Voices Drowned in Tears [1/3] by cinaed (R)
Title: Voices Drowned in Tears
Author: cinaed
Rating: R
Pairing(s): Sheppard/McKay, possibly Weir/Zelenka
Warning: AU, futuristic, genetic 'powers', slash, character death
Summary: In the future, the universe is ruled by an Oligarchy. When a group of terrorists decide to kidnap the Oligarchs' children to gain political sway and attack the Pegasus Institute, things get very interesting.
Author Note's: I am new to the fandom. So new, in fact, that this is my first story. I would appreciate any constructive criticism. ^_^ This is unbeta'd.
Voices Drowned in Tears
Part One
Sumner should have known better. Honestly. The man is supposed to be smart. Most days, though, it is all Lorne can do to scream in his face, “How the hell did you get to be the principal of Pegasus Institute, the best training station in the galaxy?” Most days he doesn’t because, well, he likes his job, and also because he’s certain someone will correct him and say, ‘It’s a school, Lorne, not a training station for the military,” even though seventy percent of the students are going onto military careers, and then he really will snap and use his military training to kill someone.
Lorne doesn’t understand it, how he’s the only one to see the disaster coming from a mile away. He openly gawks at Sumner when the man informs him that, as the head of the physical education department, it is his duty to tell the students that they are expected to pass these physical examinations. Oh, and that if they failed, they would have to repeat the entire class. It doesn’t seem to matter that about ten percent of the students have absolutely no hope of passing it, no matter how hard they try.
It’s a stupid idea, and he tells Sumner that as soon as there’s a pause during the meeting. Of course, that only earns a sharp look and a, “I think I know what’s best, Lorne,” but he has to try.
A little over a week later, Lorne sighs and stares. It’s only the second lap of five, but he’s already watching several stragglers beginning to turn bright red from their exertions as they round the track. He had at least asked the school’s Artificial Intelligence to modify the conditions of the gymnasium to make it seem like a cool, pleasant day, and Atlantis had complied. Unfortunately, the pleasant weather doesn’t seem to be helping some of the group, judging by the bone-rattling gasps he can hear even without using his sonokinesis.
“You’re almost done!” he calls, trying to be encouraging, and doesn’t blame several of the students for shooting him dirty looks. “Almost halfway there!” he amends, and now some of them look ready to kill him with their eyes. It’s really too bad that a few of them have that particular power, and he swallows and decides to shut the hell up.
Then he squints, and scowls suspiciously. A certain senior is running in the middle of the group, moving with an easy loping grace that Lorne knows for certain isn’t right. After all, for all his genius, Rodney McKay is not athletic. (Or particularly graceful.) And he knows for a fact that Rodney should, by all reason, be with the stragglers, huffing, wheezing, and complaining -- loudly -- about how he has a medical condition and shouldn’t be forced to do these ridiculous and barbarous tasks.
Lorne sighs. Yep, definitely a disaster, because this was going to be hell. He just watches the boy run for another moment, steels himself, and then bellows, “All right, McKay, get your ass over here! Or rather, Sheppard, get McKay’s ass over here. Now!”
That easy loping falters for a moment, and then the boy turns and flashes him a bright, unrepentant grin, one which doesn’t belong on that particular face, which already has wrinkles on its forehead from constant frowning.
“Aw, c’mon, Lorne. You know Rodney can’t pass this,” the boy drawls, and even though Lorne has taught Rodney McKay and John Sheppard for a couple years now, Rodney’s face with John’s drawl coming from his mouth still continues to creep him out. “The examinations are a joke, anyway.”
Lorne just snorts at that, and turns to beckon over the other culprit, who is wearing Rodney’s scowl on John’s usually good-natured face and sitting in the stands. He feels a headache coming on, and before Rodney can start sniping with John’s voice and continue to creep him out, says, “Just because McKay has the ability to switch bodies doesn’t mean he can get away with cheating on these physical examinations, guys!” He points a stern finger at Rodney. “Back in your own body. Now.”
Rodney sighs and grumbles, but complies, placing a hand on the other boy’s shoulder. There is a moment of tension on both of the boys’ faces, something that is almost a wince, and then Rodney’s face is wearing his trademark sullen expression and John’s eyes are filled with his usual good humor.
“You two are seeing Sumner,” Lorne sighs, and waves a hand at them both. “Go. I’m marking you both down as Incomplete. You two can retake the test once he’s done chewing you out.”
“I’ll see Sumner all right,” Rodney mutters. “I’ll see him and tell him how ridiculous these examinations are. I mean, what’s the point? I am going to be a scientist, not a military zombie like other people I could mention.”
John grins affably and slings an arm around Rodney’s shoulder, leading him away from Lorne, thank God, and hopefully towards Sumner’s office. (Lorne wouldn’t put it past the two troublemakers to skip out on getting a lecture from the man, trying to delay the inevitable.) “Yeah, well, sorry, Rodney. Some of us prefer being zombies rather than nerds. Zombies are just cool.”
Lorne just sighs and then turns back towards the group, knowing at least no one else would resort to doing anything dishonorable--
“Damn it, Cadman, using your telekinesis to fly around the track is cheating!”
*
“This is utter crap,” Rodney gripes for the third time in the past five minutes, and John rolls his eyes. “Oh, shut up. You know you’re not going to get into trouble. You’re the one with the famous father. ‘Look, I’m John Sheppard. My father’s an Oligarch. Oh, yeah, those Oligarchs, the folks who rule the galaxy. Cool, huh? I can get away with anything!’ I can’t wait to see Sumner grow some balls and finally take you down--”
John shakes his head. “You know, I was trying to help you out. You could try being grateful for once,” he comments, and this time it’s Rodney who rolls his eyes, and John tunes him out as the other boy launches into another rant about how ridiculous the physical examinations are.
Instead, he just watches color suffuse his friend’s indignant expression, and the way those elegant hands are currently being waved everywhere (including in John’s face, but they’ve been friends long enough for John to know not to flinch). He resists the urge to shake his head ruefully, not for the first time over the years wondering how the hell he’d ended up with Rodney McKay as his best friend. Hell, John’s not quite certain how in the galaxy they became friends, period. Oh, he knows when they became friends, he’s not quite sure what caused that temporary insanity.
(He’d been five and just sent to the school to begin schooling, because Pegasus Institute was the best of the best. Rodney had stolen his favorite toy gun and hit him over the head with it for bragging about his father being an Oligarch, and then hadn’t cried when John had retaliated by giving him a bloody nose. That’d earned John’s respect, and so John had given him the gun and never bragged about his father again.)
John sighs when he realizes they’ve walked down the school’s corridors and are at Sumner’s office. Why did time fly whenever they were marching to their doom? “Might as well get this over with,” he says, interrupting Rodney mid-sentence and getting a glare directed at him for his audacity. “Hey, you never know. Sumner could grow some balls--”
“Grow what?” a cool and distinctly unamused voice inquires from behind him, and John closes his eyes as Rodney smirks and says, “I believe he said ‘balls,’ Principal Sumner.”
“Shut up, McKay,” Sumner snaps, and John doesn’t have to open his eyes to know that the smirk has slid off Rodney’s face to be replaced by a glower. “What have you two done now?”
“Nothing,” John and Rodney protest as one, and John finally opens his eyes as Sumner opens the door to his office and shoots them both a thoroughly unconvinced look.
“Inside. Now.”
“This is entirely your fault, you know,” Rodney mutters to him as they enter the principal’s office (or Sumner’s lair of doom, as Rodney has so fondly dubbed it), and John just shoots him a half-smile. Sure, it was his fault that Rodney had bribed him to switch bodies for the physical examinations. And pigs could fly.
(Okay, that one experiment thirty years back doesn’t count, because the pigs hadn’t so much flown as hovered for a second before plummeting back to the ground with affronted squeals.)
*
Elizabeth Weir sighs and frowns at her plate. You’d think, what with Pegasus Institute being such a prominent school, they might have better food, but no, the cooks here simply cannot make Chinese food. It is one of the few things she misses about Earth, one of the few things that make her wish she wasn’t on the opposite end of the galaxy getting her much-lauded education. At least she can gorge herself on Chinese food whenever there’s a vacation.
She sighs and adds a large amount of soy sauce.
“I can’t believe we’re both going to have to repeat the class and retake the damn test anyway.”
She looks up, recognizing that indignant tone anywhere. “I can’t believe you thought you’d get away with it,” she comments, and cannot help but smile a little as Rodney huffs and collapses into the seat across from her.
“I told John to stay with the stragglers, pretending to puff and pant all the way until the last moment, when ‘I’ would gather a sudden second wind and manage to finish the mile with a few seconds to spare, but he didn’t follow through with the plan.”
John looks thoroughly unrepentant as he slides into the seat next to Elizabeth. “I thought you’d do okay for like a lap or two and then start puffing. Not my fault Lorne caught on.”
“See, this is why you shouldn’t think,” Rodney says scathingly, and Elizabeth does a mental roll of her eyes. Boys.
“Mr. Lorne is smarter than you two give him credit for,” she comments, and then attempts to daintily eat her noodles, even if Chinese was hard to be dainty with. Putting on her best ‘class president’ voice, she adds, “Besides, cheating is--”
“All right if you get away with it?” Aiden Ford comments, sliding into the seat next to Rodney and grinning cheekily as Elizabeth narrows her eyes.
“Wrong,” she says with careful emphasis, but Aiden just grins at her and begins chugging his drink nonchalantly. After a moment, she sighs and turns back to Rodney, who is still looking sulky. “Rodney, you need to get me the details on what the Science Club needs for next semester. And don’t gripe about how I should talk to Peter. He’s the treasurer, you’re the president.” She pauses, and sighs. “And be reasonable with the amount this time.”
Rodney snorts. “Not my fault if Sumner gave you a hard time about the cost of the experiments last semester. Sacrifices, especially monetary sacrifices -- though not out of my own pocket, mind you -- must be made in the name of science.”
She stares at him wearily. “Rodney, last semester you and your fellow ‘scientists’ made a bomb and almost got expelled.”
That, perversely, makes Rodney perk up and forget about his latest misfortune, at least for the moment. “Oh yeah, you should have seen Sumner’s face. He was livid.” The scowl returns to his face in the next moment. “I can’t believe Kavanaugh ratted us out.”
“Rodney,” Aiden says slowly, “you built a bomb.”
Rodney folds his arms against his chest and rolls his eyes. “It wasn’t a working model! I happen to value my life too much to build an actual bomb with only the school’s equipment, thank you very much. Besides, I’d been itching to build one ever since sixth grade.”
John and Elizabeth share a ‘It’s Rodney, what can you do?’ look as Aiden just stares and looks to be contemplating if he really wants to sit with a teenager who can build bombs.
“Is it all right if I sit with you?” a quiet voice asks, and Elizabeth looks up, blinking. She tries to put a name with the face, but all she remembers is that the girl smiling tentatively at them is a new student from a planet called Athos.
“Sure,” Aiden says, flashing a welcoming grin.
She smiles almost shyly back.
John looks up and smiles, recognition lighting up his eyes. “Teyla, isn’t it?”
She nods, brushing several strands away from her face, her smile growing slightly wider. “That is correct. Teyla Emmagan, of the planet Athos. I will be here until I graduate.”
“I’m Elizabeth Weir, senior class president,” Elizabeth says, and offers a hand with a smile, and Teyla stares blankly, before smiling and accepting it. Elizabeth is puzzled for a moment before she recalls from history class that some of the non-Earth cultures have different ways of greeting. She will have to ask Teyla what a proper greeting is on Athos.
“John Sheppard, senior,” John drawls, and extends his hand as well, which Teyla shakes a tad less nervously. He gives her a wink, and Elizabeth resists the urge to sigh. No doubt, John’s used some of his telempathic abilities on her already, to make her feel welcome, and that’s why Teyla decided to sit here.
Aiden is looking a bit too eager for that handshake, and Elizabeth has the urge to kick him in the shin (subtly, of course) and tell him he’s laying it on a little thick as he says brightly, “Aiden Ford, sophomore,” and thrusts out his hand. Still, his overeager smile seems to amuse Teyla, because her expression is slightly less guarded as she reaches out and accepts the handshake.
There is silence for a moment, during which the group looks expectantly over at a certain senior, who is currently scowling at his plate of food. “Oh, fine. Rodney McKay, senior,” he mutters, and busies his hands with peeling apart a sandwich in search of…something, probably citrus, and refuses to look up.
“It’s nice to meet you all,” she says pleasantly, and Rodney’s snort changes to a sound of pain as Elizabeth kicks him in the shins.
Teyla shoots Rodney a puzzled look, but doesn’t ask as Rodney scowls and shoots a glare at John, who assumes an expression of innocence.
It’s really too bad that John’s look of pseudo-innocence and actual innocence are one and the same, because a second later he’s wincing and glaring icily at Rodney. “I didn’t do anything, McKay,” he snaps, and Rodney yelps again as John apparently retaliates.
Teyla is obviously trying to hide a smile behind her drink, but her eyes are sparkling with amusement at the boys’ antics, and she shoots a look over at Elizabeth that clearly reads: Are they always like this?
“So, why -- and how -- did you transfer here? I mean, that’s pretty unusual, isn’t it?”
Elizabeth frowns at Aiden’s prying, but truth be told, it is unusual. Most students remained at the same school from the age of five or six until they graduated and went on to the various universities. It was once in a blue moon that they got fresh blood, and even rarer to get fresh blood for the high school section of the school.
An expression Elizabeth can’t quite name flickers across Teyla’s face, but after a moment, the slight smile is back, and she is explaining in a calm, pleasant voice, “Oh, it was decided that with my Gift, I should attend a more prestigious school.”
“Your power, you mean?” Aiden says, looking interested. “Is it something as rare as Rodney’s?”
Teyla gives a slight shrug. “I do not know what type of Gift Rodney has, but I am a chronokinetic.”
Rodney finally looks up at that, and his expression is one of interest. Then again, of course he’s interested. Rodney is fascinated by evolution of the human species and the fact that only two hundred years ago, powers like chronokinesis and telepathy were only real in comic books. And when a power as rare chronokinesis showed up, well, it apparently made Rodney’s day. “Really? How advanced? Can you actually stop time, or simply slow it down? And can you focus on just one person or do it to an entire room? Oh, do you--”
And Rodney’s off on a tangent, with Teyla blinking bemusedly at him and the rest of the group hiding grins behind their hands.
*
“A chronokinetic. Can you imagine?” Rodney’s voice is bright and filled with enthusiasm, and he’s apparently forgotten all about Sumner’s punishment. “I’m going to have to tell the Science Club about this.”
John shakes his head. “So they can poke and prod her? Give the girl a break, Rodney. Give her a couple weeks before you all start testing her power. She’s new.”
Rodney frowns, and when John just raises an eyebrow, mutters a sullen, “Fine. I’ll give her a month, but then we’re going to see what the extent of her power is.” He brightens again. “Can you imagine being able to stop time?”
“No more than I can imagine how it feels to be able to jump from body to body with the touch of a finger,” John drawls. “And we’ve switched bodies enough times that I know the back of your hand like it’s my own.” He grins at Rodney’s rolled eyes. “Come on, it’s time for science. How much do you want to bet Parrish comes in late?”
Rodney snorts. “That man would spend his entire time in the botanical garden if Sumner would allow it. How many classes has he shown up late for? Oh, that’s right, every single one.” He snorts again and mutters something that sounds like, ‘He’s so lucky he’s got tenure.’
“You know you like his class,” John says, and the other boy sniffs and doesn’t answer, which means John’s right but Rodney isn’t going to admit it. He grins and wraps a casual arm across the other boy’s shoulders. “Hey, Carson was talking about having a movie night this Friday. Watching some classics.”
“Ugh, not another marathon of something terrible like The Terminator,” Rodney groans. “Please, at least watch something mildly interesting, like--”
“Star Trek?” John suggests all too innocently.
“Star Trek is a true classic. I mean, look at the issues it discussed that we actually had to deal with once we actually made it outside our solar system and….” Rodney’s voice fades to a soft, insistent buzzing in the back of his head, which is oddly soothing in its own way, and John just smiles and nods all the way to Biology.
*
Sumner sighs and slumps down into his chair, pinching the bridge of his nose. What was he supposed to tell Oligarch Sheppard when he called for his weekly inquiry into his son? Some days, he was tempted to tell the man that his son was a troublemaking idiot who was going to get any squadron he led into trouble. (It was days like those that he had to remind himself that the Oligarch could have him killed with a snap of his fingers.)
“Sumner?”
He looks up and raises an eyebrow. “Lorne? I’ve already handled the situation with McKay and Sheppard.”
There’s an ironic smile on Lorne’s lips at that, but thankfully the man doesn’t comment, just waves a piece of paper and says matter-of-factly, “Here’s the list of the students who couldn’t pass the physical examination.” He waits a beat, and the ironic, knowing smile on his lips widens. “Would you like to know how many are going to have to repeat the course, sir?”
“Lorne,” he says with a growl, “I really--” The floor gives a sudden, convulsive shudder beneath his chair, and he grabs onto his desk for support, and watches as Lorne stumbles, arms wind-milling for a moment before he stands steady again. “What the hell was that?”
Lorne just stares, and then they both look up as Bates’ voice fills the room, radiating from the crystal on Sumner’s desk. “Sir, sir, we’ve got…a problem.” The usually unflappable head of security is sounding rattled, and Sumner’s frown deepens as he hears Bates clear his throat. “Code 453, sir. Looks like they’re in the high school section. Don’t know how many.”
There is a moment of dizzying horror, where Sumner is tempted to ask Bates to repeat that, but he knows he heard the man clearly. “Damn,” he breathes out, and presses a hand to the crystal. It glows under his touch, and he almost snarls, “Activate Emergency Action 732, immediately. Bates, see if you can get there before there’s a hostage situation.”
“Hostage situation?” Lorne says blankly, and Sumner sighs as he reaches into a drawer and pulls out a gun and begins to quickly load it.
“Code 453, Lorne. Terrorists,” he says in a flat voice, and before Lorne’s expression can even change, Sumner is out the door and running as quickly as he can, even as the soft, calm voice that is Atlantis purrs, “Emergency Action 732 initiated,” and then in a loud voice, still calm, but this time with a firmness that Sumner can feel in his bones, “All students and teachers are to remain in their rooms. If you are outside a room, please get to the nearest available classroom or bathroom and give your DNA for identification to be allowed entry. This is not an option. All students and teachers are to remain in their rooms….”
*
Parrish pauses in mid-sentence, and squints in bemusement up at the ceiling, where Atlantis’ voice is seemingly coming from.
“That’s…odd,” he says after a moment, frowning a little and looking at his class. The seniors stared back, looking as confused as he was himself. “I didn’t realize there was an emergency drill today.” He glances at the calendar, but no, he was fairly certain that Sumner had mentioned having a drill halfway through the semester, not three weeks into classes.
“It isn’t a drill,” a hollow voice says suddenly, and several of the students twist in their seats to stare at Elizabeth, whose eyes have suddenly gone large and dark, the pupils swallowing up the color. Parrish watches her face go white and inwardly winces, grateful that he has a much less painful (not to mention less frightening) power.
“Elizabeth?” John reaches out a tentative hand, but snatches it back as Elizabeth shudders, her entire body almost seeming to seize up for a moment.
“There is no emergency drill,” she says in the same hollow voice that she always uses when having one of her visions. “They’re here. They’re here and they bring destruction and blood, death and grief.” She twists in her seat and stares with those empty eyes at the door, and despite the fear cramping his stomach, Parrish slowly turns to peer at the door as well.
He has a sudden fierce longing for his garden. If he was there, he wouldn’t have heard Elizabeth’s prediction of doom, would have been tending to the flowers until whoever was here had burst in on the garden and brought whatever destruction with them. Until then, he could have been happily oblivious to his fate.
“Who are they, Elizabeth?” he asks, and she turns to look at him, the premonition already beginning to leave her, because there is a hint of fear in her voice as she answers, “The Genii.”
Parrish frowns. Genii. It had a familiar ring to it, but--
“That terrorist group?” Rodney says sharply, and yes, that’s why it had sounded familiar. Rodney is looking pale and anxious. “Why are the Genii here?”
“I…” Elizabeth slumps a little in her chair, holding her head and grimacing. “I don’t know…. We just…we have to--”
And then suddenly there is something like a loud, piercing scream that makes everyone double over and grit their teeth as the sound rattles their bones and shakes their very breath from them.
It takes a moment before Parrish realizes that there was no one screaming, that it had actually been the sound of metal being twisted away instead. He watches in a mixture of awe and horror as the door frame is somehow carved out of the wall, and then suddenly there are a dozen armed men pouring into the room like some terrifying human flood.
Parrish holds up his hands, and begins, hardly recognizing his own voice, for he’s gone high and squeaky in fear, hardly knowing what he’s saying, “Please, they’re just children, don’t hurt them--”
One of the men points a gun at him and Parrish has a second to think wistfully of the botanical garden, where his plants are waiting for him, before the man squeezes the trigger. He has one final moment before the darkness, but that is spent thinking of the irony -- the blast that hits his chest is a brilliant, verdant shade.
*
It all seems to happen in slow motion. One minute they are sitting there, staring at Elizabeth after her morbid, doomsday proclamation, and the next the door is on the floor and so is Parrish, his body convulsing and his mouth half-open, caught again mid-sentence, an eerie green light covering his body. There is the smell of smoke and something burned, and Rodney wants to vomit when he realizes it’s Parrish’s burned flesh that he is smelling.
All Rodney can do is stare, even as the armed men point their guns at the students and one says in a deceptively mild voice, “Nobody move.” This works, because Rodney is frozen, all his blood turned to ice in his veins, and he’s not certain if he’s even breathing anymore as he just stares at Parrish while the green light finally ebbs to nothing.
“Oh my Lord!” The exclamation comes from Carson Beckett, accent thickened by fear and shock, and from the corner of his eye, Rodney can see the pallor of the other boy’s face. One of the men growls threateningly when Carson moves, but no one is trigger-happy this time as Carson scrambles over and drops to his knees next to Parrish’s still twitching form. “Mr. Parrish, Mr. Parrish!”
A second later, Carson’s hands are over the smoking ruin that had been Parrish’s chest only a minute ago, and he is gritting his teeth, his fingers giving off a pure white glow as he begins to carefully fix the damaged area. Rodney knows for a fact that he’s never done anything this complicated before, because when John had broken his leg during a stupid stunt last semester, Carson had gone white and babbled something about not having learned how to knit bones back together yet with his biokinesis, and Rodney had been forced to half-carry John to the infirmary.
You wouldn’t know Carson was inexperienced now, the way his eyes are half-shut in concentration, a muscle jumping in his jaw as he croons, “Come on, Mr. Parrish, come on, that’s a good man, just hang on, let me patch you back up, aye, that’s the spirit, just like that….”
“A biokinetic, eh?” one of the Genii mutters, and some of the ice in Rodney’s veins melts enough for him to turn his head and eye the man who had spoken. Was that why they were here? To grab students with particular powers? Rodney feels nauseous at the thought. There are so many here who would be useful to the Genii. Elizabeth, with her clairvoyance, Carson, with his biokinesis, that new girl with her chronokinesis, even Aiden with his--
“There we go, sir, all patched up and….” Carson starts to murmur, and then slowly slumps over, face completely ashen and eyes rolling into the back of his head. The overexerted biokinetic lands partially on Parrish, who groans and starts to open his eyes.
The trigger-happy gunman points his gun at Parrish and says coldly, “Be quiet and stay there.”
Parrish moans softly again, an expression of confusion on his waxen features, and then apparently loses consciousness again, eyes fluttering shut. Rodney almost envies him, because now the man is oblivious to the fact that there are twelve men with guns pointed at them.
No one says anything for a long moment, and then the trigger-happy one turns to the gunman with the deceptively mild voice, and says, “Would you like to do the honors, sir?”
The man with the deceptively mild voice has an equally mild smile, though one that doesn’t meet his eyes, and he nods.
Rodney feels his heart stop beating as the terrorist announces, “It’s very simple, really. We’re here for one person, and then we’ll be out of your hair. If John Sheppard would stand up we can avoid any further…unpleasantness.”
Again, time seems to slow down again, and Rodney vaguely wonders if Teyla is messing around with her powers, but he knows it’s just shock. Still, the slowness gives him time to watch John’s expression shift from one of half-fear, half-anger, to astonishment, and then another half-look, this one a mixture of scorn and defiance.
“If you think my father is going to do anything for you because you have me, you’re wrong,” he says, and of course, that’s why they’re here. Of course they want one of the Oligarchs’ children, and Rodney can only watch in horror as John gets to his feet, and shoots them an icy, contemptuous smile. “It was a good plan. You just picked the wrong Oligarch to mess with. My father is willing to sacrifice my life for the good of the galaxy.”
“We’ll see,” the leader of the Genii says, sounding unconvinced, and the gunmen close in around John like some sort of deadly entourage. And John is just standing there, wearing his normal causal smirk, like he isn’t about to be kidnapped and possibly killed, like this is just another fucking day at Pegasus.
“John,” he hears himself say, and John’s gaze flicks towards him, and the bastard has the audacity to quirk an eyebrow. He wonders at the sound of his own voice, because he sounds calm, when he’s anything but. “John.”
“Rodney,” John says, equally calm, and there isn’t a flicker of fear in his eyes when Rodney stares at him. God, was John even human? He gives a quick shrug and another one of his casual smirks. “So long, I guess.”
“John,” he says again, and somehow, between one breath and the next, he squeezes between two of the Genii, ignoring their growls of warning, and then his hands are on John’s shoulders, which are tense (and maybe that’s where John’s hidden his terror), and John is looking at him in surprise. Then Rodney is kissing him, quick and hard and desperate, not at all like he’d fantasized about, but he supposes beggars can’t be choosers.
The shoulders beneath his hands jump a little. Yes, Rodney thinks, be surprised, be stunned silent, and then squeezes his eyes shut, deepens the kiss, and concentrates. There is a dizzying moment of disorientation that always comes with using his power, and when he breaks the kiss, it is like he’s staring into a mirror, albeit he has never seen his face this flushed or his eyes this wide.
“No,” John breathes, looking horrified. “You just…you….”
Rodney has been in John’s form enough times to manage a good imitation of his trademark casual smirk, and so he pastes it on his face. “So long, Rodney,” he says, and then turns, quirking an eyebrow at the leader of the Genii. “I’m telling you, this isn’t going to work.”
He sees a flicker of something in the leader’s eyes, and really should have seen the pressure on his neck coming, but somehow he didn’t, and is certain he looks startled as expert fingers dig in and he loses consciousness.
[TBC]
Author: cinaed
Rating: R
Pairing(s): Sheppard/McKay, possibly Weir/Zelenka
Warning: AU, futuristic, genetic 'powers', slash, character death
Summary: In the future, the universe is ruled by an Oligarchy. When a group of terrorists decide to kidnap the Oligarchs' children to gain political sway and attack the Pegasus Institute, things get very interesting.
Author Note's: I am new to the fandom. So new, in fact, that this is my first story. I would appreciate any constructive criticism. ^_^ This is unbeta'd.
Voices Drowned in Tears
Part One
Sumner should have known better. Honestly. The man is supposed to be smart. Most days, though, it is all Lorne can do to scream in his face, “How the hell did you get to be the principal of Pegasus Institute, the best training station in the galaxy?” Most days he doesn’t because, well, he likes his job, and also because he’s certain someone will correct him and say, ‘It’s a school, Lorne, not a training station for the military,” even though seventy percent of the students are going onto military careers, and then he really will snap and use his military training to kill someone.
Lorne doesn’t understand it, how he’s the only one to see the disaster coming from a mile away. He openly gawks at Sumner when the man informs him that, as the head of the physical education department, it is his duty to tell the students that they are expected to pass these physical examinations. Oh, and that if they failed, they would have to repeat the entire class. It doesn’t seem to matter that about ten percent of the students have absolutely no hope of passing it, no matter how hard they try.
It’s a stupid idea, and he tells Sumner that as soon as there’s a pause during the meeting. Of course, that only earns a sharp look and a, “I think I know what’s best, Lorne,” but he has to try.
A little over a week later, Lorne sighs and stares. It’s only the second lap of five, but he’s already watching several stragglers beginning to turn bright red from their exertions as they round the track. He had at least asked the school’s Artificial Intelligence to modify the conditions of the gymnasium to make it seem like a cool, pleasant day, and Atlantis had complied. Unfortunately, the pleasant weather doesn’t seem to be helping some of the group, judging by the bone-rattling gasps he can hear even without using his sonokinesis.
“You’re almost done!” he calls, trying to be encouraging, and doesn’t blame several of the students for shooting him dirty looks. “Almost halfway there!” he amends, and now some of them look ready to kill him with their eyes. It’s really too bad that a few of them have that particular power, and he swallows and decides to shut the hell up.
Then he squints, and scowls suspiciously. A certain senior is running in the middle of the group, moving with an easy loping grace that Lorne knows for certain isn’t right. After all, for all his genius, Rodney McKay is not athletic. (Or particularly graceful.) And he knows for a fact that Rodney should, by all reason, be with the stragglers, huffing, wheezing, and complaining -- loudly -- about how he has a medical condition and shouldn’t be forced to do these ridiculous and barbarous tasks.
Lorne sighs. Yep, definitely a disaster, because this was going to be hell. He just watches the boy run for another moment, steels himself, and then bellows, “All right, McKay, get your ass over here! Or rather, Sheppard, get McKay’s ass over here. Now!”
That easy loping falters for a moment, and then the boy turns and flashes him a bright, unrepentant grin, one which doesn’t belong on that particular face, which already has wrinkles on its forehead from constant frowning.
“Aw, c’mon, Lorne. You know Rodney can’t pass this,” the boy drawls, and even though Lorne has taught Rodney McKay and John Sheppard for a couple years now, Rodney’s face with John’s drawl coming from his mouth still continues to creep him out. “The examinations are a joke, anyway.”
Lorne just snorts at that, and turns to beckon over the other culprit, who is wearing Rodney’s scowl on John’s usually good-natured face and sitting in the stands. He feels a headache coming on, and before Rodney can start sniping with John’s voice and continue to creep him out, says, “Just because McKay has the ability to switch bodies doesn’t mean he can get away with cheating on these physical examinations, guys!” He points a stern finger at Rodney. “Back in your own body. Now.”
Rodney sighs and grumbles, but complies, placing a hand on the other boy’s shoulder. There is a moment of tension on both of the boys’ faces, something that is almost a wince, and then Rodney’s face is wearing his trademark sullen expression and John’s eyes are filled with his usual good humor.
“You two are seeing Sumner,” Lorne sighs, and waves a hand at them both. “Go. I’m marking you both down as Incomplete. You two can retake the test once he’s done chewing you out.”
“I’ll see Sumner all right,” Rodney mutters. “I’ll see him and tell him how ridiculous these examinations are. I mean, what’s the point? I am going to be a scientist, not a military zombie like other people I could mention.”
John grins affably and slings an arm around Rodney’s shoulder, leading him away from Lorne, thank God, and hopefully towards Sumner’s office. (Lorne wouldn’t put it past the two troublemakers to skip out on getting a lecture from the man, trying to delay the inevitable.) “Yeah, well, sorry, Rodney. Some of us prefer being zombies rather than nerds. Zombies are just cool.”
Lorne just sighs and then turns back towards the group, knowing at least no one else would resort to doing anything dishonorable--
“Damn it, Cadman, using your telekinesis to fly around the track is cheating!”
*
“This is utter crap,” Rodney gripes for the third time in the past five minutes, and John rolls his eyes. “Oh, shut up. You know you’re not going to get into trouble. You’re the one with the famous father. ‘Look, I’m John Sheppard. My father’s an Oligarch. Oh, yeah, those Oligarchs, the folks who rule the galaxy. Cool, huh? I can get away with anything!’ I can’t wait to see Sumner grow some balls and finally take you down--”
John shakes his head. “You know, I was trying to help you out. You could try being grateful for once,” he comments, and this time it’s Rodney who rolls his eyes, and John tunes him out as the other boy launches into another rant about how ridiculous the physical examinations are.
Instead, he just watches color suffuse his friend’s indignant expression, and the way those elegant hands are currently being waved everywhere (including in John’s face, but they’ve been friends long enough for John to know not to flinch). He resists the urge to shake his head ruefully, not for the first time over the years wondering how the hell he’d ended up with Rodney McKay as his best friend. Hell, John’s not quite certain how in the galaxy they became friends, period. Oh, he knows when they became friends, he’s not quite sure what caused that temporary insanity.
(He’d been five and just sent to the school to begin schooling, because Pegasus Institute was the best of the best. Rodney had stolen his favorite toy gun and hit him over the head with it for bragging about his father being an Oligarch, and then hadn’t cried when John had retaliated by giving him a bloody nose. That’d earned John’s respect, and so John had given him the gun and never bragged about his father again.)
John sighs when he realizes they’ve walked down the school’s corridors and are at Sumner’s office. Why did time fly whenever they were marching to their doom? “Might as well get this over with,” he says, interrupting Rodney mid-sentence and getting a glare directed at him for his audacity. “Hey, you never know. Sumner could grow some balls--”
“Grow what?” a cool and distinctly unamused voice inquires from behind him, and John closes his eyes as Rodney smirks and says, “I believe he said ‘balls,’ Principal Sumner.”
“Shut up, McKay,” Sumner snaps, and John doesn’t have to open his eyes to know that the smirk has slid off Rodney’s face to be replaced by a glower. “What have you two done now?”
“Nothing,” John and Rodney protest as one, and John finally opens his eyes as Sumner opens the door to his office and shoots them both a thoroughly unconvinced look.
“Inside. Now.”
“This is entirely your fault, you know,” Rodney mutters to him as they enter the principal’s office (or Sumner’s lair of doom, as Rodney has so fondly dubbed it), and John just shoots him a half-smile. Sure, it was his fault that Rodney had bribed him to switch bodies for the physical examinations. And pigs could fly.
(Okay, that one experiment thirty years back doesn’t count, because the pigs hadn’t so much flown as hovered for a second before plummeting back to the ground with affronted squeals.)
*
Elizabeth Weir sighs and frowns at her plate. You’d think, what with Pegasus Institute being such a prominent school, they might have better food, but no, the cooks here simply cannot make Chinese food. It is one of the few things she misses about Earth, one of the few things that make her wish she wasn’t on the opposite end of the galaxy getting her much-lauded education. At least she can gorge herself on Chinese food whenever there’s a vacation.
She sighs and adds a large amount of soy sauce.
“I can’t believe we’re both going to have to repeat the class and retake the damn test anyway.”
She looks up, recognizing that indignant tone anywhere. “I can’t believe you thought you’d get away with it,” she comments, and cannot help but smile a little as Rodney huffs and collapses into the seat across from her.
“I told John to stay with the stragglers, pretending to puff and pant all the way until the last moment, when ‘I’ would gather a sudden second wind and manage to finish the mile with a few seconds to spare, but he didn’t follow through with the plan.”
John looks thoroughly unrepentant as he slides into the seat next to Elizabeth. “I thought you’d do okay for like a lap or two and then start puffing. Not my fault Lorne caught on.”
“See, this is why you shouldn’t think,” Rodney says scathingly, and Elizabeth does a mental roll of her eyes. Boys.
“Mr. Lorne is smarter than you two give him credit for,” she comments, and then attempts to daintily eat her noodles, even if Chinese was hard to be dainty with. Putting on her best ‘class president’ voice, she adds, “Besides, cheating is--”
“All right if you get away with it?” Aiden Ford comments, sliding into the seat next to Rodney and grinning cheekily as Elizabeth narrows her eyes.
“Wrong,” she says with careful emphasis, but Aiden just grins at her and begins chugging his drink nonchalantly. After a moment, she sighs and turns back to Rodney, who is still looking sulky. “Rodney, you need to get me the details on what the Science Club needs for next semester. And don’t gripe about how I should talk to Peter. He’s the treasurer, you’re the president.” She pauses, and sighs. “And be reasonable with the amount this time.”
Rodney snorts. “Not my fault if Sumner gave you a hard time about the cost of the experiments last semester. Sacrifices, especially monetary sacrifices -- though not out of my own pocket, mind you -- must be made in the name of science.”
She stares at him wearily. “Rodney, last semester you and your fellow ‘scientists’ made a bomb and almost got expelled.”
That, perversely, makes Rodney perk up and forget about his latest misfortune, at least for the moment. “Oh yeah, you should have seen Sumner’s face. He was livid.” The scowl returns to his face in the next moment. “I can’t believe Kavanaugh ratted us out.”
“Rodney,” Aiden says slowly, “you built a bomb.”
Rodney folds his arms against his chest and rolls his eyes. “It wasn’t a working model! I happen to value my life too much to build an actual bomb with only the school’s equipment, thank you very much. Besides, I’d been itching to build one ever since sixth grade.”
John and Elizabeth share a ‘It’s Rodney, what can you do?’ look as Aiden just stares and looks to be contemplating if he really wants to sit with a teenager who can build bombs.
“Is it all right if I sit with you?” a quiet voice asks, and Elizabeth looks up, blinking. She tries to put a name with the face, but all she remembers is that the girl smiling tentatively at them is a new student from a planet called Athos.
“Sure,” Aiden says, flashing a welcoming grin.
She smiles almost shyly back.
John looks up and smiles, recognition lighting up his eyes. “Teyla, isn’t it?”
She nods, brushing several strands away from her face, her smile growing slightly wider. “That is correct. Teyla Emmagan, of the planet Athos. I will be here until I graduate.”
“I’m Elizabeth Weir, senior class president,” Elizabeth says, and offers a hand with a smile, and Teyla stares blankly, before smiling and accepting it. Elizabeth is puzzled for a moment before she recalls from history class that some of the non-Earth cultures have different ways of greeting. She will have to ask Teyla what a proper greeting is on Athos.
“John Sheppard, senior,” John drawls, and extends his hand as well, which Teyla shakes a tad less nervously. He gives her a wink, and Elizabeth resists the urge to sigh. No doubt, John’s used some of his telempathic abilities on her already, to make her feel welcome, and that’s why Teyla decided to sit here.
Aiden is looking a bit too eager for that handshake, and Elizabeth has the urge to kick him in the shin (subtly, of course) and tell him he’s laying it on a little thick as he says brightly, “Aiden Ford, sophomore,” and thrusts out his hand. Still, his overeager smile seems to amuse Teyla, because her expression is slightly less guarded as she reaches out and accepts the handshake.
There is silence for a moment, during which the group looks expectantly over at a certain senior, who is currently scowling at his plate of food. “Oh, fine. Rodney McKay, senior,” he mutters, and busies his hands with peeling apart a sandwich in search of…something, probably citrus, and refuses to look up.
“It’s nice to meet you all,” she says pleasantly, and Rodney’s snort changes to a sound of pain as Elizabeth kicks him in the shins.
Teyla shoots Rodney a puzzled look, but doesn’t ask as Rodney scowls and shoots a glare at John, who assumes an expression of innocence.
It’s really too bad that John’s look of pseudo-innocence and actual innocence are one and the same, because a second later he’s wincing and glaring icily at Rodney. “I didn’t do anything, McKay,” he snaps, and Rodney yelps again as John apparently retaliates.
Teyla is obviously trying to hide a smile behind her drink, but her eyes are sparkling with amusement at the boys’ antics, and she shoots a look over at Elizabeth that clearly reads: Are they always like this?
“So, why -- and how -- did you transfer here? I mean, that’s pretty unusual, isn’t it?”
Elizabeth frowns at Aiden’s prying, but truth be told, it is unusual. Most students remained at the same school from the age of five or six until they graduated and went on to the various universities. It was once in a blue moon that they got fresh blood, and even rarer to get fresh blood for the high school section of the school.
An expression Elizabeth can’t quite name flickers across Teyla’s face, but after a moment, the slight smile is back, and she is explaining in a calm, pleasant voice, “Oh, it was decided that with my Gift, I should attend a more prestigious school.”
“Your power, you mean?” Aiden says, looking interested. “Is it something as rare as Rodney’s?”
Teyla gives a slight shrug. “I do not know what type of Gift Rodney has, but I am a chronokinetic.”
Rodney finally looks up at that, and his expression is one of interest. Then again, of course he’s interested. Rodney is fascinated by evolution of the human species and the fact that only two hundred years ago, powers like chronokinesis and telepathy were only real in comic books. And when a power as rare chronokinesis showed up, well, it apparently made Rodney’s day. “Really? How advanced? Can you actually stop time, or simply slow it down? And can you focus on just one person or do it to an entire room? Oh, do you--”
And Rodney’s off on a tangent, with Teyla blinking bemusedly at him and the rest of the group hiding grins behind their hands.
*
“A chronokinetic. Can you imagine?” Rodney’s voice is bright and filled with enthusiasm, and he’s apparently forgotten all about Sumner’s punishment. “I’m going to have to tell the Science Club about this.”
John shakes his head. “So they can poke and prod her? Give the girl a break, Rodney. Give her a couple weeks before you all start testing her power. She’s new.”
Rodney frowns, and when John just raises an eyebrow, mutters a sullen, “Fine. I’ll give her a month, but then we’re going to see what the extent of her power is.” He brightens again. “Can you imagine being able to stop time?”
“No more than I can imagine how it feels to be able to jump from body to body with the touch of a finger,” John drawls. “And we’ve switched bodies enough times that I know the back of your hand like it’s my own.” He grins at Rodney’s rolled eyes. “Come on, it’s time for science. How much do you want to bet Parrish comes in late?”
Rodney snorts. “That man would spend his entire time in the botanical garden if Sumner would allow it. How many classes has he shown up late for? Oh, that’s right, every single one.” He snorts again and mutters something that sounds like, ‘He’s so lucky he’s got tenure.’
“You know you like his class,” John says, and the other boy sniffs and doesn’t answer, which means John’s right but Rodney isn’t going to admit it. He grins and wraps a casual arm across the other boy’s shoulders. “Hey, Carson was talking about having a movie night this Friday. Watching some classics.”
“Ugh, not another marathon of something terrible like The Terminator,” Rodney groans. “Please, at least watch something mildly interesting, like--”
“Star Trek?” John suggests all too innocently.
“Star Trek is a true classic. I mean, look at the issues it discussed that we actually had to deal with once we actually made it outside our solar system and….” Rodney’s voice fades to a soft, insistent buzzing in the back of his head, which is oddly soothing in its own way, and John just smiles and nods all the way to Biology.
*
Sumner sighs and slumps down into his chair, pinching the bridge of his nose. What was he supposed to tell Oligarch Sheppard when he called for his weekly inquiry into his son? Some days, he was tempted to tell the man that his son was a troublemaking idiot who was going to get any squadron he led into trouble. (It was days like those that he had to remind himself that the Oligarch could have him killed with a snap of his fingers.)
“Sumner?”
He looks up and raises an eyebrow. “Lorne? I’ve already handled the situation with McKay and Sheppard.”
There’s an ironic smile on Lorne’s lips at that, but thankfully the man doesn’t comment, just waves a piece of paper and says matter-of-factly, “Here’s the list of the students who couldn’t pass the physical examination.” He waits a beat, and the ironic, knowing smile on his lips widens. “Would you like to know how many are going to have to repeat the course, sir?”
“Lorne,” he says with a growl, “I really--” The floor gives a sudden, convulsive shudder beneath his chair, and he grabs onto his desk for support, and watches as Lorne stumbles, arms wind-milling for a moment before he stands steady again. “What the hell was that?”
Lorne just stares, and then they both look up as Bates’ voice fills the room, radiating from the crystal on Sumner’s desk. “Sir, sir, we’ve got…a problem.” The usually unflappable head of security is sounding rattled, and Sumner’s frown deepens as he hears Bates clear his throat. “Code 453, sir. Looks like they’re in the high school section. Don’t know how many.”
There is a moment of dizzying horror, where Sumner is tempted to ask Bates to repeat that, but he knows he heard the man clearly. “Damn,” he breathes out, and presses a hand to the crystal. It glows under his touch, and he almost snarls, “Activate Emergency Action 732, immediately. Bates, see if you can get there before there’s a hostage situation.”
“Hostage situation?” Lorne says blankly, and Sumner sighs as he reaches into a drawer and pulls out a gun and begins to quickly load it.
“Code 453, Lorne. Terrorists,” he says in a flat voice, and before Lorne’s expression can even change, Sumner is out the door and running as quickly as he can, even as the soft, calm voice that is Atlantis purrs, “Emergency Action 732 initiated,” and then in a loud voice, still calm, but this time with a firmness that Sumner can feel in his bones, “All students and teachers are to remain in their rooms. If you are outside a room, please get to the nearest available classroom or bathroom and give your DNA for identification to be allowed entry. This is not an option. All students and teachers are to remain in their rooms….”
*
Parrish pauses in mid-sentence, and squints in bemusement up at the ceiling, where Atlantis’ voice is seemingly coming from.
“That’s…odd,” he says after a moment, frowning a little and looking at his class. The seniors stared back, looking as confused as he was himself. “I didn’t realize there was an emergency drill today.” He glances at the calendar, but no, he was fairly certain that Sumner had mentioned having a drill halfway through the semester, not three weeks into classes.
“It isn’t a drill,” a hollow voice says suddenly, and several of the students twist in their seats to stare at Elizabeth, whose eyes have suddenly gone large and dark, the pupils swallowing up the color. Parrish watches her face go white and inwardly winces, grateful that he has a much less painful (not to mention less frightening) power.
“Elizabeth?” John reaches out a tentative hand, but snatches it back as Elizabeth shudders, her entire body almost seeming to seize up for a moment.
“There is no emergency drill,” she says in the same hollow voice that she always uses when having one of her visions. “They’re here. They’re here and they bring destruction and blood, death and grief.” She twists in her seat and stares with those empty eyes at the door, and despite the fear cramping his stomach, Parrish slowly turns to peer at the door as well.
He has a sudden fierce longing for his garden. If he was there, he wouldn’t have heard Elizabeth’s prediction of doom, would have been tending to the flowers until whoever was here had burst in on the garden and brought whatever destruction with them. Until then, he could have been happily oblivious to his fate.
“Who are they, Elizabeth?” he asks, and she turns to look at him, the premonition already beginning to leave her, because there is a hint of fear in her voice as she answers, “The Genii.”
Parrish frowns. Genii. It had a familiar ring to it, but--
“That terrorist group?” Rodney says sharply, and yes, that’s why it had sounded familiar. Rodney is looking pale and anxious. “Why are the Genii here?”
“I…” Elizabeth slumps a little in her chair, holding her head and grimacing. “I don’t know…. We just…we have to--”
And then suddenly there is something like a loud, piercing scream that makes everyone double over and grit their teeth as the sound rattles their bones and shakes their very breath from them.
It takes a moment before Parrish realizes that there was no one screaming, that it had actually been the sound of metal being twisted away instead. He watches in a mixture of awe and horror as the door frame is somehow carved out of the wall, and then suddenly there are a dozen armed men pouring into the room like some terrifying human flood.
Parrish holds up his hands, and begins, hardly recognizing his own voice, for he’s gone high and squeaky in fear, hardly knowing what he’s saying, “Please, they’re just children, don’t hurt them--”
One of the men points a gun at him and Parrish has a second to think wistfully of the botanical garden, where his plants are waiting for him, before the man squeezes the trigger. He has one final moment before the darkness, but that is spent thinking of the irony -- the blast that hits his chest is a brilliant, verdant shade.
*
It all seems to happen in slow motion. One minute they are sitting there, staring at Elizabeth after her morbid, doomsday proclamation, and the next the door is on the floor and so is Parrish, his body convulsing and his mouth half-open, caught again mid-sentence, an eerie green light covering his body. There is the smell of smoke and something burned, and Rodney wants to vomit when he realizes it’s Parrish’s burned flesh that he is smelling.
All Rodney can do is stare, even as the armed men point their guns at the students and one says in a deceptively mild voice, “Nobody move.” This works, because Rodney is frozen, all his blood turned to ice in his veins, and he’s not certain if he’s even breathing anymore as he just stares at Parrish while the green light finally ebbs to nothing.
“Oh my Lord!” The exclamation comes from Carson Beckett, accent thickened by fear and shock, and from the corner of his eye, Rodney can see the pallor of the other boy’s face. One of the men growls threateningly when Carson moves, but no one is trigger-happy this time as Carson scrambles over and drops to his knees next to Parrish’s still twitching form. “Mr. Parrish, Mr. Parrish!”
A second later, Carson’s hands are over the smoking ruin that had been Parrish’s chest only a minute ago, and he is gritting his teeth, his fingers giving off a pure white glow as he begins to carefully fix the damaged area. Rodney knows for a fact that he’s never done anything this complicated before, because when John had broken his leg during a stupid stunt last semester, Carson had gone white and babbled something about not having learned how to knit bones back together yet with his biokinesis, and Rodney had been forced to half-carry John to the infirmary.
You wouldn’t know Carson was inexperienced now, the way his eyes are half-shut in concentration, a muscle jumping in his jaw as he croons, “Come on, Mr. Parrish, come on, that’s a good man, just hang on, let me patch you back up, aye, that’s the spirit, just like that….”
“A biokinetic, eh?” one of the Genii mutters, and some of the ice in Rodney’s veins melts enough for him to turn his head and eye the man who had spoken. Was that why they were here? To grab students with particular powers? Rodney feels nauseous at the thought. There are so many here who would be useful to the Genii. Elizabeth, with her clairvoyance, Carson, with his biokinesis, that new girl with her chronokinesis, even Aiden with his--
“There we go, sir, all patched up and….” Carson starts to murmur, and then slowly slumps over, face completely ashen and eyes rolling into the back of his head. The overexerted biokinetic lands partially on Parrish, who groans and starts to open his eyes.
The trigger-happy gunman points his gun at Parrish and says coldly, “Be quiet and stay there.”
Parrish moans softly again, an expression of confusion on his waxen features, and then apparently loses consciousness again, eyes fluttering shut. Rodney almost envies him, because now the man is oblivious to the fact that there are twelve men with guns pointed at them.
No one says anything for a long moment, and then the trigger-happy one turns to the gunman with the deceptively mild voice, and says, “Would you like to do the honors, sir?”
The man with the deceptively mild voice has an equally mild smile, though one that doesn’t meet his eyes, and he nods.
Rodney feels his heart stop beating as the terrorist announces, “It’s very simple, really. We’re here for one person, and then we’ll be out of your hair. If John Sheppard would stand up we can avoid any further…unpleasantness.”
Again, time seems to slow down again, and Rodney vaguely wonders if Teyla is messing around with her powers, but he knows it’s just shock. Still, the slowness gives him time to watch John’s expression shift from one of half-fear, half-anger, to astonishment, and then another half-look, this one a mixture of scorn and defiance.
“If you think my father is going to do anything for you because you have me, you’re wrong,” he says, and of course, that’s why they’re here. Of course they want one of the Oligarchs’ children, and Rodney can only watch in horror as John gets to his feet, and shoots them an icy, contemptuous smile. “It was a good plan. You just picked the wrong Oligarch to mess with. My father is willing to sacrifice my life for the good of the galaxy.”
“We’ll see,” the leader of the Genii says, sounding unconvinced, and the gunmen close in around John like some sort of deadly entourage. And John is just standing there, wearing his normal causal smirk, like he isn’t about to be kidnapped and possibly killed, like this is just another fucking day at Pegasus.
“John,” he hears himself say, and John’s gaze flicks towards him, and the bastard has the audacity to quirk an eyebrow. He wonders at the sound of his own voice, because he sounds calm, when he’s anything but. “John.”
“Rodney,” John says, equally calm, and there isn’t a flicker of fear in his eyes when Rodney stares at him. God, was John even human? He gives a quick shrug and another one of his casual smirks. “So long, I guess.”
“John,” he says again, and somehow, between one breath and the next, he squeezes between two of the Genii, ignoring their growls of warning, and then his hands are on John’s shoulders, which are tense (and maybe that’s where John’s hidden his terror), and John is looking at him in surprise. Then Rodney is kissing him, quick and hard and desperate, not at all like he’d fantasized about, but he supposes beggars can’t be choosers.
The shoulders beneath his hands jump a little. Yes, Rodney thinks, be surprised, be stunned silent, and then squeezes his eyes shut, deepens the kiss, and concentrates. There is a dizzying moment of disorientation that always comes with using his power, and when he breaks the kiss, it is like he’s staring into a mirror, albeit he has never seen his face this flushed or his eyes this wide.
“No,” John breathes, looking horrified. “You just…you….”
Rodney has been in John’s form enough times to manage a good imitation of his trademark casual smirk, and so he pastes it on his face. “So long, Rodney,” he says, and then turns, quirking an eyebrow at the leader of the Genii. “I’m telling you, this isn’t going to work.”
He sees a flicker of something in the leader’s eyes, and really should have seen the pressure on his neck coming, but somehow he didn’t, and is certain he looks startled as expert fingers dig in and he loses consciousness.
[TBC]