gateverse_remix: Under the Skin by Barb G
Title Under the Skin
Author Barb G
Remix of Written on the Body by justbreathe80
Notes: Beta’ed by wpadmirer and my darling devohoneybee. queenzulu took the final peek, and I couldn’t do anything without my girl daemonluna. Thanks to you all.
Ronon/various NC-17
Summary Ronon’s been marked more than a couple times.
Under the Skin
I.
Ronon didn't fight. There was nothing to fight against. When the guardsmen came for him when he was fourteen, his mother only held his father's arm. He had no siblings to cry. He didn't need their tears. The room they took him too was already half full of others his age. Right from the start he sensed the change.
The day before they would have probably all joined in a pick-up game of kill-the-wraith, but that may as well have been on another world. The adults who flanked him did nothing to stop the three bigger boys from pushing down a fourth. Ronon didn't expect them to. This wasn't the adults' world, either. They were alone.
Six boys eyed him. He could feel them. Even before the door closed behind him, five of them, wisely, decided he wasn't worth it. The sixth attempted to get into his face. Ronon knew of him, if not his name. He was a commander's son, and was probably used to getting his own way. They were the same height, but Ronon had twice his reach.
“Don't get involved,” the boy said, his face mimicking something he probably saw from his father when the old man was looking dangerous. “Unless you want a turn.”
Ronon looked him up and down and dismissed him. It was calculated. They had the attention of those who weren't immediately molesting the boy Ronon wanted to help. Honour would demand retaliation for the dismissal, and Ronon wasn't wrong. The hair on the back of his neck told him the blow was coming. He blocked it with his crossed wrists, locked the arm in place, and whipped around. It was a simple matter of using his body as a lever, and the boy slammed against the wall, nose first. The sound of bone crunching echoed in the metal room.
Ronon went on his way. He picked up the one holding the small boy down by his collar, and tossed him aside casually. The boy, crouched down, hugging his knees as his only protection, looked up at him with huge eyes.
Ronon offered his hand, but not his name. The boy took it, and didn't offer his own. Afterwards, Ronon never saw him again.
They came for him at night. Strong hands held him down. The senior boys tattooed their juniors, marking them as one of their own, and for him the needle went deeper and slower than any of the others. It took three times as long, but no matter how long it took, no matter how many snide comments were made about how good he looked splayed out on his bed, Ronon was silent. They wanted to hear him cry out. They wanted him to beg. Ronon remained still, even when the hand tangled in his hair pulled so hard that he felt the roots all but pull free. He relaxed, forcing his body to just take the pain, and one by one, the hands slacked off, letting him go.
And one by one they paid, whenever he could corner them. They screamed and cried and begged him to let them go, and Ronon was disgusted by their weakness.
*
Kell paced his way around the three walls of one-way mirrors. The boys had mostly settled now, but there still was the occasional flare-up. He wasn`t the only commander pacing; Intelligence was there, making their picks. Munitions, even Transport was looking for their next new recruits.
The one that had smashed the other`s nose wasn`t sleeping. Kell didn`t expect he would. What was more, he seemed to be able to track where Kell was walking. It unnerved him as much as it excited him. “You. Secretary,” he called. One of the men holding the list of names scurried forward. “Who is that?”
The man didn't even have to consult his notes. “Ronon Dex,” he said. “He's been requested by ground force already.”
“Put him with me.”
“I can't do that. The request has already been made.”
Kell looked at the man, witheringly. The man tried to keep up the bluster, but it collapsed around him. “Of course, sir.”
The selection process went on another few hours, and Kell returned to his quarters. The young man in his bed was already snoring. Kell felt his mouth twitch. He was now officially bored with him.
II.
Years passed. Kell waited with anticipation for Ronon to finish his junior training and join him. The more news he got from Ronon’s growth, from his systematic revenge one bully at a time to his studies, impressed Kell more. Ronon wasn’t stupid. The stupid ones willingly swallowed what the government shoved down their throats. That wasn’t bad, per se, and it made them willing to fight and die blindly.
Kell preferred the ones that had some sense. The ones who knowingly opened their mouths, took what Kell had to offer, and still swallowed. Or spit. Whichever one they chose didn’t bother him at all.
Ronon had that air to him. The moment he stepped off the transport, Kell saw it. It separated him from all the other young men still a bit afraid. Junior training was nothing compared to what this was going to be. Here they’d see actual fighting and all the instructors had electrified training rods. Ronon didn’t show fear, not once. Where the others hunched their shoulders and studied dirt, Ronon looked around. It took him a moment to scan the higher ground, perfect for an ambush, and then he looked at Kell.
I know you, Kell thought, and that made him smile. Ronon blinked, once, and the tight set to his mouth relaxed. Apparently, he knew Kell as well.
This was going to be interesting.
And it was.
*
Kell pushed all the little grunts hard. They were fodder for the Wraith and nothing more, but Kell intended each and every one to be the most expensive piece of fodder the Wraith would ever purchase. He pushed Ronon the hardest, because Ronon could take it. More, when he looked into Ronon’s eyes, Kell saw that he wanted it. Craved it, in fact.
Within the first week of training, Ronon was squeezing off three shots in the kill zone in under a second. Any one of the other recruits would have climaxed in his leather uniform if he’d done half so well. Ronon’s shots weren’t in the dead centre of the target though, and he was obviously disappointed in that. Kell touched Ronon’s leg with his training rod, and let the juice flow from the release. The electrical current passed over Ronon’s thigh, and Ronon writhed in pain, jaw clenching hard enough to bring the muscles of his neck up in sharp relief. Then, as Kell expected, he relaxed completely into the pain and let it go.
Oh, yes. He knew Ronon, and Ronon knew he was known.
That he would fuck Ronon, on his back, driving him with Ronon’s legs wrapped around his waist and nothing protecting him from the still soft belly and throat, was a given. And because it was a given, Kell took his time.
Which made Ronon deliciously skittish around him. As the recruits lay out, practicing their long distance shots, he’d only have to run his cane up Ronon’s thighs, and without pressing the button, he saw Ronon shudder.
Then he hit the next three shots with accuracy that put the instructor to shame.
Perhaps it was time.
Ronon was the last one to stand as Kell walked away. With his back turned, however, Kell safely allowed himself to lick his lips. Other instructors of various ranks circled around the new blood like ravenous Oftars, but Ronon was his. And, as planned, eventually Ronon came to him.
Kell pushed open the door to his room that night, and there was Ronon, sitting on the edge of his bed. He’d filled out since he’d come to the centre. His shoulders were wide, his face leaner, but there was still that hungry, eager-to-please look that never last this long with other recruits.
Kell crossed his arm over his chest, waiting. Ronon began to pull on the leather tie holding his shirt closed. He pulled it off, with grace not often seen in young men still growing into their limbs, and without being told kicked off his boots.
“Stop,” Kell said. Ronon froze, his hands just touching his trousers. Kell walked over to the bed and kicked Ronon’s legs apart. Ronon sighed and leaned back on the bed, giving over. Kell ruthlessly tugged Ronon’s trousers off and threw them against the wall.
He spat in his hand. The grease was by the head of his bed, but that was far too far to go. The spit would make the fuck burn, but that was just the way it had to be. And Ronon took it. He squeezed his eyes shut at the initial entry. Ronon letting Kell see the flash of pain was a bigger gift than spreading his legs to begin with. Kell reached down, taking hold of Ronon’s hip where his mark was going to go, and he waited for Ronon’s breathing to return to where it should be. It was slow going, with victories measured in quarter inches, but eventually Ronon relaxed again.
And it was good. Once he was inside, all the signs of weakness left Ronon’s face. His erection, which had faded some during the entry, came back, hard and tight on his belly. Kell gathered it up, pumping it hard in time with his thrusts, and Ronon’s shoulders almost came off the bed.
The fuck went on for what seemed like hours. Ronon came three times, the first two almost back-to-back. The third was laboriously drawn out using every ounce of skill Kell had that wasn’t devoted to the battlefield.
That final time he’d pulled Ronon up and on his knees, face down into the military-issued pillows. Kell held onto his hips, driving himself so close to the edge that withholding the orgasm became painful. Ronon tensed the final time, fucking his own fist in time with Kell’s rhythm. Then they came together, the waves of the orgasm almost drowning them both.
Ronon stayed the night. And the next, and the next, long after Kell’s interest in the new recruits usually lasted once he had them. He took Ronon into the specialist group, long before any of the raw recruits, partly because Ronon was that good, and partly because he wanted Ronon close to him.
As a specialist, however, Ronon had home visiting privileges. Kell knew there was no way he could keep Ronon all to himself. And of course, from then, it was the usual story. Ronon, for once, became distracted and a little moody. He came back to Kell’s room, later than ever before, and took his own sweet time to take off his clothes.
Kell rolled onto his back and used the crook of his elbow as a headrest. Ronon climbed into bed, grabbed a handful of grease with him. It was cold on Kell’s already hard cock. It just made him harder. Ronon slid himself down Kell’s shaft slowly. His hands on Kell’s belly steadied himself, where a hundred and one times before he was just fine.
It was slow. Final, Kell wanted to say, but he didn’t even want to think the word. But it was over. Ronon rode him long and hard, pulling each orgasm from Kell until Kell felt as though his backbone was melting.
Ronon took the tattoo gracefully, but kept his face stony from the pain. Kell finished it and walked away.
III.
Melena saw the difference between the young boys who were taken away from their families and the young men who returned ten years later from their training. They were quieter, they moved as though they had to pay for any extraneous movement, and their eyes were colder. Many of them saw combat with the Wraith before they finished their training, and many of those didn’t live long enough to finish. It was a harsh life, but it made Sateda a tough, thorny prize that the Wraith only attempted in dire times.
She wasn’t the only young woman along at the market. With such high casualties, young women outnumbered the young men two to one. But she’d never been the type of girl to fall over anyone. Her mother’s stall gave her a good vantage point for the constant courtship around the town fountains, an exercise much like watching naffs scurry about their hill.
A young man approached her stall, walking alone when every other soldier was with his mate. He seemed young, despite the mandatory recruitment age, and while his face was motionless, his brown eyes were soft, like a puppy, and so familiar.
He said nothing, long past the time where it should have bordered creepy, but it wasn’t. He was observing her, and she, for once in her life, didn’t mind it at all. When he was looking at her, it was as though the entire market seemed to disappear behind them.
“Hello,” he said, managing to break his voice like water over gravel in that one word. It warmed her in places she didn’t know had heat inside.
“Ronon?” she asked, and suddenly she saw her neighbour’s son in this huge, hulking man’s body. It wasn’t right, he should have been posted in the middle of nowhere guarding their farms. There was a story there, and she knew she didn’t have a right to know. The men had their own code amongst themselves, one that involved closed doors during reunions. So she didn’t ask.
He nodded. It was a good thing that her mother was working with her that day, because she hustled Melena around the table and practically into Ronon’s arms. She’d stayed there ever since, almost right until the end.
And before the wedding, as the rest of his peers were being shipped off the garrisons over the entire planet, he became even more withdrawn. She and Ronon could be together, and yet rather than being pleased, it made him even more withdrawn. Then he returned to her one morning, early. Just below his throat was the mark of another. He never spoke about it, she never asked, and for a while, he was just hers.
*
It was a mistake to take down the hive ship, but that knowledge had only come in hindsight. Ronon knew -- Ronon had argued it to the highest level -- and that his commanding officer didn’t strike him down for his insolence told her whose mark Ronon wore.
The night before he made his devil’s bargain, trading everything they had for a ticket she had no intention of taking, she took out her needle kit.
He hadn’t said a word, but lay there quietly as she gave him her own mark. He was thinking he’d take it to his early grave, so that the dead could remember, but she knew he’d survive. He’d survive long after she would, when her mark would be nothing but one among many, but it would be there.
Afterwards, Ronon went right to sleep. She stayed awake. Tomorrow, she’d tell him she was staying. She kissed his forehead and shared their last night together.
IV.
When he was a child, he remembered losing his child’s teeth. He was never one to wait for nature to take its course. The moment he felt it even slightly wobble, he’d work it, first with his tongue, then with his fingers, despite the pain, despite the blood that filled his mouth, until he’d rip the tooth out of his mouth in triumph.
The tracking device in his back was kind of like that, but whereas before he was left with nothing with a gap-filled grin for a month or two before his adult tooth moved in, trying to cut the tracker out left him with chills and sweats.
Or worse.
He was in an empty world, so he risked a fire, though his hands shook as he gathered the deadfall from the forest. It was a cold night, but sweat ran down his forehead, dripping into his eyes. The lack of humans left the forest animals complacent, and one oddly shaped rodent thing was sloppy enough to let him bludgeon it to death with a piece of wood.
He skinned it, as delicately as he could so as to not waste a single shred of flesh, and cooked it over the fire.
Meat in his belly helped. It had been days. Or weeks, he wasn’t quite clear with the time. Despite the danger, despite the fact that he could be seen at least a mile away, he built the fire as high as he could and lay down close enough he could smell singed hair.
He closed his eyes, all but passing out rather than going to sleep, when he saw something flickering up the hillside. Instantly he came back to himself, gun in hand, and he supposed he wasn’t ready to give up quite yet. He called out a warning, and heard nothing back. A precious shot, using more energy than he wanted went unanswered, and he left the warmth of his fire to go investigate.
It was nothing but a cracked mirror, buried half into the dirt, reflecting nothing but his own fire back to him. He dusted it off, and studied his unfamiliar face all the way back to his camp. He didn’t recognize himself. His hair had been unruly before, but now it fell down his shoulders like a wild thing. His beard -- which he thought he’d kept under control -- was patchy, and his eyes were sunken.
And if didn’t recognize who he was, how could the dead?
He stoked up the fire, he needed light. His hands shook from the infection raging through him, but he didn’t need this to be beautiful. He had a pack, the one thing he’d brought with him, and he fingered the needle that Melena had used on his skin. The ink was dried now, and there was no way he could guarantee that it hadn’t gone bad and he’d be injecting more poison straight into his skin.
Not that that mattered, either. He put his name and rank, just under his jaw, so they would read that first, and the other two tattoos would matter. Then he slept.
When he woke up the next morning, the fever had broken. He swore at himself, for risking a fire right out in the open, but he walked down to the river and drank his fill. He still felt weak and shaky, but at least his hands had stopped trembling.
V.
For as hard as John worked to get Ronon on his team, there was no noticeable sign of appreciation. Not that John cared. It just felt instinctively good to have Ronon at his back.
Still, for the first while at least, he’d catch Ronon just looking at him. Measuring him. John had gone through enough senior officers himself to know the routine. He’d also had enough officers come across as nice guys only to see them completely fall apart time after time that he didn’t blame Ronon, either.
There was something else, and the expectation was thick in the air. John tried to ignore it, but that only seemed to make it worse.
It came to a head, literally and figuratively late one night, after the four of them had been out as a team. Rodney, for once, was quiet, and John excused himself to take him off to bed. They stopped just outside Rodney’s door. John raised his eyebrow, but Rodney waved him off and slammed the door shut, as much as one could slam a door that was automatic and sliding. John began to suspect Rodney had ... modified it somewhat. Still, the rejection didn’t sting. Rodney had almost been cloned that day, and it had been, if only slightly, John’s fault.
Rather than joining Teyla and Ronon again, John just went back to his room. He was there for almost an hour before someone knocked on the door. Although with the violence of it, it only be one person. John got up to answer the door, and was taken back by just how much of the doorway was taken up by Ronon.
John stepped back. “Help you with something?”
Ronon didn’t respond, not at first. He just took a step into the room, and the door slid shut behind him. Ronon’s arms were by his side, and he reminded John of one of the huge malamute dogs that had been brought to McMurdo. Unlike them, however, John doubted Ronon knew his own strength.
Not that John felt threatened, even though Ronon could have easily broken him in half. Ronon looked around the room, his gaze stopping at any of the various objects around the room. “You’re trying to recreate home,” Ronon stated.
It wasn’t a question. John nodded, regardless. “Human nature.”
“Human nature,” Ronon repeated. His eyes looked bruised. He wasn’t being mocking, it was just like he wanted to repeat the words.
John opened his mouth to agree, when Ronon dropped to his knees in front of him. John had three feet at least behind him, but he didn’t jump back. He was going to, any second now, but for a brief heartbeat his cock was doing all the thinking.
“This isn’t...exactly...” John searched for the right word. “Regulation.”
“On whose planet?” Ronon asked. He looked up, butting his hands on John’s hips. His mouth looked soft, and it would have been the easiest thing for John to unzip his slacks and give it to him. But that. Would be. Wrong.
How wrong? the slick voice in John’s head asked, but he took hold of Ronon’s wrists, tightening just enough that his knuckles started to go white.
“Not like this,” John said, his voice thick.
Ronon twisted, and he grabbed John’s wrists, holding him in place as much as John was trying to pull him up.
John stopped trying, he knew he couldn’t possibly pull Ronon up if Ronon didn’t want to. He wasn’t worried that Ronon was going to rape him with his mouth, despite the fact that his cock was all for that idea.
“We don’t... do this,” John began. “Not like this. Not because you think it’s owed.”
“Don’t play games with me, Sheppard,” Ronon growled.
A ridiculous laugh slipped out of John’s tightening throat. “I’m all for playing games,” he protested. “Games and I go way back. I’ve been playing games since I was sixteen, and to be quite honest, I have quite the rim shot myself. But I’m not going to do this.”
Ronon let go, and John stepped away. Ronon stared down at his wrists, and it took a long time for the white marks of his grip John had on his wrists to fade. He began pacing, and Ronon’s nostrils flared. He wondered if Ronon could actually smell how turned on he still was.
Ronon nodded to himself, silently. He stood up, as gracefully as he went down. “Mark me.”
“What?” John demanded.
“Put your mark on my skin, Sheppard. You see me as yours. I see it when you look at me. I want to wear yours.” Ronon stroked the tattoo on his throat.
John stopped pacing, and turned around. John could refuse, but then didn’t know what make Ronon feel...tethered. If this was the only thing that would ground him, John could do that. “All right,” he said, and saw Ronon’s shoulder’s relaxed. “But not here, for God’s sake. I may know a guy who knows a guy, but at least he uses clean needles.”
Ronon nodded and followed him out.
VI.
“They should be back by now,” Ronon growled.
Elizabeth looked up from the panel. “Ronon, that would mean more if you haven’t been saying it every twelve minutes since they left.”
Ronon looked at her, his brown eyes guarded. “They should have been back by now. I should have gone with them.”
“And cause another diplomatic nightmare?” Elizabeth demanded. “Hopefully this will teach you that prized birds owned by village elders are not target practice.”
“They had fangs,” Ronon said, as if that was the only defence he needed.
“Purely decorative, I’m told.”
Ronon snorted, and went back to pacing, as if to say she’d believe anything. He went twelve steps in one direction, spinning on his heels and went twelve steps in the other. His hand brushed up to the hilt of his gun, soothingly, as though to constantly remind himself it was there. Elizabeth crossed her arms over her chest when Ronon’s back was turned. In truth, she was worried. They were only there to escort the medical team so they could treat the chief’s oldest son’s broken leg, and they should have been back even if they were waiting for the plaster to dry.
“Send me in,” Ronon said. Now that he had a plan, he positively vibrated with energy. “What’s the worst that can happen?”
“After two years, you still ask me that?” Elizabeth asked. Despite herself, she was thoroughly tempted. Surely there couldn’t have been that many prized birds. Just as she was about to agree, the gate started to dial itself.
She looked to Chuck. “It’s Colonel Sheppard, Dr. Weir,” he said.
Ronon tensed. She wanted to tell him it was a standard off-world trip with a standard return time, but the hair on the back of her neck raised. She wasn’t wrong. The gate connected, and the medical team came in, all but carrying Teyla between them. Rodney came second to last, or at least she hoped he was second to last, and then, after a long, terrifying moment, Sheppard burst through the gate with a roll.
“Close the gate!” she said, and the iris slammed shut with several resounding huts. “What happened?”
“Language barrier,” Rodney said, spitting out the words. “When they said ‘help fix a broken leg’, they meant, ‘and by that, we mean please be our guest for the annual feed the birds the guts of our honoured guests who usually drink the citrus-flavoured drugged drink we so often give them.”
“Told you they were vicious,” Ronon said.
“Vicious? Their teeth went out to here!” Rodney snapped, and then tried to demonstrate using his forearms when his hands alone weren’t adequate.
“And Teyla?”
“She drank more of the drugs than I did,” John said. “She’ll come around.”
“I’ll expect a full debriefing,” Elizabeth said. “But for now, take Teyla to the infirmary.”
Ronon was vibrating on a different frequency now. All the panic and worry he’d been channelling during his pacing had diffused into something else, something that made him seem younger than he really was. He picked Teyla up as though she weighed nothing, and together they trooped down without any of the actual medics’ help. It looked as though John had sprained an ankle or a knee out there, and Rodney waited back for him, supporting his weight as if it was his right.
They disobeyed her. They disobeyed everyone, and did that which they wanted when they wanted to do it. But they were a team, more so than any of the other Stargate teams, and their love, in all its combinations and permutations, was obvious.
She went down to the infirmary an hour or so later once it became clear that the debriefing wouldn’t be happening until the morning. She poked her head into the ward, expecting to see one or two of them around Teyla’s small form in bed, but instead Teyla was sitting up, using Athosian tools to tattoo something on small of Ronon’s back. John’s shirt was already up, the new tattoo, if that was what that was, still shiny and pink against the small of his own back. Rodney was simultaneously complaining that whatever it was Teyla was using had to be hypoallergenic and scrubbing the small of his back with an alcoholic swab.
Elizabeth pulled the door closed behind her, and shook her head. A nurse came up to the door, and Elizabeth told her that perhaps coming back later was the best plan. The young woman peered through the window and blanched, suddenly remembering vials that had to be labelled in the storage room. Elizabeth watched her scurry off, and supposed that her best team left their marks everywhere.
Author Barb G
Remix of Written on the Body by justbreathe80
Notes: Beta’ed by wpadmirer and my darling devohoneybee. queenzulu took the final peek, and I couldn’t do anything without my girl daemonluna. Thanks to you all.
Ronon/various NC-17
Summary Ronon’s been marked more than a couple times.
Under the Skin
I.
Ronon didn't fight. There was nothing to fight against. When the guardsmen came for him when he was fourteen, his mother only held his father's arm. He had no siblings to cry. He didn't need their tears. The room they took him too was already half full of others his age. Right from the start he sensed the change.
The day before they would have probably all joined in a pick-up game of kill-the-wraith, but that may as well have been on another world. The adults who flanked him did nothing to stop the three bigger boys from pushing down a fourth. Ronon didn't expect them to. This wasn't the adults' world, either. They were alone.
Six boys eyed him. He could feel them. Even before the door closed behind him, five of them, wisely, decided he wasn't worth it. The sixth attempted to get into his face. Ronon knew of him, if not his name. He was a commander's son, and was probably used to getting his own way. They were the same height, but Ronon had twice his reach.
“Don't get involved,” the boy said, his face mimicking something he probably saw from his father when the old man was looking dangerous. “Unless you want a turn.”
Ronon looked him up and down and dismissed him. It was calculated. They had the attention of those who weren't immediately molesting the boy Ronon wanted to help. Honour would demand retaliation for the dismissal, and Ronon wasn't wrong. The hair on the back of his neck told him the blow was coming. He blocked it with his crossed wrists, locked the arm in place, and whipped around. It was a simple matter of using his body as a lever, and the boy slammed against the wall, nose first. The sound of bone crunching echoed in the metal room.
Ronon went on his way. He picked up the one holding the small boy down by his collar, and tossed him aside casually. The boy, crouched down, hugging his knees as his only protection, looked up at him with huge eyes.
Ronon offered his hand, but not his name. The boy took it, and didn't offer his own. Afterwards, Ronon never saw him again.
They came for him at night. Strong hands held him down. The senior boys tattooed their juniors, marking them as one of their own, and for him the needle went deeper and slower than any of the others. It took three times as long, but no matter how long it took, no matter how many snide comments were made about how good he looked splayed out on his bed, Ronon was silent. They wanted to hear him cry out. They wanted him to beg. Ronon remained still, even when the hand tangled in his hair pulled so hard that he felt the roots all but pull free. He relaxed, forcing his body to just take the pain, and one by one, the hands slacked off, letting him go.
And one by one they paid, whenever he could corner them. They screamed and cried and begged him to let them go, and Ronon was disgusted by their weakness.
*
Kell paced his way around the three walls of one-way mirrors. The boys had mostly settled now, but there still was the occasional flare-up. He wasn`t the only commander pacing; Intelligence was there, making their picks. Munitions, even Transport was looking for their next new recruits.
The one that had smashed the other`s nose wasn`t sleeping. Kell didn`t expect he would. What was more, he seemed to be able to track where Kell was walking. It unnerved him as much as it excited him. “You. Secretary,” he called. One of the men holding the list of names scurried forward. “Who is that?”
The man didn't even have to consult his notes. “Ronon Dex,” he said. “He's been requested by ground force already.”
“Put him with me.”
“I can't do that. The request has already been made.”
Kell looked at the man, witheringly. The man tried to keep up the bluster, but it collapsed around him. “Of course, sir.”
The selection process went on another few hours, and Kell returned to his quarters. The young man in his bed was already snoring. Kell felt his mouth twitch. He was now officially bored with him.
II.
Years passed. Kell waited with anticipation for Ronon to finish his junior training and join him. The more news he got from Ronon’s growth, from his systematic revenge one bully at a time to his studies, impressed Kell more. Ronon wasn’t stupid. The stupid ones willingly swallowed what the government shoved down their throats. That wasn’t bad, per se, and it made them willing to fight and die blindly.
Kell preferred the ones that had some sense. The ones who knowingly opened their mouths, took what Kell had to offer, and still swallowed. Or spit. Whichever one they chose didn’t bother him at all.
Ronon had that air to him. The moment he stepped off the transport, Kell saw it. It separated him from all the other young men still a bit afraid. Junior training was nothing compared to what this was going to be. Here they’d see actual fighting and all the instructors had electrified training rods. Ronon didn’t show fear, not once. Where the others hunched their shoulders and studied dirt, Ronon looked around. It took him a moment to scan the higher ground, perfect for an ambush, and then he looked at Kell.
I know you, Kell thought, and that made him smile. Ronon blinked, once, and the tight set to his mouth relaxed. Apparently, he knew Kell as well.
This was going to be interesting.
And it was.
*
Kell pushed all the little grunts hard. They were fodder for the Wraith and nothing more, but Kell intended each and every one to be the most expensive piece of fodder the Wraith would ever purchase. He pushed Ronon the hardest, because Ronon could take it. More, when he looked into Ronon’s eyes, Kell saw that he wanted it. Craved it, in fact.
Within the first week of training, Ronon was squeezing off three shots in the kill zone in under a second. Any one of the other recruits would have climaxed in his leather uniform if he’d done half so well. Ronon’s shots weren’t in the dead centre of the target though, and he was obviously disappointed in that. Kell touched Ronon’s leg with his training rod, and let the juice flow from the release. The electrical current passed over Ronon’s thigh, and Ronon writhed in pain, jaw clenching hard enough to bring the muscles of his neck up in sharp relief. Then, as Kell expected, he relaxed completely into the pain and let it go.
Oh, yes. He knew Ronon, and Ronon knew he was known.
That he would fuck Ronon, on his back, driving him with Ronon’s legs wrapped around his waist and nothing protecting him from the still soft belly and throat, was a given. And because it was a given, Kell took his time.
Which made Ronon deliciously skittish around him. As the recruits lay out, practicing their long distance shots, he’d only have to run his cane up Ronon’s thighs, and without pressing the button, he saw Ronon shudder.
Then he hit the next three shots with accuracy that put the instructor to shame.
Perhaps it was time.
Ronon was the last one to stand as Kell walked away. With his back turned, however, Kell safely allowed himself to lick his lips. Other instructors of various ranks circled around the new blood like ravenous Oftars, but Ronon was his. And, as planned, eventually Ronon came to him.
Kell pushed open the door to his room that night, and there was Ronon, sitting on the edge of his bed. He’d filled out since he’d come to the centre. His shoulders were wide, his face leaner, but there was still that hungry, eager-to-please look that never last this long with other recruits.
Kell crossed his arm over his chest, waiting. Ronon began to pull on the leather tie holding his shirt closed. He pulled it off, with grace not often seen in young men still growing into their limbs, and without being told kicked off his boots.
“Stop,” Kell said. Ronon froze, his hands just touching his trousers. Kell walked over to the bed and kicked Ronon’s legs apart. Ronon sighed and leaned back on the bed, giving over. Kell ruthlessly tugged Ronon’s trousers off and threw them against the wall.
He spat in his hand. The grease was by the head of his bed, but that was far too far to go. The spit would make the fuck burn, but that was just the way it had to be. And Ronon took it. He squeezed his eyes shut at the initial entry. Ronon letting Kell see the flash of pain was a bigger gift than spreading his legs to begin with. Kell reached down, taking hold of Ronon’s hip where his mark was going to go, and he waited for Ronon’s breathing to return to where it should be. It was slow going, with victories measured in quarter inches, but eventually Ronon relaxed again.
And it was good. Once he was inside, all the signs of weakness left Ronon’s face. His erection, which had faded some during the entry, came back, hard and tight on his belly. Kell gathered it up, pumping it hard in time with his thrusts, and Ronon’s shoulders almost came off the bed.
The fuck went on for what seemed like hours. Ronon came three times, the first two almost back-to-back. The third was laboriously drawn out using every ounce of skill Kell had that wasn’t devoted to the battlefield.
That final time he’d pulled Ronon up and on his knees, face down into the military-issued pillows. Kell held onto his hips, driving himself so close to the edge that withholding the orgasm became painful. Ronon tensed the final time, fucking his own fist in time with Kell’s rhythm. Then they came together, the waves of the orgasm almost drowning them both.
Ronon stayed the night. And the next, and the next, long after Kell’s interest in the new recruits usually lasted once he had them. He took Ronon into the specialist group, long before any of the raw recruits, partly because Ronon was that good, and partly because he wanted Ronon close to him.
As a specialist, however, Ronon had home visiting privileges. Kell knew there was no way he could keep Ronon all to himself. And of course, from then, it was the usual story. Ronon, for once, became distracted and a little moody. He came back to Kell’s room, later than ever before, and took his own sweet time to take off his clothes.
Kell rolled onto his back and used the crook of his elbow as a headrest. Ronon climbed into bed, grabbed a handful of grease with him. It was cold on Kell’s already hard cock. It just made him harder. Ronon slid himself down Kell’s shaft slowly. His hands on Kell’s belly steadied himself, where a hundred and one times before he was just fine.
It was slow. Final, Kell wanted to say, but he didn’t even want to think the word. But it was over. Ronon rode him long and hard, pulling each orgasm from Kell until Kell felt as though his backbone was melting.
Ronon took the tattoo gracefully, but kept his face stony from the pain. Kell finished it and walked away.
III.
Melena saw the difference between the young boys who were taken away from their families and the young men who returned ten years later from their training. They were quieter, they moved as though they had to pay for any extraneous movement, and their eyes were colder. Many of them saw combat with the Wraith before they finished their training, and many of those didn’t live long enough to finish. It was a harsh life, but it made Sateda a tough, thorny prize that the Wraith only attempted in dire times.
She wasn’t the only young woman along at the market. With such high casualties, young women outnumbered the young men two to one. But she’d never been the type of girl to fall over anyone. Her mother’s stall gave her a good vantage point for the constant courtship around the town fountains, an exercise much like watching naffs scurry about their hill.
A young man approached her stall, walking alone when every other soldier was with his mate. He seemed young, despite the mandatory recruitment age, and while his face was motionless, his brown eyes were soft, like a puppy, and so familiar.
He said nothing, long past the time where it should have bordered creepy, but it wasn’t. He was observing her, and she, for once in her life, didn’t mind it at all. When he was looking at her, it was as though the entire market seemed to disappear behind them.
“Hello,” he said, managing to break his voice like water over gravel in that one word. It warmed her in places she didn’t know had heat inside.
“Ronon?” she asked, and suddenly she saw her neighbour’s son in this huge, hulking man’s body. It wasn’t right, he should have been posted in the middle of nowhere guarding their farms. There was a story there, and she knew she didn’t have a right to know. The men had their own code amongst themselves, one that involved closed doors during reunions. So she didn’t ask.
He nodded. It was a good thing that her mother was working with her that day, because she hustled Melena around the table and practically into Ronon’s arms. She’d stayed there ever since, almost right until the end.
And before the wedding, as the rest of his peers were being shipped off the garrisons over the entire planet, he became even more withdrawn. She and Ronon could be together, and yet rather than being pleased, it made him even more withdrawn. Then he returned to her one morning, early. Just below his throat was the mark of another. He never spoke about it, she never asked, and for a while, he was just hers.
*
It was a mistake to take down the hive ship, but that knowledge had only come in hindsight. Ronon knew -- Ronon had argued it to the highest level -- and that his commanding officer didn’t strike him down for his insolence told her whose mark Ronon wore.
The night before he made his devil’s bargain, trading everything they had for a ticket she had no intention of taking, she took out her needle kit.
He hadn’t said a word, but lay there quietly as she gave him her own mark. He was thinking he’d take it to his early grave, so that the dead could remember, but she knew he’d survive. He’d survive long after she would, when her mark would be nothing but one among many, but it would be there.
Afterwards, Ronon went right to sleep. She stayed awake. Tomorrow, she’d tell him she was staying. She kissed his forehead and shared their last night together.
IV.
When he was a child, he remembered losing his child’s teeth. He was never one to wait for nature to take its course. The moment he felt it even slightly wobble, he’d work it, first with his tongue, then with his fingers, despite the pain, despite the blood that filled his mouth, until he’d rip the tooth out of his mouth in triumph.
The tracking device in his back was kind of like that, but whereas before he was left with nothing with a gap-filled grin for a month or two before his adult tooth moved in, trying to cut the tracker out left him with chills and sweats.
Or worse.
He was in an empty world, so he risked a fire, though his hands shook as he gathered the deadfall from the forest. It was a cold night, but sweat ran down his forehead, dripping into his eyes. The lack of humans left the forest animals complacent, and one oddly shaped rodent thing was sloppy enough to let him bludgeon it to death with a piece of wood.
He skinned it, as delicately as he could so as to not waste a single shred of flesh, and cooked it over the fire.
Meat in his belly helped. It had been days. Or weeks, he wasn’t quite clear with the time. Despite the danger, despite the fact that he could be seen at least a mile away, he built the fire as high as he could and lay down close enough he could smell singed hair.
He closed his eyes, all but passing out rather than going to sleep, when he saw something flickering up the hillside. Instantly he came back to himself, gun in hand, and he supposed he wasn’t ready to give up quite yet. He called out a warning, and heard nothing back. A precious shot, using more energy than he wanted went unanswered, and he left the warmth of his fire to go investigate.
It was nothing but a cracked mirror, buried half into the dirt, reflecting nothing but his own fire back to him. He dusted it off, and studied his unfamiliar face all the way back to his camp. He didn’t recognize himself. His hair had been unruly before, but now it fell down his shoulders like a wild thing. His beard -- which he thought he’d kept under control -- was patchy, and his eyes were sunken.
And if didn’t recognize who he was, how could the dead?
He stoked up the fire, he needed light. His hands shook from the infection raging through him, but he didn’t need this to be beautiful. He had a pack, the one thing he’d brought with him, and he fingered the needle that Melena had used on his skin. The ink was dried now, and there was no way he could guarantee that it hadn’t gone bad and he’d be injecting more poison straight into his skin.
Not that that mattered, either. He put his name and rank, just under his jaw, so they would read that first, and the other two tattoos would matter. Then he slept.
When he woke up the next morning, the fever had broken. He swore at himself, for risking a fire right out in the open, but he walked down to the river and drank his fill. He still felt weak and shaky, but at least his hands had stopped trembling.
V.
For as hard as John worked to get Ronon on his team, there was no noticeable sign of appreciation. Not that John cared. It just felt instinctively good to have Ronon at his back.
Still, for the first while at least, he’d catch Ronon just looking at him. Measuring him. John had gone through enough senior officers himself to know the routine. He’d also had enough officers come across as nice guys only to see them completely fall apart time after time that he didn’t blame Ronon, either.
There was something else, and the expectation was thick in the air. John tried to ignore it, but that only seemed to make it worse.
It came to a head, literally and figuratively late one night, after the four of them had been out as a team. Rodney, for once, was quiet, and John excused himself to take him off to bed. They stopped just outside Rodney’s door. John raised his eyebrow, but Rodney waved him off and slammed the door shut, as much as one could slam a door that was automatic and sliding. John began to suspect Rodney had ... modified it somewhat. Still, the rejection didn’t sting. Rodney had almost been cloned that day, and it had been, if only slightly, John’s fault.
Rather than joining Teyla and Ronon again, John just went back to his room. He was there for almost an hour before someone knocked on the door. Although with the violence of it, it only be one person. John got up to answer the door, and was taken back by just how much of the doorway was taken up by Ronon.
John stepped back. “Help you with something?”
Ronon didn’t respond, not at first. He just took a step into the room, and the door slid shut behind him. Ronon’s arms were by his side, and he reminded John of one of the huge malamute dogs that had been brought to McMurdo. Unlike them, however, John doubted Ronon knew his own strength.
Not that John felt threatened, even though Ronon could have easily broken him in half. Ronon looked around the room, his gaze stopping at any of the various objects around the room. “You’re trying to recreate home,” Ronon stated.
It wasn’t a question. John nodded, regardless. “Human nature.”
“Human nature,” Ronon repeated. His eyes looked bruised. He wasn’t being mocking, it was just like he wanted to repeat the words.
John opened his mouth to agree, when Ronon dropped to his knees in front of him. John had three feet at least behind him, but he didn’t jump back. He was going to, any second now, but for a brief heartbeat his cock was doing all the thinking.
“This isn’t...exactly...” John searched for the right word. “Regulation.”
“On whose planet?” Ronon asked. He looked up, butting his hands on John’s hips. His mouth looked soft, and it would have been the easiest thing for John to unzip his slacks and give it to him. But that. Would be. Wrong.
How wrong? the slick voice in John’s head asked, but he took hold of Ronon’s wrists, tightening just enough that his knuckles started to go white.
“Not like this,” John said, his voice thick.
Ronon twisted, and he grabbed John’s wrists, holding him in place as much as John was trying to pull him up.
John stopped trying, he knew he couldn’t possibly pull Ronon up if Ronon didn’t want to. He wasn’t worried that Ronon was going to rape him with his mouth, despite the fact that his cock was all for that idea.
“We don’t... do this,” John began. “Not like this. Not because you think it’s owed.”
“Don’t play games with me, Sheppard,” Ronon growled.
A ridiculous laugh slipped out of John’s tightening throat. “I’m all for playing games,” he protested. “Games and I go way back. I’ve been playing games since I was sixteen, and to be quite honest, I have quite the rim shot myself. But I’m not going to do this.”
Ronon let go, and John stepped away. Ronon stared down at his wrists, and it took a long time for the white marks of his grip John had on his wrists to fade. He began pacing, and Ronon’s nostrils flared. He wondered if Ronon could actually smell how turned on he still was.
Ronon nodded to himself, silently. He stood up, as gracefully as he went down. “Mark me.”
“What?” John demanded.
“Put your mark on my skin, Sheppard. You see me as yours. I see it when you look at me. I want to wear yours.” Ronon stroked the tattoo on his throat.
John stopped pacing, and turned around. John could refuse, but then didn’t know what make Ronon feel...tethered. If this was the only thing that would ground him, John could do that. “All right,” he said, and saw Ronon’s shoulder’s relaxed. “But not here, for God’s sake. I may know a guy who knows a guy, but at least he uses clean needles.”
Ronon nodded and followed him out.
VI.
“They should be back by now,” Ronon growled.
Elizabeth looked up from the panel. “Ronon, that would mean more if you haven’t been saying it every twelve minutes since they left.”
Ronon looked at her, his brown eyes guarded. “They should have been back by now. I should have gone with them.”
“And cause another diplomatic nightmare?” Elizabeth demanded. “Hopefully this will teach you that prized birds owned by village elders are not target practice.”
“They had fangs,” Ronon said, as if that was the only defence he needed.
“Purely decorative, I’m told.”
Ronon snorted, and went back to pacing, as if to say she’d believe anything. He went twelve steps in one direction, spinning on his heels and went twelve steps in the other. His hand brushed up to the hilt of his gun, soothingly, as though to constantly remind himself it was there. Elizabeth crossed her arms over her chest when Ronon’s back was turned. In truth, she was worried. They were only there to escort the medical team so they could treat the chief’s oldest son’s broken leg, and they should have been back even if they were waiting for the plaster to dry.
“Send me in,” Ronon said. Now that he had a plan, he positively vibrated with energy. “What’s the worst that can happen?”
“After two years, you still ask me that?” Elizabeth asked. Despite herself, she was thoroughly tempted. Surely there couldn’t have been that many prized birds. Just as she was about to agree, the gate started to dial itself.
She looked to Chuck. “It’s Colonel Sheppard, Dr. Weir,” he said.
Ronon tensed. She wanted to tell him it was a standard off-world trip with a standard return time, but the hair on the back of her neck raised. She wasn’t wrong. The gate connected, and the medical team came in, all but carrying Teyla between them. Rodney came second to last, or at least she hoped he was second to last, and then, after a long, terrifying moment, Sheppard burst through the gate with a roll.
“Close the gate!” she said, and the iris slammed shut with several resounding huts. “What happened?”
“Language barrier,” Rodney said, spitting out the words. “When they said ‘help fix a broken leg’, they meant, ‘and by that, we mean please be our guest for the annual feed the birds the guts of our honoured guests who usually drink the citrus-flavoured drugged drink we so often give them.”
“Told you they were vicious,” Ronon said.
“Vicious? Their teeth went out to here!” Rodney snapped, and then tried to demonstrate using his forearms when his hands alone weren’t adequate.
“And Teyla?”
“She drank more of the drugs than I did,” John said. “She’ll come around.”
“I’ll expect a full debriefing,” Elizabeth said. “But for now, take Teyla to the infirmary.”
Ronon was vibrating on a different frequency now. All the panic and worry he’d been channelling during his pacing had diffused into something else, something that made him seem younger than he really was. He picked Teyla up as though she weighed nothing, and together they trooped down without any of the actual medics’ help. It looked as though John had sprained an ankle or a knee out there, and Rodney waited back for him, supporting his weight as if it was his right.
They disobeyed her. They disobeyed everyone, and did that which they wanted when they wanted to do it. But they were a team, more so than any of the other Stargate teams, and their love, in all its combinations and permutations, was obvious.
She went down to the infirmary an hour or so later once it became clear that the debriefing wouldn’t be happening until the morning. She poked her head into the ward, expecting to see one or two of them around Teyla’s small form in bed, but instead Teyla was sitting up, using Athosian tools to tattoo something on small of Ronon’s back. John’s shirt was already up, the new tattoo, if that was what that was, still shiny and pink against the small of his own back. Rodney was simultaneously complaining that whatever it was Teyla was using had to be hypoallergenic and scrubbing the small of his back with an alcoholic swab.
Elizabeth pulled the door closed behind her, and shook her head. A nurse came up to the door, and Elizabeth told her that perhaps coming back later was the best plan. The young woman peered through the window and blanched, suddenly remembering vials that had to be labelled in the storage room. Elizabeth watched her scurry off, and supposed that her best team left their marks everywhere.