Fic: Breaking the Mold 2/3 (Keller/McKay, McKay/Sheppard, R)
Title: Breaking the Mold
Author: snowglow1275
Recipient: hyperfocused
Pairing: McKay/Keller, McKay/Sheppard, very vague mentions of Sheppard/OFC, Sheppard/OMC, and McKay/OFC
Rating: R
Warning: Bodyswap, discussion of menstruation with possible PTSD implications, does slash really need a warning?
Disclaimer: They’re on my wish list but Santa hasn’t delivered.
Author’s Note: Post-series, sometime after Atlantis has returned to the Pegasus galaxy and everyone’s settled back in. Also, in my world, clone!Carson is back permanently and shares CMO duties with Keller. Just in case it’s confusing; the first two parts are from John’s POV and the last is from Rodney’s. To hyperfocused, I’m not sure about this, it may be good but it’s also entirely possible this is the worst thing I’ve ever written so if it’s way off the mark and totally unchristmasy and not what you wanted at all please let me know and I’ll make it up to you. Thank you so much momma_66 for the beta and brainstorming help!
Summary: This wasn’t like he’d simply been turned into a girl. That might be a little cool, for a while. But just knowing this body wasn’t his, that it had an original owner, one that would be getting it back, made him nervous about how he treated this body.
Word Count: 16,700
( Breaking the Mold - Part 1 of 3 )
He really had gone to bed after reading the report last night, which told him nothing really, but after a five hour nap he could only sleep so much longer. It was still longer than he’d have expected, though, and the first rays of dawn were just making their way into his room. John didn’t have anything to do for a while and didn’t particularly feel like looking for something to do. He stayed there lying on his bed floating on the verge of wakefulness and letting his mind catch up on everything it hadn’t had time to process the day before.
He didn’t move when the door chimed, just letting Atlantis know it was alright to let them in. Keller entered, pursing her lips as she took in his appearance. She sighed, dropping the bag she was carrying onto the desk and moved over to sit on the foot of John’s bed. He watched as she took several deep breaths.
John took in the tension around his own eyes, the hunch of his shoulders, and the pale flush that he knew meant she’d been working too hard on too little sleep. He felt a surge of guilt. They were both dealing with the same difficult situation but he’d been so caught up in his own trauma that he hadn’t considered that at least he’d gotten sleep. He’d been able to attempt some semblance of normality, running with Ronon, puttering around his office, even seeing Lorne. Sure, they’d all been hard for him but it was something. Keller had spent close to thirty six hours now bent over a lab bench actually doing something about this while he’d been sulking. John wondered how often he looked like this. Harried and exhausted. Probably too often. He sat up and hesitantly put a hand on his own shoulder. It would never not be weird but he had other concerns right now. Despite this thing with Rodney he actually did kind of like Keller, respected her at least, so he patted her shoulder awkwardly and tried to find something to say.
Turns out he didn’t have to. Keller took a deep breath, “I meant what I said. This is an amazing opportunity.” John made a supportive sound, unsure how to respond. “I kept hitting my head on the shelves, tripping over my feet, you have unnaturally long feet but the way, your marines look at me like it was my fault. Like they think I got the better end of the deal. Rodney got back last night. I made him take a sedative around midnight, he should be out for a few more hours,” She gave a shuddering breath, “he won’t even look at me. Everyone is so afraid to get close but Rodney,” Her voice broke, “it’s Rodney, you know?” God, he really did. “I just wanted him to hold me, something, anything.”
John hadn’t really noticed any reluctance to touch from others, but then his default setting included an unnaturally large and strong personal bubble. He rarely wanted, much less needed, someone to touch him but he knew most people didn’t live like that. Keller was a very tactile person and he guessed that she wanted comfort the same way he wanted to be able to do something useful. Comfort meant contact. He tried to put himself in her shoes. Bad word choice. What if he needed comfort and his boyfriend couldn’t even maintain eye contact?
At least this was his own body. Nothing unfamiliar here.
John leaned closer and slid his arm around her shoulders. She folded her, now much larger, body close to his chest. Weird, but he couldn’t blame her for feeling like this, so he raised his other hand in an approximation of a hug, letting her take all the touch she needed.
Maybe fifteen minutes later she pulled back, eyes red but without any tear streaks. He was absurdly thankful for not having to see himself cry.
“Sorry, I just…”
“It’s ok,” he cut in, “really, don’t mention it.”
She nodded and stood up, “ok, enough of this, you’re taking a shower.”
“What?”
“C’mon, up. I took one yesterday but didn’t have all the right things and had to put on these clothes again afterward so I’d like to take one once you’re done then I can borrow some clothes. Maybe shave. Definitely shave. How do you live with this thing growing on your face? I have a few changes of clothes and various toiletries and shower things for you. No more excuses.”
John tensed but he couldn’t pretend he didn’t need it. He reasoned that at least it wouldn’t be anything he’d never seen before, and there was no chance of developing an unsafe attachment to naked Keller. John let her drag him to his bathroom. She unloaded some of the bag; shampoo, conditioner, body wash, one of those puffy things, shaving cream, and a razor, onto one of the ledges.
“I understand if you’re not comfortable with the razor yet, or if you never get comfortable with it, like I said, not my body right now, what do I care if you go around with hairy legs, but I thought it might be good to have around eventually.”
John could only nod stupidly, shaving his legs?
She turned to him expectantly.
He stared at her.
“It might help if you got undressed.”
“Oh,” yes, ok, showers did tend to be easier without clothing getting in the way.
“I can step out if that would be easier,” and Keller walked just out of the room, leaving the door open a crack. John sighed and resolutely set about removing what he was wearing. Every new bit of skin made him more self conscious. It wasn’t his body, he had nothing to be embarrassed about. He was down to panties and bra, trying not to look down at himself or up into the mirror while squirming to reach the clasp at the back. He’d removed bras before but it’d been a while and never from this position. He tugged a few times, trying different angles, before he pushed them together and got one to come undone. From there it was just a matter of pushing the ends together again, at the right angle of course, and the bra came loose.
Another fortifying breath, not looking, and he let the bra slip off his arms onto the floor. Thumbs hooked under the elastic of the simple cotton panties and those were torn off as well, like a band-aid.
With a mental command to turn on the hot water he stepped into the shower and let the water stream over him for a few moments before reaching for the shampoo. John figured she had a good ten times the hair he did so he used ten times more shampoo. Some fell off in a big globule before he could get it to her head. Then he started running his fingers from the scalp to the tips but he kept twisting his arms weird so he tried bringing it all over a shoulder, ignoring the breast there, but his fingers kept getting caught. He was getting irritated with this, washing hair should never be this complicated. When he gave a particularly vicious tug he winced and hissed.
Keller must have heard him because she called, “everything alright in there?”
“Fuck! This hair is stupid.”
The next thing he knew the shower door was open again and Keller stepped in. Naked. Sure it was his body but that didn’t mean he was prepared to see it like this. He reflexively moved to cover himself, stopping just short of putting his hands over her crotch.
“Ah, what are you doing?”
“Turn around. I’m going to wash your hair. My hair. Since it seems it’s giving you such a hard time.”
“You’re not wearing any clothes.”
She giggled, “feeling particularly intelligent today? No, I’m not. You see, it makes being wet so much easier if you don’t have to bother with the soaking clothes later.” And she pushed him around and started working hands though his hair. Her hair. It kind of felt good when it wasn’t being pulled out.
“When it gets like this you have to start at the bottom and work your way up to the roots,” She said as she kneaded his scalp.
“Ok, turn around again so you can rinse.”
He obeyed, reaching up to push the water away from his face. When he was done she gestured for them to switch places saying, “I trust you can manage conditioner on your own?”
John kind of glowered at her but moved, letting her take his place under the spray. He worked the conditioner in as he watched her shampoo and condition quickly. She grabbed the puffy thing and poured some body wash on it then handed it to him. He stared at it for a moment before looking up again.
“C’mon, it’s not gonna bite.”
He started lightly rubbing circles on his stomach, then moved up to her chest, and arms. It wasn’t so bad. He skipped the waist area and went straight to her legs. They were rough and he realized she probably would have shaved now. He may be in a woman’s body and he may have to wear a bra but that wasn’t quite the same as choosing to shave his legs. He rose back to the only part not covered in suds and looked at her uneasily.
“Just be gentle and don’t try to push in, that stuff takes care of itself.”
Blushing, he swiped the puffy thing gently across his front and between his legs, being very careful not to push. Or to touch directly. He was pretty sure he could handle doing the touching but he wasn’t sure he was prepared to feel the touching, feel fingers down there as a woman, even if it wasn’t sexual.
When he finished she held out her hand for the puffy thing and gestured for them to switch again. He rinsed off while she washed. It was hard to tell when all the conditioner was out of the hair but when he felt satisfied he moved to let her have the stream again and stepped out of the shower.
“Clothes are in the bag,” she reminded him.
He nodded, even though she couldn’t see it, and toweled off quickly. The bag was on the counter and he reached in to pull out a couple of uniform pants, shirts, a handful of panties, a bra, socks, hair brush and bands, blow drier, deodorant, basic makeup, and…
He shoved the bag away abruptly. No way. He was not thinking about that now.
He pulled on a pair of panties and picked up the bra. He tried sliding it over his arms the same way he took it off but couldn’t get it to snap, then he tried snapping it and pulling it over his head like a shirt but it got really twisted. The fabric was starting to catch on the damp skin in the wake of droplets that his hair was still letting out. He tried wringing his hair again. He heard a laugh.
Keller was wrapping a towel around her waist and looking amused.
“Here, let me help.”
First she took the towel from him and had him lean forward, then she managed some complex twisty thing he probably should have been following but only got some of it and when he straightened he had a towel turban on his head. He reached up to feel it.
“Pretty cool, huh.”
Well it did keep the hair from drenching him so, yeah, maybe a little cool.
Then she moved behind him to work at the bra. She unclipped it from where it was tangled behind his back then wrapped her arms around him and clipped it in the front.
“It basically goes on backwards and upside down so when you spin it around,” she demonstrated, “you can just flip it up and slide your arms through, simple enough.”
He stayed very still when her hand ‘his’ cupped his ‘her!’ breast and adjusted it in the cup.
“There, all better now.”
He just nodded and proceeded to dress. When he looked back up she was still in just a towel, looking at him.
He cleared his throat, “thanks.”
She nodded, “would you mind showing me how to shave, this is getting unmanageable.”
He chuckled and reached for his kit.
~*~
When they were both appropriately groomed John found a few changes of clothes and put them in a bag with his shaving kit and deodorant. He set it by the door so she could grab it on her way out then she sat down next to him on the bed, holding the bag she’d brought.
“I know this is going to be difficult and, yes, this is more maintenance than you’re used to but it’s necessary.”
She pulled out a small packet and opened it to show him four rows of pills, “you need to take one of these with dinner every day, ok. I know you’re not comfortable with sexual activity but a break in the cycle would take me six months for the protection to build back up and I already missed last night. In fact you should take one now to decrease the damage to the cycle,” she broke one free of the packaging and handed it to him.
John looked at the tiny round pink pill and manfully swallowed it, along with all its implications. She was right, he wasn’t comfortable with thinking about it.
“Plus, this way you won’t get caught by surprise. There’s another two weeks left before you should expect my period but I gave you some products anyway, just in case.”
He knew she must be able to see it in his eyes, the panic, terror, uncertainty. She patted his knee reassuringly, “c’mon, John, it’s not like you’ve never gone through this with a woman.”
He blanched, just a bit.
She continued, “my brother grew up in a house with two older sisters and before he even had a girlfriend none of this stuff fazed him. Even men without female influences get used to it. I realize it’s a bit different this time but it’s really not that big of a deal.”
He still couldn’t respond.
“I thought you were married?”
He nodded, “more a convenience than anything, we never spent time together or anything.”
“Oh. I’m sorry. But you have been in long term relationships before?”
She must have seen something in his face because she became serious in an instant.
“You’ve never been in a real relationship?”
Again, she must have seen something in his face because she went on, “you have. But it couldn’t have been…” she paused, assessing him then whispered, “with a woman.”
It wasn’t question.
He closed his eyes and waited for it. Whatever it would be this time. Anger, fear, hatred, excitement, contempt. He wasn’t dangerous and he wasn’t up for adoption as someone’s token gay friend.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know. I won’t tell,” she said softly.
He opened his eyes again. She looked sad, like she was trying to sympathize, but otherwise accepting. He didn’t like pity either, but it was a better reaction than he expected so he just nodded and thanked her.
She made her excuses and left shortly thereafter. John curled back on the bed and marveled at what his life had become.
~*~
The rest of the day was disturbingly normal. He skipped running but spent the morning catching up on paperwork, like he usually did. And, yes, he did actually do paperwork. He had a working lunch with Lorne but Teyla stopped by and they just ended up laughing. He spent the afternoon overseeing a training exercise then went to a meeting with Woolsey to rearrange the schedule and prioritize missions and trading deals. He made a point not to harass Carson and Keller, though maybe she should be Jennifer after this morning and all, and only ducked into the infirmary twice. She never said a word about her little revelation that morning and he was relieved that at least she was keeping her word and not letting it interfere with their relationship, whatever that might be at this point.
It was starting to get late, normally now would be the time he sought out Rodney and made him eat, maybe suggested a movie if he didn’t already have plans with Keller. Jennifer. Whatever, not the point. John was still not sure Rodney would respond well to his presence but he stomped down on his insecurities and decided that if he could get through this Rodney was just going to have to suck it up. So he made his way down to the labs.
John stopped once to check the progress of some equations he’d been helping Miko with. She was happy to see him, it was possibly the first smile he’d gotten from someone seeing him as Keller for the first time. A few minutes passed before he realized why. Miko, and probably most of the female and scientist population by default, no longer saw him as an ‘other’, someone to be friendly with but still to keep a certain emotional distance. He hadn’t really ever thought about those boundaries people put up when they were around him, only what he put up when around people. With Keller’s body he wasn’t a threat, as a man or as military. As odd as it was to be reacted to because of an outward appearance that didn’t reflect himself it was strangely nice not to be seen for the same boundaries he used every day to keep people away.
Then again, maybe it wasn’t a good thing because he really wasn’t going to respond to that comment. She blushed, “sorry, I forget. No. That is not right, I didn’t forget, I just,” she winced, “without the physical reminder it is hard to always remember.”
John nodded, he kind of got that, “its ok. Um, I should get going, need to make sure Rodney eats today. See you.”
When he entered Rodney’s lab Radek looked up and smiled but Rodney’s eyes never moved from the double set of screens he was watching and his hands never faltered on the keyboards. At least that much was normal. He walked up behind him and said hello.
Rodney smiled, a fake smile, John knew, that was meant to seem polite, “just a minute, dear,” then his eyes got really big and he whipped his head around, mouth moving like a fish.
“I didn’t, I mean, it’s just that you sounded like Jennifer. Well, obviously you did because you have her vocal cords but I wasn’t really thinking about anything more than that it sounded like Keller. I didn’t mean to call you dear. Not that you aren’t. Dear to me that is. But not…”
John cut him off, “Rodney, its ok. I get it. You just reacted without putting it into context,” looks like Miko wasn’t the only one having trouble without physical reminders.
“Why don’t you take a break and we can grab something to eat?”
“What? Really, you still want to? Maybe I should stay here, don’t you want me to fix this faster?”
“Of course I want this fixed, Rodney, but if you don’t take a break you’ll start making mistakes and I don’t want that. Besides, it’s not like its life threatening, a few hours isn’t gonna kill me.”
“Oh, um, ok.”
“Great.”
After a couple false starts where Rodney would accidentally fall into the habits he had around Keller or unconsciously reach out to hold hands, and it killed John every time Rodney pulled away like he’d been scalded, they fell into something mostly comfortable. They snarked, Ronon and Teyla rolled their eyes at them, and Rodney even stole John’s pudding cup.
When they rounded the corner so John could drop Rodney off at his room John faltered. Jennifer was waiting nervously at Rodney’s door.
She chewed her lip for a moment, then said, “can I talk to you, Rodney?”
Rodney had halted next to John. He gulped nervously, eyes darting for a moment before they settled on Keller, “y-yeah, sure. Uh, good night John.”
John nodded, watching them disappear into Rodney’s room. He didn’t want to think about what might or might not be happening.
~*~
Over the next few days John tried not to think about how his life hadn’t really changed all that much. Most people got over their initial reactions, around here you had to adapt quickly, and he was slightly disturbed by how not disturbing he found this.
He exercised a little less and a little differently but he still sparred with Teyla and ran, a bit, with Ronon. His appetite was slightly less but he found he liked salt and sweets a bit more but, really, his diet didn’t change. A few mornings of knots in his hair and one unfortunate event where some of the hair got pulled the wrong way into the blowdryer and his quarters smelled like burning hair for the rest of the day but he quickly figured out how to do that twisty thing she did and how to put it up in a bun or ponytail and how to wash it without twisting his arm or knotting it. He could put on a bra with no trouble, didn’t worry about wedgies with the little panties she gave him, and got used to having to stand on a stool to reach the top shelf in his office.
Teyla and Ronon had taken this like any other oddity of their lives in Pegasus, they’d been here much longer than the rest of them after all. Radek was a godsend, running interference in those first days when John was still having trouble adjusting, eating together occasionally, and, John was sure, talking Rodney into being more civil about everything. Woolsey hid his continued shock at this galaxy by being diplomatic and uptight. Lorne was supportive. Lorne was always supportive, he was a good second in command and John was lucky to have him. Carson was a little over sympathetic but John couldn’t tell if that was because he couldn’t wrap his mind around the horrors of being stuck in a female body, being stuck in Keller’s body, supposed emotional turmoil, or if it was just Carson’s normal over sympathetic doctor persona. Heightmeyer must have decided he was coping alright because she wasn’t asking him to talk about it every session.
Rodney, well, he seemed to be coping pretty well, too, but John knew Rodney better than that. Sometimes Rodney would stop himself in the middle of a rant like he just realized what he was saying. John knew Rodney wouldn’t have done that with him before but when he would ask what was wrong Rodney would just shrug it off. John didn’t like that Rodney was censoring himself. It was happening less often but whenever Rodney was comfortable, let his guard down and his mind wander, he would still reach out for John. The last time this happened John hadn’t even realized they had been holding hands in the middle of the mess until Radek cleared his throat and Rodney pulled his hand away sharply and apologized profusely. There had also been a few incidents with Rodney’s arms and John’s shoulders during movie nights and one heart pounding moment when Rodney had dropped John off at his quarters after dinner, leaned forward, and almost kissed him before he retreated, horrified. John knew Rodney didn’t like him like that, he didn’t seem to like men like that at all, but the horror in Rodney’s eyes every time he did anything that could be seen as more than platonic was like a stab in the gut.
Jennifer continued to help him occasionally and they were probably on the best terms they had ever been on. She was starting to see more of Rodney again, which was good. Because Rodney liked Jennifer and whose body she was in shouldn’t matter because she made him happy. John kept telling himself this every time he saw them together and every time he would get a whiff of the rumors about them, whether they had started sleeping together again and what they had been overheard fighting about and where he stood in this sick triangle. But those rumors where almost the same ones that had been around before so John resolutely tuned them out.
~*~
The one thing that still made him really wary were the slowly disappearing little pink pills. Every day had been one day closer to the end of those and the beginning of the white ones. He suspected when that happened he would be in for another bout of freak outs. He was tense and agitated the last two days on the pink pills but he attributed this to his fear of the coming week rather than think those three scary letters. Rodney looked ready to ask him about it once but the glare John sent him shut him up. In fact, when he got snappy, most of the men he interacted with backed down instantly, usually accompanied by ‘talk down the crazy person’ gestures. It only made him madder, livid at times.
Keller stopped by that last night and made sure he understood the difference between pads and tampons but thankfully didn’t get too graphic. He avoided eye contact and hustled her out as soon as the tutorial was over.
As terrifying as wearing a pad was, he hadn’t even been able to consider a tampon, the chance of getting caught without one when he needed it was worse. John didn’t really know what to expect, if he’d known it would someday apply to him he’d have paid more attention in sex ed class way back in high school, so he just started wearing one right away the next morning.
Two days later, after lunch, his stomach started hurting. He ran back to his quarters and sat on the toilet, pulling his pants and panties down to swipe lightly across his entrance. He wished he remembered what it was really called so he could think of it clinically instead of in romance novel terms, but that was all he had and this was not something he was asking Jennifer. There was nothing. No blood and not the regular stuff that came out of there, he hadn’t experimented sexually but he’d gotten used to what was normal. Maybe it was a false alarm. The anticipation was freaking him out and he just wanted it to be done with.
He couldn’t focus the rest of the day and had no appetite during dinner. His mind was a haze of ‘Oh My God’ and ‘Calm down, you know this is normal’ and ‘Why me?’ Keller had, thankfully, not said the words he knew most women would have been thinking, ‘women have been dealing with this for thousands of years, suck it up.’
Of course, that was the kicker, regardless of whose body he was in he was not a woman and he had no idea how to deal with this.
His next trip to the bathroom the toilet paper came away with a watery red streak. He stopped breathing for a moment, his mind screaming, ‘this is not normal,’ before he continued and pulled up his panties, making sure the pad was in place.
The thing was, when John saw blood it meant someone was in trouble. It meant pain and doctors and death and letters to family members and his heart wouldn’t stop pounding. It wasn’t much now but soon there would be a lot more. He was bleeding and there was nothing wrong and he didn’t know how to process that. He didn’t know how women managed to become doctors and nurses and military. Not because he somehow didn’t think they should or could handle it, but because when you saw blood in situations of life and death, as a symbol of loss, how could anyone look at it coming out of themselves and not hate it? How did those women manage to reconcile normal/healthy/good and pain/loss/death?
He took some aspirin for the ache that wasn’t leaving the pit of his stomach and went to bed early, not ready to delve deeper into what all this meant to him.
~*~
Upon waking the next morning his first coherent thought was, ‘oh god, it feels wet down there.’ He jumped up and ran to the bathroom thinking with all the wetness the pad couldn’t be holding. His folds slid together disturbingly between his legs as he moved.
He pulled down his panties and sat down in one movement then looked at the pad that was resting on his underwear, between his knees. He couldn’t look away from the large red blot. His stomach gave a sharp twinge, it may have been his uterus or just nerves, he wasn’t sure.
He couldn’t do this.
John hung his head, noticed how that moved him closer to the pool of his own blood and leaned back again, but not before he caught the smell. It was musky and a bit sharp, something like how he remembered women smelling from when he still tried to do that, but there was also the thick smell of slightly stale blood. It made his stomach churn even more. The last time he’d smelled that the team had been hours too late to save a village from a raid. It hadn’t even been wraith, it was humans, a group of vagrants that had probably been on the run themselves but rather than beg or work for food they invaded the village, ran off those they could and killed the others.
John shook his head. He was not going to have a flashback because of something so normal. He told himself again that he was fine.
A few deep breaths and he cleaned himself up. It was wet and slick and stuck to his pubic hair so he ended up with specks on his hands when he got too close but he breathed through it. He went to get another pair of panties and a pad so he’d have something for when he was out of the shower.
The water ran pink for a moment and in streaks when he washed off down there. It was disturbingly similar to when he’d clean off after getting blood stuck on himself during a mission.
~*~
That morning John sought out Jennifer for the first time. He found her at a table in the mess, talking and laughing with a few girls he knew she had poker nights with.
“John, sit down?”
He took the seat next to her, leaning closer to talk quietly, “can I talk to you?”
She shot him a calculating look, he knew he didn’t usually want to talk but he needed some answers. She nodded, “here, or…?”
“Can we go to your quarters?”
She nodded, said her goodbyes, and led him away. When they got to her room he curled up in a corner on the bed, she sprawled out across the other half.
“I need to know how you handle it.”
Her eyes shot to him, searching, “is everything ok? It shouldn’t be too hard to handle, the pill usually makes the cramps manageable but if they’re bad I can give you some pain killers.”
He shook his head, “the blood.”
“Are the pads not working out, did you try the tampons? I can find you another style.”
He shook his head again and turned away, when he spoke again it was barely a whisper but her attention was riveted, “two months ago, on a mission, we got to a village. There was blood everywhere. Humans did it, no Wraith. They raided the place. Killed everyone still around and left the mess.”
She whispered, “I’m sorry,” but it was obvious she still didn’t get it.
“The smell. It’s in there, a little bit. I can smell it, coppery, and it sends me back there, to every massacre, ever time I’ve seen someone bleed out.” He took a deep breath, “you’ve seen death, too. How do you not hate it every time you see or smell it?”
When he looked up her mouth was open. She closed it, gulped, then started, “um, I ah, I guess it never occurred to me like that, I mean, it’s not a lot of blood. There’s no loss either, just a sloughing off of a build-up. You know you’re not actually bleeding out, right, it’s not like it’s a cut.”
“I know. I guess,” he sighed, rubbing his face, “I’m supposed to do something. When people start bleeding I’m supposed to save them. When I bleed it’s because I didn’t do my job well enough. I just. I can’t do anything. I shouldn’t do anything. Because there’s nothing wrong.”
She moved closer, her hand settled on his shoulder. They both touched each other more than they used to, mostly because they needed to feel that their real bodies were still there, so this didn’t bother John.
“John. Look at me. It means you’re alive. It’s a good thing. You’ll be around after it stops. You’ll survive this.”
He nodded, trusting her in this, she’s the one who did this on a regular basis.
“Maybe you should mention this to Kate next time you see her.”
He gave her a pained look.
“Really, John, please. She might be able to help. She goes through this, too. Every woman out there goes through this every month. And we all survive, John. You don’t need to save anyone and you didn’t fail. Ok?”
He nodded. Hearing it from her, from someone who knew what was going on, made it more real, more acceptable. He might still bring it up with Heightmeyer, though.
“Thanks,” he said as he got up.
“Of course, John. Are you gonna be ok with this now.”
“I’ll be better.”
She still looked unconvinced but nodded, “alright. See you.”
He nodded again and left.
John went about the rest of his day, trying for as normal as possible. He did pretty well, all things considered. He did run to the bathroom more often because the wetness got weird but he managed not to have another freak out. If he went through everything clinically he could distance himself enough not to take it personally.
He still brought it up to Heightmeyer when he saw her the next day.
~*~
“Really?”
“Yes, yes, now get out of here. If I don’t get this done tonight you won’t be getting your body back tomorrow after all and I can’t work with you here distracting me.”
John smirked and leaned in a bit, “distracting you?”
Rodney’s mouth snapped shut and he tried to cover the blush by glaring and waving John away, “go, go on, I mean it, I have to work.”
John sighed as he left the lab. He shouldn’t have done that, flirted with Rodney, but it was what he always did. He’d just never had to worry about getting found out before because Rodney hardly knew when women were flirting so John was quite sure men never registered. For the past weeks John had been trying very hard to act normal without accidentally hitting on Rodney because that would cause too many complications.
John smiled then, like it hadn’t really caught up to him yet, he was getting his body back! No more bras and long hair and short legs. No more looking up when his men reported. No more midnight cravings for extra salty French fries like he’d had to deal with last week, speaking of which, no more periods! He never thought he’d say something like this but he just wasn’t strong enough to take another one.
He’d never considered what menstruation meant beyond the basic stuff they taught you in sex ed, mostly because he hadn’t known many women whose periods, or other habits, he thought affected him in any way.
He’d thought wrong, dealing with all those things he never wanted to deal with again was a huge part of just being a woman, whether it’s conscious or not, and he kind of felt like not knowing some of the things that were so normal and every day for them meant he didn’t know the women in his life all that well. And regardless of his sexuality he did like to get to know the women in his life.
He was realizing he didn’t know some of his best friends as well as he thought he did and it made him feel a bit cheated, and a little like a bastard. The way chocolate was worth more on the black market when trading with most women suddenly wasn’t just a quirk to use to his advantage. The little brown paper bags women sometimes left the infirmary with weren’t just ignored anymore. The way it took Cadman two minutes longer to get out of the locker room after a mission wasn’t something to roll his eyes at and laugh along at the joke about women in the bathroom. How Miko snacked constantly on chips and pretzels for a few days every now and then, once a month he figured now that he thought about it. Elizabeth. Well, this only made him more in awe of her. And Teyla had had a child and he’d said no when she asked if he wanted to feel the baby kicking. He really regretted that now, not participating in such a huge part of one of his best friend’s, family really, life.
But, as much as his respect for all the strong women he knew had grown and as much as it made him feel a little weak for not being able to deal with it, he was so beyond relieved to be going back to being male. He wondered if this was what it would be like to be transgender. He’d known a few but the idea of not being at home in his own body had always been foreign to him. He’d known before, of course, that just because he was gay didn’t mean he had any desire to put on a dress or wear make-up so the idea of separating sex or gender from sexuality was nothing new but were there women, females, who felt like he did now? Like no matter how many times they went through all the routines it would never be routine. And if they decided they didn’t fit into the category of woman, her, she, then was she a man, a he, him? He was female but he wasn’t a woman, and he was a man who was gay but didn’t want to be female. The distinction between sex, gender, and sexuality had never been so clear to him.
His smile faltered. He’d learned from this. All this, about women and his relationship to them. He’d grown as a person. It was so fucking cliché. He rolled his eyes at himself. The Pegasus galaxy: one cliché after another, and he was stuck in the middle again.
Walking into the infirmary he fought to keep his face impassive and leaned on the wall next to where Keller had her eyes glued to a microscope.
“Guess what?” He asked childishly.
She looked up.
He let his face transform into a smile that practically glowed and sing songed, “we’re gettin’ our bodies back.”
“Really?” She stood up, beaming. He nodded.
Keller flung herself at him and hugged him, bouncing a bit with excitement. He found himself swept up in it, faces beaming and unable to hold still. He was doing the girly bouncy hug thing. John winced and schooled is face a bit, pulling away.
“Rodney says they’ll be ready tomorrow.”
“Great, awesome, oh, I can’t wait. Not that you’re body’s not nice enough but, god, I really can’t wait.”
He smiled and nodded, “I know exactly what you mean.”
~*~
John spent the next twenty four hours antsy beyond anything he’d ever experienced before. He kept making lists of everything he was going to do once he was back in his own body but it got so long he would forget and have to start over. He considered writing it down but that would make him feel kind of pathetic. A long run, a shower, sparring with the marines and kicking their asses again, and peeing standing up were all at the top of the list but the very first thing he was going to do was jerk off. He didn’t think he’d last long enough to do anything fancy, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to the first time back, but as soon as he could get it up again he going to get out the simple little dildo he’d managed to smuggle out here and he was going to fuck himself hard. He was practically giddy just thinking about it all.
A little over three weeks without a single orgasm and John was ready to end that streak. It wasn’t like he hadn’t thought about sex the past weeks but it wasn’t in any kind of concrete way that applied to him, just an abstract concept. He’d had sex with women before and knew how it worked and he may have broken down in a few more weeks and tried something but as things stood the body he was in didn’t quite work with his concept of sex. He just wasn’t attracted to himself in the normal way right now, because you have to enjoy touching yourself to, well, enjoy touching yourself.
He hadn’t wanted to talk about it with Heightmeyer but she tended to tell him whatever she thought he needed to hear whether he wanted to hear it or not. She said it was normal, especially for those going through major or traumatic physical changes and tried to explain about the disconnect that was happening now between his mind and his body. He hadn’t been able to stop the snort at that. Of course, she was also quick to point out that there was no precedent for this, which John took to mean her experience didn’t mean squat right now.
The point was that he was excited. He smiled a lot and felt kind of bouncy and, judging from the looks he was getting, people thought he was being cute but that didn’t manage to ruin his mood today.
~*~
The next morning Jennifer stopped by before breakfast and they exchanged bags of clothing and toiletries again. John had never been happier to see his shaving kit. Then they went their separate ways and anxiously awaited the call from Rodney that he was ready.
Of course, even when they had gotten the call and were waiting for Rodney to do his thing he still made them all stand around and wait while he double and triple checked everything but at long last he instructed John to touch the reconstructed, reverse engineered, device Rodney had spent much of the past weeks building. John reached out hesitantly, glancing one last time at Jennifer. She gave him a slight smile and he moved the last few centimeters. There was a spark, just like last time but in this light he couldn’t tell if he was glowing again.
“Did it do it? Did you feel it?”
John nodded to Rodney.
“Ok, good, now just touch Jennifer.”
He moved over to sit next to her on a medical gurney that had been brought just in case, trying to ignore the way Carson was hovering nervously in the background, then reached out slowly to set his hand on her wrist.
( Breaking the Mold - Part 3 of 3 )
Author: snowglow1275
Recipient: hyperfocused
Pairing: McKay/Keller, McKay/Sheppard, very vague mentions of Sheppard/OFC, Sheppard/OMC, and McKay/OFC
Rating: R
Warning: Bodyswap, discussion of menstruation with possible PTSD implications, does slash really need a warning?
Disclaimer: They’re on my wish list but Santa hasn’t delivered.
Author’s Note: Post-series, sometime after Atlantis has returned to the Pegasus galaxy and everyone’s settled back in. Also, in my world, clone!Carson is back permanently and shares CMO duties with Keller. Just in case it’s confusing; the first two parts are from John’s POV and the last is from Rodney’s. To hyperfocused, I’m not sure about this, it may be good but it’s also entirely possible this is the worst thing I’ve ever written so if it’s way off the mark and totally unchristmasy and not what you wanted at all please let me know and I’ll make it up to you. Thank you so much momma_66 for the beta and brainstorming help!
Summary: This wasn’t like he’d simply been turned into a girl. That might be a little cool, for a while. But just knowing this body wasn’t his, that it had an original owner, one that would be getting it back, made him nervous about how he treated this body.
Word Count: 16,700
( Breaking the Mold - Part 1 of 3 )
He really had gone to bed after reading the report last night, which told him nothing really, but after a five hour nap he could only sleep so much longer. It was still longer than he’d have expected, though, and the first rays of dawn were just making their way into his room. John didn’t have anything to do for a while and didn’t particularly feel like looking for something to do. He stayed there lying on his bed floating on the verge of wakefulness and letting his mind catch up on everything it hadn’t had time to process the day before.
He didn’t move when the door chimed, just letting Atlantis know it was alright to let them in. Keller entered, pursing her lips as she took in his appearance. She sighed, dropping the bag she was carrying onto the desk and moved over to sit on the foot of John’s bed. He watched as she took several deep breaths.
John took in the tension around his own eyes, the hunch of his shoulders, and the pale flush that he knew meant she’d been working too hard on too little sleep. He felt a surge of guilt. They were both dealing with the same difficult situation but he’d been so caught up in his own trauma that he hadn’t considered that at least he’d gotten sleep. He’d been able to attempt some semblance of normality, running with Ronon, puttering around his office, even seeing Lorne. Sure, they’d all been hard for him but it was something. Keller had spent close to thirty six hours now bent over a lab bench actually doing something about this while he’d been sulking. John wondered how often he looked like this. Harried and exhausted. Probably too often. He sat up and hesitantly put a hand on his own shoulder. It would never not be weird but he had other concerns right now. Despite this thing with Rodney he actually did kind of like Keller, respected her at least, so he patted her shoulder awkwardly and tried to find something to say.
Turns out he didn’t have to. Keller took a deep breath, “I meant what I said. This is an amazing opportunity.” John made a supportive sound, unsure how to respond. “I kept hitting my head on the shelves, tripping over my feet, you have unnaturally long feet but the way, your marines look at me like it was my fault. Like they think I got the better end of the deal. Rodney got back last night. I made him take a sedative around midnight, he should be out for a few more hours,” She gave a shuddering breath, “he won’t even look at me. Everyone is so afraid to get close but Rodney,” Her voice broke, “it’s Rodney, you know?” God, he really did. “I just wanted him to hold me, something, anything.”
John hadn’t really noticed any reluctance to touch from others, but then his default setting included an unnaturally large and strong personal bubble. He rarely wanted, much less needed, someone to touch him but he knew most people didn’t live like that. Keller was a very tactile person and he guessed that she wanted comfort the same way he wanted to be able to do something useful. Comfort meant contact. He tried to put himself in her shoes. Bad word choice. What if he needed comfort and his boyfriend couldn’t even maintain eye contact?
At least this was his own body. Nothing unfamiliar here.
John leaned closer and slid his arm around her shoulders. She folded her, now much larger, body close to his chest. Weird, but he couldn’t blame her for feeling like this, so he raised his other hand in an approximation of a hug, letting her take all the touch she needed.
Maybe fifteen minutes later she pulled back, eyes red but without any tear streaks. He was absurdly thankful for not having to see himself cry.
“Sorry, I just…”
“It’s ok,” he cut in, “really, don’t mention it.”
She nodded and stood up, “ok, enough of this, you’re taking a shower.”
“What?”
“C’mon, up. I took one yesterday but didn’t have all the right things and had to put on these clothes again afterward so I’d like to take one once you’re done then I can borrow some clothes. Maybe shave. Definitely shave. How do you live with this thing growing on your face? I have a few changes of clothes and various toiletries and shower things for you. No more excuses.”
John tensed but he couldn’t pretend he didn’t need it. He reasoned that at least it wouldn’t be anything he’d never seen before, and there was no chance of developing an unsafe attachment to naked Keller. John let her drag him to his bathroom. She unloaded some of the bag; shampoo, conditioner, body wash, one of those puffy things, shaving cream, and a razor, onto one of the ledges.
“I understand if you’re not comfortable with the razor yet, or if you never get comfortable with it, like I said, not my body right now, what do I care if you go around with hairy legs, but I thought it might be good to have around eventually.”
John could only nod stupidly, shaving his legs?
She turned to him expectantly.
He stared at her.
“It might help if you got undressed.”
“Oh,” yes, ok, showers did tend to be easier without clothing getting in the way.
“I can step out if that would be easier,” and Keller walked just out of the room, leaving the door open a crack. John sighed and resolutely set about removing what he was wearing. Every new bit of skin made him more self conscious. It wasn’t his body, he had nothing to be embarrassed about. He was down to panties and bra, trying not to look down at himself or up into the mirror while squirming to reach the clasp at the back. He’d removed bras before but it’d been a while and never from this position. He tugged a few times, trying different angles, before he pushed them together and got one to come undone. From there it was just a matter of pushing the ends together again, at the right angle of course, and the bra came loose.
Another fortifying breath, not looking, and he let the bra slip off his arms onto the floor. Thumbs hooked under the elastic of the simple cotton panties and those were torn off as well, like a band-aid.
With a mental command to turn on the hot water he stepped into the shower and let the water stream over him for a few moments before reaching for the shampoo. John figured she had a good ten times the hair he did so he used ten times more shampoo. Some fell off in a big globule before he could get it to her head. Then he started running his fingers from the scalp to the tips but he kept twisting his arms weird so he tried bringing it all over a shoulder, ignoring the breast there, but his fingers kept getting caught. He was getting irritated with this, washing hair should never be this complicated. When he gave a particularly vicious tug he winced and hissed.
Keller must have heard him because she called, “everything alright in there?”
“Fuck! This hair is stupid.”
The next thing he knew the shower door was open again and Keller stepped in. Naked. Sure it was his body but that didn’t mean he was prepared to see it like this. He reflexively moved to cover himself, stopping just short of putting his hands over her crotch.
“Ah, what are you doing?”
“Turn around. I’m going to wash your hair. My hair. Since it seems it’s giving you such a hard time.”
“You’re not wearing any clothes.”
She giggled, “feeling particularly intelligent today? No, I’m not. You see, it makes being wet so much easier if you don’t have to bother with the soaking clothes later.” And she pushed him around and started working hands though his hair. Her hair. It kind of felt good when it wasn’t being pulled out.
“When it gets like this you have to start at the bottom and work your way up to the roots,” She said as she kneaded his scalp.
“Ok, turn around again so you can rinse.”
He obeyed, reaching up to push the water away from his face. When he was done she gestured for them to switch places saying, “I trust you can manage conditioner on your own?”
John kind of glowered at her but moved, letting her take his place under the spray. He worked the conditioner in as he watched her shampoo and condition quickly. She grabbed the puffy thing and poured some body wash on it then handed it to him. He stared at it for a moment before looking up again.
“C’mon, it’s not gonna bite.”
He started lightly rubbing circles on his stomach, then moved up to her chest, and arms. It wasn’t so bad. He skipped the waist area and went straight to her legs. They were rough and he realized she probably would have shaved now. He may be in a woman’s body and he may have to wear a bra but that wasn’t quite the same as choosing to shave his legs. He rose back to the only part not covered in suds and looked at her uneasily.
“Just be gentle and don’t try to push in, that stuff takes care of itself.”
Blushing, he swiped the puffy thing gently across his front and between his legs, being very careful not to push. Or to touch directly. He was pretty sure he could handle doing the touching but he wasn’t sure he was prepared to feel the touching, feel fingers down there as a woman, even if it wasn’t sexual.
When he finished she held out her hand for the puffy thing and gestured for them to switch again. He rinsed off while she washed. It was hard to tell when all the conditioner was out of the hair but when he felt satisfied he moved to let her have the stream again and stepped out of the shower.
“Clothes are in the bag,” she reminded him.
He nodded, even though she couldn’t see it, and toweled off quickly. The bag was on the counter and he reached in to pull out a couple of uniform pants, shirts, a handful of panties, a bra, socks, hair brush and bands, blow drier, deodorant, basic makeup, and…
He shoved the bag away abruptly. No way. He was not thinking about that now.
He pulled on a pair of panties and picked up the bra. He tried sliding it over his arms the same way he took it off but couldn’t get it to snap, then he tried snapping it and pulling it over his head like a shirt but it got really twisted. The fabric was starting to catch on the damp skin in the wake of droplets that his hair was still letting out. He tried wringing his hair again. He heard a laugh.
Keller was wrapping a towel around her waist and looking amused.
“Here, let me help.”
First she took the towel from him and had him lean forward, then she managed some complex twisty thing he probably should have been following but only got some of it and when he straightened he had a towel turban on his head. He reached up to feel it.
“Pretty cool, huh.”
Well it did keep the hair from drenching him so, yeah, maybe a little cool.
Then she moved behind him to work at the bra. She unclipped it from where it was tangled behind his back then wrapped her arms around him and clipped it in the front.
“It basically goes on backwards and upside down so when you spin it around,” she demonstrated, “you can just flip it up and slide your arms through, simple enough.”
He stayed very still when her hand ‘his’ cupped his ‘her!’ breast and adjusted it in the cup.
“There, all better now.”
He just nodded and proceeded to dress. When he looked back up she was still in just a towel, looking at him.
He cleared his throat, “thanks.”
She nodded, “would you mind showing me how to shave, this is getting unmanageable.”
He chuckled and reached for his kit.
~*~
When they were both appropriately groomed John found a few changes of clothes and put them in a bag with his shaving kit and deodorant. He set it by the door so she could grab it on her way out then she sat down next to him on the bed, holding the bag she’d brought.
“I know this is going to be difficult and, yes, this is more maintenance than you’re used to but it’s necessary.”
She pulled out a small packet and opened it to show him four rows of pills, “you need to take one of these with dinner every day, ok. I know you’re not comfortable with sexual activity but a break in the cycle would take me six months for the protection to build back up and I already missed last night. In fact you should take one now to decrease the damage to the cycle,” she broke one free of the packaging and handed it to him.
John looked at the tiny round pink pill and manfully swallowed it, along with all its implications. She was right, he wasn’t comfortable with thinking about it.
“Plus, this way you won’t get caught by surprise. There’s another two weeks left before you should expect my period but I gave you some products anyway, just in case.”
He knew she must be able to see it in his eyes, the panic, terror, uncertainty. She patted his knee reassuringly, “c’mon, John, it’s not like you’ve never gone through this with a woman.”
He blanched, just a bit.
She continued, “my brother grew up in a house with two older sisters and before he even had a girlfriend none of this stuff fazed him. Even men without female influences get used to it. I realize it’s a bit different this time but it’s really not that big of a deal.”
He still couldn’t respond.
“I thought you were married?”
He nodded, “more a convenience than anything, we never spent time together or anything.”
“Oh. I’m sorry. But you have been in long term relationships before?”
She must have seen something in his face because she became serious in an instant.
“You’ve never been in a real relationship?”
Again, she must have seen something in his face because she went on, “you have. But it couldn’t have been…” she paused, assessing him then whispered, “with a woman.”
It wasn’t question.
He closed his eyes and waited for it. Whatever it would be this time. Anger, fear, hatred, excitement, contempt. He wasn’t dangerous and he wasn’t up for adoption as someone’s token gay friend.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know. I won’t tell,” she said softly.
He opened his eyes again. She looked sad, like she was trying to sympathize, but otherwise accepting. He didn’t like pity either, but it was a better reaction than he expected so he just nodded and thanked her.
She made her excuses and left shortly thereafter. John curled back on the bed and marveled at what his life had become.
~*~
The rest of the day was disturbingly normal. He skipped running but spent the morning catching up on paperwork, like he usually did. And, yes, he did actually do paperwork. He had a working lunch with Lorne but Teyla stopped by and they just ended up laughing. He spent the afternoon overseeing a training exercise then went to a meeting with Woolsey to rearrange the schedule and prioritize missions and trading deals. He made a point not to harass Carson and Keller, though maybe she should be Jennifer after this morning and all, and only ducked into the infirmary twice. She never said a word about her little revelation that morning and he was relieved that at least she was keeping her word and not letting it interfere with their relationship, whatever that might be at this point.
It was starting to get late, normally now would be the time he sought out Rodney and made him eat, maybe suggested a movie if he didn’t already have plans with Keller. Jennifer. Whatever, not the point. John was still not sure Rodney would respond well to his presence but he stomped down on his insecurities and decided that if he could get through this Rodney was just going to have to suck it up. So he made his way down to the labs.
John stopped once to check the progress of some equations he’d been helping Miko with. She was happy to see him, it was possibly the first smile he’d gotten from someone seeing him as Keller for the first time. A few minutes passed before he realized why. Miko, and probably most of the female and scientist population by default, no longer saw him as an ‘other’, someone to be friendly with but still to keep a certain emotional distance. He hadn’t really ever thought about those boundaries people put up when they were around him, only what he put up when around people. With Keller’s body he wasn’t a threat, as a man or as military. As odd as it was to be reacted to because of an outward appearance that didn’t reflect himself it was strangely nice not to be seen for the same boundaries he used every day to keep people away.
Then again, maybe it wasn’t a good thing because he really wasn’t going to respond to that comment. She blushed, “sorry, I forget. No. That is not right, I didn’t forget, I just,” she winced, “without the physical reminder it is hard to always remember.”
John nodded, he kind of got that, “its ok. Um, I should get going, need to make sure Rodney eats today. See you.”
When he entered Rodney’s lab Radek looked up and smiled but Rodney’s eyes never moved from the double set of screens he was watching and his hands never faltered on the keyboards. At least that much was normal. He walked up behind him and said hello.
Rodney smiled, a fake smile, John knew, that was meant to seem polite, “just a minute, dear,” then his eyes got really big and he whipped his head around, mouth moving like a fish.
“I didn’t, I mean, it’s just that you sounded like Jennifer. Well, obviously you did because you have her vocal cords but I wasn’t really thinking about anything more than that it sounded like Keller. I didn’t mean to call you dear. Not that you aren’t. Dear to me that is. But not…”
John cut him off, “Rodney, its ok. I get it. You just reacted without putting it into context,” looks like Miko wasn’t the only one having trouble without physical reminders.
“Why don’t you take a break and we can grab something to eat?”
“What? Really, you still want to? Maybe I should stay here, don’t you want me to fix this faster?”
“Of course I want this fixed, Rodney, but if you don’t take a break you’ll start making mistakes and I don’t want that. Besides, it’s not like its life threatening, a few hours isn’t gonna kill me.”
“Oh, um, ok.”
“Great.”
After a couple false starts where Rodney would accidentally fall into the habits he had around Keller or unconsciously reach out to hold hands, and it killed John every time Rodney pulled away like he’d been scalded, they fell into something mostly comfortable. They snarked, Ronon and Teyla rolled their eyes at them, and Rodney even stole John’s pudding cup.
When they rounded the corner so John could drop Rodney off at his room John faltered. Jennifer was waiting nervously at Rodney’s door.
She chewed her lip for a moment, then said, “can I talk to you, Rodney?”
Rodney had halted next to John. He gulped nervously, eyes darting for a moment before they settled on Keller, “y-yeah, sure. Uh, good night John.”
John nodded, watching them disappear into Rodney’s room. He didn’t want to think about what might or might not be happening.
~*~
Over the next few days John tried not to think about how his life hadn’t really changed all that much. Most people got over their initial reactions, around here you had to adapt quickly, and he was slightly disturbed by how not disturbing he found this.
He exercised a little less and a little differently but he still sparred with Teyla and ran, a bit, with Ronon. His appetite was slightly less but he found he liked salt and sweets a bit more but, really, his diet didn’t change. A few mornings of knots in his hair and one unfortunate event where some of the hair got pulled the wrong way into the blowdryer and his quarters smelled like burning hair for the rest of the day but he quickly figured out how to do that twisty thing she did and how to put it up in a bun or ponytail and how to wash it without twisting his arm or knotting it. He could put on a bra with no trouble, didn’t worry about wedgies with the little panties she gave him, and got used to having to stand on a stool to reach the top shelf in his office.
Teyla and Ronon had taken this like any other oddity of their lives in Pegasus, they’d been here much longer than the rest of them after all. Radek was a godsend, running interference in those first days when John was still having trouble adjusting, eating together occasionally, and, John was sure, talking Rodney into being more civil about everything. Woolsey hid his continued shock at this galaxy by being diplomatic and uptight. Lorne was supportive. Lorne was always supportive, he was a good second in command and John was lucky to have him. Carson was a little over sympathetic but John couldn’t tell if that was because he couldn’t wrap his mind around the horrors of being stuck in a female body, being stuck in Keller’s body, supposed emotional turmoil, or if it was just Carson’s normal over sympathetic doctor persona. Heightmeyer must have decided he was coping alright because she wasn’t asking him to talk about it every session.
Rodney, well, he seemed to be coping pretty well, too, but John knew Rodney better than that. Sometimes Rodney would stop himself in the middle of a rant like he just realized what he was saying. John knew Rodney wouldn’t have done that with him before but when he would ask what was wrong Rodney would just shrug it off. John didn’t like that Rodney was censoring himself. It was happening less often but whenever Rodney was comfortable, let his guard down and his mind wander, he would still reach out for John. The last time this happened John hadn’t even realized they had been holding hands in the middle of the mess until Radek cleared his throat and Rodney pulled his hand away sharply and apologized profusely. There had also been a few incidents with Rodney’s arms and John’s shoulders during movie nights and one heart pounding moment when Rodney had dropped John off at his quarters after dinner, leaned forward, and almost kissed him before he retreated, horrified. John knew Rodney didn’t like him like that, he didn’t seem to like men like that at all, but the horror in Rodney’s eyes every time he did anything that could be seen as more than platonic was like a stab in the gut.
Jennifer continued to help him occasionally and they were probably on the best terms they had ever been on. She was starting to see more of Rodney again, which was good. Because Rodney liked Jennifer and whose body she was in shouldn’t matter because she made him happy. John kept telling himself this every time he saw them together and every time he would get a whiff of the rumors about them, whether they had started sleeping together again and what they had been overheard fighting about and where he stood in this sick triangle. But those rumors where almost the same ones that had been around before so John resolutely tuned them out.
~*~
The one thing that still made him really wary were the slowly disappearing little pink pills. Every day had been one day closer to the end of those and the beginning of the white ones. He suspected when that happened he would be in for another bout of freak outs. He was tense and agitated the last two days on the pink pills but he attributed this to his fear of the coming week rather than think those three scary letters. Rodney looked ready to ask him about it once but the glare John sent him shut him up. In fact, when he got snappy, most of the men he interacted with backed down instantly, usually accompanied by ‘talk down the crazy person’ gestures. It only made him madder, livid at times.
Keller stopped by that last night and made sure he understood the difference between pads and tampons but thankfully didn’t get too graphic. He avoided eye contact and hustled her out as soon as the tutorial was over.
As terrifying as wearing a pad was, he hadn’t even been able to consider a tampon, the chance of getting caught without one when he needed it was worse. John didn’t really know what to expect, if he’d known it would someday apply to him he’d have paid more attention in sex ed class way back in high school, so he just started wearing one right away the next morning.
Two days later, after lunch, his stomach started hurting. He ran back to his quarters and sat on the toilet, pulling his pants and panties down to swipe lightly across his entrance. He wished he remembered what it was really called so he could think of it clinically instead of in romance novel terms, but that was all he had and this was not something he was asking Jennifer. There was nothing. No blood and not the regular stuff that came out of there, he hadn’t experimented sexually but he’d gotten used to what was normal. Maybe it was a false alarm. The anticipation was freaking him out and he just wanted it to be done with.
He couldn’t focus the rest of the day and had no appetite during dinner. His mind was a haze of ‘Oh My God’ and ‘Calm down, you know this is normal’ and ‘Why me?’ Keller had, thankfully, not said the words he knew most women would have been thinking, ‘women have been dealing with this for thousands of years, suck it up.’
Of course, that was the kicker, regardless of whose body he was in he was not a woman and he had no idea how to deal with this.
His next trip to the bathroom the toilet paper came away with a watery red streak. He stopped breathing for a moment, his mind screaming, ‘this is not normal,’ before he continued and pulled up his panties, making sure the pad was in place.
The thing was, when John saw blood it meant someone was in trouble. It meant pain and doctors and death and letters to family members and his heart wouldn’t stop pounding. It wasn’t much now but soon there would be a lot more. He was bleeding and there was nothing wrong and he didn’t know how to process that. He didn’t know how women managed to become doctors and nurses and military. Not because he somehow didn’t think they should or could handle it, but because when you saw blood in situations of life and death, as a symbol of loss, how could anyone look at it coming out of themselves and not hate it? How did those women manage to reconcile normal/healthy/good and pain/loss/death?
He took some aspirin for the ache that wasn’t leaving the pit of his stomach and went to bed early, not ready to delve deeper into what all this meant to him.
~*~
Upon waking the next morning his first coherent thought was, ‘oh god, it feels wet down there.’ He jumped up and ran to the bathroom thinking with all the wetness the pad couldn’t be holding. His folds slid together disturbingly between his legs as he moved.
He pulled down his panties and sat down in one movement then looked at the pad that was resting on his underwear, between his knees. He couldn’t look away from the large red blot. His stomach gave a sharp twinge, it may have been his uterus or just nerves, he wasn’t sure.
He couldn’t do this.
John hung his head, noticed how that moved him closer to the pool of his own blood and leaned back again, but not before he caught the smell. It was musky and a bit sharp, something like how he remembered women smelling from when he still tried to do that, but there was also the thick smell of slightly stale blood. It made his stomach churn even more. The last time he’d smelled that the team had been hours too late to save a village from a raid. It hadn’t even been wraith, it was humans, a group of vagrants that had probably been on the run themselves but rather than beg or work for food they invaded the village, ran off those they could and killed the others.
John shook his head. He was not going to have a flashback because of something so normal. He told himself again that he was fine.
A few deep breaths and he cleaned himself up. It was wet and slick and stuck to his pubic hair so he ended up with specks on his hands when he got too close but he breathed through it. He went to get another pair of panties and a pad so he’d have something for when he was out of the shower.
The water ran pink for a moment and in streaks when he washed off down there. It was disturbingly similar to when he’d clean off after getting blood stuck on himself during a mission.
~*~
That morning John sought out Jennifer for the first time. He found her at a table in the mess, talking and laughing with a few girls he knew she had poker nights with.
“John, sit down?”
He took the seat next to her, leaning closer to talk quietly, “can I talk to you?”
She shot him a calculating look, he knew he didn’t usually want to talk but he needed some answers. She nodded, “here, or…?”
“Can we go to your quarters?”
She nodded, said her goodbyes, and led him away. When they got to her room he curled up in a corner on the bed, she sprawled out across the other half.
“I need to know how you handle it.”
Her eyes shot to him, searching, “is everything ok? It shouldn’t be too hard to handle, the pill usually makes the cramps manageable but if they’re bad I can give you some pain killers.”
He shook his head, “the blood.”
“Are the pads not working out, did you try the tampons? I can find you another style.”
He shook his head again and turned away, when he spoke again it was barely a whisper but her attention was riveted, “two months ago, on a mission, we got to a village. There was blood everywhere. Humans did it, no Wraith. They raided the place. Killed everyone still around and left the mess.”
She whispered, “I’m sorry,” but it was obvious she still didn’t get it.
“The smell. It’s in there, a little bit. I can smell it, coppery, and it sends me back there, to every massacre, ever time I’ve seen someone bleed out.” He took a deep breath, “you’ve seen death, too. How do you not hate it every time you see or smell it?”
When he looked up her mouth was open. She closed it, gulped, then started, “um, I ah, I guess it never occurred to me like that, I mean, it’s not a lot of blood. There’s no loss either, just a sloughing off of a build-up. You know you’re not actually bleeding out, right, it’s not like it’s a cut.”
“I know. I guess,” he sighed, rubbing his face, “I’m supposed to do something. When people start bleeding I’m supposed to save them. When I bleed it’s because I didn’t do my job well enough. I just. I can’t do anything. I shouldn’t do anything. Because there’s nothing wrong.”
She moved closer, her hand settled on his shoulder. They both touched each other more than they used to, mostly because they needed to feel that their real bodies were still there, so this didn’t bother John.
“John. Look at me. It means you’re alive. It’s a good thing. You’ll be around after it stops. You’ll survive this.”
He nodded, trusting her in this, she’s the one who did this on a regular basis.
“Maybe you should mention this to Kate next time you see her.”
He gave her a pained look.
“Really, John, please. She might be able to help. She goes through this, too. Every woman out there goes through this every month. And we all survive, John. You don’t need to save anyone and you didn’t fail. Ok?”
He nodded. Hearing it from her, from someone who knew what was going on, made it more real, more acceptable. He might still bring it up with Heightmeyer, though.
“Thanks,” he said as he got up.
“Of course, John. Are you gonna be ok with this now.”
“I’ll be better.”
She still looked unconvinced but nodded, “alright. See you.”
He nodded again and left.
John went about the rest of his day, trying for as normal as possible. He did pretty well, all things considered. He did run to the bathroom more often because the wetness got weird but he managed not to have another freak out. If he went through everything clinically he could distance himself enough not to take it personally.
He still brought it up to Heightmeyer when he saw her the next day.
~*~
“Really?”
“Yes, yes, now get out of here. If I don’t get this done tonight you won’t be getting your body back tomorrow after all and I can’t work with you here distracting me.”
John smirked and leaned in a bit, “distracting you?”
Rodney’s mouth snapped shut and he tried to cover the blush by glaring and waving John away, “go, go on, I mean it, I have to work.”
John sighed as he left the lab. He shouldn’t have done that, flirted with Rodney, but it was what he always did. He’d just never had to worry about getting found out before because Rodney hardly knew when women were flirting so John was quite sure men never registered. For the past weeks John had been trying very hard to act normal without accidentally hitting on Rodney because that would cause too many complications.
John smiled then, like it hadn’t really caught up to him yet, he was getting his body back! No more bras and long hair and short legs. No more looking up when his men reported. No more midnight cravings for extra salty French fries like he’d had to deal with last week, speaking of which, no more periods! He never thought he’d say something like this but he just wasn’t strong enough to take another one.
He’d never considered what menstruation meant beyond the basic stuff they taught you in sex ed, mostly because he hadn’t known many women whose periods, or other habits, he thought affected him in any way.
He’d thought wrong, dealing with all those things he never wanted to deal with again was a huge part of just being a woman, whether it’s conscious or not, and he kind of felt like not knowing some of the things that were so normal and every day for them meant he didn’t know the women in his life all that well. And regardless of his sexuality he did like to get to know the women in his life.
He was realizing he didn’t know some of his best friends as well as he thought he did and it made him feel a bit cheated, and a little like a bastard. The way chocolate was worth more on the black market when trading with most women suddenly wasn’t just a quirk to use to his advantage. The little brown paper bags women sometimes left the infirmary with weren’t just ignored anymore. The way it took Cadman two minutes longer to get out of the locker room after a mission wasn’t something to roll his eyes at and laugh along at the joke about women in the bathroom. How Miko snacked constantly on chips and pretzels for a few days every now and then, once a month he figured now that he thought about it. Elizabeth. Well, this only made him more in awe of her. And Teyla had had a child and he’d said no when she asked if he wanted to feel the baby kicking. He really regretted that now, not participating in such a huge part of one of his best friend’s, family really, life.
But, as much as his respect for all the strong women he knew had grown and as much as it made him feel a little weak for not being able to deal with it, he was so beyond relieved to be going back to being male. He wondered if this was what it would be like to be transgender. He’d known a few but the idea of not being at home in his own body had always been foreign to him. He’d known before, of course, that just because he was gay didn’t mean he had any desire to put on a dress or wear make-up so the idea of separating sex or gender from sexuality was nothing new but were there women, females, who felt like he did now? Like no matter how many times they went through all the routines it would never be routine. And if they decided they didn’t fit into the category of woman, her, she, then was she a man, a he, him? He was female but he wasn’t a woman, and he was a man who was gay but didn’t want to be female. The distinction between sex, gender, and sexuality had never been so clear to him.
His smile faltered. He’d learned from this. All this, about women and his relationship to them. He’d grown as a person. It was so fucking cliché. He rolled his eyes at himself. The Pegasus galaxy: one cliché after another, and he was stuck in the middle again.
Walking into the infirmary he fought to keep his face impassive and leaned on the wall next to where Keller had her eyes glued to a microscope.
“Guess what?” He asked childishly.
She looked up.
He let his face transform into a smile that practically glowed and sing songed, “we’re gettin’ our bodies back.”
“Really?” She stood up, beaming. He nodded.
Keller flung herself at him and hugged him, bouncing a bit with excitement. He found himself swept up in it, faces beaming and unable to hold still. He was doing the girly bouncy hug thing. John winced and schooled is face a bit, pulling away.
“Rodney says they’ll be ready tomorrow.”
“Great, awesome, oh, I can’t wait. Not that you’re body’s not nice enough but, god, I really can’t wait.”
He smiled and nodded, “I know exactly what you mean.”
~*~
John spent the next twenty four hours antsy beyond anything he’d ever experienced before. He kept making lists of everything he was going to do once he was back in his own body but it got so long he would forget and have to start over. He considered writing it down but that would make him feel kind of pathetic. A long run, a shower, sparring with the marines and kicking their asses again, and peeing standing up were all at the top of the list but the very first thing he was going to do was jerk off. He didn’t think he’d last long enough to do anything fancy, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to the first time back, but as soon as he could get it up again he going to get out the simple little dildo he’d managed to smuggle out here and he was going to fuck himself hard. He was practically giddy just thinking about it all.
A little over three weeks without a single orgasm and John was ready to end that streak. It wasn’t like he hadn’t thought about sex the past weeks but it wasn’t in any kind of concrete way that applied to him, just an abstract concept. He’d had sex with women before and knew how it worked and he may have broken down in a few more weeks and tried something but as things stood the body he was in didn’t quite work with his concept of sex. He just wasn’t attracted to himself in the normal way right now, because you have to enjoy touching yourself to, well, enjoy touching yourself.
He hadn’t wanted to talk about it with Heightmeyer but she tended to tell him whatever she thought he needed to hear whether he wanted to hear it or not. She said it was normal, especially for those going through major or traumatic physical changes and tried to explain about the disconnect that was happening now between his mind and his body. He hadn’t been able to stop the snort at that. Of course, she was also quick to point out that there was no precedent for this, which John took to mean her experience didn’t mean squat right now.
The point was that he was excited. He smiled a lot and felt kind of bouncy and, judging from the looks he was getting, people thought he was being cute but that didn’t manage to ruin his mood today.
~*~
The next morning Jennifer stopped by before breakfast and they exchanged bags of clothing and toiletries again. John had never been happier to see his shaving kit. Then they went their separate ways and anxiously awaited the call from Rodney that he was ready.
Of course, even when they had gotten the call and were waiting for Rodney to do his thing he still made them all stand around and wait while he double and triple checked everything but at long last he instructed John to touch the reconstructed, reverse engineered, device Rodney had spent much of the past weeks building. John reached out hesitantly, glancing one last time at Jennifer. She gave him a slight smile and he moved the last few centimeters. There was a spark, just like last time but in this light he couldn’t tell if he was glowing again.
“Did it do it? Did you feel it?”
John nodded to Rodney.
“Ok, good, now just touch Jennifer.”
He moved over to sit next to her on a medical gurney that had been brought just in case, trying to ignore the way Carson was hovering nervously in the background, then reached out slowly to set his hand on her wrist.
( Breaking the Mold - Part 3 of 3 )