Puddle Jumping Chap 7
Title:Puddle Jumping
Author:Calamityjim
Fandoms:Supernatura/SGA/SG1
Rating: Mature (Rating Jumped. Be aware)
Warnings: Supernatural-Spoilers to season 5, SG-1, to season 9, and SGA, all seasons. Also Violence, swearing, pairings, and aliens
Disclaimer:Stargate belongs to MGM, Supernatural to the CW
Distribution: Crossposted on fanfic.net
Summary: Gabriel's solution to the apocalypse was unorthodox. Now Sam and Dean are struggling to survive in a reality they don't understand against forces that take a little more than salt to kill. First Story in the Rebirth Verse the Atlantis Arc.
Chap Summary- In which Bad Things happen to good people.
AN- Warnings! Violence! Lots of Violence! AND GORE! BWA HA HA! You’ve been warned. Also, this is story 1 in an arc that I have a tentative nine fics planned for. Just keep that in mind. Trust me, if you will.
Previous Chapter
Puddle Jumping
Chapter 7
Ciao Time
He was hungry.
John could hear the heartbeats of the guard detail Elizabeth had assigned to his room at his urging. It was too little. If Elizabeth had been smart she would have tossed him in one of the laser cages the Ancients had left behind. Even Rodney armed with a data pad couldn’t get out of one of those and he’d tried hard. Zelenka had bet McKay a hundred bucks on the Chief Scientist being stuck but it was the bragging rights that Zelenka walked away with. Very few people on base could ever say they were right when Rodney was wrong, and in most of those cases there were too many bodies to count that as a victory.
But no, Elizabeth trusted John to be fine. She trusted that he was in control, that he could manage to hold on while everyone else tried to save him.
It wasn’t the first time she had been wrong.
He didn’t get it though, couldn’t understand how she’d missed it. Even he could see the madness leak into his eyes as the iris changed to the color of stale urine even as his skin scaled, the smoky blue spreading across his body like the virus it was, eating away at John and leaving a monster in its place.
So he had made her put guards up. Good men. Smart men. Not like the new ones. They didn’t challenge him. They respected him. Feared him. They knew he was strong enough to destroy them and when he was ready they would cower and hide. They were good men.
But they were wrong. He didn’t need to be here. He needed to be out in his city. He needed to be teaching others that the city was his. Only his. They didn’t belong.
But he was hungry. So hungry.
And so very very angry.
x---x-x---x
Chuck was the replacement for Dr. Peter Grodin, who had been killed the way everyone had been killed during the siege; saving lives. This meant that Chuck as a gate technician was the one in charge of dialing to the correct planets, of making sure the shield was down when allies were coming in hot and up when the enemies were trailing right behind them. He was the one who had to hit the button fast enough to make sure no stray bullets followed teams through the gate, to make sure that when the team made it back to Atlantis that they stayed safe. It was a crucial job integral to the running of the city.
Chuck hated it.
He hated it because he was the replacement for Dr. Grodin, who had died so that Rodney McKay could save everyone. He hated it because people still called him Grodin and looked flustered and genuinely surprised that he wasn’t the British engineer, like they had somehow been able to forget for a single moment that Grodin was dead and they were alive because of that fact. Chuck was a man who, despite having been a vital part of the team since day one, was known only for standing in a ghost’s shoes.
He hated it because everyone thought that since he was Canadian he and Dr. McKay were somehow innate friends and if he wasn’t careful he’d have a stack of bad news from the cowards wandering around the base that he had to go give to the Chief of Science. No one noticed that because they were both Canadian Dr. McKay went out of his way to be harder on Chuck so that the technician didn’t lower others’ opinions of Rodney’s country of birth by allowing vacuous idiocy to pass through his lips in the disguise of conversation.
But the worst part of Chuck’s job was the waiting. He was beginning to understand why his Grandmother was so dedicated to her stories after she retired. Even having the melodramatic drivel of Eric Brady’s life on Days of Our Lives would have been preferable to the long periods of nothing but waiting for alarms to ring and chevrons to clack as teams dialed in early, dialed in late, or didn’t dial in at all.
From his vantage point he saw everything happening in the gate room. He saw the way Elizabeth kept emerging from her office under the pretense of supervising the staff when she only had eyes for the Stargate, willing it to come to life. He could see Radek slide into the room muttering about maintenance and incompetence but never opening a single panel or moving a single crystal. Marines kept cycling in, all with the same excuse of “I got lost looking for the gym.” At least Stackhouse had manned up to what he wanted. He flat out told Elizabeth that he was waiting here until the team from Operation Save the Fucking Day returned.
Not that that was what it was called. Officially it was something boring and bureaucratic, like the PX7-429 Cellular Retrieval. Unofficially the current name would only last until the next Operation SFD commenced, which could either start tomorrow or a month from now. The Atlantis bookie had given Chuck great odds on a week from now. The technician figured that that was how long it would take Sheppard to get back on his feet and cleared to go through the gate.
But first the team had to get back.
So Chuck sat in front of the most important part of the city, a panel of blinking lights that some days he wanted to do nothing more than spill coffee all over and pretended that he wasn’t bored out of his mind. He also pretended that he wasn’t envious of every other technician on base, who all had downloaded solitaire onto their tablets, the lucky ducks.
He was in the middle of recounting how many lights there were in the room (one hundred and seventy nine) when the gate flashed to life with a buzzing whine.
“Unscheduled offworld activation!” Chuck announced, not that everyone else couldn’t see that the Stargate had lit up but it was still part of his job. He glanced at the data streaming in and couldn’t help but feel the knots in his back loosen. “Its Major Lorne’s IDC.”
Elizabeth had emerged from her office at the first sound of the gate and moved to her customary spot on the balcony. Chuck was certain that if someone ran their hands over the bars they would be able to feel the impressions left by Elizabeth’s hands. Not that anyone was willing to test that theory. It was Elizabeth’s spot and some days Chuck was certain that her standing there willing teams to come home alive was the only thing between the city and disaster. Everyone knew it was a silly superstition but no one ever stood in Elizabeth’s spot, not even Dr. McKay.
Just in case.
“Lower the shield.” Elizabeth touched her radio with a calm everyone admired. Chuck did too, despite being able to see through it. “Major Lorne, this is Dr. Weir. What’s your status?”
The room held its breathe with Dr. Weir, Stackhouse leaning forward as Radek looked up from his tablet.
“This is Major Lorne. We have the package and are prepared to meet medical.”
Elizabeth smiled, her shoulders sagging in relief as some of the marines who had wandered in whooped. “Dr. Biro is in the Jumper Bay waiting on you.”
“Then we’d better not disappoint.” The Jumper materialized in the room, Lorne’s smirking face visible through the windshield. He gave Elizabeth a nod, the customary greeting for returns on missions, before the entire rig disappeared into the Jumper Bay.
Elizabeth returned to her office, probably to have a small break down. That was Chuck’s theory, anyway. No one else seemed to agree.
Her departure was the universal all’s well signal so it didn’t take long for the gate room to empty of unnecessary personnel leaving Chuck alone with his thoughts and his job.
He really needed a deck of cards or something.
x---x-x---x
“John!”
He heard her call. She shouldn’t have been there. He had warned her. Told her to stay away. He was hungry and she smelled so good.
“John,” this time the call was timid, the way it should be. She should be afraid. “It’s Elizabeth.”
He knew that. His hearing was fine. Better than fine. He had heard her coming the moment she got off the transporter.
“I have good news,” she continued, as though she wasn’t wandering into the spider’s web. “They got the eggs, John. Carson’s working on the cure even as we speak. Do you understand?” She paused, waiting for him. “You’re going to get better.”
Better? He didn’t need to get better. He was fine.
No. Not fine. He was hungry. They hadn’t fed him. How dare they? It was his city. Meat. He wanted meat.
“John? Everything is going to be all right.”
No. It wasn’t. She was trying to make him less. She thought she was in control. She wasn’t.
No.
She knew she wasn’t. She was trying to steal from him. She was impertinent. Like those boys, those birds.
Dean.
This was Dean’s fault.
Which meant the solution was simple.
John dropped from the ceiling, barely registering Elizabeth’s surprise as he shoved her across the room. She slid across the floor squeaking like the mouse she was. Then he was through the door, his good men lying at his feet.
This was his city.
He was in the transport, the hunt on before Elizabeth’s shaky voice came over the radio, ordering everyone back into their quarters. Not that it mattered.
It was his city.
It was time they learned.
x---x-x---x
Dean was oddly at peace with himself.
Sam had grabbed the crappy folding chair that came with the room’s desk and had set it up on the balcony. He’d dug out a monster book that he’d tucked away somewhere and was currently pouring through it while resting in a sunbeam, moving only to follow the light. He looked relaxed, at ease within his own skin and Dean chuckled at the realization that this was the happiest he’d ever seen his brother.
Sam peeked up from his book, brushing his bangs out of his face. “What?”
Dean shrugged, his hands still holding on tight to the balcony ledge as he reclined against it, back to the city as he watched his little brother. “It’s nothing, man.” Sam raised a skeptical eyebrow before turning back to his book, content to leave Dean to his own thoughts.
Always a risky endeavor.
“Hey Sam?”
“Mm?”
“You do know we’re guardless right now.”
Sam didn’t even glance up. “No, Dean.”
“Oh, come on, Sam!” Dean pushed himself away from the railing. “You don’t even know what I was going to say.”
Sam sighed and lowered the book into his lap. “We’re not going trolling for babes.”
Dean worked his jaw soundlessly before he settled for giving his brother a scowl. “Come on, Sammy. I’m crawling up the walls here.” Dean started to pace to illustrate his point.
Sam snapped his book shut and followed Dean into the room. “Dude, we’ve only been in here for a few hours.”
“And the only woman we’ve run into is that Elizabeth chick and she looks like she’d be a stickler about the age thing,” Dean grumbled as he flopped onto the bed. Technically he was totally within her age range. Biologically was a different story but it was likely to be the only one she preferred. “Didn’t the reports say that there is a hot alien wandering around here somewhere?”
“You mean besides Ronon?”
“Nasty, Sam. Besides, one of the guys at the SGC said that there was this slinky chick wandering around. Apparently she’s pretty easy on the eyes.”
“You’re a pig, Dean,” Sam bitched as he slipped his book back into his trunk. He’d set the thing up at the end of his bed, the one farthest from the door Dean noted approvingly, when a couple of goons had shown up carrying the luggage.
“I’m a hot commodity in high demand, Sammy.” Dean smiled lewdly. “We’ve already deprived an entire galaxy of women. I owe it my best to service this one accordingly.”
“Ew! Dean! Too much information!” Sam covered his ears.
Dean just shook his head sadly. “Someday, Sam, you’ll understand the wonders of sexual conquest. In fact, today would be a great day for me to teach you.”
A com system blared to life and Elizabeth’s voice filled the city.
“This is Dr. Weir. Security team, report to gate room. We have a breach. All other personnel, return to quarters.” The message looped twice before falling silent.
Dean stared up at the ceiling, ignoring Sammy’s knowing smirk. So much for that plan. “Now what are we going to do?”
“We’ve got some paper left. We could play tic-tac-toe.”
“Or we could go out there and lend a hand,” Dean suggested.
Sam nodded solemnly. “Great idea, Dean. I’m sure we’ll be able to go in and save the day. Just let me get our guns. Oh. Wait. We don’t have any.”
Dean sighed. “Or we could play tic-tac-toe.” He glanced around the room. There wasn’t really a great surface to play on. One desk, now chairless because of Sammy’s sunbathing, was pushed up against the wall. Two beds had been set up side by side with a space between them. The door to the bathroom was on the end of the desk farthest from the door, only a few feet between it and the hidden door that led to the balcony. Excusing the view and the tasteful sci-fi décor the room was eerily like all the motels the boys had stayed in.
Huh. Fancy that.
“You move the desk over and I’ll grab the chair,” Dean ordered.
Sam made a bitchface. “Why do I have to move the desk?”
“You’re the one who wants to play kiddy games.”
Sam scowled but made is way to the desk as Dean passed him to go to the balcony. Dean smirked as he lifted the light plastic chair just as Sam let out a grunt of effort. There was the squeal of metal on metal before Sam’s strain voice growled. “You’re such a jerk.”
“Less whining, more shifting, bitch.” Dean looked over the city, taking in a deep breath. The air here was cleanest that Dean had ever tasted and he’d been to Heaven. He was really beginning to dig this Atlantis.
The sound of a buzzer filled the quarters and Dean recognized the noise from Stackhouse’s late morning wake up call. Dean walked over to the desk. “You gonna get that Sammy?” He gestured to the folded chair. “I’m setting things up.”
Sam glared and huffed but used his freakishly long legs to step over the desk to the door. It slid open with a wave of his hand as Sam put on his best greeting smile.
The smile twisted into a horrified grimace the moment Sam spotted the yellow eyes.
x-x---x-x
“Rodney, have you located John?” Elizabeth was vibrating with frenetic energy.
“I’ve got him! He’s the red dot on screen.” He pointed to the very obvious red dot on the Atlantis map.
Everyone frowned as they saw Sheppard wander into a living area.
Lorne voiced the question on everyone’s mind. “What the hell is he doing there?”
x-x---x-x
Dean heard the sound of flesh hitting flesh. He looked up in time to see his brother go down with a gasp. John Sheppard, or what had once been the man, stood in the doorway. Blue-scaled skin had replaced the healthy flesh tones and little horns had begun to grow along his jaw line. The man’s hands had twisted into cobalt claws, the fingernails having grown into yellow talons that matched the color of eyes, the pupils having morphed into the vertical slits of cat. All in all it looked like something out of a horror movie.
And out of one of the most horrific scenes of the Winchester’s previous life.
But this time Dean wasn’t stuck to a wall and he didn’t give a shit if this John lived or died. He grabbed the shitty folding chair and tossed it with all of his might, the chair splintering on impact into a thousand olive shards as it collided with Sheppard, backed by the strength of Dean’s days as a volunteer firefighter.
John looked down at the raining fragments, more confused than annoyed by the impact of the chair, which was why he wasn’t ready when two hundred pounds of Winchester slammed into him.
The pair flew through the door, hitting the ground with enough force to continue sliding into the far wall of the hallway. Dean already had a fist cocked back before they even stopped moving, slamming it into the soldier’s mutated face.
“Sonuvabitch!” Dean cursed, instinctively shaking out his hand as his knuckled split on the spiky growths.
Beneath him John smiled. Blue fingers wrapped themselves around Dean’s neck and gave a small push, throwing Dean several feet down the hall.
Dean hit the ground with a bruising impact, trying to roll to protect himself from most of the damage. He used the momentum to carry himself back to his feet. He turned, quickly finding Sheppard. The colonel was standing in the middle of the hall, watching Dean blankly.
Silence and tension hung in the air as Dean waited for John to make the first move. And he would. He was toying with Dean and they both knew it. Christ, it was like fighting a demon but without the snarky dialogue; or the holy water, or devil’s traps, or any other fucking thing that would have given Dean half a chance at surviving this.
John slowly tilted his head and for half a second Dean thought that he might have been aiming for the full three-sixty rotation.
Then John was moving and there was no time for thinking, just reacting.
The first fist flew by Dean’s cheek and whistled past his ear even as he dodged to the right, bringing up his own into the colonel’s ribs. Dean ducked under the second, kicking out and spinning with enough momentum to sweep John to the side. The bug man hit the wall but didn’t fall. Hell, he didn’t even shake. He just looked up at Dean with flat yellow eyes before using the wall to launch himself at his target.
Dean didn’t even have time to swallow as a cobalt streak headed his way. He coiled his muscles, ready for impact.
Dean went down hard, a rib cracking under the assault. HE pushed the pain from his mind. It wasn’t important right then and pretending it was would only get him killed. Instead he kicked up, trying to dislodge the body above his. John grinned down at him with the glee of a predator. Dean kicked harder, desperation fueling his movements.
John opened his mouth and instead of a maniacal laugh he emitted a high pitch whistle, like a ground squirrel in heat. Dean winced and brought his hands up, trying to throw more punches and shake the man monster loose.
Sheppard caught his wrists and leaned forward, straddling Dean as he gradually forced the Winchester’s hands above his head. Dean twisted, breathing hard as he fought to escape the vulnerable position. His struggles increased when John forced both of Dean’s wrists into one of his hands, leaving the soldier with one free fist. Dean had a sneaking suspicion he knew what John was planning to do with it.
But he didn’t close his eyes. He just watched the hand draw back, knowing that as it stood it had enough force to shatter his skull.
John grinned.
Dean swallowed.
A metal frame came slamming down, hooking itself under John’s chin and instinct had the bug man clawing at it as it pulled back, placing pressure on John’s throat as olive tatters jabbed into the flesh. Dean twisted hard as Sammy yanked on the chair frame, dragging the deranged colonel off of his older brother.
John stumbled back a few steps before he found his footing. He dug in the heels of his combat boots and propelled himself backwards, knocking Sam down and falling in a tangle of limbs.
Sam dislodged himself and rolled to his feet, moving towards Dean as John struggled with the chair frame. He made it to his brother’s side, pulling Dean to his feet just as the shriek of tortured metal rent the air. Sam spun, standing shoulder to shoulder with Dean as the thing that had been John threw off the twisted frame of the chair with an angry shrug.
The two brothers had a second to brush shoulders, to affirm that they were both mostly okay, before the fight was back on.
John was fast. Like wendigo fast. Dean barely had time to bring his arms up to deflect the fists flying his way and he could see that Sam was having similar problems fending off the colonel’s kicks. It was like fighting a freaking possessed ninja.
John feinted to the left before sending a foot arcing towards Dean’s skull. The hunter lifted his arms, gasping in pain as the block rattled his cracked rib. A second kicked followed to the sternum, launching Dean backwards to skid across the floor.
Sam lasted the few moments it took Dean to get back to his feet before a kick to the temple dropped the youngest Winchester like stone.
“Sam!” Dean cried. John looked up, smiling tightly at Dean. He pulled a foot back and slammed it into Sam’s side. Sam didn’t make a sound.
Dean screamed, throwing himself into a full body tackle. John staggered back a step as he tripped over Sam. Sheppard kicked up, sliding his legs under Dean’s stomach before pushing, flipping the kid over his head.
Dean hit the ground with a rattle and he clutched at his side. He heard the colonel’s echoing footsteps gradually getting louder as the man took lazy steps towards him. Dean rolled onto his stomach, clawing at the floor as he futilely tried to put distance between him and his attacker.
John booted him in the back and Dean moaned as another rib cracked. The foot pressed harder as John leaned forward and grabbed Dean’s wrists. Dean whimpered as the bones in his chest grinded against each other but continued to buck as John slid Dean’s arms down so that his hands rested by his hips, his palms facing up.
It wasn’t until Sheppard began to pull up that Dean realized what he was doing.
“No,” he protested weakly, vainly struggling to swing his arms outward to lessen the growing tension.
John continued to slowly draw Dean’s arms up, only pausing when Dean let out a pained keen from the back of his throat. He smiled eerily.
And tugged.
Dean screams drowned out the sound of twin pops as his shoulders dislocated.
John dropped the limbs and they flopped uselessly across the tiles. He nudged Dean with his toes, flipping the body over. He frowned as he took in Dean’s lax features, angered at the boy’s escape into unconsciousness.
He bent over, wrapping a hand around Dean’s throat. He lifted the body up with ease, holding it high enough that the Winchester’s legs dangled as began to squeeze. Slowly.
He wanted this to last.
“No!” John gave a half turn at the sound, frustrated to see the other one already on his feet. He let out a screech, warning the kid to wait his turn.
Instead of being deterred by the shattering whistle it spurred Sam on, fueling his rage. He lunged forward, drawing his only weapon and plunging it deep into John’s chest.
Sheppard screeched in rage, dropping Dean’s limp form as his hands curled around the protruding object convulsively. He didn’t pull the fork out, just stared at it with dumb wonder before he glanced up at Sam, murder in his eyes.
Seeing that look on the face of an opponent that was stronger and faster than Sam had the kid pulling out the oldest play in the book.
Sam fled.
x-x---x-x
Rodney watched the map, frowning at the scene unfolding. Three life signs wove together in an intricate dance, two white circling and wending past the red. His breath caught every time on of the dots obscured the other, fearing for those facing John almost as strongly as he feared for the colonel. He knew John would take it hard if he killed someone but at least he would be alive to regret it. It was petty of him but Rodney had never claimed to be a good person, just a smart one.
He frowned harder as one by one the white dots stilled and winced as the red one, as John, moved over one of the downed targets. One of the disadvantages of being the smartest man in two galaxies was that Rodney could easily extrapolate what exactly was happening to the poor sap that Sheppard was hovering over. His only comfort was that it wasn’t one of his people. No one from the science division could have lasted that long in a fight.
His frowned deepened as the scene changed, white dot number two moving towards Sheppard. Whatever happened between them was brief but significant. Everything paused.
Then the white dot shot off like a bullet from a gun straight into the nearest transporter, which would have been great for the white dot if the red one didn’t join him in the device before they both blinked out.
Rodney fumbled with the radio. “Sheppard is on the move.”
“Where?” came Ronon’s succinct response.
“Transporter between labs six and seven.” He watched as the second white dot bounced around, then flicked his gaze to the first one, which still hadn’t move. “Send medical to both locations.”
“Gotcha.” Ronon’s tone was grim.
Rodney took a breath and reminded himself that they weren’t his people.
It was a cold comfort.
x-x---x-x
Sam was tossed through the doors, after they were open thankfully. He hit the floor at a good angle, rolling back onto his feet in one smooth motion but ruining the any showy effect he may have produced as he listed to one side. In his defense he’d just been rematerialized and probably had a concussion.
Not that John cared.
As soon as Sam was on his feet the soldier was moving with purposeful strides, anger radiating off of him like heat waves from the sun. Sam barely had time to block the fist coming at his face. He hissed in pain as his teeth rattled from the impact, his arms smarting from the blow, but was already moving to the side, dodging another fist as it came streaking his way. He used his movement to bring up his own knee, which John blocked with a powerful sweep of his hands.
Sam swung wildly, his fingers scraping as they slid across the rough skin of Sheppard’s face, the scales shredding the skin on his knuckles. It didn’t help that John didn’t even give an inch. Sam could have been punching a brick wall for all the good it was doing.
Then again, brick walls didn’t get pissed off and hit back.
Air rushed from Sam’s chest as two quick blows slammed into his solar plexus, emptying his lungs and shaking his organs. His body crumpled forward and John caught him, grabbing him by his neck. Instead of the expected strangulation the colonel pulled his arm back and hammered Sam into the ground.
Without removing his hand he stepped, moving so he straddled Sam’s hips. Sam batted at him ineffectually, like a fly beating its wings when it was already caught in the spider’s web. John leaned forward, placing a little more pressure on the hand. He was pleased to see soft hazel eyes open wider with fear as the boy wrapped his hands around John’s, trying to pry the colonel’s hand away in his terror. Not that he doubted that the kid was afraid. The boy was rank with the stench of fear.
But fear was fleeting. Fear was soon forgotten. John was here to teach. Pain left memories. Pain made lessons.
John gave a meaningful look to the fork still sticking out of his chest. He felt the pulse under his fingers speed up as he his gaze trailed to Sam’s shoulder. With a single pull John ripped through the boy’s shirt, revealing the soft flesh underneath. He brought his fingers back to his mouth, giving them a long sensual lick as he studied the boy’s hide.
The kid tried to swallow, the hand around his throat stopping the movement, but he didn’t look away as John placed his wet claws against the tanned skin. He didn’t scream as John pushed in, crimson blood welling around his fingers. John snarled, displeased at the stoicism, and pushed in deeper, burying himself up to his second knuckle. Sam grunted and hissed as John retracted his hand, but he didn’t scream as blood ran down his chest.
Blood. It was pretty, the deep red swirling along the blue. It smelled heavy, hearty, and John slipped his fingers into his mouth, sucking off the scarlet nectar.
Something must have shown on his face because the boy beneath him flinched and began to twist and buck, as though his life depended upon it. The kid clawed feebly at John’s arm, tearing his fingernails as he scratched at John’s hardened flash.
John’s own nails trailed down Sam’s chest, carving a small shallow circle around the boy’s navel.
“No! Please!” the boy begged. “Please.”
The reaction made John smile. It was beautiful.
But the boy could do so much better.
x-x---x-x
Teyla’s heart tightened as the transporter shifted them towards John. Normally the move was seamless, only the opening of the doors breaking the illusion of stillness. Usually there was no shift or jolt, or even the temperature change that accompanied passing through the Ring of the Ancestors. There was nothing to mark the change.
Usually.
This time everyone marked the transition by the sound of screaming that was barely muffled by the doors.
They slid open and Teyla’s heart broke even as she raised her weapon, training it on a man who was her friend.
John twitched, lifting his head out of the gaping stomach wound, tearing out more flesh as he pulled his last bite out with the movement. He screeched around the gore hanging from lips, moving into a crouch so that he could pounce on the newest threats.
Ronon did not wait for John to attack. Red slammed into John, forcing the colonel backwards even as it rendered him unconscious. Evan surged past, checking John’s pulse before binding his hands behind his back. He radioed the teams blocking the hallway, letting them know that John was secure and that they needed Carson, all while carefully avoiding looking at the form John had been feasting upon.
Teyla looked, though, and it made her heartsick. The male was a child, certainly younger than Aiden. Living in the Pegasus galaxy had taught Teyla that death did not avoid children, but it always touched something inside of her when it happened. Though she had faith in the Lantians and the technology of the Ancestors Teyla was uncertain if it would be able to help in this case.
The boy’s shoulder was injured, blood leaking from a series of deep puncture wounds. Bruises adorned the boy’s face and throat, attesting to head injuries and strangulation. But worst was the boy’s stomach.
It had been shredded, the organs minced or removed. The missing flesh was strewn about the floor in unrecognizable pieces or was hanging from the unconscious colonel’s mouth in thick ribbons.
Teyla knelt down by the figure, selfishly glad that he had ceased his cries. She grasped the boy’s hand, hoping to comfort him as he passed. “You did well,” she whispered, hoping her words would bring him some kind of piece.
The boy’s grip tightened around hers and he tilted his head to give hear a pain filled glaze. “D-d-dean,” he gasped out.
“Someone’s on the way to get you brother,” Ronon promised, and Teyla looked up, surprised the runner knew the dying child. She did not ask, though. It was not a tale for now, perhaps not a tale to ever be shared.
The kid’s head rocked back and forth. “Easy,” Teyla whispered, bringing her other hand to stroke his hair in an attempt to calm him. Ronon grasped the boy’s shoulder, a gesture that was positively intimate coming from the Runner.
“Nooo,” moaned the boy. “T-t-tell him. N-not his fault-t. N-n-not. Sh-sh-shep. J-john’s. Sssick. T-tell him?”
Ronon nodded solemnly. “Will do.”
The boy gave a bloody smile, dimples forming on his face as he managed to look genuinely happy. “T-thanks.” The boy gave a soft sigh and his grip on Teyla’s hands loosened. She did not let go, though, watching as the boy’s chest rose slowly.
Teyla timed her breath to match his, a personal ritual she had started as a little girl as a way to connect to the dying. Beside her Ronon kept his grip on the boy’s shoulder, occasionally brushing the boy’s blood matted hair out of his face as they waited for the medical team to arrive.
For once Teyla regretted the lack of Rodney’s incessant complaints. They would have filled the silence of the wait nicely, or perhaps even spurred people to quicker action. As it was Teyla knew they had come as quick as they could and even if they had arrived with her they still would have been too late to save the youth.
Medical personnel swarmed around, moving with an efficiency that had always amazed Teyla. She looked up to see them load and secure John onto a gurney with thick dark straps, Carson sliding a needle under his skin before the nurses wheeled him into the transporter.
When the doors slid shut and John was out of slight Carson turned his eyes to the boy Ronon and Teyla crouched beside, his face pale.
“Oh Sam,” he whispered mournfully, joining Teyla on the floor as he inspected the damage inflicted.
“Can you do anything?” Ronon asked, his voice flat and even. It was only the quick glance up that would allow those who knew the man to recognize that he was upset.
Carson shook his head. “We can make him comfortable in the infirmary.” Something in the doctor’s tone revealed that he did not believe the child would survive the trip. Teyla lowered her head and gave the limp hand a gentle squeeze.
She would walk with him, if that were to be the case.
X_X_X_X_X
Confusion Clear Ups.
Ciao-yes, that’s a pun. I apologize for NOTHING.
Eric Brady→ Guess who was in a Soap Opera? If you guessed Jared you are SO wrong. :P
IDC→ Iris Deactivation Code which is emitted by the GDO (garage door opener). It’s why the home team doesn’t splat against the Iris.
Yellow eyes+ Daddy?--> Supernatural Season 1 finale. Awesome episode.
How to dislocate someone’s arms- strangely enough when I googled this I found videos of people trying to dislocate their own arms so they could later do joint popping party tricks…
Aiden Ford- Sheppard’s 2IC season 1. I think he was 23.
Action Scenes- I hate writing them so I have no idea how this one grew to be so freaking long.
Final Chapter!
Author:Calamityjim
Fandoms:Supernatura/SGA/SG1
Rating: Mature (Rating Jumped. Be aware)
Warnings: Supernatural-Spoilers to season 5, SG-1, to season 9, and SGA, all seasons. Also Violence, swearing, pairings, and aliens
Disclaimer:Stargate belongs to MGM, Supernatural to the CW
Distribution: Crossposted on fanfic.net
Summary: Gabriel's solution to the apocalypse was unorthodox. Now Sam and Dean are struggling to survive in a reality they don't understand against forces that take a little more than salt to kill. First Story in the Rebirth Verse the Atlantis Arc.
Chap Summary- In which Bad Things happen to good people.
AN- Warnings! Violence! Lots of Violence! AND GORE! BWA HA HA! You’ve been warned. Also, this is story 1 in an arc that I have a tentative nine fics planned for. Just keep that in mind. Trust me, if you will.
Previous Chapter
Puddle Jumping
Chapter 7
Ciao Time
He was hungry.
John could hear the heartbeats of the guard detail Elizabeth had assigned to his room at his urging. It was too little. If Elizabeth had been smart she would have tossed him in one of the laser cages the Ancients had left behind. Even Rodney armed with a data pad couldn’t get out of one of those and he’d tried hard. Zelenka had bet McKay a hundred bucks on the Chief Scientist being stuck but it was the bragging rights that Zelenka walked away with. Very few people on base could ever say they were right when Rodney was wrong, and in most of those cases there were too many bodies to count that as a victory.
But no, Elizabeth trusted John to be fine. She trusted that he was in control, that he could manage to hold on while everyone else tried to save him.
It wasn’t the first time she had been wrong.
He didn’t get it though, couldn’t understand how she’d missed it. Even he could see the madness leak into his eyes as the iris changed to the color of stale urine even as his skin scaled, the smoky blue spreading across his body like the virus it was, eating away at John and leaving a monster in its place.
So he had made her put guards up. Good men. Smart men. Not like the new ones. They didn’t challenge him. They respected him. Feared him. They knew he was strong enough to destroy them and when he was ready they would cower and hide. They were good men.
But they were wrong. He didn’t need to be here. He needed to be out in his city. He needed to be teaching others that the city was his. Only his. They didn’t belong.
But he was hungry. So hungry.
And so very very angry.
x---x-x---x
Chuck was the replacement for Dr. Peter Grodin, who had been killed the way everyone had been killed during the siege; saving lives. This meant that Chuck as a gate technician was the one in charge of dialing to the correct planets, of making sure the shield was down when allies were coming in hot and up when the enemies were trailing right behind them. He was the one who had to hit the button fast enough to make sure no stray bullets followed teams through the gate, to make sure that when the team made it back to Atlantis that they stayed safe. It was a crucial job integral to the running of the city.
Chuck hated it.
He hated it because he was the replacement for Dr. Grodin, who had died so that Rodney McKay could save everyone. He hated it because people still called him Grodin and looked flustered and genuinely surprised that he wasn’t the British engineer, like they had somehow been able to forget for a single moment that Grodin was dead and they were alive because of that fact. Chuck was a man who, despite having been a vital part of the team since day one, was known only for standing in a ghost’s shoes.
He hated it because everyone thought that since he was Canadian he and Dr. McKay were somehow innate friends and if he wasn’t careful he’d have a stack of bad news from the cowards wandering around the base that he had to go give to the Chief of Science. No one noticed that because they were both Canadian Dr. McKay went out of his way to be harder on Chuck so that the technician didn’t lower others’ opinions of Rodney’s country of birth by allowing vacuous idiocy to pass through his lips in the disguise of conversation.
But the worst part of Chuck’s job was the waiting. He was beginning to understand why his Grandmother was so dedicated to her stories after she retired. Even having the melodramatic drivel of Eric Brady’s life on Days of Our Lives would have been preferable to the long periods of nothing but waiting for alarms to ring and chevrons to clack as teams dialed in early, dialed in late, or didn’t dial in at all.
From his vantage point he saw everything happening in the gate room. He saw the way Elizabeth kept emerging from her office under the pretense of supervising the staff when she only had eyes for the Stargate, willing it to come to life. He could see Radek slide into the room muttering about maintenance and incompetence but never opening a single panel or moving a single crystal. Marines kept cycling in, all with the same excuse of “I got lost looking for the gym.” At least Stackhouse had manned up to what he wanted. He flat out told Elizabeth that he was waiting here until the team from Operation Save the Fucking Day returned.
Not that that was what it was called. Officially it was something boring and bureaucratic, like the PX7-429 Cellular Retrieval. Unofficially the current name would only last until the next Operation SFD commenced, which could either start tomorrow or a month from now. The Atlantis bookie had given Chuck great odds on a week from now. The technician figured that that was how long it would take Sheppard to get back on his feet and cleared to go through the gate.
But first the team had to get back.
So Chuck sat in front of the most important part of the city, a panel of blinking lights that some days he wanted to do nothing more than spill coffee all over and pretended that he wasn’t bored out of his mind. He also pretended that he wasn’t envious of every other technician on base, who all had downloaded solitaire onto their tablets, the lucky ducks.
He was in the middle of recounting how many lights there were in the room (one hundred and seventy nine) when the gate flashed to life with a buzzing whine.
“Unscheduled offworld activation!” Chuck announced, not that everyone else couldn’t see that the Stargate had lit up but it was still part of his job. He glanced at the data streaming in and couldn’t help but feel the knots in his back loosen. “Its Major Lorne’s IDC.”
Elizabeth had emerged from her office at the first sound of the gate and moved to her customary spot on the balcony. Chuck was certain that if someone ran their hands over the bars they would be able to feel the impressions left by Elizabeth’s hands. Not that anyone was willing to test that theory. It was Elizabeth’s spot and some days Chuck was certain that her standing there willing teams to come home alive was the only thing between the city and disaster. Everyone knew it was a silly superstition but no one ever stood in Elizabeth’s spot, not even Dr. McKay.
Just in case.
“Lower the shield.” Elizabeth touched her radio with a calm everyone admired. Chuck did too, despite being able to see through it. “Major Lorne, this is Dr. Weir. What’s your status?”
The room held its breathe with Dr. Weir, Stackhouse leaning forward as Radek looked up from his tablet.
“This is Major Lorne. We have the package and are prepared to meet medical.”
Elizabeth smiled, her shoulders sagging in relief as some of the marines who had wandered in whooped. “Dr. Biro is in the Jumper Bay waiting on you.”
“Then we’d better not disappoint.” The Jumper materialized in the room, Lorne’s smirking face visible through the windshield. He gave Elizabeth a nod, the customary greeting for returns on missions, before the entire rig disappeared into the Jumper Bay.
Elizabeth returned to her office, probably to have a small break down. That was Chuck’s theory, anyway. No one else seemed to agree.
Her departure was the universal all’s well signal so it didn’t take long for the gate room to empty of unnecessary personnel leaving Chuck alone with his thoughts and his job.
He really needed a deck of cards or something.
x---x-x---x
“John!”
He heard her call. She shouldn’t have been there. He had warned her. Told her to stay away. He was hungry and she smelled so good.
“John,” this time the call was timid, the way it should be. She should be afraid. “It’s Elizabeth.”
He knew that. His hearing was fine. Better than fine. He had heard her coming the moment she got off the transporter.
“I have good news,” she continued, as though she wasn’t wandering into the spider’s web. “They got the eggs, John. Carson’s working on the cure even as we speak. Do you understand?” She paused, waiting for him. “You’re going to get better.”
Better? He didn’t need to get better. He was fine.
No. Not fine. He was hungry. They hadn’t fed him. How dare they? It was his city. Meat. He wanted meat.
“John? Everything is going to be all right.”
No. It wasn’t. She was trying to make him less. She thought she was in control. She wasn’t.
No.
She knew she wasn’t. She was trying to steal from him. She was impertinent. Like those boys, those birds.
Dean.
This was Dean’s fault.
Which meant the solution was simple.
John dropped from the ceiling, barely registering Elizabeth’s surprise as he shoved her across the room. She slid across the floor squeaking like the mouse she was. Then he was through the door, his good men lying at his feet.
This was his city.
He was in the transport, the hunt on before Elizabeth’s shaky voice came over the radio, ordering everyone back into their quarters. Not that it mattered.
It was his city.
It was time they learned.
x---x-x---x
Dean was oddly at peace with himself.
Sam had grabbed the crappy folding chair that came with the room’s desk and had set it up on the balcony. He’d dug out a monster book that he’d tucked away somewhere and was currently pouring through it while resting in a sunbeam, moving only to follow the light. He looked relaxed, at ease within his own skin and Dean chuckled at the realization that this was the happiest he’d ever seen his brother.
Sam peeked up from his book, brushing his bangs out of his face. “What?”
Dean shrugged, his hands still holding on tight to the balcony ledge as he reclined against it, back to the city as he watched his little brother. “It’s nothing, man.” Sam raised a skeptical eyebrow before turning back to his book, content to leave Dean to his own thoughts.
Always a risky endeavor.
“Hey Sam?”
“Mm?”
“You do know we’re guardless right now.”
Sam didn’t even glance up. “No, Dean.”
“Oh, come on, Sam!” Dean pushed himself away from the railing. “You don’t even know what I was going to say.”
Sam sighed and lowered the book into his lap. “We’re not going trolling for babes.”
Dean worked his jaw soundlessly before he settled for giving his brother a scowl. “Come on, Sammy. I’m crawling up the walls here.” Dean started to pace to illustrate his point.
Sam snapped his book shut and followed Dean into the room. “Dude, we’ve only been in here for a few hours.”
“And the only woman we’ve run into is that Elizabeth chick and she looks like she’d be a stickler about the age thing,” Dean grumbled as he flopped onto the bed. Technically he was totally within her age range. Biologically was a different story but it was likely to be the only one she preferred. “Didn’t the reports say that there is a hot alien wandering around here somewhere?”
“You mean besides Ronon?”
“Nasty, Sam. Besides, one of the guys at the SGC said that there was this slinky chick wandering around. Apparently she’s pretty easy on the eyes.”
“You’re a pig, Dean,” Sam bitched as he slipped his book back into his trunk. He’d set the thing up at the end of his bed, the one farthest from the door Dean noted approvingly, when a couple of goons had shown up carrying the luggage.
“I’m a hot commodity in high demand, Sammy.” Dean smiled lewdly. “We’ve already deprived an entire galaxy of women. I owe it my best to service this one accordingly.”
“Ew! Dean! Too much information!” Sam covered his ears.
Dean just shook his head sadly. “Someday, Sam, you’ll understand the wonders of sexual conquest. In fact, today would be a great day for me to teach you.”
A com system blared to life and Elizabeth’s voice filled the city.
“This is Dr. Weir. Security team, report to gate room. We have a breach. All other personnel, return to quarters.” The message looped twice before falling silent.
Dean stared up at the ceiling, ignoring Sammy’s knowing smirk. So much for that plan. “Now what are we going to do?”
“We’ve got some paper left. We could play tic-tac-toe.”
“Or we could go out there and lend a hand,” Dean suggested.
Sam nodded solemnly. “Great idea, Dean. I’m sure we’ll be able to go in and save the day. Just let me get our guns. Oh. Wait. We don’t have any.”
Dean sighed. “Or we could play tic-tac-toe.” He glanced around the room. There wasn’t really a great surface to play on. One desk, now chairless because of Sammy’s sunbathing, was pushed up against the wall. Two beds had been set up side by side with a space between them. The door to the bathroom was on the end of the desk farthest from the door, only a few feet between it and the hidden door that led to the balcony. Excusing the view and the tasteful sci-fi décor the room was eerily like all the motels the boys had stayed in.
Huh. Fancy that.
“You move the desk over and I’ll grab the chair,” Dean ordered.
Sam made a bitchface. “Why do I have to move the desk?”
“You’re the one who wants to play kiddy games.”
Sam scowled but made is way to the desk as Dean passed him to go to the balcony. Dean smirked as he lifted the light plastic chair just as Sam let out a grunt of effort. There was the squeal of metal on metal before Sam’s strain voice growled. “You’re such a jerk.”
“Less whining, more shifting, bitch.” Dean looked over the city, taking in a deep breath. The air here was cleanest that Dean had ever tasted and he’d been to Heaven. He was really beginning to dig this Atlantis.
The sound of a buzzer filled the quarters and Dean recognized the noise from Stackhouse’s late morning wake up call. Dean walked over to the desk. “You gonna get that Sammy?” He gestured to the folded chair. “I’m setting things up.”
Sam glared and huffed but used his freakishly long legs to step over the desk to the door. It slid open with a wave of his hand as Sam put on his best greeting smile.
The smile twisted into a horrified grimace the moment Sam spotted the yellow eyes.
x-x---x-x
“Rodney, have you located John?” Elizabeth was vibrating with frenetic energy.
“I’ve got him! He’s the red dot on screen.” He pointed to the very obvious red dot on the Atlantis map.
Everyone frowned as they saw Sheppard wander into a living area.
Lorne voiced the question on everyone’s mind. “What the hell is he doing there?”
x-x---x-x
Dean heard the sound of flesh hitting flesh. He looked up in time to see his brother go down with a gasp. John Sheppard, or what had once been the man, stood in the doorway. Blue-scaled skin had replaced the healthy flesh tones and little horns had begun to grow along his jaw line. The man’s hands had twisted into cobalt claws, the fingernails having grown into yellow talons that matched the color of eyes, the pupils having morphed into the vertical slits of cat. All in all it looked like something out of a horror movie.
And out of one of the most horrific scenes of the Winchester’s previous life.
But this time Dean wasn’t stuck to a wall and he didn’t give a shit if this John lived or died. He grabbed the shitty folding chair and tossed it with all of his might, the chair splintering on impact into a thousand olive shards as it collided with Sheppard, backed by the strength of Dean’s days as a volunteer firefighter.
John looked down at the raining fragments, more confused than annoyed by the impact of the chair, which was why he wasn’t ready when two hundred pounds of Winchester slammed into him.
The pair flew through the door, hitting the ground with enough force to continue sliding into the far wall of the hallway. Dean already had a fist cocked back before they even stopped moving, slamming it into the soldier’s mutated face.
“Sonuvabitch!” Dean cursed, instinctively shaking out his hand as his knuckled split on the spiky growths.
Beneath him John smiled. Blue fingers wrapped themselves around Dean’s neck and gave a small push, throwing Dean several feet down the hall.
Dean hit the ground with a bruising impact, trying to roll to protect himself from most of the damage. He used the momentum to carry himself back to his feet. He turned, quickly finding Sheppard. The colonel was standing in the middle of the hall, watching Dean blankly.
Silence and tension hung in the air as Dean waited for John to make the first move. And he would. He was toying with Dean and they both knew it. Christ, it was like fighting a demon but without the snarky dialogue; or the holy water, or devil’s traps, or any other fucking thing that would have given Dean half a chance at surviving this.
John slowly tilted his head and for half a second Dean thought that he might have been aiming for the full three-sixty rotation.
Then John was moving and there was no time for thinking, just reacting.
The first fist flew by Dean’s cheek and whistled past his ear even as he dodged to the right, bringing up his own into the colonel’s ribs. Dean ducked under the second, kicking out and spinning with enough momentum to sweep John to the side. The bug man hit the wall but didn’t fall. Hell, he didn’t even shake. He just looked up at Dean with flat yellow eyes before using the wall to launch himself at his target.
Dean didn’t even have time to swallow as a cobalt streak headed his way. He coiled his muscles, ready for impact.
Dean went down hard, a rib cracking under the assault. HE pushed the pain from his mind. It wasn’t important right then and pretending it was would only get him killed. Instead he kicked up, trying to dislodge the body above his. John grinned down at him with the glee of a predator. Dean kicked harder, desperation fueling his movements.
John opened his mouth and instead of a maniacal laugh he emitted a high pitch whistle, like a ground squirrel in heat. Dean winced and brought his hands up, trying to throw more punches and shake the man monster loose.
Sheppard caught his wrists and leaned forward, straddling Dean as he gradually forced the Winchester’s hands above his head. Dean twisted, breathing hard as he fought to escape the vulnerable position. His struggles increased when John forced both of Dean’s wrists into one of his hands, leaving the soldier with one free fist. Dean had a sneaking suspicion he knew what John was planning to do with it.
But he didn’t close his eyes. He just watched the hand draw back, knowing that as it stood it had enough force to shatter his skull.
John grinned.
Dean swallowed.
A metal frame came slamming down, hooking itself under John’s chin and instinct had the bug man clawing at it as it pulled back, placing pressure on John’s throat as olive tatters jabbed into the flesh. Dean twisted hard as Sammy yanked on the chair frame, dragging the deranged colonel off of his older brother.
John stumbled back a few steps before he found his footing. He dug in the heels of his combat boots and propelled himself backwards, knocking Sam down and falling in a tangle of limbs.
Sam dislodged himself and rolled to his feet, moving towards Dean as John struggled with the chair frame. He made it to his brother’s side, pulling Dean to his feet just as the shriek of tortured metal rent the air. Sam spun, standing shoulder to shoulder with Dean as the thing that had been John threw off the twisted frame of the chair with an angry shrug.
The two brothers had a second to brush shoulders, to affirm that they were both mostly okay, before the fight was back on.
John was fast. Like wendigo fast. Dean barely had time to bring his arms up to deflect the fists flying his way and he could see that Sam was having similar problems fending off the colonel’s kicks. It was like fighting a freaking possessed ninja.
John feinted to the left before sending a foot arcing towards Dean’s skull. The hunter lifted his arms, gasping in pain as the block rattled his cracked rib. A second kicked followed to the sternum, launching Dean backwards to skid across the floor.
Sam lasted the few moments it took Dean to get back to his feet before a kick to the temple dropped the youngest Winchester like stone.
“Sam!” Dean cried. John looked up, smiling tightly at Dean. He pulled a foot back and slammed it into Sam’s side. Sam didn’t make a sound.
Dean screamed, throwing himself into a full body tackle. John staggered back a step as he tripped over Sam. Sheppard kicked up, sliding his legs under Dean’s stomach before pushing, flipping the kid over his head.
Dean hit the ground with a rattle and he clutched at his side. He heard the colonel’s echoing footsteps gradually getting louder as the man took lazy steps towards him. Dean rolled onto his stomach, clawing at the floor as he futilely tried to put distance between him and his attacker.
John booted him in the back and Dean moaned as another rib cracked. The foot pressed harder as John leaned forward and grabbed Dean’s wrists. Dean whimpered as the bones in his chest grinded against each other but continued to buck as John slid Dean’s arms down so that his hands rested by his hips, his palms facing up.
It wasn’t until Sheppard began to pull up that Dean realized what he was doing.
“No,” he protested weakly, vainly struggling to swing his arms outward to lessen the growing tension.
John continued to slowly draw Dean’s arms up, only pausing when Dean let out a pained keen from the back of his throat. He smiled eerily.
And tugged.
Dean screams drowned out the sound of twin pops as his shoulders dislocated.
John dropped the limbs and they flopped uselessly across the tiles. He nudged Dean with his toes, flipping the body over. He frowned as he took in Dean’s lax features, angered at the boy’s escape into unconsciousness.
He bent over, wrapping a hand around Dean’s throat. He lifted the body up with ease, holding it high enough that the Winchester’s legs dangled as began to squeeze. Slowly.
He wanted this to last.
“No!” John gave a half turn at the sound, frustrated to see the other one already on his feet. He let out a screech, warning the kid to wait his turn.
Instead of being deterred by the shattering whistle it spurred Sam on, fueling his rage. He lunged forward, drawing his only weapon and plunging it deep into John’s chest.
Sheppard screeched in rage, dropping Dean’s limp form as his hands curled around the protruding object convulsively. He didn’t pull the fork out, just stared at it with dumb wonder before he glanced up at Sam, murder in his eyes.
Seeing that look on the face of an opponent that was stronger and faster than Sam had the kid pulling out the oldest play in the book.
Sam fled.
x-x---x-x
Rodney watched the map, frowning at the scene unfolding. Three life signs wove together in an intricate dance, two white circling and wending past the red. His breath caught every time on of the dots obscured the other, fearing for those facing John almost as strongly as he feared for the colonel. He knew John would take it hard if he killed someone but at least he would be alive to regret it. It was petty of him but Rodney had never claimed to be a good person, just a smart one.
He frowned harder as one by one the white dots stilled and winced as the red one, as John, moved over one of the downed targets. One of the disadvantages of being the smartest man in two galaxies was that Rodney could easily extrapolate what exactly was happening to the poor sap that Sheppard was hovering over. His only comfort was that it wasn’t one of his people. No one from the science division could have lasted that long in a fight.
His frowned deepened as the scene changed, white dot number two moving towards Sheppard. Whatever happened between them was brief but significant. Everything paused.
Then the white dot shot off like a bullet from a gun straight into the nearest transporter, which would have been great for the white dot if the red one didn’t join him in the device before they both blinked out.
Rodney fumbled with the radio. “Sheppard is on the move.”
“Where?” came Ronon’s succinct response.
“Transporter between labs six and seven.” He watched as the second white dot bounced around, then flicked his gaze to the first one, which still hadn’t move. “Send medical to both locations.”
“Gotcha.” Ronon’s tone was grim.
Rodney took a breath and reminded himself that they weren’t his people.
It was a cold comfort.
x-x---x-x
Sam was tossed through the doors, after they were open thankfully. He hit the floor at a good angle, rolling back onto his feet in one smooth motion but ruining the any showy effect he may have produced as he listed to one side. In his defense he’d just been rematerialized and probably had a concussion.
Not that John cared.
As soon as Sam was on his feet the soldier was moving with purposeful strides, anger radiating off of him like heat waves from the sun. Sam barely had time to block the fist coming at his face. He hissed in pain as his teeth rattled from the impact, his arms smarting from the blow, but was already moving to the side, dodging another fist as it came streaking his way. He used his movement to bring up his own knee, which John blocked with a powerful sweep of his hands.
Sam swung wildly, his fingers scraping as they slid across the rough skin of Sheppard’s face, the scales shredding the skin on his knuckles. It didn’t help that John didn’t even give an inch. Sam could have been punching a brick wall for all the good it was doing.
Then again, brick walls didn’t get pissed off and hit back.
Air rushed from Sam’s chest as two quick blows slammed into his solar plexus, emptying his lungs and shaking his organs. His body crumpled forward and John caught him, grabbing him by his neck. Instead of the expected strangulation the colonel pulled his arm back and hammered Sam into the ground.
Without removing his hand he stepped, moving so he straddled Sam’s hips. Sam batted at him ineffectually, like a fly beating its wings when it was already caught in the spider’s web. John leaned forward, placing a little more pressure on the hand. He was pleased to see soft hazel eyes open wider with fear as the boy wrapped his hands around John’s, trying to pry the colonel’s hand away in his terror. Not that he doubted that the kid was afraid. The boy was rank with the stench of fear.
But fear was fleeting. Fear was soon forgotten. John was here to teach. Pain left memories. Pain made lessons.
John gave a meaningful look to the fork still sticking out of his chest. He felt the pulse under his fingers speed up as he his gaze trailed to Sam’s shoulder. With a single pull John ripped through the boy’s shirt, revealing the soft flesh underneath. He brought his fingers back to his mouth, giving them a long sensual lick as he studied the boy’s hide.
The kid tried to swallow, the hand around his throat stopping the movement, but he didn’t look away as John placed his wet claws against the tanned skin. He didn’t scream as John pushed in, crimson blood welling around his fingers. John snarled, displeased at the stoicism, and pushed in deeper, burying himself up to his second knuckle. Sam grunted and hissed as John retracted his hand, but he didn’t scream as blood ran down his chest.
Blood. It was pretty, the deep red swirling along the blue. It smelled heavy, hearty, and John slipped his fingers into his mouth, sucking off the scarlet nectar.
Something must have shown on his face because the boy beneath him flinched and began to twist and buck, as though his life depended upon it. The kid clawed feebly at John’s arm, tearing his fingernails as he scratched at John’s hardened flash.
John’s own nails trailed down Sam’s chest, carving a small shallow circle around the boy’s navel.
“No! Please!” the boy begged. “Please.”
The reaction made John smile. It was beautiful.
But the boy could do so much better.
x-x---x-x
Teyla’s heart tightened as the transporter shifted them towards John. Normally the move was seamless, only the opening of the doors breaking the illusion of stillness. Usually there was no shift or jolt, or even the temperature change that accompanied passing through the Ring of the Ancestors. There was nothing to mark the change.
Usually.
This time everyone marked the transition by the sound of screaming that was barely muffled by the doors.
They slid open and Teyla’s heart broke even as she raised her weapon, training it on a man who was her friend.
John twitched, lifting his head out of the gaping stomach wound, tearing out more flesh as he pulled his last bite out with the movement. He screeched around the gore hanging from lips, moving into a crouch so that he could pounce on the newest threats.
Ronon did not wait for John to attack. Red slammed into John, forcing the colonel backwards even as it rendered him unconscious. Evan surged past, checking John’s pulse before binding his hands behind his back. He radioed the teams blocking the hallway, letting them know that John was secure and that they needed Carson, all while carefully avoiding looking at the form John had been feasting upon.
Teyla looked, though, and it made her heartsick. The male was a child, certainly younger than Aiden. Living in the Pegasus galaxy had taught Teyla that death did not avoid children, but it always touched something inside of her when it happened. Though she had faith in the Lantians and the technology of the Ancestors Teyla was uncertain if it would be able to help in this case.
The boy’s shoulder was injured, blood leaking from a series of deep puncture wounds. Bruises adorned the boy’s face and throat, attesting to head injuries and strangulation. But worst was the boy’s stomach.
It had been shredded, the organs minced or removed. The missing flesh was strewn about the floor in unrecognizable pieces or was hanging from the unconscious colonel’s mouth in thick ribbons.
Teyla knelt down by the figure, selfishly glad that he had ceased his cries. She grasped the boy’s hand, hoping to comfort him as he passed. “You did well,” she whispered, hoping her words would bring him some kind of piece.
The boy’s grip tightened around hers and he tilted his head to give hear a pain filled glaze. “D-d-dean,” he gasped out.
“Someone’s on the way to get you brother,” Ronon promised, and Teyla looked up, surprised the runner knew the dying child. She did not ask, though. It was not a tale for now, perhaps not a tale to ever be shared.
The kid’s head rocked back and forth. “Easy,” Teyla whispered, bringing her other hand to stroke his hair in an attempt to calm him. Ronon grasped the boy’s shoulder, a gesture that was positively intimate coming from the Runner.
“Nooo,” moaned the boy. “T-t-tell him. N-not his fault-t. N-n-not. Sh-sh-shep. J-john’s. Sssick. T-tell him?”
Ronon nodded solemnly. “Will do.”
The boy gave a bloody smile, dimples forming on his face as he managed to look genuinely happy. “T-thanks.” The boy gave a soft sigh and his grip on Teyla’s hands loosened. She did not let go, though, watching as the boy’s chest rose slowly.
Teyla timed her breath to match his, a personal ritual she had started as a little girl as a way to connect to the dying. Beside her Ronon kept his grip on the boy’s shoulder, occasionally brushing the boy’s blood matted hair out of his face as they waited for the medical team to arrive.
For once Teyla regretted the lack of Rodney’s incessant complaints. They would have filled the silence of the wait nicely, or perhaps even spurred people to quicker action. As it was Teyla knew they had come as quick as they could and even if they had arrived with her they still would have been too late to save the youth.
Medical personnel swarmed around, moving with an efficiency that had always amazed Teyla. She looked up to see them load and secure John onto a gurney with thick dark straps, Carson sliding a needle under his skin before the nurses wheeled him into the transporter.
When the doors slid shut and John was out of slight Carson turned his eyes to the boy Ronon and Teyla crouched beside, his face pale.
“Oh Sam,” he whispered mournfully, joining Teyla on the floor as he inspected the damage inflicted.
“Can you do anything?” Ronon asked, his voice flat and even. It was only the quick glance up that would allow those who knew the man to recognize that he was upset.
Carson shook his head. “We can make him comfortable in the infirmary.” Something in the doctor’s tone revealed that he did not believe the child would survive the trip. Teyla lowered her head and gave the limp hand a gentle squeeze.
She would walk with him, if that were to be the case.
X_X_X_X_X
Confusion Clear Ups.
Ciao-yes, that’s a pun. I apologize for NOTHING.
Eric Brady→ Guess who was in a Soap Opera? If you guessed Jared you are SO wrong. :P
IDC→ Iris Deactivation Code which is emitted by the GDO (garage door opener). It’s why the home team doesn’t splat against the Iris.
Yellow eyes+ Daddy?--> Supernatural Season 1 finale. Awesome episode.
How to dislocate someone’s arms- strangely enough when I googled this I found videos of people trying to dislocate their own arms so they could later do joint popping party tricks…
Aiden Ford- Sheppard’s 2IC season 1. I think he was 23.
Action Scenes- I hate writing them so I have no idea how this one grew to be so freaking long.
Final Chapter!