Fledgeling - SGA fic for au100
Title: Fledgeling
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters: John Sheppard (AU)
Prompt: Beginnings
Word Count: 2977 per MS Word
Rating: PG
Author's Notes: A number of people have had wingy!John ideas -- I didn't intentionally copy any of them -- I have a rather long history of giving people wings (Including Derek Rayne and Lex Luthor). And yes, this is totally unbetaed. It's crackfic -- no, I haven't even figured out how this could happen -- there is no feasable science here, so if that annoys you, go away!
Fledgeling
by Penemuel
He didn't really think anything of it when they called him out to the newly explored lab to initialize a device no one else had been able to. He was getting pretty used to that part of 'other duties as assigned', and sometimes even allowed himself a small bit of smugness over it.
So, when the machine flared to life and surrounded him in a blue-green glow and everything went white for a moment, all he managed to say was "What the--?" And then he awoke to find Rodney and Beckett staring down at him with worried, wide-eyed expressions.
"Are you all right?" Beckett asked, while Rodney looked nervous.
He tried to sit up and winced as his head throbbed, but nodded, "Yeah, 'm'okay. Just a bit of a headache. What happened?"
"You've been out for over five minutes!" Rodney blurted, "We couldn't figure out what it did to you!"
"Wonderful. And you know, now?" he asked, his hopeful expression fading as Beckett shook his head.
"There doesn't seem to be any damage -- I'd like to keep you in the infirmary for a few hours, just for observation, though."
* * *
After four hours, Beckett had to admit he couldn't find any reason to keep Sheppard any longer, and sent him back to his quarters with some ibuprofen for his headache and strict instructions to call him immediately if any odd symptoms arose. He had kicked Rodney out after the first hour, complaining that he was hindering both his concentration and the Major's recovery, and didn't he have an unknown Ancient device to figure out, anyway?
Sheppard left Rodney a message that he was going to turn in early, try to sleep off his headache, and if they needed him to do anything else with any other devices, it could just wait until morning. Then he gulped down a dose of ibuprofen, stripped and tumbled into bed without even eating dinner, and slept like the dead all night.
In the morning, three things filtered through his hazy mind: one, sun was streaming through the windows of his quarters and from a surprisingly high angle. Two, his alarm was halfway across the room, where he had to assume he had either batted it or thrown it when it went off. Three, his back ached.
When he finally managed to sit up, biting back a yelp at the pain that throbbed with every movement, he fumbled for his headset and keyed it to the infirmary. "Doctor Beckett, there's something wrong," he said, his voice gravelly. "I don't know what it is, but my back hurts. A lot."
"I'll be right there, Major!" the doctor answered, and that was that.
He knew he should call in, contact Elizabeth and explain that he'd be up and around as soon as he could, but instead, he found himself contacting Rodney. "Major?!" the concerned voice answered.
"Yeah, Rodney, it's me. Look -- have you had any luck figuring out what that thing does?" He tried to keep the pain out of his voice, but it didn't seem to be working at all.
"No -- why? What's wrong? Has it done something to you? I'll be there in a minute -- don't go anywhere!"
Once again, he had to marvel at Rodney's ability to speak so quickly -- somehow the man's mouth actually managed to keep up with his brain, which was more than he could say for his own, because he realized that was his own voice bellowing out a string of curses as he stretched and pain lanced through his shoulders. And on the other end of the headset, Rodney was asking, "Major? Major?! Hang on, we'll be there in just a minute!"
Rodney and Beckett must have run into each other in the corridor because when his door opened, they were both there, Rodney with his eyes wide in near-panic and Beckett looking concerned and doctorly. And for some reason, when they both looked at him, they became even more concerned, and hurried over to his bed.
"Major?" Rodney asked, reaching out to touch his forehead then pulling his hand back before he did so. "Carson, what's wrong with him?!"
"I look that bad, huh?" he managed to ask, a failed attempt at humour as another surge of pain rippled through him and he nearly doubled over. "OhFUCKthathurts!"
"Oh crap!" Rodney muttered as Beckett frowned and quietly ordered him to lie down on his stomach. The fact that he obeyed without question proved how serious the pain was, and the way Rodney's eyes were going wider in fear wasn't helping him relax at all. "What's wrong with him? What's going on?!" Rodney pushed, and he found himself trying to nod.
"Yeah, what's wrong with me?" he asked, his voice tight with pain.
"I don't know," Beckett said, frustration making his accent even more pronounced. As he spoke, he pulled things out of the case he had brought with him, and after Rodney stopped trying to look over his shoulder and edged around to the other side of the bed to look worriedly at Sheppard, he sighed. "Rodney, go and get some towels from the Major's bathroom -- don't want to soak his bed with antiseptic."
"Oh -- of course!" Rodney nodded, then hurried into Sheppard's bathroom.
Sheppard grunted in pain and asked, "What do you need antiseptic for, Doc? What's wrong with me?"
"You've got some kind of lesions forming on your back, Major. There's some pretty serious swelling, too..."
"Whatthefuck...?" Sheppard muttered, looking up again as Rodney hurried back with towels and held them out to Beckett. "What did that machine do to me?!"
"Put those under him, along his sides, Rodney. Major, we don't know yet. But what I'm going to do next will probably hurt, a lot. You might want to bite your pillow, there, lad."
Rodney carefully slid the towels along his sides, and if he hadn't been in so much pain, he might have teased a bit about how timid Rodney seemed to be. Right now, however, his sense of humour had taken a bit of a beating, and all he could do was look up at his friend helplessly. "I can barely move, it hurts so much..." he breathed, ignoring the smell of alcohol as Beckett opened a sterile swab. And then there was a cold and wet feeling on his back and he bit his pillow, hard, as the sharp stinging sensation filtered through the other pain. He let out a groaned growl into the pillow, and heard Beckett mutter something that sounded vaguely like "That's peculiar..."
"What is?" he growled into the pillow, his entire body shaking with the pain as Beckett swabbed the other side thoroughly.
"What is it?" Rodney asked, peering down at his back while Beckett worked, an expression halfway between curious and disgusted on his face.
"I don't really know," Beckett answered, probing gently at his back again. "Major, I want to get you into the infirmary for a scan, see if we can find out what this is. And if you're still in pain, I can give you a morphine drip."
"Yeah, whatever -- god, Doc, just make it stop hurting and find out what the hell is wrong with me!"
* * *
"No, Elizabeth, I don't know what it is yet," Beckett said softly, looking back at the bed where Sheppard lay face down, floating in an opiate haze while Rodney sat nearby, worriedly looking through computer readouts. "There's some kind of growth -- not a tumor, but certainly not normal. The really peculiar thing is that it seems to be almost perfectly bilaterally symmetrical..."
"That's... a little strange, isn't it?" she asked, studying his expression, then glancing over at Sheppard.
"Very little in nature is symmetrical -- it points towards this being something that was done to him by that device, although damned if I can figure out what it is yet..."
"I'm working on it," Rodney muttered, reading his screen and frowning. "There's got to be an answer in here, somewhere..."
"Heyyy, Rodney..." Sheppard whispered, waking at the sound of his friend's voice. "Wha's goin' on? Where...?"
"You're in the infirmary, Major," Rodney answered, "And Doctor Beckett and Elizabeth are here, too."
"Ohhh. Good -- a party!" He grinned sloppily and asked, "So why're we having a party?"
"We're trying to figure out what that device did to you, Major," Rodney said slowly, as if he were trying to explain something to a small child. "You do remember the device, right?"
"Oh yeah... I 'member now. And screaming in pain - that was lots of fun -- let's not do it again, huh?"
"That's a remarkably good idea, Major," Rodney said, trying not to let his concern show. When he looked up at Sheppard, he could see fear behind the haze in his eyes, and wanted desperately to be able to make things better. "Look, why don't you go back to sleep, and let the people who are capable of thinking on a normal basis handle this, hmmn?" If he was being sarcastic, everything was normal, right?
"Rodney..." and there was far too much desperation in his voice.
"I'll figure it out, I promise," Rodney whispered, reaching out for just a moment and stroking his cheek.
"Okay..."
* * *
"You still don't have any idea what that thing did," Elizabeth said, trying to keep the accusation out of her tone. "Rodney, have you seen him?"
"Yes, Elizabeth, I have," Rodney answered, frustration and rising anger in his tone. "I've been sitting with him, trying to keep him from freaking out every time he wakes up, and trying not to worry about him becoming dependent on the drugs while he sleeps. He's in pain and he's scared, and damn it I can't figure out how to fix it and how the hell do you think that makes me feel?!"
She ducked her gaze and softly said, "I'm sorry, Rodney. I... We're all worried about him. I shouldn't have--"
"But that's just the thing, I should have figured it out by now. I just... it doesn't make any sense..."
"When was the last time you slept?"
"Well, I think I dozed off for a bit -- woke up with my face mashed into his bed earlier..."
"No, Rodney, I mean real sleep. Go back to your quarters and rest, and yes that's an order," she said firmly, worried not only about Sheppard, but Rodney, too. "I can't have you both in this state..."
"But I--"
"Rodney, sleep. You'll think more clearly when you wake up again. Go on..." her voice softened as she looked at the fear in his eyes. "We won't let anything more happen to him, I promise."
* * *
"I think I found out what it-- what's wrong? Did something happen?!" Rodney said as he walked into the infirmary and found Beckett, Zelenka, Teyla, and Elizabeth clustered as far from Sheppard's bed as possible and discussing things in hushed tones.
"Rodney, there's been a development..." Beckett said softly, and before any of them could stop him, Rodney was hurrying over to Sheppard's bedside where he stopped short. And stared.
After a long moment, he turned back to the group and mouthed, "What the--?" Beckett nodded, and he actually paused to rub his eyes, but what he saw in front of him didn't change. "Major?"
Sheppard looked up with hazy eyes and gave him a weak smile. "Hey, Rodney, come to see the show?" It was obvious he was still on the pain killers, but a much lower dose than the days before. The lesions, which had at one point seemed like great gaping wounds on his back had begun to heal, and instead of some unformed growth, there were two appendages protruding from his back. Appendages that looked very much like--
"Wings?!" Rodney blurted, staring for a long moment, then looking back at the group watching him from the other side of the room. "He's got wings?!"
"Yeah, that would be me -- the flyboy, in the flesh..." Then he grinned and said, "Man, that joke sucked, even for me..."
"It did," Rodney said with an answering grin. "Are you all right?"
"Still hurts -- Doc has me on a lower dose, but he says the way these things are growing, the pain would be incredible otherwise..."
"Yeah... that makes sense..." He looked back at the group, then pulled a chair up and sat next to Sheppard's bed. "So... wings. Can you move them?"
"They kinda twitch. It hurts, so I'm not doing it on purpose..."
"Yeah. No, you don't want to do that, then," Rodney said quietly, leaning in close to look at the wings. "You know, they look kind of..."
"Bald? Uncooked? Like they'd go great with buffalo sauce?"
"I was going to say 'like baby bird wings'," Rodney said with what some people might call a pout, although he maintained that he did not pout. "But now that you mention it..."
"You're not helping," Sheppard grumped, frowning up at him. "So, why did that machine do this to me?"
"Not entirely sure. The reason it wasn't making sense is because part of the data was corrupted. But there seems to be something about making desires into flesh -- maybe one of their less... scientific experiments." He rubbed his thumb against his lips and asked, "You weren't by any chance thinking about flying when you initialized it, were you?"
Sheppard grimaced. "Er... yeah, I might have been. I was on my way to the jumper bay when you called me..."
"Well, there you go. You were thinking about flying, and the Ancients gave you wings..."
"Er...yeah. These things aren't going to get anyone off the ground, Rodney."
"Maybe they're still growing..."
"Considering the way my back aches, I'd say that's a good guess."
* * *
"He's what?"
"Fledging, Rodney, he's fledging. Baby birds get their feathers, they fledge."
"He's not a baby bird, Radek, he's a man!" Rodney sighed with exasperation. "What do you know about birds, anyway? You're not an ornithologist!"
"I used to own birds -- what is the-- Little tiny birds -- finches."
"He's not a finch!" From Rodney's tone, Zelenka got the distinct impression that he was this shy of jumping up and down or stamping his feet.
"No, but he is growing feathers, Rodney. They are sprouting all over his wings -- sometimes I wonder if that is why his hair is the way it is -- sticking up like a baby bird's down instead of hair..."
"You're insane. This whole place has gone insane. Is he going to need anything special?"
"Well, protein, obviously. Feathers are like nails and hair -- and if he is going to fly, they must grow in strong. Should I speak with Doctor Beckett?"
"Yeah, maybe you should. This is all insane -- he's still not going to be able to fly, he can't possibly get enough lift, his bones are too solid..." Rodney muttered, wandering off while Zelenka went to speak to Beckett.
* * *
Sheppard stood on one of the balconies, looking off into the sky. His feathers had grown in and he was no longer spending every spare moment struggling against the urge to scratch himself silly. Under Beckett's care, he had begun an exercise regimen to strengthen the muscles used to move the wings, and was now fairly confident at folding them out of the way, and at spreading them. The only real change in his attitude was that he tended to find places in meetings or in the mess where he could put his back to the wall and avoid anyone coming up behind him or getting close enough to touch the wings without permission. So, there was really no surprise when Rodney came up behind him and he automatically mantled, startling Rodney into hyperventilating.
"Give me a heart attack why don't you!" Rodney huffed once he managed to get his breathing under control.
"I'm sorry, Rodney," he said softly, "It's just that..." He trailed off and shook his head. How to explain this?
"They're sensitive, aren't they. I've seen the look on your face when Beckett examines them..." Rodney answered, just as softly.
"Yeah, that's one way to put it. So, what's the verdict?" he asked, steering the conversation back into safer subjects.
"Elizabeth said that if they aren't a handicap, you're allowed to go offword again. Now that you're not fledging -- or whatever. It might take a little bit to explain to any people we run into, depending on their religious beliefs, but considering how varied they seem to be out here there's not too big a risk of people believing you're a messenger from any god..."
"Yeah, 'cause that would be a little hard to explain..." Sheppard said, amusement colouring his tone.
"Can I touch them?" Rodney asked at the same time, almost too quietly to be heard. He cleared his throat and looked up to meet Sheppard's gaze, "Um, if no, just -- I was worried about you when you were sick..."
Just as softly, Sheppard answered, "I know. I was pretty drugged, but I remembered you stroking my cheek. How long..."
"I don't really know. It just kind of..." He trailed off and studied Sheppard closely. "You're not even remotely freaked out by this -- why not?"
"You think General O'Neill is the only happily bisexual man hiding in the US Air Force?"
Rodney blinked in response to that, then grinned. "That would explain an awful lot about why Jackson never made it onto the Daedalus..."
"Yeah. And in answer to your other question, you're the only one I will let touch them other than medical staff, Rodney..."
And as Rodney reached out to stroke the soft feathers, both Sheppard's arms and the wings wrapped around him in a gentle embrace. "Is this okay?"
"It's very okay..."
~~a beginning~~
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters: John Sheppard (AU)
Prompt: Beginnings
Word Count: 2977 per MS Word
Rating: PG
Author's Notes: A number of people have had wingy!John ideas -- I didn't intentionally copy any of them -- I have a rather long history of giving people wings (Including Derek Rayne and Lex Luthor). And yes, this is totally unbetaed. It's crackfic -- no, I haven't even figured out how this could happen -- there is no feasable science here, so if that annoys you, go away!
Fledgeling
by Penemuel
He didn't really think anything of it when they called him out to the newly explored lab to initialize a device no one else had been able to. He was getting pretty used to that part of 'other duties as assigned', and sometimes even allowed himself a small bit of smugness over it.
So, when the machine flared to life and surrounded him in a blue-green glow and everything went white for a moment, all he managed to say was "What the--?" And then he awoke to find Rodney and Beckett staring down at him with worried, wide-eyed expressions.
"Are you all right?" Beckett asked, while Rodney looked nervous.
He tried to sit up and winced as his head throbbed, but nodded, "Yeah, 'm'okay. Just a bit of a headache. What happened?"
"You've been out for over five minutes!" Rodney blurted, "We couldn't figure out what it did to you!"
"Wonderful. And you know, now?" he asked, his hopeful expression fading as Beckett shook his head.
"There doesn't seem to be any damage -- I'd like to keep you in the infirmary for a few hours, just for observation, though."
* * *
After four hours, Beckett had to admit he couldn't find any reason to keep Sheppard any longer, and sent him back to his quarters with some ibuprofen for his headache and strict instructions to call him immediately if any odd symptoms arose. He had kicked Rodney out after the first hour, complaining that he was hindering both his concentration and the Major's recovery, and didn't he have an unknown Ancient device to figure out, anyway?
Sheppard left Rodney a message that he was going to turn in early, try to sleep off his headache, and if they needed him to do anything else with any other devices, it could just wait until morning. Then he gulped down a dose of ibuprofen, stripped and tumbled into bed without even eating dinner, and slept like the dead all night.
In the morning, three things filtered through his hazy mind: one, sun was streaming through the windows of his quarters and from a surprisingly high angle. Two, his alarm was halfway across the room, where he had to assume he had either batted it or thrown it when it went off. Three, his back ached.
When he finally managed to sit up, biting back a yelp at the pain that throbbed with every movement, he fumbled for his headset and keyed it to the infirmary. "Doctor Beckett, there's something wrong," he said, his voice gravelly. "I don't know what it is, but my back hurts. A lot."
"I'll be right there, Major!" the doctor answered, and that was that.
He knew he should call in, contact Elizabeth and explain that he'd be up and around as soon as he could, but instead, he found himself contacting Rodney. "Major?!" the concerned voice answered.
"Yeah, Rodney, it's me. Look -- have you had any luck figuring out what that thing does?" He tried to keep the pain out of his voice, but it didn't seem to be working at all.
"No -- why? What's wrong? Has it done something to you? I'll be there in a minute -- don't go anywhere!"
Once again, he had to marvel at Rodney's ability to speak so quickly -- somehow the man's mouth actually managed to keep up with his brain, which was more than he could say for his own, because he realized that was his own voice bellowing out a string of curses as he stretched and pain lanced through his shoulders. And on the other end of the headset, Rodney was asking, "Major? Major?! Hang on, we'll be there in just a minute!"
Rodney and Beckett must have run into each other in the corridor because when his door opened, they were both there, Rodney with his eyes wide in near-panic and Beckett looking concerned and doctorly. And for some reason, when they both looked at him, they became even more concerned, and hurried over to his bed.
"Major?" Rodney asked, reaching out to touch his forehead then pulling his hand back before he did so. "Carson, what's wrong with him?!"
"I look that bad, huh?" he managed to ask, a failed attempt at humour as another surge of pain rippled through him and he nearly doubled over. "OhFUCKthathurts!"
"Oh crap!" Rodney muttered as Beckett frowned and quietly ordered him to lie down on his stomach. The fact that he obeyed without question proved how serious the pain was, and the way Rodney's eyes were going wider in fear wasn't helping him relax at all. "What's wrong with him? What's going on?!" Rodney pushed, and he found himself trying to nod.
"Yeah, what's wrong with me?" he asked, his voice tight with pain.
"I don't know," Beckett said, frustration making his accent even more pronounced. As he spoke, he pulled things out of the case he had brought with him, and after Rodney stopped trying to look over his shoulder and edged around to the other side of the bed to look worriedly at Sheppard, he sighed. "Rodney, go and get some towels from the Major's bathroom -- don't want to soak his bed with antiseptic."
"Oh -- of course!" Rodney nodded, then hurried into Sheppard's bathroom.
Sheppard grunted in pain and asked, "What do you need antiseptic for, Doc? What's wrong with me?"
"You've got some kind of lesions forming on your back, Major. There's some pretty serious swelling, too..."
"Whatthefuck...?" Sheppard muttered, looking up again as Rodney hurried back with towels and held them out to Beckett. "What did that machine do to me?!"
"Put those under him, along his sides, Rodney. Major, we don't know yet. But what I'm going to do next will probably hurt, a lot. You might want to bite your pillow, there, lad."
Rodney carefully slid the towels along his sides, and if he hadn't been in so much pain, he might have teased a bit about how timid Rodney seemed to be. Right now, however, his sense of humour had taken a bit of a beating, and all he could do was look up at his friend helplessly. "I can barely move, it hurts so much..." he breathed, ignoring the smell of alcohol as Beckett opened a sterile swab. And then there was a cold and wet feeling on his back and he bit his pillow, hard, as the sharp stinging sensation filtered through the other pain. He let out a groaned growl into the pillow, and heard Beckett mutter something that sounded vaguely like "That's peculiar..."
"What is?" he growled into the pillow, his entire body shaking with the pain as Beckett swabbed the other side thoroughly.
"What is it?" Rodney asked, peering down at his back while Beckett worked, an expression halfway between curious and disgusted on his face.
"I don't really know," Beckett answered, probing gently at his back again. "Major, I want to get you into the infirmary for a scan, see if we can find out what this is. And if you're still in pain, I can give you a morphine drip."
"Yeah, whatever -- god, Doc, just make it stop hurting and find out what the hell is wrong with me!"
* * *
"No, Elizabeth, I don't know what it is yet," Beckett said softly, looking back at the bed where Sheppard lay face down, floating in an opiate haze while Rodney sat nearby, worriedly looking through computer readouts. "There's some kind of growth -- not a tumor, but certainly not normal. The really peculiar thing is that it seems to be almost perfectly bilaterally symmetrical..."
"That's... a little strange, isn't it?" she asked, studying his expression, then glancing over at Sheppard.
"Very little in nature is symmetrical -- it points towards this being something that was done to him by that device, although damned if I can figure out what it is yet..."
"I'm working on it," Rodney muttered, reading his screen and frowning. "There's got to be an answer in here, somewhere..."
"Heyyy, Rodney..." Sheppard whispered, waking at the sound of his friend's voice. "Wha's goin' on? Where...?"
"You're in the infirmary, Major," Rodney answered, "And Doctor Beckett and Elizabeth are here, too."
"Ohhh. Good -- a party!" He grinned sloppily and asked, "So why're we having a party?"
"We're trying to figure out what that device did to you, Major," Rodney said slowly, as if he were trying to explain something to a small child. "You do remember the device, right?"
"Oh yeah... I 'member now. And screaming in pain - that was lots of fun -- let's not do it again, huh?"
"That's a remarkably good idea, Major," Rodney said, trying not to let his concern show. When he looked up at Sheppard, he could see fear behind the haze in his eyes, and wanted desperately to be able to make things better. "Look, why don't you go back to sleep, and let the people who are capable of thinking on a normal basis handle this, hmmn?" If he was being sarcastic, everything was normal, right?
"Rodney..." and there was far too much desperation in his voice.
"I'll figure it out, I promise," Rodney whispered, reaching out for just a moment and stroking his cheek.
"Okay..."
* * *
"You still don't have any idea what that thing did," Elizabeth said, trying to keep the accusation out of her tone. "Rodney, have you seen him?"
"Yes, Elizabeth, I have," Rodney answered, frustration and rising anger in his tone. "I've been sitting with him, trying to keep him from freaking out every time he wakes up, and trying not to worry about him becoming dependent on the drugs while he sleeps. He's in pain and he's scared, and damn it I can't figure out how to fix it and how the hell do you think that makes me feel?!"
She ducked her gaze and softly said, "I'm sorry, Rodney. I... We're all worried about him. I shouldn't have--"
"But that's just the thing, I should have figured it out by now. I just... it doesn't make any sense..."
"When was the last time you slept?"
"Well, I think I dozed off for a bit -- woke up with my face mashed into his bed earlier..."
"No, Rodney, I mean real sleep. Go back to your quarters and rest, and yes that's an order," she said firmly, worried not only about Sheppard, but Rodney, too. "I can't have you both in this state..."
"But I--"
"Rodney, sleep. You'll think more clearly when you wake up again. Go on..." her voice softened as she looked at the fear in his eyes. "We won't let anything more happen to him, I promise."
* * *
"I think I found out what it-- what's wrong? Did something happen?!" Rodney said as he walked into the infirmary and found Beckett, Zelenka, Teyla, and Elizabeth clustered as far from Sheppard's bed as possible and discussing things in hushed tones.
"Rodney, there's been a development..." Beckett said softly, and before any of them could stop him, Rodney was hurrying over to Sheppard's bedside where he stopped short. And stared.
After a long moment, he turned back to the group and mouthed, "What the--?" Beckett nodded, and he actually paused to rub his eyes, but what he saw in front of him didn't change. "Major?"
Sheppard looked up with hazy eyes and gave him a weak smile. "Hey, Rodney, come to see the show?" It was obvious he was still on the pain killers, but a much lower dose than the days before. The lesions, which had at one point seemed like great gaping wounds on his back had begun to heal, and instead of some unformed growth, there were two appendages protruding from his back. Appendages that looked very much like--
"Wings?!" Rodney blurted, staring for a long moment, then looking back at the group watching him from the other side of the room. "He's got wings?!"
"Yeah, that would be me -- the flyboy, in the flesh..." Then he grinned and said, "Man, that joke sucked, even for me..."
"It did," Rodney said with an answering grin. "Are you all right?"
"Still hurts -- Doc has me on a lower dose, but he says the way these things are growing, the pain would be incredible otherwise..."
"Yeah... that makes sense..." He looked back at the group, then pulled a chair up and sat next to Sheppard's bed. "So... wings. Can you move them?"
"They kinda twitch. It hurts, so I'm not doing it on purpose..."
"Yeah. No, you don't want to do that, then," Rodney said quietly, leaning in close to look at the wings. "You know, they look kind of..."
"Bald? Uncooked? Like they'd go great with buffalo sauce?"
"I was going to say 'like baby bird wings'," Rodney said with what some people might call a pout, although he maintained that he did not pout. "But now that you mention it..."
"You're not helping," Sheppard grumped, frowning up at him. "So, why did that machine do this to me?"
"Not entirely sure. The reason it wasn't making sense is because part of the data was corrupted. But there seems to be something about making desires into flesh -- maybe one of their less... scientific experiments." He rubbed his thumb against his lips and asked, "You weren't by any chance thinking about flying when you initialized it, were you?"
Sheppard grimaced. "Er... yeah, I might have been. I was on my way to the jumper bay when you called me..."
"Well, there you go. You were thinking about flying, and the Ancients gave you wings..."
"Er...yeah. These things aren't going to get anyone off the ground, Rodney."
"Maybe they're still growing..."
"Considering the way my back aches, I'd say that's a good guess."
* * *
"He's what?"
"Fledging, Rodney, he's fledging. Baby birds get their feathers, they fledge."
"He's not a baby bird, Radek, he's a man!" Rodney sighed with exasperation. "What do you know about birds, anyway? You're not an ornithologist!"
"I used to own birds -- what is the-- Little tiny birds -- finches."
"He's not a finch!" From Rodney's tone, Zelenka got the distinct impression that he was this shy of jumping up and down or stamping his feet.
"No, but he is growing feathers, Rodney. They are sprouting all over his wings -- sometimes I wonder if that is why his hair is the way it is -- sticking up like a baby bird's down instead of hair..."
"You're insane. This whole place has gone insane. Is he going to need anything special?"
"Well, protein, obviously. Feathers are like nails and hair -- and if he is going to fly, they must grow in strong. Should I speak with Doctor Beckett?"
"Yeah, maybe you should. This is all insane -- he's still not going to be able to fly, he can't possibly get enough lift, his bones are too solid..." Rodney muttered, wandering off while Zelenka went to speak to Beckett.
* * *
Sheppard stood on one of the balconies, looking off into the sky. His feathers had grown in and he was no longer spending every spare moment struggling against the urge to scratch himself silly. Under Beckett's care, he had begun an exercise regimen to strengthen the muscles used to move the wings, and was now fairly confident at folding them out of the way, and at spreading them. The only real change in his attitude was that he tended to find places in meetings or in the mess where he could put his back to the wall and avoid anyone coming up behind him or getting close enough to touch the wings without permission. So, there was really no surprise when Rodney came up behind him and he automatically mantled, startling Rodney into hyperventilating.
"Give me a heart attack why don't you!" Rodney huffed once he managed to get his breathing under control.
"I'm sorry, Rodney," he said softly, "It's just that..." He trailed off and shook his head. How to explain this?
"They're sensitive, aren't they. I've seen the look on your face when Beckett examines them..." Rodney answered, just as softly.
"Yeah, that's one way to put it. So, what's the verdict?" he asked, steering the conversation back into safer subjects.
"Elizabeth said that if they aren't a handicap, you're allowed to go offword again. Now that you're not fledging -- or whatever. It might take a little bit to explain to any people we run into, depending on their religious beliefs, but considering how varied they seem to be out here there's not too big a risk of people believing you're a messenger from any god..."
"Yeah, 'cause that would be a little hard to explain..." Sheppard said, amusement colouring his tone.
"Can I touch them?" Rodney asked at the same time, almost too quietly to be heard. He cleared his throat and looked up to meet Sheppard's gaze, "Um, if no, just -- I was worried about you when you were sick..."
Just as softly, Sheppard answered, "I know. I was pretty drugged, but I remembered you stroking my cheek. How long..."
"I don't really know. It just kind of..." He trailed off and studied Sheppard closely. "You're not even remotely freaked out by this -- why not?"
"You think General O'Neill is the only happily bisexual man hiding in the US Air Force?"
Rodney blinked in response to that, then grinned. "That would explain an awful lot about why Jackson never made it onto the Daedalus..."
"Yeah. And in answer to your other question, you're the only one I will let touch them other than medical staff, Rodney..."
And as Rodney reached out to stroke the soft feathers, both Sheppard's arms and the wings wrapped around him in a gentle embrace. "Is this okay?"
"It's very okay..."
~~a beginning~~