FIC: The Wrong Side of the Tracks (1/2)
Title: The Wrong Side of the Tracks
Author: Gaia
Rating: R
Pairing: John/Rodney, Carson/Teyla
Betas: Thanks so much to _workinprogress and mecurtin for stepping up to beta and to ellex42 for doing a quick lookover despite illness.
Warnings: Slavefic
A/N: Also, thanks should go out to shusu, roaringmice and renssreality101 for their contributions on titles. For more title info, check out the endnotes.
Disclaimer: Don’t own SGA and make no money. Also, ‘Lady and the Tramp’ belongs to Disney and . . . um . . . I don’t want it.
Spoilers: Irresponsible, Common Ground, The Hive, Progeny
Summary: John scooted closer, resting his head on Rodney's shoulder. There was something very right about this. But then again, maybe it was just the moons. Freedom, too, was unfamiliar. Post-apocalyptic version of 'Lady and the Tramp.'
“A dog with a bone neither barks nor bites.”
-Porfirio Diaz
THE WRONG SIDE OF THE TRACKS
By Gaia
He didn’t remember being born or suckling at his mother’s breast (if he even had one). He didn’t remember his first step or how he knew half of the things he knew, but he did remember the day that they’d taken him home.
They had kept him in a box - dank and dark and terrifying in a way that made him whimper with fear. But then someone opened the lid, looking down with light framing her face, her long red hair tied up into a knot of shiny ringlets. He squinted his eyes shut, not wanting to see.
She lifted him up, stroked her hands down his arms and over his face and through his hair. “A pathetic gesture,” she announced. “A runt, I’m sure.”
“But, Princess,” a second voice crooned. “His eyes.”
He felt a thick claw at his neck, skimming up his cheek. “Open,” she commanded. And he could not but obey, no matter how scared he was. “Yes.” Her smile was wide and her eyes shone with pleasure - he could feel it somehow, curling through his thoughts, soft and sweet. “Such a lovely shade of blue.” She slid her hand through his hair and he leaned into it. It had been cold, shivering naked in his box.
“As blue as the clearest salrine crystal, your favorite.”
She huffed and turned away. But she was happy; he could feel it.
The other creature could too, apparently, for it, too, smiled. “So you will accept him? As a gift of devotion?”
She scratched lightly behind his ears. “Yes. I will accept him . . . Mate.”
He looked from one to the other as their eyes locked. Their joy suffused him.
“Put him in his cage for the night and then join me in my chambers,” Princess commanded.
Mate nodded deferentially, standing and grabbing him by the arm before hauling him down a darkened hallway and to a starlit room, the bony filaments of the cage bars as thin as gossamer.
“Please,” he whimpered. “I want to stay with you.” It had been lonely in his box.
Mate shook his head, petting him just a bit. “I’m sorry, Pet. But first you must learn discipline.”
With that the walls of the cage spun shut between them.
“But it’s cold!” he protested. Their happiness had felt so warm. “I have poor circulation! My limbs could freeze off one by one and I bet you wouldn’t like that! Dead exploded pet all over your nice ridiculously pretty cell! I could catch a cold! Do you have any idea what kind of germs are probably all over this floor?”
He shook the bars of his cage - something told him that he should never be ignored like this. He needed . . . no, he was entitled to more.
But no matter how much noise he made, they didn’t answer him.
Fine. He’d just have to find his own way out. Now, there wasn’t much down here - not even a low bench for him to lie down on. He felt along the walls. The bars were thin, but unbreakable.
“Oh, come on!” he shouted, slamming a fist against the cage wall. “Pretty blue eyes waiting right here for you! Remember the saltine rock? You wouldn’t want to miss your favorite pet!”
Nothing. He slumped, frustrated, on the floor. It was warmer than the air at least, and soft. Hey . . .
He looked down, felt along seam lines until . . . “Aha!” Just a small tweak to the hidden circuit junction and the cage doors slipped open. Now he just had to find them.
The walls were thick, the hallways long and twisting. He found his way out towards the open air on several occasions, but he knew they would not be there. It wasn’t safe to wander outside without his masters.
He climbed several flights of stairs, up and up to a small room, which seemed to take up the entire floor, despite its size. The dome was a latticework of clear glass, the sky an empty field of jewels above him.
They lay together upon a glowing pallet, colors shifting from deep purples to muted blues.
Mate stood immediately, striking a defensive pose.
Behind him, Princess sat up calmly, still draped in the white filmy cloth of their nest. “Quiet, Mate. It is only our little pet. He is a very intelligent one.”
“I . . .” he stammered.
“It is all right, Pet. Come.” Her words echoed, even as she beckoned.
He smiled, settling patiently at her feet.
“And what should I call you?” she asked, brushing a hand through his hair.
He hesitated. What was his name? It was floating there at the back of his mind - knowledge close but dancing just on the boarder of consciousness. “R . . . Rodney,” he whispered.
“Very well, Rodney. Come, there is a space for you here.” Princess pulled back the single white sheet to let Rodney slip in beside her.
“It is not traditional, Princess . . .” Mate began.
“It is a changing galaxy,” Princess snapped. “Do not make me despair my choice.”
“Yes, mistress,” he acquiesced, patting Rodney on the head before settling down beside her.
<<<>>>
Rodney enjoyed his life. In the morning he woke, stretched all of the kinks out of his very stiff back, groaned until Mate uncurled from around his Princess, grumbling and trying to bury his face into her neck. Then Rodney would trot down to the bridge, grabbing the morning’s status report and taunting the acting captain until he snarled. Then he would climb back up to his masters’ nest to find Mate dressed and ready.
“Good man,” he would say, rubbing Rodney’s chest and bringing him breakfast.
“That doesn’t have any citrus, does it?” Rodney would demand until Princess laughed at him, stroking his chest and feeding him from her very own hand.
“That is not behavior befitting a Queen,” Mate would growl, but she would just giggle at him, high and stuttering, in feeling instead of speech.
“I am not yet a Queen,” she would say, though her cheeks would flush with longing, even as she continued to feed Rodney from her palm, assuring him that her scientists had double checked everything for the fruit he called citrus.
Then Mate would call in a servant to clean up the plates, before taking Rodney down to the labs, where Rodney would kneel at his feet for the daily inspection. Mate did not believe that Rodney’s closeness was proper, but he still loved him. Rodney could tell.
“What do you think, Pet?” he would ask, pulling him gracefully to his feet.
Rodney could feel his master’s laugher as he went from workbench to workbench ridiculing the work of each of his family’s scientists. “You think that will increase the range on your stun grenade? How would you like to be a charred husk, eh?” he would say. “And you? Where did you learn these power output algorithms? From a lobotomized kangaroo? No, no, no . . . just no! And you? After yesterday . . . why are you even still here? If I were running this place, I’d have you fed to the space monkeys. It’s a miracle we’re all still alive with idiots like this running the show.” And he would continue on until the scientists were properly cowed and Mate seemed pleased.
“Good job, Rodney,” he would say, with a smile, leaving Rodney to fix the latest fumbles of tweedle dumb and tweedle dumber while he went out to work with his brothers.
But today was different. Rodney could feel it in his master’s anticipation.
“What?” he squawked, trailing behind Mate’s long strides. “Come on, I know you have a surprise for me. I am a genius, remember?”
Mate laughed. “As you constantly insist on reminding me. We indulge you too much, Pet,” he said, even as he scratched his palm down Rodney’s back. Rodney’s whole body tingled with delight.
“But . . . you know I’m not good at waiting. It stresses me out. Gives me wrinkles. Just a hint?”
“No, Rodney. You will see soon enough.”
They took an unfamiliar turn at an unfamiliar hallway. Rodney perked up. “A new lab? You said you’d take me to see the power generation station.”
“This is better. But you must show patience.”
Rodney huffed. Patience smatience.
“Dark,” Mate ordered, the lights flicking off.
“Hey, no fair! You know I don’t have as good night vision as you do! I’m going to stub my toe . . . permanently damage my . . .”
“Here we are,” Mate sighed, grabbing hold of Rodney’s arm and guiding him through a door. “I would not hurt you, Pet,” he said.
Rodney took a deep calming breath, feeling himself flood with tranquility. Of course, Mate would never do anything to harm him.
Even with a flash of blue light and then darkness, Rodney felt safe with his Master there.
<<<>>>
“What?” Rodney groaned, pushing to his feet. He felt tingly all over and tired - like that one time Princess has allowed him too much of the fermented Cedeer juice.
He sat up, back in Princess’ wide pallet with her leaning over him, stroking his chest.
“Huh?” he asked.
“Come.” She pulled him to his feet. “I know that you do not enjoy the outside much, Rodney. But if you should want to travel through the Well, I want to be able to track you.” She pulled him to the mirror, yanking back the folds of his white robe to show a small scar running along his neck. “Your very first transmitter!”
Rodney smiled, allowing her to enfold him into a quick hug. “Isn’t it beautiful? Why don’t you run off and show Teyla and Carson?”
Rodney nodded, proudly puffing out his chest. His very first transmitter! He smiled. “You should have given me one much earlier,” he mock scowled.
“Yes, my little genius. Be careful,” she called after him as he shot off down the corridor. Carson and Teyla preferred the outside, even though neither knew the shocking UV radiation levels of this planet. He stopped by the labs to pick up his homemade sunscreen before making his way out into the glare.
Both Carson and Teyla had already been given transmitters, but they had come here before him as breeding stock - too valuable to risk losing in their roaming across the countryside.
Rodney emerged sneezing into an absolutely horrible spring day to see Carson seated on a large flat rock, soaking up the sun. “Oh, puh-lease. You’re just asking for a slow horrible death by melanoma, aren’t you?”
“Come now, Rodney. The Breeding Manager has lasers to remove growths. I’ve done the procedure myself.”
“Suit yourself,” Rodney grumbled. “But don’t come crying to me when that butcher you call master takes a chunk out of the middle of your forehead. It’s not as though he demands good looks out of his prime stud. Obviously. You’ve got those lead panties I sent you? Protect the little ATAs?” Rodney wasn’t quite sure why Carson’s little swimmers and their ATAs were so important - it seemed familiar, though. Better safe than sorry.
Carson glowered. “Very funny. You have that rubber suit to protect you from the big bad sunshine?”
“Hey, I burn easily,” Rodney said, stumbling up Carson’s rock and pulling down the hem of his robe. “I just came to show you this.”
“Oi! You’ve got yourself your very own transmitter. My own bonnie boy’s finally growin’ up, then?”
“Oh shut up, Carson,” Rodney rolled his eyes. “Where’s Teyla?”
Carson sighed, pushing himself up from his rock. “Won’t listen, that one. Bloody stubborn. Thinks she can keep practicing right up to her third trimester!”
They ambled down around a patch of tree to where Teyla was indeed practicing with one of the servants, sticks flying and body spinning, the small swell in her belly barely showing beneath the flowing white tunic she habitually wore.
“How does she do that?” Rodney demanded.
“I haven’t the faintest,” Carson sighed. “Some nonsense about being a warrior in a past life.”
Noticing their approach, Teyla stopped, holding up a hand to her sparing partner. “Rodney! It is good to see you outside!”
She pressed a sweaty forehead to his, but he did not complain. “And look!” She noticed the scar right away, palming it. “A transmitter! This means that you may journey across the planet with us!”
“I’d prefer the labs . . .” Rodney tried to decline.
“Nonsense, lad . . . you haven’t lived until you’ve seen the sunrise over the southern mountain range. It’s only a four day hike!”
“Hike! Ha!” Rodney snorted.
<<<>>>
Things continued as usual for several months. Teyla’s belly got rounder and Carson more fretful. Even the scientists seemed marginally more competent, refusing to be shown up by a mere pet.
But then one morning everything changed.
Rodney woke to find Princess gone. Without her, who would feed him? Who would pet him and clutch him close and praise him for his intelligence? Rodney scrambled over to Mate’s still slumbering form.
“Rodney,” he groaned. “Leave me alone.”
Rodney didn’t care. He wanted to see Princess. “Where is she?”
“What?”
“Princess!”
Mate seemed confused for a second before his eyes snapped open. “She is no longer a Princess, Rodney. Today she will become a Queen!”
“But where is she?”
“In the hatching chambers, of course!” Mate shook his head. “What do you think we’ve been doing this entire time, silly pet? Sleeping?” He laughed.
“And breakfast?”
Mate shook his head, reaching out to lay a hand on Rodney’s back. “There. We have indulged you far too much, Pet.”
“But I’m hypoglycemic! Without actual food at least every six hours my blood sugar gets too low! I could go into a coma, you imbecile!”
Mate just chuckled. “You’re far too industrious to starve, Rodney. We love you still, but it is time you made your own entertainment. Big things are happening. Too big for your limited understanding.”
“Hey! I’m a genius!”
“Yes, pet. But you are still, regrettably, a human,” Mate sighed. “I must see to the hatchlings,” he said, pulling on his long black coat and trailing off down the hall.
“Fine! Leave me! See if I care!” Rodney shouted resentfully after him. He pulled on his own pants and robes slowly, checking the tray where the servants usually placed his meals. Nothing.
That was okay, though. He could always figure out something basic with the chemical synthesizer. He was hating this day already.
Rodney stormed into the lab and barked at the first scientist he saw floundering with his star charts. “Those are upside down, you idiot! Now unlock the synthesizer room for me.”
The scientist looked down at his calculations then flipped his hair infuriatingly. “I do not answer to a mere kept animal.”
“Please. Without me, you would’ve blown up this entire ship ages ago.”
“Your master is not here. We do not have to listen to you,” another scientist spoke up.
“Fine. Then just get me something to eat. My master would have you for breakfast if he found that you let me starve.”
One of the scientists reached out a hand. “Give me a little taste, pet, and I’ll get you all the food you want.”
The others laughed.
“Wait until Princess hears about this!” Rodney shouted.
“The Queen is busy with the hatching,” the same one who had grabbed at him sneered.
Rodney felt himself shaking, adrenaline coursing through him like it hadn’t since the first day that Princess had unwrapped his box. He didn’t remember anything of his previous life, but he did remember the perfect response to danger - run.
The laughter of the scientists filled his head even long after he had bolted down the nearest corridor, stomach grumbling the entire way.
Rodney didn’t stop running until he was outside under the planet’s disgustingly bright sunlight. He didn’t even care that he had no sunblock. He just needed to get out of here.
He panted with dizziness starting to overtake him. He needed to eat. But Carson and Teyla were out on their last long great wilderness adventure before the birthing and he had no idea where to find them. Besides, he wasn’t sure his pride could take begging food off mere breeders.
Before Rodney knew it, he was standing in front of the Well. He looked up at it, looming high above him, shadow stretched long in the morning light. It looked so much bigger than it had in the schematics. Rodney gulped.
He didn’t know any addresses. But even though he knew that the odds of dialing a correct address out of all the possible random connections, he felt he knew the exact seven symbols he wanted.
It was disappointing when they didn’t engage.
And when his second instinct didn’t either.
Rodney’s stomach grumbled again. “Just think about where you can get a nice juicy cut of meat,” he instructed himself, growing ever more desperate.
This time, the wormhole engaged with a flash. It seemed familiar somehow, a shimmering pool of glimmering light.
“I really hope this doesn’t hurt,” Rodney grumbled, squinting his eyes shut before stepping through.
<<<>>>
Rodney had read that the first trip through the ring would often induce nausea in human subjects, but he didn’t feel a thing . . . except maybe a little bit of dizziness. But then again maybe that was just the amount of noise he found on the other side.
Rodney had never seen so many human beings before in his life - teaming masses of them, wandering through muddy streets, flitting from stall to stall of so many strange things - some tools like in the labs, weapons like those the soldiers carried, but different, long and squared instead of sleek and pointed, and so many types of food, the air thick with it. And the people! They came in all shapes and sizes - children even. Rodney hadn’t yet seen any children before, though he anticipated it, with the birthing. And everyone dressed in so many colors! It made the virgin white of Rodney’s robe seem dull by comparison.
Rodney found himself moving forward, stomach rumbling as he made for the nearest storefront. Pies, his memory supplied. Rodney smiled, reaching out a hand.
“That will be three lyra, friend,” the man behind the table said. He had a hooked nose and a darkness in his eyes that Rodney had not seen before, an emptiness like the faceless masks of the servants.
“Lyra?”
The man sighed. “Yes. You may trade with the market master, there,” he pointed. “A bag of good grain will give you 100, and a kirsha costs but three.”
“Oh . . . okay,” Rodney nodded, startled by the press of bodies, the loud call of the market-master as he advertised his presence to the crowd.
Rodney snapped his fingers to garner the man’s attention.
“Yes?” he scowled.
“I need three lyra,” Rodney announced.
“And I need a nice long ride on a woman other than my wife, but it ain’t gonna happen without a price,” the man announced, smiling a saucy grin.
“What?”
The man looked Rodney over. “That belt’ll fetch you ten lyra, I imagine,” he gestured to the soft suede embossed with salrine crystals. Princess had given it to him.
“No,” Rodney clasped it tight.
The man shrugged. “No wares, no shares, friend.”
“But . . .” before Rodney could protest the man had already melted into the crowd.
He had not thought to bring anything with him. But how was he to know that the humans beyond the Well would be so stingy with their goods? At home, his family shared everything.
Then he spotted a stall, filled with metal parts, pieces crystalline but somehow different than what he usually saw in the labs. And yet, it all seemed somehow familiar.
“Jewel of the Ancestors!” the tender proclaimed. “Good as new! Freshly polished and ready to display in a shrine near you!”
Ancestors? Shrine? Rodney shook his head. Idiots. Worship was for chumps, weak servants. What did they say? Religion was the opiate of the masses. There was a perfectly rational explanation for all this. Rodney scowled and approached. That wasn’t a jewel! It was a defunct personal shield device.
He marched over to the stall to give its owner a piece of his mind, but before he could more than open his mouth, the shopkeeper spit down at his feet. “The Krem do not trade with the likes of you.”
“Hey! Well maybe I don’t want to trade with the likes of you, if you’re too stupid to recognize a personal shield device when you see one. Seriously, a man like you doesn’t deserve to even touch a fine bit of machinery like that. I wouldn’t trust you with a used Gameboy! I can’t believe . . .”
“Personal shield?”
“Yes, yes, duh . . . you’re even stupider than the scientists Mate has working on our intergalactic hyperdrive. I swear, with them working at it, we’ll be stuck following the laws of relativity and won’t that be fun? But compared with people like you . . .”
Rodney’s rant was silenced by a sound he knew, but didn’t - the loud crack of a gunshot. People screamed and rushed around him, pushing and shoving and doing all together impolite things that would never stand in the serene order of his home.
“Hey . . .watch it!” Rodney protested, until he noticed that the shooting seemed to be directed towards him. “I’m a dead man,” he said, before ducking towards the nearest stall and peering up over the countertop. His attackers were wearing dull grey uniforms with large buttons on the front and unnaturally squared caps. Even if they hadn’t been shooting at him, he thought he’d probably hate them.
Another shot glanced off the tabletop and Rodney ducked back. They were advancing and he didn’t see anywhere to go. First time through the Well - of course he’d end up dead. He wasn’t meant for things like sunlight and marketplaces and so many humans - he was strictly an indoor pet.
And then, another man dove down beneath a nearby stall. He, too, appeared to wield one of the strange oddly-squarish weapons. “Hey,” he said. “You should know better than to come here dressed like that. Even without half a platoon of Genii soldiers in the market for Wraith data devices, it’d be a dangerous for you.”
Rodney didn’t know what a Wraith was, or who the Genii were (it sounded more like some sort of star sign than a bunch of homicidal maniacs), but his instincts told him that he could trust this man, the one that wore the same deep black as Mate.
Even if he did have the most ridiculous head of hair that Rodney had ever seen. Didn’t his masters bother to bathe him?
The man flashed Rodney a quick grin, a slightly sarcastic almost deadly smile, before he shot up over the countertop and fired a few shots back at these ‘Genii.’
“Nothing like those stuck-up-lentil-loving fascists to spoil a good party,” the man said, green eyes gleaming as he rose and got off another round. “I’m John, by the way.”
“Rodney. You wouldn’t happen to know why they’re shooting at me, would you?”
John shrugged. “The Genii don’t care for the Wraith much. Most people don’t.”
“Wraith?”
John rolled his eyes, ducking down quickly and almost missing the sting of the bullet that splintered the countertop where his head had been seconds earlier.
“Hey, do you think now might be a good time for a strategic retreat?” Rodney spluttered, floored by the casual way John seemed to take his head being nearly blown off.
John just laughed, grabbing Rodney by the wrist and yanking him a few stalls to the left and then back through a thick row of bushes. They tore at Rodney’s robes and scratched red welts into his skin, but it was better than a bullet through the heart any day.
“This way,” John exclaimed, dropping and rolling behind what appeared to be a fenced in pen of some sorts; Rodney couldn’t see more than a few antlers to suggest the kind of animals it contained. “Now where did I park?”
“Park?”
“Oh, wait until you check this out. It’s very cool,” John said, pushing Rodney down beneath another stall, before he could grab a kind of alien shish-kabob in the booth above their heads.
“Cool? In case you haven’t noticed, Mr. . . . John, being shot at is very very not cool!”
John just turned around and grinned, ducking into a nearby building. Rodney followed reluctantly. It looked like a bar, not that Rodney was exactly sure what a bar was - for some reason it seemed as though there should be boxes playing some sort of picture of people sliding around on ice while carrying large sticks, and maybe a nice man to tell all of your problems to. But right now, it looked like a bunch of barely-standing old chairs and a lot of frightened-looking people hiding under them.
“Excuse me. Just passing through,” John said with a smile that the man probably thought was diplomatic, but seemed more flirtatious to Rodney.
“Now I think it was back behind here . . .” John remarked with a pensive frown, pulling a drab beaded curtain aside to reveal . . . a long room filled with boxes but ending in a wall. “Huh . . . maybe the one next door.”
“Where are they?” Rodney heard a loud voice demand back behind them.
“Damn,” John said, pulling a round egg-like object out of the pocket of leather pants that looked too tight to hold a piece of paper let alone a . . . grenade? “Here’s hoping these walls are as flimsy as they look.”
He pulled the pin and tossed the grenade at the far wall, pushing Rodney behind a pile of boxes.
“What the hell, John!” Rodney exclaimed. “I need my ears! You know? For hearing?!”
John chuckled, pushing to his feet. “C’mon, just out here!”
Outside the smoking hole in the wall was a field, fenced in by a scrap-metal barrier, filled with yellowing weeds and scraps of paper and other detritus that would never be allowed in Rodney’s home. John was already trotting through it, and Rodney reluctantly followed, hoping that there weren’t any rusty nails hidden in those weeds.
“Right where I left you,” John said to a completely unremarkable section of air, before stepping forward and disappearing.
“John? What the hell . . .” Rodney began, before stumbling up what was apparently a metal ramp leading to what seemed to be the back of a small spacecraft, bigger than what the scouts flew, with benches in the back and a large cockpit. It would have been of great interest to the curious scientist in Rodney, except for the large man with long clumped unkempt-looking hair and the biggest pistol Rodney had ever seen. The man swung his huge gun around cowboy style so that it pointed at Rodney’s chest.
“Don’t move, Wraith-Worshipper,” the man ordered, spitting.
Well, Rodney’d certainly have to get Princess to find him a new pair of sandals when he got home now. “Why does everyone keep doing that to me?”
He looked to John, who now had his weapon pointed at the stranger. “Put it down, Ronon. Cut him some slack. He’s confused.”
“Not confused enough to wear their cloth.”
“He doesn’t even know who the Wraith are, Ronon. I didn’t either when I was presented to my first Queen. I have a good feeling about him. Trust me on this one.”
Ronon just snarled, gun still pointed right at Rodney.
“I’m confused,” Rodney admitted. He’d admit practically anything staring down the barrel of a pistol like that. “But I can guarantee you that the last thing I would do would be worship.”
John took a step forward so that he was standing between Ronon and Rodney. “Look, if you don’t believe me, then consider it a personal favor. You never would have been able to stop being a runner if I hadn’t taken you to Radek.”
Ronon grumbled but lowered his weapon. “Then we’ll be even.”
John nodded, moving towards the cockpit. “Good. Now get out of my ship.”
The mountain man nodded, stalking away, though not without stopping to lunge at Rodney, causing him to jump. “If I ever see you again, I won’t hesitate to kill you.”
Rodney nodded weakly. He really didn’t think he’d mind never seeing this man again in his life.
“Ronon’s a bit high strung,” John said, plopping down into what Rodney assumed was the pilot’s chair. “Running from the Wraith will do that to you.”
Rodney couldn’t help but notice that when John grabbed the controls, they glowed, a display flashing up on the dash. “That’s a pretty sophisticated start up routine.”
“Huh? Oh, no, it’s thought directed. I asked the jumper how many people are surrounding us.”
Rodney should’ve been concerned about the armed crazies outside the ship, but he was more interested in this amazing machine. “You mean it responded to your thoughts?”
“Yep. Cool, huh? Wait until you see what she can do from space.”
And before he knew it, they were rocketing forward, circling the angry group of soldiers beneath them, vaulting up through the clouds, taking dips and gravity-less spins. John was grinning like a madman beside him, while Rodney gripped the edge of the co-pilot’s seat.
“While soaring through the atmosphere far away from the scary men with guns is all very well and good, do you think you could maybe slow this thing down a little, before I lose what little I have in my stomach?”
John just chuckled. “Like I said: cool.”
<<<>>>
“There are a lot of Gates in this system,” John remarked, steering the ship through an abyss of twinkling stars and towards a shimmering blue planet just cresting over the horizon. “This one’s uninhabited, but it’s still got a Gate.”
“Gate?”
“Your masters call them Wells, because they can draw food from them like water.”
“Oh. I was hungry.”
John turned to look at him a bit quizzically.
“Well, Princess usually feeds me herself, but they’re busy - hatching, you know.” Rodney pushed out his chest, defiant, as though he actually knew what that meant. “And I got hungry, so I went out . . . I’m hypoglycemic, you know. Well, of course you don’t. None of these idiots . . .”
“I know what it means. I’ve got provisions stored in the back. When we set down I can cook something, but can’t hurt to snack. Try the cakes.”
Rodney nodded, shuffling through plastic bowls and containers - medical supplies and sample kits and tarps and all manner of things far more advanced than what he’d seen at the market. It wasn’t until he came across a small shiny square with the words ‘Powerbar’ written on the front before he smiled, ripping open the packaging and stuffing his face. “Chocolate,” he practically moaned.
“Oh, good. I trade those sometimes, but I can’t eat ‘em. Makes me itch.”
“They don’t feed me anything near this good at home. Most of the time I get protein blocks. When the servants go hunting through the Well, they bring me back things, though.”
John chuckled. “See, that’s what you get for living the quiet life, Mr. Park Avenue. A nice warm bed, a master you think loves you. But they have more important things. They understand that we hunger, but they don’t understand flavor.”
John looked at him over his shoulder, smirking. Something indefinable clenched in Rodney’s belly. Maybe it was from not eating for such a long time. He gulped.
John grinned. “You know what hatching means?”
Rodney shook his head, coming back to the co-pilot’s seat and sitting down.
“It means that they’ll join the others in this war and they’ll forget about you.”
“Princess would never . . .” Rodney was her very favorite pet. She loved his eyes and his smarts and . . . she loved him.
“You shouldn’t depend on them, Rodney. You can never count on anyone but yourself.”
Something rang false to that. Rodney couldn’t quite articulate why, but he wanted to talk about family, about brotherhood, even though as far as he could remember, he had never seen a human family grow old together. John made at least one thing abundantly clear - that Rodney was far too privileged to speak about the ways of the world.
Rodney held his tongue and cleared his throat. “Not that I’m complaining, but do you make a habit of getting into shootouts over random strangers?”
John sighed, bringing the little ship down in a low arc into the atmosphere. Rodney grasped the seat arms tight, despite the inertial dampeners. “I’m always looking for a little action.”
Rodney snorted. “Of course you are.”
“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?”
Rodney wanted to say something about a double entendre, but he didn’t really quite know the second meaning. Only that it had something to do with a ‘Kirk.’ “It means . . . what the hell kind of crazy are you? They had weapons!”
John shrugged. “They’re Genii. It’s fun to get them all worked up like that.”
“Fun? You call that fun? I call that running for my life!”
“Tom-ae-to, tom-ah-to.”
Rodney got it, except for the one fact. “What the hell is a tomato?”
John shrugged. It was infuriating. “Coming in for a landing.”
They landed on the dark side of the planet, near the southern pole. A display had flashed up on the dash, proclaiming the temperature there a steady 22 degrees, compared to the blistering 65 at the equator.
Of course John would pick a planet covered in ocean, with gorgeous white sand beaches and an aquamarine sea lapping up against the shore, two moons rising over the lip of a tranquil ocean. There was something familiar about all this - perhaps it was just the sound of so much water. Rodney knew that they had never visited a world like this before - Mate and Princess did not like the ocean.
Rodney gulped.
“Pretty isn’t it?”
“If you like camping out in the dark getting ready to be smashed to smithereens by a tidal wave or eaten by giant crabs, maybe.”
John chuckled as another display flickered up. “We’re the only two people on this rock, Rodney. You can relax a little. C’mon.”
John grabbed his hand and dragged him out the back, laying a silver tarp out beneath the stars and handing Rodney a shovel. “Dig a pit over there. I’ve got some wood in the back for a fire.”
Rodney stared at the little metal shovel. He didn’t dig. Manual labor was for the servants.
John rose to his feet, sighing. He’d rolled up his pant legs and his sleeves, but he got down on one knee in the sand anyhow, shifting the earth with a practiced ease. “Yeah, I know it’s dirty. But so is freedom.”
Rodney busied himself with the wood, carrying it out and then stacking it for the most efficient burn. “What brought you to the market anyhow?”
“Running low on ammo. Too bad the Genii are one of the few arms dealers around, and just because I kill them at every opportunity, they don’t want to participate in a good honest trade.”
Rodney snorted. “Where are their manners?” He stood, walking back over to the hatch of the ship, warm light spilling out of nothing. “Doesn’t this thing have a non-invisible setting?”
“As a matter of fact, it does. But I can’t let you see it - espionage, you understand.” John punctuated his statement by collapsing back onto the tarp beside Rodney.
“Espionage?”
John sighed. “I can’t have you going back and telling your Queen about it. This one’s mine.” He gestured to the unremarkable patch of air with a happy sigh. There was something about him - a familiar slouch to his shoulders, the low inviting slide of his laugh, the way his smile hid his few wrinkles in plain sight.
John was looking Rodney over now, something shimmering and unreadable in his eyes. “You know, something makes me think that I’ve met you before.”
Rodney wanted to say that he felt the same way, but the moons were bright and the waves hypnotic and John just looked so beautiful, a luminescent silhouette against the night sky. “I bet you say that to all the boys,” Rodney murmured, leaning in closer, though he couldn’t say why.
“Only the pretty ones,” John murmured, leaning in too.
Rodney stiffened, almost panicking when John’s lips brushed up against his. As far as he could remember, he had never let anyone other than his masters touch him so intimately, rubbing a tingle down his spine like John was doing now.
“Hey,” John whispered, massaging the nape of Rodney’s neck. “Relax.”
“I am relaxed,” Rodney squeaked, feeling an uncomfortable tightening in his pants.
John looked down and smiled. “C’mere.” He pulled Rodney down between his legs, kissing him over and over again, and letting Rodney touch, pet, feel, own him in a way that only masters were allowed to.
Then John was arching up against him, rubbing against the strange hardness until Rodney’s breaths transformed into pants, and he saw lights shimmering across the sand like the light of the moon across the sea.
“Oh god,” he moaned with a shudder, even though he’d never heard of such a name.
“Yeah,” John panted, grabbing frantically for the buttons of his soft black slacks and pushing at the folds of Rodney’s robe, just trying to get at the complex tie of his pants. “Come on.”
Whenever Princess undressed him, it was slow and steadily, possessed of her uniquely unhurried dignity. This was messy and desperate and human. “Mmmm . . . John.” Rodney couldn’t contain his voice, his hips. “I want . . .” he didn’t know what he wanted, only that he wanted John against him, kissing and licking and doing that thing with his tongue.
“Yeah. God, Rodney, please,” John squirmed beneath him, angling his hips and thrusting wildly, sensitive parts fitting together with such perfect friction.
Rodney closed his eyes against the fireworks exploding across mind and vision, leaning down into the almost sweat musk of John’s neck, biting his mark into silky skin as he exploded, imploded, turned inside out.
Rodney panted back to reality and John’s playful eyes, dazed and sated beneath him.
“Oh, wow. I can’t believe . . . wow,” Rodney babbled, collapsing down beside John.
John leaned up on his elbow, smirking in a way that should have been vastly irritating, but instead seemed almost cute. “Never done that before?”
Rodney shrugged. “Sometimes my mistress . . . she . . .”
John nodded. “It’s much better this way, huh?”
“Yeah,” Rodney sighed, lying back against the tarp. John scooted closer, resting his head on Rodney’s shoulder. There was something very right about this. But then again, maybe it was just the moons. Freedom, too, was unfamiliar.
Part II here
Author: Gaia
Rating: R
Pairing: John/Rodney, Carson/Teyla
Betas: Thanks so much to _workinprogress and mecurtin for stepping up to beta and to ellex42 for doing a quick lookover despite illness.
Warnings: Slavefic
A/N: Also, thanks should go out to shusu, roaringmice and renssreality101 for their contributions on titles. For more title info, check out the endnotes.
Disclaimer: Don’t own SGA and make no money. Also, ‘Lady and the Tramp’ belongs to Disney and . . . um . . . I don’t want it.
Spoilers: Irresponsible, Common Ground, The Hive, Progeny
Summary: John scooted closer, resting his head on Rodney's shoulder. There was something very right about this. But then again, maybe it was just the moons. Freedom, too, was unfamiliar. Post-apocalyptic version of 'Lady and the Tramp.'
“A dog with a bone neither barks nor bites.”
-Porfirio Diaz
THE WRONG SIDE OF THE TRACKS
By Gaia
He didn’t remember being born or suckling at his mother’s breast (if he even had one). He didn’t remember his first step or how he knew half of the things he knew, but he did remember the day that they’d taken him home.
They had kept him in a box - dank and dark and terrifying in a way that made him whimper with fear. But then someone opened the lid, looking down with light framing her face, her long red hair tied up into a knot of shiny ringlets. He squinted his eyes shut, not wanting to see.
She lifted him up, stroked her hands down his arms and over his face and through his hair. “A pathetic gesture,” she announced. “A runt, I’m sure.”
“But, Princess,” a second voice crooned. “His eyes.”
He felt a thick claw at his neck, skimming up his cheek. “Open,” she commanded. And he could not but obey, no matter how scared he was. “Yes.” Her smile was wide and her eyes shone with pleasure - he could feel it somehow, curling through his thoughts, soft and sweet. “Such a lovely shade of blue.” She slid her hand through his hair and he leaned into it. It had been cold, shivering naked in his box.
“As blue as the clearest salrine crystal, your favorite.”
She huffed and turned away. But she was happy; he could feel it.
The other creature could too, apparently, for it, too, smiled. “So you will accept him? As a gift of devotion?”
She scratched lightly behind his ears. “Yes. I will accept him . . . Mate.”
He looked from one to the other as their eyes locked. Their joy suffused him.
“Put him in his cage for the night and then join me in my chambers,” Princess commanded.
Mate nodded deferentially, standing and grabbing him by the arm before hauling him down a darkened hallway and to a starlit room, the bony filaments of the cage bars as thin as gossamer.
“Please,” he whimpered. “I want to stay with you.” It had been lonely in his box.
Mate shook his head, petting him just a bit. “I’m sorry, Pet. But first you must learn discipline.”
With that the walls of the cage spun shut between them.
“But it’s cold!” he protested. Their happiness had felt so warm. “I have poor circulation! My limbs could freeze off one by one and I bet you wouldn’t like that! Dead exploded pet all over your nice ridiculously pretty cell! I could catch a cold! Do you have any idea what kind of germs are probably all over this floor?”
He shook the bars of his cage - something told him that he should never be ignored like this. He needed . . . no, he was entitled to more.
But no matter how much noise he made, they didn’t answer him.
Fine. He’d just have to find his own way out. Now, there wasn’t much down here - not even a low bench for him to lie down on. He felt along the walls. The bars were thin, but unbreakable.
“Oh, come on!” he shouted, slamming a fist against the cage wall. “Pretty blue eyes waiting right here for you! Remember the saltine rock? You wouldn’t want to miss your favorite pet!”
Nothing. He slumped, frustrated, on the floor. It was warmer than the air at least, and soft. Hey . . .
He looked down, felt along seam lines until . . . “Aha!” Just a small tweak to the hidden circuit junction and the cage doors slipped open. Now he just had to find them.
The walls were thick, the hallways long and twisting. He found his way out towards the open air on several occasions, but he knew they would not be there. It wasn’t safe to wander outside without his masters.
He climbed several flights of stairs, up and up to a small room, which seemed to take up the entire floor, despite its size. The dome was a latticework of clear glass, the sky an empty field of jewels above him.
They lay together upon a glowing pallet, colors shifting from deep purples to muted blues.
Mate stood immediately, striking a defensive pose.
Behind him, Princess sat up calmly, still draped in the white filmy cloth of their nest. “Quiet, Mate. It is only our little pet. He is a very intelligent one.”
“I . . .” he stammered.
“It is all right, Pet. Come.” Her words echoed, even as she beckoned.
He smiled, settling patiently at her feet.
“And what should I call you?” she asked, brushing a hand through his hair.
He hesitated. What was his name? It was floating there at the back of his mind - knowledge close but dancing just on the boarder of consciousness. “R . . . Rodney,” he whispered.
“Very well, Rodney. Come, there is a space for you here.” Princess pulled back the single white sheet to let Rodney slip in beside her.
“It is not traditional, Princess . . .” Mate began.
“It is a changing galaxy,” Princess snapped. “Do not make me despair my choice.”
“Yes, mistress,” he acquiesced, patting Rodney on the head before settling down beside her.
<<<>>>
Rodney enjoyed his life. In the morning he woke, stretched all of the kinks out of his very stiff back, groaned until Mate uncurled from around his Princess, grumbling and trying to bury his face into her neck. Then Rodney would trot down to the bridge, grabbing the morning’s status report and taunting the acting captain until he snarled. Then he would climb back up to his masters’ nest to find Mate dressed and ready.
“Good man,” he would say, rubbing Rodney’s chest and bringing him breakfast.
“That doesn’t have any citrus, does it?” Rodney would demand until Princess laughed at him, stroking his chest and feeding him from her very own hand.
“That is not behavior befitting a Queen,” Mate would growl, but she would just giggle at him, high and stuttering, in feeling instead of speech.
“I am not yet a Queen,” she would say, though her cheeks would flush with longing, even as she continued to feed Rodney from her palm, assuring him that her scientists had double checked everything for the fruit he called citrus.
Then Mate would call in a servant to clean up the plates, before taking Rodney down to the labs, where Rodney would kneel at his feet for the daily inspection. Mate did not believe that Rodney’s closeness was proper, but he still loved him. Rodney could tell.
“What do you think, Pet?” he would ask, pulling him gracefully to his feet.
Rodney could feel his master’s laugher as he went from workbench to workbench ridiculing the work of each of his family’s scientists. “You think that will increase the range on your stun grenade? How would you like to be a charred husk, eh?” he would say. “And you? Where did you learn these power output algorithms? From a lobotomized kangaroo? No, no, no . . . just no! And you? After yesterday . . . why are you even still here? If I were running this place, I’d have you fed to the space monkeys. It’s a miracle we’re all still alive with idiots like this running the show.” And he would continue on until the scientists were properly cowed and Mate seemed pleased.
“Good job, Rodney,” he would say, with a smile, leaving Rodney to fix the latest fumbles of tweedle dumb and tweedle dumber while he went out to work with his brothers.
But today was different. Rodney could feel it in his master’s anticipation.
“What?” he squawked, trailing behind Mate’s long strides. “Come on, I know you have a surprise for me. I am a genius, remember?”
Mate laughed. “As you constantly insist on reminding me. We indulge you too much, Pet,” he said, even as he scratched his palm down Rodney’s back. Rodney’s whole body tingled with delight.
“But . . . you know I’m not good at waiting. It stresses me out. Gives me wrinkles. Just a hint?”
“No, Rodney. You will see soon enough.”
They took an unfamiliar turn at an unfamiliar hallway. Rodney perked up. “A new lab? You said you’d take me to see the power generation station.”
“This is better. But you must show patience.”
Rodney huffed. Patience smatience.
“Dark,” Mate ordered, the lights flicking off.
“Hey, no fair! You know I don’t have as good night vision as you do! I’m going to stub my toe . . . permanently damage my . . .”
“Here we are,” Mate sighed, grabbing hold of Rodney’s arm and guiding him through a door. “I would not hurt you, Pet,” he said.
Rodney took a deep calming breath, feeling himself flood with tranquility. Of course, Mate would never do anything to harm him.
Even with a flash of blue light and then darkness, Rodney felt safe with his Master there.
<<<>>>
“What?” Rodney groaned, pushing to his feet. He felt tingly all over and tired - like that one time Princess has allowed him too much of the fermented Cedeer juice.
He sat up, back in Princess’ wide pallet with her leaning over him, stroking his chest.
“Huh?” he asked.
“Come.” She pulled him to his feet. “I know that you do not enjoy the outside much, Rodney. But if you should want to travel through the Well, I want to be able to track you.” She pulled him to the mirror, yanking back the folds of his white robe to show a small scar running along his neck. “Your very first transmitter!”
Rodney smiled, allowing her to enfold him into a quick hug. “Isn’t it beautiful? Why don’t you run off and show Teyla and Carson?”
Rodney nodded, proudly puffing out his chest. His very first transmitter! He smiled. “You should have given me one much earlier,” he mock scowled.
“Yes, my little genius. Be careful,” she called after him as he shot off down the corridor. Carson and Teyla preferred the outside, even though neither knew the shocking UV radiation levels of this planet. He stopped by the labs to pick up his homemade sunscreen before making his way out into the glare.
Both Carson and Teyla had already been given transmitters, but they had come here before him as breeding stock - too valuable to risk losing in their roaming across the countryside.
Rodney emerged sneezing into an absolutely horrible spring day to see Carson seated on a large flat rock, soaking up the sun. “Oh, puh-lease. You’re just asking for a slow horrible death by melanoma, aren’t you?”
“Come now, Rodney. The Breeding Manager has lasers to remove growths. I’ve done the procedure myself.”
“Suit yourself,” Rodney grumbled. “But don’t come crying to me when that butcher you call master takes a chunk out of the middle of your forehead. It’s not as though he demands good looks out of his prime stud. Obviously. You’ve got those lead panties I sent you? Protect the little ATAs?” Rodney wasn’t quite sure why Carson’s little swimmers and their ATAs were so important - it seemed familiar, though. Better safe than sorry.
Carson glowered. “Very funny. You have that rubber suit to protect you from the big bad sunshine?”
“Hey, I burn easily,” Rodney said, stumbling up Carson’s rock and pulling down the hem of his robe. “I just came to show you this.”
“Oi! You’ve got yourself your very own transmitter. My own bonnie boy’s finally growin’ up, then?”
“Oh shut up, Carson,” Rodney rolled his eyes. “Where’s Teyla?”
Carson sighed, pushing himself up from his rock. “Won’t listen, that one. Bloody stubborn. Thinks she can keep practicing right up to her third trimester!”
They ambled down around a patch of tree to where Teyla was indeed practicing with one of the servants, sticks flying and body spinning, the small swell in her belly barely showing beneath the flowing white tunic she habitually wore.
“How does she do that?” Rodney demanded.
“I haven’t the faintest,” Carson sighed. “Some nonsense about being a warrior in a past life.”
Noticing their approach, Teyla stopped, holding up a hand to her sparing partner. “Rodney! It is good to see you outside!”
She pressed a sweaty forehead to his, but he did not complain. “And look!” She noticed the scar right away, palming it. “A transmitter! This means that you may journey across the planet with us!”
“I’d prefer the labs . . .” Rodney tried to decline.
“Nonsense, lad . . . you haven’t lived until you’ve seen the sunrise over the southern mountain range. It’s only a four day hike!”
“Hike! Ha!” Rodney snorted.
<<<>>>
Things continued as usual for several months. Teyla’s belly got rounder and Carson more fretful. Even the scientists seemed marginally more competent, refusing to be shown up by a mere pet.
But then one morning everything changed.
Rodney woke to find Princess gone. Without her, who would feed him? Who would pet him and clutch him close and praise him for his intelligence? Rodney scrambled over to Mate’s still slumbering form.
“Rodney,” he groaned. “Leave me alone.”
Rodney didn’t care. He wanted to see Princess. “Where is she?”
“What?”
“Princess!”
Mate seemed confused for a second before his eyes snapped open. “She is no longer a Princess, Rodney. Today she will become a Queen!”
“But where is she?”
“In the hatching chambers, of course!” Mate shook his head. “What do you think we’ve been doing this entire time, silly pet? Sleeping?” He laughed.
“And breakfast?”
Mate shook his head, reaching out to lay a hand on Rodney’s back. “There. We have indulged you far too much, Pet.”
“But I’m hypoglycemic! Without actual food at least every six hours my blood sugar gets too low! I could go into a coma, you imbecile!”
Mate just chuckled. “You’re far too industrious to starve, Rodney. We love you still, but it is time you made your own entertainment. Big things are happening. Too big for your limited understanding.”
“Hey! I’m a genius!”
“Yes, pet. But you are still, regrettably, a human,” Mate sighed. “I must see to the hatchlings,” he said, pulling on his long black coat and trailing off down the hall.
“Fine! Leave me! See if I care!” Rodney shouted resentfully after him. He pulled on his own pants and robes slowly, checking the tray where the servants usually placed his meals. Nothing.
That was okay, though. He could always figure out something basic with the chemical synthesizer. He was hating this day already.
Rodney stormed into the lab and barked at the first scientist he saw floundering with his star charts. “Those are upside down, you idiot! Now unlock the synthesizer room for me.”
The scientist looked down at his calculations then flipped his hair infuriatingly. “I do not answer to a mere kept animal.”
“Please. Without me, you would’ve blown up this entire ship ages ago.”
“Your master is not here. We do not have to listen to you,” another scientist spoke up.
“Fine. Then just get me something to eat. My master would have you for breakfast if he found that you let me starve.”
One of the scientists reached out a hand. “Give me a little taste, pet, and I’ll get you all the food you want.”
The others laughed.
“Wait until Princess hears about this!” Rodney shouted.
“The Queen is busy with the hatching,” the same one who had grabbed at him sneered.
Rodney felt himself shaking, adrenaline coursing through him like it hadn’t since the first day that Princess had unwrapped his box. He didn’t remember anything of his previous life, but he did remember the perfect response to danger - run.
The laughter of the scientists filled his head even long after he had bolted down the nearest corridor, stomach grumbling the entire way.
Rodney didn’t stop running until he was outside under the planet’s disgustingly bright sunlight. He didn’t even care that he had no sunblock. He just needed to get out of here.
He panted with dizziness starting to overtake him. He needed to eat. But Carson and Teyla were out on their last long great wilderness adventure before the birthing and he had no idea where to find them. Besides, he wasn’t sure his pride could take begging food off mere breeders.
Before Rodney knew it, he was standing in front of the Well. He looked up at it, looming high above him, shadow stretched long in the morning light. It looked so much bigger than it had in the schematics. Rodney gulped.
He didn’t know any addresses. But even though he knew that the odds of dialing a correct address out of all the possible random connections, he felt he knew the exact seven symbols he wanted.
It was disappointing when they didn’t engage.
And when his second instinct didn’t either.
Rodney’s stomach grumbled again. “Just think about where you can get a nice juicy cut of meat,” he instructed himself, growing ever more desperate.
This time, the wormhole engaged with a flash. It seemed familiar somehow, a shimmering pool of glimmering light.
“I really hope this doesn’t hurt,” Rodney grumbled, squinting his eyes shut before stepping through.
<<<>>>
Rodney had read that the first trip through the ring would often induce nausea in human subjects, but he didn’t feel a thing . . . except maybe a little bit of dizziness. But then again maybe that was just the amount of noise he found on the other side.
Rodney had never seen so many human beings before in his life - teaming masses of them, wandering through muddy streets, flitting from stall to stall of so many strange things - some tools like in the labs, weapons like those the soldiers carried, but different, long and squared instead of sleek and pointed, and so many types of food, the air thick with it. And the people! They came in all shapes and sizes - children even. Rodney hadn’t yet seen any children before, though he anticipated it, with the birthing. And everyone dressed in so many colors! It made the virgin white of Rodney’s robe seem dull by comparison.
Rodney found himself moving forward, stomach rumbling as he made for the nearest storefront. Pies, his memory supplied. Rodney smiled, reaching out a hand.
“That will be three lyra, friend,” the man behind the table said. He had a hooked nose and a darkness in his eyes that Rodney had not seen before, an emptiness like the faceless masks of the servants.
“Lyra?”
The man sighed. “Yes. You may trade with the market master, there,” he pointed. “A bag of good grain will give you 100, and a kirsha costs but three.”
“Oh . . . okay,” Rodney nodded, startled by the press of bodies, the loud call of the market-master as he advertised his presence to the crowd.
Rodney snapped his fingers to garner the man’s attention.
“Yes?” he scowled.
“I need three lyra,” Rodney announced.
“And I need a nice long ride on a woman other than my wife, but it ain’t gonna happen without a price,” the man announced, smiling a saucy grin.
“What?”
The man looked Rodney over. “That belt’ll fetch you ten lyra, I imagine,” he gestured to the soft suede embossed with salrine crystals. Princess had given it to him.
“No,” Rodney clasped it tight.
The man shrugged. “No wares, no shares, friend.”
“But . . .” before Rodney could protest the man had already melted into the crowd.
He had not thought to bring anything with him. But how was he to know that the humans beyond the Well would be so stingy with their goods? At home, his family shared everything.
Then he spotted a stall, filled with metal parts, pieces crystalline but somehow different than what he usually saw in the labs. And yet, it all seemed somehow familiar.
“Jewel of the Ancestors!” the tender proclaimed. “Good as new! Freshly polished and ready to display in a shrine near you!”
Ancestors? Shrine? Rodney shook his head. Idiots. Worship was for chumps, weak servants. What did they say? Religion was the opiate of the masses. There was a perfectly rational explanation for all this. Rodney scowled and approached. That wasn’t a jewel! It was a defunct personal shield device.
He marched over to the stall to give its owner a piece of his mind, but before he could more than open his mouth, the shopkeeper spit down at his feet. “The Krem do not trade with the likes of you.”
“Hey! Well maybe I don’t want to trade with the likes of you, if you’re too stupid to recognize a personal shield device when you see one. Seriously, a man like you doesn’t deserve to even touch a fine bit of machinery like that. I wouldn’t trust you with a used Gameboy! I can’t believe . . .”
“Personal shield?”
“Yes, yes, duh . . . you’re even stupider than the scientists Mate has working on our intergalactic hyperdrive. I swear, with them working at it, we’ll be stuck following the laws of relativity and won’t that be fun? But compared with people like you . . .”
Rodney’s rant was silenced by a sound he knew, but didn’t - the loud crack of a gunshot. People screamed and rushed around him, pushing and shoving and doing all together impolite things that would never stand in the serene order of his home.
“Hey . . .watch it!” Rodney protested, until he noticed that the shooting seemed to be directed towards him. “I’m a dead man,” he said, before ducking towards the nearest stall and peering up over the countertop. His attackers were wearing dull grey uniforms with large buttons on the front and unnaturally squared caps. Even if they hadn’t been shooting at him, he thought he’d probably hate them.
Another shot glanced off the tabletop and Rodney ducked back. They were advancing and he didn’t see anywhere to go. First time through the Well - of course he’d end up dead. He wasn’t meant for things like sunlight and marketplaces and so many humans - he was strictly an indoor pet.
And then, another man dove down beneath a nearby stall. He, too, appeared to wield one of the strange oddly-squarish weapons. “Hey,” he said. “You should know better than to come here dressed like that. Even without half a platoon of Genii soldiers in the market for Wraith data devices, it’d be a dangerous for you.”
Rodney didn’t know what a Wraith was, or who the Genii were (it sounded more like some sort of star sign than a bunch of homicidal maniacs), but his instincts told him that he could trust this man, the one that wore the same deep black as Mate.
Even if he did have the most ridiculous head of hair that Rodney had ever seen. Didn’t his masters bother to bathe him?
The man flashed Rodney a quick grin, a slightly sarcastic almost deadly smile, before he shot up over the countertop and fired a few shots back at these ‘Genii.’
“Nothing like those stuck-up-lentil-loving fascists to spoil a good party,” the man said, green eyes gleaming as he rose and got off another round. “I’m John, by the way.”
“Rodney. You wouldn’t happen to know why they’re shooting at me, would you?”
John shrugged. “The Genii don’t care for the Wraith much. Most people don’t.”
“Wraith?”
John rolled his eyes, ducking down quickly and almost missing the sting of the bullet that splintered the countertop where his head had been seconds earlier.
“Hey, do you think now might be a good time for a strategic retreat?” Rodney spluttered, floored by the casual way John seemed to take his head being nearly blown off.
John just laughed, grabbing Rodney by the wrist and yanking him a few stalls to the left and then back through a thick row of bushes. They tore at Rodney’s robes and scratched red welts into his skin, but it was better than a bullet through the heart any day.
“This way,” John exclaimed, dropping and rolling behind what appeared to be a fenced in pen of some sorts; Rodney couldn’t see more than a few antlers to suggest the kind of animals it contained. “Now where did I park?”
“Park?”
“Oh, wait until you check this out. It’s very cool,” John said, pushing Rodney down beneath another stall, before he could grab a kind of alien shish-kabob in the booth above their heads.
“Cool? In case you haven’t noticed, Mr. . . . John, being shot at is very very not cool!”
John just turned around and grinned, ducking into a nearby building. Rodney followed reluctantly. It looked like a bar, not that Rodney was exactly sure what a bar was - for some reason it seemed as though there should be boxes playing some sort of picture of people sliding around on ice while carrying large sticks, and maybe a nice man to tell all of your problems to. But right now, it looked like a bunch of barely-standing old chairs and a lot of frightened-looking people hiding under them.
“Excuse me. Just passing through,” John said with a smile that the man probably thought was diplomatic, but seemed more flirtatious to Rodney.
“Now I think it was back behind here . . .” John remarked with a pensive frown, pulling a drab beaded curtain aside to reveal . . . a long room filled with boxes but ending in a wall. “Huh . . . maybe the one next door.”
“Where are they?” Rodney heard a loud voice demand back behind them.
“Damn,” John said, pulling a round egg-like object out of the pocket of leather pants that looked too tight to hold a piece of paper let alone a . . . grenade? “Here’s hoping these walls are as flimsy as they look.”
He pulled the pin and tossed the grenade at the far wall, pushing Rodney behind a pile of boxes.
“What the hell, John!” Rodney exclaimed. “I need my ears! You know? For hearing?!”
John chuckled, pushing to his feet. “C’mon, just out here!”
Outside the smoking hole in the wall was a field, fenced in by a scrap-metal barrier, filled with yellowing weeds and scraps of paper and other detritus that would never be allowed in Rodney’s home. John was already trotting through it, and Rodney reluctantly followed, hoping that there weren’t any rusty nails hidden in those weeds.
“Right where I left you,” John said to a completely unremarkable section of air, before stepping forward and disappearing.
“John? What the hell . . .” Rodney began, before stumbling up what was apparently a metal ramp leading to what seemed to be the back of a small spacecraft, bigger than what the scouts flew, with benches in the back and a large cockpit. It would have been of great interest to the curious scientist in Rodney, except for the large man with long clumped unkempt-looking hair and the biggest pistol Rodney had ever seen. The man swung his huge gun around cowboy style so that it pointed at Rodney’s chest.
“Don’t move, Wraith-Worshipper,” the man ordered, spitting.
Well, Rodney’d certainly have to get Princess to find him a new pair of sandals when he got home now. “Why does everyone keep doing that to me?”
He looked to John, who now had his weapon pointed at the stranger. “Put it down, Ronon. Cut him some slack. He’s confused.”
“Not confused enough to wear their cloth.”
“He doesn’t even know who the Wraith are, Ronon. I didn’t either when I was presented to my first Queen. I have a good feeling about him. Trust me on this one.”
Ronon just snarled, gun still pointed right at Rodney.
“I’m confused,” Rodney admitted. He’d admit practically anything staring down the barrel of a pistol like that. “But I can guarantee you that the last thing I would do would be worship.”
John took a step forward so that he was standing between Ronon and Rodney. “Look, if you don’t believe me, then consider it a personal favor. You never would have been able to stop being a runner if I hadn’t taken you to Radek.”
Ronon grumbled but lowered his weapon. “Then we’ll be even.”
John nodded, moving towards the cockpit. “Good. Now get out of my ship.”
The mountain man nodded, stalking away, though not without stopping to lunge at Rodney, causing him to jump. “If I ever see you again, I won’t hesitate to kill you.”
Rodney nodded weakly. He really didn’t think he’d mind never seeing this man again in his life.
“Ronon’s a bit high strung,” John said, plopping down into what Rodney assumed was the pilot’s chair. “Running from the Wraith will do that to you.”
Rodney couldn’t help but notice that when John grabbed the controls, they glowed, a display flashing up on the dash. “That’s a pretty sophisticated start up routine.”
“Huh? Oh, no, it’s thought directed. I asked the jumper how many people are surrounding us.”
Rodney should’ve been concerned about the armed crazies outside the ship, but he was more interested in this amazing machine. “You mean it responded to your thoughts?”
“Yep. Cool, huh? Wait until you see what she can do from space.”
And before he knew it, they were rocketing forward, circling the angry group of soldiers beneath them, vaulting up through the clouds, taking dips and gravity-less spins. John was grinning like a madman beside him, while Rodney gripped the edge of the co-pilot’s seat.
“While soaring through the atmosphere far away from the scary men with guns is all very well and good, do you think you could maybe slow this thing down a little, before I lose what little I have in my stomach?”
John just chuckled. “Like I said: cool.”
<<<>>>
“There are a lot of Gates in this system,” John remarked, steering the ship through an abyss of twinkling stars and towards a shimmering blue planet just cresting over the horizon. “This one’s uninhabited, but it’s still got a Gate.”
“Gate?”
“Your masters call them Wells, because they can draw food from them like water.”
“Oh. I was hungry.”
John turned to look at him a bit quizzically.
“Well, Princess usually feeds me herself, but they’re busy - hatching, you know.” Rodney pushed out his chest, defiant, as though he actually knew what that meant. “And I got hungry, so I went out . . . I’m hypoglycemic, you know. Well, of course you don’t. None of these idiots . . .”
“I know what it means. I’ve got provisions stored in the back. When we set down I can cook something, but can’t hurt to snack. Try the cakes.”
Rodney nodded, shuffling through plastic bowls and containers - medical supplies and sample kits and tarps and all manner of things far more advanced than what he’d seen at the market. It wasn’t until he came across a small shiny square with the words ‘Powerbar’ written on the front before he smiled, ripping open the packaging and stuffing his face. “Chocolate,” he practically moaned.
“Oh, good. I trade those sometimes, but I can’t eat ‘em. Makes me itch.”
“They don’t feed me anything near this good at home. Most of the time I get protein blocks. When the servants go hunting through the Well, they bring me back things, though.”
John chuckled. “See, that’s what you get for living the quiet life, Mr. Park Avenue. A nice warm bed, a master you think loves you. But they have more important things. They understand that we hunger, but they don’t understand flavor.”
John looked at him over his shoulder, smirking. Something indefinable clenched in Rodney’s belly. Maybe it was from not eating for such a long time. He gulped.
John grinned. “You know what hatching means?”
Rodney shook his head, coming back to the co-pilot’s seat and sitting down.
“It means that they’ll join the others in this war and they’ll forget about you.”
“Princess would never . . .” Rodney was her very favorite pet. She loved his eyes and his smarts and . . . she loved him.
“You shouldn’t depend on them, Rodney. You can never count on anyone but yourself.”
Something rang false to that. Rodney couldn’t quite articulate why, but he wanted to talk about family, about brotherhood, even though as far as he could remember, he had never seen a human family grow old together. John made at least one thing abundantly clear - that Rodney was far too privileged to speak about the ways of the world.
Rodney held his tongue and cleared his throat. “Not that I’m complaining, but do you make a habit of getting into shootouts over random strangers?”
John sighed, bringing the little ship down in a low arc into the atmosphere. Rodney grasped the seat arms tight, despite the inertial dampeners. “I’m always looking for a little action.”
Rodney snorted. “Of course you are.”
“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?”
Rodney wanted to say something about a double entendre, but he didn’t really quite know the second meaning. Only that it had something to do with a ‘Kirk.’ “It means . . . what the hell kind of crazy are you? They had weapons!”
John shrugged. “They’re Genii. It’s fun to get them all worked up like that.”
“Fun? You call that fun? I call that running for my life!”
“Tom-ae-to, tom-ah-to.”
Rodney got it, except for the one fact. “What the hell is a tomato?”
John shrugged. It was infuriating. “Coming in for a landing.”
They landed on the dark side of the planet, near the southern pole. A display had flashed up on the dash, proclaiming the temperature there a steady 22 degrees, compared to the blistering 65 at the equator.
Of course John would pick a planet covered in ocean, with gorgeous white sand beaches and an aquamarine sea lapping up against the shore, two moons rising over the lip of a tranquil ocean. There was something familiar about all this - perhaps it was just the sound of so much water. Rodney knew that they had never visited a world like this before - Mate and Princess did not like the ocean.
Rodney gulped.
“Pretty isn’t it?”
“If you like camping out in the dark getting ready to be smashed to smithereens by a tidal wave or eaten by giant crabs, maybe.”
John chuckled as another display flickered up. “We’re the only two people on this rock, Rodney. You can relax a little. C’mon.”
John grabbed his hand and dragged him out the back, laying a silver tarp out beneath the stars and handing Rodney a shovel. “Dig a pit over there. I’ve got some wood in the back for a fire.”
Rodney stared at the little metal shovel. He didn’t dig. Manual labor was for the servants.
John rose to his feet, sighing. He’d rolled up his pant legs and his sleeves, but he got down on one knee in the sand anyhow, shifting the earth with a practiced ease. “Yeah, I know it’s dirty. But so is freedom.”
Rodney busied himself with the wood, carrying it out and then stacking it for the most efficient burn. “What brought you to the market anyhow?”
“Running low on ammo. Too bad the Genii are one of the few arms dealers around, and just because I kill them at every opportunity, they don’t want to participate in a good honest trade.”
Rodney snorted. “Where are their manners?” He stood, walking back over to the hatch of the ship, warm light spilling out of nothing. “Doesn’t this thing have a non-invisible setting?”
“As a matter of fact, it does. But I can’t let you see it - espionage, you understand.” John punctuated his statement by collapsing back onto the tarp beside Rodney.
“Espionage?”
John sighed. “I can’t have you going back and telling your Queen about it. This one’s mine.” He gestured to the unremarkable patch of air with a happy sigh. There was something about him - a familiar slouch to his shoulders, the low inviting slide of his laugh, the way his smile hid his few wrinkles in plain sight.
John was looking Rodney over now, something shimmering and unreadable in his eyes. “You know, something makes me think that I’ve met you before.”
Rodney wanted to say that he felt the same way, but the moons were bright and the waves hypnotic and John just looked so beautiful, a luminescent silhouette against the night sky. “I bet you say that to all the boys,” Rodney murmured, leaning in closer, though he couldn’t say why.
“Only the pretty ones,” John murmured, leaning in too.
Rodney stiffened, almost panicking when John’s lips brushed up against his. As far as he could remember, he had never let anyone other than his masters touch him so intimately, rubbing a tingle down his spine like John was doing now.
“Hey,” John whispered, massaging the nape of Rodney’s neck. “Relax.”
“I am relaxed,” Rodney squeaked, feeling an uncomfortable tightening in his pants.
John looked down and smiled. “C’mere.” He pulled Rodney down between his legs, kissing him over and over again, and letting Rodney touch, pet, feel, own him in a way that only masters were allowed to.
Then John was arching up against him, rubbing against the strange hardness until Rodney’s breaths transformed into pants, and he saw lights shimmering across the sand like the light of the moon across the sea.
“Oh god,” he moaned with a shudder, even though he’d never heard of such a name.
“Yeah,” John panted, grabbing frantically for the buttons of his soft black slacks and pushing at the folds of Rodney’s robe, just trying to get at the complex tie of his pants. “Come on.”
Whenever Princess undressed him, it was slow and steadily, possessed of her uniquely unhurried dignity. This was messy and desperate and human. “Mmmm . . . John.” Rodney couldn’t contain his voice, his hips. “I want . . .” he didn’t know what he wanted, only that he wanted John against him, kissing and licking and doing that thing with his tongue.
“Yeah. God, Rodney, please,” John squirmed beneath him, angling his hips and thrusting wildly, sensitive parts fitting together with such perfect friction.
Rodney closed his eyes against the fireworks exploding across mind and vision, leaning down into the almost sweat musk of John’s neck, biting his mark into silky skin as he exploded, imploded, turned inside out.
Rodney panted back to reality and John’s playful eyes, dazed and sated beneath him.
“Oh, wow. I can’t believe . . . wow,” Rodney babbled, collapsing down beside John.
John leaned up on his elbow, smirking in a way that should have been vastly irritating, but instead seemed almost cute. “Never done that before?”
Rodney shrugged. “Sometimes my mistress . . . she . . .”
John nodded. “It’s much better this way, huh?”
“Yeah,” Rodney sighed, lying back against the tarp. John scooted closer, resting his head on Rodney’s shoulder. There was something very right about this. But then again, maybe it was just the moons. Freedom, too, was unfamiliar.
Part II here