Pairing: Dr Radek Zelenka/Col John Sheppard/Dr Rodney McKay
Warnings: Czech cursing, Star Trek trivia, Humour, H/C
Beta: LJ user Natasamsg, that is my good friend Svenja! Thanks, babe!
Spoilers: It is set in an AU S2, John's rang's now Colonel, Ford's here, there's no Ronon Dex. This warning is more spoilery than the story itself... Go figure.
Disclaimer: As much as I'd love to own those boys as well as the rest of the Atlantis team, especially Carson Beckett, someone far richer that I own them. I just make them have sex and fall in love with each other. Yeah.
And, dudes, it's called fanfiction for a reason...
Though I mentioned some new minor characters here, and there mine.
Notes: 1) Written for the Zelenka ficathon on lj community welovezelenka !
For lj user scap3goat who wanted slash, Czech, geekism, h/c during/after some accident in Atlantis
2) I think the whole bullshit about OMG! I know a military man who's gay! I'm so going to run around suspiciously until someone asks me and then I'm going to tell and get his ass kicked out and then I'll publically stone him! I love the military! is just that. Bullshit. Evil, nasty bullshit, even. I'm not going to go into that in this piece of fiction, okay? Okay. Cool.
3) I'm not a native language speaker of English, nor's my beta. So, if you find any weird mistakes, may that be whacko use of vocabulary, word order, punctuation or whatnot... point it out to me, ok? I'm studying English at university at the moment, ergo I'm willing to learn.
Rodney McKay came out of the bathroom, and what a nice bathroom it was, Rodney thought appreciately, and looked at the two men who were sleepingly curled around each other on their bed. It really would be a shame to intrude.
But he knew that as soon as he would touch the mattress, Radek's arm would grab his and he would be dragged down between them, John would clutch him to his chest and Radek would snuggle into his open embrace and he would fall asleep faster than he would have ever imagined.
And these days, in this galaxy, getting some sleep was always something to be treasured for Rodney McKay, so he kneeled down on the bed and was accommodated into the sleeping arrangement.
Besides, he had two hot men lying on his bed waiting for him and he called himself a genius, so he went and joined them.
If Rodney would have been asked to say how the hell it came to be that he, Dr Zelenka and Colonel Sheppard got together, he would refer to three cats and one Mr Spock and then leave the person who asked even more confused standing there in the hallway.
"...yeah, that's fine, and doubtless MTV, Oreos, the internet and homemade strawberry jam are very good things to miss, indeed..."
"Don't forget the chocolate, Ford!"
"I would never forget chocolate, Dr McKay." The young lieutenant looked scandalised.
"Good. See that you don't," McKay huffed.
"As I was saying, those are fine things to miss, truely, but what is it that you miss the most, guys?"
The team sat around their small campfire, exhausted by the day's workload, waiting for the MRE stew to be ready to be eaten.
The MRE stew was almost always the thing that started off their conversations when they sat around the fire. The, well, unique smell of it was so peculiar and intense that Lt. Ford couldn't not start dreaming about anything else eatable. Anything else. It was a conditioned reflex.
So everytime Ford smelled what McKay had once described as "over-cooked perversion of fake lasagne MRE that looks like clumpy sewer scum, smells like two weeks too old guacamole and tastes... actually not that bad!", he mentions a fruit, vegetable, sweet or meal he'd rather have.
Today's wishful thinking were croissants. Freshly baked, still warm croissants with melted butter and homemade strawberry jam.
"I think what I miss the most is my cat."
"Oh, yes. I have to agree with McKay here. My cats."
"You've got cats, Colonel? I've pegged you as a dog person," Ford asked.
Sheppard wrinkled up his nose at the thought. "No. Not at all, Lieutenant."
"What kind of cat do you have, Colonel?", Rodney asked intrigued.
"Russian Blue. Two of them. Called them Kasimir and Janush"
"Two willful, opinionated, dainty, choosy and very posh creatures. I'm right, ain't I?"
Sheppard grinned wryly. "Very."
"One can tell by their names. Those are names worthy of a fussy cat. I know what I am talking about, I named my cat Coco Chanel. And, damn, does she live up to her name. I wonder how she's doing nowadays...," McKay said reminiscential.
"I think the stew is ready to be eaten. Colonel. Doctor," interrupted Teyla.
"... ... yay," sighed Sheppard.
About a week later in the evening Colonel Sheppard made his way to Rodney's quarters. He carried his personal laptop under his arm.
Ten minutes later both men sat in front of said computer and looked through a folder of photos. Personal photos. Pictures of John Sheppard and his cats.
On most pictures the Colonel was asleep and clad only in his pajama pants. On every single photo he had two cats draped over him.
Rodney had never felt so homesick before, here in the Pegasus galaxy, than he did, as they looked through that folder of photos.
John asleep, two cats curled up on his bare chest, one napping, the other playing with the man's chest hair.
John asleep, lying on his side, curled around two sleeping cats.
John asleep on a couch. One cat on his head, the second on his lap.
Well, thought Rodney, that explained the hair.
"Who took all these pictures? And, oh my god, that one is brilliant!"
Again it was of John asleep, this time starfishing on his bed, one cat napping on his chest and the other doing an imitation of the Sphinx from his observation point on John's head.
"My brother. We were living together then. Feel free to click around, Rodney, there should be some pictures of him, too. I'll use your bathroom, okay?"
"Sure, sure." Rodney went on and clicked on the remaining photos in the folder, but he found no pictures of this new brother of John's. And, really, it irked him that he didn't know about him. Colonel Sheppard could be one closed-mouthed bastard. Speak of the devil...
"And, found some?" John asked as he settled down again in front of the laptop next to Rodney.
"Well, no. Are you sure you got some of him?"
"No? Here, let me... There. There is one."
"John, that's you."
"No, that's Phillipp." Sheppard stated calmly, and really, could the man be any more... whatever the hell it was that he was, it sure aggravated him.
"You got a twin? An identical twin. And he is not here with us on this mission? What the fuck, John?" He couldn't believe the man's nerve!
"You are the only person here who knows anything about him. Even the fact that he exists. Make it stay that way, McKay."
"Yeah, whatever. Bet he's got the ATA gene, too. We could use him. This expedition needs him, John."
"No, it doesn't." Rodney was surprised how fast the Colonel had switched from unnervingly calm to angry. "For you have no idea that I have a brother. You understand that, McKay?"
The intense stare of the Colonel took all the drive out of him.
An interesting phenomenon, McKay thought. Then again, he had seen the man cause the death of about five dozen Genii in cold blood, so maybe there were reasons for his fast submission. He ought to think about that. Later.
"He's a civilian, Rodney," the Colonel went on. "He's not like me, he's not Air Force or anything of that sort."
"What does he do then? ... John?" The almost sneaky expression on the Colonel's face was not what he had expected.
"He went the way I probably would have chosen, if flying wasn't the thing I wanted to do."
"Yes...?"
With a sigh John knocked lightly on the laptop's screen, "Here, I present you Dr Phillipp Sheppard, three Ph.D's in math and astrophysics."
The nerve!
"The hell he's not here, John!" Rodney realised that he was close to screaming, but ... aargh. The nerve! "Do you realize what we could've achieved, if-"
"I want him to be safe. And here is anything but, Rodney. You should know that."
And, damn you John Sheppard, for teasing him with such possibilities and then make him being reasonable.
But, my god, the possibilities! They've already got twenty-six people on the Atlantis crew with the ATA gene, but nineteen of them got the gene out of Beckett's therapy, and the ability to use it was somewhat less intense than in those who had it naturally. And Colonel Sheppard's skill in getting the various things to work for him was even more superior than Dr Hallil's, who was the usual man for the job in the labs. For Sheppard it was child's play.
And now the man told him that there is another one like him with his exact skills! And denied Rodney them. Asked him to let the matter rest!
Rodney felt his cheek twitch.
"And, to be honest, the time Dr Weir briefed me about Stargates, aliens, other galaxies and an alien gene that I apparently have... Ah, my first thought was if anybody was seriously shitting me, and not if maybe my brother would like to come, too."
"Yeah, there is that. But, John, we really-"
"No."
"Does he even know- no, of course not. Does he- Would he be interested in working with us? What do you think? What exact path of astrophysics did you say did he study?"
"Rodney. Stop it. I'm not letting you or anybody else get him into this mess. So stop it."
"But-"
"No!" And the Colonel banged his hand on the table to underline his word.
Rodney jumped a little bit and finally looked at the Colonel's face again. The loud noise had torn him out of his daydreams. He knew that look. How to handle the man when he wore it. Best to really let the matter rest.
Rodney sighed. "Okay. I won't speak of it again."
The Colonel looked at him, then relaxed. "Good."
"...today."
"McKay!"
"Colonel, for how long have we known each other now? You cannot drop a thing like that into a conversation and then not expect me to pick it up. Now, I just promised you I won't speak of trying to recruit your brother. But do me a favor and tell me about him."
Sheppard looked at him again, but did say nothing. He just raised his eyebrow at his mentioning of recruiting. He sighed, slumped back into his chair - and, man, does the guy have no muscles in his back or something? - and used the mouse to open up another picture on the computer.
"Here. That's both of us. I'm on the left."
"Man, you so look alike it's eerie."
John smiled and admitted, "If you met both of us, you would be even more spooked, I think. We are often told that we're remarkably alike. Phillipp and me did not thought so, but you know, if you know a person for so long you only see the differences and not the similarities. But after puberty we conceded, and yes, aside from the freckles thing we look exactly the same."
"Freckles thing?"
"The placement of the moles and freckles are kind of mirror-inverted. Anyway, when I think about it, aside from small personality quirks, the only real difference is our choice of profession."
"Obviously."
"He's afraid of heights, you know. He fell out of the huge chestnut tree in our back garden as a kid; I jumped down."
"You would." The Colonel looked up to Rodney's face then, saw the smirk and countered in an obviously fake innocent tone, "To help him!"
"Why, of course. What else would you do such a thing for?" They grinned at each other.
Sheppard looked back to the screen. "So, I went and joined the Air Force and he enrolled in the local university. We lived together that way for, I don't know, a few years. We got the cats the day he got his first Ph.D. JayKay stayed with the both of us till I had to leave for Afghanistan."
"JayKay? Oh the cats. I get it. Oh, can you imagine what names Ford would come up with, if he were to name a cat? I dread to think about it!"
"Something horribly cliché like Cat or Salem or, oh my god, like Pussy."
"The poor animal," Rodney said and winced.
"Indeed!"
"Indeed, John? You want to be Mr Spock now? Tired of sucking your gut in? Does yellow no longer suit your tastes, Captain Kirk? Oh, and don't even get me started on the whole eyebrow thing you like to do. Yes, that is the one."
"Ha ha, Rodney. Gut, huh?" snarked the Colonel and promptly poked Rodney.
"Oi! Very funny, Mr Spock. It only shows I'm 100 human, whereas I have my doubts about you..."
"Would you please stop with the stupid ATA gene? It does not make me any less human than-"
"ATA? No, not Ancient. Vulcan! You so got Vulcan eyebrows and the ears... well, I think, they speak for themselves."
And, wow, it sure amazed him just how intensely red the Colonel could blush. He had never before seen him do that.
"At least you have got better hair than any Vulcan, John."
The Colonel mumbled something. "What was that?"
"One halloween Phillipp and me went dressed up as Vulcans..."
McKay fell sideways out of his chair, he laughed so hard.
All in all it had taken Rodney two years and four months to get Dr Phillipp Sheppard to Atlantis.
He always had been a stubborn bastard.
And he had been right, Dr Sheppard's skill in manipulating Ancient technologie was as developed as John's was.
What Rodney hadn't thought of had been, how Atlantis herself would react to both of them together. Especially when they both thought commands or bids on purpose at the same time.
She lit up like a cheap whore. A Vegas' whore.
Rodney had thought he was in the wrong movie the first time a door had let out a satisfied sigh when the Sheppard brothers had passed it. Radek and Miko had both laughed so hard they had to hold each other up at his flabbergasted expression.
It was fun to work with your partner's brother, too, thought Radek and Rodney. He knew the greatest childhood stories.
If Radek would have been asked to say how the hell it came to be that he, Dr McKay and Colonel Sheppard got together, he would refer to McKay's blatant stealing of one of his shirts and Mr Spock, mutter something in Czech, grin lecherously and then leave the person who asked even more confused standing there in the hallway.
"It's really not that funny, McKay," said Sheppard dryly and clearly was not very amused, as he watched his friend rolling around on the floor, gasping for breath but still hysterically laughing.
"It's been about five minutes. You can stop now."
"The-the-the hair?" came from the man on the ground, as the laughter seemed to finally have subsided a bit. But looking at the Colonel, who again had blushed very red, set him off anew.
Radek was about to climb into his bed as his door did the Atlantean equivalent of banging open - it swished faster than it normaly did.
He had no idea what Rodney meant as he said, "Oh my god, I have to see this!", and he had no idea what was going on that needed his shirt, but he had never seen his friend that good-humoured before, so Radek grabbed his glasses from the nightstand, figured baggy pajama bottoms were decent enough and followed Rodney out of his quarters as he dashed back to where he came from.
Which turned out to be his own personal quarters. The door was still wide open as Radek reached it, so he just entered the room.
The sight of a blushed Colonel Sheppard getting hustled into putting on his worn blue shirt was not what he had expected to see, but then again he hadn't really expected anything specific per se.
"Come on, John, just put this on. Your black jeans'll do just fine. And then come into the bathroom. I still should have some...," Rodney told the Colonel while he himself wandered off to the bathroom, searching for... whatever, and Radek wasn't sure if he should wonder about what it was that Rodney searched for or not.
"What's the issue here, Colonel?", Radek asked and, oh, it seemed like the man hadn't noticed him standing in the doorway, from the way he jumped, blushed more intensely and somewhat clumsily fled the room for the bathroom.
Which probably wasn't the best thing he could have done in that situation, Radek assumed, with Rodney still being in the room and oh yes, he'd assumed right, for "Ah, very good, it fits, John. Let's get started on the hair!" surely was not in the Colonel's best interest.
Radek settled himself on the bathtub's rim and watched the spectacle unfold.
He could understand Rodney's desire to brush and subdue Sheppard's hair, it was a mess. What he didn't get was what they needed his shirt for. And what they wanted to achieve with ...whatever they seemed to be doing.
Radek didn't mind not knowing, though. It was very funny to watch his friend get the Colonel do what he wanted him to do - stand still, damn it - with a few well-placed insults and side remarks.
Then, as Rodney declared his work on Sheppard's hair done, stepped aside and asked him to do the eyebrow thing, he got it.
"Colonel! You are King of Geeks. Who would have thought?", Radek said grinning widely.
"He is, isn't he?", Rodney replied. "Hail King John of Vulcan!" And broke out laughing.
"Colonel, you should blush green!"
"Oh goodness, we need pictures of this!"
And as he saw the horrified expression on Colonel Sheppard's face, Radek promptly fell into the bathtub, guffawing loudly.
If John would have been asked to say how the hell it came to be that he, Dr McKay and Dr Zelenka got together, he would refer to nothing and try to make the asking person leave. When then asked what the whole Mr Spock thing meant, he would abruptly turn around and leave the person who asked even more confused standing there in the hallway.
Yesterday's whishful thinking of food met the whole team's agreement. Especially John's. Ice cream. Never mind the flavor or the kind, just... ice cream. Such a scorching heat as it had been on that planet the team never had known before.
Today, the matter looked different. Today, John just wished to know what that on his plate was supposed to be. In fact, it looked so disgusting, wobbly, blue and alien John rather'd have had MRE stew. Which was, up to now, the most disgusting, wobbly and strange food John had known.
One of the chefs, a german red-head called Fabian Hoffmann, an astonishingly laid-back guy, had given him the plate with the usual wide grin on his face. He never could construe the meaning of the man's grin. Bad or good omen? Bad or good food? I'm sorry for the coming early death of your taste buds or gorge yourself, this grub's fine stuff?
He sat there in the messhall, poking his portion of blue, alien puree, contemplating if he dared to try it, as Rodney and Radek joined him. As the usually did for lunch.
And immediately began to stuff their faces.
Huh.
He looked around the messhall. Everybody was wolfing down their blue goo. He looked over to the food counter, some people even got themselves second helpings!
Maybe he should eat his goo after all... He dabbed his fork into the puree and brought it carefully to his lips.
And, wow, who would have thought! Yummy blue goo!
It tasted... it tasted like, hmm, good, but... And almost familiar, too.
"What are you thinking about, Colonel?", asked Radek as he noticed him not eating.
"What this here tastes like. And I told you to call me John, Radek."
"Nonalcoholic Long Island Ice Tea," stated Rodney through a mouthful of goo.
"Yeah, that's it!" said John and began to enthusiastically eat his alien cocktail puree.
John never thought that his best friends would be two science crazy, geeky geniuses. Those were always his brother's type of friends, while he mostly hung out with the kids who were out to have the most fun possible the most fast way possible.
But here he was, lying on his stomach on the floor in McKay's and Zelenka's lab and going over their equations for them.
And this was not a singular occurence.
There was always an ancient gadget that just had to be touched by yours truely. Lately he found himself being in the lab more often than he spent time in his own personal office.
He even found that he could work better on his paperwork when he had Rodney ripping an 'incompetent, disqualified, unproficient, blundering amateur of a wanna-be scientist' a new one, as sort of background music.
Also he wouldn't want to miss the sacrastic looks he and Radek exchanged when listening to Rodney's rants. Those together with Rodney's bitching made up for television quite nicely.
It was Dr Zelenka who took the first step to change their friendship into a relationship.
It had been over two weeks since they last had gotten notice of SGA Team 1. Everybody worried and now that Teams 2 and 3, Bates and Kleinschmitt respectively, who had gone on their third rescue misson searching for Sheppard's team, were also an hour overdue, the tension was touchable.
When, suddenly, there was gate activision and Kleinschmitt's IDC had been confirmed, everybody got ready for the worst.
What actually happened was, in fact, anticlimatic. They lowered the gate's shield and one after the other the three puddle jumpers flew through the gate and upwards towards their parking places.
When the first opportunity came up for Radek to abandon his work to get to John and Rodney, it was already late in the night.
Determined he went to Rodney's quarters and picked him up. Then they went to Colonel Sheppard's quarters.
Rodney walked with a limp.
Radek was very silent as he slowly but persistanly urged him on. At first look, Rodney seemed to be okay, now Radek had to make sure the same was the case for John.
At last, they've reached John's quarters and Radek took only one look at the gash on John's cheek before he ordered them both to tell him what has been done to them; no, better show him. And show him now. Off with those shirts.
When finally topless, Zelenka urged them both to sit on the edge of the bed. Both of them had numerous bruises all over their torsos and they seemed to be severly malnourished. It showed.
Radek was again intensely silent as he tenderly touched every single bruise and cut, he could see on his friends' bodies. The thin line of his mouth became more grim as even his light touches got flinches in response. He was so focused on his task he did not realise he began speaking his thoughts out loud, nor did he realise he vocalised them in Czech.
"Tento Bastard. Nechci na to ani pomyslet, co si mohli zpúsobit, kdyby jste nebyli zachráneni Bates Team-om. Absolutný Bastard! Tie vyjebani kokoti! To je proklatá rána bicem!"
Radek's voice began to raise in loudness; John and Rodney looked at each other worriedly.
"Radek, Radek. Calm down, Radek!", John said gently and soothingly.
"Calm down? Odkludni? That's a fucking whipmark on Rodney, John. I will not calm down."
"Radek!", said John again, this time sharply and Radek slumped down on his knees abruptly.
Rodney reacted and grabbed both Radek's hands and brought them together clutched in his own. They were cold, clammy and shook.
Rodney catched John's gaze and pointed him with his eyes to his lap where he held Radek's hands, trying to make him understand the state their friend was in. When their eyes met again, John looked grim, as did Rodney.
Radek captured their whole attention again as he said, "You were gone for so long. I... we thought... Najednou jsem byl úplne sám..."
John cupped Radek's face with his hands, made him look up again.
"Radek, look at me. Look at him. We're fine. We both are fine now, Radek."
Radek closed his eyes, his face was drawn into a pained looking grimace. He swallowed, his throat felt unbearably dry. He swallowed again.
"I... I...," a small tear escaped Radek's eye and his hands jerked with the urge to wipe it away. Rodney squeezed them briefly. John took off Radek's glasses, put them aside and thumbed away the lone tear.
Radek leaned over and kissed John.
He froze as he felt the men on the bed grow stiff. No, please, Radek thought.
An eternity of a moment later, he felt John brush his lips against his own and he was suffused by blindingly sharp relief.
He felt Rodney squeeze his hands again, then take his right hand away.
As John gasped into their kiss, Radek seized the opportunity and licked his tongue into John's mouth.
Then he felt what had John left gasping as Rodney lightly trailed his right index finger over from John's cheek to his, using their linked lips as crossing point.
After Rodney had caressed his left ear shell and let his finger return to John's face he dipped his fingertip gently into their kiss and grazed their tongues, the kiss came to an end.
"God, you're here. You're fine. You're alive. Thank God. Chvála Bochu. Chvála Bochu!", Radek whispered overwhelmed by all this.
John said Radek's name in an unanticipatedly hoarse voice, but it was Rodney's taking both of Radek's hands and putting them over his and John's hearts and then tilting Radek's face towards him that made Radek look up to them again.
One short gaze into his friend's blue eyes, one short moment taking in all the emotions mirrored in them and he slumped down a second time and to hide his face, he rested it on Rodney's thigh, feeling fiercly tired and exhausted all of a sudden.
Rodney looked over to John as soon as he found himself being able to tear his gaze away from the man kneeling at their feet between their legs, still holding up both his arms, still feeling their heartbeats with his palms.
"Shock," he mouthed to John and John absently nodded back at him. John had his right hand over his mouth and looked intensely confused. It took him three or four moments to get himself back together and then John hold up three fingers, mouthed "Sleep?" towards Rodney and jolted his head back an inch to indicate the sleeping place he meant for the three of them.
Rodney approved and watched his friend strip down to his boxers - blue striped ones, he noticed - and hoist Radek up, holding him up to his front.
In the matter of a minute they had Radek, too, bare bar his underwear; Rodney taking care of shoes, socks and pants, John tackling the shirt and vest.
"Radek, come on, lie down."
The three of them settled down on John's bed, Radek tucked in between the two of them, and the latter almost instantly fell asleep.
"Think out the lights, would you, John?" mumbles Rodney, sleepy himself and all too happy to finally get a good night's sleep after the physical and emotional straining day, nay, make that weeks.
"Rodney," John answered in a tone that carried his frown with it.
"No, not now, John. Sleep now. Talk tomorrow."
Rodney was the first of them to wake up the next morning.
He looked at the sleeping short man in his arms and at John burrowed up to Radek and pondered that peculiar new development while trying not to move too much because Carson's painkillers seemed to have worn off and his back and ankle hurt like a mother.
He smiled down on the slumbering men and again couldn't reign the urge to move his hand and trail along paths and lines of their bodies.
It was a peculiarity of his. He had the urge to touch things since he was a small boy, it had driven his mother mad. It was just, he got things better when he touched them, he could understand them then.
His piano had been his outlet for this urge to touch and for his love of order, up to the age of twelve. His tutor had called his parents and had told them that, while technically close to perfection, he lacked 'art'. And that he refused to teach him any longer for it hurt him to see such talent wasted in d'une atroce manière. Moron.
He hadn't actually cared much for the music he'd produced. Whereas the perfect order - the harmony - of the notes, was the reason of his fascination with the piano.
His father had then unintentionally given him his new outlet a few weeks after the end of his piano lessons. He had whacked him over the hands with his natural science school book as Rodney had incessantly switched the TV's channels, when he actually should have been doing his homework. The book had fallen open on a page that contained a picture of a table that grabbed the young boy's attention. Order. Pure, beautiful order. Logical order.
Logical, music had not been, but he had be able to touch it, in a way.
At age twelve Rodney had been given the single most important thing he would ever get from his father. An answer.
"Pa, can I touch natural sciences?"
"Of course, boy, don't be dumb, it's the science of nature, of everything."
Rodney had reasoned that 'everything' was very touchable and had figured that it sure was a neat thing to study.
As he softly trailed his finger over his bedmates' skin or petted a particulary intriguing spot for a few seconds, Rodney thought about the situation.
This intimacy between them surprised him. He did not think that he had ever felt any kind of tension of that variety, or any tension whatsoever for the records, existing in their friendship before.
Though, apparently, Radek did.
That kiss shared between John and Radek had unsettled him. His reaction to the kiss surprised him even more.
His two best friends had suddenly looked so beautiful.
And he did not panic and lash out, for his two best male friends had suddenly looked beautiful, all he did, all he had wanted, was to touch them, to caress, to pet, to probe, to reach over and taste.
So he had.
And it had felt so good.
Having Radek's hand on his bare chest in place over his heart, feeling Radek's face lean on his thigh and at the same time feeling John's leg brush his own, sensing his bodyheat, the fine hairs on John's forearm tickling him when they brushed his skin...
It had felt intense.
It had felt so right.
Rodney burrowed himself deeper into the covers and snuggled down again, spooning up to Radek's back.
Rodney had a smile on his lips as he drifted back to sleep.
When Radek woke up, it was almost time for breakfast. Radek did not feel hungry.
Radek felt good.
But he also felt hot. And he couldn't move.
Hn?
It all came back to him then. In the short duration of a second the pace of his heartbeat doubled and tripled, he froze in panic and began to pant.
"Pane na nebi!" he whispered, "What have I done? I kissed John... ... Dear God..."
The next second then he abruptly realised where exactly he was. In which bed he was.
Numby and without any real recognititon Radek stared at the arm flung over his chest. With his eyes he followed the path from the fingers up to the shoulder. Radek took in Rodney's sleep-relaxed face.
Took in the smile. Noticed a light tickling sensation at his neck, turned his head and took in John's face tucked in at his neck, his stubble rough but tickling.
Radek blinked owlishly at John's face for some time, then he began to smile and calmed down. The graduately decline of the adrenaline level in his system left him giddy but made him sleepy again.
He's sweaty, his bladder'd like for him to go to the bathroom and he's hot, but he would not move away for all the techy gadgets in Atlantis.
Well, maybe he would move for a fully-charged ZP-- and Radek was asleep.
"Okaaaay. This is a different first." This was one hell of an understatement.
John had never ever woken up with two men - half-naked men - in his bed before.
Never mind that he knew about the circumstances, and wow, better not think about the circumstances, because the circumstances brought dolby-surround memories of soft, soft lips and beard-stubble and an agile tongue and Radek and Rodney... with them, and better not think about the circumstances. Yeah.
And the half-naked men were sweaty. And he was cuddled up with them. And he was har- er, well, good morning to you, too - and he really had to use the toilet, and he really was glad that he was no longer in his teens, so he was not completely mortified, and this situation could get really embarrasing really fast.
And he thought really hard about whether he should get out of bed and take a piss and shower or whether he should stay in bed, because leaving sweaty - really sweaty, urgh - bed partners without a word of notice could lead to really stupid and nasty arguments.
But he really wanted to take a shower and he really needed to take that piss and he really wanted to fled this situation for a while to get his head together and he really, really should stop using really really often and - oh! - Radek's awake!
The next time Radek woke up, he awoke to the sight of John, who had an indescribable expression on his face. Radek pondered if maybe he had made a rash judgement of his friend's attitude's nature on the topic of them being bedpartners, no, how does one say in English? Friends with benefits.
And he wondered if he should start worrying again now.
His musings were interrupted by John smiling broadly and saying enthusiastically, "Oh good, you're awake! I'm off for the lav."
Dobrá, not what he had excepted, but he could work with that, "Hurry then. There are others, who would like to use the toilet as well."
And John just grinned and went to the adjoined bath and, thankfully, didn't take long and, svatý Ježíš!
Radek left the bathroom feeling amazingly refreshed for a sweaty, unshaved and unshowered man.
Raking his fingers through his hair to get it into some kind of order, he found John sitting cross-legged on his bed looking down on Rodney.
"Should we wake him up?", he asked and went over to stand next to John. "He looks so..."
"Face it, Radek, that's Rodney McKay looking cute."
"Frightening prospect, isn't it?", he answered dryly.
Rodney had, as it would appear, rolled over onto his side, after they both had fled the bed to attend to pressing needs, and now slept with his legs drawn up like a baby, clutching one of the smaller pillows to his chest and had one hand mashed up against his mouth, which had the effect to make him look as if he were sucking on his thumb. Adorable.
"But true."
"Yes, but true." He and John looked at each other and Radek said what both of them thought, "Yes. Let's wake him!" Before anything weirder would happen.
John, though, just looked at Rodney again and asked, "Do we have to?"
Radek noticed the fond look on John's face and wouldn't have been terribly surprised to hear the man make an 'Aww' sound, and while endearing this was getting them nowhere, so..., "You know, he's got cute toes, too."
The way John's eyes widened to almost manga-worthy size, his speedily response of, "Yes! We have to!" and his almost frantic shaking Rodney's shoulders made Radek grin widely.
And it made him uncharacteristically calm.
Then again, he had fancied Rodney to be cute for months now. The man was charming when he was excited.
Ow. That was what Rodney thought first upon waking.
A few weeks later Colonel Sheppard and Dr McKay once again found themselves sitting with the rest of their team around a small fire waiting for their meal to finish cooking.
Though this time, mercifully, it was not MRE stew and they're not sitting around a campfire in an alien wilderness but around a small stove in the little kitchen of the house that had kindly been assigned to them by the locals.
They were still involved in a lenghty trading negotiation. Lenghty, because the locals, the Punkhö, seemed to prefer it that way.
But they were nice, harmless people and that was nice and harmless for their team for once, so John gladly negotiated with them for hours.
Lt. Ford apparently had had a field day the day he first heard the people's name and was currently telling how he couldn't resist and just had to picture Quahot - the man responsible for all the trading his people did - with a Mohawk, several facial piercings and clad in a Sex Pistol's t-shirt and DocMarten's with red bootlaces.
Teyla had begun to giggle like a schoolgirl as she heard Ford explain the Pistols to her and mentioned Never mind the bollocks here's the Sex Pistols.
Well, Teyla'll have to go to Dr Heightmeyer, who had brought the record with her, to get to learn more about English punkrock, and not to John or Rodney, who had already been around the time it had been the latest, according to the smirking young Lieutenant.
Because the latter had never cared about punkrock and the former was not in the mood to explain the greatness that was Sid Vicious to anyone, he just wanted to go back to Atlantis.
And he wished that these negotiations would be as frutious and as mercifully brief as Rodney's, Radek's and his had been the day they had discussed the whats and specific hows of their new born relationship.
But Quahot seemed to like the feeling of his own head up his ass.
So much for that.
When they finally - two days later - returned to Atlantis, Sheppard's team brought with them: Vegetables that looked like cauldiflower and tasted like spinach, seeds of the plant, over 10.000 sheets of white-ish paper, inks and the Punkhöan equivalent of refillable Bic pens in various sizes, salt, sugar and a spice that could be mustard seeds, thread and many rolls of a sturdy fabric in reds, greys and dark blues.
The trading goods were greatly appreciated by Elizabeth and it was always nice to be praised and not scolded for a change, but...
But John and Rodney both simply wanted to flee the mission de-briefing, gather Radek up from the lab and go to Rodney's quarters - they were the biggest and Rodney did not care if there was a mess - share a long, hot shower pressed up to slick, wet bodies and then sleep for a day or two.
Additionally, John had the nagging suspicion that the female hygiene products - "Kinda tampons." "No! Better than tampons! ...Just wait." - Bates' team had traded for last week were still more esteemed by Elizabeth.
And while by now they had means of contact to Earth, the bidirectional flights of the Daedalus were sporadic, about 2 times a year really, for the war against the Go'auld back home in the Milky Way was close to raging and the situation with the Wraith here in Pegasus galaxy was very calm in comparison.
And, apparently, there were some necessities that would be used up faster than others, but in this specific case John wouldn't know. Nor did he want to, admittedly.
About three years after the original Mr Spock event, Rodney had caught sight of John in one of Radek's shirt's again.
John had seemed to have randomly grabbed an additional shirt to pull over because he had been cold and had been in the process of putting extra wool socks over his feet as he'd bent over and Rodney had got an idea.
Rodney had grinned widely.
Everytime John wore that shade of blue he looked like a certain Vulcan science officer.
Making John dress up as Mr Spock had been the start of his, John's and Radek's friendship.
This time it would be equally inspiring. Though they would have most of the fun in bed, not in the bathroom.
Radek had thought that Dr McKay couldn't get his name right, because the man had already given him a new one.
Mr Yet-to-fuck-up, The-only-one.
He hadn't known if he should either be kind of proud of the title or if he should deliberately fuck something up to get the man to remember his real name.
It hadn't come to that. Saving McKay's life had seemed to do the job just as well.
The next time he had seen McKay after that, the man had thanked him. After much sarcasm, side remarks, vaguely insulting questions and over-analisations of his chosen methods of rescue, of course.
And he had bickered right back. Bickering with McKay was always fun, still is indubitably.
Nowadays the outcome of a bickering argument was fun, too. Either they both egged each other on so one of them got the sparking brilliant idea that lead to brilliant and efficient work or an brilliant invention or it made them have a tumble under the covers. Even John, when been asked, could not decide which he prefered. Hot nooners or the enormous cinema they had build for example. Now that they had popcorn once again, it had been a very difficult decision for the man.
But then McKay had abated. His face and his eyes were downcast as he told him, "Thank you, Radek." And Radek was pleasantly surprised that McKay, too, knew his name.
Certainly, McKay had then looked up to him throught his lashes, an odd shy glance, and Radek immediately had forgotten what he had thought just then and had been smitten.
"You are welcome, McKay. I'm glad," he had answered befuddled.
John had thought that he knew what he liked. He was an tits and ass kind of guy. And bellybuttons, he liked bellybuttons.
He even had something of a type. Small, petite women with small breast and big bums. Brunetts. Blue-eyed brunetts.
Women who did not care about what they weighed and admitted to like food. Love handles were a turn on. He liked to see that the food he cooked was appreciated.
And he knew that he could cook well. Their father, who had been a professional cook, had showed Phillipp and him everything there was to know about the preparation of food. The 'lessons' had started well before they had been allowed to even think of using a knife.
Now, he taken that as a base, John was reasonably taken aback by the fact that he considered his two male partners to be some of the most sexiest persons he had ever been involved with.
Not sexy like 'Hey, he's kind of handsome, compact and muscular' but more like sexy in the way of 'Oh my, I want to force them to never wear clothes again.'
But then again, they too, had brown hair, McKay had the best ass of the whole Atlantis expedition, Radek was a petite man, both had blue eyes, Rodney's smirk always made butterflies appear and flutter around in his stomach and Radek with a five o'clock shadow was a sight to behold. And lick.
And the obvious lack of tits didn't register that much anymore, for John thought that silky chest hair more than made up for it.
Rodney had thought that the relationship he had been in with Leslie Filley would be his longest one ever. They had dated for one year and about seven months, during which they both had worked and written their theses. Leslie in Physics and he in Theoretical Astrophysics, Mathematics and Quantum Mechanics.
They went on eight dates during this time. And six out of those eight came to be because the time they had had met the other by chance then, they both were rather hungry and knew a nice restaurant nearby.
But they had very good sex on a semi regular basis, Rodney thought fondly.
Yes, he had thought this relationship would forever be his longest lasting one.
Now, imagine Rodney's surprise the day he had woken up to come to realise that Radek, John and him have been together for almost four years now.
That day, when he had woken up to John shaking his shoulder like a mad man and it had hurt like a fucker because he had a lovely bruise in a nice dark violet colour there, he certainly hadn't expected it to be the first day of a well-working, happy and balanced threeway relationship that lasted for four years now.
Back then it was clear to him that it would be something good if they chose to choose to try it. They were good friends and he thought that they could be good for and to each other in a relationship.
But he also knew that, realistically, a threeway relationship will probably not last long. He had seen and experienced too many 'normal' relationships brake apart not to be very sceptical.
He knew he could be diffcult. And three persons would bring more quirks than usual into a relationship. Probably more hindrances than easy solutions, more problems or baggage than... well.
Still. Rodney had known, it would be something good.
And it would come to be.
Wow, four years.
There is no such thing as too much lube.
Sooner or later they had run out, though, and had to trade for more.
Rodney had hacked into the mission database for John and had added lube to the list of necessities the teams would trade for the next month. Three days later again Rodney had hacked into the system and assinged it to SGA team 2, Bates' team.
The man's facial expression as he had delivered the quasi-tampons to Elizabeth had been hilarious. And far too good to let it become a single phenomenon.
A week and a laughing fit later they had no longer to restrict themselves to friction, hand and blow jobs as they had had to during the shortage.
So, a day before their fifth anniversary, Rodney McKay came out of their bathroom, and what a nice bathroom it was, Rodney thought appreciately, and looked at the two men who were sleepingly curled around each other on their bed. It really would be a shame to intrude.
But he knew that as soon as he would touch the mattress, Radek's arm would grab his and he would be dragged down between them, John would clutch him to his chest and Radek would snuggle into his open embrace and he would fall asleep faster than he would have ever imagined before getting to know these men.
And these days, in this galaxy that became their home, getting some sleep on their bed was always something to be treasured for Rodney McKay, so he kneeled down on the bed and was accommodated into the sleeping arrangement by Radek and John.
Besides, he had two hot men that loved him lying on their bed waiting for him, so he went and joined them.
The End
TRANSLATIONS:
CZECH:
"Tento Bastard. Nechci na to ani pomyslet, co si mohli zpúsobit, kdyby jste nebyli zachráneni Bates Team-om. Absolutný Bastard! Tie vyjebani kokoti! To je proklatá rána bicem!"
"Those bastards! I dare not to think about what they would have done to you, had you not been rescued by Bates. Absolute bastards. Oh, those fuckers! This is a whipmark!"
Odkludni? Calm dowm?
Najednou jsem byl úplne sám... Suddenly, I was all alone...
Pane na nebi Good Lord
Chvála Bochu Thank God
Svatý Ježíš Holy Jesus
FRENCH:
d'une atroce manière in such a horrible way