[Stargate: Fiction] "How About Forever?" [John/Rodney, PG]
Title: How About Forever?
Author: Ami Ven
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2,000
Prompt: mcsheplets challenge #025 ‘envy’
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Pairing(s): John Sheppard/Rodney McKay
Summary: “Sheppard? Are you seriously still sulking in here?”
How About Forever?
Rodney was relieved when the door to John’s quarters opened for him, but immediately discouraged again when he saw how dark it was inside.
“Sheppard,” he said, as the door slid shut behind him. “Are you seriously still sulking in here?”
There was no answer. But then, he hadn’t really been expecting one.
“John,” Rodney tried again, softly. “You know that nobody thinks you did this on purpose, right?”
“Don’t they?” said John, from somewhere on the far side of the bed.
His voice was higher pitched than normal, and as Rodney’s eyes adjusted to the dim light, he could see that John’s silhouette was noticeably curvier.
Rodney closed his eyes against the memory of PX-853 and the sudden blinding light that had struck John. Enough horrible scenarios had flashed through his mind- another forced-Ascension machine, a weapon that disintegrated or vaporized its target, a teleporter that would take John anywhere or nowhere- that when it had faded and John was still there, conscious and uninjured and not showing any signs of potentially-fatal genius, the fact that he was a woman had seemed almost unimportant.
Almost.
Rodney didn’t know he was going to move until he found himself crouched in front of John, fingers curling around a too-slender wrist, his other hand against the side of a too-smooth face.
“You’re still you, John,” he said firmly. “Whatever you look like, you’re you.”
John gave a derisive snort, but he did uncurl a little, arms looser around his knees, leaning almost unconsciously closer to Rodney.
The scientist ran his hand down John’s arm to rest on his elbow. “Would it help if I said you were still just as hot?”
“Not even a little,” said John, but Rodney could see a smile threatening at the corner of his too-full lips.
“I’m serious!” said Rodney. “I wouldn’t look half as good as a woman as you do. Although, I’m sure that I’d have a much better rack.”
“Rodney,” John protested, but it came out more like a laugh.
“What? Am I not supposed to say stuff like that because you’re a lady? Am I offending your delicate sensibilities?”
That finally got a smile out of John, who turned his hand over and laced their fingers together. “No more than you ever did,” he joked.
Rodney shifted to sit cross-legged, his knee pressed against John’s thigh. “My lower back will not be happy about this tomorrow,” he complained. “And are you far enough in your freak-out to turn the lights back on?”
“I’m not freaking out,” John protested, but the lights came on- just enough to let Rodney see him properly.
He hadn’t been lying before, John was beautiful as a woman. His hair was still short, still looking like he’d just rolled out of bed, but it was just as sexy as ever. The black t-shirt that had been just a little snug that morning was now stretched over modestly-sized breasts above John’s crossed arms. His fingers were more slender now, but somehow still callused from holding a gun.
But John also looked completely miserable, curled in on himself in a way that made Rodney want to do something, anything, to fix it. Of course, he’d often felt that way when John was male, so he figured it was okay.
He squeezed John’s hand. “I don’t know how to reverse this,” he admitted softly. “Yet. But that’s because I still don’t know how it did this in the first place.”
John snorted. “Weren’t you listening when Dr. Jameson found the database entry?” he asked, pulling his hand away. “This things grants wishes, McKay- no, the heart’s most secret desires.”
“The entire linguistics department reads too many romance novels,” said Rodney, derisively. “Do the Ancients seem like the kind of people who would make a wish-granting machine?”
John frowned. “If it helped with, I don’t know, self-actualization on the way to Ascension,” he said, but he didn’t sound convinced.
Rodney waved a dismissing hand. “They were looking for shortcuts, not enlightenment. But Radek and I did determine that there’s a considerable amount of conscious thought control involved in-”
“You do think I wanted this,” John interrupted.
“No,” said Rodney. “At least, not on purpose. It could have responded to any stray thought once you were in range of the device. Did you happen to be thinking about women?”
John scowled. “The planet was deserted, Rodney.”
“A stray thought, I said. Were you working up duty rosters for the female Marines or something?”
“No, I was-” John snapped his mouth shut with an audible click.
“Look,” said Rodney. “Nobody else needs to know about whatever it was. You know that. But if you want me to figure out how to turn you back into your usual ruggedly handsome self, I need to know exactly what you were thinking right before the device activated.”
“I was-” John tried, but stopped short again.
Rodney reached out slowly to touch John’s knee. And if he thought Colonel Skinny had a low body temperature before, he felt like he was freezing now.
“John,” he said, softly. “I’m not going to be weird about it if you were thinking about a woman. Just because we have-” regular, fantastic sex that we never talk about, “-a thing, it doesn’t mean-”
“I was thinking about Teyla,’ John blurted.
Rodney frowned, because Teyla- pregnant, soon-to-be mother of two Teyla, who could still kick both their asses- did not fit with what he’d just been thinking.
“Huh?” he said, completely derailed.
“I was thinking about Teyla,” said John again, then kept going, like once he’d started he couldn’t stop. “I was thinking how I missed having her along on missions, even the easy ones, but that it’s pretty awesome that she’s going to have another kid. Then I thought about what a jerk I’d been before she had Torren, and how I still haven’t really made it up to her, but how the other day she came to find me when the baby started kicking because she thought I’d like to feel it.”
John took a deep breath, then put both of his hands over Rodney’s, holding on tight.
“It’s amazing, Rodney,” he continued. “A baby, a real little person, just like Torren. And Teyla looks so happy all the time now, like carrying a new life is the best thing in the galaxy. And maybe it is. But I’ll never know, because I can’t do that.”
“So you-” Rodney began, then stopped. John looked like he was about to cry, and that was just wrong. “Hey,” he said, adding his free hand to the pile on John’s knee. “It was just a stray thought. You were just unlucky enough to be standing next to a genetic manipulator and have a freakishly strong ATA gene.”
“It wasn’t just a random thought, though,” John insisted. “Well, it was then. But now that I’ve had time to think about it…”
“You want to have a baby?” Rodney asked, incredulously, then added quickly, “No, I get that you want to. I even get why. You think you’ve caused so much death that maybe this would somehow balance it out. That it would prove you’re not some sort of heartless monster. Which is stupid, by the way, because you’ve saved far more lives than you’ve taken, and if you really were heartless, you wouldn’t care about that.”
Rodney shook his head. “No, what I don’t get is why the machine thought you had to be a woman for that. Do you know how many women in the Pegasus Galaxy already wanted to have a baby with you?”
John scowled. “I would not ask a random woman to carry a baby for me.”
“Okay,” said Rodney. It might have been a new idea, but John had clearly given it a lot of thought already. “Okay. And now that you can- you can, right? Biologically, I mean?”
“Yes, Rodney,” said John, patiently.
“Okay,” Rodney said again. “Then do you have any ideas about the father?”
“Well, I… um, actually…” John wouldn’t quite look at him, and suddenly Rodney couldn’t bear to hear exactly who John had been considering.
“I doubt you’ve thought about all the variables required, Sheppard,” he said quickly. “I’d suggest a full genetics work-up on any potential… Let Carson’s voodoo be useful for once. You’ll want to consider a variety of genetic factors. You’re reasonably intelligent, so you’ll want someone at least as smart as you are. Natural athletic ability would be an asset, as well, but not a requirement. You’ve probably got enough good-looks on your own, but it wouldn’t hurt to hedge your bets. And you might want to-”
“Actually,” John interrupted. “I’ve already got someone in mind.”
“Who?” asked Rodney, the question popping out before he remembered that he very adamantly did not want to know.
But John was smiling, almost shyly, and sliding his thumb over the back of Rodney’s hand. “You know, McKay,” he said. “For a genius, you can be kinda dumb.”
Rodney felt like he’d gotten the wind knocked out of him.
“Me?” he squeaked.
Yes, they had a thing, whatever it was, but Rodney had always thought that was because it was convenient, because they were friends and it was easier than trying to maintain real relationships.
And maybe that was why Rodney hadn’t been able to recognize this for what it was, because it was so easy. But now that he thought about it, they didn’t just have a thing. They had late nights watching old movies. They had early mornings curled up in bed before the alarm went off. They had arguments and jokes and whole conversations when neither of them said anything at all.
It was just that, when they did talk, they never really talked about anything important- John seemed inherently incapable of discussing emotions of any kind, but Rodney knew he wasn’t much better.
“Yes, Rodney,” said John, with a smile. “You.”
It was the same smile Rodney had seen a hundred times before and never understood, but seeing it in a different face, he suddenly realized what it was.
“We’ve been dating this whole time, haven’t we?” he asked softly.
“Maybe not on purpose,” said John sheepishly, rubbing at the back of his neck, looking so much like himself, even as a her, that Rodney just had to lean in and kiss him.
The angles were different, and Rodney’s hands met curves where he didn’t quite expect them, but John leaned into his touch just like he always did. When they broke for air, John halfway into Rodney’s lap, the pilot pulled back only far enough to rest their foreheads together.
“I’m really, really terrible at this kind of thing,” he breathed. “But it… it’s always been you, Rodney. And if I do this, if we do this, I need you to be sure… I don’t want to screw up a kid as badly as I am…”
There was too much wrong with that line of thinking for Rodney to even begin unraveling, so he pulled John in for another kiss.
“I know there’s no reason for you to even consider this,” said John, “But if you would just-”
“Yes,” Rodney interrupted, breathlessly. “Whatever you want, as long as you want, I’m in.”
“How about forever?” John asked.
Forever sounded just about perfect, but Rodney was still a scientist and needed to confirm his facts.
“Just so we’re on the same page here,” he said. “We’re dating now, we have been dating even when we didn’t realize it, you’re temporarily a woman, and before you get turned back you want to have my baby.”
This time, John kissed him, long and hard. “Yes,” he said, “apparently yes, I’m sure you’ll find a way to reverse that, and…yes?”
Rodney got to his feet, holding out his hand. “Come on, then.”
“Why?”
“I will not have my child conceived on the floor.”
John grinned.
THE END
Current Mood:
pissed off
Author: Ami Ven
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2,000
Prompt: mcsheplets challenge #025 ‘envy’
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Pairing(s): John Sheppard/Rodney McKay
Summary: “Sheppard? Are you seriously still sulking in here?”
How About Forever?
Rodney was relieved when the door to John’s quarters opened for him, but immediately discouraged again when he saw how dark it was inside.
“Sheppard,” he said, as the door slid shut behind him. “Are you seriously still sulking in here?”
There was no answer. But then, he hadn’t really been expecting one.
“John,” Rodney tried again, softly. “You know that nobody thinks you did this on purpose, right?”
“Don’t they?” said John, from somewhere on the far side of the bed.
His voice was higher pitched than normal, and as Rodney’s eyes adjusted to the dim light, he could see that John’s silhouette was noticeably curvier.
Rodney closed his eyes against the memory of PX-853 and the sudden blinding light that had struck John. Enough horrible scenarios had flashed through his mind- another forced-Ascension machine, a weapon that disintegrated or vaporized its target, a teleporter that would take John anywhere or nowhere- that when it had faded and John was still there, conscious and uninjured and not showing any signs of potentially-fatal genius, the fact that he was a woman had seemed almost unimportant.
Almost.
Rodney didn’t know he was going to move until he found himself crouched in front of John, fingers curling around a too-slender wrist, his other hand against the side of a too-smooth face.
“You’re still you, John,” he said firmly. “Whatever you look like, you’re you.”
John gave a derisive snort, but he did uncurl a little, arms looser around his knees, leaning almost unconsciously closer to Rodney.
The scientist ran his hand down John’s arm to rest on his elbow. “Would it help if I said you were still just as hot?”
“Not even a little,” said John, but Rodney could see a smile threatening at the corner of his too-full lips.
“I’m serious!” said Rodney. “I wouldn’t look half as good as a woman as you do. Although, I’m sure that I’d have a much better rack.”
“Rodney,” John protested, but it came out more like a laugh.
“What? Am I not supposed to say stuff like that because you’re a lady? Am I offending your delicate sensibilities?”
That finally got a smile out of John, who turned his hand over and laced their fingers together. “No more than you ever did,” he joked.
Rodney shifted to sit cross-legged, his knee pressed against John’s thigh. “My lower back will not be happy about this tomorrow,” he complained. “And are you far enough in your freak-out to turn the lights back on?”
“I’m not freaking out,” John protested, but the lights came on- just enough to let Rodney see him properly.
He hadn’t been lying before, John was beautiful as a woman. His hair was still short, still looking like he’d just rolled out of bed, but it was just as sexy as ever. The black t-shirt that had been just a little snug that morning was now stretched over modestly-sized breasts above John’s crossed arms. His fingers were more slender now, but somehow still callused from holding a gun.
But John also looked completely miserable, curled in on himself in a way that made Rodney want to do something, anything, to fix it. Of course, he’d often felt that way when John was male, so he figured it was okay.
He squeezed John’s hand. “I don’t know how to reverse this,” he admitted softly. “Yet. But that’s because I still don’t know how it did this in the first place.”
John snorted. “Weren’t you listening when Dr. Jameson found the database entry?” he asked, pulling his hand away. “This things grants wishes, McKay- no, the heart’s most secret desires.”
“The entire linguistics department reads too many romance novels,” said Rodney, derisively. “Do the Ancients seem like the kind of people who would make a wish-granting machine?”
John frowned. “If it helped with, I don’t know, self-actualization on the way to Ascension,” he said, but he didn’t sound convinced.
Rodney waved a dismissing hand. “They were looking for shortcuts, not enlightenment. But Radek and I did determine that there’s a considerable amount of conscious thought control involved in-”
“You do think I wanted this,” John interrupted.
“No,” said Rodney. “At least, not on purpose. It could have responded to any stray thought once you were in range of the device. Did you happen to be thinking about women?”
John scowled. “The planet was deserted, Rodney.”
“A stray thought, I said. Were you working up duty rosters for the female Marines or something?”
“No, I was-” John snapped his mouth shut with an audible click.
“Look,” said Rodney. “Nobody else needs to know about whatever it was. You know that. But if you want me to figure out how to turn you back into your usual ruggedly handsome self, I need to know exactly what you were thinking right before the device activated.”
“I was-” John tried, but stopped short again.
Rodney reached out slowly to touch John’s knee. And if he thought Colonel Skinny had a low body temperature before, he felt like he was freezing now.
“John,” he said, softly. “I’m not going to be weird about it if you were thinking about a woman. Just because we have-” regular, fantastic sex that we never talk about, “-a thing, it doesn’t mean-”
“I was thinking about Teyla,’ John blurted.
Rodney frowned, because Teyla- pregnant, soon-to-be mother of two Teyla, who could still kick both their asses- did not fit with what he’d just been thinking.
“Huh?” he said, completely derailed.
“I was thinking about Teyla,” said John again, then kept going, like once he’d started he couldn’t stop. “I was thinking how I missed having her along on missions, even the easy ones, but that it’s pretty awesome that she’s going to have another kid. Then I thought about what a jerk I’d been before she had Torren, and how I still haven’t really made it up to her, but how the other day she came to find me when the baby started kicking because she thought I’d like to feel it.”
John took a deep breath, then put both of his hands over Rodney’s, holding on tight.
“It’s amazing, Rodney,” he continued. “A baby, a real little person, just like Torren. And Teyla looks so happy all the time now, like carrying a new life is the best thing in the galaxy. And maybe it is. But I’ll never know, because I can’t do that.”
“So you-” Rodney began, then stopped. John looked like he was about to cry, and that was just wrong. “Hey,” he said, adding his free hand to the pile on John’s knee. “It was just a stray thought. You were just unlucky enough to be standing next to a genetic manipulator and have a freakishly strong ATA gene.”
“It wasn’t just a random thought, though,” John insisted. “Well, it was then. But now that I’ve had time to think about it…”
“You want to have a baby?” Rodney asked, incredulously, then added quickly, “No, I get that you want to. I even get why. You think you’ve caused so much death that maybe this would somehow balance it out. That it would prove you’re not some sort of heartless monster. Which is stupid, by the way, because you’ve saved far more lives than you’ve taken, and if you really were heartless, you wouldn’t care about that.”
Rodney shook his head. “No, what I don’t get is why the machine thought you had to be a woman for that. Do you know how many women in the Pegasus Galaxy already wanted to have a baby with you?”
John scowled. “I would not ask a random woman to carry a baby for me.”
“Okay,” said Rodney. It might have been a new idea, but John had clearly given it a lot of thought already. “Okay. And now that you can- you can, right? Biologically, I mean?”
“Yes, Rodney,” said John, patiently.
“Okay,” Rodney said again. “Then do you have any ideas about the father?”
“Well, I… um, actually…” John wouldn’t quite look at him, and suddenly Rodney couldn’t bear to hear exactly who John had been considering.
“I doubt you’ve thought about all the variables required, Sheppard,” he said quickly. “I’d suggest a full genetics work-up on any potential… Let Carson’s voodoo be useful for once. You’ll want to consider a variety of genetic factors. You’re reasonably intelligent, so you’ll want someone at least as smart as you are. Natural athletic ability would be an asset, as well, but not a requirement. You’ve probably got enough good-looks on your own, but it wouldn’t hurt to hedge your bets. And you might want to-”
“Actually,” John interrupted. “I’ve already got someone in mind.”
“Who?” asked Rodney, the question popping out before he remembered that he very adamantly did not want to know.
But John was smiling, almost shyly, and sliding his thumb over the back of Rodney’s hand. “You know, McKay,” he said. “For a genius, you can be kinda dumb.”
Rodney felt like he’d gotten the wind knocked out of him.
“Me?” he squeaked.
Yes, they had a thing, whatever it was, but Rodney had always thought that was because it was convenient, because they were friends and it was easier than trying to maintain real relationships.
And maybe that was why Rodney hadn’t been able to recognize this for what it was, because it was so easy. But now that he thought about it, they didn’t just have a thing. They had late nights watching old movies. They had early mornings curled up in bed before the alarm went off. They had arguments and jokes and whole conversations when neither of them said anything at all.
It was just that, when they did talk, they never really talked about anything important- John seemed inherently incapable of discussing emotions of any kind, but Rodney knew he wasn’t much better.
“Yes, Rodney,” said John, with a smile. “You.”
It was the same smile Rodney had seen a hundred times before and never understood, but seeing it in a different face, he suddenly realized what it was.
“We’ve been dating this whole time, haven’t we?” he asked softly.
“Maybe not on purpose,” said John sheepishly, rubbing at the back of his neck, looking so much like himself, even as a her, that Rodney just had to lean in and kiss him.
The angles were different, and Rodney’s hands met curves where he didn’t quite expect them, but John leaned into his touch just like he always did. When they broke for air, John halfway into Rodney’s lap, the pilot pulled back only far enough to rest their foreheads together.
“I’m really, really terrible at this kind of thing,” he breathed. “But it… it’s always been you, Rodney. And if I do this, if we do this, I need you to be sure… I don’t want to screw up a kid as badly as I am…”
There was too much wrong with that line of thinking for Rodney to even begin unraveling, so he pulled John in for another kiss.
“I know there’s no reason for you to even consider this,” said John, “But if you would just-”
“Yes,” Rodney interrupted, breathlessly. “Whatever you want, as long as you want, I’m in.”
“How about forever?” John asked.
Forever sounded just about perfect, but Rodney was still a scientist and needed to confirm his facts.
“Just so we’re on the same page here,” he said. “We’re dating now, we have been dating even when we didn’t realize it, you’re temporarily a woman, and before you get turned back you want to have my baby.”
This time, John kissed him, long and hard. “Yes,” he said, “apparently yes, I’m sure you’ll find a way to reverse that, and…yes?”
Rodney got to his feet, holding out his hand. “Come on, then.”
“Why?”
“I will not have my child conceived on the floor.”
John grinned.
THE END
Current Mood:
pissed off