Chapter Text
Jennifer observes Rodney happily basking in the warmth of her compliments for a few moments before she adds a calculated, “Oh, and he goes down on a girl like he was born to do it.”
Rodney’s head flies up and there is a familiar light in his Wraith eyes. “Is that a hint?” he asks, voice just a touch more tonal than before. Jennifer shrugs.
“Would I do that?” she asks, and Rodney seems to have got over his aversion to showing his teeth because he grins, sharp and dangerous and more than a little wolf-like. Jennifer likes it. She’d hated his scared, tentative little smiles of the last few weeks, his mouth tightly closed to avoid alarming people with his teeth.
“Of course you would,” he says dismissively, and his sharp nailed fingers are at the waistband of her shorts. Jennifer sucks in a breath, because even through the thin fabric of her clothes, she can feel the coolness of his skin, the points of his nails.
“Rodney.” He looks up, looking very much like the Wraith-cat that caught the human-canary. “We are back together now, right?” She feels stupid even asking it, but Rodney’s pupils expand like she’s said something very right.
“I’m the only leather-jacketed hottie you’ll be picking up any time soon,” he says, trying for bravado, and Jennifer sighs, slaps at him over the head without much force at all.
“So that’s a yes?” she guesses, and Rodney huffs.
“Of course, yes. Boyfriend and girlfriend again – God, that sounds so juvenile, why aren’t there better words for this sort of thing –”
Jennifer sits up and kisses him, severing off the flow of words mid-sentence. It’s different now than it was in the cupboard; she can see every inch of his face, his closed eyes, the sensory pits flaring gently with his breathing.
He opens his eyes suddenly and pulls away; his expression can only be described as repulsed. Jennifer sits up in concern. "What is it?" she asks, laying a concerned hand on his arm; Rodney flinches it away. He looks absolutely shattered.
“I saw me,” he says darkly. “I saw a picture of me in your mind as you were seeing it. This is – God. This is so weird.”
“Are you kidding?” Jennifer exclaims. “You heard a telepathic echo of what I was thinking? That is so cool!” Rodney is shaking his head.
“I saw me,” he repeats, teeth clenched around each word. “Warts and fangs and sensory pits and all. It’s disgusting. I’m disgusting. This is never going to work.” He starts to pull away, and Jennifer catches him by the arm. He is tense under her grip; it would take him no effort at all to pull away, but he doesn’t, as though really, deep down, he doesn’t want to.
“Please don’t go,” Jennifer requests quietly. “I don’t think you’re disgusting, Rodney.”
“Well, you should,” he snaps, that familiar ire flaring up in him as easily as breathing. “You know, there’s a reason Wraith don’t fuck humans that often. They think humans are animals. Another species. You – this is – we shouldn’t –”
“Do you think I’m an animal?” Jennifer asks evenly. Rodney gapes at her.
“Of course not! I’m the animal! I’m the thing. You should be with a real person, not a Wraith with the memories of a person who is now, for all intents and purposes, dead.”
“You take that back,” Jennifer snaps, her voice low and deadly and surprising them both. “You take that back. You’re not dead.”
Her harshness has taken some of the wind out of his sails, but he’s not to be deterred. “Well, it’s true!” he defends, and oh, she could punch him, he’s such an ass sometimes.
“No, it’s not!” Jennifer snaps, and surges up to take him by the shoulders and shake him firmly. “These are Rodney McKay’s shoulders,” she says firmly. “I know them. I’ve clung onto them while he’s been inside of me.” Rodney jerks like she’s just smacked him with a shock prod, and all the anger drains out of Jennifer in a heartbeat.
“Jennifer!” he says, utterly scandalised. “You can’t just say things like that!”
“If you’re going to be an ass and say stupid things, then I can say whatever I like in response,” she retorts, and leans up to peck a quick kiss on his cheek. “And this is Rodney McKay’s stupid face,” she continues affectionately. Rodney's eyebrows lift and he rises to the bait, just as she knew he would.
“Hey!” Jennifer grins and reaches towards his belt.
“And this is –”
“All right!” Rodney coughs, waving her off with both hands rather quickly. “I get it. I’m Rodney McKay. No need to get handsy.” Jennifer smirks.
“You like it when I get handsy,” she reminds him, and Rodney clears his throat.
“Perhaps, ah. It is possible that maybe I do.”
“And I think you’ll find it’s Dr Meredith Rodney McKay,” she adds, and Rodney glares. “Two Ph.Ds.,” she amends, and his ruffled feathers settle.
“That’s better,” he says, slightly mollified. “Although if you could never call me Meredith again, that would be great.”
“Rodney,” Jennifer says softly, just to draw the syllables out, to taste them on her tongue.
“Jennifer,” he replies, his eyes glitter bright and so him, as pure Rodney as that first moment she’d known that there was something, small and glowing, buried deep in her heart, and all for him.
“You’re not very good at this, are you?”
“Uh, no, no, I’m not.”
“Would it be incredibly inappropriate to inform you I am positively dizzy with lust right now?” she asks him. He shrugs.
“I’m used to inappropriate, dating you,” he replies, and Jennifer hits him with a pillow before she has a chance to think better of it. Rodney grins, all danger and shark teeth. “Oh, now you’re gonna get it,” he says, the intonation and diction and syntax all human, and how anyone could mistake him for Wraith, Jennifer doesn’t know. No Wraith has ever burned as brightly as Rodney.
He pounces, and Jennifer doesn’t even try to flee, pinned underneath him. He leans over her, getting into her space, the scent of him still somehow coffee and engine fluid and Rodney, just like it was before. “Hello,” she says, examining in detail his slit-pupiled eyes and sensory pits, the hint of pale stubble on his jaw,
“Hi,” he rasps back, a single syllable, and Jennifer leans up to meet him halfway for a kiss. “Sure you’re up to this?” he asks between kisses. “I mean, you looked pretty tired before.” Jennifer arches a brow.
“Up for what?” she inquires, and predictably Rodney turns what she’s sure is the Wraith equivalent for pink, sitting back on his haunches and wringing his hands.
“Well, I just meant… we’re on a bed, and, and, we’re back together, and evidently you’re not horrified by the fact that I’ve been turned into a Wraith, so I thought – you know, if you’re up to it, if you’re not that’s fine, but I mean, if it’s an option, we might –” Jennifer grins.
“McKay,” she drawls, just like she’s done so many times before, cutting him off before he digs himself any deeper, and Rodney’s mouth snaps shut. “If you’re asking if I want to have sex, the answer is yes.” And oh, the awe on his face, as exactly the same as the first time she saw it –
“Oh, you want to have a drink.”
“Oh, good,” Rodney says, sounding dazed and slightly bewildered. “That’s… good.”
“It is,” Jennifer agrees, and tugs him back down to settle between her thighs, to run her hands over his shoulders. She strokes a hand down his spine and he shudders. “What? Bad?”
“Good,” he bites out, and Jennifer lifts the hem of his shirt to press her hands against cool skin. “Sensitive.”
“The bumps?” Jennifer guesses, touching one experimentally with her fingertip. Rodney nods, his eyes slipping shut, and Jennifer seizes the opportunity. She twists, using her hips to flip him over, just like Teyla’s been teaching her – although Jennifer thinks that move was designed for overpowering assailants rather than turning the tables on Wraith boyfriends. “You snooze, you lose, McKay,” Jennifer says triumphantly, but her amusement dies away at the expression on Rodney’s face. He’s looking up at her, awed, as though he can’t believe she’s real, like every dream and every fantasy he’s ever had has been dumped in his lap.
Some women might find it oppressive, Jennifer knows, the intensity of that worship, but she’s not one of them. She’s gone without love too many times before to not warm to the strength of Rodney’s affection, even if she can’t tell how much of it is Rodney himself and how much is the Wraith compulsion to submit to a ‘queen’. Jennifer is no queen, but she is female, and the Wraith desire to cherish and obey the women of their species is one of their defining attributes.
“What are you thinking about?” Rodney asks softly, and Jennifer banishes the dark thoughts. This is real enough, her and Rodney, solid and tangible. It will have to suffice.
“You,” she replies, and leans down to kiss his nose, his fluttering eyelids, the curve of his gently receding hairline. He is still, accepting her touch without qualm, his hands loose by his sides, but his body is as rigid as a board. “Rodney,” she whispers, and Rodney makes a soft hmm in response, his eyes closed. “I want to fuck you.”
“I know,” he replies. “I can smell you.” Jennifer pauses.
“Really?” she asks. “I mean, I know Wraith sense of smell is much more acute than a human’s, but, wow.” Rodney cracks open one eye.
“I’m beginning to think you only keep me around for my sensory pits,” he says dramatically. Jennifer scowls, but she’s smiling, too. “Did you have a xenophilia problem before you came to Pegasus, or is it a recent development?”
“Quite recent,” Jennifer says, straight-faced. “Over the last few months, really.”
“Ha ha,” Rodney retorts sourly. “You joke, but it’s a real issue.”
“I have no doubt of it,” Jennifer tells him, and leans down until she’s lying along the length of his body, her lips at his neck so she can nuzzle his ear with her nose.
“Trying to soothe the savage beast, huh?” he asks, but there’s no real heat in it.
“That’s music you’re thinking of,” Jennifer murmurs. “Trust me, you really don’t want me to sing.” Rodney shudders.
“I may have overheard you in the shower some mornings,” he admits. “Of course, I think the whole city may have also been privy to that splendid privilege.”
“Only ever for you,” Jennifer assures him. Rodney rolls his eyes.
“How thoughtful,” he comments dryly, but the banter isn’t helping; Jennifer can still feel the tension in him, like just having her close raises the hackles up on the back of his neck. Maybe it does. Maybe Wraith aren’t meant to be skin to skin with humans, aren’t designed to hold them in their arms for anything longer than that last death-embrace. They are writing history, here.
“What do you need?” she asks spontaneously. Rodney makes an undignified noise that appears to be a close relative to a splutter.
“How about to not be a Wraith, for one?” he begins furiously, but Jennifer puts her hand over his mouth; Rodney splutters for a moment more before clamping his mouth shut and subsiding into bitter silence.
“What do you need now, that I can help you with?” she rephrases patiently, and trials taking her hand away. When a full minute has passed but Rodney has said nothing, she chances a look over at his face to find him staring determinedly at the ceiling, his cheeks dark. “What?” she asks, and Rodney mutters something under his breath that may be too quiet for even dogs to detect, but that sounds suspiciously like –
“You want me to sit on your face?” Rodney’s body jerks like she’s just laid paddles on his chest and defibrillated his heart.
“I – that, is –”
“Small words, Rodney,” Jennifer advises, and rubs herself against him a little just to hear him groan. “Try again.”
“Please,” he says instead, and in this light the black in his eyes can almost seem blue. “I want to – I want to get you off. It’ll – ground me. It did before, when I was… human.”
“You’re still human,” Jennifer says sharply, and Rodney looks away; they’re off topic. Jennifer strokes a hand down his face, “Only a lunatic would refuse such an offer,” she tells him, and relishes the faint blush over Rodney’s cheekbones. She strips off her shorts rather matter-of-factly, and it just feels odd to be wearing a shirt and no shorts, so she throws that off too.
She looks back at Rodney, and he’s staring at her, slack-jawed, the awe on his face as familiar as her own skin. He’s flushed and he’s a rather delicate shade of green, and he’s perfect. “Fucking use me,” he blurts out, and then opens and closes his mouth several times like he can’t believe what he’s just said
“Use you,” Jennifer repeats slowly. Rodney twists his head fretfully to the side.
“Don’t… ask me what I meant by it,” he says. Jennifer strokes his hair back from his face.
“Don’t worry, I know what you meant,” she assures him, and leans down, so her breasts brush his chest. “I always know.” She crawls up his body, until she can settle herself over his mouth, brace her hands on the wall, his tongue lapping at her exactly the way she likes it. “God, Rodney,” she sighs, rocking her hips slowly against his face. “I’ve missed this.” Rodney pulls back for a moment.
“I’ve missed this too,” he mutters, his voice half-shamed and half-blissed. Jennifer smiles down at him.
“You made me wait long enough, cleverman,” she says softly, and feels a shudder run through him. “Now get to work.”
He does. He gets his hands on her thighs, spreads her wider, nips at her clit with his dangerously sharp teeth. It should be terrifying, but it’s not. It’s only Rodney, going down on her with the same dedication and curiosity he applies to Ancient technology. It shouldn’t be sexy. But Rodney’s fascination with his work is one of the things that drew her to him in the first place. She kind of has a thing for competency, and Rodney’s one of the most brilliant people she knows.
And he’s single-minded in his task, and it feels so ridiculously good she could combust from the touch of it, and it’s almost enough. The rhythmic swipe of his tongue over her clit, the bite of his claws into her thighs… Jennifer could come from this alone, given a few more minutes, but it doesn’t seem right. She doesn’t want to come without him. They’ve been too long apart already.
“Stop,” she gasps out, and Rodney licks one last time before drawing away. Jennifer shudders.
“Why?” he asks, his voice raw. Jennifer slides down his body, kisses him hard, the taste of herself sweet on his mouth. He arches up into her when she slides her tongue against his.
“I want to fuck you,” she murmurs against his mouth, fighting with the zip of his BDUs. Rodney chokes.
“That’s, well – that sounds great, but what about –”
“Stop arguing,” Jennifer snaps, and wonder of wonders, Rodney’s mouth snaps closed. He doesn’t look entirely pleased about it. “Is it… is it that I made it an order?” Jennifer asks him. Rodney shrugs, and he can’t meet her eyes.
“A left over from when I was Quicksilver,” he mutters. “Wraith hierarchy. Queens – well, you know – they give the orders, and the males–”
“Obey,” Jennifer ends for him. Rodney nods, his gaze fixed firmly on the wall. “It doesn’t have to be like that for us,” Jennifer tells him evenly. Rodney shudders.
“I know, I know, but I –” He can’t find the words.
“It’s a part of you,” Jennifer finishes, and he nods, almost frantic.
“Yes, yes,” he says, his hands fluttering as he talks. Jennifer wants to smile at the sight of him, still fully dressed underneath her, talking with his hands just as he always has. “That’s exactly right, and I hate it, you have no idea how much.”
“It’s okay,” Jennifer tells him. Rodney’s eyes are wild.
“But it’s wrong,” he insists. “I never wanted to be like this.” As if he’s just noticed, he looks down at his hands, the dark talons, the light green skin., staring at them like it’s the first time, like he can’t believe they’re a part of him. “I never wanted this.” Jennifer sighs.
“Sweetheart,” she says softly, and turns his head to face her. His Wraith eyes, and his Rodney heart shining through. “I want you like this.” She lifts his hand up – his feeding hand – to her face, fits it to the curve of her cheek. Rodney looks so tired.
“You’re insane,” he murmurs. Jennifer grins.
“Yeah, and you love it.” Rodney’s own smile is tentative, exposing every sharp tooth, and every hidden terror.
“I do,” he agrees, and when Jennifer kisses him again, this time he does not pull away.
There are secrets that Jennifer never intends to tell, that she will hold close to her and guard forever from the world. Like this: in the end, she’d rode Rodney until they both came, his hands on her hips, nails digging into her skin, a delicious counterpoint to the pleasure of his cock inside her. And him looking up at her, eyes wide and full of light, his teeth sinking into his bottom lip to be quiet. “Don’t be quiet,” she’d told him. “I want to hear you when you come.”
“You’ve got a filthy mouth,” he’d groaned, arching up into her.
“Shut up,” she’d snapped, and cracked him hard across the cheek with her hand, an open slap that had sent his head snapping to the side. He hadn’t minded, though. He’d bared his teeth at her in a savage grin.
She hadn’t realised, until then, how angry she’d been. At the Wraith, for taking him and changing what they’d had; at his team, for not rescuing him for so long. Even at Rodney, for letting himself be kidnapped. And the long truth of it, that this new form of Rodney’s turns her on, in a way that feels strange and forbidden but inexorably right. He’s Rodney McKay as much as a part of him will always be Quicksilver, cleverman in the service of Queen Death.
“You’re not hers anymore,” she’d snarled. Rodney had blinked up at her.
“What?” Jennifer had rocked her hips against him harder in punishment, grinding her clit against his pubic bone, and his mouth had fallen open in blissful surprise.
“You’re. Not. Hers,” she’d growled out, her voice almost as low as his. “Death’s. You’re not hers.” Rodney had arched a pale eyebrow.
“Then whose am I?” he’d asked, and Jennifer had leaned down, brushing her breasts against his chest. His nipples haven’t changed that much; there is still pale scatters of hair over his chest.
“Mine,” she’d said, and Rodney had inhaled sharply, his pupils dilating. She can feel the flutter of his handmouth against her hip.
“Say it again, Jennifer, please –” Jennifer can’t stop the snap of her hips against his, so close to coming, so close to him she can feel his heart thundering in his chest. So close, and she never wants to leave.
“Mine, cleverman, mine –” Rodney had gasped, Jennifer had closed her eyes, and the world had gone white.
Curled into Rodney, after, Jennifer could almost drift off against his chest, the strength of his arms ridiculously comforting. “I love your Wraith strength,” Jennifer says drowsily. Rodney chuckles low in his throat, tonal and deep, alien and utterly familiar.
“Don’t mind being manhandled, huh?” he murmurs, brushing a kiss against her forehead, just where her hairline begins.
“Only by you,” she replies, hesitating for a moment. “You really don’t mind when I call you ‘cleverman’?” Pressed so close, she can feel the fine tremor run through his body.
“… No,” Rodney says after a moment. “To tell you the truth, I… I kind of like it.” Jennifer frees a hand to brush through his white hair; he leans into the touch like a cat.
“You need a haircut,” she says fondly. Rodney tips her head up with a finger under the chin so he can look her in the eyes.
“The question is why you like it,” he says. Jennifer shrugs.
“Probably all part of that xenophilia fetish you’re so fond of teasing me about,” she says blithely, and Rodney makes a noise that can only be described as a cackle.
“Hah! I knew it –” And he’s off on one of his patented Rodney McKay rants, about how he’s always known she had a thing for aliens and it’s weird, Jennifer, really it is, you seriously need to have your head examined –
But there’s no rancour in it.
“Oh, shut up and kiss me,” Jennifer says just as he’s about to run out of steam. “Don’t suppose you’d like to fuck me from behind before I go to sleep?” Rodney’s eyes widen, but he regains his composure quick enough.
“Well, when you put it like that –”
Rodney flips them over, and Jennifer grins. “Sure you can handle it?” she asks, and Rodney growls low in his throat, cradling her hips in his powerful hands, his claws digging into her skin.
“Yeah, I’m sure. Sorry about the claws by the way.” Jennifer turns her head and looks at him over her shoulder.
“Rodney,” she says clearly. “If you apologise for something I’m into again, I will stab you with a scalpel.” Rodney smirks.
“Fair enough,” he says, and Jennifer grins.
She’s never been so happy to be alive.