Chapter Text
The fourth time John snuck away to the alternate reality viewer instead of heading for bed, he knew he had a problem. But it was really hard to deny himself when he knew exactly what awaited him…
One week earlier…
They found the room on a routine exploration of the city.
Inside it was a… well, an igloo was probably the best description, and after a few minutes of McKay babbling as he tried to get information on the device from the consoles in the room, John just crawled inside, activating what turned out to be an alternate reality viewer.
Dozens of images appeared on the roof and walls of the interior dome, and every single one of them had an alternate version of John in it…
Within ten minutes they’d worked out that they were seeing glimpses of what was happening to John in different realities.
The images were easy to manipulate. All John had to do was think. He could enlarge whichever one he chose, or make several images bigger and others smaller, or make all but one disappear entirely—or he could leave them at the initial size and watch a dozen or more different Sheppards going about their daily business.
Since they’d been desperately hunting for a way to create or recharge ZPMs when they’d stumbled over the igloo, that need had apparently influenced what John could see. All the images that came up were of alternate versions of himself finding ZPMs. And each image had a row of numbers followed by a series of gate glyphs running across the bottom of the screen.
McKay was quivering with excitement beside him, lying on the soft platform in the middle of the igloo and staring upwards, instructing John to enlarge this image, then that, and frantically noting down the coordinates of the different dimensions and the addresses for the planets on which the images were being captured, along with details of where on the planet Sheppard had found the ZedPM.
By the time they crawled back out, they had grins the size of Texas on their faces and a list of planets to explore where there was a good chance that they, too, might find ZPMs.
***** *****
It wasn’t until John was tucked up safe and warm in his bed, two nights later, a new ZPM giving the geeks orgasms down in the science labs, that he wondered what else he might be able to see himself doing on those igloo walls…
His own reality frowned heavily on the sorts of personal leisure activities John most enjoyed; frowned heavily enough that even having guy-on-guy porn on his laptop would be enough to have him arrested and jailed, but maybe… just maybe… he could watch himself enjoying some real time porn in other realities.
That thought had him quickly gathering some personal supplies from his bedside drawer and hightailing it—in a very sneaky fashion—through the city to the tower where the AR viewer resided.
They hadn’t left a guard or anything—John was the only one who could activate it. All attempts by others had failed and the geeks had determined that breaking through the boundaries of reality needed a very strong, very pure gene, which meant that John Sheppard’s Super Gene was the only one that could work it—and also meant that he didn’t need to worry about getting caught using it.
The other thing in his favour was that the power to run the AR viewer was drawn from every single reality to which the device was attached, which meant all the energy came from elsewhere and none from John’s Atlantis, so the chance of anyone realising what he was doing was non-existent.
He snuck through the lab door and shut it behind him, crawled into the igloo, set his supplies to the side, and then lay back and thought very sexy thoughts.
When he flicked his eyes open, a grin lit his face because he’d been right! His alternate selves were having a lot of fun with a variety of different guys in a variety of different locations. Somalia, Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq, Australia, France, New Zealand, America, Fiji… There was even one of his alter egos getting it on with Sergeant Barnstoke in Antarctica which was something John had fantasized about, but of course had never acted on.
He managed to come three times that night to the symphony of lust wrapping around him. He hadn’t had a night like that since he’d been in college and had accidentally walked in on an orgy in the back room of the local student hangout. He smiled in memory, and instantly images began to appear on the igloo’s dome of a range of Sheppards getting it on in pubs and drinking establishments.
John was too sated to react though—not even to the image of a blow job from a rather well-muscled guy—and he eventually thought the igloo off, gathered his supplies just in case someone stumbled over them, and headed for his own room, aiming for a shower and some sleep.
***** *****
The next moment he had to spare, John headed straight back to the igloo again, because why shouldn’t he enjoy himself for a change?
And it was enjoyable.
He could think of any scenario, any fantasy he’d ever had in his teens, twenties, thirties… and somewhere in the multiverse, a copy of himself was playing out that fantasy as John lay in comfort in his igloo and joined in the action.
It was awesome. It was mind-blowing. He hadn’t felt this good in… forever.
And the best bit was that he’d worked out how to activate the sound. Obviously, when there were multiple images, they were all muted or it would’ve been a cacophony, but once you’d picked an image and enlarged it to a certain size, you could turn on the audio by simply thinking about it, and then you could hear what they were saying.
He’d actually tried to communicate with the Sheppard on screen, but it was obvious his alter-ego couldn’t hear him. Accepting it was a one-way system, he’d let himself enjoy the sounds of the porn playing out above him, adding greatly to the ambience and the pleasure.
The third night he spent there, he idly wondered who he was fucking in the city of the Ancients and whether his doppelgangers had the same tastes here that he did.
When images of Major Lorne’s tantalisingly naked body appeared in more than two dozen images, John felt a grin of anticipation overtake his visage. God yes! Lorne’s shoulders alone made him an attractive choice… but add in his cheerful demeanour and his extreme competence in all matters, his ‘voice of reason’ which always gave John pause, and the dimples that adorned his cheeks when he was particularly happy…
Well, it wasn’t like John had never noticed that his 2IC was very fuckable. And apparently, he wasn’t the only version of himself who’d made that observation.
He paused for a moment, briefly considering the ethics of what he was about to do, but then he gave a mental shrug. After all, what would it hurt? It wasn’t as if Lorne would ever know he was doing this, after all, and he couldn’t be the only person in creation who’d ever fantasised about someone they worked with.
The biggest issue he had that night was deciding which of the images to enlarge—the one in the hot pools (the location of which John had immediately taken note), the one in the Jumper, or the infirmary after lights out (God! That was HOT!), the one in the armoury with the gun oil, the one in the back of the kitchens while the Marines were busy with the clean-up from dinner, the one… Jesus! So many to choose from.
John was well and truly blissed out when he finally crawled out of the igloo and made his way back to his quarters, very careful to avoid the roaming Marine patrols. He didn’t want to get sprung because the AR viewer was proving to be every bit as incredible as he’d hoped!
***** *****
The next day was a flurry of activity with no time for a diversion of a personal nature, and the following two days were missions in search of more ZPMs because, as McKay had rightly pointed out, two was better than one, and many was better than a few.
John was fizzing with delight as his team returned triumphant through the gate once more.
Rodney took their newest ZPM and disappeared into the science labs, no doubt on his way to test its integrity and volume before seating it into the empty slot in the ZPM room. John left him to it, taking himself off for a very long, very hot shower before grabbing some dinner in the mess hall.
Lorne was in the mess and John felt himself flush. He’d had some issues over the past few days keeping a level head around his XO after his night of igloo-induced debauchery, and he wasn’t sure he could keep himself together if he joined him for dinner, so instead he just sent a small nod of acknowledgement across the mess when Lorne met his eyes, then filled a tray and headed back to his own quarters.
They had yet another early mission planned for the next day. McKay was eager to follow up every single ZPM lead John had gleaned from his alternate selves in the shortest possible time, and while John actually agreed, it’d be nice to have a day off to just relax.
He sank onto the end of the bed as he admitted to himself that he’d actually like a day off to just lie naked in the igloo, cock in hand, watching himself getting a helluva lot of very arousing action in a plethora of different realities. He’d spent nearly twenty years hiding this side of himself because of the restrictions around his career, and the thought of finally being able to let loose and be himself was far more alluring than any lingering sense of shame over his voyeuristic actions.
He sighed, lying back on the mattress and gazing up at the ceiling as he admitted a truth to himself, something he’d kept under wraps for months. As cool as it was to see himself getting lucky, over and over again, in every country on Earth and on boundless planets galaxy wide, what he really wanted was the chance to actually have some partnered sex instead of just ‘joining in’ as the Sheppards in all those other realities got to do exactly what John wanted to do… but couldn’t.
He shuddered at the thought of having someone like… God! someone like Major Lorne… here, in his quarters, laid out on his bed, his naked body glimmering in the moonlight, the light scattering of hair a teasing sensation against his fingertips—against his lips—as he roamed Lorne’s body, bringing pleasure to every inch of his skin before dipping lower and lower, inching towards the ultimate erogenous zone.
He lay there for another ten minutes before deciding that fantasising about his XO wasn’t perhaps the most appropriate way to spend his evening. But he was still feeling the keen edge of horniness, and obviously seeing himself pleasuring a range of different men was a damn sight better than just imagining it, so he got off the bed and headed out, wending his way carefully through little used halls, and in and out of transporters, until he reached his target location.
The igloo lit up in warm colours as he entered the room, and John felt his heart rate pick up in anticipation of what was about to happen. He toed off his sneakers and crawled inside, shucking his clothes as he reached his little nest. Naked and primed, lube open beside him, tissues to hand on the other side, John closed his eyes for a moment and thought very deliberately about what he wanted to see tonight.
‘Sheppard in a hot tub or bath or shower… with male partners.’
Sounds immediately started to fill the igloo, and he flicked his eyes open to see more than two dozen images of himself and Lorne, naked and together, in various stages of pleasuring each other.
His eyes widened as he glanced from image to image, realising that his obsession with his 2IC had limited his viewing options to only Evan… but his hand was already wrapping around his hardening cock as his body came alive. He gave into it, the tantalising images too much to ignore as his mind picked three realities to watch more closely, bringing one image up to the largest size. It was directly above him and made him feel as if he was almost in the video footage with them.
They were in the hot pools—which he really needed to hunt down as soon as possible—and there were a number of other people in there with them. Desultory conversations were going on around them as people hopped out and moved to smaller pools, or maybe to cooler or hotter pools, John wasn’t sure. But Sheppard and Lorne stayed there, letting others come and go as they sat side by side, talking over ‘operational matters.’
Being the CO of the base, John knew their talk was for show, it wasn’t really necessary to discuss battle tactics in a hot pool at night, but clearly, they were creating the illusion of command discussions, and slowly the pool emptied out until it was just them. They were sitting on the shadowed side of the pools with good visibility across the rest of the cascading rocked area, and they’d easily see anyone approaching, but by staying in a larger pool, they were equally signalling that nothing hinky was going on. Except John knew that it was.
He focused his attention on the water and the image zoomed in, actually ducking beneath the surface to show him Sheppard’s hand wrapped around Lorne’s cock, gently stroking as Lorne’s hand returned the favour.
John whimpered slightly, his eyes on the imagery above him. Christ! He wanted to do that with his Lorne, wanted to find the damn pools and jerk each other off while the rest of the expedition cavorted nearby. He zoomed out a bit until he could just see their hands through the top of the water but could also see their faces, their bodies. Lorne was turned slightly towards his CO, Sheppard turned slightly away, both had their eyes on their surroundings, but no-one was paying them any attention. They were both flushed, their chests rising and falling more quickly than was reasonable for a late-night chat. John let his eyes caress Lorne’s sleek torso, appreciating his pecs, his tightly purled nipples, his abs—what could be seen of them above the rippling water, underneath which those hands were both starting to speed up…
Then Sheppard suddenly took a deep breath and slipped beneath the water, and John zoomed straight in, knowing what was going to happen and desperately wanting to see it. His own body was on fire, one hand playing roughly with his nipples, the other tugging his cock, keeping the tumbling feelings of pleasure coasting through his body as he watched his alter-ego slide his mouth over Lorne’s cock under the waterline where no-one could see that he was blowing his XO in a room filled with Marines. Jesus!
John’s hand sped up, his breathing fracturing as he watched Sheppard sucking Lorne’s cock so hard his cheeks were denting in. Lorne surged his hips forward as if the pleasure had been too much to take sitting still, and John could feel that same pleasure in his own body. Twice, three times, Lorne rocked up into Sheppard’s mouth and then Lorne’s body jerked, and John knew he was coming—Lorne was coming in his CO’s mouth in the damn hot pools in the middle of their troops in an alternate reality—and John followed, tumbling over the edge as the ecstasy swept him up and crashed him over and over, cum flying in all directions as his vision whited out.
It was a while before he regained a sense of himself, and when he did, it was to see Lorne and Sheppard leaving the pool area, only their naked backs visible as they reached for towels and disappeared through the sliding door to what was probably a locker room type set up.
John lay for a few minutes, gazing unseeingly at the other versions of himself getting lucky, before his mind started to take notice. He thought of trying to find a different paramour, but he was too sated right then to want to shift focus, so he quietly perused the remaining options, picking one where Sheppard and Lorne were standing in a garden under a full moon kissing each other deeply, passionately. He could happily watch them for a while as he waited for his refractory period to elapse.
Seeing them so happy together, enjoying just kissing each other—no need for more—did a lot to soothe the constant ache of loneliness John had lived with for the past twenty-odd years. In fact, watching so many of his alter-egos expressing their sexuality with such joy had had a profound effect on his own sense of self, his own self-esteem.
He hadn’t felt this good about himself—this accepting of himself—in, well, ever.
As his body slowly started to come alive again, he suddenly remembered his early morning mission.
Damn! He needed to get a decent sleep for this one. They were expecting a twenty click hike each way, and he’d need to be on his game to keep McKay moving for that long through the complaints that were bound to fall from his lips despite the possibility of a ZPM at the end of the trail.
Sighing, John decided that, actually, that’d been one helluva orgasm, and he was content to leave it there for tonight. He really needed to find those hot springs though. Smiling up at the dozen or more images playing out around him, John quietly thought ‘off’, then spent a few minutes wiping himself—and the igloo—clean, before redressing and crawling his way out.
Once clear of the igloo entryway, John pushed himself up to his feet, only to come to a very shocked standstill.
Major Lorne was standing with his back to the door, tac-vest and P-90 in place, and a Wraith stunner pointed straight at him.