SGA: The Year of Jubilee, PG-13, gen, 2/4
Sheppard did everything Ronon told him to do. That much was obvious, immediately. It went along with the strange, glassy gaze that Sheppard couldn’t focus on anything other than Ronon. It was creepy as hell.
While Sheppard sipped his fluids, Ronon stood behind him and poked curiously at the strange metal claw stuck to the man’s neck. Sheppard obediently tilted his head this direction or that, without saying a word. Ronon accomplished nothing, of course, only confirming that it was attached. It could have extended into the man’s brain for all he knew.
Finally, Ronon went back and sat opposite Sheppard.
“Give me your hand,” Ronon said, an experiment forming in his mind.
Instantly, Sheppard let go of the glass and thrust his right arm across the table.
“Keep drinking,” Ronon said, and Sheppard’s attention redirected back to his glass.
Ronon drew a small knife from a sheath at his waist. With one hand, he pressed Sheppard’s hand flat against the table and held it lightly by the wrist. He glanced up, but the man was back to taking the tiny sips from his glass. Sheppard was pausing between swallows, each break the same length of time. His lips were moving as if he were counting silently.
Ronon tapped the flat of blade against the back of Sheppard’s hand. It took a second, but slowly Sheppard took his eyes of the glass and looked across the table. He didn’t react, though, just kind of glanced at the knife then raised his eyes to Ronon’s face. Sheppard didn’t say anything, picked up the glass and took another small sip.
“I’m gonna cut you finger off,” Ronon said, turning the knife so the sharp side of the blade was directly above the third knuckle of Sheppard’s index finger.
Again, it took a second longer than was natural for Sheppard to process the statement. He understood, though, and his face tightened up in horror. But he didn’t try to withdraw his hand. He left his other hand curled around his glass. He didn’t even say anything. His only reaction was the shock on his face. There wasn’t a single moment of resistance.
Ronon dropped the knife blade a fraction, let a small line of crimson break on Sheppard’s skin. The man picked up his glass and took another tiny sip. His arm flinched but otherwise stayed still.
Ronon folded the knife up and put it away.
Relief flooded across Sheppard’s face. He left his arm lying across the table, the tiny bead of blood welling up on his finger.
“Something’s really wrong with you,” Ronon said.
Sheppard looked up from staring into the glass. “Yeah,” he said. “I know.”
~
It turned out there was one thing Sheppard had done on his days in Sateda before throwing himself on the floor of Ronon’s bedroom to wait. Unfortunately, that one thing had been locating the device Ronon had been given to contact the City of the Ancestors and smashing it into a million pieces.
He’d cleaned up the mess, though. Swept up all the little parts and disposed of them in a trash can, which he obediently showed Ronon when he suspiciously asked the man if he knew where it was.
Ronon glared at the tiny little pieces of crunched circuitry. Then, he glared at Sheppard.
“Why’d you do that?”
“So you couldn’t send me back,” Sheppard answered, immediately. Honesty was probably a part of whatever influence he was under. Sheppard didn’t look like he wanted to tell Ronon. In fact, he kind of looked like he expected to have the shit kicked out of him for doing it even as he confessed. His shoulders were hunched and he seemed to be making a conscious effort not to flinch away.
Ronon tested that theory, too. He asked Sheppard questions about the City of the Ancestors, about its security and defense capabilities. Sensitive topics that no soldier should reveal. Sheppard, though, answered every question without hesitation. He answered thoroughly and completely and offered to draw schematics.
“Were you allowed to tell me that?” Ronon asked, when he was done.
“No,” Sheppard said. “I’m not.” And then he looked almost sad.
Ronon thought about taking Sheppard through the Ring to a planet he knew the man’s people frequented. He wouldn’t need the device Sheppard had smashed. The sphere of Atlantis’ influence was pretty well known and though Ronon didn’t follow their schedule as closely as he did the Wraith, it probably wouldn’t be long before he was found.
But, he already knew the doctors had not figured out how to cure Sheppard. It occurred to him that they would probably find out where he’d been after he ran off, and more soldiers would show up on Sateda.
“You’re going to let me stay?” Sheppard asked then, almost as if he could read Ronon’s mind.
“For now,” Ronon said.
“Okay,” Sheppard said, and then he gave an entirely too worshipful smile.
~
Sheppard’s attachment to Ronon made him almost childlike. He had to be literally instructed to do the most basic task. It was really annoying. The lack of resistance meant a total lack of initiative. Sheppard evidently had no intention of doing anything beyond sitting unmoving and silent - while staring at Ronon - until specifically instructed otherwise.
Ronon managed to get him to undress and bathe in the shower, only to have him come trotting out freshly cleaned and completely naked because he hadn’t been told to redress. Or, the thing in his skull was designed to interfere with any objection Sheppard might have had to presenting himself naked to Ronon, which was equally likely.
Ronon found Sheppard a pair of soft pajamas that fit, made him eat a small portion of rations, and then sent him to go sleep in a nearby bedroom.
It was then that Sheppard displayed that he still had the tiniest bit of freewill left. When Ronon pointed to the door to the room where Sheppard could sleep, the man paused in obeying. He looked at the doorway, looked back at Ronon, and then looked more pointedly at Ronon’s own bedroom.
“In there?” Sheppard asked.
“Yeah,” Ronon said, and folded his arms so that his body blocked the doorway to his own bedroom.
Sheppard looked visibly disappointed. Ronon retracted the idea that this was freewill; it was just another sick part of that thing attached to Sheppard’s head.
“Go,” Ronon said, because Sheppard hadn’t moved.
Sheppard obeyed, this time. Instantly. Without another word, he turned around and walked into the room, padding towards the bed and out of Ronon’s sightline. It was a relief that he didn’t persist with what probably was a degrading urge, but Ronon didn’t feel particularly good about ordering the man away when Sheppard had absolutely no choice in the matter.
Ronon gave more thought to taking Sheppard to a planet where his people could find him, but that was a task for tomorrow. He went into his own room, locked the door, and quickly fell asleep.
~
The following morning, Ronon woke at the usual time. He rose, dressed, and walked out of his bedroom as he did every day. As he entered the hallway, instead of hitting the stone floor, his foot landed on something warm and solid. Ronon looked down, already knowing that he was stepping on Sheppard.
The man had spent the night curled up at the base of the door to Ronon’s bedroom. If Ronon hadn’t locked it, he probably would have come inside.
Ronon applied light pressure with his foot to Sheppard’s flank, having quickly readjusted his weight as not to crush any ribs. Slowly, Sheppard squirmed away, grunting sleepily. Ronon prodded harder and the man’s eye fluttered open.
“Hey,” Sheppard said, peering up at him. For a moment, he sounded normal. In the next second, his gaze returned to that artificially intense stare and his face became clouded. “Um.” Sheppard pulled himself into a crawl, unfolding his limbs. He looked embarrassed and a little worried. “I couldn’t sleep in there.”
Ronon didn’t say anything, just offered down a hand to pull Sheppard up. The man took his hand and gripped hard. He didn’t try to lift himself, just let Ronon pull him straight off the floor. He also didn’t let go of Ronon’s palm, holding it tightly even after he was upright. Ronon waited for him to release it, then quickly jerked his hand free. This was getting creepier.
There was nothing about this that wasn’t creepy, actually. Including the fact that Sheppard seemed to be getting better. Nothing having to do with his obsession with Ronon was improving, but in general the man seemed healthier than the night before. His color was better and he didn’t look as ill if you ignored the way he stared at Ronon. He didn’t need as many literal instructions, able to get himself washed, dressed, and fed with only a little supervision. Ronon gave Sheppard some rations for breakfast and ate his own, silently. He thought more about trying to return him to a planet where his people would find him.
Sheppard didn’t speak, not even to comment on the bland taste of the breakfast meal. He just watched Ronon, face expressionless. For his part, Ronon avoided eye contact.
“You want to send me away,” Sheppard observed after a few minutes. He didn’t sound upset about it.
Ronon looked up. “Yeah,” he said. “You should go home.”
Sheppard kept eating, still calm and unalarmed. “I want to stay here.” He swallowed, put down his spoon.
“No,” Ronon said.
Sheppard frowned. “I’d come back,” he said. If the man’s demeanor hadn’t been so flat and quiet, it would have sounded like a threat.
“Aren’t you supposed to do what I say?” Ronon asked, and he might have been a little annoyed.
Sheppard didn’t answer, and for a second his face was just lucid enough to reflect just how pissed off he was about that.
~
Like it or not - and neither of them did like it - Sheppard did have to do what Ronon said. At the same time, the metal device in his neck compelled Sheppard to do things that Ronon didn’t want him to do, things Sheppard himself probably didn’t want to do. It was designed, he figured, to create an attached and obedient slave. Except that Ronon didn’t want a slave.
Sheppard didn’t talk about why he felt the need to follow Ronon’s every move while staring at him hungrily. He probably would have if asked, but Ronon genuinely didn’t want to know. It was easy to imagine the humiliating tasks the Arachans expected a slave to perform, but Ronon just had Sheppard help him assemble ammunition shells.
The work had to be done; usually Ronon did it by himself, as he did everything. It was slow and repetitive, requiring total focus and attention. For this, it was almost perfect to engage Sheppard. It was also dangerous, but Sheppard was a soldier. Ronon figured he had experience working with explosives or he wouldn’t have all his fingers left.
Sheppard seemed to like it, too. Or the thing in his neck made him like being instructed to do a specific task, Ronon wasn’t sure. The work went much faster with two people. Sheppard was competent; he immediately understood how to ration the materials and secure each container safely. The activity seemed to relax him, as well.
“So,” Sheppard said, when they finished and were loading the ammunition into boxes. “This is what you do now? You’re an anti-Wraith MacGyver?”
Ronon didn’t understand. “I kill Wraith,” he said. “I help other worlds kill Wraith.”
“Cool,” Sheppard said. His eyes were, for once, not on Ronon. He was looking around the armory at Ronon’s stockpile. “Like Robin Hood. Except with guns.”
“What?” asked Ronon.
“It’s a legend from my world,” Sheppard said. “Guy stole from the rich to save the poor.”
“I don’t steal,” Ronon said.
The smile dropped off Sheppard’s face and he idly scratched at the back of his neck. “I’m no Little John.”
It was a change, at least, to have the man acting what was probably a little more normal. Making jokes, even if Ronon didn’t get them. It was probably a good sign.
“Wanna help me build some bombs?” Ronon asked.
~
Sheppard was as competent and interested in bombs as he was in ammunition. It made the days easy. There was a lot to do and it kept Sheppard focused. When he was occupied, it was almost possible to forget that he wasn’t operating under his own freewill. Sheppard even came up with ideas to make the artillery more affective and started modifying the parts immediately. He still stared at Ronon intensely but didn’t do anything else.
The nights were different. Once Sheppard didn’t have a task to focus on, things fell apart completely. Sheppard fell apart. He turned back into the disoriented and clingy man Ronon had found on the floor of his bedroom door. He wanted to follow Ronon everywhere and when he wasn’t allowed to, he got upset.
It was like dealing with a child, except that a child probably wouldn’t have been able to break the lock off Ronon’s bedroom door. Sheppard did it sometime in the afternoon of the third day, which meant he was planning ahead. He also did it fairly stealthily, so Ronon didn’t notice until he closed his door that night and discovered the latch was bent and the closing mechanism ripped off the frame.
Ronon had no idea what to do. He paused long enough that his first impulse wasn’t to smack Sheppard’s face into it, then opened the door. Sheppard was bedding down in the hallway again. He didn’t even pretend that he was going to sleep in the other room, but he was pretending that he had no idea why Ronon was glaring at him. Ronon tapped the door frame, his finger resting on the busted lock.
Sheppard’s eyes followed his hand and his face immediately crumpled. His shoulders hunched like he expected Ronon to attack him, his hands scrabbling at the sheet he’d been pulling over himself.
Immediately, Ronon stopped moving and held very still. Sheppard froze, as well, face still full of fear. Finally, Ronon took a step back into his own room and lightly pulled the door shut. After a few seconds, he walked across the room, grabbed a large bureau and dragged it in front of the door. He felt ridiculous. Sheppard wasn’t a threat. But Ronon also didn’t want the man and the thing in his neck entering his room while he slept.
The following night, Ronon locked Sheppard in another bedroom. He didn’t have an explicit reason, other than the man wasn’t in control of himself and Ronon’s bedroom door no longer had a lock.
At first, Sheppard obeyed as quickly as he always did, even as the look on his face said he was going to end up on the floor outside Ronon’s room like a puppy, anyway. He understood, evidently, that sleeping in the hall was bizarre.
“I can’t help it,” Sheppard said, as Ronon escorted him into the room and pointed at the bed.
Ronon didn’t say anything, waiting until Sheppard sat down on the mattress and looked plaintively at him.
“Stay in here,” Ronon said. He stood in front of the door knob, blocking Sheppard’s view of it as he adjusted the locking mechanism so it couldn’t be opened from the inside.
Sheppard’s face fell even further, but he said the word he almost always did when given a command. “Okay.”
Ronon stepped outside and pulled the door shut. He locked it, quietly, but sure that Sheppard would hear the sound of the bolt sliding into place. There was only silence from within, though. He guessed that Sheppard couldn’t object, and as much as that wasn’t Ronon’s fault, he still managed to feel pretty shitty about it.
Sheppard started objecting about half an hour later, though. Ronon could hear the door shaking on its hinges, with the occasional crash that sounded as if Sheppard was throwing himself against it. The door was strong and thick, the lock solid. If anything, Sheppard was probably hurting himself. Ronon considered letting him out, but then the room went quiet as if the man had given up.
Ronon lay in the dark for a few minutes, wondering if the isolation would help any. He figured he’d find out in the morning, and drifted off to sleep.
He found out a lot earlier, because Sheppard pushed the door to his room ajar and Ronon sat up in bed and tried to shoot him before his eyes were even fully open. Sheppard dived to the floor and Ronon’s weapon blast was absorbed harmlessly into the wall. A few seconds later, Sheppard’s head popped back into view. Even in the darkness, his eyes found Ronon’s and he smiled sheepishly.
Sheppard hadn’t been able to break the lock or knock the door down. He had, however, been able to get a window open, climb three stories down the side of the building, re-enter the front door, and then walk right into Ronon’s bedroom through the unlocked door. He’d been barefoot the whole time - he’d shown up in a flimsy pair of patient slippers and Ronon hadn’t given him any shoes yet - and managed to scrape up his feet, his legs, and his hands.
Ronon ended up taking Sheppard into the bathroom to clean up. Sheppard was pale and sweaty, rocking back and forth in place on the ripped up soles of his feet. He looked worn out, but at the same time so totally thrilled that Ronon was paying him close attention he didn’t even appear to notice his injuries.
Shoving Sheppard to a seat on the toilet lid, Ronon used a knife to slice the man’s clothes off so he wouldn’t have to pull the fabric over the scrapes. As soon as he was done, he had the thought that it may not have been a good idea. But Sheppard didn’t even move, might not have even realized he’d been undressed. He noticed, probably only because Ronon paused in his movements.
“I don’t,” Sheppard said. He was staring at Ronon, as usual, eyes huge and not really focused. “I don’t want…that’s not what I want.” His forehead creased. “Unless you wanted, then I’d probably want to, don’t worry…” Sheppard babbled.
Ronon decided to ignore him. Nothing Sheppard said meant anything - he didn’t think the man could speak freely. He saw big red patches on Sheppard’s chest and back, future bruises from throwing himself against the door. Ronon went to get a medical kit for the cuts, had to order Sheppard to stay, because the man rose immediately and tried to follow him, leaving bloody footprints on the bathroom tile.
In the end, Ronon made him get in the bathtub and turned the water on. He would have liked to leave the man to wash himself, but Sheppard’s daytime coherency was nowhere to be found. Ronon had to clean the wounds, because Sheppard didn’t even seem to realize he was injured. It had to hurt, even more so when Ronon poured disinfectant over each cut. Sheppard did flinch, but mostly he kept staring at Ronon and babbling nonsense with an empty grin on his face.
After he got the wounds clean of dirt and gravel, Ronon picked Sheppard up by the armpits and dumped him none too gently on to the rug covering the tile floor. He wasn’t a nurse or a nanny, he didn’t know how to do this properly. He’d given thoughts a while ago to leaving Sateda and finding a home among a new people. But it had been too long, it was too hard and too complicated to try to learn how to do that. He’d stayed because he wanted to be alone. He hadn’t asked for a man who had lost his mind as a pet. Ronon had only been trying to end the debt he’d owed Sheppard.
This was why Ronon might have been a little rough as he dried Sheppard off, leaving red angry patches showing brightly against the man’s pale skin. It didn’t make him feel any better, though, because Sheppard should have been pulling away in discomfort, crying out and demanding that he stop. Instead, the man was limply cooperative, still grinning, humming happily to himself.
Ronon forced his hands to move slower, his touch to be lighter. He put down the towel and began bandaging, still gentle.
“You hurt yourself,” he said, mostly to remind himself that Sheppard was not well.
“You sent me away,” Sheppard answered, anyway. It wasn’t a retort, even, just an honest and immediate response. “That hurt.”
And then he leaned forward, such that his sopping wet head came down to rest on Ronon’s shoulder. He didn’t do anything else, legs splayed out on the floor and arms flopped at his sides. It didn’t interfere with taping up Sheppard’s cuts, so Ronon let him stay.
Afterwards, the idea of forcing Sheppard to sleep somewhere else and the probability that it wouldn’t work anyway was too overwhelming. Ronon threw a pile of blankets on the floor of his bedroom, grabbed Sheppard by the armpits again, and dropped him there.
It was awkward in the morning, when a more collected Sheppard woke up naked at the foot of Ronon’s bed. Ronon feigned sleep while the man moved quietly around the room. He was relieved to hear the sound of drawers opening and fabric rustling. When he opened his eyes and sat up, Sheppard was walking gingerly on his tiptoes, propping a leg up on a chair to roll up the too long woven pants he’d just swiped from the bureau. Sheppard finished and dropped into the seat, eyes coming to land on Ronon.
“Hi,” Sheppard said.
“Hey,” Ronon said. He threw the covers back, ready to stand.
Sheppard was picking at the bandage on his left elbow. “It gets really bad,” he said, rushed and mumbled.
“Yeah,” Ronon said.
“I know I don’t want to do any of it,” Sheppard continued, and for once his gaze was somewhere past Ronon. “But I have to. I can’t help it. It’s too much.”
“Yeah,” Ronon said, again. There wasn’t really anything else to say to that. He got up and went to use the bathroom. On a mirror on the wall, he caught sight of Sheppard staring after him, one hand raised and rubbing the back of his neck.
~
The days stayed manageable. Sheppard was a pretty good soldier. He continued to assist with the daily arsenal chores without incident. Eventually he was able to organize his thoughts enough to ask Ronon how the distribution system worked. He seemed pretty impressed with the trade arrangements Ronon had in place with various worlds and was really interested in learning about the way he tracked Wraith-targeted planets and was beginning to predict their scheduled culls.
Sheppard was calmer and seemingly more lucid, but Ronon wasn’t convinced that anything the man said was genuinely felt. The thing in his neck probably forced him admire Ronon, and that just soured everything.
If he forgot about the Arachan device controlling Sheppard’s every thought, having Sheppard around was okay. It was useful to have help getting the weapons ready. Sheppard didn’t talk much and outside of the things he couldn’t control, wasn’t that annoying. The things he couldn’t control were annoying beyond all reason, though. It was strange to have someone around after so long, and it was weirder still to have someone so utterly dependent on him. The fact that Ronon hadn’t sent him away already probably meant he didn’t hate it.
Okay, he hated the nights. They didn’t get any better. Ronon didn’t know why. It was predictable, at least. He tried to ward it off by giving Sheppard pointless tasks to hold his attention. It didn’t help. Sheppard painted half the upstairs and fixed three leaks in the roof, but he still had a total and complete meltdown when Ronon tried to leave the room.
Sheppard stayed in the blanket nest at the foot of his bed. Ronon didn’t like this. It was too much like a house pet. He moved a smaller bed in there, tried to make Sheppard use it. He would go to sleep in it, but in the morning he was always on the floor again, as close to Ronon as he could get without climbing into bed with him.
Ronon would have tossed him out of it, anyway, and Sheppard probably knew that. Even while in the midst of a tantrum because Ronon was too far away from him, Sheppard maintained a pretty good understanding of where Ronon’s head was at. He didn’t always care, but he always seemed to know. It was too good to be simple intuition. He chalked it up to another facet of the Arachan device; a good slave needed to be aware of his master’s needs and emotions.
Sheppard could tell, somehow, when Ronon was hot or cold, hungry or thirsty. He did things like run off and get him a drink or open a window, without being asked. Ronon didn’t think about this much because it, like everything else, was creepy. The extent to which Sheppard could perceive other things, like when Ronon was losing patience with having him underfoot or wishing for just five minutes alone, was less clear. Sheppard might have known about it, but he didn’t alter his behavior. In fact, it seemed to make him worse. Maybe he didn’t have a programmed response for when his master wanted him gone.
~
Having another person on Sateda was strange; it kept reminding Ronon of a time when there’d been other living people on the planet. These were thoughts he tried to keep out of his head. It made him feel raw and unsettled, like he had his first few months back. To Sheppard, Sateda was probably just a wasteland. The man didn’t say much about it, either not coherent enough to communicate anything particularly complex or picking up on the fact that wasteland or not, this was Ronon’s home.
“Rough,” was the extent of Sheppard’s commentary, the first time he walked with Ronon through the ruins.
It wasn’t hard to remember that Sheppard was a foreigner. He had trouble navigating the debris and nearly blew his legs off on the first trip. Ronon had to grab him before he stepped on a cluster bomb. It was a miracle he’d managed to get to Ronon’s house on his own, especially with the condition he’d been in.
There was an open, stable mine that Ronon used for certain elements needed for most types of ammunition. It was outside the city and he had to walk through the wreckage to get there. Taking Sheppard was a nightmare because, without fail, he would manage to stumble off the safely cleared path and try to step on something unexploded. He did this every single time. Ronon tried to leave him behind, but that didn’t work because Sheppard wouldn’t stay in the house and followed him, anyway. It was safer for Ronon to bring him, because at least he’d be there to grab him and yank him back on the path.
Sheppard was good with explosives, but he must have sucked at reconnaissance missions. Or hell, anything that required marching in a straight line.
“I’m a pilot,” Sheppard muttered the fourth or fifth time Ronon had to grab him and put him back on his feet. “Not a foot soldier.”
The woods were only better because they were mostly free of things which exploded. It was thick and overgrown, the only path the one repeatedly chopped clear by Ronon. There must have been some kind of routine landscaping before, because it hadn’t been this tangled when Ronon had played there as a child.
There weren’t any grenades to kick, so Sheppard settled for tripping over every downed log, walking into a massive grove of poisonous achyltie plants, and stepping on a hive of peschults that got really angry and stung him all over.
Sheppard’s reaction to all this was bizarre. He never responded the way he should have. It was like he couldn’t feel pain, like it was some strange sensation he couldn’t interpret. The little incidents were okay. He would get back up, usually looking confused. Sometimes he would kick whatever it was that had tripped him. This made sense, and Ronon preferred this outcome. Unless it was a grenade Sheppard was trying to kick, then he had to grab the man and shake him a little bit. They could continue the mission to the mine. Sheppard was usually embarrassed and angry, but he kept it together. Ronon pretended nothing had happened. Sheppard fell a lot but he’d never gotten more than a skinned knee - something he usually wouldn’t notice until Ronon bandaged it when they got home.
Other times it was a different story. That was when Ronon remembered that something was seriously wrong with Sheppard, remembered that the metal thing was in his head messing with him. It happened with the more frightening things - the achyltie and the peschults - but smaller events could also do it. Once Sheppard fell in a small creek and the same thing happened.
It was a lot like when Sheppard had scraped the hell out of himself climbing out the window, except worse because Ronon had to figure out how to get the agitated and disoriented man who couldn’t control his limbs well enough to walk and didn’t want to do anything but hug Ronon back to the house without either of them getting injured in the ruins.
It was mostly disturbing, but after the first few times when Ronon wasn’t sure if his new companion had permanently lost his mind, it got easier. Easier for Ronon, anyway. He didn’t really have to do anything. In that condition, Sheppard was hysterical if Ronon wasn’t touching him and euphoric if he was. Ronon just got a grip on him and waited until he came back to his senses. Since Ronon usually had to hold him still while trying to wash one of his cuts, clean the achyltie oil off his skin, or pull peschult stingers out of him, it wasn’t that much trouble.
Sheppard enjoyed it less. After the meltdowns, he was embarrassed and withdrawn. He evidently remembered what happened, even if he had no control over himself while it occurred. It was maybe the most normal he ever was, afterwards when he was pissed off about what had been done to him. Pissed off about it, and yet still looking at Ronon like he was the center of the universe.
“This isn’t me,” he said, the night of the incident with the achyltie encounter. He was sitting shirtless in his nest-like bed on the floor, his hands fiddling restlessly. Ronon figured he was trying not the scratch the rash that was already emerging across his chest. He could have just told him not to touch it and Sheppard would have mindlessly obeyed. But Ronon tried not to order the man around. He didn’t like the blank, empty face that appeared whenever he did.
Ronon didn’t turn to face Sheppard. He generally tried not to remind Sheppard just how weird everything about this situation was. In his place, he wouldn’t want to be stared at like a freak show. Ronon didn’t want to talk about it, either, since everything he had to say involved the intent to eventually return Sheppard to his people. It would only lead to another tantrum.
“I know how to walk,” Sheppard was saying. “It’s this goddamn thing.” He moved one hand up behind his neck.
Ronon believed him. Sheppard was so clumsy it bordered on disability. It was confined only to movement required to travel - his hands worked just fine.
“What the fuck,” Sheppard muttered, and his tone was getting darker and angrier.
That made Ronon look up, mostly because Sheppard had occasionally managed to have a second meltdown in one day, just by getting really upset about the first one.
“It’s okay,” Ronon said.
He had, actually, tried ordering Sheppard to calm down before. It didn’t work. Sheppard was himself enough to really resent being treated like that, but at the same time still under the influence of the thing that made him want to obey. It disintegrated from there, and Ronon usually ended up with an armful of a man who was trembling hysterically while apologizing profusely for not being able to follow his orders.
Sheppard looked back at Ronon, silent for a moment. It was impossible to tell if he was actually comforted by the words, or if he just really liked it when Ronon made eye contact. But he wasn’t getting any more worked up, which was the point.
“I think it’s so you can’t escape,” Ronon continued. Sheppard also liked to be talked to. It didn’t always matter what he said. He’d handled the creek incident by telling Sheppard - as calmly as possible - the lengthy process of how to smelt raw ore into a nice sharp blade. It had worked, enough that they actually were able to make it to the mine that trip.
“Escape?” Sheppard muttered. His posture was relaxing, his aggression dissipating. “I can’t escape.” He looked at Ronon with wide eyes. “I can’t even think about it.” He waved a loose arm up at his neck. “All this tells me is to stay.”
Ronon shrugged. He knew Sheppard, on some level, was still able to hate what was going on. Physical handicap was probably just another means of restraint. He had a few ideas what the Arachans might use clumsy slaves for, but Sheppard didn’t need to think about that.
In another incident that made Ronon wonder if the other man could read his mind, Sheppard seemed to make the connection, anyway.
“I’m glad it was you,” he said, softly, sinking down into the blankets.
~
Please feed the author
Part 3
While Sheppard sipped his fluids, Ronon stood behind him and poked curiously at the strange metal claw stuck to the man’s neck. Sheppard obediently tilted his head this direction or that, without saying a word. Ronon accomplished nothing, of course, only confirming that it was attached. It could have extended into the man’s brain for all he knew.
Finally, Ronon went back and sat opposite Sheppard.
“Give me your hand,” Ronon said, an experiment forming in his mind.
Instantly, Sheppard let go of the glass and thrust his right arm across the table.
“Keep drinking,” Ronon said, and Sheppard’s attention redirected back to his glass.
Ronon drew a small knife from a sheath at his waist. With one hand, he pressed Sheppard’s hand flat against the table and held it lightly by the wrist. He glanced up, but the man was back to taking the tiny sips from his glass. Sheppard was pausing between swallows, each break the same length of time. His lips were moving as if he were counting silently.
Ronon tapped the flat of blade against the back of Sheppard’s hand. It took a second, but slowly Sheppard took his eyes of the glass and looked across the table. He didn’t react, though, just kind of glanced at the knife then raised his eyes to Ronon’s face. Sheppard didn’t say anything, picked up the glass and took another small sip.
“I’m gonna cut you finger off,” Ronon said, turning the knife so the sharp side of the blade was directly above the third knuckle of Sheppard’s index finger.
Again, it took a second longer than was natural for Sheppard to process the statement. He understood, though, and his face tightened up in horror. But he didn’t try to withdraw his hand. He left his other hand curled around his glass. He didn’t even say anything. His only reaction was the shock on his face. There wasn’t a single moment of resistance.
Ronon dropped the knife blade a fraction, let a small line of crimson break on Sheppard’s skin. The man picked up his glass and took another tiny sip. His arm flinched but otherwise stayed still.
Ronon folded the knife up and put it away.
Relief flooded across Sheppard’s face. He left his arm lying across the table, the tiny bead of blood welling up on his finger.
“Something’s really wrong with you,” Ronon said.
Sheppard looked up from staring into the glass. “Yeah,” he said. “I know.”
~
It turned out there was one thing Sheppard had done on his days in Sateda before throwing himself on the floor of Ronon’s bedroom to wait. Unfortunately, that one thing had been locating the device Ronon had been given to contact the City of the Ancestors and smashing it into a million pieces.
He’d cleaned up the mess, though. Swept up all the little parts and disposed of them in a trash can, which he obediently showed Ronon when he suspiciously asked the man if he knew where it was.
Ronon glared at the tiny little pieces of crunched circuitry. Then, he glared at Sheppard.
“Why’d you do that?”
“So you couldn’t send me back,” Sheppard answered, immediately. Honesty was probably a part of whatever influence he was under. Sheppard didn’t look like he wanted to tell Ronon. In fact, he kind of looked like he expected to have the shit kicked out of him for doing it even as he confessed. His shoulders were hunched and he seemed to be making a conscious effort not to flinch away.
Ronon tested that theory, too. He asked Sheppard questions about the City of the Ancestors, about its security and defense capabilities. Sensitive topics that no soldier should reveal. Sheppard, though, answered every question without hesitation. He answered thoroughly and completely and offered to draw schematics.
“Were you allowed to tell me that?” Ronon asked, when he was done.
“No,” Sheppard said. “I’m not.” And then he looked almost sad.
Ronon thought about taking Sheppard through the Ring to a planet he knew the man’s people frequented. He wouldn’t need the device Sheppard had smashed. The sphere of Atlantis’ influence was pretty well known and though Ronon didn’t follow their schedule as closely as he did the Wraith, it probably wouldn’t be long before he was found.
But, he already knew the doctors had not figured out how to cure Sheppard. It occurred to him that they would probably find out where he’d been after he ran off, and more soldiers would show up on Sateda.
“You’re going to let me stay?” Sheppard asked then, almost as if he could read Ronon’s mind.
“For now,” Ronon said.
“Okay,” Sheppard said, and then he gave an entirely too worshipful smile.
~
Sheppard’s attachment to Ronon made him almost childlike. He had to be literally instructed to do the most basic task. It was really annoying. The lack of resistance meant a total lack of initiative. Sheppard evidently had no intention of doing anything beyond sitting unmoving and silent - while staring at Ronon - until specifically instructed otherwise.
Ronon managed to get him to undress and bathe in the shower, only to have him come trotting out freshly cleaned and completely naked because he hadn’t been told to redress. Or, the thing in his skull was designed to interfere with any objection Sheppard might have had to presenting himself naked to Ronon, which was equally likely.
Ronon found Sheppard a pair of soft pajamas that fit, made him eat a small portion of rations, and then sent him to go sleep in a nearby bedroom.
It was then that Sheppard displayed that he still had the tiniest bit of freewill left. When Ronon pointed to the door to the room where Sheppard could sleep, the man paused in obeying. He looked at the doorway, looked back at Ronon, and then looked more pointedly at Ronon’s own bedroom.
“In there?” Sheppard asked.
“Yeah,” Ronon said, and folded his arms so that his body blocked the doorway to his own bedroom.
Sheppard looked visibly disappointed. Ronon retracted the idea that this was freewill; it was just another sick part of that thing attached to Sheppard’s head.
“Go,” Ronon said, because Sheppard hadn’t moved.
Sheppard obeyed, this time. Instantly. Without another word, he turned around and walked into the room, padding towards the bed and out of Ronon’s sightline. It was a relief that he didn’t persist with what probably was a degrading urge, but Ronon didn’t feel particularly good about ordering the man away when Sheppard had absolutely no choice in the matter.
Ronon gave more thought to taking Sheppard to a planet where his people could find him, but that was a task for tomorrow. He went into his own room, locked the door, and quickly fell asleep.
~
The following morning, Ronon woke at the usual time. He rose, dressed, and walked out of his bedroom as he did every day. As he entered the hallway, instead of hitting the stone floor, his foot landed on something warm and solid. Ronon looked down, already knowing that he was stepping on Sheppard.
The man had spent the night curled up at the base of the door to Ronon’s bedroom. If Ronon hadn’t locked it, he probably would have come inside.
Ronon applied light pressure with his foot to Sheppard’s flank, having quickly readjusted his weight as not to crush any ribs. Slowly, Sheppard squirmed away, grunting sleepily. Ronon prodded harder and the man’s eye fluttered open.
“Hey,” Sheppard said, peering up at him. For a moment, he sounded normal. In the next second, his gaze returned to that artificially intense stare and his face became clouded. “Um.” Sheppard pulled himself into a crawl, unfolding his limbs. He looked embarrassed and a little worried. “I couldn’t sleep in there.”
Ronon didn’t say anything, just offered down a hand to pull Sheppard up. The man took his hand and gripped hard. He didn’t try to lift himself, just let Ronon pull him straight off the floor. He also didn’t let go of Ronon’s palm, holding it tightly even after he was upright. Ronon waited for him to release it, then quickly jerked his hand free. This was getting creepier.
There was nothing about this that wasn’t creepy, actually. Including the fact that Sheppard seemed to be getting better. Nothing having to do with his obsession with Ronon was improving, but in general the man seemed healthier than the night before. His color was better and he didn’t look as ill if you ignored the way he stared at Ronon. He didn’t need as many literal instructions, able to get himself washed, dressed, and fed with only a little supervision. Ronon gave Sheppard some rations for breakfast and ate his own, silently. He thought more about trying to return him to a planet where his people would find him.
Sheppard didn’t speak, not even to comment on the bland taste of the breakfast meal. He just watched Ronon, face expressionless. For his part, Ronon avoided eye contact.
“You want to send me away,” Sheppard observed after a few minutes. He didn’t sound upset about it.
Ronon looked up. “Yeah,” he said. “You should go home.”
Sheppard kept eating, still calm and unalarmed. “I want to stay here.” He swallowed, put down his spoon.
“No,” Ronon said.
Sheppard frowned. “I’d come back,” he said. If the man’s demeanor hadn’t been so flat and quiet, it would have sounded like a threat.
“Aren’t you supposed to do what I say?” Ronon asked, and he might have been a little annoyed.
Sheppard didn’t answer, and for a second his face was just lucid enough to reflect just how pissed off he was about that.
~
Like it or not - and neither of them did like it - Sheppard did have to do what Ronon said. At the same time, the metal device in his neck compelled Sheppard to do things that Ronon didn’t want him to do, things Sheppard himself probably didn’t want to do. It was designed, he figured, to create an attached and obedient slave. Except that Ronon didn’t want a slave.
Sheppard didn’t talk about why he felt the need to follow Ronon’s every move while staring at him hungrily. He probably would have if asked, but Ronon genuinely didn’t want to know. It was easy to imagine the humiliating tasks the Arachans expected a slave to perform, but Ronon just had Sheppard help him assemble ammunition shells.
The work had to be done; usually Ronon did it by himself, as he did everything. It was slow and repetitive, requiring total focus and attention. For this, it was almost perfect to engage Sheppard. It was also dangerous, but Sheppard was a soldier. Ronon figured he had experience working with explosives or he wouldn’t have all his fingers left.
Sheppard seemed to like it, too. Or the thing in his neck made him like being instructed to do a specific task, Ronon wasn’t sure. The work went much faster with two people. Sheppard was competent; he immediately understood how to ration the materials and secure each container safely. The activity seemed to relax him, as well.
“So,” Sheppard said, when they finished and were loading the ammunition into boxes. “This is what you do now? You’re an anti-Wraith MacGyver?”
Ronon didn’t understand. “I kill Wraith,” he said. “I help other worlds kill Wraith.”
“Cool,” Sheppard said. His eyes were, for once, not on Ronon. He was looking around the armory at Ronon’s stockpile. “Like Robin Hood. Except with guns.”
“What?” asked Ronon.
“It’s a legend from my world,” Sheppard said. “Guy stole from the rich to save the poor.”
“I don’t steal,” Ronon said.
The smile dropped off Sheppard’s face and he idly scratched at the back of his neck. “I’m no Little John.”
It was a change, at least, to have the man acting what was probably a little more normal. Making jokes, even if Ronon didn’t get them. It was probably a good sign.
“Wanna help me build some bombs?” Ronon asked.
~
Sheppard was as competent and interested in bombs as he was in ammunition. It made the days easy. There was a lot to do and it kept Sheppard focused. When he was occupied, it was almost possible to forget that he wasn’t operating under his own freewill. Sheppard even came up with ideas to make the artillery more affective and started modifying the parts immediately. He still stared at Ronon intensely but didn’t do anything else.
The nights were different. Once Sheppard didn’t have a task to focus on, things fell apart completely. Sheppard fell apart. He turned back into the disoriented and clingy man Ronon had found on the floor of his bedroom door. He wanted to follow Ronon everywhere and when he wasn’t allowed to, he got upset.
It was like dealing with a child, except that a child probably wouldn’t have been able to break the lock off Ronon’s bedroom door. Sheppard did it sometime in the afternoon of the third day, which meant he was planning ahead. He also did it fairly stealthily, so Ronon didn’t notice until he closed his door that night and discovered the latch was bent and the closing mechanism ripped off the frame.
Ronon had no idea what to do. He paused long enough that his first impulse wasn’t to smack Sheppard’s face into it, then opened the door. Sheppard was bedding down in the hallway again. He didn’t even pretend that he was going to sleep in the other room, but he was pretending that he had no idea why Ronon was glaring at him. Ronon tapped the door frame, his finger resting on the busted lock.
Sheppard’s eyes followed his hand and his face immediately crumpled. His shoulders hunched like he expected Ronon to attack him, his hands scrabbling at the sheet he’d been pulling over himself.
Immediately, Ronon stopped moving and held very still. Sheppard froze, as well, face still full of fear. Finally, Ronon took a step back into his own room and lightly pulled the door shut. After a few seconds, he walked across the room, grabbed a large bureau and dragged it in front of the door. He felt ridiculous. Sheppard wasn’t a threat. But Ronon also didn’t want the man and the thing in his neck entering his room while he slept.
The following night, Ronon locked Sheppard in another bedroom. He didn’t have an explicit reason, other than the man wasn’t in control of himself and Ronon’s bedroom door no longer had a lock.
At first, Sheppard obeyed as quickly as he always did, even as the look on his face said he was going to end up on the floor outside Ronon’s room like a puppy, anyway. He understood, evidently, that sleeping in the hall was bizarre.
“I can’t help it,” Sheppard said, as Ronon escorted him into the room and pointed at the bed.
Ronon didn’t say anything, waiting until Sheppard sat down on the mattress and looked plaintively at him.
“Stay in here,” Ronon said. He stood in front of the door knob, blocking Sheppard’s view of it as he adjusted the locking mechanism so it couldn’t be opened from the inside.
Sheppard’s face fell even further, but he said the word he almost always did when given a command. “Okay.”
Ronon stepped outside and pulled the door shut. He locked it, quietly, but sure that Sheppard would hear the sound of the bolt sliding into place. There was only silence from within, though. He guessed that Sheppard couldn’t object, and as much as that wasn’t Ronon’s fault, he still managed to feel pretty shitty about it.
Sheppard started objecting about half an hour later, though. Ronon could hear the door shaking on its hinges, with the occasional crash that sounded as if Sheppard was throwing himself against it. The door was strong and thick, the lock solid. If anything, Sheppard was probably hurting himself. Ronon considered letting him out, but then the room went quiet as if the man had given up.
Ronon lay in the dark for a few minutes, wondering if the isolation would help any. He figured he’d find out in the morning, and drifted off to sleep.
He found out a lot earlier, because Sheppard pushed the door to his room ajar and Ronon sat up in bed and tried to shoot him before his eyes were even fully open. Sheppard dived to the floor and Ronon’s weapon blast was absorbed harmlessly into the wall. A few seconds later, Sheppard’s head popped back into view. Even in the darkness, his eyes found Ronon’s and he smiled sheepishly.
Sheppard hadn’t been able to break the lock or knock the door down. He had, however, been able to get a window open, climb three stories down the side of the building, re-enter the front door, and then walk right into Ronon’s bedroom through the unlocked door. He’d been barefoot the whole time - he’d shown up in a flimsy pair of patient slippers and Ronon hadn’t given him any shoes yet - and managed to scrape up his feet, his legs, and his hands.
Ronon ended up taking Sheppard into the bathroom to clean up. Sheppard was pale and sweaty, rocking back and forth in place on the ripped up soles of his feet. He looked worn out, but at the same time so totally thrilled that Ronon was paying him close attention he didn’t even appear to notice his injuries.
Shoving Sheppard to a seat on the toilet lid, Ronon used a knife to slice the man’s clothes off so he wouldn’t have to pull the fabric over the scrapes. As soon as he was done, he had the thought that it may not have been a good idea. But Sheppard didn’t even move, might not have even realized he’d been undressed. He noticed, probably only because Ronon paused in his movements.
“I don’t,” Sheppard said. He was staring at Ronon, as usual, eyes huge and not really focused. “I don’t want…that’s not what I want.” His forehead creased. “Unless you wanted, then I’d probably want to, don’t worry…” Sheppard babbled.
Ronon decided to ignore him. Nothing Sheppard said meant anything - he didn’t think the man could speak freely. He saw big red patches on Sheppard’s chest and back, future bruises from throwing himself against the door. Ronon went to get a medical kit for the cuts, had to order Sheppard to stay, because the man rose immediately and tried to follow him, leaving bloody footprints on the bathroom tile.
In the end, Ronon made him get in the bathtub and turned the water on. He would have liked to leave the man to wash himself, but Sheppard’s daytime coherency was nowhere to be found. Ronon had to clean the wounds, because Sheppard didn’t even seem to realize he was injured. It had to hurt, even more so when Ronon poured disinfectant over each cut. Sheppard did flinch, but mostly he kept staring at Ronon and babbling nonsense with an empty grin on his face.
After he got the wounds clean of dirt and gravel, Ronon picked Sheppard up by the armpits and dumped him none too gently on to the rug covering the tile floor. He wasn’t a nurse or a nanny, he didn’t know how to do this properly. He’d given thoughts a while ago to leaving Sateda and finding a home among a new people. But it had been too long, it was too hard and too complicated to try to learn how to do that. He’d stayed because he wanted to be alone. He hadn’t asked for a man who had lost his mind as a pet. Ronon had only been trying to end the debt he’d owed Sheppard.
This was why Ronon might have been a little rough as he dried Sheppard off, leaving red angry patches showing brightly against the man’s pale skin. It didn’t make him feel any better, though, because Sheppard should have been pulling away in discomfort, crying out and demanding that he stop. Instead, the man was limply cooperative, still grinning, humming happily to himself.
Ronon forced his hands to move slower, his touch to be lighter. He put down the towel and began bandaging, still gentle.
“You hurt yourself,” he said, mostly to remind himself that Sheppard was not well.
“You sent me away,” Sheppard answered, anyway. It wasn’t a retort, even, just an honest and immediate response. “That hurt.”
And then he leaned forward, such that his sopping wet head came down to rest on Ronon’s shoulder. He didn’t do anything else, legs splayed out on the floor and arms flopped at his sides. It didn’t interfere with taping up Sheppard’s cuts, so Ronon let him stay.
Afterwards, the idea of forcing Sheppard to sleep somewhere else and the probability that it wouldn’t work anyway was too overwhelming. Ronon threw a pile of blankets on the floor of his bedroom, grabbed Sheppard by the armpits again, and dropped him there.
It was awkward in the morning, when a more collected Sheppard woke up naked at the foot of Ronon’s bed. Ronon feigned sleep while the man moved quietly around the room. He was relieved to hear the sound of drawers opening and fabric rustling. When he opened his eyes and sat up, Sheppard was walking gingerly on his tiptoes, propping a leg up on a chair to roll up the too long woven pants he’d just swiped from the bureau. Sheppard finished and dropped into the seat, eyes coming to land on Ronon.
“Hi,” Sheppard said.
“Hey,” Ronon said. He threw the covers back, ready to stand.
Sheppard was picking at the bandage on his left elbow. “It gets really bad,” he said, rushed and mumbled.
“Yeah,” Ronon said.
“I know I don’t want to do any of it,” Sheppard continued, and for once his gaze was somewhere past Ronon. “But I have to. I can’t help it. It’s too much.”
“Yeah,” Ronon said, again. There wasn’t really anything else to say to that. He got up and went to use the bathroom. On a mirror on the wall, he caught sight of Sheppard staring after him, one hand raised and rubbing the back of his neck.
~
The days stayed manageable. Sheppard was a pretty good soldier. He continued to assist with the daily arsenal chores without incident. Eventually he was able to organize his thoughts enough to ask Ronon how the distribution system worked. He seemed pretty impressed with the trade arrangements Ronon had in place with various worlds and was really interested in learning about the way he tracked Wraith-targeted planets and was beginning to predict their scheduled culls.
Sheppard was calmer and seemingly more lucid, but Ronon wasn’t convinced that anything the man said was genuinely felt. The thing in his neck probably forced him admire Ronon, and that just soured everything.
If he forgot about the Arachan device controlling Sheppard’s every thought, having Sheppard around was okay. It was useful to have help getting the weapons ready. Sheppard didn’t talk much and outside of the things he couldn’t control, wasn’t that annoying. The things he couldn’t control were annoying beyond all reason, though. It was strange to have someone around after so long, and it was weirder still to have someone so utterly dependent on him. The fact that Ronon hadn’t sent him away already probably meant he didn’t hate it.
Okay, he hated the nights. They didn’t get any better. Ronon didn’t know why. It was predictable, at least. He tried to ward it off by giving Sheppard pointless tasks to hold his attention. It didn’t help. Sheppard painted half the upstairs and fixed three leaks in the roof, but he still had a total and complete meltdown when Ronon tried to leave the room.
Sheppard stayed in the blanket nest at the foot of his bed. Ronon didn’t like this. It was too much like a house pet. He moved a smaller bed in there, tried to make Sheppard use it. He would go to sleep in it, but in the morning he was always on the floor again, as close to Ronon as he could get without climbing into bed with him.
Ronon would have tossed him out of it, anyway, and Sheppard probably knew that. Even while in the midst of a tantrum because Ronon was too far away from him, Sheppard maintained a pretty good understanding of where Ronon’s head was at. He didn’t always care, but he always seemed to know. It was too good to be simple intuition. He chalked it up to another facet of the Arachan device; a good slave needed to be aware of his master’s needs and emotions.
Sheppard could tell, somehow, when Ronon was hot or cold, hungry or thirsty. He did things like run off and get him a drink or open a window, without being asked. Ronon didn’t think about this much because it, like everything else, was creepy. The extent to which Sheppard could perceive other things, like when Ronon was losing patience with having him underfoot or wishing for just five minutes alone, was less clear. Sheppard might have known about it, but he didn’t alter his behavior. In fact, it seemed to make him worse. Maybe he didn’t have a programmed response for when his master wanted him gone.
~
Having another person on Sateda was strange; it kept reminding Ronon of a time when there’d been other living people on the planet. These were thoughts he tried to keep out of his head. It made him feel raw and unsettled, like he had his first few months back. To Sheppard, Sateda was probably just a wasteland. The man didn’t say much about it, either not coherent enough to communicate anything particularly complex or picking up on the fact that wasteland or not, this was Ronon’s home.
“Rough,” was the extent of Sheppard’s commentary, the first time he walked with Ronon through the ruins.
It wasn’t hard to remember that Sheppard was a foreigner. He had trouble navigating the debris and nearly blew his legs off on the first trip. Ronon had to grab him before he stepped on a cluster bomb. It was a miracle he’d managed to get to Ronon’s house on his own, especially with the condition he’d been in.
There was an open, stable mine that Ronon used for certain elements needed for most types of ammunition. It was outside the city and he had to walk through the wreckage to get there. Taking Sheppard was a nightmare because, without fail, he would manage to stumble off the safely cleared path and try to step on something unexploded. He did this every single time. Ronon tried to leave him behind, but that didn’t work because Sheppard wouldn’t stay in the house and followed him, anyway. It was safer for Ronon to bring him, because at least he’d be there to grab him and yank him back on the path.
Sheppard was good with explosives, but he must have sucked at reconnaissance missions. Or hell, anything that required marching in a straight line.
“I’m a pilot,” Sheppard muttered the fourth or fifth time Ronon had to grab him and put him back on his feet. “Not a foot soldier.”
The woods were only better because they were mostly free of things which exploded. It was thick and overgrown, the only path the one repeatedly chopped clear by Ronon. There must have been some kind of routine landscaping before, because it hadn’t been this tangled when Ronon had played there as a child.
There weren’t any grenades to kick, so Sheppard settled for tripping over every downed log, walking into a massive grove of poisonous achyltie plants, and stepping on a hive of peschults that got really angry and stung him all over.
Sheppard’s reaction to all this was bizarre. He never responded the way he should have. It was like he couldn’t feel pain, like it was some strange sensation he couldn’t interpret. The little incidents were okay. He would get back up, usually looking confused. Sometimes he would kick whatever it was that had tripped him. This made sense, and Ronon preferred this outcome. Unless it was a grenade Sheppard was trying to kick, then he had to grab the man and shake him a little bit. They could continue the mission to the mine. Sheppard was usually embarrassed and angry, but he kept it together. Ronon pretended nothing had happened. Sheppard fell a lot but he’d never gotten more than a skinned knee - something he usually wouldn’t notice until Ronon bandaged it when they got home.
Other times it was a different story. That was when Ronon remembered that something was seriously wrong with Sheppard, remembered that the metal thing was in his head messing with him. It happened with the more frightening things - the achyltie and the peschults - but smaller events could also do it. Once Sheppard fell in a small creek and the same thing happened.
It was a lot like when Sheppard had scraped the hell out of himself climbing out the window, except worse because Ronon had to figure out how to get the agitated and disoriented man who couldn’t control his limbs well enough to walk and didn’t want to do anything but hug Ronon back to the house without either of them getting injured in the ruins.
It was mostly disturbing, but after the first few times when Ronon wasn’t sure if his new companion had permanently lost his mind, it got easier. Easier for Ronon, anyway. He didn’t really have to do anything. In that condition, Sheppard was hysterical if Ronon wasn’t touching him and euphoric if he was. Ronon just got a grip on him and waited until he came back to his senses. Since Ronon usually had to hold him still while trying to wash one of his cuts, clean the achyltie oil off his skin, or pull peschult stingers out of him, it wasn’t that much trouble.
Sheppard enjoyed it less. After the meltdowns, he was embarrassed and withdrawn. He evidently remembered what happened, even if he had no control over himself while it occurred. It was maybe the most normal he ever was, afterwards when he was pissed off about what had been done to him. Pissed off about it, and yet still looking at Ronon like he was the center of the universe.
“This isn’t me,” he said, the night of the incident with the achyltie encounter. He was sitting shirtless in his nest-like bed on the floor, his hands fiddling restlessly. Ronon figured he was trying not the scratch the rash that was already emerging across his chest. He could have just told him not to touch it and Sheppard would have mindlessly obeyed. But Ronon tried not to order the man around. He didn’t like the blank, empty face that appeared whenever he did.
Ronon didn’t turn to face Sheppard. He generally tried not to remind Sheppard just how weird everything about this situation was. In his place, he wouldn’t want to be stared at like a freak show. Ronon didn’t want to talk about it, either, since everything he had to say involved the intent to eventually return Sheppard to his people. It would only lead to another tantrum.
“I know how to walk,” Sheppard was saying. “It’s this goddamn thing.” He moved one hand up behind his neck.
Ronon believed him. Sheppard was so clumsy it bordered on disability. It was confined only to movement required to travel - his hands worked just fine.
“What the fuck,” Sheppard muttered, and his tone was getting darker and angrier.
That made Ronon look up, mostly because Sheppard had occasionally managed to have a second meltdown in one day, just by getting really upset about the first one.
“It’s okay,” Ronon said.
He had, actually, tried ordering Sheppard to calm down before. It didn’t work. Sheppard was himself enough to really resent being treated like that, but at the same time still under the influence of the thing that made him want to obey. It disintegrated from there, and Ronon usually ended up with an armful of a man who was trembling hysterically while apologizing profusely for not being able to follow his orders.
Sheppard looked back at Ronon, silent for a moment. It was impossible to tell if he was actually comforted by the words, or if he just really liked it when Ronon made eye contact. But he wasn’t getting any more worked up, which was the point.
“I think it’s so you can’t escape,” Ronon continued. Sheppard also liked to be talked to. It didn’t always matter what he said. He’d handled the creek incident by telling Sheppard - as calmly as possible - the lengthy process of how to smelt raw ore into a nice sharp blade. It had worked, enough that they actually were able to make it to the mine that trip.
“Escape?” Sheppard muttered. His posture was relaxing, his aggression dissipating. “I can’t escape.” He looked at Ronon with wide eyes. “I can’t even think about it.” He waved a loose arm up at his neck. “All this tells me is to stay.”
Ronon shrugged. He knew Sheppard, on some level, was still able to hate what was going on. Physical handicap was probably just another means of restraint. He had a few ideas what the Arachans might use clumsy slaves for, but Sheppard didn’t need to think about that.
In another incident that made Ronon wonder if the other man could read his mind, Sheppard seemed to make the connection, anyway.
“I’m glad it was you,” he said, softly, sinking down into the blankets.
~
Please feed the author
Part 3