Kangaroo 'verse: The Good of the One (John/Rodney)
Title: The Good of the One
Author: Tzzzz
Rating: NC17
Pairing: Sheppard/McKay, Sheppard/Mitchell
Spoilers: Tao of Rodney, the Ark
Genre: mpreg
Betas: Much thanks to dossier and sporangia
Summary: John makes choices. Follows Tables Turned, Once There Was a Man Named Holland, Not a Henry, The Kangaroos and the Bees, What Rodney Wants, and Conception.
The Good of the One
"So," John said.
"So," Rodney replied, crossing his arms in front of him. John and Mitchell had practically been locked in John's room for the past day and a half, emerging only for quiet meals together in the mess and a pick-up game of basketball with John's officers. Sure, Mitchell had retreated to guest quarters the one night he'd stayed, but that didn't mean they hadn't had sex. "You and your baby-deedee worked things out?"
John smiled faintly, looking distracted and overwhelmed. "We did."
Rodney waited, knowing that it was futile to expect John to provide more information on his own. Getting answers was always like pulling teeth. "And? You can't just leave me hanging here. Not after I had to deal with Elizabeth when you just marched off to your room for two days of make-up sex."
"We didn't have sex, though I'm glad to see you think so highly of me. If I don't see you for two days I'm not just going to jump the next guy who comes along."
"I trust you with my life, sure, but other things, not so much. Plus he's hardly some random guy. You're carrying his neonate, so you had sex once. It's not so far fetched that you'd do it again." In fact, Rodney was absolutely sure John and Mitchell would give in and sleep together again, regardless of what Rodney did. Once John finally got with the program and started fucking men again, he displayed the same lack of self control Rodney had observed with John and women. Maybe John didn't want to betray Rodney, especially when they were on the same base, but in the long run John could never seem to help himself. In the long run, John did what he wanted regardless of how it might make other people feel.
"Well, I didn't sleep with him," John snapped. "I wouldn't."
"Sure," Rodney mumbled, holding in a "Kirk" just barely, though John certainly wasn't creating an army of neonates the same way Kirk had.
"What exactly did you tell Elizabeth?"
"That you were running the soccer pool together." Rodney rolled his eyes. "I told her that it was personal."
John shrugged. "She knows anyhow - that Cam's the donor."
"You told her?" Rodney couldn't believe it. Sure he hadn't wanted to spook John by asking too much, but the thirty-seven times he did ask, he'd expected an answer.
"She wanted to know if it was going to cause any problems with the expedition."
"Oh, yes, the expedition. Everything for the expedition." Would it kill John to think for himself for once? No, that was wrong. John always thought for himself. John was a selfish bastard who expected Rodney to be his god-knows-what while he went off and had another man's kid without even letting Rodney in on the details he'd told his boss. No, John was selfish, he just couldn't do anything without using the greater good to justify it - like if he cloaked the decision in good and bad, black and white, right and wrong, necessity, then he would never be responsible for actually making it.
"The expedition is important. You know it is."
"So you're binding and staying here?" Rodney hung his head in defeat. That explained the look of regret on Mitchell's face as he left. Of course, for all his impulsiveness, John almost always believed that the good of the many outweighed the good of the one, so long as John wasn't the one and the bad guys weren't the many.
"No," John sounded defensive and annoyed, as though reading Rodney's thoughts. "We're going to go for it."
Rodney felt his heart sink. So John and Mitchell were together and they were going to raise the perfect little flyboy baby who'd grow up to play quarterback and charm everyone and there was no room for Rodney anywhere in that perfect family portrait. He barely noticed John inching closer until he was pulling Rodney in by the elbow. "What?! No, get off me!"
"That's what you've been pushing me to do all along, Rodney! I thought you'd be happy. Now that Cam is in the picture you're suddenly taking back all the things you said about your pouch-siblings?"
John was right, of course. Rodney had been prepared to be stupidly noble and raise a stranger's kid in order to be with John, but he wasn't ready to be John's plaything while Mitchell got to be husband and donor and all the good things he hadn't earned. Rodney gulped. "I am happy that you're going to give the neonate every chance it deserves, because you're a decent human being and I'd hate to think otherwise about you. I can even see myself being happy that the kid will have both a father and a donor, but I can't be your whore while you and Mitchell dance around the fact that you're perfect for each other. And I can't listen to you talk about the good of the expedition when you're going to abandon us to go back and have your picket fence and 3.4 perfect little royal carriers and play house with Captain America because he blinked his big blue eyes and said please."
John looked angry, but he was pulling out all the stops, Mr. Reasonable voice included. "Okay, I can see why you would feel that way, but just give me a chance to explain."
"I'm listening."
"Cam and I are friends. And I really like him - enough to want to raise a child with him, but we were only ever friends."
"You were more than friends at least once."
John looked pained, as though this was hurting him as much as it was hurting Rodney. "Yes, we had sex once and I should have told you before, even though I knew you'd completely overreact. We were on Earth. My team sucked and I was lonely and drunk and Cam was there."
"I was there too! You could have called me."
John gave a small, bitter laugh, like a man amused by the irony of hitting bottom. "I should have. But I didn't and like it or not, this is Cam's neonate and he deserves to be a deedee, if he wants to be. I don't want to follow the old ways like my father. I respect Cam too damn much to just cut him out."
"Do you love him?" Rodney asked, voice and hands trembling. Sure, he wanted to rip out Cameron Mitchell's balls and roast them with a Bond-villain-style laser, but he grudingly understood where John was coming from. John had always been pathologically loyal, and unless Mitchell betrayed his trust (which was completely unlikely), John was absolutely incapable of deliberately causing him pain.
"I do love him." John's voice had gone steely, like it was physically painful to push the words out, but at least, after all this time, he was doing Rodney the honor of actually trying to explain what the hell was going on in that head of his.
John reached out again, and this time Rodney forgot to pull back, stepping into a soft, chaste kiss. "I don't love him the way I love you," John whispered, pulling Rodney in tight and just holding him, swaying subtly as though dancing to a tune neither could hear.
***
John still had a month of gestation to go, but his pouch slit was fully opened and less sensitive than it had been. He seemed happier since Mitchell's visit - walking around with almost a bounce to his step, complementing Elizabeth on her new hairstyle and bestowing little "just because" kisses on Rodney like small but perfect gifts. This confirmed Rodney's suspicions that John had wanted to let the neonate transfer all along, he'd just needed the right person to get him there.
They had been sleeping together almost every night since Mitchell left, but still, Rodney wasn't expecting to find John already lounging in Rodney's bed when he came home. He smiled. It was a pleasant surprise. "Hi," he said, stupidly, leaning down to give John a kiss, the tantalizing curve of his naked shoulders just visible above the sheet.
"Hey," John replied, yanking Rodney down easily until he was forced to either straddle John or face plant in a way that wouldn't be fun for either of them. Rodney huffed out an "Oof," of feigned annoyance even when he leaned down to give John a deeper, more probing kiss, rolling his hips gently against John. Even though Rodney still had his clothes on, he could feel that John was both hard and naked beneath Rodney's thin sheets.
"Anyone could have walked in here, you know," Rodney pointed out, stroking John's cock through the sheet for emphasis. Even the high thread count felt coarse compared to the silky smoothness of John's cock. But Rodney wouldn't give him the satisfaction of removing the sheet while Rodney himself was still straining against his pants.
"Have some other nocturnal visitors, Rodney?"
Rodney snorted. "You're here practically every night. If I were cheating on you, you'd know."
"Would it be cheating?" John asked, gasping and thrusting his hips up into Rodney's hand. "If you want to be with someone else, someone who can give you children to your name, I wouldn't want to stand in your way."
"It would be cheating," Rodney replied. He loved John. John was probably the best he could get. Sure, if Mr. Perfect came along, with everything that John had minus the pouch parasite and all the hang-ups, then he would reserve his right to break up with John then. But that certainly wasn't happening. He and John shared too much history for anyone else to get between them. Well, anyone except Cameron fucking Mitchell. "I'm just saying, if there were an emergency and someone came to get me, I don't think finding you naked in my bed would be a good thing. Zelenka might never forgive me."
John shrugged. "I don't care." Rodney was flattered to think that John wouldn't care if anyone found out, but he was still torn between wanting to announce over the city com that John was his and no one could have him, neonate or no and wanting to keep this just between them so when John eventually dumped him to be with the donor of his child he could skip the pity party. Rodney knew his lover well enough to know that John's love was a sick and twisted thing, tinged with loyalty and guilt and pessimism and hope, almost indistinguishable from pain. Maybe he did love Rodney, in his own way. Maybe John loved Mitchell too, only not with the same desperation. Whatever John felt for either of them, Rodney only knew that John didn't understand it any better than he did. Better to not mess with it and take what he could get when he could get it.
"Hey," John whispered into Rodney's neck, not breaking the slow urgency of his hips for even a second. "You ever come like a noble?"
Rodney flushed. Did that mean John had changed his mind? That he'd be willing to donate for Rodney. Rodney gasped, shuddering into John and wrapping his arms around him. "Not really. I bought some of those creams. You know the ones that trigger the response, like precum does, but none of my boyfriends ever wanted to um, risk sowing their seed, and I never could hack it as a secundus."
John looked upset for a second, but then a slow seductive smile spread over his features. "Those creams aren't like the real thing. Would you like to try the real thing? We get tested enough to know we're both clean, and I'm an imperial carrier, so we don't have to worry about birth control."
Rodney couldn't believe he could be so aroused and so disappointed at the same time. Of course John was an imperial. It made sense that people with zz genes would have the strongest expression of the ATA gene. He'd heard that in one of the voodoo reports. Rodney had simply forgotten in all his hopes to have a child with John. He must have looked like such a moron when he'd offered to gestate John's child. If he was ever going have a child with John, John would at least have to gestate it. And Rodney had no idea how to make that happen. He'd dated a few other royals before, but never an imperial. Sure, things were different now, with imperials like John even stooping to marry plebs, but Rodney was an untitled royal, which was barely a step above pleb, and he certainly wasn't the rare case that warranted diluting the noble bloodline. He was no Cameron Mitchell, after all, who dared people not to admire him despite the fact that he was as plebian as they came. Rodney would never have that kind of charisma.
"Rodney?" John asked, looking uncertain, the lazy rocking of his hips slowing as he leaned up to kiss Rodney tenderly. "We don't have to if you don't want to. I just thought you might like it. It feels really different, cool different. I'd like to be the one to give that to you, since I can."
Rodney shook himself out of his fugue. It was stupid of him to be disappointed. John was offering something intimate. It wasn't his fault he was biologically incapable of giving Rodney what he really wanted. "Okay," he whispered back, kissing John everywhere he could reach, ravenously tearing the sheet aside to reveal John spread out beneath him, his supple skin glowing with heath and gestation. "You're so beautiful," he whispered, pressing kiss after kiss onto John's skin. "I want you to show me how to come like a noble."
John grinned mischievously before suddenly flipping them, maneuvering Rodney out of his clothes easily so that he was spread out naked across the sheets. John's kisses weren't soft, in fact Rodney was sure he'd have a few hickies by the time he finished, but there was a tenderness there that Rodney had never felt before, with anyone. It was almost reverent, the way John took his time, licking and nipping and building up the pressure until it was almost unbearable before breaking down and transferring to a new spot. Rodney had no idea how, but John had managed to find some lube without his lips leaving Rodney's flushed and over-sensitized skin, but there was a slick finger teasing at Rodney's entrance, and Rodney ached for it, whimpering when John took his time, only soothing Rodney by kissing and licking at one of his nipples.
"Easy," John whispered. "I'll make it good. Pretty soon you won't even need lube, your body will know me and prepare you for me." He kissed a line down Rodney's belly, giving his cock a nice firm lick. Rodney trust his hips up, trying to get John's mouth back on him, but honestly, kisses to the inside of his thighs as John played with his ass felt just as good. "It's going to be so good, being inside you," John soothed. "I want to be in you with nothing in between us. I've been so horny for you recently - the stupid gestation cycle. But I fantasized about doing this to you so many times before. I want to feel you clenching around me."
And with that, John shoved a finger in, causing Rodney to whimper and cry out, biting his lips to keep from begging. John was quick to add a second finger. Rodney was so relaxed and trusting that it didn't take much to open him, and John didn't even bother with a third finger or lube on his cock. He just lifted Rodney's legs up to pull them around his waist and pushed in. It was slow, but the second John breached him, Rodney gasped, the pressure leaving his previously hard dick in a strange approximation of an orgasm, his muscles clenching to pull John in, like he wanted nothing more than to have John inside him, even though the slow pace John had set prevented that.
"Please," he begged. "Please, John, that feels so good. I want all of it. Please."
John grinned, kissing Rodney lightly before he started to thrust. John hadn't used much lube, but everything was slick and smooth somehow, with John gasping as he drove deeper into Rodney, chanting his name while Rodney tried to pull him closer, deeper, more wild with it than he could ever remember being. Rodney used muscles he wasn't even aware he had to wrap his legs around John and clamp down around him, crying out as John found his prostate.
"I'm doing it," John gasped. "I'm doing it. I'm in you. Perfect. Oh, Rodney, perfect." John pushed forward, pulling Rodney's legs up and driving into him desperately now, biting down hard on Rodney's shoulder when he found an angle that let him rub his still sensitive pouch slit up against Rodney's chest without stopping his persistent assault on Rodney's prostate. John gasped and moaned and thrust with such drive that Rodney imagined for an indulgent moment that John wasn't doing this because he was an imperial and therefore could, but because he wanted to fill Rodney's pouch, that his desperation was really a desire to show Rodney how much he loved him.
"John," Rodney whimpered, every muscle in his body clenching as a warmth spread through him like nothing he'd ever experienced before. His flaccid cock let out a pathetic wash of juices and then he pretty much screamed as something inside him clenched and drew in, yanking John deeper into him than he had ever felt before, everything whiting out as John shouted his name and came, shuddering, buried in Rodney.
When Rodney finally felt he could move again, he opened watery eyes to see John staring down at him, running fingers through his hair. "That was so fucking hot," John said, looking awed. He kissed Rodney's swollen lips one more time. "Thank you for letting me be your first."
"Thank you," Rodney sighed as John pulled out and went off to the bathroom, starting the shower.
Rodney dozed for a second, just basking in the delicious soreness of his muscles and the remnants of John inside him. "You gonna join me?" John called, and though Rodney was tired, he dragged himself up and into the shower, where John immediately moved to kiss him, wrapping his arms around Rodney and burying his fingers in Rodney's hair. "That was so good," he murmured, "You're amazing."
"You weren't so bad yourself," Rodney managed, even though that had been by far the best sex of his life. John chuckled into the deepening kiss, letting Rodney push him back against the cool tile of the shower stall. They'd been kissing for a long time before Rodney realized that he was hard again. He looked down in disbelief.
John chuckled, "You can get it up again much faster if you come like a noble. Probably something about mutual gestations in royal pairs." He leered. "Wanna put that to good use?"
"What do you think?" Rodney rolled his eyes before tackling John, encompassing him in his arms and thrusting against him, suddenly desperate with want. John moaned, lifting one leg to wrap around Rodney and pull him closer. It was an accident that Rodney slipped down and then, amazingly, inside of John without any prep. Maybe that's what John had meant by not needing anything once your body grew to want it. For a second it felt amazing - John's tissues clenching around him as his cock went flaccid.
But then John was pushing at him with his hands. "Shit! Shit, shit, shit!" Rodney stumbled, startled, back into the shower door, luckily the ancient construction kept it in place so he only banged his head instead of falling onto the bathroom floor.
"Ouch!" he exclaimed, catching John's attention from his panic. John's hands were on him then, running through his hair and checking for damage. His fingers felt cold, despite the water steaming around them.
When John found a small bump, he shut the shower off and hustled Rodney out and wrapped a towel around him, ignoring that he was still wet. Rodney had gone soft with the pain of hitting his head, but he still managed to notice the way the water gleamed on John's skin. "Let's get you lying down," John said, "and I'll get you some ice for that bump."
"It's nothing," Rodney replied, though it did ache. "I'll be fine. Maybe I should go now." He didn't need another reminder than John was absolutely terrified of carrying for him.
"I think you should stay," John snapped, before pausing, probably realizing how much of an ass he was being. "I'm sorry. I overreacted. I know the chances of fertilization from just a tiny amount of precum are really small, but I'm at the most fertile part of the gestation cycle right now. That shouldn't have happened, but I guess it's true what they say about your body controlling more than you think." He kissed Rodney, as though that made up for it. Rodney's stupid treacherous body liked the idea, and John barely had to cup him through the terrycloth towel before he was hard again. "I'll make it up to you," John promised.
Yeah, it was good, with John laying Rodney down on the bed and riding him, but Rodney could feel that thin layer of latex between them like he never had before. This was just cruel, after he'd learned how good it could be.
***
"I'm going to die," Rodney whispered to himself, looking around at a world that sparkled. He wondered if all the Ancients experienced the world this way - like Neo watching the Matrix, Rodney saw a world painted with equations, distilled to the very base mechanics of construction. Except people, who were bright lights in the middle of it all, their conciousness the beauty that held it all together, humanizing the simple elegance of reality. Gravity shone like a sun shower, electrons danced and twirled. The world was alive with wonder. If Rodney didn't know better, if he didn't know about suffering and injustice and terrible things, he'd be content to just float in a state of constant amazement, here on the brink.
"Hey, buddy," John said, pulling Rodney out of his daze with a simple, electric touch. Rodney looked down at where John's hand rested on his arm. He could see the electron orbitals rubbing up together in a desperate desire to touch, intertwine. A single nudge and Rodney could force them, bind himself to John if only for a brief second.
Rodney had been avoiding John, but he supposed he couldn't really put it off. If he really was going to die he'd be happy to spend his last moments with John. Just so long as he didn't hear John's voice in his head like all the others. He didn't need Elizabeth's doubt or Ronon's trauma or Teyla's fear. He didn't need to know those things even as he knew that compassion and empathy were stepping stones on the path to ascencion.
But then John was tilting his lips up into Rodney's for a soft, chaste kiss, ignoring the fact that they were standing out on a balcony in view of everyone. John's thoughts were clouded, thank god, but Rodney felt love and anger and desperation there, brewing deep beneath the surface. John was a thuderstorm, beautiful and cacophonous and so entrancing that there was no denying its power, as dangerous as it might be.
Rodney reached out his hands to grab John and pulled him close, wanting more. He always wanted more of John. But when his fingers brushed against John's stomach, he felt it - the soft beat of the neonate's heart in his pouch. It didn't feel or think for itself, so much as John felt for it. John loved it, which surprised Rodney more than he'd ever admit. He brushed John's flat stomach again, looking at him with a question on his lips.
But John pulled away, placing his hands between the neonate and Rodney. "Don't. Rodney, I don't need this burden lifted, or whatever you've been doing to people so you can ascend. It's not like Ronon's scars. You can't just wave your hand and make it go away."
Rodney looked at John agape. He was beautiful still, but Rodney wondered about how much pain was brewing in that storm - mistrust and tragedy and scared, uncertain love. "I wouldn't do that, John. I know you love him."
"Him?" John squeaked, looking down at his belly in awe. "It's a him?"
"Oops. Sorry, I didn't mean. You probably wanted to wait until the transfer to find out."
"No," John whispered. "No, I'm happy to find out. It hasn't totally seemed real, you know? But I get it now. I should have had Leo's kid and I should have done it with him happy and alive and whole, but I can't hold that loss against this child. I'm not like my father. The circumstances of a kid's birth shouldn't determine how he's loved."
John's thoughts were all around now, and Rodney could see him clear as day, leaning back against the headboard of his bed, Cameron Mitchell's arm around him as they pretended to watch John's famous hail mary game. It he'd known the machine could give him access to the great mystery of John's past, he might've tried it years ago.
"Leo Holland was a good man, and I'm sorry that he's gone," Mitchell said.
"Just watch the game, Cam," John replied, doing his usual 'don't make me emote' whine.
"No," Mitchell stood, moving to switch off the laptop John had connected to the ancient screen since he clearly couldn't just switch it off with his mind. "We're having a kid and you need to deal with this before he or she comes into the world. I don't know if you've mourned Leo, but you sure as hell haven't morned the neonate you lost, or you wouldn't have been so damned scared to tell me. So, I don't care if I have to tie you to the goddamned, bed, you're going to sit there and you're going to stop deflecting and you're going to talk and grieve and let yourself feel, and when you're done you're not going to resent me or resent our child for not being what you lost."
Mitchell had his hands on his hips and he looked even more stubborn than Rodney could at his worst. John tried to stare him down for a while, but ultimately failed, not moving an inch as Mitchell approached him, pulling him into a hug John clearly didn't want. "I don't think it works like that, Cam. I can't just make myself less fucked up because I want to."
"I think you can do anything you set your mind to, John." Mitchell didn't let go. He just held John for minutes until he wrung a small sob out of him, rubbing circles on his back and whispering, "It's okay, John. I'm here. I've got you." They'd talked then. John had cried for hours as they reminisced about a man Rodney had never known, and it stung, more so now that the ascension machine had stripped all his walls away, that John was willing to let himself be vulnerable in front of Mitchell like he would never allow himself to be in front of Rodney. Maybe it was because he didn't think Rodney could handle it or because he didn't want to be a burden, but Rodney wondered if John allowing Mitchell to help him was a more intimate act for him than love.
Rodney was shaken back into the present by John's touch on his arm. Rodney flinched, feeling for a second a very unenlightened twinge of jealousy run down his spine. He could outstubborn Mitchell, he was sure, but even half-ascended he'd never be so perceptive. He never would have known what John needed to make peace with his gestation, let alone trust himself enough to take such bold action. Rodney felt John's love like the heat of the sun, soaking his skin, beautiful and comforting but also dangerous. And there was the neonate. Rodney could see it now, a smiling little boy with dark hair and pale blue eyes, already with a much broader build than John at a young age. They were playing at a park, clearly on Earth, John looking devastatingly good in a black fleece pullover and tight jeans, Mitchell wearing a tight green shirt and khaki pants as they threw a football between the three of them like the perfect little family in a J. Crew catalogue.
Rodney felt DNA like a story woven into the great tapestry of existence. It would be so easy to unravel that thread, replace his deep blue eyes for the pale ones, his strong jawline and his intelligence for Mitchell's striking normalcy. John might even want that too. Things would be easier that way, if everything were clear and Rodney could be John's lover and husband and the donor of his child, with no Mitchell in sight. But as much as Rodney finally knew that John wasn't lying when he said he loved him, he knew that John would never forgive Rodney for rewriting his child's DNA.
"Forget acension," Rodney whispered. "I am so going to hell."
John chuckled, pulling Rodney into another kiss. "Want a good sin for the road?" His voice was deliberately joking, but Rodney could feel the sorrow in him too and the anger that this was happening to them. Then again, if Rodney died, John could be with Mitchell and it would no longer be complicated. They could raise their perfect little boy together and that would be the end of it. John could mourn someone else, but Mitchell would help him. Cameron fucking Mitchell was good at that.
They made it back to John's room to find it filled with candles and they'd made love, with Rodney's mind spinning off into equations and science and beauty and John. Then John had sat down naked in front of him, legs crossed in preparation for mediation. Clear blue skies, like John's son's eyes and Rodney found himself smiling, the ascencion counter falling steadily as his joy rose and rose until it overwhelmed him, he was so happy that John had someone just to love, without worry or guilt or fear.
Then he opened his eyes and grabbed John's hand, because he'd been there on the brink and he knew, the beautiful weave of the DNA molecule - that was his salvation.
***
John had been annoyed the entire mission, especially at Ronon for following him like a hawk. He was two weeks away from his labor window and though Ronon's grasp on noble biology was tenuous at best, he understood what it meant to be about to give birth and had taken his protective streak to heart. Rodney could sympathize. He didn't want to let John out of his sight either.
"You know, I don't think that there's anything here other than vintage 70's space gear. I mean, it's practically Moonraker up here," Rodney prevaricated, hoping that John would be detered from his single-minded determination for all this to be business as usual. "I think we can just leave it up to a science team. Right guys?"
"Seems boring to me," Ronon agreed.
Teyla added, "Our duty as Atlantis's primary team is to make first contact, explore possible sources of technology, and conduct tactical strikes against our enemies. I do not see how we could fulfill any of those mission objectives here."
"You don't know that there aren't new technologies here. These people hollowed out a moon. And yes, very Moonraker, but you have to admit that ship we saw back there was at least a little cool," John practically whined.
"If you're Nikita Khrushchev." But then John gave him that skeptical look and Rodney was absolutely incapable of lying. "Okay, fine, you got me. We'll look at the ship and then we'll head back."
"I know what you guys are trying to do," John replied. "And it's not going to work. We're already stepping down our missions and I picked the least dangerous one we had planned, so I don't know what you guys are complaining about. If the transfer goes well, I'll be off missions for the next nine months minimum, when you can baby me as much as you want."
"Really? Because I was thinking that it might be a good time to try out my modification of the personal shield device. It only holds a charge for about twenty minutes, but you can just keep it plugged in the rest of the time."
John rolled his eyes. "When I said I'd like to explore options that would allow me to stay on Atlantis once the baby emerges I was thinking more along the lines of a few ZPMs and and a better evacuation plan, not putting him in a shielded cage for the rest of his life."
"Actually that's not a bad idea. I mean, I could just shield your quarters on a separate power system and I mean he could leave occasionally, and then, I know I could make it a detachable escape pod. And we could dump an emergency gate close by so even if the city were destroyed--"
"Rodney," Teyla was using her 'you insult me with your inconsiderate Earth values' voice, "people have been raising children successfully in this galaxy for a long time. Yes, Atlantis is a military outpost, but surely it is not so repugnant an idea to simply allow a child to grow in the world, with all its dangers."
"Okay you two, we're not getting into this again," John interrupted before Teyla could start one of her 'we're not that primitive' rants. "I'll figure out what I'm going to do sometime other than while we're supposed to be exploring. Now, McKay, open that door."
***
"John!" Rodney shouted the second he regained consciousness, stumbling over to where John was lying prone. The air had been almost completely sucked from their section and it had taken the three of them to seal the door. That couldn't be good for a neonate, let alone how bad it was for a person. Rodney's asthma would be acting up for weeks, he was sure.
John coughed, lifting his head carefully before letting it flop down. "Rodney?"
"I'm okay," Rodney replied, grabbing John's arm and helping him up to lean against Rodney, panting. "How are you?"
John put a hand over his belly, as though he could possibly feel anything through the thick spacesuit he wore, even if you could feel a neonate. "I'm fine," he pushed up, only to collapse back against Rodney. "Okay, maybe a little dizzy, but fine. Lifesigns detector?"
Rodney nodded. "What about you, Ronon?" he asked, noticing too late that Ronon was busy putting his shoulder back in with a grunt. "Ew. Still as disgusting as possible, I see."
"Dislocated shoulder," Ronon replied as though that explained his stoic mountainmanliness. "Sheppard?"
Rodney sighed in relief as the special program he'd loaded onto the LSD to monitor the neonate's health blinked green. "Well, the neonate is fine. Sheppard may still need his head checked, but everything looks good."
John sighed, but didn't move his hands from their protective clasp on his belly while he radioed to check on Teyla, before asking, "So, what happened?"
Rodney grabbed for his tablet only to find the screen cracked from where it hit the wall in the decompression. If only Earth technology was as resiliant as the LSDs. A quick scan revealed oxygen vented from all the compartments around them. But they all had their suits on since they wanted to make sure John stayed in his just in case. "Well, it's hard to tell what happened from here. We'll have to make our way back to the control center. But I can say with great certainty that Mr. Sucidal's stupidity completely fucked us over."
"No shit, McKay," John replied, letting Rodney help him to his feet.
"Of all the ways to commit suicide on a several thousand year old moon station, Henrick had to pick the one that would take us with him. The jumper's gone, but the shuttle's still out there, but most of the fuel's depleted, plus the burn pushed the moon off orbit and into the upper atmosphere. We are so screwed."
"Elizabeth said she'd call back in half an hour. She'll send a rescue jumper and we can get out of here."
"For some reason I doubt it will be that simple."
"So long as you don't give birth on us, we'll be fine," Ronon added.
"You'd better watch it Mister," John warned, "gestating or not, I'm still your commanding officer."
Rodney rolled his eyes, pulling on his helmet before helping John and Ronon to open the next bulkhead.
"And gestating or not, I can always kick your ass," Ronon replied good-naturedly. Thank god Teldy arrived with Carson and a team not long afterwards. Ronon was scary when confined.
***
Normally, leaving Teyla alone with the crazy person would have been their best course of action, since she had a way of talking people back from the ledge. But of course the one mission when Rodney most needed everything to go smoothly turned out to be the one time when the crazy person could transport Teyla and himself into a souped-up Wraith storage device, leaving Rodney to scramble madly to repair it before the moon they were currently on burned up in the atmosphere, killing Teyla and thousands of innocent aliens stored in the device.
"Are you going to be able to get her out of there or not?" John asked, no doubt aware of Major Teldy staring at the back of his neck and judging him for not getting his gestating ass out of there ASAP. Teldy had a child back on Earth, Rodney knew, so she'd been offering John all sorts of unwelcome advice the past months, but not even she dared tell him he couldn't stay while Teyla was still trapped in that device.
Rodney looked at the antiquated hardware and sighed. After the little incident with Cadman he had developed an algorithm for gathering basic data from Wraith storage - mostly species and weight, but even if he could get that to work on this old piece of crap, with a thousand people in there, finding Teyla would still be looking for a needle in a haystack. "If I had a couple of hours, maybe." He knew John would never leave her, however. "We need to risk taking it back with us. Wraith storage devices will hold patterns for a limited time without power. If we get it back to Altantis and jerry-rig a power source fast enough we could still save Teyla."
John bit his lip, considering it. "What are the odds?"
"I have no idea. I haven't exactly had the time to study the thing." Rodney knew he'd made a mistake the second he uttered it, John's expression getting that determined edge to it that Rodney was familiar with after countless suicide missions. "No, no! It could be perfectly fine! It's the best chance we have. John, whatever you're thinking, you have to remember you're thinking for two now."
"I know that!" John snapped. "But this is Teyla."
"And an entire civilization," Teldy added. Since when was she on John's side? She'd been just as overprotective as everyone else. "I'll fly it."
"No offense, Major, but one tour hanging out with the Search and Rescue people in the Coast Guard does not qualify you to fly an alien spaceship," John argued.
"Then Mehra will do it."
"We only let Mehra fly the jumpers because she has the gene. No, I have the most flight experience. It'll be a piece of cake. Now get this thing disconnected before we all get vaporized."
"John," Rodney protested. There was no way John was surviving this. It was impossible. The shuttle was made from questionable technology to begin with, thousands of years old, and not maneuverable enough to start re-entry at anything but the ideal angle. "What am I going to tell Colonel Mitchell?" He was grasping at straws, Rodney knew. If John wouldn't do it for his son or for Rodney, maybe guilt would stop him.
"Cam knows that this job is dangerous better than anyone. He'll understand. Now get the damned device ready. That's an order."
Rodney thought about not complying for a long time, but it was Teyla. Teyla and a thousand others. The good of the one, even if it was John, didn't outweigh that many innocent lives.
John had suited up when Rodney arrived with the storage device.
"You do realize you're out of your bloody mind?" Carson was chiding John.
"Maybe, but I don't have any other choice," John replied.
"Son, sometimes you have to know when to quit."
"And that's not when I have a chance to save one of my people."
Rodney didn't want to do it, but he had to try. Maybe Teldy really could fly the thing. "That's what you said when you went back to save your fiancé and look what that got you."
John's eyes hardened. "I can't believe you just brought that up," he snapped. "You don't have the right. Now, if that's all anyone has to say to me, I'll see you all on the flipside."
"No, I have something to say."
"You've said enough."
"I love you," Rodney blurted out, not caring that everyone was watching.
"I love you too," John snapped, as though it were an insult, brushing past Rodney and into the shuttle that Rodney was certain would be his death.
***
Rodney didn't remember much of the next fifteen minutes. Adrenaline made his thoughts clear but detached. John was going to die and he was going to die mad at Rodney. "That's what you get when you fall in love with crazy," Rodney whispered to himself as he watched helplessly while John's shuttle hit the ground, and hit it hard. It took Teldy's prodding for Rodney to remember that he could scan for lifesigns. He almost cried when the single dot appear on the HUD.
"John?!" he shouted into the headset. "Sheppard, come in!"
It was a moment before they were met with a pathetic whimper. "Rodney?"
"Are you alright?"
John's only response was a pained whimper. "Not again."
"Hang in there lad," Carson said. "We're coming to get you."
"Carson," John panted. "Something's not right."
Followed by: Transferred
Author: Tzzzz
Rating: NC17
Pairing: Sheppard/McKay, Sheppard/Mitchell
Spoilers: Tao of Rodney, the Ark
Genre: mpreg
Betas: Much thanks to dossier and sporangia
Summary: John makes choices. Follows Tables Turned, Once There Was a Man Named Holland, Not a Henry, The Kangaroos and the Bees, What Rodney Wants, and Conception.
The Good of the One
"So," John said.
"So," Rodney replied, crossing his arms in front of him. John and Mitchell had practically been locked in John's room for the past day and a half, emerging only for quiet meals together in the mess and a pick-up game of basketball with John's officers. Sure, Mitchell had retreated to guest quarters the one night he'd stayed, but that didn't mean they hadn't had sex. "You and your baby-deedee worked things out?"
John smiled faintly, looking distracted and overwhelmed. "We did."
Rodney waited, knowing that it was futile to expect John to provide more information on his own. Getting answers was always like pulling teeth. "And? You can't just leave me hanging here. Not after I had to deal with Elizabeth when you just marched off to your room for two days of make-up sex."
"We didn't have sex, though I'm glad to see you think so highly of me. If I don't see you for two days I'm not just going to jump the next guy who comes along."
"I trust you with my life, sure, but other things, not so much. Plus he's hardly some random guy. You're carrying his neonate, so you had sex once. It's not so far fetched that you'd do it again." In fact, Rodney was absolutely sure John and Mitchell would give in and sleep together again, regardless of what Rodney did. Once John finally got with the program and started fucking men again, he displayed the same lack of self control Rodney had observed with John and women. Maybe John didn't want to betray Rodney, especially when they were on the same base, but in the long run John could never seem to help himself. In the long run, John did what he wanted regardless of how it might make other people feel.
"Well, I didn't sleep with him," John snapped. "I wouldn't."
"Sure," Rodney mumbled, holding in a "Kirk" just barely, though John certainly wasn't creating an army of neonates the same way Kirk had.
"What exactly did you tell Elizabeth?"
"That you were running the soccer pool together." Rodney rolled his eyes. "I told her that it was personal."
John shrugged. "She knows anyhow - that Cam's the donor."
"You told her?" Rodney couldn't believe it. Sure he hadn't wanted to spook John by asking too much, but the thirty-seven times he did ask, he'd expected an answer.
"She wanted to know if it was going to cause any problems with the expedition."
"Oh, yes, the expedition. Everything for the expedition." Would it kill John to think for himself for once? No, that was wrong. John always thought for himself. John was a selfish bastard who expected Rodney to be his god-knows-what while he went off and had another man's kid without even letting Rodney in on the details he'd told his boss. No, John was selfish, he just couldn't do anything without using the greater good to justify it - like if he cloaked the decision in good and bad, black and white, right and wrong, necessity, then he would never be responsible for actually making it.
"The expedition is important. You know it is."
"So you're binding and staying here?" Rodney hung his head in defeat. That explained the look of regret on Mitchell's face as he left. Of course, for all his impulsiveness, John almost always believed that the good of the many outweighed the good of the one, so long as John wasn't the one and the bad guys weren't the many.
"No," John sounded defensive and annoyed, as though reading Rodney's thoughts. "We're going to go for it."
Rodney felt his heart sink. So John and Mitchell were together and they were going to raise the perfect little flyboy baby who'd grow up to play quarterback and charm everyone and there was no room for Rodney anywhere in that perfect family portrait. He barely noticed John inching closer until he was pulling Rodney in by the elbow. "What?! No, get off me!"
"That's what you've been pushing me to do all along, Rodney! I thought you'd be happy. Now that Cam is in the picture you're suddenly taking back all the things you said about your pouch-siblings?"
John was right, of course. Rodney had been prepared to be stupidly noble and raise a stranger's kid in order to be with John, but he wasn't ready to be John's plaything while Mitchell got to be husband and donor and all the good things he hadn't earned. Rodney gulped. "I am happy that you're going to give the neonate every chance it deserves, because you're a decent human being and I'd hate to think otherwise about you. I can even see myself being happy that the kid will have both a father and a donor, but I can't be your whore while you and Mitchell dance around the fact that you're perfect for each other. And I can't listen to you talk about the good of the expedition when you're going to abandon us to go back and have your picket fence and 3.4 perfect little royal carriers and play house with Captain America because he blinked his big blue eyes and said please."
John looked angry, but he was pulling out all the stops, Mr. Reasonable voice included. "Okay, I can see why you would feel that way, but just give me a chance to explain."
"I'm listening."
"Cam and I are friends. And I really like him - enough to want to raise a child with him, but we were only ever friends."
"You were more than friends at least once."
John looked pained, as though this was hurting him as much as it was hurting Rodney. "Yes, we had sex once and I should have told you before, even though I knew you'd completely overreact. We were on Earth. My team sucked and I was lonely and drunk and Cam was there."
"I was there too! You could have called me."
John gave a small, bitter laugh, like a man amused by the irony of hitting bottom. "I should have. But I didn't and like it or not, this is Cam's neonate and he deserves to be a deedee, if he wants to be. I don't want to follow the old ways like my father. I respect Cam too damn much to just cut him out."
"Do you love him?" Rodney asked, voice and hands trembling. Sure, he wanted to rip out Cameron Mitchell's balls and roast them with a Bond-villain-style laser, but he grudingly understood where John was coming from. John had always been pathologically loyal, and unless Mitchell betrayed his trust (which was completely unlikely), John was absolutely incapable of deliberately causing him pain.
"I do love him." John's voice had gone steely, like it was physically painful to push the words out, but at least, after all this time, he was doing Rodney the honor of actually trying to explain what the hell was going on in that head of his.
John reached out again, and this time Rodney forgot to pull back, stepping into a soft, chaste kiss. "I don't love him the way I love you," John whispered, pulling Rodney in tight and just holding him, swaying subtly as though dancing to a tune neither could hear.
***
John still had a month of gestation to go, but his pouch slit was fully opened and less sensitive than it had been. He seemed happier since Mitchell's visit - walking around with almost a bounce to his step, complementing Elizabeth on her new hairstyle and bestowing little "just because" kisses on Rodney like small but perfect gifts. This confirmed Rodney's suspicions that John had wanted to let the neonate transfer all along, he'd just needed the right person to get him there.
They had been sleeping together almost every night since Mitchell left, but still, Rodney wasn't expecting to find John already lounging in Rodney's bed when he came home. He smiled. It was a pleasant surprise. "Hi," he said, stupidly, leaning down to give John a kiss, the tantalizing curve of his naked shoulders just visible above the sheet.
"Hey," John replied, yanking Rodney down easily until he was forced to either straddle John or face plant in a way that wouldn't be fun for either of them. Rodney huffed out an "Oof," of feigned annoyance even when he leaned down to give John a deeper, more probing kiss, rolling his hips gently against John. Even though Rodney still had his clothes on, he could feel that John was both hard and naked beneath Rodney's thin sheets.
"Anyone could have walked in here, you know," Rodney pointed out, stroking John's cock through the sheet for emphasis. Even the high thread count felt coarse compared to the silky smoothness of John's cock. But Rodney wouldn't give him the satisfaction of removing the sheet while Rodney himself was still straining against his pants.
"Have some other nocturnal visitors, Rodney?"
Rodney snorted. "You're here practically every night. If I were cheating on you, you'd know."
"Would it be cheating?" John asked, gasping and thrusting his hips up into Rodney's hand. "If you want to be with someone else, someone who can give you children to your name, I wouldn't want to stand in your way."
"It would be cheating," Rodney replied. He loved John. John was probably the best he could get. Sure, if Mr. Perfect came along, with everything that John had minus the pouch parasite and all the hang-ups, then he would reserve his right to break up with John then. But that certainly wasn't happening. He and John shared too much history for anyone else to get between them. Well, anyone except Cameron fucking Mitchell. "I'm just saying, if there were an emergency and someone came to get me, I don't think finding you naked in my bed would be a good thing. Zelenka might never forgive me."
John shrugged. "I don't care." Rodney was flattered to think that John wouldn't care if anyone found out, but he was still torn between wanting to announce over the city com that John was his and no one could have him, neonate or no and wanting to keep this just between them so when John eventually dumped him to be with the donor of his child he could skip the pity party. Rodney knew his lover well enough to know that John's love was a sick and twisted thing, tinged with loyalty and guilt and pessimism and hope, almost indistinguishable from pain. Maybe he did love Rodney, in his own way. Maybe John loved Mitchell too, only not with the same desperation. Whatever John felt for either of them, Rodney only knew that John didn't understand it any better than he did. Better to not mess with it and take what he could get when he could get it.
"Hey," John whispered into Rodney's neck, not breaking the slow urgency of his hips for even a second. "You ever come like a noble?"
Rodney flushed. Did that mean John had changed his mind? That he'd be willing to donate for Rodney. Rodney gasped, shuddering into John and wrapping his arms around him. "Not really. I bought some of those creams. You know the ones that trigger the response, like precum does, but none of my boyfriends ever wanted to um, risk sowing their seed, and I never could hack it as a secundus."
John looked upset for a second, but then a slow seductive smile spread over his features. "Those creams aren't like the real thing. Would you like to try the real thing? We get tested enough to know we're both clean, and I'm an imperial carrier, so we don't have to worry about birth control."
Rodney couldn't believe he could be so aroused and so disappointed at the same time. Of course John was an imperial. It made sense that people with zz genes would have the strongest expression of the ATA gene. He'd heard that in one of the voodoo reports. Rodney had simply forgotten in all his hopes to have a child with John. He must have looked like such a moron when he'd offered to gestate John's child. If he was ever going have a child with John, John would at least have to gestate it. And Rodney had no idea how to make that happen. He'd dated a few other royals before, but never an imperial. Sure, things were different now, with imperials like John even stooping to marry plebs, but Rodney was an untitled royal, which was barely a step above pleb, and he certainly wasn't the rare case that warranted diluting the noble bloodline. He was no Cameron Mitchell, after all, who dared people not to admire him despite the fact that he was as plebian as they came. Rodney would never have that kind of charisma.
"Rodney?" John asked, looking uncertain, the lazy rocking of his hips slowing as he leaned up to kiss Rodney tenderly. "We don't have to if you don't want to. I just thought you might like it. It feels really different, cool different. I'd like to be the one to give that to you, since I can."
Rodney shook himself out of his fugue. It was stupid of him to be disappointed. John was offering something intimate. It wasn't his fault he was biologically incapable of giving Rodney what he really wanted. "Okay," he whispered back, kissing John everywhere he could reach, ravenously tearing the sheet aside to reveal John spread out beneath him, his supple skin glowing with heath and gestation. "You're so beautiful," he whispered, pressing kiss after kiss onto John's skin. "I want you to show me how to come like a noble."
John grinned mischievously before suddenly flipping them, maneuvering Rodney out of his clothes easily so that he was spread out naked across the sheets. John's kisses weren't soft, in fact Rodney was sure he'd have a few hickies by the time he finished, but there was a tenderness there that Rodney had never felt before, with anyone. It was almost reverent, the way John took his time, licking and nipping and building up the pressure until it was almost unbearable before breaking down and transferring to a new spot. Rodney had no idea how, but John had managed to find some lube without his lips leaving Rodney's flushed and over-sensitized skin, but there was a slick finger teasing at Rodney's entrance, and Rodney ached for it, whimpering when John took his time, only soothing Rodney by kissing and licking at one of his nipples.
"Easy," John whispered. "I'll make it good. Pretty soon you won't even need lube, your body will know me and prepare you for me." He kissed a line down Rodney's belly, giving his cock a nice firm lick. Rodney trust his hips up, trying to get John's mouth back on him, but honestly, kisses to the inside of his thighs as John played with his ass felt just as good. "It's going to be so good, being inside you," John soothed. "I want to be in you with nothing in between us. I've been so horny for you recently - the stupid gestation cycle. But I fantasized about doing this to you so many times before. I want to feel you clenching around me."
And with that, John shoved a finger in, causing Rodney to whimper and cry out, biting his lips to keep from begging. John was quick to add a second finger. Rodney was so relaxed and trusting that it didn't take much to open him, and John didn't even bother with a third finger or lube on his cock. He just lifted Rodney's legs up to pull them around his waist and pushed in. It was slow, but the second John breached him, Rodney gasped, the pressure leaving his previously hard dick in a strange approximation of an orgasm, his muscles clenching to pull John in, like he wanted nothing more than to have John inside him, even though the slow pace John had set prevented that.
"Please," he begged. "Please, John, that feels so good. I want all of it. Please."
John grinned, kissing Rodney lightly before he started to thrust. John hadn't used much lube, but everything was slick and smooth somehow, with John gasping as he drove deeper into Rodney, chanting his name while Rodney tried to pull him closer, deeper, more wild with it than he could ever remember being. Rodney used muscles he wasn't even aware he had to wrap his legs around John and clamp down around him, crying out as John found his prostate.
"I'm doing it," John gasped. "I'm doing it. I'm in you. Perfect. Oh, Rodney, perfect." John pushed forward, pulling Rodney's legs up and driving into him desperately now, biting down hard on Rodney's shoulder when he found an angle that let him rub his still sensitive pouch slit up against Rodney's chest without stopping his persistent assault on Rodney's prostate. John gasped and moaned and thrust with such drive that Rodney imagined for an indulgent moment that John wasn't doing this because he was an imperial and therefore could, but because he wanted to fill Rodney's pouch, that his desperation was really a desire to show Rodney how much he loved him.
"John," Rodney whimpered, every muscle in his body clenching as a warmth spread through him like nothing he'd ever experienced before. His flaccid cock let out a pathetic wash of juices and then he pretty much screamed as something inside him clenched and drew in, yanking John deeper into him than he had ever felt before, everything whiting out as John shouted his name and came, shuddering, buried in Rodney.
When Rodney finally felt he could move again, he opened watery eyes to see John staring down at him, running fingers through his hair. "That was so fucking hot," John said, looking awed. He kissed Rodney's swollen lips one more time. "Thank you for letting me be your first."
"Thank you," Rodney sighed as John pulled out and went off to the bathroom, starting the shower.
Rodney dozed for a second, just basking in the delicious soreness of his muscles and the remnants of John inside him. "You gonna join me?" John called, and though Rodney was tired, he dragged himself up and into the shower, where John immediately moved to kiss him, wrapping his arms around Rodney and burying his fingers in Rodney's hair. "That was so good," he murmured, "You're amazing."
"You weren't so bad yourself," Rodney managed, even though that had been by far the best sex of his life. John chuckled into the deepening kiss, letting Rodney push him back against the cool tile of the shower stall. They'd been kissing for a long time before Rodney realized that he was hard again. He looked down in disbelief.
John chuckled, "You can get it up again much faster if you come like a noble. Probably something about mutual gestations in royal pairs." He leered. "Wanna put that to good use?"
"What do you think?" Rodney rolled his eyes before tackling John, encompassing him in his arms and thrusting against him, suddenly desperate with want. John moaned, lifting one leg to wrap around Rodney and pull him closer. It was an accident that Rodney slipped down and then, amazingly, inside of John without any prep. Maybe that's what John had meant by not needing anything once your body grew to want it. For a second it felt amazing - John's tissues clenching around him as his cock went flaccid.
But then John was pushing at him with his hands. "Shit! Shit, shit, shit!" Rodney stumbled, startled, back into the shower door, luckily the ancient construction kept it in place so he only banged his head instead of falling onto the bathroom floor.
"Ouch!" he exclaimed, catching John's attention from his panic. John's hands were on him then, running through his hair and checking for damage. His fingers felt cold, despite the water steaming around them.
When John found a small bump, he shut the shower off and hustled Rodney out and wrapped a towel around him, ignoring that he was still wet. Rodney had gone soft with the pain of hitting his head, but he still managed to notice the way the water gleamed on John's skin. "Let's get you lying down," John said, "and I'll get you some ice for that bump."
"It's nothing," Rodney replied, though it did ache. "I'll be fine. Maybe I should go now." He didn't need another reminder than John was absolutely terrified of carrying for him.
"I think you should stay," John snapped, before pausing, probably realizing how much of an ass he was being. "I'm sorry. I overreacted. I know the chances of fertilization from just a tiny amount of precum are really small, but I'm at the most fertile part of the gestation cycle right now. That shouldn't have happened, but I guess it's true what they say about your body controlling more than you think." He kissed Rodney, as though that made up for it. Rodney's stupid treacherous body liked the idea, and John barely had to cup him through the terrycloth towel before he was hard again. "I'll make it up to you," John promised.
Yeah, it was good, with John laying Rodney down on the bed and riding him, but Rodney could feel that thin layer of latex between them like he never had before. This was just cruel, after he'd learned how good it could be.
***
"I'm going to die," Rodney whispered to himself, looking around at a world that sparkled. He wondered if all the Ancients experienced the world this way - like Neo watching the Matrix, Rodney saw a world painted with equations, distilled to the very base mechanics of construction. Except people, who were bright lights in the middle of it all, their conciousness the beauty that held it all together, humanizing the simple elegance of reality. Gravity shone like a sun shower, electrons danced and twirled. The world was alive with wonder. If Rodney didn't know better, if he didn't know about suffering and injustice and terrible things, he'd be content to just float in a state of constant amazement, here on the brink.
"Hey, buddy," John said, pulling Rodney out of his daze with a simple, electric touch. Rodney looked down at where John's hand rested on his arm. He could see the electron orbitals rubbing up together in a desperate desire to touch, intertwine. A single nudge and Rodney could force them, bind himself to John if only for a brief second.
Rodney had been avoiding John, but he supposed he couldn't really put it off. If he really was going to die he'd be happy to spend his last moments with John. Just so long as he didn't hear John's voice in his head like all the others. He didn't need Elizabeth's doubt or Ronon's trauma or Teyla's fear. He didn't need to know those things even as he knew that compassion and empathy were stepping stones on the path to ascencion.
But then John was tilting his lips up into Rodney's for a soft, chaste kiss, ignoring the fact that they were standing out on a balcony in view of everyone. John's thoughts were clouded, thank god, but Rodney felt love and anger and desperation there, brewing deep beneath the surface. John was a thuderstorm, beautiful and cacophonous and so entrancing that there was no denying its power, as dangerous as it might be.
Rodney reached out his hands to grab John and pulled him close, wanting more. He always wanted more of John. But when his fingers brushed against John's stomach, he felt it - the soft beat of the neonate's heart in his pouch. It didn't feel or think for itself, so much as John felt for it. John loved it, which surprised Rodney more than he'd ever admit. He brushed John's flat stomach again, looking at him with a question on his lips.
But John pulled away, placing his hands between the neonate and Rodney. "Don't. Rodney, I don't need this burden lifted, or whatever you've been doing to people so you can ascend. It's not like Ronon's scars. You can't just wave your hand and make it go away."
Rodney looked at John agape. He was beautiful still, but Rodney wondered about how much pain was brewing in that storm - mistrust and tragedy and scared, uncertain love. "I wouldn't do that, John. I know you love him."
"Him?" John squeaked, looking down at his belly in awe. "It's a him?"
"Oops. Sorry, I didn't mean. You probably wanted to wait until the transfer to find out."
"No," John whispered. "No, I'm happy to find out. It hasn't totally seemed real, you know? But I get it now. I should have had Leo's kid and I should have done it with him happy and alive and whole, but I can't hold that loss against this child. I'm not like my father. The circumstances of a kid's birth shouldn't determine how he's loved."
John's thoughts were all around now, and Rodney could see him clear as day, leaning back against the headboard of his bed, Cameron Mitchell's arm around him as they pretended to watch John's famous hail mary game. It he'd known the machine could give him access to the great mystery of John's past, he might've tried it years ago.
"Leo Holland was a good man, and I'm sorry that he's gone," Mitchell said.
"Just watch the game, Cam," John replied, doing his usual 'don't make me emote' whine.
"No," Mitchell stood, moving to switch off the laptop John had connected to the ancient screen since he clearly couldn't just switch it off with his mind. "We're having a kid and you need to deal with this before he or she comes into the world. I don't know if you've mourned Leo, but you sure as hell haven't morned the neonate you lost, or you wouldn't have been so damned scared to tell me. So, I don't care if I have to tie you to the goddamned, bed, you're going to sit there and you're going to stop deflecting and you're going to talk and grieve and let yourself feel, and when you're done you're not going to resent me or resent our child for not being what you lost."
Mitchell had his hands on his hips and he looked even more stubborn than Rodney could at his worst. John tried to stare him down for a while, but ultimately failed, not moving an inch as Mitchell approached him, pulling him into a hug John clearly didn't want. "I don't think it works like that, Cam. I can't just make myself less fucked up because I want to."
"I think you can do anything you set your mind to, John." Mitchell didn't let go. He just held John for minutes until he wrung a small sob out of him, rubbing circles on his back and whispering, "It's okay, John. I'm here. I've got you." They'd talked then. John had cried for hours as they reminisced about a man Rodney had never known, and it stung, more so now that the ascension machine had stripped all his walls away, that John was willing to let himself be vulnerable in front of Mitchell like he would never allow himself to be in front of Rodney. Maybe it was because he didn't think Rodney could handle it or because he didn't want to be a burden, but Rodney wondered if John allowing Mitchell to help him was a more intimate act for him than love.
Rodney was shaken back into the present by John's touch on his arm. Rodney flinched, feeling for a second a very unenlightened twinge of jealousy run down his spine. He could outstubborn Mitchell, he was sure, but even half-ascended he'd never be so perceptive. He never would have known what John needed to make peace with his gestation, let alone trust himself enough to take such bold action. Rodney felt John's love like the heat of the sun, soaking his skin, beautiful and comforting but also dangerous. And there was the neonate. Rodney could see it now, a smiling little boy with dark hair and pale blue eyes, already with a much broader build than John at a young age. They were playing at a park, clearly on Earth, John looking devastatingly good in a black fleece pullover and tight jeans, Mitchell wearing a tight green shirt and khaki pants as they threw a football between the three of them like the perfect little family in a J. Crew catalogue.
Rodney felt DNA like a story woven into the great tapestry of existence. It would be so easy to unravel that thread, replace his deep blue eyes for the pale ones, his strong jawline and his intelligence for Mitchell's striking normalcy. John might even want that too. Things would be easier that way, if everything were clear and Rodney could be John's lover and husband and the donor of his child, with no Mitchell in sight. But as much as Rodney finally knew that John wasn't lying when he said he loved him, he knew that John would never forgive Rodney for rewriting his child's DNA.
"Forget acension," Rodney whispered. "I am so going to hell."
John chuckled, pulling Rodney into another kiss. "Want a good sin for the road?" His voice was deliberately joking, but Rodney could feel the sorrow in him too and the anger that this was happening to them. Then again, if Rodney died, John could be with Mitchell and it would no longer be complicated. They could raise their perfect little boy together and that would be the end of it. John could mourn someone else, but Mitchell would help him. Cameron fucking Mitchell was good at that.
They made it back to John's room to find it filled with candles and they'd made love, with Rodney's mind spinning off into equations and science and beauty and John. Then John had sat down naked in front of him, legs crossed in preparation for mediation. Clear blue skies, like John's son's eyes and Rodney found himself smiling, the ascencion counter falling steadily as his joy rose and rose until it overwhelmed him, he was so happy that John had someone just to love, without worry or guilt or fear.
Then he opened his eyes and grabbed John's hand, because he'd been there on the brink and he knew, the beautiful weave of the DNA molecule - that was his salvation.
***
John had been annoyed the entire mission, especially at Ronon for following him like a hawk. He was two weeks away from his labor window and though Ronon's grasp on noble biology was tenuous at best, he understood what it meant to be about to give birth and had taken his protective streak to heart. Rodney could sympathize. He didn't want to let John out of his sight either.
"You know, I don't think that there's anything here other than vintage 70's space gear. I mean, it's practically Moonraker up here," Rodney prevaricated, hoping that John would be detered from his single-minded determination for all this to be business as usual. "I think we can just leave it up to a science team. Right guys?"
"Seems boring to me," Ronon agreed.
Teyla added, "Our duty as Atlantis's primary team is to make first contact, explore possible sources of technology, and conduct tactical strikes against our enemies. I do not see how we could fulfill any of those mission objectives here."
"You don't know that there aren't new technologies here. These people hollowed out a moon. And yes, very Moonraker, but you have to admit that ship we saw back there was at least a little cool," John practically whined.
"If you're Nikita Khrushchev." But then John gave him that skeptical look and Rodney was absolutely incapable of lying. "Okay, fine, you got me. We'll look at the ship and then we'll head back."
"I know what you guys are trying to do," John replied. "And it's not going to work. We're already stepping down our missions and I picked the least dangerous one we had planned, so I don't know what you guys are complaining about. If the transfer goes well, I'll be off missions for the next nine months minimum, when you can baby me as much as you want."
"Really? Because I was thinking that it might be a good time to try out my modification of the personal shield device. It only holds a charge for about twenty minutes, but you can just keep it plugged in the rest of the time."
John rolled his eyes. "When I said I'd like to explore options that would allow me to stay on Atlantis once the baby emerges I was thinking more along the lines of a few ZPMs and and a better evacuation plan, not putting him in a shielded cage for the rest of his life."
"Actually that's not a bad idea. I mean, I could just shield your quarters on a separate power system and I mean he could leave occasionally, and then, I know I could make it a detachable escape pod. And we could dump an emergency gate close by so even if the city were destroyed--"
"Rodney," Teyla was using her 'you insult me with your inconsiderate Earth values' voice, "people have been raising children successfully in this galaxy for a long time. Yes, Atlantis is a military outpost, but surely it is not so repugnant an idea to simply allow a child to grow in the world, with all its dangers."
"Okay you two, we're not getting into this again," John interrupted before Teyla could start one of her 'we're not that primitive' rants. "I'll figure out what I'm going to do sometime other than while we're supposed to be exploring. Now, McKay, open that door."
***
"John!" Rodney shouted the second he regained consciousness, stumbling over to where John was lying prone. The air had been almost completely sucked from their section and it had taken the three of them to seal the door. That couldn't be good for a neonate, let alone how bad it was for a person. Rodney's asthma would be acting up for weeks, he was sure.
John coughed, lifting his head carefully before letting it flop down. "Rodney?"
"I'm okay," Rodney replied, grabbing John's arm and helping him up to lean against Rodney, panting. "How are you?"
John put a hand over his belly, as though he could possibly feel anything through the thick spacesuit he wore, even if you could feel a neonate. "I'm fine," he pushed up, only to collapse back against Rodney. "Okay, maybe a little dizzy, but fine. Lifesigns detector?"
Rodney nodded. "What about you, Ronon?" he asked, noticing too late that Ronon was busy putting his shoulder back in with a grunt. "Ew. Still as disgusting as possible, I see."
"Dislocated shoulder," Ronon replied as though that explained his stoic mountainmanliness. "Sheppard?"
Rodney sighed in relief as the special program he'd loaded onto the LSD to monitor the neonate's health blinked green. "Well, the neonate is fine. Sheppard may still need his head checked, but everything looks good."
John sighed, but didn't move his hands from their protective clasp on his belly while he radioed to check on Teyla, before asking, "So, what happened?"
Rodney grabbed for his tablet only to find the screen cracked from where it hit the wall in the decompression. If only Earth technology was as resiliant as the LSDs. A quick scan revealed oxygen vented from all the compartments around them. But they all had their suits on since they wanted to make sure John stayed in his just in case. "Well, it's hard to tell what happened from here. We'll have to make our way back to the control center. But I can say with great certainty that Mr. Sucidal's stupidity completely fucked us over."
"No shit, McKay," John replied, letting Rodney help him to his feet.
"Of all the ways to commit suicide on a several thousand year old moon station, Henrick had to pick the one that would take us with him. The jumper's gone, but the shuttle's still out there, but most of the fuel's depleted, plus the burn pushed the moon off orbit and into the upper atmosphere. We are so screwed."
"Elizabeth said she'd call back in half an hour. She'll send a rescue jumper and we can get out of here."
"For some reason I doubt it will be that simple."
"So long as you don't give birth on us, we'll be fine," Ronon added.
"You'd better watch it Mister," John warned, "gestating or not, I'm still your commanding officer."
Rodney rolled his eyes, pulling on his helmet before helping John and Ronon to open the next bulkhead.
"And gestating or not, I can always kick your ass," Ronon replied good-naturedly. Thank god Teldy arrived with Carson and a team not long afterwards. Ronon was scary when confined.
***
Normally, leaving Teyla alone with the crazy person would have been their best course of action, since she had a way of talking people back from the ledge. But of course the one mission when Rodney most needed everything to go smoothly turned out to be the one time when the crazy person could transport Teyla and himself into a souped-up Wraith storage device, leaving Rodney to scramble madly to repair it before the moon they were currently on burned up in the atmosphere, killing Teyla and thousands of innocent aliens stored in the device.
"Are you going to be able to get her out of there or not?" John asked, no doubt aware of Major Teldy staring at the back of his neck and judging him for not getting his gestating ass out of there ASAP. Teldy had a child back on Earth, Rodney knew, so she'd been offering John all sorts of unwelcome advice the past months, but not even she dared tell him he couldn't stay while Teyla was still trapped in that device.
Rodney looked at the antiquated hardware and sighed. After the little incident with Cadman he had developed an algorithm for gathering basic data from Wraith storage - mostly species and weight, but even if he could get that to work on this old piece of crap, with a thousand people in there, finding Teyla would still be looking for a needle in a haystack. "If I had a couple of hours, maybe." He knew John would never leave her, however. "We need to risk taking it back with us. Wraith storage devices will hold patterns for a limited time without power. If we get it back to Altantis and jerry-rig a power source fast enough we could still save Teyla."
John bit his lip, considering it. "What are the odds?"
"I have no idea. I haven't exactly had the time to study the thing." Rodney knew he'd made a mistake the second he uttered it, John's expression getting that determined edge to it that Rodney was familiar with after countless suicide missions. "No, no! It could be perfectly fine! It's the best chance we have. John, whatever you're thinking, you have to remember you're thinking for two now."
"I know that!" John snapped. "But this is Teyla."
"And an entire civilization," Teldy added. Since when was she on John's side? She'd been just as overprotective as everyone else. "I'll fly it."
"No offense, Major, but one tour hanging out with the Search and Rescue people in the Coast Guard does not qualify you to fly an alien spaceship," John argued.
"Then Mehra will do it."
"We only let Mehra fly the jumpers because she has the gene. No, I have the most flight experience. It'll be a piece of cake. Now get this thing disconnected before we all get vaporized."
"John," Rodney protested. There was no way John was surviving this. It was impossible. The shuttle was made from questionable technology to begin with, thousands of years old, and not maneuverable enough to start re-entry at anything but the ideal angle. "What am I going to tell Colonel Mitchell?" He was grasping at straws, Rodney knew. If John wouldn't do it for his son or for Rodney, maybe guilt would stop him.
"Cam knows that this job is dangerous better than anyone. He'll understand. Now get the damned device ready. That's an order."
Rodney thought about not complying for a long time, but it was Teyla. Teyla and a thousand others. The good of the one, even if it was John, didn't outweigh that many innocent lives.
John had suited up when Rodney arrived with the storage device.
"You do realize you're out of your bloody mind?" Carson was chiding John.
"Maybe, but I don't have any other choice," John replied.
"Son, sometimes you have to know when to quit."
"And that's not when I have a chance to save one of my people."
Rodney didn't want to do it, but he had to try. Maybe Teldy really could fly the thing. "That's what you said when you went back to save your fiancé and look what that got you."
John's eyes hardened. "I can't believe you just brought that up," he snapped. "You don't have the right. Now, if that's all anyone has to say to me, I'll see you all on the flipside."
"No, I have something to say."
"You've said enough."
"I love you," Rodney blurted out, not caring that everyone was watching.
"I love you too," John snapped, as though it were an insult, brushing past Rodney and into the shuttle that Rodney was certain would be his death.
***
Rodney didn't remember much of the next fifteen minutes. Adrenaline made his thoughts clear but detached. John was going to die and he was going to die mad at Rodney. "That's what you get when you fall in love with crazy," Rodney whispered to himself as he watched helplessly while John's shuttle hit the ground, and hit it hard. It took Teldy's prodding for Rodney to remember that he could scan for lifesigns. He almost cried when the single dot appear on the HUD.
"John?!" he shouted into the headset. "Sheppard, come in!"
It was a moment before they were met with a pathetic whimper. "Rodney?"
"Are you alright?"
John's only response was a pained whimper. "Not again."
"Hang in there lad," Carson said. "We're coming to get you."
"Carson," John panted. "Something's not right."
Followed by: Transferred