fic: In The Game - Chapter Two, PG-13

[tielan]

TITLE: In The Game - Chapter Two
SUMMARY: At these moments, a kind of calculation entered his head - not the kind of calculations Rodney loved - but with its own simple purity: the sense of his place among the team, with the enemy arrayed against him.
CATEGORY: high school AU
RATING: PG-13
NOTES: I'm working through this story in slow pieces. Unfortunately, it's taking a back seat to the NaNo and the legion of ficathons I've signed up for.

In The Game: Chapter One - A Game That Counts

Chapter Two - These Boots Are Made For Walking

Teyla was usually a bit slower than the guys to emerge from the change rooms, so John waited for her just outside the showers. He'd endured a few querying glances from the other guys, but jerked his head towards the locker room where Caldwell was starting the pre-game coaching session.

It wasn't as though he didn't have a reason for asking this.

Bates didn't like Teyla, sure. But that didn't mean that Teyla's break-up with Lorne hadn't had a bad effect on her. John was just asking.

He was a team-mate and the captain of the team. It was his business to make sure that all his players were okay before a game, especially such a high-pressure game as the one coming up against Dalton.

She strode past him in a cloud of peculiarly feminine scent - girls' deodorant was nothing like guys' - and, startled, John reached out to snag her arm, tugging her over to the side. "Hey, Teyla, wait up a moment."

Teyla turned, her slightly tilted eyes bright and concerned. "John?" She glanced down the corridor to the locker room. "Do we not have a coaching session?"

"Well, yeah, but I need a word with you."

Her eyes were edged with red, John noticed as he looked at her, as though she'd been crying. But there was no sign of tears in her eyes now, she met his gaze straight on, cool as she'd ever been since the first day she turned up at Shermer. "Yes?"

John hesitated, wondering just how much trouble he was going to get into for this. "You okay?"

"Should I not be?"

"I heard about you and Lorne."

Teyla shrugged, carefully nonchalant as she brushed wisps of fringe back from her forehead. "It happens."

"Yeah. Maybe. That doesn't mean you always like what happens." He tried to be sympathetic. "Well, I'm sorry."

"You had nothing to do with it," came her reply, although at least her voice was a little lighter now. "Unless you are now dating Mark?"

John flashed her a wry look. "He's not my type. Anyway, I just wanted to check that you were okay for this game."

The slim, wiry body stiffened, her eyes searching his face with the kind of scrutiny John was more used to getting from teachers than fellow students.

"I am capable of playing this game."

"I never said you weren't."

"But you asked if I was okay to play."

He frowned, growing annoyed that she was taking his questioning the wrong way. "I was concerned."

"And has your concern extended to asking the other players if they also are 'okay'?"

John could have lied. He had a feeling that Teyla would see right through him if he tried. "Well, no."

"I see."

"Look, a break-up can be pretty serious--"

"Did you inquire after Markham's health when he and Sophia Dacey broke up last week?"

John hadn't even been aware that Markham had broken up with his girlfriend. And from the expression on Teyla's face, she knew he'd been oblivious.

"Teyla--"

"John," she interrupted, clearly exasperated with him. "I am not yet an emotional wreck, incapable of doing anything more than weeping over my relationship with Mark. If I become one while on the field then you may take me from the team."

Great. Thanks to Bates' suggestion - and his own concern - he was now in trouble with his best wide receiver. "I was worried!"

"Then I take it that your worry is assauged?" Without pausing for an answer, she spun on one slim heel and headed for the pep talk.

"Wait! Teyla!" John grabbed her arm, hauling her back. "That's not--" He ground his teeth. "Look," he said, trying a new tack. "I had a reason. These games - tonight's game and the one next week against St. Rait's - are important."

"To me as well as to you." Any other girl would have backed down, apologised. Teyla didn't. Or wouldn't. Stubborn didn't half describe Teyla Emmagen when she had her back up.

"Good. And I was concerned about you." Why wasn't it earning him brownie points? There were times when John just didn't get girls.

She thawed, but only by a couple of degrees. "Thank you, John. Is there anything else that is concerning you?"

"Yeah, actually, I was wondering if you'd like to go with me to Homecoming."

A second of stunned silence passed. Teyla blinked once. John asked himself where that had come from.

Okay, so it made a kind of logical sense. Teyla was a girl without a date, John was a guy without a date. They were friends. She wasn't bad-looking even when decked out in football gear, and John wasn't vain, but he knew he wasn't a troll.

And, as John had discovered during the Founders' Dance, she could salsa the legs off a guy.

"You are asking me to be your date for Homecoming?"

There was no reason for her to look at him like he'd just taken leave of his senses.

Even if he had.

"Yeah. I am."

"Are you not part of the Homecoming court?"

"Duke of Earl, actually," John said. "But that's beside the point. I'm asking you." He tilted his head. "You're not going with Lorne anymore, are you?"

Colour washed her face. "No." She bit her lip, hesitating.

There was a discreet cough from the door to the locker room.

John turned, hoping that he wasn't flushing, only too aware that Teyla was. At least Caldwell had sent Ford rather than Bates or Markham. Another junior, Aiden Ford was cheerful, enthusiastic, a solid player, and one of the guys who openly supported Teyla's place on the team.

"Uh, coach sent me to check on you guys," Ford said. It was hard to tell on the dark-skinned face, but his expression was embarrassed. "Pep talk's about to get started."

Teyla nodded and walked past Ford and out to the locker room without even glancing at John.

John didn't sigh, but he reflected that Ford's timing off the field was as bad as his timing on the field was good. And he wondered how much the other guy had heard of the conversation. Hopefully, not too much.

Then again, Ford was giving him a look that was at once both knowing and questioning. "Did I interrupt something?"

"No," John said. "Nothing. Just checking up on her."

"Her breakup with Mark Lorne?"

"Bates thought it might interfere with her game."

Ford's snort was skeptical as they headed down the corridor to the locker room. "Like anything interferes with Teyla's game."

"He dumped her," said John. "It might."

"On another planet, maybe," said Ford as they reached the door through which the noises of a bunch of guys - and one girl - gearing up for the Friday night game could be heard. "Last I checked, we're on Earth. And Teyla's even more reliable than me." He smirked. "Although don't tell her I said that."

John shook his head but grinned all the same. Ford was usually quiet, keeping his head down both in the social scene and the sports scene - most of the time. And then he'd pop up with a sly comment, a raucous joke, or something else that completely broke the idea of the guy as run-of-the-mill.

As it turned out, Ford was right. Teyla's game was fine - as good as John could have wished. In fact, everyone was on their game, playing their best, or very close to it.

The problem was that their best wasn't quite good enough.

By the half-time horn, they were down 7-0, without even a field goal to their name.

It wasn't that Shermer was playing badly - they'd had a few good moments through the game. Unfortunately, Dalton was playing a better game, fluidly switching their plays back and forth across the field, bulling through Shermer's defence and blocking in their offensive side. So far, Dalton had scored one touchdown and one field goal. Shermer rallied under John's lead, but things were looking bad - and they all knew it.

They crowded into the locker rooms, tired and dispirited, snappish and quick to cast blame. Fortunately, Bates couldn't blame Teyla - as John knew the guy wanted to. Of all the players, the wide receivers had done the best out of the plays so far, getting halfway down the field before getting slammed into by defensive tackles that hurt John's teeth to watch, let alone encounter.

"All right," said Caldwell as the last of them trooped through the door and closed it behind them. "They've played a good game so far, they're on home turf, but now they're tired. They'll get complacent, relaxed. So we take them hard, fast, and unexpected." The coach's voice was a deep and steady rumble, rumour had that the coach had been pro before a leg injury took him off the field. "Sheppard?"

"Sir?"

"I'll give you the cues, but you're calling the plays on the field." Caldwell's gaze was dark and sharp as he looked around the room, fixing on the receivers and runners. "Teyla, Kevin, use the slip techniques we've been practising - for the other receivers, stick with the plays you've been using but look for opportunities, let Teyla and Kevin draw their defence out, then smash through."

Coach waited for nods from the players in question, then directed his gaze on the runners. "Ford, Harrison, Lichfield, bait-and-switch tactics, then use Teyla and Kevin deep. We've been further behind than this before and we came back. We'll do it again." The piercing gaze looked around the locker room. "Any questions?"

"Only how much ass we're allowed to kick out there," John said with a straight face.

A twitch appeared at the corner of Caldwell's mouth and his head tilted a little. "As much ass as you can comfortably heave, Sheppard." He looked around the room, "Ready to go?"

"Yeah!" The first cry was ragged.

It was a pathetic response. "Are we ready?" John bellowed.

"YEAH!" That sounded more like it.

They headed back out to the corridor, jostling and joshing as they waited for the announcers to call them back on the field. Teyla was involved in a three-way muffled conversation with Ford and Lichfield, her helmet held loosely in her hands as she listened and occasionally offered her own suggestions and comments. John flashed a quick smile at her - and at the other receivers - as he passed on his way up to the head of the line. Her return smile was brief and polite, almost dismissive as her eyes flickered back to Lichfield's comments.

John didn't quite stalk his way to the corridor exit.

He felt dismissed all the same. And frustrated by it.

He jogged out on a wave of cheers from Shermer - as well as the expected boos from Dalton.

As the team moved into position, spreading out across the field, ready to receive, Ford passed him, grinning. "Good crowd from Shermer tonight."

"Not surprising," John skimmed the bleachers, finding the pockets of Shermer supporters, their colours waving wildly in the crisp night air. He spotted Liz in the school jersey, bouncing up and down, Ronon's towering form next to her, a scarf wrapped firmly around his throat. Rodney had a hunched look about him, doubtless complaining about the wind, and there was no mistaking Laura Cadman's blond hair beneath the field lights. The beanie-headed boy next to her was probably Carson - nothing else would induce her and Rodney to sit within snarking distance of each other.

There were other classmates and faces recognisable in the crowd - and lots more Dalton supporters that John didn't recognise.

And one face - pointed, pale, and keen - that was not a Shermer supporter and definitely not a Dalton student.

John passed Markham as the team spread out, grabbing for the center's shoulder. "Three o'clock, fourth tier down."

Markham tilted his head and frowned. "Kenmore from St. Rait's."

"That's the third game in a row that we've had someone from Rait watching the game." The last couple of times had been guys John recognised by face, if not by name. John frowned. Michael Kenmore was the quarterback for St Rait's Boys - what the hell was he doing here when he had his own game to play?

No time to ponder that now. John glanced around, checking out his team's positions on the field. Everyone was in place for the kick off.

Let's play.

The whistle blew. Dalton kicked off.

The game was on.

John's perception of the world changed during play. While things like light and shadow became more distinct, allowing him to pick out the vivid colours of his team-mates and their movements, sharp and clear, other things blurred into the background: the noise of the crowd and any movement beyond the playing field.

A quick glance behind showed Harrison had grabbed the ball and was making his way up the field with his prize.

Jimmy Harrison was known as 'Slick' for a reason. He was tall and skinny and was harder to hold onto than a live eel. His legs made him fast, and his knack for twisting out of the tightest grip made him a great runner - especially after the kick return.

John blocked one of Dalton's defence, trying to give Harrison as much of a run as possible. He saw Bates' number streak past, getting in the way of another Dalton player, then the whistle blew as the Dalton players piled on Slick, stopping him just past the forty-five yard line.

The call was John's; he called duck crossings. For some inexplicable reason, dating back decades, the plays at Shermer were always called by descriptive names, not just letters-and-numbers. 'Duck crossings' involved moving the ball across the field in a feint, and was rarely used because of the overhead pass that moved the play focus from centre field out to the wings.

Voices. Whistle. Play.

The ball snapped from Markham to John, and John ran forward, aiming for the break between his defense players intercepting the attack. Another Dalton defenceman loomed large in his vision and he took two steps in the opposite direction to the one he'd been running. His arm drifted back to snap the ball in a pass to the Shermer uniform he could see running forwards - according to the play it should be Kevin Padjamoulous, colloquially known as 'PJ' - and the ball arced into the air.

It was a clean pass, undeflected by the player who ran into John, throwing him off-course.

It was an equally clean catch by a Dalton player, leaping into the air ahead of PJ to gain possession of the ball. The stadium echoed with the deafening roar of the Dalton supporters and the gasping dismay from Shermer's fans.

John saw Stackhouse take down the Dalton player the next moment but the damage was done. Dalton had possession of the ball, and they were in Shermer territory.

Fuck.

As they arrayed for Dalton's next play, John ignored Bates' pointed glare. Yeah, the duck crossings was a risky play, but it was specifically tailored to the skills and abilities of the runners and receivers on the Shermer team. When it worked, it worked well.

When it didn't...

Whistle. Play.

John kept an overall eye on things, trusting to Bates' skill at safety, all the while watching the Dalton plays and trying to see how they were moving. At these moments, a kind of calculation entered his head - not the kind of calculations Rodney loved - but with its own simple purity: the sense of his place among the team, with the enemy arrayed against him.

No way was Shermer going down without a fight.

John swore it.

Two plays by Dalton, twenty-five yards gained. Dalton were nearly in the red zone. Every guy on the Shermer team was sweating bullets. John dragged in a breath of air that tasted foul with Dalton's glee at their closeness to the endzone.

Until one of their backs lobbed a pass that was a little lower than it should have been, without the arc required to fall neatly into the receiver's arms. And a slim figure made a running leap through the breach, catching the ball in sure arms before hitting the ground running.

And damn, but the girl could run.

Teyla was no Slick, but she had an instinct for footwork that got her out of most attempts to run her down. She dodged two linemen just before the fifty-yard line, then slipped out of the grasp of a third just past Dalton's forty-yard line. John was running way behind, but a quick glance showed there wasn't even a need for him. Ford and Lichfield were spreading wide, taking out the two closest Dalton players, and giving Teyla a clear run for the last quarter of the field.

The nearest Dalton was still ten yards away when she sprinted into the endzone to Shermer's jubilant roar of approval. A good seventy yard run. A damn good touchdown.

John reached her with enough time to grab her by the shoulders in a triumphant grip. Ford and Lichfield had already done their share of back-thumping, and several of the other guys were yelling encouragements. "That," he said emphatically as he let her go, "was amazing!"

He saw the gleeful curve of her mouth in the white lights of the stadium for one breathtaking second before the cheers and shouts coming from the Shermer supporters changed tenor and her head turned towards the bandstand as the strains of the Shermer Band began filtering through the crowd. Whoever the band leader was tonight, they had a wicked sense of humour - the band was belting out 'These Boots Are Made For Walking.'

"Tey-la! Tey-la! Tey-la!" The chant came from the stands - a now-familiar catcall for a tradition started by Ford nearly two months ago.

During that game against Moorcroft, Ford had scored the first touchdown in a home game where several defensive line injuries had resulted in Shermer watching their opponents score...and score...and score...

That night, when the crowd roared their approval of his touchdown, Ford had strutted along the line with one arm up in the air making the metal-horns handsign, and grinning like a loon.

It was a little risky, but became a tradition - first touchdown of the night got to do 'the strut'. Sometimes it was nothing more than the metal-horns gesture, sometimes it was a little dance. Harrison had got in trouble for an excessive display two weeks ago, which had curbed last week's game.

Now, it seemed, it was Teyla's turn.

"Tey-la! Tey-la! Tey-la!" The chant grew louder, audible even beneath the announcement of the touchdown over the PA and the setup for the conversion.

Ford turned, mere yards away. His teeth were a flash of brightness under the lights, all the more effective for the dark of his skin. "Come on, Teyla! Shake that ass!"

Teyla glanced at the stands, glanced at her team-mates, half of whom were watching her while the other half were heading for their conversion positions. She glanced at John, who shrugged, nonchalant. He hadn't scored the first touchdown in a game yet, so he'd never been under pressure to do it. If she wanted to, then it was up to her.

He didn't see the roll of her eyes, but he knew it was there as the band launched into the chorus.

These boots are made for walking, and that's just what they'll do.
One of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you!

Then Teyla laughed, lifted her chin to the crowd, and did a little round-in-a-circle dance with a shimmy and a shake of her hips, lifting her hand in the metal horns gesture in the air above her until it was fully outstretched overhead.

It was short. It was neat. It was unbelievably sexy. And John felt the lust hit him like a two-fifty pound linebacker. He was a guy; and at this moment, Teyla Emmagen was the goddamn sexiest girl he'd ever laid eyes upon - padding and all.

He had a feeling that those sentiments were shared by most of the guys on the field right then.

The crowd went wild - both Shermer and Dalton fans cheering her like crazy.

"Damn, girl," Ford laughed from a few yards away, grinning all over his features. "You go, Teyla!" He yelled, holding two thumbs up.

Teyla turned their way and, this time, even the shadow of her helmet couldn't hide the flash of a brilliant, wicked grin.

Under that grin, it was impossible not to smile back. Or stop his belly from a momentary tightening, even as the umpires rolled their eyes and yelled at them to get the game moving.

John got moving.

He signalled Teyla back to her position in the line-up, and she immediately jogged back to her wide position, ignoring the catcalls of the Dalton players as she passed them and calling back to her team-mates where they cheered her on.

"Fuck," Sam Mayhew muttered as John moved up past him, heading through the Dalton players whose brains - and probably libidos - were still short-circuited from Teyla's moves. "I think I've got a hard-on after that."

"Need to know," John snapped, in spite of the fact that he nearly had one himself. "And keep it in your pants."

Not that he was too worried about the guys and Teyla. Some of the guys mightn't like having a girl on the team, but they knew better than to harrass her. Coach wouldn't let it pass without punishment, John and several other players wouldn't stand for it, and, considering she could hold her own in a mat fight against Ronon Dex, Teyla would probably kick the ass of any guy who tried anything on her - whether intimidating or inappropriate.

Still, it mightn't hurt to put the word out.

John filed it away for later consideration.

The offensive line rallied through Dalton's defence to score a two-point conversion. Too easy. Of course, it helped that most of the Dalton guys were still fried in the head after watching Teyla swing her ass.

John couldn't blame them.

Riding the wave of that touchdown and conversion, Shermer sailed to victory against Dalton, almost casually scoring another two touchdowns, one converted with a kick, plus two fieldgoals. Dalton managed a field goal and a touchdown, but whatever had carried them through the first half dissolved after Shermer's first touchdown.

It was a good night.

- TBC -

You know when you just feel pressed flat, squished, and with all life sucked out of you? Yeah, that's me right now.