Title: Atlantis Hunks
Author: esteefee
Pairing: Sheppard/McKay, Lorne/Parrish implied
Rating: R
Wordcount: 3,850
Spoilers: Not really.
Categories: FT, ridiculous
Summary: There's no spam in Camelot.


Atlantis Hunks

by esteefee



It started with a message in Rodney's mbox that made his blood pressure shoot alarmingly into the red zone:

From: HotHunkinAction <leatherman@hotboyz.lantis.net>
To: Undisclosed Recipients <nobody@ioa.gov>
Subject: Atlantis Military Hunks Calendar on the cheap!

Rodney immediately hit H to expand the headers.

From leatherman@hotboyz.lantis.net Tue Sep 12 06:25:45 2006
Return-Path: <leatherman@hotboyz.lantis.net>
X-LANTIS-Auth: No
Received: from nlpi043.fructos.net (nlpi043.fructose.net [207.115.36.72])
by smtp.lantis.org (8.14.2/8.14.2) with ESMTP id lBBKxehN021571
for <rmckay@ioa.gov>; Tue, 12 Sep 2006 08:59:42 -0800 (PST)
X-ORBL: [71.141.235.127]
Received: from [127.0.0.1] (adsl-71-141-235-127.dsl.snfc21.lantis.org [71.141.235.127])
by nlpi043.lantis.org (8.13.8 out.dk.spool/8.13.8) with ESMTP id lBBKfMjG008466;
Tue, 12 Sep 2006 08:41:24 -0600
Message-ID: <475EF571.1020605@hotboyz.lantis.net>
Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2006 12:39:13 -0800
From: HotHunkinAction <leatherman@hotboyz.lantis.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: Undisclosed Recipients <nobody@ioa.gov>
Subject: Atlantis Military Hunks Calendar on the cheap!
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
--_722fc991-3455-425e-a982-bbc4deaa062b_
Content-Type: binary/zip
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="militaryCal.zip"
X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV 0.91.2/5092/Tue Sep 12 08:35:26 2006 on steve.lantis.org
X-Virus-Status: Clean
X-UIDL: 0~H!!Mmc"!\Yf!!1*J"!
Status: RO
X-Status: A
-------------------------

Rodney didn't bother looking at the contents of the email. The mere fact someone had the audacity, the unmitigated gall to hack their internal mail network in order to send spam of all things was enough to make steam shoot out of his ears a la Porky Pig; not, mind you, that Rodney bore any surface resemblance to the creature, but sometimes he did wish he had the ability to physically manifest the deep, burning rage that bubbled within his body.

He immediately set up a trace-back program and started up a sniffing daemon to capture the next effort to violate the pristine cleanliness of Atlantis' mail servers. Pegasus might be plagued by life-sucking aliens, but at least it wouldn't have any fucking spam.

He let his tracer run and was in the mess grabbing breakfast before the staff meeting when Sheppard came in.

The low murmur of luncheon crowd immediately died down for some reason, only to buzz upward again sharply. Sheppard's eyebrows went up before he scowled and walked over to the food line.

Rodney went back to scooping oatmeal into his mouth while reading up on the latest in what could laughably be termed wormhole research by the poor, ignorant scientific riffraff inhabiting Earth.

"Hey," Sheppard said, something in his voice a little wary. He was standing above Rodney with his tray in hand, as if he thought he needed permission to sit at their usual table.

Rodney waved him down and went back to eating. After a pause almost significant enough for Rodney to look up again, Sheppard sat down and started poking at his food. He cleared his throat.

"I guess you haven't checked your email yet."

Rodney blew out a huff of disgust. "If you're referring to this morning's spam—spam, on our system!—as soon as I saw the message header I started taking steps."

"Oh?" Sheppard sounded hopeful.

"Yes. I assure you, misuse of the system for prank mails or moneymaking schemes will not go unpunished. I'm already sniffing the perpetrators out, and when I find out who did it, I'm going to have their hides and their access permissions revoked in perpetuity. I'll send them back to Earth on a stretcher. Figuratively, of course."

"Of course."

Looking up, Rodney caught Sheppard smiling at him—not even smirking, but an atypical, warm, grateful smile.

Rodney frowned. "Why are you so interested in this?"

"Oh. Uh. You know, breach of security." Sheppard cleared his throat. "Security of the system." He waved his hand.

"Just pranksters. Idiots. Not of concern." Rodney shrugged.

Sheppard looked down at his tray and started pushing his eggs around with his fork. Puzzled, Rodney watched Sheppard stuff a few bites in his mouth and then drink his juice before getting up to leave without finishing his breakfast.

Rodney went back to his reading, peripherally aware of the wave of giggles that followed Sheppard's exit.

Deciding this bore further investigation, Rodney finished up, then went back to his lab and pulled up the spurious email on his laptop, this time clicking on the attachment, "militaryCal.zip."

It contained a series of small pictures labeled for the months of the year and overlaid on a calendar grid. Major Lorne was January. The shot was grainy, obviously captured with a telephoto lens, catching Lorne at three-quarter profile, shirt off and paintbrush in his hand. He was dabbing onto the canvas set in front of him.

Rodney groaned and started paging through the images. He passed Cadman in a yoga stretch, then flipped through Berkowitz, Lansing (very nice ass shot from the weight room), and Peters before hitting June.

June was John Sheppard, a profile of him naked in the locker room showers. It looked like a frame from a security camera. The shot was in black and white, and the boisterous streams of soapsuds did little to hide the clean lines of Sheppard's ass and muscled thighs. He'd been caught soaping his privates, and it looked like the tip of his—Rodney leaned closer to the screen—he could swear that was Sheppard's cockhead peeking from his loosely curled hand.

Rodney swallowed and peered even closer, then closer still, until the pixels shimmered before his straining eyeballs.

Light footsteps alerted him to Zelenka's imminent arrival, and Rodney closed the image viewer before walking hastily toward the lab restroom. He unzipped and took a forceful piss through his hard-on, splashed some cold water on his face and wrists, had a quick word with Zelenka, and then went up to the morning staff meeting.

:::

"It's really outrageous," Dr. Weir said, although she didn't sound quite as outraged as, in Rodney's humble opinion, she should be. Maybe because she wasn't military and so hadn't been included in the calendar. Rodney would like to see her keep her diplomatic cool if someone snapped her in the base showers.

Ronon and Teyla were obviously bored—they never checked their email, anyway, thinking it an Earth idiosyncrasy. Carson looked absolutely steamed, and opened his mouth, probably to vent Scottish curses, but at that moment Sheppard finally oozed into the room, his eyes going everywhere but never sticking to anyone in particular. He slid down into his usual seat next to Rodney and crossed his arms.

"Sorry I'm late," Sheppard said.

"No problem, Colonel. We were just discussing—"

"The broken compressors in sub-level three," Rodney interjected hastily. "Zelenka is running diagnostics right now and should have a report by tomorrow morning. In addition, as I mentioned at breakfast, there was a minor breach this morning in the internal mail network, but I'm back-tracing the route and I should have the hole closed shortly." Rodney raised his eyebrows at Weir, who twisted her mouth and kept quiet.

"You'll find out who did this terrible thing?" Carson said, outrage trembling in his voice. Possibly because Cadman's March shot, while amply demonstrating her flexibility, was less than flattering—her face was flushed and little strained from the effort of holding her position.

"Oh, I'll find them. They cannot escape me."

"Good," Weir said, sounding relieved to move on. "Now, regarding tomorrow's mission, I'd like you to take a look at the grain survey report..."

As Weir droned on, Rodney snuck a look at Sheppard, who was trying to bring slouching to a new low. His shoulder blades were hooked over the back of his chair, and his chin was resting on his chest, his face blank. He was the first to get up as soon as Elizabeth finished, and gave everyone a sweeping nod before hustling out. Rodney tried to follow after him, but Sheppard wasn't in the Gateroom, so Rodney went down to his lab.

Zelenka sent him a pointer to the compressor results, and Rodney was just starting to read the report when his mail client binged at him.

From: HotHunkinAction <leatherman@hotboyz.lantis.net>
To: Undisclosed Recipients <nobody@ioa.gov>
Subject: By Popular Demand: Your Peerless Leader!

That's right, folks: my inbox has been streaming with requests of *more* candid shots of our peerless military leader, so if enough of you donate rare goods at the usual drop, we here at HotHunkinAction will be providing not only still shots, but action video of Atlantis' hottest Lieutenant Colonel!

Click here to view the attached sample clip, and keep those trade items coming!

Yours truly,
HotHunkinAction

(Acceptable trade items include: fine dark chocolate, beer, hard liquor, Athosian beemar nuts, anything with pineapple, and Jujubes. Please deposit in the South Pier section 3 garbage chute. This is a limited offer!)

The lab was too crowded, so Rodney found himself getting up from his desk and going back to his room, where he quickly opened his personal laptop and pulled up the attachment.

The sound started up first, a terrible disco-type song entitled "I'm Too Sexy." The annoying music spangled out of his speakers while Sheppard appeared on the screen—jogging shirtless in slow-motion along a city catwalk; lying on the East Pier on a hot day, sweat gleaming on his shoulders; bending over a crate of weapons in the armory, his t-shirt riding up to display the small of his back and the soft swell beginning below; and washing his nude body in the grainy security feed from the shower, soap running down Sheppard's slick torso as he soaped his—

The clip cut off abruptly, silencing the music and leaving Rodney alone with the sound of his own shallow panting. He moved on autopilot, heat burning his face as he started the clip playing again, this time in loop mode, and unzipped his pants to stroke himself.

He came hard halfway through the third viewing and then slammed his laptop shut. He made himself leave it behind on his bed and went back to work.

:::

The Colonel didn't appear at lunch, or at dinner time, and so Rodney had his doubts Sheppard would show his face at game night, despite the progress they'd been making together with their Lego Mindstorms RCX kit. Tonight, they'd planned to finally plug in the subspace transmitter so they could control their Lego DogBot remotely from Rodney's computer. It was to be the culmination of weeks of work in programming, and damned if this whole infernal situation with the CyberHunk Hacker, as people were starting to call him, wasn't going to ruin everything.

"McKay." Sheppard's voice nudged him in his lab.

Rodney tapped his earpiece. "Sheppard. You do realize tonight's the big night? Half an hour 'til game time, when our little DogBot will stand ready to wow the local populace."

"Yeah, well. Maybe they've been wowed enough today." Sheppard sounded positively depressed.

"Look, I know this whole Hunk thing must be a little embarrassing, but really—"

"A little? Fuck, Rodney. I swear to God, you've gotta help me—" There was more, incoherent spluttering, but Rodney cut him off.

"I've almost got the little weasel sniffed out, I promise." It was true: the high-powered machines in Rodney's lab had been busy all day churning through network traffic. Soon enough they would come up with the MAC address and thus the physical location of the culprit. "I'm getting close. Just let my program do its thing, and in the meantime, why don't we go to my quarters instead of the rec room? We'll send DogBot for a test run, just the two of us." Rodney was suddenly desperate to see Sheppard and give him a comforting pat or two. It was absurd, really; Sheppard was a grown man, and certainly he had nothing to be ashamed of, even if the footage was a little...risqué.

"Yeah, okay. I guess." The Colonel let out a heavy sigh that blew static into Rodney's ear. "Sheppard out."

Rodney spent the next half-hour cleaning up the DogBot code, adding comments—//DO NOT TOUCH this for-loop unless you know EXACTLY what you're doing. This means you, Colonel Spaghetti-Fingers—and then uploading it to the server so he would be able to download it from the laptop in his quarters. He hustled out the door, Zelenka's surprised, "Rodney! You promised me to look at compressor dynamics!" ringing in his ears.

Rodney had long ago set his door access to allow Sheppard entry; considering the crazy things that happened in Atlantis, he wanted Sheppard and the medical team to be able to get to him in the event he was a) knocked out by a deadly alien gas or b) trapped under something heavy. So he wasn't surprised to see Sheppard waiting in his quarters when he arrived.

He was, however, very surprised to see his laptop open on his bed, and to see Sheppard staring at it and then turning to glare fiercely in Rodney's direction.

And then Rodney heard the stupid music, and suddenly remembered what he'd left running on his personal computer before he went back to work. He took a step backward, almost losing the heel of his right foot when the door tried to close on it before bounding open again.

Sheppard stood. It seemed to take him forever to get to his feet, as if he'd grown cyborg limbs that moved mechanically slow as they straightened to push him upright.

"Fuck you, McKay. I mean it. Fuck you," Sheppard said in a heavy voice Rodney had never heard before, and then he stalked out the door.

:::

At first, Rodney paced, babbling epithets at himself and occasionally batting himself on the forehead to try to relieve some of the utter humiliation. But then he started to get a little angry. After all, so what if Colonel Tightpants saw what he saw? Was Sheppard too homophobic to accept a little natural human lust? What red-blooded gay Canadian could view that video clip without giving in to the urge to whack off, especially considering how very candid the imagery was. One hundred percent pure John Sheppard, being himself, with no awareness of any the cameras peeping in—

Hang on. Hold that thought. Grab it.

Of course! Rodney was being an idiot, perhaps due to his uncommon distraction. Sheppard wasn't aware of being filmed, which of course meant Atlantis' own network must have been hacked for the camera images. And access to that server was completely restricted—only a very few could touch those files. A very short list of accounts, and one of them must have been cracked.

All Rodney had to do was find out whose account, and how.

Maybe once he had the perpetrator in hand, Sheppard would be willing to let bygones be bygones.

:::

Rodney's back-trace binged to completion around the same time he nailed down Lorne's account as the one that had been cracked. Considering Lorne was Mr. January, Rodney felt confident he wasn't the perpetrator. But the protection on the accounts included encryption keys, so whoever it was had to have had physical access to Lorne's own computer.

Rodney went in search of Sheppard first, just to let him know Rodney was still on the case. Really, it was common courtesy, except Sheppard wasn't responding to his radio call.

It wasn't hard to find him—all Rodney had to do was follow all the sympathetic cooing. Simpson, Miko and Lila Brevick from Geophysics were clustered around the Colonel in the rec room. He seemed to have finally either found a sense of humor about the whole situation, or was merely taking advantage to score some points with the prettiest scientists in the city. Regardless, he was smiling and sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck when Rodney came in and bulled his way between Miko and Lila.

"Colonel—"

"What is it, McKay?" The smile was gone, and Sheppard's slouch became downright crippling.

"I have news—well, information, and the possibility of news, really. Can we talk?"

"Yeah, I suppose."

"Please, don't do me any favors."

"Dr. McKay!" Simpson looked horrified. "John has had a very difficult day."

"Yes!" Miko chimed in and put her hand on Sheppard's shoulder. "It's must be awful—to be so exposed."

Rodney noticed Brevick licking her lips, a flush on her face.

"Yes, well, we all have our burdens. Colonel?"

"I'm with you." Sheppard stood up. "Thanks for the hot chocolate, Miko." He started to walk away. And, dear God, was bashful little Miko staring at John Sheppard's ass?

Rodney hurried to follow, incidentally blocking their collective view.

If he didn't know better, he'd almost believe he heard Simpson hissing at him as they walked away.

:::

"Lorne's bash history clearly shows him copying the files to an external server. Unfortunately, whoever it is also hacked DNS, because this IP is history. But!"

"But?"

"My back-trace reveals the MAC address for this machine is 00:80:48:BA:d1:20."

"So?"

"Getting to it. We record all the MAC addresses by unit. So, Life Sciences, say, has their set of MAC addresses, and the military their own. And this one falls in the range for an old machine that belonged to Botany."

"Oookay...so it's someone in Botany?"

"Someone in Botany who has a direct connection to Major Lorne, yes. In other words—"

"Holy crap. It's Parrish."

"Yes. Because he's on Lorne's team. He must have had physical access to Lorne's computer for some reason—at least long enough to log in and copy the files."

"Parrish. That wily bastard. I never would've believed it."

"So."

"So. I guess we go get him." Sheppard rubbed the back of his neck. "Thanks, McKay. I'm...this really bit the big one, you know?"

"No, I don't. And I'm unlikely to." Rodney crossed his arms. "After all, it's not like people are lining up to dig into their chocolate stashes just to see me naked."

Sheppard's mouth dropped open, and then he frowned.

"And, after all, it wasn't like you were doing anything illicit—"

"Yeah, well." Sheppard scrubbed his face with his hands and then gave Rodney a rueful look. "We don't know that, do we? There could be something else on those files, something not so innocent. Which is why we restrict access in the first place."

"Not innocent, how?"

"Just...not. Not footage of me just doing inventory. I really have to keep a closer eye on those cameras," Sheppard said under his breath.

"You're having an affair!" Rodney squeaked in disbelief, then cleared his throat hastily. "I mean, of course, that's your business—"

"Yes. It is." Sheppard glared at him. "And I'd like to keep it my business, which is why we should go catch Parrish in the act of collecting his goods, and then we will get him to tell us where the server is, and we will pound it into gravel." He turned toward the door.

But Rodney wasn't ready to let it go. "Who is it?"

"McKay." Sheppard spun around and glared at him.

"Seriously. You know I won't tell anyone, but I think you owe me that much, at least."

"I owe you."

"Yes."

"I owe you. After that gag you pulled with your laptop to make fun of me?"

The universe did a quick spin maneuver and then settled at a right angle to itself.

"Gag?" Rodney said weakly, "Oh, yes. W-well, I'm sorry for teasing you."

But Sheppard's eyes narrowed into slits, and he took a step toward Rodney.

Rodney found himself backing up, even though he was quite aware the lab bench was two feet behind him and piled high with Ancient artifacts.

"It was a gag, right?" Sheppard sounded uncertain. "Wasn't it?"

Rodney could feel his mouth goldfishing open and closed. Why, oh why hadn't he ever learned to lie properly?

Now Sheppard looked thoughtful. "It wasn't a gag."

Rodney shook his head.

"You were watching it. On purpose."

Rodney nodded.

"In a loop." Sheppard's lips twisted in a rueful smile, and he shook his head. "Oh, Rodney."

"What?" Rodney asked belligerently. "It was honest lust, all right? FYI, you're not...all that bad to look at."

"I'm not?"

When had Sheppard gotten so close? He was maybe a foot away now, the hazel of his eyes so clear that Rodney could see little flecks of green and gold.

"You know what?" Sheppard said, and Rodney felt the stirring of breath across his cheek. "I'd dig into my stash of Pop-Tarts in a heartbeat."

"You have Pop-Tarts?" Rodney asked, which wasn't the point, really.

"I do," Sheppard said solemnly. "And I'd give 'em up for just a ten second loop. You..." He put out one finger and rested it against Rodney's sternum, forcing Rodney to look down and watch it as it wended its way across his stomach, dipped into his bellybutton, and then came to a disappointing halt right at the top of Rodney's zipper. "In that bathtub of yours."

"Ten seconds?"

"Unless you've got a better offer," Sheppard said.

Rodney's dick tried to leap up and make an offer of its own. Sheppard smiled and dragged his finger across Rodney's erection.

"Oh, Jesus."

"Yeah," Sheppard said smugly, and then he tilted his head down.

Kiss me kiss me he's going to—

But Sheppard pulled back abruptly.

"What? What??" Rodney asked, incensed.

Sheppard looked up pointedly. Rodney followed his gaze to the security camera wedged in the corner of the lab ceiling.

"Shit."

Sheppard grinned. "Come on, Doc. We have a villain to apprehend."

"Indeed." Rodney tugged down his shirt.

"And later..."

"Later." Suddenly, later sounded like a really, really nice time of day.

:::

Parrish was caught, not exactly red-handed, but sticky-fingered with his cache of goodies and the laptop with the incriminating MAC address. He was reprimanded—a permanent mark—for hacking the file server and for the possession of classified files, but since a browsing of the laptop revealed he hadn't filched any data that was considered a real security risk, and because his haul didn't have a high monetary value, Sheppard didn't insist on shipping him back to Earth.

The fact Lorne had pleaded Parrish's case probably didn't hurt.

But the Colonel still insisted on borrowing Ronon's gun and blasting the laptop into molten cinders.

And then there was later, when, after extracting pertinent information in re: Sheppard's supposed 'affair'—Christ, Rodney, I can't tell you who. But it was one time and I was desperate. You were driving me nuts—Rodney granted Sheppard some quality naked time.

It went on much longer than ten seconds, and John was with him in the bathtub, so Rodney finally got to find out what it felt like to kiss John, and soap his hard cock and firm balls, and when John returned the favor he took things a little further, slipping his slick fingers into Rodney's ass and making him come with his dick still half-hard from the hot water.

So, ultimately, out of a twisted sense of gratitude, they decided to forgive Parrish. But that didn't stop them from installing a tiny camera in DogBot and sending him over to Parrish's quarters for an after-hours recon mission.

After all, good chocolate was hard to come by in Pegasus.


End.

Author's notes:

Yes, Rodney uses Pine to read his email.

Er. The song. The song is here. Just in case, you know, someone wants to, um, do a vid. Of Sheppard on the catwalk. ("On the catwalk, yeah on the catwalk, I shake my little tush on the catwalk.")

I have no idea if Cadman is still around in this general timescape, but I thought it would be cool to have a hot Marine chick in the calendar.

And Parrish is obviously PURE EVIL GENIUS hidden beneath that lamb-like exterior. That's why Lorne lets him tie him up.

DogBot!