Current location:	the SHADOW knows...
Current mood:	well-pleased
Current music:	every day you're in this place you're two days nearer death
Entry tags:	fic!, sga

Fic! in SGA, even! *marvels*
So, yes. This is, yet again, not what I meant to be writing, but the idea has been with me for a very long time (since January 30th, in fact! bonus points if you can guess what sparked it), and then on Thursday it finally decided to happen. Which, yay! Rock on! Betaed by stop and kbk, who did a rock-awesome job on this—any remaining errors are entirely my own damn fault.

Kiss Me, I'm An Earthling!
by etben
SGA, Ronon/Rodney/Teyla/John, PG-13
3250 words


***

It had started in the mess hall, eating dinner as a team after the mission to P2G-76K had ended in recriminations and mudwrestling. Rodney had been in the middle of yet another impassioned tirade, this time about Ridiculous Greeting Rituals of the Pegasus Galaxy.

And, really, John had to agree with him. He hadn't been sure, at first, when it was just the Athosians and their oddly serious forehead-touching, but two years on, it had become pretty hard to ignore the fact that, apparently, none of the greetings used on Earth had made it to the Pegasus galaxy. They'd exchanged ritual footrubs, taken naps, done something that John would swear in court was the limbo, and sung 'Row, Row, Row Your Boat', but handshakes? Not a chance.

"What's a handshake?" Ronon had asked, and so then, obviously, Rodney had needed to demonstrate, and of course he'd had to use John as a partner, since no matter how well naturalized Teyla was, they'd never managed to break her of her forehead-touching thing. So John and Rodney had stood up, moved around to the end of the table, and shaken hands, making polite and inane chitchat.

"There, you see?" Rodney had gestured at Ronon, but he hadn't let go of John's hand first, and so then there'd been a brief digression while they picked up Simpson's tray from where it had landed and endured her glare. Once she'd been placated ("Apple-spice powerbars, Sheppard," she'd said, "At least three of them." "Sure thing," John had replied, stepping on Rodney's foot to shut him up, "I understand completely.") Rodney had picked up the thread of the conversation.

"By using the dominant hand," he said, waving it for emphasis, "we show that we're not dangerous, that we're not, for example, holding a knife. Is that clear?"

"Well, no," Ronon had said, shaking his head. "What about your other hand?" John had felt that it was probably better not to touch that one, but Rodney clearly had no such idea. Fortunately, Teyla had stepped in then, and kept him from re-starting his rant.

"Rodney," she'd asked, "there is another greeting, among your people, that I have never seen before. May I—?"

"Sure, go ahead, whatever," Rodney had said, leaning back to give her some room. John had had a sudden, sharp moment of knowing, without a doubt, that this was not going to go well, but there hadn't been any time for him to react before Teyla was putting both of her hands on McKay's face and planting a big, wet kiss right on his lips.

"Um. Ah. Well," McKay had said, and then, standing suddenly, "I'll let Colonel Sheppard answer that question, hmm?"

"Rodney! Damnit," John had said, but it was too late: Rodney had already made his way to the double doors, and was giving them all a jaunty little wave before getting the hell out of Dodge. John had sighed, and gone back to the table, where Ronon and Teyla were giving him identical quizzical looks.

And then, of course, John had been stuck. He could have left, of course, except that he really, really couldn't have, because leaving Teyla and Ronon out in the cold like that would have just been rude, and they'd probably have gone elsewhere for their explanations, and, really, no. He'd looked at the expressions on their faces: Teyla's Why, Yes, I Would Very Much Like To Learn About Your Customs face and Ronon's Earth People Are Weird face, and he'd known what he had to do.

He'd stumbled through about half of an explanation, bouncing incoherently between trying to explain love, and dating, and sex, and wanting desperately to be somewhere, anywhere, else. They'd let him go on for a while, listening in polite bafflement as he explained why what Teyla had done was inappropriate, well, not actually inappropriate, because of course there was nothing wrong with it, nothing at all, but not situationally appropriate, not appropriate to the, well, the—

"The situation, John?" Teyla had asked, and John had winced.

"Yeah. That. Listen," he'd said, an idea blooming in his mind, "I'm clearly not the person to explain this to you. I mean, I'd like to and all, don't get me wrong," he'd said, and Ronon had choked on McKay's pie, "but I'm just not, you know—qualified. Really, you should talk to someone who specializes in this kind of cross-cultural exchange." They'd stared at him some more, and then Teyla had nodded, understanding.

"Dr. Weir is free right now, is she not?"

There were some benefits to the job, after all.

***

And, really, it all should have ended there. It had seemed like it was going to, at least. Elizabeth was pissed at him, sure, but even she could admit that she was better suited to tactful explanations than John was.

She'd given Teyla and Ronon a talk—having bailed once already, John couldn't stay to watch, but Zelenka had rigged up a comm feed and the whole lab had gathered to listen in, groaning at the platitudes and choking with laughter as Elizabeth stumbled over "safe, sane, and consensual."

John had considered being annoyed at Rodney, but decided against it. If he was a bad choice for the "Mating Behaviors of Earth People" talk, Rodney was easily ten times worse. Besides, it was hard to stay mad at Rodney for long—he never noticed, so it always began to feel pointless after a day or two.

So it was back to normal for all of a month, with the team going on missions, getting in trouble, kicking ass, and, oh, yeah: not kissing each other.

Really, John should have known it was too good to last.

***

It all went to shit on M4X-339, which seemed to John to be really unfair. He'd been totally prepared to really like the planet, after all: sunny skies, grass that was actually grass-like, and an abundance of friendly natives who were just thrilled to trade their excess food for some decent boots and shoes. It wasn't actually the weirdest trade request they'd ever had, by a long shot, and so John was all set to say yes, drink the necessary ceremonial toasts, and get back to Atlantis to enjoy their bragging rights. Best trade agreement of the week got extra pie on Sundays, and Lorne's team was going down.

"Say yes," he hissed out of the corner of his mouth, "Stop stalling and just say yes, god damn you. Ouch!" Rodney leaned back in his seat and gave John his version of a loaded glance. It made him look kind of constipated, but John knew what Rodney meant: if the Prime Minister thought that Ronon was in charge (which he clearly did), he probably wouldn't listen to John (which he definitely wouldn't; John had tried). Any unnecessary talk on John's part might disrupt the trade negotiations (doubtful, given how much these people wanted the boots, but always possible) or just piss him off (highly likely, judging by his expression), so John should shut the hell up. Which, he was, mostly.

"Sounds good to me," Ronon said, pointedly still ignoring John. "We'll get back to you tomorrow, OK?" And, yes, the Prime Minister was nodding, thank God. They were going to do it, they were going to make it, they were going to—

"—participate in a minor ritual, nothing you would find objectionable," the Prime Minister was saying. John knew he was going stiff, didn't even try to hide it, and saw the rest of the team doing the same. 'Minor ritual,' in the Pegasus Galaxy, could mean anything from thumb wrestling to body piercing, and John, at least, was plenty prepared to find that objectionable.

Ronon had to ask, of course, and thankfully he did. He even managed to make "What kind of ritual?" sound more like "What kind of tea?" and less like "What kind of poisonous snake?" which John thought was pretty impressive. The leader seemed to be prepared for the question, though, and kept smiling.

"We have always been very interested in the customs of other worlds," he said, "and so we would like you to demonstrate a few of your customs for us." Didn't sound so bad, but you could never be sure—there were a lot of things that counted as 'customs', on Earth, and not all of them were things John wanted to do with an audience, or with his team, for that matter. Fortunately, Ronon was still on the right track, and asked for further explanations like a good suspicious bastard.

"Oh, just your rituals of greeting and companionship, such things as you would do on meeting a friend," the Prime Minister explained, gesturing expansively, "nothing overly personal; nothing you would shame to do in public. We make a survey of such things, to keep our friendships in good health. Our friends on Grash-tab'illa, for example, do this when they first see each other." He stood up, and did what was immediately recognizable as the wiggly dance from M7P-24J.

It was kind of disturbing, coming from a forty-something man with a foot-long beard, but John let out the breath he'd been holding anyway. This was going to be easy. Shake hands, maybe wave—hey, they'd even do interplanetary anthropology a good turn.

"Sure thing," Ronon said, "We can do that."

"Oh, excellent!" said the Prime Minister. "I'll assemble the village immediately. Although—" he turned around at the entrance to the temple, looking mildly sheepish. "Might I see your ritual? I shouldn't, of course, not before the ceremony, but I'm quite curious, and—"

"Yeah, sure," Ronon said, and John could only watch in horror as Ronon swung around and pressed his lips firmly, sloppily to McKay's. His hands slid along McKay's arms, stopping to hold just above his elbows, and when they pulled apart, they stared at each other, breathing heavily.

"Oh, marvelous!" The Prime Minister said, beaming over at them. "I've never seen anything like that before! Oh, they'll be so excited—wait here, please!"

"Oh, crap," McKay said, and John really couldn't disagree.

***

There was no way to get out of it, not really; they needed the food and the goodwill, and the Prime Minister had been so excited by this new greeting form—"completely unlike anything else we've ever witnessed, you can't imagine how exciting this is," and, no, John really couldn't—that they couldn't just explain that Ronon had been joking. Not that he would listen to them, anyway, and Ronon was showing no sign of taking it back.

So once the villagers were assembled, the four of them trudged out to the ritual spot. It didn't take long—part of the reason the planet had such a surplus of food was that there just weren't very many of them. In total, they filled maybe half of the small square, ringing the dais three or four deep, and they applauded politely as John's team climbed up and settled on the cushions.

"Greet each other as you usually would," the Prime Minister was saying, and all of a sudden John realized that they were stuck, really and truly stuck. Teyla looked implacable, as usual, with her hands folded calmly in her lap and her posture impeccable. Rodney was still kind of blank-faced, and kept darting his eyes at John, and away; at Ronon, and away; at the crowd, and away. Ronon, improbably, looked almost nervous, and John couldn't help feeling a little glad. Served him right, after all, the dirty rotten custom-faking kiss-forcing bastard.

But if they didn't kiss, they were going home without the trade, or maybe not going home at all, so John gritted his teeth and met McKay's eyes. McKay swallowed hard, but then lifted his chin and nodded, knee-walking over to where Ronon was sitting.

"Well, come on, kneel up," he said, "I'm not giving myself more spinal problems just so I can kiss you in yet another freakish alien ritual." Ronon complied, leaning forward, into Rodney's space, and then their mouths were together and they were kissing.

Even from the distance, John could tell that it wasn't the best kiss ever. Ronon didn't quite seem to understand how to angle his head, and he and Rodney kept bumping noses. Then, of course, there was the obvious size difference; even kneeling, Ronon was a big guy, and it looked like Rodney was going to get his back pain anyway. The arms were awkward, too—Rodney had grabbed on to Ronon's coat at the first opportunity, and Ronon was clearly following his example, but he was pretty much just rubbing his hands up and down Rodney's arms, not even trying to move into more interesting territory.

Not that he should have been—this was a trade negotiation, after all!—but John knew that he sure as hell would have.

He was just thinking about maybe moving over—he'd have to kiss Ronon eventually, anyway, and he might as well give the poor guy some pointers while he was at it—when a hand on his shoulder made him spin around.

It was Teyla, of course, and before he could say or do anything, she was leaning into his lap, hands braced on his shoulders, and brushing her mouth across his. Her lips were soft, and the kiss was sweet, but the whole thing was awkward, a child's impression of a kiss. He let his hands slide down her sides to her waist, and tugged her forward until she was straddling his crossed legs, resting her body against him. They stayed like that, his hands easy on her waist, hers curled around his neck, just rubbing lips and breathing each other in, impossibly soothing, considering the situation.

"Oh, for—oh, that's just ridiculous," McKay's voice said, from much closer than John had been expecting. "Here, let me—yes, yes, just like—" In a heartbeat, he'd pulled Teyla to her knees and leaned in to kiss her; John barely managed to back up in time to keep his legs from getting squashed.

It wasn't any kind of friendly kiss, like before; this one was wet and sloppy and bizarrely hot, considering how much time John had spent not being attracted to either of the people involved. Rodney had one hand in the small of Teyla's back and the other under her hair, adjusting her position with small, precise movements, pulling her gradually forward until she was flush against his body. Teyla arched into his hands, pressing her breasts against him, and, yes, OK, that was hot.

Over Rodney's shoulder, he caught sight of Ronon, who was watching with wide eyes. John hadn't believed him, earlier, when he'd said that he'd never kissed anyone before. It made no sense. If you were having sex—and he knew Ronon had done that, thanks to the entirely-too-thin walls on MEJ-976 —it seemed like the logical thing to do. Your mouths were right there, after all, in perfect kissing position—it was only natural.

Unless of course Ronon was having a radically different type of sex than John was; but John had never really had a burning desire to talk about sex with someone who looked like Tarzan and acted like his kid brother.

Still. Guy didn't know how to kiss—he was missing out on one of the finer things in life, right there.

John edged around Teyla and Rodney, who were stretched out full length, now, kissing slow and downright nasty, flashes of tongue visible as their mouths moved and twisted. As he watched, Teyla braced her weight and lifted her hips up, grinding against Rodney in a slow, sultry wave. Her hands were up Rodney's shirt, John noticed, and he groaned as Rodney did. Fast learner, Teyla.

Ronon was leaning back against one of the pillars, playing cool, and John moved right into his space, no pauses for consideration or discussion. He kissed Ronon quickly, all soft lips and a tease of tongue to the corner of his mouth, before pulling back to look Ronon in the eye. Ronon didn't move, and now, now John believed him about never having kissed anyone before.

Which, really, was just a shame, so John leaned back in, tugged at Ronon's lower lip with his teeth until Ronon's jaw relaxed and his mouth opened, hot and slick and fucking enormous, which shouldn't have been as much of a turn-on as it really, really was. When he finally pulled back to breathe, Ronon followed after him for an inch or two, eyes still closed, and John grinned, resting a hand on his shoulder.

"Why'd you do this, anyway?" he asked, in the few seconds it took for Ronon to re-open his eyes, drop one hand to John's back, and pull him forward. He was learning, clearly - he nipped at John's lips and kissed him slowly and greedily, and by the time they pulled apart, John had more or less forgotten about the question.

"Looked like fun," Ronon said, shrugging. He stroked a hand up John's back, kneading the muscles, and added, "wanted to see what the fuss was all about. You should kiss McKay now, I think."

John turned around and, yeah, that was a good idea. Rodney and Teyla had stopped kissing and were just lying on the cushions, talking softly. Teyla had her back to them, but they could see Rodney's face clearly; his mouth was wet and red, his eyes were half-shut in smug contentment, and his hair was sticking straight up from his head.

Rodney caught John's glance—hard not to, really—and his eyes went wide, but then he nodded excitedly, rolling to his feet and climbing over Teyla to launch himself at John.

"Oh, I was hoping we'd do this—I mean, not that the rest of it wasn't enjoyable, contrary to all expectation, but it's so much nicer to kiss with someone who really knows what he's doing, which I can see that you do, and that's really difficult to—"

"Shut up, McKay," John said, taking Ronon's place against the pillar and pulling Rodney with him, "Jesus Christ, shut up." If Rodney and Teyla together had been dirty, Rodney was downright pornographic with John—he kissed and licked and bit, leaving John gasping and shaky and entirely too glad of the pillar at his back. John gave as good as he got, dragging his mouth across Rodney's face and down his neck to kiss the pulse there, fluttering fast.

Next to them, Teyla and Ronon were kissing; John could hear the soft smack of lips, the broken sighs of breath, the shifting of clothing and bodies. That was good, that was really good, and any other time he'd probably have watched them, but right then, he had more pressing matters to attend to—namely, the press of his hand against Rodney's ass, and the resulting press of Rodney against him.

"Ahem. Ahem!" That, of course, was the Prime Minister, who looked just as cheerful as ever, if slightly more red in the face. "That will be more than enough for our research purposes, thank you, and I thank you kindly for satisfying our curiosity." As he dragged them off to finalize the trade agreements, John caught the look on Ronon's face.

Looked like everyone had had some curiosity satisfied today.

And that was where it ended.



***

In other news...nah. I got nothing.

S'pretty out.