SGA fic: Degrees of Control Pt 2 (NC-17)
“And what’s written all over my face now?” he asked.
Elizabeth studied his countenance for a moment. “Pain,” she finally said. “Anger. You’re hurting, John. And you want something.”
“What do I want?” he said, his voice dropping into that low register again.
“I can’t tell,” she whispered, knowing that she was lying. She knew that he knew she was lying too, and waited for him to call her on it.
“I want out of here,” he said. “I want to kill Kolya. I want to know how he got into my head and found out my weakness.”
His eyes met hers and Elizabeth froze. “I want my weakness,” he finished. “Now can you tell?”
“Women?” she said, trying to force a flippant answer, but there was no more being flippant. John Sheppard had a one-track personality. When he decided on something, there was no getting him to deviate from it. She had, somewhere along the way, won the argument they’d been having earlier, and now she was wondering if she might regret it.
He reached out and pulled her flush against him, and she knew that she was definitely going to regret this. “Just one, Elizabeth.”
John’s mouth descended upon hers and she lost all thought of regrets or anything else as he demanded entrance to her. She complied immediately, opening to him, and his tongue invaded her mouth as his hands dipped below her waist, pulling her closer to him. She tangled her fingers in his hair, and clung to him, and it wasn’t until they needed to breathe that they broke away from each other. John didn’t stop to look at her, continuing his ministrations along her neck, biting gently at where her neck met her shoulder, at her earlobe, whispering to her in broken tones that hinted at much more than a simple physical need, “Dear God, Elizabeth, I need you.”
With a deft hand, she ran her hand down the front of his light jacket, unsnapping every fastener in quick succession before she pushed it off his shoulders. Underneath, he was wearing his customary black t-shirt, and his mouth returned to hers before she could divest him of it as well. Her own jacket fell to the floor, and she returned her hands to his face, desperate to touch him. She had denied herself this for so long, telling herself that she needed to be professional, and knew that she could never be professional with John ever again, not after the way his hands were working their way up the back of her shirt and expertly undoing the clasp to her bra. Every meeting after this would be colored with the memory of this, of his hands pulling her shirt over her head and stripping her bra from her, of the way he was devouring her with his eyes.
He sank to his knees in front of her as if in worship of his goddess before attacking the button of her pants. She struggled to kick her boots off as he yanked her pants down to her knees, then off. His hands spanned her slender hips, and he gently leaned his head against her body, the hair at the top of his head tickling the underside of her breasts. She held him there for a moment as he breathed in the scent of her, reveled in the feel of her smooth skin.
She waited until he looked up at her, and she could see the fear in his eyes. The anger had disappeared, but the cold was still there, far behind the fear that he was making a mistake, that he thought she didn’t really want this. Elizabeth pulled him up until he was standing. “You are wearing too many clothes,” she said, her voice steady, and then she tilted his head down and whispered something obscene in his ear that made his eyes light up.
“Elizabeth Weir,” he said, trying to arrange some of the discarded clothing on the floor with the toe of his boot, “I never knew you could be so dirty.”
She pulled the shirt over his head and dropped it into the floor. “Stop talking.”
Elizabeth loved sculpture art. The ancient art that had captured the human form in its perfection had always fascinated her, partially because of her inability to reproduce something that should have seemed so simple. The classic forms of the male body had always struck her as exquisite, but as John stripped down in front of her, she thought that none of the masters could have captured the form before her.
John took a heavy breath, waiting to see if he met with her approval. Her fingers gently brushed over his skin, over new scars he’d gotten since he’d come to Atlantis, over old scars he’d obtained fighting in conflicts on Earth, over even older scars he’d had since childhood, and then her fingers tangled in his hair again as she pulled him towards her, holding him close, feeling skin next to skin. Elizabeth barely felt him lay her down on the makeshift bed, and as his hands began to do incredible things to her, she lost all rational thought.
He screamed when they took her from him. He hurled invective in languages he didn’t know he knew at Kolya and his men as they dragged Elizabeth, kicking and struggling from the cell, and it was only through the efforts of three men that John didn’t get out of the cell to kill them right there.
They’d gotten dressed and she’d managed a few good kicks-one to Kolya himself that would leave the man smarting for days. John reminded himself, putting one hand to his side as the bitter laughter spilled out of his throat, to congratulate her about that if they ever got out of this alive.
The blood on his hand confirmed his former inexpert diagnosis-he’d been stabbed, and none too gently. It wasn’t deep enough to be serious or to hit anything vital, just deep enough to hurt like hell. Just deep enough to make him weak. Just deep enough to piss him off.
They threw her back into the cell some time later like she was a limp doll. Coughing, he crawled over to her. “Elizabeth,” he wheezed. Maybe that stab wound had been worse than he thought. “Come on, Elizabeth, wake up.”
Her head turned toward the sound of his voice. “John,” she whispered.
“Hey,” he said, smiling at her, even though she’d kept her eyes closed. “How you doing?”
She coughed. “I think I’ll just lie here with my eyes shut and pretend I’m dead.”
“Maybe I didn’t put the right spin on that question,” he said. He tried again, performing a spot-on impression of Joey Tribbiani. “How you doing?”
Her eyes flew open and she laughed in spite of herself, wincing as she did so. “You are a pop culture junkie. Batman-“
“Classic.”
“Friends-“
“Classic.
“The Princess Bride-“
“Sacred.”
She raised an eyebrow at that, and he held out a hand in a flourish. “Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die. Greatest sword fight in history, Elizabeth.”
“Not Robin Hood?” she asked.
“Kevin Costner would have his ass whipped by Mandy Patinkin,” John declared.
“I mean Errol Flynn,” she said.
He shrugged. “He was okay. There wasn’t the emotion behind it, though.” John mimicked Inigo’s accent again. “’Offer me money. Power too, promise me that! Offer me anything that I ask for.’” He raised his voice into a falsetto for the six-fingered man. “’Anything you want.’“ John’s fierce grin appeared. “’I want my father back, you son of a bitch.’ I’m telling you, Elizabeth, greatest sword fight ever. Even Episode III can’t compare.” He paused. “Just don’t say that in front of Rodney. He and Zelenka will go on for hours. Rodney loved Episode III and Radek hated it.”
The door opened and John tensed, ready to fight again, moving in front of Elizabeth. “That’s because Zelenka is an idiot and can’t appreciate CG properly,” Rodney announced. “Just because Darth Maul didn’t need CG does not make the Episode III fight less spectacular.” He looked over his shoulder at Ronon. “Told you I could get it open.”
Ronon picked Elizabeth up and carried her out to the puddlejumper where Carson was waiting. Lorne was keeping guard outside, and John waited until Elizabeth was safely inside with Carson and Rodney before speaking. “Teyla, stay here and guard Elizabeth and Rodney,” he said.
Teyla looked at him suspiciously. “John, what are you going to do?”
“Something you’re not going to like,” he said grimly. “Stay here, Teyla, I mean it. Ronon, Lorne, you’re with me.”
“Where we going, sir?” Lorne asked, even though he already knew the answer.
Ronon deliberately set his weapon to kill. “Where do you think? After that bastard Kolya.”
“You’re bleeding,” Ronon said, weapon held out in front of him.
“Yeah,” John said, ignoring the pain everytime he took a step. “Kolya! Why don’t you come crawling out of your hole, you mini-Hussein!” If Lorne was stifling a laugh, John ignored him. “Come face me, you coward!”
“You really think he’s going to come out?” Ronon asked.
“Remind me to bring The Wrath of Khan from home next time,” John said.
“Don’t tell me you’re going to quote Shakespeare at him,” Lorne said.
“That was The Undiscovered Country, nimrod,” John said. “Khan was quoting Melville.”
“You only know because you asked Elizabeth,” Ronon rumbled, stepping forward.
John just glared at him and yelled again. “Kolya!”
The Genii outcast stepped out of the shadows. “Colonel Sheppard.”
John raised his weapon. “You have messed with us for the last time, Kolya.”
“Oh, I think I shall continue causing trouble for you and your friends,” Kolya said, holding up what looked ominously like a trigger. “I press this button, Colonel, and the Stargate blows. And not only does your Stargate blow, but the remote detonator I conveniently placed in Dr. Weir’s body explodes. So, we find ourselves at an impasse.”
John ground his teeth so hard it was audible to the other men in the room. “What do you suggest?”
“I suggest I escape through the Stargate. I’m afraid this is a fairly simple radio transmitter. Once I’m through the other side of the gate, you will have no difficulty getting Dr. Weir out of here safely.” Kolya raised an eyebrow. “Neither of us wins, but neither of us loses.”
“We walk you to the gate,” John said flatly. “You give us the transmitter before you go through.”
“And leave me with no guarantee you would allow me to pass through the gate unharmed?”
“I’ll give you my word on it,” John said, a hint of sarcasm coloring his voice. “Or I can take my chances and let Ronon shoot you down now.”
“I don’t think you would, Colonel,” Kolya said, shaking his head as he stepped forward, not quite into Ronon’s reach. “You see, I don’t believe that you are willing to take that chance with Dr. Weir’s life.” His grin became truly infuriating. “It’s amazing how it can take your worst enemy to point out your worst weakness, isn’t it, Colonel? I presume you won’t allow Dr. Weir away from you again.” His eyes narrowed. “If you do, I promise you that it will be much more unpleasant a stay than this was.”
If his intent was to anger John, he had succeeded, but not in any visible form. “Ronon? Don’t take your gun off him. Lorne, you do the same. We’re walking to the gate right now, Kolya, and if you make so much as one wrong move, your life is mine.”
“After you, Colonel,” Kolya said, with an expansive gesture.
“Like hell. You’re going first.”
Suppressing his sardonic smile, Kolya led them out of the building. The open light nearly blinded John as he came out, but he marched on, following the Genii to the gate. Lorne didn’t need verbal instructions-he only had to see the exchange of looks on Ronon and John’s faces to take point long enough to distract Kolya.
Halfway to the gate, John raised Ronon’s weapon and shot Kolya in the back.
They dragged the body to Beckett to make sure that he was good and dead and that he would stay dead-for one could never make sure in this damn galaxy, after all, how many times had Daniel Jackson come back to life-and Beckett said nothing to the men who unceremoniously dumped Kolya’s body on the floor of the jumper. With a few terse words to Rodney, John explained the detonator, and Beckett ceased his examination of the dead man long enough to find the thing in Elizabeth’s neck and take it out. Rodney awkwardly piloted the jumper through the gate, and the last thing John saw before he passed out from blood loss was the welcome lights of the Atlantis gate room.
He learned later that Beckett had to take his spleen out, and he had to endure no small amount of cursing about trying to be a hero and other exasperating attempts to make him more careful in the future, but they mostly ceased after a minor explosion of his temper a day before Beckett released him from the infirmary.
It was three days after that before he finally had the courage to come up to Elizabeth. The sound of her voice gently calling “Come in,” nearly caused him to run away from her door, but steeling himself, John waved his hand across the door and walked in. “Elizabeth.”
She hadn’t risen from her spot on the bed where she was comfortably ensconced in a makeshift throne of pillows and reports. “John,” she said, her voice sounding somewhat surprised. “Come in. Please, sit down.”
It was too stilted, he thought, too clinical for him as he pulled a chair over next to her bed and straddled it backwards, putting his arms on the back. “How are you feeling?”
“Much better, thank you,” she said. “Carson is letting me go back to work in the morning.” She gestured towards the detritus of the paperwork surrounding her. “I’ve just been trying to catch up.”
“Listen, about that,” he said, his voice becoming gruff. “I hope that you’ve reconsidered what I said before this whole-thing-started.”
“Which part of what you said?” she asked, and he tried not to glare at her for being intentionally perverse. She was going to make him work for it.
“Elizabeth, as leader of this expedition, you have no business being off-world.” He took a breath. “From now on, unless there is an absolute dire need for your negotiation skills that cannot be resolved from Atlantis or the alpha site, you stay here. Period.”
“You cannot expect me to-“
He rose from his chair and covered her mouth with his hand. “Elizabeth. That bastard would have killed you for no other reason than he wanted to get at me. We face enough danger just being here on Atlantis. Content yourself with that and don’t make me go to the rest of the team for back up on this. I can guarantee you that the only person that might even see things your way would be Teyla, and even the two of you can’t outlast me, Rodney, Ronon, Lorne and if I have to, Caldwell.”
John gently took his hand away from her mouth, and waited for a response. Elizabeth gave him a look of resignation. “All right. You win.”
“Thank you,” he said, sitting down onto the edge of the bed. He suddenly looked very tired. “Sorry you had to get beaten up and almost blown up.”
Elizabeth adjusted herself, neatly piling her paperwork and pushing it away. “I’m sorry you had to lose an organ.”
He shrugged. “What’s a spleen between friends? It’s not like they do anything, really, is it?”
She leaned forward, resting her forehead on his shoulder. “What about us?”
That was his Elizabeth-sometimes so careful it frustrated him to the point of near insanity and then other times rushing in where angels feared to tread. “I was going to leave that one up to you,” John admitted softly. “Besides, I figured you’d be kind of pissed at me for a while.”
“Oh, I am,” Elizabeth said, picking up her paperwork and setting it in the floor. She put her arms around him and leaned back, resting his head against her chest. She turned out the lamp on the night table, and the lights of Atlantis shone through the window, creating points of light on the floor. “But for now, come to bed and res