Mind, Body, Soul - The Long Goodbye Tag
I wrote this a while ago for the Sheppard H/C Community, so you might have read it, but thought it fit with the challenge. It's been edited some. This is my first post to this Community.
Title: Mind, Body, Soul
Author: Kriadydragon
Rating: PG-13 for violence and some language
Characters: John, Thalan
Summary: Just what was Thalan like?
Mind, Body, Soul
Sheppard felt himself flung back, hitting a wall that wasn't actually there. There was a sharp, needle thin pain shooting through his skull and a black haze bordering his vision like a wide-screen at a movie. He felt indescribably detached, but it was the crowded stuffiness in his brain that made him panic. There was a new sheriff in town and John had been all but ousted. The entity that called himself Thalan regarded John with bewilderment before pouring all focus and control into Sheppard's body.
The body took a sharp breath. John's body. His lungs expanded at another's command. His ribs spread enough to accommodate. His heart stuttered rapidly in alarm and wonder. His organs, muscles, bones, limbs ignored him as they metaphorically prostrated to Thalan. John's eyes roved until they landed on Elizabeth's face.
The moment the name Phoebus was said, emotions brushed John's tentative awareness. Hatred: pure, bitter, and hot. It hit John with such force that he cringed away from it, nervous and shocked. His heart pounded out of sync to what he was feeling. It beat hard and fierce, not fast and wild. John opened his mental mouth and screamed warnings, shoving against Thalan who held fast as a brick wall.
“It is useless Sheppard.” And he was flung away like a swatted fly. The phantom feeling of flying backwards and colliding with something solid was for effect, to drive home and ground the pain of being subdued by someone who had years of practice existing without a body. John was too dazed to fight back during the moment of distraction when Elizabeth pulled his head, Thalan's head, in for a passionate kiss.
Then all hell broke loose. The two pulled away, weapons were grabbed. McKay fired off the nine-mil and what was supposed to register has searing pain across his shoulder was nothing more than a sting.
“If that gets infected,” John sneered. “I'm kicking your ass.”
Thalan snorted but pointedly ignored him.
John was too pissed to be deterred. “You kill any of my people, you're dead.”
“I like your temerity, Sheppard.”
“I'd tell you to kiss my ass, but you're wearing it and I'm not that flexible.”
Thalan had stopped listening. He was too busy diving head-first into the hunt. John decided it a good time to test the intruder's strengths. He pushed, prodded, shouted, and just to be annoying, hummed every obnoxious song he could think of right down to the the Oscar Meyer Wiener theme song. The body black-box had either come with a few extra perks or Thalan knew how to multi-task. His focus was so sharp he could have sliced bread with it, but he managed to find time to knock John back, beat him down with illusions of being punched, kicked, even shot to make the pain and weakness linger and buy a few moments of peace.
It was nothing compared to the lack of reaction from John's body. The real pain was located in the small portion of his skull he still occupied, cut off from Thalan's awareness. Pain to his body was like a dream he'd barely woken up from and that was already starting to fade. His heart was dancing to another rhythm, one of adrenaline soaked anticipation keeping it and his breaths steady. It was all so wrong. John attempted to reach out, stretching himself like taffy just to twitch his damn pinky finger. Thalan slapped him aside.
“Be good, Sheppard. This is your body I'm in. Distract me and you're dead.”
“If it keeps my people alive - if it keeps Dr. Weir alive - I'll die a happy man.”
Thalan chuckled. “I like you, Sheppard. You may be smiling yet. Phoebus is relentless.”
“She as much a bitch as you are a bastard?”
“Probably more.”
Sheppard tried not to think about how Phoebus was treating Elizabeth. He knew he should have just said no. Elizabeth was wrong, John wasn't a hopeless romantic, he was a nice guy and a sucker for hard-luck cases. Okay, so maybe a small thread of romance still thrummed in him. He'd been married once, had hoped for the best, failed, but refused to begrudge those who managed to hold out longer than himself a moment of final togetherness. He had come to both admire and envy those who's love managed to beat the odds, because he still hoped for the same for himself.
So he'd said 'okay' and made sure Phoebus was aware that John wasn't comfortable about her husband taking his body on any joy rides. One would think “and don't let him do anything that would kill my body” an unspoken part of the package. Phoebus and Thalan were psychotic, selfish SOBs. John refused to go into what would have happened if the two had been husband and wife.
Discreet my ass.
John pushed again, Thalan pushed back. When the body-snatcher coaxed Ronon out of hiding, John pushed harder. When Ronon was shot, John screamed and screamed using anger and terror as a shield against Thalan's rebuffs until the jerk finally relented to calling in a med team. John let down his guard in a moment of energy-draining relief and paid for it.
Thalan was pissed. He knocked John down, dazing him, then pounded him with mental images to back it up. Sheppard was lifted, stripped, strung up by his arms, attacked with fists and hard, blunt objects until he was howling, then knives carving his flesh until he was screaming. For a moment that was more like an eternity, he could feel his body. The pain wasn't just a hallucination, it was real, down to the tips of the most sensitive nerve-endings. An ache to Thalan that he brushed aside, but agony to John. Thalan's control wasn't of the body alone, but the body and mind, plucking the right receptors and realigning synaptic pathways to pour the man-made pain into John's conscious, effectively keeping it all away from himself. The effort required should have made it impossible, but Thalan initiated it like he'd flip the switch to a player piano and walked away.
“You're not doing yourself any favors, Sheppard. I am an expert in the art of enemy interrogation. The device you call a black-box wasn't our only interface. I've torn men to shreds and pieced them back together without laying a finger on them. I will give new meaning to this term 'hell' of yours if you do not back off.”
John tossed mental images of his own back at Thalan - spitting in the man's face, which was the best he could do with what little energy still remained. Pretend bones broke, splintering, and his real bones throbbed as though being beaten by hammers. Thalan's pleasure of this brushed John like cold fingers across his skin. He shivered. It was too much pleasure, beyond amusing, more like an addiction for Thalan. One he hadn't satiated in a long, long time. Had John control of his stomach he would have puked. Thalan just laughed; cutting, breaking, tearing John to shreds just to piece him back together and do it again.
Respite came when Teyla stunned him. Thalan was brought to John's level, but John was weak and Thalan still strong. John pushed, Thalan pushed harder, but needed to pool his focus into maintaining control, so no torture, not now.
When Thalan came around, John was back to being tied up so as to be out of the way. But it didn't last. Thalan awoke weak, growing weaker and weaker. Pain sliced through the body, pain that hit John and Thalan at the same time. The body writhed and convulsed to both their discomfort. Then Thalan screamed when the pain attacked him, and John laughed.
“Who's in hell now, you son of a bitch!”
Thalan's agony was pure, reducing him to something animal, pathetic, until it echoed away when he finally faded. John felt like he was falling, yanked back into his own brain, spreading from his skull into his limbs. His heart stuttered, tripping over itself until reconfiguring to his commands, his reactions. His lungs breathed, his ribs expanded, his limbs twitched and ached. Then he awoke to Teyla's face hovering over his.
-----------------------------
John's shoulders were sore, not just the one that was shot. He waited several heartbeats after Caldwell left before flicking his gaze to and from Elizabeth.
“You tried to fight back against Phoebus, right?” he asked, keeping his eyes on his PDA. “What'd she do?”
“Ignore me, mostly,” Elizabeth said. “She had to push me back a few times when I tried to regain control. It was weird, like when you're only partially awake: You're body is moving in your dream but your actual body feels like led.”
“Did it hurt?”
John saw her head shake no out of the corner of his eye.
“Not really. It was mostly just terrifying. She was so... relentless, obsessed. I mean all the things she was willing to do, even beyond venting the halon gas... She'd considered self-destructing the entire city at one point. I never knew anyone could feel so much anger toward someone. My gosh, it was like she was delirious with the need for revenge.” Elizabeth's head turned, her eyes landing directly on him. “Was that what Thalan was like?”
John froze.
“He listened to you about getting help for Ronon,” she said. “I doubt Phoebus would have listened to me.”
He swallowed.
“What was he like?”
Cruel, cold, amoral, masochistic, sick, sick, sick, sick, sick. “He was a jerk.”
There was no justifying Phoebus' actions, for being consumed like that, but John couldn't fault her for her anger.
The End
Title: Mind, Body, Soul
Author: Kriadydragon
Rating: PG-13 for violence and some language
Characters: John, Thalan
Summary: Just what was Thalan like?
Mind, Body, Soul
Sheppard felt himself flung back, hitting a wall that wasn't actually there. There was a sharp, needle thin pain shooting through his skull and a black haze bordering his vision like a wide-screen at a movie. He felt indescribably detached, but it was the crowded stuffiness in his brain that made him panic. There was a new sheriff in town and John had been all but ousted. The entity that called himself Thalan regarded John with bewilderment before pouring all focus and control into Sheppard's body.
The body took a sharp breath. John's body. His lungs expanded at another's command. His ribs spread enough to accommodate. His heart stuttered rapidly in alarm and wonder. His organs, muscles, bones, limbs ignored him as they metaphorically prostrated to Thalan. John's eyes roved until they landed on Elizabeth's face.
The moment the name Phoebus was said, emotions brushed John's tentative awareness. Hatred: pure, bitter, and hot. It hit John with such force that he cringed away from it, nervous and shocked. His heart pounded out of sync to what he was feeling. It beat hard and fierce, not fast and wild. John opened his mental mouth and screamed warnings, shoving against Thalan who held fast as a brick wall.
“It is useless Sheppard.” And he was flung away like a swatted fly. The phantom feeling of flying backwards and colliding with something solid was for effect, to drive home and ground the pain of being subdued by someone who had years of practice existing without a body. John was too dazed to fight back during the moment of distraction when Elizabeth pulled his head, Thalan's head, in for a passionate kiss.
Then all hell broke loose. The two pulled away, weapons were grabbed. McKay fired off the nine-mil and what was supposed to register has searing pain across his shoulder was nothing more than a sting.
“If that gets infected,” John sneered. “I'm kicking your ass.”
Thalan snorted but pointedly ignored him.
John was too pissed to be deterred. “You kill any of my people, you're dead.”
“I like your temerity, Sheppard.”
“I'd tell you to kiss my ass, but you're wearing it and I'm not that flexible.”
Thalan had stopped listening. He was too busy diving head-first into the hunt. John decided it a good time to test the intruder's strengths. He pushed, prodded, shouted, and just to be annoying, hummed every obnoxious song he could think of right down to the the Oscar Meyer Wiener theme song. The body black-box had either come with a few extra perks or Thalan knew how to multi-task. His focus was so sharp he could have sliced bread with it, but he managed to find time to knock John back, beat him down with illusions of being punched, kicked, even shot to make the pain and weakness linger and buy a few moments of peace.
It was nothing compared to the lack of reaction from John's body. The real pain was located in the small portion of his skull he still occupied, cut off from Thalan's awareness. Pain to his body was like a dream he'd barely woken up from and that was already starting to fade. His heart was dancing to another rhythm, one of adrenaline soaked anticipation keeping it and his breaths steady. It was all so wrong. John attempted to reach out, stretching himself like taffy just to twitch his damn pinky finger. Thalan slapped him aside.
“Be good, Sheppard. This is your body I'm in. Distract me and you're dead.”
“If it keeps my people alive - if it keeps Dr. Weir alive - I'll die a happy man.”
Thalan chuckled. “I like you, Sheppard. You may be smiling yet. Phoebus is relentless.”
“She as much a bitch as you are a bastard?”
“Probably more.”
Sheppard tried not to think about how Phoebus was treating Elizabeth. He knew he should have just said no. Elizabeth was wrong, John wasn't a hopeless romantic, he was a nice guy and a sucker for hard-luck cases. Okay, so maybe a small thread of romance still thrummed in him. He'd been married once, had hoped for the best, failed, but refused to begrudge those who managed to hold out longer than himself a moment of final togetherness. He had come to both admire and envy those who's love managed to beat the odds, because he still hoped for the same for himself.
So he'd said 'okay' and made sure Phoebus was aware that John wasn't comfortable about her husband taking his body on any joy rides. One would think “and don't let him do anything that would kill my body” an unspoken part of the package. Phoebus and Thalan were psychotic, selfish SOBs. John refused to go into what would have happened if the two had been husband and wife.
Discreet my ass.
John pushed again, Thalan pushed back. When the body-snatcher coaxed Ronon out of hiding, John pushed harder. When Ronon was shot, John screamed and screamed using anger and terror as a shield against Thalan's rebuffs until the jerk finally relented to calling in a med team. John let down his guard in a moment of energy-draining relief and paid for it.
Thalan was pissed. He knocked John down, dazing him, then pounded him with mental images to back it up. Sheppard was lifted, stripped, strung up by his arms, attacked with fists and hard, blunt objects until he was howling, then knives carving his flesh until he was screaming. For a moment that was more like an eternity, he could feel his body. The pain wasn't just a hallucination, it was real, down to the tips of the most sensitive nerve-endings. An ache to Thalan that he brushed aside, but agony to John. Thalan's control wasn't of the body alone, but the body and mind, plucking the right receptors and realigning synaptic pathways to pour the man-made pain into John's conscious, effectively keeping it all away from himself. The effort required should have made it impossible, but Thalan initiated it like he'd flip the switch to a player piano and walked away.
“You're not doing yourself any favors, Sheppard. I am an expert in the art of enemy interrogation. The device you call a black-box wasn't our only interface. I've torn men to shreds and pieced them back together without laying a finger on them. I will give new meaning to this term 'hell' of yours if you do not back off.”
John tossed mental images of his own back at Thalan - spitting in the man's face, which was the best he could do with what little energy still remained. Pretend bones broke, splintering, and his real bones throbbed as though being beaten by hammers. Thalan's pleasure of this brushed John like cold fingers across his skin. He shivered. It was too much pleasure, beyond amusing, more like an addiction for Thalan. One he hadn't satiated in a long, long time. Had John control of his stomach he would have puked. Thalan just laughed; cutting, breaking, tearing John to shreds just to piece him back together and do it again.
Respite came when Teyla stunned him. Thalan was brought to John's level, but John was weak and Thalan still strong. John pushed, Thalan pushed harder, but needed to pool his focus into maintaining control, so no torture, not now.
When Thalan came around, John was back to being tied up so as to be out of the way. But it didn't last. Thalan awoke weak, growing weaker and weaker. Pain sliced through the body, pain that hit John and Thalan at the same time. The body writhed and convulsed to both their discomfort. Then Thalan screamed when the pain attacked him, and John laughed.
“Who's in hell now, you son of a bitch!”
Thalan's agony was pure, reducing him to something animal, pathetic, until it echoed away when he finally faded. John felt like he was falling, yanked back into his own brain, spreading from his skull into his limbs. His heart stuttered, tripping over itself until reconfiguring to his commands, his reactions. His lungs breathed, his ribs expanded, his limbs twitched and ached. Then he awoke to Teyla's face hovering over his.
-----------------------------
John's shoulders were sore, not just the one that was shot. He waited several heartbeats after Caldwell left before flicking his gaze to and from Elizabeth.
“You tried to fight back against Phoebus, right?” he asked, keeping his eyes on his PDA. “What'd she do?”
“Ignore me, mostly,” Elizabeth said. “She had to push me back a few times when I tried to regain control. It was weird, like when you're only partially awake: You're body is moving in your dream but your actual body feels like led.”
“Did it hurt?”
John saw her head shake no out of the corner of his eye.
“Not really. It was mostly just terrifying. She was so... relentless, obsessed. I mean all the things she was willing to do, even beyond venting the halon gas... She'd considered self-destructing the entire city at one point. I never knew anyone could feel so much anger toward someone. My gosh, it was like she was delirious with the need for revenge.” Elizabeth's head turned, her eyes landing directly on him. “Was that what Thalan was like?”
John froze.
“He listened to you about getting help for Ronon,” she said. “I doubt Phoebus would have listened to me.”
He swallowed.
“What was he like?”
Cruel, cold, amoral, masochistic, sick, sick, sick, sick, sick. “He was a jerk.”
There was no justifying Phoebus' actions, for being consumed like that, but John couldn't fault her for her anger.
The End