For the Good of All Mankind, by apple_pi

[apple-pi.livejournal.com]

Title: For the Good of All Mankind (Super Powers Challenge)
Author: apple_pi
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Warnings/Spoilers: None. Set sometime in Season 1.
Summary: He was in the infirmary – the astringent odors of alcohol and medicine were practically assaulting him. “My head hurts,” Rodney said loudly, opening his eyes. “And my thigh hurts. Christ, what did you people do to me?” He wrinkled his nose. “And everything stinks, too."

~*~*~*~

A/N: This is so far beyond flashfic word-count strictures that I'm kind of embarrassed to post it here, particularly as my first offering in the community. On the other hand, it's nearly 6,000 words that would never have been written without the fabulous Super Powers Challenge, so here it is. Many thanks to secrethappiness for a quick and thorough beta job.

For the Good of All Mankind

“It’s fine,” Sheppard said.

“You’re sure?” Rodney bent and sniffed suspiciously. It smelled good, but so did lemon custard, and that was nothing but death in a bowl, sometimes with those little vanilla wafers stuck in the sides and a sprig of mint on top.

Sheppard was already spooning his own weirdly fragrant (like flowers, sort of) soup into his mouth, and he shot Rodney an annoyed sideways glance, then flicked his eyes to the village elders, who looked, well, constipated, Rodney thought. And really, if they were that damned hung up on guests enjoying their stupid soup, then probably they were too stiff-necked to be reliable trading partners anyway. Sheppard swallowed and sat up. He reached over – warm hand, that was nice – and picked up Rodney’s hand, moving it firmly to rest atop the ivory or maybe bone spoon. “Just eat the damn soup, McKay,” he said, smiling at the elders. “It’s fine,” he added between his teeth.

Rodney huffed and grasped the spoon.

The first cautious taste was good; Sheppard was probably rolling his eyes at Rodney’s considering hum of approval, but Rodney didn’t care. He dipped the spoon in again and took a big mouthful, and the last thing he thought (after he’d grabbed his head and the chair had fallen backward and he’d hit his skull on the packed-dirt floor, and before he blacked out on Sheppard and Teyla’s concerned – panicky, ha! – faces) was That was not at all fine.



He was in the infirmary – the astringent odors of alcohol and medicine were practically assaulting him. “My head hurts,” Rodney said loudly, opening his eyes. “And my thigh hurts. Christ, what did you people do to me?” He wrinkled his nose. “And everything stinks, too, god, Carson, this place is a hazard just from the smell.”

Beckett was looking at him with a mixture of annoyance and fondness that was all too familiar. He smelled like soap and rubbing alcohol, and faintly of the powdered eggs the mess had served up that morning, and even more faintly of weariness and not-enough-sleep, the scents clear under the stronger smells of physical things. “Your head hurts because you knocked it against the floor, Rodney, and your thigh hurts because Major Sheppard used the epi-pen on you when you reacted to the citrus in the soup.”

Rodney looked at him blankly. “There wasn’t any citrus.”

“Ehm.” Beckett looked at him. “You had a mouthful of soup and started to choke. If it wasn’t citrus, what was it?”

“I didn’t start to choke,” Rodney said testily, struggling to sit up. “My head hurt. Before I hit it. The soup didn’t have citrus, though – I could breathe the whole time.”

“...Major?” Beckett turned away (and now he smelled puzzled, and this was just weird, obviously the good doctor needed to shower more often or something, although Rodney could still smell the soap, layered atop rubbing alcohol and eggs and weariness and not-enough-sleep and puzzlement and hey – Rodney inhaled and coughed as his head spun a little – there was toothpaste somewhere in the mix, too), and the curtain around the bed shifted and. Huh.

Major Sheppard stepped into the cubicle. Rodney had known he was there, although he hadn’t consciously thought it. He’d... smelled him there? Maybe.

“What’s up, doc?” Sheppard asked, grinning a little, crooked. “Hey, McKay. You look... cranky.” His grin stretched a bit.

Beckett was asking Sheppard something, and Rodney closed his eyes and breathed. Sheppard smelled like the same soap as Beckett – which made sense, it was the soap SGC had packed for all of them, even Rodney, though he couldn’t smell it on himself. Sheppard smelled like soap and gun oil and, faintly, the sharp acrid scent of explosives. He smelled like sweat and the floral soup and jeez, if Carson smelled weary, Sheppard smelled downright exhausted. And tense.

“Well, he grabbed his head and fell over backward, of course I used the damn epi-pen,” Sheppard was saying. “He was rolling on the floor and, and sort of –” Sheppard shot him an apologetic look – “jerking around, and I thought he was having an allergic reaction.”

“I can smell everything,” Rodney announced.

Beckett and Sheppard both looked at him.

“Everything,” Rodney clarified. “It’s really weird.”

“What do you mean?” Beckett said cautiously.

Rodney glared. “What do you mean, what do I mean? Did I speak too quickly for you? Did you hit your head and get a concussion?”

“You don’t have a concussion,” Beckett interrupted, but Rodney plowed on. It was what he did best.

“I, can, smell, everything,” he reiterated. “I know you had eggs for breakfast this morning,” he said. “And you –” he pointed at Sheppard – “use the same kind of toothpaste as Beckett and you’re both not getting enough sleep, you smell tired. Although really, who is getting enough sleep, this place is an insomniac’s paradise.”

“When you say we smell tired,” Beckett said. “What does that smell like?”

Rodney waved his hands around. “I don’t know. Tiredness. It smells like.” Rodney paused and closed his eyes, breathing in. “It smells like lying in bed awake, and bad dreams, and the way the sheets feel when you’re really tired and everything’s gritty and you’re either too hot or too cold, and then just when you start falling asleep someone needs you and your radio goes off...” His voice had dropped to a drone, and he opened his eyes. “It’s weird,” Rodney said weakly, and he knew they both knew he meant the smelling thing, not the insomnia thing.

Beckett turned to Sheppard. “Major, could you get some of that soup for me?”

Sheppard was already backing out of the cubicle; he smelled worried. “Yeah. Let me get Ford and Teyla. We’ll be back soon.”



“Hyperosmia,” Beckett said, and Rodney fidgeted. “Rodney’s sense of smell appears to have increased by an unknown factor.”

He’d been allowed out of bed and away from the overpowering odors of the infirmary, but the briefing room wasn’t much better. There were no medical smells here to blot out everyone’s individual pheromones, and Rodney had really never needed to know that Ford had gotten laid within the last couple of days.

“The number of olfactory cells in his nose and mouth hasn’t changed,” Beckett continued. “However, there’s a significant increase in activity in the olfactory epithelium. That is, the input is the same, but the translation of the information appears to have become much more efficient,” Beckett clarified. Teyla smelled like hair gel. Rodney wondered if she’d found Sheppard’s stash. (Sheppard didn’t smell like hair gel. A fluke.) Beckett blathered on. “There’s nothing in the, ehm, soup that I can isolate as a causal factor; none of the other team members had any kind of reaction at all, and none of Rodney’s current allergens are present in the soup.”

“So I have a brand-new allergen, oh goody,” Rodney said. He crossed his arms.

“Almost everything in the soup is a common foodstuff,” Beckett went on. “There are four native herbs we haven’t encountered before. Of those, one is similar in molecular structure to thyme, and I rather doubt Rodney had a reaction to that one. Of the other three, it could be any one –”

“– Or it could be a combination of a and b, or a combination of b and c, or a and c, or a, b and c,” Rodney said, bored, “and no one cares anyway, I’m fine and I just want to get back to my lab before someone decides that really, blowing up the city is a fine way to pass an afternoon, all right?”

“Dr. Beckett?” Elizabeth said, and Beckett shrugged.

“I think Rodney should be observed for a few days, to make sure there are no secondary effects, and he’s adjusting satisfactorily to the new input,” the doctor said. “No field missions, but I don’t see why he can’t work in the lab.”

“Fabulous.” Rodney stood up.

Elizabeth fixed him with a gimlet eye. “Rodney, you’re to report to Dr. Beckett once a day for a scan and bloodwork until he declares you fit for full duty again, do you understand?”

Rodney was already at the door, jostling Sheppard to get to his computers. “Yes, yes,” he said. “Scan, bloodwork – got it.” Sheppard smelled, up close, far too good, and Rodney blinked and then pushed past him, exhaling briskly. “Man on a mission, here,” he snapped, and Sheppard smiled at him and moved aside.



Everything had a scent.

The machines smelled like, like electricity and plastic, a faint overlay of human oils and pheromones like a patina over the clean, chemical odors. It was distracting. Rodney hunched over his laptop and inhaled, closing his eyes; when he glanced up Zelenka was looking at him weirdly, maybe (Rodney thought, straightening hastily) because Rodney had had his nose practically stuck between the keys of the computer. And there were potato chip crumbs in there. Also, Dr. Bryce had touched his laptop, and he looked suspiciously across the lab at the oblivious scientist.

The Ancient machines smelled different, each individual, lined up on the “to be activated/explored/poked at” workbench, and when Zelenka pointed to one of them, Rodney shook his head. “No,” he said.

Zelenka tugged at his thin, wild hair and rolled his eyes. “Rodney,” he said patiently, “you said you wanted to try this one next, yes? Just give it a try. Major Sheppard can’t always touch everything you want turned on.”

Isn’t that the truth, Rodney thought, but: “No,” Rodney said firmly. “Don’t let anyone with the gene touch that thing.” He was shaking his head, and had put his hands behind his back.

“And... why not?” Zelenka asked.

Rodney couldn’t say that the machine – which looked harmless enough, a flat, copper-colored box – smelled like death. “Just don’t,” he said instead, “I’m the head of the science team, here, and I said don’t, and –” He picked up an empty box. “Put it in here.” Once Zelenka had slowly obeyed, Rodney moved fast: the box was closed and sealed in moments, labeled “DO NOT TOUCH: WILL KILL YOU” and tucked away under his desk. He’d have it destroyed later; maybe Sheppard could use the puddlejumper to drop it into a volcano or a star or something.

“Give me that one,” Rodney said, pointing at random, and clamped his mouth shut over the urge to add It smells nice, like something useful. Zelenka sighed and muttered to himself and did what Rodney said. In his head, Rodney was busy cataloguing the Ancient devices by scent, from scary to boring to interesting to positively seductive. He’d put the scary ones away for later (none actually smelled like death), and start with the easy ones for now.



“You need a secret identity,” Sheppard said, sitting down across from him in the mess.

Rodney made a face and picked at his food. “Very funny.”

“No, really,” Sheppard said. “Nose Man. The Nose. Supersmeller. Genius scientist by day, sniffing out trouble by night for the good of all mankind.” The scents of garlic bread and spaghetti flooded Rodney as the Major’s tray clattered onto the table.

Rodney sat up straighter in order to bestow a full glare. “That is so not funny. None of this is funny! Do you realize that I’ve been reduced to eating oatmeal?” Rodney tipped the bowl up to show Sheppard the horrific, gluey contents. “Everything tastes too much! I nearly had a diabetic seizure when I ate jello.” He leaned forward, not caring that he looked completely insane or that Sheppard looked amused and smelled startled and still sleepless and oh god, like he’d maybe had sex recently, or no, just a quick encounter with his own right hand because there was no one else’s smell on him oh god oh god oh god. “I have not had coffee in twelve hours!” Rodney bellowed, distracting himself. “TWELVE HOURS! There is no coffee for the foreseeable future, Major, and this is all your fault!”

“Hey, now, Rodney,” Sheppard said, and Rodney could not deal with Major John Sheppard, who always looked like sex, also smelling like sex, calling him Rodney. Not without coffee, anyway.

“I have to go find something adequately bland,” Rodney snarled, and shoved himself away from the table; his bowl, with a few sad bites left in it, rocked and spun on its base as he stomped away. Let Sheppard deal with the damned oatmeal.



“Heya, McKay,” Sheppard said.

Rodney sighed and stayed right where he was, square in the middle of the door. “What?”

“I brought you some stuff,” Sheppard said, and smiled winningly. He didn’t smell like sex anymore; just soap and water and male and tired and… something else. “Food, I brought you some food,” he said, and sure enough, the bag in his hands smelled okay.

“It’s late, don’t you non-superheroes have to sleep or something?” Rodney asked, but he stepped back, and Sheppard stepped forward. The door closed behind him and Rodney went to sit on the bed.

“Sleep’s overrated,” Sheppard said. He perched on Rodney’s computer chair, placing the bag on the desk. “Why aren’t you asleep?”

Rodney nearly said something about sniffing out trouble, but he was tired and it hadn’t been that funny at dinner, so he just sat on the edge of the bed and told the truth. “Everything in here stinks.”

Sheppard sniffed experimentally. “It smells okay to me,” he said.

Rodney glared. “How very comforting.” He sagged back a moment later, though, and waved his hand limply. “No, it’s this thing, with my nose. I can’t smell myself – thank god – but there’re some dirty socks back behind the bed, and there’s half a cup of coffee on the windowsill, and everything smells dusty, but when I tried cleaning, the smell of the cleaning, uh, stuff –” he made a squirting motion with his hand, “was unbearable, and my sheets smell like detergent, and it’s just too strange.” He looked at Sheppard. “And I’m really tired, too.” He knew he was whining, but he was tired – it’d been a long day, full of knocks on the head and unnecessary stabbings in the thigh, new super powers to assimilate, not enough caffeine – not nearly enough caffeine – and Sheppard smelled so good Rodney wished half-heartedly that he could crawl into his lap and sleep there, because he might be able to, with Sheppard’s soap-sweat-male-exhaustion scent overpowering all the rest.

“Let’s try this,” Sheppard said, cocking his head. “Where’s the best place for smells, since you got back?”

Rodney thought about it. The odors of humanity had begun to pervade Atlantis, but outside the wind – full of scents in itself, but too big and wild and ocean to be offensive – swept all that away. “On the balconies,” he said finally. “Out there.”

“Well…” Sheppard stood and crossed to the windows. “Why don’t you air everything out, then? We could try wiping everything down with a damp rag, just water, and maybe throw the dirty socks and coffee out – way out,” he added, as Rodney opened his mouth to point out that he’d still be able to smell them in the laundry hamper or the trash can under the desk, thanks anyway.

“Are you bored or something?” Rodney asked.

Sheppard shrugged one shoulder, lounging against the wall, looking at Rodney. There were circles under his eyes, dark marks like bruises on the thin skin. “I don’t sleep much,” he said. “And I had this stuff for you, so I thought I’d take a chance that you were awake, too.” He turned and opened the windows, and Atlantis’s cool night wind washed in, swept through, rustling the papers on the desk and taped to the walls, sweeping away everything else. “That’s nice,” Sheppard said, leaning out, and Rodney looked at his back and ass, the long lines of his legs in the BDUs and the way his bare forearms corded a little where he was leaning out over the sill.

“Yeah,” Rodney said. He shook his head. “But why did you have this stuff for me? I don’t have any chocolate to trade for it.” That was a lie. Rodney hoarded chocolate like some countries hoarded nuclear weapons, but he had no intention of giving any of it to Sheppard. No matter how determined the Major was to become his personal serving maid, Rodney thought, watching him turn away from the window and start digging behind the bed for smelly socks.

“I dunno,” Sheppard said, straightening. He had three socks and a wrinkled t-shirt in his hands. “You’re on my team. Can’t have you starving to death, or going into hypoglycemic shock. You’re a very important member of this expedition, you know.” His eyes gleamed, and Rodney knew he was being mocked, at least a little.

He sniffed. “Damn right,” was all he said. And tried not to picture USAF Major John Sheppard in a French maid’s uniform.

Sheppard carried the coffee and a sack of dirty laundry out of the room, coming back a little while later with a set of folded linens and a rolled-up sleeping bag.

“Are you moving in?” Rodney asked.

“Not tonight,” Sheppard said lightly. “I just figured these got washed in the sonic thingies, down on the lower levels, so maybe there’s no detergent smell.” He tossed it all onto the bed.

Rodney put the new sheets on, sniffing cautiously at them, as Sheppard ran a damp cloth over every surface in the room. When Rodney came back from dumping the old (too clean) sheets in the chute down the corridor, Sheppard was sitting again, pulling things out of the sack like a magician, lining them up on the desktop.

“So I figured bland, right?” Sheppard said, and Rodney came to look over his shoulder, standing behind him and trying not to be obvious as he inhaled Sheppard’s scent. “I got plain crackers, and rice pudding, and, oh, some of those blue fruits the Athosians like, they’re really mild so I thought those might be worth a try.” Rodney closed his eyes and breathed. Sheppard smelled tired and, and… horny. Well, that was probably about right, Rodney thought. God knows I am.

“I’m on an invalid’s diet,” Rodney said when he opened his eyes and realized Sheppard was waiting for a response; had, in fact, turned his head and was looking up at Rodney with a peculiar little smile: amused and indulgent. “What?” Rodney said quickly. “It does smell better in here,” he added. “…Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Sheppard said. He was still looking up and back at Rodney, still smiling, slouched in the chair with his thighs sprawled lazily apart, feet solid and flat on the floor under the desk. Rodney bet Sheppard smelled fantastic right there, where the BDUs wrinkled in a vee at his crotch. Christ. Better think about something else, considering that Sheppard was kind of at eye level with Rodney’s crotch.

“Um,” Rodney said. “Let me try that fruit.”

“Here you go.” The fresh scent of the fruit increased as he handed it to Rodney, and Rodney wondered if Sheppard had bruised it.

It tasted perfect – strong and sweet, but not overpowering the way the coffee had been, and the jello, and the garlic bread Rodney had tried, hoping garlic would be customary enough not to bother him (no such luck). Delicious, and the juice spilled over Rodney’s fingers and chin.

“Ngh,” Rodney moaned, finishing the little plum-like thing in a few bites. “Gah. Good.” He wiped at his chin and licked his fingers clean, then froze.

Nothing about Sheppard’s posture or expression had changed; he was smirking at Rodney a little, but he would be. His scent had changed, though, salt-sharp spike of arousal piercing the immediate odor of the fruit and zinging straight into Rodney’s brain. Not Rodney’s arousal: Sheppard’s. Sheppard was turned on by… by me, Rodney thought, fascination and quick desire racing through his veins.

“What?” Sheppard said, and of course he could see it on Rodney’s face – Rodney had never been able to hide anything, not even the smallest iota of information, and this was big, as far as Rodney was concerned. Huge. Sheppard was sitting up, standing up. “What?” he repeated, caution on his face, eyebrows puzzled, lips parted.

Rodney leaned past him to grab another plum-thing from the desk. “Nothing,” he said. “It’s just good, is all.” He took a bite – they were tiny, two more would finish it – and then pushed one sticky, juice-covered finger all the way into his mouth, pulling it out slowly and trying not to stare as Sheppard watched impassively. Impassive my ass, Rodney thought triumphantly, and he swallowed and dropped the rest of the fruit and grabbed Sheppard’s t-shirt and yanked him forward into a kiss.

“What –” Sheppard said against his mouth, but there was no what about this. For once in his life Rodney knew something about people, about this person: something undeniable. Sheppard was taut for a moment and then he yielded, opened. There was no guesswork involved and oh Christ, the Major’s mouth tasted like sin and spit and (Rodney groaned, thrusting his tongue into Sheppard’s mouth, chasing the flavor) coffee, oh god.

They broke apart, gasping. Rodney’s hands were knotted in Sheppard’s t-shirt, and he pressed his nose against his cheek, into his hair, breathing him in. “Please,” Rodney panted. “I know you want this. Please, Major.”

Sheppard’s hands were hard and firm, splayed on his back, warmth burning right through Rodney’s shirt, branding his skin. “You can’t –” Sheppard swallowed, loud in the stillness between them. “How do you know?”

“Well for one thing you haven’t beaten me to a pulp,” Rodney said, laughing a little. He was dizzy, elated; he wondered if this new thing, this scent thing, could get him high.

“I would never beat you to a pulp, Rodney,” Sheppard said, voice struggling to stay even. “Unless you touched my Hail Mary tape, but even then –”

“Major.” Rodney loosened one hand, spread his fingers over Sheppard’s chest. His palm twisted, thumb brushing across soft cotton until it encountered the unmistakable nub of an erect nipple, and Sheppard gasped softly. “I’m sure. I know it.” Rodney pressed firmly, feeling the shudder that radiated from Sheppard’s neck to his knees. “I smell it,” Rodney said, low and harsh, and he did: the sharp scent of John’s arousal like bitterness, honey and gall, making Rodney’s mouth water. He licked Sheppard’s neck.

“Fucking super powers,” Sheppard muttered, and one hand slid down to cup Rodney’s ass.

Then they were kissing again, hungry and hard, and Rodney needed to taste Sheppard, smell him, touch him all over. Hands under the black t-shirt were good, but bare chest to bare chest was better. They stumbled backward to the bed, landing in a heap of soft, jagged vowels and wet, noisy kisses, the small frustrated sounds Sheppard made when he struggled with Rodney’s fly and the way he laughed, finally, when Rodney ground out “Goddammit, Sheppard –”

Sheppard’s palm over Rodney’s mouth smelled of sweat and salt, tasted like the best salty food ever, better than Cheetos and garlic bread and that hot and sour soup Rodney still craved, from the place in Toronto. Rodney was sidetracked from his irritation by licking, trying to force his tongue between Sheppard’s fingers.

“You gotta call me John,” Sheppard said, and Rodney stopped trying to map the taste of his hand for a moment.

“What?”

Sheppard was looking at him, smiling, dark-eyed and flushed and heavy-lidded and god, he was sex on a stick. “You can’t call me Sheppard, or Major, for god’s sake, if we’re going to fuck. It just won’t work.”

Rodney gaped for a second. His brain was about to short circuit, and Sheppard was blathering about names? “You want me to call you John?”

“It is actually my name,” Sheppard – John – said. He ran one hand down Rodney’s side, casually, long fingers sliding over skin. “So, yeah.”

“I’ll call you Betty Lou if you want,” Rodney said. He bent his head and ran his tongue over the rough-soft hair on John’s chest. The scent of sex was rising like the tide in the room. “Just don’t stop this.”

“I’m not stopping it,” John said.

There was a brief struggle with boots – “Christ, the combat boot, the U.S. military’s single most potent weapon against gay sex,” Rodney whined, pulling frantically at laces and grommets and more laces and grommets and triumphantly kicking one off.

“Any kind of sex,” John pointed out, but he had more practice, and by the time Rodney was completely free, John was already lifting his hips and sliding his pants and – holy shit – underwear down. Rodney stopped fumbling with his own fly and rolled sideways, sprawling over John’s lap, between his legs, shoving his face into that perfect, perfect place, nose against the (god, smooth, hard) shaft of John’s cock, mouth open against his balls, loose and heavy, prickly hair over silky skin.

“Anghh,” John said, but his thighs spread wider and Rodney licked, sucked, he wanted all of it, everything right now, every taste and scent sending a thousand secret messages straight to his cock, his brain. John jerked and shivered, long thin fingers winding into Rodney’s hair. “Wait,” John yelped, “Christ, Rodney, I can’t –”

“Oh god please,” Rodney whimpered, “I need to.” He pressed his hips into the bed, grinding his cock against the mattress desperately.

“Okay,” John gasped, and he didn’t sound the same: all the laziness was gone, all the careful, studied calm.

I did that, Rodney thought smugly; he hitched himself up onto his elbows and dipped his head, opening his mouth for John’s cock, fingers pressing and rolling his balls. There was nothing studied about it, nothing patient or slow. Rodney had to have every taste, every scent, wanted to drink it all in, swallow every drop of precome (sour-salt, stronger and better than it had ever been), every surge of desire, every whimper and groan, every sharp, dizzy breath from above.

He knew when John was close. It had nothing to do with his fast, frantic breathing, or the way his fingers twitched in Rodney’s hair, tempted (oh, Rodney knew it well enough) to hold his head still and fuck his mouth. It had everything to do with smell: copper scent of precome and arousal; earthy tang of every muscle being held tight, so tight. A moment later John’s dick stiffened a fraction more, his balls (Rodney pressed one finger behind them, cruel and sweet) lifted and he came with a ragged, hitching cry, spurting warm and thick into Rodney’s mouth. The scent and taste were overwhelming; Rodney gagged and jerked his hips into the bed in an agony of want, forced himself to still, to swallow, to suck and suck and suck until John’s cock was softening, his fists knotted in Rodney’s hair, pulling him up and off.

And oh, god, this was how satiation smelled, then: this boneless, heated smell, like slick skin under Rodney’s tongue, summer sweat in the crooks of John’s elbows, waiting to be licked away.

“Let me, let me,” John was saying, murmuring, again and again. Rodney understood, rolled over and let John heave himself up, lean down and yank Rodney’s pants open. His cock sprang up and John sank down, kneeling over Rodney, mouth tight and slippery as sin, silk, heaven, wet on Rodney’s cock, sucking hard.

“Ah,” Rodney whimpered, “Oh god, oh god, John, so – oh – I’m, oh, good, yes, now, here, here –” His hips jerked up and he came, shouting, groaning, sobbing through it, into it, into John’s mouth.

Everything had a scent.

Sex and satisfaction, hunger and contentment. The ocean-odor of Atlantis washed in through the windows, night-scented, water and salt and fish and decay, and the ocean-odor of sex lapped at Rodney’s bones, at his hands as he wrapped one around John’s foot, digging his thumb into the arch, letting his own eyes fall closed.

“Your feet stink,” Rodney said without opening his eyes.

“So do yours,” John mumbled. “I don’t even need super powers to tell me that.” Light fingers traced patterns over Rodney’s calves, and he shivered. “C’mere,” John said after a while.

“You come here,” Rodney said immediately, but he sighed and crept around until his head was on the pillow by John’s, their bodies tucked together on the too-narrow bed. “Stupid Ancients. How the hell did they propagate the species?”

“Quickies in the supply closets?” John suggested.

“Maybe,” Rodney said, and yawned. He sighed again, lifting his bottom off the bed and shoving his pants all the way down, off, discarding them beside the bed.

“Shouldn’t you take those to the laundry chute?” John asked. He didn’t show any signs that he wanted to leave, and Rodney was obscurely grateful. And hopeful that they could have more sex in the morning, if John stayed.

“Why?”

“The smell,” John said.

Rodney pushed his nose into John’s hair. “All I can smell is sex,” he said. “Hmm.”

John laughed, and sat up for a moment to arrange the unzipped sleeping bag over their bodies. “Supersmeller,” he said. “The Nose.”

Rodney pinched him, then arranged himself so he was spread over John, mostly, leaving him just enough space to breathe. “Why doesn’t your hair smell like hair gel?” he asked, turning his head a little, breathing in the scent of John’s neck, which was better than – okay, as good as – freshly brewed coffee.

“What?” John mumbled. He sounded genuinely puzzled. He smelled, Rodney thought, as though he might sleep for ten hours straight.

“Later,” Rodney said. He yawned one last time. “I’ll ask you later.”

“Mmm.” John smiled, dim curve of his cheek against the darker shape of the open window. “Ask me if I’m a top or a bottom, first.”

Rodney stiffened, then relaxed. “I will,” he promised. He breathed in, out, in, out; heard John’s breathing deepen, steady, felt sleep begin to drag him under. “You’re a bottom,” Rodney slurred, and slept.



EPILOGUE

“A week?” Rodney complained. “I get a super power for a week?” He stood up and stomped toward the door. “That just figures.”

“Come back in for a scan tomorrow,” Beckett called after him. “And bloodwork – I want more bloodwork!”

“Vampire!” Rodney yelled back at him. He glared at a hapless marine in the corridor and muttered to himself. “Goddamn Wraith have nothing on doctors.”

John was in the jumper bay, right where he’d left him, and Rodney paused at the bulkhead door, admiring the view: Major John Sheppard, stretched out on his back under the console, long legs sticking out, tools and bits of jumper innards scattered around his supine body. Rodney had a sudden appreciation for all those girls who had gone for the guys in shop class, back in high school. What a depressing three months that was. He shook his head briskly and kicked the sole of John’s booted foot.

“Hey,” John said. He wriggled – now that was entertaining – until his head was clear of the console, then sat up, improbable hair foremost, as always.

(“I don’t use hair gel,” he’d said, and Rodney had snorted at that, but no matter how hard he tried, he never could smell any on John; “what’re you doing?” John squeaked a minute later, and Rodney dug his nose in harder, licking for good measure. “I have to check all your hair,” Rodney’d explained, and John had snorted – sometimes they took turns – and relaxed, and let his legs fall apart. “Oh well, in that case, carry on,” he’d said, dry tone belied by his hoarse voice, and Rodney had grinned and investigated very thoroughly indeed.)

“It’s pretty much gone,” Rodney said, sitting on the pilot’s chair. “I mean, we knew it’d been fading, but, yeah.” He waved one hand sadly. “Gone. My super power. Gone.”

“Aw, Rodney, you’ve got lots of super powers,” John said; his smile was crooked and sincere.

“Yeah, but how many of them let me figure out which Ancient artifacts are going to slaughter everyone in Atlantis in their sleep?” Rodney demanded.

(“It’s just bad,” Rodney had insisted when John asked, and John did what he’d requested: he took it to M3F-582, aka That Planet With All the Vulcanism, and dropped the box holding the bag holding the smaller box holding the Object into a really nice, active crater. Zelenka, doing his usual bang-up job as everyone’s favorite busybody, unearthed schematics in the Ancient database that confirmed that the box had contained a particularly nasty bioweapon along with its trigger – a cyanide pill of sorts, it appeared. “HA!” Rodney had said, waving his finger in Zelenka’s face, and Zelenka had said something unflattering in Czech and gone back to tinkering with Rodney’s other finds: a handy thing that was like nothing so much as a sonic screwdriver, and something that appeared to have no function except “strobe light.” “Those Ancients,” John had said, looking at the strobe box and shaking his head. “They were some party animals.”)

“Well, the super-genius thing does that pretty well,” John said, patting Rodney’s leg.

Rodney thought hard and the back gate of the jumper closed and locked, and he slid down to sit on the floor with John.

“No sex in the jumper,” John said, but he was smirking, and their kiss was warm and slow and deep, his hands sliding down Rodney’s back, pulling him closer as Rodney grasped convulsively at his shoulders.

“Bah,” Rodney said, grumbling to himself as they broke apart, or something enough like “bah” that he was ready with a glare, stopping John’s comment but not his grin. “Stupid super powers.”

“Yeah,” John said. “Would you feel better if I gave you a blowjob?”

“Yes,” Rodney said. “But later. Big clear window and all,” he added, tilting his head toward the windshield of the jumper.

“Yeah, there’s not really enough room under the console,” John said. He was still grinning. “But later, okay?”

“Okay.” Rodney sighed.

“Hey.” John poked his arm.

“Ow. What?”

“Rodney, I just thought of something.” John leaned forward.

Rodney looked at him suspiciously. “We can’t cloak it in the bay, someone’ll just run into it and hit their head.”

John snickered. “That would be funny. But no, listen.”

“What?”

“Rodney.” John looked solemn. “You can have coffee.”

“Oh my god!” Rodney was already scrambling to his feet. “I take back anything I might have ever said about you being stupid, Major. OPEN DAMMIT!” he yelled at the back gate of the jumper.

“Don’t drink too much!” John was yelling after him, laughter chasing him out of the bay, and Rodney waved vaguely behind himself, running for the mess hall.

“Stupid stairs!” he muttered to himself, panting a little already. “Why couldn’t I get a useful super power, like teleportation?” He took them three at a time.

The radio crackled to life in his ear. “Oh, no you don’t,” came John’s warm drawl. “It’s my turn, next.”

Rodney careened around a corner. “Waste of resources,” he gasped. He shot a nasty look at two lab techs who backed up against the wall as he passed, veering through the mess hall doors. “You already have a superhero complex.”

And Rodney wasn’t sure which was better: John’s low laugh in his ear, or the thin, bitter, absolutely perfect taste of the awful lukewarm coffee he was gulping down a moment later. Maybe, Rodney thought, lowering the mug and wiping his mouth blissfully, maybe he could keep them both.

Comments

[jcase.livejournal.com]

This was just fabulous. The descriptions were marvelous.

here was a brief struggle with boots – “Christ, the combat boot, the U.S. military’s single most potent weapon against gay sex,”

Hee!

[apple-pi.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoyed it. :-)