides, I'm thinking these lists might not be accurate. There were a bunch of guys on my list who I'm pretty sure are straight."
"Scuttlebutt has it that the military contingent thinks Atlantis put your name on their list *because* you're their commanding officer. Like blowing you would help get a promotion or something. What I think is funny, is that's *not* the case. Atlantis thinks most of them would leapfrog a couple of points up the Kinsey scale just for you." He frowned. "Or down, I suppose, for the lesbians. And, confidentially -- and if you ever tell anyone I'll never tell *you* what I find out -- same deal for Heightmeyer. Atlantis thinks she's the bomb, almost as much as you. I can't wait to figure out why, since her gene therapy never took."
"She is hot."
"Yeah. Interestingly, not that you've seen my list -- yet -- she's top pick for joining you and me in a recreational threesome." Rodney waggled his eyebrows.
John laughed, took the single step over to the bed, nudged Rodney until there was space to lie down facing each other. "I want to do the math on the two of us, first. Find a workable unified theory --" John rolled on top, pushed Rodney into the mattress, and told the lights to take a nap, "-- check the results for a while... before getting into any complex systems."
Rodney grinned, stroked his fingers into John's hair. "Strange attractors. I like it."
Rating: Teen
Category: Slash, Humor
Disclaimer: Not mine, no money.
Warnings: Implied Het, implied multi-person canoodling
Spoilers: Uh... mid second season? Through Aurora, to be safe.
Summary: Atlantis does the math.
Author's Notes: Inspired by a line from mirabile_dictu's lovely and completely unrelated Rodney/Daniel "Two Galaxies" -- and then she was kind enough to help catch my errors. Cuisine-related kink reference blatantly stolen from seperis's RL journal entries, hope she doesn't mind.
Polynomials and Fixed Points
Something was weird in the mess hall, and for once it wasn't the food. Initially John couldn't tell what it was, but as soon as he arrived something tweaked him. So he did a surreptitious threat assessment of the thin early dinner crowd as he slid through the line, getting a plateful of not-turkey and sorta-potatoes, with bonus real Earth-type gravy.
Ronon and Teyla eating together companionably, check.
McKay and Zelenka mid-argument, Rodney talking through a mouthful of food and waving at a laptop screen with a thankfully empty spork, check.
Carson marginally nervous, Kavanagh frustrated and suspicious, and over in the corner four Marines were busy passing around papers and laughing, noisily one-upping each other about something that John couldn't quite hear but probably had to do with injuries, firepower, or both. Check, check, double check.
Heightmeyer usually sat by herself, looking lonely but resigned in her space bubble of everyone else's psychoanalytic paranoia, but instead was murmuring to that Japanese scientist, Miko Something-or-other with the bug-eye glasses. Currently Miko seemed depressed, reluctant to do anything other than stare into her cup of green tea getting her lenses fogged up. Heightmeyer looked earnest and supportive, pausing to sip at some coffee and then launch back into another round of benevolent browbeating.
Unusual setting for that kind of talk, but not enough to set off the alarm bells.
Elizabeth was spooked.
Okay, that was weird.
It was only an impression, considering all he could see was the back of her head and shoulders above the chair she was seated in. Then he realized her normal picture-perfect posture was absolutely rigid, she was eating almost mechanically, and the reflection of her face in the window... her eyes darted from her laptop, to her left, then wrenched back to her plate. Her ultra-fascinating, almost empty plate. The meaningful bouncing-ball screensaver on her laptop. And to her left again.
Hmm. Elizabeth had an unusual problem. One she didn't know how to handle.
Two options. Either he could go straight to the source, or he could try the grapevine first. Listening to mangled rumors gave him a better chance of actually eating some food, since it looked like whatever was bugging Weir wasn't suitable for public consumption.
Most lines of communication passed Teyla's way at some point, since the Marines respected her, the scientists were generally friendly, and she had access to the command structure via the team. And Elizabeth's eyes had shot over to the left again, which, given the angle of her reflection, meant her problem was in Teyla's quadrant of the room anyway. John ambled over and sat down next to Ronon.
Minor pleasantries were exchanged since they hadn't seen each other since their 9AM debriefing, then John poked a toe in the pool. "What's going on?," he asked, and fed himself his first bite of dinner, certain he had at least a minute before Teyla wound down.
"It seems that one of the scientists created a computer program to predict the best romantic partners for everyone in Atlantis, and there is some... dispute about the outcome."
Caught mid-swallow, John choked. Ronon helpfully thumped his back. Out of the corner of one watering eye, John saw Elizabeth striding with confidence out of the mess hall, projecting her best diplomat's 'I am calm, cool, and collected' attitude.
She was totally running away.
**********
By the time John cleared his airway and finished laughing himself sick, Rodney was bearing down on their table with Zelenka in his wake. Zelenka had a crazed grin that was -- really damn frightening. Rodney stalked over, crossed his arms defensively, stuck his chin in the air and announced, "I had nothing to do with it."
"With what, McKay?" John asked.
"You haven't checked your email lately?"
"No, I've been meeting with Lorne all afternoon."
Rodney slumped into the chair next to Teyla. "Oh, thank god."
Zelenka plopped down at the head of the table, the very picture of manic glee, but before he could say a word Rodney stuck a pointed finger in his face and hissed, "Shut up or I will make the remainder of your very short life full of excruciating pain and unbelievable misery."
He shut up and frowned at the laptop he'd been clutching to his chest. John had never seen Zelenka pout before; it was brain-bendingly cute.
Haughtily ignoring his fellow scientist, Rodney explained, "It's come to light that shortly after we arrived, *someone* created a database of personality traits and preferences, with the goal of pairing everyone up to get married. At some point, the database got --" punching gesture that might have been How To Stuff a Turkey If You're Really Into Necropheliac Bestiality, "--sucked into the Atlantis mainframe and it went ballistic."
A little distracted by the hands, it took John a moment to zero in. "Atlantis took over?"
Violent nodding. "Yes! The database is *huge,* with variables and algorithms I've been reverse engineering all afternoon. It's chaos theory the likes of which I've never seen before, talk about literal strange attractors -- and the *implications*! I've always thought there was some sort of proto-AI lurking in the mainframe somewhere, and this *almost* confirms it, but then again it's kind of creepy to think that Atlantis has been keeping tabs on us, maybe 24/7, at least in the areas with power, talk about Big Brother, but more like Big *Sister,* since I've always thought Atlantis was more of a 'she,' what with the floating and being a spaceship and ships are always female, at least in modern Western parlance, I should look that up--"
"Can we get back on track here?"
"Right. Yes. It seems the Ancients were a little more... freeform about their social customs than most Earth cultures."
"And?" Man, it was like pulling teeth.
Zelenka couldn't stand it any more. "Everyone was sent email with suggestions for short-term and long-term liaisons. Since many of the arrangements involve more than two people--"
Rodney butted in, "Not all of which are heterosexual pairings to begin with--"
"--a few people from more conservative countries, and several who are already sleeping with the 'wrong' partners are... unhappy."
"Shocked," said Rodney, complete with eyeroll.
"Apeshit," interpreted John, which got raised eyebrows from both Teyla and Ronon.
Come to think of it, neither of them seemed disturbed at all. Both of them tended to be kind of unflappable, but it made John curious. Where else could he find this caliber of teaseworthy material? "Who'd you guys get?"
Teyla did her Mona Lisa impression. "I was listed as 'Insufficient Data.'"
Damn. "You?" he prompted Ronon.
"Weir."
Holy shit.
"And Zelenka. All together."
Holy holy holy shit.
Speechless, John watched Ronon and Radek leer at each other. Rodney rubbed his eyes while grumbling, "Yeah, like everyone didn't already know you two have been making like bunnies for months."
************
It took a while for John to get over the brain cramp, but eventually he had to ask. "Who did I wind up with?"
Before he'd even ended the sentence Rodney was levitating out of his seat and rushing for the door. "Gotta go check on that project now, critically time-sensitive, bye!"
Right in time for Elizabeth's voice over the radio. "Doctor McKay, Colonel Sheppard? My office, now please."
Rodney stopped in his tracks. "Crap." He touched his earpiece and growled, "On my way," changing direction and heading for the transporter.
That gave time for John to catch up and hop in, sending his own acknowledgement as the doors closed.
McKay did a complicated fingertip dance against the map's edge, the doors made a thunking noise, and John braced himself as McKay whirled around to get right in his face, arms akimbo and chin jutting out. "Don't make me explain this before we get to Elizabeth's office because I don't want to waste valuable time going through it twice. But," and then he drooped, looking as uncertain as John had ever seen him, "I have one word to say to you right now."
The anticipation was kind of scary. "Okay."
McKay straightened up again, looked John in the eye and said, "Dibs."
Later, John was able to remember each movement, each discrete touch, but at the moment it all washed over him in a slam of sensation. Warm: hand at the back of his neck, chest pushing him against the door, thigh wedged between his own. Hot: mouth, tongue stroking in; groin, rubbing. Sharp here, hard there, rough and solid everywhere.
Oh. Wow.
Then, cold.
Lips, neck, cascading down the front of his body.
Rodney backing away.
***********************
It took profound concentration to keep his comprehension at the level of the words being said, when what his ears insisted on hearing was, "Wah wah, wah wahwah wah." Piecing the words together required all the unsexy thoughts John could summon. After an image of Mrs. Kiesel, his seventh-grade English teacher, he was mostly back on board.
From the other chair, Rodney was saying, "Fortunately it seems only a few of us had access to all the results, all in the Science division entirely so they're under my supervision anyway, and I locked down the database and took the precaution of scrubbing the email system and the backups, so I can only think of two other people who *might* be able hack in but that'd take a concentrated effort and I'll monitor how they use their time anyway--"
Fidgeting with a stylus, Elizabeth interrupted, "Rodney, focus."
"Okay, right, and everyone else was only emailed names pertinent to their own."
Elizabeth did that squinty thing with her eyes. "So there is *some* containment, right? People would have to voluntarily share their results for them to become public knowledge?"
"Yes. Kind of. *Un*fortunately, some people were, uh," snap snap snap of fingers, then a shrug, "-- popular? Especially with the short-term list." Rodney flicked his eyes over at John.
John felt that at this point he could wade into the conversation with some certainty of not looking like a complete head case. "Oh?"
"Elizabeth, if I may?" At her nod, Rodney commandeered her laptop, swiveling it around on the desk and keying some passwords. A new window popped up, Rodney turned the screen some more, and John was looking at his own email.
The message header was relatively succinct, but all that registered was, "Blah blah blah sexual encounters with the following are given a better than 85% chance of satisfaction for all parties involved."
There was a list of names. A long list.
John hit the Page Down button.
He hit it again, then again, and reached the section where the database presented threesomes.
Page Down. Foursomes.
Page Down, moresomes.
Numbly, John paged down one more time and -- thank god -- reached another block of regular text. "Blah blah blah 98% probability the following are your ideal lifemate(s)."
There was one name: Rodney McKay.
Who was staring at him with irritation. "Yeah, yeah, you're the man. The only guy who comes close on the short-timers list is Ronon, but he's been boinking Radek."
Somewhere in his otherwise paralyzed brain, a neuron fired. Oh, shit, Elizabeth.
A glance across the desk showed that she was completely poleaxed. John felt a little better, knowing he wasn't the only one who hadn't noticed.
Then Rodney went on, "But Heightmeyer has you *both* beat for sheer quantity. Whoo! Can't wait to decode the criteria Atlantis assigned *her.*"
Elizabeth's tone was the perfect combination of drill sergeant and Mom. "Rodney!"
"Oh, like I'd say that anywhere else. I'm not *completely* stupid about social mores. Besides, I think it's because Atlantis is a little unclear about her job description." Rodney's smirk was the filthiest thing John had ever seen.
Covering her face, Elizabeth took a deep breath. Then another, and let her hands drop. "Okay. I'm still not clear on how this happened in the first place."
For the first time, Rodney hesitated, then forged ahead. "Miko confessed to Heightmeyer, who -- with consent -- passed along to me, that shortly after we arrived she, Miko, in her *copious* spare time," rolling of eyes, "made a program for pairing everyone off, should we fail to reestablish contact with Earth."
John thought about the male-to-female ratio of the initial staff. "Why? So we could have kids and pass our knowledge on to our children? You'd think there would be some sort of genetic mix and match, not marriages."
"No, actually I had one of the biologists working on that already, officially even. This was more like something out of Glamour or Cosmo." At John's expression of sarcastic inquiry, Rodney snapped, "What? I have a sister, and we've all had to wait in dentists' offices." With a dismissive wave of a hand, he continued, "Apparently Miko was dealing with panic in her own weird way. Far from Earth, threatened by the Wraith, time passing fast... and I've heard that traditionalist Japanese have this thing where if a woman's not married by her mid-twenties she's past her sell-by date, gone stale or something."
Elizabeth looked supremely offended.
"Hey, not my idea, don't shoot the messenger and all that. But Miko just wanted everyone to be happy. She wasn't pleased with her own results -- and Heightmeyer wouldn't tell me what *that* was supposed to be, by the way -- and abandoned the whole thing. Somehow it got uploaded to the Ancients' mainframe, and boom, instant dating service." He fidgeted, then said, "Fortunately there aren't the usual percentage of homophobes around as there would be on Earth, but it's still a concern."
Sitting up in alarm, Elizabeth asked, "Rodney, I don't mean to pry -- well, pry *more* than this situation has already imposed -- but how would you know?"
"Turns out that both Heightmeyer and I have been keeping tabs on Radek, ever since he got involved with Ronon. If someone was going to try gaybashing, of those two, obviously Radek would be the target. We're not sure, but we think the main thing protecting them is that Ronon could take out, well, anyone. There have been some rumblings according to various sources: Teyla's network, hearsay from Carson via Cadman, and from Parrish via Lorne.
"Radek and Ronon have been discreet, in public, but the evidence is obvious if you watch. I admit, I only clued in because Ronon kept asking Radek to lunch and then neither of them were in the mess hall when I got there. And I suspect Ronon's spending most of his nights at Radek's quarters. Heightmeyer tells me they're not the only gay couple, but I don't know who the others are."
Sighing tiredly, Elizabeth said, "I'll send out an all-hands email, that these announcements were *not* sanctioned and there *will* be repercussions if any form of harassment results from this fiasco. It wouldn't hurt to remind everyone that we have international cooperation here in Atlantis, reinforce the idea that any one group's attitudes aren't to be enforced -- or oppressed -- with violence."
"You might also want to suggest counseling," Rodney said brightly, bouncing up from his chair and blithely ignoring the wry glare Elizabeth tried to pin him with.
***********
It was purely coincidence that John arrived at Rodney's quarters just as Elizabeth was knocking on Radek's door. It was plain luck that, from where he stood, he could see Ronon sitting on the bed and looking hopeful when Radek let her in.
Cool.
He knocked on Rodney's door.
"Yes yes, come in, talking and then, according to my calculations, sex."
"Jeez McKay, stop mincing words and get to the point."
Rodney beamed. "Already? All right! C'mon over here--" and the lights turned way down while Rodney flung himself onto his bed.
Commanding the lights back up, John walked over to the desk and sat in the chair instead. "Just saw Elizabeth taking some R&R."
Rodney's expression had dimmed in inverse proportion to the lights, but he perked up again. "Really? It worked! I so totally rule!"
John's own personal lightbulb blinked on. "You told her about them on purpose!"
"Well, *yeah*! Neither one of them would make a move on her, they're both too -- courtly. Chivalrous? Anyway, Radek's my friend, Ronon's my friend, and Elizabeth... well, she's been through a lot and deserves a shot at being happy as much as anyone else around here."
"Do you think... we... could be happy?"
"Well, I'm pretty sure that kiss this afternoon qualified as scorching hot, eh?"
"I liked it," John admitted. "But the military thing could cause problems. Besides, I'm thinking these lists might not be accurate. There were a bunch of guys on my list who I'm pretty sure are straight."
"Scuttlebutt has it that the military contingent thinks Atlantis put your name on their list *because* you're their commanding officer. Like blowing you would help get a promotion or something. What I think is funny, is that's *not* the case. Atlantis thinks most of them would leapfrog a couple of points up the Kinsey scale just for you." He frowned. "Or down, I suppose, for the lesbians. And, confidentially -- and if you ever tell anyone I'll never tell *you* what I find out -- same deal for Heightmeyer. Atlantis thinks she's the bomb, almost as much as you. I can't wait to figure out why, since her gene therapy never took."
"She is hot."
"Yeah. Interestingly, not that you've seen my list -- yet -- she's top pick for joining you and me in a recreational threesome." Rodney waggled his eyebrows.
John laughed, took the single step over to the bed, nudged Rodney until there was space to lie down facing each other. "I want to do the math on the two of us, first. Find a workable unified theory --" John rolled on top, pushed Rodney into the mattress, and told the lights to take a nap, "-- check the results for a while... before getting into any complex systems."
Rodney grinned, stroked his fingers into John's hair. "Strange attractors. I like it."