Alter Ego
by lamardeuse
Rating: NC-17
Author's note: This is all tx_tart's fault. Feedback her on her gorgeous manip here.
Author's note 2: Snell is Northeastern's Engineering building. I changed Rodney's alma mater thanks to canon info from mecurtin. Thanks, hon!
Rodney feels like a dick. A dick in a goatee, to be more precise, but still: a dick.
He doesn't know what possessed him to grow it, only that he'd finally gotten heartily sick of being called “kiddo” and “babyface” by numbnuts undergrads who didn't understand he held the power of their academic life and death in his twenty-year-old hands. As Northeastern's youngest Engineering doctoral candidate, he's endured enough teasing from neck-optional idiots to last him a lifetime.
He debated several aging techniques, and eventually decided that facial hair was the best way to go, the dueling scar being rejected because it involved major amounts of pain. A full beard would have looked ridiculous, not to mention taken months to grow, so he decided on a more streamlined model that achieved full flower over the three weeks of the Christmas break. On a whim, he also eschewed his regular haircut, hoping that would add a year or two more.
This morning he looks in his mirror and panics when it belatedly occurs to him that he resembles some beatnik jazz poet who wears black turtlenecks and chain-smokes Gauloises.
He's got no time to shave it off before he has to run out the door to his first tutorial, so he squares his shoulders and prepares to face the jeers and taunts of his mentally challenged students. He keeps his head down for the first few blocks, so he doesn't notice the kind of attention he's getting until he hits the Snell. When he hears the wolf whistle, his head jerks up sharply to see Cassandra Peyton, one of the other TAs, staring at him with an odd smirk on her face.
Rodney's jaw clenches in defiance. “What?” he snaps.
She shakes her head in her typical you're such a clueless dork fashion. “Nothing. Just appreciating the view for a change.”
Rodney stares at her for a moment in blank confusion, and Peyton pats his arm reassuringly. “Never mind. It's best that you don't know.” Before he can summon an appropriately nasty response, she's off, her perky bottom sashaying as she walks.
Rodney really hates not knowing what the hell is going on, but he spends the rest of the day enduring the whispers and stares of his students. He notices that they don't seem to be laughing behind their hands at him, only watching him carefully, as though he might pounce on them and rip out their jugulars at any second. Since this isn't much different from the way most of them look at him around exam time, he isn't sure how to take it.
He manages to survive his classes and a completely useless afternoon in the lab – his assistants are so dazed they are in danger of setting themselves on fire, so he yells at them to disperse after an hour – and is on his way back to his small, cold bachelor apartment to keep his date with a razor when he's shanghaid by Peyton and a couple of the other female TAs. “No, you don't,” she coos, steering him back in the direction of the parking lot. They stuff him into Pippa Landry's Beetle and the next thing he knows he's in one of those fake Irish pubs in Washington Square with a large, dark beer in his fist.
After the day he's had, he can't even process the change. He's been here for five years, and this is the first time he's been asked (or rather, not asked) to do anything social by his peers. He keeps watching them warily, waiting for the other shoe to drop, but they all act as though he's one of the gang, soliciting his opinion on various topics and even laughing at something he actually intends to be funny.
He's dropped into the Twilight Zone.
He's on his way back from the bathroom when he hears the laughter. Recognizing Pippa's familiar bray, he flattens himself against the wall and peers around the corner.
“Who the hell knew he could be that hot?” Cassandra's voice, and Rodney sucks in a breath.
“You have to admit he was kind of cute before,” Sally Werther says. Her comment elicits torrents of giggles from the others.
“Yeah, but he was an asshole,” Pippa answers.
“I got news for you,” Cassandra says. “He's still an asshole.”
More braying, then: “Yeah, but he's a hot asshole. That little goatee makes him look like a beatnik.”
“So how do we decide which one takes him home?” Sally asks.
“Who says there has to be only one?”
As the collective shriek rends the air, Rodney leans back against the wall and closes his eyes. Obviously it must still be Christmas, because he's about to be carved up like a turkey. Ordinarily, the thought of a foursome involving himself and three limber and doubtless experienced women was the stuff of extremely pleasant fantasy, but the prospect of being tossed back and forth between the cackling Weird Sisters makes his stomach churn.
“Hey, you okay?”
Rodney opens his eyes and meets the concerned gaze of a man he's never seen before. He nods briefly, wishing he'd just go away. “Fine, thank you,” he says briskly.
The other man doesn't take the hint. “You one of the musicians?” he asks.
Rodney frowns at him. “What? Why would you think I'm one of the musicians?”
The stranger smiles slowly, and Rodney notices he's got a full-lipped mouth with a curve in it that's almost feminine. “'Cause you have a - ” The next thing Rodney knows, he reaches out and touches the goatee with the tip of his index finger. Rodney sucks in a breath at both the unexpected familiarity and the electric tingle that spreads over his skin at the contact.
Dear God. This goatee was like some kind of alien sex drug.
“Oh, yes, of course,” Rodney huffs, when he can draw breath. “I'm a musician.”
The smile widens into a full-blown, almost childlike grin. “You are? Cool. I play a little guitar – ”
“I'm not a musician!” Rodney erupts, flailing his arms and forcing the other man to take a step back.
“Then what are you?”
“I'm an engineering doctoral candidate,” Rodney snaps. “And I'm going home. Alone,” he adds frostily.
The man jerks his head in the direction of the bar. “I don't think those three girls you were with would like that. They were looking at you like they wanted to make you the cream cheese in their bagel.”
Rodney stares at him in horror, and the stranger shrugs. “Okay, so it wasn't the best analogy.”
“I'm leaving now,” Rodney says, pointing a finger sideways. “Have a nice life.”
“You going to run that gauntlet?” The other man shakes his head. “Not a good idea. There's a back way through the kitchen; why don't you try that?”
Rodney nods. “Good idea. Uh – thank you,” he adds, awkwardly. He glances at the young man again, and notices that he's watching him speculatively. He also notices that he's almost ridiculously attractive, far better-looking than Cassandra, Pippa and Sally rolled together, and God, now the goatee is making him horny. “Good night.”
“You okay to drive?”
“I didn't bring a car,” Rodney blurts, and when the stranger's face lights up in another of those silly grins, Rodney knows his bagel is most definitely toasted.
Rodney finds out a few things about the stranger on the way back to his dingy apartment: his name is John Sheppard and he's a math student from UCLA doing part of his senior year at MIT, which means he's frighteningly bright on top of being pretty, but he is not interested in postgrad work because he's joining the Air Force as soon as he graduates so he can become a pilot. Rodney considers this the biggest waste of talent he can think of, and tells him so. John seems undisturbed by Rodney's trashing of his choices; he only shrugs and says, “I always wanted to fly,” as if that excuses everything.
He isn't intending to ask John up, but the next thing he knows he's left John standing in what he laughingly calls his foyer so that he can run around like a beheaded chicken picking up stray bits of underwear and pizza boxes as he goes. “Just a minute! Just give me a minute!” Rodney calls, and he hears John say, “Take all the time you need, McKay,” with a smile in his voice that Rodney can somehow tell isn't condescending.
He ushers John into the living room cum dining room cum bedroom where John immediately makes himself at home, sprawling bonelessly on Rodney's puke-green couch. Rodney is painfully aware that John is easily the sexiest human being who's ever been in his apartment, not that a lot of people have been in his apartment. He feels a little like he's gotten John here under false pretences, because he's not this person, this guy who wears a goatee and invites hot, loose-limbed wannabe pilots up for possibly nefarious purposes.
John must be able to smell his nervousness, because he doesn't make any moves on Rodney, just smiles and accepts his offer of a beer, pulling at the neck of the bottle slowly with his sinfully full lips.
“So tell me about your thesis,” he says after a while, and Rodney does, simplifying it as much as he can until John quirks an eyebrow at him and asks a question that shows he knows exactly what Rodney's talking about, and Rodney would be lying if he said he didn't find that a big turn-on. He steps up the level of his explanation after that, and John watches him with interested eyes.
He wants to tell John who he really is, and that's the biggest surprise in this day full of surprises.
“Look,” he blurts finally, “I, uh, this is going to sound stupid...”
“I doubt that,” John murmurs, looking at Rodney's mouth, and God, Rodney should just shut up right now and take what's on offer, but he can't.
“I don't usually have – this,” he says, pointing to the goatee. “I was going to come home tonight and shave it off.”
John draws back, confused. “You want to shave – now?”
Rodney spreads his hands, helpless to explain further. “It's – it's not really me.”
John reaches up and brushes a thumb over Rodney's chin. “So shave it off,” he husks. “Or better yet, let me.”
Rodney's staring at the razor in John's hands as they stand together in his tiny bathroom. “I, uh, I'm not sure about this.”
“Relax,” John says, grinning. “I've been shaving for a long time.”
“Yes, but it's different when it's not – have you ever done any barbering?”
“I regret to say that I have never barbered,” John says dryly, and when Rodney opens his mouth to call the whole thing off, he adds softly, “I won't hurt you. Promise.”
Rodney's stomach does a not unpleasant flip at the low reassurance, and he makes a conscious effort to relax. John correctly reads the ease of tension in Rodney's muscles as assent, and he steps forward and lays the fingers of his free hand along Rodney's jaw, his thumb firm under Rodney's chin.
And John is true to his word; he works with a deft, gentle touch, gliding the razor over Rodney's skin, pausing to test his work with a fingertip every so often. By the time he's finished, Rodney's flushed and aroused and waiting eagerly for John's next caress.
But John's hands leave him, and when Rodney looks up, he sees that John is frowning at him. “How old are you?” he asks.
Rodney lifts his freshly shaven chin defiantly. “Twenty.”
John's eyebrows skyrocket. “Wow, you're younger than I am and you're working on your doctorate? That's pretty – ”
“Freakish?” Rodney snaps, feeling cold.
John cocks his head. “I was going to say amazing, but whatever floats your boat.”
Embarrassed and strangely pleased, Rodney reaches for a towel, but John beats him to it. He dips the end in warm water and wipes the last traces of shaving cream from Rodney's face, then dries him off. When he's done, he brushes back a lock of Rodney's hair from his forehead and smiles.
“So this is you, huh,” he says, and it's not a question, and neither is the kiss that follows it.
“Oh, um, that's – ”
“Mmm, you like that, huh?”
“Yes, yes, that's definitely – oh – ”
John's tongue finds Rodney's navel and dips inside, and Rodney's head flops back onto the bed because his neck is suddenly unable to support the weight. “Oh, God,” he whispers, “this is the best sex I've ever had.”
“You ain't seen nothing yet,” John assures him, and Rodney's cock jumps at that, possibly whacking against John's sternum, and Jesus Christ, that's just –
Then John shifts down and blows air across the head of his cock, and Rodney privately revises his statement: this is the best sex he will ever have.
“You ever had a blow job before?” John asks, and Rodney's head rises at that, because what is this, mock the nerd's mortifying lack of experience day? But when he meets John's gaze, he doesn't see any mockery there, only an odd kind of possessiveness that doesn't make any sense in a one-night stand.
Maybe he doesn't want this to be just a one-night stand, Rodney thinks suddenly, and the realization is like a body blow, because yes, he would of course say yes if John wanted more, and Rodney would probably fall hopelessly in love with him when there was no future in it, because they'd spend at most four or five months together before John graduated and then Rodney would be taking him to the airport and waving goodbye to him as he went off to join one of the most homophobic institutions on the continent outside of the Boy Scouts.
“Rodney?”
“Sorry, sorry, no, not really, I mean it's not like I didn't want one, but there was never – ” He clamps his lips around the torrent of words, and John smiles up at him and says, “Good,” in this low growl that almost makes Rodney come even before John's mouth stretches over the head of his cock.
“Oh, oh, oh Christ,” Rodney manages, because watching John go down on him has to be the most erotic sight he's ever witnessed, and Rodney has rented a lot of porn. There's something about the fact he's clearly enjoying it, about the spread of his fingers over the jut of Rodney's hips, about the soft, almost inaudible hum that Rodney feels in every molecule of his body.
There's something about John, Rodney realizes, right before John sucks him so deeply that Rodney feels himself hit the back of John's throat, right before he tumbles headlong into space with no more than the reassurance that John is nearby.
John keeps sucking until Rodney's completely spent, then slides up Rodney's body and hovers over him, grinning. “Okay?” John asks him, and Rodney tangles his fingers in his hair and pulls him down into a kiss that has John rutting against his leg in no time.
“Definitely okay, though of course, I have no basis for comparison,” Rodney drawls, and John whacks him on the side of the head and says, “I'll give you a basis, McKay,” and Rodney knows he's just signed up for the four or five months, and to hell with the consequences.
He'll take whatever he can have of John Sheppard, and maybe he'll be pleasantly surprised by what the future holds.
End
November 2006
Go to the sequel, Borrowed Time.
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