The Strange Encounters of Rodney McKay

by Soledad

Author's Note:

This scene happens parallel with the previous one. It just features a different set of characters. The twist on Kelownan culture is completely mine. I though it would be more realistic than expect every single extraterrestrial culture having the same social structures as our society.

Spoilers: Redemption, Parts 1 and 2

Warning: This particular chapter is rated Adult and contains some sexual interaction between two characters of the same gender. If it's not your cup of tea, do us both the favour and hit the Back button, now. Nobody forces you to read anything you know would upset you.

Chapter 05 – Jonas

As usual for the wistful thinking of the military, neither Carter nor Hammond was willing to believe that the hyperdrive of the X-302 wouldn't work. They believed Larry Murphy, that brick-headed idiot, who was doing his best to sabotage the entire project. Not intentionally, of course – only because he wasn't willing to listen.

It wasn't so that the esteemed Dr. Murphy didn't know his stuff – he did. The problem was that he had a one-track mind (and not in the romantic sense of the word) that made him incapable of considering other possible solutions than the only one he'd come up with, himself.

But he was the project manager of X-302, and so everyone listened to him. Even as the unknown young man came to Rodney's help with the notes about all the Goa'uld research done on naquadria, notes that proved that the instability of the alien substance would increase exponentially as they tried to extract more energy out of it, General Hammond waved off their concern. The test flight got a go.

It went straight to hell, of course. Just as Rodney and the young man – the alien with the whacky naquadah – had foretold. And so did he make the acquaintance of Jonas Quinn, who, despite his completely human looks (and rather good looks those were, almost depressingly so) and his plain human name, was an alien.

It was insane, really. Aliens ought to be – well, different. If they didn't sprout facetted eyes or antennae, at least they ought to have a strange air about them, like that intimidating Jaffa, Teal'c. Or a malevolent snake in their bellies, like Teal'c. Or elaborate tattoos on their foreheads. Something. Anything.

Granted, up to date Teal'c was the only alien Rodney had seen. But he didn't expect them, not even those who'd descended from abducted and enslaved humans, to be so… well, so human. After all, one didn't think of handsome, well-muscled young men in their late twenties when one heard the word "alien".

Or expect them to show completely human understanding when one's fellow earthlings did not.

Admittedly, for a moment or two he felt a tingle of irrational jealousy for the young man. For Carter being willing to listen to him more than to Rodney. For him having the idea that proved crucial for the saving of the planet. Granted, Rodney did have his own – albeit minor – part in that, but it was Jonas whom all the SGC people congratulated. At whom Carter looked with such a genuine fondness.

Rodney would have given an arm for that look being directed at him.

And yet it seemed that Jonas was still fairly unhappy, as if all that acknowledgement wouldn't make up for the very obvious rejection from Colonel O'Neill's side. Perhaps in his eyes it didn't, although Rodney couldn't understand why. After all, everyone else liked the boy well enough.

Coincidence gave him the opportunity to ask for the reason, as on his way out he happened to run into Jonas on Sublevel 11, where he had to change elevators. The young man didn't seem to mind the question, although he chose his words very carefully… almost too carefully for such a harmless topic.

"For Kelownans, it's an instinctive reaction to seek out the support of older, more experienced people," he explained. "When I had to leave Kelowna, I imprinted on Colonel O'Neill, as he was the ranking officer of the unit. Dr. Jackson would have been a better match," he added thoughtfully, "but hadn't he died, I won't be here to begin with. And though I have the greatest respect for Teal'c, he's not the kind of authority I was looking for. I'm a scientist, not a warrior."

"What about Major Carter?" Rodney asked, simultaneously relieved by the obvious lack of concurrence from Jonas's side and insulted on the major's behalf that the alien boy wouldn't even consider her as a mentor.

Jonas shook his head. "She's a woman."

"I noticed that," Rodney said impatiently. "So what?

"We don't have… that sort of bond with the opposite gender," Jonas explained carefully. "In fact, the two sexes only mingle for… for procreational reasons. Mentors, lovers, friends – we seek them by our own gender. It's usually different persons who fill those places in our lives, as the demands are fairly high. On some rare occasions, though, we might be lucky enough to find all three in the same person."

"Were you lucky enough?" Rodney asked, a little envious, for although a gay romance wasn't exactly his idea of a working relationship, the closeness that such a thing would mean… well, he'd have certainly liked to have that.

"Oh, yeah," Jonas smiled sadly. "I was very, very lucky. I used to work with my mentor – and shared his bed – for six years. Until recently, when I had to flee Kelowna."

"And you hope to find the same thing in O'Neill again?" Rodney asked doubtfully.

"No," Jonas laughed. "I'm sure he'd break my nose if I tried to propose any such thing. I'm just looking for a new mentor. In my culture, having a mentor is the most important relationship – until you're old and experienced enough to become a mentor yourself. But even them, people keep friendly contacts to their former mentors all their lives. It's the best way to social acceptance, and even for career headway, unless you're exceptionally bright. But that's a rare thing on every planet."

That was certainly true, and what Jonas had said did make undoubtable sense. Still, it left a somewhat unpleasant aftertaste for Rodney. He didn't know why. It wasn't his society, after all, and nobody asked him to live that way, did they? Besides, Jonas seemed content enough with the arrangement – at least in theory. Rodney doubted that he'd get many chances to practice it on Earth.

"What about families?" he asked.

"We don't have them – not the way your people do," Jonas shrugged. "Our clan elders arrange mating partners for us, based on genetic compatibility and with the goal of siring talented and healthy children. Female children are raised in the clan of their mother and wear the mother's name. Male children come to the clan of their father at the age of six, and wear the father's name. They learn their role in society through example."

"A complete separation of the genders?" Rodney asked in surprise. Well, at least it solved the problem of unwanted children and ensured a healthy mix of the gene pole.

"Not entirely," Jonas said. "Schools are separated for girls and boys till the age of sixteen, but after that, we have co-education, to learn how to work together with the opposite sex. Jobs are handed based on talent and ability, not on gender."

"Still, it's… unnatural, somehow," Rodney said awkwardly.

Jonas shrugged again. "It works for us. As far as I know, this has been the custom in Kelowna for the last fifteen hundred years, or even longer. There have always been people who had a different… gender preference, of course, but those usually leave for one of the other major powers on our planet."

"I thought your were at war with Terrania and the Andari Federation," Rodney said, remembering a few facts he'd picked up about Jonas' people in the commissary. It was fortunate that Marines liked to gossip just as much as everyone else. At least as long as their superiors weren't within earshot.

"On the verge of war," Jonas corrected, "do anyone defecting to them is considered a traitor, no matter what their reasons are. That's why people who feel attracted to the opposite sex are hiding their urges very carefully, unless they decide to flee."

"But you're not one of those?" it wasn't really a question, after all that Jonas had told him already, but for some reason Rodney felt he needed to ask.

"I'm pretty flexible," Jonas replied with another one of his self-deprecating shrugs. "But yeah, I prefer the traditional way – well, what's traditional for us, in any case," he flashed a dimpled grin in Rodney's direction. "Interested?"

Rodney opened his mouth to give an indignant answer but found that it was hard to speak with another man's extremely agile tongue examining his tonsils. It was a very thorough examination, and before he could gather his wits to react in any possible way, strong hands grabbed him and shoved him through some indefinable door into a windowless little room, and suddenly he was on his back on a hard surface, and those strong, skilled hand were everywhere on his body, under his shirt, and even in his trousers, oh God, in his trousers…

He wasn't completely ignorant when it came to same-gender fumbling, because to whom could scrawny little geeks turn in high school for a little fun than to each other while all the pretty girls were drooling over brain-damaged quarterbacks? But those awkward and clumsy hand-jobs in the washroom were nothing compared with the skills of this young man – this alien, his numb mind vaguely realized the fact – who could have been the stuff for wet dreams for all the women of the planet, and yet, for some reason, he'd chosen to have some fun with him, of all people.

Maybe on Kelowna brains played a major role when people chose their sex partners?

And that was the moment when the surreality of the whole situation hit Rodney like a brick wall. The realization that he was having sex with an alien on the desk of a dusty storage room; and it was hilarious, it was bad sci-fi from the 1950s, it was just not happening to him, no way…

Only that it was. At the very least, said storage room also contained slippery substances, and who would have thought that shower gel could be used for that?

But he was beyond caring. He hadn't had any company than his own hand for six months, he was so hard that it hurt, and Jonas' mouth was hot and sweet on him, and if this was all he would get here, at least it was good, and there was definitely such thing as overthinking things…

And then Jonas's slippery fingers touched that special spot deep within his body, and all consideration dissolved into white-hot pleasure, and he bit his lower lip clean through in the desperate effort of not howling at the moon. In case it was nighttime outside the Cheyenne Mountain, and the moon was visible at all, that is.

He only hoped the military didn't have security cameras in the storage rooms.

TBC