fic: always should be someone you really love (1 of 2)
rating: NC-17 (genderfuck, femslash, boyslash)
pairing: John/Rodney
wordcount: ~16500
spoilers: little ones up to The Tao of Rodney
a/n: the title's from the Blur song (I have no shame). The beta-ing is by umbo, who is clever and insightful and an enemy of the past participle. I owe her many thanks.
always should be someone you really love
John wakes up in someone else’s body.
He pushes his way up to awareness, struggles to come out of it, to assert control - god knows who else is in here with him - and manages to open his eyes and wrench his body into a sitting position. His vision immediately blurs, his stomach heaves, and he turns his head just in time to vomit on the floor instead of his own lap.
Another moment of consciousness, and he becomes aware of the rest of his body. It’s a woman’s body, but there doesn’t seem to be a woman around: no press of another mind, like that time with Thelan. He’s all alone in here, in one of the private exam rooms in the infirmary. He opens his mouth to yell for a nurse, for help, for an explanation, but stops short when he hears a nearly-familiar voice come through the wall.
“Oh god, I hate my life so much!”
Higher-pitched, but otherwise Rodney. John starts, and his eyes fall on the scar on the back of his left hand from the car accident when he was sixteen. His hands fly frantically over the body: rough patch of skin on the neck from the bug, white line on the upper arm from the bullet graze, blue freckle on the inner arm from the other bug. The left knee twinges the way it always does when the weather on Atlantis gets damp.
“Oh,” John says aloud, alone in the little room.
-
Once the nurses realise that he’s awake, John is wheeled out into the main area, and suddenly surrounded: Teyla, Ronon, Elizabeth, Carson, and what seems to be the entire Atlantis medical staff. He misses his empty room.
Rodney doesn’t remember either, but Teyla and Ronon tell them about the wild-haired little man who hit them with some sort of energy beam before scurrying back into the bushes.
“It was only because you two were walking ahead. You shielded us from the . . . device,” Teyla explains. “You collapsed on the ground. We would have chased after him, but you were both convulsing, and we judged it best to get you to the gate.”
Elizabeth nods. “By the time you were back in Atlantis, you were almost completely changed.”
Rodney, in the bed beside John’s, is sitting with his knees drawn up and arms crossed, the covers pulled up almost to her - his - chin.
“Great story,” he says, “really, I love it, especially the part where we have seizures. Now how about, I don’t know, the part where we get changed back?”
John doesn’t speak, but he grimaces his agreement. Elizabeth exchanges a glance with Carson, who puts on his usual you’re-not-going-to-like-this frown.
“I’m afraid that I have no idea what’s been done to you. I frankly would not know how to begin to reverse such a radical genetic change without access to that device. But you are both completely healthy, and now that the initial stress of the transformation has worn off, there don’t seem to be any side effects.” Carson tries to give them a little smile.
Rodney gapes. “Well, I do actually have a side effect, Carson. I have a fucking vagina. And, no offense to the ladies present, but I have no intention of going on like this!”
“Chill, Rodney.” It’s the first thing John’s said since ‘I’m fine,’ and his voice stops McKay mid-rant. “Ronon and Teyla will go back to the planet and find this guy. They’ll get the device, Carson will switch us back, and we’ll be laughing about this by Tuesday.”
-
After the briefings and the medical exams and the embarrassing ordeal of borrowing clothes from Cadman, there’s nothing left to do but go on with life as usual, especially since Elizabeth’s grounded the two of them in case of any complications. Elizabeth has also sent out a memo (“Accepting Gender Ambiguity”) to alert the staff to the situation, and Rodney has responded with a memo of his own (“We’re Girls Now, Deal With it and Don’t Look at My Ass”) to ensure that everyone got the message.
John takes a deep breath and walks into the commissary. To his relief, Rodney’s there, too, looking equally uncomfortable. But John recognizes the determined tilt of his chin and the high flush in his cheeks even on the new, rounder face. He joins Rodney at the little two-person table in the corner, mentally congratulating him on having scored the most strategically defensible location in the room.
After a brief hello, they eat in near-silence. Everyone else in the commissary gives them a wide berth, avoiding stray eye contact with John or Rodney. Despite the usual quantity and variety of weird shit that goes on in Pegasus, this one seems to have thrown everyone for a loop: no one seems to know quite how to deal with either of them. In just the last few hours, John’s noticed differences: Lorne’s friendly back-slap stuttering away before landing, Elizabeth’s usual smile - harmless flirtation - falling away when she looks at him. Her. John applies himself to his food.
Sometime after the mashed potatoes and before the cupcake, McKay broaches the subject.
“So, this is weird.” Rodney seems to find something fascinating in the cupcake’s chocolate icing.
“Yeah,” John says, mind groping wildly for something to say.
Rodney peels the paper away from the dessert, eyes still focused on his task. “Um. How are you finding it?” He asks finally.
“What, being a woman all of a sudden? In general?” John doesn’t know how to answer that except with a juvenile I dunno, why don’t you tell me kind of reply, but Rodney’s earnest nod tells him that this is the wrong time to be juvenile.
“I can’t get used to the balance thing,” he finally says, cautiously, starting on safe ground.
“Yeah, I feel like I’m moving sideways more than I’m moving forwards. How women get anywhere with hips like these, I don’t know.”
The bitching is at least familiar, so John relaxes a little and allows himself a raised eyebrow. “Well, with hips like yours, anyway.”
“Hey! I’ll have you know . . .”
John can’t think of any way for McKay to finish that sentence and not scar both of them for life, so he interrupts. “Settle down, girlfriend, I didn’t mean anything by it. Your ass doesn’t look fat in those pants.”
Rodney’s ass, actually, is gorgeous, matched by curvy hips and great tits that John had tried to avoid looking at through Rodney’s flimsy hospital gown. But he has no fucking idea how to tell Rodney that he’s pretty without it sounding pervy and paradoxically gay, or like some sort of consolation prize: hey, your whole body was changed against your will by some random alien device, but at least you’re hot!
Rodney rolls his eyes, pursing his lips into a little red bow. “Oh, ha ha, I’m a girl, shut up. At least I’m not the one who apparently spends equal time on his hair regardless of gender.”
“Yknow, Cadman told me that my hair looked cute this way.” John runs a hand through it thoughtfully, the mussy spikes falling into his eyes in a way they didn’t before.
“Wonderful, I hope you two are very happy together and have lots of lesbian babies.” Rodney’s attention falls to the chocolate in front of him, and he takes a bite from his cupcake.
John thinks for a minute, then tilts his head and asks, “Do you think we’re lesbians now?”
Rodney coughs dryly, crumbs flying from his mouth. “Excuse me? What happened to ‘we’re gonna fix this’ and ‘we’ll be laughing about it by Tuesday’? You’re suddenly contemplating lesbianism? Can’t you hold off having sex until we’re changed back?”
“Yeah, because I have this plan to go down to the local dyke bar and pick up girls. I mean hypothetically, McKay.”
“Are you even allowed to say ‘dyke’?” At John’s dark look, he holds up his hands. “Never mind, never mind. Uh. I dunno. Hm.” Rodney’s face gets that look that it gets when he’s suddenly thought of an interesting way to manhandle Ancient technology. “Actually, I’m surprised that the social scientists haven’t come knocking to ask me how much of my sexuality was tied to my physical gender.”
“I’m surprised too. They should know by now that you’d greet a question like that with grace and understanding.” John smirks as he leans back and hooks an arm over the edge of his chair. Rodney blinks at him, then ducks his head and takes another bite of his cupcake, chewing thoroughly for once before responding.
“Fair enough. But, um. I guess we are.” Then, hastily, “I mean, I’m still attracted to women, so.”
“Yeah, I - me too.” John feels strangely embarrassed, talking about this with Rodney, as if they hadn’t already known this about each other, hadn’t watched each other date women, hadn’t competed for women, hadn’t argued about which Alien movie Sigourney Weaver was hottest in. But the old landmarks are suddenly missing, or turned inexplicably into landmines.
John’s queasiness returns, so he pushes his cupcake across the table.
-
That night, John lies in bed, motionless, and thinks about it for a long time. He concentrates on the feeling between his legs, the slipperiness as he shifts back and forth, so different from the safe familiarity of his dick and balls. He skims his attention over his breasts, high and firm, feels the ghosts of imaginary hands on his legs, his ass, his neck. He feels shoved in where he doesn’t belong, but at the same time, can’t stop being fascinated by the way that this body feels, strange and sexual. He’s never felt this aware of himself, before, of the way he inhabits bones and muscle and skin.
He gives in to the inevitable, shucking off the tank top and cotton gym shorts he’d worn to bed, kicking the covers down to expose his flesh. He’s seen his new body in bathroom mirrors, in bits and pieces while changing, but this is different: rubbing his palm over a nipple, running his hands down his sides over curving hips to clutch and grip at his thighs, moving his fingers in slow circles over his fucking clit. All his responses feel upside-down and backwards, as if his whole body has been rewired. He keeps his eyes open, shoulders propped up against the headboard, feet planted on the mattress, watching himself as he slips two tentative fingers into his hole. The heartbeat-throbbing, deep inside, takes him by surprise when it first starts, just familiar enough to put him off-balance, and when he scratches a thumbnail across the underside of one breast, the little shiver that runs down his spine feels like a revelation.
-
The next day, in the morning briefing, John meets Rodney’s eyes and can’t help wondering whether McKay had tried it, too, taken the new body out for a test drive at the first opportunity. McKay’s glance back is calm and businesslike, but maybe he’s got the same secret. Maybe he’s wondering the same thing about John. He can’t think of a possible situation in which he could ask him about it, wouldn’t want to talk about it even if he could, but the experience burns inside of him. He wants to know if McKay felt the same way, new and bright and sharp inside his skin, every sensation maddeningly familiar and gloriously strange.
-
Teyla and Ronon take Zelenka back to the Nendari planet to look for the hit-and-run genderswitcher. Rodney tries to convince Elizabeth to let him go along (“What’s the worst that could happen? I accidentally get turned into a man?”) but Elizabeth holds firm (“You fell down in your lab for no reason this morning, Rodney. No off-world missions until you’ve mastered your centre of gravity” ). John’s appeal falls on similarly deaf ears, even though he hasn’t fallen down since at least the day before.
But despite Ronon’s tracking skills and Zelenka’s energy-scans and Teyla’s polite inquiries, they come back empty-handed. The little Nendari man who did this to them was nowhere to be found, nor was the ray-gun looking thing that he’d used. No one in the villages seems to have ever heard of him, or of non-invasive spontaneous sex change operations, for that matter. Days slip by, and Ronon looks increasingly aggravated each time they return through the gate. Teyla, though she hides it better, is beginning to betray her own frustration.
“They’re lying right to our faces,” is Ronon’s assessment of the situation. Teyla nods and sighs as the gate shuts down behind her.
“I sense that there is something they are not telling us, but I believe that it will take time to discover. We must earn their trust.” She brightens. “But they have agreed to barter for a share of their crops, which was, after all, the original mission. They grow a very nice variety of tuber.”
Ronon, as if on cue, digs in his pocket and pulls out a fist-sized purple potato that looks vaguely sentient, holding it up for John’s inspection.
John blinks at it, then turns around and walks out of the gateroom.
-
Two weeks later, John and Rodney manage to tag-team brow-beat Elizabeth into letting them go off-world again. It’s been over a week since either of them has fallen down for no reason, opened a door into his own face, or vomited from moving too quickly: they’re getting more comfortable. And while Rodney hasn’t said as much, John can see on his face the echo of his own desire for something familiar, for normal activity. In the end, Elizabeth makes them run through the Marines’ north pier obstacle course to prove it, which makes John mutter darkly about G.I. Jane, but he does it anyway. He tries not to be too smug about his time, which outstrips most of the Marines. Rodney, of course, does abysmally, but no more abysmally than he would’ve done in his old body, so in the end they get clearance.
At the gate, John feels a resurgence of the nausea he’d felt those first few days. His new gear fits his new body but feels uncomfortable in a way his old stuff never had. And despite his itchy feet, he no longer feels particularly excited to step through the puddle.
He looks over at Rodney, who is squirming and readjusting his tac vest over his still-kind-of-astonishing rack. When John meets his eyes, he frowns with one side of his mouth, a startlingly familiar expression. John, almost without thinking about it, reaches over and ruffles Rodney’s hair - fuller up front than it used to be, thanks to the second X chromosome, and somewhat pixieish on his new, feminine face - and smiles at him. Rodney’s frown deepens, but he stops fidgeting.
From behind him, Ronon puts a hand on his shoulder: a light touch that preserves its old masculine meaninglessness. “We going or what?” he grumbles.
“We’re going,” John says, and they step through the gate.
-
With the two of them as exhibits A and B backing up Ronon and Teyla’s claims, the Nendari are suddenly more forthcoming. Working off of tips and rumours that they had gathered, painstakingly, over the last three weeks, they finally talk to someone who tells them to talk to someone else who thinks she knows someone who might know something. With the usual warnings - “It is forbidden to speak of it” and “I will be in a great deal of trouble if I tell you,” they are pointed to one particular house, a cheery little thatch-roofed number with smoke coming out of the chimney. Ronon knocks.
The door opens to reveal a short, stocky man in his mid-fifties. “Hello. Can I help you?” he inquires, wiping his hands with a bright green cloth.
“Yes, I’m Colonel Sheppard, this is Dr. McKay, Teyla Emmagan and Ronon Dex.”
“Yes, you two have been asking around the village for me, haven’t you?” the man asks, eyes darting between Teyla and Ronon. “Well, it took you long enough. Of course I’m forbidden to tell you, so couldn’t stop you in the village square, but since you’ve come asking . . . but, my manners! My name is Tarin N’Vell. Come in, Colonel, Doctor, Teyla, Ronon. Sit down.”
“I gather that you know the reason for our visit?” Teyla begins, settling gingerly onto a straight-backed wooden chair.
“Oh, indeed!” the man frowns. “It is most unfortunate, but I assure you, you will get used to it.”
“Whoa whoa whoa, what do you mean, ‘used to it’?” Rodney interrupts. “Are you saying there’s no cure?”
“I’m afraid not.” Tarin furrows his brow.
John intercedes, using his softest voice. “Look - Tarin. How do you know this? Are you the one who built the device? Is it some sort of experiment gone wrong, and that’s why you’re not allowed to talk about it?”
“They really don’t talk about it in the village anymore, do they? Used to be you could get someone to tell you the story - my story, anyway - in exchange for a drink.”
“We bought a lot of people drinks,” Ronon deadpans. “Nobody told us anything, except to talk to you.”
“Well.” Tarin seems flustered. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had to tell anyone this, but yes. I underwent the same process that you two did, twenty years back. I used to be a woman.”
Rodney nods eagerly, as if he’s been expecting this. “Was it on purpose? How did the device work? What did it look like?”
“I can describe it to you, if you like, or draw a picture. It’s a device from the Ancestors. We found it while digging holes for a fence, and activated it by mistake. I was the only one affected, then. We kept it for years, with the other relics. Some time ago, however, it went missing from the archive.”
“Why would anyone steal it?” Ronon asks. “It’s not an effective weapon.”
Tarin looks a little embarrassed. “Perhaps this happens on your world as well; I do not know. But there were youths in the village who wished to marry, but could not, for our ingrained moral taboos and cultural laws forbade it.”
Teyla nods. “This happens among the Athosians. But we have allowed such as these to marry in the past, so long as they found other partners with whom to produce children.”
John blinks at Teyla, surprised by this insight into Athosian culture. “So, wait, you have gay marriage and forced reproduction?”
“The Wraith come often, Colonel,” Teyla says, eyes ahead of her.
Tarin nods. “Children must come first.”
“Okay,” Rodney says slowly, “so you’re telling me that some band of militant queer youth stole the device and started changing the sex of random strangers . . . why? To make a political point?”
“They started changing their own sexes so that their unions could be approved, but the village elders refused to allow them to marry even so.” Tarin shakes his head. “So it was with me; my husband left me and no woman would have me after I was changed. It is seen as unnatural. Realising that they would not be accepted, the protesters found a way to change themselves back, and established a camp outside the village. After that, they would return from time to time, to change others - village elders, prominent members of the community. I suppose they believed that, if enough people were changed, the village would have no choice but to accept them.”
At the words “change themselves back,” John feels his jaw unclench. “So it has been reversed.”
“Yes; a young lady among the outcasts found a way to alter the device somehow, inside, so that the process could be reversed.” John can sense Rodney’s body relaxing beside him.
“I take it that their protests did not encourage acceptance among the village elders,” Teyla intones.
“The opposite, in fact. Some of the younger villagers staged a raid on the outcasts’ camp and stole the device back. All who had been changed against their will were changed back to their original shape, save for me.” Tarin smiles. “After twenty years, I have no desire to get used to another body again.”
“But you said there was no cure,” Ronon says from behind John. “Sounds like we just need this device.”
Tarin sighs. “There is no cure, not any longer. That is, I believe, why your initial inquiries were met with so much resistance. I apologise on behalf of my people; we did not know that the protesters had taken your group for allies and targeted you as well, not until it was too late. I am afraid the device has been destroyed.”
-
On the way back to the gate, Rodney gets through at least four distinct rants on the stupidity of technophobic societies, the stupidity of homophobic societies, the stupidity of this society in particular, and the stupidity of the Ancients, who apparently made a sex-changing machine just for shits and giggles.
John punches a tree.
-
Elizabeth listens to their report, the line between her eyebrows getting deeper as the story goes on. Her eyes stray, once, to the scraped knuckles on John’s right hand.
“And then, apparently, these morons decided to fix the problem by hitting the thing with a rock until it died,” Rodney spits. “And now I’m stuck combing through the Ancient database, trying to find this stupid device, and then trying to build one, assuming I can find schematics.”
Elizabeth tilts her head towards him. “So there’s still hope, then?”
“Maybe. Probably not. I don’t know.” Rodney rubs his forehead tiredly, his blue eyes watery. “You know what that database is like, Elizabeth. Even assuming the schematics are in there, we’re looking at a project that’s going to take a lot of time before we get results.” He doesn’t specify, but John can hear words like “months” and “years” in the tone of his voice.
Elizabeth purses her lips. “That’s something that I wanted to discuss with you two. While I appreciate your - discomfort, with your current condition, and while I want to help you get back to normal - I’ll help you with the database as much as I can, Rodney - I just can’t sanction you devoting your full attention to this indefinitely.”
Rodney looks at her like she’s just declared the Earth to be flat.
John speaks before Rodney can. “Elizabeth, we have had something done to us against our will. I agree it’s not life-threatening, but we need our bodies back!”
“And we’ll get them back,” Elizabeth agrees, “But Dr. Zelenka has come to me with a real workload problem; you know as well as I do that city maintenance has backed up alarmingly over the last three weeks. Rodney, you need to be back on your regular duties at least three quarters of the time, including fieldwork and your responsibilities as team leader. We need you around here.”
“Right, and you don’t much care what package my brain comes wrapped up in.” Rodney’s voice is cold and precise. He stands, gathers his laptop, and heads for the door. “Thank you for giving me a vision of the future, in which I’m sure you’ll have my head preserved in a pickle jar for many years after my death.”
After Rodney leaves, John meets Elizabeth’s steady gaze for a long moment before getting up and following him.
-
John catches up to him outside his quarters.
“Hey! Rodney. Wait up.”
Rodney pauses outside his door. “You might as well go with Meredith, Colonel, as it looks like I’m going to be an unlikely Rodney for the foreseeable future.”
“You were kind of an unlikely Rodney anyway. But hey, good call: at least you won’t have to change your name.”
Rodney’s mouth compresses into a hard line as he turns away from John and palms his door open. John follows him inside.
“What is wrong with you?” Rodney practically shouts, dropping his stuff on his desk. “Do you not realise what this means? We are stuck like this, and Elizabeth isn’t even willing to give me the time and resources to get us unstuck! How in the hell can we ever go back to Earth? The SGC will have to keep us locked up as a security risk. Not that they’re much better - it’s been three weeks everyone around here is still giving us weird looks like we’re diseased or something. We’re going to end up social outcasts like Tarin in his fucking thatched roof cottage!”
“Hey,” John says, holding up his hands, “look, believe me, I am just as pissed off about this as you are. You think I don’t get it? This is not how our lives are supposed to work.” His voice begins to rise against his will, his soothing tone abandoned. “You get another consciousness in your brain, you get better. I get another consciousness in my brain, I get better. You turn into a semi-ascended being, you get better. I get turned into a bug, with, with bug-eyes and bug-scales and bug-sweat glands and what I’m pretty sure was a pincer, and I. Got. Better.” He forces himself to take a deep breath. “So don’t take it out on me when Elizabeth’s just screwed us both. I came over here to ask you how I can help.”
Rodney deflates a little, slumping down into his desk chair. He rubs two fingers over his forehead, the way he had in the briefing room, and John recognizes the gesture, now: it was the same move he’d made on Ford’s planet, strung out on Wraith enzyme and struggling to make his thoughts cohere. John is struck with empathy, as he had been then. He crouches down beside Rodney and, reaching out, grips his shoulder in his hand.
“Hey, buddy, it’s okay.” Rodney looks down at the place where John is touching him, then back up to meet his eyes. John means to pull his arm back, but instead finds himself reaching out with his other hand to clasp Rodney’s knee awkwardly. Rodney licks his lips, then speaks.
“You had a pincer?”
John meets Rodney’s half-smile with one of his own. “Why don’t you show me the sections of the database we have to check?”
“Sure,” he says. Then, hesitantly, his hand comes up to grip John’s where it’s still clasping his shoulder, one hard squeeze. “Thanks,” he adds, and John pulls away.
Over the next four hours, he shows John what they’re looking for and where they’ll have to look. John doesn’t say it, but comes to see Rodney’s point: without a team of people working on it full time or some clue as to where to start looking, their chances of finding one non-essential device are almost nil.
When he can no longer keep his eyes open, he drags himself out of his chair to leave. Rodney gets up, too, and for an awkward moment they stand motionless and unspeaking by the door. John gets a weird feeling, like they might hug. He’s seen women hug each other that way, for comfort and friendship, for the sake of touching. And the tired, vulnerable look in Rodney’s eyes, so familiar from a dozen other hopeless situations, makes John want to comfort him, to pull his soft, female body against his own, to hold him the way he had held his mom after his father died.
In the end, John just clasps his shoulder again, ineffectually, and leaves.
-
John’s so exhausted that he assumes he’ll just fall asleep immediately, but it doesn’t happen. He rubs a hand against his thigh, considering. It’s become a nightly ritual, to offset the exhaustion and frustration of his days, the strange looks, the way he still feels a little vertigo when he walks too fast, the way he misses his body. He can’t jerk off like he used to, but this is becoming more and more familiar: his fingers on his nipples, on his clit, pushing up inside himself. He can’t tell anyone, not even McKay, how much he loves this, this body all new for him, beautiful and unworn. But he’d been almost glad of that; it stays his secret, delicious and perverse.
Tonight, though, he can’t stop thinking about how it would be if he could tell someone. Tell McKay. He knows McKay must be doing it, too, must’ve been curious. John’s fingers rub over his belly absently. Rodney had probably felt like he won the Boob Sweepstakes, John thinks wryly, palm cupping the warm side of his own breast. The edges of his fingers tease his dark brown nipple. Rodney did have nice tits, full and round, nipples that got hard just as often as they did when he was a man, poking through his shirt at meetings, in the gateroom, earlier tonight while they sat together in front of the computer screen. John’s nipples tighten, little shocks of pleasure.
Yeah, John thinks, Rodney’s definitely played with his own tits, and hell, he’s human, he has to have gone on. Has to have been greedy for it, the way John had been, greedy to slip his fingers into his cunt, oh just like that, to press down on his new clit and close his eyes as his breathing sped up. John can see him, wide hips spread on the bed, knees up, feet planted. Sees him with one hand on his clit and one squeezing his breast, the pads of his fingers pushing back and forth over his nipple. John pushes a little harder with his fingers, small circles speeding up.
Rodney reminds John of girls he’s fucked, smart girls with clever tongues and lush curves. John’s had his dick between tits like Rodney’s, pushed them together to cover his cock while he slid back and forth. John reaches into himself, three fingers, wishing he could go deeper, rocking his fingers back and forth to make himself open, open, open. He gives in to the fantasy as he rocks against his hand: imagines slipping his cock into Rodney’s pussy, imagines Rodney’s legs up over his shoulders as he fucks in deep, imagines Rodney spread out before him, on his back, John’s hands on his ass. Rodney would groan as John’s dick pushed into him, filling him up, would get a hand down to his clit, would shudder and clench as he -
oh
John’s breath catches in his throat as he starts to come, fingers still pushing, pushing, drawing it on and on, his whole body condensing into a single point of pleasure.
-
Three days later is the third Tuesday since John first woke up in the infirmary. John spends it on paperwork and Marine-wrangling, which makes for a long, grueling day. Though he can’t pin it down, there’s something very different about talking to his men now that he’s a woman, and the obvious discomfort that they exhibit is inevitably exhausting.
But when he gets back to his room, Rodney is waiting outside his door with a DVD in his hand. He looks a little nervous, but John hasn’t quite gotten used to reading Rodney’s emotions on his new face, so it could be something else. When he sees John coming, he smiles in a way that used to be endearing and is now surprisingly stunning.
“Hey, I got this from Simpson, one night only. Wanna join me?” He holds up the DVD to show John: V for Vendetta, which John had mentioned wanting to see about a month before. He realises that he hasn’t watched a movie or played chess or hung out with Rodney at all, really, since they changed.
“I thought we were devoting every spare minute to searching the database?” It comes out more accusatory than he intends it.
Rodney sighs. “It’s all I’ve done for the last three days; I can’t see the symbols anymore. I can’t look at it again until tomorrow.”
John nods. “Movie sounds good. C’mon in.”
They end up spinning John’s bed around so that the long side is backed against the wall to make an improvised couch, tossing pillows behind their backs and setting John’s laptop up on the little table in front of them.
“How is your room so tiny? Seriously, I think this was originally an Ancient closet,” Rodney grumbles as they rearrange the furniture.
“A man’s needs are simple,” John answers, then regrets it. Rodney doesn’t respond, but does give him a funny little sarcastic smile before settling in and pressing play. Rodney curls up on the other end of the bed, feet pulled under him. John tries not to notice how sweet he looks, all tucked into himself like that.
The movie isn’t on for more than fifteen minutes when Rodney reaches forward and pushes the space bar to pause it.
“Hey, it’s just getting good,” John protests. He likes the swordfights.
“It’s not as good as the book. Listen, Colonel. I have to ask you something,” Rodney says, then falls paradoxically silent.
John turns toward him and raises his eyebrows. “Yes?”
Rodney’s brow furrows. “I just. Do you remember that conversation we had, back when all this started?”
Oh, shit. “About decreased security perimeters to save power? I told you, we can’t pull back any further.”
Rodney gives him his I’m-not-buying-your-bullshit look. That one definitely hadn’t changed with the face. “No, not the security perimeters, you moron, the lesbian thing!”
“The lesbian thing.” John tries to think of someplace he has to be, but before he can, Rodney’s lips are on his. A soft, hasty press, closed-mouthed and swift, both a statement and a question. Then Rodney pulls back, out of his space.
“The lesbian thing,” he repeats. “Look, I don’t know how to ask you this,” and he stops, clearly searching for the right words, a furrow working between his eyebrows. John is struck breathless: he knows this feeling. When Rodney walked into the darkness creature, just weeks after they met, John felt exactly this way.
When Rodney next opens his mouth to speak, John’s there, his mouth covering Rodney’s, his hand sliding up his leg, lips sliding, tongue pushing in in in.
Then Rodney makes a high-pitched little moan and pushes his tongue back against John’s, and the kiss gets dirty and desperate and wet. Rodney’s hands are high on his waist, thumbs pushing into John’s belly, fingers against the ribs just below his breasts. And if John thought his responses were strange when he was touching himself, then this is completely out of control: the sensation of Rodney’s hands on him is overwhelming. It’s the most sexual experience of John’s life and they haven’t even gotten to second base yet. His hand slips behind Rodney’s neck, fingers clench, tugging at the short hair as he deepens the kiss. Inside, he feels that low-down heartbeat-throb. He’s brand-new, again, nerves jangling, a perfect shock to his system.
When they break apart, Rodney takes a second longer than John does to open his eyes, so that when he does, John is confronted with the sudden blueness of them, contrasting sharply with the swollen red of his lips. He’s a little short of breath, too. John glances down to where Rodney’s chest is heaving, takes in the swell of Rodney’s breasts, and sees that his nipples are hard against his shirt. The sight creates some sort of feedback loop: John feels his own nipples contract with pleasure. He can’t stop his hands from running up and down Rodney’s back, his arms, restlessly, wrists to shoulders to neck to nape and back again.
He realises that this, this is what he’s been craving for days, since Tarin took away the hope that this was just a dream and that they could wake up. John’s stuck here, now, lost in this body that isn’t quite his, but Rodney’s lost like him, and so beautiful. He closes his eyes briefly. Words that he’s held inside for weeks slip irreversibly from his mouth.
“God, Rodney, don’t, don’t take this the wrong way, but you are really gorgeous as a woman.”
Rodney’s mouth makes its way from John’s ear down his neck, his lips running hot trails along his collarbone.
“You, you too,” John hears, murmured against his skin. “God, do you even know? You’re completely my type, I can’t even . . .” More words, lost against his body as Rodney kisses the hollow of his throat, fingers sliding along John’s waist. His mouth works down into the little v-neck of John’s t-shirt, along the sternum, his face nearly on a level with John’s high, firm breasts. He looks up, fingers plucking at the hem of the shirt.
“Can we?” he asks, eyes earnest and hopeful.
John grins, says, “I’m not actually a woman, Rodney,” and pulls his shirt over his head one-handed.
“That’s what you think,” Rodney mutters, and presses his face between John’s breasts, nuzzling against the white lace bra. John is about to speak to demand fair play, fingers sliding up Rodney’s belly under his shirt, when Rodney turns his head and mouths John’s nipple over the bra.
And god, the wetness, the heat, the pull of Rodney’s mouth over the slight scratchiness of the lace is devastating: the air he’d intended to use for speech leaves his mouth in a sudden, harsh breath. He sucks more air in, breath coming faster, little “ah!” noises escaping his lips as Rodney’s lips cover his nipple and his warm hands rub circles against his lower back. Then Rodney starts to suck him, and the sensation arches from his nipple to his pussy like an electric shock.
His hands come up to cup Rodney’s head, holding him to his breast. Rodney looks up and brings his index finger to John’s mouth: another question. John licks his lips, then opens up and sucks it in, running his tongue up and down, getting it wet. Rodney pulls it out and presses it against John’s other nipple, rubbing and slipping, back and forth, while his tongue laps slowly at the first one.
“Oh, Jesus, Rodney, that is amazing.” John moans. Rodney pulls his mouth back, lips red and obscene against John’s breast, and looks up at him curiously. “Better than with fingers?” he asks.
“You have to try this. Take your shirt off.”
Rodney gives John’s nipple one last little tweak and then does, tossing the blue science-team t-shirt to the floor. Rodney’s wearing the same sort of thing, functional white lace, his tits spilling generously forward as he reaches behind himself to unhook the bra.
“Do you want - ” John begins hesitantly, “the lace is kind of, um, nice, if you.” Rodney shakes his head.
“Just your mouth,” he blurts, then flushes. His nipples are flushed, too, dark pink and tight against his breasts. John bends his head. Rodney tastes salty with sweat and smells familiar, like a hundred cramped tents and shared rooms on a hundred different worlds. He cups the underside of one breast with his hand and massages rhythmically, nails scraping against the soft round flesh even as he presses the flat of his tongue to Rodney’s nipple.
“God! Okay, yes, Colonel, that’s good. Fuck.” Rodney keeps one hand against the side of John’s breast, rubbing his palm back and forth mindlessly.
John pulls his mouth off briefly. “I think you can call me John,” he says between open-lipped kisses to Rodney’s nipple, “since I’m not here in any official capacity.”
Rodney laughs and buries his hands in John’s hair, pulling him up his body again and then giving him a little push backwards. John hesitates, then goes with it, lets Rodney push him to lie flat on his back in the bed, then grabs Rodney by the shoulders and pulls him down on top of him. Rodney’s stretched out over him and slightly to one side, his knee falling between John’s legs, his hard nipple rubbing down to nestle between John’s breasts. All the hesitation is gone as Rodney takes his mouth again, hot and dirty and pushy. John lets his legs fall open, forcing Rodney to fall further against him. And Rodney’s hot thigh presses between John’s legs, through three layers of clothing, and grinds the seam of John’s pants against his clit. John groans and breaks off the kiss, looking into Rodney’s eyes and blinking rapidly as he cants his hips upwards to get more friction.
Rodney looks momentarily confused, then glances down and licks his lips. Looking back into John’s face, Rodney drags his thigh slowly upward, tensing the muscle there and rubbing it deliberately against John, pressing it into John’s body. A long, slow drag up, then he pulls away, depriving John of contact, and moves back down only to do it again, tense and push and drag upward, over and over and over.
“Rodney,” John gasps between thrusts, “oh, christ. uh, Rodney, do you wanna. . .” John plucks at the waistband of Rodney’s pants to illustrate his point.
“Yeah,” Rodney breathes, and pulls back to unbutton and unzip. John arches his back against the bed and gets his hands behind himself to unhook his bra, pulling it off and tossing it on the floor. By the time he’s managed that - stupid bra hooks - Rodney’s got himself completely naked and is kneeling on the end of the bed.
John’s mouth goes a little dry at the sight of Rodney’s body, the broad, muscled thighs, the little round belly that dips in slightly at his waist before flaring back out, up, to those round gorgeous tits, one nipple still gleaming from John’s mouth. And right there in front of him is Rodney’s pussy, little thatch of hair between his spread thighs, a glimpse of wet red flesh behind brown-blonde curls. John’s hands still on his fly when he catches sight of a drop of moisture clinging to a single hair like dew.
Rodney snaps his fingers, and John’s gaze drags upwards again.
“Earth to Sheppard! C’mon, I know you’re in the military, but I’m pretty sure you’ve seen pussy before.”
John grins at Rodney’s wide smile. “Asshole. C’mere.”
Rodney does, his hands replacing John’s on the waist of his pants, pulling them down and off before stripping the socks from John’s feet.
“You missed a spot,” John says, thumb slipping in to the waistband of the white cotton panties as he spreads his legs even further, one foot coming down to brace on the floor. The cotton is damp where it’s been pressed against him. He can smell himself, suddenly, that great pussy-smell that he’s always loved seeming to fill his mouth and nose. He pulls himself up on his elbows and gives Rodney a challenging look that usually has to do with fixing a DHD or firing a gun.
Rodney holds his gaze for a long moment before bending down and running his hands up John’s legs. The change hadn’t removed any proportionate muscle mass, really, so his body is still well-defined, lithe and strong. It’d been one of the few familiarities immediately after the change. Rodney’s hands trace over the muscles: over the knotted runner’s calves and the front of his thighs, up his sides to cup and rub the hardness of his shoulders. John lies still as Rodney’s fingers ghost down the lines of his biceps to his inner elbows. Then Rodney’s hands draw back up again, his fingernails scraping against John’s skin. John inhales sharply.
When Rodney’s hand next cups his bicep, John flexes a little, winking at Rodney before grabbing him by the back of the neck and pulling him back down into a kiss. Rodney settles on top of him again, their flesh pressing together hot and sticky. Then John braces himself, foot pressing against the floor, and flips them over, driving a soft “umph!” from Rodney as his back hits the bed. He scrambles over Rodney’s body, bracing one hand on the bed and his knees on either side of Rodney’s leg while he draws his legs up one at a time to pull the white cotton away from his body and toss it on the floor.
“Yeah,” Rodney murmurs, his hands bracing John’s shoulders as he squirms above. Then John lowers himself down to ride his bare wet flesh against Rodney’s thigh, bracing his own leg to rub against Rodney’s clit. Rodney gasps, then groans out a long, low, “Fuck” and lifts one hip, hooking his ankle over the back of John’s calf and grinding up.
John pushes back against him, riding Rodney’s thigh harder. They’re held together by Rodney’s leg locked over his, breasts pressing, nipples catching on hot skin. Rodney gets a hand down between them, fingers adding to the pressure of his thigh against John’s cunt.
“Jesus,” he mutters into Rodney’s skin, squeezing his eyes closed. “Jesus, Rodney, yeah, just like that. You feel - oh, christ you feel good.” He drags his mouth up, across Rodney’s jaw, back to his lips, sliding their tongues together as they push against each other. They writhe like that for a while, hard nipples scraping against skin, kissing frantically, trying to get more friction. John is full of the sex-smell between them and the sounds of Rodney’s little gasps against his mouth.
Finally John takes Rodney’s hand and pulls it down further, presses two fingers against his hole. His eyes open as he puts Rodney’s fingers into him, filling the ache inside. Rodney meets his gaze and curls his fingers into John even as John spreads his thighs a little further and brings his clit down onto the hard heel of Rodney’s hand. Then John’s rocking against his hand, moving his hips in slow circles that press Rodney’s callused fingers against that internal smooth spot, again, and again, and again. And he’s been waiting too long now, for what feels like weeks: he’s suddenly desperate for it. He closes his eyes and rests his forehead on Rodney’s shoulder as Rodney gets a second hand down onto his cunt, shifts his grip, gets a third finger into him while his other hand covers his clit, pressing in warm little circles over and over. John’s clenching against Rodney’s fingers now, high gasps tearing themselves from his throat, his cunt tightening around those points of pleasure. Rodney pushes through it, inexorable, fingers stroking and sliding, pushing deeper and filling him up as John is overwhelmed by wave after wave of hot, rushing joy.
He collapses completely against Rodney’s shoulder, gasping heavily. “God, Rodney, I don’t even . . .” He stops himself talking and reaches between them to grasp Rodney’s wrists and draw his hands up to his face. Rodney’s fingers are coated, wet and sticky. John closes his lips around two fingers and licks them clean, tongue lapping at the webbing between them, tasting himself on Rodney’s skin.
Rodney groans and shifts his hips beneath John’s. John takes a minute to lose himself in Rodney’s mouth again, pushing the bitter taste of John’s cunt onto his tongue, then wriggles down his body to get his face between his thighs.
“Oh, please, yes, god, yes, do it.” comes Rodney’s voice from above him. John slides his hands up those soft white thighs, then grips firmly and shoves them apart, dipping his head down to lap at the dark scent of Rodney’s pussy. Rodney’s hands slide into his hair, pushy and familiar, as John slides his tongue down to tease and circle at Rodney’s hole. Above him, Rodney gasps, and John lets his tongue slip inside briefly before pulling away. Rodney groans at the loss.
He presses two fingers in: long, deep strokes that make Rodney shudder and stutter out one-word sentences: “Fuck. John. I. Jesus.”
Then he presses his mouth back down onto Rodney’s clit, stroking and lipping in counterpoint, thumb rubbing against the tender space below his clit. In, and around, and over, again and again, the hot smell all around him. John’s mouth is buried in Rodney as he pushes and slides and licks: in, around, over, again, and again. Rodney’s squirming and cursing above him, muttering in an unending litany: “fuck, do it, fuck, John, do it, god, fuck.”
Then Rodney’s hand slides down onto John’s shoulder and squeezes hard, even as his internal muscles begin to clench. John presses down a little harder, moves his lips and tongue a little faster, and curls his fingers up inside Rodney as he comes, a long groan pulled from his throat as he falls back against the bed.
John crawls back up the bed and kisses Rodney again, his face still smeared with wetness from his pussy, fucking his tongue into Rodney’s soft, slackened mouth. Then he pulls away and falls against his body, breathing heavily. He runs his fingers slowly over Rodney’s breast, watching his chest heave like he’s been running a marathon.
Lips against Rodney’s ear, he says, “If I still had my cock, I’d fuck you now. That’s how it goes, right? After I eat you out I get to fuck you.”
Rodney makes a breathy little noise and rolls onto his side so that they’re facing each other with their legs tangled together.
“Yeah, that’s how it works.” His voice is soft and hesitant.
John slides his fingers back into Rodney, teasing his clit with gentle pressure. Rodney closes his eyes and bites his lip.
“But I can’t.” His fingers move back and forth, slow and lazy.
“I wish . . . I wish you could.” Rodney opens his eyes again at this, as if surprised by his own admission, but then looks frankly into John’s face, daring him to call him on it.
John just moves his fingers: back and forth, slow and lazy, on and on.
Then, “You’d want that? Cock?” voice quiet. The frantic heat from before is gone; Rodney comes against John’s fingers again, but John doesn’t stop moving against him.
“Yeah,” Rodney stutters, finally. “I mean, what the hell, this body seems to like having, uh. God. Having things inside it.”
“Yeah,” John echoes, the word drawn out like taffy, low and sweet. He kisses Rodney’s lips, mouth closed and soft, and gets a hand down to his own clit.
Part Two
pairing: John/Rodney
wordcount: ~16500
spoilers: little ones up to The Tao of Rodney
a/n: the title's from the Blur song (I have no shame). The beta-ing is by umbo, who is clever and insightful and an enemy of the past participle. I owe her many thanks.
always should be someone you really love
John wakes up in someone else’s body.
He pushes his way up to awareness, struggles to come out of it, to assert control - god knows who else is in here with him - and manages to open his eyes and wrench his body into a sitting position. His vision immediately blurs, his stomach heaves, and he turns his head just in time to vomit on the floor instead of his own lap.
Another moment of consciousness, and he becomes aware of the rest of his body. It’s a woman’s body, but there doesn’t seem to be a woman around: no press of another mind, like that time with Thelan. He’s all alone in here, in one of the private exam rooms in the infirmary. He opens his mouth to yell for a nurse, for help, for an explanation, but stops short when he hears a nearly-familiar voice come through the wall.
“Oh god, I hate my life so much!”
Higher-pitched, but otherwise Rodney. John starts, and his eyes fall on the scar on the back of his left hand from the car accident when he was sixteen. His hands fly frantically over the body: rough patch of skin on the neck from the bug, white line on the upper arm from the bullet graze, blue freckle on the inner arm from the other bug. The left knee twinges the way it always does when the weather on Atlantis gets damp.
“Oh,” John says aloud, alone in the little room.
-
Once the nurses realise that he’s awake, John is wheeled out into the main area, and suddenly surrounded: Teyla, Ronon, Elizabeth, Carson, and what seems to be the entire Atlantis medical staff. He misses his empty room.
Rodney doesn’t remember either, but Teyla and Ronon tell them about the wild-haired little man who hit them with some sort of energy beam before scurrying back into the bushes.
“It was only because you two were walking ahead. You shielded us from the . . . device,” Teyla explains. “You collapsed on the ground. We would have chased after him, but you were both convulsing, and we judged it best to get you to the gate.”
Elizabeth nods. “By the time you were back in Atlantis, you were almost completely changed.”
Rodney, in the bed beside John’s, is sitting with his knees drawn up and arms crossed, the covers pulled up almost to her - his - chin.
“Great story,” he says, “really, I love it, especially the part where we have seizures. Now how about, I don’t know, the part where we get changed back?”
John doesn’t speak, but he grimaces his agreement. Elizabeth exchanges a glance with Carson, who puts on his usual you’re-not-going-to-like-this frown.
“I’m afraid that I have no idea what’s been done to you. I frankly would not know how to begin to reverse such a radical genetic change without access to that device. But you are both completely healthy, and now that the initial stress of the transformation has worn off, there don’t seem to be any side effects.” Carson tries to give them a little smile.
Rodney gapes. “Well, I do actually have a side effect, Carson. I have a fucking vagina. And, no offense to the ladies present, but I have no intention of going on like this!”
“Chill, Rodney.” It’s the first thing John’s said since ‘I’m fine,’ and his voice stops McKay mid-rant. “Ronon and Teyla will go back to the planet and find this guy. They’ll get the device, Carson will switch us back, and we’ll be laughing about this by Tuesday.”
-
After the briefings and the medical exams and the embarrassing ordeal of borrowing clothes from Cadman, there’s nothing left to do but go on with life as usual, especially since Elizabeth’s grounded the two of them in case of any complications. Elizabeth has also sent out a memo (“Accepting Gender Ambiguity”) to alert the staff to the situation, and Rodney has responded with a memo of his own (“We’re Girls Now, Deal With it and Don’t Look at My Ass”) to ensure that everyone got the message.
John takes a deep breath and walks into the commissary. To his relief, Rodney’s there, too, looking equally uncomfortable. But John recognizes the determined tilt of his chin and the high flush in his cheeks even on the new, rounder face. He joins Rodney at the little two-person table in the corner, mentally congratulating him on having scored the most strategically defensible location in the room.
After a brief hello, they eat in near-silence. Everyone else in the commissary gives them a wide berth, avoiding stray eye contact with John or Rodney. Despite the usual quantity and variety of weird shit that goes on in Pegasus, this one seems to have thrown everyone for a loop: no one seems to know quite how to deal with either of them. In just the last few hours, John’s noticed differences: Lorne’s friendly back-slap stuttering away before landing, Elizabeth’s usual smile - harmless flirtation - falling away when she looks at him. Her. John applies himself to his food.
Sometime after the mashed potatoes and before the cupcake, McKay broaches the subject.
“So, this is weird.” Rodney seems to find something fascinating in the cupcake’s chocolate icing.
“Yeah,” John says, mind groping wildly for something to say.
Rodney peels the paper away from the dessert, eyes still focused on his task. “Um. How are you finding it?” He asks finally.
“What, being a woman all of a sudden? In general?” John doesn’t know how to answer that except with a juvenile I dunno, why don’t you tell me kind of reply, but Rodney’s earnest nod tells him that this is the wrong time to be juvenile.
“I can’t get used to the balance thing,” he finally says, cautiously, starting on safe ground.
“Yeah, I feel like I’m moving sideways more than I’m moving forwards. How women get anywhere with hips like these, I don’t know.”
The bitching is at least familiar, so John relaxes a little and allows himself a raised eyebrow. “Well, with hips like yours, anyway.”
“Hey! I’ll have you know . . .”
John can’t think of any way for McKay to finish that sentence and not scar both of them for life, so he interrupts. “Settle down, girlfriend, I didn’t mean anything by it. Your ass doesn’t look fat in those pants.”
Rodney’s ass, actually, is gorgeous, matched by curvy hips and great tits that John had tried to avoid looking at through Rodney’s flimsy hospital gown. But he has no fucking idea how to tell Rodney that he’s pretty without it sounding pervy and paradoxically gay, or like some sort of consolation prize: hey, your whole body was changed against your will by some random alien device, but at least you’re hot!
Rodney rolls his eyes, pursing his lips into a little red bow. “Oh, ha ha, I’m a girl, shut up. At least I’m not the one who apparently spends equal time on his hair regardless of gender.”
“Yknow, Cadman told me that my hair looked cute this way.” John runs a hand through it thoughtfully, the mussy spikes falling into his eyes in a way they didn’t before.
“Wonderful, I hope you two are very happy together and have lots of lesbian babies.” Rodney’s attention falls to the chocolate in front of him, and he takes a bite from his cupcake.
John thinks for a minute, then tilts his head and asks, “Do you think we’re lesbians now?”
Rodney coughs dryly, crumbs flying from his mouth. “Excuse me? What happened to ‘we’re gonna fix this’ and ‘we’ll be laughing about it by Tuesday’? You’re suddenly contemplating lesbianism? Can’t you hold off having sex until we’re changed back?”
“Yeah, because I have this plan to go down to the local dyke bar and pick up girls. I mean hypothetically, McKay.”
“Are you even allowed to say ‘dyke’?” At John’s dark look, he holds up his hands. “Never mind, never mind. Uh. I dunno. Hm.” Rodney’s face gets that look that it gets when he’s suddenly thought of an interesting way to manhandle Ancient technology. “Actually, I’m surprised that the social scientists haven’t come knocking to ask me how much of my sexuality was tied to my physical gender.”
“I’m surprised too. They should know by now that you’d greet a question like that with grace and understanding.” John smirks as he leans back and hooks an arm over the edge of his chair. Rodney blinks at him, then ducks his head and takes another bite of his cupcake, chewing thoroughly for once before responding.
“Fair enough. But, um. I guess we are.” Then, hastily, “I mean, I’m still attracted to women, so.”
“Yeah, I - me too.” John feels strangely embarrassed, talking about this with Rodney, as if they hadn’t already known this about each other, hadn’t watched each other date women, hadn’t competed for women, hadn’t argued about which Alien movie Sigourney Weaver was hottest in. But the old landmarks are suddenly missing, or turned inexplicably into landmines.
John’s queasiness returns, so he pushes his cupcake across the table.
-
That night, John lies in bed, motionless, and thinks about it for a long time. He concentrates on the feeling between his legs, the slipperiness as he shifts back and forth, so different from the safe familiarity of his dick and balls. He skims his attention over his breasts, high and firm, feels the ghosts of imaginary hands on his legs, his ass, his neck. He feels shoved in where he doesn’t belong, but at the same time, can’t stop being fascinated by the way that this body feels, strange and sexual. He’s never felt this aware of himself, before, of the way he inhabits bones and muscle and skin.
He gives in to the inevitable, shucking off the tank top and cotton gym shorts he’d worn to bed, kicking the covers down to expose his flesh. He’s seen his new body in bathroom mirrors, in bits and pieces while changing, but this is different: rubbing his palm over a nipple, running his hands down his sides over curving hips to clutch and grip at his thighs, moving his fingers in slow circles over his fucking clit. All his responses feel upside-down and backwards, as if his whole body has been rewired. He keeps his eyes open, shoulders propped up against the headboard, feet planted on the mattress, watching himself as he slips two tentative fingers into his hole. The heartbeat-throbbing, deep inside, takes him by surprise when it first starts, just familiar enough to put him off-balance, and when he scratches a thumbnail across the underside of one breast, the little shiver that runs down his spine feels like a revelation.
-
The next day, in the morning briefing, John meets Rodney’s eyes and can’t help wondering whether McKay had tried it, too, taken the new body out for a test drive at the first opportunity. McKay’s glance back is calm and businesslike, but maybe he’s got the same secret. Maybe he’s wondering the same thing about John. He can’t think of a possible situation in which he could ask him about it, wouldn’t want to talk about it even if he could, but the experience burns inside of him. He wants to know if McKay felt the same way, new and bright and sharp inside his skin, every sensation maddeningly familiar and gloriously strange.
-
Teyla and Ronon take Zelenka back to the Nendari planet to look for the hit-and-run genderswitcher. Rodney tries to convince Elizabeth to let him go along (“What’s the worst that could happen? I accidentally get turned into a man?”) but Elizabeth holds firm (“You fell down in your lab for no reason this morning, Rodney. No off-world missions until you’ve mastered your centre of gravity” ). John’s appeal falls on similarly deaf ears, even though he hasn’t fallen down since at least the day before.
But despite Ronon’s tracking skills and Zelenka’s energy-scans and Teyla’s polite inquiries, they come back empty-handed. The little Nendari man who did this to them was nowhere to be found, nor was the ray-gun looking thing that he’d used. No one in the villages seems to have ever heard of him, or of non-invasive spontaneous sex change operations, for that matter. Days slip by, and Ronon looks increasingly aggravated each time they return through the gate. Teyla, though she hides it better, is beginning to betray her own frustration.
“They’re lying right to our faces,” is Ronon’s assessment of the situation. Teyla nods and sighs as the gate shuts down behind her.
“I sense that there is something they are not telling us, but I believe that it will take time to discover. We must earn their trust.” She brightens. “But they have agreed to barter for a share of their crops, which was, after all, the original mission. They grow a very nice variety of tuber.”
Ronon, as if on cue, digs in his pocket and pulls out a fist-sized purple potato that looks vaguely sentient, holding it up for John’s inspection.
John blinks at it, then turns around and walks out of the gateroom.
-
Two weeks later, John and Rodney manage to tag-team brow-beat Elizabeth into letting them go off-world again. It’s been over a week since either of them has fallen down for no reason, opened a door into his own face, or vomited from moving too quickly: they’re getting more comfortable. And while Rodney hasn’t said as much, John can see on his face the echo of his own desire for something familiar, for normal activity. In the end, Elizabeth makes them run through the Marines’ north pier obstacle course to prove it, which makes John mutter darkly about G.I. Jane, but he does it anyway. He tries not to be too smug about his time, which outstrips most of the Marines. Rodney, of course, does abysmally, but no more abysmally than he would’ve done in his old body, so in the end they get clearance.
At the gate, John feels a resurgence of the nausea he’d felt those first few days. His new gear fits his new body but feels uncomfortable in a way his old stuff never had. And despite his itchy feet, he no longer feels particularly excited to step through the puddle.
He looks over at Rodney, who is squirming and readjusting his tac vest over his still-kind-of-astonishing rack. When John meets his eyes, he frowns with one side of his mouth, a startlingly familiar expression. John, almost without thinking about it, reaches over and ruffles Rodney’s hair - fuller up front than it used to be, thanks to the second X chromosome, and somewhat pixieish on his new, feminine face - and smiles at him. Rodney’s frown deepens, but he stops fidgeting.
From behind him, Ronon puts a hand on his shoulder: a light touch that preserves its old masculine meaninglessness. “We going or what?” he grumbles.
“We’re going,” John says, and they step through the gate.
-
With the two of them as exhibits A and B backing up Ronon and Teyla’s claims, the Nendari are suddenly more forthcoming. Working off of tips and rumours that they had gathered, painstakingly, over the last three weeks, they finally talk to someone who tells them to talk to someone else who thinks she knows someone who might know something. With the usual warnings - “It is forbidden to speak of it” and “I will be in a great deal of trouble if I tell you,” they are pointed to one particular house, a cheery little thatch-roofed number with smoke coming out of the chimney. Ronon knocks.
The door opens to reveal a short, stocky man in his mid-fifties. “Hello. Can I help you?” he inquires, wiping his hands with a bright green cloth.
“Yes, I’m Colonel Sheppard, this is Dr. McKay, Teyla Emmagan and Ronon Dex.”
“Yes, you two have been asking around the village for me, haven’t you?” the man asks, eyes darting between Teyla and Ronon. “Well, it took you long enough. Of course I’m forbidden to tell you, so couldn’t stop you in the village square, but since you’ve come asking . . . but, my manners! My name is Tarin N’Vell. Come in, Colonel, Doctor, Teyla, Ronon. Sit down.”
“I gather that you know the reason for our visit?” Teyla begins, settling gingerly onto a straight-backed wooden chair.
“Oh, indeed!” the man frowns. “It is most unfortunate, but I assure you, you will get used to it.”
“Whoa whoa whoa, what do you mean, ‘used to it’?” Rodney interrupts. “Are you saying there’s no cure?”
“I’m afraid not.” Tarin furrows his brow.
John intercedes, using his softest voice. “Look - Tarin. How do you know this? Are you the one who built the device? Is it some sort of experiment gone wrong, and that’s why you’re not allowed to talk about it?”
“They really don’t talk about it in the village anymore, do they? Used to be you could get someone to tell you the story - my story, anyway - in exchange for a drink.”
“We bought a lot of people drinks,” Ronon deadpans. “Nobody told us anything, except to talk to you.”
“Well.” Tarin seems flustered. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had to tell anyone this, but yes. I underwent the same process that you two did, twenty years back. I used to be a woman.”
Rodney nods eagerly, as if he’s been expecting this. “Was it on purpose? How did the device work? What did it look like?”
“I can describe it to you, if you like, or draw a picture. It’s a device from the Ancestors. We found it while digging holes for a fence, and activated it by mistake. I was the only one affected, then. We kept it for years, with the other relics. Some time ago, however, it went missing from the archive.”
“Why would anyone steal it?” Ronon asks. “It’s not an effective weapon.”
Tarin looks a little embarrassed. “Perhaps this happens on your world as well; I do not know. But there were youths in the village who wished to marry, but could not, for our ingrained moral taboos and cultural laws forbade it.”
Teyla nods. “This happens among the Athosians. But we have allowed such as these to marry in the past, so long as they found other partners with whom to produce children.”
John blinks at Teyla, surprised by this insight into Athosian culture. “So, wait, you have gay marriage and forced reproduction?”
“The Wraith come often, Colonel,” Teyla says, eyes ahead of her.
Tarin nods. “Children must come first.”
“Okay,” Rodney says slowly, “so you’re telling me that some band of militant queer youth stole the device and started changing the sex of random strangers . . . why? To make a political point?”
“They started changing their own sexes so that their unions could be approved, but the village elders refused to allow them to marry even so.” Tarin shakes his head. “So it was with me; my husband left me and no woman would have me after I was changed. It is seen as unnatural. Realising that they would not be accepted, the protesters found a way to change themselves back, and established a camp outside the village. After that, they would return from time to time, to change others - village elders, prominent members of the community. I suppose they believed that, if enough people were changed, the village would have no choice but to accept them.”
At the words “change themselves back,” John feels his jaw unclench. “So it has been reversed.”
“Yes; a young lady among the outcasts found a way to alter the device somehow, inside, so that the process could be reversed.” John can sense Rodney’s body relaxing beside him.
“I take it that their protests did not encourage acceptance among the village elders,” Teyla intones.
“The opposite, in fact. Some of the younger villagers staged a raid on the outcasts’ camp and stole the device back. All who had been changed against their will were changed back to their original shape, save for me.” Tarin smiles. “After twenty years, I have no desire to get used to another body again.”
“But you said there was no cure,” Ronon says from behind John. “Sounds like we just need this device.”
Tarin sighs. “There is no cure, not any longer. That is, I believe, why your initial inquiries were met with so much resistance. I apologise on behalf of my people; we did not know that the protesters had taken your group for allies and targeted you as well, not until it was too late. I am afraid the device has been destroyed.”
-
On the way back to the gate, Rodney gets through at least four distinct rants on the stupidity of technophobic societies, the stupidity of homophobic societies, the stupidity of this society in particular, and the stupidity of the Ancients, who apparently made a sex-changing machine just for shits and giggles.
John punches a tree.
-
Elizabeth listens to their report, the line between her eyebrows getting deeper as the story goes on. Her eyes stray, once, to the scraped knuckles on John’s right hand.
“And then, apparently, these morons decided to fix the problem by hitting the thing with a rock until it died,” Rodney spits. “And now I’m stuck combing through the Ancient database, trying to find this stupid device, and then trying to build one, assuming I can find schematics.”
Elizabeth tilts her head towards him. “So there’s still hope, then?”
“Maybe. Probably not. I don’t know.” Rodney rubs his forehead tiredly, his blue eyes watery. “You know what that database is like, Elizabeth. Even assuming the schematics are in there, we’re looking at a project that’s going to take a lot of time before we get results.” He doesn’t specify, but John can hear words like “months” and “years” in the tone of his voice.
Elizabeth purses her lips. “That’s something that I wanted to discuss with you two. While I appreciate your - discomfort, with your current condition, and while I want to help you get back to normal - I’ll help you with the database as much as I can, Rodney - I just can’t sanction you devoting your full attention to this indefinitely.”
Rodney looks at her like she’s just declared the Earth to be flat.
John speaks before Rodney can. “Elizabeth, we have had something done to us against our will. I agree it’s not life-threatening, but we need our bodies back!”
“And we’ll get them back,” Elizabeth agrees, “But Dr. Zelenka has come to me with a real workload problem; you know as well as I do that city maintenance has backed up alarmingly over the last three weeks. Rodney, you need to be back on your regular duties at least three quarters of the time, including fieldwork and your responsibilities as team leader. We need you around here.”
“Right, and you don’t much care what package my brain comes wrapped up in.” Rodney’s voice is cold and precise. He stands, gathers his laptop, and heads for the door. “Thank you for giving me a vision of the future, in which I’m sure you’ll have my head preserved in a pickle jar for many years after my death.”
After Rodney leaves, John meets Elizabeth’s steady gaze for a long moment before getting up and following him.
-
John catches up to him outside his quarters.
“Hey! Rodney. Wait up.”
Rodney pauses outside his door. “You might as well go with Meredith, Colonel, as it looks like I’m going to be an unlikely Rodney for the foreseeable future.”
“You were kind of an unlikely Rodney anyway. But hey, good call: at least you won’t have to change your name.”
Rodney’s mouth compresses into a hard line as he turns away from John and palms his door open. John follows him inside.
“What is wrong with you?” Rodney practically shouts, dropping his stuff on his desk. “Do you not realise what this means? We are stuck like this, and Elizabeth isn’t even willing to give me the time and resources to get us unstuck! How in the hell can we ever go back to Earth? The SGC will have to keep us locked up as a security risk. Not that they’re much better - it’s been three weeks everyone around here is still giving us weird looks like we’re diseased or something. We’re going to end up social outcasts like Tarin in his fucking thatched roof cottage!”
“Hey,” John says, holding up his hands, “look, believe me, I am just as pissed off about this as you are. You think I don’t get it? This is not how our lives are supposed to work.” His voice begins to rise against his will, his soothing tone abandoned. “You get another consciousness in your brain, you get better. I get another consciousness in my brain, I get better. You turn into a semi-ascended being, you get better. I get turned into a bug, with, with bug-eyes and bug-scales and bug-sweat glands and what I’m pretty sure was a pincer, and I. Got. Better.” He forces himself to take a deep breath. “So don’t take it out on me when Elizabeth’s just screwed us both. I came over here to ask you how I can help.”
Rodney deflates a little, slumping down into his desk chair. He rubs two fingers over his forehead, the way he had in the briefing room, and John recognizes the gesture, now: it was the same move he’d made on Ford’s planet, strung out on Wraith enzyme and struggling to make his thoughts cohere. John is struck with empathy, as he had been then. He crouches down beside Rodney and, reaching out, grips his shoulder in his hand.
“Hey, buddy, it’s okay.” Rodney looks down at the place where John is touching him, then back up to meet his eyes. John means to pull his arm back, but instead finds himself reaching out with his other hand to clasp Rodney’s knee awkwardly. Rodney licks his lips, then speaks.
“You had a pincer?”
John meets Rodney’s half-smile with one of his own. “Why don’t you show me the sections of the database we have to check?”
“Sure,” he says. Then, hesitantly, his hand comes up to grip John’s where it’s still clasping his shoulder, one hard squeeze. “Thanks,” he adds, and John pulls away.
Over the next four hours, he shows John what they’re looking for and where they’ll have to look. John doesn’t say it, but comes to see Rodney’s point: without a team of people working on it full time or some clue as to where to start looking, their chances of finding one non-essential device are almost nil.
When he can no longer keep his eyes open, he drags himself out of his chair to leave. Rodney gets up, too, and for an awkward moment they stand motionless and unspeaking by the door. John gets a weird feeling, like they might hug. He’s seen women hug each other that way, for comfort and friendship, for the sake of touching. And the tired, vulnerable look in Rodney’s eyes, so familiar from a dozen other hopeless situations, makes John want to comfort him, to pull his soft, female body against his own, to hold him the way he had held his mom after his father died.
In the end, John just clasps his shoulder again, ineffectually, and leaves.
-
John’s so exhausted that he assumes he’ll just fall asleep immediately, but it doesn’t happen. He rubs a hand against his thigh, considering. It’s become a nightly ritual, to offset the exhaustion and frustration of his days, the strange looks, the way he still feels a little vertigo when he walks too fast, the way he misses his body. He can’t jerk off like he used to, but this is becoming more and more familiar: his fingers on his nipples, on his clit, pushing up inside himself. He can’t tell anyone, not even McKay, how much he loves this, this body all new for him, beautiful and unworn. But he’d been almost glad of that; it stays his secret, delicious and perverse.
Tonight, though, he can’t stop thinking about how it would be if he could tell someone. Tell McKay. He knows McKay must be doing it, too, must’ve been curious. John’s fingers rub over his belly absently. Rodney had probably felt like he won the Boob Sweepstakes, John thinks wryly, palm cupping the warm side of his own breast. The edges of his fingers tease his dark brown nipple. Rodney did have nice tits, full and round, nipples that got hard just as often as they did when he was a man, poking through his shirt at meetings, in the gateroom, earlier tonight while they sat together in front of the computer screen. John’s nipples tighten, little shocks of pleasure.
Yeah, John thinks, Rodney’s definitely played with his own tits, and hell, he’s human, he has to have gone on. Has to have been greedy for it, the way John had been, greedy to slip his fingers into his cunt, oh just like that, to press down on his new clit and close his eyes as his breathing sped up. John can see him, wide hips spread on the bed, knees up, feet planted. Sees him with one hand on his clit and one squeezing his breast, the pads of his fingers pushing back and forth over his nipple. John pushes a little harder with his fingers, small circles speeding up.
Rodney reminds John of girls he’s fucked, smart girls with clever tongues and lush curves. John’s had his dick between tits like Rodney’s, pushed them together to cover his cock while he slid back and forth. John reaches into himself, three fingers, wishing he could go deeper, rocking his fingers back and forth to make himself open, open, open. He gives in to the fantasy as he rocks against his hand: imagines slipping his cock into Rodney’s pussy, imagines Rodney’s legs up over his shoulders as he fucks in deep, imagines Rodney spread out before him, on his back, John’s hands on his ass. Rodney would groan as John’s dick pushed into him, filling him up, would get a hand down to his clit, would shudder and clench as he -
oh
John’s breath catches in his throat as he starts to come, fingers still pushing, pushing, drawing it on and on, his whole body condensing into a single point of pleasure.
-
Three days later is the third Tuesday since John first woke up in the infirmary. John spends it on paperwork and Marine-wrangling, which makes for a long, grueling day. Though he can’t pin it down, there’s something very different about talking to his men now that he’s a woman, and the obvious discomfort that they exhibit is inevitably exhausting.
But when he gets back to his room, Rodney is waiting outside his door with a DVD in his hand. He looks a little nervous, but John hasn’t quite gotten used to reading Rodney’s emotions on his new face, so it could be something else. When he sees John coming, he smiles in a way that used to be endearing and is now surprisingly stunning.
“Hey, I got this from Simpson, one night only. Wanna join me?” He holds up the DVD to show John: V for Vendetta, which John had mentioned wanting to see about a month before. He realises that he hasn’t watched a movie or played chess or hung out with Rodney at all, really, since they changed.
“I thought we were devoting every spare minute to searching the database?” It comes out more accusatory than he intends it.
Rodney sighs. “It’s all I’ve done for the last three days; I can’t see the symbols anymore. I can’t look at it again until tomorrow.”
John nods. “Movie sounds good. C’mon in.”
They end up spinning John’s bed around so that the long side is backed against the wall to make an improvised couch, tossing pillows behind their backs and setting John’s laptop up on the little table in front of them.
“How is your room so tiny? Seriously, I think this was originally an Ancient closet,” Rodney grumbles as they rearrange the furniture.
“A man’s needs are simple,” John answers, then regrets it. Rodney doesn’t respond, but does give him a funny little sarcastic smile before settling in and pressing play. Rodney curls up on the other end of the bed, feet pulled under him. John tries not to notice how sweet he looks, all tucked into himself like that.
The movie isn’t on for more than fifteen minutes when Rodney reaches forward and pushes the space bar to pause it.
“Hey, it’s just getting good,” John protests. He likes the swordfights.
“It’s not as good as the book. Listen, Colonel. I have to ask you something,” Rodney says, then falls paradoxically silent.
John turns toward him and raises his eyebrows. “Yes?”
Rodney’s brow furrows. “I just. Do you remember that conversation we had, back when all this started?”
Oh, shit. “About decreased security perimeters to save power? I told you, we can’t pull back any further.”
Rodney gives him his I’m-not-buying-your-bullshit look. That one definitely hadn’t changed with the face. “No, not the security perimeters, you moron, the lesbian thing!”
“The lesbian thing.” John tries to think of someplace he has to be, but before he can, Rodney’s lips are on his. A soft, hasty press, closed-mouthed and swift, both a statement and a question. Then Rodney pulls back, out of his space.
“The lesbian thing,” he repeats. “Look, I don’t know how to ask you this,” and he stops, clearly searching for the right words, a furrow working between his eyebrows. John is struck breathless: he knows this feeling. When Rodney walked into the darkness creature, just weeks after they met, John felt exactly this way.
When Rodney next opens his mouth to speak, John’s there, his mouth covering Rodney’s, his hand sliding up his leg, lips sliding, tongue pushing in in in.
Then Rodney makes a high-pitched little moan and pushes his tongue back against John’s, and the kiss gets dirty and desperate and wet. Rodney’s hands are high on his waist, thumbs pushing into John’s belly, fingers against the ribs just below his breasts. And if John thought his responses were strange when he was touching himself, then this is completely out of control: the sensation of Rodney’s hands on him is overwhelming. It’s the most sexual experience of John’s life and they haven’t even gotten to second base yet. His hand slips behind Rodney’s neck, fingers clench, tugging at the short hair as he deepens the kiss. Inside, he feels that low-down heartbeat-throb. He’s brand-new, again, nerves jangling, a perfect shock to his system.
When they break apart, Rodney takes a second longer than John does to open his eyes, so that when he does, John is confronted with the sudden blueness of them, contrasting sharply with the swollen red of his lips. He’s a little short of breath, too. John glances down to where Rodney’s chest is heaving, takes in the swell of Rodney’s breasts, and sees that his nipples are hard against his shirt. The sight creates some sort of feedback loop: John feels his own nipples contract with pleasure. He can’t stop his hands from running up and down Rodney’s back, his arms, restlessly, wrists to shoulders to neck to nape and back again.
He realises that this, this is what he’s been craving for days, since Tarin took away the hope that this was just a dream and that they could wake up. John’s stuck here, now, lost in this body that isn’t quite his, but Rodney’s lost like him, and so beautiful. He closes his eyes briefly. Words that he’s held inside for weeks slip irreversibly from his mouth.
“God, Rodney, don’t, don’t take this the wrong way, but you are really gorgeous as a woman.”
Rodney’s mouth makes its way from John’s ear down his neck, his lips running hot trails along his collarbone.
“You, you too,” John hears, murmured against his skin. “God, do you even know? You’re completely my type, I can’t even . . .” More words, lost against his body as Rodney kisses the hollow of his throat, fingers sliding along John’s waist. His mouth works down into the little v-neck of John’s t-shirt, along the sternum, his face nearly on a level with John’s high, firm breasts. He looks up, fingers plucking at the hem of the shirt.
“Can we?” he asks, eyes earnest and hopeful.
John grins, says, “I’m not actually a woman, Rodney,” and pulls his shirt over his head one-handed.
“That’s what you think,” Rodney mutters, and presses his face between John’s breasts, nuzzling against the white lace bra. John is about to speak to demand fair play, fingers sliding up Rodney’s belly under his shirt, when Rodney turns his head and mouths John’s nipple over the bra.
And god, the wetness, the heat, the pull of Rodney’s mouth over the slight scratchiness of the lace is devastating: the air he’d intended to use for speech leaves his mouth in a sudden, harsh breath. He sucks more air in, breath coming faster, little “ah!” noises escaping his lips as Rodney’s lips cover his nipple and his warm hands rub circles against his lower back. Then Rodney starts to suck him, and the sensation arches from his nipple to his pussy like an electric shock.
His hands come up to cup Rodney’s head, holding him to his breast. Rodney looks up and brings his index finger to John’s mouth: another question. John licks his lips, then opens up and sucks it in, running his tongue up and down, getting it wet. Rodney pulls it out and presses it against John’s other nipple, rubbing and slipping, back and forth, while his tongue laps slowly at the first one.
“Oh, Jesus, Rodney, that is amazing.” John moans. Rodney pulls his mouth back, lips red and obscene against John’s breast, and looks up at him curiously. “Better than with fingers?” he asks.
“You have to try this. Take your shirt off.”
Rodney gives John’s nipple one last little tweak and then does, tossing the blue science-team t-shirt to the floor. Rodney’s wearing the same sort of thing, functional white lace, his tits spilling generously forward as he reaches behind himself to unhook the bra.
“Do you want - ” John begins hesitantly, “the lace is kind of, um, nice, if you.” Rodney shakes his head.
“Just your mouth,” he blurts, then flushes. His nipples are flushed, too, dark pink and tight against his breasts. John bends his head. Rodney tastes salty with sweat and smells familiar, like a hundred cramped tents and shared rooms on a hundred different worlds. He cups the underside of one breast with his hand and massages rhythmically, nails scraping against the soft round flesh even as he presses the flat of his tongue to Rodney’s nipple.
“God! Okay, yes, Colonel, that’s good. Fuck.” Rodney keeps one hand against the side of John’s breast, rubbing his palm back and forth mindlessly.
John pulls his mouth off briefly. “I think you can call me John,” he says between open-lipped kisses to Rodney’s nipple, “since I’m not here in any official capacity.”
Rodney laughs and buries his hands in John’s hair, pulling him up his body again and then giving him a little push backwards. John hesitates, then goes with it, lets Rodney push him to lie flat on his back in the bed, then grabs Rodney by the shoulders and pulls him down on top of him. Rodney’s stretched out over him and slightly to one side, his knee falling between John’s legs, his hard nipple rubbing down to nestle between John’s breasts. All the hesitation is gone as Rodney takes his mouth again, hot and dirty and pushy. John lets his legs fall open, forcing Rodney to fall further against him. And Rodney’s hot thigh presses between John’s legs, through three layers of clothing, and grinds the seam of John’s pants against his clit. John groans and breaks off the kiss, looking into Rodney’s eyes and blinking rapidly as he cants his hips upwards to get more friction.
Rodney looks momentarily confused, then glances down and licks his lips. Looking back into John’s face, Rodney drags his thigh slowly upward, tensing the muscle there and rubbing it deliberately against John, pressing it into John’s body. A long, slow drag up, then he pulls away, depriving John of contact, and moves back down only to do it again, tense and push and drag upward, over and over and over.
“Rodney,” John gasps between thrusts, “oh, christ. uh, Rodney, do you wanna. . .” John plucks at the waistband of Rodney’s pants to illustrate his point.
“Yeah,” Rodney breathes, and pulls back to unbutton and unzip. John arches his back against the bed and gets his hands behind himself to unhook his bra, pulling it off and tossing it on the floor. By the time he’s managed that - stupid bra hooks - Rodney’s got himself completely naked and is kneeling on the end of the bed.
John’s mouth goes a little dry at the sight of Rodney’s body, the broad, muscled thighs, the little round belly that dips in slightly at his waist before flaring back out, up, to those round gorgeous tits, one nipple still gleaming from John’s mouth. And right there in front of him is Rodney’s pussy, little thatch of hair between his spread thighs, a glimpse of wet red flesh behind brown-blonde curls. John’s hands still on his fly when he catches sight of a drop of moisture clinging to a single hair like dew.
Rodney snaps his fingers, and John’s gaze drags upwards again.
“Earth to Sheppard! C’mon, I know you’re in the military, but I’m pretty sure you’ve seen pussy before.”
John grins at Rodney’s wide smile. “Asshole. C’mere.”
Rodney does, his hands replacing John’s on the waist of his pants, pulling them down and off before stripping the socks from John’s feet.
“You missed a spot,” John says, thumb slipping in to the waistband of the white cotton panties as he spreads his legs even further, one foot coming down to brace on the floor. The cotton is damp where it’s been pressed against him. He can smell himself, suddenly, that great pussy-smell that he’s always loved seeming to fill his mouth and nose. He pulls himself up on his elbows and gives Rodney a challenging look that usually has to do with fixing a DHD or firing a gun.
Rodney holds his gaze for a long moment before bending down and running his hands up John’s legs. The change hadn’t removed any proportionate muscle mass, really, so his body is still well-defined, lithe and strong. It’d been one of the few familiarities immediately after the change. Rodney’s hands trace over the muscles: over the knotted runner’s calves and the front of his thighs, up his sides to cup and rub the hardness of his shoulders. John lies still as Rodney’s fingers ghost down the lines of his biceps to his inner elbows. Then Rodney’s hands draw back up again, his fingernails scraping against John’s skin. John inhales sharply.
When Rodney’s hand next cups his bicep, John flexes a little, winking at Rodney before grabbing him by the back of the neck and pulling him back down into a kiss. Rodney settles on top of him again, their flesh pressing together hot and sticky. Then John braces himself, foot pressing against the floor, and flips them over, driving a soft “umph!” from Rodney as his back hits the bed. He scrambles over Rodney’s body, bracing one hand on the bed and his knees on either side of Rodney’s leg while he draws his legs up one at a time to pull the white cotton away from his body and toss it on the floor.
“Yeah,” Rodney murmurs, his hands bracing John’s shoulders as he squirms above. Then John lowers himself down to ride his bare wet flesh against Rodney’s thigh, bracing his own leg to rub against Rodney’s clit. Rodney gasps, then groans out a long, low, “Fuck” and lifts one hip, hooking his ankle over the back of John’s calf and grinding up.
John pushes back against him, riding Rodney’s thigh harder. They’re held together by Rodney’s leg locked over his, breasts pressing, nipples catching on hot skin. Rodney gets a hand down between them, fingers adding to the pressure of his thigh against John’s cunt.
“Jesus,” he mutters into Rodney’s skin, squeezing his eyes closed. “Jesus, Rodney, yeah, just like that. You feel - oh, christ you feel good.” He drags his mouth up, across Rodney’s jaw, back to his lips, sliding their tongues together as they push against each other. They writhe like that for a while, hard nipples scraping against skin, kissing frantically, trying to get more friction. John is full of the sex-smell between them and the sounds of Rodney’s little gasps against his mouth.
Finally John takes Rodney’s hand and pulls it down further, presses two fingers against his hole. His eyes open as he puts Rodney’s fingers into him, filling the ache inside. Rodney meets his gaze and curls his fingers into John even as John spreads his thighs a little further and brings his clit down onto the hard heel of Rodney’s hand. Then John’s rocking against his hand, moving his hips in slow circles that press Rodney’s callused fingers against that internal smooth spot, again, and again, and again. And he’s been waiting too long now, for what feels like weeks: he’s suddenly desperate for it. He closes his eyes and rests his forehead on Rodney’s shoulder as Rodney gets a second hand down onto his cunt, shifts his grip, gets a third finger into him while his other hand covers his clit, pressing in warm little circles over and over. John’s clenching against Rodney’s fingers now, high gasps tearing themselves from his throat, his cunt tightening around those points of pleasure. Rodney pushes through it, inexorable, fingers stroking and sliding, pushing deeper and filling him up as John is overwhelmed by wave after wave of hot, rushing joy.
He collapses completely against Rodney’s shoulder, gasping heavily. “God, Rodney, I don’t even . . .” He stops himself talking and reaches between them to grasp Rodney’s wrists and draw his hands up to his face. Rodney’s fingers are coated, wet and sticky. John closes his lips around two fingers and licks them clean, tongue lapping at the webbing between them, tasting himself on Rodney’s skin.
Rodney groans and shifts his hips beneath John’s. John takes a minute to lose himself in Rodney’s mouth again, pushing the bitter taste of John’s cunt onto his tongue, then wriggles down his body to get his face between his thighs.
“Oh, please, yes, god, yes, do it.” comes Rodney’s voice from above him. John slides his hands up those soft white thighs, then grips firmly and shoves them apart, dipping his head down to lap at the dark scent of Rodney’s pussy. Rodney’s hands slide into his hair, pushy and familiar, as John slides his tongue down to tease and circle at Rodney’s hole. Above him, Rodney gasps, and John lets his tongue slip inside briefly before pulling away. Rodney groans at the loss.
He presses two fingers in: long, deep strokes that make Rodney shudder and stutter out one-word sentences: “Fuck. John. I. Jesus.”
Then he presses his mouth back down onto Rodney’s clit, stroking and lipping in counterpoint, thumb rubbing against the tender space below his clit. In, and around, and over, again and again, the hot smell all around him. John’s mouth is buried in Rodney as he pushes and slides and licks: in, around, over, again, and again. Rodney’s squirming and cursing above him, muttering in an unending litany: “fuck, do it, fuck, John, do it, god, fuck.”
Then Rodney’s hand slides down onto John’s shoulder and squeezes hard, even as his internal muscles begin to clench. John presses down a little harder, moves his lips and tongue a little faster, and curls his fingers up inside Rodney as he comes, a long groan pulled from his throat as he falls back against the bed.
John crawls back up the bed and kisses Rodney again, his face still smeared with wetness from his pussy, fucking his tongue into Rodney’s soft, slackened mouth. Then he pulls away and falls against his body, breathing heavily. He runs his fingers slowly over Rodney’s breast, watching his chest heave like he’s been running a marathon.
Lips against Rodney’s ear, he says, “If I still had my cock, I’d fuck you now. That’s how it goes, right? After I eat you out I get to fuck you.”
Rodney makes a breathy little noise and rolls onto his side so that they’re facing each other with their legs tangled together.
“Yeah, that’s how it works.” His voice is soft and hesitant.
John slides his fingers back into Rodney, teasing his clit with gentle pressure. Rodney closes his eyes and bites his lip.
“But I can’t.” His fingers move back and forth, slow and lazy.
“I wish . . . I wish you could.” Rodney opens his eyes again at this, as if surprised by his own admission, but then looks frankly into John’s face, daring him to call him on it.
John just moves his fingers: back and forth, slow and lazy, on and on.
Then, “You’d want that? Cock?” voice quiet. The frantic heat from before is gone; Rodney comes against John’s fingers again, but John doesn’t stop moving against him.
“Yeah,” Rodney stutters, finally. “I mean, what the hell, this body seems to like having, uh. God. Having things inside it.”
“Yeah,” John echoes, the word drawn out like taffy, low and sweet. He kisses Rodney’s lips, mouth closed and soft, and gets a hand down to his own clit.
Part Two