You're Pretty Good Looking (For a Girl) by trinityofone (Amnesty 2006/Not Happening Challenge) 1/2
Title: You're Pretty Good Looking (For a Girl)
Author: trinityofone
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Length: ~13,300 words
Spoilers: Mostly written before S3, but now contains a few minor spoilers through 'The Game'
Warnings: Bodyswap, genderfuck, hetsex-it's a trifecta of sin!
Summary: Rodney crossed his arms under his breasts. "Well, this is stupid. And typical. Both my opportunities for hot gay sex and hot heterosexual sex are ruined!"
A/N: My intense gratitude to siriaeve, who helped me with this story from last Easter, when I was rambling on about the plot while lying in her sister's bed (note: said sister was not actually in said bed at the time), to this past Sunday, when I e-mailed her with the query, "Wanna beta 13,000 words of genderfuck? Oh, and Merry Christmas Eve!"
YOU’RE PRETTY GOOD LOOKING (FOR A GIRL)
“It’s been four months,” Cadman said. “I want to have sex.”
Rodney folded his arms. It still felt awkward, and he had to adjust his position twice. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Cadman sneered. It was an expression Rodney recognized, and he thought it was an especially cruel twist of fate that he should have to have it directed at him. “No, I am not kidding,” she said. “Exactly how long do you expect me to wait?”
“Until we fix this!” Rodney said, shrill. He looked to Heightmeyer, desperate for her support. “You can seriously be planning to sit there and let her...violate me like this!”
Heightmeyer’s face was, as usual, annoyingly neutral. Blank. “Laura’s question is a reasonable one, Rodney. How long are either of you supposed to wait before resuming something resembling your normal lives?”
“Normal?” Rodney coughed and attempted to lower his voice. “Are you both blind? How is anything going to be remotely normal until this is fixed? And you-” he added, turning on Cadman with an emphatically pointed finger. “If you can’t keep your libido in check until then, well-” His gaze flickered back to Heightmeyer. “You’re trained at treating nymphomania, right?”
Beside him, Cadman crossed her arms and snorted. She had no problem with it: her movements were easy-had been, from almost the beginning. She looked comfortable in her chair; she was slouching.
Rodney hated her.
“Laura’s expression of sexual desire is perfectly normal, Rodney,” Heighmeyer was saying, blah blah blah. “What I think may be the bigger issue here is the difficulty you’re having accepting this situation and moving on. Maybe Laura’s right-maybe reintroducing normal aspects of your lives, such as sexual intercourse, will aid you both in accepting these bodies as your own.”
Not not NOT my body, Rodney’s brain screamed, as it did a dozen or more times a day: every time he passed a mirror, or looked down at his hands typing on his laptop, or looked up and saw himself in someone else’s eyes.
He knew better than to say any of that, however: it would just set Heightmeyer off again. Instead he issued a snort of his own, and tried to ignore how fucking dainty it sounded next to Cadman’s. “Oh, please. Like any sex we could have in this state would be remotely normal.”
Cadman grinned, a big, wide spread of lips. “Speak for yourself, McKay.”
Rodney raised his chin. “And who are you going to have sex with, hm?” He instantly wished he hadn’t asked, as a possible answer immediately supplied itself. He choked violently on the air in his mouth. “Oh, God-not Carson!”
Cadman’s grin grew a bit tenser. “No,” she said. “He-no.”
She and Heightmeyer exchanged a look. Clearly this was something they would discuss further in their private sessions.
“Anyway, it’s none of your business, Rodney,” Cadman said.
Rodney sprung to his feet, drawing himself up to his full five feet two inches of height. “It is so my business!” he said. “It’s my body!”
If Cadman had followed his example and stood, she would have towered over him. But instead she stayed where she was, legs crossed, her (his) arms sprawled out lazily across the back of the chair. He had never seen himself looked so relaxed.
“And that’s mine,” Cadman said, steady and level, eyes scraping over him. He wanted to hug his arms to his chest, but he still didn’t like to touch himself. “But since it’s been four months-four months, Rodney, and you still haven’t been able to figure out a way to reverse this-well, I’m giving you permission. Do whatever you want with it. Stop exercising, eat a gallon of Ben & Jerry’s every night, dye your hair. But I want the same consideration.” Her gaze flickered to Heightmeyer, then back to him, steady. “I’m sick of feeling guilty every time I jerk off in the shower.”
Rodney felt a blush creeping up his throat. “You haven’t!”
He watched Cadman’s mouth slant down, broad familiar lips made alien. “Four months, Rodney. Of course I have.” She scoffed, looking him over again. “You’re not seriously telling me you haven’t-”
“None of your business,” he said quickly.
The sad thing was, he really hadn’t. He tried playing with-with Cadman’s breasts, standing in front of the mirror and trying to enjoy them as he would have had he not been attached to them. But the scrape of Cadman’s delicate thumbs and sharp nails over hi-the nipples made him squirm, made him want to close his eyes and stick his hand between his legs. But he couldn’t do that, because that would be admitting that this was something he was allowed to do. Touch himself like this was his body. Which it wasn’t.
He stared at her, at his own face: chin lifted, mouth set, determined. He knew better than to argue with that face-there was no point. Like everything else he’d tried, it was useless.
“Do what you want,” he ground out. “I don’t ever want to hear about it.”
“Right, because I’m just dying to discuss my sex life with you, McKay,” Cadman said, but Rodney already knew that she wouldn’t ever have to say anything: he would see her walking the halls of Atlantis, loose and comfortable in his body, and he’d never feel normal, never be able to shake the feeling that she was handling it better than him.
The room was a cube; in the center was another cube, small, like a box someone had carelessly dropped on the floor. And carelessly, Sheppard had nudged it with his foot. Sometimes, Rodney wanted to hate him for that. If he was honest with himself, however, he’d admit: if it hadn’t been the colonel, it would have been somebody else. It might have been him.
And anyway: it was enough that he was in the room. Him and Sheppard and Radek. And Cadman.
Rodney remembered: a bright flash as Sheppard’s toe tapped the box, and then a wave of dizziness that ended with him flat on his back and his eyes clearly damaged for life, judging by the thick yellow stripe cutting across his field of vision.
“Fabulous, Colonel-what have you done now?” he said-or started to; he hadn’t gotten much beyond “fab-” before realizing that his voice was wrong. He raised his head and thus got a glimpse down his body, at which he let out an undignified noise that, while girly, was not something that anyone could really berate him for.
“Um. Everyone stay calm,” said Radek, with much more authority than he usually possessed. Also, his pronunciation seemed-
“Great, not this again,” said his own voice with Cadman’s odd, flat cadence, and right, yes, he got it: he didn’t even need Sheppard blinking into the dark and saying, with a slight hint of a Czech accent that clashed badly with his natural drawl, “Colonel, you really have remarkable night vision...”
“No offense, Radek,” said Sheppard-and Rodney could tell it was Sheppard, even though it was Radek himself who was standing up, walking toward him with hand extended-“but your vision sucks.” He stood above Rodney, his posture, the cocky angle of his hips, odd on Radek’s small frame. He held out his hand.
Rodney rolled his eyes, but his back-er, Cadman’s-had undoubtedly suffered damage from its unrestrained fall. Wincing, he let Sheppard help him up. You do realize I’m McKay, he was about to say, but Sheppard looked him straight in the eye and said, “Rodney, how about getting us all back where we belong?”
“Yes, please,” said Cadman, running her-well, his-hands over her (his!) chest in a manner that Rodney thought was seriously inappropriate. “This is not the fond reunion I’ve been desperate to make.”
“Believe me,” Rodney said, staring down at her breasts, seriously weird from this angle, “I’m not enjoying it any more from this side.” He walked forward, awkwardly-his center of balance was definitely off, and when Radek, a wiry coil of energy in Sheppard’s lanky frame, stumbled forward to help him, it shocked him to realize how short he was, tilting his head up to stare at Sheppard’s face.
“So, this should be pretty simple,” he told Radek, as they both knelt over the device.
“Yes, it should merely be matter of-” Radek said, raising a finger to boost his glasses up his nose and nearly stabbing himself in the eye when he found none. He muttered something in Czech-cursing out the Ancients, most likely, for ever thinking it was a good idea to built an outpost or a device such as this.
On the other side of the room, Sheppard and Cadman were bent together over the radio, standing awkward and uncomfortable in the unfamiliar bodies and trying to convince Lorne, with whom they were speaking, that Doctors Zelenka and McKay had not gone insane, and that it would really be a wise idea if the major, Teyla, Ronon, and Sergeant Shelmerdine kept out of the room for now. “We wouldn’t want a repeat of what happened on M93-622,” Cadman said pointedly, and Rodney tried to comfort himself by listening to Lorne stutter uncomfortably. Then he shook himself, ignoring the blonde strands floating past his face, and focused on the task at hand.
It was pretty simple, thank God for that-not quite an on-off switch but a fairly basic on-off sequence, that, between him and Radek, took mere minutes to figure out. “Okay,” he said, in what he meant to be an authoritative voice but to him seemed ridiculously high-pitched. “We’re going to try this now, so...stay close to the ground so you don’t damage what few brain cells you possess.”
Cadman snorted, which made Rodney feel uncomfortably like there was some sort of bizarre mental echo in the room. “Ready?” Radek asked, forming a nervous expression that Rodney had never before seen on Sheppard’s face.
“Ready,” Rodney said. They initiated the sequence.
Bright lights, dizziness. He passed out again. When he opened his eyes, Sheppard was leaning over him. “Lieutenant?”
“Colonel?” he said, incredulous-and yes, still high-pitched. And also, increasingly nervous. “Sheppard?”
“Rodney,” Sheppard said-with his own voice, his own mouth. “Why didn’t you switch back?”
“Yeah,” said Cadman standing up on his legs, folding his arms across his chest. “Rodney-”
“Radek!” Rodney said desperately, and they bent over the device again, talking rapidly, even though Rodney’s mind was screaming, terrified and shockingly blank.
An hour later, Sheppard and Zelenka had been ping-ponged back and forth between each other’s bodies a half a dozen times-Radek was complaining of motion sickness; Rodney and Cadman, on the other hand, had stayed, and with each successive activation of the device, continued to stay, exactly where they were. In the wrong place.
“McKay,” Cadman said, after Sheppard had once again leapt dorkily to his feet-his own feet-and with a raised hand announced, “Back to normal!” “Do you think this might have something to do with what happened to us before?”
“No!” said Rodney. It had to do with the fact that the universe hated him.
“Actually,” said Radek, adjusting his glasses gratefully. He explained his theory.
“Confused!” Rodney said-his anger and bile not sounding right, not sounding right at all in Cadman’s voice. “You think the Ancient technology is confused?”
“That is a greatly simplified version of what I said-” Radek started.
Sheppard’s radio buzzed again. “Yeah?” said Sheppard, and then, “No, you’re right, Major,” and Rodney didn’t even need to hear Lorne’s side of the conversation to know what was coming.
“Rodney,” Sheppard said, looking over-down-at him with stern but at least somewhat sympathetic eyes. “We need to go back. You know it’s not safe to stay here overnight.”
“But-” Rodney said, without really meaning to; even Cadman already looked resigned.
“We can come back tomorrow. And who knows, maybe Beckett-”
“Carson’s not going to be able to fix this,” Rodney grumbled, he had already turned, was packing up his stuff.
Sheppard’s hand touched down on his shoulder: brief contact, odd and unfamiliar in every way. “But you will,” he said. “I know you, Rodney: you’ll think of something.”
The one good thing that had come out of all of this was that Rodney had received incontrovertible proof that Radek was in fact the best friend ever and not just an opportunistic Czech snake who was sucking up in hopes to gain favor and get promoted when Rodney met his own messy and increasingly likely end. No mere sycophant, no matter how loyal, would be able to put up with quite this level of hysteria and whining.
“-Cadman announced her intention to use my body for disgusting carnal pursuits, and Heightmeyer, that quack, agreed with her.” Rodney slumped lower on the lab stool. “And this morning,” he said, giving Radek a long-suffering look, “Sheppard said my hair looked pretty.”
“Pretty?” said Radek, raising an eyebrow.
“Well,” Rodney admitted. “Nice. But that man is impossible! He can’t resist anything with-” He gestured vaguely at his chest. “It’s like I’ve suddenly got a giant target painted on my-” He gestured at his chest again.
“Are you, ah.” Radek thought. “Are you sure he was not merely being...polite?”
Rodney flicked his hair over his shoulder-a truly frightening habit that he had not only picked up, but which was with alarming speed becoming more and more unconscious. “Please,” he said. “Would you ever tell me that my hair looked nice?”
“Ah,” said Radek. “No.”
And there was the real reason, Rodney thought, that Radek was the best friend ever: he was the only one, almost without exception the only one, who hadn’t started treating Rodney differently.
“All right,” Rodney said, after a moment. “Enough of this pity party. I have actual work to do before tomorrow, when I have to face another mission with the walking testosterone bomb.”
There was maybe one other good thing that had come of this: Cadman’s body, admittedly more resilient than his own, could work for obscenely long hours without having to stop to eat.
Rodney didn’t sleep well anymore. His theory-the one he didn’t tell Heightmeyer, didn’t tell Radek, didn’t tell anybody-was that he kept having Cadman’s dreams.
He dreamt someone else’s childhood and someone else’s family and someone else’s life. He dreamt another person’s triumphs and mistakes, another person’s wants and longings and desires. He awoke missing things he had never had, and terrified that he was losing himself: body first, and soon, inevitably, mind.
He had learned to shower, to wash and dress, with the lights off, fingers efficient and swift.
Teyla wasn’t completely unbearable. Like almost everyone else, she had at first shown the annoying tendency to be nicer to him-not because his situation made him, obviously, extremely deserving of everyone’s sympathy, but as if the fact that he was-temporarily!-a woman meant that he suddenly needed coddling. On this, at least, he and Cadman were in agreement: “People are idiots,” she sighed. He couldn’t have said it better himself.
But Teyla was back to sensibly agreeing with him when he offered his invaluable advice and rolling her eyes at him the rest of the time. She still stepped in front of him when they appeared to be in danger, but then, she had always done that. (And quite rightly, too-invaluable, remember?)
Ronon, too, wasn’t so bad: he and Rodney maintained a relationship of comfortable hostility with occasional breaks for food-related bonding, and if Ronon had once remarked that, while Rodney was still annoying, at least he was now easier on the eyes, Rodney was willing to be the bigger man (ha!) and let it slide after that warm afternoon on M7V-468 when Ronon had reached up and plucked a pair of giant alien oranges off a tree, peeled one, and handed it to Rodney with a simple, “Try this.” Rodney had recoiled instinctively, but Ronon’s implied, “Now you can” registered and he reached out with Cadman’s slim fingers and took the fruit in his hand. “Go on,” said Ronon. Half of his was already gone, the juice dribbling down his chin. “It’s ripe.”
Yes, Rodney thought, feeling strangely deviant, both amused and confused by his thoughts of Adam and Eve in the garden, unsure as to which role he was supposed to be playing. But he raised the fruit to his lips and bit, sweet, tangy juice exploding on his tongue, even as his body remained firm and strong beneath him.
He let out an involuntary moan, gratified that he got to have this, at least-not to mention secretly and maliciously satisfied that Cadman wouldn’t get to have it anytime soon. He was grinning at Ronon, licking his fingers, peeling off another segment, when he looked up and saw Sheppard staring at him. Sheppard looked inordinately pleased-with himself, with the world. And when they went into the briefing room later that night, the colonel took care to hold the door for him.
Every minute in Sheppard’s presence grated on Rodney like nails on a chalkboard.
It was their mission to M4I-759, the day after Cadman had vowed to start using his body for perverse purposes, that finally pushed Rodney over the edge. The Kentari were a fairly sophisticated people for the Pegasus Galaxy, and they had an energy storage system that was really quite fascinating. Rodney was discussing this with Ralan, or rather, Ralan was listening with appropriate attentiveness to Rodney’s theories on how the Kentari could improve efficiency and thus afford to share some of their technology with the Lanteans, when Sheppard skulked in. Rodney could feel his eyes on him from across the room, burning into his back even when Ralan took Rodney’s arm and led him to one of the control crannies. Rodney was just getting a good look at how the whole thing was wired together when Sheppard wormed his way into the narrow space. “Hey, whatcha guys looking at?”
“Nothing you’d understand, go away,” Rodney muttered, at the same time Ralan said acidly, “There’s really only room for two.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet,” said Sheppard. He grabbed Rodney’s arm and dragged him back into the main room.
Rodney smacked at his hand. “What the hell is the matter with you? You’re interrupting vital scientific research, not to mention causing some sort of diplomatic incident which I’m sure Elizabeth will be thrilled to hear about-”
“Yes, let’s go tell her, shall we?” Sheppard said, and when Rodney continued to protest: “I’m ordering you back to the jumper, McKay.”
They were silent the whole flight back.
In Sheppard’s office, on the other hand, things were quite different. “I can’t believe you!” Rodney shouted, storming into the room without knocking. “The blatant unprofessionalism-!”
Sheppard slumped behind his desk, frustratingly blank-faced. “It’s my job as team leader to get you out of potentially threatening situations.”
“Threatening? Was it threatening to your tiny mind that I might actually learn something, or gain some valuable technology? I can’t believe I was actually foolish enough to think that you were different than-”
“He was hitting on you, McKay.” Sheppard’s voice was cutting and yet perfectly flat. “He was maneuvering you into a situation that was about to turn...awkward.”
Rodney opened his mouth to say, What? He was not! You have a sick mind, Colonel, when suddenly a thousand details from earlier that day came back to him: how Ralan kept touching him, how he’d leaned very close whenever Rodney spoke (Rodney’d thought he just wanted to make sure he didn’t miss a single insightful word), how he’d been so very, very eager to show Rodney the out-of-the-way, empty power station, and how tightly he’d pressed up against Rodney’s body in the control cranny...Rodney was suddenly furious. He’d been imparting incredibly incisive and important information, and that idiot had been staring at-at his boobs! Rodney felt his fists clench. He felt Sheppard’s eyes on him, not hungry the way Ralan’s had been (for knowledge, Rodney had thought-moron), but there all the same. “Well, you’re just as bad, Colonel! With your door-holding and hair-compliments, and then Ralan had to come along and infringe on your territ-Oh my God,” Rodney said, comprehension dawning. “You were jealous!”
This got a reaction out of Sheppard, at least. He pressed his fingers to his forehead, looking torn somewhere between laughing hysterically and doing himself damage with his three-hole-punch. “I was not jealous, Rodney. I was concerned. As a teammate. As a...as a friend.”
Are we really friends? Rodney wanted to ask, but that question seemed too girly, so he simply folded his arms and glared. “And-and you and Ronon. You regularly compliment him on his ‘do?”
“When he hides knives in it, sure,” and when Rodney looked unamused, Sheppard sighed. “Look. Friendship is something I’m not very...good at. Talk to Teyla if you don’t believe me. But seriously, Rodney: I only paid you a compliment-which I now know better than to ever do again!-because I was trying to be reassuring and friendly, and believe me, I am not hitting on your or expressing any of that kind of interest, okay? No offense to Cadman, but...”
Rodney had a truly insane moment of wanting to defend Cadman’s body, to point at his chest and say, These breasts are very pert, you know! Instead he sputtered, “I’m still in here, yes. I thought,” he added loftily, “that you were at least smart enough to remember that.”
“Trust me, I am,” Sheppard said wryly. “And you know,” he said, leaning forward in his chair, “if you want to start coming to team movie night again, I can almost guarantee that I won’t lose control and grope you or Teyla.”
And just like that, Rodney felt ridiculous. Sure, Sheppard might be a total Kirk with everything else in the galaxy lacking a Y chromosome, but he was on the level with his team; there had never been a problem with him and Teyla even though Rodney had thought, at the beginning, that Sheppard had a thing for her. (Although in retrospect he might have been projecting-had you seen her legs in that skirt?) In fact, despite the “gender divide” or whatever, Sheppard and Teyla were incredibly close; sometimes, Rodney had maybe even envied them a little.
It felt like Sheppard was offering him that now, that friendship, that closeness, and while the timing was still suspect (Sheppard had never stared up at him sincerely and said, “As a friend, Rodney” when Rodney still had a cock) it was an offer that Rodney simply couldn’t refuse.
“You guys better not have eaten all of the popcorn,” he said.
“Rodney, you look better,” Heightmeyer said.
“Hmm,” said Rodney. To be honest, he’d felt better...until Cadman had come strutting in, carrying his body like he never could, slouching around like she’d just gotten laid. “Just don’t. Say. Anything,” he told her.
Cadman flashed him a grin and mimed zipping her lips and chucking away an invisible key.
“I don’t think not speaking is going to be especially conductive to therapy, Rodney.” Heightmeyer tilted her head in that faux-sympathetic way that made Rodney want to wallop her.
“Oh, I don’t know. I find her not speaking to be extremely therapeutic.”
Cadman apparently forgot that she was a locked box. “You’re just jealous, McKay.”
“Right, right, jealous. Jealous that my natural good looks have enabled you to do...whatever you did, while this,” he gestured down the body he happened to be wearing; that is to say, hers, “isn’t exactly doing me any favors.”
“Well,” said Cadman, voice surprisingly tight, “maybe if you stopped dressing yourself in shirts twice the size of Wisconsin, your luck would improve!”
“What’s wrong with this shirt?” Rodney plucked at the worn cotton. “This is one of my favorite shirts!”
“It’s a man’s shirt, Rodney! You-your body is not a man’s!”
“I know!” Rodney bellowed back. “It’s not like I don’t have the jiggle twins to remind me every five minutes! And while we’re on the subject of gender appropriateness, could you please stop prancing around in my body like a-a-”
“A fag, Rodney, is that what you were going to say?”
Rodney hadn’t really been sure what he was going to say, but luckily Cadman had plenty of talking to do in the meantime.
“Do you have any idea how fucked up this is for me, Rodney? I make the male Marines uncomfortable, because I’ve got a girl brain with boy parts, and any lascivious thoughts I might have in their presence might inadvertently gay them up. Meanwhile, the female Marines are totally cool with it-except they won’t let me change with them or use their showers anymore, because it’s too ‘weird.’ I have to go out of my way to be unthreatening and make everyone comfortable, even if that means basically being a fucking robot all the time. So just shut up about prancing, and if the jiggling bothers you that much, wear a goddamn bra!”
She sank back in her chair, her eyes wide and wild with a look Rodney knew only too well. He glanced at Heightmeyer: she was jotting something in her notebook. Rodney sighed. He pushed up his shirt (Cadman was right-it was kind of big) and fumbled in his pocket. “Here,” he said, handing her a powerbar. “You need to eat something. When I-when my body gets stressed, it increases the risk of going into hypoglycemic shock.”
Cadman was still frowning, but she took the powerbar somewhat graciously. “You know,” she said. “I always used to think you were exaggerating about all these health problems...”
Rodney smirked. “Now I guess we both know better, don’t we?”
“Well!” said Heightmeyer, brightly. “I think today went well.”
“Good to see you, Rodney,” Teyla said, smiling up at him. She patted the couch beside her. “We saved you a seat.”
“Right, good, thanks.” Rodney pushed awkwardly past the long splay of Sheppard’s legs and sat down. Ronon had claimed the big easy chair from the first time they’d gotten together to watch Back to the Future (Sheppard had tried to look innocent-like that ever worked), and ever since had been unshiftable, like the big tomcat everyone was afraid to move; it meant he had to reach a little farther to get to the snacks, but that’s what obscenely long arms were for. He used them now to push the popcorn in Rodney’s direction. It turned out to be caramel corn; Rodney wondered who they’d had to bribe to get that.
He was bending over to grab a handful when he got that itchy feeling at the back of his neck that meant someone was staring at him. Rodney turned his head in time to see Sheppard glance quickly away, refocusing his attention on the server menu. “So today we’ve got a choice between V for Vendetta, 12 Monkeys, and…Sense and Sensibility?” Sheppard raised an eyebrow.
“Colonel, if you so much as look at me…” Rodney started, but before he could think of a plausible (or even sufficiently scary-sounding) threat, Ronon said, “What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing,” Sheppard said, leaning back against the couch. “In fact, for a change I think I’ll vote for the Austen over the apocalypse.”
“Oh, come on!” said Rodney. “I have a rule! No movies with Hugh Grant. That’s my rule!”
“Rules are made to be broken, Rodney,” Sheppard said cheerily. “Pass the popcorn.”
Rodney pretended not to have heard him and pulled the bowl more tightly into his lap.
The movie bored Rodney, mostly because Rodney told himself he intended to be bored. Luckily, Teyla didn’t seem to be enjoying it much either (she had surprisingly little patience for any film in which buildings, cars, or people weren’t frequently blown up), so they were able to whisper together for a little while until Ronon got pissed at them and told them to shut up. Rodney was willing to forgive him, because his timing had been good: Teyla had just said, “You look well today, Rodney. Is that a new top?” and it was his stuttery, “Um. Cadman gave it to me,” that Ronon’s censure cut off.
Without a conversation to keep his mouth and his brain occupied, Rodney decided to do his best to satisfy the former. He still had the popcorn bowl pressed between his knees; he dug a hand in and nearly upset kernels all over the floor when he felt his fingers brush another set. “Sorry,” Sheppard muttered, his eyes remaining focused on the screen. Rodney pressed a hand flat against the cool metal curve of the bowl and took a breath. He hadn’t even noticed that Sheppard had-had been reaching there, and it was his own fault for hogging the food and Sheppard clearly hadn’t meant anything by it, but. But-
But Rodney was suddenly painfully aware of Sheppard’s thigh pressing against his, of the heat of him, of the faint, not unpleasant, smell of his sweat… He was aware of Sheppard-or rather, he told himself frantically, this body was aware of him; Cadman had probably had to deal with that-also not entirely unpleasant-clenching between her legs whenever Sheppard flopped lazily into a chair, or smirked, or ran his thumb over his holster straps. She was probably used to it, just like he’d been used to feeling his dick twitch whenever Teyla wore her swishy skirt or Elizabeth put on her forceful face. It was a biological response; perfectly natural, Heightmeyer would say.
Stupid Heightmeyer.
On screen, everyone took forever to make their painfully stilted declarations of love and then they all got married and lived happily ever after.
Repression and denial helped Rodney through another month or so. Then one evening, he and Sheppard were sitting in Rodney’s quarters, playing a perfectly ordinary game of chess (which Sheppard was not winning, thank you very much) when Rodney realized that he’d been taking far more time with his next move than could be passed off as brilliant pondering. It didn’t help that Sheppard had one of Rodney’s captured pawns in his hand and the longer Rodney took to decide, the more Sheppard fiddled with it, circling his thumb around the pert round head, rubbing it lightly with a concentration that somehow managed to be both absent-minded and intent. Rodney could feel his nipples hardening, pushing against the soft cotton of his bra; God, it was almost painful, and meanwhile Sheppard just sat there, studying the board, gently wetting his lips.
“I think we should have sex,” Rodney said-sudden, loud.
For a moment the words seemed to hang there like he’d written them on the wall. Then, “Uh,” said Sheppard, eloquently.
“I mean,” said Rodney quickly, “I’m currently…ah, borrowing a female body that appears to be very attracted to you, and you, well, I know you like sex, all guys like sex, I’m a guy so I know. So we should have sex. Fun, issue-free sex. All right?”
Sheppard’s expression remained neutral. “And this brilliant solution just came to you now?”
“Uh,” said Rodney, unconsciously mimicking Sheppard’s response a moment before. In truth, it had been all Rodney’d been able to think about for weeks. Lying in bed, cupping his left breast and touching his impossibly sensitive nipple with one hand while he jerked his hips, frantically rubbing off against the base of his other fist. It wasn’t sexy masturbation-not what his girlfriends had done when he’d looked at them with wide, hungry eyes and whispered, Touch yourself-no, it was needy and desperate, and he felt dirty afterward, like he had every time he’d caved and jerked off the summer he was thirteen and that asshole Billy Stuart had told him that masturbation killed brain cells. But that was stupid. As he’d long ago recognized, masturbation was awesome, and sex with a man, with Sheppard-well, if he wanted it, then damned if he was going to make himself feel ashamed for that, too.
“It is brilliant, isn’t it?” he said, segueing neatly. He thought he saw something that might have been doubt on Sheppard’s face. “See, I can promise I won’t be clingy or weird about it-you know how women are, and I-”
But Sheppard’s face had shut down, gone cold. “I’m not going to help you experiment, McKay. Not with this.”
Rejection twisted through his gut. “Is it…is it because I’m me? And you know I’m me? I mean, a guy? I can be feminine enough. I, I shaved my legs for you.”
Instantly, he wanted to slap his hand over his mouth-a gesture that would now probably make him look like a Japanese Geisha with a bad dye job. I shaved my legs for you? Could he sound more pathetic? More like this whole thing had been premeditated, some ridiculous seduction scene?
“Come on, Sheppard,” he said, even though Sheppard had stood, backing away from him and the bed, looking as warm and touchable as a statue in a museum. “Cadman’s hot. Any man would have to find this body hot!”
There was something deadly behind Sheppard’s stare. “Sorry, McKay,” he said, pushing past. “I’m just not that into you.”
“Colonel Sheppard quoted Sex and the City?"
"What?” Rodney stopped tugging at his ponytail and shot Cadman a confused look. “Is that what that was?”
Cadman finished chewing her bite of powerbar and nodded. “Either that or the self-help book spin-off.”
“Oh, great! So I didn’t even merit an original rejection!”
Heightmeyer opened her mouth like she wanted to ask Rodney how that made him feel, but Cadman rode right over her. "What prompted him to say it?"
She wore a pensive expression that Rodney suspected he had once sported whilst pondering the secrets of the universe. Now it was being used to analyze Rodney's pathetic failure of a sex life. How they'd all come down in the world.
"I mean, what did you say right before hand?"
"Um." Rodney still felt a little uncomfortable sharing this stuff-in front of Cadman, God-but he felt so angry and indignant about the whole thing that if he didn't let it out, now, in therapy, he was liable to erupt with, "What do you mean you're just not that into me?" somewhere really inappropriate-like during the dinner rush in the mess.
He shrugged and rolled his eyes. "I said I-I said you were hot."
Cadman shot him a lascivious look-more than a little creepy on his own face. "Aww, Rodney. You think I'm hot."
"I'm hot, you mean," he said, nearly thrusting out his chest to emphasize the point. Realizing what he was doing, he flushed, his shoulders slumping forward again. "Anyway, it's kind of an objective fact. That's what I told Sheppard-that any man would have to find you hot, right?"
Cadman raised her chin and smirked at him. Rodney suppressed the urge to inform her that smugness was not her most attractive look. "Pretty much," she said. "Although there was this guy I had the biggest crush on in high school. Tony. He had these arms like-" Rodney coughed, indiscreetly. "Anyway, I mooned over him like crazy-and you know me, I do not moon. I practically threw myself at him, and he never showed the slightest bit of interest, never gave me the time of day."
Rodney frowned. "What was wrong with him?"
"Rodney." Cadman fixed him with an oddly pitying look. "He was gay."
"Oh," Rodney said. Then he blinked. "Wait. Wait-just what are you implying?" His spine was suddenly ramrod straight. "Colonel Sheppard isn't-"
"La la la, I don't want to hear about it either way!" Cadman said. She started to raise her hands to her ears, humming all the while, then abruptly cut off both actions. "Although actually-am I gay now? I mean, if I'm a woman in a man's body and I still like men-am I gay or straight? And what if I decide to experiment and have sex with a woman-would that be deviant homosexual activity or a perfectly acceptable prelude to procreation? How exactly does Don't Ask, Don't Tell apply in a situation like this?"
She was looking at him. Rodney scoffed and flipped his hair. "Oh, like I know anything about your country's ridiculous, bigoted practices."
Cadman's eyes had gone incredibly wide. Rodney had never realized-when he panicked, you could really tell that he was panicking. Or rather, that Cadman was panicking. Ha.
"Oh my God," she wailed, "am I not allowed to have sex with anybody?"
"Okay!" said Heightmeyer. "I think we're done for today."
Rodney caught up with Cadman around the corner from Heightmeyer's office. "Hey!" he called. Cadman didn't slow down, but even though she had longer legs, he was damn swift on his feet. Good lung capacity, too. Nice.
"Cadman!" he said, cornering her outside one of the transporters. She got in and angrily tapped the screen, but he slipped through before the doors could shut, and when they opened again on one of the residential levels, she had little choice but to acknowledge the fact that he was there beside her. "What?"
"Um." He was suddenly aware that there were quite a few people moving up and down the corridor and for once he thought before speaking. "Maybe this is something you'd rather discuss in private?"
"McKay..."
"Fine!" He leaned in close; it was still disconcerting to have to crane his neck up. "I thought you said you had already!"
"Had what?" she said tiredly. She showed no intention of slowing down.
"Had sex!" Rodney hissed. "Ow," he added when Cadman stopped short and he smacked his nose against her arm.
"McKay!"
"What? I warned you! Besides," he looked around furtively, "nobody cares. This? You and me? It's old news."
Cadman made a growling noise that Rodney was pretty sure his throat had never issued when he had been in charge. (Why risk-shudder-laryngitis?) She grabbed him by the arm and started dragging him down the hall.
"Excuse me!" he said, slapping her hand away. "I can do without the he-man act, thank you."
"Let's just get to my room, all right?" Cadman said.
"Well, there's no need to drag me by my hair." Rodney quickened his pace and fell into place beside her. Reaching her door, Cadman swiped her hand over the lock and walked swiftly inside. Rodney followed, and the door slid shut again so quickly it nearly took a chunk out of his heels.
"Okay." Cadman folded her arms. "When did I ever say I had had sex?"
"Well..." Rodney thought back. "You, you said you wanted to, it was all you could talk about! Remember, you kept going on about how it had been four months, and then Heightmeyer agreed with you-she got her degree off the back of a cereal box, if you ask me-and then at our next session you were all...smirky. I know that face, that's my face! My just-got-laid face!"
Cadman rolled her eyes and sank down onto the bed. "Rodney," she said. "For the last time-it is not your face. Right now? It's my face. That-" She pointed to the free-standing, full-length mirror. "-Is your face. Get used to it."
He shied away from the glass, focusing on her instead. She looked tired. She was always arriving at their sessions looking sweaty and worn-"Gym," she would say. As if a back-breaking exercise regime could turn the body of a scientist pushing forty into that of a 28-year-old, peak-of-her-physical-condition Marine. "But you wanted-"
There was no humor in Cadman's laugh. "Right. And whatever Laura wants, Laura gets."
"Ha. Funny." She glared at him. "No, really," Rodney put on his best earnest face, "that was good."
Cadman sighed. "Just what I always wanted-the approval of Rodney McKay."
Rodney found himself sighing, too. His shoulders felt uncomfortably tense. He tried resting a little against the wall, then gave in and let his shoulders roll back, let his head thunk back to rest there. "Well, you have everything else of mine, so." He stared at the ceiling. "Do you really think Sheppard's gay?"
"Jeeze, Rodney." He could hear a shuffling sound: she was taking off her boots. "It hasn't been, like, a pet theory of mine. But, ah." He glanced over and saw that she was worrying her lip. "Now that I think about it, well. The man does use a lot of product."
"Hey! That's a stereotype! And, and-and what about Carson, hmm? Not only does he use product, he copies Sheppard's look! He's like the founding member of the Colonel Sheppard Hair Club for Men!"
"Right, Carson." Cadman picked at her sweatpants where they were pilling. "Well, he certainly isn't gay." She let out a huff of air. "Not even a little," she added quietly.
"Oh. Right." Rodney felt a bit of heat rise to his cheeks. "Sorry about that."
Cadman straightened her shoulders resolutely. "Whatever." She waved a hand-a gesture Rodney was sure had been his. "I'm over it. It's ancient history." She gave him a crooked smile. "If I put my mind to it, I'm sure I can find guys for both of us, McKay."
"Hey, not so fast," Rodney said. "I haven't yet given up on the possibility of hot lesbian sex."
Cadman's laugh sounded much more genuine this time. She leaned forward and punched him lightly on the arm. "I haven't ruled it out yet, either," she said.
CONTINUED IN PART II
Author: trinityofone
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Length: ~13,300 words
Spoilers: Mostly written before S3, but now contains a few minor spoilers through 'The Game'
Warnings: Bodyswap, genderfuck, hetsex-it's a trifecta of sin!
Summary: Rodney crossed his arms under his breasts. "Well, this is stupid. And typical. Both my opportunities for hot gay sex and hot heterosexual sex are ruined!"
A/N: My intense gratitude to siriaeve, who helped me with this story from last Easter, when I was rambling on about the plot while lying in her sister's bed (note: said sister was not actually in said bed at the time), to this past Sunday, when I e-mailed her with the query, "Wanna beta 13,000 words of genderfuck? Oh, and Merry Christmas Eve!"
YOU’RE PRETTY GOOD LOOKING (FOR A GIRL)
“It’s been four months,” Cadman said. “I want to have sex.”
Rodney folded his arms. It still felt awkward, and he had to adjust his position twice. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Cadman sneered. It was an expression Rodney recognized, and he thought it was an especially cruel twist of fate that he should have to have it directed at him. “No, I am not kidding,” she said. “Exactly how long do you expect me to wait?”
“Until we fix this!” Rodney said, shrill. He looked to Heightmeyer, desperate for her support. “You can seriously be planning to sit there and let her...violate me like this!”
Heightmeyer’s face was, as usual, annoyingly neutral. Blank. “Laura’s question is a reasonable one, Rodney. How long are either of you supposed to wait before resuming something resembling your normal lives?”
“Normal?” Rodney coughed and attempted to lower his voice. “Are you both blind? How is anything going to be remotely normal until this is fixed? And you-” he added, turning on Cadman with an emphatically pointed finger. “If you can’t keep your libido in check until then, well-” His gaze flickered back to Heightmeyer. “You’re trained at treating nymphomania, right?”
Beside him, Cadman crossed her arms and snorted. She had no problem with it: her movements were easy-had been, from almost the beginning. She looked comfortable in her chair; she was slouching.
Rodney hated her.
“Laura’s expression of sexual desire is perfectly normal, Rodney,” Heighmeyer was saying, blah blah blah. “What I think may be the bigger issue here is the difficulty you’re having accepting this situation and moving on. Maybe Laura’s right-maybe reintroducing normal aspects of your lives, such as sexual intercourse, will aid you both in accepting these bodies as your own.”
Not not NOT my body, Rodney’s brain screamed, as it did a dozen or more times a day: every time he passed a mirror, or looked down at his hands typing on his laptop, or looked up and saw himself in someone else’s eyes.
He knew better than to say any of that, however: it would just set Heightmeyer off again. Instead he issued a snort of his own, and tried to ignore how fucking dainty it sounded next to Cadman’s. “Oh, please. Like any sex we could have in this state would be remotely normal.”
Cadman grinned, a big, wide spread of lips. “Speak for yourself, McKay.”
Rodney raised his chin. “And who are you going to have sex with, hm?” He instantly wished he hadn’t asked, as a possible answer immediately supplied itself. He choked violently on the air in his mouth. “Oh, God-not Carson!”
Cadman’s grin grew a bit tenser. “No,” she said. “He-no.”
She and Heightmeyer exchanged a look. Clearly this was something they would discuss further in their private sessions.
“Anyway, it’s none of your business, Rodney,” Cadman said.
Rodney sprung to his feet, drawing himself up to his full five feet two inches of height. “It is so my business!” he said. “It’s my body!”
If Cadman had followed his example and stood, she would have towered over him. But instead she stayed where she was, legs crossed, her (his) arms sprawled out lazily across the back of the chair. He had never seen himself looked so relaxed.
“And that’s mine,” Cadman said, steady and level, eyes scraping over him. He wanted to hug his arms to his chest, but he still didn’t like to touch himself. “But since it’s been four months-four months, Rodney, and you still haven’t been able to figure out a way to reverse this-well, I’m giving you permission. Do whatever you want with it. Stop exercising, eat a gallon of Ben & Jerry’s every night, dye your hair. But I want the same consideration.” Her gaze flickered to Heightmeyer, then back to him, steady. “I’m sick of feeling guilty every time I jerk off in the shower.”
Rodney felt a blush creeping up his throat. “You haven’t!”
He watched Cadman’s mouth slant down, broad familiar lips made alien. “Four months, Rodney. Of course I have.” She scoffed, looking him over again. “You’re not seriously telling me you haven’t-”
“None of your business,” he said quickly.
The sad thing was, he really hadn’t. He tried playing with-with Cadman’s breasts, standing in front of the mirror and trying to enjoy them as he would have had he not been attached to them. But the scrape of Cadman’s delicate thumbs and sharp nails over hi-the nipples made him squirm, made him want to close his eyes and stick his hand between his legs. But he couldn’t do that, because that would be admitting that this was something he was allowed to do. Touch himself like this was his body. Which it wasn’t.
He stared at her, at his own face: chin lifted, mouth set, determined. He knew better than to argue with that face-there was no point. Like everything else he’d tried, it was useless.
“Do what you want,” he ground out. “I don’t ever want to hear about it.”
“Right, because I’m just dying to discuss my sex life with you, McKay,” Cadman said, but Rodney already knew that she wouldn’t ever have to say anything: he would see her walking the halls of Atlantis, loose and comfortable in his body, and he’d never feel normal, never be able to shake the feeling that she was handling it better than him.
The room was a cube; in the center was another cube, small, like a box someone had carelessly dropped on the floor. And carelessly, Sheppard had nudged it with his foot. Sometimes, Rodney wanted to hate him for that. If he was honest with himself, however, he’d admit: if it hadn’t been the colonel, it would have been somebody else. It might have been him.
And anyway: it was enough that he was in the room. Him and Sheppard and Radek. And Cadman.
Rodney remembered: a bright flash as Sheppard’s toe tapped the box, and then a wave of dizziness that ended with him flat on his back and his eyes clearly damaged for life, judging by the thick yellow stripe cutting across his field of vision.
“Fabulous, Colonel-what have you done now?” he said-or started to; he hadn’t gotten much beyond “fab-” before realizing that his voice was wrong. He raised his head and thus got a glimpse down his body, at which he let out an undignified noise that, while girly, was not something that anyone could really berate him for.
“Um. Everyone stay calm,” said Radek, with much more authority than he usually possessed. Also, his pronunciation seemed-
“Great, not this again,” said his own voice with Cadman’s odd, flat cadence, and right, yes, he got it: he didn’t even need Sheppard blinking into the dark and saying, with a slight hint of a Czech accent that clashed badly with his natural drawl, “Colonel, you really have remarkable night vision...”
“No offense, Radek,” said Sheppard-and Rodney could tell it was Sheppard, even though it was Radek himself who was standing up, walking toward him with hand extended-“but your vision sucks.” He stood above Rodney, his posture, the cocky angle of his hips, odd on Radek’s small frame. He held out his hand.
Rodney rolled his eyes, but his back-er, Cadman’s-had undoubtedly suffered damage from its unrestrained fall. Wincing, he let Sheppard help him up. You do realize I’m McKay, he was about to say, but Sheppard looked him straight in the eye and said, “Rodney, how about getting us all back where we belong?”
“Yes, please,” said Cadman, running her-well, his-hands over her (his!) chest in a manner that Rodney thought was seriously inappropriate. “This is not the fond reunion I’ve been desperate to make.”
“Believe me,” Rodney said, staring down at her breasts, seriously weird from this angle, “I’m not enjoying it any more from this side.” He walked forward, awkwardly-his center of balance was definitely off, and when Radek, a wiry coil of energy in Sheppard’s lanky frame, stumbled forward to help him, it shocked him to realize how short he was, tilting his head up to stare at Sheppard’s face.
“So, this should be pretty simple,” he told Radek, as they both knelt over the device.
“Yes, it should merely be matter of-” Radek said, raising a finger to boost his glasses up his nose and nearly stabbing himself in the eye when he found none. He muttered something in Czech-cursing out the Ancients, most likely, for ever thinking it was a good idea to built an outpost or a device such as this.
On the other side of the room, Sheppard and Cadman were bent together over the radio, standing awkward and uncomfortable in the unfamiliar bodies and trying to convince Lorne, with whom they were speaking, that Doctors Zelenka and McKay had not gone insane, and that it would really be a wise idea if the major, Teyla, Ronon, and Sergeant Shelmerdine kept out of the room for now. “We wouldn’t want a repeat of what happened on M93-622,” Cadman said pointedly, and Rodney tried to comfort himself by listening to Lorne stutter uncomfortably. Then he shook himself, ignoring the blonde strands floating past his face, and focused on the task at hand.
It was pretty simple, thank God for that-not quite an on-off switch but a fairly basic on-off sequence, that, between him and Radek, took mere minutes to figure out. “Okay,” he said, in what he meant to be an authoritative voice but to him seemed ridiculously high-pitched. “We’re going to try this now, so...stay close to the ground so you don’t damage what few brain cells you possess.”
Cadman snorted, which made Rodney feel uncomfortably like there was some sort of bizarre mental echo in the room. “Ready?” Radek asked, forming a nervous expression that Rodney had never before seen on Sheppard’s face.
“Ready,” Rodney said. They initiated the sequence.
Bright lights, dizziness. He passed out again. When he opened his eyes, Sheppard was leaning over him. “Lieutenant?”
“Colonel?” he said, incredulous-and yes, still high-pitched. And also, increasingly nervous. “Sheppard?”
“Rodney,” Sheppard said-with his own voice, his own mouth. “Why didn’t you switch back?”
“Yeah,” said Cadman standing up on his legs, folding his arms across his chest. “Rodney-”
“Radek!” Rodney said desperately, and they bent over the device again, talking rapidly, even though Rodney’s mind was screaming, terrified and shockingly blank.
An hour later, Sheppard and Zelenka had been ping-ponged back and forth between each other’s bodies a half a dozen times-Radek was complaining of motion sickness; Rodney and Cadman, on the other hand, had stayed, and with each successive activation of the device, continued to stay, exactly where they were. In the wrong place.
“McKay,” Cadman said, after Sheppard had once again leapt dorkily to his feet-his own feet-and with a raised hand announced, “Back to normal!” “Do you think this might have something to do with what happened to us before?”
“No!” said Rodney. It had to do with the fact that the universe hated him.
“Actually,” said Radek, adjusting his glasses gratefully. He explained his theory.
“Confused!” Rodney said-his anger and bile not sounding right, not sounding right at all in Cadman’s voice. “You think the Ancient technology is confused?”
“That is a greatly simplified version of what I said-” Radek started.
Sheppard’s radio buzzed again. “Yeah?” said Sheppard, and then, “No, you’re right, Major,” and Rodney didn’t even need to hear Lorne’s side of the conversation to know what was coming.
“Rodney,” Sheppard said, looking over-down-at him with stern but at least somewhat sympathetic eyes. “We need to go back. You know it’s not safe to stay here overnight.”
“But-” Rodney said, without really meaning to; even Cadman already looked resigned.
“We can come back tomorrow. And who knows, maybe Beckett-”
“Carson’s not going to be able to fix this,” Rodney grumbled, he had already turned, was packing up his stuff.
Sheppard’s hand touched down on his shoulder: brief contact, odd and unfamiliar in every way. “But you will,” he said. “I know you, Rodney: you’ll think of something.”
The one good thing that had come out of all of this was that Rodney had received incontrovertible proof that Radek was in fact the best friend ever and not just an opportunistic Czech snake who was sucking up in hopes to gain favor and get promoted when Rodney met his own messy and increasingly likely end. No mere sycophant, no matter how loyal, would be able to put up with quite this level of hysteria and whining.
“-Cadman announced her intention to use my body for disgusting carnal pursuits, and Heightmeyer, that quack, agreed with her.” Rodney slumped lower on the lab stool. “And this morning,” he said, giving Radek a long-suffering look, “Sheppard said my hair looked pretty.”
“Pretty?” said Radek, raising an eyebrow.
“Well,” Rodney admitted. “Nice. But that man is impossible! He can’t resist anything with-” He gestured vaguely at his chest. “It’s like I’ve suddenly got a giant target painted on my-” He gestured at his chest again.
“Are you, ah.” Radek thought. “Are you sure he was not merely being...polite?”
Rodney flicked his hair over his shoulder-a truly frightening habit that he had not only picked up, but which was with alarming speed becoming more and more unconscious. “Please,” he said. “Would you ever tell me that my hair looked nice?”
“Ah,” said Radek. “No.”
And there was the real reason, Rodney thought, that Radek was the best friend ever: he was the only one, almost without exception the only one, who hadn’t started treating Rodney differently.
“All right,” Rodney said, after a moment. “Enough of this pity party. I have actual work to do before tomorrow, when I have to face another mission with the walking testosterone bomb.”
There was maybe one other good thing that had come of this: Cadman’s body, admittedly more resilient than his own, could work for obscenely long hours without having to stop to eat.
Rodney didn’t sleep well anymore. His theory-the one he didn’t tell Heightmeyer, didn’t tell Radek, didn’t tell anybody-was that he kept having Cadman’s dreams.
He dreamt someone else’s childhood and someone else’s family and someone else’s life. He dreamt another person’s triumphs and mistakes, another person’s wants and longings and desires. He awoke missing things he had never had, and terrified that he was losing himself: body first, and soon, inevitably, mind.
He had learned to shower, to wash and dress, with the lights off, fingers efficient and swift.
Teyla wasn’t completely unbearable. Like almost everyone else, she had at first shown the annoying tendency to be nicer to him-not because his situation made him, obviously, extremely deserving of everyone’s sympathy, but as if the fact that he was-temporarily!-a woman meant that he suddenly needed coddling. On this, at least, he and Cadman were in agreement: “People are idiots,” she sighed. He couldn’t have said it better himself.
But Teyla was back to sensibly agreeing with him when he offered his invaluable advice and rolling her eyes at him the rest of the time. She still stepped in front of him when they appeared to be in danger, but then, she had always done that. (And quite rightly, too-invaluable, remember?)
Ronon, too, wasn’t so bad: he and Rodney maintained a relationship of comfortable hostility with occasional breaks for food-related bonding, and if Ronon had once remarked that, while Rodney was still annoying, at least he was now easier on the eyes, Rodney was willing to be the bigger man (ha!) and let it slide after that warm afternoon on M7V-468 when Ronon had reached up and plucked a pair of giant alien oranges off a tree, peeled one, and handed it to Rodney with a simple, “Try this.” Rodney had recoiled instinctively, but Ronon’s implied, “Now you can” registered and he reached out with Cadman’s slim fingers and took the fruit in his hand. “Go on,” said Ronon. Half of his was already gone, the juice dribbling down his chin. “It’s ripe.”
Yes, Rodney thought, feeling strangely deviant, both amused and confused by his thoughts of Adam and Eve in the garden, unsure as to which role he was supposed to be playing. But he raised the fruit to his lips and bit, sweet, tangy juice exploding on his tongue, even as his body remained firm and strong beneath him.
He let out an involuntary moan, gratified that he got to have this, at least-not to mention secretly and maliciously satisfied that Cadman wouldn’t get to have it anytime soon. He was grinning at Ronon, licking his fingers, peeling off another segment, when he looked up and saw Sheppard staring at him. Sheppard looked inordinately pleased-with himself, with the world. And when they went into the briefing room later that night, the colonel took care to hold the door for him.
Every minute in Sheppard’s presence grated on Rodney like nails on a chalkboard.
It was their mission to M4I-759, the day after Cadman had vowed to start using his body for perverse purposes, that finally pushed Rodney over the edge. The Kentari were a fairly sophisticated people for the Pegasus Galaxy, and they had an energy storage system that was really quite fascinating. Rodney was discussing this with Ralan, or rather, Ralan was listening with appropriate attentiveness to Rodney’s theories on how the Kentari could improve efficiency and thus afford to share some of their technology with the Lanteans, when Sheppard skulked in. Rodney could feel his eyes on him from across the room, burning into his back even when Ralan took Rodney’s arm and led him to one of the control crannies. Rodney was just getting a good look at how the whole thing was wired together when Sheppard wormed his way into the narrow space. “Hey, whatcha guys looking at?”
“Nothing you’d understand, go away,” Rodney muttered, at the same time Ralan said acidly, “There’s really only room for two.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet,” said Sheppard. He grabbed Rodney’s arm and dragged him back into the main room.
Rodney smacked at his hand. “What the hell is the matter with you? You’re interrupting vital scientific research, not to mention causing some sort of diplomatic incident which I’m sure Elizabeth will be thrilled to hear about-”
“Yes, let’s go tell her, shall we?” Sheppard said, and when Rodney continued to protest: “I’m ordering you back to the jumper, McKay.”
They were silent the whole flight back.
In Sheppard’s office, on the other hand, things were quite different. “I can’t believe you!” Rodney shouted, storming into the room without knocking. “The blatant unprofessionalism-!”
Sheppard slumped behind his desk, frustratingly blank-faced. “It’s my job as team leader to get you out of potentially threatening situations.”
“Threatening? Was it threatening to your tiny mind that I might actually learn something, or gain some valuable technology? I can’t believe I was actually foolish enough to think that you were different than-”
“He was hitting on you, McKay.” Sheppard’s voice was cutting and yet perfectly flat. “He was maneuvering you into a situation that was about to turn...awkward.”
Rodney opened his mouth to say, What? He was not! You have a sick mind, Colonel, when suddenly a thousand details from earlier that day came back to him: how Ralan kept touching him, how he’d leaned very close whenever Rodney spoke (Rodney’d thought he just wanted to make sure he didn’t miss a single insightful word), how he’d been so very, very eager to show Rodney the out-of-the-way, empty power station, and how tightly he’d pressed up against Rodney’s body in the control cranny...Rodney was suddenly furious. He’d been imparting incredibly incisive and important information, and that idiot had been staring at-at his boobs! Rodney felt his fists clench. He felt Sheppard’s eyes on him, not hungry the way Ralan’s had been (for knowledge, Rodney had thought-moron), but there all the same. “Well, you’re just as bad, Colonel! With your door-holding and hair-compliments, and then Ralan had to come along and infringe on your territ-Oh my God,” Rodney said, comprehension dawning. “You were jealous!”
This got a reaction out of Sheppard, at least. He pressed his fingers to his forehead, looking torn somewhere between laughing hysterically and doing himself damage with his three-hole-punch. “I was not jealous, Rodney. I was concerned. As a teammate. As a...as a friend.”
Are we really friends? Rodney wanted to ask, but that question seemed too girly, so he simply folded his arms and glared. “And-and you and Ronon. You regularly compliment him on his ‘do?”
“When he hides knives in it, sure,” and when Rodney looked unamused, Sheppard sighed. “Look. Friendship is something I’m not very...good at. Talk to Teyla if you don’t believe me. But seriously, Rodney: I only paid you a compliment-which I now know better than to ever do again!-because I was trying to be reassuring and friendly, and believe me, I am not hitting on your or expressing any of that kind of interest, okay? No offense to Cadman, but...”
Rodney had a truly insane moment of wanting to defend Cadman’s body, to point at his chest and say, These breasts are very pert, you know! Instead he sputtered, “I’m still in here, yes. I thought,” he added loftily, “that you were at least smart enough to remember that.”
“Trust me, I am,” Sheppard said wryly. “And you know,” he said, leaning forward in his chair, “if you want to start coming to team movie night again, I can almost guarantee that I won’t lose control and grope you or Teyla.”
And just like that, Rodney felt ridiculous. Sure, Sheppard might be a total Kirk with everything else in the galaxy lacking a Y chromosome, but he was on the level with his team; there had never been a problem with him and Teyla even though Rodney had thought, at the beginning, that Sheppard had a thing for her. (Although in retrospect he might have been projecting-had you seen her legs in that skirt?) In fact, despite the “gender divide” or whatever, Sheppard and Teyla were incredibly close; sometimes, Rodney had maybe even envied them a little.
It felt like Sheppard was offering him that now, that friendship, that closeness, and while the timing was still suspect (Sheppard had never stared up at him sincerely and said, “As a friend, Rodney” when Rodney still had a cock) it was an offer that Rodney simply couldn’t refuse.
“You guys better not have eaten all of the popcorn,” he said.
“Rodney, you look better,” Heightmeyer said.
“Hmm,” said Rodney. To be honest, he’d felt better...until Cadman had come strutting in, carrying his body like he never could, slouching around like she’d just gotten laid. “Just don’t. Say. Anything,” he told her.
Cadman flashed him a grin and mimed zipping her lips and chucking away an invisible key.
“I don’t think not speaking is going to be especially conductive to therapy, Rodney.” Heightmeyer tilted her head in that faux-sympathetic way that made Rodney want to wallop her.
“Oh, I don’t know. I find her not speaking to be extremely therapeutic.”
Cadman apparently forgot that she was a locked box. “You’re just jealous, McKay.”
“Right, right, jealous. Jealous that my natural good looks have enabled you to do...whatever you did, while this,” he gestured down the body he happened to be wearing; that is to say, hers, “isn’t exactly doing me any favors.”
“Well,” said Cadman, voice surprisingly tight, “maybe if you stopped dressing yourself in shirts twice the size of Wisconsin, your luck would improve!”
“What’s wrong with this shirt?” Rodney plucked at the worn cotton. “This is one of my favorite shirts!”
“It’s a man’s shirt, Rodney! You-your body is not a man’s!”
“I know!” Rodney bellowed back. “It’s not like I don’t have the jiggle twins to remind me every five minutes! And while we’re on the subject of gender appropriateness, could you please stop prancing around in my body like a-a-”
“A fag, Rodney, is that what you were going to say?”
Rodney hadn’t really been sure what he was going to say, but luckily Cadman had plenty of talking to do in the meantime.
“Do you have any idea how fucked up this is for me, Rodney? I make the male Marines uncomfortable, because I’ve got a girl brain with boy parts, and any lascivious thoughts I might have in their presence might inadvertently gay them up. Meanwhile, the female Marines are totally cool with it-except they won’t let me change with them or use their showers anymore, because it’s too ‘weird.’ I have to go out of my way to be unthreatening and make everyone comfortable, even if that means basically being a fucking robot all the time. So just shut up about prancing, and if the jiggling bothers you that much, wear a goddamn bra!”
She sank back in her chair, her eyes wide and wild with a look Rodney knew only too well. He glanced at Heightmeyer: she was jotting something in her notebook. Rodney sighed. He pushed up his shirt (Cadman was right-it was kind of big) and fumbled in his pocket. “Here,” he said, handing her a powerbar. “You need to eat something. When I-when my body gets stressed, it increases the risk of going into hypoglycemic shock.”
Cadman was still frowning, but she took the powerbar somewhat graciously. “You know,” she said. “I always used to think you were exaggerating about all these health problems...”
Rodney smirked. “Now I guess we both know better, don’t we?”
“Well!” said Heightmeyer, brightly. “I think today went well.”
“Good to see you, Rodney,” Teyla said, smiling up at him. She patted the couch beside her. “We saved you a seat.”
“Right, good, thanks.” Rodney pushed awkwardly past the long splay of Sheppard’s legs and sat down. Ronon had claimed the big easy chair from the first time they’d gotten together to watch Back to the Future (Sheppard had tried to look innocent-like that ever worked), and ever since had been unshiftable, like the big tomcat everyone was afraid to move; it meant he had to reach a little farther to get to the snacks, but that’s what obscenely long arms were for. He used them now to push the popcorn in Rodney’s direction. It turned out to be caramel corn; Rodney wondered who they’d had to bribe to get that.
He was bending over to grab a handful when he got that itchy feeling at the back of his neck that meant someone was staring at him. Rodney turned his head in time to see Sheppard glance quickly away, refocusing his attention on the server menu. “So today we’ve got a choice between V for Vendetta, 12 Monkeys, and…Sense and Sensibility?” Sheppard raised an eyebrow.
“Colonel, if you so much as look at me…” Rodney started, but before he could think of a plausible (or even sufficiently scary-sounding) threat, Ronon said, “What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing,” Sheppard said, leaning back against the couch. “In fact, for a change I think I’ll vote for the Austen over the apocalypse.”
“Oh, come on!” said Rodney. “I have a rule! No movies with Hugh Grant. That’s my rule!”
“Rules are made to be broken, Rodney,” Sheppard said cheerily. “Pass the popcorn.”
Rodney pretended not to have heard him and pulled the bowl more tightly into his lap.
The movie bored Rodney, mostly because Rodney told himself he intended to be bored. Luckily, Teyla didn’t seem to be enjoying it much either (she had surprisingly little patience for any film in which buildings, cars, or people weren’t frequently blown up), so they were able to whisper together for a little while until Ronon got pissed at them and told them to shut up. Rodney was willing to forgive him, because his timing had been good: Teyla had just said, “You look well today, Rodney. Is that a new top?” and it was his stuttery, “Um. Cadman gave it to me,” that Ronon’s censure cut off.
Without a conversation to keep his mouth and his brain occupied, Rodney decided to do his best to satisfy the former. He still had the popcorn bowl pressed between his knees; he dug a hand in and nearly upset kernels all over the floor when he felt his fingers brush another set. “Sorry,” Sheppard muttered, his eyes remaining focused on the screen. Rodney pressed a hand flat against the cool metal curve of the bowl and took a breath. He hadn’t even noticed that Sheppard had-had been reaching there, and it was his own fault for hogging the food and Sheppard clearly hadn’t meant anything by it, but. But-
But Rodney was suddenly painfully aware of Sheppard’s thigh pressing against his, of the heat of him, of the faint, not unpleasant, smell of his sweat… He was aware of Sheppard-or rather, he told himself frantically, this body was aware of him; Cadman had probably had to deal with that-also not entirely unpleasant-clenching between her legs whenever Sheppard flopped lazily into a chair, or smirked, or ran his thumb over his holster straps. She was probably used to it, just like he’d been used to feeling his dick twitch whenever Teyla wore her swishy skirt or Elizabeth put on her forceful face. It was a biological response; perfectly natural, Heightmeyer would say.
Stupid Heightmeyer.
On screen, everyone took forever to make their painfully stilted declarations of love and then they all got married and lived happily ever after.
Repression and denial helped Rodney through another month or so. Then one evening, he and Sheppard were sitting in Rodney’s quarters, playing a perfectly ordinary game of chess (which Sheppard was not winning, thank you very much) when Rodney realized that he’d been taking far more time with his next move than could be passed off as brilliant pondering. It didn’t help that Sheppard had one of Rodney’s captured pawns in his hand and the longer Rodney took to decide, the more Sheppard fiddled with it, circling his thumb around the pert round head, rubbing it lightly with a concentration that somehow managed to be both absent-minded and intent. Rodney could feel his nipples hardening, pushing against the soft cotton of his bra; God, it was almost painful, and meanwhile Sheppard just sat there, studying the board, gently wetting his lips.
“I think we should have sex,” Rodney said-sudden, loud.
For a moment the words seemed to hang there like he’d written them on the wall. Then, “Uh,” said Sheppard, eloquently.
“I mean,” said Rodney quickly, “I’m currently…ah, borrowing a female body that appears to be very attracted to you, and you, well, I know you like sex, all guys like sex, I’m a guy so I know. So we should have sex. Fun, issue-free sex. All right?”
Sheppard’s expression remained neutral. “And this brilliant solution just came to you now?”
“Uh,” said Rodney, unconsciously mimicking Sheppard’s response a moment before. In truth, it had been all Rodney’d been able to think about for weeks. Lying in bed, cupping his left breast and touching his impossibly sensitive nipple with one hand while he jerked his hips, frantically rubbing off against the base of his other fist. It wasn’t sexy masturbation-not what his girlfriends had done when he’d looked at them with wide, hungry eyes and whispered, Touch yourself-no, it was needy and desperate, and he felt dirty afterward, like he had every time he’d caved and jerked off the summer he was thirteen and that asshole Billy Stuart had told him that masturbation killed brain cells. But that was stupid. As he’d long ago recognized, masturbation was awesome, and sex with a man, with Sheppard-well, if he wanted it, then damned if he was going to make himself feel ashamed for that, too.
“It is brilliant, isn’t it?” he said, segueing neatly. He thought he saw something that might have been doubt on Sheppard’s face. “See, I can promise I won’t be clingy or weird about it-you know how women are, and I-”
But Sheppard’s face had shut down, gone cold. “I’m not going to help you experiment, McKay. Not with this.”
Rejection twisted through his gut. “Is it…is it because I’m me? And you know I’m me? I mean, a guy? I can be feminine enough. I, I shaved my legs for you.”
Instantly, he wanted to slap his hand over his mouth-a gesture that would now probably make him look like a Japanese Geisha with a bad dye job. I shaved my legs for you? Could he sound more pathetic? More like this whole thing had been premeditated, some ridiculous seduction scene?
“Come on, Sheppard,” he said, even though Sheppard had stood, backing away from him and the bed, looking as warm and touchable as a statue in a museum. “Cadman’s hot. Any man would have to find this body hot!”
There was something deadly behind Sheppard’s stare. “Sorry, McKay,” he said, pushing past. “I’m just not that into you.”
“Colonel Sheppard quoted Sex and the City?"
"What?” Rodney stopped tugging at his ponytail and shot Cadman a confused look. “Is that what that was?”
Cadman finished chewing her bite of powerbar and nodded. “Either that or the self-help book spin-off.”
“Oh, great! So I didn’t even merit an original rejection!”
Heightmeyer opened her mouth like she wanted to ask Rodney how that made him feel, but Cadman rode right over her. "What prompted him to say it?"
She wore a pensive expression that Rodney suspected he had once sported whilst pondering the secrets of the universe. Now it was being used to analyze Rodney's pathetic failure of a sex life. How they'd all come down in the world.
"I mean, what did you say right before hand?"
"Um." Rodney still felt a little uncomfortable sharing this stuff-in front of Cadman, God-but he felt so angry and indignant about the whole thing that if he didn't let it out, now, in therapy, he was liable to erupt with, "What do you mean you're just not that into me?" somewhere really inappropriate-like during the dinner rush in the mess.
He shrugged and rolled his eyes. "I said I-I said you were hot."
Cadman shot him a lascivious look-more than a little creepy on his own face. "Aww, Rodney. You think I'm hot."
"I'm hot, you mean," he said, nearly thrusting out his chest to emphasize the point. Realizing what he was doing, he flushed, his shoulders slumping forward again. "Anyway, it's kind of an objective fact. That's what I told Sheppard-that any man would have to find you hot, right?"
Cadman raised her chin and smirked at him. Rodney suppressed the urge to inform her that smugness was not her most attractive look. "Pretty much," she said. "Although there was this guy I had the biggest crush on in high school. Tony. He had these arms like-" Rodney coughed, indiscreetly. "Anyway, I mooned over him like crazy-and you know me, I do not moon. I practically threw myself at him, and he never showed the slightest bit of interest, never gave me the time of day."
Rodney frowned. "What was wrong with him?"
"Rodney." Cadman fixed him with an oddly pitying look. "He was gay."
"Oh," Rodney said. Then he blinked. "Wait. Wait-just what are you implying?" His spine was suddenly ramrod straight. "Colonel Sheppard isn't-"
"La la la, I don't want to hear about it either way!" Cadman said. She started to raise her hands to her ears, humming all the while, then abruptly cut off both actions. "Although actually-am I gay now? I mean, if I'm a woman in a man's body and I still like men-am I gay or straight? And what if I decide to experiment and have sex with a woman-would that be deviant homosexual activity or a perfectly acceptable prelude to procreation? How exactly does Don't Ask, Don't Tell apply in a situation like this?"
She was looking at him. Rodney scoffed and flipped his hair. "Oh, like I know anything about your country's ridiculous, bigoted practices."
Cadman's eyes had gone incredibly wide. Rodney had never realized-when he panicked, you could really tell that he was panicking. Or rather, that Cadman was panicking. Ha.
"Oh my God," she wailed, "am I not allowed to have sex with anybody?"
"Okay!" said Heightmeyer. "I think we're done for today."
Rodney caught up with Cadman around the corner from Heightmeyer's office. "Hey!" he called. Cadman didn't slow down, but even though she had longer legs, he was damn swift on his feet. Good lung capacity, too. Nice.
"Cadman!" he said, cornering her outside one of the transporters. She got in and angrily tapped the screen, but he slipped through before the doors could shut, and when they opened again on one of the residential levels, she had little choice but to acknowledge the fact that he was there beside her. "What?"
"Um." He was suddenly aware that there were quite a few people moving up and down the corridor and for once he thought before speaking. "Maybe this is something you'd rather discuss in private?"
"McKay..."
"Fine!" He leaned in close; it was still disconcerting to have to crane his neck up. "I thought you said you had already!"
"Had what?" she said tiredly. She showed no intention of slowing down.
"Had sex!" Rodney hissed. "Ow," he added when Cadman stopped short and he smacked his nose against her arm.
"McKay!"
"What? I warned you! Besides," he looked around furtively, "nobody cares. This? You and me? It's old news."
Cadman made a growling noise that Rodney was pretty sure his throat had never issued when he had been in charge. (Why risk-shudder-laryngitis?) She grabbed him by the arm and started dragging him down the hall.
"Excuse me!" he said, slapping her hand away. "I can do without the he-man act, thank you."
"Let's just get to my room, all right?" Cadman said.
"Well, there's no need to drag me by my hair." Rodney quickened his pace and fell into place beside her. Reaching her door, Cadman swiped her hand over the lock and walked swiftly inside. Rodney followed, and the door slid shut again so quickly it nearly took a chunk out of his heels.
"Okay." Cadman folded her arms. "When did I ever say I had had sex?"
"Well..." Rodney thought back. "You, you said you wanted to, it was all you could talk about! Remember, you kept going on about how it had been four months, and then Heightmeyer agreed with you-she got her degree off the back of a cereal box, if you ask me-and then at our next session you were all...smirky. I know that face, that's my face! My just-got-laid face!"
Cadman rolled her eyes and sank down onto the bed. "Rodney," she said. "For the last time-it is not your face. Right now? It's my face. That-" She pointed to the free-standing, full-length mirror. "-Is your face. Get used to it."
He shied away from the glass, focusing on her instead. She looked tired. She was always arriving at their sessions looking sweaty and worn-"Gym," she would say. As if a back-breaking exercise regime could turn the body of a scientist pushing forty into that of a 28-year-old, peak-of-her-physical-condition Marine. "But you wanted-"
There was no humor in Cadman's laugh. "Right. And whatever Laura wants, Laura gets."
"Ha. Funny." She glared at him. "No, really," Rodney put on his best earnest face, "that was good."
Cadman sighed. "Just what I always wanted-the approval of Rodney McKay."
Rodney found himself sighing, too. His shoulders felt uncomfortably tense. He tried resting a little against the wall, then gave in and let his shoulders roll back, let his head thunk back to rest there. "Well, you have everything else of mine, so." He stared at the ceiling. "Do you really think Sheppard's gay?"
"Jeeze, Rodney." He could hear a shuffling sound: she was taking off her boots. "It hasn't been, like, a pet theory of mine. But, ah." He glanced over and saw that she was worrying her lip. "Now that I think about it, well. The man does use a lot of product."
"Hey! That's a stereotype! And, and-and what about Carson, hmm? Not only does he use product, he copies Sheppard's look! He's like the founding member of the Colonel Sheppard Hair Club for Men!"
"Right, Carson." Cadman picked at her sweatpants where they were pilling. "Well, he certainly isn't gay." She let out a huff of air. "Not even a little," she added quietly.
"Oh. Right." Rodney felt a bit of heat rise to his cheeks. "Sorry about that."
Cadman straightened her shoulders resolutely. "Whatever." She waved a hand-a gesture Rodney was sure had been his. "I'm over it. It's ancient history." She gave him a crooked smile. "If I put my mind to it, I'm sure I can find guys for both of us, McKay."
"Hey, not so fast," Rodney said. "I haven't yet given up on the possibility of hot lesbian sex."
Cadman's laugh sounded much more genuine this time. She leaned forward and punched him lightly on the arm. "I haven't ruled it out yet, either," she said.
CONTINUED IN PART II