SGA fic: Operation Think Of Atlantis, by Livia

Title: Operation Think Of Atlantis
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Author: Livia (livia001@gmail.com)
Summary: "Hey," John said after a while, "did anything like this ever happen to any of the SGC teams?"
Notes: This is my first SGA story and it is a simple snarkfest. Thanks to Zeelee for audiencing and beta, and Jamjar, notpoetry & Metron Ariston for their thoughts. :D




"Are you kidding me?" John said, hoping really hard. He knew, though, that if Rodney were actually kidding him, he would look fantastically amused at his own astounding wit and not how he looked now (really grim and kind of whiny) which probably meant that John was not being kidded.

"Oh, yeah, because that's my idea of an amusing conversational sally," Rodney said. "'Guess what, we have to *fuck* so that the crazy tribal folk will let us into their *love shack.*'"

"Fertility temple," Fletcher interjected, and wow, she just didn't learn. She clutched her data pad protectively to her chest as Rodney scowled.

Fletcher was an anthropologist with tortoiseshell glasses and blonde hair in neat French braids. This was her first off-world mission, and she was doing pretty well. Considering.

"Yeah, how does that work, anyway?" John asked. "If it's a fertility temple, I mean... how does it make any sense to have two *guys*--"

"It's, ah, what I said was that the symbolism of the phallus *generally* tends to indicate, well..." Fletcher tugged at one of her braids nervously. "I mean this *is* a different galaxy, so obviously I, I mean, my original interpretation of the, the *obelisks*--"

"Look, Fletcher, forget it." Rodney said, waving a hand, "nobody blames you for not getting up close and personal with the freaky-codpiece people. You don't have the requisite equipment to add anything to the discussion at this point, so why don't you go wait in the jumper."

Fletcher opened and closed her mouth like a fish, then turned to John. "Sir, I don't think you actually have to, er. Rituals tend to be symbolic, not so much *literal* and actual, um, penetration is probably not the point, I mean, it's rarely the, uh... What I'm saying is that it would probably be just as acceptable to their beliefs if you just, uh, simulated. The. I."

"We fake it?" Rodney cut in mercifully.

Fletcher nodded. "Yes, I think--"

"Okay, Fletcher. Why don't you go on back to the jumper," John said kindly. "Keep Lieutenant Ford company. McKay and I will go discuss it with the... priests again, see if we can't work something out."

He watched her crash through the underbrush, taking a straight line down the hill instead of sticking to the winding path. Next to him, Rodney was slipping off his vest. He set it down next to his boots in the grass, scratched his belly, and sighed. "The soft sciences are so easily traumatized. I mean it's not surprising, since they obviously don't have even the basic mental fortitude that would enable them to become experts in, say... astrophysics, or anything else that's a real science. The kind of grit and determination that enables a man to forge bravely on and do what's absolutely necessary in the pursuit of, oh for example a hidden ZPM underneath a penis temple."

"Please don't say penis temple," John said, squinting up into the perfectly blue sky. He made himself do the mental mission assessment. Good news: possible ZPM. Bad news: possible public sex. With McKay.

"I'm just saying, we don't really have a choice--"

"I know, but we don't have to *talk* about it!"

"Oh come on, you're in the military, the whole reverence for phallic objects thing is old hat to you by-- oh. Hey, dibs on being on top," Rodney said quickly, and John turned on him.

"What? You can't-- There's no *dibs*! Come on!"

Rodney just smirked at him, serious *and* fantastically amused at his own astounding wit.

"I hate you. Come on. Let's flip for it."

"No," Rodney said, beaming.

John sighed, turning around and starting up the path towards the settlement. Rodney followed. "Hey," John said after a while, "did anything like this ever happen to any of the SGC teams?"

"Would it make you feel better if it did?" Rodney panted.

John shrugged. "At least I'd know it wouldn't ruin my chances of ever getting promoted again."

Rodney snorted. "Excuse me for pointing this out, Major, but simulating homosexual acts with a civilian in pursuit of a ZPM? Is probably the *least* of the incidents that are going to stand in the way of you becoming an admiral, or a general, or, you know. Anything that's more paperwork, less Captain Kirk."

"That stings, Rodney, really," John said, to cover the fact that it actually kind of *did*, because it was true. Even though Rodney didn't know that. Probably didn't, anyway. Rodney just kept chortling, and John shook his head. Just for that, he was *completely* going to make the 'is it in yet' joke.

"Okay," he said as he reached the top of the hill, "come on, McKay, game face on."

"Right," Rodney said, "right. Now just, uh, do what I tell you and think of Atlantis." He grabbed John's wrist, tugging him in through the gates and up to the base of the temple, where the giant-sized but anatomically correct obelisks pointed proudly to the sky. The priests were still milling around outside, and they looked happy to see John and Rodney returning. Of course, thanks to the exaggerated codpieces, they pretty much looked happy to see everyone.

"You know, I came to terms with my liking for cock at age fifteen and that's still unsettling," Rodney said quietly, and John's eyes went wide. He very carefully did not jerk his hand out of McKay's grip.

"Thanks for sharing that *now*! Jesus, Rodney!"

"Sure, okay, ignorance and bliss and all that, but really, would you rather have found out now or afterward?" Rodney pulled again, to get him to keep moving, but John had planted his feet. "And then you'd wonder forever if I did this for a ZPM or for the chance to get near your skinny ass--"

"No I wouldn't!"

"Oh, right, because you have no idea that you're hot." Rodney yanked harder, and John started following him again. "Well, trust me, Major, there are a near-infinite amount of variables in this situation that are, mysteriously, completely not my kink; you *so* don't have to worry about me getting a secret thrill out of publically dry-humping a colleague as part of some stupid, *oxymoronic* gay fertility ritual."

John was silent as the temple guardians made way for them. Rodney led him up the stairs towards a small landing laden with woven rugs, finally letting go of his hand. They looked at each other awkwardly for a moment.

"Dear Penthouse," John began, unbuckling the catches on his vest. "When I woke up this morning, I really didn't expect that I would end up on the steps of a pagan temple, being publically molested by a gay astrophysicist--"

"Bisexual," Rodney corrected him.

"Right. Yeah. Look, don't stop if I get the giggles," John said, and Rodney raised an eyebrow. "I just. When I'm nervous. Especially in a situation like this--"

"You've been ritually fake-fucked by an astrophysicist before?"

"I said in a situation *like* this." John set his vest and his P-90 down at the edge of the small platform, eyeing the temple guardians below. The angle was pretty bad, so it wouldn't be like they could see much. Hey, since they hadn't invented eyeglasses on this planet, a lot of them probably wouldn't be able to see anything, really. Yeah, that helped.

Rodney was still blinking. "What, last time it was a biochemist? What?"

"Forget it!" John said.

"Okay, all right, fine. Um, just so you know, I'll still respect you in the morning," Rodney said, apparently under the mistaken impression that cute remarks like that were at all helpful.

"Won't that be novel."

Rodney waved a hand. "I'm just saying, Major..."

John didn't respond to that, because he thought Rodney was going to keep talking, only Rodney *didn't*, and that left just the awkward silence.

Crap.

They looked at each other. The crowd below shifted and murmured.

"I'm a cuddler." John blurted.

Rodney raised an eyebrow. John glowered at him, grabbing the front of Rodney's shirt and dragging him down as he went to his knees. Rodney made a surprised noise and John hugged him awkwardly, groping his back in what he hoped was a convincingly sexy way. Rodney's hands immediately closed on him, one on the back of his neck and one in his hair, rumpling it in an exploratory manner.

"I'll be damned, it does stick up by itself," Rodney murmured into his neck. He smelled like Old Spice. "Also, do you ever actually shave, or do you just trim the stubble?"

John rubbed his jaw viciously against Rodney's neck and cheek, and Rodney made that surprised noise again, except that this close-- close enough to feel Rodney's chest vibrate against his-- it sounded less like surprised, and more like 'very turned on.'

"Don't do that," Rodney warned, his back suddenly tense under John's hands. John thought about it for a second and did it again.

Rodney growled in frustration, nipping sharply at John's neck just above the collar of his shirt.

Then things got a little out of hand. But that was the fucking Pegasus Galaxy for you.

"So," Rodney said about ten minutes later, his hands up under John's shirt and his breath coming in short, sharp gasps, "either I was completely and totally right about that whole military fascination with phallic objects, or--"

"Shut up," John said, bracing himself above Rodney with one hand and squeezing harder with the other.

"Shutting up, *sir*," Rodney panted. John groaned, his eyes fluttering shut, and Rodney's hands stilled on his ribs. "Oh-- oh wow. Really? You-- Honestly, Major."

"Shut--" John gritted his teeth, shook his head, and kissed Rodney hard, which, unsurprisingly, worked better than just *telling* him to shut his face would have. Probably John should've been able to extrapolate that Rodney would kiss just like he talked, just like he did everything-- fast and pushy and rolling right over you. But none of his middle-of-the-night too-sleepy-to-resist fantasies had ever been quite like this. Their teeth clashed as Rodney raised his head, trying to push his tongue further into John's mouth, and John nipped at it, smirking when Rodney recoiled.

"What is with you and the *biting*," Rodney began, and since this was probably the only time John would ever get to use his all-new, startlingly effective technique for shutting Rodney up, he did so. He tried to ignore the appreciative murmurs of the crowd, which had grown since they'd started their little show, and now seemed (at least as far as John could gather from quick looks out of the corner of his eye) to include a lot of the regular village-folk in addition to the temple guardians.

Another item John had to add to his list of things that really, he had already known, was that Rodney was really freaking *loud* -- moaning encouragement and gasping extravagantly as John fondled him through his pants. "Oh my God, oh, uh, Major, I'm close, really close, just yeah-- oh, *God!*"

He bucked hard under John, flailing and knocking him off-balance. John half-collapsed on Rodney before he could drag his hand away, using both arms to support himself above Rodney again. He heard faint applause from below. He had the horrible feeling that if he looked down they'd be holding up rating cards: 9.8, 9.9, 10.

"*Wow,*" Rodney said, still shaky and too loud, bringing his own hands up to John's chest. "That was great."

"Great," John said, and brought a hand down to his belt, unsnapping his pants and bringing his dick out. He figured the angle was pretty bad, nobody down on the ground would be able to see anything, *really*, so--

"Holy shit, Major," Rodney hissed, and John froze, slowly bringing his eyes up to meet Rodney's. "I was faking," Rodney whispered. He was staring down between them like John had just-- like he'd just *whipped it out* in the middle of a fucking do-it-for-the-good-of-the-mission platonic guy grope.

John stayed frozen for a long second, then closed his eyes, let go of his own dick and groped for Rodney's crotch again. Still hard. Still-- "You what--?"

"Were you *listening* to Fletcher?"

"Oh my *fucking God!*" John shouted, and it didn't really sound like a sex noise, but a couple of the villagers applauded politely anyway.

"I thought we had a plan, I thought you were on board!" Rodney whispered. John had heard the saying that genius was the ability to hold two contradictory ideas at once, but this was really pushing it. Even as McKay flipped out, he was petting the back of John's head, fingers trailing up and down the back of his neck in a way that made him shiver and squirm, and then he switched hands and shoved one down between them to keep John from zipping up again.

"Oh Jesus--" John said weakly as Rodney's sun-hot hand closed firmly around the base of his cock.

"It's fine, I'll save it. But you're going to owe me one," Rodney said absently, his hand sliding in one slow, hard stroke after another, each one perfectly tight and rough and rhythmic. John's hips jerked and he couldn't help but stare straight down into Rodney's eyes.

"Yeah?"

"Oh, yeah." Rodney said, looking awfully smug for a guy who hadn't got to come.

"Hnh," John said, biting his lip. *God*, he was close. "Dibs on being on top," he said, and the expression on Rodney's face was perfect, or at least close enough to make John's toes curl in his boots, to make him stain the front of Rodney's shirt with come.

The bad news was that Rodney got up immediately afterwards and dashed for the temple interior, leaving John uncuddled, not to mention unzipped. Furthermore, although the temple did turn out to contain some interesting Ancient artifacts-- which Rodney said crankily would probably turn out to be toasters or sex toys-- there wasn't actually a ZPM. (John tried to cheer him up by remarking that if Rodney couldn't tell the difference between a toaster and a sex toy, that really explained a lot, but somehow it didn't do the trick.)

The *good* news was that Rodney's vest neatly covered up the sticky spot on the front of his shirt.

When he finally emerged from the temple, Rodney gave John a dark, dark look. John yawned, fingering the wreath of flowers that the head priest had dropped around his neck. "Are you done? Can we go?"

"Why, you have a hot date?" Rodney snapped. He set his pack down, jamming the last Ancient artifact into the back compartment with what John thought was a marked lack of respect for possibly fragile, ten thousand year old technology.

"Well, I kind of thought so," John said, and Rodney blinked.

"Oh." Rodney said. John could see him rewinding and replaying the last half hour, adding this obviously new and different variable into the equation until he arrived at the conclusion that any normal human being would've gotten to at, say, the point where John *came* on them. "*Oh*."

"Yeah, 'oh,' Einstein." John said, and led the way back to the jumper.

Luckily Fletcher had been smart enough to keep her mouth shut about the ritual, and Ford was so embarrassed about hiding in the jumper for most of the mission it was easy to rib him about it (with the occasional acerbic contribution from McKay) until he forgot to ask about how they'd actually gotten into the temple.

When they got back to Atlantis, Zelenka was waiting in the jumper bay to drag Rodney off to look at some new amazing science thing he'd discovered while they were gone, and Bates was waiting to brief John immediately on a lot of stuff that really wasn't as important as Bates thought it was. One thing led to another and it was pretty late by the time Rodney finally made it back to his quarters. He'd at least changed his shirt, John observed gratefully.

"Oh, you," Rodney said, blinking slowly. "Now?" He came in, letting the door close behind him. John sat up in Rodney's chair, pulling his feet down from where he'd propped them on the edge of Rodney's bed.

"Yeah?" John said, watching as Rodney let his head tilt back, then cracked his neck from side to side.

"Fine," he said, stripping matter-of-factly. John didn't bother taking off his sweats. He waited till Rodney sat down on the bed and got his shoes off, then moved over next to him and pushed him down flat on his back.

"I have to be awake in six hours. I have to be mentally functioning in six hours, not just running circles around a track or polishing guns or whatever it is you do in the morning," Rodney complained as John draped himself over Rodney's body.

"Okay," John said, snuggling in, and it was like there was some kind of law of conservation of tension in operation, because as John closed his eyes and started to relax, Rodney tensed up again.

"Major?"

"I didn't get my cuddle," John said, deadpan as he could manage.

"Oh, yeah, what a shame. Hey, you know what else sucks? I didn't get my *orgasm!*"

"That'll teach you to fake it, I guess."

"Yes, who'd have thought that *you'd* have less shame about public sex than me." Rodney's hand closed firmly on the back of John's neck. His thumb stroked up and down, up into John's hairline and down to the top knob of his spine. John bit his lip and tried not to get keyed up, but it was no good. He was switching on like one of Rodney's Ancient toys, glowing hot in the dimly lit room, and he tilted his face up to meet Rodney's mouth just as Rodney bent his neck to kiss him.

"Now this time, just do exactly what I tell you," Rodney said, rolling them over. They fell off the bed, of course; you couldn't roll over like that on a standard issue cot.

"Brilliant maneuver, McKay."

"Yeah, shut up."

The bad news was that they both had to be up and functional in six hours. The good news was that six hours turned out to be about enough time to cover most of the basics, and besides this was Atlantis, so people generally expected McKay to drag ass and be snappish, especially in the morning, and for John to have not shaved and be covered in funny bruises. Also, the pieces of Ancient technology Rodney had recovered from the temple all turned out to be more or less useful, except for the really toastery-looking one that nobody could figure out. One of the other things, though, turned out to be a basic do-it-yourself kit for the Ancient version of a hydroponics lab, which sent the botanists into conniptions of joy.

And John even managed to get to Fletcher before she submitted her final report; luckily, since she wasn't in Rodney's division and didn't actually have to *work* with him on a regular basis, she didn't have any motive to publically humiliate him by describing Operation Think Of Atlantis in anything but the most general, innocuous terms.

So, all in all, as John told Rodney later: "I'm willing to call Operation Think Of Atlantis a success."

"Right," Rodney said breathlessly, flopping down on the sleeping bag they'd spread out on the floor. "The fact that you get incredible blowjobs out of it has no impact on your final analysis."

"Well, you're already indispensable," John said, stretching his arm over his head to tap the wall-panel and dim the lights a bit. He was sure he'd regret admitting that later, but right now he was happily afterglowing and didn't care.

"Very true," Rodney agreed, petting John's hair idly. "It's not as if you could be *inappropriately* invested in keeping me alive. I mean, my security, my happiness, these things are essential to the success of the entire expedition... A happy Rodney is a productive Rodney," he said in response to John's pointed silence.

"Are you?" John said, blinking into the dark.

"Well, I'm *productive*, aren't I?" Rodney said, probably not as sharply as he meant to.

"Good," John said, tipping his head back a little, trapping Rodney's hand between his head and the floor. "Because I'm pretty invested, too."

"In the success of the expedition," Rodney said, his hand tightening in John's hair.

"Yeah," John said, closing his eyes. "That."

[end]