Weirdness

"Rodney, you have to help me."

Rodney looked up from his laptop to find Colonel Sheppard with his back pressed against the doors to Rodney's lab, panting.

"They've all gone crazy."

Rodney had spent the last two days trying to sort through part of the Ancient's research on power sources and he shook his head to clear it of equations.

"Rodney, did you hear me?"

"Yes, yes, I heard you. What's going on?"

"They've gone crazy."

John was looking more than a little wild-eyed, and Rodney wasn't entirely sure it was everyone else who was crazy. "You mentioned that. Why don't you tell me how they've gone crazy."

With a quick look over his shoulder at the door behind him, John said, "They're acting weird."

"Okay." Rodney wondered if he could contact Beckett, or maybe Heightmeyer, without John noticing. "How were they acting weird?"

"This is going to sound weird."

Rodney didn't bother to point that a description of weirdness should sound weird.

John took a step away from the doors. "I found Teyla and Ronon in the gym and she was making Ronon bark like a dog."

Rodney had to admit that was weird. "Are you sure you didn't misunderstand? Ronon can be a little…" He left the word animalistic unspoken.

"Teyla was wearing The Skirt." Every man in Atlantis and most of the women knew which skirt was The Skirt. "And she pulled the front panel aside, pressed Ronon's face into her…" John trusted Rodney to fill in the missing word on his own, "and told him to lick her like the dog he was."

It took Rodney a moment to process that image. Unfortunately, his dick processed it more quickly than he did. "That's a little weird."

"It gets weirder," John said with a nod. "I went to the infirmary to talk to Carson about Teyla and Ronon. He was in jackboots, and leather pants, with a chainmail vest."

"Ronon?"

"Carson. Jeez, Rodney, keep up."

"Sorry." It would have been easier to keep up if his brain hadn’t threatened to shutdown at the thought of Carson in leather and chainmail. "Carson can't wear jackboots."

"Well he was."

"He can't."

John crossed his arms. "Why can't he?"

"He's Scottish. His grandfather fought in the war. It'd be a betrayal."

"The Nazis weren't the only ones who wore jackboots."

That was true. But Carson, jackboots, it just didn't fit.

"He was spanking Lorne." John said it in a perfectly matter of fact tone that almost made Rodney believe it.

"Isn't that against regs?" Rodney asked.

"Only if he's getting a blowjob at the same time."

"Oh."

"Lorne was kneeling on one of the beds, with his pants pulled down. There were handprints. On Lorne's ass. A CO shouldn't have to see things like that."

Rodney nodded the sympathetically.

"The word enema was mentioned."

Rodney was beginning to understand John's trauma, and he made a scrunched up face to let John know he was disturbed, too. Rodney's cock was so disturbed, it had gone soft and was trying to hide behind his balls.

"I went to see Elizabeth."

The thought of what John might have found in Elizabeth's office was almost enough to make Rodney shudder. "She wasn't whipping anyone, was she?"

John shook his head. "She was wearing a corset, and she got on her knees and asked me to give her orders. She called me 'Master,' Rodney."

Had anyone else told him this insane tale, Rodney would have been convinced they were playing a joke, but while John Sheppard had an unusual sense of humor it didn't extend to practical jokes. More importantly, he looked off-balance, shaken by what he'd seen. It took a lot to knock Sheppard off-balance. "Clearly something is influencing their behavior."

"You think?"

Rodney ignored him. "Was anyone else affected?"

"I came straight here from Weir's office, but there were some sounds coming from the mess that I prefer not to think about."

"We should contact Heightmeyer," Rodney said.

John nodded, but neither of them activated their radios. "What if she's affected?"

Rodney tried not to think of pretty, blonde Dr. Heightmeyer in skin tight black leather. Unfortunately, his dick wanted to think about it. The rest of him wasn't sure which would be more disturbing, Heightmeyer as a dominatrix, or Heightmeyer as a submissive. Either way, he'd never be able to get counseling again. And Rodney liked talking about himself for an hour, more or less uninterrupted.

"Maybe we should try and determine what they might have been exposed to that we weren't," Rodney suggested.

"Good idea." John grabbed a lab stool and pulled it up next to Rodney's. "I saw Ronon and Teyla at 1400 hours."

"We all had breakfast together in the mess at 0700," Rodney said. "So sometime in those seven hours Teyla and Ronon were exposed to something that altered their behavior. I came straight here after breakfast, and I've been here all day."

"You didn't eat lunch?"

"Power bars."

"I went to my office," John said. "The SGC databurst is tomorrow."

Which meant that John had a backlog of reports and requisitions to attend to. "You skipped lunch, I assume?"

"Figured I'd make myself a sandwich when I was done."

"So how did you end up in the gym?"

"Bathroom run. I saw them when I was walking by. So, we didn't eat lunch, but I'm betting they all did. Ronon never misses a meal, neither does Beckett."

"We don't know that they all ate lunch; even if they did it could be a coincidence. Food causing this kind of behavior change is a little far-fetched," Rodney said.

"We're at war with life-sucking vampires."

Rodney nodded absently, his fingers already moving over the keys, pulling up the mess hall website.

"The mess has a website?" John asked.

"People like to know what is going to be served."

"You mean you like to know."

"I'm people." Rodney clicked on today's lunch menu. "Corn chowder, tossed salad, rolls. Have they lost the ability to cook meat?"

"Rodney."

"There's nothing here that hasn't been served a dozen times before."

"Maybe something happened while they were eating lunch? Maybe they've all contracted some sort of virus?" John suggested.

"A BDSM virus?"

"Could happen. Besides, there has to be some explanation."

"Where do you think Carson got the leather pants?" Rodney asked, turning to look at John.

"Rodney."

"Sorry, it's just, it's a disturbing image."

"Then maybe you should stop thinking about it."

Rodney snapped his fingers inches from John's nose. John glared, but Rodney ignored him. "Maybe they all received some sort of subliminal message."

"Okay." John was clearly reluctant to give up on the virus idea. "How?"

"What did they do this morning that we didn't?"

"Teyla was going to email me new copies of her reports. Ronon and Lorne both had reports to send in."

"Did she?"

"Teyla always does what she says she's going to do."

"Yes, but did you check?" Rodney asked impatiently.

"No, I was too busy with my own reports."

"I haven't opened email, either." Rodney turned the possibilities over in his mind.

"You think they received BDSM spam," John said, a hint of excitement in his voice. Fortunately, Rodney's dick was too traumatized to respond.

"It's possible." Rodney moved his cursor to the Thunderbird icon. He was a geek. Outlook was beneath him.

"What are you doing?" John grabbed his wrist. "You can't open it. What if it affects us?"

"I won't open the email itself. I'm just going to read the subject lines."

John released Rodney's arm. "Okay, but be careful."

Rodney scanned his inbox. "Have better sex now," he read. "Sounds like that could be it."

"Elizabeth opened an email that said, 'have better sex now.' I didn't need to know that," John said.

"Me either."

"Can you fix it?"

"First, I'm going to delete the email from everyone's systems except mine. That way no one else will be affected."

"You can do that?" John asked.

Rodney merely looked at him.

"Then what?" John asked, not conceding the ridiculousness of his previous question.

"Then I analyze the email itself to find out how it was done. Then we cure everyone."

"What about finding the person responsible?"

Rodney smiled. "Oh, I'll do that, too."

***

Over the next few hours, John's admiration for Rodney grew as he watched the other man isolate and analyze the dangerous email. John braved the world outside Rodney's lab long enough to locate Dr. Heightmeyer, who thankfully hadn't checked her email.

Zelenka, unfortunately, had, and the sight of him in diapers calling Colonel Caldwell "Daddy" was something John feared would never leave his brain.

With John and Rodney's help, Dr. Heightmeyer was able to return everyone to normal, although about two-thirds of the expedition was unable to look anyone else in the eye. John confined his own eye-gazing to Rodney. It was safer.

Lt. Larson confessed as soon as he was confronted. "I did it for your own good," he protested. "Someone needed to show you the weaknesses in Atlantis's spam filters. If McKay had listened this never would have happened."

Rodney merely rolled his eyes at Larson's attempts to pass the blame.

No one ever asked Carson where the jackboots had come from.

Or the leather pants.