Fic: These Skies Where We Make Our Home (Older And Wiser Remix) [Stargate: Atlantis;John Sheppard]
Title: These Skies Where We Make Our Home (Older And Wiser Remix)
Author: ekaterinn
Summary: One Wraith awakening, a couple of sieges, a hell of a lot of scary science experiments and even a Goa'uld infestation later, they were still here.
Fandom: Stargate: Atlantis
Pairing: John Sheppard
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Not mine; not for profit.
Original story: Other People's Monsters by merryish
The fire was built high, flames rising and flickering in the autumn night, but John had drunk enough of the Athosian wine (as well as one ill-advised shot from Radek’s bottle of hooch) that he would have been able to strip and stand naked in the middle of the tents on the far side of the fire and still not shiver.
Athosian harvest festivals were a lot like Teyla; outwardly unassuming, but both packing one hell of a punch. We have planted our second harvest, she said, and we are still here: come celebrate. Elizabeth agreed instantly and announced that the city would be joining the Athosians on the mainland for Second Harvest with only a skeleton crew left behind in Atlantis.
John leaned back on his log and let the alcohol sink into his system. His eyes tracked the figures dancing around the fire - they seemed halfway between shadows, coming into and out of focus on the ground, and angels, arching in the air. The drummers on the outer ring of the circle provided a steady rhythm for the dancers. He caught sight of Teyla then, holding on to her partner’s hands, and kicking her feet off the dirt and into the air.
John grinned and saluted her with his science coffee mug. Well, there was usually coffee in it. There'd been half again as much wine in it just a little while ago, John decided, peering into it. He tried to sit up a bit and found himself swaying instead, which forced him to dig his fingernails into the soil as he braced himself on one arm.
God, he hadn't been this drunk since before gating into Atlantis that first time. Head stuffed full of secrets, body still singing from lighting up the chair and more than half convinced either he or the rest of the world were absolutely fucking crazy.
He'd set out to get Jackson drunk, he remembered, because Jackson talked like other people breathed, dispatching payloads of the information that John needed to get a handle on this Stargate thing. (Plus, the exposure gave him immunity against McKay, another guy who would never use one word where three would do). And it had worked: Jackson had given him the real history of the SGC, stripped of all the normal military bureaucratic bullshit. Some of it was horribly terrifying - John hadn't quite added up the number of the times the SGC had both brought the Earth to brink of total destruction and saved it before - and some of it was hilarious - Jackson had giggled when recounting the time O’Neill had managed to get his whole body dyed purple - and some of it, despite all he had seen already, seemed unbelievable, more the stuff of great practical jokes than secret military operations. But it was only after Jackson had warned him that whatever the Ancients were running from in Pegasus, it was probably a whole lot worse than what could be found in the Milky Way that John had really started drinking.
Just as well he did, because he couldn't have very well gone out and got shitfaced after that awful moment when he had looked into Sumner's eyes and pulled the trigger, as much as he might have wanted to.
Now, though, after one Wraith awakening, a couple of sieges, a hell of a lot of scary science experiments and even a Goa'uld infestation, well like Teyla said, they were still here.
Not all of them, though. John gulped down the rest of the spicy wine and tried not to think of Ford, or of the dozens of others whose silent company had increased as they followed him from Afghanistan to Atlantis. His lost and his dead. He squeezed his eyes shut, suddenly convinced that the world was surging violently around him and he was about to fall off. No matter what they told you, it never got any easier.
A single shout pierced his reverie and John’s eyes flew open. The crowd around the fire seemed to have doubled, all watching one person, standing at the very edge of the circle. The drums fell silent, and the figure shouted again, ran up to the fire - and jumped over it. John’s eyes widened and the drummers erupted into a wild fury of drumming at the successful landing. The others cheered and clapped and then begin dancing again, even more faster and higher than before. John whistled and just like that, the world seemed stable again. Someone added more wood to the fire and in the increasing light, he could see Ronon, moving quietly out of the shadows, his feet quick and his face unguarded and young; Elizabeth, looking like a teenager as she danced with Radek; Murray, one of his Marines, twirling an Athosian woman half his size around, and even Rodney, stumbling through the steps of an Athosian group dance, his face red, but grinning nonetheless. Nearly three years, two harvests and more victories than John would have thought possible: why shouldn’t they cheer the act of leaping over flames?
John thought now that he understood the longing with which Jackson had spoken of Atlantis. He thought he understood Jackson's ties to the Milky Way too, tangled too much in his team for them to ever really let him go. John’s own team was both a gift and a worry - his to keep safe, if he could. And every time they had come back safe to Atlantis it had felt like a homecoming, the city welcoming her own.
A week after they had lost Ford again, Rodney had barged into John’s quarters, clutching a couple of PowerBars and one of the new Doctor Who DVDs. He had tossed John a PowerBar, shoved the disc into the laptop and kept up a steady stream of snark on the show's pseudoscience, the inferiority of Nine compared to previous Doctors and the BBC’s idea of contemporary fashion. John had actually dozed off halfway through, the regular rhythms of Rodney’s voice providing a lullaby of sorts. When he woke up, the lights were dimmed and his laptop was humming quietly to itself on his bedside table.
Rodney never said anything about that night, and John didn't either. But he traded in some favors and showed up at the next team night with a DVD burned with Tom Baker episodes and high quality chocolate for all. He even let Rodney have first dibs.
John tilted his head back and gazed at the stars: they seemed so close and yet so foreign here, arranged in different patterns than the ones he had memorized as a kid. But he had flown among them, looking down at Atlantis and all those worlds with something he could only call love, seizing him and filling him, for this galaxy, this city, these people.
Then a hand came from the heavens and John was staring into Teyla’s smiling face. Sweat dripped down from her forehead to the tip of her chin, but she didn’t seem to be breathing that hard at all. “Come,” she said and John clasped her hand, letting her pull him up. The vertigo lasted for just a moment and then he was seriously dancing, whirling from partner to partner, Athosian to Alantean and back again, close to the flames and away from them. The drums beat in his ears, thrumming all the way to his feet, and he leapt, flying through these skies where they had made their home.
Author: ekaterinn
Summary: One Wraith awakening, a couple of sieges, a hell of a lot of scary science experiments and even a Goa'uld infestation later, they were still here.
Fandom: Stargate: Atlantis
Pairing: John Sheppard
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Not mine; not for profit.
Original story: Other People's Monsters by merryish
The fire was built high, flames rising and flickering in the autumn night, but John had drunk enough of the Athosian wine (as well as one ill-advised shot from Radek’s bottle of hooch) that he would have been able to strip and stand naked in the middle of the tents on the far side of the fire and still not shiver.
Athosian harvest festivals were a lot like Teyla; outwardly unassuming, but both packing one hell of a punch. We have planted our second harvest, she said, and we are still here: come celebrate. Elizabeth agreed instantly and announced that the city would be joining the Athosians on the mainland for Second Harvest with only a skeleton crew left behind in Atlantis.
John leaned back on his log and let the alcohol sink into his system. His eyes tracked the figures dancing around the fire - they seemed halfway between shadows, coming into and out of focus on the ground, and angels, arching in the air. The drummers on the outer ring of the circle provided a steady rhythm for the dancers. He caught sight of Teyla then, holding on to her partner’s hands, and kicking her feet off the dirt and into the air.
John grinned and saluted her with his science coffee mug. Well, there was usually coffee in it. There'd been half again as much wine in it just a little while ago, John decided, peering into it. He tried to sit up a bit and found himself swaying instead, which forced him to dig his fingernails into the soil as he braced himself on one arm.
God, he hadn't been this drunk since before gating into Atlantis that first time. Head stuffed full of secrets, body still singing from lighting up the chair and more than half convinced either he or the rest of the world were absolutely fucking crazy.
He'd set out to get Jackson drunk, he remembered, because Jackson talked like other people breathed, dispatching payloads of the information that John needed to get a handle on this Stargate thing. (Plus, the exposure gave him immunity against McKay, another guy who would never use one word where three would do). And it had worked: Jackson had given him the real history of the SGC, stripped of all the normal military bureaucratic bullshit. Some of it was horribly terrifying - John hadn't quite added up the number of the times the SGC had both brought the Earth to brink of total destruction and saved it before - and some of it was hilarious - Jackson had giggled when recounting the time O’Neill had managed to get his whole body dyed purple - and some of it, despite all he had seen already, seemed unbelievable, more the stuff of great practical jokes than secret military operations. But it was only after Jackson had warned him that whatever the Ancients were running from in Pegasus, it was probably a whole lot worse than what could be found in the Milky Way that John had really started drinking.
Just as well he did, because he couldn't have very well gone out and got shitfaced after that awful moment when he had looked into Sumner's eyes and pulled the trigger, as much as he might have wanted to.
Now, though, after one Wraith awakening, a couple of sieges, a hell of a lot of scary science experiments and even a Goa'uld infestation, well like Teyla said, they were still here.
Not all of them, though. John gulped down the rest of the spicy wine and tried not to think of Ford, or of the dozens of others whose silent company had increased as they followed him from Afghanistan to Atlantis. His lost and his dead. He squeezed his eyes shut, suddenly convinced that the world was surging violently around him and he was about to fall off. No matter what they told you, it never got any easier.
A single shout pierced his reverie and John’s eyes flew open. The crowd around the fire seemed to have doubled, all watching one person, standing at the very edge of the circle. The drums fell silent, and the figure shouted again, ran up to the fire - and jumped over it. John’s eyes widened and the drummers erupted into a wild fury of drumming at the successful landing. The others cheered and clapped and then begin dancing again, even more faster and higher than before. John whistled and just like that, the world seemed stable again. Someone added more wood to the fire and in the increasing light, he could see Ronon, moving quietly out of the shadows, his feet quick and his face unguarded and young; Elizabeth, looking like a teenager as she danced with Radek; Murray, one of his Marines, twirling an Athosian woman half his size around, and even Rodney, stumbling through the steps of an Athosian group dance, his face red, but grinning nonetheless. Nearly three years, two harvests and more victories than John would have thought possible: why shouldn’t they cheer the act of leaping over flames?
John thought now that he understood the longing with which Jackson had spoken of Atlantis. He thought he understood Jackson's ties to the Milky Way too, tangled too much in his team for them to ever really let him go. John’s own team was both a gift and a worry - his to keep safe, if he could. And every time they had come back safe to Atlantis it had felt like a homecoming, the city welcoming her own.
A week after they had lost Ford again, Rodney had barged into John’s quarters, clutching a couple of PowerBars and one of the new Doctor Who DVDs. He had tossed John a PowerBar, shoved the disc into the laptop and kept up a steady stream of snark on the show's pseudoscience, the inferiority of Nine compared to previous Doctors and the BBC’s idea of contemporary fashion. John had actually dozed off halfway through, the regular rhythms of Rodney’s voice providing a lullaby of sorts. When he woke up, the lights were dimmed and his laptop was humming quietly to itself on his bedside table.
Rodney never said anything about that night, and John didn't either. But he traded in some favors and showed up at the next team night with a DVD burned with Tom Baker episodes and high quality chocolate for all. He even let Rodney have first dibs.
John tilted his head back and gazed at the stars: they seemed so close and yet so foreign here, arranged in different patterns than the ones he had memorized as a kid. But he had flown among them, looking down at Atlantis and all those worlds with something he could only call love, seizing him and filling him, for this galaxy, this city, these people.
Then a hand came from the heavens and John was staring into Teyla’s smiling face. Sweat dripped down from her forehead to the tip of her chin, but she didn’t seem to be breathing that hard at all. “Come,” she said and John clasped her hand, letting her pull him up. The vertigo lasted for just a moment and then he was seriously dancing, whirling from partner to partner, Athosian to Alantean and back again, close to the flames and away from them. The drums beat in his ears, thrumming all the way to his feet, and he leapt, flying through these skies where they had made their home.