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When the four of them had all moved in together, there had been a few stares, but it honestly wasn’t as bad as it could have been. DADT hasn’t been an issue since the sixties, and even if it had been a thing, you honestly couldn’t discharge someone from the military unless you could prove it, and there was nothing to prove , anyways.
If Rodney had been told, years ago, that he would be engaging in a polyamorous relationship with two men and one woman, and that he’d only be having a sexual relationship with one of them, he honestly would have questioned what he was getting out of that relationship.
It’s not like Rodney was an easily loved person either, why the hell would they even put up with him at all if they weren’t getting something out of it.
Sometimes, it turns out, that you don’t need to get anything out of love, other than love.
And there was no one on the Atlantis base that needed to be loved more than John Sheppard, the most reclusive, self kept, nervous man that Rodney had ever met in his life. If you could call someone an open book, it would be Evan Lorne, who could wear his heart on his sleeve if he wasn’t on duty, and could be read as easily is plain English. John… was more like a book someone tossed in the fireplace. The pages are all sort of melted together, it’s hard to pry the damn thing open.
Rodney never thought he’d care enough to carefully pull each page apart, and attempt to read that strange story written in a language he didn’t speak.
The only thing easy about it, was… them. There was something easy about living together with the three of them. Jennifer ran their little group with an iron fist, and she seemed to be the only one that could get John to talk on days when he looked like he had the whole ocean weighing down on him, and she was better at this whole parenting thing than Rodney ever would be.
But, there was something easy about coming back to their quarters -three bedrooms and two baths, a tiny kitchen for them to use and a living room that seemed to be constantly covered in books and handheld video game systems and computers- and knowing that he could get John to go into his room to change, that he could sit down -just the two of them, or any other combination of the four- and get John to finally relax after a day of being in charge, and watch the stress melt out of him like liquid.
It was the only real time that he’d ever seen John relax so fully in front of him before, and he felt entirely honored in an uncharacteristic way, that it was him , and Jennifer and Evan who he could relax like that around.
He never would have thought, that a purely platonic relationship, could be so entirely fulfilling as this one was, and he never would have thought he’d come to crave it as much as he did.
It was a little gross how sappy he was about it, but he loved it entirely.
See, Rodney and Jennifer played an important role for Evan and John. When the four of them were alone and relaxed in their quarters, they were ‘Mommy’ and ‘Daddy’ and that meant that John was their little baby boy, and Evan was his amazing big brother. That was how they relaxed, and Rodney wouldn’t change it for the world, and he’s pretty sure none of the others would either.
One day, that might change, hell, he never thought he’d be sitting on a sofa, in another galaxy, in the lost city of Atlantis of all the freaking places, but here he is, sitting on that sofa, watching John playing with soft baby blocks on the floor with his big brother while Jennifer went through some reports while sitting on his other side.
And it was nice.
“Daddy?” John’s voice was small, like his little self was, quiet and meek more often than not, and usually garbled a little bit behind the pacifier that meanie Mommy made him use so he didn’t suck on fingers, because she didn’t want him to get sick.
Rodney smiled a little. He never thought he’d love hearing that name come out of someone’s mouth, but he honestly did. “Yes, baby boy?”
John didn’t smile like he usually did at that, so he obviously had something big on his mind. He got off his bottom on the floor, and crawled a few feet over to where Rodney was sitting. One, slightly unsure hand, settled on his knee, and Rodney made sure to give John his full attention, instead of having it split between his boys and his tablet.
“What’s uh… what’s sex?”
That was a tough topic to breech. Of course, John knew what sex was, he wasn’t turned into a child, he was an adult with the mindset of a child, and still knew adult things. Of course, they’d never talked about sex with him being so little before. See, John, as both an adult and a little, couldn’t handle it. He was as sex repulsed as a person can get without being full on terrified of the subject.
Rodney gave Evan a look, and noted that he looked slightly guilty, and Jennifer had put her own reports down, watching them carefully in case she might need to interfere.
John looked curious though.
“Evan, why’s Johnny want to know about that?”
Evan avoided his eyes, staring down at one of John’s soft baby blocks that he was gently squeezing a little lie a stress ball. John answered for him. “Evan- Evan sayed, he sayed that when Mommy and Daddy put us to bed early it’s so they can do sex.”
Rodney didn’t correct the bad grammar for once, more interested in dealing with the matter at hand right now. He gently grabbed John’s hand, and helped pull the little boy up. John got off the floor, and moved to stand between Rodney’s legs, and was pulled down into his daddy’s lap. John may not like sex, or even want to talk about it, but there was one thing he would always accept, and that was cuddles. Rodney was always willing to give him that.
John was a little tense in his arms though, and Rodney had the oddest feeling that he was expecting a specific answer before he would calm down anymore.
Now, normally, Rodney would never say this to a person, adult or child. Sex itself is an act that should stay between adults who know that it’s main purpose is to create life. If you couldn’t at least understand that, then you most likely should not be having it. But, at the same time, he also understood that sexuality should be accepted, and people need to be told not to feel shame for it.
Of course, children experiment with their body’s, with what feels good and how they can make themselves and others feel good.
Normally, he would never tell a child this, but he knew that if he didn’t want John to cave in on himself, and shut everyone else out, this was the only right answer. “Sex is an adult thing. Babies aren’t supposed to know about that.”
John gave him a curious look. “Johnny isn’t ‘loud to know about that?”
Rodney shook his head, “No, Johnny isn’t supposed to know about that at all. It’s not for you to think about, it’s not for you to know about, and it’s not something we’ll tell you about.”
He could feel John sinking down against him, relaxing like nothing else could make him do, and knew that was the right answer. If John wanted to live a life as far away from things like sex as possible, Rodney wasn’t going to do anything to get him any closer to it than he was willing to go.
All four of them were perfectly fine with that.