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Title: Immutable Differences (2/3)
Author: Ceitie
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard, Ford/OFC
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: Up to The Siege 2
Word Count: 5,804
Summary: “Personally, I almost prefer the life-sucking aliens.”
A/N: Whew, this took a lot longer to post than I thought it would. I stole two lines, one from The X-Files and one from Pinky and Brain. Give your praise for their hilarity to whoever created those shows. Thanks as ever to my splendiferous betas,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
of_evangeline and blacknoise!
Part One
Part Two
Elizabeth finished her third city-wide announcement with, “Weir out,” and flicked off her comm. With any luck, most of expedition members had woken up by now and heard at least one of the announcements, and were making their way to the mess hall or the gym.
The mess hall was already crowded and more people were streaming in through the entrances. Elizabeth scanned the room, trying to match each strange new face with a familiar name, which was proving to be less difficult than she’d anticipated. Hair style, body language, and basic facial similarities allowed her to recognize even those people she didn’t know very well; it occurred to her that the social scientists were going to have a field day with this transformation once they got over their personal dismay.
She smiled reassuringly at the two scientists walking in through the nearest door; disheveled and pale, only one of them smiled back. The other – Dr. Kavanagh, by the pony-tail – glowered and tugged the other scientist towards one of the tables. Most of the scientists were sitting at the tables and talking agitatedly amongst themselves, making the slightly overcrowded mess hall ring with noise. She tried not to wince as the sound level continued to rise. A woman – rather, someone who appeared to be a woman – who had been leaning against the wall and crying quietly began to scream at someone in the small circle of comforters. Elizabeth saw Kate Heightmeyer headed in the direction of the screams and sighed with relief.
Turning away from the commotion, she reached down and adjusted herself as unobtrusively as possible. The scrubs that she had grabbed before leaving the infirmary were mercifully large and accommodating to this male body, but the new set of genitals hanging between her legs was still throwing her off with its sheer weirdness. She wished that she’d had time for a shower before racing out into the city; her aching body was itchy with dried sweat and her hair felt lank and greasy. She pushed it back from her face with one hand and forced a smile as Dr. Zelenka approached.
She had asked him, along with the other department heads, to get a head count of all the science members; thus far, everyone they had seen had been affected the same way by the sickness, but there was no way to be sure until everyone had checked in.
“Dr. Weir, nearly everyone is in the mess hall now. There are twenty others who have radioed to say they are on their way, and six people completely unaccounted for,” he said quietly. His hair was even wilder now that there was more of it, but he himself seemed relatively calm compared to most of the other occupants of the mess hall. Elizabeth hoped her own façade of serene competence was as convincing as Zelenka’s, and that no one could see the barely controlled turbulence beneath.
“Thank you, Dr. Zelenka – ” Elizabeth broke off as several scientists came hurrying in through the south entrance, apparently having been herded to the mess hall by the woman barreling along behind them, her face like a thundercloud. Elizabeth recognized Rodney the minute he opened his mouth; his voice might have been altered but the tone and content were unmistakable.
He alternated between hissing into his comm and tossing glares at the science team members who had begun instantly flocking towards him once he entered the mess hall. “So you’re sure that there’s been no activity from the gate for the last twelve hours? Yes, I know you said – but did you check the – oh, that’s funny, really hilarious, and what is it exactly about this situation that’s bringing your stand-up skills to the fore, Grodin?” He rolled his eyes and yanked his arm away from one of the more persistent biologists. “No, I don’t know what’s going on, other than the obvious, so sit down and stop bothering me – of course I’m not talking to you, Grodin, so would you just –”
Elizabeth saw his eyes skipping across the crowd to the front of the room; Rodney’s gaze moved past her without recognition and then jumped back. He frowned and stared, and she took pity on him and nodded, gesturing for him to come over. He was still frowning and staring when he reached her.
“Elizabeth,” he said, with the smallest tinge of doubt in his voice. “You look… really different.”
She raised an eyebrow, looking down at him. “I could say the same thing about you.”
He nodded and grimaced, muttering, “Right, yes, I suppose,” and ran an absent-minded hand down the front of his jacket. Elizabeth was beginning to get a little unnerved by the intensity of his stare – had she grown an extra nose as well and simply not noticed? – when he looked away, distracted by the woman standing next to him.
“Oh, Zelenka,” Rodney said, snapping his fingers in recognition. Then his eyes narrowed. “Stop staring at my chest.”
Zelenka jerked his eyes up to Rodney’s face and made a scoffing noise. “Do not flatter yourself. As if I would be looking – ”
“You totally were! And hey,” Rodney crossed his arms and tilted up his chin, “why wouldn’t you be looking?”
If Elizabeth had to listen to an argument over the quality of Rodney’s breasts, it was entirely possible that she would start screaming from an overload of surrealism.
“Gentlemen,” she said sharply, and tried not to wince at the not-exactly-appropriate term. “We need to get organized. Dr. Zelenka, please go check with the other department heads and see if any of our missing people have checked in.” He nodded, a little sheepishly, and headed off. She turned to Rodney. “How many people can you spare to work on reversing this?”
“Maybe four or five, at most,” Rodney said slowly. “Carson should have some of his people working on it as well, but everybody else –”
He was interrupted by an angry female voice yelling, “McKay! What the hell is going on here?”
They turned towards the voice, which had come from one of the chemists who was standing on a chair and scowling with determined self-righteousness. The rest of his table was standing around him in support, although they seemed slightly more uncertain about this course of action. The looks of uncertainty grew more pronounced when Rodney focused his gaze on them with the air of a man who was memorizing faces.
Rodney huffed and said, “We’re trying to figure that out, Lukawski, and it’ll happen a lot faster if you’re not screaming across the mess at us.”
The noise in the mess hall had dropped off considerably; most of the scientists had stopped talking and turned in their seats to watch the show.
Lukawski laughed shortly. “You’re figuring it out? That’s great, so what are the rest of us supposed to do while you’re ‘figuring this out’?”
Elizabeth winced internally at the air quotes, and watching Rodney’s face darken, she spoke quickly. “I’ve sent some people to the storage rooms for MREs, seeing as the support staff is currently in the gym with the rest of the military. After everyone has had something to eat, Dr. Beckett will be sending out a schedule for full physical examinations for all expedition members, to better understand what has happened to us.”
Someone else called out from the far side of the room, “So we’re just supposed to sit around and wait until we get changed back?” There was a surge of nodding and muttering as the scientists looked towards her for an answer.
Elizabeth opened her mouth to respond, but Rodney snorted loudly and spoke first. “Don’t be ridiculous. No one’s sitting around, you’re all going back to work. Has it somehow slipped your minds that the Wraith are still on the way? We were all working around the clock before this, and now we have more than seventeen hours of lost time to make up for.”
Elizabeth nodded and said, “Dr. McKay is correct; as soon as you’ve finished eating, you can return to whatever project you were working on before… you were interrupted, until it’s time for your physical.”
There was stunned silence for a moment, then the mess hall exploded back into noise. Amidst the furious conversations and various exclamations and shouted questions, Lukawski’s outraged howl rang out clearly.
“You expect us to go back to work like nothing’s happened? Are you crazy? In case you haven’t noticed, McKay, we’ve all had fucking sex changes!”
“Excuse me?” Rodney shrieked. The mess hall quieted down almost instantly; Elizabeth guessed that nobody wanted to miss this.
Rodney continued more calmly, but with contempt dripping from every word. “Sex changes? Really? Why no, Lukawski, I didn’t notice. However, unless I’m grossly mistaken, while you may have lost your dick, you do still have hands, right? And eyes? And presumably a brain, although I’m not seeing much evidence for that, I’ll admit. So what exactly is preventing you from doing your goddamn job?!”
Lukawski turned an unhealthy shade of red, and the shouting started up again across the mess hall, mixed with some malicious laughter. Elizabeth decided that this would be the perfect time to make use of her new vocal cords.
She took a deep breath and bellowed, “Hey!” She couldn’t suppress a small smile of satisfaction at the efficiency of her deeper voice in quelling the noise. Flattening out her smile, she said sternly, “We’re all shocked and upset by this change in our bodies. It’s nothing we could have anticipated and it’s only natural to be disturbed by it. But the fact is that Wraith are still coming, and we need everyone’s help to try and stop them.”
She clasped her hands together and continued, meeting the eyes of as many people as she could. “Dr. Heightmeyer is canceling most of her previous appointments in order to keep her schedule free for anyone who feels the need to drop in and talk to her.”
Rodney muttered something under his breath about life-sucking aliens being more traumatic than unexpected gonads, and Elizabeth closed her eyes for a moment and reminded herself that it wouldn’t do for the expedition leader to smack her chief scientist upside the head.
She opened her eyes and pasted on her most convincing smile. “We’re going to find a way to reverse this, but until we do, we have to keep working to save Atlantis. I know I can count on you all to give your utmost despite the unfortunate circumstances.”
Later that night, Elizabeth stood staring at herself in the mirror in her bathroom. She ran a hand through her newly washed hair, then gathered it up and pulled it away from her face. As a man, her features were sharp and angular, lacking the delicacy that had created an illusion of fragility. She looked – severe, autocratic.
Letting go of her hair, she watched it fall back around her face in waves. She thought, semi-hysterically, that she had never much liked long hair on men, and couldn’t stop the laughter that bubbled up. Elizabeth sat down on the cool floor of the bathroom, giggling helplessly, and buried her face in her hands.
It was easier to think about her hair style, or the myriad other strangenesses of this change. It was easier to run wondering hands over her flat, slightly hairy chest, to rub her chin and realize she’d need to shave, to feel absurdly proud about successfully peeing while standing up, to compare the size of her penis to those of previous boyfriends. It was easier because if she was trying to decide whether Simon’s dick was longer than hers was now, then she didn’t have to think about the hive ships that were drawing ever closer to her city. She didn’t have to think about the two fistfights that had been broken up in the past five hours, or how the hell they were going to manage to save themselves when half the expedition was busy having nervous breakdowns in Heightmeyer’s office.
She didn’t have to think about what would happen if they couldn’t reverse this, if she would never again be female, never again feel comfortable and right in her own body.
Elizabeth climbed to her feet and walked out of the bathroom. She would sleep for the four precious hours she had left before her morning meeting, and she wouldn’t think about what Simon would say if she had to return to Earth like this, looking like this. She wouldn’t.
~/~
Carson rubbed his eyes and made a concentrated effort to not leap across the table and strangle Rodney. The meeting had already dragged on for far too long, and he was tired of wrangling endlessly with Rodney and Zelenka over the exact function and effects of that damned Ancient device. He could see that Teyla and Sheppard were both faking alert expressions while their eyes glazed over, and Lieutenant Ford appeared to have nodded off. Everyone was exhausted, the insanity of the last two days only adding to the stress of the Wraith’s inevitable arrival and the workload that they had already been struggling with.
Carson let out a thankful sigh when Elizabeth gestured abruptly and Rodney’s high-speed explanation finally stuttered to a halt.
“Rodney, I need you to bottom line this for me,” she said.
Rodney looked as though he were a few seconds away from saying, What do you think I’ve been doing for the past thirty minutes? Instead, he sighed and placed his hands palm down on the table. They looked small and pale on the dark surface. “The bottom line is that we still don’t know exactly how the device did what it did, or how to reverse it. Also, I’m fairly sure that the stupid thing is broken, so we’re going to have fix it before trying to get it to do anything else.”
He sighed again and this time the misery and frustration was plain on his face. “The point is that there’s no conceivable way that we’re going to be able to reverse the changes before the Wraith get here.”
Zelenka broke in sounding equally glum. “And we cannot take the machine with us if we evacuate because it draws its power directly from the city; if we could even disconnect it properly, I don’t know where we would find enough power to make it function once more.”
Elizabeth tapped her fingers against the conference room table and smiled tightly. “Then I suppose we’ll have to find a way to stop the Wraith before we’re forced to evacuate.”
Rodney mumbled, “Oh sure, no problem then,” and Sheppard gave him a hard nudge with his elbow.
Elizabeth ignored them both and turned to Carson. “You’ll be continuing the physicals today?”
He nodded, “Yes, we should be done with the last of them by tomorrow morning. So far all the results have been the same, but that doesn’t rule out the possibility of side-effects that haven’t yet made themselves apparent. It’s just that this whole thing is so impossible…” Carson trailed off. The others were looking at him with a combination of weariness and sympathy.
He knew that he had overused the word ‘impossible’ throughout the meeting, but he couldn’t convey his utter disbelief towards the events of the past two days in any other way. Human bodies simply did not spontaneously undergo a complete genetic and physical shift from one sex to another, and the entire medical team was tearing their hair out in bewilderment right along with him.
Carson cleared his throat and finished, “Anyway, I’ll be expecting all of you in the infirmary today, and don’t be late for your appointments; the schedule’s tight enough as it is.”
No one looked pleased by the reminder. Ford shifted uneasily in his seat, and Rodney and Sheppard exchanged queasy glances. Elizabeth took advantage of the pause to ask Teyla about her visit to the other Athosians.
Teyla shrugged, smiling; she had somehow retained all of her previous grace in her new form, unlike the many others who Carson had seen bumping into doorways and knocking over objects, unused to the different dimensions of their bodies.
“They were surprised by my appearance, of course,” Teyla said wryly. “And relieved that the mainland was unaffected by the newest oddity that has swept Atlantis. But we have an old children’s story in which a change such as this occurs, so most of my people consider it to be a gift of the Ancestors, although perhaps an unexpected one.”
Ford said, “Gift? Seriously?” in a tone of complete incredulity and Carson couldn’t help but privately echo the sentiment.
But Elizabeth leaned forward, asking eagerly, “Your people have stories about this kind of transformation?”
“Yes, there is a story about a village, many centuries ago, who were culled by the Wraith during the time of the harvest.” Teyla said. “At that time, only men worked the fields and so it was the men who were seen and taken by the Wraith. Only the very old men and the boys were left behind in the village, and the women were afraid to go through the stargate by themselves in order to find new men to repopulate the village.”
Rodney was beginning to look impatient, but Elizabeth appeared captivated and ignored his fidgeting. To Carson’s amusement, Ford and Zelenka were listening to Teyla as intently as children during story time at a primary school, and Sheppard – Carson blinked. Sheppard was watching Rodney.
“But then one day a woman, lost in grief for her husband, waded out into the sea by the village with the intention of drowning herself. When she had walked into the water as high as her thighs, she saw a silver stone gleaming in the water beside her foot,” Teyla continued. “It was so beautiful that she reached down and picked it up, and was immediately transformed into a man. Once she got over her shock, she realized what a boon this would be for her village. The women of the village used the stone to transform half of their number into men and together they brought in the harvest, and so it has been every year since in that village.”
Teyla folded her hands together on the table and smiled at Elizabeth, who smiled back, colour high in her cheeks. “You’ll have to tell that story to the anthropologists later, Teyla,” she said.
Rodney exhaled loudly. “Yes, yes, very interesting, and that stone was probably some kind of Ancient technology similar to the device Brar and Naicker messed with, but I’m not seeing a whole lot of helpfulness otherwise.” He turned to Elizabeth. “So if we’re done, I’ve really got to get back to trying to save Atlantis. You know, between coffee breaks.”
Elizabeth shot Rodney a displeased look, but started to nod before Sheppard broke in.
“Oh yeah, there was something I forgot to mention,” he drawled, spinning a pen in one hand and apparently unaware of Rodney nearly hissing with exasperation beside him.
“Clothes,” Sheppard said. “We don’t have enough of them. I’ve had people checking through the uniforms that are left in storage, and now that two-thirds of the expedition is wearing a size small instead of large or extra-large, we don’t have enough to give everyone more than the one set that we’ve already passed out.”
He gestured vaguely at the uniforms they were all wearing; that first day, after everyone had calmed down somewhat, there had been a desperate clamor for clothes that actually fit. The Marines had raided the storage rooms and passed out a single new set of uniforms to each expedition member. Carson had been particularly grateful at the time for the bra that was included in his set, as he’d spent the earlier part of the day running around the infirmary, cleaning up and dispensing sedatives, and had been sore and chafed as a result.
“Well, I supposed we could trade for clothing off-world,” Elizabeth said hesitantly.
Sheppard shrugged. “Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of redistributing the old uniforms that are still hanging in everybody’s closets. If Rodney’s right and we’re not going to get switched back any time soon, it would make sense to give them out to people who’ll be able to wear them.”
Rodney snarled, “If I’m right?”
A grin made its way across Ford’s face. “We could get everyone to bring their old uniforms to the mess hall, call it the first Great Atlantis Swap Meet.”
“I believe we’ve talked about the naming thing, Ford,” Sheppard said ominously.
Rodney dropped his head to the table in defeat. “This is the meeting that never ends.”
Carson adjusted his bra strap thoughtfully and kicked Rodney under the table. Personally, a change of clothes was sounding wonderful at the moment, and he leaned forward to listen as Elizabeth launched into plans for uniform collection and redistribution. He pretended to not notice Sheppard’s eyes drifting unerringly back to Rodney.
Carson leaned against the edge of the infirmary cot and waited for Teyla to finish dressing. She had endured her exam with her usual calm and pleasant demeanor. Since Carson had had to deal with five crying fits and two panic attacks during his ten previous exams, he was unashamedly grateful for Teyla’s serene composure. When she emerged from behind the curtain, he smiled and said, "Well, you're done for today, and everything looks fine. I'll contact you if any problems crop up in the lab results."
Teyla smiled back, then hesitated before asking, "Dr. Beckett, the tests you are conducting, do they evaluate fertility?”
Carson blinked. "Yes, that's part of the gamut of tests that we're running. Is there a specific reason that you - "
She was already shaking her head, looking more flustered then he'd ever seen her. "No, there is nothing specific that worries me. It is only that the ability to have children is - very important to my people, and I would be thankful not to lose it while in this body."
He had the distinct feeling that he was missing something here. “Teyla, are you planning to,” he stopped, then pressed forward, “to have children any time soon? I mean, in that body?”
Her face had gone carefully blank; one of her hands fiddled with the hem of her tight-fitting Athosian shirt. “You have yet to tell me if it is even possible.”
Carson floundered for a moment. Finally, he said, “I’ll inform you as soon as the test results are in.”
“Thank you, Dr. Beckett,” Teyla said, granting him a small smile before turning towards the exit.
Once she had left, Carson slumped down into a chair next to the cot, Teyla’s file in his lap. He truly didn’t know what the effects might be, if there were any at all, on a child whose parent had had their sex completely reversed by Ancient technology. He wished that he knew more about Athosian society, in order to have picked up whatever nuances that Teyla left unsaid. Children were very important to the Athosians, he knew that much to be true, and he supposed that it would be much simpler for Teyla to help her community by providing children if she didn’t have to actually carry a child to term during the struggle against the Wraith.
His ruminations were interrupted by the appearance of Major Sheppard at the infirmary’s entrance. Curious, Carson asked, “Major? Can I help you? Your physical isn’t for another four hours.”
Sheppard looked over at the sound of his voice. “Hey, Doc, just the guy I was looking for.” Carson hid a smile as Sheppard walked towards him, realizing that Sheppard’s slightly too-wide stride must be caused by his inability to remember that his legs weren’t quite as long as they used to be.
“I should have mentioned this much earlier, I know,” said Sheppard ruefully, “it’s just that it’s been – busy, the last couple of days.” He ran his hand through his hair and sighed. “It’s about the off-world teams. I figured that since you’re already getting everyone into the infirmary, and the Marines haven’t had their exams yet, you might as well do the contraceptive thing at the same time, get it done as fast as possible.”
Carson sat back, astonished that he hadn’t thought of that problem himself until Sheppard mentioned it. When they had first began sending out off-world teams, he and the rest of the medical staff had made sure that any female members of the teams had access to birth control that would still function even if they were trapped off-world for an extended amount of time.
But now those members were no longer the ones who needed to be concerned. He bit his lip, thinking. “You’ll have to send me a list of all the off-world team members who I’ll have to talk to, and I’ll track down the ones who have already had their exams. At least I’m certain that we have enough supplies to go around; the SGC was more than generous with their contraceptive supplies.”
“You got it, one list coming right up,” Sheppard said lightly, “And hey, now I can really look forward to my physical with the knowledge that even more needles will be involved.” He smirked, but for a moment, some indecipherable emotion shifted through his eyes and he looked away. Carson wondered if Sheppard was thinking about the reason that contraceptives were considered a necessity for women who were on the off-world teams.
Carson shook off his dark thoughts, and smiled sideways at Sheppard. “Don’t worry, I’ve been told that I have a very light hand with needles.” Sheppard made a face and turned to go. Carson opened his mouth, and then closed it again before he could say, I saw you staring at Rodney during the meeting. What was that about? This was not the time to let his busybody streak take over, and besides, God knew that Rodney could take care of himself.
Instead, he said, “I’ll be expecting you in four hours, Major,” and pretended to read Teyla’s file until the infirmary doors swished close.
~/~
“I cannot reach anything anymore, must get a stepstool every time. It is incredibly frustating,” Radek said waspishly.
“Shaving your face,” Simpson countered, “Now that sucks. Look at me; I’ve got cuts all over the place.”
Kusanagi said softly from across the lab, “It is not that much more difficult than shaving your legs.”
Rodney didn’t look away from his laptop, but he could feel the heat off the glare that Simpson sent in Kusanagi’s direction.
“I never shave my legs unless I have to,” Simpson said, “because it makes me bleed. And faces are much trickier!”
“I don’t know, legs are pretty difficult too,” said Kavanagh absently. There was a pause, and he raised his head to snap, “What?”
Radek muttered something in Czech, then said, “And, and stupid bra! It is impossible, it feels like I am strapped into harness.”
Rodney ground his teeth together and kept typing determinedly.
Simpson said, with the air of delivering a crushing blow, “Hard-ons. Unexpected, uncontrollable hard-ons.”
Kavanagh said in a shocked voice, “Simpson, for Christ’s sake!” and Kusanagi burst into laughter.
Rodney slammed the lid of his laptop closed, tucked it under one arm and headed for the door. He ignored the others’ surprised looks and yelled back over his shoulder, “Call me when you get around to the nail-painting and hair-braiding part of the slumber party, so I can drop by and take blackmail pictures.”
He tore through the halls back towards his quarters, simmering with fury. By the time he reached his room, he had lost the anger but not the energy, his whole body thrumming and restless. He wasn’t sure what had made him blow up back in the lab; most days he would have just told the lot of them to stop their nattering so he could get some work done, not stomp out like a sulky sixteen-year-old.
Maybe it was hormones, Rodney thought, pacing his quarters. Insidious, emotional female hormones addling his brilliant brain. He slumped back onto his bed. Or it might be because he couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept for more than two hours at a stretch, and his coffee intake was probably sending him into the danger levels for caffeine poisoning.
He jumped off the bed and started pacing again. It was nearly midnight but he couldn’t stay in here, he had to find something to do. And perhaps some more coffee.
Rodney found himself standing in front of Sheppard’s quarters, bouncing on his toes and not entirely sure how he had gotten there. He activated the door chime and waited, figuring that he might as well see if Sheppard was around now that he was here. And, well, in a small place at the back of his mind he had been considering propositioning Sheppard for days now, and this was as good a time as any to give it a shot. The Wraith were only nine days away, and if he got rejected he could always blame his actions on sleep deprivation and too much caffeine.
Sheppard yelled, “Come in!” and the door slid open. Rodney strode in, and saw Sheppard sprawled across his bed on his stomach, his laptop in front of him. He sat up when he saw Rodney, closing the laptop.
“Hey, what’s up, Rodney?” Sheppard asked, pushing himself to the end of his narrow bed, letting his legs hang down. He was wearing green socks that were drooping off his feet.
“Here’s the thing, Major,” Rodney began, then had to start pacing again. “I’ve been thinking about this, rather a lot, and I think that maybe you’ve been thinking the same thing, or at least along the same lines, and so I thought I’d just turn up and ask if you were. Thinking the same thing, I mean.”
He stopped pacing and stared expectantly at Sheppard, who looked puzzled and a little concerned. Rodney got a little distracted following the line of Sheppard’s collarbone to where it disappeared into the stretched neck of his t-shirt, and nearly missed Sheppard’s reply.
“Well, I think so, Brain, but where are we going to get a duck and a hose at this hour?” Sheppard said deadpan, then started snickering madly at the bug-eyed, gap-mouthed face Rodney knew he was making.
Sheppard got a hold of himself and said quickly, “Sorry, that was just too easy,” and waved a placating hand at Rodney’s indignant huffing. “In all seriousness, Rodney, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Rodney folded his arms and glowered. “Sex, Major. I’m talking about sex.”
Now Sheppard was the one who was bug-eyed and gaping, and Rodney didn’t try to hide his smug smile.
Sheppard cleared his throat and said, “Sex? What, uh, what do you mean?”
Rodney dropped his arms. “Okay, I seriously have to spell this out for you?” He made helpful gestures with his hands as he said slowly, “Would you like to have sex with me?”
Sheppard blinked several times and kind of looked like he wanted to pinch himself, or check for hallucinogens in the glass of water next to his bed. Rodney folded his arms again, and tried to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach. This wasn’t going well at all.
Finally Sheppard said, eyes darting everywhere, “Look, Rodney, it’s not that I – I mean, I’m flattered, but I’m straight.”
Rolling his eyes, Rodney said, “And how is that a problem?” He spread his arms wide. “Woman’s body here, hello!”
Sheppard looked surprised and disgruntled, like he hadn’t expected Rodney to still be here. “But – well, yeah, but you’re still a guy.”
Rodney said, “Yes, I am, but right at this moment, I’m not a guy in any way that should prevent you from wanting to have sex with me. Or, you know, having sex with me.” He started tapping a foot on the floor, antsy and impatient with Sheppard’s stupid arguments. He didn’t listen to the tiny flutter of hope that said, At least he hasn’t said that he just doesn’t want to sleep with you. Sheppard was polite, most of the time. Maybe he was just going through his nicer excuses first.
Sheppard appeared to gather his forces and said, “I just – I just don’t think I could be, um, attracted to you that way. And besides, I’m your team leader and it would probably cause all sorts of problems with-,” he fumbled for a second, “with the team’s dynamic,” he finished triumphantly. He added, voice softening, “When was the last time you slept, anyway? Maybe you should go get some rest.”
Rodney narrowed his eyes. Oh, two could play that game. He stepped closer to Sheppard and lowered his voice to a near-whisper. “I saw you watching me in the meeting the other day. Actually, you’ve been watching me a lot lately.” He took another step. “I know that I’m not exactly a people person, Major, but even I can tell when someone’s about three seconds away from saying, ‘Nice rack’.”
Sheppard’s face flushed red, and he sputtered, “I haven’t – I was not!”
One more step took him close enough to the bed that he was nearly standing between Sheppard’s knees. Sheppard was staring up at him, transfixed, blushing underneath his tan. Rodney let his eyes wander down Sheppard’s body, different from the one he was used to watching surreptitiously, but no less beautiful for it. He wanted to reach out and let his hand glide down Sheppard’s smooth face, along his neck and over the curve of his shoulder. He wanted –
He had actually lifted his hand and started to reach out when Sheppard abruptly shifted to the side and half-flung himself off the bed and away from Rodney. He came to a stop against the wall, attempted to lean casually but just looked trapped.
“This is a bad idea,” Sheppard said hoarsely, and swallowed.
Rodney clenched his teeth, disappointment bitter in his mouth, and then nodded. He wasn’t going to chase Sheppard around the damn room. He couldn’t help trying one more time, though. “We haven’t come up with anything to use against the Wraith yet, Major, and – and I’m not sure if we’re going to in time.”
Sheppard stared at him. “Did you seriously just use the line: ‘you don’t want to die a virgin, do you?’”
Rodney tilted his chin stubbornly. “I’m saying you should think about it, that’s all.”
Sheppard dropped his face into his hands and said in a muffled tone, “Please get out of my quarters, Rodney.”
“Sure, fine, whatever,” Rodney said, and walked out with his head high, heading for the mess hall and some fucking coffee.
~/~
To be continued.
Author: Ceitie
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard, Ford/OFC
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: Up to The Siege 2
Word Count: 5,804
Summary: “Personally, I almost prefer the life-sucking aliens.”
A/N: Whew, this took a lot longer to post than I thought it would. I stole two lines, one from The X-Files and one from Pinky and Brain. Give your praise for their hilarity to whoever created those shows. Thanks as ever to my splendiferous betas,
of_evangeline and blacknoise!Part One
Part Two
Elizabeth finished her third city-wide announcement with, “Weir out,” and flicked off her comm. With any luck, most of expedition members had woken up by now and heard at least one of the announcements, and were making their way to the mess hall or the gym.
The mess hall was already crowded and more people were streaming in through the entrances. Elizabeth scanned the room, trying to match each strange new face with a familiar name, which was proving to be less difficult than she’d anticipated. Hair style, body language, and basic facial similarities allowed her to recognize even those people she didn’t know very well; it occurred to her that the social scientists were going to have a field day with this transformation once they got over their personal dismay.
She smiled reassuringly at the two scientists walking in through the nearest door; disheveled and pale, only one of them smiled back. The other – Dr. Kavanagh, by the pony-tail – glowered and tugged the other scientist towards one of the tables. Most of the scientists were sitting at the tables and talking agitatedly amongst themselves, making the slightly overcrowded mess hall ring with noise. She tried not to wince as the sound level continued to rise. A woman – rather, someone who appeared to be a woman – who had been leaning against the wall and crying quietly began to scream at someone in the small circle of comforters. Elizabeth saw Kate Heightmeyer headed in the direction of the screams and sighed with relief.
Turning away from the commotion, she reached down and adjusted herself as unobtrusively as possible. The scrubs that she had grabbed before leaving the infirmary were mercifully large and accommodating to this male body, but the new set of genitals hanging between her legs was still throwing her off with its sheer weirdness. She wished that she’d had time for a shower before racing out into the city; her aching body was itchy with dried sweat and her hair felt lank and greasy. She pushed it back from her face with one hand and forced a smile as Dr. Zelenka approached.
She had asked him, along with the other department heads, to get a head count of all the science members; thus far, everyone they had seen had been affected the same way by the sickness, but there was no way to be sure until everyone had checked in.
“Dr. Weir, nearly everyone is in the mess hall now. There are twenty others who have radioed to say they are on their way, and six people completely unaccounted for,” he said quietly. His hair was even wilder now that there was more of it, but he himself seemed relatively calm compared to most of the other occupants of the mess hall. Elizabeth hoped her own façade of serene competence was as convincing as Zelenka’s, and that no one could see the barely controlled turbulence beneath.
“Thank you, Dr. Zelenka – ” Elizabeth broke off as several scientists came hurrying in through the south entrance, apparently having been herded to the mess hall by the woman barreling along behind them, her face like a thundercloud. Elizabeth recognized Rodney the minute he opened his mouth; his voice might have been altered but the tone and content were unmistakable.
He alternated between hissing into his comm and tossing glares at the science team members who had begun instantly flocking towards him once he entered the mess hall. “So you’re sure that there’s been no activity from the gate for the last twelve hours? Yes, I know you said – but did you check the – oh, that’s funny, really hilarious, and what is it exactly about this situation that’s bringing your stand-up skills to the fore, Grodin?” He rolled his eyes and yanked his arm away from one of the more persistent biologists. “No, I don’t know what’s going on, other than the obvious, so sit down and stop bothering me – of course I’m not talking to you, Grodin, so would you just –”
Elizabeth saw his eyes skipping across the crowd to the front of the room; Rodney’s gaze moved past her without recognition and then jumped back. He frowned and stared, and she took pity on him and nodded, gesturing for him to come over. He was still frowning and staring when he reached her.
“Elizabeth,” he said, with the smallest tinge of doubt in his voice. “You look… really different.”
She raised an eyebrow, looking down at him. “I could say the same thing about you.”
He nodded and grimaced, muttering, “Right, yes, I suppose,” and ran an absent-minded hand down the front of his jacket. Elizabeth was beginning to get a little unnerved by the intensity of his stare – had she grown an extra nose as well and simply not noticed? – when he looked away, distracted by the woman standing next to him.
“Oh, Zelenka,” Rodney said, snapping his fingers in recognition. Then his eyes narrowed. “Stop staring at my chest.”
Zelenka jerked his eyes up to Rodney’s face and made a scoffing noise. “Do not flatter yourself. As if I would be looking – ”
“You totally were! And hey,” Rodney crossed his arms and tilted up his chin, “why wouldn’t you be looking?”
If Elizabeth had to listen to an argument over the quality of Rodney’s breasts, it was entirely possible that she would start screaming from an overload of surrealism.
“Gentlemen,” she said sharply, and tried not to wince at the not-exactly-appropriate term. “We need to get organized. Dr. Zelenka, please go check with the other department heads and see if any of our missing people have checked in.” He nodded, a little sheepishly, and headed off. She turned to Rodney. “How many people can you spare to work on reversing this?”
“Maybe four or five, at most,” Rodney said slowly. “Carson should have some of his people working on it as well, but everybody else –”
He was interrupted by an angry female voice yelling, “McKay! What the hell is going on here?”
They turned towards the voice, which had come from one of the chemists who was standing on a chair and scowling with determined self-righteousness. The rest of his table was standing around him in support, although they seemed slightly more uncertain about this course of action. The looks of uncertainty grew more pronounced when Rodney focused his gaze on them with the air of a man who was memorizing faces.
Rodney huffed and said, “We’re trying to figure that out, Lukawski, and it’ll happen a lot faster if you’re not screaming across the mess at us.”
The noise in the mess hall had dropped off considerably; most of the scientists had stopped talking and turned in their seats to watch the show.
Lukawski laughed shortly. “You’re figuring it out? That’s great, so what are the rest of us supposed to do while you’re ‘figuring this out’?”
Elizabeth winced internally at the air quotes, and watching Rodney’s face darken, she spoke quickly. “I’ve sent some people to the storage rooms for MREs, seeing as the support staff is currently in the gym with the rest of the military. After everyone has had something to eat, Dr. Beckett will be sending out a schedule for full physical examinations for all expedition members, to better understand what has happened to us.”
Someone else called out from the far side of the room, “So we’re just supposed to sit around and wait until we get changed back?” There was a surge of nodding and muttering as the scientists looked towards her for an answer.
Elizabeth opened her mouth to respond, but Rodney snorted loudly and spoke first. “Don’t be ridiculous. No one’s sitting around, you’re all going back to work. Has it somehow slipped your minds that the Wraith are still on the way? We were all working around the clock before this, and now we have more than seventeen hours of lost time to make up for.”
Elizabeth nodded and said, “Dr. McKay is correct; as soon as you’ve finished eating, you can return to whatever project you were working on before… you were interrupted, until it’s time for your physical.”
There was stunned silence for a moment, then the mess hall exploded back into noise. Amidst the furious conversations and various exclamations and shouted questions, Lukawski’s outraged howl rang out clearly.
“You expect us to go back to work like nothing’s happened? Are you crazy? In case you haven’t noticed, McKay, we’ve all had fucking sex changes!”
“Excuse me?” Rodney shrieked. The mess hall quieted down almost instantly; Elizabeth guessed that nobody wanted to miss this.
Rodney continued more calmly, but with contempt dripping from every word. “Sex changes? Really? Why no, Lukawski, I didn’t notice. However, unless I’m grossly mistaken, while you may have lost your dick, you do still have hands, right? And eyes? And presumably a brain, although I’m not seeing much evidence for that, I’ll admit. So what exactly is preventing you from doing your goddamn job?!”
Lukawski turned an unhealthy shade of red, and the shouting started up again across the mess hall, mixed with some malicious laughter. Elizabeth decided that this would be the perfect time to make use of her new vocal cords.
She took a deep breath and bellowed, “Hey!” She couldn’t suppress a small smile of satisfaction at the efficiency of her deeper voice in quelling the noise. Flattening out her smile, she said sternly, “We’re all shocked and upset by this change in our bodies. It’s nothing we could have anticipated and it’s only natural to be disturbed by it. But the fact is that Wraith are still coming, and we need everyone’s help to try and stop them.”
She clasped her hands together and continued, meeting the eyes of as many people as she could. “Dr. Heightmeyer is canceling most of her previous appointments in order to keep her schedule free for anyone who feels the need to drop in and talk to her.”
Rodney muttered something under his breath about life-sucking aliens being more traumatic than unexpected gonads, and Elizabeth closed her eyes for a moment and reminded herself that it wouldn’t do for the expedition leader to smack her chief scientist upside the head.
She opened her eyes and pasted on her most convincing smile. “We’re going to find a way to reverse this, but until we do, we have to keep working to save Atlantis. I know I can count on you all to give your utmost despite the unfortunate circumstances.”
Later that night, Elizabeth stood staring at herself in the mirror in her bathroom. She ran a hand through her newly washed hair, then gathered it up and pulled it away from her face. As a man, her features were sharp and angular, lacking the delicacy that had created an illusion of fragility. She looked – severe, autocratic.
Letting go of her hair, she watched it fall back around her face in waves. She thought, semi-hysterically, that she had never much liked long hair on men, and couldn’t stop the laughter that bubbled up. Elizabeth sat down on the cool floor of the bathroom, giggling helplessly, and buried her face in her hands.
It was easier to think about her hair style, or the myriad other strangenesses of this change. It was easier to run wondering hands over her flat, slightly hairy chest, to rub her chin and realize she’d need to shave, to feel absurdly proud about successfully peeing while standing up, to compare the size of her penis to those of previous boyfriends. It was easier because if she was trying to decide whether Simon’s dick was longer than hers was now, then she didn’t have to think about the hive ships that were drawing ever closer to her city. She didn’t have to think about the two fistfights that had been broken up in the past five hours, or how the hell they were going to manage to save themselves when half the expedition was busy having nervous breakdowns in Heightmeyer’s office.
She didn’t have to think about what would happen if they couldn’t reverse this, if she would never again be female, never again feel comfortable and right in her own body.
Elizabeth climbed to her feet and walked out of the bathroom. She would sleep for the four precious hours she had left before her morning meeting, and she wouldn’t think about what Simon would say if she had to return to Earth like this, looking like this. She wouldn’t.
~/~
Carson rubbed his eyes and made a concentrated effort to not leap across the table and strangle Rodney. The meeting had already dragged on for far too long, and he was tired of wrangling endlessly with Rodney and Zelenka over the exact function and effects of that damned Ancient device. He could see that Teyla and Sheppard were both faking alert expressions while their eyes glazed over, and Lieutenant Ford appeared to have nodded off. Everyone was exhausted, the insanity of the last two days only adding to the stress of the Wraith’s inevitable arrival and the workload that they had already been struggling with.
Carson let out a thankful sigh when Elizabeth gestured abruptly and Rodney’s high-speed explanation finally stuttered to a halt.
“Rodney, I need you to bottom line this for me,” she said.
Rodney looked as though he were a few seconds away from saying, What do you think I’ve been doing for the past thirty minutes? Instead, he sighed and placed his hands palm down on the table. They looked small and pale on the dark surface. “The bottom line is that we still don’t know exactly how the device did what it did, or how to reverse it. Also, I’m fairly sure that the stupid thing is broken, so we’re going to have fix it before trying to get it to do anything else.”
He sighed again and this time the misery and frustration was plain on his face. “The point is that there’s no conceivable way that we’re going to be able to reverse the changes before the Wraith get here.”
Zelenka broke in sounding equally glum. “And we cannot take the machine with us if we evacuate because it draws its power directly from the city; if we could even disconnect it properly, I don’t know where we would find enough power to make it function once more.”
Elizabeth tapped her fingers against the conference room table and smiled tightly. “Then I suppose we’ll have to find a way to stop the Wraith before we’re forced to evacuate.”
Rodney mumbled, “Oh sure, no problem then,” and Sheppard gave him a hard nudge with his elbow.
Elizabeth ignored them both and turned to Carson. “You’ll be continuing the physicals today?”
He nodded, “Yes, we should be done with the last of them by tomorrow morning. So far all the results have been the same, but that doesn’t rule out the possibility of side-effects that haven’t yet made themselves apparent. It’s just that this whole thing is so impossible…” Carson trailed off. The others were looking at him with a combination of weariness and sympathy.
He knew that he had overused the word ‘impossible’ throughout the meeting, but he couldn’t convey his utter disbelief towards the events of the past two days in any other way. Human bodies simply did not spontaneously undergo a complete genetic and physical shift from one sex to another, and the entire medical team was tearing their hair out in bewilderment right along with him.
Carson cleared his throat and finished, “Anyway, I’ll be expecting all of you in the infirmary today, and don’t be late for your appointments; the schedule’s tight enough as it is.”
No one looked pleased by the reminder. Ford shifted uneasily in his seat, and Rodney and Sheppard exchanged queasy glances. Elizabeth took advantage of the pause to ask Teyla about her visit to the other Athosians.
Teyla shrugged, smiling; she had somehow retained all of her previous grace in her new form, unlike the many others who Carson had seen bumping into doorways and knocking over objects, unused to the different dimensions of their bodies.
“They were surprised by my appearance, of course,” Teyla said wryly. “And relieved that the mainland was unaffected by the newest oddity that has swept Atlantis. But we have an old children’s story in which a change such as this occurs, so most of my people consider it to be a gift of the Ancestors, although perhaps an unexpected one.”
Ford said, “Gift? Seriously?” in a tone of complete incredulity and Carson couldn’t help but privately echo the sentiment.
But Elizabeth leaned forward, asking eagerly, “Your people have stories about this kind of transformation?”
“Yes, there is a story about a village, many centuries ago, who were culled by the Wraith during the time of the harvest.” Teyla said. “At that time, only men worked the fields and so it was the men who were seen and taken by the Wraith. Only the very old men and the boys were left behind in the village, and the women were afraid to go through the stargate by themselves in order to find new men to repopulate the village.”
Rodney was beginning to look impatient, but Elizabeth appeared captivated and ignored his fidgeting. To Carson’s amusement, Ford and Zelenka were listening to Teyla as intently as children during story time at a primary school, and Sheppard – Carson blinked. Sheppard was watching Rodney.
“But then one day a woman, lost in grief for her husband, waded out into the sea by the village with the intention of drowning herself. When she had walked into the water as high as her thighs, she saw a silver stone gleaming in the water beside her foot,” Teyla continued. “It was so beautiful that she reached down and picked it up, and was immediately transformed into a man. Once she got over her shock, she realized what a boon this would be for her village. The women of the village used the stone to transform half of their number into men and together they brought in the harvest, and so it has been every year since in that village.”
Teyla folded her hands together on the table and smiled at Elizabeth, who smiled back, colour high in her cheeks. “You’ll have to tell that story to the anthropologists later, Teyla,” she said.
Rodney exhaled loudly. “Yes, yes, very interesting, and that stone was probably some kind of Ancient technology similar to the device Brar and Naicker messed with, but I’m not seeing a whole lot of helpfulness otherwise.” He turned to Elizabeth. “So if we’re done, I’ve really got to get back to trying to save Atlantis. You know, between coffee breaks.”
Elizabeth shot Rodney a displeased look, but started to nod before Sheppard broke in.
“Oh yeah, there was something I forgot to mention,” he drawled, spinning a pen in one hand and apparently unaware of Rodney nearly hissing with exasperation beside him.
“Clothes,” Sheppard said. “We don’t have enough of them. I’ve had people checking through the uniforms that are left in storage, and now that two-thirds of the expedition is wearing a size small instead of large or extra-large, we don’t have enough to give everyone more than the one set that we’ve already passed out.”
He gestured vaguely at the uniforms they were all wearing; that first day, after everyone had calmed down somewhat, there had been a desperate clamor for clothes that actually fit. The Marines had raided the storage rooms and passed out a single new set of uniforms to each expedition member. Carson had been particularly grateful at the time for the bra that was included in his set, as he’d spent the earlier part of the day running around the infirmary, cleaning up and dispensing sedatives, and had been sore and chafed as a result.
“Well, I supposed we could trade for clothing off-world,” Elizabeth said hesitantly.
Sheppard shrugged. “Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of redistributing the old uniforms that are still hanging in everybody’s closets. If Rodney’s right and we’re not going to get switched back any time soon, it would make sense to give them out to people who’ll be able to wear them.”
Rodney snarled, “If I’m right?”
A grin made its way across Ford’s face. “We could get everyone to bring their old uniforms to the mess hall, call it the first Great Atlantis Swap Meet.”
“I believe we’ve talked about the naming thing, Ford,” Sheppard said ominously.
Rodney dropped his head to the table in defeat. “This is the meeting that never ends.”
Carson adjusted his bra strap thoughtfully and kicked Rodney under the table. Personally, a change of clothes was sounding wonderful at the moment, and he leaned forward to listen as Elizabeth launched into plans for uniform collection and redistribution. He pretended to not notice Sheppard’s eyes drifting unerringly back to Rodney.
Carson leaned against the edge of the infirmary cot and waited for Teyla to finish dressing. She had endured her exam with her usual calm and pleasant demeanor. Since Carson had had to deal with five crying fits and two panic attacks during his ten previous exams, he was unashamedly grateful for Teyla’s serene composure. When she emerged from behind the curtain, he smiled and said, "Well, you're done for today, and everything looks fine. I'll contact you if any problems crop up in the lab results."
Teyla smiled back, then hesitated before asking, "Dr. Beckett, the tests you are conducting, do they evaluate fertility?”
Carson blinked. "Yes, that's part of the gamut of tests that we're running. Is there a specific reason that you - "
She was already shaking her head, looking more flustered then he'd ever seen her. "No, there is nothing specific that worries me. It is only that the ability to have children is - very important to my people, and I would be thankful not to lose it while in this body."
He had the distinct feeling that he was missing something here. “Teyla, are you planning to,” he stopped, then pressed forward, “to have children any time soon? I mean, in that body?”
Her face had gone carefully blank; one of her hands fiddled with the hem of her tight-fitting Athosian shirt. “You have yet to tell me if it is even possible.”
Carson floundered for a moment. Finally, he said, “I’ll inform you as soon as the test results are in.”
“Thank you, Dr. Beckett,” Teyla said, granting him a small smile before turning towards the exit.
Once she had left, Carson slumped down into a chair next to the cot, Teyla’s file in his lap. He truly didn’t know what the effects might be, if there were any at all, on a child whose parent had had their sex completely reversed by Ancient technology. He wished that he knew more about Athosian society, in order to have picked up whatever nuances that Teyla left unsaid. Children were very important to the Athosians, he knew that much to be true, and he supposed that it would be much simpler for Teyla to help her community by providing children if she didn’t have to actually carry a child to term during the struggle against the Wraith.
His ruminations were interrupted by the appearance of Major Sheppard at the infirmary’s entrance. Curious, Carson asked, “Major? Can I help you? Your physical isn’t for another four hours.”
Sheppard looked over at the sound of his voice. “Hey, Doc, just the guy I was looking for.” Carson hid a smile as Sheppard walked towards him, realizing that Sheppard’s slightly too-wide stride must be caused by his inability to remember that his legs weren’t quite as long as they used to be.
“I should have mentioned this much earlier, I know,” said Sheppard ruefully, “it’s just that it’s been – busy, the last couple of days.” He ran his hand through his hair and sighed. “It’s about the off-world teams. I figured that since you’re already getting everyone into the infirmary, and the Marines haven’t had their exams yet, you might as well do the contraceptive thing at the same time, get it done as fast as possible.”
Carson sat back, astonished that he hadn’t thought of that problem himself until Sheppard mentioned it. When they had first began sending out off-world teams, he and the rest of the medical staff had made sure that any female members of the teams had access to birth control that would still function even if they were trapped off-world for an extended amount of time.
But now those members were no longer the ones who needed to be concerned. He bit his lip, thinking. “You’ll have to send me a list of all the off-world team members who I’ll have to talk to, and I’ll track down the ones who have already had their exams. At least I’m certain that we have enough supplies to go around; the SGC was more than generous with their contraceptive supplies.”
“You got it, one list coming right up,” Sheppard said lightly, “And hey, now I can really look forward to my physical with the knowledge that even more needles will be involved.” He smirked, but for a moment, some indecipherable emotion shifted through his eyes and he looked away. Carson wondered if Sheppard was thinking about the reason that contraceptives were considered a necessity for women who were on the off-world teams.
Carson shook off his dark thoughts, and smiled sideways at Sheppard. “Don’t worry, I’ve been told that I have a very light hand with needles.” Sheppard made a face and turned to go. Carson opened his mouth, and then closed it again before he could say, I saw you staring at Rodney during the meeting. What was that about? This was not the time to let his busybody streak take over, and besides, God knew that Rodney could take care of himself.
Instead, he said, “I’ll be expecting you in four hours, Major,” and pretended to read Teyla’s file until the infirmary doors swished close.
~/~
“I cannot reach anything anymore, must get a stepstool every time. It is incredibly frustating,” Radek said waspishly.
“Shaving your face,” Simpson countered, “Now that sucks. Look at me; I’ve got cuts all over the place.”
Kusanagi said softly from across the lab, “It is not that much more difficult than shaving your legs.”
Rodney didn’t look away from his laptop, but he could feel the heat off the glare that Simpson sent in Kusanagi’s direction.
“I never shave my legs unless I have to,” Simpson said, “because it makes me bleed. And faces are much trickier!”
“I don’t know, legs are pretty difficult too,” said Kavanagh absently. There was a pause, and he raised his head to snap, “What?”
Radek muttered something in Czech, then said, “And, and stupid bra! It is impossible, it feels like I am strapped into harness.”
Rodney ground his teeth together and kept typing determinedly.
Simpson said, with the air of delivering a crushing blow, “Hard-ons. Unexpected, uncontrollable hard-ons.”
Kavanagh said in a shocked voice, “Simpson, for Christ’s sake!” and Kusanagi burst into laughter.
Rodney slammed the lid of his laptop closed, tucked it under one arm and headed for the door. He ignored the others’ surprised looks and yelled back over his shoulder, “Call me when you get around to the nail-painting and hair-braiding part of the slumber party, so I can drop by and take blackmail pictures.”
He tore through the halls back towards his quarters, simmering with fury. By the time he reached his room, he had lost the anger but not the energy, his whole body thrumming and restless. He wasn’t sure what had made him blow up back in the lab; most days he would have just told the lot of them to stop their nattering so he could get some work done, not stomp out like a sulky sixteen-year-old.
Maybe it was hormones, Rodney thought, pacing his quarters. Insidious, emotional female hormones addling his brilliant brain. He slumped back onto his bed. Or it might be because he couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept for more than two hours at a stretch, and his coffee intake was probably sending him into the danger levels for caffeine poisoning.
He jumped off the bed and started pacing again. It was nearly midnight but he couldn’t stay in here, he had to find something to do. And perhaps some more coffee.
Rodney found himself standing in front of Sheppard’s quarters, bouncing on his toes and not entirely sure how he had gotten there. He activated the door chime and waited, figuring that he might as well see if Sheppard was around now that he was here. And, well, in a small place at the back of his mind he had been considering propositioning Sheppard for days now, and this was as good a time as any to give it a shot. The Wraith were only nine days away, and if he got rejected he could always blame his actions on sleep deprivation and too much caffeine.
Sheppard yelled, “Come in!” and the door slid open. Rodney strode in, and saw Sheppard sprawled across his bed on his stomach, his laptop in front of him. He sat up when he saw Rodney, closing the laptop.
“Hey, what’s up, Rodney?” Sheppard asked, pushing himself to the end of his narrow bed, letting his legs hang down. He was wearing green socks that were drooping off his feet.
“Here’s the thing, Major,” Rodney began, then had to start pacing again. “I’ve been thinking about this, rather a lot, and I think that maybe you’ve been thinking the same thing, or at least along the same lines, and so I thought I’d just turn up and ask if you were. Thinking the same thing, I mean.”
He stopped pacing and stared expectantly at Sheppard, who looked puzzled and a little concerned. Rodney got a little distracted following the line of Sheppard’s collarbone to where it disappeared into the stretched neck of his t-shirt, and nearly missed Sheppard’s reply.
“Well, I think so, Brain, but where are we going to get a duck and a hose at this hour?” Sheppard said deadpan, then started snickering madly at the bug-eyed, gap-mouthed face Rodney knew he was making.
Sheppard got a hold of himself and said quickly, “Sorry, that was just too easy,” and waved a placating hand at Rodney’s indignant huffing. “In all seriousness, Rodney, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Rodney folded his arms and glowered. “Sex, Major. I’m talking about sex.”
Now Sheppard was the one who was bug-eyed and gaping, and Rodney didn’t try to hide his smug smile.
Sheppard cleared his throat and said, “Sex? What, uh, what do you mean?”
Rodney dropped his arms. “Okay, I seriously have to spell this out for you?” He made helpful gestures with his hands as he said slowly, “Would you like to have sex with me?”
Sheppard blinked several times and kind of looked like he wanted to pinch himself, or check for hallucinogens in the glass of water next to his bed. Rodney folded his arms again, and tried to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach. This wasn’t going well at all.
Finally Sheppard said, eyes darting everywhere, “Look, Rodney, it’s not that I – I mean, I’m flattered, but I’m straight.”
Rolling his eyes, Rodney said, “And how is that a problem?” He spread his arms wide. “Woman’s body here, hello!”
Sheppard looked surprised and disgruntled, like he hadn’t expected Rodney to still be here. “But – well, yeah, but you’re still a guy.”
Rodney said, “Yes, I am, but right at this moment, I’m not a guy in any way that should prevent you from wanting to have sex with me. Or, you know, having sex with me.” He started tapping a foot on the floor, antsy and impatient with Sheppard’s stupid arguments. He didn’t listen to the tiny flutter of hope that said, At least he hasn’t said that he just doesn’t want to sleep with you. Sheppard was polite, most of the time. Maybe he was just going through his nicer excuses first.
Sheppard appeared to gather his forces and said, “I just – I just don’t think I could be, um, attracted to you that way. And besides, I’m your team leader and it would probably cause all sorts of problems with-,” he fumbled for a second, “with the team’s dynamic,” he finished triumphantly. He added, voice softening, “When was the last time you slept, anyway? Maybe you should go get some rest.”
Rodney narrowed his eyes. Oh, two could play that game. He stepped closer to Sheppard and lowered his voice to a near-whisper. “I saw you watching me in the meeting the other day. Actually, you’ve been watching me a lot lately.” He took another step. “I know that I’m not exactly a people person, Major, but even I can tell when someone’s about three seconds away from saying, ‘Nice rack’.”
Sheppard’s face flushed red, and he sputtered, “I haven’t – I was not!”
One more step took him close enough to the bed that he was nearly standing between Sheppard’s knees. Sheppard was staring up at him, transfixed, blushing underneath his tan. Rodney let his eyes wander down Sheppard’s body, different from the one he was used to watching surreptitiously, but no less beautiful for it. He wanted to reach out and let his hand glide down Sheppard’s smooth face, along his neck and over the curve of his shoulder. He wanted –
He had actually lifted his hand and started to reach out when Sheppard abruptly shifted to the side and half-flung himself off the bed and away from Rodney. He came to a stop against the wall, attempted to lean casually but just looked trapped.
“This is a bad idea,” Sheppard said hoarsely, and swallowed.
Rodney clenched his teeth, disappointment bitter in his mouth, and then nodded. He wasn’t going to chase Sheppard around the damn room. He couldn’t help trying one more time, though. “We haven’t come up with anything to use against the Wraith yet, Major, and – and I’m not sure if we’re going to in time.”
Sheppard stared at him. “Did you seriously just use the line: ‘you don’t want to die a virgin, do you?’”
Rodney tilted his chin stubbornly. “I’m saying you should think about it, that’s all.”
Sheppard dropped his face into his hands and said in a muffled tone, “Please get out of my quarters, Rodney.”
“Sure, fine, whatever,” Rodney said, and walked out with his head high, heading for the mess hall and some fucking coffee.
~/~
To be continued.
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