Fic: Big Damn Poppies, Sir
Author: linaerys
Title: Big Damn Poppies, Sir
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Sheppard/McKay
Word Count: ~3400
Summary: Doesn't everyone have to try an "alien drugs made them do it story"? This is mine. Or one of them anyway.
Disclaimer: These characters do not belong to me, nor to I derive any profit from them.
A/N: Thanks a thousand times to wesleysgirl, who did a fantastic job beta-ing and deserves all credit for the characterization of Carson. All remaining mistakes are mine.
Spoilers: Through "Duet".
One.
"So, the village was peaceful, Colonel?" asked Elizabeth.
"Depends what you mean by 'peaceful'," said Sheppard.
***
The gate on PX3-445 stood in a grassy field that sloped down toward a forest full of trees that would have made the great sequoias of the Western United States jealous. Sheppard had driven his Jeep through one of those sequoias, once upon a time, in a different lifetime, but these could have accommodated a Mack Truck under the uplifted roots. Huge red flowers waved on their stems, facing, oddly, into the wind.
"Did you ever read The Wizard of Oz?" Sheppard whispered to Rodney. "It's too peaceful, and those flowers make me nervous."
"The flowers make you nervous? Have you ever thought that maybe being constantly exposed to certain death has made you a little paranoid?"
"It's not paranoia if they're really out to get you," answered Sheppard in an undertone.
"Hey, that's my line," complained Rodney, as a matter of form.
The wind picked up and Sheppard squinted into the distance beyond the gate they had come through. "Does that strike you as a little odd?"
"You mean that cloud of red dust? Maybe there's a dustbowl somewhere beyond the field," said Rodney. "Oh my God, do you think it's pollen?"
"We're in a field of flowers. What do you think?"
"I'm allergic to some forms of pollen, not all but-this could be bad." Rodney started patting himself down.
"What?" Sheppard said to Rodney.
"My anaphylaxis kit. Could come in handy."
"You go into anaphylactic shock from pollen?"
"Well, it never hurts to be prepared."
"Poppy is an opiate right?" asked Sheppard.
"Yes, in fact, once I flunked a CIA drug test because of a poppy seed bagel." Rodney frowned contemplatively. "Of course, they also said I was acting strange."
"Well, if they're related to poppies, we may need the stimulant from the first aid kit. Why don't you make yourself useful and get some out."
"Do I look like Dr. Beckett? How do I know what's a stimulant looks like?"
John looked back up the hill to where Teyla and Ronon walked side by side. Suddenly they turned toward one another, wearing similar expressions to when they sparred. "I don't think a stimulant is what we're going to need."
Sheppard started to run back to them in case he had to break up a fight, but when Teyla took her first swing, Ronon caught it and absorbed the blow. He slid his hand up her arm and then slid his other hand down her back and lifted her up, one armed, to bring her face level with his. His hair hid whatever came next, but Sheppard was pretty sure fighting was the least of it. He saw Ronon fall over on his back with Teyla on top, and now her hair covered them. Sheppard saw her sit up and pull her shirt off, and her well muscled torso gleamed like beaten copper in the sun before that disappeared below the high grass again.
Sheppard turned back to McKay, who had an uncomfortable expression on his face. "Did you see . . . ?" Rodney asked. "Are you going to go-," he pursed his lips and jutted his chin in the direction of the vigorously waving grass, "-break that up?"
Sheppard shook his head. He barely felt capable of stopping a fight between Teyla and Ronon, if they really wanted to go for it and this-he would probably lose a limb. "Did you see where the Lieutenants went? Jensen and McMillan?"
"No," said Rodney. He fiddled with his collar. "But I have a guess."
"They were flirting in the jumper, so . . ."
"Then what about us?" Rodney turned his worried eyes to Sheppard.
***
"The poppies had some sort of aphrodisiac in the pollen?" asked Elizabeth with her trademarked raised eyebrow. "Dare I ask how you escaped?" Sheppard looked carefully for a smirk hiding beneath Elizabeth's cool demeanor, but finding none, continued.
"Well, Carson thinks that the poppy is genetically engineered, because it has a fail-safe, of a sort."
"A fail-safe?"
"According to Carson, anyone in range of the pollen who doesn't find, uh, an outlet, their brain circuitry overloads, and they pass out."
"Convenient."
***
"Make for the trees-maybe the pollen will pass overhead." Rodney, for once, didn't have to be asked twice, and started running for the forest ahead of Sheppard.
The red cloud made its way down the hill, and seemed to pause in the field before the forest. Sheppard breathed a sigh of relief, before a new gust of wind picked it up and filtered it in between the huge trunks. "Get down," yelled Sheppard as he tackled Rodney to the ground. "Don't breathe. Maybe it only works in certain quantities."
"Don't breathe," whispered McKay. "Great advice." Then after a moment, "It's not stopping." Sheppard looked up and saw the cloud surrounding them. It made a false twilight among the branches of the ancient trees. He looked back to Rodney, half under him, whose forehead shone with fine beads of sweat. "Why do they always send us out on these missions?" Rodney asked rhetorically. "Why is it never Zelenka or Lorne who gets exposed to alien sex drugs?"
"How do you know? Maybe we just never hear about it," Sheppard whispered into Rodney's ear, mere inches from him now, and conscious thought began to take a back seat. He pressed his lips together for a moment, then decided to chance it, and kissed Rodney's neck right below it, then worked up and nibbled on his earlobe.
"Oh God," said Rodney, and it didn't sound quite like his usual worried tone. "I was afraid this was going to happen."
"Will you shut up for once," said Sheppard. He kissed across Rodney's face and then found his lips, and those lips were definitely kissing him back. Coherent thought was a dim memory now for John. Rodney sat up and John took the opportunity to undo the snaps of his vest and push his hands underneath. Rodney's hands were similarly busy.
They pulled off shirts and pants. Sheppard found the clasps for Rodney's thigh holster and undid them before sliding his hand up higher and rubbing Rodney briefly through his clothes then working his pants down. His own clothes felt far too tight, and he dragged his pants down just enough to get one foot out before climbing back on top of Rodney. Sheppard felt Rodney's hot hand on his hip and guided it down to his cock, then took hold of Rodney's. Rodney thrust up into his hand as John rocked back and forth in Rodney's grasp until they came gasping a few seconds later.
***
"There was a delay getting to the village?" asked Elizabeth.
"You could call it that. But we got there eventually, and what we found was not pretty."
***
Sheppard leaned down and kissed him hard as they came. Their lips slid wetly against each other. Rodney sat up with Sheppard straddling him and ran his hands down Sheppard's back, pulling him in closer. They stuck together in the heat of the afternoon, but it didn't seem to matter. All that mattered was the closeness and the feeling of Rodney's lips on his, Rodney's hands on him, trying to get as near to each other as possible.
Mid-kiss the breeze shifted, and turned from warm to cool. Suddenly Sheppard was aware of the pine needles under his knees, the dirt that covered Rodney's back. "The pollen is leaving," said John against Rodney's lips.
"Oh, too bad." Rodney's eyes looked glazed and sated, and his voice seemed softer, less sarcastic, then he seemed to feel it too.
"Oh, shit. We have to get dressed."
"You think, McKay?"
"And you're going to have to stand up first."
"Oh yeah, that." Sheppard stood up with some reluctance. They brushed each other off as best they could, but their hands touching the other's flesh was still damn distracting, and Sheppard caught himself, more than once, reaching around Rodney's soft and yielding torso to pull him close and move his hands down . . .
"Colonel," said McKay softly--and how had John gone so long not noticing that his voice could be so supple and enticing? "Colonel! As fun as this is, it really isn't helping." John zipped up and fastened his pants with a sigh and snapped his holster into place. Rodney turned back around and drew his hand up the inside of John's thigh over the holster, and the semi-hardness that John had been keeping under control jumped up again of its own accord.
"Not helping!" said Sheppard back. "I'm going behind this tree. You go over there. Don't come back until you're dressed."
"I like it when you're all military like that," said Rodney before he stepped back.
Rodney still had sticks in his hair when he returned, but John rubbed his hands on his pant legs rather than risk reaching over to pull them out. Oh, he had known he harbored some affection that was a little more than friendly for the Atlantis team's head scientist, but there were, objectively speaking, more attractive men on the base, and more discreet possibilities. The old, flooded section had some empty bedrooms and if he went there after dark, he might find another hard warm body for a few minutes. Sheppard had a few ideas of who the others who frequented those rooms were, but 'don't ask, don't tell' was their watchword, and so far, the anonymity of the dark had served its purpose. Somehow, Sheppard didn't think cold anonymous groping would satisfy him any more.
John drew his sidearm just to have something in his hands other than air and the memory of how Rodney had felt in them, when Ronon and Teyla came over the rise of the hill and down toward the forest.
"Colonel," called out Teyla. "Are you alright?"
"I could ask the same of you," muttered Sheppard when they came closer. Teyla looked as fierce as she always did, but with the air of a satiated predator rather than a hungry one, and Ronon had a grin playing on the edge of his lips.
"My apologies for the delay, Colonel. This world's pollen has an interesting effect."
"Interesting, huh? Is that what you're calling it?" Teyla refused to look embarrassed, but Ronon down looked at John's shoes.
"We got a little distracted," he said.
John frowned at him. "Did you see where Jensen and McMillan went?"
"I believe they are still distracted," said Teyla with a sidelong glance at Sheppard, who put on the blandest expression he owned.
"Let's try to find that village now." Sheppard pulled out his life signs detector and they started walking.
Two.
"What we found there was fairly disturbing," continued Sheppard.
"Disturbing how?" asked Elizabeth.
The village was little more than a collection of tents. Bright streamers adorned the trees and when the team stopped moving, they could hear sighs and gasps of pleasure from the tents. Looking further, they saw that a few of the villagers had fallen where they stood and curled upon themselves on the pine-needle covered ground, although some of these had started to stir.
"John," said Teyla in a harsh undertone. "I feel something. The Wraith are coming."
"We ran back to the jumper. On the way back we found the others."
Amanda Jensen and Jamie McMillan naked and curled around each other, still touching lazily.
"We went into stealth mode and flew back to the village. Some of the Wraith came in and fed on the fallen, but the bulk of the raiding party . . ."
The darts hovered above a clearing on the edge of the village. John only had a glimpse through the window of the jumper before the Wraith beam picked up everything.
"Babies-infants. On the ground. The jumper surveillance footage shows it too."
Elizabeth did not answer right away, but raised one eyebrow. "I thought the Wraith preferred adults."
"Maybe they still do. Maybe they're trying to start their own crop." John bit off the words.
"Understood." She tapped on her headset. "Carson? Can you please come up to my office?"
She turned back to Sheppard. "You can go now."
"We have to rescue them!" he burst out.
"Colonel, calm yourself. Every planet we've seen has a different strategy for dealing with the Wraith. This is distasteful, to be sure, but no worse than any other."
"They're helpless. At least adults have a fighting chance."
"And maybe this is that planet's version of population control. It's not unknown. Until a hundred years ago there were still Polynesian societies that used infanticide to keep their numbers from overburdening their environment."
"And if the poppies make family planning unworkable . . ."
"This may be their only option."
Sheppard rubbed the back of his head. "I still don't like it."
Shower first, thought Sheppard as he made his way back to his quarters. His clothes stuck to him all over, and every reflective surface showed his hair looking even crazier than usual. He paused at Rodney's door on his way, and hesitated a moment before knocking. Rodney opened the door with a towel wrapped around his waist.
"Colonel."
"Can I come in?" John asked. Rodney stared at him for a moment and then turned around so John could follow him. Rodney arranged his quarters in a strange mix of intensely organized and chaotically scattered. A quick glance told him that all Rodney's books were in alphabetical order by subject and then author, but a mass of wrinkled clothes covered the bottom of his closet.
"About what happened today . . . .?"
"Colonel, this is already extremely embarrassing. Now I can add poppies to the list of things that scare the hell out of me, along with citrus, bee stings, small places, and, oh yeah, the Wraith."
"I'm sorry! I didn't think it was that scary. You seemed to be enjoying yourself."
"Rub it in, why don't you. That wasn't how I pictured-can't we please just forget it?" Suddenly the world skewed 180 degrees. Rodney had pictured it? Incoherent-around-women, desperately-in-love-with-Samantha-Carter Rodney had pictured it?
"I don't want to forget it," said Sheppard in a low voice.
"You don't?" Rodney's voice rose to a squeak. John stepped in close to him.
"No, I don't." They kissed again, and this time without the effects of the pollen, John could savor every moment, the way Rodney bit his bottom lip, Rodney's hands in his hair. Rodney pulling away again?
"You're filthy," he said, showing John a pine needle that he'd pulled out of his hair.
"I could use a shower," said John with a half smile. He started pulling his shirt off and Rodney helped him. Somewhere on the way to the bathroom Rodney dropped his towel and John shed the rest of his clothes, and he found himself in the shower with Rodney pressing his back against the cold tile, holding his hands up against the wall and kissing him like he was drowning.
"Time for soap later," Rodney muttered as he dropped to his knees and snaked his hand up between John's legs to draw him closer. John edged his shoulders into the spray of the shower to shield Rodney's face from it and then gave himself up to the feeling of Rodney's hot mouth on him, his hands kneading John's ass, pulling John further into his mouth until he came harder and faster than he wanted to. Rodney's mouth held him through the aftershocks and then John helped him up.
"I had no idea," John murmured when they ducked under the spray again. The Ancients' showers had a wide radius, and it was like being caught in a deliciously warm rainstorm.
"No idea that I liked to suck-," Rodney started. Sheppard cut him off with a fierce kiss.
"No idea about any of it."
"You always said I was a terrible liar."
"I guess I should have asked you then."
"Dr. McKay," came Elizabeth's voice over the loudspeaker. "Colonel Sheppard. Please join us in the conference room."
"Does she know?" mouthed Rodney.
"She probably broadcast to both our rooms," said Sheppard in an undertone. Rodney glared at him. "Well, I didn't tell her."
***
"Well, I suspected and Dr. Parrish has confirmed it. It is definitely a genetically engineered plant," said Dr. Carson when they had all assembled. "It has Wraith fingerprints all over it. It affects certain brain functions, stimulating the same centers that are affected in lower mammals when they scent another of their kind in heat. But it also dampens violent impulses, which is why, if someone drugged by the plant can't find a suitable, ah, subject for their attentions, their brain effectively puts them to sleep."
"We theorize that the Wraith tailored this plant to integrate into the society. If it caused anti-social behaviors-," said Elizabeth.
"Like rape," put in Carson.
"Then the natives would have rooted it out," continued Elizabeth.
"The pollen release is triggered on a seven year cycle," said Carson. "But the Wraith can also trigger it themselves, which they have been doing lately."
"That leads to an increase in births, and the infanticide that you saw, Colonel."
"Don't they realize that we already have one Planet Kid-Kill in this galaxy?" asked Rodney.
"In a horrible way it's very clever, really," said Carson, after giving Rodney a chiding look. "The Wraith use the plant to remove the natural controls on population growth, and then cull the extras. Those that are not able to attract a mate are rendered helpless by the pollen, and the Wraith feed on them, too."
"Wraith selection," said Sheppard. "The population is selected down to those most likely to breed."
"Exactly. But at a much faster rate than what would happen naturally." Carson frowned. "It's devilishly clever."
"Is there anything we can do to stop it?" asked Sheppard.
"Ah, Dr. Parrish already has an idea," said Carson.
"We think if Dr. Parrish can engineer a more robust version of the plant, one without the side effects you witnessed, it could replace the current poppies in a single growing cycle," said Elizabeth.
"What about the natives? This is the way they co-exist with the Wraith," asked Rodney.
Elizabeth looked sharply at him. "I hardly consider this co-existing." Sheppard raised his eyebrows at this reversal. "We'll give those who wish to leave the address of the Alpha site," she continued.
"Some day the Wraith are going to find that, too," said Sheppard. Elizabeth nodded sadly. "We can't bring them here."
"I'll have a team on standby to deliver the engineered poppies when they're ready. I don't suppose you can prepare an antidote?" he asked Carson.
"Way ahead of you, Colonel."
Elizabeth spread out her hands. "I guess that's it then."
"I take it you and Rodney lost consciousness under the effects of the pollen?" Carson asked Sheppard on their way out the door.
"Yep," said John. "Totally unconscious."
"Good thing. I shudder to imagine the alternative."
"Thanks," called out Rodney from behind them.
"Then again, I don't have to, do I?" asked Carson with a twinkle in his eye.
"For the last time, that was Cadman, not me!"
Carson walked on ahead of them, and Sheppard felt Rodney's hand glide accidentally-on-purpose against his hip.
"Do you have something you need to be working on?" Sheppard asked under his breath as they walked through the halls.
"Oh just the routine, finding a way to power the city on a rapidly depleting ZPM, repairing jumpers, studying Wraith technology so we can kill them before they kill us, looking for a stably fissionable material, the usual," said Rodney.
"Well, if you're not busy . . ." he backed Rodney up against the door to his room, triggered the door, and they both stumbled through it. "I can think of some ways to pass the time."
Title: Big Damn Poppies, Sir
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Sheppard/McKay
Word Count: ~3400
Summary: Doesn't everyone have to try an "alien drugs made them do it story"? This is mine. Or one of them anyway.
Disclaimer: These characters do not belong to me, nor to I derive any profit from them.
A/N: Thanks a thousand times to wesleysgirl, who did a fantastic job beta-ing and deserves all credit for the characterization of Carson. All remaining mistakes are mine.
Spoilers: Through "Duet".
One.
"So, the village was peaceful, Colonel?" asked Elizabeth.
"Depends what you mean by 'peaceful'," said Sheppard.
***
The gate on PX3-445 stood in a grassy field that sloped down toward a forest full of trees that would have made the great sequoias of the Western United States jealous. Sheppard had driven his Jeep through one of those sequoias, once upon a time, in a different lifetime, but these could have accommodated a Mack Truck under the uplifted roots. Huge red flowers waved on their stems, facing, oddly, into the wind.
"Did you ever read The Wizard of Oz?" Sheppard whispered to Rodney. "It's too peaceful, and those flowers make me nervous."
"The flowers make you nervous? Have you ever thought that maybe being constantly exposed to certain death has made you a little paranoid?"
"It's not paranoia if they're really out to get you," answered Sheppard in an undertone.
"Hey, that's my line," complained Rodney, as a matter of form.
The wind picked up and Sheppard squinted into the distance beyond the gate they had come through. "Does that strike you as a little odd?"
"You mean that cloud of red dust? Maybe there's a dustbowl somewhere beyond the field," said Rodney. "Oh my God, do you think it's pollen?"
"We're in a field of flowers. What do you think?"
"I'm allergic to some forms of pollen, not all but-this could be bad." Rodney started patting himself down.
"What?" Sheppard said to Rodney.
"My anaphylaxis kit. Could come in handy."
"You go into anaphylactic shock from pollen?"
"Well, it never hurts to be prepared."
"Poppy is an opiate right?" asked Sheppard.
"Yes, in fact, once I flunked a CIA drug test because of a poppy seed bagel." Rodney frowned contemplatively. "Of course, they also said I was acting strange."
"Well, if they're related to poppies, we may need the stimulant from the first aid kit. Why don't you make yourself useful and get some out."
"Do I look like Dr. Beckett? How do I know what's a stimulant looks like?"
John looked back up the hill to where Teyla and Ronon walked side by side. Suddenly they turned toward one another, wearing similar expressions to when they sparred. "I don't think a stimulant is what we're going to need."
Sheppard started to run back to them in case he had to break up a fight, but when Teyla took her first swing, Ronon caught it and absorbed the blow. He slid his hand up her arm and then slid his other hand down her back and lifted her up, one armed, to bring her face level with his. His hair hid whatever came next, but Sheppard was pretty sure fighting was the least of it. He saw Ronon fall over on his back with Teyla on top, and now her hair covered them. Sheppard saw her sit up and pull her shirt off, and her well muscled torso gleamed like beaten copper in the sun before that disappeared below the high grass again.
Sheppard turned back to McKay, who had an uncomfortable expression on his face. "Did you see . . . ?" Rodney asked. "Are you going to go-," he pursed his lips and jutted his chin in the direction of the vigorously waving grass, "-break that up?"
Sheppard shook his head. He barely felt capable of stopping a fight between Teyla and Ronon, if they really wanted to go for it and this-he would probably lose a limb. "Did you see where the Lieutenants went? Jensen and McMillan?"
"No," said Rodney. He fiddled with his collar. "But I have a guess."
"They were flirting in the jumper, so . . ."
"Then what about us?" Rodney turned his worried eyes to Sheppard.
***
"The poppies had some sort of aphrodisiac in the pollen?" asked Elizabeth with her trademarked raised eyebrow. "Dare I ask how you escaped?" Sheppard looked carefully for a smirk hiding beneath Elizabeth's cool demeanor, but finding none, continued.
"Well, Carson thinks that the poppy is genetically engineered, because it has a fail-safe, of a sort."
"A fail-safe?"
"According to Carson, anyone in range of the pollen who doesn't find, uh, an outlet, their brain circuitry overloads, and they pass out."
"Convenient."
***
"Make for the trees-maybe the pollen will pass overhead." Rodney, for once, didn't have to be asked twice, and started running for the forest ahead of Sheppard.
The red cloud made its way down the hill, and seemed to pause in the field before the forest. Sheppard breathed a sigh of relief, before a new gust of wind picked it up and filtered it in between the huge trunks. "Get down," yelled Sheppard as he tackled Rodney to the ground. "Don't breathe. Maybe it only works in certain quantities."
"Don't breathe," whispered McKay. "Great advice." Then after a moment, "It's not stopping." Sheppard looked up and saw the cloud surrounding them. It made a false twilight among the branches of the ancient trees. He looked back to Rodney, half under him, whose forehead shone with fine beads of sweat. "Why do they always send us out on these missions?" Rodney asked rhetorically. "Why is it never Zelenka or Lorne who gets exposed to alien sex drugs?"
"How do you know? Maybe we just never hear about it," Sheppard whispered into Rodney's ear, mere inches from him now, and conscious thought began to take a back seat. He pressed his lips together for a moment, then decided to chance it, and kissed Rodney's neck right below it, then worked up and nibbled on his earlobe.
"Oh God," said Rodney, and it didn't sound quite like his usual worried tone. "I was afraid this was going to happen."
"Will you shut up for once," said Sheppard. He kissed across Rodney's face and then found his lips, and those lips were definitely kissing him back. Coherent thought was a dim memory now for John. Rodney sat up and John took the opportunity to undo the snaps of his vest and push his hands underneath. Rodney's hands were similarly busy.
They pulled off shirts and pants. Sheppard found the clasps for Rodney's thigh holster and undid them before sliding his hand up higher and rubbing Rodney briefly through his clothes then working his pants down. His own clothes felt far too tight, and he dragged his pants down just enough to get one foot out before climbing back on top of Rodney. Sheppard felt Rodney's hot hand on his hip and guided it down to his cock, then took hold of Rodney's. Rodney thrust up into his hand as John rocked back and forth in Rodney's grasp until they came gasping a few seconds later.
***
"There was a delay getting to the village?" asked Elizabeth.
"You could call it that. But we got there eventually, and what we found was not pretty."
***
Sheppard leaned down and kissed him hard as they came. Their lips slid wetly against each other. Rodney sat up with Sheppard straddling him and ran his hands down Sheppard's back, pulling him in closer. They stuck together in the heat of the afternoon, but it didn't seem to matter. All that mattered was the closeness and the feeling of Rodney's lips on his, Rodney's hands on him, trying to get as near to each other as possible.
Mid-kiss the breeze shifted, and turned from warm to cool. Suddenly Sheppard was aware of the pine needles under his knees, the dirt that covered Rodney's back. "The pollen is leaving," said John against Rodney's lips.
"Oh, too bad." Rodney's eyes looked glazed and sated, and his voice seemed softer, less sarcastic, then he seemed to feel it too.
"Oh, shit. We have to get dressed."
"You think, McKay?"
"And you're going to have to stand up first."
"Oh yeah, that." Sheppard stood up with some reluctance. They brushed each other off as best they could, but their hands touching the other's flesh was still damn distracting, and Sheppard caught himself, more than once, reaching around Rodney's soft and yielding torso to pull him close and move his hands down . . .
"Colonel," said McKay softly--and how had John gone so long not noticing that his voice could be so supple and enticing? "Colonel! As fun as this is, it really isn't helping." John zipped up and fastened his pants with a sigh and snapped his holster into place. Rodney turned back around and drew his hand up the inside of John's thigh over the holster, and the semi-hardness that John had been keeping under control jumped up again of its own accord.
"Not helping!" said Sheppard back. "I'm going behind this tree. You go over there. Don't come back until you're dressed."
"I like it when you're all military like that," said Rodney before he stepped back.
Rodney still had sticks in his hair when he returned, but John rubbed his hands on his pant legs rather than risk reaching over to pull them out. Oh, he had known he harbored some affection that was a little more than friendly for the Atlantis team's head scientist, but there were, objectively speaking, more attractive men on the base, and more discreet possibilities. The old, flooded section had some empty bedrooms and if he went there after dark, he might find another hard warm body for a few minutes. Sheppard had a few ideas of who the others who frequented those rooms were, but 'don't ask, don't tell' was their watchword, and so far, the anonymity of the dark had served its purpose. Somehow, Sheppard didn't think cold anonymous groping would satisfy him any more.
John drew his sidearm just to have something in his hands other than air and the memory of how Rodney had felt in them, when Ronon and Teyla came over the rise of the hill and down toward the forest.
"Colonel," called out Teyla. "Are you alright?"
"I could ask the same of you," muttered Sheppard when they came closer. Teyla looked as fierce as she always did, but with the air of a satiated predator rather than a hungry one, and Ronon had a grin playing on the edge of his lips.
"My apologies for the delay, Colonel. This world's pollen has an interesting effect."
"Interesting, huh? Is that what you're calling it?" Teyla refused to look embarrassed, but Ronon down looked at John's shoes.
"We got a little distracted," he said.
John frowned at him. "Did you see where Jensen and McMillan went?"
"I believe they are still distracted," said Teyla with a sidelong glance at Sheppard, who put on the blandest expression he owned.
"Let's try to find that village now." Sheppard pulled out his life signs detector and they started walking.
Two.
"What we found there was fairly disturbing," continued Sheppard.
"Disturbing how?" asked Elizabeth.
The village was little more than a collection of tents. Bright streamers adorned the trees and when the team stopped moving, they could hear sighs and gasps of pleasure from the tents. Looking further, they saw that a few of the villagers had fallen where they stood and curled upon themselves on the pine-needle covered ground, although some of these had started to stir.
"John," said Teyla in a harsh undertone. "I feel something. The Wraith are coming."
"We ran back to the jumper. On the way back we found the others."
Amanda Jensen and Jamie McMillan naked and curled around each other, still touching lazily.
"We went into stealth mode and flew back to the village. Some of the Wraith came in and fed on the fallen, but the bulk of the raiding party . . ."
The darts hovered above a clearing on the edge of the village. John only had a glimpse through the window of the jumper before the Wraith beam picked up everything.
"Babies-infants. On the ground. The jumper surveillance footage shows it too."
Elizabeth did not answer right away, but raised one eyebrow. "I thought the Wraith preferred adults."
"Maybe they still do. Maybe they're trying to start their own crop." John bit off the words.
"Understood." She tapped on her headset. "Carson? Can you please come up to my office?"
She turned back to Sheppard. "You can go now."
"We have to rescue them!" he burst out.
"Colonel, calm yourself. Every planet we've seen has a different strategy for dealing with the Wraith. This is distasteful, to be sure, but no worse than any other."
"They're helpless. At least adults have a fighting chance."
"And maybe this is that planet's version of population control. It's not unknown. Until a hundred years ago there were still Polynesian societies that used infanticide to keep their numbers from overburdening their environment."
"And if the poppies make family planning unworkable . . ."
"This may be their only option."
Sheppard rubbed the back of his head. "I still don't like it."
Shower first, thought Sheppard as he made his way back to his quarters. His clothes stuck to him all over, and every reflective surface showed his hair looking even crazier than usual. He paused at Rodney's door on his way, and hesitated a moment before knocking. Rodney opened the door with a towel wrapped around his waist.
"Colonel."
"Can I come in?" John asked. Rodney stared at him for a moment and then turned around so John could follow him. Rodney arranged his quarters in a strange mix of intensely organized and chaotically scattered. A quick glance told him that all Rodney's books were in alphabetical order by subject and then author, but a mass of wrinkled clothes covered the bottom of his closet.
"About what happened today . . . .?"
"Colonel, this is already extremely embarrassing. Now I can add poppies to the list of things that scare the hell out of me, along with citrus, bee stings, small places, and, oh yeah, the Wraith."
"I'm sorry! I didn't think it was that scary. You seemed to be enjoying yourself."
"Rub it in, why don't you. That wasn't how I pictured-can't we please just forget it?" Suddenly the world skewed 180 degrees. Rodney had pictured it? Incoherent-around-women, desperately-in-love-with-Samantha-Carter Rodney had pictured it?
"I don't want to forget it," said Sheppard in a low voice.
"You don't?" Rodney's voice rose to a squeak. John stepped in close to him.
"No, I don't." They kissed again, and this time without the effects of the pollen, John could savor every moment, the way Rodney bit his bottom lip, Rodney's hands in his hair. Rodney pulling away again?
"You're filthy," he said, showing John a pine needle that he'd pulled out of his hair.
"I could use a shower," said John with a half smile. He started pulling his shirt off and Rodney helped him. Somewhere on the way to the bathroom Rodney dropped his towel and John shed the rest of his clothes, and he found himself in the shower with Rodney pressing his back against the cold tile, holding his hands up against the wall and kissing him like he was drowning.
"Time for soap later," Rodney muttered as he dropped to his knees and snaked his hand up between John's legs to draw him closer. John edged his shoulders into the spray of the shower to shield Rodney's face from it and then gave himself up to the feeling of Rodney's hot mouth on him, his hands kneading John's ass, pulling John further into his mouth until he came harder and faster than he wanted to. Rodney's mouth held him through the aftershocks and then John helped him up.
"I had no idea," John murmured when they ducked under the spray again. The Ancients' showers had a wide radius, and it was like being caught in a deliciously warm rainstorm.
"No idea that I liked to suck-," Rodney started. Sheppard cut him off with a fierce kiss.
"No idea about any of it."
"You always said I was a terrible liar."
"I guess I should have asked you then."
"Dr. McKay," came Elizabeth's voice over the loudspeaker. "Colonel Sheppard. Please join us in the conference room."
"Does she know?" mouthed Rodney.
"She probably broadcast to both our rooms," said Sheppard in an undertone. Rodney glared at him. "Well, I didn't tell her."
***
"Well, I suspected and Dr. Parrish has confirmed it. It is definitely a genetically engineered plant," said Dr. Carson when they had all assembled. "It has Wraith fingerprints all over it. It affects certain brain functions, stimulating the same centers that are affected in lower mammals when they scent another of their kind in heat. But it also dampens violent impulses, which is why, if someone drugged by the plant can't find a suitable, ah, subject for their attentions, their brain effectively puts them to sleep."
"We theorize that the Wraith tailored this plant to integrate into the society. If it caused anti-social behaviors-," said Elizabeth.
"Like rape," put in Carson.
"Then the natives would have rooted it out," continued Elizabeth.
"The pollen release is triggered on a seven year cycle," said Carson. "But the Wraith can also trigger it themselves, which they have been doing lately."
"That leads to an increase in births, and the infanticide that you saw, Colonel."
"Don't they realize that we already have one Planet Kid-Kill in this galaxy?" asked Rodney.
"In a horrible way it's very clever, really," said Carson, after giving Rodney a chiding look. "The Wraith use the plant to remove the natural controls on population growth, and then cull the extras. Those that are not able to attract a mate are rendered helpless by the pollen, and the Wraith feed on them, too."
"Wraith selection," said Sheppard. "The population is selected down to those most likely to breed."
"Exactly. But at a much faster rate than what would happen naturally." Carson frowned. "It's devilishly clever."
"Is there anything we can do to stop it?" asked Sheppard.
"Ah, Dr. Parrish already has an idea," said Carson.
"We think if Dr. Parrish can engineer a more robust version of the plant, one without the side effects you witnessed, it could replace the current poppies in a single growing cycle," said Elizabeth.
"What about the natives? This is the way they co-exist with the Wraith," asked Rodney.
Elizabeth looked sharply at him. "I hardly consider this co-existing." Sheppard raised his eyebrows at this reversal. "We'll give those who wish to leave the address of the Alpha site," she continued.
"Some day the Wraith are going to find that, too," said Sheppard. Elizabeth nodded sadly. "We can't bring them here."
"I'll have a team on standby to deliver the engineered poppies when they're ready. I don't suppose you can prepare an antidote?" he asked Carson.
"Way ahead of you, Colonel."
Elizabeth spread out her hands. "I guess that's it then."
"I take it you and Rodney lost consciousness under the effects of the pollen?" Carson asked Sheppard on their way out the door.
"Yep," said John. "Totally unconscious."
"Good thing. I shudder to imagine the alternative."
"Thanks," called out Rodney from behind them.
"Then again, I don't have to, do I?" asked Carson with a twinkle in his eye.
"For the last time, that was Cadman, not me!"
Carson walked on ahead of them, and Sheppard felt Rodney's hand glide accidentally-on-purpose against his hip.
"Do you have something you need to be working on?" Sheppard asked under his breath as they walked through the halls.
"Oh just the routine, finding a way to power the city on a rapidly depleting ZPM, repairing jumpers, studying Wraith technology so we can kill them before they kill us, looking for a stably fissionable material, the usual," said Rodney.
"Well, if you're not busy . . ." he backed Rodney up against the door to his room, triggered the door, and they both stumbled through it. "I can think of some ways to pass the time."