SUMMARY: Humans aren't chromatophoric, but love has a color.

AN: This is a crossover with Eric Flint's Mother of Demons (available free via Baen's Library!) Previously posted on my lj, and on my fic archive, Dirty Little Secrets.

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A Theory of Chromatic Acculturation

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The owoc were a chromatophoric species, meaning that their emotions were broadcasted via colors that played over their mantles and integument. Red fear, blue anger, green love and brown grief--so it was only natural for the children of the colonists (who were as much raised by the owoc as by the few surviving adult colonists) to develop biases toward their peers based off of skin, eye, and hair color, even if they knew intellectually that humans were NOT in fact chromatophoric. Therefore, a kid with ochre hair (uncertainty) and blue eyes (anger) was going to be thought of as short tempered and indecisive, and therefore, never get picked first for games, or be team captain.

"McKay, you are so full of it," Laura Cadman (light green eyes, ochre hair) said, and shook her head. "You get picked last because you're mean and you're never team captain because because you can't come up with just one plan, you have to come up with a half dozen."

"I am not mean, I just say what I think," Rodney said, and glared at Laura.

"Which most people who aren't you would call mean McKay," John (implacable-black hair, green-brown eyes) said with a smirk. "Anyway, you're a good goalie," John continued, seemingly oblivious to Rodney's glare, and bumped shoulders with him. "I'll pick you first next time we play soccer."

"Oh thank you," Rodney snapped, which only made John grin.

"You're welcome, Rodney," John said, and snatched the battered cap off of Rodney's head, and took off running. Rodney chased after, and they ended up playing tag, using the huge forms of their owoc parents (it was easiest to think of them that way; they were too big and too grown up to be friends, though none of the kids referred to them as parents around the adult colonists) as "base" until dinner time.

Ishtar was a hot and humid planet, where summer seemed endless and time seemed changeless--but that was only a matter of perspective. They grew up, John got taller, Rodney got broader across the shoulders from helping to build houses and moving rocks from the fields. Kids paired and grouped off in ways that occasionally made Dr. Julius Cohen splutter or crack jokes that no one got except for "the grown ups" who still remembered Earth. (It was hard to think of yourself as an adult--even if you were doing grown-up things.)

John always hung around, an ever present shadow that Rodney wasn't always sure of what to make of. Green was for affection, brown was for sadness, but Rodney thought that if John had a color it would be grey--absence or concealment of emotion. John paired off with Adrian for a while, then with Teyla, then a thing with Teyla and Ronon. Rodney had a brief and embarrassing crush on Ludmilla Rozkowski, who let him down easy, then there was a weird arguing-and-then-kissing thing with Laura Cadman that lasts weeks and ended when she fell hard for Carson Beckett. John though is always there to talk to, and Rodney never feels left out--just maybe a little jealous, in colors that would be light green shot with light blue.

They were something new in the system, a rock dropped into a still pond, and the ripples were moving outward. The gukuy--a predatory cousin-species of the owoc--made that clear when slavers made an appearance in their quiet valley. Only the fact that the gukuy had been orange with shock and red with terror to see beings that moved in a way no creature on Ishtar moved had saved them and the owoc.

Rodney was probably the only one among the kids who cared that Dr. Francis Adams died in the attack. He had been the world's worst teacher, he'd been crazy-mean and had been so absolutely wrong about so many things Rodney didn't know how Adams had gotten his PhD--but he'd been the closest thing to a mentor Rodney had ever had.

John and Radek and some of the engineering kids helped him clean out the old, wrecked shuttle Adams had been living in, and sort out useful things like books from the trash, so that was something at least. The colors Rodney felt when they bury Adams are brown and blue, and those colors were mostly shades of resentful anger and disappointment tinged with yellow contempt--but it was green when John wrapped an arm around Rodney's shoulders.

The Pilgrims were nice people, bronze-age refugees from city states (which wasn't an accurate term, but it was close enough for horse shoes--whatever a horse was) in the south. The Way was supposed to be all about not being tied down by preconcieved notions--there were no ultimate answers, only questions--and Rodney thought there was nothing more entertaining than watching a gukuy blush bright pink with dismay. It wasn't quite as fun when a gukuy returned the favor, but years of John's teasing taught him to control his temper or risk further teasing. Rodney and his fellow engineers worked on understanding and translating and teaching and learning and arguing with Pilgrims who were artisans and engineers and teachers from Ansha and a many other prevalates and tribes.

It was knowledge they needed in earnest, because the Utuku were coming.

"Look. I really don't think she's hiding any 'secrets,'" Rodney said at yet another meeting that had been called because Joseph had yet Ianother/I confrontation with Indira. "I don't think there Iis/I any secret knowledge--you just think there is."

"I think you're just arguing for the sake of arguing," Laura shot back.

"I'm arguing because our mother one of the women who raised us is being badgered for non-existant information she doesn't possess," Rodney snapped.

Joseph meanwhile was shaking his head, looking grim and implacable (he always looked implacable, and it had nothing to do with him being the color of implacability.) "Rodney, you think she conceals nothing, because it would never occur to you to conceal anything--"

Rodney spluttered, and was about to launch his general opinion of that statement when John smacked the back of his head. "He's not insulting you, Rodney," John drawled, and Rodney subsided, glaring blue daggers at John.

Joseph was smiling at the both of them, a bright flash of white in a dark face. "You're not shy about telling people what you think, Rodney, or telling them when they're wrong. You tell people when you're angry, or afraid or tired--and that'salso not an insult. Indira does not. Part of it is because she is our mother, and conceals her fear so that we do not become frightened, but lately, she has been increasingly evasive about things of vital importance. It is as if she fears us, and that is why I believe she is keeping secrets." On reflex, Rodney wanted to pick apart the logic, but found he couldn't. Indira might not have any super special secrets of civilization, but he couldn't deny that she was afraid of something, that she was concealing something, so he sat back down with a huff.

The siege, when it came, was terrifying. Rodney wasn't a great fighter (though he could hold his own) and he wasn't a fast enough runner, so he was part of the reserves while John fought in Takahashi's platoon beside Teyla. They weren't winning, but they weren't losing either, and the Utuku kept coming in, line after line. Slow, ponderously slow like an army of elephants, but their flails and forks were as swift as the humans' assegais. Rodney never saw the berserker Kiktu battle mother smashing her way through the Utuku rear (her mantle black blue and green, wielding two immense maces--fighting like an enraged giant, a titan, like Kali Herself) never saw the siege break under Nukkuren's charge (grey as death, as the unfeeling, uncaring universe) never saw the victory, because he was hit by a dart early on, and smacked his head on a rock when he fell, knocking him unconscious.

Rodney woke up after the fact, groggy and still tired in the infirmary. John was sprawled awkwardly in a chair beside the bed, arm in a sling. When John finally opened his eyes, they were smiling and green green green.

It was the first time they kissed.