Fic: The Bellerophon Brothers
Apr. 29th, 2006 08:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityofoneThis was totally unplanned, and totally not what I was supposed to be working on today. That was probably a great deal of the appeal.
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wychwood, I hope you don't mind my taking the 'verse out for a spin.
Title: The Bellerophon Brothers
Raiting: NC-17
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Length: ~1625 words
Summary: An off-the-cuff excerpt from the Four Quarters-verse. Yeah, the joke’s on somebody, all right.
The Bellerophon Brothers
It’s generally agreed upon that over the years, Teyla has had the worst hair, Ronon has worn the worst clothes, Rodney has said the dumbest things to the press, and Shep has generally made the biggest ass of himself.
That’s okay, though: that last. Because he’s Shep, and everyone loves him.
“Fuck you,” Rodney says, when John comes into his room, metal loop of a hanger dangling from his fingertip. “No fucking way.”
John grins. “Come on, Rodney,” wheedling, “it’ll be great. Hilarious.”
“To whom?” Rodney asks. He knows that John thinks he’ll cave in the end, and he often does. But he’s not gonna cave on this. “You?”
“Well, yeah.” A smirk now. “To all of us. Come on,” pressing, “it’ll be an awesome joke. A great trick to play on our home town.”
Rodney bites his lip. He’d already agreed to the plan in its early stages, but he hadn’t agreed—
“You wear the fucking dress,” he says.
It’s even an ugly dress. It’s got fringe on it.
John rolls his eyes. “I can’t wear the dress. I’m going to be singing, they’ll know I’m not a girl.”
Rodney snorts. “Oh, and all I’d have to do is shave my legs and everyone would be fooled?”
“You’d shave your legs for me?” John asks, pressing close. Rodney can feel the cheap polyester fabric of the dress rubbing against the bare skin of his arm. Cloying and fake.
“I said no.” Rodney turns, shoulder bumping the hanger on the way. “Go make Ronon do it.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he can see John shrug. “Okay.”
And of course, because he’s John, because he’s Shep, he does.
The joke is this: they open for themselves. Get all dressed up: Shep in a wig that looks like a dead cat, Teyla in an oversized flannel shirt and a cowboy hat, Rodney in a fake mustache that John talked him into wearing, and Ronon in a dress. Not the same dress—this one is still ugly (uglier, maybe, as there is by necessity more of it)—but another big brown fringed country western number with little sequinned darts all down the sides. Ronon dons a wig that rivals Shep’s for hideousness, and he wears red cowboy boots. He even shaves his beard, because Shep asks him to.
Rodney stands in the corner and tries to keep his fake mustache from falling off.
So the joke is this. They go on stage when the Staples Center is still just filling up. Shep puts on a thick, ridiculous Texas accent and introduces them as the Bellerophon Brothers. He’s Al Bellerophon and Teyla’s George Bellerophon and Ronon’s their sister, Mary Lou Bellerophon. Rodney’s cousin Percy.
Yeah, the joke’s on somebody, all right.
The crowd claps uneasily, uncertain. They’re here to see the Puddlejumpers, man. Rock ‘n’ Roll! But Shep gets up there with his cowboy strut and his “Hello. I’m Al Bellerophon” and he plays Johnny Cash covers and Willie Nelson covers and Waylon Jennings covers. Ronon stands on his right, in Rodney’s usual spot (switch the bass player and the lead guitarist up! all part of the joke!), playing his instrument and grinning like he doesn’t know that he makes the ugliest woman in the world.
“Thank you very kindly,” Shep says, at the end of their set. “God bless.”
They’re ushered off with a smattering of polite applause and a lot of “what the fuck?” faces.
Later, back in their own skin, Shep glides out onto the stage in his leather pants and his sunglasses and his voice like silk and shattered glass. “Hello Los Annnngeles!” he shouts. “How nice to be back in our home town! Where everyone knows us!”
The crowd goes wild.
Rodney doesn’t really think it’s funny at all.
That night, after the concert, Rodney has a late dinner with his sister. Homemade lasagne in her warm, too-cramped kitchen, and they don’t really have anything to say to each other, but for once that’s okay. Jeannie’s there.
Then Rodney goes home to his own house in Laurel Canyon, the one he thinks is too dark, confined by the press of hills. He keeps meaning to sell it, but he’s barely ever there anyway. Sell or stay, it doesn’t really matter.
The house is dark. Rodney goes from room to room, turning on the lights. When he gets to the bedroom, he hears breathing, sees a shadow. He tenses even though he recognizes both: he flips on the light and John’s waiting for him.
John’s waiting there, mouth a slash of red lipstick, his body cocooned in a tight green velvet dress.
Rodney feels a stab of— “That’s funny,” he says. “I don’t remember ordering a whore.”
John’s eyes flash. But he just says, “I shaved my legs for you,” and spreads them, like Sharon Stone with a surprise.
Rodney drops the little Tupperware container of lasagne he’s carrying, the one he forgot to put down when he was in the kitchen. He stares at John, who lies back, velvet rucking up over newly smooth thighs, cock peeking out from under the hem of the dress and sliding easily into John’s hand.
It’s beautiful and it’s sick and Rodney trembles, throbbing with an emotion he can’t, doesn’t want to explain.
But lust he can do. Lust they can always do. So even though he says, “I’m never really fucking you, am I?” he still walks forward, goes and stands at the foot of the bed, between John’s legs. He drops down, runs a hand up John’s thigh. Up close, the illusion is less complete: the job was rushed, obviously, and there are patches of red skin, tender from razor burn. Rodney bends down and presses a kiss to one such crimson blush. “I’m fucking your latest idea.”
“I think that’s all there is,” John says, and Rodney lifts him up, tastes the alcohol on his breath and in his mouth. Bitter and stale.
“You gonna fuck me like a woman, Rodney?” John asks. Drawing a hand across his collarbone, picking up and dropping one emerald strap. “Do you even know how?”
Rodney stiffens. They don’t talk about this. They don’t ever talk about this. Because even though they don’t talk about it, they both know that for Rodney, John is the first and only. And for John...
They don’t talk about it.
Except, “I’ve fucked lots of women,” Shep says, wiggling on Rodney’s lap. His cock poking out the bottom of his dress. “They can’t get enough of me.”
Rodney’s had more than enough. He wants to push John off of him and walk out, leave him to sleep it off or try to get a taxi to drop him somewhere other than West Hollywood. He wants to yank that stupid dress up above John’s waist, tear it, turn him around and pound him into the mattress. But...he sees the determined look in John’s eyes, sees the sharpening of pupils not as liquor-drowned at John would obviously like him to think. And he gets it. The joke. The grand old joke.
That’s what John wants him to do.
Rodney raises his hand. Digging deep into the hair at the back of John’s neck so that John’s long throat is exposed, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows, breathing hard. “I don’t believe you,” Rodney says. “I don’t believe a single thing you say or anything you do.” He lets go with a jerk. “And you like it that way.”
John starts to laugh. Rodney shuts him up with a kiss.
He’s angry. Furious. He wants to fuck John’s mouth, bite at his lip until he bleeds. But he can be a joker, too: a wild card, turning the kisses gentle with steady concentration and patience and practice. Playing John with careful fingers, just like he would a guitar.
“But you can’t fool me forever,” he says, lowering John back down onto the bed. Sliding down, over him, with his mouth: tasting clean, soapy skin and cheap, thrift store velvet, and John, the intense flavor of him, nuzzling his balls and the root of his cock. “I do know you,” kissing the shaft, “I know you better than anyone,” the tip, “and you hate that,” swallowing, mouth applying steady suction, humming. You hate that, you hate that. But you need it, too.
John makes a choked sound and then his hands are on Rodney’s head, brushing over the tips of his ears, knuckles scraping across his cheeks and chin. He comes with a muted sob, arm moving up, flung across his face. And then Rodney does fuck him, does push the dress higher up, over the warm curve of his ass, and fucks him, pulls him into his lap and thrusts gently up, tiny rocking movements, John’s arms coming slowly around his back, his head on Rodney’s shoulder.
“I fucked up,” John says. They’re still doing it, still fucking, having sex, though there’s only the gentle rise and fall of Rodney’s hips to go by, to mark the movement. Rodney’s hands traveling across John’s back, over the dress’ straps, tight green bands of velvet, cutting into his shoulder blades.
“No,” says Rodney, who’s learned a little about lying through the process of osmosis. “They’re the morons who didn’t get it.”
John thinks about this. He licks at Rodney’s neck.
“You’re right,” he says after a minute, and suddenly he’s clenching his ass around Rodney’s cock, and Rodney is gasping, his hips spasming, the velvet crumpling in his fists.
“I mean,” John says, “Ronon in a dress: what’s not funny about that?”
John’s eyes are open and uncovered. Rodney bites his tongue, and laughs like he doesn’t know the answer.
NOTES:
1. For those of you concerned with continuity, this takes place before the end of ‘Four Quarters.’ Before the end of ‘Bootleg,’ too.
2. And for those concerned about how fucking angsty this damn story is: it doesn’t end here, or with ‘Bootleg.’ There’s something more I want to write, andwychwood is gonna help me with it, and I’m pretty damn sure it’ll end more brightly than this. Stay tuned.
wychwood, I hope you don't mind my taking the 'verse out for a spin.Title: The Bellerophon Brothers
Raiting: NC-17
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Length: ~1625 words
Summary: An off-the-cuff excerpt from the Four Quarters-verse. Yeah, the joke’s on somebody, all right.
The Bellerophon Brothers
It’s generally agreed upon that over the years, Teyla has had the worst hair, Ronon has worn the worst clothes, Rodney has said the dumbest things to the press, and Shep has generally made the biggest ass of himself.
That’s okay, though: that last. Because he’s Shep, and everyone loves him.
“Fuck you,” Rodney says, when John comes into his room, metal loop of a hanger dangling from his fingertip. “No fucking way.”
John grins. “Come on, Rodney,” wheedling, “it’ll be great. Hilarious.”
“To whom?” Rodney asks. He knows that John thinks he’ll cave in the end, and he often does. But he’s not gonna cave on this. “You?”
“Well, yeah.” A smirk now. “To all of us. Come on,” pressing, “it’ll be an awesome joke. A great trick to play on our home town.”
Rodney bites his lip. He’d already agreed to the plan in its early stages, but he hadn’t agreed—
“You wear the fucking dress,” he says.
It’s even an ugly dress. It’s got fringe on it.
John rolls his eyes. “I can’t wear the dress. I’m going to be singing, they’ll know I’m not a girl.”
Rodney snorts. “Oh, and all I’d have to do is shave my legs and everyone would be fooled?”
“You’d shave your legs for me?” John asks, pressing close. Rodney can feel the cheap polyester fabric of the dress rubbing against the bare skin of his arm. Cloying and fake.
“I said no.” Rodney turns, shoulder bumping the hanger on the way. “Go make Ronon do it.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he can see John shrug. “Okay.”
And of course, because he’s John, because he’s Shep, he does.
The joke is this: they open for themselves. Get all dressed up: Shep in a wig that looks like a dead cat, Teyla in an oversized flannel shirt and a cowboy hat, Rodney in a fake mustache that John talked him into wearing, and Ronon in a dress. Not the same dress—this one is still ugly (uglier, maybe, as there is by necessity more of it)—but another big brown fringed country western number with little sequinned darts all down the sides. Ronon dons a wig that rivals Shep’s for hideousness, and he wears red cowboy boots. He even shaves his beard, because Shep asks him to.
Rodney stands in the corner and tries to keep his fake mustache from falling off.
So the joke is this. They go on stage when the Staples Center is still just filling up. Shep puts on a thick, ridiculous Texas accent and introduces them as the Bellerophon Brothers. He’s Al Bellerophon and Teyla’s George Bellerophon and Ronon’s their sister, Mary Lou Bellerophon. Rodney’s cousin Percy.
Yeah, the joke’s on somebody, all right.
The crowd claps uneasily, uncertain. They’re here to see the Puddlejumpers, man. Rock ‘n’ Roll! But Shep gets up there with his cowboy strut and his “Hello. I’m Al Bellerophon” and he plays Johnny Cash covers and Willie Nelson covers and Waylon Jennings covers. Ronon stands on his right, in Rodney’s usual spot (switch the bass player and the lead guitarist up! all part of the joke!), playing his instrument and grinning like he doesn’t know that he makes the ugliest woman in the world.
“Thank you very kindly,” Shep says, at the end of their set. “God bless.”
They’re ushered off with a smattering of polite applause and a lot of “what the fuck?” faces.
Later, back in their own skin, Shep glides out onto the stage in his leather pants and his sunglasses and his voice like silk and shattered glass. “Hello Los Annnngeles!” he shouts. “How nice to be back in our home town! Where everyone knows us!”
The crowd goes wild.
Rodney doesn’t really think it’s funny at all.
That night, after the concert, Rodney has a late dinner with his sister. Homemade lasagne in her warm, too-cramped kitchen, and they don’t really have anything to say to each other, but for once that’s okay. Jeannie’s there.
Then Rodney goes home to his own house in Laurel Canyon, the one he thinks is too dark, confined by the press of hills. He keeps meaning to sell it, but he’s barely ever there anyway. Sell or stay, it doesn’t really matter.
The house is dark. Rodney goes from room to room, turning on the lights. When he gets to the bedroom, he hears breathing, sees a shadow. He tenses even though he recognizes both: he flips on the light and John’s waiting for him.
John’s waiting there, mouth a slash of red lipstick, his body cocooned in a tight green velvet dress.
Rodney feels a stab of— “That’s funny,” he says. “I don’t remember ordering a whore.”
John’s eyes flash. But he just says, “I shaved my legs for you,” and spreads them, like Sharon Stone with a surprise.
Rodney drops the little Tupperware container of lasagne he’s carrying, the one he forgot to put down when he was in the kitchen. He stares at John, who lies back, velvet rucking up over newly smooth thighs, cock peeking out from under the hem of the dress and sliding easily into John’s hand.
It’s beautiful and it’s sick and Rodney trembles, throbbing with an emotion he can’t, doesn’t want to explain.
But lust he can do. Lust they can always do. So even though he says, “I’m never really fucking you, am I?” he still walks forward, goes and stands at the foot of the bed, between John’s legs. He drops down, runs a hand up John’s thigh. Up close, the illusion is less complete: the job was rushed, obviously, and there are patches of red skin, tender from razor burn. Rodney bends down and presses a kiss to one such crimson blush. “I’m fucking your latest idea.”
“I think that’s all there is,” John says, and Rodney lifts him up, tastes the alcohol on his breath and in his mouth. Bitter and stale.
“You gonna fuck me like a woman, Rodney?” John asks. Drawing a hand across his collarbone, picking up and dropping one emerald strap. “Do you even know how?”
Rodney stiffens. They don’t talk about this. They don’t ever talk about this. Because even though they don’t talk about it, they both know that for Rodney, John is the first and only. And for John...
They don’t talk about it.
Except, “I’ve fucked lots of women,” Shep says, wiggling on Rodney’s lap. His cock poking out the bottom of his dress. “They can’t get enough of me.”
Rodney’s had more than enough. He wants to push John off of him and walk out, leave him to sleep it off or try to get a taxi to drop him somewhere other than West Hollywood. He wants to yank that stupid dress up above John’s waist, tear it, turn him around and pound him into the mattress. But...he sees the determined look in John’s eyes, sees the sharpening of pupils not as liquor-drowned at John would obviously like him to think. And he gets it. The joke. The grand old joke.
That’s what John wants him to do.
Rodney raises his hand. Digging deep into the hair at the back of John’s neck so that John’s long throat is exposed, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows, breathing hard. “I don’t believe you,” Rodney says. “I don’t believe a single thing you say or anything you do.” He lets go with a jerk. “And you like it that way.”
John starts to laugh. Rodney shuts him up with a kiss.
He’s angry. Furious. He wants to fuck John’s mouth, bite at his lip until he bleeds. But he can be a joker, too: a wild card, turning the kisses gentle with steady concentration and patience and practice. Playing John with careful fingers, just like he would a guitar.
“But you can’t fool me forever,” he says, lowering John back down onto the bed. Sliding down, over him, with his mouth: tasting clean, soapy skin and cheap, thrift store velvet, and John, the intense flavor of him, nuzzling his balls and the root of his cock. “I do know you,” kissing the shaft, “I know you better than anyone,” the tip, “and you hate that,” swallowing, mouth applying steady suction, humming. You hate that, you hate that. But you need it, too.
John makes a choked sound and then his hands are on Rodney’s head, brushing over the tips of his ears, knuckles scraping across his cheeks and chin. He comes with a muted sob, arm moving up, flung across his face. And then Rodney does fuck him, does push the dress higher up, over the warm curve of his ass, and fucks him, pulls him into his lap and thrusts gently up, tiny rocking movements, John’s arms coming slowly around his back, his head on Rodney’s shoulder.
“I fucked up,” John says. They’re still doing it, still fucking, having sex, though there’s only the gentle rise and fall of Rodney’s hips to go by, to mark the movement. Rodney’s hands traveling across John’s back, over the dress’ straps, tight green bands of velvet, cutting into his shoulder blades.
“No,” says Rodney, who’s learned a little about lying through the process of osmosis. “They’re the morons who didn’t get it.”
John thinks about this. He licks at Rodney’s neck.
“You’re right,” he says after a minute, and suddenly he’s clenching his ass around Rodney’s cock, and Rodney is gasping, his hips spasming, the velvet crumpling in his fists.
“I mean,” John says, “Ronon in a dress: what’s not funny about that?”
John’s eyes are open and uncovered. Rodney bites his tongue, and laughs like he doesn’t know the answer.
NOTES:
1. For those of you concerned with continuity, this takes place before the end of ‘Four Quarters.’ Before the end of ‘Bootleg,’ too.
2. And for those concerned about how fucking angsty this damn story is: it doesn’t end here, or with ‘Bootleg.’ There’s something more I want to write, and
wychwood is gonna help me with it, and I’m pretty damn sure it’ll end more brightly than this. Stay tuned.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-29 07:31 pm (UTC)I'm fascinated by where you guys will take this.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-29 07:32 pm (UTC)(Which means: This is brilliant writing, it cuts to the bone in the best ways).
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-29 07:38 pm (UTC)...and you're sure you haven't moonlighted in popslash??? :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-29 08:03 pm (UTC)Thank you. I need to start thinking of ways to make it better now. I'm hurting myself.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-29 07:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-29 07:44 pm (UTC)Right now, though? I'm kind of still stuck on the mmmm, tastycakes reaction that John in a green velvet dress inspires. And when I get done with that, I'll need to squee for a bit about how well Rodney knows John, that he can see through his bullshit and do the things they need, rather than the things John wants/expects him to do.
But after that, I'll be sure to get right on with the ow-ing. Oh, John. Oh, Rodney. *smacks John upside the head, hugs Rodney, and smooshes them back together*
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-29 07:48 pm (UTC)Um.
Whoa.
I just. Can't. I don't *flail*
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-29 07:50 pm (UTC)erm actually, I find John quite canonical here, even though he can sing.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-29 08:01 pm (UTC)And yeah...I don't quite want this to be the canonical John (I don't even want him to be the Puddlejumpers' John--he was supposed to be a lot more apologetic at the end of this story, but he rebelled). But it's like you said in your post about 'Inferno,' and the bit I quoted from 'Before I Sleep'--he's not very nice. But that doesn't make me love him any less, just...in a different way.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-29 07:51 pm (UTC)(By which I mean, I love this, as ever. But god, Trin.)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-29 08:05 pm (UTC)Seriously, we should do that. Maybe when
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Date: 2006-04-29 08:02 pm (UTC)Because even though they don’t talk about it, they both know that for Rodney, John is the first and only. And for John...
I always thought of myself as an OTPer but Rodney really, really needs to have an affair. An affair with someone he likes and who geniunely likes him. He deserves it.
John can have him back. Eventually. When he's earned it. ;)
Ps. Thanks so much for the soundtrack. "The Last High" is my new favorite song.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-29 08:27 pm (UTC)John can have him back. Eventually. When he's earned it. ;)
I've actually been thinking about that. *squirms* Hmm.
(The sad thing is, I think John's mostly been true to Rodney. He's just put a lot of effort into making it seem like he's not.)
Ps. Thanks so much for the soundtrack. "The Last High" is my new favorite song.
I'm so glad you like it! (It, and the story.) Let me know if you want some more Dandy Warhols; I can hook you up.
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From:Re: Dandy Warhols
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Date: 2006-04-29 08:28 pm (UTC)Also, ow. I'm enjoying the angst!fest, though.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-29 08:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-29 08:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-29 09:33 pm (UTC)You tempt well, kemosabe. *g*
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-29 09:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-29 09:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-29 09:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-30 07:29 am (UTC)God, yes, me too! Maybe right before their last big concert, the last stop on their "Goodbye Puddlejumpers" tour -- after there's nothing left to lose, but before it would be completely meaningless. Or, hey, maybe right there on stage -- without telling Rodney that he's planning it, of course, or maybe he doesn't even know himself that he's going to do it. Because John's introductions are always impulsive, and occasionally not very well thought through.
But, um, that's just my fantasy ending, because I'm sappy like that. I suspect the real ending will be smarter.
And I will stop spamming Trinity's comment thread now. I can stop any time I want to! Really!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-29 09:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-29 09:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-29 09:53 pm (UTC)I would agree that Rodney needs to have an affair, except the last thing John needs is to have his mistrust in the world proved valid...
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-29 10:43 pm (UTC)*winces*
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-29 10:44 pm (UTC)I totally love this universe. And maybe it's just because I'm the Queen of Optimism, but I can definitely picture John finally getting his shit together. It'll probably take some sort of crisis, though, to trigger it, followed by the assistance of some therapy and the right meds. (And then he's going to angst about how "OMG now that I'm actually happy and sane I'm going to end up writing cheesetastic songs for lame movies, just like Sting!" But he'll decide that even if his music has to suck, it'll be worth it, and then it won't end up sucking anyway. The End. ;-D )
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-29 10:49 pm (UTC)Plus - what other people said - Rodney needs an affair with somebody that loves and respects him and doesn't play these hurtful games.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-29 11:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-29 11:09 pm (UTC)So, do you read or write their RPS? Because I think you wouldn't have far to go :)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-29 11:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-29 11:29 pm (UTC)