Fic: Invisible Prisoner 2/4 (SGA, McKay/Sheppard, Sheppard/Other)
Title: Invisible Prisoner
Series: Stargate Atlantis
Part:2/4
Pairings: McKay/Sheppard, Sheppard/Other
Word Count: 29,623
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Dark Themes
A/N: This was written for the mcshep_match.Written for Team Angst, the prompt: Prisoner of War. It should have been up ages ago but I am both lazy and forgetful. Thank you kitt for reminding me.
Summary: How can you be rescued if no one knows you're gone?
John hadn't cried since he was ten years old. In his defense, he'd broken his arm pretty badly jumping out of that tree.
He shouldn't have let Billy Hodgson and his little brother, whose name he'd forgotten years ago, talk him into climbing the damn thing in the first place. He blamed it on the fact that his dad had just gotten stationed at Hurlburt Field in Eglin Air Force Base a couple weeks earlier and the fact that there was nothing in Mary Ester but trees and that in almost a month, the only kids he'd met were the two brothers who lived down the street.
It was his dad's first relocation since his mom died and going from just outside Los Angeles to a little town in north Florida had been the hardest move of his life. And at the time he had just desperately wanted the Hodgson brothers to like him.
It turned out they had liked him okay, and probably would have even if he hadn't climbed that stupid tree. Billy helped him stagger home but his dad had been at work or on a test flight or something, so he'd waited.
Billy had waited with him until he'd had to go home for dinner but John had stayed and waited alone, for hours, for his dad to come home. He had no idea how long he'd spent, sitting perfectly still on the brand new couch, trying not to breathe too hard so as not to jostle his arm. But around ten at night he'd started to think his dad wasn't going to come home at all and the tears he'd been holding back since he hurt himself had all come out at once.
Which was of course when Robert Sheppard had walked in the door. He was clearly shocked to find his only child not only still awake at the late hour but sobbing, and injured. He had carefully pulled his son into his arms so he could lift the skinny boy off the couch and carry him out to the car. He'd called him Johnny, like he used to before she died, and told him that he was going to be okay. At the time John had kind of lost it.
It wasn't the worst injury he had had in the years since. But he'd stopped crying by the time they got to the emergency room and he hadn't really cried since that night.
He'd shed a few tears when Dex and Mitch died and when his father passed, but his grieving tended to involve quality time slamming his fists into the nearest object. Wall. Punching bag. The face of an off-duty marine. That was almost always followed closely by going out and getting drunk for a couple days before pushing the loss as far out of his mind as he could and getting the hell on with his life.
So the fact that all he really wanted to do was cry like the ten-year-old he'd once been was saying something.
He couldn't help the feeling. The situation was just so completely out of his control it that it left him with a strange sense of fragility. And he couldn't escape that reality as he watched his friends laugh and talk with Mavet over dinner.
Carson was smiling and teasing and Rodney made snippy comments and Elizabeth was just Elizabeth and they were all so happy to see each other and him. They were happy to see him and yet they couldn't tell that it wasn't him.
He'd known, of course he had, since the moment he was taken. But up until that dinner, John had been positive they'd be able to tell. He'd been so certain of it that he'd been willing to wait and almost indulge the Goa'uld.
Now, the reality of how hopeless things were crashed in on him all at once, like they had that night in his living room in their house in Mary Ester.
They couldn't see that he was gone. And how the hell were they going to save him if they didn't know he was gone?
Answer? They weren't.
They were going to go on with their lives, blithely ignorant until the alien using John's body as its own personal Gundam mecha turned around and killed them. And they would never know until his hands squeezed the breath from their lungs.
John had never been the suicidal type. Sure if the situation called for it, if lives could be saved by his sacrifice, he was the first on the front lines. He'd never been tempted by a straight razor or a bottle of pain killers or anything like that though. But this was the first time it occurred to him that maybe Mavet hadn't been lying about Helena wanting to die.
Because there was no point in trying to scream. It just entertained Mavet, gave him some kind of sick rush or something. And all of John's attempts to distract him just didn't work. Nothing worked and all John could do was watch, whether he wanted to or not.
That was the worst. Worse than the powerlessness. Worse than the paralysis. Worse even than knowing, even if it was only in the vaguest sense, what the Goa'uld was planning, was having to watch everything.
He didn't want to look at Elizabeth's smiling face or the laughter lines around Carson's eyes. He didn't want to see Rodney scowling as they rehashed the Cadman Incident. He couldn't reach them and he'd have given anything not to have to watch as they proceeded on with their relatively normal existences.
He especially didn't want to have to witness the moment his life came back for him and he wasn't there to live it. Their phones went off and from the first ring John knew.
Before Mavet answered the call, he knew what it was. And so Mavet knew it too. The bastard was like Tyler Durden in Fight Club but not as likeable or attractive.
John decided he needed to stop knowing things. Just, pfft, wipe out his entire brain and reboot. He'd be less dangerous if he could start from scratch with a clean hard drive for a brain, instead of one that knew how to infiltrate the SGC, sneak into the Pegasus Galaxy, and pilot pretty much every military helo ever built and, of course, Lantean puddlejumpers.
He'd never had much luck when it came to getting what he wanted though. So why should anything change now?
Are you not happy to return to Pegasus, John Sheppard? Mavet asked as they emerged on the other side of the stargate. His hands flexed on the jumper controls almost sexually. I know how you have missed your home. The Goa'uld liked flying almost as much as he did. Figured.
I'm not returning. You are.
We are one.
More like one and a half, John thought tiredly. How he could be tired without a physical form was beyond him but then it was probably all psychological. He was all psychological.
We will succeed in reclaiming the city of the Ancients, John Sheppard. I look forward to seeing if it fulfils the expectations your memories have instilled or if it surpasses them, as your Dr. McKay did.
I thought you didn't like Rodney.
Rodney was right behind him in the jumper, talking and planning, trying to rewrite the gate macro to get them to the new Athosian planet. But he was close enough to set John's body on edge, with or without Mavet's dispensation.
I do not like his insolence and his attitude. His other attributes, however, have proved most appealing. And the reaction he elicits from your body is most...favorable.
John chose not to actively reply to that. It was the only choice he had left.
.
~*~*~
Your friends have succeeded and you are returned home. There is no point in attempting to lie. Did you not enjoy this?
'This' had been sneaking through his city, which at the time had been crawling with Asurans. 'This' had been using a deception that was only slightly more graceful than the plot of an I Love Lucy episode on Woolsey and O'Neill to get around the Asurans' version of the Jedi mindfuck so that his team could do what needed to be done. 'This' had been taking a big old risk and possibly getting nuked to kingdom come.
And no, John hadn't really enjoyed the process. He was a doer not a watcher. He'd wanted to be in it, for his instincts to have a chance to react, to think for himself about the situation his team was in. Instead Mavet was sucking information and experience out of his brain like a leech and using it himself.
Effectively too.
And the slug had liked it. He was Goa'uld, a violent species by nature, but Mavet liked playing war. It was a favorite game to him, the way golf was to John. Mavet had been giddy through the attack, voicing his regret that since the Asurans were replicators, they had no blood to shed.
That had freaked John out sufficiently. But the way Mavet pulled out information of how Atlantis worked for his touch, things like the chair, the crystal trays, the doors? That had been so much worse.
Because now that things had calmed down and most of the Atlantis team had returned, by the authority of the IOA, Mavet had taken to long walks through the bowels of the city. And along the way, he stopped to read.
There were some things John hadn't taken the time to learn about the Goa'uld when he'd read some of the early SGC mission reports. He'd focused on the important stuff-what they were, what kind of technology they had, who the big name players were, the difference between the Goa'uld and the Tok'ra.
He hadn't noticed anything about how fast the little fuckers could learn things, like languages. Take for example, Ancient. What had taken Elizabeth months, if not years, to learn took Mavet less than 24 hours.
Rodney would have been beside himself if he knew even half the things Mavet unearthed using his species' gift for language and John's genetic make-up.
John didn't understand most of them himself but he knew enough to know that a lot of it was disgustingly hazardous. Maybe not unsafe in a boom-goes-the-solar-system sort of way but definitely if-used-wrong-could-kill-lots-of-my-friends-and-other-innocent-people type threats.
And yet at the end of each exploration, Mavet always turned off whatever he had found (if he'd turned it on to begin with) and made his way back to the main living areas of Atlantis. That confused the hell out of John.
I thought you Goa'uld wanted to kill us all.
No, not all of you. And certainly not you, my host. Your people will have their uses yet. When the time is right.
Whatever the hell that meant.
Mavet almost always responded when John tried to communicate with him. His answers weren't always helpful. In fact they were typically hateful or cruel but they were usually relevant.
It puzzled John but he'd learned in the weeks since reclaiming Atlantis that while Mavet wasn't playing with what you'd call a full deck, he had enough cards to be seriously dangerous. The guy was hundreds of years old, scary loyal to that Ba'al dude, and had infinite, maddening patience.
Also? He had a really fucked up sense of humor.
Whether or not John actively responded didn't make a difference to Mavet. All the snake had to do was dig up a particularly nasty memory-his mother's viewing was a favorite of Mavet's-and wait for John to react. While John was reacting less spectacularly than he had in the first couple weeks, certain things got to him every time. And whenever that happened, he could hear that laughter.
He was bored, too. A lot. There was nothing to touch or feel or do for hours on end. He had a front row seat for whatever Mavet chose to look at and he could hear what was going on outside in the real world he used to live in, though it was usually little more than an echo, as if it came from far away and down a long hallway. But that was about it.
He complained about it. Loudly. Often. And sometimes in the form of song. Patrick Swayze had the right idea with that whole Henry the Eighth song. It was deeply irritating and went on forever like the Song That Doesn't End, also a classic.
But John got the feeling that one of the plethora of things that Mavet could do in his head that he couldn't was tune out. And there were times, especially when Mavet was with Teyla or Rodney, when John actually envied him that.
That envy was scary as hell because, John realized, it meant he was getting used to living like this, a captive in his own skull. It meant that his consciousness was trying to prepare itself to settle in for the long haul. And with a Goa'uld, if the mission reports he'd read back on earth were to be believed, that haul could last hundreds of years, sometimes thousands.
Mavet's caress on his mind as that realization dawned was part affectionate and part vindictively triumphant. Clever host, he murmured. I do so love how clever you are, John Sheppard. It pleases me greatly.
Go fuck yourself.
Mavet glanced across the mess to the table where Rodney sat with Radek. They were bickering, animatedly, probably about how Rodney was against redistribution of two of the three Asuran ZPMs.
There had been emails to Elizabeth. Lots of them, she'd said through gritted teeth. Rodney was unwavering in his conviction though, his hands were waving in the air and his voice was just loud enough to be heard from the other side of the hall but not understood.
Why would I do that... when there are options available that are so much more pleasurable?
That dirty feeling, the one Mavet's presence had left on his belongings back in Colorado, was back with a vengeance. It hit harder than ever and coated every aspect of John's awareness.
I will tear you apart, with my bare hands so help me God if you so much as touch-
Be still, John Sheppard, Mavet commanded, taking a bite of the not-steak they were serving today. It is what we want. You know this to be true. I plan to take only what we want. For now.
It's not yours to take, damn you.
Mavet laughed at that, barely keeping it internal. John's shoulders shook slightly at the stifled chuckles. Do not be foolish. I have been given dispensation by Ba'al to take what I desire as I ready this galaxy for his eventual conquest. Everything in the Pegasus Galaxy is mine to seize and use as I see fit. Everything.
~*~*~
Rodney named the whale Sam. Of course he did. It was always about Sam-freaking-antha Carter. If her technological advancements hadn't saved their asses on a few occasions, John really would have been able to dislike her more.
This once, though, she gave John bright, sharp hope on a more personal level.
Rodney was fixated on Sam Carter, a brilliant, blonde, female scientist. His opposite in pretty much everything but military service. That proclivity for women of the tall, blonde persuasion was great news for the first time since John had woken up and smelled Rodney's coffee two years ago, trapped in a quarantine with Teyla while a deadly virus threatened to destroy Rodney's hyper-brilliant brain.
John was counting on that obsession. He was depending on it to protect Rodney. Mavet had too much to lose to try and force the situation and if Rodney was straight then that'd be the end of it.
But Rodney kept looking for him to talk about that huge, stupid whale/fish/flagi-whatever thing. And Mavet was only too happy to indulge him.
Snakeboy had stolen the idea to take him whale-watching in the jumper from one of John's standard fantasies. It was an old one involving the bench seats in the back that didn't contain Rodney every time, but always featured someone on the Atlantis mission. The weirdest one had featured Heightmeyer and Radek, simultaneously, but John had known better than to try and analyze that one.
Rodney was surprised by the idea, stuttering and trailing after Mavet as he followed the shortest path to the jumper bay, mapped courtesy of John's memories. But he'd seemed more than enthusiastic about it which wasn't particularly shocking.
It was a good idea, the whale-watching plan. It was off the beaten track yet strangely intimate; the sort of thing people did on dates. Yeah, it wasn't a ride on a Ferris wheel but still. It was pretty cool.
Now if only it wasn't so spectacularly unfair that Mavet got be the first one to pilot a jumper recreationally underwater since Rodney's brush with watery death. There was no way he could possibly appreciate this the way John did, not even if he was feeling what John was at the very moment the jumper hit the water.
He wanted so much to have been there alone, just the two of them instead of a crowd of three. He wanted to contribute something, anything, to get in the way of the, albeit platonic, intimacy that Mavet had stolen from him by sliding so effortlessly into the role of Rodney's close friend.
At least he did until the pain came.
It rolled through John like a wave and Mavet cursed in a strange curling language that was sort of like Arabic but not really. It wasn't out loud or aimed at John directly.
It was just there, floating in the ether and John picked it up. Along with the panic.
A little worried there, pal?
You will be silent, Mavet snapped, his eyes focused on the whales and on Rodney.
Yeah, no, I don't think so. I think we might need to have a little chat. You seem a little on edge there, slithers. Problems in biped land? You know if you can't handle the limbs, you can just hand the reins back over and I'll take care of it for you. I've got more than thirty years of experience with this model.
Mavet's hands tightened on the controls, his fingers flexing in time with the wave of vibrating pain that echoed through John's skull. Not a happy camper at all and if Rodney had a chance to realize he'd developed a nosebleed and started going ballistic old Scaly would be even less happy.
He's bleeding.
I can see that, human.
Human? No pet names today? Someone's testy. Go on, say something. Tell him. Help him. If he freaks out, you're going to have to deal with him.
Do not give me orders, host. I will do as I please when I please. It is my will that allows you to communicate with me and you would do well to remember that.
You're a bigger bitch than my ex-wife.
Mavet did not answer. He could have been ignoring John, of course, but John would have laid money that he was just distracted. But he finally, though it had probably only been a few seconds, commented on the blood slowly leaking from Rodney's nose.
From there it was only a couple minutes before Rodney's head hit the console and the blood started leaking from John's ears.
Mavet stared at the red liquid for a second, transfixed by it. It was almost as if he'd never seen blood before, when he'd all but reveled in its presence in the ghoulish arena of Helena's bathroom. John would have given a lot to know what the hell he was thinking in those moments before he took the jumper out of the water and radioed for help.
If he had to guess, he'd lean towards the pain and the silence being the top of Mavet's priorities.
John himself could hear almost nothing. The rare muffled noises sliding their way down that long corridor to him were the only sounds from the outside he'd had since the bleeding started. So Mavet's hearing was probably only slightly better.
And then there was that pain. It had receded as they got farther away from the whales but it was still there, sharp and angry in the quiet and making Mavet the most agitated John had ever felt him.
So John took that opportunity to shut right the fuck up and give the snake a taste of his own medicine.
He'd never been the strong, silent type. He was the smarmy, mouthy type and had been since high school, when it had become apparent that he wasn't going to be growing in time to avoid regular beatings from the senior bullies. It was part of the reason he used to get on so well with General O'Neill. He couldn't just stop being who he was because he was trapped in a prison that made the accommodations in Papillon look appealing.
But he'd focused, hard, on thinking as close to nothing as possible during those long hours in the infirmary. Because Mavet could pick up on anything, any stray thought, so John brought one of his more useless and uninteresting skills to the forefront. He counted to 20 in the Farsi he'd learned before shipping out to Afghanistan so many times in those six hours he lost track.
It was only right, John decided, only just that his captor find out what it was like to be cut off from the kind of contact he wanted. And with his hearing impaired, even for the relatively short time it took for the Goa'uld to heal John's damaged eardrums, Mavet was, in a sense, almost as deprived of contact as John.
A prospect that did not make Mavet happy. The Goa'uld was not a fan of boredom.
You will respond.
Yek, dow, seh, chahar...
I will not indulge your friend again. His curiosity is dangerous and cannot be trusted.
Panj, shesh, haft, hast...
I rather hope that he does not heal quickly. He is far more entertaining deaf. It changes nothing of his character. Do you think he ever listened?
Noh, dah, yazdah, davâzdah...
Do you honestly believe that this will work, John Sheppard? That something as simple as reciting numerals in a local Tau'ri language of a culture for whose ancestors I was once the God of Death will stop me from digging into the deepest places in your soul?
Sizdah, chahârdah, pahardah, shanzdah, hefdah...
Do you think that I will not find what you hide from these people you claim to love, the images and wants and fears that you repress? I will wrench them from you and paint this city with them if you do not answer me now, John Sheppard.
Hezdah, nuzdah, bist. Right. Back to one. Yek, dow...
You have made a grievous error in judgment this day, my lovely host. I show you great mercy in giving you one last chance to rectify it, to show me the respect that I deserve and to heed me when I call upon you.
Seh. Chahar. Panj.
You told me once you were a good counter, John Sheppard. It seems you were far more literal than I believed at the time. I remember the way your lips moved as you spoke, strong and soft. I chose you then, with your skin warm beneath my touch.
John faltered. Six. Six came next. Panj was five so what was six and god, he really couldn't think about Helena right now so six. Six in Farsi was what? He knew it. He did. Six.
Haft. No. Haft was seven. Shesh was six, haft was seven. Then hast, then noh. Like riding a bike. Dah was ten and then yazdah was eleven. Because one was yek and dah was ten. So yazdah, eleven. Davâzdah was twelve.
You will regret your defiance soon,Mavet promised softly as sound began to filter back into John's quiet little cell. He was healing himself. When I am once again safe from these beasts, you will be sorry. This I vow.
Sizdah, chahârdah, pahardah, John recited. He'd learned more Farsi when he was in Afghanistan. Things like 'Where's the bathroom?', 'I'd like to buy that,' and 'What do you mean you don't serve alcohol? What kind of country doesn't have beer?' But things like that required thinking.
So he kept counting, right up until the moment the sound clicked back on and he could hear Rodney, and his own voice, talking again.
By that point, he had more interesting things to focus on than 1 through 20. Things like sentient, talking whale-fishes, an imminent solar flare, and how to keep from dying in the radiation blast it was going to emit.
Although who put a planet close enough to a sun for that to be a problem anyway? That was really bad planning on the Ancients' part, John thought. And as pissed off as he still was, Mavet agreed.
~*~*~
For the record, the Daedalus shield thing was his idea, not Mavet's. He had the idea before the news of the coronal mass ejection was relayed to Elizabeth. He got the idea the first time the information about the Adaris and the Ancients' shield implantation filtered through to him and Mavet had railed at his very thought.
The Goa'uld was against being on or near the Daedalus. And it wasn't because this could be, hell probably was, a complete suicide mission. Mavet, strangely, was of the opinion that John's plan would work. No, his concern revolved around an almost violent insistence that he not be in proximity to the Daedalus' commander.
It's that or die. I'm cool with dying though. Anything to make you go away.
We will not die, John Sheppard. I can heal this body of any damage it could sustain from beneath the city's shields. I will not be compromised to save the lives of some aquatic fauna and the humans left on this planet's mainland.
Compromised? Letting people die is going to compromise you more than whatever the hell you think Caldwell is going to do. I wouldn't let them just die. You know that and you know that if you're going to keep being me 'til your sugar daddy is ready to take over Pegasus, you can't let them die either.
They'll know something's wrong. You might as well turn on the glowy eyes and creepy voice right now if that's your plan. But hey, if that's the way you want to play it, go for it.
Pester me no more, John Sheppard.
Rodney's little "mass-extinction" "no breathable air" speech did a better job of changing Mavet's mind. He was a little more willing to risk being around Caldwell with a clearer understanding of how very dead he could end up being, shield or no shield.
However, he'd stayed at least two yards away from Caldwell at all times on the Daedalus. He'd skirted the edge of the control room, twitching with what the rest of the crew must have assumed were nerves over the latest and greatest Crazy Sheppard Plan.
But John could feel, vicariously, the low buzz in Mavet just being near Caldwell.
It's because he was a host.
Clever.
So you've mentioned, John said as Rodney ranted and panicked over the intercom.
Mavet had his eyes glued to the coronal ejection. It was horrific. It was beautiful. He wished for a brief moment that some of the radiation from that brilliant tendril of living starlight could slip through the Daedalus's shields and burn the invader out of his head so he could see this clearly instead of through that fog of distance.
Now is not the time to entertain the musings of your fanciful mind, John Sheppard, Mavet retorted. He was nervous as he dug John's fingers into the shoulder of some poor young airman behind one of the control panels as the heat building up behind the shields rose.
Then ignore me.
Which was sort of funny to John. He should be the one ignoring Mavet, not the other way around. Especially with the possibility of imminent death so very near.
Near but not here. He trusted Rodney, even if Mavet didn't. But then what the hell did Mavet know? He'd only been in John's head six weeks. John had had two and a half years to get used to the different cadences of Rodney's panics.
And he was doing okay with those shields. Not great but okay. They were going to save Atlantis. Rodney's panic over the heat build-up faded into self-assured triumph.
A triumph he'd helped bring about. Even from inside his prison he was still able to make himself useful to his friends, his mission, if only abstractly.
You were useful to me as well.
Get bent, you're ruining the moment.
It is not your moment to enjoy. It is mine and my difficult human's.
He's not your human and it was my idea. You'd be a crispy critter without it.
I would have found a way, John Sheppard. I always do.
"Permission to return to Atlantis, Colonel?" Mavet asked from his safe distance away. "Dr. Weir will want a full report."
It seemed to John that Caldwell was studying them with suspicious eyes. He'd noticed something was off. The man hadn't risen as high as he had in the ranks without being canny. And for a split second, John thought that Caldwell could see through the mask of cool sanity Mavet projected to where he now lived, trapped in the dark.
But John must have been just that desperate because Caldwell didn't give any further indication that he could sense the Goa'uld from where he stood 10 feet away. Instead of calling security or buzzing the news down to Elizabeth, he nodded.
"We'll be within teleportation distance in a minute or two. Hermiod will transport you and McKay back to Atlantis as soon as we're in range."
"Cool."
Caldwell rolled his eyes and turned his attention back to his ship and his crew.
It doesn't sound right when you say it, John thought sullenly as he and Rodney appeared back on Atlantis. He usually loved the whole beaming up and down thing. He'd never actually called Hermiod Scotty but he'd thought about it one or two dozen times.
This time was different though. With the Goa'uld at the wheel, teleporting offered the briefest, strangest nanosecond of freedom, the sensation of being truly separate, before he landed back in his obelisk.
It was amazing how many things there were that he'd once loved about Atlantis which he couldn't stand now. It seemed like there were more every day.
~*~*~
"I can't believe your idiotic plan worked," Rodney remarked later after they were done debriefing.
Can't have been that idiotic then, John thought ruefully. That was the closest to a "job well done" one could expect to get from Rodney.
"My plans always work," Mavet replied. He could have been speaking as John or to John. Sometimes it was hard to tell from the inside.
Not so much from the outside.
Rodney snorted.
"Except when they fail spectacularly."
"You shouldn't underestimate me Rodney," Mavet said coolly, curling the corner of John's lips up predatorily. "I don't think you'd like what happens." He shrugged. "Then again..."
Rodney waved a dismissive hand at him and Mavet caught it by the wrist. Whatever smart comment Rodney was going to make died on his lips and they came to an abrupt halt in one of the lower-traffic corridors.
Stop.
Make me.
"Colonel-"
"That's not my name."
John isn't your name either.
"Sheppard, let me go right now or I will-"
Mavet pulled Rodney closer, and oh god, John knew that move. Helena had always liked holding him by the wrist. It was one of her signatures and she used it all the time: when they made love, to lead him through her apartment, to show him something that one day they went up to the Garden of the Gods. It was one of his favorites and now- he wondered how he could have forgotten, even for a second, who Helena had really been.
"You trust me."
"Only marginally farther than I can throw you."
"I think you trust me a lot more than that. Say my name."
It was so fucking out of character that Rodney had to know. He had to just know, John thought desperately, as Mavet crowded him into the wall.
"Did you hit your head on the control panel of the Daedalus or something? Because you're behaving like a bigger idiot than usual."
Mavet lifted his hands and planted them on the wall next to Rodney's shoulders, walling him in.
Don't you fucking dare.
Mavet leaned closer. "Say it. I want to hear it. You've never called me by it."
I swear to God-
I am your god, John Sheppard. You should not have pushed so hard to incite my wrath earlier, my lovely host. I did promise you punishment and I am nothing if not true to my word.
"If I say it will you promise to let Carson give you a CT scan?"
Mavet pressed John's body flush against Rodney's. "No."
"Sheppard-"
"John."
It's not you.
Oh, yes it is.
Rodney's eyes were wide. "You've lost your mind."
"My name is John. Say it, Rodney."
Rodney licked his lips nervously. Mavet grinned. And John was drowning in a rage so intense he could barely think.
"Okay...John...what the hell is going on with you?"
Please. Please, don't.
John hadn't realized he was ready to beg. He'd been so sure he was stronger than that. But the first rule of torture was that, eventually, everyone breaks.
John had only been waiting to hear Rodney say his name for years. It was only something he'd been thinking about for months. One syllable was all it took for something black and foul inside John to crack open like a rotten egg.
And just like that, John lost.
Mavet laughed, out loud and in John's head, and pressed harder. It had to hurt a little but there was a bright light in Rodney's eyes that wasn't just fear.
"We almost died today," he pointed out.
"Would that that were something novel," Rodney lamented, his eyes darting around the empty hallway.
"So maybe I'm done waiting."
"For what?"
It is almost too easy, Mavet mused as he lowered his mouth to Rodney's. It is too easy.
John wanted to vomit. Or scream. Or hit something. Or cry. Mostly he wanted to cry.
Mavet's grip on Rodney's wrist tightened when Rodney's free hand came up to hold the back of John's neck. He mumbled something about his 'stupid hair' into John's mouth as he kissed Mavet back with shocking enthusiasm.
You could have had him a hundred times, John Sheppard, Mavet hissed. A hundred times. He bends to us. You will feel it as I do.
Mavet slid John's free hand down to rest on the column of Rodney's throat. It wouldn't take much pressure to crush the life out of him if that was what Mavet wanted. And underneath the sizzle of physical want was the smallest threat of that violence.
Rodney finally pulled back, gasping for breath. But Mavet didn't give him a chance to do more than pant before he was kissing him again, pushing them down the hall as they went.
It was strange how John felt it. It was like a tactile version of that game Telephone, and he was the fifth or sixth recipient of the message. He got it, the sensation, but it was garbled and wrong from being processed by someone else first.
Lie back and think of England. Or whatever. John's cognitive process had sort of stalled as Mavet found an open door, pushed them into an empty room-a closet of some kind-and began to tear at Rodney's clothes with John's fingers.
It was a spectacularly bad idea on Mavet's part. Anyone could find them. The door didn't have a lock.
But no one would, John realized with a resignation that was starting to feel tragically familiar. No one was coming to save him from this. Mavet had been using him for weeks and there was no reason for him to stop now, nothing that could make him want to.
The pain that echoed through John as Rodney just...melted into Mavet did nothing to stop his captor. If anything it spurred more enthusiasm in the questing motions of his hands and mouth and hips, pulling response after hot response out of Rodney.
"Kneel," Mavet growled and Rodney jerked away at that.
"Was that a command?" Rodney demanded, halfway between really turned on and really offended.
Mavet started. It was the closest he'd come to dropping the character of John Sheppard and he dug, John could feel him do it, into old memories and old conversations with other people in similar situations.
"I...I'm not great with-" Mavet waved a hand in an inclusive gesture.
Mavet was more than capable of demanding and taking exactly what he wanted, of course. The Goa'uld had lived as a god once, wringing his desires out of the willing and unwilling alike. But the old methods weren't the right ones for this and he knew it.
John wished he didn't. John wished a lot of things really, as Rodney rolled his eyes and shook his head. Mostly he wished his self-proclaimed genius would have the good sense to get the fuck out. To run. Run far away and stay there because this was wrong. It was so fucking wrong John could barely grasp it.
But Rodney's good sense had never revolved around the interpersonal.
"A please wouldn't hurt you."
Mavet grinned so hard that John could feel it hurt.
"Here?"
"If you're nice about it. What's the magic word?"
"Please."
"See, how hard was that?"
"Says the man who uses it once every decade."
"Well, most things don't warrant it."
Mavet licked his lips, enjoying more than the physical aspect of all this. He'd told John in the beginning, back when he'd had more hope and defiance and smart comments, that he loved a challenge. It seemed that held true with Rodney now.
John just cringed and tried to keep his thoughts from heading in the direction of pleading. It would get John nowhere because that would be giving Mavet exactly what he wanted.
It wasn't easy because the only other things he could think about were the way Rodney's uniform shirt had come off and how his lips felt, even through that horrible distortion, on his skin. Mavet glued his gaze to Rodney's lips and John was unable to look away as Rodney took him in his mouth.
He'd fantasized about this for years. It had gone down a hundred ways in his head. But now that it was happening, John felt like he was back in Helena's apartment, covered in blood, afraid and powerless, seconds away from losing himself.
It was revolting, how it wasn't John that Rodney was really touching. The way Rodney was being deceived was the worst lie John had ever been involved in, willingly or otherwise. A surge of hatred boiled through John for the damn snake who was taking this, raping John from the inside out with a willing partner.
You want this.
No, I don't.
You have for many months. Now we have it. Do you not feel this pleasure, this power over him? I have watched your face go slack with pleasure many times, wondered how you felt. You feel it now, as you did with the female only this is better, more.
The worst was that John did. It was sex without a body. The tendrils of sensory input he received - the feel of Rodney's tongue, lips, and teeth, the feel of the skin on his shoulders under his hands, the taste of blood where Mavet had bitten John's lip - were like a funhouse mirror reflection of what should have happened.
Watching Rodney suck him was beautiful but it made his soul feel grimy and, for some reason, deeply guilty. His body hadn't even climaxed yet and John was tired in a deep place he hadn't known he had.
The way Mavet fisted his hands just-this-side of cruelly in Rodney's hair, however, that was going to haunt him. Big time. Which, John realized as the resonance of orgasm floated to his little prison, was exactly what Mavet was aiming for.
~*~*~
Part three...
Series: Stargate Atlantis
Part:2/4
Pairings: McKay/Sheppard, Sheppard/Other
Word Count: 29,623
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Dark Themes
A/N: This was written for the mcshep_match.Written for Team Angst, the prompt: Prisoner of War. It should have been up ages ago but I am both lazy and forgetful. Thank you kitt for reminding me.
Summary: How can you be rescued if no one knows you're gone?
John hadn't cried since he was ten years old. In his defense, he'd broken his arm pretty badly jumping out of that tree.
He shouldn't have let Billy Hodgson and his little brother, whose name he'd forgotten years ago, talk him into climbing the damn thing in the first place. He blamed it on the fact that his dad had just gotten stationed at Hurlburt Field in Eglin Air Force Base a couple weeks earlier and the fact that there was nothing in Mary Ester but trees and that in almost a month, the only kids he'd met were the two brothers who lived down the street.
It was his dad's first relocation since his mom died and going from just outside Los Angeles to a little town in north Florida had been the hardest move of his life. And at the time he had just desperately wanted the Hodgson brothers to like him.
It turned out they had liked him okay, and probably would have even if he hadn't climbed that stupid tree. Billy helped him stagger home but his dad had been at work or on a test flight or something, so he'd waited.
Billy had waited with him until he'd had to go home for dinner but John had stayed and waited alone, for hours, for his dad to come home. He had no idea how long he'd spent, sitting perfectly still on the brand new couch, trying not to breathe too hard so as not to jostle his arm. But around ten at night he'd started to think his dad wasn't going to come home at all and the tears he'd been holding back since he hurt himself had all come out at once.
Which was of course when Robert Sheppard had walked in the door. He was clearly shocked to find his only child not only still awake at the late hour but sobbing, and injured. He had carefully pulled his son into his arms so he could lift the skinny boy off the couch and carry him out to the car. He'd called him Johnny, like he used to before she died, and told him that he was going to be okay. At the time John had kind of lost it.
It wasn't the worst injury he had had in the years since. But he'd stopped crying by the time they got to the emergency room and he hadn't really cried since that night.
He'd shed a few tears when Dex and Mitch died and when his father passed, but his grieving tended to involve quality time slamming his fists into the nearest object. Wall. Punching bag. The face of an off-duty marine. That was almost always followed closely by going out and getting drunk for a couple days before pushing the loss as far out of his mind as he could and getting the hell on with his life.
So the fact that all he really wanted to do was cry like the ten-year-old he'd once been was saying something.
He couldn't help the feeling. The situation was just so completely out of his control it that it left him with a strange sense of fragility. And he couldn't escape that reality as he watched his friends laugh and talk with Mavet over dinner.
Carson was smiling and teasing and Rodney made snippy comments and Elizabeth was just Elizabeth and they were all so happy to see each other and him. They were happy to see him and yet they couldn't tell that it wasn't him.
He'd known, of course he had, since the moment he was taken. But up until that dinner, John had been positive they'd be able to tell. He'd been so certain of it that he'd been willing to wait and almost indulge the Goa'uld.
Now, the reality of how hopeless things were crashed in on him all at once, like they had that night in his living room in their house in Mary Ester.
They couldn't see that he was gone. And how the hell were they going to save him if they didn't know he was gone?
Answer? They weren't.
They were going to go on with their lives, blithely ignorant until the alien using John's body as its own personal Gundam mecha turned around and killed them. And they would never know until his hands squeezed the breath from their lungs.
John had never been the suicidal type. Sure if the situation called for it, if lives could be saved by his sacrifice, he was the first on the front lines. He'd never been tempted by a straight razor or a bottle of pain killers or anything like that though. But this was the first time it occurred to him that maybe Mavet hadn't been lying about Helena wanting to die.
Because there was no point in trying to scream. It just entertained Mavet, gave him some kind of sick rush or something. And all of John's attempts to distract him just didn't work. Nothing worked and all John could do was watch, whether he wanted to or not.
That was the worst. Worse than the powerlessness. Worse than the paralysis. Worse even than knowing, even if it was only in the vaguest sense, what the Goa'uld was planning, was having to watch everything.
He didn't want to look at Elizabeth's smiling face or the laughter lines around Carson's eyes. He didn't want to see Rodney scowling as they rehashed the Cadman Incident. He couldn't reach them and he'd have given anything not to have to watch as they proceeded on with their relatively normal existences.
He especially didn't want to have to witness the moment his life came back for him and he wasn't there to live it. Their phones went off and from the first ring John knew.
Before Mavet answered the call, he knew what it was. And so Mavet knew it too. The bastard was like Tyler Durden in Fight Club but not as likeable or attractive.
John decided he needed to stop knowing things. Just, pfft, wipe out his entire brain and reboot. He'd be less dangerous if he could start from scratch with a clean hard drive for a brain, instead of one that knew how to infiltrate the SGC, sneak into the Pegasus Galaxy, and pilot pretty much every military helo ever built and, of course, Lantean puddlejumpers.
He'd never had much luck when it came to getting what he wanted though. So why should anything change now?
Are you not happy to return to Pegasus, John Sheppard? Mavet asked as they emerged on the other side of the stargate. His hands flexed on the jumper controls almost sexually. I know how you have missed your home. The Goa'uld liked flying almost as much as he did. Figured.
I'm not returning. You are.
We are one.
More like one and a half, John thought tiredly. How he could be tired without a physical form was beyond him but then it was probably all psychological. He was all psychological.
We will succeed in reclaiming the city of the Ancients, John Sheppard. I look forward to seeing if it fulfils the expectations your memories have instilled or if it surpasses them, as your Dr. McKay did.
I thought you didn't like Rodney.
Rodney was right behind him in the jumper, talking and planning, trying to rewrite the gate macro to get them to the new Athosian planet. But he was close enough to set John's body on edge, with or without Mavet's dispensation.
I do not like his insolence and his attitude. His other attributes, however, have proved most appealing. And the reaction he elicits from your body is most...favorable.
John chose not to actively reply to that. It was the only choice he had left.
.
~*~*~
Your friends have succeeded and you are returned home. There is no point in attempting to lie. Did you not enjoy this?
'This' had been sneaking through his city, which at the time had been crawling with Asurans. 'This' had been using a deception that was only slightly more graceful than the plot of an I Love Lucy episode on Woolsey and O'Neill to get around the Asurans' version of the Jedi mindfuck so that his team could do what needed to be done. 'This' had been taking a big old risk and possibly getting nuked to kingdom come.
And no, John hadn't really enjoyed the process. He was a doer not a watcher. He'd wanted to be in it, for his instincts to have a chance to react, to think for himself about the situation his team was in. Instead Mavet was sucking information and experience out of his brain like a leech and using it himself.
Effectively too.
And the slug had liked it. He was Goa'uld, a violent species by nature, but Mavet liked playing war. It was a favorite game to him, the way golf was to John. Mavet had been giddy through the attack, voicing his regret that since the Asurans were replicators, they had no blood to shed.
That had freaked John out sufficiently. But the way Mavet pulled out information of how Atlantis worked for his touch, things like the chair, the crystal trays, the doors? That had been so much worse.
Because now that things had calmed down and most of the Atlantis team had returned, by the authority of the IOA, Mavet had taken to long walks through the bowels of the city. And along the way, he stopped to read.
There were some things John hadn't taken the time to learn about the Goa'uld when he'd read some of the early SGC mission reports. He'd focused on the important stuff-what they were, what kind of technology they had, who the big name players were, the difference between the Goa'uld and the Tok'ra.
He hadn't noticed anything about how fast the little fuckers could learn things, like languages. Take for example, Ancient. What had taken Elizabeth months, if not years, to learn took Mavet less than 24 hours.
Rodney would have been beside himself if he knew even half the things Mavet unearthed using his species' gift for language and John's genetic make-up.
John didn't understand most of them himself but he knew enough to know that a lot of it was disgustingly hazardous. Maybe not unsafe in a boom-goes-the-solar-system sort of way but definitely if-used-wrong-could-kill-lots-of-my-friends-and-other-innocent-people type threats.
And yet at the end of each exploration, Mavet always turned off whatever he had found (if he'd turned it on to begin with) and made his way back to the main living areas of Atlantis. That confused the hell out of John.
I thought you Goa'uld wanted to kill us all.
No, not all of you. And certainly not you, my host. Your people will have their uses yet. When the time is right.
Whatever the hell that meant.
Mavet almost always responded when John tried to communicate with him. His answers weren't always helpful. In fact they were typically hateful or cruel but they were usually relevant.
It puzzled John but he'd learned in the weeks since reclaiming Atlantis that while Mavet wasn't playing with what you'd call a full deck, he had enough cards to be seriously dangerous. The guy was hundreds of years old, scary loyal to that Ba'al dude, and had infinite, maddening patience.
Also? He had a really fucked up sense of humor.
Whether or not John actively responded didn't make a difference to Mavet. All the snake had to do was dig up a particularly nasty memory-his mother's viewing was a favorite of Mavet's-and wait for John to react. While John was reacting less spectacularly than he had in the first couple weeks, certain things got to him every time. And whenever that happened, he could hear that laughter.
He was bored, too. A lot. There was nothing to touch or feel or do for hours on end. He had a front row seat for whatever Mavet chose to look at and he could hear what was going on outside in the real world he used to live in, though it was usually little more than an echo, as if it came from far away and down a long hallway. But that was about it.
He complained about it. Loudly. Often. And sometimes in the form of song. Patrick Swayze had the right idea with that whole Henry the Eighth song. It was deeply irritating and went on forever like the Song That Doesn't End, also a classic.
But John got the feeling that one of the plethora of things that Mavet could do in his head that he couldn't was tune out. And there were times, especially when Mavet was with Teyla or Rodney, when John actually envied him that.
That envy was scary as hell because, John realized, it meant he was getting used to living like this, a captive in his own skull. It meant that his consciousness was trying to prepare itself to settle in for the long haul. And with a Goa'uld, if the mission reports he'd read back on earth were to be believed, that haul could last hundreds of years, sometimes thousands.
Mavet's caress on his mind as that realization dawned was part affectionate and part vindictively triumphant. Clever host, he murmured. I do so love how clever you are, John Sheppard. It pleases me greatly.
Go fuck yourself.
Mavet glanced across the mess to the table where Rodney sat with Radek. They were bickering, animatedly, probably about how Rodney was against redistribution of two of the three Asuran ZPMs.
There had been emails to Elizabeth. Lots of them, she'd said through gritted teeth. Rodney was unwavering in his conviction though, his hands were waving in the air and his voice was just loud enough to be heard from the other side of the hall but not understood.
Why would I do that... when there are options available that are so much more pleasurable?
That dirty feeling, the one Mavet's presence had left on his belongings back in Colorado, was back with a vengeance. It hit harder than ever and coated every aspect of John's awareness.
I will tear you apart, with my bare hands so help me God if you so much as touch-
Be still, John Sheppard, Mavet commanded, taking a bite of the not-steak they were serving today. It is what we want. You know this to be true. I plan to take only what we want. For now.
It's not yours to take, damn you.
Mavet laughed at that, barely keeping it internal. John's shoulders shook slightly at the stifled chuckles. Do not be foolish. I have been given dispensation by Ba'al to take what I desire as I ready this galaxy for his eventual conquest. Everything in the Pegasus Galaxy is mine to seize and use as I see fit. Everything.
~*~*~
Rodney named the whale Sam. Of course he did. It was always about Sam-freaking-antha Carter. If her technological advancements hadn't saved their asses on a few occasions, John really would have been able to dislike her more.
This once, though, she gave John bright, sharp hope on a more personal level.
Rodney was fixated on Sam Carter, a brilliant, blonde, female scientist. His opposite in pretty much everything but military service. That proclivity for women of the tall, blonde persuasion was great news for the first time since John had woken up and smelled Rodney's coffee two years ago, trapped in a quarantine with Teyla while a deadly virus threatened to destroy Rodney's hyper-brilliant brain.
John was counting on that obsession. He was depending on it to protect Rodney. Mavet had too much to lose to try and force the situation and if Rodney was straight then that'd be the end of it.
But Rodney kept looking for him to talk about that huge, stupid whale/fish/flagi-whatever thing. And Mavet was only too happy to indulge him.
Snakeboy had stolen the idea to take him whale-watching in the jumper from one of John's standard fantasies. It was an old one involving the bench seats in the back that didn't contain Rodney every time, but always featured someone on the Atlantis mission. The weirdest one had featured Heightmeyer and Radek, simultaneously, but John had known better than to try and analyze that one.
Rodney was surprised by the idea, stuttering and trailing after Mavet as he followed the shortest path to the jumper bay, mapped courtesy of John's memories. But he'd seemed more than enthusiastic about it which wasn't particularly shocking.
It was a good idea, the whale-watching plan. It was off the beaten track yet strangely intimate; the sort of thing people did on dates. Yeah, it wasn't a ride on a Ferris wheel but still. It was pretty cool.
Now if only it wasn't so spectacularly unfair that Mavet got be the first one to pilot a jumper recreationally underwater since Rodney's brush with watery death. There was no way he could possibly appreciate this the way John did, not even if he was feeling what John was at the very moment the jumper hit the water.
He wanted so much to have been there alone, just the two of them instead of a crowd of three. He wanted to contribute something, anything, to get in the way of the, albeit platonic, intimacy that Mavet had stolen from him by sliding so effortlessly into the role of Rodney's close friend.
At least he did until the pain came.
It rolled through John like a wave and Mavet cursed in a strange curling language that was sort of like Arabic but not really. It wasn't out loud or aimed at John directly.
It was just there, floating in the ether and John picked it up. Along with the panic.
A little worried there, pal?
You will be silent, Mavet snapped, his eyes focused on the whales and on Rodney.
Yeah, no, I don't think so. I think we might need to have a little chat. You seem a little on edge there, slithers. Problems in biped land? You know if you can't handle the limbs, you can just hand the reins back over and I'll take care of it for you. I've got more than thirty years of experience with this model.
Mavet's hands tightened on the controls, his fingers flexing in time with the wave of vibrating pain that echoed through John's skull. Not a happy camper at all and if Rodney had a chance to realize he'd developed a nosebleed and started going ballistic old Scaly would be even less happy.
He's bleeding.
I can see that, human.
Human? No pet names today? Someone's testy. Go on, say something. Tell him. Help him. If he freaks out, you're going to have to deal with him.
Do not give me orders, host. I will do as I please when I please. It is my will that allows you to communicate with me and you would do well to remember that.
You're a bigger bitch than my ex-wife.
Mavet did not answer. He could have been ignoring John, of course, but John would have laid money that he was just distracted. But he finally, though it had probably only been a few seconds, commented on the blood slowly leaking from Rodney's nose.
From there it was only a couple minutes before Rodney's head hit the console and the blood started leaking from John's ears.
Mavet stared at the red liquid for a second, transfixed by it. It was almost as if he'd never seen blood before, when he'd all but reveled in its presence in the ghoulish arena of Helena's bathroom. John would have given a lot to know what the hell he was thinking in those moments before he took the jumper out of the water and radioed for help.
If he had to guess, he'd lean towards the pain and the silence being the top of Mavet's priorities.
John himself could hear almost nothing. The rare muffled noises sliding their way down that long corridor to him were the only sounds from the outside he'd had since the bleeding started. So Mavet's hearing was probably only slightly better.
And then there was that pain. It had receded as they got farther away from the whales but it was still there, sharp and angry in the quiet and making Mavet the most agitated John had ever felt him.
So John took that opportunity to shut right the fuck up and give the snake a taste of his own medicine.
He'd never been the strong, silent type. He was the smarmy, mouthy type and had been since high school, when it had become apparent that he wasn't going to be growing in time to avoid regular beatings from the senior bullies. It was part of the reason he used to get on so well with General O'Neill. He couldn't just stop being who he was because he was trapped in a prison that made the accommodations in Papillon look appealing.
But he'd focused, hard, on thinking as close to nothing as possible during those long hours in the infirmary. Because Mavet could pick up on anything, any stray thought, so John brought one of his more useless and uninteresting skills to the forefront. He counted to 20 in the Farsi he'd learned before shipping out to Afghanistan so many times in those six hours he lost track.
It was only right, John decided, only just that his captor find out what it was like to be cut off from the kind of contact he wanted. And with his hearing impaired, even for the relatively short time it took for the Goa'uld to heal John's damaged eardrums, Mavet was, in a sense, almost as deprived of contact as John.
A prospect that did not make Mavet happy. The Goa'uld was not a fan of boredom.
You will respond.
Yek, dow, seh, chahar...
I will not indulge your friend again. His curiosity is dangerous and cannot be trusted.
Panj, shesh, haft, hast...
I rather hope that he does not heal quickly. He is far more entertaining deaf. It changes nothing of his character. Do you think he ever listened?
Noh, dah, yazdah, davâzdah...
Do you honestly believe that this will work, John Sheppard? That something as simple as reciting numerals in a local Tau'ri language of a culture for whose ancestors I was once the God of Death will stop me from digging into the deepest places in your soul?
Sizdah, chahârdah, pahardah, shanzdah, hefdah...
Do you think that I will not find what you hide from these people you claim to love, the images and wants and fears that you repress? I will wrench them from you and paint this city with them if you do not answer me now, John Sheppard.
Hezdah, nuzdah, bist. Right. Back to one. Yek, dow...
You have made a grievous error in judgment this day, my lovely host. I show you great mercy in giving you one last chance to rectify it, to show me the respect that I deserve and to heed me when I call upon you.
Seh. Chahar. Panj.
You told me once you were a good counter, John Sheppard. It seems you were far more literal than I believed at the time. I remember the way your lips moved as you spoke, strong and soft. I chose you then, with your skin warm beneath my touch.
John faltered. Six. Six came next. Panj was five so what was six and god, he really couldn't think about Helena right now so six. Six in Farsi was what? He knew it. He did. Six.
Haft. No. Haft was seven. Shesh was six, haft was seven. Then hast, then noh. Like riding a bike. Dah was ten and then yazdah was eleven. Because one was yek and dah was ten. So yazdah, eleven. Davâzdah was twelve.
You will regret your defiance soon,Mavet promised softly as sound began to filter back into John's quiet little cell. He was healing himself. When I am once again safe from these beasts, you will be sorry. This I vow.
Sizdah, chahârdah, pahardah, John recited. He'd learned more Farsi when he was in Afghanistan. Things like 'Where's the bathroom?', 'I'd like to buy that,' and 'What do you mean you don't serve alcohol? What kind of country doesn't have beer?' But things like that required thinking.
So he kept counting, right up until the moment the sound clicked back on and he could hear Rodney, and his own voice, talking again.
By that point, he had more interesting things to focus on than 1 through 20. Things like sentient, talking whale-fishes, an imminent solar flare, and how to keep from dying in the radiation blast it was going to emit.
Although who put a planet close enough to a sun for that to be a problem anyway? That was really bad planning on the Ancients' part, John thought. And as pissed off as he still was, Mavet agreed.
~*~*~
For the record, the Daedalus shield thing was his idea, not Mavet's. He had the idea before the news of the coronal mass ejection was relayed to Elizabeth. He got the idea the first time the information about the Adaris and the Ancients' shield implantation filtered through to him and Mavet had railed at his very thought.
The Goa'uld was against being on or near the Daedalus. And it wasn't because this could be, hell probably was, a complete suicide mission. Mavet, strangely, was of the opinion that John's plan would work. No, his concern revolved around an almost violent insistence that he not be in proximity to the Daedalus' commander.
It's that or die. I'm cool with dying though. Anything to make you go away.
We will not die, John Sheppard. I can heal this body of any damage it could sustain from beneath the city's shields. I will not be compromised to save the lives of some aquatic fauna and the humans left on this planet's mainland.
Compromised? Letting people die is going to compromise you more than whatever the hell you think Caldwell is going to do. I wouldn't let them just die. You know that and you know that if you're going to keep being me 'til your sugar daddy is ready to take over Pegasus, you can't let them die either.
They'll know something's wrong. You might as well turn on the glowy eyes and creepy voice right now if that's your plan. But hey, if that's the way you want to play it, go for it.
Pester me no more, John Sheppard.
Rodney's little "mass-extinction" "no breathable air" speech did a better job of changing Mavet's mind. He was a little more willing to risk being around Caldwell with a clearer understanding of how very dead he could end up being, shield or no shield.
However, he'd stayed at least two yards away from Caldwell at all times on the Daedalus. He'd skirted the edge of the control room, twitching with what the rest of the crew must have assumed were nerves over the latest and greatest Crazy Sheppard Plan.
But John could feel, vicariously, the low buzz in Mavet just being near Caldwell.
It's because he was a host.
Clever.
So you've mentioned, John said as Rodney ranted and panicked over the intercom.
Mavet had his eyes glued to the coronal ejection. It was horrific. It was beautiful. He wished for a brief moment that some of the radiation from that brilliant tendril of living starlight could slip through the Daedalus's shields and burn the invader out of his head so he could see this clearly instead of through that fog of distance.
Now is not the time to entertain the musings of your fanciful mind, John Sheppard, Mavet retorted. He was nervous as he dug John's fingers into the shoulder of some poor young airman behind one of the control panels as the heat building up behind the shields rose.
Then ignore me.
Which was sort of funny to John. He should be the one ignoring Mavet, not the other way around. Especially with the possibility of imminent death so very near.
Near but not here. He trusted Rodney, even if Mavet didn't. But then what the hell did Mavet know? He'd only been in John's head six weeks. John had had two and a half years to get used to the different cadences of Rodney's panics.
And he was doing okay with those shields. Not great but okay. They were going to save Atlantis. Rodney's panic over the heat build-up faded into self-assured triumph.
A triumph he'd helped bring about. Even from inside his prison he was still able to make himself useful to his friends, his mission, if only abstractly.
You were useful to me as well.
Get bent, you're ruining the moment.
It is not your moment to enjoy. It is mine and my difficult human's.
He's not your human and it was my idea. You'd be a crispy critter without it.
I would have found a way, John Sheppard. I always do.
"Permission to return to Atlantis, Colonel?" Mavet asked from his safe distance away. "Dr. Weir will want a full report."
It seemed to John that Caldwell was studying them with suspicious eyes. He'd noticed something was off. The man hadn't risen as high as he had in the ranks without being canny. And for a split second, John thought that Caldwell could see through the mask of cool sanity Mavet projected to where he now lived, trapped in the dark.
But John must have been just that desperate because Caldwell didn't give any further indication that he could sense the Goa'uld from where he stood 10 feet away. Instead of calling security or buzzing the news down to Elizabeth, he nodded.
"We'll be within teleportation distance in a minute or two. Hermiod will transport you and McKay back to Atlantis as soon as we're in range."
"Cool."
Caldwell rolled his eyes and turned his attention back to his ship and his crew.
It doesn't sound right when you say it, John thought sullenly as he and Rodney appeared back on Atlantis. He usually loved the whole beaming up and down thing. He'd never actually called Hermiod Scotty but he'd thought about it one or two dozen times.
This time was different though. With the Goa'uld at the wheel, teleporting offered the briefest, strangest nanosecond of freedom, the sensation of being truly separate, before he landed back in his obelisk.
It was amazing how many things there were that he'd once loved about Atlantis which he couldn't stand now. It seemed like there were more every day.
~*~*~
"I can't believe your idiotic plan worked," Rodney remarked later after they were done debriefing.
Can't have been that idiotic then, John thought ruefully. That was the closest to a "job well done" one could expect to get from Rodney.
"My plans always work," Mavet replied. He could have been speaking as John or to John. Sometimes it was hard to tell from the inside.
Not so much from the outside.
Rodney snorted.
"Except when they fail spectacularly."
"You shouldn't underestimate me Rodney," Mavet said coolly, curling the corner of John's lips up predatorily. "I don't think you'd like what happens." He shrugged. "Then again..."
Rodney waved a dismissive hand at him and Mavet caught it by the wrist. Whatever smart comment Rodney was going to make died on his lips and they came to an abrupt halt in one of the lower-traffic corridors.
Stop.
Make me.
"Colonel-"
"That's not my name."
John isn't your name either.
"Sheppard, let me go right now or I will-"
Mavet pulled Rodney closer, and oh god, John knew that move. Helena had always liked holding him by the wrist. It was one of her signatures and she used it all the time: when they made love, to lead him through her apartment, to show him something that one day they went up to the Garden of the Gods. It was one of his favorites and now- he wondered how he could have forgotten, even for a second, who Helena had really been.
"You trust me."
"Only marginally farther than I can throw you."
"I think you trust me a lot more than that. Say my name."
It was so fucking out of character that Rodney had to know. He had to just know, John thought desperately, as Mavet crowded him into the wall.
"Did you hit your head on the control panel of the Daedalus or something? Because you're behaving like a bigger idiot than usual."
Mavet lifted his hands and planted them on the wall next to Rodney's shoulders, walling him in.
Don't you fucking dare.
Mavet leaned closer. "Say it. I want to hear it. You've never called me by it."
I swear to God-
I am your god, John Sheppard. You should not have pushed so hard to incite my wrath earlier, my lovely host. I did promise you punishment and I am nothing if not true to my word.
"If I say it will you promise to let Carson give you a CT scan?"
Mavet pressed John's body flush against Rodney's. "No."
"Sheppard-"
"John."
It's not you.
Oh, yes it is.
Rodney's eyes were wide. "You've lost your mind."
"My name is John. Say it, Rodney."
Rodney licked his lips nervously. Mavet grinned. And John was drowning in a rage so intense he could barely think.
"Okay...John...what the hell is going on with you?"
Please. Please, don't.
John hadn't realized he was ready to beg. He'd been so sure he was stronger than that. But the first rule of torture was that, eventually, everyone breaks.
John had only been waiting to hear Rodney say his name for years. It was only something he'd been thinking about for months. One syllable was all it took for something black and foul inside John to crack open like a rotten egg.
And just like that, John lost.
Mavet laughed, out loud and in John's head, and pressed harder. It had to hurt a little but there was a bright light in Rodney's eyes that wasn't just fear.
"We almost died today," he pointed out.
"Would that that were something novel," Rodney lamented, his eyes darting around the empty hallway.
"So maybe I'm done waiting."
"For what?"
It is almost too easy, Mavet mused as he lowered his mouth to Rodney's. It is too easy.
John wanted to vomit. Or scream. Or hit something. Or cry. Mostly he wanted to cry.
Mavet's grip on Rodney's wrist tightened when Rodney's free hand came up to hold the back of John's neck. He mumbled something about his 'stupid hair' into John's mouth as he kissed Mavet back with shocking enthusiasm.
You could have had him a hundred times, John Sheppard, Mavet hissed. A hundred times. He bends to us. You will feel it as I do.
Mavet slid John's free hand down to rest on the column of Rodney's throat. It wouldn't take much pressure to crush the life out of him if that was what Mavet wanted. And underneath the sizzle of physical want was the smallest threat of that violence.
Rodney finally pulled back, gasping for breath. But Mavet didn't give him a chance to do more than pant before he was kissing him again, pushing them down the hall as they went.
It was strange how John felt it. It was like a tactile version of that game Telephone, and he was the fifth or sixth recipient of the message. He got it, the sensation, but it was garbled and wrong from being processed by someone else first.
Lie back and think of England. Or whatever. John's cognitive process had sort of stalled as Mavet found an open door, pushed them into an empty room-a closet of some kind-and began to tear at Rodney's clothes with John's fingers.
It was a spectacularly bad idea on Mavet's part. Anyone could find them. The door didn't have a lock.
But no one would, John realized with a resignation that was starting to feel tragically familiar. No one was coming to save him from this. Mavet had been using him for weeks and there was no reason for him to stop now, nothing that could make him want to.
The pain that echoed through John as Rodney just...melted into Mavet did nothing to stop his captor. If anything it spurred more enthusiasm in the questing motions of his hands and mouth and hips, pulling response after hot response out of Rodney.
"Kneel," Mavet growled and Rodney jerked away at that.
"Was that a command?" Rodney demanded, halfway between really turned on and really offended.
Mavet started. It was the closest he'd come to dropping the character of John Sheppard and he dug, John could feel him do it, into old memories and old conversations with other people in similar situations.
"I...I'm not great with-" Mavet waved a hand in an inclusive gesture.
Mavet was more than capable of demanding and taking exactly what he wanted, of course. The Goa'uld had lived as a god once, wringing his desires out of the willing and unwilling alike. But the old methods weren't the right ones for this and he knew it.
John wished he didn't. John wished a lot of things really, as Rodney rolled his eyes and shook his head. Mostly he wished his self-proclaimed genius would have the good sense to get the fuck out. To run. Run far away and stay there because this was wrong. It was so fucking wrong John could barely grasp it.
But Rodney's good sense had never revolved around the interpersonal.
"A please wouldn't hurt you."
Mavet grinned so hard that John could feel it hurt.
"Here?"
"If you're nice about it. What's the magic word?"
"Please."
"See, how hard was that?"
"Says the man who uses it once every decade."
"Well, most things don't warrant it."
Mavet licked his lips, enjoying more than the physical aspect of all this. He'd told John in the beginning, back when he'd had more hope and defiance and smart comments, that he loved a challenge. It seemed that held true with Rodney now.
John just cringed and tried to keep his thoughts from heading in the direction of pleading. It would get John nowhere because that would be giving Mavet exactly what he wanted.
It wasn't easy because the only other things he could think about were the way Rodney's uniform shirt had come off and how his lips felt, even through that horrible distortion, on his skin. Mavet glued his gaze to Rodney's lips and John was unable to look away as Rodney took him in his mouth.
He'd fantasized about this for years. It had gone down a hundred ways in his head. But now that it was happening, John felt like he was back in Helena's apartment, covered in blood, afraid and powerless, seconds away from losing himself.
It was revolting, how it wasn't John that Rodney was really touching. The way Rodney was being deceived was the worst lie John had ever been involved in, willingly or otherwise. A surge of hatred boiled through John for the damn snake who was taking this, raping John from the inside out with a willing partner.
You want this.
No, I don't.
You have for many months. Now we have it. Do you not feel this pleasure, this power over him? I have watched your face go slack with pleasure many times, wondered how you felt. You feel it now, as you did with the female only this is better, more.
The worst was that John did. It was sex without a body. The tendrils of sensory input he received - the feel of Rodney's tongue, lips, and teeth, the feel of the skin on his shoulders under his hands, the taste of blood where Mavet had bitten John's lip - were like a funhouse mirror reflection of what should have happened.
Watching Rodney suck him was beautiful but it made his soul feel grimy and, for some reason, deeply guilty. His body hadn't even climaxed yet and John was tired in a deep place he hadn't known he had.
The way Mavet fisted his hands just-this-side of cruelly in Rodney's hair, however, that was going to haunt him. Big time. Which, John realized as the resonance of orgasm floated to his little prison, was exactly what Mavet was aiming for.
~*~*~
Part three...