(no subject)

[boochicken]

Title: Rodney's Bad Day, 1/4
Author: boochicken
Length: ~33,000 words
Rating: PG in this chapter, higher rated in later sections.
Spoilers: General for season 2 of SGA
Disclaimer: No copyright infringement is intended. Stargate Atlantis is the property of Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. This was written for fun, definitely not for profit.



Rodney woke up to find himself slung face down over someone's shoulder, his head jolting painfully with every step. He squinted -- why was everything so bright? -- and realized that not only was he being carried like a sack of wheat, he'd apparently been wrapped in one. So it made no sense for the sun to be so glaring and burning his eyes like that, given that his head was in a sack.

Oh God, he'd been kidnapped. It had happened enough that he knew the signs -- the immobilization, the blindfolding, the being transported against one's will -- and so he reacted as he usually did, drawing a deep breath so that he could start yelling. But this time he inhaled twin lungfuls of flour dust and started hacking pathetically.

"He's awake," the person -- man -- carrying him grunted, and Rodney started twisting frantically, still coughing, figuring it was the first rule of being kidnapped; get away, get away, get away. He tried to kick whoever was carrying him, but his feet had been tied, of course. He tried anyway and caught his kidnapper a good one in what he guessed was the sternum, but his kidnapper only grunted again and shifted his hold.

"McKay! Rodney! Stop it!" Rodney squinted against the too-bright light; that was Sheppard's voice. They'd gotten Sheppard? This was even worse than he'd thought. "Colonel? Are you okay?"

Sheppard sounded relieved. "Yeah, McKay, it's me. Quit squirming around, all right? We're almost to the Stargate."

"What?" Rodney sputtered, and spat some dust from his mouth. "Are you crazy? Do they have you in a sack too?" He twisted hard, feeling the rough fabric of the sack grate against his skin, and got a smack on the ass for his trouble.

"Quit it, McKay." And that deep voice -- that was Ronon. He'd been kidnapped by his team? Was Teyla somewhere, taking pictures to document his humiliation? "What the hell is going on?" he shouted, and squirmed like a corkscrew, or those strange lizards they'd seen on MXS-4237. "If this is some sort of prank I will make you all pay. You will wish you were dead."

Sheppard laughed, but didn't sound amused. "People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, McKay."

"It is no prank, Dr. McKay," Teyla said from somewhere to his right. Her voice wasn't quite its usual zen calm - Rodney hoped that she, at least, was suffering a fit of conscience.

Rodney gritted his teeth. "Well, excuse me if I'm having a hard time figuring out other reasons why I'm tied up in a sack!"

"You bit me," Sheppard said flatly, and Rodney blinked.

"I did no such thing."

"You did," Ronon confirmed, his voice a deep rumble next to Rodney's ear. They'd stopped moving; Rodney heard the familiar sound of someone dialing a DHD.

"You walked into the Ancient outpost after I specifically said no." That was Sheppard, sounding annoyed. "You got hit by some sort of red light beam thing, your eyes glowed for a second, and then you tried to rip out my throat. With your newly pointy teeth."

"You're joking," Rodney tried, even as he ran his tongue over his incisors. They seemed a little sharper than usual.... "You think I'm a vampire?" Maybe they had been kidnapped after all, and everyone else had been gripped by a deeply weird Stockholm Syndrome.

"And then you ran out into the sunlight and caught on fire," Sheppard added. "Ronon had to beat you out with his coat."

"You owe me a new one," Ronon rumbled, and adjusted his grip on Rodney's ankles. He heard the last chevron click into place and the whoosh of the event horizon.

"There's no such thing as vampires," Rodney said, distracted, and tried to take his pulse with his bound hands.

"Pegasus Galaxy, McKay," Sheppard pointed out, his voice weirdly resigned. "Be careful about declaring what's impossible." And Rodney shrieked as they stepped through the impossibly white light of the stargate.

***

"There's no such thing as vampires," Rodney said for the sixty-third time. Not that he was counting or anything. "Dammit, Beckett, you're a scientist!"

"That's not what you usually say," Beckett said, keeping a careful distance from the walls of the Wraith cell. They had him in the Wraith cell. Rodney jerked his head at the blue beams of energy zipping between them. “Don’t you think this is a bit of an overreaction?”

Beckett tsked at him. “You tried to bite Biro when she was checking your pulse."

And that was more difficult to explain; somehow, the evil battleax had suddenly smelled astonishingly good. It had seemed only logical, even necessary, to see if she tasted just as good. He wasn’t going to hurt her. He rubbed his jaw and winced; given how hard she punched, he doubted that he could. "That was a misunderstanding," Rodney said stiffly.

Beckett shook his head. “Before you tried to bite Biro, she wasn’t finding a pulse - ”

“Then she’s just incompetent!” Rodney shouted. “Because I wouldn’t be able to do this -- ” he jumped up and down “-- if I didn’t have a pulse!” Although he’d tried to find it himself a couple of times. He must have been doing it wrong. He could admit it, he wasn’t a creepy pathologist with a fragile ego.

"There’s no need for histronics," Beckett said primly, sounding particularly Scottish. That was never a good sign. "Before you decided to play Dracula we took your temperature, and it was ambient.”

"Then your equipment must be wrong." Rodney folded his arms over his chest stubbornly.

Beckett raised an eyebrow. "It worked on Colonel Sheppard and Teyla -- what makes you so special?"

"You're the one who thinks I'm a vampire," Rodney said spitefully.

"You sound like you might be coming to that conclusion yourself."

"What, have you been taking lessons from Heightmeyer?” Rodney scowled and kicked the hard bench that he assumed was meant to be a bed. “And do alleged vampires not fall under the Geneva Convention? Because this cell sucks, and I'm starving, and I refuse to believe that whatever's wrong with me --" and fine, he wasn’t delusional, he could admit that things were a little out of the ordinary "-- has canceled out the hypoglycemia."

Beckett pinched the bridge of his nose, hard. "Believe me, Rodney, we're working on it."

"It had better not be blood," Rodney said, and sat down on his stupid not-bed for lack of anything better to do.

***

It wasn't blood, thankfully; they brought him a sandwich, on the sort-of-wheat bread the Athosians had perfected. Rodney lifted the bread carefully, looking for lemon or some sort of vampire-killing vegetable, but it seemed clean. He took the biggest, messiest bite he could, just to prove how ridiculous this whole vampire farce really was, and frowned with his mouth full. Something was wrong, but it wasn't the familiar throat-closing panic of citrus -- he couldn't taste anything. He swallowed, took another bite and considered; he could sense the texture of the food, but there wasn't the slightest bit of savor to it. He waved the sandwich at the nameless nurse that had brought it to him. "What the hell is this, I can't taste a -- " His stomach gave a loud and ominous gurgle. "Oh, crap."

***

Fortunately, the part where he vomited and writhed and begged to be shot was relatively short. They were even nice enough to transfer him into the regular human brig, since he'd creatively redecorated the Wraith cell with the contents of his stomach. Rodney tried not to take it personally that it was Marines, not nurses, who rolled him onto the stretcher. He didn't have the energy to bitch about how they all had the collars of their jackets flipped up against their throats.

The new cell had an actual mattress, walls painted a soothing utilitarian blue, and a small utilitarian bathroom. Someone had even left towels and a fresh set of surgical scrubs on the bed. Rodney made full use of them and stretched out on the bunk, hand on his stomach. What had happened back there, exactly? Sure, he'd read Dracula, and he’d taken a date to see the terrible movie version, the one with Winona Ryder. But vampires didn’t exist. Clearly he'd picked up some sort of virus on that last planet, one that made you… bitey, and otherwise looked like the stomach flu. He pressed his fingers against the artery in his throat and considered. A virus that made your heartbeat undetectable and your skin cool, with a dollop of photo-sensitivity. Hell, this was the Pegasus galaxy, he'd made stranger things.

The whole front wall of his cell suddenly turned translucent, revealing a startled-looking Sheppard and Beckett. Rodney sat up, squinting against the bright lights of the corridor. He raised an eyebrow at them, but mostly at Sheppard. "Did you just discover a new trick?"

"Guess so," Sheppard shrugged, and cautiously waved a hand where the wall had been. Blue sparks crackled around his hand and up his wrist; he winced and jerked his hand away. "Well, that's creative. How are you feeling?"

Rodney bared his teeth at them. "Oh, just peachy. What the hell was in that sandwich, Carson?" He realized that his new teeth were pricking against his lower lip and pressed his lips together quickly.

Carson spread his hands wide. "Nothing that should have caused a reaction like that. Unless you've suddenly developed an acute allergy to chicken."

Rodney shook his head. "It didn't taste like chicken."

"Doesn't everything taste like chicken?" Sheppard wondered.

"It didn't taste like anything," Rodney snapped, but Sheppard just quirked an eyebrow at him. "I hope you're working on some sort of cure, Carson. I hate to think of my staff blowing up the city because they're unsupervised because you think I'm a vampire --"

"It's a little hard to get a sample from someone with no circulation, Rodney," Beckett said tiredly, and Rodney nearly threw himself off his bunk in frustration.

"You're still not over the incompetence of your staff, are you?" He tried to invent a new gesture to express the scope of his outrage at Beckett’s idiocy, but settled for good, old-fashioned arm-waving. "Do I look like rigor mortis has set in? I want some answers!”

"We're gonna try a little experiment," Sheppard said, and gestured to his side. The same nurse from before sidled into view, eying Rodney with clear unease and carrying a tray and a bowl. Sheppard frowned, then took it from her; she practically ran in the other direction. Sheppard set the tray on the smooth tile floor and gently pushed it through the cell barrier, keeping his fingers well away from the crackling wall of energy. Rodney crouched and grabbed it automatically before looking to see what the bowl held.

It was blood. Well, blood or a particularly rich and meaty borscht, but given how his luck had been going Rodney was betting on blood. He stared at the nearly-brimming bowl and contemplated throwing it at them. But it would probably just bounce against the force field, and he'd already had to switch cells once today. So he settled for scowling at the two men. "You have both lost your minds."

"It's just an experiment," Carson said hastily. "And from your behavior so far you really seem to want blood, so we figured one of the Athosian cows could spare a little --"

"You're going to give me mad cow disease because you're insane?" Rodney shrieked.

"There is no mad cow disease in this galaxy," Sheppard said, and frowned. "Well, that we know of."

"I am so reassured," Rodney said, and sniffed. And then he sniffed again, and clearly he was in hell, because the not-a-cow blood smelled really, really good. "What, did you spike it with something?" he asked, even as he leaned forward and smelled it again. It was intoxicating, like the very best beef stroganoff and his grandmother's popovers and a hundred Kit-Kat bars, all rolled into a curiously appealing scent. Almost without thinking, he picked up the bowl; he had it raised halfway to his lips before he remembered to glare at Sheppard and Carson. "I hate you both so very, very much."

"Just try it," Carson sighed, and Rodney made a face and took a sip. And then he moaned, which was great because it opened his mouth further and he could drink even faster that way. It was warm and thick, sort of like a milkshake but even better, because milkshakes didn't make each of his taste buds feel like they were having the best orgasm of their tiny taste bud lives. He could feel the blood flowing, soothing and rich into his poor abused stomach, and with it came a curious warmth that spread to the very edges of his fingernails. It was almost like that one time in university when he'd tried pot, except without the Magic Eight Ball Incident, and he was on the verge of asking for more, please, when he realized that he'd just drunk a big bowl of blood. And liked it.

"Oh hell," he said, and let the bowl and tray clatter to the floor. Beckett and Sheppard were staring at him; Sheppard, he thought with the small part of his brain not screaming in horror, looked a little glassy-eyed himself. And, Rodney concluded as his vision faded to a merciful black, anyone would choose to pass out right about now.

***

Rodney slowly came to on his bunk, feeling better than he had since he'd walked into that stupid Ancient vampire temple. Actually, he felt better than he had since he’d come to Atlantis. He felt like he'd slept twenty hours and topped it off with a full breakfast.

"I hear you like blood now."

And there went all that well-being. He sat up and glared at Ronon, who was sitting easily on his heels in the hallway, facing the translucent wall of his cell. "Do I have guards, now?"

The giant man shrugged, dreads slithering around his shoulders. "Sheppard didn't think you should be left alone."

Rodney rubbed a hand across his face and swung around, letting his feet dangle off the bunk. "Well, that was nice of him." For someone who force-feeds sick people blood, he added in his head. "So, how many people know about this?"

Ronon visibly considered the question. "Well, you, me, Sheppard, Teyla, Beckett --"

"Besides the obvious --"

"Sheppard told Weir, and he and Teyla took Zelenka and a marine back to that planet," Ronon finished placidly, and went back to staring at him.

"Zelenka." The man was as discreet as a Czech sieve. Rodney would bet his last stash of chocolate that the entire science department would know by nightfall.

"And the marines," Ronon added helpfully. "I heard some of them talking about why you were in the special cell. Who’s Dracula?"

"Great.” The marines, paranoid and suspicious bastards to a one, were probably stocking up on wooden stakes. “Do you know when they're going to let me out of here?" Rodney firmly squashed the panicked little voice that said maybe they wouldn't let him out at all. Objectively, he could see that Sheppard couldn't let a scientist with a strange virus run around Atlantis biting people. But he couldn't help but think that he ought to get an exemption of some sort. He was essential, dammit.

Ronon shook his head. “No.”

Rodney groaned and flopped back on his bunk. "Did you ever hear about something like this? On Sateda?"

Ronon thought a moment. "No.”

“You’ve been very helpful, thank you,” Rodney said insincerely, and threw his arm over his eyes.

***

Some indeterminate time later, something odd pinged on the edge of his consciousness, just as he heard Ronon grunt. He opened his eyes to see the other man flow to his feet and to attention, impossibly graceful for such a large man; a second later Elizabeth appeared in front of his cell. She was dressed in her usual red, and Rodney wondered absently if the long pale column of her neck had always looked so inviting.

“Rodney?”

“Right here,” he said, and swung himself out of his bunk. “I take it you talked to Sheppard?”

Elizabeth nodded; behind her, Ronon crossed his arms over his massive chest and looked slightly foreboding. Rodney sighed. Of course Ronon would act the alpha male around the object of his ridiculous stoic crush.

Elizabeth cocked her head. “He said you were hit by some sort of beam in an Ancient installation, and that you were exhibiting some... odd symptoms and behaviors.”

“He thinks I’m a vampire,” Rodney snorted, then winced and licked his lip. He’d have to get used to talking around his new teeth, unless he could get Carson to file them down.

Elizabeth’s eyes widened a little. “Yes, he said that. You have to admit, your symptoms are -- suggestive.”

“Oh please, not you too,” Rodney groaned. “Vampires are mythological creatures, like unicorns or banshees or fairies or anything else that people made up to explain what they couldn’t understand. There is no such thing as vampires.”

“We did find unicorns in the Pegasus galaxy,” Elizabeth pointed out. “And now you’re, well.” She paled a little. “Drinking blood and liking it, apparently.”

Rodney threw up his hands. “Okay, first of all, those weren’t unicorns, those were one-horned goats. Goats. And that whole thing about them only liking virgins is a vicious lie. And, well, no, I can’t explain the blood thing, or the biting thing. But there’s got to be a rational explanation for all of this.”

Elizabeth looked at him with that particular searching gaze she had, the one that he’d always imagined had made the Soviets quake in their shoddy mass-produced boots. He’d enjoyed seeing her use it on other people; having it turned on him was far less pleasant. “I know Colonel Sheppard is looking for answers right now. But, Rodney - ” she looked at him earnestly “- until we have those answers, and know why you attacked Colonel Sheppard and Dr. Biro, I’m not comfortable letting you out of the brig. I hope you understand.”

“Believe it or not, I do,” Rodney sighed. He didn’t like it, but he understood.

“Is there anything we can do for you? Do you need more -” she swallowed “- more food?”

“No, I’m fine. I’m bored out of my mind, and I’m sure the science department has found new and unique ways to blow the city up in my absence, but I’m fine.”

Elizabeth gave him a tiny smile. “Well, I might be able to help you with the first part, at least. How about a laptop?”

“Oh God yes,” Rodney breathed, and Elizabeth laughed.

***

Rodney was sitting cross-legged and cursing at the Ancients, who had excelled in everything short of creating good search functions for their mammoth databases, when there was that odd sense of - something - begging for his attention again. He looked up at Ronon’s grunt; Sheppard was back, looking like he'd crawled backwards through a drainage ditch. He jerked his head, and Ronon grunted in response and started down the hallway without a word. Rodney hadn't even asked a question before the other man shook his head.

"What does that mean?" Rodney asked in frustration. "That you didn't find anything, or you didn't find anything good?"

"Not much, and none of it good." Sheppard ran a hand through his hair, distributing the mud evenly and making it stand up even more than usual. "The villagers don't remember anyone going going into the temple before. Zelenka took some readings from outside -- "

"And found nothing out of the ordinary, because I already did that --"

"But we did find out that the locals have a myth that sounds an awful lot like Dracula," Sheppard finished, and glared at him.

"Who figured that out?" Rodney clicked the laptop shut; he'd tried "blood" and "virus" and "sun" and "photosensitive" and, just on a whim, "vampire." The database had spat back a recipe for fruit salad, appropriate behavior at an ancient sock-hop, and a helpful treatise on some sort of fanged snail. "Did you bring along a cultural anthropologist or something? You know I don’t have any faith in the soft sciences - ”

"It was Lieutenant Smith's minor in college," Sheppard snapped, and Rodney realized for the first time just how tired the other man looked, with dark shadows under his eyes like bruises. "And I'm sure you'll be happy to know that the local solution for vampires is to set them on fire."

Rodney swallowed hard. "Different galaxy, same archetype," he managed to say. "Someone can write a great paper on that, if the program ever gets declassified.”

Sheppard shrugged. "Well, don't worry, it's not a solution we're actually considering.” He leaned against the wall and let himself slide down it so that he was sitting, about eye level with Rodney. "Seriously, how are you feeling?"

"Physically? Pretty good." Rodney considered just how much to tell. "Actually, it's really weird -- my back doesn't hurt any more, not even a twinge. I haven't had any coffee since before we left, but I don't have a headache." He squinted, shutting first one eye, than the other. "And yeah, my vision seems to have corrected itself."

Sheppard looked surprised. "I didn't know you had eye problems."

"Only when reading," Rodney said defensively. "And only if the font is really small. Not like Zelenka, he's like the Czech Helen Keller.” He bit his lip, carefully. “So what’s the plan? Are you just going to keep me locked up and feeding me biohazards?” He really hoped that wasn’t the plan.

Sheppard shook his head. "Well, here's the deal. Beckett didn't get any samples from you before you tried to snack on the nurses, but there are some tests he'd like to run. Zelenka wants you back to yell at Kavanaugh about something he did to the environmental controls. And Elizabeth says that if Carson can prove that you're not contagious, we can let you out." He coughed. "If you're supervised. And that's all conditional on not biting people."

"Fine, fine," Rodney said, because he'd gone his whole life so far without needing to bite people, and it couldn't be that hard.

***

Carson turned out to want a lot of blood samples, along with skin, saliva and urine -- "No go," Rodney had to admit. "I mean, I haven't had to. Not since before the temple thing."

Sheppard raised an eyebrow; he'd followed Carson into the cell, carrying a Wraith stunner. Rodney had scowled at him. "Honestly, I'm not going to bite Carson. I bet he'd taste like haggis anyway."

"I didn't think you were going to try to bite me," Sheppard had said, his face neutral, and Rodney had had to admit his point was valid.

"You haven't had to urinate in twenty-four hours?" Carson said doubtfully. "That's... sort of within the normal range, but not really -- "

"Yes, fine, another bizarre symptom," Rodney sighed, and stuck out his arm. "Would you please take my blood already?"

Carson tsked and took his temperature first. "Well, you're warmer. You're a grand 88 degrees Fahrenheit now --"

"Isn't that hypothermic?" Sheppard asked.

"Extremely," Carson made a note. "But Rodney doesn't seem too affected by it."

"Sitting right here!" Rodney hissed.

"Either that or he's in a very active and vocal hypothermic coma," Carson continued blithely, and wrapped a tourniquet around Rodney's upper arm. "Make a fist, please." He tapped the inside of Rodney's elbow a few times, then a few times more; then he stretched the tender skin taut between two fingers and squinted at it. "Your veins don't seem to want to show themselves."

"Can you blame them?" Rodney asked snidely. "Also, ow," he added, as Carson stuck him with the needle. They all stared at the vial, which wasn't filling. "What, did you miss the vein entirely?"

"Shut up, Rodney," Carson said, tongue between his teeth, and jiggled the needle a bit. Rodney yelped and tried to jerk away, but Carson grabbed his arm and held it; an eternal five minutes later he pulled the needle and swapped Rodney’s arm, even though the vial was only half full. "That'll have to do, I suppose."

"I always knew you got your degree from correspondence school," Rodney said darkly, pressing a cotton ball into the crook of his wounded arm.

Carson rolled his eyes and gathered up his equipment. "You're welcome. Colonel, I’ll let you know the tests as soon as they're done."

"Thanks," Sheppard said, and pressed a hand to the cell wall so that Carson could leave. He stayed behind a moment, cradling the stunner like a child.

"You should get some sleep," Rodney heard himself say. "You look like crap."

”I would have gotten more sleep,” Sheppard said dryly, “if one of my scientists hadn’t gotten himself turned into a vampire.” He rolled his head from side to side, the ropy muscle and tendons of his neck and shoulders popping into relief as he stretched. Rodney swallowed hard and forced his eyes away; there was absolutely no reason for the Colonel's throat to look so appetizing, even when it was streaked with mud and alien plant matter and sweat. Actually, maybe that would change the taste -- and Rodney cut that train of thought off at the past, as that way led madness and staying in the brig, and possibly getting Sheppard tossed in there with him.

”There’s no such thing as vampires,” Rodney said a little desperately, since it was possible he’d just spontaneously developed a neck fetish, in addition to his raging infatuation.

Sheppard gave him a friendly clap on the back. "Well, we'll fix it, whatever it is. Just another day in the Pegasus galaxy, right? Do you need anything?"

Rodney shook his head. "No, I'm good."

Sheppard nodded and yawned. "All right, see you in a few hours, then." He started towards the exit and paused. "By the way, Zelenka said to tell you that he uploaded your energy utilization project to the mainframe, so you should be able to work on it."

"Tell him thanks," Rodney managed, and Sheppard nodded and stepped through the wall. Rodney put his head in his hands for a moment before flipping the laptop open again. They really needed a new search interface for the ancient database. And after he did that, he thought, staring at the bare cell wall, maybe he could get some work done.

***

Rodney was mildly depressed to discover that he could fall asleep on his laptop anywhere, even in the brig. He pushed himself up groggily, pretty sure that he had ";lkjhg" printed backwards on his face from his keyboard. Someone had thoughtfully dimmed the lights, and his cell wall was opaque. He guessed it was sometime during the night. He licked his lips as his stomach growled; looking down, he thought it was calling for something in the red and liquid family.

If he started having inexplicable urges to sleep in a coffin, he was going to be really pissed.

He rolled over and headed for the door. The magic wall apparently didn't work from the inside, so he craned a little to peer through the grated window into the hallway. A Marine he didn't recognize was propped against the wall. Not under guard, my ass, Rodney thought darkly. Then he realized that the guard was playing some sort of handheld game and felt a little better.

Rodney rapped on the door and the guy jumped. "Hey, can you get me dinner?" he asked. The Marine blanched and edged away from the door, and Rodney learned that yes, he could roll his eyes and be indignant at the same time. "Not you, idiot. Go talk to Carson -- Dr. Beckett -- or somebody, he'll tell you." The guard scurried off and Rodney frowned, trying to figure out if he was pleased or appalled. Being respected was all right, and he didn't mind striking fear into the hearts of his scientific inferiors, but he didn't know what to make of the fact that he now frightened Marines.

Then again, his new powers apparently didn't extend to making Marines frightened enough to move quickly. He'd beaten his old score on FreeCell and was midway through a plot to pipe the collected works of Ace of Base on an endless loop through the Marine quarters when the wall finally went transparent, revealing a yawning Carson carrying a tray.

"Finally," Rodney couldn't keep himself from saying. "I was about to start singing 'One Hundred Bottles of Blood on the Wall.'"

"Well, thank you for restraining yourself," Carson said dryly, putting the tray on the floor and shoving it through the barrier. "I've heard you sing in the shower -- banshees have nothing on you."

Rodney would have responded in kind, except that oh, Carson had brought him food. Well, a big bowl of blood, but he could be open-minded. He knelt, raised the bowl to his lips and it was just as good as before; he knew he was making bizarre little slurping noises but he didn't care, this was fantastic. Somebody was missing out on a big business opportunity - why hadn't anyone opened a blood bar? He almost licked the bowl, replete and feeling the same comforting warmth as before, before realizing that Carson was looking at him oddly, and a little sadly. He put the bowl down hastily and wondered if he had a blood mustache.

"You seemed to enjoy that."

Rodney shrugged. "Well, yes."

Carson sighed and sat down. "Rodney, I need to talk to you about your test results."

Rodney's gut clenched. He was going to die. He was going to die and he was hideously contagious. He was going to die a horrible twitching death, he'd infected John and Biro and the rest of Atlantis with his fatal disease, and that was definitely the worst-case scenario. Barring the Wraith and the Genii forming an unholy alliance, anyway, and attacking just as the last of the city succumbed to Rodney's disease, and hey, maybe they'd name it after him, except everyone who cared would be dead --

"Rodney!" Carson snapped. "Focus, please. You're not dying."

Rodney took a deep breath. That was always good to know. "So?"

Carson made a face and shifted a little. "Well, technically you shouldn't be alive either."

"We've been through this already!" Rodney leaned forward until his nose nearly brushed the barrier. He could feel it buzz unpleasantly in his bones. "The continued refrain of 'You should be dead but you're not and I don't know why' is getting old."

Carson gestured helplessly. "It's not a virus. It's not bacteria or a parasite. Your body just seems to have gone a complete -- rewiring, at the cellular level. Your metabolic processes are completely different - as far as I can tell, you don’t even need to breathe anymore. It's like if you took a regular auto and changed the engine around so that instead of petrol, it only ran on cooking oil."

"Except Greenpeace doesn't usually give its pet projects fangs and a sun allergy!"

"Well, no," Carson amended. "Are you going to keep shouting?"

"I haven't decided!"

"Then I'll just keep talking," Carson said calmly, and stretched his legs out into the corridor. "Whatever you have doesn't seem to be contagious, so I see no reason why you can't be released -- "

"Oh, thank God," Rodney breathed.

"-- But there were some chemicals in your blood work that I think, ah, bear looking into."

"Chemicals?" Rodney asked, thinking back uncomfortably to the Wraith enzyme. "Err, what sorts of chemicals?"

"Adrenalin, for one. Testosterone, some others. Those that modulate the fight-or-flight response, aggression, mood -- "

"You think I bit people because my blood chemistry was out of whack?" Rodney snorted. "Are you going to start spiking my -- my food with Valium?"

"It's either physiological or psychological, Rodney." Carson ran a hand absently through his hair; clearly he'd been spending too much time with Sheppard. "Pick one, I don't really care. The important thing is that you don't do it again."

"I know, I know, no biting people or I get thrown back in the brig," Rodney said airly.

"Oh, and going off-world is obviously out of the question. Or outside at all, actually."

"Okay, then -- what?" Rodney blinked. "What do you mean, I can't go off-world?"

Carson shook his head. "You've got the most severe sun allergy I've ever seen. I ran some tests with different levels of UV light, and it didn't matter -- the response was immediate. The cells weren't just damaged, it was almost like they --" he made a vague, alarming gesture "-- disentegrated. And didn't the Colonel say something about you catching on fire?"

"But -- " Rodney faltered. He wondered why he wasn't happier at the news -- no more sprinting through alien jungles, no more awkward negotiations with people who thought flint and steel were the height of technology, no more listening to Teyla explain that no, the Colonel wasn't interested in marrying the mayor's daughter, or niece, or cousin, or wife. Although she had the speech down pat, and some of the accompanying gestures were actually pretty funny. And watching Sheppard squirm and deny that he was the Casanova of the Pegasus Galaxy -- "Not even with my sunscreen? It's SPF 100, at least."

"I think you'd need SPF 1000, truthfully. Or higher." Carson clambered to his feet and eyed Rodney. "You're not feeling peckish, are you?"

"Peck -- no. No, I'm not going to leap for your jugular," Rodney snapped, still trying to figure out why he wasn't gloating about more lab time and less mortal peril.

"Just checking," Carson said defensively, and waved a hand at the wall, dropping the barrier.

"Like I'd want to eat you anyway," Rodney muttered sullenly, and followed Beckett down the corridor to what he supposed could be called freedom.

***

Carson dropped him off at his quarters, leaving him with the instruction to radio for an escort if he wanted to go to the lab or elsewhere. Rodney had protested that he didn't need a babysitter, dammit, but Carson had just shrugged and said that it was Elizabeth's orders, at for least the next few days. Apparently she thought he was going to drag a helpless lab tech into a secluded corner and drain them dry.

Rodney shrugged off the mental image -- which was in no way appealing, he told himself firmly -- and showered and changed before heading down to the lab to see what the rhesus monkeys who called themselves his colleagues had destroyed in his absence. He could even think of them with a certain fondness, given that he hadn't seen them for a few days. Kavanagh was clearly payback for some terrible karmic debt, he thought, ignoring the bored Marine trailing behind him, but everyone else was bearable.

That was before, of course, he entered the empty lab and found his work station liberally strewn with bulbs of the sort-of-garlic they'd found on that planet, the one with the really good pasta.

He took a deep breath, the better to start shouting, and instantly regretted it; it felt like he'd inhaled pure sulfur. He coughed and spat and shoved the stunned Marine out of his way, blinking away involuntary tears and scrambling for the door. Outside he slid to the floor and took deep gasping breaths of clean air, glad for the small mercy of the deserted hallway. Then he reached for his radio, ignoring the Marine, who'd materialized beside him and was babbling something about Beckett.

"Colonel?" He coughed.

It took a moment for Sheppard to respond. "Rodney? What's wrong?"

"I'd like permission to, oh, flood the quarters of the entire science team. With sewage," Rodney added thoughtfully, and wiped at his streaming eyes. "Nothing big." The nameless Marine's eyes widened comically.

"What happened?"

"Somebody remembered their mythology and decided to be funny, that's what." Rodney laughed a little, but he knew it sounded bitter. "Apparently I'm allergic to garlic as well as the sun. This just gets better and better."

Sheppard sounded incredulous. "You're kidding, right? You're not kidding. Hang on, I'll be right there."

Rodney wasn't sure how much time had passed before his new spidey sense pinged. "Hey, you okay?"

"Oh, just peachy," Rodney managed, and looked up. He'd clearly caught Sheppard running or working out -- his t-shirt was stained with sweat. He could smell it, earthy and not unpleasant, along with a hint of antiperspirant and ha, hair gel, and apparently an enhanced sense of smell was apparently yet another side effect of sort-of-vampirism. He straightened up and scrubbed his hands over his face, wishing that Sheppard hadn't caught him practically blubbering in the hall. "Somebody tried to be funny, but it was really foul."

"Looks it," Sheppard said, his tone hard to read, and stood to peer in the lab door. "You're relieved," he added to Rodney's useless escort, who saluted and loped off down the hallway. "That is a lot of garlic."

"I never pegged physicists for the sort to read Bram Stoker, but I suppose someone has to," Rodney said, and wiped his nose on his sleeve. If he had to be a vampire, he thought bitterly, he really ought to get an exemption from snot. Especially if he was going to keep working with assholes.

"I'll get someone to clean up your bench," Sheppard said, and held out a hand to Rodney.

"Oh, I was going to make Kavanagh do it. With his tongue," Rodney clarified, and let Sheppard pull him to his feet. Whatever energy he'd had early was gone; he felt drained and tired and, he realized, not unlike he felt after a brush with citrus. "Then I have a good excuse to ban him from the lab indefinitely, as he'll be a threat to both my physical and mental health."

"He'll be even more popular than he is now," Sheppard had solemnly, and Rodney couldn't help but smile a little at that. "You want to go back to your quarters?"

"What? Err, yes," Rodney said quickly. Sheppard gave him an odd look, but fell into step as Rodney started purposefully down the hall towards the nearest transporter. Of course he hadn't meant it that way, Rodney told himself. That was the problem with crushes; they made you see layers of meaning that weren't there.

"You gonna be okay, or should I get Carson?"

Rodney shook his head. "I'm fine." He waved a hand at the transporter controls, watching with ill-disguised relief as they lit up; at least he could still do something. "I'm plotting an elaborate and vicious revenge -- I'll be better than fine."

Sheppard frowned. "I think Elizabeth or I might need to handle this one." He slouched comfortably against the transporter wall, and Rodney was torn between gratitude that Sheppard could act like everything was normal, and annoyance. "They're scientists, I'm their boss, I'll handle it."

"We don't know that it was the scientists," Sheppard pointed out, and followed Rodney down the hall. "Or even which scientists."

"What, I can't handle some botanists?" Rodney demanded, and spun to face Sheppard. "Yes, fine, I can't go into the sun or eat solid foods or, apparently, breathe garlic fumes, but I am perfectly, completely, entirely capable of disciplining some fucking idiotic Ph.Ds who thought they'd pulled a fast one. Got that?"

Sheppard bristled for a moment, and Rodney thought he'd pushed too far. "Fine, if that's what you want," he said tightly, which Rodney thought was a little odd. "But if it turns out not to be scientists, you let me handle it. All right?"

"Fine," Rodney said, and waved his door open. Sheppard turned towards his own quarters down the hall. "Oh, and Rodney?"

"Yes?"

"Make 'em suffer." Sheppard met his eyes solemnly, then grinned, and Rodney knew he'd just been given permission to rain down hell.

"Oh," he said blissfully, leaning against his doorframe for a moment. "They will."

***

Rodney woke up slowly the next morning. He didn't usually remember his dreams, but this time he had distinct recollections of Colonel Sheppard smirking and offering him a platter piled high with steak kebabs, dripping with succulent juices.

Subtlety had never been his subconscious' strong point.

In the bathroom he peered at himself blearily -- his face was puffy, which he guessed was a side effect from the faceful of garlic fumes he'd inhaled the night before. The memory of the prank stung, so he forced his thoughts towards other things. If he got a bee sting, would he still need epinephrine, or would his slow -- he refused to call it 'nonexistent,' whatever Carson said -- circulation change the reaction somehow? He resolved to pester Carson about it and ran a thoughtful hand over his chin and jaw. He didn't have to shave that often, but he usually had more stubble than this. He shrugged and decided to take it as an advantage of his new condition. Surely he deserved at least one.

A different nameless Marine showed up to walk him to the lab. Halfway there his stomach growled insistently, and Rodney saw the Marine flinch and step away; and really, when had the military started recruiting scaredy-cats? “I'm not going to eat you,” he snapped, and gestured at the Marine's P-90. “Because, hello, not actually a monster -- and you're carrying an automatic weapon. Do you really think I'm some sort of threat? Do I actually look that stupid?”

The Marine shook his head and murmured “No, sir,” even as he clutched the P-90 a little more tightly. Rodney sighed. “Thank you for proving all my preconceived notions about the American military.”

He paused at the lab door and peered through the window; from what he could see, his bench was bare, his papers neatly stacked on the next bench over. He took a deep breath and held it, just in case, but whoever had cleaned up had done a good job; he smelled the blisteringly strong antiseptic cleanser they brought over by the bucket on the Daedalus, but nothing else. He'd have to thank Sheppard, he thought absently, and started sorting through his papers. Then again, maybe not, because was it too much to ask that everyone on Atlantis know how to alphabetize, and -

"Rodney?"

Rodney glanced up. "Radek, hey. Bring any coffee?"

The other man shook his head slowly, light glinting off his little glasses. "No, no coffee. I -- did not know you were out. Back."

Rodney nodded and began flipping through Simpson's report on the desalinization tanks again, which had somehow gotten shuffled in with Kavanagh's sullen analysis of four Ancient objects that might or might not be automatic flushing toilets. "Yeah, Carson cleared me last night -- apparently I'm not contagious, so provided I don't bite anyone, ha, I'm allowed to interact with my fellow human beings -- what?" he asked, because Radek was looking at him oddly and frowning.

"Do you really think you should be joking? About being" -- Radek grimaced, clearly searching for the right word -- "whatever it is that you are?"

Rodney stared at the other man. Zelenka was radiating tension, the sort Rodney usually associated with life-or-annihilation standoffs with the Genii, and then he realized that Zelenka was keeping the lab bench between them. "Are you afraid of me?"

"Yes? No. Maybe." Radek made a helpless gesture. "I do not know, precisely. First we hear that you are dead, being carried through the gate in a sack --"

"Well yes, but I’m clearly not dead --"

"Yes, not dead but biting nurses, and being put in the Wraith cell --"

Rodney scowled. "And I'm going to kill whoever thought that was a good idea."

"And now you have pointy teeth and are drinking blood and burning in sun and saying things like that!" Radek almost shouted, and threw up his hands. "What are we supposed to think?"

"Well, from what I found on my lab bench, I'm guessing someone put two and two together and got six, by which I mean vampire!" Rodney snapped. "You're all scientists -- this sort of blind superstitious nonsense is really embarrassing."

"Rodney," Radek sighed, and pressed the heel of his hand between his eyes. "We live in a galaxy named after a winged horse and fight aliens that think they are -- that singer. David Bowie, yes? Compared to that, vampires -- vampires are easy. We have vampires in Czechoslovakia -- the upíři, we call them. My babička used to tell stories, and throw seeds in front of the door."

"Seeds?"

"Something to do with counting," Radek clarified, looking tired. "You are supposed to be compelled to count them until the sun rises."

"What -- what d'you mean, 'you'?" Rodney protested. "I have never been that compulsive!"

Radek picked up a box of paperclips and waved it at him. "Would you like to test that assumption?"

"Oh my God, I cannot take this!" Rodney shoved himself away from the lab bench, and was disappointed but not surprised when Zelenka jumped back. He couldn't find the gesture large enough to encompass his outrage, but he tried. "A few -- suggestive symptoms -- does not make me a vampire! Because they don't exist!"

"No?" Radek asked, his voice sharp, and Rodney remembered that Radek was almost certainly as smart as him. "What is disease, if not a collection of symptoms? Where did the stories about upíři come from, if not from some basis in fact?"

"If you tell me you believe in ghosts, I will lose all respect for you," Rodney said flatly.

"Ascended Ancients," Zelenka retorted. "Holograms, seen by the ignorant. Hallucinations by those in mourning. Everything has an explanation."

"But not this!"

"See, that is where I think you are wrong." The other man gestured around the lab, at the piles of equipment and Ancient artifacts. Even after all their time in Atlantis, they'd deciphered the purpose only a tiny fraction of it. "This happened with something Ancient, yes? And they did not do things without reason."

Rodney kicked a lab stool, hard; it skittered a little across the Ancient linoleum before clattering on its side. "But there is no sense! I can't eat regular food, I can't go out in the sun, I can't do anything! How does this possibly make sense?"

"I do not know," Radek said quietly. "But I think there must be a purpose. Also, please do not abuse the lab furniture; that is my favorite chair."

"All the chairs are the same, and you know it." Rodney picked up the lab stool, not looking at Radek. "Is this what I can expect from everyone? Is everyone going to freak out and assume that when I look at them, I see hors d'oeuvres?"

He could hear the fabric of Radek’s shirt shifting as he shrugged. Great, super-hearing. It didn't do much to undo the tight little knot of anger and hurt and yes, fear, that had taken up permanent residence in his gut. "I can only speak for me," the Czeck scientist said slowly, "but I trust you. Mostly. If Elizabeth and Carson say you are okay, you are okay. It will take some... getting used to, of course. And I would be discreet."

"I'm not going to go around biting the heads off small mammals," Rodney snapped. "Please credit me with some social skills."

The other scientist paled but managed a slight grin. "Of course. Which is why you make scientists cry regularly. Foolish me."

"Oh, shut up," Rodney said dismissively, and felt himself relax a tiny bit. "Here, have you seen this fallacy of a report that Kavanagh turned in?"

"Yes, the man cannot identify toilets." Radek rolled his eyes and leaned against the lab bench. "And then he complains that we do not let him play with the 'cool toys.'"

"He's such a moron," Rodney said happily, and they spent a good half hour in productive laboratory gossip before Rodney remembered. "Hey, last night I found a whole bunch of garlic --"

"It will not happen again," Radek said firmly, and Rodney was nearly - not quite, but nearly - content to let it go at that.

***

The persistent grumbling of Rodney's stomach and the increasingly panicked looks of his colleagues chased him out of the lab a few hours later. "All right, all right," he said finally, after Miko squeaked yet again and inched away from his lab table. "The big bad vampire head of the science department is going to find some lunch. When I come back I don't want to find any garlic or holy water or silver or crosses or, umm, seeds --"

"You will find nothing," Radek said, shooting a particularly hard glance at Kavanagh and cementing the other man's place on Rodney's list of People Who Will Suffer, a Lot. "And silver is for werewolves, please keep mythologies straight."

"I will if you will," Rodney said snidely, grabbed his coffee mug, and paused. "Wait, that wasn't what I meant."

Radek rolled his eyes. "Just go."

Outside Rodney picked up the latest incarnation of his Marine and started towards the mess hall -- then paused. How was this supposed to work, exactly? People had just brought him food before, and he couldn't imagine the reaction if he asked the cook on duty in the mess for a big bowl of blood. The logistics of feeding him suddenly seemed rather daunting -- were they draining a cow? Or cows? Did the Athosians have enough cows to feed him? And he still wasn't satisfied on the mad cow disease question. Maybe he'd be better off with the Athosian sort-of-sheep. Except hadn’t mad cow disease actually started in sheep? He changed course and headed for the infirmary instead.

Carson wasn't in the infirmary proper but in the laboratory next door, peering intently into some sort of microscope. He jumped when Rodney knocked and eyed him a little nervously.

"Not here to eat you," Rodney said preemptively, and gestured back to the Marine. "Still being babysat by the nice men with guns. I was wondering, though -- how am I supposed to eat, exactly? I mean," he said, warming to his topic, "I can't imagine that I can just waltz into the mess hall and order a blood milkshake, although that doesn't sound as bad as it should, really --"

"We've taken care of it," Carson interrupted, and slid a cover over the microscope. "For meals you'll want to come to see me, or whoever's on duty here," he said over his shoulder, leading them back into the infirmary. "We didn't think the Athosian herds were big enough, as they mainly use them for milk, not meat --"

"Oh God," Rodney gulped.

"So Colonel Sheppard gated to a planet with a butcher shop," Carson finished, looking peeved. "Honestly, man, we wouldn't let you starve."

"I know that," Rodney said sulkily, uncomfortably aware that Carson and Sheppard, and probably other people, had gone to a lot of trouble on his behalf. He hated feeling guilty; it chafed.

Carson opened a door set into the back wall of the infirmary, and they all blinked at the sudden, shocking wave of cold. "The Ancients were very good at refrigeration technology," Carson said unnecessarily, and handed Rodney a beaker half-filled with red fluid from one of the shelves that lined the deep interior. "We struck a deal where we'll get refills every few days or so."

"What did you have to trade?" Rodney clutched the beaker to his chest and hoped it wasn't a staple, like sugar or medicines or God, coffee. If that were the case, nothing would stop the science team from stuffing cloves of almost-garlic up his nose while he slept.

Carson grinned. "Just some copper wire that engineering had lying around."

"Hopefully they won't build bombs with it," Rodney muttered, and took a sniff from the beaker. It smelled -- okay. "Is there any way I can warm this up?"

"There's a microwave right there," Carson gestured. "I can trust you to clean it, right?"

"Why does everyone think I was raised in a barn?" Rodney wondered. "Yes, fine, I'll leave your microwave in the obnoxiously pristine state that I found it."

"You might want to cover the beaker, then," Carson remarked, and Rodney just resisted the urge to stick out his tongue.

***

Rodney felt almost good as he left the infirmary; his stomach was comfortably full, he had half a travel mug of warm blood left, and Carson was nearly speaking to him like a normal human being again. Of course, he'd twitched when Rodney'd taken his first ecstatic sip of lunch, but the man had always been something of a prude, anyway. He couldn’t help it if warm blood tasted like sex felt, could he?

Then Ronon tapped him on the shoulder. Either that or tried to dislocate it; Rodney could never tell.

"Ow, ow, and also ow," he said, dancing away from the giant man. "What's wrong with just saying 'hello?' We've had this conversation!"

Ronon ignored Rodney, as he always did. "Sheppard wants to see you in the gym -- you're late for practice."

"Oh, for Pete's -- " and yes, it was Wednesday, which meant that it was "make the scientist sweat" day. In his defense, he'd been a little distracted. "Look, I'm not going off-world anymore, right?" He shook off the unexpected sadness of the thought and kept going. "So the Colonel's little self-defense course is really unnecessary. Tell him to pretend it's me when you're beating the snot out of him."

"Sheppard said you'd say that," Ronon grunted, and grabbed his arm, steering him none-too-gently down the corridor towards the gym.

"Do you even listen?" Rodney asked in exasperation. "I don't have to do this anymore. And also, personal boundaries, and also, I haven't been cleared for this by Carson --"

"Sheppard said you'd say that too," Ronon said, and didn't let go. Rodney gave up, let himself be towed along like a dinghy in Ronon's wake, and wondered when, exactly, the universe was going to smile on him again.

***

"You're late." Sheppard grinned ferally at him across the practice mat. He had a bruise across one cheekbone, and his shirt clung damply across his shoulders and chest; he'd clearly been at this for a while.

"I was working," Rodney protested, and irritably shook Ronon's hand off his arm. Ronon grunted and stalked over to one of the weapons racks. Probably to admire the latest in lethal technology, Rodney thought sourly. "Look, I don't see why this is necessary -- Carson says I can't go off-world anymore. I don't think knowing twelve ways to kill someone with my elbow will be useful in the labs."

"If it ever comes down to a cage match, you can prove your superiority over Kavanagh once and for all," Sheppard offered.

Rodney wanted to smile, he really did, but the point had to be made. "I can do that without physical violence," he said scornfully. "I'm perfectly content to continue crushing Kavanagh with my intellect, just like always. So if you'll excuse me --"

He turned, but Sheppard ducked around him and blocked his path, arms flung wide. Whatever good humor he'd shown before had vanished; now he just looked serious and a little pissed. "McKay. You need to do this. It doesn't matter where you are -- remember the Genii?"

Rodney stiffened. Of course he remembered the Genii, he had scars from the Genii, and if Sheppard was going to hit below the belt he could bring up a few other times when they'd been less than safe in Atlantis. Such as the head-exploding nanites, or the hurricane, or hey, the Wraith, and he didn't think Sheppard's patient instructions to "go for the kneecaps" wouldn't do any good against the life-sucking aliens. But he couldn't think up a good retort about the Genii. He settled for glaring at Sheppard and saying "I hate you so very, very much," even as he kicked off his shoes, shucked off his jacket, and stepped gingerly onto the mat.

"Atta boy," Sheppard said cheerfully, as though they hadn't just fought a minor battle of wills, and rolled his shoulders expectantly. "Remember what we were practicing last week?"

Rodney scowled, still pissed. "Let's see, I think you were tackling me to the ground and sitting on me. It brought back fond memories of junior high that I'm still trying to repress, thank you."

"You're welcome," Sheppard grinned, and pounced.

The Ancients had certainly known what they were doing when they designed tumbling mats. Rodney stared up at the gym ceiling and tried to ignore the heavy weight of Sheppard draped across his chest.

"You're supposed to flip me off," Sheppard said helpfully. Rodney thought about flipping him off with just one finger. But he was distracted by the rumbling vibrations of Sheppard's voice, the shocking warmth of him even through their shirts. He realized suddenly that no one had really touched him since the stupid vampire planet -- Beckett's medical malpractice didn't count, obviously, and everyone else had kept him at a careful arm's length. He couldn't really blame them. If he'd been healthy and it was someone else who'd been affected, he'd probably have insisted on a hazmat suit. Thank goodness Sheppard was around to keep him from feeling like a total pariah.

"C'mon, Rodney," Sheppard complained, and wriggled, his bony ribcage digging into Rodney's stomach. "You're not even trying -- use that weight advantage already!"

Of course, Sheppard could also be really annoying. "We can't all have the metabolisms of hummingbirds," Rodney snapped, and tried to recall last week's lesson. It was all about the hips, he recalled, and twisted hard against the mat.

Sheppard blinked at him from where he was sprawled a good six feet away. Even Ronon paused to gape at them, ignoring the Marine panting frantically at his feet.

Rodney extended a shaky hand to Sheppard. "Umm, sorry?"

Sheppard let Rodney haul him up. "Sorry for what?"

"For throwing you across the room?"

Sheppard rolled his head to the side until his neck cracked alarmingly. "Well, let's see if you can do it again before you start apologizing, okay?" He wasn't smiling anymore. He stepped back to the edge of the mat, standing loosely in a way that didn't fool Rodney, or perhaps anyone. Rodney saw Ronon's eyes narrow, just for a moment, across the gym.

"Maybe we could call it a day," he began, but then he had a -- the only word was premonition -- of movement and threw himself to the side, just avoiding Sheppard's lunge. He tucked into a roll and landed on his feet for maybe the first time ever, then lurched to the side with a yelp as Sheppard tackled him again. This time he somehow managed to stay upright, and before he could process what he was doing he hooked an ankle around Sheppard's calf and shoved, tumbling them both back to the mat. Sheppard tried to squirm away, using the same hip trick he'd taught Rodney, but Rodney just grabbed his arms and leaned, pressing him to the floor.

Sheppard blinked up at him, his expression unreadable. "Is this another side effect of the whole vampire thing?" he asked.

Suddenly Sheppard's arms felt blisteringly hot; Rodney scrambled up and away, just managing to avoid kneeing Sheppard in the crotch. He resisted the urge to scrub his hands down his sides, to remove the feel of all that heat and skin, and scowled instead. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Sheppard sat up and winced, rubbing the back of his neck. "I don't know -- the fact that you weren't that fast last week?"

"Maybe I'm just better than you thought I was," Rodney said stiffly, recognizing the lie even as he said it.

"Oh, come off it," Sheppard said irritably.

"Come off what? The fact that you're annoyed that you didn't win, just this once?" Rodney crossed his arms over his chest and glared at the other man, ignoring his vague sense of hurt in favor of the more familiar sense of annoyance. "I thought that was what you were supposed to be teaching me to do!"

"Well, yeah -- " Sheppard began, and paused. "Let's try it again," he said instead, and sprang without warning, tackling Rodney around the knees and carrying him into the mat. Rodney landed hard, the breath knocked out of him; then he remembered that technically, he didn't have to breathe anymore. He kicked up hard, catching Sheppard in the gut with his bare feet. The other man grunted, surprised, and loosened his grip on Rodney's legs. Rodney jackknifed up and out of Sheppard's grip; the momentum carried Sheppard sprawling to the floor, and Rodney flung himself across his back, scrabbling for his arms and pinning them above his head. He could feel Sheppard panting beneath him. Given that his newfound abilities were starting to freak him out just a tiny bit, it wasn't nearly as hot as he'd thought it'd be.

"Can I get up now?" Sheppard's voice was muffled, and Rodney practically levitated in horror when he realized that he'd been squashing Sheppard's face into the mat.

"Yes, up up up," he said hurriedly. Sheppard slowly pulled himself to his feet, and it was all Rodney could do to not start patting him down, looking for damage. Ronon, having apparently exhausted the entertainment value out of his latest Marine, wandered over to their mat instead.

"That was good," he commented idly, spinning one of the Athosian sticks into a blur between his big hands, like the world’s most absurd majorette. "When'd you learn to do that?"

"I don't know," Rodney said quickly. Sheppard was shaking out his wrist and eying him thoughtfully, and for a gut-clenching moment he thought the Colonel was afraid of him, like Radek had been, and there were so many things wrong with a world in which he could scare Sheppard.

"You're faster," Ronon stated bluntly. "Stronger, too?"

"Maybe?"

"Make that a 'yes,'" Sheppard said wryly. "And a hell of a lot faster, and better at anticipating, too."

"It's not my fault you telegraph like Samuel Morse," Rodney snapped.

"I do not," Sheppard shot back. Rodney almost sagged with relief; annoyed was better than fear. Annoyed was practically status quo.

"Morse?" Ronon's eyebrows knit together in confusion; it was like caterpillars mating, Rodney thought, distracted momentarily by the horror.

Sheppard waved the question off. "Earth thing. So," he said, eyes narrowing, and Rodney abruptly wished for the fear back, because fear was a better look than calculating. "We know you can take me down -- "

"Beginner's luck, you said so yourself -- "

"So what about Ronon?" Sheppard grinned, turned, and tossed one of the Athosian sticks at Rodney.

"I despise you," Rodney hissed, annoyed but not surprised that he caught the stick without fumbling, his hands adjusting themselves automatically for the best balance. "With the fiery heat of a thousand supernovas."

"Heads up," was all Sheppard said, and then Rodney had to duck.

Part II