giddygeek | New fic! SGA

Title: Grass Tatters
Fandom: SGA, 20kb/3400 words.
Notes: A while back,

sga_flashfic had a challenge and I talked about writing this cracked little story. Then there was Harlequin and I talked about another story, and Search & Seizure, and you get the drift, I'm sure. But hey, I finally got to one of them! *G* Thanks to

astolat,

kaneko and

merryish for read-throughs!

"Shut up right now," Sheppard said, and it might have worked--he was the only person in a couple galaxies who could make Rodney shut up just by telling him to--except that the Colonel wasn't his usual self. He was distinctly lacking in grey clothes, guns and glare, all the things that had made Rodney shut up and take notice long before he'd even realized that Sheppard was smart and sometimes had good reasons for ordering him around.

In fact, Rodney thought as he watched Sheppard's surprisingly broad back move and his startlingly skinny calves flex, he was distinctly lacking in everything except, well, a short grass skirt and long, sleek muscles.

"But you can't--this isn't--Colonel!" Rodney said. He twisted his hands behind his back, frustrated beyond belief. "You can't do this!"

"If it means getting out of here, I can do this." Sheppard looked over his shoulder at Rodney. He was glaring, which was more of a relief than Rodney could've expressed, but he was also sweating, and his eyes were smeared with dark liner. Rodney twisted his hands again, wanting them untied, needing to wipe that damned paint off the Colonel's face and find him some pants, but the Torsians were really very good with knots--as was evidenced by their neat little grass skirts--and there was no way he was getting free on his own. Sheppard was going to remain painted and pantsless until this was over.

"Colonel," Rodney said, and Sheppard's glare softened.

"It'll be fine, Rodney," he said, almost gently. "Just shut up, be patient, and wait for your lap dance."

~~~~~

It had started out as a normal mission, which meant that Rodney had gotten a bit sunburned, bruised his wrist, and nearly pushed Ronon over a cliff before noon. To top it off, Sheppard had probably ruined their chances for a treaty with the Torsi people by not heeding Teyla's warning about smiling at anyone.

"A smile," she warned on the long walk to the main Torsi town, "is an invitation. It is a request for a deeper, more intimate friendship. These people are very kind and welcome strangers, but they do not make friends easily, or take such gestures lightly."

"Don't worry, Teyla," Sheppard said. "This isn't a smiling kind of team, is it?"

Rodney was scowling at his scanner, which seemed determined to die. He knew without looking up that Ronon was gazing thoughtfully into the distance, probably thinking about how best to fit a weapon into the little pocket in his shirt, and Teyla was frowning, a little worried, and that Sheppard was already smiling with blank, casual good cheer, which was his normal 'meet the natives' mask. He'd probably try to tone it down while they were in the settlement, but Rodney knew how it would end--he'd smile at some hot young girl, or some buff young guy, or maybe a little kid or an old grandmother or something, and they'd wind up being held at knife point till Elizabeth sent Major Lorne's team off to rescue them.

"Maybe we should just go home now," he said, shaking the useless scanner. "Save Major Lorne a trip."

"We'll be fine, Rodney," Sheppard said, marching on through the tall, wheaten grass. "You just leave the meet-n-greet to me and Teyla and--"

"And we're doomed," Rodney said. "Also, headed in the wrong direction." He shook the scanner again. "By, oh, about four miles or so. Due...that way." He pointed, and Teyla headed off with a soundless sigh, Ronon following close behind her.

Rodney waited for Sheppard to follow, but he didn't. He stood there blocking Rodney's way, looking at him, not smiling. "Doomed," Rodney said, shaking the scanner at him.

"I can do my job," Sheppard said, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Ha," Rodney said, and detoured around him. "I give it an hour, Colonel Sheppard. Then someone will piss you off or be beautiful or offer you big guns, and you won't be able to help yourself."

"Well," Sheppard said, and then he caught up, bumped Rodney's shoulder companionably. "Maybe if there are big guns. But these are peaceful people, Rodney. Stop worrying."

"Doomed," Rodney said, but followed Teyla anyway.

~~~~~

Forty-five minutes into their visit, the Torsi elders handed Sheppard a kid, a little toddler who looked up at him with wide, wide eyes, then shyly tucked her head under his chin. Sheppard smiled and patted her back, and her mother pulled her from his hands with a shriek and Rodney felt the sharp, sun-warmed tip of a spear digging into the base of his spine. He sighed and said, "I knew it."

~~~~~

It wasn't all that bad, aside from the couple of moments they spent at spear-point before they were shoved into chairs and had their hands tied behind them. The chairs were padded, even, and comfortable, and the rope wrapped around Rodney's wrists wasn't all that rough. In terms of hostage situations, Rodney had seen worse. He wished there was more shade, though. He sneezed every time he looked up--it was just after noon, and the sun was shining brightly right onto his face.

"I know how to do my job," he muttered, shifting in his chair, testing the ropes. "This is a not-smiling kind of team. Ha!"

"Shut up," Sheppard said through gritted teeth. He was taking their capture badly, eyeing the Torsians with eyes full of murder. No overly friendly intentions there, though the Torsians didn't seem too tense about it. They were wandering around, talking in low voices, gesturing and explaining to each other.

There were some worrying moments when the elders came back and had Sheppard untied and dragged away, but Teyla said, "Do not worry, Colonel Sheppard, there is a simple ritual you must perform and then we shall be set free," and a solemn young girl with flowers in her hair followed them off, carrying a bundle of dried grass over her arm, and even Rodney found it difficult to think that any ritual involving children and grass could be life-threatening, though Sheppard was struggling fiercely.

"Ritual?" Rodney asked warily just in case, watching them go, and Teyla nodded.

"Colonel Sheppard will be asked to wear the traditional costume of appeasement, and reaffirm his bond with our team," she said, and one of the Torsians nearby shifted and frowned at her.

"Say no more, Teyla Emmagen," he said. "The ritual is spoiled with explanation."

Teyla inclined her head and settled back more comfortably into her chair. "Do not worry," she repeated quietly, looking at Rodney from underneath her lashes. "This will not be unpleasant."

"Hope not," Ronon said. He was taking quick, sharp little breaths, his teeth bared. "If Sheppard comes back harmed--"

"Do not worry," Teyla said sharply. "He will be fine."

Rodney snorted, then sneezed again. "Good, that leaves me free to worry about us," he said. "Have these people never heard of sunscreen?"

~~~~~

They hadn't, as a matter of fact, but they did. They also heard about cancer, ozone layers, radiation, waves, particles, human skin, the evil of tanning booths--"a flesh searing coffin for the shallow and vapid!"--butter, baby oil, Noxema, and aloe.

Their guards were starting to look a little dazed, and Teyla and Ronon both seemed to be napping, when Sheppard was finally brought out of the little hut.

Rodney shut up, which woke Teyla and Ronon. He looked at Sheppard's blank face. His dark-rimmed eyes. His bare, hairy chest, which looked pale and golden compared to the nut-dark skin of the elders. His narrow hips, around which something that appeared to be a grass skirt swirled and hid nothing. Long, muscled thighs, knobby knees, wiry calves, thin ankles and narrow feet. Rodney swallowed and had to look away--there was something fragile about those ankles. It made his chest hurt.

Ronon snorted, watching them approach. "And to think he is a warrior among your people," he said.

"Guns make up for a lot of deficiencies in the Hulk department--hey! Colonel! What are you doing?"

Sheppard had turned his back to Rodney, hiked his skirt higher up on his skinny hips, and straddled Teyla's thighs. "I'm supposed to reaffirm my bond to my team with lap dances," he said. "No. I don't want to talk about it."

Rodney gaped at Sheppard's back, gleaming in the too-bright sun. He was going to get burned too. He was going to get sunburn in very uncomfortable places. "Colonel, you can't--the sun is--and you can't give me a lap dance! I refuse to--"

"Shut up right now," Sheppard said and, after a moment, Rodney did.

~~~~~

There wasn't any music and Sheppard's lap dances weren't all that great. There was something about seeing him move over Teyla, who watched him solemnly, her body relaxed and still, that made Rodney squirm a little anyway. Nerves and envy and lust unsettled his stomach.

Then the Torsians, who were murmuring to each other and watching with wide, serious eyes, seemed to come to a decision. A guard approached Sheppard and pulled him away from Teyla, moving with him to Ronon's chair. There was a brief, whispered argument but Ronon nodded and the guard moved away, and Sheppard still wasn't all that great. He had to spread his legs wider to stay poised over Ronon's broad thighs, and Ronon was tense, straining at the ropes that bound him.

Rodney tried not to watch, but the knowledge that in a few moments' time it was his turn kept his eyes glued on the long line of Sheppard's back, which was starting to gleam with sweat, and the indecently pale curves of his ass, barely hidden by the skirt.

The dance for Ronon seemed to go on a long, long time. Maybe the Torsi people had kinks Teyla didn't know about, or maybe it just took Ronon too long to accept the weirdness and relax, or maybe time had just skewed itself when the reality of a Sheppard lap dance had presented itself to Rodney. He wasn't sure. It didn't matter, though, because eventually Sheppard was stumbling across the little triangle of their chairs, panting lightly, the makeup around his eyes smudged with sweat and his chest shining with it.

Close up, Rodney could smell the paint and sweat and the dried grass of the skirt. "Nonono," he said, shaking his head, because it was too much, Sheppard was too warm and the smell and the sight of--it was just too much. "Colonel--"

Sheppard straddled his thighs and Rodney made a noise embarrassingly close to a squeak and almost tipped the chair over, he jumped so hard. Sheppard said, "Just deal, Rodney," and then he was practically sitting in Rodney's lap, leaning forward to whisper, "Jesus, can I even tell you how tired my legs are?" in Rodney's ear. His hips were making little circles that were maybe just Sheppard being lazy about the lap dance and giving his thighs a break but felt incredible, like the best sex of Rodney's life and the worst tease and a nightmare and a wet dream.

Rodney closed his eyes, hissed and tried to wiggle his hips back, out of Sheppard's way, but that just made it all worse. "If you had actual leg muscles--"

"No need to be mean about it," Sheppard said, and he was the one being mean, the one grinding his hips down against Rodney's, vile and cruel and grinning against Rodney's ear, where the Torsians wouldn't be able to see him doing it. Damn the man; he'd started having fun.

"Open your eyes," said the old woman who'd handed Sheppard the damn toddler in the first place, and Rodney opened his eyes. He didn't know where to look--if he looked over Sheppard's shoulder at the sun, he'd sneeze, if he looked down he'd get an eyeful of, yes, Sheppard's bare thighs and was that his dick? the grass skirt was woefully inadequate cover plus, God, Sheppard was getting hard, he was a crazy exhibitionist, clearly, a pervert of some high magnitude.

Rodney groaned pitifully and looked at Sheppard's left arm, which seemed safe enough. "Why do things like this happen to me?" he asked Sheppard's freckles. "What did I do?"

Sheppard's cheek brushed his, stubbly, creased with a grin that he quickly hid against Rodney's neck. He was heavy on Rodney's lap, much more solid than he looked, and hot. "There are people who would've given anything for this," he said.

"You can't dance," Rodney said, and the left arm was suddenly dangerous, because Sheppard was moving, bracing his arm on the back of the chair, leaving Rodney to stare at his lightly freckled shoulder from far too close, flooding Rodney's senses with the sight and smell of him. He wanted to feel, too, with his hands and his mouth and his own bare legs and stomach. Having his hands tied behind the chair was going to drive him insane; being clothed when Sheppard was almost naked and all around him was clearly one of the cruellest tortures imaginable.

"You don't need to be able to dance to do this," Sheppard said, and the grass skirt was never going to be the same when he was through with it; he was grinding his hips against Rodney's so forcefully that the skirt was being crushed, releasing more of the dry, dusty scent of it--it had to be an aphrodisiac, Rodney thought as he grunted and arched his own hips up, helpless to resist. Sheppard grunted too, then dropped his head, breath washing hot and humid over Rodney's skin, going still for a long, drawn-out moment.

"Don't stop--" Rodney said, and then he shut his mouth and shook his head, and Sheppard laughed and bit him, setting his teeth against the curve of Rodney's neck and digging in lightly so that Rodney tipped his head back and moaned, so close, too close to the edge, eyes open but blind, hands moving futilely behind his back.

"I get it, Rodney," Sheppard said, still laughing a little. "You don't--just how dense do you think I am?" and Rodney was going to answer, really, but Sheppard had sat back a little, just enough for the rest of the world to exist again, and somewhere, people were making a lot of noise.

"--enough!" someone shouted in the background, in the distance, from at least a thousand miles off. "We have seen enough!" and the weight of Sheppard in Rodney's lap was suddenly moving in an entirely new way; Rodney opened his eyes to see Sheppard looking fiercely at one of the Torsian guards, who was calling for assistance. The other guards hesitated before approaching and Sheppard turned his head, looked at Rodney with bright, fierce eyes and said, "I get it."

Then the Torsian guards were pulling Sheppard off him, going around behind the chairs with knives, and Rodney closed his eyes, relaxed his hands, and wished that the big, bright sun would just swallow him up.

~~~~~

The walk home was not as long as the walk to the settlement. Teyla led them back to the jumper without a misstep, sprain, near death by cliff, or horrifying, humiliating moment in the middle of a crowd. Sheppard, back in his own clothes, eye makeup washed away, took their six. No one talked, and Rodney pretended not to feel Sheppard's gaze on his back or the weight of Sheppard's smug grin.

In the control room, they crossed paths with Major Lorne's team, which Elizabeth had been just about to send out after them. "No need," Sheppard said, smiling up at her. "We're good. And the Torsians were so impressed with our--team spirit--that they gave us almost double what we were asking for."

Elizabeth leaned over the railing, eyebrows raised. "Your team spirit?" she asked, pleased but suspicious. "Interesting."

"Oh yeah," Sheppard said. "Never doubt the wisdom of movie nights. But it was a hot couple hours and we're all beat. Can we put off the debriefing till tomorrow?"

"Certainly--Rodney? Are you all right?"

Rodney looked down at his scanner, feeling inexplicably guilty. There were Marines all over the place, and maybe they were never ever going to speak of the hula lap dances to anyone, ever, but he felt like anyone who took a good look at him was going to see what had happened. "Scanner's broken," he said, latching onto the first good excuse to flee that he could think of. "I'm gonna, uh, get it back to the lab. Fix it. Uh. See you at the debriefing?"

Elizabeth hesitated. "If you're all right," she said, and Rodney looked up through his lashes to see her frowning at him. He looked to the side, where Ronon and Teyla were helping the Marines unload the puddlejumper, explaining where things were to be stored and deliberately not looking in his direction, or at Sheppard, or Elizabeth.

He ignored Sheppard's damned grin.

"I'm fine," he said, and fled.

~~~~~

The labs were generally a great place to hide. There were roughly a dozen of them, all in operation 27 hours of the day, and as department head, Rodney didn't need an excuse to be in any of them at any time. Not that he was all that experienced with hiding, really, but it didn't take an accomplished sneak to realize that the medical lab on the fifth level of the residential tower was an out of the way, quiet little space.

What he didn't count on was an accomplished sneak being on his trail. He'd barely gotten the scanner apart when Sheppard coughed from the doorway, then wandered up to the lab table where Rodney had stationed himself.

Rodney looked at him, scowling. Sheppard had taken the time to shower and the warm smell of his skin was overpowered by soap, shampoo, Aqua Velva. Anyone who hadn't been on the receiving end of a lap dance very few hours before would never have known that he'd been panting, sweaty, wearing makeup, wearing a thin grass skirt. Rodney, unfortunately, did not think he would ever forget it.

"What?" he asked, holding scanner pieces like a shield.

Sheppard was smiling at him. Not the smile that had gotten them into trouble, but a genuine one, lazy and bitchy and hot as the damned sun. "Nice hiding place, McKay," he said, not looking around. "Had it long?"

"Not long enough," Rodney said, then took a deep breath and carefully put the scanner pieces down. "Look, Sheppard, I very much appreciate that you would like to get some digs in, but could you at least wait until, oh, say, the next time I'm about to die? I would really, really consider that to be--well, I'd call it a personal favor, but--"

"No," Sheppard said, shaking his head. He ambled around the table, leaned an elbow on it, standing way too far inside Rodney's personal space.

"No?" Rodney said. He swiveled the stool and slid down, trying to get out of Sheppard's way, but Sheppard just followed him, backing him up against the table. "Listen, Colonel, I think that for all I do, I should get a little respect, a little consideration, a little time to wallow in humiliation--"

"No," Sheppard said. "This can't wait." And then his mouth was brushing across Rodney's jaw and his hands were on Rodney's neck, his thumbs pushing gently until Rodney tilted his head back. Sheppard's mouth was on his, intense, focused, dead serious in his quest to get inside.

Rodney managed to resist, barely, by remembering what it was like to stand before the Torsian elders, breathing hard, face flushed and sunburnt, muscles in his arms feeling weak and strained, and his dick uncomfortably hard with no way to hide it. He turned his head away before he said, "No--just because I liked the--Sheppard, you can't--"

Sheppard pressed tight against him, those hips moving against Rodney's for the second time in one impossible, unbelievable day. He said, "You liked more than just the lap dance, Rodney. I get it. It's okay. I did too, it's okay," and Rodney looked into his eyes and it was, it was okay, Sheppard was smiling at him.

He said, "Then what are you waiting for, do you have any idea what you did to me today?" and pulled Sheppard's smiling mouth down for a hungry kiss.