Damaged Goods 2/?
Title: Damaged Goods
Fandom/Pairing: SGA, John Sheppard/Ronon Dex
Rating: PG-13 (will go up in future chapters)
Spoilers: Runner, Vegas
Summary: AU: Ronon's immune to the wraith. Detective John Sheppard doesn't die in the Las Vegas desert. It would probably be easier if the opposites of both were true.
A/N: Going ahead and posting the second chapter, too, 'cause I'm excitable like that.
Chapter 1: on AO3, DW or LJ
Chapter 2
Ronon doesn't stop to think about it. He's tried, but his mind shies away from it, wary of the precipice.
He's tried stopping, too, and he's failed every time. Instead, he increases his pace.
The wraith always come, and he always goes, and the ancestral ring is always right there, just out of reach. There's never time to think, he strikes blindly at the controls, another world, another chase, maybe this time he'll have enough lead on the wraith to sit for a minute, find something to stop the bleeding.
It's been days. He's almost certain it's been days since he's eaten, but the mere thought of food is enough to make him sick.
---
The wraith are never far behind, but he's gained some distance, this time. Enough to listen, to look. Ease sideways into the trees, scanning forward towards the village beyond the hill. There's no movement, no sound beyond wind and trees and birds, too fast to catch. He's moving too slowly, too clumsily. He's scaring off the food.
He has to sew himself back together; he needs thread, water and fire. There's no telling if he'll find any of them once he clears the edge of the forest- doesn't honestly know whether he'll reach the edge- but somehow, eventually, breathing too quickly, he does.
There's no movement in the village. It was culled a long time ago. Maybe he'll be lucky; maybe the villagers hadn't had enough time to run. Maybe they've left something behind. His chances are good; the village is large, spreads out for as far as he can see. Hundreds of houses and buildings and thousands of rooms and he's got no idea where to start, just lets his feet stumble towards it all.
The first building he reaches, it's too far gone to bother, so he crosses past, slipping around the corner and onto what used to be a street. Scanning carefully for movement, he sees the sign. Hospital. It's too far away, several blocks at least.
He's heading for it before he even realizes that he'd been able to read the sign's writing.
It's Satedan.
He should run, quick, before he draws the wraith any closer, but-
There's no one here left to die.
Somehow, he's the last one standing.
---
He can't think. Can't stop. Can't see through his watering as he staggers onwards.
The front of the hospital is all that's standing, the back, it's gone, he should've known, should've remembered- Melena, terrified and sad like she'd known what was coming, still surprised it was happening so soon as the blast hit. The fire and noise and-
There's no sign of that explosion, not in all the rubble from too many that came later. They might've come while he was still on the ground, before-
Stop.
He'd stayed away for so long, certain that it wouldn't have been worth the risk.
In the end, it hadn't mattered at all.
---
It's getting harder to see. The tears come as quickly as they're wiped away, and the strain of reorganizing concrete and brick and stone back into once-recognizable shapes that he can't even remember is a strain. He's got dark spots swimming in his vision from clenching his eyes too tightly against it all, and it hurts.
Shaking with the effort to even look again, he stumbles blindly into an alley, falls against a wall- not the best cover, but better than nothing and better than crossing to the house that might have more than two walls still standing. His heel slips on something rolling from underfoot, sending him crashing to the ground. It's too dirty, has too many plants coming up between the cracks, and the bolt casing he'd slipped on is still spinning on the concrete.
He wonders if he'd been the one who fired it. Can't remember if he'd even fought here, despite the years of dreaming it.
Breathe. Listen. Look.
Across the street, he's almost certain, is the tavern where he and Tyre boasted and drank too many nights away, thinking that they could afford them. The memories of beer and laughter are too much, too clear, more real than the shattered glass in the window, because this, here, what's in front of him can't be real.
Breathe.
He doesn't want to be here.
It's not worth getting up again.
He does anyway.
---
The river's shallow, now, dry in places where it shouldn't be, but even from here he can see the space where the dam once stood. By the time he can find water that's not completely stagnant, he doesn't have the energy to go back, look for a bucket or a bowl or a cup, he just drinks with his hands, splashes it on his face. Falls into it and comes up sputtering but not clean.
It's not enough. His clothes are sodden, heavy, he's forgotten how to work the closures to get the coat off, his arms can't support the weight as he drops it on dry land, next to his blaster. The movement tears something open in his arm and the trickling alongside his ribs is too warm to be water. The stitches were infected anyway. It's for the best.
Maybe this is enough. He's home. Maybe his body will finally just stop.
He can't look at the wreckage any more, so he turns his face to the sky and lies back. His coat's the same pillow it's always been, but there's water running over his legs. The sky, at least, looks the same as he's always imagined it. Looks like it might start to rain, soon.
He's just so tired
---
The explosions in his head aren't real, they're just memories, dreams. It's the sound of the gate, as always, that wakes him. It's not until he hears something like an echo that he realizes he's spoken his curses aloud for the first time in remembered history; it's jarring, distracting enough that he doesn't even realize why it's happened before he's on his feet, clearing the riverside, dragging his coat heavily over his uninjured shoulder.
The bent metal and stone ahead sorts itself out, becomes the base of the bridge heading out towards the barracks- waiting, one night, to find out if Melena would come and meet him, pulse racing and palms sweating.
This time, though, it's not Melena waiting for him, coming for him, it's wraith.
He checks the too-low charge on his blaster, and runs.
---
At some point, the rain starts, slowing his steps, making him heavy. He can abandon the coat, find something else later, he can still make it if he gets around this corner-
-he slips again. Lands hard on his knees. His elbow slips out from under him in the cold mud.
They've flanked him, surrounded him.
They've won.
---
Trying to get away and failing utterly, he doesn't know his own thoughts, only the red, the fear and the anger. Gravel underneath as he's dragged onto the ship. Hands on him, stripping him of everything, shoving and dragging and pulling at him but he won't come apart. A gnarled fist in his hair jerks his head back painfully, the knife glinting as it comes so close to his throat, but there's no relief, just another pull, and between the darkness and his swollen eyes, he can't see, but he hears the clicking of the beads in his hair, coming from too far away.
The wraith has his trophy.
They can't feed on him, and don't even try, but they aren't killing him, either.
They never do. He'll never beg.
More shoving, falling back into something that doesn't quite give, and he forces his eyes open to find the wraith grinning at him wildly. He's pressing a clawed hand against the scar on Ronon's chest, holding him into place as the pod's tendrils wrap first around his ankles and wrists, his ineffective struggling pulling them tighter. The wraith's breath is still rancid, too cold on his damp skin, but he can't move away, can only keep his head up because of the tendrils winding through his hair, around his shoulders and throat. Through it all, that hand's pressed against his chest, right up until the membrane begins to form and starts to solidify.
Chapter 3