SGA Fic: Notching the Bedpost
Title: Notching the Bedpost
Fandom: SGA
Pairing: John/Rodney; Rodney/Woman from the dining hall/Her friend (Really it's John/Rodney, don't be afraid of the women!)
Rating: R
Summary: Rodney is really good with his hands, and Sheppard is jealous.
Warnings: Very, very vague spoilers for No Man's Land, threesome
Notes: So I wrote a story in which John got to have a threesome with two women, and it was proclaimed by the Sunday Brunch Brain Trust that the cosmos would not be in the proper balance until Rodney had also had a threesome with two women. And since they helped me plot out the entire thing over mimosas, the least I could do was write it! Thanks to moonlash_cc and barely_bean for their input, and to barely_bean for the beta.
***
Notching the Bedpost
by Lenore
Rodney and Radek's voices blurred into background noise, only the occasional phrase breaking through, hive ship, something, something, hyperspace, blah, blah, blah. John knew he probably should be listening. That blah, blah, blah might come in handy one day. But the Daedalus had brought them all kinds of goodies this last trip, and one of them was sitting across the mess hall, giggling and making eyes at him.
He liked a giggler. Not all the time of course, but every now and then? Oh, yeah. He got busy making eyes back.
"...don't you agree, Colonel?" he distantly heard Radek asking.
"What? Oh, yeah. Sure."
"He's not listening," Rodney declared with a sigh, and John knew without even looking that he was rolling his eyes.
Rodney and Radek went back to their hyperspace talk. The giggler finished her lunch, put her tray away, and paused at the door to toss her hair and flash a big smile.
It wouldn't be hard to find out who she was. Being in charge did have some perks. John got files on all the new personnel. He could look her up, drop by her workspace tomorrow and give her the official welcome to Atlantis. It was the friendly thing to do.
He cheerfully dug into his pudding, feeling quite satisfied with his plan.
***
As it happened, he was saved even this little bit of effort. The giggler made the first move, tracking him down at the armory the next morning.
"Dr. Heather Torrino," she said, holding out her hand. "I'm one of the new biochemists."
He slipped into charm mode. "Lt. Colonel John Sheppard, Military Commander of Atlantis." The title always seemed to fit him better when he was using it to pick up girls.
"Very nice to meet you," Heather said, her voice high and a little breathless, just the way a giggler should sound.
He leaned in, as if sharing a secret. "The pleasure's all mine."
"So…" she said, getting right to the point.
He smiled in anticipation.
"...I hear you're friends with Dr. McKay."
It took a second for that to actually make sense. "Well, yeah."
Apparently Heather wasn't much for the direct approach, but, hey, if she wanted to make conversation about Teyla and Ronon and everyone else John knew in Atlantis, that was fine, just as long as it ended in a plan to do something that might ultimately lead to sex.
"I heard him speak once," Heather said.
John frowned. "Who?"
She shot him an impatient look. "Dr. McKay."
"Oh. Yeah?"
She nodded. "At Rockefeller University when I was a graduate student there. He was presenting a paper on new computational methods for calculating interstellar radiation. It was very," her voice dropped to a lower, sultrier octave, "stimulating."
John stared at her, utterly confused.
"Anyway," she said, moving closer, running a finger up his arm, "I was wondering if you'd do me a huge favor and introduce me?"
"To Rodney?" John asked uncertainly.
"Yes," Heather enunciated the word very clearly, as if John were hard of hearing or possibly mentally deficient.
"You mean-- you want--" This really wasn't how these things usually went. Finally he shrugged. "Sure. Next time I see you in the mess--"
She clapped her hands together, her face lighting up. "Oh my God, oh my God! I'm so excited. I just have to get Stacey, and then we can go. Stacey's an engineer. We totally bonded over Dr. McKay's "Quantum Mechanics of Super Novas: A New Direction" on the way here. Oh, hey, does my hair look okay?"
John smiled weakly.
"Great!" she said. "I'll be right back."
John stared at the door for several long minutes after she'd gone.
***
If Rodney had to pick a word to describe his day thus far, he would have chosen "abysmal," although "infuriating" was a close second. Radek had gone off like a renegade to recalibrate the city's cloak, although Rodney had specifically told him it wasn't the most pressing item on their to-do list. Simpson was down with a bad case of space flu, and Rodney had been left with Kavanaugh in her stead, which as far as Rodney was concerned was the same as being left with no one. One of the transporters had broken that morning and was proving annoyingly difficult to fix. There were issues with the puddle jumpers, and every time Rodney turned around, someone had finished the last of the coffee without making more, leaving him to put on a fresh pot.
So he was understandably not pleased to have Sheppard come ambling into his lab, two women in tow, one dark-haired, one blonde, both of them giggling like schoolgirls as women tended to do around the Colonel.
God, Rodney hated gigglers.
"McKay," Sheppard sounded strangely pissy for someone who had two attractive women following him around, "I'd like you to meet Dr. Torrino--"
"Call me Heather," the dark one interjected.
Sheppard sighed. "And this is--"
The blonde twirled a strand of hair around her finger. "I'm Stacey."
"Yes, yes, nice to meet you." Rodney brusquely stuck out his hand. The quicker he got this over with, the quicker he could get back to work. "I'm--"
"Dr. Rodney McKay," they said in such perfect unison that it was rather disturbing.
They were probably sisters, knowing Sheppard. Or, hey, maybe even twins. Sheppard was a walking porn cliche. How absolutely great of him to bring his conquests by the lab, just to rub it in.
"Well, if that's all--" he started to say.
But Sheppard beat him to it, "I've got...stuff to do. I'll leave you all to get acquainted.
Then he just walked away! Rodney stared, unable to believe the gall. So, what? Now he was responsible for babysitting Sheppard's bimbos on top of everything else he did around the place? To make matters worse, the brunette--what was her name? Harriet? Hope?--seemed to have no concept of personal space. She kept crowding uncomfortably close, even when Rodney took a step back.
"We're big fans of yours, Dr. McKay," she said, her hand coming to rest on his arm.
"Yes, well, of course--" He stopped. "Wait. You are?"
The blonde one--Sally? Sarah?--nodded. "Oh, yes. Very big fans. We've read every paper you've ever published."
He stared in disbelief. "You have?"
"Absolutely," Harriet assured him. "We'd love a chance to discuss your work on time dilation fields."
"You would?"
Sally moved closer. "Very much."
"Well, of course you would," he said. "I totally turned Davidson's theory on its ear. It was brilliant insight, if I do say so myself." He glanced around the lab, reminders everywhere of everything he needed to do. "I am rather busy at the moment, though--"
"How about tonight?" Harriet suggested. "We could have dinner. The three of us. At your place. And then afterwards, get down to some good, hard," she took a breath, "physics."
"Oh," Rodney said, considering the possibility, "that would be--"
"We'll bring the food," Sally told him. "Say eight o'clock?"
He nodded, satisfied that at least someone recognized the value of his contributions to the field. "Eight o'clock it is."
The women headed to the door, giving him little waves as they went.
"Ladies. I look forward to tonight."
They giggled, and he found he didn't mind it so much.
After they'd gone, he thought, maybe the quality of new recruits is finally improving. He certainly couldn't remember the last time he'd seen so much enthusiasm for time dilation fields.
***
Rodney's day soon returned to its previously abysmal state, however, with Radek still MIA, and Major Lorne checking on the status of the puddle jumpers approximately every three and a half seconds, and Kavanaugh in super-ultra-deluxe contrary mode, to the point that if Rodney said "white" Kavanaugh would fire back "black," purely for the sake of being impossible. By the time, Rodney trudged off to his room at the end of his shift all he wanted was a shower, a Power Bar and absolute silence for the next six to eight hours.
When two women appeared at his door, carrying a picnic basket, wearing low-cut blouses, tiny skirts and big smiles, all he could do was blink.
The brunette asked, "We did say eight, didn't we?"
And Rodney suddenly remembered: time dilation fields. "Yes, yes, of course." He stepped back to let them in. "Um--" What were their names again?
"Heather," the dark-haired one supplied, "and she's Stacey."
"Are you hungry?" Stacey asked, in a voice decidedly like a purr. "I know I am."
"Actually, I'm starving." Rodney reached around her to take the picnic basket from Heather. "But I do have to warn you I'm--"
"Allergic to citrus," Stacey said.
"We know," Heather assured him.
Rodney nodded appreciatively. It was about time people started taking the dangers of food allergies seriously. They sat down to dinner, and Rodney was delighted to find they'd brought some of his all-time favorites, items they must have smuggled in on the Daedalus because they certainly hadn't gotten it from the dining hall, Cornish game hen, couscous with dried cranberries, asparagus, and--
"Oh God, I love brownies!" he exclaimed with delight.
Heather and Stacey shared a smile. "We know."
They ate, and Rodney had seconds of everything, and would have considered thirds of the couscous, except that it was all gone.
Stacey noticed the disappointed look he cast in the direction of the empty bowl and held out a forkful from her own plate. "I'm totally into sharing," she told him.
Rodney let her feed him, however inappropriate it seemed. Who was he to argue with the spirit of generosity?
After they'd polished off the brownies, they adjourned to the sofa with their glasses of wine. It took only a little prompting for Rodney to recount his glorious triumph at the 2004 World Astrophysics Conference, where he'd successfully refuted Drieban's theory of dark matter formation. Usually the response to this story was a barely stifled yawn--no one seemed to appreciate just how amazingly insightful Rodney's analysis had been--but here, finally, were two sensible women with obvious good taste. Every time he paused, however briefly, they leaned closer, breathlessly wanting to know, "And then what happened?"
He went on to tell them about his run-in with Nathensen over neutrinos, and the contributions he'd made to the current cosmological model of the Universe, and was at last launching into the promised discussion of time dilation fields when Heather interrupted, "Is it hot in here?"
"The environmental controls are functioning normally," Rodney told her, although now that he was paying attention she did look a little flushed.
Stacy fanned herself. "I'm definitely feeling steamy."
"I need to cool off." Heather pulled her blouse up over her head and dispensed with her bra. "That's better, isn't it?" She fluttered her eyelashes at Rodney.
He totally hadn't seen that coming.
"No reason to be uncomfortable," Stacey cheerfully proclaimed and promptly went topless as well.
Heather took Rodney's hand and guided it to her breast. "Tell us more about how you calculate temporal coefficients."
"Yes," Stacey took his other hand and put it on her breast, "it's just so fascinating."
It got kind of blurry after that--clothes flying off, and hands and mouths suddenly everywhere, and somehow Rodney ended up with his face between Stacey's legs, murmuring Kepler's Laws, making her shudder. After he'd given Heather the same treatment, at her insistence, the women manhandled him over to the bed, pushed him down onto the mattress, and draped themselves over him.
Stacey licked a path up the inside of his thigh to his cock, where she busily got to work. Heather held his face between her hands and kissed like something possessed, all dirty, hot porn tongue. Rodney gulped for air, and then Stacey ran her fingernail over the skin behind his balls, and he groaned loudly.
"Don't come yet." Heather bit his earlobe. "I want to ride you like a pogo stick."
Rodney's blush traveled all the way down his chest.
He cleared his throat. "I should tell you that I do bruise rather easily."
Heather smiled. Her teeth looked sharp. Fleetingly, Rodney wondered if this was what it was like to be Sheppard.
***
John spent the rest of the morning after "the incident" pretending he was utterly unfazed by it, something of a challenge with the entire city buzzing over Rodney's dinner plans for the evening, with not one, but two, beautiful women. Whatever, John told himself. Over and over again.
In the afternoon, when denial had clearly failed as a strategy, he switched to being pissed off at Rodney. How dare he-- do absolutely nothing to steal Heather away. I saw her first! He stomped around the jumper bay, nursing his outrage with truisms about ungrateful friends and infractions of the guy code. In less guarded moments, though, his invective tended to run in the opposite direction, "That slut better not give Rodney anything. God knows where she's been. You can never trust a grown woman who giggles."
His one consolation was that Rodney had a certain Teflon quality when it came to flirtation. Women might throw themselves at him, but they rarely stuck. By the time evening rolled around, John had begun to entertain himself imagining worst-case scenarios, all the many ways Rodney could find to mess up a sure thing. He whistled to himself as he read his allotted three pages of War and Peace, feeling downright chipper.
It wasn't the kindest impulse he'd ever had, but the next morning he swung by Rodney's place to pick him up for breakfast, convinced that Rodney had totally crashed and burned the night before. Rodney was not one to spare details, no matter how embarrassing the story, and John was eager to hear all about it.
He rang the bell, and the doors slid open, and he stepped inside. "Hey, I thought you might like to--"
He stopped and stared. Heather and her friend Stacey were pulling on the last of their clothes, their hair mussed and their expressions self-satisfied.
"Oh, hi, Colonel," Heather said perfectly casually, as if this kind of thing happened all the time. "Rodney's in the shower. He should be out any minute."
"I, uh-- Okay."
"Hey, you don't happen to know Dr. Zelenka, do you?" Stacey asked.
"Yeah," Heather chimed in. "We were really hoping to meet him. His work on aberrant gravitational fields, it really just--" She gestured with her hand.
"Gets us going," Stacey filled in the blanks.
"Um, well--" Sometimes lying was actually the better part of valor, and John shook his head. "Sorry. Don't know him."
"Too bad," Stacey sighed.
Heather checked her watch. "Oh, we'd better get going. We'll be late for our shift. See ya, Colonel."
"Tell Rodney bye for us," Stacey tossed over her shoulder on the way out.
The doors stayed open long enough for John to hear their conversation as they headed down the hall.
"Just-- wow."
"I know! The true geniuses are almost always virtuosos in bed."
"God, yes. It was like I was the violin, and he knew just how to play me."
"So good with his hands."
"If we can't meet Zelenka, maybe we could look up Dr. Beckett?"
"He has done some amazing work in genetics."
"One of us could pretend to be sick and--"
The doors mercifully closed before John could hear the details of their plot. He was just deciding to leave himself and pretend none of this ever happened when Rodney emerged from the bathroom, towel wrapped around his waist.
"So how about we go get some coffee--" He stopped when he saw John, his expression decidedly disappointed. "Did Heather and Stacey leave already?"
"Yeah." John did his best not to grit his teeth. "They said bye."
"Oh. Well." Rodney shrugged. "Okay."
He dropped the towel and started rummaging through a drawer for underwear, and really, that should have been John's cue to leave. But--
"I can't believe you," he told Rodney. "Both of them?"
Rodney looked mildly annoyed as he pulled on a shirt. "Is that some sort of knock on my stamina? Because I'll have you know I can-- with the best of them."
"Rodney," John cut him off before there was too much information, "don't you think that's kind of...slutty?"
"How very 1950s of you, Colonel. Women enjoy sex, and that automatically makes them--"
"I meant you."
Rodney chuffed a laugh. "Oh, that's rich. Coming from you."
"We're not talking about me!" He took a breath. "Can't you see that those women are just using you? They're science groupies. All they're interested in is bagging as many future Nobel Prize winners as possible. You're just another brilliant notch on the bedpost!"
Rodney snorted. "Finally! Do you know how long I've been waiting for that? For women to find big brains as sexy as--" He waved his hand in John's general direction. "Since, oh, forever."
John scowled. "I can't believe you."
Rodney sat down to pull on his socks. "And I can't believe you. One time I get lucky-- Okay, lucky doesn't even begin to cover that thing Stacey could do with her tongue, and Heather was a complete animal--"
These were not details John had any interest in hearing. He left Rodney sitting there, boasting to himself about his conquest.
***
Doesn't matter, doesn't matter, John tried to convince himself of this all day, to no avail. Finally, he settled for simply reminding himself, It's none of my business. This did nothing to make him feel better.
Despite the morning's awkwardness, he and Rodney still went through their usual routine: met at the shooting range for Rodney's weekly firearms lesson, ate together at the mess hall, outlined their next offworld mission for Elizabeth. Rodney didn't seem to recognize that there was any weirdness between them, and John did his best to keep up his end of the charade. But then Rodney would do things, gesture as he made a point or get grabby with a piece of pie at lunch, and John would have sudden, unwelcome flashes of Rodney twisting in the sheets with Heather and Stacey, all dirty and acrobatic. If that weren't enough to deal with, then the scene would transform in his head, the women fading out, John fading in, until he was the one cavorting with Rodney, sweaty and enthusiastic, arousal like a gut punch, leaving him speechless.
Rodney didn't seem to notice at first that John had even less to say for himself than usual. After all, Rodney did enjoy it when he got to do most of the talking. But when John could barely manage a grunt in answer to anything, even when Rodney showed him the amazingly cool shrink ray he'd just discovered, Rodney began to watch him more closely, his expression growing more disgruntled by degrees.
Having to work with Rodney was enough of a trial, so John skipped the mess hall that evening and ate a turkey sandwich in his room. He was just about to pick up his book when Rodney came bursting in.
"Okay, this needs to stop. You simply are not allowed to have a problem because I slept with someone. Even if it was two someones at once. It's my personal life. Get over it."
John folded his arms across his chest and opted for a diversionary tactic, "How about if I have a problem with the fact that you never knock?"
Rodney gave him a hard look. "Don't even try that with me."
This was always the downside to arguing with Rodney. He knew John's battle strategies too well.
"If I understand your logic correctly," Rodney continued on, "it's fine for you to have groupies. All kinds of groupies. Flyboy groupies. And fans of your stupid hair. And women whose panties get wet at the mere thought of your big," he cleared his throat, "ATA gene. And yet, it's different for me. I'm not allowed to have admirers."
"Not ones like that!" John said hotly.
Rodney scrutinized him. "You're jealous, aren't you? I knew it!" An unbearably smug expression spread over his features.
"I am not!" John insisted.
"Yes, you are." Rodney pointed an accusatory finger. "You were doing your charming dork routine with Heather, and she picked me instead, and even brought along a friend, and we did things so-- you wouldn't even believe--"
John clenched his jaw. "No details!"
"And you just can't stand the idea that she wanted me and not you. Me, me, me! You think you should have all the women, don't you? Mr. Hot Pilot Can't Keep It In His Pants. This is just like that time with Norena. And Alina. And--"
Rodney stopped suddenly, his forehead scrunching up, and John's stomach did a flip-flop. He knew what it meant when Rodney got that look.
"But you never even tried to sleep with Norena or Alina or--" Rodney said slowly, face alight with realization. "Oh my God! You weren't jealous of me. You were--" His mouth gaped open. "Of them."
All the smugness had disappeared. In fact, Rodney looked as if he'd been rendered speechless. John had never seen that before.
So he did the only thing he could. He shook his head emphatically. Deny, deny, deny! "You're out of your mind."
"No, I'm not," Rodney said, quickly recovering. "I didn't see it before, but now, it's just-- you're so damned obvious!"
John let out his breath and sorted through his options. When you're beaten, you're beaten. "Fine. Yes. Okay! Maybe I do want to be the violin, all right?"
Rodney stared at him in bewilderment. "What?"
"Never mind. Just-- are we going to get naked or not?"
"Is that what you say to women? You can't tell me that actually works."
"Rodney."
"Oh, fine then." He stripped off his shirt. "Better now?"
John hooked his fingers in Rodney's belt loops and pulled him close. "Getting there."
Rodney wrapped his arms around John's waist. "You could have just told me you wanted to sleep with me instead of being an ass about it, you know."
It was too hard to explain to Rodney that he'd only just deciphered that fact about himself, plus it made John sound kind of stupid, so he simply nodded.
"It's a good thing I'm so forgiving," Rodney muttered.
John might have offered up a second opinion about that, but then Rodney kissed him, putting all that laser-like intensity of his into it, and arguing about anything seemed like the most tragic waste of time ever. Rodney pulled back to string sharp, staccato kisses along John's jaw, and the fact that those women had failed to mention Rodney's amazing mouth when cataloguing his talents struck John as an unforgivable oversight.
He and Rodney lost their clothes and found the bed. Rodney bit John's nipple and licked a stripe down his belly and then set out to show John what other miracles he could perform with his mouth. John threw his head back and clenched his hands in the sheets and had to fight back the urge to call out, "Maestro!"
***
It was later, much, much later in fact, when Rodney finally lay draped over John's chest, without any apparent intention of moving any time soon.
John absently stroked a hand over his back. "You realize I'll never be able to watch you take things apart and put them back together the same way again."
Rodney grinned. "Admit it. You have a thing for scientists." He lifted his head, frowning. "Your thing isn't like Heather and Stacey's thing, is it? There's no bedpost notching going on here?"
John rolled his eyes. "I don't have any plans to bed Zelenka later on, if that's what you're asking me."
Rodney bit his collarbone, hard enough to make John yell "ow!"
"Let's put that on a list of things you never, ever say to me again," Rodney ordered, in his you will hear and obey me voice. "And while we're at it, please purge the word 'pogo stick' from your vocabulary entirely."
John scowled at him. "Way too much information, Rodney."
"Oh, relax. You have absolutely nothing to be jealous of. You're hotter than they are, and I actually like you, and best of all," he smiled evilly, "you're even more of a slut in bed."
John hooked a leg behind Rodney's knee and flipped him over and held him down in what he hoped was a semi-threatening fashion.
"Oh, yes. Give me your scary death glare, by all means." Rodney smirked up at him. "I'm utterly terrified and completely at your mercy." He flung out his arms dramatically. "Do with me what you will."
Clearly, Rodney intended sarcasm, but the way his breath sped up and his eyes were suddenly all pupil completely gave him away. It seemed Rodney was something of a slut, too. John kissed him and smiled. You always needed some kind of common ground for a relationship to work, and John suspected he'd just found theirs.
***