New fic: Xxqulmii
Title: Xxqulmii (Or, How John Sheppard Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Pixie Dust)
Author: Adler
Rating: PG-13 for swearing and Dirty Thoughts
Spoilers: Assume mid-season 2 or 3. No episode-specific spoilers.
Summary: Rodney gets cursed on the ugliest planet in the galaxy; John bangs a few rocks together; Teyla gets a fruit basket; and Ronon reveals a hidden aesthetic preference. First Time, with some humor, some angst, and a happy ending.
Word Count: ~ 6,000.
Disclaimer: I got nothin’. Also, this is un-betaed, so I take full responsibility for any/all screwups within. A/N at end.
XXQULMII
(OR, HOW JOHN SHEPPARD LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE PIXIE DUST)
by Adler
(1)
The cold was bone-deep and--as if that weren’t enough--damp. Every inch of John Sheppard was wet, clammy, and seriously unhappy about it. Once in a while, a frigid wind would blow through every single chink in the drafty stone cottage. Less frequently, but often enough to still be a major pain in the ass, a flock of psychotic alien birds would buzz the cottage roof. As a natural-born flyboy, John could not for the life of him figure out how the birds stayed aloft--instead of flapping, like normal alien birds and bugs (or, occasionally, deluded human Pegasus-dwellers), they simply flailed with a frenetic undirected energy like the Brownian motion Rodney claimed John’s own hair represented. (Jealousy was a sad thing indeed.)
Maybe the birds were just pissed off at their planet’s total lack of color coordination--because of various aerosols in M38-XXX’s atmosphere, the heavens were a perpetual violent shade of apricot. Except when they were purple. Since M38-XXX’s grass was as green as Earth’s, the color combination was somewhat less than ideal. Even Teyla had to admit that this was the ugliest world she’d ever seen.
It felt like Ireland in winter on LSD.
Normally, John could ignore this drawback. What he couldn’t handle were the circumstances of his being stuck here on this godforsaken acid trip of a planet. His right ankle was badly sprained and swollen to twice its normal size, making it impossible to put any weight on that leg even considering his high pain threshold. Also, his weapons were gone--quite possibly being wielded at that very instant by the inexpert hands of the villagers surrounding his and Rodney’s drafty hidey-hole. Ronon and Teyla . . . he didn’t know where they were, but he hoped to hell they’d managed to end up in a more defensible position than he and Rodney had. Which was, for the record, a decrepit stone hut with no evidence of recent human occupation. There were, however, several alien rat skeletons. Large ones. They were pink.
“How many rounds do we have left, McKay?” yelled John, hoping that the gaps in the four stone walls were large enough to let the villagers hear him, but not large enough for them to see through and call his bluff. He banged two rocks together, hoping that it sounded much more menacing from outside the cottage.
Rodney simply scowled, his expression clearly conveying that he was totally not on board with what had to be the stupidest plan ever, thank you very much, Colonel.
“Enough to take down three villages of people three times smarter than these guys, Colonel,” John chirped in falsetto. Rodney cringed and grimaced violently in his corner, making faces generally reserved for missions to planets where the locals liked to shrink other locals’ heads for jewelry. John smirked at his teammate. Yeah, so there was only so long he could hold off disaster with his lame-ass Butch and Sundance act, but anything that got some sign of life out of Rodney right now was worth it. This mission had gone south a while ago, but if this had to be the end, then maybe it could be the end in a way that wasn’t so . . .
. . . No, he didn’t want to think about that anymore. The anger, which had been turned down to a low simmer ever since John figured out that his current position was a strategic nightmare, began to bubble once more. It was usually more controllable. But fucking alien priestesses fucking with his teammates was not a good way to keep it controllable.
The ridiculous irony of it was that Rodney hadn’t said a single word.
Not since they stepped through the Stargate onto M38-XXX, anyway. Rodney had been gnawing on a power bar as he checked his energy readings, occasionally emitting muffled noises to indicate which way SGA-1 should turn, but that didn’t really count, especially to someone completely mission-focused like John who had definitely not been watching the interesting way his teammate’s jaw was working around his food.
Three minutes after they headed down the dirt path, taking turns wincing at the hideous colors that blanketed M38-XXX (gigantic cerulean-blue pineapple-shaped trees, anybody?), the team walked into the sad-looking village. The cottages looked as if they had been slapped together by people with improbably bad hand-eye coordination. These structures seemed to be loosely cemented together with a malodorous hybrid of mud, dung, and spit. The villagers were all clustered in the middle of the town square, converged on what seemed to be a few very ugly alien fruit stalls, but they separated at the team’s approach.
Revealing the fucking alien priestess beyond them, who had taken one look at the team before declaring “you talk too much,” tossing a handful of something that looked like fucking pixie dust at a startled Rodney, and proclaiming him cursed into silence for the rest of his life.
It got a little hazy after that for John. He had definitely taken a hostage or two within the first few seconds after Rodney’s mouth had opened and shut wordlessly, one pale hand patting at his muted throat. Evidently the hostage thing hadn’t really worked out too well, because John had somehow managed to lose all of his weapons, all of Rodney’s weapons, and half his team. This was totally not the best way to stay alive in the Pegasus Galaxy. Any galaxy, really.
The anger had definitely boiled over at some point, because there was a huge chunk of missing time in John’s head. He had no idea how they got into the cottage, didn’t remember splitting up the group. John thought he remembered sand, hot unforgiving dirt, mountains bruising the horizon--but that wasn’t here, that was somewhere else; this place was green and apricot and purple and Rodney’s terrified white face.
Rodney’s aforesaid terrified face was currently not actually all that terrified. It was, in fact, mouthing dirty words at John (which was not a turn-on at all). The rest of Rodney was tense and thoroughly pissed-off, stabbing one (definitely unsexy) index finger at something scrawled into the dirt of the hut floor. John squinted at it.
THIS SUCKS, read the scrawl. WORST PLAN EVER. CONGRATULATIONS.
He had to smirk again, because, really, he’d pegged it, hadn’t he? He knew Rodney would think this was a horrible idea.
Then again, that hadn’t exactly been a long shot. In all fairness, it was a horrible idea. But it wasn’t like there was anything else he could do, short of charging heroically out into the purple sunset while armed only with a pair of misshapen rocks, fading to black with Rodney in a hail of bullets and rocks.
“What’s that, Colonel?” John trilled, earning another ferocious glower from Rodney. “All I have to do is press the big red button, and we’ll blow this whole town to kingdom come? Why, and I thought you were an atheist!” The last bit got an eye-roll from Rodney. Then another gust of wind ripped through the cottage, stinging John’s eyes. Rodney shivered and curled up into a ball in the corner, grimly hugging his laptop to his chest. John resisted the urge to inch closer to him.
“Repent! Atheism is an insult against the Priestess Most Divine,” shouted a villager from outside. “Repent! Repent!”
“Tell her to shove it up her heavenly ass,” hollered John, beyond giving a damn.
They heard a series of outraged squawks from outside the hut, and Rodney’s shoulders began to shake. John refused to let himself look too close, in case it wasn’t laughter.
A flock of birds flailed by overhead--he could tell by the thumping noises the animals made as they occasionally whacked each other with their wings. Every so often, a bird would get knocked unconscious and fall to the ground with a thud.
Over the sound of the alien birds, John could hear a conversation going on outside. Apparently, half the villagers wanted to storm into the cottage right then and there. The other half wanted to wait for instructions from the fucking alien priestess. No one said a word about Ronon or Teyla, which meant that either (1) they were dead, or (2) they were lying in wait, and were soon to make other people dead. John would really prefer the question to be resolved as soon as possible, so as to better gauge the tactical ramifications of whacking himself over the head with a rock. Because, anger issues aside, John’s attention span did not take kindly to sitting in boring, indefensible, drafty, and damp cottages for long periods of time. At this point, the dead bird in the fireplace was just the icing on the cake. The hideous, cold, damp, botulism-tainted cake.
Also, he was really beginning to get worried about the Rodney thing. The alien pixie dust had to wear off sometime soon, right? You couldn’t really curse a person into silence, could you? Not for forever, right?
Apparently, he was frowning at Rodney, because Rodney was frowning back and mouthing “What?” at him with (unquestionably unerotic) exaggerated lip-motions. John shook his head and turned away, gazing instead at the flimsy wooden cottage door. There was a deadbolt drawn across it, but that was obviously just for show, maybe in a nod to whatever crack-dreams passed for aesthetics around here. It was pretty clear from the way the door creaked in the clammy wind that one good sneeze would knock it over. Or maybe blow it to splinters.
At this point, a dead bird fell down the chimney and slammed into the cold ash heap. John and Rodney were both on their feet within a heartbeat--John standing lopsided with a rock raised high in one hand, ready to throw; Rodney backing away from the cold fireplace, waving his arms and yelling with no sound coming out of his mouth.
After a few seconds, when it was pretty clear that the bird was going to stay dead, Rodney quit gesticulating. He put one hand up to his mouth as if surprised to find it in motion; a strange, vacant look appeared in his eyes, and his mouth closed, lips thinned, looking hopeless and resigned.
“McKay,” said John, and dropped the rock. Rodney did not turn to look at him. “Rodney,” he said, more urgently this time, and his teammate did not move.
John had all of his weight on his uninjured foot, but his injury still hurt enough to make his mind wander, looking for distractions. He wondered if he could remember the feeling of a neck under his lips. He wondered why he didn’t just walk outside and get the dying part over with already.
A fusillade of gunfire and shouting from outside caused both men to jump, and Rodney grabbed at John in panic. Some instinct prompted John to grab back, which is why when Ronon and Teyla stormed through the crumbling cottage door, they found John and Rodney latched onto one another like a pair of little girls. One of whom had an ankle injury and might have been pressing slightly against the other as a result.
“We have scared away the villagers,” said Teyla, breathless and sweat-sheened. “They are not accustomed to gunfire.”
“Pansies,” said Ronon, but he looked exhausted.
“Let’s get out of here,” said John gruffly as he released Rodney, turned his back on the silent physicist, and stalked away. Up until the point where he remembered he had an ankle injury, and consequently fell to the ground in an undignified heap.
Ronon carried him back to the Stargate--over his shoulder, so John’s ass stuck high up in the air, like a romance novel heroine’s. Not that John ever read romance novels, or even just looked at the covers while standing in line at Earth supermarkets, no way--he only knew because Rodney would not stop mouthing it at him, all the way home. In a way, it was strangely reassuring. Except for Rodney’s insinuations about petticoats, which were just wrong and bad.
(2)
Once they got back to Atlantis, Rodney stopped mouthing words. Instead, he began to carry a notepad and pen at all times, and if you claimed his scrawlings were illegible, his lips would go tight and he’d hurl the notebook at your head. And then wait there, arms folded, until you looked fetched the notepad back for him, suitably contrite.
John had gone through the routine a few times too many, and so Rodney had upgraded to throwing pens and paperclips at him as well as winging the notepad as far as he was physically able. He thought Rodney’s throwing range was probably improving as a result. It was like a new workout routine, admittedly one that held ramifications of minor head injuries for anyone standing within a certain radius. John considered it progress.
“. . . cannae find anythin’ medically wrong with him,” Beckett was saying, shrugging his shoulders in worry, clutching a data tablet full of fifteen different scan readouts.
Weir tilted her head. “You’re saying there’s no sound reason behind his inability to speak?”
“That’s what the man said,” John drawled, stomach coiled into a tight ball. His arms ached with the strain of supporting himself on crutches for the past several days.
THERE’S OBVIOUSLY A SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION, YOU QUACK, scribbled Rodney, and thrust his notepad not only at Beckett but at everyone else within arm’s reach, intent on spreading his distemper as far as possible. As Weir’s office really wasn’t all that big, this meant that everyone in the room got to read the notepad twice.
Carson sighed. “Maybe if ye had gotten me a sample of what the Colonel called, ah, ‘fucking pixie dust,’ I might’hae been able to analyze it and synthesize a-”
CONSIDER THE NATIVES HOSTILE, Rodney wrote.
“Very, very hostile,” supplied John.
Weir frowned. “And you gentlemen don’t remember doing anything at all to antagonize them?”
“Ronon may have mentioned re-decorating the planet in pastels, but not after we were within a hundred yards of the village,” said John. “We did the standard meet-and-greet.”
WE WERE ABOUT TO, scrawled Rodney, underlining ‘about’ three times. NONE OF US ACTUALLY SAID ANYTHING. WE GOT PRE-EMPTED.
“You’re sure?” Weir raised a skinny eyebrow.
“He didn’t say anything,” John lashed out, maybe a little more forcefully than he should have. Weir looked taken aback. So did Rodney. Beckett . . . well, Beckett always looked taken aback. Or homesick. John might have felt sorry for the man if he weren’t so pissed about the lack of an antidote for the fucking pixie dust.
“I’m going back,” he heard himself say, and was almost surprised.
“John,” said Weir. “I think it’s too risky-”
He wasn’t listening. He was too busy watching Rodney touch pen to paper and take it off again, not writing anything at all.
“Fine,” John said, smiling, dredging the bottom of his metaphorical bucket of charm. “I can wait.”
(3)
Life went on in Atlantis, as it always did. On any given day, John could wander into any given part of the city, press his hands flat against any given wall, and feel Atlantis humming in contentment, delighted in the exploits of her favorite children’s descendants. But since M38-XXX, she seemed a bit different, he thought as he strolled along her darkened catwalks, enjoying the regained use of his ankle. Atlantis felt a little nervous, maybe even . . . worried . . . ?
John told himself he was projecting, and that it was stupid. He wondered if it would compromise his scouting duty if he broke into a jog. He wondered when silence (it had to be the silence, it couldn’t be just the lack of one specific voice) had started to get on his nerves. He reached out for the familiar background hum of Atlantis, but found it less reassuring than usual. There was probably no good reason why. None whatsoever. Probably he just needed some sleep.
A pen bounced off his back and rolled a few inches along the catwalk before dropping over the side and down into the black abyss. John turned around, knowing who it was, surprised that Rodney had found him here. Since when did the scientist seek him out like this? Usually it was John who wandered into the labs looking for him, not the other way around. Rodney preferred conserving his personal energy, staying put and using the . . . radio. Oh.
Colonel, said Rodney’s mouth before its owner clamped it shut again. John felt perversely proud that this much had gotten past his teammate’s defenses and failsafes.
“How’s it goin’, McKay?” he asked, trying to sound cool and collected.
It took Rodney another minute or so to get close enough to John so that he could shove the notepad at him. There was a lot of that personal-space-invasion thing going around now that he couldn’t yell at people from a distance--it freaked the hell out of the lab minions to be unable to track Rodney’s movements by the Dopplering of his customary berating. John had witnessed them all looking over their shoulders after each calculation or calibration, nervous that Rodney might be standing directly behind them, apoplectic in wordless fury at their work.
THE SHEEP DOCTOR SAYS HE FOUND SOMETHING, proclaimed the notepad. Apparently, Rodney had written it up before running after John. Since the handwriting was even worse than usual, it was entirely possible that he’d written it while running after John.
“Really?” John tried not to sound too hopeful. It was better to prepare for the worst-case scenario, he knew. Unfortunately, he was currently unable to wrap his mind around the worst-case scenario, was in fact having trouble imagining that Rodney’s oddly mobile (but definitely not fascinating) mouth could go another five minutes without speaking.
Rodney flipped the page over, exposing more words, looking particularly proud of his foresight. HIS FIRST ROUND OF TESTS WAS LESS THAN ENTIRELY THOROUGH.
“Oh, yeah?”
OH, YEAH. GUESS WHAT HE WANTS NOW?
It was kind of flattering, kind of creepy, that Rodney had been able to predict his responses, John thought. Maybe the notebook had been written up like a Choose Your Own Adventure--if he’d said “what the hell do you mean, McKay,” the scientist would have flipped to another page that shot insults right back at him and demeaned him for his typically unintelligent military mindset.
“Why don’t you tell me,” said John, mouth gone dry. Rodney’s eyes were softer than usual, open wider than usual and ten times more readable.
SAMPLES, said the next page grimly. EITHER OF THE INSIDE OF MY THROAT AND LUNGS, OR OF THE PIXIE DUST.
John shrugged in a desperate attempt to look nonchalant. He suspected that his T-shirt was sticking to his back. “Wanna go back with me?”
HELL, YES.
(4)
Convincing Weir that they should go back to M38-XXX turned out to be relatively easy, at least once Rodney broke out the way-too-graphic descriptions of how exactly Carson Beckett would go about cracking his IRREPLACEABLE, BRILLIANT, MANLY chest wide open to rip out samples for NEFARIOUS VOODOO PURPOSES. Beckett himself pitched in with a summary of precisely how much he did not want to see Rodney’s insides, and then raised the possibility that the paralytic properties of the pixie dust could eventually advance past its victim’s voicebox, shutting down vital systems at random.
At this, Rodney simply crossed his arms, raised his chin, and tried to straighten his crooked mouth as Beckett explained the prognosis to Weir, so it made absolutely no sense that John felt as if he himself were about to fall down. After all, if Dr. Rodney McHypochondriac was making a point of not looking worried, why should John be so freaked out?
John’s team, including the mute Rodney, went through the Stargate a few days later, fully supplied with oxygen tanks and respirators just in case the fucking alien priestess decided to pull the Tinkerbell routine again. John was even more on edge than usual, which was saying something. He was sorely tempted to take another hostage or ten, even though that had worked out so badly the last time around.
Every single member of SGA-1 expected something less than an enthusiastic greeting, considering the way they’d left M38-XXX. But, improbably enough, that was exactly what they got, complete with confetti and a bizarre folk-dance routine.
“Colonel Sheppard,” said Teyla, looking dubious as a villager tried to hand her a Technicolor fruit basket. “This response does not seem to be--no, no thank you, I really am not worthy of this beautiful gift--does not seem to be consistent with our last contact with these people.”
“Maybe they’re all on drugs,” said Ronon. Rodney nodded vigorously. John noticed the scientist eyeing something that looked like a cracked-out pear, and found himself wondering if people with entirely paralyzed throats had to eat intravenously.
“Okay, people, that’s enough,” he barked, and the villagers stopped hopping in a circle around his team. One man--John was pretty sure he had been one of the ones surrounding his and Rodney’s hideout--had the gall to look perplexed.
“We do not understand,” said the utter bastard in question. “The Priestess Most Divine has explained to us the nature of the generous blessing she bestowed on your friend!”
“Oh, so now it’s a blessing, is it?” said John snidely. “We were under the impression it was a curse.” He was a little surprised at himself: Since when did he start speaking Rodney’s lines?
“Yes,” said the woman with the psychedelic fruit basket. “A heavenly and beneficial curse!” To a one, the villagers beamed at SGA-1.
“A beneficial . . . curse,” said Teyla carefully. John’s finger tightened on the safety of his P-90. Rodney shot him a warning look. “Perhaps we fail to understand,” Teyla continued. “Perhaps you could explain to us exactly what you mean by this.”
“You could take us to the priestess,” said Ronon.
The villagers looked at one another, clearly confused. “Didn’t the nature of the gift make itself clear once you returned to your home world?” asked a teenager, still idly sprinkling alien confetti here and there. Rodney irritably brushed some of it off his shoulders.
“It became clear that our friend can’t talk,” said John, trying to keep himself under control. “We want a refund for our gift. Now.”
The villagers exchanged more glances. “We could seek the wise counsel of the Priestess Most Divine,” suggested one man.
“Like I said,” said Ronon, and twirled his gun.
And so SGA-1 was escorted back to the middle of the sad little town, the damp chill finding its way into every corner of their bodies. John was fairly sure he could feel it damaging his delicate and very important reproductive system. He glanced over at Rodney, whose facial expressions complained very loudly. Was hypochondria contagious, or had John always been this overprotective of his prostate?
“Buck up, McKay, we’re almost there,” he said faux-heartily as they approached a small wicker hut. “Have you fixed in no time.”
The scientist shot him a dirty look, clearly conveying the sentiment that John was no better than a certain glorified veterinarian. John shook his head and tried to concentrate on the point at hand: Should he threaten to shoot the priestess, or just tie her to the roof for the psychotic birds?
He suspected that M38-XXX maybe brought out the worst in him.
Their guide dropped to his knees and touched his head to the ground in front of the hut. “Oh, Priestess Most Divine,” he sang out, “our adventuring friends have returned, perhaps to offer us trade in exchange for more of your wondrous gifts and curses!” He thumped his head rhythmically against the dirt four times, then made a little trilling noise.
The bead curtain doorway, which struck John as surprisingly hippie-like, rattled. “You may send in their leader,” said the familiar voice of the fucking alien priestess.
“I’ll go alone,” said John, fingering his respirator. Ronon shrugged, Teyla looked wary, and Rodney . . . stared at him. God, he so did not want to know what that wide-open look meant. He bit the bullet, stepped around the prostrate villager, and pushed through the bead curtain.
There were about a million lit candles perched on rock piles inside the central room, which struck John as a major fire hazard as well as a possible source for the bad smell that permeated the hut. He hoped to hell that the miasma, as repulsive as it was, wasn’t actually poisonous, and wouldn’t paralyze any of his various vital bits and pieces. John couldn’t think of any organs he really wanted to lose today.
“Welcome back,” chirped the fucking alien priestess.
John nodded sharply, staring at her. How had he missed the fact that she was so young? Fourteen, fifteen, tops. No wonder she had such a fixation on pixie dust and inexplicable emotional responses.
“You cursed one of my friends,” he stated.
The fucking alien priestess--okay, it didn’t seem fair to call her that now that he knew she was just a kid . . . goddamn alien priestess, maybe--nodded, her ringlets bouncing. She was sitting cross-legged in one corner atop a stack of pillows, draped in a number of what looked like hideous paisley-and-polka-dot scarves.
Rustling her scarves, goddamn alien priestess blinked up at John. “Why are you not pleased with my gift curse?” she asked, sounding genuinely confused.
Well, she wasn’t the only one who was confused, but John would bet his last oatmeal-raisin power bar that she wasn’t half as pissed off as he was. Being fifteen was no excuse for being a poisonous-pixie-dust-flinging maniac. John was pretty sure he’d limited himself as a kid to pulling pranks that didn’t permanently cripple people, and, while he wasn’t comfortable making that same assumption about Rodney, that didn’t mean it was karmically OK to just up and attack him for it decades after the fact. He never wanted to see that wide-open look on Rodney ever, ever again; it made him want, which in turn made him angrier than usual.
“Because he can’t talk, and he kind of needs to be able to do that, and the rest of us also kind of want the old McKay back,” said John through a clenched jaw.
“You are going to get an ulcer if you continue cultivating this latent-anger thing, y’know,” said the goddamn alien priestess mildly.
“What?”
“An ulcer. It’s a chronic ailment that affects the stomach. Don’t your people know what ulcers are? Perhaps we could offer you some medical knowledge in trade,” said the sweet little goddamn alien priestess.
John felt an inexplicable urge to yank on one of her banana curls. He thought he’d seen this girl before--in fifth grade, maybe. “I know what an ulcer is,” he said, trying to keep his voice level. “I don’t want medical advice. I just need the antidote for what you did to my friend.”
“Huh?”
“An-ti-dote,” he enunciated. “Don’t your people know how to reverse your mistakes?”
The goddamn alien priestess looked even more confused. “But has not my curse immeasurably enhanced your life in many ways?”
“No!” shouted John. “No, it hasn’t!” He heard noises from outside the hut, and hoped it wasn’t all going to go to hell. Not more than it already had, anyway.
Oh, shit. The goddamn alien priestess’ pink lower lip was trembling. Looking up at him with those big blue eyes, she almost reminded him of-
“I was only trying to h-h-help!” she wailed, bright blue eyes brimming with tears.
“Hey, don’t--aw-” John started forward and stopped again. This could very well be a cunning ploy on her part to ram a whole fistful of pixie dust right down his throat, paralyzing everything from his lips down to his small intestine.
The little priestess heaved a sob, then buried her face in one of her voluminous scarves. Her wrists were ridiculously skinny, and her fragile little shoulders heaved spasmodically. “--Trying--to--b-be nice,” she blubbered.
Oh, to hell with it. There was only so much of this a guy could take and still claim he had a heart. John went and crouched down next to the pile of pillows, awkwardly patting at the girl’s back with one hand. “C’mon, it’s okay, I’m not going to hurt you,” he heard himself say.
She peeked out from behind a tear-stained scarf and blinked up owlishly at John, who suddenly felt like the biggest jackass in the Pegasus Galaxy this side of Acastus Kolya. It was probably the blue eyes that did it. He was such a sucker for blue eyes.
The tiny priestess dropped her damp scarf and pouted at John. “You dwell in the city of our glorious Ancestors.”
“You could say that,” he admitted, cautious.
“Your people are most strange and mysterious.”
“Some of ‘em, maybe.” There was no good explanation for what the geologists got up to after hours.
“My people have heard many stories of your exploits,” sighed the girl. “You are brave enough to go sojourning despite the Time of the Wraith. You travel to many varied worlds, though surely none so beautiful as our own.”
There was probably nothing diplomatic John could say to that, so he stayed quiet. Weir would have been proud. Then again, she would also have been royally pissed that John made the kid cry to begin with, so maybe it cancelled out.
She crossed her arms, looking way too much like Rodney than should’ve been possible. It made John a little uneasy, actually. “Silence is a virtue,” said the girl, and, okay, that killed the burgeoning resemblance right there. “When people do not speak aloud, it frees them to express themselves in different, more clear, fashions.”
Oh, damn. He knew the notepad thing was going to come back to bite him in the ass.
“Where I come from, we believe that people are free to express themselves in speech,” John said cautiously, “without fear of retribution.”
She shook her head, curls flying. “No, no, no, not true! Nuh-uh!”
“Oh, yeah?”
The priestess pouted at John again. “My people have also heard tales of the military of your world. You are not free to speak your mind, to love whom you choose.”
Okay. First, he was going to find whatever blabbermouth Marine had been educating the entire Pegasus Galaxy about “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Then, he would teach same jarhead what a “need-to-know basis” was. And sign up the jarhead to dig up stumps for the Athosian farming community until the next Daedalus run, at which point they could switch to inventory duty. Or sponge-bathing Hermiod.
“Which doesn’t explain why you felt it was necessary to paralyze my friend’s voice,” said John, trying really hard not to think about creepy little naked bug-eyed aliens. He had a feeling that this kid was working off of good intentions, which was actually almost as bad as if she were working off of bad ones.
“This was so that he would be forced into confronting his xxqulmii for you, and you yours for him,” said the priestess in a matter-of-fact tone. “Everyone needs a little happiness. Especially now, in the Time of the Wraith. Xxqulmii is very, very important.”
John felt his blood run cold. For once, it had nothing to do with the extreme draftiness of the wicker hut. “I don’t know what the x-word means,” he said carefully, trying to channel Teyla.
The priestess tilted her head, looking thoughtful. “Xxqulmii. Well. I suppose it might also be called ‘Big Gay Love.’ ”
I did not just hear that. John stared at the girl.
The girl brightened up and, God help him now, giggled. “See, my people have a concept we call ‘Unresolved Sexual Tension,’ and in all the stories we have heard of your people, it is quite clear that you and your sweetheart-”
He stood up on his inexplicably unsteady legs. “No. Look. All I need is an antidote, and then we can leave each other alone. Or something.”
The priestess pouted again. “I can tell you how to fix it. I can make your sweetheart all better. But I still don’t think I was wrong about the xxqulmii.”
“So fix it,” said John, and tried like hell to keep his voice from cracking.
The little alien priestess told him how to fix it. Five minutes later, John walked out of the hut with a little packet of sparkly powder. Forty-five minutes after that, SGA-1 stepped through an incoming wormhole into the gateroom at Atlantis, bearing goodwill and fruit baskets.
(5)
“There are a few gaps and inconsistencies in your mission reports,” said Weir, tapping the stack of papers against the conference room table.
John kept his face impassive. He was totally not going to look at Rodney. He was totally not going to run his eyes over the neck hickey for what had to be the five hundredth time that day.
“For example, Teyla, your report claims that you, Ronon, and Dr. McKay played dominoes with the villagers while Colonel Sheppard negotiated with the priestess,” said Weir, “but Ronon’s report clearly states that you were playing darts.”
“Both,” said Ronon.
“With Ronon, everything eventually turns into darts,” said Rodney smugly, tugging at the collar of his jacket. “I’m beginning to suspect he has something of a fixation on pointy objects.” His sky-blue gaze flicked guiltily over to John and back again. Rodney looked something like a kid unable to believe what he’d found under the Christmas tree, which was pretty much how John was feeling these days, too.
But John definitely wasn’t looking at the neck hickey. Because if he was looking at the neck hickey, that meant he was also experiencing a strong urge to run his tongue over it. Again. Which was kind of inappropriate for the middle of a post-mission conference.
“I like darts,” said Ronon.
Teyla inclined her head. “Did our reports not mention that we won several colorful and nutritious fruit baskets from the villagers thanks to our prowess at darts?”
“McKay lost two of ‘em back to the natives,” said Ronon, “’cause his aim sucks.”
“Hey,” said Rodney. “My aim does not suck.”
Well, John could say any number of things in response to that one, but--here was that diplomacy thing again--he wasn’t going to. Not in public, anyway. He directed a heavy-lidded gaze at Rodney, who noticed and gulped. John smirked.
Weir looked down at the mission reports again. “And--Colonel Sheppard?”
“Hmm?”
“Why did this mysterious antidote have to be administered in private, and for over half an hour?” asked Weir.
Rodney began to blush, his fingers stuttering against the table. God, but he was awful at subterfuge, thought John fondly.
“Dr. Beckett has analyzed what was left of the antidote,” Weir continued, pulling out another report. “The chemical in the, ah, ‘reverse pixie dust’ shouldn’t be affected at all by relative proximity to crowds of people.”
“It was a ritual thing,” said John, hooking one arm over his chair. Rodney was so totally checking out his pecs. “We didn’t want to anger the locals. After all, they thought they were doing us a big favor the first time around.”
Weir furrowed her brow. “Yes, that’s another part I don’t understand.”
“Nonverbal communication skills,” blurted Rodney, and promptly turned pink again.
Xxqulmii, thought John. It turned out that xxqulmii was actually pretty cool, even if he still couldn’t figure out how to pronounce it. But he was still boycotting the term ‘Big Gay Love,’ no matter what Zelenka said.
“You mean like your notepad?” asked Weir.
“Perhaps writing and literacy are rare and valued skills on M38-XXX,” offered Teyla smoothly, once again proving why she always cleaned up at ladies’ poker night.
“Yes,” Rodney blustered, “and, because their high priestess is a fifteen-year-old girl, she took out her feelings on the subject in a completely irrational fashion,” once again proving why Kate Heightmeyer was so anxious to get him back into her office.
“I dunno, I thought she was kind of nice,” said John.
“Kind of,” said Rodney, and failed to hold back an endearingly crooked smile.
“Interesting that they chose to test the expedition member with the most Ph.D.s,” said Weir, smiling back. “Well. Carson thinks they might be worth speaking to about local anaesthetics, so he’d like us to go back and trade. But do you suggest that we open negotiations with these people? Does the risk of future cultural misunderstandings outweigh the potential benefits?”
“Not to someone colorblind,” said Ronon. The others looked at him, and he shrugged. “What? I prefer harmonious color schemes. Neutral earthy tones are best.”
“We could send Lorne’s team,” John suggested to Weir. “His botanist might be interested in the kinds of plants that can survive under a sky like that.”
Weir nodded. “I’ll take that into consideration. All right, everyone, you’re free to go.”
SGA-1 stood up and filed out of the conference room. Ronon was, as usual, inscrutable; Teyla, however, looked as if she knew a very pleasant secret, and Rodney--Rodney was glowing, Rodney was making odd little humming noises in the back of his throat, Rodney was practically bouncing.
As for John Sheppard? Well, he dragged one finger along the wall as he followed the head scientist back to his quarters, savoring the agreeable warm ache in every muscle in his body, and knew that he’d never felt Atlantis quite like this before.
It was almost as if she were laughing, but he couldn’t think why.
- End -
Author’s Note: Okay. I said I wouldn’t do it, but I did. (Head, meet Desk.) This is the end of my first (maybe last??) SGA fic ever.
I have no idea whatsoever of how to pronounce the title. I’m actually kind of worried by that.
Author: Adler
Rating: PG-13 for swearing and Dirty Thoughts
Spoilers: Assume mid-season 2 or 3. No episode-specific spoilers.
Summary: Rodney gets cursed on the ugliest planet in the galaxy; John bangs a few rocks together; Teyla gets a fruit basket; and Ronon reveals a hidden aesthetic preference. First Time, with some humor, some angst, and a happy ending.
Word Count: ~ 6,000.
Disclaimer: I got nothin’. Also, this is un-betaed, so I take full responsibility for any/all screwups within. A/N at end.
XXQULMII
(OR, HOW JOHN SHEPPARD LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE PIXIE DUST)
by Adler
(1)
The cold was bone-deep and--as if that weren’t enough--damp. Every inch of John Sheppard was wet, clammy, and seriously unhappy about it. Once in a while, a frigid wind would blow through every single chink in the drafty stone cottage. Less frequently, but often enough to still be a major pain in the ass, a flock of psychotic alien birds would buzz the cottage roof. As a natural-born flyboy, John could not for the life of him figure out how the birds stayed aloft--instead of flapping, like normal alien birds and bugs (or, occasionally, deluded human Pegasus-dwellers), they simply flailed with a frenetic undirected energy like the Brownian motion Rodney claimed John’s own hair represented. (Jealousy was a sad thing indeed.)
Maybe the birds were just pissed off at their planet’s total lack of color coordination--because of various aerosols in M38-XXX’s atmosphere, the heavens were a perpetual violent shade of apricot. Except when they were purple. Since M38-XXX’s grass was as green as Earth’s, the color combination was somewhat less than ideal. Even Teyla had to admit that this was the ugliest world she’d ever seen.
It felt like Ireland in winter on LSD.
Normally, John could ignore this drawback. What he couldn’t handle were the circumstances of his being stuck here on this godforsaken acid trip of a planet. His right ankle was badly sprained and swollen to twice its normal size, making it impossible to put any weight on that leg even considering his high pain threshold. Also, his weapons were gone--quite possibly being wielded at that very instant by the inexpert hands of the villagers surrounding his and Rodney’s drafty hidey-hole. Ronon and Teyla . . . he didn’t know where they were, but he hoped to hell they’d managed to end up in a more defensible position than he and Rodney had. Which was, for the record, a decrepit stone hut with no evidence of recent human occupation. There were, however, several alien rat skeletons. Large ones. They were pink.
“How many rounds do we have left, McKay?” yelled John, hoping that the gaps in the four stone walls were large enough to let the villagers hear him, but not large enough for them to see through and call his bluff. He banged two rocks together, hoping that it sounded much more menacing from outside the cottage.
Rodney simply scowled, his expression clearly conveying that he was totally not on board with what had to be the stupidest plan ever, thank you very much, Colonel.
“Enough to take down three villages of people three times smarter than these guys, Colonel,” John chirped in falsetto. Rodney cringed and grimaced violently in his corner, making faces generally reserved for missions to planets where the locals liked to shrink other locals’ heads for jewelry. John smirked at his teammate. Yeah, so there was only so long he could hold off disaster with his lame-ass Butch and Sundance act, but anything that got some sign of life out of Rodney right now was worth it. This mission had gone south a while ago, but if this had to be the end, then maybe it could be the end in a way that wasn’t so . . .
. . . No, he didn’t want to think about that anymore. The anger, which had been turned down to a low simmer ever since John figured out that his current position was a strategic nightmare, began to bubble once more. It was usually more controllable. But fucking alien priestesses fucking with his teammates was not a good way to keep it controllable.
The ridiculous irony of it was that Rodney hadn’t said a single word.
Not since they stepped through the Stargate onto M38-XXX, anyway. Rodney had been gnawing on a power bar as he checked his energy readings, occasionally emitting muffled noises to indicate which way SGA-1 should turn, but that didn’t really count, especially to someone completely mission-focused like John who had definitely not been watching the interesting way his teammate’s jaw was working around his food.
Three minutes after they headed down the dirt path, taking turns wincing at the hideous colors that blanketed M38-XXX (gigantic cerulean-blue pineapple-shaped trees, anybody?), the team walked into the sad-looking village. The cottages looked as if they had been slapped together by people with improbably bad hand-eye coordination. These structures seemed to be loosely cemented together with a malodorous hybrid of mud, dung, and spit. The villagers were all clustered in the middle of the town square, converged on what seemed to be a few very ugly alien fruit stalls, but they separated at the team’s approach.
Revealing the fucking alien priestess beyond them, who had taken one look at the team before declaring “you talk too much,” tossing a handful of something that looked like fucking pixie dust at a startled Rodney, and proclaiming him cursed into silence for the rest of his life.
It got a little hazy after that for John. He had definitely taken a hostage or two within the first few seconds after Rodney’s mouth had opened and shut wordlessly, one pale hand patting at his muted throat. Evidently the hostage thing hadn’t really worked out too well, because John had somehow managed to lose all of his weapons, all of Rodney’s weapons, and half his team. This was totally not the best way to stay alive in the Pegasus Galaxy. Any galaxy, really.
The anger had definitely boiled over at some point, because there was a huge chunk of missing time in John’s head. He had no idea how they got into the cottage, didn’t remember splitting up the group. John thought he remembered sand, hot unforgiving dirt, mountains bruising the horizon--but that wasn’t here, that was somewhere else; this place was green and apricot and purple and Rodney’s terrified white face.
Rodney’s aforesaid terrified face was currently not actually all that terrified. It was, in fact, mouthing dirty words at John (which was not a turn-on at all). The rest of Rodney was tense and thoroughly pissed-off, stabbing one (definitely unsexy) index finger at something scrawled into the dirt of the hut floor. John squinted at it.
THIS SUCKS, read the scrawl. WORST PLAN EVER. CONGRATULATIONS.
He had to smirk again, because, really, he’d pegged it, hadn’t he? He knew Rodney would think this was a horrible idea.
Then again, that hadn’t exactly been a long shot. In all fairness, it was a horrible idea. But it wasn’t like there was anything else he could do, short of charging heroically out into the purple sunset while armed only with a pair of misshapen rocks, fading to black with Rodney in a hail of bullets and rocks.
“What’s that, Colonel?” John trilled, earning another ferocious glower from Rodney. “All I have to do is press the big red button, and we’ll blow this whole town to kingdom come? Why, and I thought you were an atheist!” The last bit got an eye-roll from Rodney. Then another gust of wind ripped through the cottage, stinging John’s eyes. Rodney shivered and curled up into a ball in the corner, grimly hugging his laptop to his chest. John resisted the urge to inch closer to him.
“Repent! Atheism is an insult against the Priestess Most Divine,” shouted a villager from outside. “Repent! Repent!”
“Tell her to shove it up her heavenly ass,” hollered John, beyond giving a damn.
They heard a series of outraged squawks from outside the hut, and Rodney’s shoulders began to shake. John refused to let himself look too close, in case it wasn’t laughter.
A flock of birds flailed by overhead--he could tell by the thumping noises the animals made as they occasionally whacked each other with their wings. Every so often, a bird would get knocked unconscious and fall to the ground with a thud.
Over the sound of the alien birds, John could hear a conversation going on outside. Apparently, half the villagers wanted to storm into the cottage right then and there. The other half wanted to wait for instructions from the fucking alien priestess. No one said a word about Ronon or Teyla, which meant that either (1) they were dead, or (2) they were lying in wait, and were soon to make other people dead. John would really prefer the question to be resolved as soon as possible, so as to better gauge the tactical ramifications of whacking himself over the head with a rock. Because, anger issues aside, John’s attention span did not take kindly to sitting in boring, indefensible, drafty, and damp cottages for long periods of time. At this point, the dead bird in the fireplace was just the icing on the cake. The hideous, cold, damp, botulism-tainted cake.
Also, he was really beginning to get worried about the Rodney thing. The alien pixie dust had to wear off sometime soon, right? You couldn’t really curse a person into silence, could you? Not for forever, right?
Apparently, he was frowning at Rodney, because Rodney was frowning back and mouthing “What?” at him with (unquestionably unerotic) exaggerated lip-motions. John shook his head and turned away, gazing instead at the flimsy wooden cottage door. There was a deadbolt drawn across it, but that was obviously just for show, maybe in a nod to whatever crack-dreams passed for aesthetics around here. It was pretty clear from the way the door creaked in the clammy wind that one good sneeze would knock it over. Or maybe blow it to splinters.
At this point, a dead bird fell down the chimney and slammed into the cold ash heap. John and Rodney were both on their feet within a heartbeat--John standing lopsided with a rock raised high in one hand, ready to throw; Rodney backing away from the cold fireplace, waving his arms and yelling with no sound coming out of his mouth.
After a few seconds, when it was pretty clear that the bird was going to stay dead, Rodney quit gesticulating. He put one hand up to his mouth as if surprised to find it in motion; a strange, vacant look appeared in his eyes, and his mouth closed, lips thinned, looking hopeless and resigned.
“McKay,” said John, and dropped the rock. Rodney did not turn to look at him. “Rodney,” he said, more urgently this time, and his teammate did not move.
John had all of his weight on his uninjured foot, but his injury still hurt enough to make his mind wander, looking for distractions. He wondered if he could remember the feeling of a neck under his lips. He wondered why he didn’t just walk outside and get the dying part over with already.
A fusillade of gunfire and shouting from outside caused both men to jump, and Rodney grabbed at John in panic. Some instinct prompted John to grab back, which is why when Ronon and Teyla stormed through the crumbling cottage door, they found John and Rodney latched onto one another like a pair of little girls. One of whom had an ankle injury and might have been pressing slightly against the other as a result.
“We have scared away the villagers,” said Teyla, breathless and sweat-sheened. “They are not accustomed to gunfire.”
“Pansies,” said Ronon, but he looked exhausted.
“Let’s get out of here,” said John gruffly as he released Rodney, turned his back on the silent physicist, and stalked away. Up until the point where he remembered he had an ankle injury, and consequently fell to the ground in an undignified heap.
Ronon carried him back to the Stargate--over his shoulder, so John’s ass stuck high up in the air, like a romance novel heroine’s. Not that John ever read romance novels, or even just looked at the covers while standing in line at Earth supermarkets, no way--he only knew because Rodney would not stop mouthing it at him, all the way home. In a way, it was strangely reassuring. Except for Rodney’s insinuations about petticoats, which were just wrong and bad.
(2)
Once they got back to Atlantis, Rodney stopped mouthing words. Instead, he began to carry a notepad and pen at all times, and if you claimed his scrawlings were illegible, his lips would go tight and he’d hurl the notebook at your head. And then wait there, arms folded, until you looked fetched the notepad back for him, suitably contrite.
John had gone through the routine a few times too many, and so Rodney had upgraded to throwing pens and paperclips at him as well as winging the notepad as far as he was physically able. He thought Rodney’s throwing range was probably improving as a result. It was like a new workout routine, admittedly one that held ramifications of minor head injuries for anyone standing within a certain radius. John considered it progress.
“. . . cannae find anythin’ medically wrong with him,” Beckett was saying, shrugging his shoulders in worry, clutching a data tablet full of fifteen different scan readouts.
Weir tilted her head. “You’re saying there’s no sound reason behind his inability to speak?”
“That’s what the man said,” John drawled, stomach coiled into a tight ball. His arms ached with the strain of supporting himself on crutches for the past several days.
THERE’S OBVIOUSLY A SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION, YOU QUACK, scribbled Rodney, and thrust his notepad not only at Beckett but at everyone else within arm’s reach, intent on spreading his distemper as far as possible. As Weir’s office really wasn’t all that big, this meant that everyone in the room got to read the notepad twice.
Carson sighed. “Maybe if ye had gotten me a sample of what the Colonel called, ah, ‘fucking pixie dust,’ I might’hae been able to analyze it and synthesize a-”
CONSIDER THE NATIVES HOSTILE, Rodney wrote.
“Very, very hostile,” supplied John.
Weir frowned. “And you gentlemen don’t remember doing anything at all to antagonize them?”
“Ronon may have mentioned re-decorating the planet in pastels, but not after we were within a hundred yards of the village,” said John. “We did the standard meet-and-greet.”
WE WERE ABOUT TO, scrawled Rodney, underlining ‘about’ three times. NONE OF US ACTUALLY SAID ANYTHING. WE GOT PRE-EMPTED.
“You’re sure?” Weir raised a skinny eyebrow.
“He didn’t say anything,” John lashed out, maybe a little more forcefully than he should have. Weir looked taken aback. So did Rodney. Beckett . . . well, Beckett always looked taken aback. Or homesick. John might have felt sorry for the man if he weren’t so pissed about the lack of an antidote for the fucking pixie dust.
“I’m going back,” he heard himself say, and was almost surprised.
“John,” said Weir. “I think it’s too risky-”
He wasn’t listening. He was too busy watching Rodney touch pen to paper and take it off again, not writing anything at all.
“Fine,” John said, smiling, dredging the bottom of his metaphorical bucket of charm. “I can wait.”
(3)
Life went on in Atlantis, as it always did. On any given day, John could wander into any given part of the city, press his hands flat against any given wall, and feel Atlantis humming in contentment, delighted in the exploits of her favorite children’s descendants. But since M38-XXX, she seemed a bit different, he thought as he strolled along her darkened catwalks, enjoying the regained use of his ankle. Atlantis felt a little nervous, maybe even . . . worried . . . ?
John told himself he was projecting, and that it was stupid. He wondered if it would compromise his scouting duty if he broke into a jog. He wondered when silence (it had to be the silence, it couldn’t be just the lack of one specific voice) had started to get on his nerves. He reached out for the familiar background hum of Atlantis, but found it less reassuring than usual. There was probably no good reason why. None whatsoever. Probably he just needed some sleep.
A pen bounced off his back and rolled a few inches along the catwalk before dropping over the side and down into the black abyss. John turned around, knowing who it was, surprised that Rodney had found him here. Since when did the scientist seek him out like this? Usually it was John who wandered into the labs looking for him, not the other way around. Rodney preferred conserving his personal energy, staying put and using the . . . radio. Oh.
Colonel, said Rodney’s mouth before its owner clamped it shut again. John felt perversely proud that this much had gotten past his teammate’s defenses and failsafes.
“How’s it goin’, McKay?” he asked, trying to sound cool and collected.
It took Rodney another minute or so to get close enough to John so that he could shove the notepad at him. There was a lot of that personal-space-invasion thing going around now that he couldn’t yell at people from a distance--it freaked the hell out of the lab minions to be unable to track Rodney’s movements by the Dopplering of his customary berating. John had witnessed them all looking over their shoulders after each calculation or calibration, nervous that Rodney might be standing directly behind them, apoplectic in wordless fury at their work.
THE SHEEP DOCTOR SAYS HE FOUND SOMETHING, proclaimed the notepad. Apparently, Rodney had written it up before running after John. Since the handwriting was even worse than usual, it was entirely possible that he’d written it while running after John.
“Really?” John tried not to sound too hopeful. It was better to prepare for the worst-case scenario, he knew. Unfortunately, he was currently unable to wrap his mind around the worst-case scenario, was in fact having trouble imagining that Rodney’s oddly mobile (but definitely not fascinating) mouth could go another five minutes without speaking.
Rodney flipped the page over, exposing more words, looking particularly proud of his foresight. HIS FIRST ROUND OF TESTS WAS LESS THAN ENTIRELY THOROUGH.
“Oh, yeah?”
OH, YEAH. GUESS WHAT HE WANTS NOW?
It was kind of flattering, kind of creepy, that Rodney had been able to predict his responses, John thought. Maybe the notebook had been written up like a Choose Your Own Adventure--if he’d said “what the hell do you mean, McKay,” the scientist would have flipped to another page that shot insults right back at him and demeaned him for his typically unintelligent military mindset.
“Why don’t you tell me,” said John, mouth gone dry. Rodney’s eyes were softer than usual, open wider than usual and ten times more readable.
SAMPLES, said the next page grimly. EITHER OF THE INSIDE OF MY THROAT AND LUNGS, OR OF THE PIXIE DUST.
John shrugged in a desperate attempt to look nonchalant. He suspected that his T-shirt was sticking to his back. “Wanna go back with me?”
HELL, YES.
(4)
Convincing Weir that they should go back to M38-XXX turned out to be relatively easy, at least once Rodney broke out the way-too-graphic descriptions of how exactly Carson Beckett would go about cracking his IRREPLACEABLE, BRILLIANT, MANLY chest wide open to rip out samples for NEFARIOUS VOODOO PURPOSES. Beckett himself pitched in with a summary of precisely how much he did not want to see Rodney’s insides, and then raised the possibility that the paralytic properties of the pixie dust could eventually advance past its victim’s voicebox, shutting down vital systems at random.
At this, Rodney simply crossed his arms, raised his chin, and tried to straighten his crooked mouth as Beckett explained the prognosis to Weir, so it made absolutely no sense that John felt as if he himself were about to fall down. After all, if Dr. Rodney McHypochondriac was making a point of not looking worried, why should John be so freaked out?
John’s team, including the mute Rodney, went through the Stargate a few days later, fully supplied with oxygen tanks and respirators just in case the fucking alien priestess decided to pull the Tinkerbell routine again. John was even more on edge than usual, which was saying something. He was sorely tempted to take another hostage or ten, even though that had worked out so badly the last time around.
Every single member of SGA-1 expected something less than an enthusiastic greeting, considering the way they’d left M38-XXX. But, improbably enough, that was exactly what they got, complete with confetti and a bizarre folk-dance routine.
“Colonel Sheppard,” said Teyla, looking dubious as a villager tried to hand her a Technicolor fruit basket. “This response does not seem to be--no, no thank you, I really am not worthy of this beautiful gift--does not seem to be consistent with our last contact with these people.”
“Maybe they’re all on drugs,” said Ronon. Rodney nodded vigorously. John noticed the scientist eyeing something that looked like a cracked-out pear, and found himself wondering if people with entirely paralyzed throats had to eat intravenously.
“Okay, people, that’s enough,” he barked, and the villagers stopped hopping in a circle around his team. One man--John was pretty sure he had been one of the ones surrounding his and Rodney’s hideout--had the gall to look perplexed.
“We do not understand,” said the utter bastard in question. “The Priestess Most Divine has explained to us the nature of the generous blessing she bestowed on your friend!”
“Oh, so now it’s a blessing, is it?” said John snidely. “We were under the impression it was a curse.” He was a little surprised at himself: Since when did he start speaking Rodney’s lines?
“Yes,” said the woman with the psychedelic fruit basket. “A heavenly and beneficial curse!” To a one, the villagers beamed at SGA-1.
“A beneficial . . . curse,” said Teyla carefully. John’s finger tightened on the safety of his P-90. Rodney shot him a warning look. “Perhaps we fail to understand,” Teyla continued. “Perhaps you could explain to us exactly what you mean by this.”
“You could take us to the priestess,” said Ronon.
The villagers looked at one another, clearly confused. “Didn’t the nature of the gift make itself clear once you returned to your home world?” asked a teenager, still idly sprinkling alien confetti here and there. Rodney irritably brushed some of it off his shoulders.
“It became clear that our friend can’t talk,” said John, trying to keep himself under control. “We want a refund for our gift. Now.”
The villagers exchanged more glances. “We could seek the wise counsel of the Priestess Most Divine,” suggested one man.
“Like I said,” said Ronon, and twirled his gun.
And so SGA-1 was escorted back to the middle of the sad little town, the damp chill finding its way into every corner of their bodies. John was fairly sure he could feel it damaging his delicate and very important reproductive system. He glanced over at Rodney, whose facial expressions complained very loudly. Was hypochondria contagious, or had John always been this overprotective of his prostate?
“Buck up, McKay, we’re almost there,” he said faux-heartily as they approached a small wicker hut. “Have you fixed in no time.”
The scientist shot him a dirty look, clearly conveying the sentiment that John was no better than a certain glorified veterinarian. John shook his head and tried to concentrate on the point at hand: Should he threaten to shoot the priestess, or just tie her to the roof for the psychotic birds?
He suspected that M38-XXX maybe brought out the worst in him.
Their guide dropped to his knees and touched his head to the ground in front of the hut. “Oh, Priestess Most Divine,” he sang out, “our adventuring friends have returned, perhaps to offer us trade in exchange for more of your wondrous gifts and curses!” He thumped his head rhythmically against the dirt four times, then made a little trilling noise.
The bead curtain doorway, which struck John as surprisingly hippie-like, rattled. “You may send in their leader,” said the familiar voice of the fucking alien priestess.
“I’ll go alone,” said John, fingering his respirator. Ronon shrugged, Teyla looked wary, and Rodney . . . stared at him. God, he so did not want to know what that wide-open look meant. He bit the bullet, stepped around the prostrate villager, and pushed through the bead curtain.
There were about a million lit candles perched on rock piles inside the central room, which struck John as a major fire hazard as well as a possible source for the bad smell that permeated the hut. He hoped to hell that the miasma, as repulsive as it was, wasn’t actually poisonous, and wouldn’t paralyze any of his various vital bits and pieces. John couldn’t think of any organs he really wanted to lose today.
“Welcome back,” chirped the fucking alien priestess.
John nodded sharply, staring at her. How had he missed the fact that she was so young? Fourteen, fifteen, tops. No wonder she had such a fixation on pixie dust and inexplicable emotional responses.
“You cursed one of my friends,” he stated.
The fucking alien priestess--okay, it didn’t seem fair to call her that now that he knew she was just a kid . . . goddamn alien priestess, maybe--nodded, her ringlets bouncing. She was sitting cross-legged in one corner atop a stack of pillows, draped in a number of what looked like hideous paisley-and-polka-dot scarves.
Rustling her scarves, goddamn alien priestess blinked up at John. “Why are you not pleased with my gift curse?” she asked, sounding genuinely confused.
Well, she wasn’t the only one who was confused, but John would bet his last oatmeal-raisin power bar that she wasn’t half as pissed off as he was. Being fifteen was no excuse for being a poisonous-pixie-dust-flinging maniac. John was pretty sure he’d limited himself as a kid to pulling pranks that didn’t permanently cripple people, and, while he wasn’t comfortable making that same assumption about Rodney, that didn’t mean it was karmically OK to just up and attack him for it decades after the fact. He never wanted to see that wide-open look on Rodney ever, ever again; it made him want, which in turn made him angrier than usual.
“Because he can’t talk, and he kind of needs to be able to do that, and the rest of us also kind of want the old McKay back,” said John through a clenched jaw.
“You are going to get an ulcer if you continue cultivating this latent-anger thing, y’know,” said the goddamn alien priestess mildly.
“What?”
“An ulcer. It’s a chronic ailment that affects the stomach. Don’t your people know what ulcers are? Perhaps we could offer you some medical knowledge in trade,” said the sweet little goddamn alien priestess.
John felt an inexplicable urge to yank on one of her banana curls. He thought he’d seen this girl before--in fifth grade, maybe. “I know what an ulcer is,” he said, trying to keep his voice level. “I don’t want medical advice. I just need the antidote for what you did to my friend.”
“Huh?”
“An-ti-dote,” he enunciated. “Don’t your people know how to reverse your mistakes?”
The goddamn alien priestess looked even more confused. “But has not my curse immeasurably enhanced your life in many ways?”
“No!” shouted John. “No, it hasn’t!” He heard noises from outside the hut, and hoped it wasn’t all going to go to hell. Not more than it already had, anyway.
Oh, shit. The goddamn alien priestess’ pink lower lip was trembling. Looking up at him with those big blue eyes, she almost reminded him of-
“I was only trying to h-h-help!” she wailed, bright blue eyes brimming with tears.
“Hey, don’t--aw-” John started forward and stopped again. This could very well be a cunning ploy on her part to ram a whole fistful of pixie dust right down his throat, paralyzing everything from his lips down to his small intestine.
The little priestess heaved a sob, then buried her face in one of her voluminous scarves. Her wrists were ridiculously skinny, and her fragile little shoulders heaved spasmodically. “--Trying--to--b-be nice,” she blubbered.
Oh, to hell with it. There was only so much of this a guy could take and still claim he had a heart. John went and crouched down next to the pile of pillows, awkwardly patting at the girl’s back with one hand. “C’mon, it’s okay, I’m not going to hurt you,” he heard himself say.
She peeked out from behind a tear-stained scarf and blinked up owlishly at John, who suddenly felt like the biggest jackass in the Pegasus Galaxy this side of Acastus Kolya. It was probably the blue eyes that did it. He was such a sucker for blue eyes.
The tiny priestess dropped her damp scarf and pouted at John. “You dwell in the city of our glorious Ancestors.”
“You could say that,” he admitted, cautious.
“Your people are most strange and mysterious.”
“Some of ‘em, maybe.” There was no good explanation for what the geologists got up to after hours.
“My people have heard many stories of your exploits,” sighed the girl. “You are brave enough to go sojourning despite the Time of the Wraith. You travel to many varied worlds, though surely none so beautiful as our own.”
There was probably nothing diplomatic John could say to that, so he stayed quiet. Weir would have been proud. Then again, she would also have been royally pissed that John made the kid cry to begin with, so maybe it cancelled out.
She crossed her arms, looking way too much like Rodney than should’ve been possible. It made John a little uneasy, actually. “Silence is a virtue,” said the girl, and, okay, that killed the burgeoning resemblance right there. “When people do not speak aloud, it frees them to express themselves in different, more clear, fashions.”
Oh, damn. He knew the notepad thing was going to come back to bite him in the ass.
“Where I come from, we believe that people are free to express themselves in speech,” John said cautiously, “without fear of retribution.”
She shook her head, curls flying. “No, no, no, not true! Nuh-uh!”
“Oh, yeah?”
The priestess pouted at John again. “My people have also heard tales of the military of your world. You are not free to speak your mind, to love whom you choose.”
Okay. First, he was going to find whatever blabbermouth Marine had been educating the entire Pegasus Galaxy about “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Then, he would teach same jarhead what a “need-to-know basis” was. And sign up the jarhead to dig up stumps for the Athosian farming community until the next Daedalus run, at which point they could switch to inventory duty. Or sponge-bathing Hermiod.
“Which doesn’t explain why you felt it was necessary to paralyze my friend’s voice,” said John, trying really hard not to think about creepy little naked bug-eyed aliens. He had a feeling that this kid was working off of good intentions, which was actually almost as bad as if she were working off of bad ones.
“This was so that he would be forced into confronting his xxqulmii for you, and you yours for him,” said the priestess in a matter-of-fact tone. “Everyone needs a little happiness. Especially now, in the Time of the Wraith. Xxqulmii is very, very important.”
John felt his blood run cold. For once, it had nothing to do with the extreme draftiness of the wicker hut. “I don’t know what the x-word means,” he said carefully, trying to channel Teyla.
The priestess tilted her head, looking thoughtful. “Xxqulmii. Well. I suppose it might also be called ‘Big Gay Love.’ ”
I did not just hear that. John stared at the girl.
The girl brightened up and, God help him now, giggled. “See, my people have a concept we call ‘Unresolved Sexual Tension,’ and in all the stories we have heard of your people, it is quite clear that you and your sweetheart-”
He stood up on his inexplicably unsteady legs. “No. Look. All I need is an antidote, and then we can leave each other alone. Or something.”
The priestess pouted again. “I can tell you how to fix it. I can make your sweetheart all better. But I still don’t think I was wrong about the xxqulmii.”
“So fix it,” said John, and tried like hell to keep his voice from cracking.
The little alien priestess told him how to fix it. Five minutes later, John walked out of the hut with a little packet of sparkly powder. Forty-five minutes after that, SGA-1 stepped through an incoming wormhole into the gateroom at Atlantis, bearing goodwill and fruit baskets.
(5)
“There are a few gaps and inconsistencies in your mission reports,” said Weir, tapping the stack of papers against the conference room table.
John kept his face impassive. He was totally not going to look at Rodney. He was totally not going to run his eyes over the neck hickey for what had to be the five hundredth time that day.
“For example, Teyla, your report claims that you, Ronon, and Dr. McKay played dominoes with the villagers while Colonel Sheppard negotiated with the priestess,” said Weir, “but Ronon’s report clearly states that you were playing darts.”
“Both,” said Ronon.
“With Ronon, everything eventually turns into darts,” said Rodney smugly, tugging at the collar of his jacket. “I’m beginning to suspect he has something of a fixation on pointy objects.” His sky-blue gaze flicked guiltily over to John and back again. Rodney looked something like a kid unable to believe what he’d found under the Christmas tree, which was pretty much how John was feeling these days, too.
But John definitely wasn’t looking at the neck hickey. Because if he was looking at the neck hickey, that meant he was also experiencing a strong urge to run his tongue over it. Again. Which was kind of inappropriate for the middle of a post-mission conference.
“I like darts,” said Ronon.
Teyla inclined her head. “Did our reports not mention that we won several colorful and nutritious fruit baskets from the villagers thanks to our prowess at darts?”
“McKay lost two of ‘em back to the natives,” said Ronon, “’cause his aim sucks.”
“Hey,” said Rodney. “My aim does not suck.”
Well, John could say any number of things in response to that one, but--here was that diplomacy thing again--he wasn’t going to. Not in public, anyway. He directed a heavy-lidded gaze at Rodney, who noticed and gulped. John smirked.
Weir looked down at the mission reports again. “And--Colonel Sheppard?”
“Hmm?”
“Why did this mysterious antidote have to be administered in private, and for over half an hour?” asked Weir.
Rodney began to blush, his fingers stuttering against the table. God, but he was awful at subterfuge, thought John fondly.
“Dr. Beckett has analyzed what was left of the antidote,” Weir continued, pulling out another report. “The chemical in the, ah, ‘reverse pixie dust’ shouldn’t be affected at all by relative proximity to crowds of people.”
“It was a ritual thing,” said John, hooking one arm over his chair. Rodney was so totally checking out his pecs. “We didn’t want to anger the locals. After all, they thought they were doing us a big favor the first time around.”
Weir furrowed her brow. “Yes, that’s another part I don’t understand.”
“Nonverbal communication skills,” blurted Rodney, and promptly turned pink again.
Xxqulmii, thought John. It turned out that xxqulmii was actually pretty cool, even if he still couldn’t figure out how to pronounce it. But he was still boycotting the term ‘Big Gay Love,’ no matter what Zelenka said.
“You mean like your notepad?” asked Weir.
“Perhaps writing and literacy are rare and valued skills on M38-XXX,” offered Teyla smoothly, once again proving why she always cleaned up at ladies’ poker night.
“Yes,” Rodney blustered, “and, because their high priestess is a fifteen-year-old girl, she took out her feelings on the subject in a completely irrational fashion,” once again proving why Kate Heightmeyer was so anxious to get him back into her office.
“I dunno, I thought she was kind of nice,” said John.
“Kind of,” said Rodney, and failed to hold back an endearingly crooked smile.
“Interesting that they chose to test the expedition member with the most Ph.D.s,” said Weir, smiling back. “Well. Carson thinks they might be worth speaking to about local anaesthetics, so he’d like us to go back and trade. But do you suggest that we open negotiations with these people? Does the risk of future cultural misunderstandings outweigh the potential benefits?”
“Not to someone colorblind,” said Ronon. The others looked at him, and he shrugged. “What? I prefer harmonious color schemes. Neutral earthy tones are best.”
“We could send Lorne’s team,” John suggested to Weir. “His botanist might be interested in the kinds of plants that can survive under a sky like that.”
Weir nodded. “I’ll take that into consideration. All right, everyone, you’re free to go.”
SGA-1 stood up and filed out of the conference room. Ronon was, as usual, inscrutable; Teyla, however, looked as if she knew a very pleasant secret, and Rodney--Rodney was glowing, Rodney was making odd little humming noises in the back of his throat, Rodney was practically bouncing.
As for John Sheppard? Well, he dragged one finger along the wall as he followed the head scientist back to his quarters, savoring the agreeable warm ache in every muscle in his body, and knew that he’d never felt Atlantis quite like this before.
It was almost as if she were laughing, but he couldn’t think why.
- End -
Author’s Note: Okay. I said I wouldn’t do it, but I did. (Head, meet Desk.) This is the end of my first (maybe last??) SGA fic ever.
I have no idea whatsoever of how to pronounce the title. I’m actually kind of worried by that.