WIP Amnesty: Orange Blossom Special (John/Rodney NC-17) and two others
Okay, I give up. *pokes these stories* First up, this one is nearly-complete and yet still not done after OVER A YEAR:
Orange Blossom Special
Rodney knew something was wrong almost the instant he stepped off the puddlejumper. M4E-779 was one of the rare tropical planets they had encountered, and as many times as Rodney had complained about always finding the rainy planets, or the heavily forested planets, or the planets with bugs that wanted to eat them, he should be more excited to be here, atop a hill overlooking pristine white beaches lined in what looked like palm trees, and the prospect of a ZPM somewhere out there, among the endless green covering the hillsides. But something - he couldn’t figure it out - was off. The air was too clean, perhaps. It was scented faintly of something familiar, and while he couldn’t put his finger on it, he knew that it was just not right.
“Something’s off,” Rodney said to John, who was regaling Teyla and Ronon with tales about the wonders of surfing.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Rodney,” John said. “Nothing’s off that we can tell. We did a flyover of the area, remember? The scans didn’t indicate anything dangerous - just that dormant energy source, you said it yourself.” John turned back to look out towards the beach. “Hey, do you think these people have figured out surfing?”
So of course at that moment seventeen men with spears burst out of the line of trees behind them. It just figured, Rodney thought. “See?!” he yelled at John, who was apparently too distracted by the prospect of hanging ten, dude, that he didn’t have time to reach for his gun. Ronon’s was drawn, but he wasn’t firing. Rodney would definitely have to talk to him about that later.
One man, larger than the rest and wearing an improbably feathered headdress, stepped forward and spoke as if breathless with excitement. “Greetings, strangers. We have not had travelers from the stars for many years. You are very welcome to Myzalia.” He bowed elaborately, arms spread out and scraping the ground, with the warriors around him following suit.
“Nevermind,” Rodney muttered as John stepped forward.
“Greetings, people of Myzalia,” John said. The men remained bent forward in almost prone positions. “Um… we accept your welcome.” The men stayed frozen. “Would you mind standing up now? You’re making me a little uncomfortable.”
“John!” hissed Teyla as the men rose.
“Well, they were,” John whispered.
“I am Polin,” the man said, his grin a slash of while in his flushed red face. “I am the head warrior of our clan. Our queen spotted your ship and asked us to give you a warrior’s welcome into our village. We of Myzalia are proud of our hospitality.”
“I’m Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard,” John said, inclining his head. “This is Teyla Emmagen, Ronon Dex, and Dr. Rodney McKay. We would be honored, I guess, to accept your hospitality. And to talk your queen.”
Polin motioned to his men and they separated into two rows of eight warriors each, hefting their spears to form an arch over Polin’s head. “Come!” he said to John, beckoning him to follow under the arching spears. “Our clan lives this way, by the beach.”
“Wonderful!” John exclaimed happily, trailing along after Polin.
“Wonderful,” Rodney muttered, sniffing the air. Something was definitely off.
---
The queen of this particular clan was called Oleira. She had smooth skin tanned a delicate gold, tilted green eyes, and waist-length blond hair - in all respects, a woman that Rodney should have immediately wanted at the very least to see naked. Convenient, then, that she was also scantily clothed, with a tendril of her golden hair curling lovingly over the swell of one bare breast. John sat close to her throne, which Rodney realized was more of a chaise lounge when he looked at it closely. Queen Oleira was more basking than she was holding court.
Rodney hated her with every fiber of his being. It wasn’t just her - Rodney couldn’t put his finger on it, but he was pretty sure he hated this entire place, from Queen Oleira’s big breasts and shiny hair to the stupid feathers on Polin’s ugly headdress. This place didn’t feel right to Rodney, and nobody else was noticing.
“Our people would be honored to become trading partners with those who come through the ring of the Ancestors,” Oleira was saying to John in a slightly husky voice. “Our legends tell of a time of great prosperity, presaged by a visit from travelers of the stars.”
“Well, we can’t promise anything,” John responded with one of his typical and-I-also-like-ferris-wheels! smiles. “But we’ll do our best. We’ve got medicine, technology…”
“We have only one commodity,” Oleira said, cherry-red lips curving in a smile. “But it is truly our gift from the Ancestors. It has kept Myzalia stable, fed, housed, and defended for years. We are sure that your people will be pleased with what we have to give.”
“And what’s that, hmm?” snapped Rodney, unable to resist. “Surfboards? Bet you’d love that, Colonel.”
“McKay…” John said, looking at Rodney with a clear warning. “We value whatever commodities Queen Oleira offers us. And I’m sure there are many things our people can do for each other. Really.”
“I’m sure you are,” muttered Rodney just loud enough for John to hear.
“Well, I do not know these ‘surfboards’ Dr. McKay speaks of, but I am positive that your people will find our sacred fruit equally satisfactory.” Oleira lifted one golden arm and motioned languidly to one of the servants standing stone-still around the rooms. “Bring us a tray of kamidian, so that our new trading partners may see what bounty we have to offer them.” The servant nodded, made one of those elaborate, ground-scraping bows, and backed out of the room.
“As I said before, kamidian has kept Myzalia stable since the last Wraith culling many centuries ago. It is grown in groves that stretch along the hillsides as far as the eye can see.”
“Yeah, about those groves,” John began. “Would you mind terribly if…”
Queen Oleira continued as if he hadn’t spoken, clearly gearing up for a speech. “We eat the fruit of the tree, use the wood to make everything from cups and plates to spears to our houses. And the blossom of the tree, when it is in bloom, makes Myzalia even more beautiful than it already is. We use it in our sacred oils, which burn in the lamps all around the temple of the Ancestors. Oh, how I wish you could have come when the hillsides are completely in bloom. It is truly a sight to see, and a reminder of how lucky we are that the Ancestors chose us, and our world, to receive such a sacred, beautiful legacy. Kamidian,” Oleira finished, tears glistening wetly in her perfect green eyes, “is truly their gift to us, and we are honored to share it with all of you.”
“We are honored, Queen Oleira, that you would share such a thing with us,” said Teyla, inclining her head. “My people are industrious, and would be grateful for the chance to cultivate such a useful, valuable crop. Might you provide us with kamidian seeds as well?”
“Of course,” Oleira responded with an elegant nod. “We of Myzalia are blessed to be able to share the bounty of the Ancients with any who request it.”
“Yeah, and speaking of the bounty of the Ancients,” John began, “We were wondering if you knew anything about something else the Ancients might have left behind? A… special crystal of some sort, maybe?”
“I’m not sure of what you speak,” Oleira said, “but I will think about it. In the mean time, I believe my servant has returned with the kamidian. I have also taken the liberty of having some of the kamidian extract prepared for you to try. Our legend says it is very beneficial to one’s health, and you have traveled such a long way, so you must be thirsty.”
“That’s very thoughtful,” John said. “Isn’t it?”
At John’s prompting look, Ronon murmured, “Yeah. Thoughtful.”
The servant bowed his way into the room, carrying an elaborately carved, covered wooden bowl. Behind him, two servants bowed into the room as well, one carrying a tray of carved wooden cups, one a wooden jug. Each item was set, one after the other, on a low table in front of Queen Oleira’s chaise lounge.
“Let us eat and drink of our sacred fruit, and then we shall discuss the matter of other Ancient gifts. This,” Oleira said, hand waving theatrically toward the bowl, “is kamidian.” She carefully removed the cover.
“I knew it!” Rodney yelled, voice breaking, and fainted.
---
Rodney awoke to the sound of the waves, briefly followed by John’s voice. “I think he’s coming to!”
“Oh, God, tell me that was just a nightmare,” Rodney said, not daring to open his eyes. “Tell me I just dreamed it.”
“Well,” John said, “at least we’ve convinced them to set up a tent for us out here. All their buildings are made out of orange wood, all their beds and furniture and stuff as well. Teyla is in Queen Oleira’s audience chambers, beginning the trade negotiations. Mostly, she’s trying to convince Oleira that you aren’t actually trying to insult her people’s most important commodity, and that they really should tell us more about the ZPM that might be hidden somewhere among the orange groves. And Ronon’s standing guard outside the campsite, making sure the warriors don’t decide to use their orangewood spears on you because you insulted their queen.” John grinned. “So, it’s basically just like every other mission we’ve been on.”
“Except that this is the worst planet ever,” Rodney moaned, covering his eyes with his hand. “I’ve never gone into anaphylactic shock from mere proximity before, but if any place could do it to me, I suppose it would have to be the Citrus Planet.”
“Actually, you just fainted.” John smirked. “I mean, passed out from manly hunger.”
“And a lot of good manly hunger would do me on this planet!” Rodney yelled, sitting up. “You do realize, don’t you, that I can’t eat anything here? Every single thing is made with citrus!” Rodney felt himself going pale. “We need to get back to the gate, John. We need to get back to Atlantis. I can’t be here. Even the air smells like it’s going to kill me.”
“It’s not going to kill you, Rodney,” John said patiently, leaning closer. “We’ve got MREs to spare in the jumper, plenty of water, and you’re the only one who can’t eat or drink, so it’s all yours. We need to find that ZPM and you know it. We’ll stay as long as it takes to find it, finalize the trade deal with Oleira, and maybe enjoy that nice beach out there. Go back to Atlantis with tans, make everyone else jealous. It’ll be great.”
“Oh, so I can get melanoma as well. You’re so thoughtful.” Rodney’s voice was low, and he felt himself curling up a little inside, scared in a way he had never been with the Wraith. He’d gone into anaphylactic shock before, four times. He knew what it was like, the suffocating feeling, the utter lack of control. If he remembered hard enough, he could feel it again.
“Rodney, you’re not going to die. Not here, at least.” John’s hand moved to Rodney’s shoulder, a comforting presence that brought Rodney back to himself.
“But eventually,” Rodney said, quiet and a little numb. “So why not here? It could happen here.”
“It’s going to be fine, Rodney.” John gave Rodney’s shoulder a shake, then both shoulders. “Rodney, look at me. We need you for this. You’re going to be fine.”
Rodney lay back against the bed, looking up at John. “I’m not going to be fine, Colonel. Go back to the blond.”
“You’re going to be fine,” John repeated, voice serious. He leaned in close. “I promise.”
Rodney shook his head once, closed his eyes, inhaling the pervasive smell of orange blossoms. “Can’t get away from it,” Rodney muttered. “It’s everywhere.”
“Not here,” John murmured, and kissed him.
John didn’t taste like oranges. It was the first thing Rodney noticed. Oleira would have tasted like oranges, the way she smelled like oranges. John tasted sharp, like he’d just drunk something slightly bitter, and his mouth was warm. And for the first time, with John’s mouth on his, with John’s tongue sliding over his lips as if asking a question, then dipping into Rodney’s mouth like he couldn’t quite wait for Rodney to answer, Rodney couldn’t smell orange blossoms. All he could smell was John’s breath, and John’s skin. It was a breath of fresh air.
John’s hands moved to his shoulders, pulling him closer, and his mouth moved to kiss a spot on Rodney’s neck just above the collar of his shirt, and the smell of orange blossoms returned, carrying a hint of John’s clean scent with it. John’s hands moved from his shoulders to his waist, plucking at the hem of Rodney’s shirt and moving underneath.
“Why?” Rodney gasped, tugging John up from where he was licking at Rodney’s neck. “Why now?”
John looked down at him, eyes very serious. “You really want to know?”
“Would I have asked if I didn’t want to know?” Rodney snapped, sitting up.
“No.” John sighed and leaned back, studying Rodney. “I just… we really need to find that ZPM, Rodney. We’re going to have to go through the groves to do it, and I need you not to fear the smell of orange blossoms.”
“Oh,” Rodney snapped, “as long as it’s for a good reason. I wouldn’t want you to sacrifice your virtue for less.” Then he looked at John, around the tent, out a gap in the tent flap where the ocean was beckoning them with soft, come-hither waves against the pristine white sand. He breathed in once, deep, inhaling the scent of orange and John, and then he made a decision. Rodney leaned forward and pressed his mouth against John’s, tentative like John hadn’t been, unsure like Rodney almost never was. But then John pressed back, and their mouths were blossoming open, and Rodney found himself laughing into John’s mouth, free in a way he hadn’t been in longer than he cared to remember.
He pulled back once more, looking up at John and trying not to grin fatuously. “And you will be sacrificing your virtue, you realize. Nothing less is going to get me through what is essentially a forest of painful, terrifying death.”
John laughed against Rodney’s neck, pressing him back against the bedroll. “Well, you know me, McKay. Anything for Atlantis.”
“Very noble,” Rodney muttered, and pulled John on top of him. “Now shut up.”
As John’s hands worked at the fly of Rodney’s pants, remarkably in time with his mouth on Rodney’s collarbone, every thought of painful, terrifying death slipped out of Rodney’s mind. Things didn’t usually slip out of Rodney’s mind. John working his hand into the slit of Rodney’s boxers and brushing his thumb across the head of Rodney’s cock was, however, rather effective at driving every thought but God yes oh God John has his hand on my dick God yes thank you right out of Rodney’s head.
His hands found the edge of John’s shirt and slid under it, tugging and pushing in an effort to make contact with more warm, smooth skin. John was all lean muscle, all rakish grin and gravity-free hair, in all ways everything Rodney had never let himself want. And right now, he was grinning down at Rodney, his hands insinuating themselves further into Rodney’s pants.
All in all, Rodney thought as he finally managed to get John’s shirt up and off, it was a good thing he had John to focus on.
He hadn’t realized he’d said it aloud, but John laughed, pushing up the hem of Rodney’s shirt and pressing his mouth against Rodney’s stomach. “You can focus on me all you want, Rodney,” John said, and Rodney could feel the words vibrate low in his stomach. “Except right now.”
“What’s right now?” Rodney asked, just to be sure.
“Now,” John said, licking over the trail of fine, pale hair that led down Rodney’s stomach, “now is when we make Myzalia your new favorite planet.” John swiftly shoved Rodney’s pants and boxers down to his knees, and then looked up at Rodney with an expression that was far too innocent to belong to someone whose fingers were stroking over Rodney’s balls in a way that made Rodney’s eyes cross. “Now’s also when I make another joke about manly hunger.”
Then John’s mouth was on Rodney’s cock, as hot and wet and goddamn perfect as anything Rodney had ever felt in his life. His hands gripped the edge of the bedroll like the safety bar on a roller coaster, clutching for dear life at the only thing that seemed to be still in a world that was spinning, a world that was, at the moment, focused entirely on his cock and the warm, wet mouth enthusiastically going down on him. In the back of his mind - the tiny part of it that was not occupied with processing every detail of this particular moment - Rodney thought that John did this the same way he seemed to do everything: at full speed, somehow both reckless and relentlessly thorough.
His hands moved further between Rodney’s legs, pressing behind Rodney’s balls at some spot that made light burst in front of Rodney’s eyelids and tore a groan out of his mouth. John hummed in satisfaction and found the spot again, and if Rodney hadn’t been babbling before, he was pretty sure that he was now. He could hear his own voice, low and breathy and strange to his own ears, muttering a litany of “God, John, God,” and “There, there, yes - God” and over it all, something else, something that could have been the crashing of the waves outside, or could have been the pounding of his own frantic heartbeat.
And at last, John’s clever fingers found their way to Rodney’s ass, thumb bumping up against the spot behind his balls a third time while his forefinger traced gently around the opening, and Rodney was coming into John’s mouth, his own shout ringing in his ears over the ubiquitous rush of the waves.
When Rodney could open his eyes again, John was sitting back, looking down at him curiously, like an experiment that had gone mystifyingly right. His cock was pressing intently against Rodney’s leg through the fabric of his trousers, but John seemed to ignore it entirely, just kept studying Rodney.
“Well, that was. Um. Interesting,” Rodney said for lack of anything better, because the silence needed filling.
“’Interesting’ is the best you can come up with, McKay?” John asked, shaking his head in mock censure. “A man of your intellect?”
“Yes, well, I think half my intellect just got sucked out of me, so forgive me if ‘interesting’ is the best I can do.”
John’s mouth quirked up, and he stilled for a moment before asking, “Just half?”
Rodney sat up, shoving John off his legs and into a sprawl at the end of the bedroll. “I like interesting,” Rodney said. “As long as it doesn’t try to eat me, or drown me, or suck out my life through its hand. Or trick me into eating citrus so I go into anaphylactic shock and die horrifically.”
He reached for John, fumbling with the fly of John’s pants and slowly unzipping them. When Rodney sat back, studying John the way John had studied him, he could see where the crown of John’s cock had found its way through the slit of his boxers, and Rodney clutched at the fabric of the bedroll to keep from reaching for him.
And then it hit him - he didn’t have to keep from reaching for John. Not at the moment, anyway. “I like interesting,” Rodney repeated, and inched towards John. “I think you’ll enjoy it, too.”
It was Rodney’s turn to study John, to watch the muscles shift under skin and hair as his abdomen tensed up at the first touch of Rodney’s fingertips, circling around John’s navel. John was interesting, in the ways all the best things were interesting to Rodney. In the back of his mind, part of him was wondering why he’d never seen it before, why he never realized. His skin felt right under Rodney’s hands, and Rodney couldn’t help sliding them up over John’s chest, feeling the crisp hair and warm skin like a world of new for him to explore.
John’s hands came up to Rodney’s shoulders, pulling him down on top of him, kissing Rodney like there were no questions to be answered, tongue sliding against Rodney’s with slow promise. Rodney levered himself up, managed to work his hand in between their bodies to slide his thumb over the head of John’s cock once, twice, and watched as John’s eyes closed against the friction.
In truth, Rodney was not at all sure what it was, exactly, that he was doing. It’s not that he was straight, as he supposed John had just demonstrated, but he didn’t have much experience being gay either, and at the moment he was having a hard time remembering anything besides the way the head of John’s cock felt as he brushed his thumb over it. That, he was certain he would remember forever.
So, because he wasn’t quite sure where to go from here, he prioritized.
Priority one: John must be naked.
This was easy to accomplish, though it did require Rodney to momentarily release John’s dick, at which John made some sort of a vague noise of protest until he realized what Rodney was trying to accomplish. Then the pants came off, and the boxers with them.
And finally, finally, there was nothing between Rodney and John except the orange-scented air, which also smelled of sex and sweat and sea, and Rodney quickly overcame that barrier. Now he could explore John with more than his fingertips, learn the feel of John’s body against his in a thousand different ways, and know that there were still a thousand more to discover. The thought made him close his eyes, made his breath catch in his throat - thousand different ways, a thousand new and different ways to touch and taste, and somehow John would let him.
Priority two: John needed to come.
This particular priority should be equally easy to accomplish, as far as Rodney was concerned. John was on the edge, his head thrown back and eyes closed, and all it took was a few quick strokes. When Rodney leaned up to bite gently at the soft, golden skin of John’s neck, John gave a muffled groan and came over Rodney’s hand and both their stomachs.
“And that,” Rodney said, smiling and cleaning them up, “was even more interesting.”
John sat up, watching Rodney, and grinned back. “Oh, so that’s what you meant by interesting.”
“I’ll convert you yet,” Rodney said. “It’s for the good of Atlantis, after all.”
---
At Teyla’s explanation for Rodney’s behavior, the pity of the Myzalians had been so great - for, as Oleira explained, their histories told that every so often, a child would be born unable to partake of the sacred fruit, supposedly as a penance imposed by the Ancestors for a grievous sin on the part of the parents, and that these children were doomed to die very young - that Oleira agreed readily to let them search the groves. “The kamidian was harvested two weeks ago in the areas closest to us,” she explained to John, her green eyes watery with tears, clearly distraught at the idea of the ancestral fruit doing anyone harm, “so Dr. McKay will be in no danger. I pray that the Ancestors assist you in your search, such that all of you will find use in being trading partners with Myzalia.”
The groves stretched inland as far as the horizon, in neat green lines with narrow paths latticed throughout. Ronon led the way in, reaching up to grab an orange that one of the harvesters had missed. “Wouldn’t want Dr. McKay to get hurt,” he said, pulling a knife from somewhere improbable and cutting into the orange. “Don’t worry, McKay. This one’s dead now.” He bit into the fruit with a slurp.
The trees weren’t particularly tall, and they had been planted in endless tidy rows. The bright sunlight filtered through the leaves, dappling their path with lacy green light. None of it made for a particularly frightening experience. Barring the potential for sudden, painful death, it struck Rodney as strangely pretty. “The energy readings are getting stronger,” he said, looking down at his computer. “But we’re still quite a bit away.”
“How long?” Sheppard asked.
“If the energy levels continue to rise the way they are, then we’ll have to assume we’re dealing with a fully-charged ZPM, in which case, I’d say we’re at least a half hour’s walk away.” Rodney paused. “And that’s assuming nothing goes wrong, which it always does.”
“I do not believe we are in any danger from these people,” Teyla said. “They have been very open to trade, and there is no indication of Wraith activity in this area. We are safe here, I think.”
“No, you are safe here,” Rodney said. “I’m not. I’m surrounded by little orange balls of death.”
“Really?” Sheppard asked. “We hadn’t heard. Maybe you could remind us again in five minutes, just so we don’t forget?”
“I’d give him two minutes,” Ronon said. “At most.”
“Hey!” Rodney yelled. “If you’re going to continue to mock a very serious and deadly allergy to such an evil, evil fruit -“
“Tart, at the very least,” Sheppard interjected.
“ - then I’m going to stop right here and you can just try to find the ZPM by yourselves! And when we’re on the planet where concealed weapons are considered an insult to the sacred high priestess of whatever, or the planet where flirting with every carbon-based life form is a crime punishable by death, then I’ll just laugh and laugh! And mock, and maybe point, but definitely lots of laughing.” Rodney turned on his heel and strode back down the path between the trees, the way they had come.
“Hey, now. Rodney - wait!” John turned to go after him. “Ronon, Teyla, you walk ahead. I’m pretty sure that this path continues going straight.”
“You think?” Ronon asked.
“I’ll… I’ll get him to come back. He’s just a little touchy. You know how he can be.”
“We shall continue on,” Teyla said calmly. “If we find anything, or if there is any trouble, we will let you know.”
“Thanks,” John said, and took off after Rodney.
He hadn’t gotten far. It was Rodney, after all - and although he had gotten to the point where he could, if needed, walk for three hours without stopping for a break, he would never get to the point where he would do it voluntarily, let alone do it without complaining about it. John caught up with him easily. “Rodney,” he said, grabbing his arm.
Rodney whirled around. “You don’t get to talk!” he yelled, setting down his backpack and shoving his tablet inside. “See, this is not what I wanted to do! I did not want to traipse through jungles in search of mysterious treasure! I did not want to risk excruciating pain for a reward that might not even exist! I wanted to do something interesting, and this? This was not it!”
“I think I remember what you consider interesting, Rodney,” John said quietly.
“And now I’m in the middle of an orange grove - which, on the list of places I did not expect to be, possibly ever, comes just above “Pegasus Galaxy” but just below “ship filled with life-sucking space vampires” - and I’m getting mocked by people who can never understand what it’s like to go into anaphylactic shock in the middle of the cafeteria surrounded by three hundred gawking teenagers because the lunch lady didn’t know what the hell was in the chicken surprise!”
“Rodney…”
“I thought I could do this. I did. But you and Ronon aren’t making it any easier by - “
“I know.” John sighed. “But you can be so…”
“And you can be a deliberately obtuse, suicidal Kirk-wannabe, but I don’t make fun of you for that, do I?”
John raised an eyebrow.
“Okay, so maybe I do,” Rodney continued. “But still, this is…” He closed his eyes, and his voice dropped to a whisper. “This is hard for me, Sheppard. And you’re not making it any easier.”
John stepped forward, laid a hand on Rodney’s shoulder. “I can try, if you want.”
Rodney’s eyes opened, and he licked his lips nervously. “I… what?”
“I can try to make this easier for you,” John repeated. “If you want.”
“Colonel, I’m in the middle of a really good bout of righteous anger, here, and it’s not often I get to be angry for reasons other than the sheer stupidity of the people I work with, so if you think that offering me…” Rodney paused, then lifted his chin and looked at John. “What, exactly, is it that you’re offering me?”
“A blowjob,” John said helpfully, stepping closer. “But you know me, McKay. I’m usually willing to negotiate.” He leaned in, brushed a soft kiss across Rodney’s mouth, an apology and an explanation as succinct as possible.
“And… wait, what is it you mean by negotiate?” Rodney asked when he pulled back.
“It means,” John explained patiently, “that I could probably be talked into something else if I thought it would make this whole little-orange-balls-of-death experience a bit more enjoyable for you.”
“So you’ve…” he trailed off, grasping for words. “You’ve done other things before, then?”
John looked at him like he was a little bit slow. “No, Rodney, I’ve turned gay just for you.”
“Your sarcasm isn’t helpful, Colonel,” Rodney snapped, and then lifted his chin, processing, and muttered, “Oh.”
“So the offer stands,” John said, licking his lips and looking at Rodney in full Kirk mode.
“You mean…” Rodney coughed. “You mean I could… we could…”
“Fuck me?” John supplied, grinning. “If you can’t say it, Rodney, you probably shouldn’t be doing it.”
Rodney blinked. “But… now? Here?”
“Unless you’d rather continue to freak out and leave Ronon and Teyla wandering around the groves, hoping to stumble on the ZPM by chance. In which case,” he finished, shrugging, “later is fine.”
“No, that’s not what I meant,” Rodney said. “Don’t you need… things for that?”
“Condoms? Lube? Again, Rodney, if you can’t say it…”
“You bring condoms and lube on missions?” Rodney rolled his eyes. “Wait a second, I’m talking to Lieutenant Colonel John ‘Fuck Me’ Sheppard. Of course you do.”
John grinned. “See, not that hard to say.” He moved closer to Rodney, slowly backing him up until he was up against a tree, looking up at John with wide-open blue eyes. “So, Rodney?”
“Now’s good,” Rodney said, gasping, and pulled John’s mouth down to his.
John’s hands came up to Rodney’s face, thumb stroking across Rodney’s cheek affectionately before one hand slipped down, skimming over his chest and finally slipping inside Rodney’s pants. He was already half-hard, completely on edge. “It’s gonna be good, McKay,” John said, teeth skimming along the shell of Rodney’s ear. “All of it - it’s all going to be good.”
"You know," Rodney said, fumbling at the fly of John's pants as John breathed into the crook of Rodney's neck, "this is not exactly what I was expecting when we stepped off the puddlejumper."
John jerked against him as Rodney's hand found its way into John's boxers, and Rodney could feel his mouth pull into a grin. "What, you weren't expecting to get laid up against a tree in the middle of an orange grove? You've got a serious lack of imagination, McKay."
"The best I was expecting was to find a ZPM," Rodney said, stroking down the length of John's cock. "I suppose this is almost as good as that."
"You just say that cause you haven't actually gotten any yet, Rodney," John said, biting him lightly above his collarbone and pulling down on Rodney's trousers. "Let's see if we can shatter those expectations, huh, McKay?"
They were used to working together, but Rodney had never expected that this would manifest itself in how quickly they managed to get their bottom halves mostly-naked.
And that's where I left it. If I could write "And then they done sex. The end!" I totally would have. Alas, that doesn't actually work.
The City Lights
Suddenly, abruptly, she was awake.
She had woken twice before - not wanting to, but pulled out of a slumber by a single presence in her halls. But it had always been momentary, for a few hours. She had always slipped right back, lulled by the currents nudging at her shields, by the pulse of life around her in the waters, a delicate hum far away. This, however -
There were people. Not just the one, the lonely presence that barely nudged at her senses, but hundreds, bringing her to life. She could feel their wonder, feel herself wonder with them. It had been so long - like slipping through ice, having the blood stop running and the heart stop beating. But she was unfreezing. These people had woken her.
She got up.
It shouldn’t have been as simple as that, but it was. She rose; the oceans of her planet parted for her, gave way, and she was standing again. These people had helped her rise.
And one in particular.
He was an explorer, this one. He was a throwback to her old charges, the ones who had left her sleeping so long ago. She could feel him more than anyone, a shining presence that warmed her. After so long asleep, he was waking her up. It was his doing, more than theirs; she could sense that now.
She loved them all with a great pulsing gratitude where she might, in some incarnation, have had a heart. But him she loved most of all. Him she loved overwhelmingly, involuntarily. He was her center.
She would keep all her new charges safe. But him most of all. She couldn’t bear to be alone again, to sleep again after ten thousand years. He would never leave her. She would keep him safe.
---
“I’ve been having… dreams.”
“Dreams?” Heightmeyer scribbled something on a pad and nodded. “Go on.”
John looked at her askance. “Do you have to do that?”
“Do what?” Heightmeyer said, not looking up.
“That… shrink thing. Make notes.”
“I do if you want me to remember what you’re saying after the session is over. Why?” Now Heightmeyer looked up, a gleam in her eyes. “Does it make you uncomfortable?”
“If I said yes, would you stop?”
Heightmeyer laughed. “No, probably not. Go on. You’re having dreams?”
“Yeah. The same one. Maybe once, twice a month?”
She nodded. “And what is it that you dream?”
“I’m walking around Atlantis. It’s the middle of the night - dark out, just before sunrise. There’s nobody in the halls, but they light up in front of me, and I follow the lights. There’s this room…” John’s mouth tightened. He couldn’t figure it out, awake or asleep. “I need to see what’s inside it. But it won’t open. It’s the only room that won’t open for me. And I need to figure it out.”
“Uh-huh.” Heightmeyer nodded again, then looked up, her pen stilling. “And that’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“Well, Colonel, that’s not an atypical dream for someone doing the nature of work that you’re doing. It’s not happening every night, but - and please, correct me if I’m wrong - after moments of great stress. Because you’re looking for the answers to some difficult questions in the work that you’re doing, your subconscious worries are manifesting themselves in your dreams.”
“And that’s it?” John asked, skeptical.
Heightmeyer smiled. “John, dreams like this are a well-documented side effect of any sort of high-pressure job. And yours is one of the highest pressure on Atlantis. Now, I could prescribe a mild sedative for you to take before you sleep, but I think I’m correct in assuming you wouldn’t take it?”
“Yeah, you assume correctly.”
“Well, then. If it begins to affect your work, or if you end up not getting enough sleep, let me know, and we can look into alternate paths of inquiry. But until then… maybe take a vacation at some point in the near future, okay, Colonel?”
“Yeah, that’ll happen.” John said with a brief smile. “See you later, Doctor. Thanks.”
“You’ll be fine, John,” she said, and turned back to her desk, her mind obviously on something else as he walked out the door.
It didn’t really matter, though, to John’s way of thinking. He’d figure this out. He might be on his own, but he’d figure it out. It was, and always had been, up to him.
That one I just kind of... I don't know. I wasn't quite sure where I was going with it, and so I just kind of dropped it. It's definitely going to stay dropped.
SGA/Good Omens Crossover
In the bureaucracy of Hell, jurisdiction over Atlantis is a complicated area. For every world inhabited by corruptible beings, there is a section of Hell devoted to its corruption. For every galaxy where beings travel the stars, Hell has created a department working busily to tempt those beings to sin.
But when the Atlantis mission was launched, it created a problem. The demons assigned to the Ancients had long since taken on new missions - having been awarded commendations, of course, for jobs well done. Their descendants in the Pegasus galaxy had their own demons assigned to them, and when the Atlantis mission was launched, the Pegasus Galaxy department had been chugging along steadily for millennia.
However, the new Lanteans were Earthlings, no matter which way you cut it, and after two years of quite heated debate, Hell decreed that a new post should be created: Earth-Pegasus Liaison Officer, who would be required to deal with the demons of Pegasus and the demons of Earth, and would be specifically charged with the temptation of Earthlings on Atlantis. The post would, of course, be long term.
Hastor, Duke of Hell, headed up the selection committee. And so it was unanimously decided that there was only one demon capable of the job.
---
The car was the first thing John noticed. He wouldn’t have, normally. In general, a 1926 Bentley wasn’t known for going particularly fast, and fast was what drew John in. This one, however, looked like it could do whatever the hell it wanted. It held an indefinable aura of dignified menace, and just looking at it made John’s fingertips itch. Oh, it was a car.
“Stop drooling, Colonel,” Rodney snapped from the doorway of the bar. “This is our last night back and I’d really rather not spend it in a parking lot watching you salivate over a heap of antique metal.”
John turned to him, affronted. “It’s not a heap of metal, Rodney. It’s a Bentley.”
“Yes, yes, of course. Can we go inside before I die of hypothermia, please?”
John nodded, trailing a fingertip over the glossy black hood, and followed Rodney into the bar.
It wasn’t a particularly classy place, but it was the nearest bar to Cheyenne Mountain, and at the moment it was nearly empty. Most of the military contingent, John figured, were preparing for their departure tomorrow, and most of the scientists were spending their last night with their families.
At the bar, backlit by a flaming orange neon sign, sat a man in a suit. His hair was spiked up in a way that was somehow more artful than John’s ever managed to be, and he wore a pair of very expensive-looking black sunglasses. Head bowed, he stared balefully into the glass in front of him. Beside him, a slightly pudgy man in a sweater-vest gesticulated wildly with the shot glass in his hand.
“Might not be that bad, Crowley!” the pudgy one was saying. “Could be quite an adventure, really.”
Crowley muttered something John couldn’t quite hear and tossed back the contents of his glass.
Rodney had moved to the bar and began to order - “Canadian beer? Any at all? Oh, for Christ’s sake, do you people even have tastebuds?” - and John joined him, keeping an eye on the pair beside them.
The bartender returned with their drinks, and Rodney continued to mutter about American palates, taking pauses to sip at his beer and grimacing theatrically after each taste.
“You’re the one who likes MREs, McKay,” John pointed out.
“The meatloaf ones are actually quite good,” Rodney said defensively.
At that, the man in the sunglasses - Crowley, his friend had called him - groaned as if in pain. “Meatloaf, Aziraphale. They’re going to make me eat meatloaf, and no sushi bars for light years. I might as well have been assigned to a desk job in Hell.”
“Actually,” John informed him, “Rodney’s right - the meatloaf isn’t bad. It’s the chicken cacciatore that you have to watch out for.”
Crowley groaned. “That really doesn’t reassure me, mate.”
John held out his hand. “Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard. I take you’ve been, um…” He paused, looking for a way to ask it. “…assigned somewhere interesting?”
Crowley’s mouth tightened briefly before he took John’s hand and shook it. “Yesss, well. Something like that. Dr. Anthony Crowley. I’m a, um. Biologist.” John didn’t have to turn around - he could practically hear Rodney’s eyes rolling. Crowley ignored him and continued, “Speciality in herpetology.”
“Herpetology - that’s reptiles, right?” John asked. “Cheer up, Dr. Crowley. I don’t think you’ll hate where you’re going.”
“I can’t bring my car. Of course I’ll hate where I’m going.”
“Oh, perfect,” Rodney muttered from behind John.
John perked up. “Your car wouldn’t happen to be the 1926 Bentley out front, would it?”
“Yessss, that’s the one,” sighed Crowley.
“Why don’t I buy you a drink?” John asked smoothly, smiling with as much charm as he could manage at his new favourite person.
---
Sweater-Vest’s name was Aziraphale, Rodney discovered. Aziraphale hadn’t offered a first name, but instead had ordered them both a shot of tequila. Rodney figured it was a fair trade.
Aziraphale had curly, sandy-blond hair that was just slightly too long. That, combined with the wire-rimmed glasses, the sweater-vest, and the plummy English accent gave him the overall impression of a very gay, very English professor of something useless who didn’t get out particularly often. And from the affectionate glances Aziraphale kept shooting John’s new best friend, at least two of Rodney’s snap judgements were exactly on the mark.
“So,” Rodney began abruptly, “you’re letting your boyfriend travel pretty damn far. You must be really broken up about that, huh? You know, you could try to convince him to stay - at this point, it might just work.”
“My… Crowley, you mean?” Aziraphale asked, sounding somehow amused at Rodney’s expense.
Rodney shifted uncomfortably. “He is, I mean. That is, you are… um.”
“Oh yes, well. You could call him that.” Aziraphale tossed back the tequila shot in front of him and smiled placidly at Rodney. “I suppose I forgot to mention that I’ll be coming along as well.”
“No, you didn’t mention that,” Rodney snapped, unsure whether he was relieved or annoyed. “And what is it that you do? It can’t possibly be more useless than herpetology, can it?”
Aziraphale shrugged. “I guess you’ll find out tomorrow, won’t you? But since we’re all of-duty at the moment, shall we have some more tequila?”
Rodney briefly contemplated arguing before he heard a loud laugh coming from John’s direction. Alcohol was sounding better and better. “God, please.”
“I’ll pass along the request,” said Aziraphale, grinning, and waved the bartender over.
---
“Aziraphale is going to kill you, you know.”
Rodney was suddenly standing beside John, looking both disapproving and completely wasted. For a man who wasn’t particularly coordinated when sober, he moved with incredible grace when drunk. It made John’s head hurt a little.
“It’s completely obvious what you’re doing, Colonel,” he said.
John took a sip of the beer he’d been nursing for the past hour and a half, and lounged back against the bar. “And what’s that, Rodney?”
“You’re trying to get Crowley drunk so you can drive his car.” Rodney crossed his arms over his chest and looked down at John accusingly, as if daring him to deny it.
“Excuse me?” John said. “Did you really just accuse me of getting a future co-worker intoxicated just so I could play with his car?”
“It’s not going to work, Colonel. Aziraphale is on to you, and he’s not going to stand for it.”
John peeked around Rodney to where Aziraphale sat, a blissful expression on his face, turning a cardboard coaster bearing the words “Tastes Great!” on one side and “Less Filling!” on the other back and forth in his hands.
“Somehow, I think he’s okay with it. Jesus, Rodney, lighten up. It’s not I’m trying to get the guy drunk and steal his virtue. I’m just making friendly conversation.”
“Yes, well. Make sure it stays that way,” snapped Rodney. “You may think you’re Captain Kirk, but the rest of us all have to work together, and dealing with one of your heartbroken conquests and his jealous boyfriend will take away time I could be using to save the galaxy.” With that, Rodney gulped down another shot for emphasis and stormed back to where Aziraphale sat, still deep in contemplation of the coaster.
“Fucking weird,” muttered John, and returned to Crowley.
That one just ended because... well, because I realised how damn long it would need to be. And then I got panicked, started worrying that my voices were off, and just decided to shelve it for a while. Which then turned into forever and ever.
So these are the WIPs I'm giving up on. Still haven't given up on the Jon/Stephen High School AU, though!
Orange Blossom Special
Rodney knew something was wrong almost the instant he stepped off the puddlejumper. M4E-779 was one of the rare tropical planets they had encountered, and as many times as Rodney had complained about always finding the rainy planets, or the heavily forested planets, or the planets with bugs that wanted to eat them, he should be more excited to be here, atop a hill overlooking pristine white beaches lined in what looked like palm trees, and the prospect of a ZPM somewhere out there, among the endless green covering the hillsides. But something - he couldn’t figure it out - was off. The air was too clean, perhaps. It was scented faintly of something familiar, and while he couldn’t put his finger on it, he knew that it was just not right.
“Something’s off,” Rodney said to John, who was regaling Teyla and Ronon with tales about the wonders of surfing.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Rodney,” John said. “Nothing’s off that we can tell. We did a flyover of the area, remember? The scans didn’t indicate anything dangerous - just that dormant energy source, you said it yourself.” John turned back to look out towards the beach. “Hey, do you think these people have figured out surfing?”
So of course at that moment seventeen men with spears burst out of the line of trees behind them. It just figured, Rodney thought. “See?!” he yelled at John, who was apparently too distracted by the prospect of hanging ten, dude, that he didn’t have time to reach for his gun. Ronon’s was drawn, but he wasn’t firing. Rodney would definitely have to talk to him about that later.
One man, larger than the rest and wearing an improbably feathered headdress, stepped forward and spoke as if breathless with excitement. “Greetings, strangers. We have not had travelers from the stars for many years. You are very welcome to Myzalia.” He bowed elaborately, arms spread out and scraping the ground, with the warriors around him following suit.
“Nevermind,” Rodney muttered as John stepped forward.
“Greetings, people of Myzalia,” John said. The men remained bent forward in almost prone positions. “Um… we accept your welcome.” The men stayed frozen. “Would you mind standing up now? You’re making me a little uncomfortable.”
“John!” hissed Teyla as the men rose.
“Well, they were,” John whispered.
“I am Polin,” the man said, his grin a slash of while in his flushed red face. “I am the head warrior of our clan. Our queen spotted your ship and asked us to give you a warrior’s welcome into our village. We of Myzalia are proud of our hospitality.”
“I’m Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard,” John said, inclining his head. “This is Teyla Emmagen, Ronon Dex, and Dr. Rodney McKay. We would be honored, I guess, to accept your hospitality. And to talk your queen.”
Polin motioned to his men and they separated into two rows of eight warriors each, hefting their spears to form an arch over Polin’s head. “Come!” he said to John, beckoning him to follow under the arching spears. “Our clan lives this way, by the beach.”
“Wonderful!” John exclaimed happily, trailing along after Polin.
“Wonderful,” Rodney muttered, sniffing the air. Something was definitely off.
---
The queen of this particular clan was called Oleira. She had smooth skin tanned a delicate gold, tilted green eyes, and waist-length blond hair - in all respects, a woman that Rodney should have immediately wanted at the very least to see naked. Convenient, then, that she was also scantily clothed, with a tendril of her golden hair curling lovingly over the swell of one bare breast. John sat close to her throne, which Rodney realized was more of a chaise lounge when he looked at it closely. Queen Oleira was more basking than she was holding court.
Rodney hated her with every fiber of his being. It wasn’t just her - Rodney couldn’t put his finger on it, but he was pretty sure he hated this entire place, from Queen Oleira’s big breasts and shiny hair to the stupid feathers on Polin’s ugly headdress. This place didn’t feel right to Rodney, and nobody else was noticing.
“Our people would be honored to become trading partners with those who come through the ring of the Ancestors,” Oleira was saying to John in a slightly husky voice. “Our legends tell of a time of great prosperity, presaged by a visit from travelers of the stars.”
“Well, we can’t promise anything,” John responded with one of his typical and-I-also-like-ferris-wheels! smiles. “But we’ll do our best. We’ve got medicine, technology…”
“We have only one commodity,” Oleira said, cherry-red lips curving in a smile. “But it is truly our gift from the Ancestors. It has kept Myzalia stable, fed, housed, and defended for years. We are sure that your people will be pleased with what we have to give.”
“And what’s that, hmm?” snapped Rodney, unable to resist. “Surfboards? Bet you’d love that, Colonel.”
“McKay…” John said, looking at Rodney with a clear warning. “We value whatever commodities Queen Oleira offers us. And I’m sure there are many things our people can do for each other. Really.”
“I’m sure you are,” muttered Rodney just loud enough for John to hear.
“Well, I do not know these ‘surfboards’ Dr. McKay speaks of, but I am positive that your people will find our sacred fruit equally satisfactory.” Oleira lifted one golden arm and motioned languidly to one of the servants standing stone-still around the rooms. “Bring us a tray of kamidian, so that our new trading partners may see what bounty we have to offer them.” The servant nodded, made one of those elaborate, ground-scraping bows, and backed out of the room.
“As I said before, kamidian has kept Myzalia stable since the last Wraith culling many centuries ago. It is grown in groves that stretch along the hillsides as far as the eye can see.”
“Yeah, about those groves,” John began. “Would you mind terribly if…”
Queen Oleira continued as if he hadn’t spoken, clearly gearing up for a speech. “We eat the fruit of the tree, use the wood to make everything from cups and plates to spears to our houses. And the blossom of the tree, when it is in bloom, makes Myzalia even more beautiful than it already is. We use it in our sacred oils, which burn in the lamps all around the temple of the Ancestors. Oh, how I wish you could have come when the hillsides are completely in bloom. It is truly a sight to see, and a reminder of how lucky we are that the Ancestors chose us, and our world, to receive such a sacred, beautiful legacy. Kamidian,” Oleira finished, tears glistening wetly in her perfect green eyes, “is truly their gift to us, and we are honored to share it with all of you.”
“We are honored, Queen Oleira, that you would share such a thing with us,” said Teyla, inclining her head. “My people are industrious, and would be grateful for the chance to cultivate such a useful, valuable crop. Might you provide us with kamidian seeds as well?”
“Of course,” Oleira responded with an elegant nod. “We of Myzalia are blessed to be able to share the bounty of the Ancients with any who request it.”
“Yeah, and speaking of the bounty of the Ancients,” John began, “We were wondering if you knew anything about something else the Ancients might have left behind? A… special crystal of some sort, maybe?”
“I’m not sure of what you speak,” Oleira said, “but I will think about it. In the mean time, I believe my servant has returned with the kamidian. I have also taken the liberty of having some of the kamidian extract prepared for you to try. Our legend says it is very beneficial to one’s health, and you have traveled such a long way, so you must be thirsty.”
“That’s very thoughtful,” John said. “Isn’t it?”
At John’s prompting look, Ronon murmured, “Yeah. Thoughtful.”
The servant bowed his way into the room, carrying an elaborately carved, covered wooden bowl. Behind him, two servants bowed into the room as well, one carrying a tray of carved wooden cups, one a wooden jug. Each item was set, one after the other, on a low table in front of Queen Oleira’s chaise lounge.
“Let us eat and drink of our sacred fruit, and then we shall discuss the matter of other Ancient gifts. This,” Oleira said, hand waving theatrically toward the bowl, “is kamidian.” She carefully removed the cover.
“I knew it!” Rodney yelled, voice breaking, and fainted.
---
Rodney awoke to the sound of the waves, briefly followed by John’s voice. “I think he’s coming to!”
“Oh, God, tell me that was just a nightmare,” Rodney said, not daring to open his eyes. “Tell me I just dreamed it.”
“Well,” John said, “at least we’ve convinced them to set up a tent for us out here. All their buildings are made out of orange wood, all their beds and furniture and stuff as well. Teyla is in Queen Oleira’s audience chambers, beginning the trade negotiations. Mostly, she’s trying to convince Oleira that you aren’t actually trying to insult her people’s most important commodity, and that they really should tell us more about the ZPM that might be hidden somewhere among the orange groves. And Ronon’s standing guard outside the campsite, making sure the warriors don’t decide to use their orangewood spears on you because you insulted their queen.” John grinned. “So, it’s basically just like every other mission we’ve been on.”
“Except that this is the worst planet ever,” Rodney moaned, covering his eyes with his hand. “I’ve never gone into anaphylactic shock from mere proximity before, but if any place could do it to me, I suppose it would have to be the Citrus Planet.”
“Actually, you just fainted.” John smirked. “I mean, passed out from manly hunger.”
“And a lot of good manly hunger would do me on this planet!” Rodney yelled, sitting up. “You do realize, don’t you, that I can’t eat anything here? Every single thing is made with citrus!” Rodney felt himself going pale. “We need to get back to the gate, John. We need to get back to Atlantis. I can’t be here. Even the air smells like it’s going to kill me.”
“It’s not going to kill you, Rodney,” John said patiently, leaning closer. “We’ve got MREs to spare in the jumper, plenty of water, and you’re the only one who can’t eat or drink, so it’s all yours. We need to find that ZPM and you know it. We’ll stay as long as it takes to find it, finalize the trade deal with Oleira, and maybe enjoy that nice beach out there. Go back to Atlantis with tans, make everyone else jealous. It’ll be great.”
“Oh, so I can get melanoma as well. You’re so thoughtful.” Rodney’s voice was low, and he felt himself curling up a little inside, scared in a way he had never been with the Wraith. He’d gone into anaphylactic shock before, four times. He knew what it was like, the suffocating feeling, the utter lack of control. If he remembered hard enough, he could feel it again.
“Rodney, you’re not going to die. Not here, at least.” John’s hand moved to Rodney’s shoulder, a comforting presence that brought Rodney back to himself.
“But eventually,” Rodney said, quiet and a little numb. “So why not here? It could happen here.”
“It’s going to be fine, Rodney.” John gave Rodney’s shoulder a shake, then both shoulders. “Rodney, look at me. We need you for this. You’re going to be fine.”
Rodney lay back against the bed, looking up at John. “I’m not going to be fine, Colonel. Go back to the blond.”
“You’re going to be fine,” John repeated, voice serious. He leaned in close. “I promise.”
Rodney shook his head once, closed his eyes, inhaling the pervasive smell of orange blossoms. “Can’t get away from it,” Rodney muttered. “It’s everywhere.”
“Not here,” John murmured, and kissed him.
John didn’t taste like oranges. It was the first thing Rodney noticed. Oleira would have tasted like oranges, the way she smelled like oranges. John tasted sharp, like he’d just drunk something slightly bitter, and his mouth was warm. And for the first time, with John’s mouth on his, with John’s tongue sliding over his lips as if asking a question, then dipping into Rodney’s mouth like he couldn’t quite wait for Rodney to answer, Rodney couldn’t smell orange blossoms. All he could smell was John’s breath, and John’s skin. It was a breath of fresh air.
John’s hands moved to his shoulders, pulling him closer, and his mouth moved to kiss a spot on Rodney’s neck just above the collar of his shirt, and the smell of orange blossoms returned, carrying a hint of John’s clean scent with it. John’s hands moved from his shoulders to his waist, plucking at the hem of Rodney’s shirt and moving underneath.
“Why?” Rodney gasped, tugging John up from where he was licking at Rodney’s neck. “Why now?”
John looked down at him, eyes very serious. “You really want to know?”
“Would I have asked if I didn’t want to know?” Rodney snapped, sitting up.
“No.” John sighed and leaned back, studying Rodney. “I just… we really need to find that ZPM, Rodney. We’re going to have to go through the groves to do it, and I need you not to fear the smell of orange blossoms.”
“Oh,” Rodney snapped, “as long as it’s for a good reason. I wouldn’t want you to sacrifice your virtue for less.” Then he looked at John, around the tent, out a gap in the tent flap where the ocean was beckoning them with soft, come-hither waves against the pristine white sand. He breathed in once, deep, inhaling the scent of orange and John, and then he made a decision. Rodney leaned forward and pressed his mouth against John’s, tentative like John hadn’t been, unsure like Rodney almost never was. But then John pressed back, and their mouths were blossoming open, and Rodney found himself laughing into John’s mouth, free in a way he hadn’t been in longer than he cared to remember.
He pulled back once more, looking up at John and trying not to grin fatuously. “And you will be sacrificing your virtue, you realize. Nothing less is going to get me through what is essentially a forest of painful, terrifying death.”
John laughed against Rodney’s neck, pressing him back against the bedroll. “Well, you know me, McKay. Anything for Atlantis.”
“Very noble,” Rodney muttered, and pulled John on top of him. “Now shut up.”
As John’s hands worked at the fly of Rodney’s pants, remarkably in time with his mouth on Rodney’s collarbone, every thought of painful, terrifying death slipped out of Rodney’s mind. Things didn’t usually slip out of Rodney’s mind. John working his hand into the slit of Rodney’s boxers and brushing his thumb across the head of Rodney’s cock was, however, rather effective at driving every thought but God yes oh God John has his hand on my dick God yes thank you right out of Rodney’s head.
His hands found the edge of John’s shirt and slid under it, tugging and pushing in an effort to make contact with more warm, smooth skin. John was all lean muscle, all rakish grin and gravity-free hair, in all ways everything Rodney had never let himself want. And right now, he was grinning down at Rodney, his hands insinuating themselves further into Rodney’s pants.
All in all, Rodney thought as he finally managed to get John’s shirt up and off, it was a good thing he had John to focus on.
He hadn’t realized he’d said it aloud, but John laughed, pushing up the hem of Rodney’s shirt and pressing his mouth against Rodney’s stomach. “You can focus on me all you want, Rodney,” John said, and Rodney could feel the words vibrate low in his stomach. “Except right now.”
“What’s right now?” Rodney asked, just to be sure.
“Now,” John said, licking over the trail of fine, pale hair that led down Rodney’s stomach, “now is when we make Myzalia your new favorite planet.” John swiftly shoved Rodney’s pants and boxers down to his knees, and then looked up at Rodney with an expression that was far too innocent to belong to someone whose fingers were stroking over Rodney’s balls in a way that made Rodney’s eyes cross. “Now’s also when I make another joke about manly hunger.”
Then John’s mouth was on Rodney’s cock, as hot and wet and goddamn perfect as anything Rodney had ever felt in his life. His hands gripped the edge of the bedroll like the safety bar on a roller coaster, clutching for dear life at the only thing that seemed to be still in a world that was spinning, a world that was, at the moment, focused entirely on his cock and the warm, wet mouth enthusiastically going down on him. In the back of his mind - the tiny part of it that was not occupied with processing every detail of this particular moment - Rodney thought that John did this the same way he seemed to do everything: at full speed, somehow both reckless and relentlessly thorough.
His hands moved further between Rodney’s legs, pressing behind Rodney’s balls at some spot that made light burst in front of Rodney’s eyelids and tore a groan out of his mouth. John hummed in satisfaction and found the spot again, and if Rodney hadn’t been babbling before, he was pretty sure that he was now. He could hear his own voice, low and breathy and strange to his own ears, muttering a litany of “God, John, God,” and “There, there, yes - God” and over it all, something else, something that could have been the crashing of the waves outside, or could have been the pounding of his own frantic heartbeat.
And at last, John’s clever fingers found their way to Rodney’s ass, thumb bumping up against the spot behind his balls a third time while his forefinger traced gently around the opening, and Rodney was coming into John’s mouth, his own shout ringing in his ears over the ubiquitous rush of the waves.
When Rodney could open his eyes again, John was sitting back, looking down at him curiously, like an experiment that had gone mystifyingly right. His cock was pressing intently against Rodney’s leg through the fabric of his trousers, but John seemed to ignore it entirely, just kept studying Rodney.
“Well, that was. Um. Interesting,” Rodney said for lack of anything better, because the silence needed filling.
“’Interesting’ is the best you can come up with, McKay?” John asked, shaking his head in mock censure. “A man of your intellect?”
“Yes, well, I think half my intellect just got sucked out of me, so forgive me if ‘interesting’ is the best I can do.”
John’s mouth quirked up, and he stilled for a moment before asking, “Just half?”
Rodney sat up, shoving John off his legs and into a sprawl at the end of the bedroll. “I like interesting,” Rodney said. “As long as it doesn’t try to eat me, or drown me, or suck out my life through its hand. Or trick me into eating citrus so I go into anaphylactic shock and die horrifically.”
He reached for John, fumbling with the fly of John’s pants and slowly unzipping them. When Rodney sat back, studying John the way John had studied him, he could see where the crown of John’s cock had found its way through the slit of his boxers, and Rodney clutched at the fabric of the bedroll to keep from reaching for him.
And then it hit him - he didn’t have to keep from reaching for John. Not at the moment, anyway. “I like interesting,” Rodney repeated, and inched towards John. “I think you’ll enjoy it, too.”
It was Rodney’s turn to study John, to watch the muscles shift under skin and hair as his abdomen tensed up at the first touch of Rodney’s fingertips, circling around John’s navel. John was interesting, in the ways all the best things were interesting to Rodney. In the back of his mind, part of him was wondering why he’d never seen it before, why he never realized. His skin felt right under Rodney’s hands, and Rodney couldn’t help sliding them up over John’s chest, feeling the crisp hair and warm skin like a world of new for him to explore.
John’s hands came up to Rodney’s shoulders, pulling him down on top of him, kissing Rodney like there were no questions to be answered, tongue sliding against Rodney’s with slow promise. Rodney levered himself up, managed to work his hand in between their bodies to slide his thumb over the head of John’s cock once, twice, and watched as John’s eyes closed against the friction.
In truth, Rodney was not at all sure what it was, exactly, that he was doing. It’s not that he was straight, as he supposed John had just demonstrated, but he didn’t have much experience being gay either, and at the moment he was having a hard time remembering anything besides the way the head of John’s cock felt as he brushed his thumb over it. That, he was certain he would remember forever.
So, because he wasn’t quite sure where to go from here, he prioritized.
Priority one: John must be naked.
This was easy to accomplish, though it did require Rodney to momentarily release John’s dick, at which John made some sort of a vague noise of protest until he realized what Rodney was trying to accomplish. Then the pants came off, and the boxers with them.
And finally, finally, there was nothing between Rodney and John except the orange-scented air, which also smelled of sex and sweat and sea, and Rodney quickly overcame that barrier. Now he could explore John with more than his fingertips, learn the feel of John’s body against his in a thousand different ways, and know that there were still a thousand more to discover. The thought made him close his eyes, made his breath catch in his throat - thousand different ways, a thousand new and different ways to touch and taste, and somehow John would let him.
Priority two: John needed to come.
This particular priority should be equally easy to accomplish, as far as Rodney was concerned. John was on the edge, his head thrown back and eyes closed, and all it took was a few quick strokes. When Rodney leaned up to bite gently at the soft, golden skin of John’s neck, John gave a muffled groan and came over Rodney’s hand and both their stomachs.
“And that,” Rodney said, smiling and cleaning them up, “was even more interesting.”
John sat up, watching Rodney, and grinned back. “Oh, so that’s what you meant by interesting.”
“I’ll convert you yet,” Rodney said. “It’s for the good of Atlantis, after all.”
---
At Teyla’s explanation for Rodney’s behavior, the pity of the Myzalians had been so great - for, as Oleira explained, their histories told that every so often, a child would be born unable to partake of the sacred fruit, supposedly as a penance imposed by the Ancestors for a grievous sin on the part of the parents, and that these children were doomed to die very young - that Oleira agreed readily to let them search the groves. “The kamidian was harvested two weeks ago in the areas closest to us,” she explained to John, her green eyes watery with tears, clearly distraught at the idea of the ancestral fruit doing anyone harm, “so Dr. McKay will be in no danger. I pray that the Ancestors assist you in your search, such that all of you will find use in being trading partners with Myzalia.”
The groves stretched inland as far as the horizon, in neat green lines with narrow paths latticed throughout. Ronon led the way in, reaching up to grab an orange that one of the harvesters had missed. “Wouldn’t want Dr. McKay to get hurt,” he said, pulling a knife from somewhere improbable and cutting into the orange. “Don’t worry, McKay. This one’s dead now.” He bit into the fruit with a slurp.
The trees weren’t particularly tall, and they had been planted in endless tidy rows. The bright sunlight filtered through the leaves, dappling their path with lacy green light. None of it made for a particularly frightening experience. Barring the potential for sudden, painful death, it struck Rodney as strangely pretty. “The energy readings are getting stronger,” he said, looking down at his computer. “But we’re still quite a bit away.”
“How long?” Sheppard asked.
“If the energy levels continue to rise the way they are, then we’ll have to assume we’re dealing with a fully-charged ZPM, in which case, I’d say we’re at least a half hour’s walk away.” Rodney paused. “And that’s assuming nothing goes wrong, which it always does.”
“I do not believe we are in any danger from these people,” Teyla said. “They have been very open to trade, and there is no indication of Wraith activity in this area. We are safe here, I think.”
“No, you are safe here,” Rodney said. “I’m not. I’m surrounded by little orange balls of death.”
“Really?” Sheppard asked. “We hadn’t heard. Maybe you could remind us again in five minutes, just so we don’t forget?”
“I’d give him two minutes,” Ronon said. “At most.”
“Hey!” Rodney yelled. “If you’re going to continue to mock a very serious and deadly allergy to such an evil, evil fruit -“
“Tart, at the very least,” Sheppard interjected.
“ - then I’m going to stop right here and you can just try to find the ZPM by yourselves! And when we’re on the planet where concealed weapons are considered an insult to the sacred high priestess of whatever, or the planet where flirting with every carbon-based life form is a crime punishable by death, then I’ll just laugh and laugh! And mock, and maybe point, but definitely lots of laughing.” Rodney turned on his heel and strode back down the path between the trees, the way they had come.
“Hey, now. Rodney - wait!” John turned to go after him. “Ronon, Teyla, you walk ahead. I’m pretty sure that this path continues going straight.”
“You think?” Ronon asked.
“I’ll… I’ll get him to come back. He’s just a little touchy. You know how he can be.”
“We shall continue on,” Teyla said calmly. “If we find anything, or if there is any trouble, we will let you know.”
“Thanks,” John said, and took off after Rodney.
He hadn’t gotten far. It was Rodney, after all - and although he had gotten to the point where he could, if needed, walk for three hours without stopping for a break, he would never get to the point where he would do it voluntarily, let alone do it without complaining about it. John caught up with him easily. “Rodney,” he said, grabbing his arm.
Rodney whirled around. “You don’t get to talk!” he yelled, setting down his backpack and shoving his tablet inside. “See, this is not what I wanted to do! I did not want to traipse through jungles in search of mysterious treasure! I did not want to risk excruciating pain for a reward that might not even exist! I wanted to do something interesting, and this? This was not it!”
“I think I remember what you consider interesting, Rodney,” John said quietly.
“And now I’m in the middle of an orange grove - which, on the list of places I did not expect to be, possibly ever, comes just above “Pegasus Galaxy” but just below “ship filled with life-sucking space vampires” - and I’m getting mocked by people who can never understand what it’s like to go into anaphylactic shock in the middle of the cafeteria surrounded by three hundred gawking teenagers because the lunch lady didn’t know what the hell was in the chicken surprise!”
“Rodney…”
“I thought I could do this. I did. But you and Ronon aren’t making it any easier by - “
“I know.” John sighed. “But you can be so…”
“And you can be a deliberately obtuse, suicidal Kirk-wannabe, but I don’t make fun of you for that, do I?”
John raised an eyebrow.
“Okay, so maybe I do,” Rodney continued. “But still, this is…” He closed his eyes, and his voice dropped to a whisper. “This is hard for me, Sheppard. And you’re not making it any easier.”
John stepped forward, laid a hand on Rodney’s shoulder. “I can try, if you want.”
Rodney’s eyes opened, and he licked his lips nervously. “I… what?”
“I can try to make this easier for you,” John repeated. “If you want.”
“Colonel, I’m in the middle of a really good bout of righteous anger, here, and it’s not often I get to be angry for reasons other than the sheer stupidity of the people I work with, so if you think that offering me…” Rodney paused, then lifted his chin and looked at John. “What, exactly, is it that you’re offering me?”
“A blowjob,” John said helpfully, stepping closer. “But you know me, McKay. I’m usually willing to negotiate.” He leaned in, brushed a soft kiss across Rodney’s mouth, an apology and an explanation as succinct as possible.
“And… wait, what is it you mean by negotiate?” Rodney asked when he pulled back.
“It means,” John explained patiently, “that I could probably be talked into something else if I thought it would make this whole little-orange-balls-of-death experience a bit more enjoyable for you.”
“So you’ve…” he trailed off, grasping for words. “You’ve done other things before, then?”
John looked at him like he was a little bit slow. “No, Rodney, I’ve turned gay just for you.”
“Your sarcasm isn’t helpful, Colonel,” Rodney snapped, and then lifted his chin, processing, and muttered, “Oh.”
“So the offer stands,” John said, licking his lips and looking at Rodney in full Kirk mode.
“You mean…” Rodney coughed. “You mean I could… we could…”
“Fuck me?” John supplied, grinning. “If you can’t say it, Rodney, you probably shouldn’t be doing it.”
Rodney blinked. “But… now? Here?”
“Unless you’d rather continue to freak out and leave Ronon and Teyla wandering around the groves, hoping to stumble on the ZPM by chance. In which case,” he finished, shrugging, “later is fine.”
“No, that’s not what I meant,” Rodney said. “Don’t you need… things for that?”
“Condoms? Lube? Again, Rodney, if you can’t say it…”
“You bring condoms and lube on missions?” Rodney rolled his eyes. “Wait a second, I’m talking to Lieutenant Colonel John ‘Fuck Me’ Sheppard. Of course you do.”
John grinned. “See, not that hard to say.” He moved closer to Rodney, slowly backing him up until he was up against a tree, looking up at John with wide-open blue eyes. “So, Rodney?”
“Now’s good,” Rodney said, gasping, and pulled John’s mouth down to his.
John’s hands came up to Rodney’s face, thumb stroking across Rodney’s cheek affectionately before one hand slipped down, skimming over his chest and finally slipping inside Rodney’s pants. He was already half-hard, completely on edge. “It’s gonna be good, McKay,” John said, teeth skimming along the shell of Rodney’s ear. “All of it - it’s all going to be good.”
"You know," Rodney said, fumbling at the fly of John's pants as John breathed into the crook of Rodney's neck, "this is not exactly what I was expecting when we stepped off the puddlejumper."
John jerked against him as Rodney's hand found its way into John's boxers, and Rodney could feel his mouth pull into a grin. "What, you weren't expecting to get laid up against a tree in the middle of an orange grove? You've got a serious lack of imagination, McKay."
"The best I was expecting was to find a ZPM," Rodney said, stroking down the length of John's cock. "I suppose this is almost as good as that."
"You just say that cause you haven't actually gotten any yet, Rodney," John said, biting him lightly above his collarbone and pulling down on Rodney's trousers. "Let's see if we can shatter those expectations, huh, McKay?"
They were used to working together, but Rodney had never expected that this would manifest itself in how quickly they managed to get their bottom halves mostly-naked.
And that's where I left it. If I could write "And then they done sex. The end!" I totally would have. Alas, that doesn't actually work.
The City Lights
Suddenly, abruptly, she was awake.
She had woken twice before - not wanting to, but pulled out of a slumber by a single presence in her halls. But it had always been momentary, for a few hours. She had always slipped right back, lulled by the currents nudging at her shields, by the pulse of life around her in the waters, a delicate hum far away. This, however -
There were people. Not just the one, the lonely presence that barely nudged at her senses, but hundreds, bringing her to life. She could feel their wonder, feel herself wonder with them. It had been so long - like slipping through ice, having the blood stop running and the heart stop beating. But she was unfreezing. These people had woken her.
She got up.
It shouldn’t have been as simple as that, but it was. She rose; the oceans of her planet parted for her, gave way, and she was standing again. These people had helped her rise.
And one in particular.
He was an explorer, this one. He was a throwback to her old charges, the ones who had left her sleeping so long ago. She could feel him more than anyone, a shining presence that warmed her. After so long asleep, he was waking her up. It was his doing, more than theirs; she could sense that now.
She loved them all with a great pulsing gratitude where she might, in some incarnation, have had a heart. But him she loved most of all. Him she loved overwhelmingly, involuntarily. He was her center.
She would keep all her new charges safe. But him most of all. She couldn’t bear to be alone again, to sleep again after ten thousand years. He would never leave her. She would keep him safe.
---
“I’ve been having… dreams.”
“Dreams?” Heightmeyer scribbled something on a pad and nodded. “Go on.”
John looked at her askance. “Do you have to do that?”
“Do what?” Heightmeyer said, not looking up.
“That… shrink thing. Make notes.”
“I do if you want me to remember what you’re saying after the session is over. Why?” Now Heightmeyer looked up, a gleam in her eyes. “Does it make you uncomfortable?”
“If I said yes, would you stop?”
Heightmeyer laughed. “No, probably not. Go on. You’re having dreams?”
“Yeah. The same one. Maybe once, twice a month?”
She nodded. “And what is it that you dream?”
“I’m walking around Atlantis. It’s the middle of the night - dark out, just before sunrise. There’s nobody in the halls, but they light up in front of me, and I follow the lights. There’s this room…” John’s mouth tightened. He couldn’t figure it out, awake or asleep. “I need to see what’s inside it. But it won’t open. It’s the only room that won’t open for me. And I need to figure it out.”
“Uh-huh.” Heightmeyer nodded again, then looked up, her pen stilling. “And that’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“Well, Colonel, that’s not an atypical dream for someone doing the nature of work that you’re doing. It’s not happening every night, but - and please, correct me if I’m wrong - after moments of great stress. Because you’re looking for the answers to some difficult questions in the work that you’re doing, your subconscious worries are manifesting themselves in your dreams.”
“And that’s it?” John asked, skeptical.
Heightmeyer smiled. “John, dreams like this are a well-documented side effect of any sort of high-pressure job. And yours is one of the highest pressure on Atlantis. Now, I could prescribe a mild sedative for you to take before you sleep, but I think I’m correct in assuming you wouldn’t take it?”
“Yeah, you assume correctly.”
“Well, then. If it begins to affect your work, or if you end up not getting enough sleep, let me know, and we can look into alternate paths of inquiry. But until then… maybe take a vacation at some point in the near future, okay, Colonel?”
“Yeah, that’ll happen.” John said with a brief smile. “See you later, Doctor. Thanks.”
“You’ll be fine, John,” she said, and turned back to her desk, her mind obviously on something else as he walked out the door.
It didn’t really matter, though, to John’s way of thinking. He’d figure this out. He might be on his own, but he’d figure it out. It was, and always had been, up to him.
That one I just kind of... I don't know. I wasn't quite sure where I was going with it, and so I just kind of dropped it. It's definitely going to stay dropped.
SGA/Good Omens Crossover
In the bureaucracy of Hell, jurisdiction over Atlantis is a complicated area. For every world inhabited by corruptible beings, there is a section of Hell devoted to its corruption. For every galaxy where beings travel the stars, Hell has created a department working busily to tempt those beings to sin.
But when the Atlantis mission was launched, it created a problem. The demons assigned to the Ancients had long since taken on new missions - having been awarded commendations, of course, for jobs well done. Their descendants in the Pegasus galaxy had their own demons assigned to them, and when the Atlantis mission was launched, the Pegasus Galaxy department had been chugging along steadily for millennia.
However, the new Lanteans were Earthlings, no matter which way you cut it, and after two years of quite heated debate, Hell decreed that a new post should be created: Earth-Pegasus Liaison Officer, who would be required to deal with the demons of Pegasus and the demons of Earth, and would be specifically charged with the temptation of Earthlings on Atlantis. The post would, of course, be long term.
Hastor, Duke of Hell, headed up the selection committee. And so it was unanimously decided that there was only one demon capable of the job.
---
The car was the first thing John noticed. He wouldn’t have, normally. In general, a 1926 Bentley wasn’t known for going particularly fast, and fast was what drew John in. This one, however, looked like it could do whatever the hell it wanted. It held an indefinable aura of dignified menace, and just looking at it made John’s fingertips itch. Oh, it was a car.
“Stop drooling, Colonel,” Rodney snapped from the doorway of the bar. “This is our last night back and I’d really rather not spend it in a parking lot watching you salivate over a heap of antique metal.”
John turned to him, affronted. “It’s not a heap of metal, Rodney. It’s a Bentley.”
“Yes, yes, of course. Can we go inside before I die of hypothermia, please?”
John nodded, trailing a fingertip over the glossy black hood, and followed Rodney into the bar.
It wasn’t a particularly classy place, but it was the nearest bar to Cheyenne Mountain, and at the moment it was nearly empty. Most of the military contingent, John figured, were preparing for their departure tomorrow, and most of the scientists were spending their last night with their families.
At the bar, backlit by a flaming orange neon sign, sat a man in a suit. His hair was spiked up in a way that was somehow more artful than John’s ever managed to be, and he wore a pair of very expensive-looking black sunglasses. Head bowed, he stared balefully into the glass in front of him. Beside him, a slightly pudgy man in a sweater-vest gesticulated wildly with the shot glass in his hand.
“Might not be that bad, Crowley!” the pudgy one was saying. “Could be quite an adventure, really.”
Crowley muttered something John couldn’t quite hear and tossed back the contents of his glass.
Rodney had moved to the bar and began to order - “Canadian beer? Any at all? Oh, for Christ’s sake, do you people even have tastebuds?” - and John joined him, keeping an eye on the pair beside them.
The bartender returned with their drinks, and Rodney continued to mutter about American palates, taking pauses to sip at his beer and grimacing theatrically after each taste.
“You’re the one who likes MREs, McKay,” John pointed out.
“The meatloaf ones are actually quite good,” Rodney said defensively.
At that, the man in the sunglasses - Crowley, his friend had called him - groaned as if in pain. “Meatloaf, Aziraphale. They’re going to make me eat meatloaf, and no sushi bars for light years. I might as well have been assigned to a desk job in Hell.”
“Actually,” John informed him, “Rodney’s right - the meatloaf isn’t bad. It’s the chicken cacciatore that you have to watch out for.”
Crowley groaned. “That really doesn’t reassure me, mate.”
John held out his hand. “Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard. I take you’ve been, um…” He paused, looking for a way to ask it. “…assigned somewhere interesting?”
Crowley’s mouth tightened briefly before he took John’s hand and shook it. “Yesss, well. Something like that. Dr. Anthony Crowley. I’m a, um. Biologist.” John didn’t have to turn around - he could practically hear Rodney’s eyes rolling. Crowley ignored him and continued, “Speciality in herpetology.”
“Herpetology - that’s reptiles, right?” John asked. “Cheer up, Dr. Crowley. I don’t think you’ll hate where you’re going.”
“I can’t bring my car. Of course I’ll hate where I’m going.”
“Oh, perfect,” Rodney muttered from behind John.
John perked up. “Your car wouldn’t happen to be the 1926 Bentley out front, would it?”
“Yessss, that’s the one,” sighed Crowley.
“Why don’t I buy you a drink?” John asked smoothly, smiling with as much charm as he could manage at his new favourite person.
---
Sweater-Vest’s name was Aziraphale, Rodney discovered. Aziraphale hadn’t offered a first name, but instead had ordered them both a shot of tequila. Rodney figured it was a fair trade.
Aziraphale had curly, sandy-blond hair that was just slightly too long. That, combined with the wire-rimmed glasses, the sweater-vest, and the plummy English accent gave him the overall impression of a very gay, very English professor of something useless who didn’t get out particularly often. And from the affectionate glances Aziraphale kept shooting John’s new best friend, at least two of Rodney’s snap judgements were exactly on the mark.
“So,” Rodney began abruptly, “you’re letting your boyfriend travel pretty damn far. You must be really broken up about that, huh? You know, you could try to convince him to stay - at this point, it might just work.”
“My… Crowley, you mean?” Aziraphale asked, sounding somehow amused at Rodney’s expense.
Rodney shifted uncomfortably. “He is, I mean. That is, you are… um.”
“Oh yes, well. You could call him that.” Aziraphale tossed back the tequila shot in front of him and smiled placidly at Rodney. “I suppose I forgot to mention that I’ll be coming along as well.”
“No, you didn’t mention that,” Rodney snapped, unsure whether he was relieved or annoyed. “And what is it that you do? It can’t possibly be more useless than herpetology, can it?”
Aziraphale shrugged. “I guess you’ll find out tomorrow, won’t you? But since we’re all of-duty at the moment, shall we have some more tequila?”
Rodney briefly contemplated arguing before he heard a loud laugh coming from John’s direction. Alcohol was sounding better and better. “God, please.”
“I’ll pass along the request,” said Aziraphale, grinning, and waved the bartender over.
---
“Aziraphale is going to kill you, you know.”
Rodney was suddenly standing beside John, looking both disapproving and completely wasted. For a man who wasn’t particularly coordinated when sober, he moved with incredible grace when drunk. It made John’s head hurt a little.
“It’s completely obvious what you’re doing, Colonel,” he said.
John took a sip of the beer he’d been nursing for the past hour and a half, and lounged back against the bar. “And what’s that, Rodney?”
“You’re trying to get Crowley drunk so you can drive his car.” Rodney crossed his arms over his chest and looked down at John accusingly, as if daring him to deny it.
“Excuse me?” John said. “Did you really just accuse me of getting a future co-worker intoxicated just so I could play with his car?”
“It’s not going to work, Colonel. Aziraphale is on to you, and he’s not going to stand for it.”
John peeked around Rodney to where Aziraphale sat, a blissful expression on his face, turning a cardboard coaster bearing the words “Tastes Great!” on one side and “Less Filling!” on the other back and forth in his hands.
“Somehow, I think he’s okay with it. Jesus, Rodney, lighten up. It’s not I’m trying to get the guy drunk and steal his virtue. I’m just making friendly conversation.”
“Yes, well. Make sure it stays that way,” snapped Rodney. “You may think you’re Captain Kirk, but the rest of us all have to work together, and dealing with one of your heartbroken conquests and his jealous boyfriend will take away time I could be using to save the galaxy.” With that, Rodney gulped down another shot for emphasis and stormed back to where Aziraphale sat, still deep in contemplation of the coaster.
“Fucking weird,” muttered John, and returned to Crowley.
That one just ended because... well, because I realised how damn long it would need to be. And then I got panicked, started worrying that my voices were off, and just decided to shelve it for a while. Which then turned into forever and ever.
So these are the WIPs I'm giving up on. Still haven't given up on the Jon/Stephen High School AU, though!