Confabulation
by Pares

Something was beeping.

Blinking awake, Rodney glanced at his watch and turned off its tiny alarm. Huh. Time for lunch already? Running a hand over his face, he sat up and looked around to find himself half buried in one of Gordon's ridiculous beanbag chairs.

What the hell? He was sitting on something, and when he felt around, he came up with a smooth, fist-sized hunk of technology that Rodney could not for the moment recall.

Someone cleared their throat, and Rodney looked over to see John sitting in a chair with his arms folded across his chest.

"What just happened?" Rodney asked.

"We ate brownies, we made out, and you fell asleep, that's what happened."

Rodney gave that answer a short, false laugh and then said, "No, really."

John looked a little pissed off, actually.

"Really."

Rodney took a moment to take stock of the situation.

"Oh, please. That's pure confabulation! Nothing like that, nothing even remotely like that, ever happened."

"Then why do I distinctly remember your hand on my ass?"

"Maybe you've finally had that psychotic break we've all been so looking forward to." He realized that he'd crossed his arms to mirror John's, and was in the process of working up a grade A glare when Teyla came in.

"Major Sheppard?" For a moment, neither of them looked at her, too busy staring daggers at each other, but finally, John broke his gaze to turn to Teyla and give her a big insincere smile.

"I have been looking for you. Have you been with Erol today?"

"Yep. Erol."

"How many tea cakes have you consumed since?" She indicated a tray on the table beside John. Rodney realized that he wasn't hungry and gave John an uneasy glance. John returned his look with an I-Told-You-So sneer and said, "None. Why?"

Teyla looked relieved, and answered, "They are dosed with a certain ceremonial herb. It is known as a powerful aphrodisiac to my people."

"Huh. How about that," John said sourly, eyeing Rodney.

Rodney scowled back.

"So what? I once ate an entire bag of green M&Ms. It doesn't mean anything."

Teyla focused now on Rodney.

"Have you eaten any of the tea cakes?"

"Nope. No tea cakes for me. In fact, I'm on my way to the cafeteria. To eat."

Rodney struggled to get out of the beanbag chair without looking like a dork. Once on his feet, he gave John an imperious glare and stalked out.

On his way back to his room, Rodney realized he could now remember what had happened with exquisite clarity.

Oh, shit.

*

Sensory hallucinations were not uncommon in Atlantis, but this one was unexpectedly cruel. Preparing himself to be disappointed, Rodney followed his nose to one of those little niche-like rooms off the main hall. Gordon in electrical engineering had asked a couple of the Athosian teenagers to sew a bunch of empty grain sacks together and fill them with seed hulls. He'd set a few of the glowing lamp-units full of bubbling water on a platform in the middle and called it a 'rumpus room'. The other scientists had dragged in a table and some other chairs and it now served as a geeklounge and clubhouse for Mensa meetings.

John was at the table leaning over a tray heaped with some kind of food.

"Are those brownies?" Because if John saw them too, they might even be real brownies.

"Athosian tea cakes," John corrected, mumbling around a huge mouthful of something that looked rich, chewy and decidedly chocolate-like.

"Tea cakes?" Rodney was intrigued; he could use a new caffeine delivery system.

"That's what Erol said when he gave them to me."

"I'll build you a new energy weapon if you let me have one. Something big. And shiny," Rodney promised.

"Jeeze, McKay. You don't have to bribe me. Just ask me nicely." He gave Rodney a pleasant, expectant look, rather like a Labrador waiting on a biscuit.

Rodney sighed and recited, "May I please have a tea cake, Major Sheppard. Please."

"See how easy that was? Here," he handed Rodney two cakes. "One for each hand."

Rodney inhaled the first one and managed a "Thanks" on his first bite of the second one.

"These are really good," he said thoughtfully, reaching for a third.

"Aren't they?" John popped another one in his mouth.

Rodney took the time to actually enjoy the third one. A little on the sticky side, but definitely tasty.

"So, whatcha got there, Rodney?"

"Huh? Oh." He looked at the fist-sized hunk of brown metal he was holding in his free hand. It had several shallow grooves in it reminiscent of finger grips, but no other symbols. "I think it's a device meant to simulate the pain of menstruation and, uh, childbirth. Carson found it somewhere with a little plaque or something."

"Why on Earth--"

"Atlantis," Rodney reminded.

"Fine. Why on Atlantis would anyone build something like that?"

"To show men what it's like to be a woman, obviously."

John's face was creased with disbelief.

"You don't have any sisters, do you?" When John shook his head, Rodney said, "I do. And let me tell you, cramps are no picnic."

"How the hell would you know?"

"Well. I don't. Not from personal experience, anyway. But Jeannie used to faint at school. She said once, I was twelve and we were watching American Werewolf in London on video, actually, you know the scene where he's turning for the first time, and she said, 'That's what cramps are like.' And I believed her."

"She was probably exaggerating," John scoffed.

"Possibly," Rodney said testily. "Want to find out for yourself?" He held out the device and John scudded back in his chair, throwing up his hands. From a wary distance, John eyed the object uneasily.

"Well, not every woman gets cramps like that. Right?"

"Not being Every Woman, or even Whitney Houston, I can't really answer that. But I used to think about it, when SG-1 was out on missions: oh hey, Samantha Carter is trapped on planet whatever-the-hell and they're going to bake to death as soon as the sun gets high enough, and how much worse is it to have cramps on top of that?"

John gave him a dubious look.

"Okay. I just want you to know... that I'm not comfortable with this level of detail concerning the beautiful mystery of the female body."

"Yeah, well, men are pigs." Rodney paused, studying the device in his hand. "I don't have a womb. I am wombless." Resting his other hand on his belly, he spread his fingers, considering a moment before looking up and saying, "But I could really go for some pickles and ice cream."

"Womb. That's a funny word." John sprawled back in his low chair and smiled at the ceiling.

Rodney ignored him.

"Actually, scratch that. You know those little fried noodles you get at Chinese places? With the duck sauce? I could eat about a million of those. Huh. Or some poutine. "

"What the hell is poutine?"

"It's fried potatoes covered in curds and gravy, usually."

"Curds? Who eats curds outside of Mother Goose rhymes?"

"No, I assure you, it's excellent, practically the food of the gods."

"Your gods, maybe."

Something was nagging at him, the synaptic equivalent of someone tugging on his sleeve, and when Rodney finally realized what it was, he just stood there a second, mouth-breathing, wondering at his own stupidity. Then he bounded forward and knotted his fists in John's tac vest, hauling him to his feet.

"Oh my god. Those weren't tea cakes, you idiot, they were hash brownies!"

"What are you talking about?"

"Teyla actually said something about them. I wasn't really paying attention," Rodney admitted. "She said to pass on them unless I was ready to 'jorlok'. Whatever that means. Probably it means 'get baked'. Crap. I suck at recreational drugs. And pot? Forget it. I get the munchies. And it makes me paranoid."

After first looking down at where Rodney's hands were locked in his vest, John met his gaze and raised both eyebrows.

"Okay, more intensely paranoid," Rodney clarified.

"Relax, okay?" John set his hands on Rodney's shoulders and squeezed in a friendly way. "Even if they are drugged, chances are we'll be fine."

"We should tell Carson." God, he was hungry. And John smelled good. Not like brownies, or a corned beef sandwich, oh, with a little brown mustard, but good.

"Probably," John said, smoothing his hands down Rodney's arms and moving in closer.

"I mean, we should probably be kept under observation."

"Yeah," John said, leaning in to sniff at Rodney's hair. "You smell nice."

"Thanks." He figured he should return the compliment, so he said. "I was thinking that, too. About you, I mean."

John looked inordinately pleased at this news and his hands started moving back up Rodney's arms, pausing here and there to knead at the muscles.

"Hmm. We don't usually do this."

"Don't do what?" John asked dreamily.

"Touch each other. I mean, you don't usually... ah. Rub me. A lot."

"I noticed that," John dipped his head a little and chafed his cheek against Rodney's jaw. "Feels nice, though."

"You know, I really have to agree."

After a moment, Rodney set an experimental hand on John's waist, and John gave him a dazzling smile. Figuring that was an encouraging sign, Rodney cautiously slid his hand down... down a little further... a few degrees to the right. Gentle squeeze. Gentlemen, we have achieved--

But John cupped his face and kissed him, very sweetly, and it was strange and absurdly tender and Rodney had a dim, unsettling suspicion that jorlok had less to do with getting high and more to do with getting off and he squeezed John's ass again and John kissed him harder and Rodney decided that he wasn't going to worry any more about it.

END
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