Unremarkable , Stargate: Atlantis/Supernatural, Teyla/Dean, R
His head seems to be floating, and when he opens his eyes, all he sees are planks: wood shafts, stuck end-to-end in a fairly regular pattern creating what he assumes to be a roof. The lights are not bright, many flicker as though created by flames; some sense in him prickles slightly. For some reason flickering lights are not a good thing, but since he can't remember why they aren't good, he pushes the thought aside.
"You are awake," a soft voice sounds beside him. He attempts to turn his head but finds the motion impossible. A cocoa face, tinted sallow, blurs into focus above him, framed by lanky golden-brown hair. "You have been severely injured."
Having just spent the last few moments trying to move, he'd kinda got that. "Yeah, I figured." He looks out of the corner of his eyes, discovering worn grey fabric on one side and chest on the other. He seeks out the woman's eyes again. "Uh, this might be a dumbass question but... who am I?"
"Your name is Dean Winchester. You are from a city called Lawrence in Kansas in the United States of America." Her eyes are a warm brown colour, calm but sad. She looks to be in her mid to late forties. He lets her words wash through his mind, hoping they'd make some sense. None of them mean anything to him. He sighs heavily.
"You?" is all he can manage. To say he's frustrated and freaked is underscoring his current state. The words 'terror' and 'rage' seem to cover it better. Not to mention there was this horrible nagging sensation as though he were forgetting someone, or to do something for someone...
"My name is Teyla Emmagan. I am ... not from here." She moves out of view and he hears the noises of something being picked up before her face appears again. "You are experiencing memory loss. The battle was very strenuous and you received several injuries." The woman, Teyla, reaches towards his face and his view changes as his head is tilted up. His body is hidden beneath several blankets, but there's a few odd things about the angle of one of his legs and the way his arm seems shrunken that sets his heart pounding. "You must eat," she murmurs beside him. He's sure that she saw his horror, but she doesn't do anything to comfort or aggravate, simply forces a spoon to his lips.
"I apologize," she says after a few moments of silence, as they slip into the pattern of warm spoon of unidentifiable soup to his chapped lips. "I have never been a very good cook." He - Dean - thinks that at least it's food.
*
"I keep dreaming about a guy named Sam."
It's the third week in the cabin with Teyla. Dean's pretty much just mastered sitting but his leg's mending relatively well overall, and his arm... Well, it would never be perfect, but it would work all right soon enough. She's told him that they had met when he and another ‘hunter’ were paired with her team (from something called Stargate command) after 'Wraith' started utilizing their psychic abilities to control recently released demon hordes from a Gate to Hell. Dean kind of thinks she might be crazy, but she's the only person he knows and so he lets it slide and tries to take her at her word.
"Yes. He was lost during the battle."
"Why do I think of him?" She shrugs and turns away on the pretence of bringing the Scrabble board to the table. It's the fallback entertainment for them - she always wins, using Athosian words that he can't contest. Plus, she doesn't allow dirty words, so Dean is always sunk.
"Teyla. He's haunting me!" he persists. Every time he dreams of this guy, Dean wakes up in one of two states of mind: a grief that yanks his heart out through his chest (which seems an awfully familiar sensation), or a terror akin to what he felt when he first awoke. Once the reactions fade, he's simply left frustrated at being unable to recall exactly why this Sam is so important.
When she turns towards him again, wrapped in her blankets, she's eyeing him carefully. "Pun intended?" she queries lightly.
Dean almost grins. "You know it." He knows she won't tell him today. She wants him to remember this on his own, though she's spoken often enough of her deceased or missing team and her people - the Athosians - that she left behind.
He sighs as she sets the board down between them.
*
"I gotta tell you, in those flashes of memory? You look a bit..." Dean struggles for a moment with tact. Truth is, in the memories, Teyla looks like a hot woman in her early-thirties, and now she’s a woman in her late forties. Admittedly still hot, but older none-the-less. And he's pretty damn sure that ten plus years haven't passed. "Younger," he blurts.
Teyla looks at him over her shoulder before bending down to pick up another log. They're outside, collecting wood for their fireplace, their only means of staying warm in this cold hellhole they were sent to for protection. "Yes," she begins, walking back to him, her arms laden with wood. "I was fed upon."
She doesn't meet his gaze as she deposits her findings beside the house and Dean allows himself a moment for the physical reaction of that information to roil through him. Wraith feeding, Teyla had told him, was something that hurt worse than a bitch and looked to take years from your life. He winces and feels his stomach drop heavily. She looks up again and he forces his face into neutral. But she smiles in a comforting way. "It is part of the reason I was sent here with you. You are not the only one in need of rest, Dean."
He wishes she didn’t have to reinforce the idea that she was the strongest person he’d likely ever met on a daily basis.
*
Dean walks away from her. He thinks it's been no time at all since Teyla finally told him who Sam was, and all the memories crashed back into his mind, striking him as though a demolition ball had sent him through a wall - or twelve.
He'd fallen to his knees as the pain bolted down through his everything, he'd been blinded and soon pretty damn numb, the pain being too much for his senses. After that, agony had come in waves, when he thought he'd become engraved in his non-feeling, it would crush him as it had the first day.
"It has been three months, Dean," she says gently to his back. Mostly Teyla had left him alone. She would bring him food and water, cover him with blankets when it was cold, and sometimes sit by him in meditation, merely to provide some ease to the loneliness that pulsed through him. Today was the first she speaks to him.
Dean whirls around, his body shaking with rage and grief, another surge rumbling through him. "It will be forever!" he yells at her, taking one stride towards her but no more: where Bobby may not have been able to stop him, Teyla could and he doesn't think he needs physical injuries, too. "He was my responsibility! Twice! And I don't have anything again!" He's lost Sam to death twice, he was supposed to take care, protect, keep him alive. He has given his soul for his little brother, just to lose him again. Dean finds Teyla's eyes, cool and unrelenting in their depthy browns, and it snaps something in him: he's left boneless, without energy. "Just... go. Thanks," he says slowly, a leeching grief seeping into the places that his anger just left. "For... helping me out. But I don't need it--
There's a flash of bronze fist and then he's blinded by tears and a pain very different from that he's been suffering which blossoms where he thinks his nose is. "What the--
"You will not dismiss me, Dean Winchester." Her voice, deadly calm, comes from somewhere before him; he's never heard her so angry before. Actually, he's never heard her angry, period. "We have all lost many things to war."
"I've lost everything," he hisses, still blinking rapidly. Half of him doesn't care, intending to turn around and leave the second his sight returns. The other half wants her to understand why she should leave him alone. He's worthless without Sam.
He winces when her fingers guide his hand away from his face and she lightly touches his nose. "You are not the only one to have lost everything," she continues, fingers cold from the icy drafts that fill the small cabin. Her voice seems less angry now, but there's a different tenor there that he steels himself against. "And you are not as weak or worthless as you believe." He knows it shouldn't surprise him that she does understand, but it still comes as a shock.
Dean shakes his head, regretting it instantly as it sends waves of dizziness and nausea through him, emanating from the centre of his face. "Without Sam--
"Without Sam you are no less a man, hunter, or warrior," Teyla interrupts and he finds himself guided to the couch. "Without Sam, you must learn to carve your own way and let Sam go." Dean feels her weight leave the cushion beside him and hears her feet pad to the small kitchen. She comes back a moment later and a small bag of ice presses against his aching nose.
He forces his eyes open, seeking hers around the lumps of ice and plastic. He knows - knows - all that she's lost: her people she cannot go back to until the war on earth is over, her team members, maybe even a guy, though she never stays it forthright. He knows all that she's given: coming to fight for a galaxy and for humans from Earth, those that are not even her own people. He knows she's strong, a hell of a lot stronger than him. He knows he can't do it, he can't let Sam, Dad,MomJessCalebJim, god, the list goes on, it blurs together; he can't let them go. When he lost the others, he had Sam, they got through it together.
He's lost Sam, he's lost himself. "I don't know if I can do that," he admits hoarsely.
"Sam was a good brother to you." Dean fights the urge to smother her, not wanting to hear these words, her voice too strong with the tenor of finality. "You were an excellent team, saving many lives and taking care of each other with a bond I have not seen so strong between siblings previously. But you have done all you can for Sam now, Dean." She stands abruptly and leaves him alone on the couch.
Everything around him echoes loneliness.
*
They spar beside the building. Teyla first insisted because it would help his body recuperate. Presently, it's become routine again - there was a period of time in which Dean refused to do anything. He's moved on a bit from that again. And really, not like there's anything else to do while they wait for news.
Dean throws a punch, Teyla blocks and whacks him with her stick. "Thought we were giving up on those?" he asks, rubbing the ache that blossoms at his ribs. Teyla shrugs, a small grin on her face before she steps forward, swinging her makeshift bantos rod, a thick stick that she picked up from the ground. Dean dodges backwards, then ducks low, intending to swipe her legs out from beneath her. Her rod smacks him on the back. "Going low on you doesn't work," he mutters. He pauses briefly before smiling charmingly at her, stepping out of range and holding his hands up peaceably. "Hand-to-hand?"
"Afraid of the extra challenge, Dean?" The way she says his name sends a familiar chill down his spine.
He shrugs and slips back into an easy defensive position: knees bent slightly, hands up, ready. "Okay," he mutters, extending the 'o'. "We'll do this your way." He turns swiftly and jogs to the tree-line to find a similar stick and returns to face her. Teyla's fast though, darting forward the instant he even looks mildly ready to counter an attack. He's not bad with bantos, able to lean into his training with blades to help him. He's always been more of a shotgun kinda guy though; Sam was better with knives.
The sticks clack hollowly several times before Dean spots an opening, dodging left and striking out with his right hand. His back hits the ground, head first, a burst of white behind his eyes and he blinks rapidly for a moment. "Damn your feinting," he pants.
Teyla’s face appears above his, her eyes not quite triumphant. "I would have thought you'd have learned by now."
He shrugs, rolling to his feet and not waiting for her to get ready before sweeping his stick down towards her again.
*
When Teyla invites him to her bed, it's simple. An unremarkable night, as far as Dean's concerned, after they'd settled for the evening. He to his couch - relegated there since his sick days - and she to the sole bedroom in the cabin.
"Dean," she says a few hours into the night. There's no light that is not natural in the cabin and it is long after dark, but he's fairly sure her silhouette in the doorway is nude. He's barely able to make out the shape of her small, sturdy frame turning back into the room, and he hears her bare feet slap lightly on the way to the bed. Dean forces himself to follow slowly, but once he reaches Teyla, his lips immediately descend to cover the scars left by the Wraith feeding as her fingers urgently push up his shirt and tug his briefs down.
Dean has been cold for months. Teyla burns him now.
He remembers he used to like to have sex with the lights on, but when he reaches out, her fingers clasp around his and tug his hand back. "Keep it dark," she murmurs and tugs his face down to hers.
He hasn't had sex in more than a year, and he finds an undiluted pleasure in having the liberty to explore her body with his lips and tongue, tracing each line and crevice. Her fingers tangle in his hair and mark lines along his back, her throat eliciting sounds that raise the hair on his skin and set his blood to flame, pounding through his veins. She pulls his face up from her chest and runs fingers down his chest and stomach, pulling her legs slowly up along his thighs, and wrapping them around his hips. Teyla's brown eyes find Dean's green before she raises her lips to his and he slowly lowers himself into her. His groan is lost against her mouth.
Their rhythm is uneven at first, and he brushes her hair from her cheek before she presses a line of kisses into his shoulder. Her hands trace along his back and she tries to match him.
There's a moment when her eyes are closed and her fingers grope along the back of his neck and the line of his shoulders, as though searching...
"I don't wear dog-tags," he manages between thrusts, pushing harder and rougher in retribution.
Her eyes flash open, hazy from sex but with a remorse that makes him uncomfortable. Her fingers drag from his neck to his cheek in a caress that is wholly Teyla in its tenderness, as she arches her back and clenches around him. He groans. "I remember," she murmurs, her voice throaty.
He is just as guilty of having his mind elsewhere as he's certain that he hears the door slam, and a stops moving, awaiting the inevitable interruption.
She moans and writhes beneath him when he stops and he remembers sharply, the grief splitting him. He kisses her bruisingly and her lips move just as fiercely in response.
It's not long before Dean's lost in the sensation, the hum pulsing through his body, awakening sensations he'd thought long lost. He feels fire in him again; Teyla the tinder, her voice, her scent, her hands and legs, and the burning heat of her body pushing his to the edge. He's lost in an ecstasy that refreshes his sodden senses.
His shout comes shortly before her cry, the sound of which almost drives him to ask for more. Teyla's fingers stroke along his neck as they pant through the pleasure that still tremors through them both.
Dean rolls from Teyla to lay beside her, he knows that she'll leave him alone in the bed soon. His fire will be gone. But for now he'll watch her as her flames brighten and warm the room.
*
"Heard you were bunked down with Teyla," the major says to him suddenly.
Dean's not exactly fitting in with this new team. He remembers the times he spent with his last team, so many months ago; they were kinda weird and McKay was a pain in the ass, but they were fun. Those days he was also part of a pair - it was Dean and Sam. Now it's just Dean. The whisper of pain presses into his chest and he forces the thought aside.
Dean stuffs a big scoop of the rationed food into his mouth, taking his time to chew before responding. "Yeah, almost a year," he finally mutters through the food as the major's eyebrow raises in expectation. He tells himself he should be surprised at how much he misses her company. But he knows why he isn't. He wouldn't have survived a week without Sam if Teyla hadn't been there. As it was, she lead him to a new type of lifestyle; one where he's still fighting, surviving solo.
That didn't alter the fact that the first few days with this new team after they'd been separated at Stargate Command, Dean'd felt humiliatingly lonely, especially in his bunk bed. He'd gotten used to sleeping with her tiny, but solid form beside his. It was made harder knowing that he probably wouldn’t see her again. He was used to meet-and-leave, the hunting world he lived in prior to this war was made up of it. Staying with someone for several months, creating an actual liaison… It was new for him.
"What's she like? I hear Sheppard's team was mighty fond of her. Too bad about Ronon." Dean watches the guy, thinks he has no idea what he's talking about. He can’t decide if it's worth the effort to try and enlighten him, though.
Dean plasters a fake smile on his face. "Yeah, she's good. Tough. Her whole team's dead, and she can't return to her people until the war's done here." All right, maybe he can't resist a bit of enlightenment, Teyla has a story worth telling. Because of her, he knows he has one too. "Grew up fearing the Wraith, her people kinda tried to work around it, kept on living as well as they could..."
So on another unremarkable night as far as he’s concerned, Dean lets the fire burn low in his veins again, barring away the cold, and he tells them both.
"You are awake," a soft voice sounds beside him. He attempts to turn his head but finds the motion impossible. A cocoa face, tinted sallow, blurs into focus above him, framed by lanky golden-brown hair. "You have been severely injured."
Having just spent the last few moments trying to move, he'd kinda got that. "Yeah, I figured." He looks out of the corner of his eyes, discovering worn grey fabric on one side and chest on the other. He seeks out the woman's eyes again. "Uh, this might be a dumbass question but... who am I?"
"Your name is Dean Winchester. You are from a city called Lawrence in Kansas in the United States of America." Her eyes are a warm brown colour, calm but sad. She looks to be in her mid to late forties. He lets her words wash through his mind, hoping they'd make some sense. None of them mean anything to him. He sighs heavily.
"You?" is all he can manage. To say he's frustrated and freaked is underscoring his current state. The words 'terror' and 'rage' seem to cover it better. Not to mention there was this horrible nagging sensation as though he were forgetting someone, or to do something for someone...
"My name is Teyla Emmagan. I am ... not from here." She moves out of view and he hears the noises of something being picked up before her face appears again. "You are experiencing memory loss. The battle was very strenuous and you received several injuries." The woman, Teyla, reaches towards his face and his view changes as his head is tilted up. His body is hidden beneath several blankets, but there's a few odd things about the angle of one of his legs and the way his arm seems shrunken that sets his heart pounding. "You must eat," she murmurs beside him. He's sure that she saw his horror, but she doesn't do anything to comfort or aggravate, simply forces a spoon to his lips.
"I apologize," she says after a few moments of silence, as they slip into the pattern of warm spoon of unidentifiable soup to his chapped lips. "I have never been a very good cook." He - Dean - thinks that at least it's food.
*
"I keep dreaming about a guy named Sam."
It's the third week in the cabin with Teyla. Dean's pretty much just mastered sitting but his leg's mending relatively well overall, and his arm... Well, it would never be perfect, but it would work all right soon enough. She's told him that they had met when he and another ‘hunter’ were paired with her team (from something called Stargate command) after 'Wraith' started utilizing their psychic abilities to control recently released demon hordes from a Gate to Hell. Dean kind of thinks she might be crazy, but she's the only person he knows and so he lets it slide and tries to take her at her word.
"Yes. He was lost during the battle."
"Why do I think of him?" She shrugs and turns away on the pretence of bringing the Scrabble board to the table. It's the fallback entertainment for them - she always wins, using Athosian words that he can't contest. Plus, she doesn't allow dirty words, so Dean is always sunk.
"Teyla. He's haunting me!" he persists. Every time he dreams of this guy, Dean wakes up in one of two states of mind: a grief that yanks his heart out through his chest (which seems an awfully familiar sensation), or a terror akin to what he felt when he first awoke. Once the reactions fade, he's simply left frustrated at being unable to recall exactly why this Sam is so important.
When she turns towards him again, wrapped in her blankets, she's eyeing him carefully. "Pun intended?" she queries lightly.
Dean almost grins. "You know it." He knows she won't tell him today. She wants him to remember this on his own, though she's spoken often enough of her deceased or missing team and her people - the Athosians - that she left behind.
He sighs as she sets the board down between them.
*
"I gotta tell you, in those flashes of memory? You look a bit..." Dean struggles for a moment with tact. Truth is, in the memories, Teyla looks like a hot woman in her early-thirties, and now she’s a woman in her late forties. Admittedly still hot, but older none-the-less. And he's pretty damn sure that ten plus years haven't passed. "Younger," he blurts.
Teyla looks at him over her shoulder before bending down to pick up another log. They're outside, collecting wood for their fireplace, their only means of staying warm in this cold hellhole they were sent to for protection. "Yes," she begins, walking back to him, her arms laden with wood. "I was fed upon."
She doesn't meet his gaze as she deposits her findings beside the house and Dean allows himself a moment for the physical reaction of that information to roil through him. Wraith feeding, Teyla had told him, was something that hurt worse than a bitch and looked to take years from your life. He winces and feels his stomach drop heavily. She looks up again and he forces his face into neutral. But she smiles in a comforting way. "It is part of the reason I was sent here with you. You are not the only one in need of rest, Dean."
He wishes she didn’t have to reinforce the idea that she was the strongest person he’d likely ever met on a daily basis.
*
Dean walks away from her. He thinks it's been no time at all since Teyla finally told him who Sam was, and all the memories crashed back into his mind, striking him as though a demolition ball had sent him through a wall - or twelve.
He'd fallen to his knees as the pain bolted down through his everything, he'd been blinded and soon pretty damn numb, the pain being too much for his senses. After that, agony had come in waves, when he thought he'd become engraved in his non-feeling, it would crush him as it had the first day.
"It has been three months, Dean," she says gently to his back. Mostly Teyla had left him alone. She would bring him food and water, cover him with blankets when it was cold, and sometimes sit by him in meditation, merely to provide some ease to the loneliness that pulsed through him. Today was the first she speaks to him.
Dean whirls around, his body shaking with rage and grief, another surge rumbling through him. "It will be forever!" he yells at her, taking one stride towards her but no more: where Bobby may not have been able to stop him, Teyla could and he doesn't think he needs physical injuries, too. "He was my responsibility! Twice! And I don't have anything again!" He's lost Sam to death twice, he was supposed to take care, protect, keep him alive. He has given his soul for his little brother, just to lose him again. Dean finds Teyla's eyes, cool and unrelenting in their depthy browns, and it snaps something in him: he's left boneless, without energy. "Just... go. Thanks," he says slowly, a leeching grief seeping into the places that his anger just left. "For... helping me out. But I don't need it--
There's a flash of bronze fist and then he's blinded by tears and a pain very different from that he's been suffering which blossoms where he thinks his nose is. "What the--
"You will not dismiss me, Dean Winchester." Her voice, deadly calm, comes from somewhere before him; he's never heard her so angry before. Actually, he's never heard her angry, period. "We have all lost many things to war."
"I've lost everything," he hisses, still blinking rapidly. Half of him doesn't care, intending to turn around and leave the second his sight returns. The other half wants her to understand why she should leave him alone. He's worthless without Sam.
He winces when her fingers guide his hand away from his face and she lightly touches his nose. "You are not the only one to have lost everything," she continues, fingers cold from the icy drafts that fill the small cabin. Her voice seems less angry now, but there's a different tenor there that he steels himself against. "And you are not as weak or worthless as you believe." He knows it shouldn't surprise him that she does understand, but it still comes as a shock.
Dean shakes his head, regretting it instantly as it sends waves of dizziness and nausea through him, emanating from the centre of his face. "Without Sam--
"Without Sam you are no less a man, hunter, or warrior," Teyla interrupts and he finds himself guided to the couch. "Without Sam, you must learn to carve your own way and let Sam go." Dean feels her weight leave the cushion beside him and hears her feet pad to the small kitchen. She comes back a moment later and a small bag of ice presses against his aching nose.
He forces his eyes open, seeking hers around the lumps of ice and plastic. He knows - knows - all that she's lost: her people she cannot go back to until the war on earth is over, her team members, maybe even a guy, though she never stays it forthright. He knows all that she's given: coming to fight for a galaxy and for humans from Earth, those that are not even her own people. He knows she's strong, a hell of a lot stronger than him. He knows he can't do it, he can't let Sam, Dad,MomJessCalebJim, god, the list goes on, it blurs together; he can't let them go. When he lost the others, he had Sam, they got through it together.
He's lost Sam, he's lost himself. "I don't know if I can do that," he admits hoarsely.
"Sam was a good brother to you." Dean fights the urge to smother her, not wanting to hear these words, her voice too strong with the tenor of finality. "You were an excellent team, saving many lives and taking care of each other with a bond I have not seen so strong between siblings previously. But you have done all you can for Sam now, Dean." She stands abruptly and leaves him alone on the couch.
Everything around him echoes loneliness.
*
They spar beside the building. Teyla first insisted because it would help his body recuperate. Presently, it's become routine again - there was a period of time in which Dean refused to do anything. He's moved on a bit from that again. And really, not like there's anything else to do while they wait for news.
Dean throws a punch, Teyla blocks and whacks him with her stick. "Thought we were giving up on those?" he asks, rubbing the ache that blossoms at his ribs. Teyla shrugs, a small grin on her face before she steps forward, swinging her makeshift bantos rod, a thick stick that she picked up from the ground. Dean dodges backwards, then ducks low, intending to swipe her legs out from beneath her. Her rod smacks him on the back. "Going low on you doesn't work," he mutters. He pauses briefly before smiling charmingly at her, stepping out of range and holding his hands up peaceably. "Hand-to-hand?"
"Afraid of the extra challenge, Dean?" The way she says his name sends a familiar chill down his spine.
He shrugs and slips back into an easy defensive position: knees bent slightly, hands up, ready. "Okay," he mutters, extending the 'o'. "We'll do this your way." He turns swiftly and jogs to the tree-line to find a similar stick and returns to face her. Teyla's fast though, darting forward the instant he even looks mildly ready to counter an attack. He's not bad with bantos, able to lean into his training with blades to help him. He's always been more of a shotgun kinda guy though; Sam was better with knives.
The sticks clack hollowly several times before Dean spots an opening, dodging left and striking out with his right hand. His back hits the ground, head first, a burst of white behind his eyes and he blinks rapidly for a moment. "Damn your feinting," he pants.
Teyla’s face appears above his, her eyes not quite triumphant. "I would have thought you'd have learned by now."
He shrugs, rolling to his feet and not waiting for her to get ready before sweeping his stick down towards her again.
*
When Teyla invites him to her bed, it's simple. An unremarkable night, as far as Dean's concerned, after they'd settled for the evening. He to his couch - relegated there since his sick days - and she to the sole bedroom in the cabin.
"Dean," she says a few hours into the night. There's no light that is not natural in the cabin and it is long after dark, but he's fairly sure her silhouette in the doorway is nude. He's barely able to make out the shape of her small, sturdy frame turning back into the room, and he hears her bare feet slap lightly on the way to the bed. Dean forces himself to follow slowly, but once he reaches Teyla, his lips immediately descend to cover the scars left by the Wraith feeding as her fingers urgently push up his shirt and tug his briefs down.
Dean has been cold for months. Teyla burns him now.
He remembers he used to like to have sex with the lights on, but when he reaches out, her fingers clasp around his and tug his hand back. "Keep it dark," she murmurs and tugs his face down to hers.
He hasn't had sex in more than a year, and he finds an undiluted pleasure in having the liberty to explore her body with his lips and tongue, tracing each line and crevice. Her fingers tangle in his hair and mark lines along his back, her throat eliciting sounds that raise the hair on his skin and set his blood to flame, pounding through his veins. She pulls his face up from her chest and runs fingers down his chest and stomach, pulling her legs slowly up along his thighs, and wrapping them around his hips. Teyla's brown eyes find Dean's green before she raises her lips to his and he slowly lowers himself into her. His groan is lost against her mouth.
Their rhythm is uneven at first, and he brushes her hair from her cheek before she presses a line of kisses into his shoulder. Her hands trace along his back and she tries to match him.
There's a moment when her eyes are closed and her fingers grope along the back of his neck and the line of his shoulders, as though searching...
"I don't wear dog-tags," he manages between thrusts, pushing harder and rougher in retribution.
Her eyes flash open, hazy from sex but with a remorse that makes him uncomfortable. Her fingers drag from his neck to his cheek in a caress that is wholly Teyla in its tenderness, as she arches her back and clenches around him. He groans. "I remember," she murmurs, her voice throaty.
He is just as guilty of having his mind elsewhere as he's certain that he hears the door slam, and a stops moving, awaiting the inevitable interruption.
She moans and writhes beneath him when he stops and he remembers sharply, the grief splitting him. He kisses her bruisingly and her lips move just as fiercely in response.
It's not long before Dean's lost in the sensation, the hum pulsing through his body, awakening sensations he'd thought long lost. He feels fire in him again; Teyla the tinder, her voice, her scent, her hands and legs, and the burning heat of her body pushing his to the edge. He's lost in an ecstasy that refreshes his sodden senses.
His shout comes shortly before her cry, the sound of which almost drives him to ask for more. Teyla's fingers stroke along his neck as they pant through the pleasure that still tremors through them both.
Dean rolls from Teyla to lay beside her, he knows that she'll leave him alone in the bed soon. His fire will be gone. But for now he'll watch her as her flames brighten and warm the room.
*
"Heard you were bunked down with Teyla," the major says to him suddenly.
Dean's not exactly fitting in with this new team. He remembers the times he spent with his last team, so many months ago; they were kinda weird and McKay was a pain in the ass, but they were fun. Those days he was also part of a pair - it was Dean and Sam. Now it's just Dean. The whisper of pain presses into his chest and he forces the thought aside.
Dean stuffs a big scoop of the rationed food into his mouth, taking his time to chew before responding. "Yeah, almost a year," he finally mutters through the food as the major's eyebrow raises in expectation. He tells himself he should be surprised at how much he misses her company. But he knows why he isn't. He wouldn't have survived a week without Sam if Teyla hadn't been there. As it was, she lead him to a new type of lifestyle; one where he's still fighting, surviving solo.
That didn't alter the fact that the first few days with this new team after they'd been separated at Stargate Command, Dean'd felt humiliatingly lonely, especially in his bunk bed. He'd gotten used to sleeping with her tiny, but solid form beside his. It was made harder knowing that he probably wouldn’t see her again. He was used to meet-and-leave, the hunting world he lived in prior to this war was made up of it. Staying with someone for several months, creating an actual liaison… It was new for him.
"What's she like? I hear Sheppard's team was mighty fond of her. Too bad about Ronon." Dean watches the guy, thinks he has no idea what he's talking about. He can’t decide if it's worth the effort to try and enlighten him, though.
Dean plasters a fake smile on his face. "Yeah, she's good. Tough. Her whole team's dead, and she can't return to her people until the war's done here." All right, maybe he can't resist a bit of enlightenment, Teyla has a story worth telling. Because of her, he knows he has one too. "Grew up fearing the Wraith, her people kinda tried to work around it, kept on living as well as they could..."
So on another unremarkable night as far as he’s concerned, Dean lets the fire burn low in his veins again, barring away the cold, and he tells them both.