Peg^2 (3/?)
Title: Square Peg, or, Peg^2 (Pegasus Squared) [A sequel to Full Circle, set in the Epic Crossover ‘Verse]
Chapter: 3 of ?
Author: neensz
Word Count: ~2,000 words (this part)
Pairing(s): Eliot/Shawn, McShep preslash
Rating: PG-13
General Warnings: graphic language, violence, un-beta’d
Beta: If you feel the urge, let me know
Disclaimer: Psych and Leverage and SG:A do not belong to me, nor do any of the characters or places or quotes I'm borrowing for my nefarious slashing purposes. I make no profit from the aforesaid borrowing, or only in the currency of squeeing fangirly joy.
A/N: I swear, it's just a cameo. He's staying on Earth, promise.
One | Two | Three
In Which the Plot Creeps Forward, and Shawn Gets Tased. Again.
--ELIOT--
Shawn broke off in the middle of the litany of whatever it was that he was muttering under his breath-it was too quiet for Eliot to really make out-and said in a strange tone, “El, there’s an old dude running at us, and he’s got this weird look on his face.”
Eliot jerked his head up and stared off in the direction Shawn was pointing, and the immediate tension that’d filled him during his fight-or-fight moment (fleeing wasn’t an option, not when he had someone to protect) eased slightly. John was walking towards them, on the six of a vaguely familiar looking stranger, and there was no way he’d classify that brisk walk as running. He couldn’t see well enough in the dusk, however, to make out the expression on the stranger’s face, and wondered just how good Shawn’s eyesight really was.
Then the stranger’s face was close enough to make out, and Eliot relaxed the rest of the way. There was no danger coming from that direction, at least not physically. But he should have known the General wasn’t going to let him out of his clutches as easily as he had.
“I hear you’re a psychic,” the General surprised him by leading with, and eyed Shawn in a way Eliot wasn’t entirely comfortable with, and definitely wasn’t the way most people looked at Shawn, which was either a) with lust, b) with disdainful cynicism, or c) complete and utter fanatic belief. General O’Neill looked at him like, well, like Shawn was an alien the General wanted as an ally. Which might actually be business as usual to the General, Eliot realized.
“Uh,” Shawn floundered briefly, clearly confused. “Sure,” he agreed after a moment. “Why?” he added another second later. Eliot rolled his eyes. With a ringing endorsement like that, it was a wonder people ever hired the man.
But the conversation was forestalled before the General had a chance to answer Shawn. Jesse’s decibel-shattering shriek of anger-fear-pain easily made its way around the barn, and almost drowned out the lower pitched adult voice that was also shouting. John took off around the barn, headed for the side facing the house, to where Jesse and Doctor McKay had been working on Jesse’s construction project. The other three men followed close on his heels.
Eliot shoved Shawn behind him as soon as he saw the situation they were running into. A tall, skinny guy in a cheap suit was yelling and aiming a weapon-something Eliot didn’t recognize, and therefore figured had to be alien-at Jesse, McKay was laying motionless on the ground with a .38 S&W Chef’s Special spilling out of his lax hand-Eliot chided himself for not noticing earlier that the scientist had been strapped; he was getting careless in his semi-retirement-and Jesse was screaming wordlessly back at the guy and edging towards McKay’s gun. In other words, it was a cluster-fuck.
The guy yelled something else and disappeared in a flash of light-which was something Eliot was getting used to, if against his will-but not before he fired off one last shot. John and O’Neill were outside Eliot’s peripheral vision, so the gunshot that rang out could have come from either of them, but whoever fired got the guy in the cheap suit in the shoulder on the same side as the weapon, and the blob of blue light from the alien gun didn’t head for Jesse but instead hummed its way over Eliot’s shoulder faster than Eliot could react. Eliot swore, loudly and extensively, at the soft thump that shortly followed, and turned to find Shawn collapsed on the ground. He was kneeling at Shawn’s side and feeling for a pulse with trembling fingers in less than a second.
The steady throb of Shawn’s heartbeat under his fingers left his knees weak, and he was slightly hysterically amused against his will that Shawn had managed to get knocked out with yet another alien weapon. Eliot wondered half-heartedly if every sentient species had managed to reinvent the taser, and exactly how many iterations of it Shawn was going to experience personally.
As soon as he reassured himself that Shawn was alive and unharmed, if unconscious, the rest of the world made itself known again. “Goddammit, Jack, I thought you said the IOA didn’t know about him yet?” John growled, Jesse pressed close to his side with one arm while the other checked McKay’s vitals. “And how the hell did they get a Wraith stunner?”
O’Neill was rapping sharp commands into his cell phone, but covered the pickup long enough to answer John. “The IOA doesn’t know about him-I recognize that bastard from the last time I met with the NID,” O’Neill spat, continuing, “I thought we’d flushed all the scum out of it, but apparently not. I’m ordering Atlantis’s ship-out date up to three days from today, and we’ll move you all to the Mountain until then for the increased security and so we can put a rush on the medicals.” John nodded sharp agreement, his arm tightening around Jesse-who squeaked, and John eased up a little-and O’Neill uncovered the mic on his cell and resumed barking orders into it.
Eliot raised his eyebrows at John. “All of us?” he asked, and scowled at John’s uncompromising nod.
“Shit, Spencer, what do you expect? The guy saw you. They’ve obviously got resources we don’t know about. Do you want them to come after you and him back in Santa Barbara? Because that’s what would happen. They tried to take Jesse from my own fucking home, while I was still here. They’ve got something up their sleeve.” John glared at him, and added sharply, “I know you’re not a fucking idiot, so stop acting like one and start thinking. There’s no other option.”
Resigned, Eliot faced the facts. The only other real option was to run, and keep running, and while Eliot might be able to stay one step ahead of this NID’s unknown resources, adding Shawn to the mix made the possibility of staying out of their grasp even slimmer. Shawn had never been on the run, not for real, and while Eliot knew Shawn would do his best-which was pretty damn good-eventually he’d slip, or Eliot would, or someone would sell them out. Atlantis. Shit.
O’Neill flipped his cell shut and eyed Eliot, who grimaced. “Well, it’s half a year past your deadline, but I’m signing up for the program. I hope you’re happy,” Eliot growled at him, more with resignation than anger.
“Ecstatic,” O’Neill agreed drolly, his expression dead-pan.
--JOHN--
Shawn groaned his way into consciousness in the SGC’s infirmary in Cheyenne and Keller chirped cheerily at him, completely ignoring McKay’s similar sounds in the bed on her other side. Well, that explained the transfer request he’d found in his inbox when he checked his email after getting to the Mountain a few hours ago. McKay hadn’t mentioned it, but then again, it’d been six years since that all started, so maybe it’d been over for a while. He hadn’t noticed anything while on Atlantis, though, and while McKay was a surprisingly private person, he seriously doubted he would have missed, well, this petty silent treatment she was giving him. In the infirmary, of all places.
John was glad she’d put in for the transfer to the SGC, because this, this childishness, was not behavior suited to the CMO of Atlantis. It was one thing to avoid someone off duty, but if you had to talk to someone in the line of work, then you damn well would, and you’d like it, too-and leave the goddamn emotional baggage for the off hours.
It particularly annoyed him that it’d taken him this long to see this side of her; that immaturity had no place in Pegasus, and he wondered how long this had been happening under his nose-or that of the Commanding Officers (and there had been five) who’d held the position after he’d retired, for that matter-but it didn’t matter anymore, at least. He’d pay closer attention to the next CMO, and he wouldn’t miss something like this again.
Keller’s chirping caught his attention, and he tuned in long enough to hear her exclaim, in perfect imitation of a ditzy cheerleader, “and ohmigod, the strength of your expression of the ATA gene is right up there with Colonel Sheppard’s, and his is even stronger than General O’Neill’s!”
John groaned. He wasn’t sure why, not exactly, but John was suddenly filled with the dread certainty that drafting the Spencer boys to Atlantis was going to make like very difficult for him.
-ELIOT-
Eliot caught his breath lying on the mat of the sparring circle, and didn’t bother to stand when the SEAL stooped to loom over him. “I guess you’re the last of O’Neill’s action figures,” Eliot commented snidely without looking up, not feeling particularly charitable with his commanding officer after having been railroaded back into service-or feeling particularly charitable in regards to the rest of the planet, for that matter. But that was fine, since he was leaving it tomorrow.
“Guess so,” the SEAL agreed calmly, and stood to offer Eliot a hand up.
Eliot ignored the hand for a minute, but began to feel like a pouting child when the SEAL didn’t lower his hand. He took the looming SEAL’s offered hand with a silent sigh, letting the SEAL pull him back up to his feet. “Nice hook,” he admitted grudgingly, and the SEAL shrugged one shoulder in a dismissive gesture.
“What team?” Eliot asked a few hours later as they ran their cool-downs on adjacent machines of the fleet of souped-up treadmills Cheyenne hid in the basement. Not that everything wasn’t already hidden in the basement at Cheyenne.
“SG-22.”
Eliot gave him a quick once-over out of the corner of his eye, then stepped off his treadmill and offered his hand. “Corporal Spencer, AR-17.”
“Hanna.” The SEAL shook his hand.
“Welcome to the party, squid.” Welcome to the asylum was more like it.
--JOHN--
“How about it, kiddo?” John asked, hefting Jesse up onto his hip with a grunt. Either Jesse was getting heavier, or John was getting older. He preferred to imagine it was the former. “Want to go visit Torren?”
“Tor!” Jesse squealed with glee and wiggled in John’s arms. “Here or in ‘Lantis?” he interrupted himself to look up questioningly at John.
“Actually, we’re gonna go visit him at his home this time,” John grinned at his son. Torren was the cousin/older brother Jesse didn’t have, and alternately tormented and doted on Jesse in turns, and in return Jesse loved the older boy unreservedly. The two were usually joined at the hip as soon as Torren hit Earth. Jesse always wailed when they had to be separated, and would pout for days after Torren went back to Pegasus. Jesse got this incandescent expression on his face that made John’s heart ache-sometime he looked so much like his mother-though that was the face she would make when she caught an unanticipated extra Hive ship in her blast radius, so seeing it on Jesse’s face was mildly unsettling.
“We’re goin’ to Peg’sus? To Assos?” Jesse clarified, eyeing John like he knew it was too good to be true but couldn’t help hoping anyway.
“Yeah, buddy. We’re going to Pegasus, and you can visit Tor on Athos,” John grinned down into Jesse’s face. (Well, technically it was New New New Athos, but that had lasted all of a day before everyone was just calling it Athos-again.) Jesse flung his arms around John’s neck and hugged him so hard that he had trouble breathing, and not only because Jesse was constricting his airway. John was pretty sure the bubble of joy that filled him at making Jesse happy-a welcome relief from the darker things that filled his soul and his nightmares-was proof that he was completely wrapped around his kid’s little finger. And he didn’t give a flying fuck about it, because that was where parents were meant to be.
Four -->
Chapter: 3 of ?
Author: neensz
Word Count: ~2,000 words (this part)
Pairing(s): Eliot/Shawn, McShep preslash
Rating: PG-13
General Warnings: graphic language, violence, un-beta’d
Beta: If you feel the urge, let me know
Disclaimer: Psych and Leverage and SG:A do not belong to me, nor do any of the characters or places or quotes I'm borrowing for my nefarious slashing purposes. I make no profit from the aforesaid borrowing, or only in the currency of squeeing fangirly joy.
A/N: I swear, it's just a cameo. He's staying on Earth, promise.
One | Two | Three
In Which the Plot Creeps Forward, and Shawn Gets Tased. Again.
--ELIOT--
Shawn broke off in the middle of the litany of whatever it was that he was muttering under his breath-it was too quiet for Eliot to really make out-and said in a strange tone, “El, there’s an old dude running at us, and he’s got this weird look on his face.”
Eliot jerked his head up and stared off in the direction Shawn was pointing, and the immediate tension that’d filled him during his fight-or-fight moment (fleeing wasn’t an option, not when he had someone to protect) eased slightly. John was walking towards them, on the six of a vaguely familiar looking stranger, and there was no way he’d classify that brisk walk as running. He couldn’t see well enough in the dusk, however, to make out the expression on the stranger’s face, and wondered just how good Shawn’s eyesight really was.
Then the stranger’s face was close enough to make out, and Eliot relaxed the rest of the way. There was no danger coming from that direction, at least not physically. But he should have known the General wasn’t going to let him out of his clutches as easily as he had.
“I hear you’re a psychic,” the General surprised him by leading with, and eyed Shawn in a way Eliot wasn’t entirely comfortable with, and definitely wasn’t the way most people looked at Shawn, which was either a) with lust, b) with disdainful cynicism, or c) complete and utter fanatic belief. General O’Neill looked at him like, well, like Shawn was an alien the General wanted as an ally. Which might actually be business as usual to the General, Eliot realized.
“Uh,” Shawn floundered briefly, clearly confused. “Sure,” he agreed after a moment. “Why?” he added another second later. Eliot rolled his eyes. With a ringing endorsement like that, it was a wonder people ever hired the man.
But the conversation was forestalled before the General had a chance to answer Shawn. Jesse’s decibel-shattering shriek of anger-fear-pain easily made its way around the barn, and almost drowned out the lower pitched adult voice that was also shouting. John took off around the barn, headed for the side facing the house, to where Jesse and Doctor McKay had been working on Jesse’s construction project. The other three men followed close on his heels.
Eliot shoved Shawn behind him as soon as he saw the situation they were running into. A tall, skinny guy in a cheap suit was yelling and aiming a weapon-something Eliot didn’t recognize, and therefore figured had to be alien-at Jesse, McKay was laying motionless on the ground with a .38 S&W Chef’s Special spilling out of his lax hand-Eliot chided himself for not noticing earlier that the scientist had been strapped; he was getting careless in his semi-retirement-and Jesse was screaming wordlessly back at the guy and edging towards McKay’s gun. In other words, it was a cluster-fuck.
The guy yelled something else and disappeared in a flash of light-which was something Eliot was getting used to, if against his will-but not before he fired off one last shot. John and O’Neill were outside Eliot’s peripheral vision, so the gunshot that rang out could have come from either of them, but whoever fired got the guy in the cheap suit in the shoulder on the same side as the weapon, and the blob of blue light from the alien gun didn’t head for Jesse but instead hummed its way over Eliot’s shoulder faster than Eliot could react. Eliot swore, loudly and extensively, at the soft thump that shortly followed, and turned to find Shawn collapsed on the ground. He was kneeling at Shawn’s side and feeling for a pulse with trembling fingers in less than a second.
The steady throb of Shawn’s heartbeat under his fingers left his knees weak, and he was slightly hysterically amused against his will that Shawn had managed to get knocked out with yet another alien weapon. Eliot wondered half-heartedly if every sentient species had managed to reinvent the taser, and exactly how many iterations of it Shawn was going to experience personally.
As soon as he reassured himself that Shawn was alive and unharmed, if unconscious, the rest of the world made itself known again. “Goddammit, Jack, I thought you said the IOA didn’t know about him yet?” John growled, Jesse pressed close to his side with one arm while the other checked McKay’s vitals. “And how the hell did they get a Wraith stunner?”
O’Neill was rapping sharp commands into his cell phone, but covered the pickup long enough to answer John. “The IOA doesn’t know about him-I recognize that bastard from the last time I met with the NID,” O’Neill spat, continuing, “I thought we’d flushed all the scum out of it, but apparently not. I’m ordering Atlantis’s ship-out date up to three days from today, and we’ll move you all to the Mountain until then for the increased security and so we can put a rush on the medicals.” John nodded sharp agreement, his arm tightening around Jesse-who squeaked, and John eased up a little-and O’Neill uncovered the mic on his cell and resumed barking orders into it.
Eliot raised his eyebrows at John. “All of us?” he asked, and scowled at John’s uncompromising nod.
“Shit, Spencer, what do you expect? The guy saw you. They’ve obviously got resources we don’t know about. Do you want them to come after you and him back in Santa Barbara? Because that’s what would happen. They tried to take Jesse from my own fucking home, while I was still here. They’ve got something up their sleeve.” John glared at him, and added sharply, “I know you’re not a fucking idiot, so stop acting like one and start thinking. There’s no other option.”
Resigned, Eliot faced the facts. The only other real option was to run, and keep running, and while Eliot might be able to stay one step ahead of this NID’s unknown resources, adding Shawn to the mix made the possibility of staying out of their grasp even slimmer. Shawn had never been on the run, not for real, and while Eliot knew Shawn would do his best-which was pretty damn good-eventually he’d slip, or Eliot would, or someone would sell them out. Atlantis. Shit.
O’Neill flipped his cell shut and eyed Eliot, who grimaced. “Well, it’s half a year past your deadline, but I’m signing up for the program. I hope you’re happy,” Eliot growled at him, more with resignation than anger.
“Ecstatic,” O’Neill agreed drolly, his expression dead-pan.
--JOHN--
Shawn groaned his way into consciousness in the SGC’s infirmary in Cheyenne and Keller chirped cheerily at him, completely ignoring McKay’s similar sounds in the bed on her other side. Well, that explained the transfer request he’d found in his inbox when he checked his email after getting to the Mountain a few hours ago. McKay hadn’t mentioned it, but then again, it’d been six years since that all started, so maybe it’d been over for a while. He hadn’t noticed anything while on Atlantis, though, and while McKay was a surprisingly private person, he seriously doubted he would have missed, well, this petty silent treatment she was giving him. In the infirmary, of all places.
John was glad she’d put in for the transfer to the SGC, because this, this childishness, was not behavior suited to the CMO of Atlantis. It was one thing to avoid someone off duty, but if you had to talk to someone in the line of work, then you damn well would, and you’d like it, too-and leave the goddamn emotional baggage for the off hours.
It particularly annoyed him that it’d taken him this long to see this side of her; that immaturity had no place in Pegasus, and he wondered how long this had been happening under his nose-or that of the Commanding Officers (and there had been five) who’d held the position after he’d retired, for that matter-but it didn’t matter anymore, at least. He’d pay closer attention to the next CMO, and he wouldn’t miss something like this again.
Keller’s chirping caught his attention, and he tuned in long enough to hear her exclaim, in perfect imitation of a ditzy cheerleader, “and ohmigod, the strength of your expression of the ATA gene is right up there with Colonel Sheppard’s, and his is even stronger than General O’Neill’s!”
John groaned. He wasn’t sure why, not exactly, but John was suddenly filled with the dread certainty that drafting the Spencer boys to Atlantis was going to make like very difficult for him.
-ELIOT-
Eliot caught his breath lying on the mat of the sparring circle, and didn’t bother to stand when the SEAL stooped to loom over him. “I guess you’re the last of O’Neill’s action figures,” Eliot commented snidely without looking up, not feeling particularly charitable with his commanding officer after having been railroaded back into service-or feeling particularly charitable in regards to the rest of the planet, for that matter. But that was fine, since he was leaving it tomorrow.
“Guess so,” the SEAL agreed calmly, and stood to offer Eliot a hand up.
Eliot ignored the hand for a minute, but began to feel like a pouting child when the SEAL didn’t lower his hand. He took the looming SEAL’s offered hand with a silent sigh, letting the SEAL pull him back up to his feet. “Nice hook,” he admitted grudgingly, and the SEAL shrugged one shoulder in a dismissive gesture.
“What team?” Eliot asked a few hours later as they ran their cool-downs on adjacent machines of the fleet of souped-up treadmills Cheyenne hid in the basement. Not that everything wasn’t already hidden in the basement at Cheyenne.
“SG-22.”
Eliot gave him a quick once-over out of the corner of his eye, then stepped off his treadmill and offered his hand. “Corporal Spencer, AR-17.”
“Hanna.” The SEAL shook his hand.
“Welcome to the party, squid.” Welcome to the asylum was more like it.
--JOHN--
“How about it, kiddo?” John asked, hefting Jesse up onto his hip with a grunt. Either Jesse was getting heavier, or John was getting older. He preferred to imagine it was the former. “Want to go visit Torren?”
“Tor!” Jesse squealed with glee and wiggled in John’s arms. “Here or in ‘Lantis?” he interrupted himself to look up questioningly at John.
“Actually, we’re gonna go visit him at his home this time,” John grinned at his son. Torren was the cousin/older brother Jesse didn’t have, and alternately tormented and doted on Jesse in turns, and in return Jesse loved the older boy unreservedly. The two were usually joined at the hip as soon as Torren hit Earth. Jesse always wailed when they had to be separated, and would pout for days after Torren went back to Pegasus. Jesse got this incandescent expression on his face that made John’s heart ache-sometime he looked so much like his mother-though that was the face she would make when she caught an unanticipated extra Hive ship in her blast radius, so seeing it on Jesse’s face was mildly unsettling.
“We’re goin’ to Peg’sus? To Assos?” Jesse clarified, eyeing John like he knew it was too good to be true but couldn’t help hoping anyway.
“Yeah, buddy. We’re going to Pegasus, and you can visit Tor on Athos,” John grinned down into Jesse’s face. (Well, technically it was New New New Athos, but that had lasted all of a day before everyone was just calling it Athos-again.) Jesse flung his arms around John’s neck and hugged him so hard that he had trouble breathing, and not only because Jesse was constricting his airway. John was pretty sure the bubble of joy that filled him at making Jesse happy-a welcome relief from the darker things that filled his soul and his nightmares-was proof that he was completely wrapped around his kid’s little finger. And he didn’t give a flying fuck about it, because that was where parents were meant to be.
Four -->