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Betas by Anna and Regina. Indeed.
This is my first story for Nan's birthday. It's a Five Things, because that way she gets five stories and everything she asked for. Even if it kills me.
Happy Birthday, Nan.
Planet Texas
Captain Dr. Jensen Ackles rolls his eyes and hits a couple buttons on the Ancient scanner thingiemabob and pretends not to hear Dr. Beckett's nearly incomprehensible voice.
"Like I was saying before being so rudely interrupted by Dr. McKay--" Beckett's voice has the strangest cadence. It makes Captain Ackles think of trolls or dwarves, something that lives underground. "The root appears to provide both some sort of analgesic and mimics a wide-spectrum antibiotic. We should really do further testing."
Captain Ackles looks up from where he's stitching Ronon Dex's latest in the constant string of gun-shot and knife wounds, burns from tazers and stun weapons, bites, and alien snake gouges. "Uh huh." He cuts the end of the suture and looks up at his patient. "Try not to put out an eye. We can't grow those back yet."
With a slight rattle of the beads in his hair and clicking of his necklaces, Ronon Dex tilts his head to meet Captain Ackles' eyes. He lifts an eyebrow and a corner of his mouth. They know each other as well as one person who's constantly naked and hurt having himself be manhandled by the other, fully clothed, can. Which is to say, Captain Ackles has come in the last several months to understand that Ronon Dex is subtle, not stupid. Subtle is decidedly lacking around Atlantis. Hell, so is good sense and the impulse towards self-preservation.
"…and if we were to put these pills in the emergency packs we could cut down on anaphylactic shock and infection rates…" Dr. Beckett is still at it when Captain Ackles turns his ears back on.
He finishes bandaging Ronon Dex's arm, something he would have left to a nurse before Atlantis, and represses a sigh.
"You're not from their planet?" The rumble of his patient's voice makes the hair on the back of Captain Ackles' neck stand on end. He steps back, popping the latex gloves off his hands with loud snaps as Ronon Dex slides to his feet.
"Damn straight I'm not. I'm from Texas." Captain Ackles tosses his gloves in the medi-hazard bag and makes a shooting motion with his fingers at the man he knows he'd see again within a week.
"Texas," Ronon Dex mumbles, rubbing his beard.
Dr. Beckett falls into step next to Captain Ackles. "I really do worry about Sheppard's team. What do you think, Jensen, should we ground them for a week for observation? I just do not see why they always get into the trouble they do. Perhaps psych evals…"
Captain Dr. Jensen Ross Ackles, Flight Surgeon, Texan, disgruntled Marine Corps officer, and total fuck up, tunes Dr. Beckett out hoping they don't run into McKay on their way to the mess. Fuck, that guy is up Captain Ackles' persqueeter lately.
*
A lot can go wrong when you're fresh out of medical school in the military during a two-front war. For example, you can end up in the Pegasus Galaxy. That wasn't in the brochure, but neither was redacting intestines in the field with only one surgical rotation under your belt and two Army medics to help. Neither was accidentally stumbling on all that alien worm nonsense and getting sent to bumfuck Antarctica for your troubles. Hello, fucking alien worms!
Captain Ackles isn't sure what's worse, Iraq or cocksucking Atlantis. On the one hand, he was shot, kidnapped, and forced to do a C-section on some mullah's wife through a sheet, and had to listen to Toby Keith all the time. On the other hand, he has life-sucking aliens, having to go to redneck planet after redneck planet because he has that fucking gene (goddamn it), and McKay. It's a crap shoot which is worse.
Probably the alien worms. He really hates the alien worms.
What Captain Ackles really likes is that Lt. Colonel Sheppard is even more of a fuck up than he is, and Dr. Weir is holding onto power by her bra straps, so Captain Ackles can pretty much do as he pleases in Atlantis when he's not birthing babies or curing pneumonia on Trailer Park World for a hand full of pole beans.
"Hey," Ronon Dex says as Captain Ackles sets his tray down across from him. They eat together sometimes, all the pretty girls staring at them. He's used to that, and pretty damned sure Ronon Dex…"You can call me Ronon, like everyone else."
"I wasn't sure which was your first name and which your last." Captain Ackles eats his beans and rice and watches Dr. Zelenka glaring a hole into the back of McKay's head.
"On Sateda, we have a different way of naming children than on earth." That's all he gets, so Captain Ackles lifts an eyebrow. Ronon mirrors that with a slight smile. "We don't have family names like they do." He says "they" like he actually believes Captain Ackles is from Planet Texas, which Captain Ackles knows pretty damned certainly he doesn't. Ronon likes to play games with the Atlantians. Which is fine by him, because most of them deserve it.
"Call me Jensen," Captain Dr. Jensen Ackles says to the most intimidating person in the flying fucking city in another galaxy where he now lives, and he actually feels more rapport with the guy than he has just about anyone else since he left Fallujah.
"Sounds Satedan." Ronon grabs the Jell-O off of Jensen's plate and eats it with a shit-eating grin. Jensen laughs. What could go wrong with being friends with Ronon Dex? Besides dying, of course.
*
Everyone almost dies, again. Jensen is used to that. What he's not as used to is getting upset about it.
There's kidnapping by aliens (shocker), McKay brained in the head (I'll take Self-Defense for Dummies for $500, Alex), and some kind of allergen that only affects Pegasans (what Jensen calls people from the Pegasus Galaxy).
So here's Teyla trached and her lungs filling with fluid. And there's Ronon with his eyes rolling back in his head. Oh, and for bonus points, right there is McKay barking orders as though he knows a fucking Tylenol from an anal suppository.
"Can it!" Jensen shouts over his shoulder as McKay's voice hit dogs-only range and Ronon begins to seize.
Beckett sedates McKay with what appears to be a side order of glee as Jensen tries for the fifth time to administer random Pegasan drugs to Ronon to keep him just on this side of not dead. The seizure ends. Ronon goes limp in the way that indicates lack of consciousness.
Captain Dr. Jensen Ackles' dander is way up over this. Way fucking up.
Ronon's face is far paler than usual, the moles on his cheek standing out in extreme relief. His pulse is erratic. His heart rate is far too slow.
"Is there one fucking person in this entire goddamned city with a fucking lick of sense?" Jensen shouts at Beckett as his colleague flutters around Teyla, looking shell-shocked and on the verge of tears.
"Dr. Zelenka," Beckett whispers, voice broken to bits from screaming at McKay and hollering order after order at the other doctors and various medical personnel in the infirmary.
Point. Yeah, ok, fine. One fucking person. Fine.
*
As usual, life on Atlantis is FUBAR. Weir can't lead her way off of a carousel with everyone's hands holding a fucking string like kindergarteners. She says jump and Sheppard says pie. Total bullshit.
Not that Jensen complains too much about the absolute lack of a chain of command. Ok, he totally does all the time, but he knows where his biscuit is buttered.
For example, the Terillians makes beautiful glass flasks that the chemists and botanists insist they must have for life or death experiments. Captain Dr. Jensen Ackles thinks the brew they make tastes a whole helluva lot like pomegranate juice. Ronon says it tastes like Berla Berry.
"But not blue." Ronon gulps down his fifth or sixth drink and addresses his cards with the perfect poker face he wears most of the time anyway.
"Blue Berla Berry? Now you're just yankin' our dicks." Major Lorne is a man after Jensen's heart.
Ronon's face twitches slightly, enough that Jensen knows he's totally pulling their legs.
"Case of this?" Ronon shifts a bit into Lieutenant Johnson's space.
"Sure, sure, just like always." The kid doesn't look so much intimidated as much as acting like he's intimidated because he knows he's supposed to. Which means he knows Ronon, knows Ronon doesn't just go around beating people up willy-nilly. Ok, so, usually not Atlantians anyway.
If Ronon knows the brew masters, that explains why Sheppard's team is always getting fucked to hell and back. They must be drunk all the time.
*
Life on Atlantis is on disaster after another, Wraith and traitorous redneck Pegasans and Genii and idiot SGC morons trying to poke their noses in where they don't belong (goddamn Air Force pansies).
Jensen, though, like everyone, is a multitasker. His strong suit is emergency medicine (and everyone on Atlantis can thank God for that), but he also knows a thing or two about orthopedics since he had intended to be an orthopedic surgeon before the fucking war. Carson is a genius with genetics, and Jensen acknowledges that with respect and deferral on all things theory, but they both know that while Beckett might have the Florence Nightingale touch, Jensen is the GP, the one who sets the bones and triages sprains and picks glass out of people's eyes.
Jensen never thought for one second he'd be practically responsible for the daily health of an entire city before he was thirty. Hell, his parents had never even trusted him to take care of the family pets when they went out of town.
He's leaning his face against the cool glass of the opiate cabinet when he smells Ronon behind him. His smell is distinct, not unpleasant. The gunk he uses in his dreads--like cocoa butter--and leather and something Pegasan.
"You need to eat."
What Jensen needs is a whole new life where two entire off-world teams aren't nearly incinerated by alien fireworks.
Maybe also a steak.
Ronon's hand can almost go all the way around Jensen's bicep, which is a weird feeling. Jensen's not a small guy and he's not used to having to look up at someone or realize that he really couldn't take another man in a fair fight. He's a physician, but he's also been in more than his share of hand-to-hand combat and fire fights. Fallujah, Kabul, Wraith hive ships.
To be honest, Jensen couldn't even take Ronon in a dirty fight. Jensen wonders if Ronon could have made it to the NFL if he had been born on Planet Texas. Probably.
Damn, he's fucking exhausted.
"Something funny?" There's a hint of amusement in Ronon's tone. His hand is steadily pulling Jensen down the hall towards the mess.
"Just wondering what position you would have played in football." He rubs his fingers against the stubble on his cheeks. How long has he been working? Ten hours? Fifteen?
"Offensive Guard." Ronon's fingers clench tighter and there's laughter under his words. His necklaces and beads click and Jensen doesn't even bother to ask how he knows that. "Sheppard likes football."
Of course he does. Actually, when he thinks about it, he knew that. When he thinks about it, he knows a lot about everyone on Atlantis: Weir hates ice tea, Zelenka steals the squeezable cheese out of everyone's MREs, Cadman runs seven miles every night, Beckett can sing the entirety of Pirates of Penzance from start to finish, McKay misses his cat, and Ronon and Jensen are friends.
"Huh," Jensen says as they disengage to walk through the mess doors.
"Yeah," Ronon replies.
*
This was the most self-indulgent of these and something I *had* to write in order to get to the rest of the stories.
I love you, Nanigans, I'm sorry. At least it has Ronon and imagine Jensen with his bitch-face on in a Marine Corp dress uniform *he's got his hat under his arm and is about to start screaming at someone*.