After five years in the Pegasus Galaxy, John thought he'd seen everything but -- no. On MX4-007, they're invited to an orgy. With assigned seating. The Gilarny take one look at them and put Teyla and Ronon in front, down near the padded stage, and John and Rodney in the back row.
Rodney huffs with displeasure. "Oh, that is so unfair. Just because we're not wearing animal hides and beaded tank tops they assume we're not from around here and can't possibly appreciate their sex offering to the gods. We won't be able to see a thing!"
Not for the first time, John wishes McKay was just a little less in touch with his feelings.
The orgy -- okay, really it's some sort of festival meant to honor the earth spirits, but whatever -- is being held in a natural amphitheater set in the shallow bowl between two hills. From where John's sitting he can see the back of Teyla's head, her bronze hair glinting in the sunlight. Ronon's splayed out next to her, leaning back on his elbows, face turned up to the sky.
A woman in a linen skirt and beaded tank top steps out in front of the audience, waits for the murmuring to die down, and opens the ceremony with a prayer to the gods. John can actually hear her pretty well, despite being up in the nosebleed seats. Next to him, Rodney squirms impatiently.
The prayer ends and two men and three women walk out to the platform, naked except for careful designs painted on their skin. McKay abruptly stills.
It starts out tame enough. They kneel in a circle and clasp hands. They lean into each other and trade gentle kisses, passing them along the circle like a ripple in a lake, but the kisses grow rougher and hands break apart to stroke thighs and arms and breasts and one of the women -- short blonde hair, a red spiral sun painted on her back -- crawls across the circle to one of the men and he lifts her to straddle his thighs, his big hands dark against her creamy skin.
"Oh," Rodney sighs.
Her head falls back as the guy sucks on a nipple and his fingers delve down into the crack of her ass. His arms are painted with blue flames. He's got broad shoulders and a shaved head and John's not so far away that he can't see the red marks his fingers leave on her hips, her thighs. John looks away from the stage and out at the horizon. He can still hear the wet sound of their kisses, their soft murmuring, and, closer, Rodney, licking his lips, shifting in his seat. Rodney likes this. Rodney wanted to be closer.
The two men are kissing now, and John feels like something is sitting on his chest. Their tongues brush together in the open air, lewd and teasing; the blonde strokes their cocks against her cheeks, her breasts, the smooth cup of her palms. The other women, painted yellow and green, are rubbing against each other, laughing. One slides down the other's brown body, nudges her legs apart; her hands, twisting yellow vines painted on their backs, slide along legs painted green with curling wind, slide up, up, and she licks the woman open, one long green leg thrown over her shoulder. They're joined by the smaller of the men, black lightning bolts on his stomach pointing directly at his cock, thick and glistening with oil. John slouches in his seat, tries to hide how hard he is, how he's all but panting with their urgency, the way they pass from one partner to another, grabbing and taking, sharing half a fuck before being pulled away into a new position, a new partner.
Rodney makes a surprised noise. John hasn't looked at him since this thing started. It's bad enough that he can hear him along with all the moans and gasps from the stage. But John glances over and, Jesus, is McKay taking notes? He's got his tablet out, hugging it to his chest and sucking on the stylus in between bouts of furious scribbling. He's sitting with his legs spread, the bulge of his cock evident even through his heavy pants. Rodney catches him looking and gives him a dirty smile.
The sun bounces off the oiled bodies down on the platform as they move and thrust and grind together, a knot of arms and legs. John wants to be closer, wants to see their faces, their painted skin. He's dizzy with it. He wants to be fucked like that, spread open over another man's thighs, speared by his cock, on display.
One of the men cries out and John's heart pounds, his breath coming fast and uneven, and he knows that if he stays there much longer he's going to embarrass himself. He gets up and leaves without a word, heads over the lip of the hill and into a stand of slender white trees that stretch straight up into the high summer sky, their silver and gold leaves flashing in the sun. He's so hard it hurts. His hands are in fists and he can't really breathe and he wants to come so badly, but can't. He taught himself not to want that, not to want men. He doesn't know how to stop.
"John," Rodney says, suddenly there.
John can't stop himself from tensing up. "Go back to the show, McKay."
"Let me," Rodney says, putting a hand on John's hip, sliding it down to palm his cock through his BDUs.
John shivers and Rodney eases him back against one of the trees. It sways gently with his weight, back and forth. Rodney unzips John's pants, drawing him out into the open air, and it's the scariest thing that's ever happened to him, this letting go, and he reaches out blindly, grabbing handfuls of Rodney's shirt to pull him closer. Rodney's hand is big and hot, with clever fingers, and John exhales hard and thrusts into Rodney's fist.
"Rodney," he says, and it comes out like a whine.
"Yeah," Rodney says, "I've got you."
John sways against the tree as Rodney strokes him, bottom lip caught between his teeth, eyes dark and intent, and John has learned to love that look because it means Rodney's about to do something awesome, like steal a hovercraft or find a new prime number, or, and this is maybe not as surprising as it should be, give John the best damn handjob of his life. Rodney's thumb finds that spot right under the head and John closes his eyes and lets go and for a moment his mind is completely clear of everything.
Slowly, life starts to trickle back in. The leaves rustling above him. The tree against his back. Rodney's arms tight around him. John's face buried in his neck.
"Wow," John says, pretty sure that if Rodney let go of him, he'd just slide to the ground. Or maybe not, since John seems to have a death grip on the back of Rodney's t-shirt.
"See, I told you," Rodney says, even though John doesn't remember Rodney saying anything of the sort. "And, really, it'll only get better." Rodney pulls away to tuck John back into his pants and zip him up. "There. Good?"
John feels like Rodney took him apart and then put him back together wrong. "I don't know."
Rodney's mouth twitches down.
"No," John says. "Not -- I've just never --" Yeah, this is why he doesn't talk about his feelings. They never make any sense. He grabs Rodney by the back of the neck and kisses him instead, sloppy and desperate.
"Okay," Rodney says, pulling back and licking his lips. "I can work with that."