Walk the Path Beside Me (Part 2)
Title: Walk the Path Beside Me
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: John/Teyla, future chapters will include Teyla/Kanan.
Disclaimer: SGA is not mine!
Summary: It's a unusual kind of relationship. But most importantly, it's theirs!
Comments: A sort of re-write of SGA with a J/T angle. I'm trying to insert J/T into the show so it fits with canon. All the way into my version of early S5.
This took me quite a while! My main problem was kinda obvious: JT isn't canon! And to think this fic started with an idea to write Teyla/Kanaan, I just needed to set a sort of background! But oh I love it! and next chapter is goin to be sooo good. Instinct and Conversion, here I come. Yay! I just hope I make it before the shows starts again.
And yes tielan, I'll write them on missions too, the question is: which one?
Unbeta'ed. I had a sudden burst of inspiration. I should really go to bed.
Raindrops fall softly on the tent, each one at once a reminder of the world outside and a reason to stay inside. The quiet drumming is as natural to Teyla as the smell of morning tea or more recently, the tune of waves rushing past Atlantis. The sense of familiarity, here in her father’s tent is engulfing. A bubble of well-known smells and sensations, so comforting after months of being away from the mainland. While sharing the evening meal with her people, she’d been tense, ready to face reproach and guilt. But in this small space, with John’s warm body against hers, she embraces the peace she’s found. For a little while, for now.
His hand absentmindedly caresses her lower back, the fingers tracing lazy circles and this too is familiar. It makes Teyla think of the mornings after she first became leader. The Athosians follow neither game nor seasons, but rather the time-honored tradition that survival depends on moving on. A good leader ensures their survival by knowing when to let go of inert bodies, of absent loved-ones or even of a place of residence.
The task fell to her amidst sadness and loss. She stepped from expectation into reality to find that most of what she’d been taught was nothing like what she found, and yet the responsibility of coping and carrying on was squarely on her shoulders. She’d exit her tent in the twilight hours and try to pluck meaning from the very air. She locked away doubt and insecurities and instead attempted to decipher the skies, the feel of the earth, the sound of raindrops falling on their camp.
The truth hit her with the brutality of life-altering epiphanies. Her tent was her true home, her people her true attachment and not the trees and rivers and earth they’d leave behind if she decided it time to move on. She held absolute certainty in her mind as if it was actual knowledge and allowed it to guide them all. Her mind may have felt elation at such a revelation, but Teyla clearly felt the all-encompassing weight of duty settle on her shoulders but she’s never sought to share it or hide from it. In the end, it will always be her responsibility, her fault and the thought has long since ceased to scare her.
It makes a little apparition once in a while, for better and for worse. It had her trust John and it brought her people to a new home. But right now, this line of thinking is intruding on her afternoon of love-making, keeping her drowsing mind from fully surrendering to the sensuousness of his light fingertips against her skin, of their sweaty bodies, seemingly melted and fused together.
The object of her confusion shifts a little and worry makes another foray into their cocoon. John’s body is entwined closely with hers, her arm moves every time his chest rises and falls and little by little, that one finger inches its way into her mind overshadowing other thoughts. She shouldn’t spend so much time engrossed in him, in all the things that make up this odd man, but she is.
She moves closer to listen to the steady thump of his heart. Like a Bashilele drum it beats, sure and unwavering, somehow distant beneath his still steaming flesh. Every part of him is warm, beneath her cheek, against her leg, his fingertips on the scar gracing her back. All these layers come together and all of sudden she finds she can decipher them. Without using her eyes, she sees him clearly, his face staring at the ceiling, taking in the muffled sounds from the outside, his mind focusing on one thing.
“You are smirking.”
“I am not.”
“Yes, you are.”
“I’m smiling. Most people in both galaxies do.”
The first time Teyla laid down next to a man she marveled at the sudden proximity, but nevertheless quickly discovered, that its depth could easily be overrated. It takes more than intercourse to understand a man.
“How did you get this scar?”
His fingers stop their movement and she can have no doubt as to what he means. All relationships are living things, constantly changing and evolving. She’s glad she wasn’t the one to start asking questions.
“I was cut with a knife.”
“Ah… well, we’ve all been stabbed in the back at some point.”
His tone struggles to remain light but Teyla hears the tension beneath, feels it in the finger still tracing the edges of the long slash across her side. She remembers that day clearly, the circumstances in which she acquired the wound John is so interested in. More than her body was branded on that day.
“It is not a very interesting story.”
She answers into his chest and counts the seconds, imagines him going through all the ways he could get his answer until he’s surrenders with a sigh. The silence stretches on and the two of them settle into it. It’s comfortable, consoling, solid, much like their friendship. Their very own bare minimum.
“Why were you smirking? Aside from the obvious.”
He picks up her hand, kisses every finger tip before answering. It’s the kind of thing John does that leaves her feeling utterly defenseless because, to some extent, she cannot understand the motivation behind such tenderness. It’s not how their relationship started.
“I am smiling because unlike most people in both galaxies, I got invited into the holiest of holies.”
He seems to have expected the eyebrow she raises.
“I meant your tent. Your people. It’s nice here.”
She’s not sure what she hopes to find as she scans his features. She’s not sure what she sees. In both galaxies, no other man perplexes her so. She’s never noticed how delicate his eyelashes were, an unexpected feature on a soldier. But the eyes beneath them are strong and vibrant, they make her think of hammers and anvils and the fire that dominates metal, bends and shapes it into unforgiving things like swords… or guns. His eyes always seem to be daring her to look away, even as his lips come nearer, slightly parted… They hover just beyond her reach.
”You’re like the woman in the movies, the femme fatale: all mystery and aloofness. The one who leads you to your death with just one kiss.”
“Just one kiss?”
“It’s always worth it.”
“John…”
His finger quiets her but not the hunger inside. It’s another part of him she craves, one he still withholds, speaking words she tries her hardest to hear and listen to.
“In the movies, they never explain and it’s always worth it.”
His lips finally keep their promise and she moans lightly in his mouth, her body already shifting, seeking out the feel of him once more. This is how they first found each other, in a tangle of hands, tongues and lips. Of skin craving skin, demanding contact and feasting when receiving. It isn’t yet a matter of questions and answers, of requests and demands. Relationships are living things and as her breath quickens, Teyla thinks she intends to let this one lead a life quite of its own.