Not Safe With Anybody Else
Author:
telesillaFandom/Pairing: SGA, Ronon/John
Rating: R
Word Count: 1,543
Disclaimer: The SGA characters do not belong to me. Duh.
Summary: Sheppard's hiding himself away from his team and Ronon wants to know why.
Notes: The main notes contain spoilers, so they're after the fic. My
choc_fic prompt was: Ronon gen or Ronon/any: Scars, marks and tattoos - "I am becoming something more than humanity could ever allow me to be."
"I want to see him," Ronon told Carson. "He's ignoring us." And yeah, Ronon could guess why, but even though he thought Teyla and Rodney could too, they still speculated and fretted and worried--Rodney loudly and Teyla without words but with a kind of careful serenity that was, to be honest, more annoying than Rodney's blather and all in all, they were kind of driving Ronon crazy.
"He's not here," Carson said, and, when Ronon crossed his arms and frowned a little, Carson shrugged. "We don't need to restrain him any more; he's perfectly lucid. He just wanted out of here and there was no real reason to keep him."
"Okay."
Carson gave him a thoughtful look. "He's in his quarters and I've been taking his meals to him, but I'm a little busy right now and it's lunch time."
"Thanks." Ronon was already headed toward the door.
A few minutes after swinging by the mess hall, Ronon hit the chime on Sheppard's door. It opened and Ronon stepped inside, a little surprised by the heat that met him. The room was also dim and it took Ronon a moment to see Sheppard, who was sitting on his bed with his face turned to the wall.
"I told Carson I didn't want to see anyone," he said, without even looking at Ronon.
"Yeah? Well I told him I wanted to see you." Ronon put the tray on the desk and looked at Sheppard back.
"Get out."
"Why?" Ronon thought he knew why, but he wanted to see if Sheppard would say anything.
"Because I fucking well gave you an order," Sheppard snarled, and Ronon blinked; he actually hadn't expected that.
"I heard you relieved yourself of command after you became lucid again. Not sure you can give me orders." Ronon knew damn well he'd take an order from Sheppard, even if he weren't in command, but he wasn't entirely sure Sheppard really wanted him to leave.
"Yeah, well," Sheppard said, and now he just sounded tired. "Just reinforcing what Elizabeth did. Caldwell's in charge now."
"You won't catch me taking his orders."
"Good on ya. Now that we've established that...."
"It's not good for you to sit here and brood."
Sheppard laughed, his voice harsh. "Is that what you think? Is that what Teyla or Kate thinks? That I'm sitting here because I don't want people to see me like this? Or that I'm feeling guilty for going on my little rampage?"
"Are you?"
"No." Ronon wasn't sure he believed it, but Sheppard went on. "That'll come later, when I'm closer to being myself."
"Doc says you're already...."
"Carson doesn't know anything about this and I can't tell him." Sheppard gave another one of those hoarse laughs. "If you think I have guilt issues, you haven't been around Carson enough. He blames himself enough already."
"All right, if it's not that, then what?"
"Go away," John growled.
"Never took you for a coward, Sheppard."
Sheppard snorted. "Nice try." He fell silent then and Ronon, who was more than comfortable with silence, waited.
"We don't think of them--bugs, I mean. We don't think of them as being individuals, of having independent thought." Sheppard paused, but Ronon remained silent. "They're a collective, right? Ants or bees or, hell, even Wraith. They're all part of a hive."
Now it was Ronon's turn to snarl. "You aren't a Wraith."
"No," Sheppard said. "Might be better if I were; you'd all know to be afraid of me." Too quickly for Ronon to really track him, Sheppard was on his feet, his scaled hand tangled in Ronon's shirt. He tugged, pulling Ronon close. "You'd know enough to keep me locked up."
"Why should we?" Ronon asked, trying to keep his breathing even. "I can always shoot you again."
Those creepy yellow eyes narrowed and before Ronon could stop him, Sheppard had pulled his gun out of its holster. "Yeah?" He tossed the gun aside; Ronon heard the quiet thump as it landed on the bed.
"Why do you want me to be afraid of you?" This close, Sheppard smelled oddly spicy and Ronon could see that he was already better, the short spines mostly gone from his neck.
"Because right now trusting me is really bad idea."
"You gonna kill me?"
"Tell me something," Sheppard said as if Ronon hadn't said anything. "I'm your commanding officer, right? Team Leader, your...what's the term? Taskmaster?" His grip tightened and Ronon could feel Sheppard's knuckles, scaly and oddly cool, against his throat
"Yeah," Ronon said, swallowing hard. He wondered if Sheppard could tell that he was getting what he wanted: right now, Ronon was just a little afraid of him.
"That makes you mine,," Sheppard growled. "And see, that's what I meant. You wouldn't think a bug would be so damn possessive."
Ronon opened his mouth and Sheppard reached up with his other hand--the more human one--and pressed it against his mouth. "Don't bother telling me that I'm not a bug. I know what I am right now." He caressed Ronon's cheek with one long finger. "I'm me, only more. All the things...the controls that keep people in check, this thing's stripped all that away from me."
"You've wanted," Ronon began.
"Shut the fuck up." Sheppard drew back his hand and Ronon braced for a blow that could possibly send him flying across the room. At the last moment, Sheppard took a deep shuddering breath and backed away.
"Of course I've wanted," he said, taking another step away from Ronon. "You're mine. You, Rodney, Teyla...." He was breathing hard and Ronon wasn't surprised when he turned and slammed his fist against one of the strange Ancient wall sculptures. A little of the hard stone crumbled and fell to the floor, and Ronon could see that this wasn't the first time Sheppard had hit the decoration.
"I almost fucked Elizabeth," Sheppard said, without turning around. "Right here up against the wall."
"You didn't," Ronon said quietly.
"Only because part of me didn't think of her as mine." He turned around and stared at Ronon. "Which is why I don't want to see you or Rodney or Teyla. Do you fucking get it now?"
"Like you couldn't have any one of us." Ronon paused and thought about it for a moment. "Or maybe even all of us if McKay'd go for it."
"Will you shut up?! Jesus, I think Rodney is right and you are a boneheaded barbarian."
Ronon just crossed his arms; Sheppard quoting Rodney--who didn't really mean those insults any more--made his attempt to drive Ronon away pretty fucking transparent. "Then spell it out for me, Sheppard."
"For one thing, anyone who wants to have sex with me looking like this is fucking sick; I'm grotesque."
He wasn't really. Blue and slightly scaled in places, he still looked like Sheppard, and Ronon had to wonder if it was the heat of the room or if that scent now pouring off Sheppard in waves was some kind of pheromone, because right now, Ronon really wanted to lie down on the bed and spread his legs.
Then again, he'd wanted to do that for Sheppard for a while now.
"God," Sheppard groaned. "Stop it, will you? I can fucking smell it on you." He hit the sculpture again. "Do you have any idea how easy it would be?"
Turning, he glared at Ronon. "I could come over there right now, do what I want to you and you couldn't stop me. And yeah, doesn't that sound hot, right up to the point where what I want to do is fucking mark you as mine." The spicy scent got even stronger; Ronon could almost taste it on the air.
"Not just bruises," Sheppard continued and his rough, raspy voice was pure sex. "I could use my claws or my teeth, leave marks that would be there forever."
Ronon stared at him, wondering why Sheppard thought that was a bad thing; right now it sounded like the best idea Ronon'd ever heard. He had opened his mouth to say so and then Sheppard was shoving his own right sleeve up and turning his arm so that Ronon could see it.
The place where Ellia had bitten Sheppard was still an angry looking lump set in a mess of hard looking blue scales.
Ronon had never lost an erection as fast as he did now.
"Do you get it now?"
"Yeah," Ronon managed to say. "I...yeah."
"So, and don't take this the wrong way, get the fuck out, will you?" Still breathing like he'd been running for hours, Sheppard went over to the bed and picked up Ronon's gun. "Here," he said, tossing it over. "And do me a favor, okay? Tell them I have my reasons for keeping away."
"I will," Ronon said, already heading for the door. He paused just out of range of the door sensors.
"When you're better, I would...we could...." He paused and tried to find the words. "I have marks and scars from a lot of really bad things that have happened to me. Wouldn't mind having one or two from something good."
Before Sheppard could answer or even turn around, Ronon was out the door.
-end-
Notes: Obviously, this takes place during "Conversion" between the time John is given the cure and the time he's back to being "100% John Sheppard." I had thought about getting them into bed because Bug!John is hot and I've never seen anyone write him with Ronon, but the fic went in a different direction. I also didn't expect to get this finished, but I woke up migraine free this morning and also got some RL good news and it all fell into place, so it's only a day late. The title is from the Aimee Mann song "It's Not Safe." Many thanks to
darkrosetiger for the once over.
I wibbled and almost called this pre-slash, but it was one of those cases where I thought that knowing how it ended would really spoil the story. So yeah....