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Rodney supposed it was bound to happen eventually: after visiting dozens of worlds and experiencing various flavors of human society, there would come a time where he could finally say he'd seen it all.
“So you're saying that – you don't allow heterosexual unions?”
Idrina, the Chancellor of the village, smiled and shook her head. “No. Men and women were designed by our Creator to come together for procreation, nothing more. The highest expression of love is that of two who are compatible in mind, spirit – and body.”
“So men only marry men and women only marry women,” Rodney said, as they walked by two men with their arms casually looped around one another's waists as they strolled and talked.
“Is it not so with your people?”
Rodney glanced at Sheppard, who had been stonily silent since they'd seen the first same-sex couple openly displaying their affection in the town square. He opened his mouth to answer, but Teyla beat him to the punch.
“We recognize and tolerate many expressions of love,” she said smoothly.
Idrina frowned. “Do you not find it – terribly annoying?” She glanced at Ronon. “Men are – difficult.”
“They can be,” Teyla said, a gleam in her eye. “But there are other compensations.”
The Chancellor waved a hand. “We have appliances for that.”
Teyla snorted, then burst out laughing. Rodney looked to Sheppard for sympathy, but John was still in zombie mode.
God, this was going to be the longest mission ever.
While Teyla hammered out the details of the trade agreement, John, Ronon and Rodney were free to roam the town. Life was pretty much segregated along gender lines – even the children of couples were the same sex as the parents. Rodney wondered if, when the man and women “came together”, the daddies got the sons and the mommies got the daughters.
They made the mistake of walking into a restaurant where everyone was female. Three dozen pairs of eyes turned to them, all reflecting various stages of shock, consternation and hostility, and they carefully backed out the door and got the hell out of there.
“That sucked,” Ronon said, when they were safely back on the street again.
“Well, it could be worse,” Rodney said. “There are places on Earth where you'd be executed for being a homosexual.”
Ronon made a face. “Your planet's weird about sex.”
Rodney nodded. “No argument there. Although in Canada, where I'm from, we recognize same-sex marriage.”
“What about where you're from?” Ronon asked, nudging Sheppard with an elbow.
John looked up at him briefly, then looked away. Rodney figured he'd better jump in. “In the US, not so much. You can get married in a couple of states, but that's it. They've got a lot of people who think it's sinful.”
“Huh,” Ronon said. “Your planet's weird about religion, too.”
“Throw in death, taxes and reality TV, and you've got it covered,” Rodney muttered. John said nothing, just kept walking, and pretty soon, Rodney thought, he was going to have to stick a pin in him just to make sure he really hadn't joined the legions of the undead.
They ended up at a sort of meeting hall, a large open post-and-beam building where about fifty men were engaged in talking, drinking and dancing. The villagers welcomed the strangers in their midst warmly, and judging by the looks that were exchanged, Rodney figured that Ronon and Sheppard wouldn't lack for company if they were so inclined.
Sheppard was polite – even though it was clear there was something wrong with him, he wasn't far gone enough to try to cause a diplomatic incident – but he refused all invitations to dance. Luckily, everyone seemed pretty good-natured about it, especially when Sheppard treated them to one of his trademark smiles; only Rodney seemed to be able to tell it didn't come anywhere near his eyes. Ronon, to Rodney's surprise, danced up a storm, soon catching on to the basic moves and flinging his partners around the floor with a muscular enthusiasm.
Rodney was left mostly alone, at least until a slightly tipsy man with long blond hair tied back in a ponytail sidled up to him and smiled. “You have a great ass,” he said, without preamble.
“I have a mind, too,” Rodney said primly, taking another sip of his drink.
“Of course, of course,” the man said, holding up his hands in a placating gesture. “I didn't mean to imply you were nothing but – ”
“A pair of cheeks?” Rodney finished sweetly. My God, he thought, now I know how it feels to be on the other side of the bad pickup line.
The man, groggy but still game, pointed back toward the dance floor. “Would you like to dance?” he asked.
Rodney thought about it. It might be fun, and it wasn't like the guy was ugly. He opened his mouth to answer, but before he could Sheppard leaned across the table and growled, “He's with me.”
Rodney was torn between staring at Sheppard, who had suddenly gone into his Really Intense/Scary/Weirdly Hot Motherfucker mode, and the blond guy, who was looking like he might have just discovered what shirt tails were for. “I'll just – ” Blond Guy said, and before he could finish, he was gone. Rodney thought he may have created a temporary vacuum in the space he'd left, because not even air molecules could move that fast.
Rodney turned back to Sheppard, open-mouthed, but Sheppard was already slumped back against the bench again, his posture terrible and his expression relaxed. There was no sign of the crazy person who had been there a few seconds ago. “Okay,” Rodney said slowly, “would you mind telling me what the hell that was all about?”
Sheppard frowned. “You didn't want to dance with that guy.”
“Why not?” Rodney said, flinging a hand at the dance floor, where Ronon was currently lifting his partner up to the ceiling with no more apparent difficulty than Rodney would have hoisting a Timbit to his mouth. “Do you have any idea how long it's been since I've been hit on? Let's just say that I was starting to measure the interval in geological time.”
John looked at him. “And you don't mind if the person who hits on you is another man?”
Rodney stared, for once at a loss for words. If anyone else had said that to him, especially a member of the US military, his first response would have been, You know you're being a homophobic prick, right? But the thing was, Sheppard hadn't said it like someone who was disgusted or disapproving – he'd said it like he was genuinely curious. Which made Rodney wonder if John had thought all this time that he was the homophobic prick.
“Honestly? It's happened so rarely – from either gender – that I tend to take it as it comes,” Rodney said, ruefully. “But if you're asking me if I've ever taken another man up on an offer – ”
John held up his hands, much as Blond Guy had. “Whoa, whoa. I don't want to know.”
Rodney was hardly an expert on the subtleties of human behavior, but even he could see that while Sheppard's body and words were saying one thing, just as they had earlier, his eyes were saying something totally different. Unfortunately, that was where Rodney's powers of perception failed him, because he didn't have the faintest clue what those eyes were trying to tell him.
And that was when Ronon flopped down beside him, grinning. He was sweating so much Rodney could feel the humidity of the air around them go up by ten percent almost immediately. “That was fun,” Ronon panted, pushing the hair out of his eyes.
“I always pegged you as more of a fighter than a lover,” Rodney couldn't help saying.
Ronon shrugged. “We used to dance with other guys all the time in the army,” he said. At Rodney's raised eyebrows, he added, “It was no big deal.”
Rodney shot a glance at Sheppard, but he had clammed up tight again, his arms crossed over his chest and his gaze distant and unfocused.
“I'd like to arrange a speaking tour for you on Earth,” Rodney muttered, “starting with the Joint Chiefs.”
Of course, the Chancellor's home was also sex-segregated, so they checked in with Teyla briefly, then headed off to the little boys' rooms.
“Okay, what the hell is the matter with you?” Rodney demanded, following Sheppard into his guest room after Ronon left them for his.
Sheppard shuffled over to the bed like an old man, and Rodney's worry chip kicked into high gear. “Nothing's wrong, Rodney,” he said as he sat on the bed and started to undo his tac vest. It was the old familiar drawl, but it was lifeless, like all the energy had been sucked out of him.
“Jesus, are you coming down with something?” Rodney sat down beside John on the bed and laid his palm against John's forehead, checking for a fever. John batted his hand away.
"I'm fine,” Sheppard gritted, but Rodney wasn't listening any more, because John's hand where it lay on his lap was shaking. Without thinking, Rodney snatched it up, his thumb going instinctively to the pulse point in Sheppard's wrist.
“God, you – your heart's going a mile a...” Rodney looked up, and suddenly the words died in his throat, because John was staring at him, and Rodney finally understood exactly what his eyes were saying, because Sheppard wasn't hiding a damned thing, not a damned thing, and my God, why hadn't he seen this? Was he blind?
“I lied,” John said, voice a hoarse rasp, like he was just getting over something. “I want to know.”
Rodney frowned momentarily, and then he remembered. “Oh. Well, no. The answer is no. I mean, I've never – ”
In the time it took to measure the space between John's rapid-fire heartbeats, his face shuttered again. “Right,” John said. “Forget it.”
He started to tug his hand out of Rodney's grip, and Rodney knew like he knew the speed of light in a vacuum that if he let John go he'd regret it like nothing he'd ever regretted before, and Christ, he'd regretted so much since he'd stepped through that gate four years ago. And that was why Rodney held on, held fast, gripped John's wrist like a lifeline and didn't let go until John cycled through fear to fury, finally settling on a grim determination that made Rodney shiver before leaning forward to press his mouth to Rodney's.
It was easily the most junior high kiss Rodney had ever received, and maybe because nobody had ever kissed him in junior high, it made him crazy. His free hand rose to John's shoulder and slid up his neck to his jaw, and when his other thumb stroked across John's carotid artery, John groaned and tilted his head and the kiss grew up fast, until Rodney's heart was keeping pace with the frantic flutter of John's blood just under the surface of paper-thin skin.
When they finally parted, panting into each other's mouths, Rodney murmured, “If you think I'm forgetting that, you're nuts,” and John's answering laugh was a strange amalgam of disbelieving joy and giddy relief. And this time, Rodney was the one to kiss him.