"Find anything?" Rodney asks from his vantage point in the shade of the tall spreading tree, a short walk from the market square.
John shakes his head and walks past him to claim his own patch of shade. It's miserably hot out, and the market was shaded mostly with corrugated metal, which just made it worse. The spices and dust in the air made Rodney sneeze; he ducked out of there as fast as he could. "We'll meet back under the tree, show off our loot," John had said, but it doesn't look like he has any.
"Their leather's too expensive," Ronon says, flopping down beside John.
But Teyla's still standing in front of them, and Rodney notices the sack slung over her shoulder.
"What'd you get? Spill," he demands.
With a grin she lets the bag drop to between her feet and pulls out one of the items inside. "I found these."
"What is it?" Rodney's staring at the thing in Teyla's hand with weird fascination. It's maybe a foot long, purple, ridged, and tapering at one end. The way Teyla's holding it, it could be a seriously alarming weapon. Or — well, better to think of it as a weapon, he tells himself hastily.
"Tisla root," Teyla says, with satisfaction. "I am pleased to have a source for them again. The Athosians made many uses of them."
To his left, Rodney hears Ronon snicker, and then John coughs, obviously trying to hold back a laugh.
"Oh, very mature," Rodney snaps. He had the same thought, of course — he's developed a distressing Pavlovian response to seeing any kind of penetrative object in Teyla's hands — but at least he had the good sense to keep it to himself.
Teyla's indulgent smile makes Rodney's toes curl. "Yes, we used them for that purpose also," she agrees, and comes to sit between Ronon and John. Rodney turns to look at them. Even on a day this hot, their faces streaked with dust and sweat, their collective beauty takes his breath away. He scowls, out of force of habit, in case anyone's watching.
They sit beneath the tree for a while, drinking water from their canteens. Rodney eats a powerbar. Teyla closes her eyes and leans on Ronon.
"We should think about heading back," John says finally. Rodney groans. The walk to the gate is mostly uphill, and in this kind of heat it's going to be miserable.
"Suck it up," Ronon says, standing up and offering Rodney a hand so he won't bitch about his creaking knees.
"Didn't I tell you teaching him American slang was a bad idea?" Rodney asks John.
John's smart enough to recognize a rhetorical question when it bites him on the ass, so he just shrugs and shoulders up his gear. Rodney does, too.
"Wait a moment," Teyla says, and Rodney can feel her hands doing something to his backpack, tugging and shoving a little, and then the zipper slides shut again.
"Did you just —"
"The rest of them are for the kitchen," she says, and follows John out of the clearing.
Fortunately, on a day like this Rodney can blame his very red face on the heat.
"I want to see you use it on him." John's voice is low and right in Rodney's ear. Rodney's leaning back against him, loosely circled in his arms. They're in a room nobody uses, way out on the southeast pier. The door won't let anybody else in. Outside the windows, the sea makes quiet rushing noises in the dark.
Ronon makes an approving sound and pillows his face on his folded arms, spreading his legs further apart.
The root in Teyla's hands gleams. Sometime after their return to Atlantis she trimmed it, and now it's been oiled. It's a purple alien dildo, Rodney thinks.
He bites back the slightly crazed laugh that wants to bubble up. At everything: the tisla root, the situation, the fact that he has not one but three partners, all of them the kind of people he would once have said were spectacularly out of his league. (Physically; no one's out of his league intellectually. Obviously.) But that was before Pegasus turned his whole life upside-down.
John bites the side of his neck and Rodney startles.
"Little jumpy there," John observes, amused.
"Pardon me if this isn't exactly my usual Tuesday night," Rodney says. This thing between the four of them is still weird and new. And good; God, better than anything Rodney ever imagined. But sometimes it freaks him out for a second. He gets tense. Like it's all going to fall apart if he doesn't worry about it.
"It is now," Ronon says, voice muffled by the bed and his dreads.
And then Teyla slides the thing into Ronon and he moans. She makes a little sound of satisfaction and twists it slightly.
"Jesus, warn a guy," Rodney mutters, clutching at the base of his dick, because the sight of the slick purple root disappearing into Ronon beneath Teyla's capable hands is almost enough to tip him over the edge.
She works it into him, withdraws it, fucks it back in. John makes a happy noise, like this is exactly the show he was hoping to see. Rodney can feel John's cock hard against his ass. He wriggles a little bit, pushing back against John hopefully.
"Do not come," Teyla says to Ronon. "I would like for you to fuck me."
"Okay, that's it, I need a cockring," Rodney says, and pulls himself away from John to rummage in his bag. Between the sight of Ronon yielding to Teyla's ministrations, and Teyla's new addition to their collective plan, he's right on the verge, and he really doesn't want this to be over that fast.
Ronon rises onto his hands and knees and then kneels up, pushing Teyla back. Rodney has to look down to fasten the ring around himself — it's the one with the snaps, and his fingers are shaking — and when he looks up again Teyla is on her back, knees bent, and Ronon is licking delicately at her cunt, the purple thing protruding obscenely from his ass.
Rodney glances back at John, who's still sitting back against the wall. His cock juts out, making Rodney's mouth water, but before Rodney can offer John ducks his head a little, like he's about to ask for something.
"Ohh," Teyla moans, beside them, and Ronon gives a little laugh.
"Can I fuck you?" John murmurs. He's shy about saying that. As if any one of them is going to say no.
"I thought you'd never ask," Rodney says tartly, and gets on his hands and knees. Anticipation blooms inside him, ratcheted higher by the wet sounds of Ronon working on Teyla beside them, his contented hums and her little gasps.
John's slick finger slides inside him and Rodney pushes back, wanting more.
Ronon pulls away from Teyla, who has gone gorgeously limp on the bed. Her smile is so warm, so delighted, that Rodney's heart skips a beat.
"Come on," Rodney says, impatient. John pulls back and then circles Rodney's hole with his slick finger, teasing. "Seriously, John, don't —"
Don't fuck around, he means to say, but he feels John's dick pressing in to him and his words vanish. "Oh," Rodney says stupidly, already delirious with how good it is.
"Jesus," John grits out. His cock inside Rodney feels huge and hot and for an instant he doesn't move and Rodney wonders whether he's going to explode.
Ronon moans, and Rodney spares the two of them a glance. Ronon is positioned over Teyla, his cock sliding impossibly slowly into her, and his ass flexes around the tisla root, keeping it inside him.
John pulls back and then fucks into him again, and Rodney wonders hysterically whether the tisla root is rubbing Ronon's prostate the way John's cock is rubbing his. "Oh God," he manages. "John. Fuck. I —"
"That's it," John croons, like Rodney needs the encouragement, like he isn't on the verge of coming his brains out even with the cockring snug around him.
Teyla reaches a hand out, flailing a little, and grabs Rodney's hand where it's pressed into the mattress.
"Hey," Rodney murmurs. Her fingers are scrabbling at his; he shifts his weight so he can clasp her hand, and John's next thrust almost overbalances them, harder and deeper than before.
"Yes," Teyla says, and turns her eyes back to Ronon, though she doesn't stop gripping Rodney's hand. "Oh. Yes. There."
"Please," Rodney manages. "John. Please. I —"
John's hips are snapping into him, his rhythm sweet and punishing, and Rodney hears the grin in his voice. "Was there — something you — wanted, McKay?"
Ronon keens and stills, collapsing over Teyla. Their kisses are slow, their sounds at once tender and erotic. She squeezes Rodney's hand once, hard, then lets go.
"John," Rodney begs, unable to form the words for what he needs, and John reaches under him and tugs the cockring open, snap-snap-snap. Rodney gasps and convulses and John groans, throbbing inside him. It feels as if Rodney's been waiting his entire life just for this.
The mess serves pancakes the next morning, with little pitchers of the syrup the people on ML4-729 make with the sap of their birch tree analog. Rodney doesn't pay them any attention; he's too busy inhaling coffee to really notice what else he's putting in his mouth.
"I would not have thought to prepare them this way," Teyla says approvingly.
"Prepare what," Rodney says, then actually looks at what he's eating. The pancakes are faintly purple.
Rodney coughs and has to down the rest of his first cup of coffee to keep from choking. Ronon gives him a wicked grin.
"Your people are very resourceful," Teyla says, smiling.
"Yeah, well, so are yours," John says, sitting down to join them. He leans back in his chair, cutting himself a bite of breakfast. His ankle brushes Rodney's, and Rodney pulls away without thinking. It's the force of long habit. He's too used to being in the way.
But then he reconsiders. Glances around the mess hall to make sure no one's looking. And slides his foot back over. It touches someone's beneath the table; Rodney isn't sure whose.
"These are pretty tasty," he admits, and the foot besides his rubs against his gently.
"Life in a new galaxy," John muses aloud. "You just gotta try new things."
END
The End