Fic: Echoes of a Dread Future (SGA)
Title: Echoes of a Dread Future
Author: thefrogg
Beta: anonymous
Pairing: John/Rodney (if you want)
Rating: PG13-ish
Disclaimer: Kassuthet, Tegwyn, and Tiersig belong to me. Everyone else belongs to other people. Damnit.
Prompt: shimmer and ivory
Kink: claiming
Spoilers: Up through at least Spoils of War.
Summary: Sequel to Seeing Past the Future, several months later. This is probably an outtake - there are major major spoilers for that universe in here. You have been warned. John and Rodney try and celebrate New Year's. Todd decides to crash the party. No sex, as if that's a shock, and surprisingly depressing.
The New Year's celebration was pathetic, John thought, just carefully hoarded Coors, popcorn, the last of the dark Ghirardelli squares. The end of an empty dock, silhouetted by the always-lit towers of Atlantis city proper. Rodney at his side, as ever, legs swinging restlessly over the water.
A New Year's Eve, on a planet they weren't on, and didn't call home.
John bumped Rodney's shoulder, rubbed fingers as their hands met in the bowl of popcorn.
The Hive ship loomed in its berth one dock east, quiet and dark.
The hair at the back of John's neck rose, a prickle of danger sending him spinning to his feet; Rodney was only a half-breath behind.
Beer splashed across metal still radiating the afternoon's warmth, the smell of hops and barley too faint beneath the pervasive scent of the sea.
Hand on his sidearm, John scanned the dock. It was all but empty for a few hundred yards, the perfectly flat surface giving no cover, for them or an attacker. Except--
"There is no need for panic, Sheppard."
--the stacks of crates on one side.
"Don't do that!" A hand on Rodney's arm stopped his indignant protest.
"Todd." John bit his tongue, swallowing the name he wanted to use, the name he hadn't earned the right to. The name he'd probably never be allowed to speak.
The shadows moved, one booted foot sliding down the wall of crates to meet the deck. Todd was slow, ungainly, his movements hesitant as he uncurled from his hiding place, steadying himself with a green-knuckled hand.
Words would not come, despite the need for apology, for absolution; guilt and regret burned like ashes on the tongue. John could not close his eyes to the truth now, could not remain deaf to what Todd had at last stopped couching in riddles and half-truths. The memories ran sharp and acrid through his mind.
Pain rang silent and hopeful between them.
//Ronon shoved Chuck aside, ignoring his protests. "He's not saying he doesn't know anything about them, Carter, he's saying they're not Wraith."//
"Does Kassuthet..." Rodney started in earnest curiosity, then again, "Does she--"
--know where you are? John finished silently. It was rather odd to see Todd without his swarm of attendants nearby.
Todd didn't laugh, merely tipped his head in acknowledgment. "My queen spent twenty years tracking me across this galaxy."
A complicated answer to a simple question. Or maybe not so simple.
"I'll just...take that as a yes, then." Rodney fell silent, a tiny crease forming between his eyebrows.
"Something I can help you with?" John asked finally; Todd had spent too much energy avoiding him since being 'rescued'.
Todd snorted in answer, then laughed silently and pushed away from the crates. The sides of his jacket gaped open as he took each step; his torso shimmered a mottled green-and-white, thin bars of malachite outlining scales like the belly of a snake.
The sight hit like a punch to the gut, drawing John's attention like a train wreck; it spoke of just how unhealthy Todd was.
//Kassuthet stared at him balefully. "Wraith," she spat, "live on the edge of starvation. This," and her face grew hard with chitin, blue-black streaks forming over her cheekbones and nose and brow before the color, and the odd, half-formed insectoid scales, faded back into her skin, "is normal." She didn't leave off the 'You would know that if you'd asked him anything about his health'; it was written in her expression.//
"Major Lorne tells me that tomorrow begins a new year on your planet."
John nodded.
"Wait, you just came to crash the party?"
Todd's gaze flickered from John to Rodney and back. "Party?"
"Yeah, you know, party." John tilted his head to one side, considering. "Friends, food, booze...usually it's champagne for New Year's, and back on Earth we'd probably watch the ball drop in New York Square..."
"Yes." Todd blinked slowly, the light reflected off his eyes winking out before returning. "Major Lorne has...explained some of your customs to me."
//Kassuthet stopped bare inches from Todd, something soft and searching in her eyes before her hands came up to cradle his jaw, the back of his skull. Then she leaned forward, and they were cheek to cheek, scrubbing hard against one another before pulling back to repeat the motion on the other side, like great cats marking each other after a hunt. It would be days before Tiersig explained the gesture as the equivalent of a passionate embrace; they'd only understood it as Kassuthet marking Todd as hers. And as a warning to Atlantis.
That, Tiersig hadn't denied.//
"Admittedly it's not that much of a party, you know, with your people looming and making people nervous, and our limited supplies of alcohol we're not supposed to have except the only sure way to get people to do something is to make it against the rules, and I'd be a moron to try and enforce it because, you know, Radek runs the still, and the black market, and--"
"Rodney."
Todd huffed.
John could only tell just how amused Todd was by the deepening of the shadows around his eyes. "So? Was there something...?"
"I thought a few of my people's customs might be...appropriate." He reached into his jacket, holding it open with his other hand, and withdrew a flask. Starlight glittered oddly off the surface.
"Is alcohol, like, the universal--"
This time, John didn't have to quiet Rodney; he clamped his jaw shut at Todd's wheezing laughter and stared in indignation. "He has a point."
"We do not drink for the intoxication."
"No, no, of course not, how could you? Your ability to heal - to say nothing at all about the insanity that is your metabolism - would make it kind of, oh, impossible."
Todd watched Rodney, waiting for him to continue his rant before raising the flask in his hand. "It is custom at the new year to share a drink...but not..."
John watched, amazed, as Todd searched for words. "Not with friends," he said quietly, guessing.
Todd's talons clicked and scratched against the flask as he clenched his fist. "My people depend on our unity, our singularity of purpose. We cannot hope to defeat the Wraith if we cannot put aside our own differences. The new year is a time for us to share a drink with those who have hurt us, or those we have hurt, through our words or our deeds, or even our thoughts, and put our anger aside."
"Look, I get why you're doing this but..." John sighed. "Todd, Kassuthet hates me. Hates me, do you get that?"
"My queen spent twenty years tracking me across this galaxy." There was no humor in it, no amusement.
"Tegwyn, Tiersig, damnit, Todd, you have an entire ship's crew trying to get you to accept sustenance," and for once he didn't have to choke on his tongue to keep from saying feed.
//Tegwyn's appearance on-screen made Todd's easy acceptance of Major Lorne suddenly make sense; there was more than a little resemblance, though the two would never be mistaken for one another - John had never seen that particular mix of protectiveness, anger, and horror on the major's face. "I would suggest," Tegwyn began, tone deceptively mild, "that you strike the term feed from your vocabulary. It belongs to the Wraith, and for us, it is an insult without parallel."
Rodney's swallow had been audible.//
Rodney muttered something about horses and water in the tense silence.
"Todd, I'm not trying to, to disrespect your customs, but even if we were to show up at breakfast the best of friends--"
"I am not offering you friendship."
John blinked at the interruption.
"Wait, what? You're not, but that's..."
"What he said." John nodded towards Rodney.
"I spent months trying to be your friend, John Sheppard. I have no wish to continue. Nor," he added, "do I wish to succeed."
"You gave up," Rodney whispered.
"I gave Wallace the chance to redeem his honor," John said. It was the only response he could make. Rodney went rigid beside him, but stayed quiet; maybe John was right in thinking Rodney had known the truth and hadn't called him on it.
"And sacrificed your own in doing so, and took mine with it."
For a long time, the only sound was the ocean against the pier, and the wind through the spires of Atlantis.
"But...but Jeannie would have died...and if your cover didn't protect you then, then the Genii--"
"There were other options that would have served your sister."
John did not ask the question; he'd heard enough "I told you so" in the last few weeks to last a thousand lifetimes. "So, what now? We drink, we toast, we go on our merry way, your people stop glaring at me like I kicked your puppy?"
Todd's lips twitched, merely a ghost of the old, Wraith humor.
John swallowed. He could see them all, superimposed upon one another: the Todd he'd met in that Genii prison, and later freed, proud and arrogant and a reluctant ally trying to repay his debts; the Todd strangely broken, freed from the prison of an undercover mission by Ronon of all people, relieved and completely helpless to hide his weakness; the Todd that stood before him, still broken, still half-caught in twenty years of being punished for what he was so desperate to prove he was not and hadn't been for longer than the Wraith had menaced the Pegasus Galaxy.
"This is a really crappy New Year's party. Just so you know."
"You can have a drink, too." Todd held up the flask and waggled it from side to side. "It does not contain citrus."
"That strong, is it?"
Todd shrugged. "Alcohol does not affect me." He tipped the flask vertical again, carefully unscrewing the cap.
John made a mental note to drink as little as possible.
For an odd moment, Todd looked torn as to whether to say something, or perhaps, how to say it. "I do not know," he began finally, "if your reluctance to trust me was willful blindness, or simple caution, but I suppose I can understand your reasoning. I only hope that in the future, you do not see me as the enemy." With that sad toast, he raised the flask to his lips and tipped his head back. Then, licking his lips, he held the flask out.
John stared at it.
"It will not bite, Sheppard. I even had Keller run her tests on it, you can call her should you not believe me."
I could, but this is a test, John thought, taking the flask. It was heavier than it looked, and cool beneath his fingers. He bent his head to sniff - yes, it reeked of alcohol, but there were other things there, exotic herbs and spices. "Am I supposed to say something now?" he asked, dreading the answer. Then, "You know what? It's my party. Screw it. Cheers!" He gave a sickly smile and raised the flask in toast, tossing the whole 'drink as little as possible' thing out the window. A moment later, he swallowed a mouthful of bitter fire, barely managing to keep from choking before a chocolaty sweetness killed the burn and left him blinking in surprise.
"I see you've realized why we drink that particular brew."
"Yeah," John drawled, then absently held the flask out for Rodney. "Try this." Before Rodney could take it, John's hand was on his sidearm, back on full alert.
Rodney instinctively reached for a gun that wasn't there, then, barely, managed to rescue Todd's flask. "What the--that sounded like--"
"I told you," Todd said as the sky blossomed with color, pinwheels of light against the starscape for a few seconds before raining down to the sea as dying embers. "Major Lorne told me of your customs on this night. It was simple enough to arrange."
John forced himself to relax, reminding himself that Todd had been in a damn Genii prison during the siege. "Go ahead." He nudged Rodney, waited for him to take a hurried sip, eyes wide and full of red and purple sparks.
Todd accepted the flask back wordlessly, putting the cap back on and tucking it back inside his jacket.
John forced himself to watch the fireworks, despite the flash of green-and-ivory snake scales and
Why, oh why does it always have to be snakes?
"Before I leave you to enjoy the show, might I ask a favor?"
"What's that?" John still wouldn't look at him, still didn't want to see the colors turning his skin to tiny rainbows. He wasn't sure Todd was done flaying him alive verbally.
"Call me Inziril."
Author: thefrogg
Beta: anonymous
Pairing: John/Rodney (if you want)
Rating: PG13-ish
Disclaimer: Kassuthet, Tegwyn, and Tiersig belong to me. Everyone else belongs to other people. Damnit.
Prompt: shimmer and ivory
Kink: claiming
Spoilers: Up through at least Spoils of War.
Summary: Sequel to Seeing Past the Future, several months later. This is probably an outtake - there are major major spoilers for that universe in here. You have been warned. John and Rodney try and celebrate New Year's. Todd decides to crash the party. No sex, as if that's a shock, and surprisingly depressing.
The New Year's celebration was pathetic, John thought, just carefully hoarded Coors, popcorn, the last of the dark Ghirardelli squares. The end of an empty dock, silhouetted by the always-lit towers of Atlantis city proper. Rodney at his side, as ever, legs swinging restlessly over the water.
A New Year's Eve, on a planet they weren't on, and didn't call home.
John bumped Rodney's shoulder, rubbed fingers as their hands met in the bowl of popcorn.
The Hive ship loomed in its berth one dock east, quiet and dark.
The hair at the back of John's neck rose, a prickle of danger sending him spinning to his feet; Rodney was only a half-breath behind.
Beer splashed across metal still radiating the afternoon's warmth, the smell of hops and barley too faint beneath the pervasive scent of the sea.
Hand on his sidearm, John scanned the dock. It was all but empty for a few hundred yards, the perfectly flat surface giving no cover, for them or an attacker. Except--
"There is no need for panic, Sheppard."
--the stacks of crates on one side.
"Don't do that!" A hand on Rodney's arm stopped his indignant protest.
"Todd." John bit his tongue, swallowing the name he wanted to use, the name he hadn't earned the right to. The name he'd probably never be allowed to speak.
The shadows moved, one booted foot sliding down the wall of crates to meet the deck. Todd was slow, ungainly, his movements hesitant as he uncurled from his hiding place, steadying himself with a green-knuckled hand.
Words would not come, despite the need for apology, for absolution; guilt and regret burned like ashes on the tongue. John could not close his eyes to the truth now, could not remain deaf to what Todd had at last stopped couching in riddles and half-truths. The memories ran sharp and acrid through his mind.
Pain rang silent and hopeful between them.
//Ronon shoved Chuck aside, ignoring his protests. "He's not saying he doesn't know anything about them, Carter, he's saying they're not Wraith."//
"Does Kassuthet..." Rodney started in earnest curiosity, then again, "Does she--"
--know where you are? John finished silently. It was rather odd to see Todd without his swarm of attendants nearby.
Todd didn't laugh, merely tipped his head in acknowledgment. "My queen spent twenty years tracking me across this galaxy."
A complicated answer to a simple question. Or maybe not so simple.
"I'll just...take that as a yes, then." Rodney fell silent, a tiny crease forming between his eyebrows.
"Something I can help you with?" John asked finally; Todd had spent too much energy avoiding him since being 'rescued'.
Todd snorted in answer, then laughed silently and pushed away from the crates. The sides of his jacket gaped open as he took each step; his torso shimmered a mottled green-and-white, thin bars of malachite outlining scales like the belly of a snake.
The sight hit like a punch to the gut, drawing John's attention like a train wreck; it spoke of just how unhealthy Todd was.
//Kassuthet stared at him balefully. "Wraith," she spat, "live on the edge of starvation. This," and her face grew hard with chitin, blue-black streaks forming over her cheekbones and nose and brow before the color, and the odd, half-formed insectoid scales, faded back into her skin, "is normal." She didn't leave off the 'You would know that if you'd asked him anything about his health'; it was written in her expression.//
"Major Lorne tells me that tomorrow begins a new year on your planet."
John nodded.
"Wait, you just came to crash the party?"
Todd's gaze flickered from John to Rodney and back. "Party?"
"Yeah, you know, party." John tilted his head to one side, considering. "Friends, food, booze...usually it's champagne for New Year's, and back on Earth we'd probably watch the ball drop in New York Square..."
"Yes." Todd blinked slowly, the light reflected off his eyes winking out before returning. "Major Lorne has...explained some of your customs to me."
//Kassuthet stopped bare inches from Todd, something soft and searching in her eyes before her hands came up to cradle his jaw, the back of his skull. Then she leaned forward, and they were cheek to cheek, scrubbing hard against one another before pulling back to repeat the motion on the other side, like great cats marking each other after a hunt. It would be days before Tiersig explained the gesture as the equivalent of a passionate embrace; they'd only understood it as Kassuthet marking Todd as hers. And as a warning to Atlantis.
That, Tiersig hadn't denied.//
"Admittedly it's not that much of a party, you know, with your people looming and making people nervous, and our limited supplies of alcohol we're not supposed to have except the only sure way to get people to do something is to make it against the rules, and I'd be a moron to try and enforce it because, you know, Radek runs the still, and the black market, and--"
"Rodney."
Todd huffed.
John could only tell just how amused Todd was by the deepening of the shadows around his eyes. "So? Was there something...?"
"I thought a few of my people's customs might be...appropriate." He reached into his jacket, holding it open with his other hand, and withdrew a flask. Starlight glittered oddly off the surface.
"Is alcohol, like, the universal--"
This time, John didn't have to quiet Rodney; he clamped his jaw shut at Todd's wheezing laughter and stared in indignation. "He has a point."
"We do not drink for the intoxication."
"No, no, of course not, how could you? Your ability to heal - to say nothing at all about the insanity that is your metabolism - would make it kind of, oh, impossible."
Todd watched Rodney, waiting for him to continue his rant before raising the flask in his hand. "It is custom at the new year to share a drink...but not..."
John watched, amazed, as Todd searched for words. "Not with friends," he said quietly, guessing.
Todd's talons clicked and scratched against the flask as he clenched his fist. "My people depend on our unity, our singularity of purpose. We cannot hope to defeat the Wraith if we cannot put aside our own differences. The new year is a time for us to share a drink with those who have hurt us, or those we have hurt, through our words or our deeds, or even our thoughts, and put our anger aside."
"Look, I get why you're doing this but..." John sighed. "Todd, Kassuthet hates me. Hates me, do you get that?"
"My queen spent twenty years tracking me across this galaxy." There was no humor in it, no amusement.
"Tegwyn, Tiersig, damnit, Todd, you have an entire ship's crew trying to get you to accept sustenance," and for once he didn't have to choke on his tongue to keep from saying feed.
//Tegwyn's appearance on-screen made Todd's easy acceptance of Major Lorne suddenly make sense; there was more than a little resemblance, though the two would never be mistaken for one another - John had never seen that particular mix of protectiveness, anger, and horror on the major's face. "I would suggest," Tegwyn began, tone deceptively mild, "that you strike the term feed from your vocabulary. It belongs to the Wraith, and for us, it is an insult without parallel."
Rodney's swallow had been audible.//
Rodney muttered something about horses and water in the tense silence.
"Todd, I'm not trying to, to disrespect your customs, but even if we were to show up at breakfast the best of friends--"
"I am not offering you friendship."
John blinked at the interruption.
"Wait, what? You're not, but that's..."
"What he said." John nodded towards Rodney.
"I spent months trying to be your friend, John Sheppard. I have no wish to continue. Nor," he added, "do I wish to succeed."
"You gave up," Rodney whispered.
"I gave Wallace the chance to redeem his honor," John said. It was the only response he could make. Rodney went rigid beside him, but stayed quiet; maybe John was right in thinking Rodney had known the truth and hadn't called him on it.
"And sacrificed your own in doing so, and took mine with it."
For a long time, the only sound was the ocean against the pier, and the wind through the spires of Atlantis.
"But...but Jeannie would have died...and if your cover didn't protect you then, then the Genii--"
"There were other options that would have served your sister."
John did not ask the question; he'd heard enough "I told you so" in the last few weeks to last a thousand lifetimes. "So, what now? We drink, we toast, we go on our merry way, your people stop glaring at me like I kicked your puppy?"
Todd's lips twitched, merely a ghost of the old, Wraith humor.
John swallowed. He could see them all, superimposed upon one another: the Todd he'd met in that Genii prison, and later freed, proud and arrogant and a reluctant ally trying to repay his debts; the Todd strangely broken, freed from the prison of an undercover mission by Ronon of all people, relieved and completely helpless to hide his weakness; the Todd that stood before him, still broken, still half-caught in twenty years of being punished for what he was so desperate to prove he was not and hadn't been for longer than the Wraith had menaced the Pegasus Galaxy.
"This is a really crappy New Year's party. Just so you know."
"You can have a drink, too." Todd held up the flask and waggled it from side to side. "It does not contain citrus."
"That strong, is it?"
Todd shrugged. "Alcohol does not affect me." He tipped the flask vertical again, carefully unscrewing the cap.
John made a mental note to drink as little as possible.
For an odd moment, Todd looked torn as to whether to say something, or perhaps, how to say it. "I do not know," he began finally, "if your reluctance to trust me was willful blindness, or simple caution, but I suppose I can understand your reasoning. I only hope that in the future, you do not see me as the enemy." With that sad toast, he raised the flask to his lips and tipped his head back. Then, licking his lips, he held the flask out.
John stared at it.
"It will not bite, Sheppard. I even had Keller run her tests on it, you can call her should you not believe me."
I could, but this is a test, John thought, taking the flask. It was heavier than it looked, and cool beneath his fingers. He bent his head to sniff - yes, it reeked of alcohol, but there were other things there, exotic herbs and spices. "Am I supposed to say something now?" he asked, dreading the answer. Then, "You know what? It's my party. Screw it. Cheers!" He gave a sickly smile and raised the flask in toast, tossing the whole 'drink as little as possible' thing out the window. A moment later, he swallowed a mouthful of bitter fire, barely managing to keep from choking before a chocolaty sweetness killed the burn and left him blinking in surprise.
"I see you've realized why we drink that particular brew."
"Yeah," John drawled, then absently held the flask out for Rodney. "Try this." Before Rodney could take it, John's hand was on his sidearm, back on full alert.
Rodney instinctively reached for a gun that wasn't there, then, barely, managed to rescue Todd's flask. "What the--that sounded like--"
"I told you," Todd said as the sky blossomed with color, pinwheels of light against the starscape for a few seconds before raining down to the sea as dying embers. "Major Lorne told me of your customs on this night. It was simple enough to arrange."
John forced himself to relax, reminding himself that Todd had been in a damn Genii prison during the siege. "Go ahead." He nudged Rodney, waited for him to take a hurried sip, eyes wide and full of red and purple sparks.
Todd accepted the flask back wordlessly, putting the cap back on and tucking it back inside his jacket.
John forced himself to watch the fireworks, despite the flash of green-and-ivory snake scales and
Why, oh why does it always have to be snakes?
"Before I leave you to enjoy the show, might I ask a favor?"
"What's that?" John still wouldn't look at him, still didn't want to see the colors turning his skin to tiny rainbows. He wasn't sure Todd was done flaying him alive verbally.
"Call me Inziril."