Here Be Monsters (1/1)
Title: Here Be Monsters
Author: somehowunbroken
Fandom: SGA
Characters: John, David Parrish
Word Count: 3,051
Rating: PG-13? Probably?
Notes: Written for spook_me 2010. I had tentacle monster and fully intended to write scary porn (?) but then I got this visual prompt, so. It tuned into a tree monster thing with tentacles. Yes. Death of a few minor characters, but I think it's little gross, so I'm warning for it.
“This planet,” John growls as he spins to shoot back down the pathway, “sucks, Doc.”
Parrish pouts - actually pouts - as he fires with uncanny accuracy at something moving in the brush, which gives out a horrible-sounding shriek as it falls. “The only information I had about this planet, Colonel, was an entry in the Ancient database that said ‘interesting plant life.’ How could I possibly pass that up?” He hits another one of the creatures dead on. This one doesn’t even make a sound as it falls over. “An entry which, I’d like to point out, you brought to my attention.”
“Yeah,” John agrees, stumbling back a few steps. “Remind me never to do that again, okay?”
Parrish just nods, and they focus on running back towards the Gate.
John clicks on his radio and shouts as he runs, dodging the weird tentacle-vine-things as he goes. “Bryant, Dawes, did you guys make it back to the Jumper?”
There’s only static, and John curses as one of the tentacles whips across his wrist. He immediately feels his arm go numb, and the heavy end of the P90 swings towards the ground as he loses control of his fingers. “Fuck. Parrish!”
Parrish is there instantly, unclipping John’s P90 and slinging it over his own shoulder before slapping a Beretta into John’s left hand He kind of sucks shooting lefty, but his right arm is pretty much useless. It’s got to be better than nothing.
“In here,” Parrish suddenly says, grabbing John’s numb arm and falling sideways. He and John tumble down into a little cave; more like a depression in the ground, really, with some orange-looking flowers covering the entrance. John keeps rolling them until Parrish is pressed firmly between John’s body and the wall of the cave. He points the gun awkwardly back towards the opening, but the leaves have closed back over it, and the crashing sounds continue up the pathway, growing fainter and fainter until John can’t hear anything but Parrish’s breath in his ear.
“Colonel?” the man says a few minutes later. John scoots away and Parrish leans up, squinting at the entrance over John’s shoulder. “Good,” he says approvingly after a few minutes of examining the plants. “These appear to be related to our own Tagetes erecta. They should keep us well enough hidden for now, if those things track by scent.”
John just nods, because he’s got no idea what that is. Some sort of scent-masking superplant, or something, he assumes, but Parish shakes his head after a distracted second and supplies the answer to the question John hadn’t asked aloud. “Marigold, Colonel. They look similar to marigolds.”
“Right,” John confirms, trying to wriggle his way of his tac vest. The welt from where the tentacle stung him is fading already, but John wants to examine his arm as well as he can, which involves less clothing. “A hand here, Doc?”
Parrish’s long fingers numbly unhook John’s vest and slip it from his shoulders, and he doesn’t even hesitate before grabbing the hem of John’s shirt and pulling it up over his head. John shivers. It’s chilly in the cave.
“Sorry,” Parrish murmurs as he bends his face close to John’s shoulder. “Let me - I’m just going to look.”
“Yeah,” John says, leaning against the wall of the cave. He closes his eyes as Parrish inspects down his arm.
It had started out as well as an investigation of a planet whose only description in the database had been ‘interesting plant life’ could have: with Parrish poking excitedly at everything with sticks and leave while John had instructed the new Marines on how to not let their scientist walk off paths in his excitement. Everything had gone fine for a few hours, as they wandered farther and farther from the Jumper, until Parrish had squatted down to inspect a thick root-looking thing.
“This is fascinating,” he’d called back, reaching into his pack for a camera and snapping several pictures of it. John had looked over, fairly disinterested in another plant thing, while Parrish turned to put his camera away.
The thing moved.
Not just shifted, like plants maybe could do sometimes - John didn’t know - but actually moved, like a foot would, lifting of the ground, moving forward a few inches, settling back down. “Doc?” John had asked warily, and Parrish turned back around just in time to see the root thing do it again, lift up and walk a little towards them.
“Oh!” he’d said, grinning wildly. “That’s - oh, would you look at that!”
That’s when Bryant had started shouting, and Dawes had started screaming, because there were tentacles dropping from the treetops. One caught Dawes across the shoulder, and he dropped his gun. “My arm’s all numb,” he’d gasped, and the thing took another step forward, and John had hauled Parrish to his feet and yelled for everyone to fall back to the Jumper. He and Parrish had run in one direction, and the last time he’d seen them, Bryant and Dawes had been running the other way.
“I think it’s okay,” Parrish murmurs, and John opens his eyes again. “Are you getting any feeling back?”
John squints down at his arm, trying to wiggle his fingers. “Maybe a little. Not really, though.”
Parrish nods briskly. “The vines probably have some sort of numbing agent,” he theorizes. “I’d assume that it’s for smaller prey. A dose that numbs your entire arm in that small amount of time would be deadly to, say, a rabbit.”
“Are you telling me that giant tree-monster-tentacle thing thinks I’m an overgrown rabbit?”
Parrish blinks at him. “Of course not.”
John tries to grab for his shirt, swears as his right hand flops uselessly onto the floor, and finally grasps it in his left hand. He pulls it on carefully, up and over his still-numb arm, down over his torso. “Is this gonna wear off, Doc?”
Parrish grabs at John’s wrist, pressing his face close to the mark left by the tentacle. “The mark appears to be fading, Colonel, but I can’t be sure that the effects will do the same.” John thinks that, if Parrish wore glasses, this is the point at which he’d push them up the bridge of his nose anxiously. “Is it getting any worse?”
It’s exactly the same, only it’s starting to itch, but John doesn’t want to worry Parrish further. “I think it’s getting better, actually.”
Parrish nods and drops John’s hand. It thuds to the floor and they both wince. “Sorry,” Parrish offers.
John shakes his head as he reaches up to tap at his radio again. “Bryant, Dawes, are you guys out there?”
There’s still no response. John tries another channel, a third, and again there’s nothing. Parrish clears his throat as John flips his radio back to the main channel. “Those tree monsters were pretty fast,” he says quietly. “If they panicked-”
“Yeah,” John says roughly. He knows they’re dead. It doesn’t mean he’s going to stop trying to get in touch with them, not until he has absolute confirmation.
“We should try for the Jumper,” Parrish says, probably half an hour later. The tree monsters haven’t come back, so John nods and makes his way to the mouth of the cave. His arm is still numb, and the itching is getting worse; he can wiggle his fingers around, but if they have to wait here until he can carry his P90, they’ll be in trouble. John shakes his head when Parrish offers it to him and Parrish narrows his eyes before taking the handgun from his thigh holder and strapping it into John’s.
“Two for you, two for me,” Parrish says when John tries to give it back. “Less of a chance you’re going to run out of ammo if you’ve got two guns.” He doesn’t say slightly less of a chance that we’ll both die horribly this way. John hears it anyway.
“Right,” John says, and they leave the cave.
John can move just fine, other than his arm, which is a good thing, because he and Parrish are trucking it towards the Jumper full speed ahead. Parrish takes point, which is weird for John, but the man holds his P90 like he knows how to use it. John makes a mental note to congratulate Lorne on training his scientist so well.
If they survive this.
They’re tracking back to the clearing where they first met the things, because John wants to see if they can track down Bryant and Dawes before they head back to the Jumper. They’re taking a different path, though, because Parrish thinks that maybe the walking tentacle trees might be able to think well enough to go back along the path they crashed through before.
“Really?” John snorts when Parrish brings it up.
Parrish just shrugs. “Better safe than eaten by a giant tree monster, Colonel.”
John can’t argue, so they pick their way back through the dense vegetation. The clearing is empty when they get there; either the tree things haven’t yet made their way back, or they’re hiding well. John thinks it’s probably the former. Parrish clears the area expertly and heads towards where they last saw the Marines.
“Colonel,” Parrish says quietly, three minutes down the broken-bramble path that the Marines made in their run. He gestures with his gun, and John glances into the brush to the side of the path and spits out a quiet “Fuck,” because half of Dawes is there. It’s the top half, and John isn’t sure if that’s good or bad, because the look on the kid’s face lets John know that his death was excruciatingly painful.
Parrish is kneeling beside the body, no expression on his face whatsoever, and he reaches out and tugs until the chain from the Marine’s dogtags snaps. He puts the whole thing in his pocket and nods at John, and they continue on.
It’s John who sees Bryant, a foot poking from between a couple of bushes. He’s intact, for the most part; his left arm is gone below the elbow, but he looks normal other than that. John nods to Parrish, who snaps Bryant’s tags off and puts them in his pocket with Dawes’, and they continue down the path.
The Jumper comes into view an uneventful half-hour’s walk later. Parrish runs for it, a grateful look on his face, and John shouts as he rounds the corner a split-second later, because that’s the tree tentacle beast thing, and it’s too late to stop its tentacle from whipping out and striking the scientist but John raises his 9mm and shoots until it clicks, empty. The bullets splinter the wood of one tentacle but another reaches out to replace it as Parrish stumbles backwards, raising one of his P90s.
They settle behind a few large rocks, and Parrish jams one of the P90s down into a crack in the stones so John can pull the trigger with his left hand. For a while, there’s only the sound of gunfire and wood breaking, but the gunfire slowly dies down and the tree thing is still there, somehow not yet reduced to matchsticks like it should be.
“It’s showing a remarkable rate of regeneration,” Parish remarks, as if John had asked his question aloud. “It would be fascinating if I weren’t pretty sure we were going to die here.” He clicks his last clip into place and shoots at the nearest tendril. He’s right, John thinks. One clip isn’t going to get them out of this, and they don’t have anything else.
John squints over the rock they’ve hidden behind and takes in as much of the scene as he can. His hand isn’t getting better; in fact, he’s pretty sure it’s getting worse, all itchy and kind of scaly where he’s scratching it. John frowns. It’s really, really itchy, and dryer than maybe it should be, and as he pulls back the sleeve John swears colorfully, because his forearm has turned brown, and what he thought was dry skin actually resembles bark.
“Colonel?” Parrish asks slowly, glancing from his arm to his face to the tree tentacle beast. “That doesn’t look good.”
“Nope,” John agrees. “Parrish?”
“Hmm?” The botanist is crouched a foot and a half away, and he’s focusing back on the monster now.
“If I start acting weird, shoot me.”
Parrish swings towards him, surprise evident in his face. “Pardon?”
“Shoot me in the leg or something,” John clarifies, “and toss me over there for the Ent to eat. Then run.”
Parrish shakes his head firmly. “I don’t think so.”
“Not an option,” John says, watching his arm. The brown part is spreading out slowly from the original welt. John risks another peek back at the tree thing and isn’t happy to have this theory somewhat confirmed; the thing has two thick limbs sprouting from the top, and there are five long tentacles on each. At least he doesn’t feel the need to eat Parrish yet.
John twists against the rock, and as he does, his thigh holster digs into his leg. He recalls in an instant Parrish strapping his own sidearm in, giving John a backup. He draws it slowly and surveys his arm, thinks about the distance to the Gate, thinks about maybe at least one of them getting back alive. Decision made, John pulls his dogtags off and reaches over to tuck them in the pocket with the rest.
“When I’ve distracted him,” John says, “run, Parrish. I can buy you enough time to get back to the Gate.”
“No,” Parrish insists, a little too loudly. “Colonel, no.”
John doesn’t listen. He just hops over the rocks, Parrish’s sidearm in his unsteady hand, and waves his tree-arm at the monster thing.
“Hey!” he yells loudly, aiming as well as he can and shooting once. The back of the tree-thing explodes in a cloud of splinters and John blinks, because his shot hadn’t seemed quite that well aimed. He turns as the echo of gunfire dies away and sees Parrish standing from behind the rocks, a determined look on his face. He ambles around the rocks as the tree thing falls, and he grabs John and pulls him forcefully in the direction of the Gate, grumbling under his breath about self-sacrificing idiots and Lorne being right and John doesn’t really want to examine that thought too closely. He pulls up short when they get back to the Gate and Parrish starts to dial.
“Hold up, Doc,” he says, reaching clumsily to stop Parrish. “Let’s head to the Alpha Site.” He waves his tree-arm, now more bark than skin, and Parrish nods without saying anything, restarting the dialing sequence.
They stumble through to the Alpha Site, where they’re greeted by a surprised-looking Sergeant Raines and his men, who immediately dial through to Atlantis for the medical team’s assistance. Keller comes through a few minutes later, dragging equipment behind, and she examines John’s arm with a frown.
“I don’t have any ideas,” she finally admits, and John just sighs and rolls his sleeve back down. He’ll figure out how to work with his left hand, as soon as he ensures that he’s not going to turn completely into a tree tentacle monster… thing. He’ll stay at the Alpha Site until everything gets sorted out.
Parrish comes bustling in that afternoon, takes a scraping of the wood from John’s arm, and leaves. He strides back in the next morning, takes another sample, and heads back to the door. He pauses and half-turns, studying John’s face.
“What?” John asks eventually.
“Nothing,” Parrish says. “I’m just wondering why it is that I’m the one saving your life twice in a week. Usually it’s the other way around.” He walks out before John can formulate a response.
Parrish walks back in three days later, looking exhausted. He doesn’t explain what he’s doing or announce anything, and John figures he’s back for more scrapings. He’s surprised when Parrish pulls out a syringe, sticks it through the toughest part of his bark, and pushes the plunger.
“Hey!” John yelps. “What the fuck, Parrish?”
Parrish glares at him, shoves John off his own bed, falls into it, and promptly passes out.
When he wakes a few hours later, the first thing he does is reach for John’s arm, which John has been watching in fascination while Parrish slept in his bed. The brown bark is flaking off in pieces. It’s both disgusting and really, really cool, because underneath the bark is skin, real skin, and he’s gotten some feeling back as well. Parrish nods in approval and draws out another syringe. He hesitates as he holds in up.
“Shot,” he says helpfully, then jabs it in.
He’s no medical doctor, that’s for sure, because there’s no finesse to what he’s doing. John winces as Parrish slides the syringe out. The reaction is immediate this time, and John watches in a kind of detached combination of interest and horror as the rest of the bark shrivels up and falls to the floor in a clump.
“Cool,” he says, because it’s the only thing he can think of. Parrish grins at him, and John slides to the floor, still smiling, and passes out himself.
He comes to back on Atlantis, with the sounds of the infirmary bustling around him. His arm is… well, his arm, all pink and with skin and totally without bark. John flexes his fingers, somehow amazed at their renewed flexibility, and grins when he curls them around the imaginary butt of a gun and aims at the wall.
“Boom,” a voice says from beside him, and John’s hands drop to his lap. Parrish is sprawled in the chair beside the bed. “Welcome back.”
“Yeah,” John says, confused as to why, exactly, the botanist is there. He remembers turning into a tree, going to the Alpha Site, Parrish jabbing him with… oh, right. John winces when Parrish leans forward, expecting another needle. Instead, Parrish thrusts his right hand out to John, who looks at it, a little confused, until it clicks. He grins as he reaches out with his newly restored right hand and shakes Parrish’s, up and down.
“Good to have you back, Colonel,” Parrish says.
“Yeah,” John says, releasing Parrish’s hand and grinning. “Thanks.”
Author: somehowunbroken
Fandom: SGA
Characters: John, David Parrish
Word Count: 3,051
Rating: PG-13? Probably?
Notes: Written for spook_me 2010. I had tentacle monster and fully intended to write scary porn (?) but then I got this visual prompt, so. It tuned into a tree monster thing with tentacles. Yes. Death of a few minor characters, but I think it's little gross, so I'm warning for it.
“This planet,” John growls as he spins to shoot back down the pathway, “sucks, Doc.”
Parrish pouts - actually pouts - as he fires with uncanny accuracy at something moving in the brush, which gives out a horrible-sounding shriek as it falls. “The only information I had about this planet, Colonel, was an entry in the Ancient database that said ‘interesting plant life.’ How could I possibly pass that up?” He hits another one of the creatures dead on. This one doesn’t even make a sound as it falls over. “An entry which, I’d like to point out, you brought to my attention.”
“Yeah,” John agrees, stumbling back a few steps. “Remind me never to do that again, okay?”
Parrish just nods, and they focus on running back towards the Gate.
John clicks on his radio and shouts as he runs, dodging the weird tentacle-vine-things as he goes. “Bryant, Dawes, did you guys make it back to the Jumper?”
There’s only static, and John curses as one of the tentacles whips across his wrist. He immediately feels his arm go numb, and the heavy end of the P90 swings towards the ground as he loses control of his fingers. “Fuck. Parrish!”
Parrish is there instantly, unclipping John’s P90 and slinging it over his own shoulder before slapping a Beretta into John’s left hand He kind of sucks shooting lefty, but his right arm is pretty much useless. It’s got to be better than nothing.
“In here,” Parrish suddenly says, grabbing John’s numb arm and falling sideways. He and John tumble down into a little cave; more like a depression in the ground, really, with some orange-looking flowers covering the entrance. John keeps rolling them until Parrish is pressed firmly between John’s body and the wall of the cave. He points the gun awkwardly back towards the opening, but the leaves have closed back over it, and the crashing sounds continue up the pathway, growing fainter and fainter until John can’t hear anything but Parrish’s breath in his ear.
“Colonel?” the man says a few minutes later. John scoots away and Parrish leans up, squinting at the entrance over John’s shoulder. “Good,” he says approvingly after a few minutes of examining the plants. “These appear to be related to our own Tagetes erecta. They should keep us well enough hidden for now, if those things track by scent.”
John just nods, because he’s got no idea what that is. Some sort of scent-masking superplant, or something, he assumes, but Parish shakes his head after a distracted second and supplies the answer to the question John hadn’t asked aloud. “Marigold, Colonel. They look similar to marigolds.”
“Right,” John confirms, trying to wriggle his way of his tac vest. The welt from where the tentacle stung him is fading already, but John wants to examine his arm as well as he can, which involves less clothing. “A hand here, Doc?”
Parrish’s long fingers numbly unhook John’s vest and slip it from his shoulders, and he doesn’t even hesitate before grabbing the hem of John’s shirt and pulling it up over his head. John shivers. It’s chilly in the cave.
“Sorry,” Parrish murmurs as he bends his face close to John’s shoulder. “Let me - I’m just going to look.”
“Yeah,” John says, leaning against the wall of the cave. He closes his eyes as Parrish inspects down his arm.
It had started out as well as an investigation of a planet whose only description in the database had been ‘interesting plant life’ could have: with Parrish poking excitedly at everything with sticks and leave while John had instructed the new Marines on how to not let their scientist walk off paths in his excitement. Everything had gone fine for a few hours, as they wandered farther and farther from the Jumper, until Parrish had squatted down to inspect a thick root-looking thing.
“This is fascinating,” he’d called back, reaching into his pack for a camera and snapping several pictures of it. John had looked over, fairly disinterested in another plant thing, while Parrish turned to put his camera away.
The thing moved.
Not just shifted, like plants maybe could do sometimes - John didn’t know - but actually moved, like a foot would, lifting of the ground, moving forward a few inches, settling back down. “Doc?” John had asked warily, and Parrish turned back around just in time to see the root thing do it again, lift up and walk a little towards them.
“Oh!” he’d said, grinning wildly. “That’s - oh, would you look at that!”
That’s when Bryant had started shouting, and Dawes had started screaming, because there were tentacles dropping from the treetops. One caught Dawes across the shoulder, and he dropped his gun. “My arm’s all numb,” he’d gasped, and the thing took another step forward, and John had hauled Parrish to his feet and yelled for everyone to fall back to the Jumper. He and Parrish had run in one direction, and the last time he’d seen them, Bryant and Dawes had been running the other way.
“I think it’s okay,” Parrish murmurs, and John opens his eyes again. “Are you getting any feeling back?”
John squints down at his arm, trying to wiggle his fingers. “Maybe a little. Not really, though.”
Parrish nods briskly. “The vines probably have some sort of numbing agent,” he theorizes. “I’d assume that it’s for smaller prey. A dose that numbs your entire arm in that small amount of time would be deadly to, say, a rabbit.”
“Are you telling me that giant tree-monster-tentacle thing thinks I’m an overgrown rabbit?”
Parrish blinks at him. “Of course not.”
John tries to grab for his shirt, swears as his right hand flops uselessly onto the floor, and finally grasps it in his left hand. He pulls it on carefully, up and over his still-numb arm, down over his torso. “Is this gonna wear off, Doc?”
Parrish grabs at John’s wrist, pressing his face close to the mark left by the tentacle. “The mark appears to be fading, Colonel, but I can’t be sure that the effects will do the same.” John thinks that, if Parrish wore glasses, this is the point at which he’d push them up the bridge of his nose anxiously. “Is it getting any worse?”
It’s exactly the same, only it’s starting to itch, but John doesn’t want to worry Parrish further. “I think it’s getting better, actually.”
Parrish nods and drops John’s hand. It thuds to the floor and they both wince. “Sorry,” Parrish offers.
John shakes his head as he reaches up to tap at his radio again. “Bryant, Dawes, are you guys out there?”
There’s still no response. John tries another channel, a third, and again there’s nothing. Parrish clears his throat as John flips his radio back to the main channel. “Those tree monsters were pretty fast,” he says quietly. “If they panicked-”
“Yeah,” John says roughly. He knows they’re dead. It doesn’t mean he’s going to stop trying to get in touch with them, not until he has absolute confirmation.
“We should try for the Jumper,” Parrish says, probably half an hour later. The tree monsters haven’t come back, so John nods and makes his way to the mouth of the cave. His arm is still numb, and the itching is getting worse; he can wiggle his fingers around, but if they have to wait here until he can carry his P90, they’ll be in trouble. John shakes his head when Parrish offers it to him and Parrish narrows his eyes before taking the handgun from his thigh holder and strapping it into John’s.
“Two for you, two for me,” Parrish says when John tries to give it back. “Less of a chance you’re going to run out of ammo if you’ve got two guns.” He doesn’t say slightly less of a chance that we’ll both die horribly this way. John hears it anyway.
“Right,” John says, and they leave the cave.
John can move just fine, other than his arm, which is a good thing, because he and Parrish are trucking it towards the Jumper full speed ahead. Parrish takes point, which is weird for John, but the man holds his P90 like he knows how to use it. John makes a mental note to congratulate Lorne on training his scientist so well.
If they survive this.
They’re tracking back to the clearing where they first met the things, because John wants to see if they can track down Bryant and Dawes before they head back to the Jumper. They’re taking a different path, though, because Parrish thinks that maybe the walking tentacle trees might be able to think well enough to go back along the path they crashed through before.
“Really?” John snorts when Parrish brings it up.
Parrish just shrugs. “Better safe than eaten by a giant tree monster, Colonel.”
John can’t argue, so they pick their way back through the dense vegetation. The clearing is empty when they get there; either the tree things haven’t yet made their way back, or they’re hiding well. John thinks it’s probably the former. Parrish clears the area expertly and heads towards where they last saw the Marines.
“Colonel,” Parrish says quietly, three minutes down the broken-bramble path that the Marines made in their run. He gestures with his gun, and John glances into the brush to the side of the path and spits out a quiet “Fuck,” because half of Dawes is there. It’s the top half, and John isn’t sure if that’s good or bad, because the look on the kid’s face lets John know that his death was excruciatingly painful.
Parrish is kneeling beside the body, no expression on his face whatsoever, and he reaches out and tugs until the chain from the Marine’s dogtags snaps. He puts the whole thing in his pocket and nods at John, and they continue on.
It’s John who sees Bryant, a foot poking from between a couple of bushes. He’s intact, for the most part; his left arm is gone below the elbow, but he looks normal other than that. John nods to Parrish, who snaps Bryant’s tags off and puts them in his pocket with Dawes’, and they continue down the path.
The Jumper comes into view an uneventful half-hour’s walk later. Parrish runs for it, a grateful look on his face, and John shouts as he rounds the corner a split-second later, because that’s the tree tentacle beast thing, and it’s too late to stop its tentacle from whipping out and striking the scientist but John raises his 9mm and shoots until it clicks, empty. The bullets splinter the wood of one tentacle but another reaches out to replace it as Parrish stumbles backwards, raising one of his P90s.
They settle behind a few large rocks, and Parrish jams one of the P90s down into a crack in the stones so John can pull the trigger with his left hand. For a while, there’s only the sound of gunfire and wood breaking, but the gunfire slowly dies down and the tree thing is still there, somehow not yet reduced to matchsticks like it should be.
“It’s showing a remarkable rate of regeneration,” Parish remarks, as if John had asked his question aloud. “It would be fascinating if I weren’t pretty sure we were going to die here.” He clicks his last clip into place and shoots at the nearest tendril. He’s right, John thinks. One clip isn’t going to get them out of this, and they don’t have anything else.
John squints over the rock they’ve hidden behind and takes in as much of the scene as he can. His hand isn’t getting better; in fact, he’s pretty sure it’s getting worse, all itchy and kind of scaly where he’s scratching it. John frowns. It’s really, really itchy, and dryer than maybe it should be, and as he pulls back the sleeve John swears colorfully, because his forearm has turned brown, and what he thought was dry skin actually resembles bark.
“Colonel?” Parrish asks slowly, glancing from his arm to his face to the tree tentacle beast. “That doesn’t look good.”
“Nope,” John agrees. “Parrish?”
“Hmm?” The botanist is crouched a foot and a half away, and he’s focusing back on the monster now.
“If I start acting weird, shoot me.”
Parrish swings towards him, surprise evident in his face. “Pardon?”
“Shoot me in the leg or something,” John clarifies, “and toss me over there for the Ent to eat. Then run.”
Parrish shakes his head firmly. “I don’t think so.”
“Not an option,” John says, watching his arm. The brown part is spreading out slowly from the original welt. John risks another peek back at the tree thing and isn’t happy to have this theory somewhat confirmed; the thing has two thick limbs sprouting from the top, and there are five long tentacles on each. At least he doesn’t feel the need to eat Parrish yet.
John twists against the rock, and as he does, his thigh holster digs into his leg. He recalls in an instant Parrish strapping his own sidearm in, giving John a backup. He draws it slowly and surveys his arm, thinks about the distance to the Gate, thinks about maybe at least one of them getting back alive. Decision made, John pulls his dogtags off and reaches over to tuck them in the pocket with the rest.
“When I’ve distracted him,” John says, “run, Parrish. I can buy you enough time to get back to the Gate.”
“No,” Parrish insists, a little too loudly. “Colonel, no.”
John doesn’t listen. He just hops over the rocks, Parrish’s sidearm in his unsteady hand, and waves his tree-arm at the monster thing.
“Hey!” he yells loudly, aiming as well as he can and shooting once. The back of the tree-thing explodes in a cloud of splinters and John blinks, because his shot hadn’t seemed quite that well aimed. He turns as the echo of gunfire dies away and sees Parrish standing from behind the rocks, a determined look on his face. He ambles around the rocks as the tree thing falls, and he grabs John and pulls him forcefully in the direction of the Gate, grumbling under his breath about self-sacrificing idiots and Lorne being right and John doesn’t really want to examine that thought too closely. He pulls up short when they get back to the Gate and Parrish starts to dial.
“Hold up, Doc,” he says, reaching clumsily to stop Parrish. “Let’s head to the Alpha Site.” He waves his tree-arm, now more bark than skin, and Parrish nods without saying anything, restarting the dialing sequence.
They stumble through to the Alpha Site, where they’re greeted by a surprised-looking Sergeant Raines and his men, who immediately dial through to Atlantis for the medical team’s assistance. Keller comes through a few minutes later, dragging equipment behind, and she examines John’s arm with a frown.
“I don’t have any ideas,” she finally admits, and John just sighs and rolls his sleeve back down. He’ll figure out how to work with his left hand, as soon as he ensures that he’s not going to turn completely into a tree tentacle monster… thing. He’ll stay at the Alpha Site until everything gets sorted out.
Parrish comes bustling in that afternoon, takes a scraping of the wood from John’s arm, and leaves. He strides back in the next morning, takes another sample, and heads back to the door. He pauses and half-turns, studying John’s face.
“What?” John asks eventually.
“Nothing,” Parrish says. “I’m just wondering why it is that I’m the one saving your life twice in a week. Usually it’s the other way around.” He walks out before John can formulate a response.
Parrish walks back in three days later, looking exhausted. He doesn’t explain what he’s doing or announce anything, and John figures he’s back for more scrapings. He’s surprised when Parrish pulls out a syringe, sticks it through the toughest part of his bark, and pushes the plunger.
“Hey!” John yelps. “What the fuck, Parrish?”
Parrish glares at him, shoves John off his own bed, falls into it, and promptly passes out.
When he wakes a few hours later, the first thing he does is reach for John’s arm, which John has been watching in fascination while Parrish slept in his bed. The brown bark is flaking off in pieces. It’s both disgusting and really, really cool, because underneath the bark is skin, real skin, and he’s gotten some feeling back as well. Parrish nods in approval and draws out another syringe. He hesitates as he holds in up.
“Shot,” he says helpfully, then jabs it in.
He’s no medical doctor, that’s for sure, because there’s no finesse to what he’s doing. John winces as Parrish slides the syringe out. The reaction is immediate this time, and John watches in a kind of detached combination of interest and horror as the rest of the bark shrivels up and falls to the floor in a clump.
“Cool,” he says, because it’s the only thing he can think of. Parrish grins at him, and John slides to the floor, still smiling, and passes out himself.
He comes to back on Atlantis, with the sounds of the infirmary bustling around him. His arm is… well, his arm, all pink and with skin and totally without bark. John flexes his fingers, somehow amazed at their renewed flexibility, and grins when he curls them around the imaginary butt of a gun and aims at the wall.
“Boom,” a voice says from beside him, and John’s hands drop to his lap. Parrish is sprawled in the chair beside the bed. “Welcome back.”
“Yeah,” John says, confused as to why, exactly, the botanist is there. He remembers turning into a tree, going to the Alpha Site, Parrish jabbing him with… oh, right. John winces when Parrish leans forward, expecting another needle. Instead, Parrish thrusts his right hand out to John, who looks at it, a little confused, until it clicks. He grins as he reaches out with his newly restored right hand and shakes Parrish’s, up and down.
“Good to have you back, Colonel,” Parrish says.
“Yeah,” John says, releasing Parrish’s hand and grinning. “Thanks.”