The Fallow And The Full by Ekaterinn [phone calls challenge]
Title: The Fallow And The Full
Author: Ekaterinn
Ratings & People: John/Rodney/Ronon/Teyla. NC-17.
Spoilers: Mention of events in "The Return, Part 1"
Warnings: Life, death, and one really long phone call.
Summary: Even so, Rodney's and John's mouths came together with more force than John would had expected - Rodney didn’t seem tentative at all at the prospect of having sex with the rest of his gate team, two of whom were male.
Notes: My very effusive thanks go to my two betas, the_acrobat and raucousraven, both of whom took time out of their busy schedules to help whip this story into shape. The phone call challenge gave me incentive to finish this, which is now completely and appropriately over the limit at 4669 words.
Gulf Shores, 2019 (Earth calendar).
The smell of the steak cooking mixes with the salty Gulf air as John opens another window. It's late enough in the spring that he has to wait to turn off the air-conditioning before he lets in the breeze. He's been here long enough to know that it's only when the air is completely still that's a storm's coming. He's been here almost long enough that the smell, and the sight, and the sound of this ocean does not automatically make him measure what those same rhythms would have meant on Atlantis. He tells himself he does not miss her voice.
After dinner, he will drink a beer and go for a swim. The water will be warm and calm, and John will dry off by walking along a shoreline made lonlier by the absence of people who have given up on rebuilding and let themselves be drawn inland instead. But right now, John's making a salad to go with his steak. When the phone rings, he's cutting up a carrot. John lunges for it and almost chops his thumb off. “Shit,” he says, right into the receiver.
“Sheppard?” The tone is unusually tentative, but John could have identified that voice across the landing strip on an aircraft carrier.
“Shit,” he says again, staring out at the sky where a full moon is slowly rising, “McKay.”
Athosian Settlement, 2009.
The moon hung heavily over the Athosian settlement, nearer and brighter than it ever would be on Earth. “Harvest moon,” he remarked to Ronon, who had appeared quietly besides him a few moments ago.
Ronon nodded. “Back on Sateda, we had two moons. When Mara grew the smallest and Corel grew the largest, the farmers harvested grains and people danced, all across the continent.” John, startled, turned to look at him. Ronon rarely offered anything abut his life before he became a Runner. He took another sip of his Athosian wine, unsure of how to respond. However, before he either had to say something or deliberately keep his silence, Ronon shook his head, and said, “Teyla wants us in her tent.”
“Okay.” John pushed himself up, the liquid in his cup sloshing dangerously. The moon tilted, and he blinked. “Whoa.”
“Need some help?” Ronon didn’t ever try to hide his amusement.
“Fuck you too,” John said good-naturedly. Though he was wondering if he had had too much of the red wine. Surprisingly potent stuff, that.
Ronon simply grinned.
Teyla’s tent was a large brown-and-beige structure, with furs on the floor, and strips of white cloth and wooden beads decorating the front flap. She had explained that “such decorations mark a leader’s dwelling”, but it always made John think of the beads hippies and teenagers used instead of doors back on Earth.
She smiled as they entered. “Welcome,” she said, touching her forehead to Ronon’s. Rodney was already inside, sitting on a stool and staring into an empty cup, smiling crookedly. He looked up, a bit dazed, and his smile widened when he saw John.
“Hey,” he said.
John speculated that he might have had a bit too much wine as well.
“Hiya,” he said back, feeling foolishly happy.
“Welcome,” Teyla repeated, and touched her forehead to his. She smelled like a mix of hot Athosian spices and Earth vanilla, making John’s breath catch. Definitely too much wine. He was grateful, then, when Teyla took his cup from him with a smile, and pressed another, full of steaming dark tea, into his hand. “This is mappetiam tea,” she told him. “It can be sipped, but ‘tis best to drink it quickly.”
John smirked at her and drained the cup in one go. It was smoky and sweet, and seemed to sweep like a wave down his body, leaving only the sensation of heat behind. “Like that?” he asked, meaning to tease, but it came out low and strained and a little gritty instead. He heard Ronon grunt behind him, saw Rodney stand up out of the corner of his eye, but his gaze was locked on Teyla’s serene face.
“Yes,” she replied. “Exactly like that.” She stepped towards him and took the cup from his unresisting fingers again, placing it on a small table. Then she leaned forwards, placed her hands on his shoulders, and kissed him.
Shocked silent, John still found himself responding, pressing his mouth and body against hers. Teyla took full advantage of this, tasting his mouth and drawing one fingernail down his spine. Memories of every time John had thought about the curve of her breasts or seen her face, flushed from combat, curling his back and tightening his groin in one long arc of need.
She broke the kiss then, and he stumbled a step backward. “Wha -?” She smiled, and tilted her head at him.
“For five years we have been a team. It is now time for the harvest,” she said. “And so it is well and right to do this, if all consent.”
“All? This?” he asked, feeling like he’d left his brain, and the rest of reality along with it, back with his sanity in Atlantis. Teyla didn’t reply, but Ronon stepped away from where he was standing next to Rodney - Wasn’t he on the other side of the tent a second ago?, John thought dizzily - and moved towards John.
Ronon's kiss was crushing, intense and consuming, and John reacted, raising his hands and pressing them to Ronon’s cheeks, trying to give as good as he got. If Teyla’s kiss was more than sisterly, then Ronon’s was nothing less than a revelation. They finally broke apart, breathing hard. “Ronon,” John began, but closed his mouth.
“Sheppard,” Ronon rumbled back, and John got it. He opened his mouth to protest, to suggest that a team orgy was maybe not the best idea ever, but then he glanced at Rodney, and Rodney lifted his chin and it was suddenly a dare. And then he remembered that Rodney and Teyla had been alone in the tent.
Teyla’s tactics were, as always, excellent.
Even so, Rodney's and John's mouths came together with more force than John would had expected - Rodney didn’t seem tentative at all at the prospect of having sex with the rest of his gate team, two of whom were male. Still, John stepped back, eyes asking are you okay with this?, as if Rodney wouldn’t been screaming bloody murder if he wasn’t. Rodney's eyes widened, and then he rolled his eyes, which John figured translated as a foursome with you and Teyla and Ronon? I’m game if you are, Sheppard, before stepping back.
“So consent is given. Let us begin,” Teyla said, a smile in her voice.
“Wait,” John protested. He was fumbling for a last objection, and he didn’t even know why anymore. “We would need precautions," he said, though he was sure that Rodney, at least, would have asked about that already. "For pregnancy and - and stuff.” And that didn't come out as nearly as confident as he would have liked.
Teyla nodded at him. “The mappeitam tea acts to prevent such things. And we have all had our physicals recently.” Her smile was catlike, and she extended a hand to Rodney, pulling him down with her to the furs.
Despite the heat inside the tent, John shivered. He wanted this.
God, he wanted them all.
He raised his head, and saw Ronon, standing utterly naked, and read hunger, written all down his body.
Now, John couldn’t get out of his own clothes fast enough, now, Ronon’s touch, teasing, teasing, felt like fire on his skin, now, they tumbled onto the furs, and now, now there were hands everywhere -
- Rodney looked up from where his face was buried in Teyla’s breasts to kiss him again, a firm, but strangely tender kiss, a wasn’t-this-a-good-idea kiss, and John returned it, and thought, oh yes, brilliant-
- fingers curled around his hip and Ronon asked, “Fuck you?”, and John pushed back onto Ronon’s hand, already straining for it, and said “yeah, go for it, go for it,” as Ronon slipped one finger in and then another -
- later, John watched as Rodney licked Ronon’s tatooed neck, so intent on his task that John was vaguely impressed, and then Rodney looked up over Ronon’s rich sweet skin, looked him straight in the eyes, and heat pooled in his belly -
-and later Teyla, slippery and strong, took him, and her fingernails felt as good digging into his forearms as her body felt, arching against his own -
- and then finally all of them trading slow, sleepy kisses with each other in the dark, and sliding into dreams.
In the morning, John woke to find himself pressed up against Ronon’s broad back. Rodney was snoring somewhere to the left, and John also recognised Teyla’s breathing. His head hurt, and he was sore, but he was also very, very relaxed. I never see these things coming, he thought ruefully, and grinned to himself.
Gulf Shores, 2019.
“You’re hard to track down,” Rodney says.
“So why did you bother? Feeling nostalgic?” His voice is not kind.
Rodney snorts. “Nostalgic is not the word, Colonel.”
“Retired,” John snaps out. “So give me a better one, Dr. McKay, you always did talk too much.”
McKay’s reply is curt. “You want a word? Here’s one: dulcebitas.”
John feels like he’s been punched in the gut. Dulcebitas. Bitter and sweet. Hope and loss.
Teyla.
“She’s a galaxy away,” John forces out between gritted teeth.
“I know,” Rodney says, quick as ever. “But I’m not.”
Atlantis, 2011.
The slap-slap of feet hitting the ground echoed through the corridors of Atlantis. Past the personnel quarters, past the labs, and ‘round the East Pier. Ronon has become a quiet, solid presence besides him. John was grateful for that.
Sweat pouring down his face, he waved off Ronon’s suggestion of a fourth circuit and headed towards his quarters. Standing beneath the shower, he rubbed his face, but refrained from kicking the wall. The mission to M3X-811 might have ended badly, but a stupid injury, he knew from experience, wouldn’t help matters any.
After he washed the stink off him, John walked to his office, poking his head into the labs on the way. Rodney was arguing with one of the newer scientists, gesturing passionately. When he caught sight of John, he broke off his tirade, and said to the other scientist, “Doyle, just, just go back to your other project. You can exercise your initiative when it doesn’t lead you to believe that two plus two equals purple.”
John smiled lazily at Doyle, who had thrown up her hands in the air and was muttering McKay-based imprecations as she strode off to her lab bench. “Hey, Rodney,” he said.
“Yes, Colonel?” Rodney sounded annoyed. “Do you need directions back to the puddlejumper bay? I’m very busy right now.” Up close, John saw both the bandaged cut of Rodney’s forehead and the rope burns on his flailing wrists.
“I just dropped by to see if your department needed any difficult equations worked out,” John drawled, deliberately provocative. Rodney’s been hurt far worse before, but it never stopped bothering John, even as Rodney’s competence out in the field increased.
“Oh, you are not still holding M7X-435 over me! That priestess was a total idiot. Plus, she clearly had horrible taste in men.”
“Jealous?” John asked. “Besides, she loved me for my mind.”
“Yes, and the pretty face that goes with it,” Rodney snorted.
“Well if you’re sure you don’t need my help, I’ll be on my merry way,” John replied, smirking easily.
“Shoo, shoo,” Rodney said, flapping his fingers at John. When he was halfway out the door, Rodney asked, “Are we still on for tomorrow night, Sheppard? Season four of Battlestar Galactica and all that?" He sounded indifferent. John knew better.
“Yeah,” John grinned. It felt a bit more genuine this time. “Yeah, we are, Rodney.”
Piles of paperwork were waiting for John when he finally got to his underused office. He’d already done what he considered the most important part of it earlier today when he had recorded the message for Jameson’s family, but he buried himself in it anyway. At 2045, he gave it up with a sigh of relief, and went to meet Teyla.
She whacked him twice on the ass and once on his thigh, but he managed to tap her twice and figured it for a good match. At the very least, she didn’t make any cracks about needing to practise more this time. Sweat was running down John's face again when Teyla called it quits. As they went to put the sticks away, she said quietly, “You did well today.”
“Thanks, Teyla,” he replied.
“My praise mostly referred to your actions on Hestia,” she corrected. M3X-811.
“I killed nine people,” he said, flat-voiced.
“You rescued both Rodney and myself.”
“Teyla. One of them was a child. I don’t see how that’s anything to be proud of.”
“I did not say you should be prideful. Only that you did well,” she rebuked him. John suddenly felt very tired and not up to arguing with Teyla. Some of that must have shown in his face, for she added more softly, “my people have a word. It means finding the sweet along with the bitter. Knowing that while life is finite, there is always hope.” She took a step closer to him. “Dulcebitas. While Mark Jameson died and none of us could prevent it, his sacrifice gave us some much-needed time. While you had to kill nine people, one of whom was very young indeed, and Ronon four, Rodney and I were saved.”
He let out a long breath. “Dulcebitas.”
Teyla nodded and reached out a hand to touch his cheek. “Yes,” she said.
Athosian Settlement, 2013.
“Hey, Teyla, question,” John said softly, trying not to wake the others.
She opened one eye at him and then the other. “How was it that you knew I was not asleep?” She was beautiful in the early-morning light that came through the tent, naked and golden.
“Your breathing changes,” John whispered back.
‘I must work on that then,” she said, smiling. “But what was your question?”
“Nothing major,” John replied, trying to shrug while lying on the slippery fur. “I just wondered why you gave that tea to all of us if it's just for birth control.”
“Ah, ‘birth control’ as you put it, is important for both female and male participants.”
“But guys can’t get pregnant,” John pointed out.
She raised her eyebrows at him. “Can they not?”
John blinked at her. “You’re not serious,” he said finally.
She grinned at him. “Perhaps not entirely. But there have been rare tales, told by traders, of male pregnancies.”
On the other side of John, someone giggled. John rolled over to find that Rodney had his eyes very wide open. His face was red. He managed to choke out, “oh god, just think, Sheppard, your very own bundle of joy!” before dissolving into more giggles.
“Very funny, Rodney,” John remarked dryly. But then Ronon’s deeper chuckle joined Rodney’s and John groaned, knowing himself to be doomed to baby jokes for a long, long time.
Then Teyla added slyly, “besides, it is also an aphrodisiac,” and laughter convulsed them all.
Gulf Shores, 2019.
“And maybe you don’t care,” Rodney adds, “but I’m actually in the same country, working in the ugliest building ever with complete and utter morons at the University of Chicago.”
“That’s wonderful, Rodney,” John drawls. “I’m so happy for you.”
“Oh, shut up,” Rodney says, “Elizabeth’s working as a foreign policy advisor in D.C., Simpson’s at U of T, Radek’s family has a farm outside of Prague -”
“Is there a point to any of this?”
Rodney ignored the interruption. “- and John Sheppard is nowhere and nobody knows whether he’s alive or dead!”
“Hey,” John says, stung. “I’m not nowhere - I have a life, a nice, peaceful life. I don’t need to shout ‘Here I am!’ to validate my existence.”
“Oh, come on, what life?” Rodney snorts derisively. “You fucking vanished. And for what? To surf the ocean every summer and rebuild in the winter after the hurricanes hit?”
"What's wrong with that?" John asks defensively. "I'm not military anymore, Rodney. I can do whatever the hell I want."
"You never even said goodbye, asshole," Rodney says, quieter than John would have expected. "I mean, even a note saying 'I am off to frolic in the Gulf and get blown away by a mega-hurricane, here's the general area where you can expect to find my body' would have been nice."
John closes his eyes. This conversation is precisely why he never tried to contact Rodney in the first place. "I had my reasons," he says, his voice tight and hard.
Atlantis, 2016.
“This is Ravel,” Elizabeth said, gesturing towards a small young woman who looked like she never got enough to eat. “She has some information for us.”
John sat up from his slouch on the chair as Ravel began to speak softly. “My people are of the Gen’tua,” she said, “and we have served the Wraithkind for many generations, trading sacrifices for favours. But lately the sacrifices have become greater, and the favours smaller -”
“Please,” Rodney broke in, “spare us the personal revelation that worshipping the Wraith is maybe not such a good idea, and get to the information necessary for our survival part.”
“Rodney!” Elizabeth snapped, sounding irritated and edgy. She turned towards the woman, who stood with her face blank. “Please, Ravel, tell us in your own way.”
Tucking a strand of her long black hair behind her ear, Ravel continued. “There was a certain Queen who was not content with the rule of her own Hive. She sought to undo the Scattering that was effected several years ago - and she was successful.”
The whole room was silent, tense with anticipation.
“Soon, she will come for Atlantis, and she will not come alone.”
John knew, then, before proof, before reconnaissance, before the discussion of defenses, that this fight against the Wraith would be the biggest and the bloodiest. The cost, in lives, equipment, ammunitions -, he thought disjointedly. But he made himself lean forward casually, resting his forearms on the table, and asked, “So, proof?”
Atlantis, 2017.
They lost Ronon in the second wave. John didn’t even know until hours later, until one of the Marines recovered his body - and those of two other soldiers - under a pile of rubble. The North Tower had crumbled under the Wraith assault, taking a good deal of that quadrant with it.
He was in the gateroom when the word came in, and acknowledged it with a concise, “Thanks,” over his radio. When Elizabeth touched his shoulder in sympathy, he had to force himself not to explode.
And, hours - maybe days - later, in a lull between battles, he looked at Rodney, who nodded, and they made their way to Teyla’s quarters. She was waiting for them, with cups of mappeitam. John took his with something akin to relief. This was familiarity. This was tribute.
After they had drained their cups, Teyla passed around tiny glasses filled with a clear liquid. “This is called lacrival,” she told them. “For unexpected loss.” Her voice wavered a bit on the last word, and Rodney swallowed hard. John looked away.
“To Ronon,” she added, lifting her glass and drinking the lacrival down.
“To Ronon,” Rodney said, repeating Teyla’s actions. He was shaking slightly, and John wondered how much speed he was doing to get through this, but couldn’t bring himself to ask.
He took one deep breath, and then another. “To Ronon,” John said, his voice loud and clear. The lacrival tasted like vodka distilled from tears, salty and potent. It made him shudder, but it was the concern on Teyla’s distraught face and on Rodney’s exhausted one that finally broke his self-control. He reached out for them, almost blindly, and they held each other, awkward and silent, for a long moment.
And it was awkward, without Ronon. You’d think four people would harder than three, not the other way around, thought John, frustrated and grieving. He stroked Rodney's dick, his hands moving fast and rough, because he needed to be doing something, something he could do. He caught sight of Teyla’s face then, now on the other side of Rodney, and wondered if he looked that intent, anger and fear and need so horribly present. Teyla’s gaze held his for a few seconds, as intimate as a kiss, before she lowered her head, pressing closer to Rodney. Her left hand, small and slender, curled around Rodney’s hip, close enough for John to touch. But Rodney was shaking in a good way now, and John focused on that, watching his face.
“Oh, god, Teyla, yeah, Sheppard -” Rodney begged, and John growled, “godammit, call me John,” wanting that connection, that acknowledgment, and Rodney slid his hand down John’s shoulder, pulling him close, and said, “okay, John, okay.”
Gulf Shores, 2019.
"Of course you did," Rodney says, sounding disgusted. "But I don't give a damn about your reasons. You don't get to do the emotionally unavailable thing with me, John."
" 'Emotionally unavailable?' You've been watching way too much Dr. Phil, McKay," John replies, lashing out any way he can, the receiver hot against his ear.
There's a sharp intake of breath on the other side of the line “You also don't get to make a fucking joke out of this,” Rodney growls. "I don't -"
“No, Rodney, you listen to me for once,” and now John is yelling, “because we should have stayed, we should have fought.”
There’s silence on the other side of the line. John, breathing heavily, doesn’t know what to expect. One of Rodney’s famous rants? An angry hang-up, leaving John to get back to his ruined dinner? But Rodney does neither of those things. Instead, he sighs like he's exhaling all of his fury in one breath, and says, “Yeah. Maybe we should have.”
Atlantis, 2017.
John and Rodney got the news first, in a private meeting with Elizabeth: the expedition had been recalled, and Atlantis was to be sunk again and sealed off.
“But, but,” Rodney sputtered. “I know there’s been some damage - okay, a lot of damage - but there’s still so much we can learn here. Also, we took the city back from the Ancients before - all right, Replicators looking like Ancients, but so not my point - and now the SGC thinks they can just order us back? Are they crazy? Oh god, don't answer that, I know they are.”
Elizabeth, weary and scarred, looked down for a second and then back up at Rodney. “I was told that 'those considerations have not overruled other pressing concerns'.”
Rodney stared at her. “What?”
“The point,” John said, dangerously soft, “is that the SGC is all too willing to leave Atlantis and this galaxy behind. The Wraith scare them shitless.” He watched Elizabeth’s mouth form an angry, affirmative curl before it faded back to its customary neutral line.
“We won,” Rodney pointed out, “and there’s far fewer Wraith around today than there was a few weeks ago. By any reasonable standard of measurement, we won.”
“He’s right, you know,” John said, turning towards Elizabeth. “We can fight this. Hell, we have before. All of us, and Carson, have risked our careers, and our lives for Atlantis. We do it now. Tell the SGC we can keep on -.”
“Don’t you think I haven’t tried, John?” She sounded very tired. John remembered how she had refused to respond to all their attempts at contact the last time they had been forced to return to Earth. “By the order of the President, the SGC is concentrating their resources on defending Earth. Atlantis isn’t the only far-flung outpost to be abandoned, gentlemen.”
Nobody said anything for a long moment. At last, Rodney, with defeat in his voice, asked, “How long?”
“Two weeks,” she told him, “and that’s after I called their attention to the fact that we would need time both to pack up and to save as much knowledge as we can.” She laughed a little, desperately. "At least it's more than 48 hours."
Athosian Settlement, 2017.
They went back to the mainland one last time. Just the three of them, worn at the edges and quiet. Even Rodney was unusually silent, fiddling with a small piece of Ancient tech liberated from the labs. John flew them there slowly, focusing on the way his puddlejumper responded to him, and watching as the tents and cabins and fields of root vegetables and those wheat-like things that made up the Athosian settlement came into view.
In Teyla’s tent, they undressed. They had walked the long way through the settlement to get there. Rodney had complained half-heartedly about the pollen, with John ribbing him about it, and Teyla looking on at their antics with a familiar amused tolerance. But she did not brew the mappeitam tea, and Rodney asked, almost shyly, “Are you - are you sure?”
“Yes,” she said and John thought he could read every line in her face, pain and hope and loss, “if it is fine with both of you, I would like to have the chance.”
“This is insane,“ Rodney muttered. “But. Okay.”
John thought about it, thought about possibly leaving a part of himself in the Pegasus Galaxy, thought about a child he would never know, his and Teyla’s, or Rodney’s and Teyla’s, and was comforted and discomfited by those thoughts at the same time. “Dulcebitas,” he said, surprising Teyla, but only a little by now.
The sex was tender and slow. They were all too tired for anything fierce. John was very aware, looking down at Teyla’s eyes, that he would never have this again. Every movement brought him closer to the flight back to Atlantis and then the trip back to Earth. Rodney and Teyla were no less conscious of this, and they, too, drew the hours out, pausing to kiss long and deep. When they all finally went to sleep, they held hands, like little kids.
Gulf Shores, 2019.
John doesn’t know what to say. He never knows what to do when Rodney gives in. In Atlantis, John relied on Rodney to fight with him and for him, to back him up; any withdrawal of that cantankerous support, no matter how rare or well-advised, leaves John floundering. Maybe that’s obvious, because Rodney doesn’t wait for a reply. “John. I don't think I deserve this, this silence." Rodney sounds absolutely miserable, and that, more than anything, completes John's defeat.
"No, you don't," he says, and admitting this now is just as hard as it would have been two years ago and a galaxy away. "But I thought -" he thought he couldn't go back to the last time they'd been sent back to Earth, every phone call from Rodney reminding him of all he had left behind " - it would be better to make a clean break."
John can hear Rodney breathing, in and out, across the wire. It mixes with the sound of the surf in the distance, overlain the beating of John's heart. "That doesn't work for me," Rodney finally replies, and John has missed him so much.
"It's not really working for me either," he confesses.
"I can be at your house by tomorrow afternoon," Rodney says - it's not quite a question, but not a statement either.
John thinks of Ronon’s body, laid out for a makeshift funeral, and he thinks of Teyla’s hand, warm on his cheek. He thinks of a galaxy he lost, a child he will never know. And then he thinks of Rodney smiling at him, in the puddlejumper, or in the lab, or off-world and he replies, “Please. Yes.”
Author: Ekaterinn
Ratings & People: John/Rodney/Ronon/Teyla. NC-17.
Spoilers: Mention of events in "The Return, Part 1"
Warnings: Life, death, and one really long phone call.
Summary: Even so, Rodney's and John's mouths came together with more force than John would had expected - Rodney didn’t seem tentative at all at the prospect of having sex with the rest of his gate team, two of whom were male.
Notes: My very effusive thanks go to my two betas, the_acrobat and raucousraven, both of whom took time out of their busy schedules to help whip this story into shape. The phone call challenge gave me incentive to finish this, which is now completely and appropriately over the limit at 4669 words.
Gulf Shores, 2019 (Earth calendar).
The smell of the steak cooking mixes with the salty Gulf air as John opens another window. It's late enough in the spring that he has to wait to turn off the air-conditioning before he lets in the breeze. He's been here long enough to know that it's only when the air is completely still that's a storm's coming. He's been here almost long enough that the smell, and the sight, and the sound of this ocean does not automatically make him measure what those same rhythms would have meant on Atlantis. He tells himself he does not miss her voice.
After dinner, he will drink a beer and go for a swim. The water will be warm and calm, and John will dry off by walking along a shoreline made lonlier by the absence of people who have given up on rebuilding and let themselves be drawn inland instead. But right now, John's making a salad to go with his steak. When the phone rings, he's cutting up a carrot. John lunges for it and almost chops his thumb off. “Shit,” he says, right into the receiver.
“Sheppard?” The tone is unusually tentative, but John could have identified that voice across the landing strip on an aircraft carrier.
“Shit,” he says again, staring out at the sky where a full moon is slowly rising, “McKay.”
Athosian Settlement, 2009.
The moon hung heavily over the Athosian settlement, nearer and brighter than it ever would be on Earth. “Harvest moon,” he remarked to Ronon, who had appeared quietly besides him a few moments ago.
Ronon nodded. “Back on Sateda, we had two moons. When Mara grew the smallest and Corel grew the largest, the farmers harvested grains and people danced, all across the continent.” John, startled, turned to look at him. Ronon rarely offered anything abut his life before he became a Runner. He took another sip of his Athosian wine, unsure of how to respond. However, before he either had to say something or deliberately keep his silence, Ronon shook his head, and said, “Teyla wants us in her tent.”
“Okay.” John pushed himself up, the liquid in his cup sloshing dangerously. The moon tilted, and he blinked. “Whoa.”
“Need some help?” Ronon didn’t ever try to hide his amusement.
“Fuck you too,” John said good-naturedly. Though he was wondering if he had had too much of the red wine. Surprisingly potent stuff, that.
Ronon simply grinned.
Teyla’s tent was a large brown-and-beige structure, with furs on the floor, and strips of white cloth and wooden beads decorating the front flap. She had explained that “such decorations mark a leader’s dwelling”, but it always made John think of the beads hippies and teenagers used instead of doors back on Earth.
She smiled as they entered. “Welcome,” she said, touching her forehead to Ronon’s. Rodney was already inside, sitting on a stool and staring into an empty cup, smiling crookedly. He looked up, a bit dazed, and his smile widened when he saw John.
“Hey,” he said.
John speculated that he might have had a bit too much wine as well.
“Hiya,” he said back, feeling foolishly happy.
“Welcome,” Teyla repeated, and touched her forehead to his. She smelled like a mix of hot Athosian spices and Earth vanilla, making John’s breath catch. Definitely too much wine. He was grateful, then, when Teyla took his cup from him with a smile, and pressed another, full of steaming dark tea, into his hand. “This is mappetiam tea,” she told him. “It can be sipped, but ‘tis best to drink it quickly.”
John smirked at her and drained the cup in one go. It was smoky and sweet, and seemed to sweep like a wave down his body, leaving only the sensation of heat behind. “Like that?” he asked, meaning to tease, but it came out low and strained and a little gritty instead. He heard Ronon grunt behind him, saw Rodney stand up out of the corner of his eye, but his gaze was locked on Teyla’s serene face.
“Yes,” she replied. “Exactly like that.” She stepped towards him and took the cup from his unresisting fingers again, placing it on a small table. Then she leaned forwards, placed her hands on his shoulders, and kissed him.
Shocked silent, John still found himself responding, pressing his mouth and body against hers. Teyla took full advantage of this, tasting his mouth and drawing one fingernail down his spine. Memories of every time John had thought about the curve of her breasts or seen her face, flushed from combat, curling his back and tightening his groin in one long arc of need.
She broke the kiss then, and he stumbled a step backward. “Wha -?” She smiled, and tilted her head at him.
“For five years we have been a team. It is now time for the harvest,” she said. “And so it is well and right to do this, if all consent.”
“All? This?” he asked, feeling like he’d left his brain, and the rest of reality along with it, back with his sanity in Atlantis. Teyla didn’t reply, but Ronon stepped away from where he was standing next to Rodney - Wasn’t he on the other side of the tent a second ago?, John thought dizzily - and moved towards John.
Ronon's kiss was crushing, intense and consuming, and John reacted, raising his hands and pressing them to Ronon’s cheeks, trying to give as good as he got. If Teyla’s kiss was more than sisterly, then Ronon’s was nothing less than a revelation. They finally broke apart, breathing hard. “Ronon,” John began, but closed his mouth.
“Sheppard,” Ronon rumbled back, and John got it. He opened his mouth to protest, to suggest that a team orgy was maybe not the best idea ever, but then he glanced at Rodney, and Rodney lifted his chin and it was suddenly a dare. And then he remembered that Rodney and Teyla had been alone in the tent.
Teyla’s tactics were, as always, excellent.
Even so, Rodney's and John's mouths came together with more force than John would had expected - Rodney didn’t seem tentative at all at the prospect of having sex with the rest of his gate team, two of whom were male. Still, John stepped back, eyes asking are you okay with this?, as if Rodney wouldn’t been screaming bloody murder if he wasn’t. Rodney's eyes widened, and then he rolled his eyes, which John figured translated as a foursome with you and Teyla and Ronon? I’m game if you are, Sheppard, before stepping back.
“So consent is given. Let us begin,” Teyla said, a smile in her voice.
“Wait,” John protested. He was fumbling for a last objection, and he didn’t even know why anymore. “We would need precautions," he said, though he was sure that Rodney, at least, would have asked about that already. "For pregnancy and - and stuff.” And that didn't come out as nearly as confident as he would have liked.
Teyla nodded at him. “The mappeitam tea acts to prevent such things. And we have all had our physicals recently.” Her smile was catlike, and she extended a hand to Rodney, pulling him down with her to the furs.
Despite the heat inside the tent, John shivered. He wanted this.
God, he wanted them all.
He raised his head, and saw Ronon, standing utterly naked, and read hunger, written all down his body.
Now, John couldn’t get out of his own clothes fast enough, now, Ronon’s touch, teasing, teasing, felt like fire on his skin, now, they tumbled onto the furs, and now, now there were hands everywhere -
- Rodney looked up from where his face was buried in Teyla’s breasts to kiss him again, a firm, but strangely tender kiss, a wasn’t-this-a-good-idea kiss, and John returned it, and thought, oh yes, brilliant-
- fingers curled around his hip and Ronon asked, “Fuck you?”, and John pushed back onto Ronon’s hand, already straining for it, and said “yeah, go for it, go for it,” as Ronon slipped one finger in and then another -
- later, John watched as Rodney licked Ronon’s tatooed neck, so intent on his task that John was vaguely impressed, and then Rodney looked up over Ronon’s rich sweet skin, looked him straight in the eyes, and heat pooled in his belly -
-and later Teyla, slippery and strong, took him, and her fingernails felt as good digging into his forearms as her body felt, arching against his own -
- and then finally all of them trading slow, sleepy kisses with each other in the dark, and sliding into dreams.
In the morning, John woke to find himself pressed up against Ronon’s broad back. Rodney was snoring somewhere to the left, and John also recognised Teyla’s breathing. His head hurt, and he was sore, but he was also very, very relaxed. I never see these things coming, he thought ruefully, and grinned to himself.
Gulf Shores, 2019.
“You’re hard to track down,” Rodney says.
“So why did you bother? Feeling nostalgic?” His voice is not kind.
Rodney snorts. “Nostalgic is not the word, Colonel.”
“Retired,” John snaps out. “So give me a better one, Dr. McKay, you always did talk too much.”
McKay’s reply is curt. “You want a word? Here’s one: dulcebitas.”
John feels like he’s been punched in the gut. Dulcebitas. Bitter and sweet. Hope and loss.
Teyla.
“She’s a galaxy away,” John forces out between gritted teeth.
“I know,” Rodney says, quick as ever. “But I’m not.”
Atlantis, 2011.
The slap-slap of feet hitting the ground echoed through the corridors of Atlantis. Past the personnel quarters, past the labs, and ‘round the East Pier. Ronon has become a quiet, solid presence besides him. John was grateful for that.
Sweat pouring down his face, he waved off Ronon’s suggestion of a fourth circuit and headed towards his quarters. Standing beneath the shower, he rubbed his face, but refrained from kicking the wall. The mission to M3X-811 might have ended badly, but a stupid injury, he knew from experience, wouldn’t help matters any.
After he washed the stink off him, John walked to his office, poking his head into the labs on the way. Rodney was arguing with one of the newer scientists, gesturing passionately. When he caught sight of John, he broke off his tirade, and said to the other scientist, “Doyle, just, just go back to your other project. You can exercise your initiative when it doesn’t lead you to believe that two plus two equals purple.”
John smiled lazily at Doyle, who had thrown up her hands in the air and was muttering McKay-based imprecations as she strode off to her lab bench. “Hey, Rodney,” he said.
“Yes, Colonel?” Rodney sounded annoyed. “Do you need directions back to the puddlejumper bay? I’m very busy right now.” Up close, John saw both the bandaged cut of Rodney’s forehead and the rope burns on his flailing wrists.
“I just dropped by to see if your department needed any difficult equations worked out,” John drawled, deliberately provocative. Rodney’s been hurt far worse before, but it never stopped bothering John, even as Rodney’s competence out in the field increased.
“Oh, you are not still holding M7X-435 over me! That priestess was a total idiot. Plus, she clearly had horrible taste in men.”
“Jealous?” John asked. “Besides, she loved me for my mind.”
“Yes, and the pretty face that goes with it,” Rodney snorted.
“Well if you’re sure you don’t need my help, I’ll be on my merry way,” John replied, smirking easily.
“Shoo, shoo,” Rodney said, flapping his fingers at John. When he was halfway out the door, Rodney asked, “Are we still on for tomorrow night, Sheppard? Season four of Battlestar Galactica and all that?" He sounded indifferent. John knew better.
“Yeah,” John grinned. It felt a bit more genuine this time. “Yeah, we are, Rodney.”
Piles of paperwork were waiting for John when he finally got to his underused office. He’d already done what he considered the most important part of it earlier today when he had recorded the message for Jameson’s family, but he buried himself in it anyway. At 2045, he gave it up with a sigh of relief, and went to meet Teyla.
She whacked him twice on the ass and once on his thigh, but he managed to tap her twice and figured it for a good match. At the very least, she didn’t make any cracks about needing to practise more this time. Sweat was running down John's face again when Teyla called it quits. As they went to put the sticks away, she said quietly, “You did well today.”
“Thanks, Teyla,” he replied.
“My praise mostly referred to your actions on Hestia,” she corrected. M3X-811.
“I killed nine people,” he said, flat-voiced.
“You rescued both Rodney and myself.”
“Teyla. One of them was a child. I don’t see how that’s anything to be proud of.”
“I did not say you should be prideful. Only that you did well,” she rebuked him. John suddenly felt very tired and not up to arguing with Teyla. Some of that must have shown in his face, for she added more softly, “my people have a word. It means finding the sweet along with the bitter. Knowing that while life is finite, there is always hope.” She took a step closer to him. “Dulcebitas. While Mark Jameson died and none of us could prevent it, his sacrifice gave us some much-needed time. While you had to kill nine people, one of whom was very young indeed, and Ronon four, Rodney and I were saved.”
He let out a long breath. “Dulcebitas.”
Teyla nodded and reached out a hand to touch his cheek. “Yes,” she said.
Athosian Settlement, 2013.
“Hey, Teyla, question,” John said softly, trying not to wake the others.
She opened one eye at him and then the other. “How was it that you knew I was not asleep?” She was beautiful in the early-morning light that came through the tent, naked and golden.
“Your breathing changes,” John whispered back.
‘I must work on that then,” she said, smiling. “But what was your question?”
“Nothing major,” John replied, trying to shrug while lying on the slippery fur. “I just wondered why you gave that tea to all of us if it's just for birth control.”
“Ah, ‘birth control’ as you put it, is important for both female and male participants.”
“But guys can’t get pregnant,” John pointed out.
She raised her eyebrows at him. “Can they not?”
John blinked at her. “You’re not serious,” he said finally.
She grinned at him. “Perhaps not entirely. But there have been rare tales, told by traders, of male pregnancies.”
On the other side of John, someone giggled. John rolled over to find that Rodney had his eyes very wide open. His face was red. He managed to choke out, “oh god, just think, Sheppard, your very own bundle of joy!” before dissolving into more giggles.
“Very funny, Rodney,” John remarked dryly. But then Ronon’s deeper chuckle joined Rodney’s and John groaned, knowing himself to be doomed to baby jokes for a long, long time.
Then Teyla added slyly, “besides, it is also an aphrodisiac,” and laughter convulsed them all.
Gulf Shores, 2019.
“And maybe you don’t care,” Rodney adds, “but I’m actually in the same country, working in the ugliest building ever with complete and utter morons at the University of Chicago.”
“That’s wonderful, Rodney,” John drawls. “I’m so happy for you.”
“Oh, shut up,” Rodney says, “Elizabeth’s working as a foreign policy advisor in D.C., Simpson’s at U of T, Radek’s family has a farm outside of Prague -”
“Is there a point to any of this?”
Rodney ignored the interruption. “- and John Sheppard is nowhere and nobody knows whether he’s alive or dead!”
“Hey,” John says, stung. “I’m not nowhere - I have a life, a nice, peaceful life. I don’t need to shout ‘Here I am!’ to validate my existence.”
“Oh, come on, what life?” Rodney snorts derisively. “You fucking vanished. And for what? To surf the ocean every summer and rebuild in the winter after the hurricanes hit?”
"What's wrong with that?" John asks defensively. "I'm not military anymore, Rodney. I can do whatever the hell I want."
"You never even said goodbye, asshole," Rodney says, quieter than John would have expected. "I mean, even a note saying 'I am off to frolic in the Gulf and get blown away by a mega-hurricane, here's the general area where you can expect to find my body' would have been nice."
John closes his eyes. This conversation is precisely why he never tried to contact Rodney in the first place. "I had my reasons," he says, his voice tight and hard.
Atlantis, 2016.
“This is Ravel,” Elizabeth said, gesturing towards a small young woman who looked like she never got enough to eat. “She has some information for us.”
John sat up from his slouch on the chair as Ravel began to speak softly. “My people are of the Gen’tua,” she said, “and we have served the Wraithkind for many generations, trading sacrifices for favours. But lately the sacrifices have become greater, and the favours smaller -”
“Please,” Rodney broke in, “spare us the personal revelation that worshipping the Wraith is maybe not such a good idea, and get to the information necessary for our survival part.”
“Rodney!” Elizabeth snapped, sounding irritated and edgy. She turned towards the woman, who stood with her face blank. “Please, Ravel, tell us in your own way.”
Tucking a strand of her long black hair behind her ear, Ravel continued. “There was a certain Queen who was not content with the rule of her own Hive. She sought to undo the Scattering that was effected several years ago - and she was successful.”
The whole room was silent, tense with anticipation.
“Soon, she will come for Atlantis, and she will not come alone.”
John knew, then, before proof, before reconnaissance, before the discussion of defenses, that this fight against the Wraith would be the biggest and the bloodiest. The cost, in lives, equipment, ammunitions -, he thought disjointedly. But he made himself lean forward casually, resting his forearms on the table, and asked, “So, proof?”
Atlantis, 2017.
They lost Ronon in the second wave. John didn’t even know until hours later, until one of the Marines recovered his body - and those of two other soldiers - under a pile of rubble. The North Tower had crumbled under the Wraith assault, taking a good deal of that quadrant with it.
He was in the gateroom when the word came in, and acknowledged it with a concise, “Thanks,” over his radio. When Elizabeth touched his shoulder in sympathy, he had to force himself not to explode.
And, hours - maybe days - later, in a lull between battles, he looked at Rodney, who nodded, and they made their way to Teyla’s quarters. She was waiting for them, with cups of mappeitam. John took his with something akin to relief. This was familiarity. This was tribute.
After they had drained their cups, Teyla passed around tiny glasses filled with a clear liquid. “This is called lacrival,” she told them. “For unexpected loss.” Her voice wavered a bit on the last word, and Rodney swallowed hard. John looked away.
“To Ronon,” she added, lifting her glass and drinking the lacrival down.
“To Ronon,” Rodney said, repeating Teyla’s actions. He was shaking slightly, and John wondered how much speed he was doing to get through this, but couldn’t bring himself to ask.
He took one deep breath, and then another. “To Ronon,” John said, his voice loud and clear. The lacrival tasted like vodka distilled from tears, salty and potent. It made him shudder, but it was the concern on Teyla’s distraught face and on Rodney’s exhausted one that finally broke his self-control. He reached out for them, almost blindly, and they held each other, awkward and silent, for a long moment.
And it was awkward, without Ronon. You’d think four people would harder than three, not the other way around, thought John, frustrated and grieving. He stroked Rodney's dick, his hands moving fast and rough, because he needed to be doing something, something he could do. He caught sight of Teyla’s face then, now on the other side of Rodney, and wondered if he looked that intent, anger and fear and need so horribly present. Teyla’s gaze held his for a few seconds, as intimate as a kiss, before she lowered her head, pressing closer to Rodney. Her left hand, small and slender, curled around Rodney’s hip, close enough for John to touch. But Rodney was shaking in a good way now, and John focused on that, watching his face.
“Oh, god, Teyla, yeah, Sheppard -” Rodney begged, and John growled, “godammit, call me John,” wanting that connection, that acknowledgment, and Rodney slid his hand down John’s shoulder, pulling him close, and said, “okay, John, okay.”
Gulf Shores, 2019.
"Of course you did," Rodney says, sounding disgusted. "But I don't give a damn about your reasons. You don't get to do the emotionally unavailable thing with me, John."
" 'Emotionally unavailable?' You've been watching way too much Dr. Phil, McKay," John replies, lashing out any way he can, the receiver hot against his ear.
There's a sharp intake of breath on the other side of the line “You also don't get to make a fucking joke out of this,” Rodney growls. "I don't -"
“No, Rodney, you listen to me for once,” and now John is yelling, “because we should have stayed, we should have fought.”
There’s silence on the other side of the line. John, breathing heavily, doesn’t know what to expect. One of Rodney’s famous rants? An angry hang-up, leaving John to get back to his ruined dinner? But Rodney does neither of those things. Instead, he sighs like he's exhaling all of his fury in one breath, and says, “Yeah. Maybe we should have.”
Atlantis, 2017.
John and Rodney got the news first, in a private meeting with Elizabeth: the expedition had been recalled, and Atlantis was to be sunk again and sealed off.
“But, but,” Rodney sputtered. “I know there’s been some damage - okay, a lot of damage - but there’s still so much we can learn here. Also, we took the city back from the Ancients before - all right, Replicators looking like Ancients, but so not my point - and now the SGC thinks they can just order us back? Are they crazy? Oh god, don't answer that, I know they are.”
Elizabeth, weary and scarred, looked down for a second and then back up at Rodney. “I was told that 'those considerations have not overruled other pressing concerns'.”
Rodney stared at her. “What?”
“The point,” John said, dangerously soft, “is that the SGC is all too willing to leave Atlantis and this galaxy behind. The Wraith scare them shitless.” He watched Elizabeth’s mouth form an angry, affirmative curl before it faded back to its customary neutral line.
“We won,” Rodney pointed out, “and there’s far fewer Wraith around today than there was a few weeks ago. By any reasonable standard of measurement, we won.”
“He’s right, you know,” John said, turning towards Elizabeth. “We can fight this. Hell, we have before. All of us, and Carson, have risked our careers, and our lives for Atlantis. We do it now. Tell the SGC we can keep on -.”
“Don’t you think I haven’t tried, John?” She sounded very tired. John remembered how she had refused to respond to all their attempts at contact the last time they had been forced to return to Earth. “By the order of the President, the SGC is concentrating their resources on defending Earth. Atlantis isn’t the only far-flung outpost to be abandoned, gentlemen.”
Nobody said anything for a long moment. At last, Rodney, with defeat in his voice, asked, “How long?”
“Two weeks,” she told him, “and that’s after I called their attention to the fact that we would need time both to pack up and to save as much knowledge as we can.” She laughed a little, desperately. "At least it's more than 48 hours."
Athosian Settlement, 2017.
They went back to the mainland one last time. Just the three of them, worn at the edges and quiet. Even Rodney was unusually silent, fiddling with a small piece of Ancient tech liberated from the labs. John flew them there slowly, focusing on the way his puddlejumper responded to him, and watching as the tents and cabins and fields of root vegetables and those wheat-like things that made up the Athosian settlement came into view.
In Teyla’s tent, they undressed. They had walked the long way through the settlement to get there. Rodney had complained half-heartedly about the pollen, with John ribbing him about it, and Teyla looking on at their antics with a familiar amused tolerance. But she did not brew the mappeitam tea, and Rodney asked, almost shyly, “Are you - are you sure?”
“Yes,” she said and John thought he could read every line in her face, pain and hope and loss, “if it is fine with both of you, I would like to have the chance.”
“This is insane,“ Rodney muttered. “But. Okay.”
John thought about it, thought about possibly leaving a part of himself in the Pegasus Galaxy, thought about a child he would never know, his and Teyla’s, or Rodney’s and Teyla’s, and was comforted and discomfited by those thoughts at the same time. “Dulcebitas,” he said, surprising Teyla, but only a little by now.
The sex was tender and slow. They were all too tired for anything fierce. John was very aware, looking down at Teyla’s eyes, that he would never have this again. Every movement brought him closer to the flight back to Atlantis and then the trip back to Earth. Rodney and Teyla were no less conscious of this, and they, too, drew the hours out, pausing to kiss long and deep. When they all finally went to sleep, they held hands, like little kids.
Gulf Shores, 2019.
John doesn’t know what to say. He never knows what to do when Rodney gives in. In Atlantis, John relied on Rodney to fight with him and for him, to back him up; any withdrawal of that cantankerous support, no matter how rare or well-advised, leaves John floundering. Maybe that’s obvious, because Rodney doesn’t wait for a reply. “John. I don't think I deserve this, this silence." Rodney sounds absolutely miserable, and that, more than anything, completes John's defeat.
"No, you don't," he says, and admitting this now is just as hard as it would have been two years ago and a galaxy away. "But I thought -" he thought he couldn't go back to the last time they'd been sent back to Earth, every phone call from Rodney reminding him of all he had left behind " - it would be better to make a clean break."
John can hear Rodney breathing, in and out, across the wire. It mixes with the sound of the surf in the distance, overlain the beating of John's heart. "That doesn't work for me," Rodney finally replies, and John has missed him so much.
"It's not really working for me either," he confesses.
"I can be at your house by tomorrow afternoon," Rodney says - it's not quite a question, but not a statement either.
John thinks of Ronon’s body, laid out for a makeshift funeral, and he thinks of Teyla’s hand, warm on his cheek. He thinks of a galaxy he lost, a child he will never know. And then he thinks of Rodney smiling at him, in the puddlejumper, or in the lab, or off-world and he replies, “Please. Yes.”