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eirian-houpe · 5 months

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Chain of Command - Act 1

Fandom: Stargate Atlantis Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Teyla Emmagan/Michael Kenmore Characters: Richard Woolsey, John Sheppard, Jennifer Keller, Ronon Dex, Rodney McKay, Original Stargate Character(s), Original Stargate Wraith Character(s), Michael Kenmore Additional Tags: Angst, Traditions, Drama, Canon Typical Violence, Politics, Bureaucracy, Conflict Series: Part 2 of SGA Virtual Season Five Summary:

When the IOA replaces Carter as the head of the Atlantis Expedition, and the first thing that happens is the alienation of long standing allies, in spite of Sheppard's best efforts, trouble can't be far behind. Woolsey's command is given a baptism of fire when the Alpha team is ambushed off world, and hampered by a lack of intel they truly are on their own.

Chain of Command - Act 1

Refocus. Prioritize. Defend.

"The I.O.A. is initiating a new policy: immediate recall of all base personnel. From now on, we'll be focusing entirely on the defense of this city. Furthermore, Doctor, your department is going to be scaled back. Without the Gate Bridge, and with the need to keep at least one ship in orbit at all times for defensive purposes, re-supply is going to be difficult. We need to prioritise."

"I don't understand this. I'm already under-staffed as it is."

"Only because you've over-extended yourself with all these humanitarian efforts and your continued attempts to find an antidote for the Hoffan drug. Once you have refocused your attention back to the medical needs of this base and its personnel, I don't think you'll have a problem."

Woolsey and Keller – The Last Man

Act 1

Ronon shifted uncomfortably as he looked around the briefing room at each of his friends. It had been less than twenty four hours since their desperate attempts to find Teyla, and the subsequent deadly battles with the Wraith after being rescued from the ruins of Michael's facility. Their injuries, at least the physical ones, had barely begun to heal, but at least they had had some time to bond and to begin to assimilate what had happened.

Of course, then came the inevitable – the inquisition. Carter had delayed as long as she could in sending the report to Stargate Command. She must have known it would not be a favorable response, not with the outcome as it was.

He sighed as he turned his head to the seat usually occupied by Teyla. He missed her. He missed her intelligent opinions, framed within the culture and experiences of the Pegasus galaxy. He missed the gentleness and concern she showed for everyone that suffused her words and, even when she was critical of plans and ideas, made people feel that their voice had been heard.

Her place was occupied by Halling. As a representative of their Athosian allies, and having been held captive for so long by Michael, he was able to provide them with invaluable insight and information. Ronon knew that without the Athosians' knowledge, to augment his own, the Atlantis Expedition would be perilously uninformed.

"We were not the only ones," Halling said in answer to a question that had just been asked of him, "but we were kept apart from the others."

"Why?" Sheppard asked.

"Which of us can truly claim to know that one's mind?" Halling asked in response, speaking of Michael.

"Well you must be able to make some kind of guess," Sheppard said, and Ronon could hear the irritation mounting in his friend's voice. He knew Halling was doing his best and was unused to these kinds of situations and wanted to try and help the man out, but he couldn't find the words. He couldn't even think of what Teyla might have said.

In the end it was McKay that spoke. "Sheppard, I know you're worried, we all are, but grilling Halling about something he can't tell you is counter productive," he said, "I lay for hours watching Michael working and—"

Ronon glared at him, cutting off whatever had been about to come out of his mouth. He knew Rodney McKay well enough to know that, more often that not, the man's mouth ran away with him, and if he was talking about Michael's work then the chances were that he would let slip about Lorne's condition.

It was the one thing that Sam had, quite deliberately, left out of her report to Stargate Command. She'd called them all together after she'd sent the data-burst that had contained the report and had explained to them that she felt it would be against their, and certainly Lorne's, best interest to tell them until they were sure they had no other choice. Every single one of them had agreed to mention it to no one outside of their small select group. Not even other base personnel. Jennifer was to have sole responsibility for Lorne's care so that not even her medical staff would be involved and risk compromising their silence.

"And what, Doctor McKay?" All eyes, including Ronon's own, turned to face the new Commander of the Atlantis Expedition.

"Well," to give McKay his due, he almost sounded convincing, "I was just going to say that I couldn't even begin to guess at Michael's motives for anything – even having been so close to him. The Athosians, I'm sure, didn't get to see much of Michael himself. Right, Halling?"

"It is as you say, Doctor," Halling answered, "It was usually his soldiers that came to do his bidding."

"Indeed, Michael's soldiers…" Woolsey's voice held a good deal of suspicion and his posture was threatening as he leaned toward McKay. Ronon couldn't help but glance at Doctor Keller, wondering why she had been called to the meeting, and a very uncomfortable feeling began to stir, snakelike, in the pit of his belly.

The night was uncomfortably cold. The frost crept along the ground and condensed the air around their feet, some kind of arcane breath that came as a precursor to the arrival of the Haradian Hag… and arrive she would, for the Red Star had appeared in the heavens several hours before.

Miran walked through his people, watching the way each of them huddled together with their families, perhaps for warmth, but mostly out of fear. He had no family, and neither did he feel fear, only anger; anger at their continued subjugation by the Haradian people and frustration at his own people's apathy, their unwillingness to fight back.

Once again the Red Star had appeared, and once more they had all gathered, lambs to the slaughter, awaiting the coming of the one who would sniff among their young womenfolk, and select the one that would be expected, willingly, to make the sacrifice for all of them, and go with the Hag to the Haradian city, to suffer the ancestors-only-knew what kind of torment and torture.

He stopped walking and pulled his jacket closer around him against the cold. His eyes still moved among the crowds of people, seeking out the one for whom his anger, his need for action, burned most brightly. She looked up and met his eyes in the same moment. She was huddled with her mother and father; with her brother, who also met Miran's gaze. Not tonight… please not this time, his expression said.

Lisstha stood resolute. Afraid, yes, he could see it in her eyes, but he knew she would not falter or fail to do her duty by her people if The Choice should fall on her. None of the young women would. None of them dared, and for most of them it had become so ingrained, so expected, that not a single one among them would even consider marriage until they had passed through three such nights as these without being chosen.

It had become their tradition, a way of life for them, as had accepting those others that the Haradia,'s brought to their settlement, expecting to be cared for, to be subsumed into their community as wives and foster sisters, husbands and foster brothers, but it was wrong… and sooner or later the others would see it – when the last of the elders passed as smoke beyond the Ancestral Ring – and would finally hear Miran's words, and stand with him against their Haradian masters.

The low hum that shook through their bellies filled the air for a moment and in the distance a flash of light split the darkness.

"She is coming."

"The Hag is coming."

"It is time."

The many frightened whispers began to pass among the villagers, as much a part of the ritual as was their gathering out in the cold to await their tormentors.

"And we will stand ready," the young women answered together.

As he watched Lisstha's lips move to shape the words, Miran's fists clenched at his sides and his eyes filled with angry tears.

"No," he cried and began to push his way through the crowd of people, who had started to draw together as the time approached. "This is wrong. Can't you see that?" He broke through to the front of the crowd and turned to face them, spreading his arms wide. "How many more of our young women must we let them take? How many more lives must they destroy before you—?"

"Peace, young Miran," Dannad, the eldest of the leading council stepped forward into the space alongside him. He held out his hand toward him. Miran knew it was meant to be a calming gesture, but it only enflamed his anger still further.

"Don't patronise me, Dannad," he virtually spat the words in the elder's direction.

"No one is patronising anyone," Dannad answered softly, genuine in his concern, "but we all know how much you feel for young Lisstha and that it is understandable, given that, why you would speak this way."

Lisstha stepped away from her mother's arms, coming forward to appeal to him. "I know you want to protect me. I'm not afraid."

"You should be." he told her, reaching out, first to her and then to all of them. "You should, all of you, be afraid – and angry too. There's no need for this. We shouldn't have to—"

"Miran, please…" Lisstha's light touch against his chest cut him off. He automatically covered her hand with his to hold it there, to feel its warmth against where his heart beat wildly inside of him. "Do not speak this way. She is coming and could hear you, and then you know what will happen if she does."

"But Lisstha—"

She reached up then, to cup her hand around the back of his neck and draw him down to meet her waiting, but suddenly fierce, kiss. All resistance in him melted away and he wound his arms tightly around her, deepening the kiss, shameless before the entire village in the way his frightened, needful hunger possessed her, made her his.

When the kiss broke, she leaned her head against his, breathing hard and whispered, "It will be all right."

He did not have the time to reply. From the edge of the village came the sounds of footsteps, slow and labored, and the rustling of the deep grasses that grew there. He spun around to face the direction of their coming, holding Lisstha close against him as he peered into the darkness along with the others.

The Hag came, as she always did, supported by two men. Both carried weapons strapped against their thighs, though they never had to use them. The fear of the Hag, and what defying her would mean for the village, kept the villagers away from them, away from the old Haradian woman.

He felt the old woman's eyes on him as though a physical touch. Against every instinct he turned his head, raised his eyes to look on her. Of themselves his arms tightened protectively around Lisstha and he shivered in near revulsion.

The crone was quite simply the most ancient creature he had ever seen. Her bones were bent and twisted with the effort of supporting her withered flesh for so many years. Her hair, what little she still possessed, was as grey as the frosty air that oozed along the ground ahead of her. However, where her eyes should have been filmed and milky with age, they remained piercing and sharp, pale and faded certainly, but possessed of a fire that burned from somewhere within the old witch.

"Let the women… stand forward," she said and her voice, little more than a whisper, poured ice over every nerve he possessed.

"So what exactly are you saying, Doctor McKay?" Woolsey asked, his voice precise in the way he schooled the inflection.

"I'm saying that I haven't yet had the time to talk to Zelenka about what they saw, about the sensor data, about anything that happened aboard Daedalus, so I can't help you."

Sheppard frowned again at the combative way that Woolsey was proceeding with the debriefing. He was almost acting as though he was trying to make everyone angry and insecure.

"But every indication is that the Wraith now possess some kind of super-weapon capable of destroying a ship with a single shot," Woolsey said.

"No," Rodney countered, holding up a hand, finger raised. "That could have been a lucky shot. Michael's ship could have suffered an overload. There are any number of things that—"

"The report from the officer aboard Daedalus says that the beam was reflected back by Mi—" Woolsey began to argue.

"He also reported," Rodney snapped, "that the sensors on the Daedalus were down. So you're talking about human perceptions. People often misinterpret—"

"We all saw it, Rodney," Sheppard sighed at having to contradict Rodney, but he had to stop McKay from playing into Woolsey's hands and making a total fool of himself.

"All right!" The exasperation in the scientist's voice rang out across the room. "Even if, and I still think it's a pretty big if, the Wraith have developed some kind of new technology, fine! They're using it against each other and against Michael. We don't know of its effectiveness against non-wraith technology. So, great, they're blowing each other out of existence. Let them!" He threw up his hands.

"My point, Doctor McKay," Woolsey went on, apparently unruffled, "Is that while you have been busy with whatever it is you have been doing these last – how long is it, three years, four? – the Wraith have continued to grow in both number and military effectiveness and—"

"All right, that's enough!" Sheppard couldn't hold off any longer. Not with Woolsey getting so personal. "If you're about to suggest that the members of my team have been sitting around on their asses while the Wraith have been running freely around the galaxy you just better be prepared for the indigestion you'll get when I shove your words so far down your bureaucratic throa—"

"Are you threatening me, Colonel Sheppard?" Woolsey snapped indignantly, "because if you are—"

"You know my reputation, Mister Woolsey," Sheppard emphasized the civilian title just a little. He hadn't meant to be quite so graphic in his rebuttal of the man's insinuations, but truth be told, Woolsey had always irritated him, and was getting completely under his skin now. "Even if I were, when I last looked, strategy and ordnance research came under military jurisdiction and I'm still the ranking military officer in command of this expedition so—"

"For how much longer is the question though, isn't it, Colonel?" Woolsey said.

"I don't think so," Sheppard said, refusing to allow himself to be baited on that particular subject. "No one wants the job, Richard. Why do you think they sent you?"

There was silence in the room for several seconds and Sheppard sat back with an almost satisfied smile on his face.

Eventually Woolsey said, "Well, Doctor McKay, when you do get a chance to look over the data from the Daedalus concerning the new Wraith weapon, I'd appreciate your insights and your opinion of how we might best be able to defend against them."

"Of course," Rodney said, and he glanced over at Sheppard in silent gratitude.

"While we're on the subject of the Wraith," Woolsey shrugged further back into the fabric of his uniform, "perhaps you'd care to enlighten me on the one you've consulted with on several occasions."

"Todd?" Sheppard frowned, "Nothing to tell."

"That's not my understanding of the situation," Woolsey argued, "In fact, during the recent months, Colonel Carter's reports have indicated that you've collaborated—"

"Collaborated?" Ronon snapped in question.

Sheppard cringed and quickly put in, "I'd hardly call it that," he shifted a little in his seat, "we merely suggested that if he were to share any Intel he might have on Michael's whereabouts then we might be able to—"

"Colonel Sheppard, you gave him our research on the Hoffan drug." Woolsey leaned forward. "Isn't that right, Doctor Keller?"

"Some…" the doctor began stammering out her answer, clearly caught off guard, "I mean… that is… it wasn't all of it, just—"

"We determined what would be the safest part of the information to give to him and that was all we did," Sheppard said, his irritation leveled at Woolsey's continued efforts to undermine their actions, particularly with so much at stake and so little time remaining quickly rising to an almost unbearable level.

As much as Woolsey had obviously read the mission and field reports, he did not at all seem bothered by the time constraints they were facing according to the information Sheppard brought back from his visit to their future.

Woolsey continued his inquisition, shuffling another set of files to the top of his stack and asked, "And what of the attempts to find a cure for Doctor Beckett?"

"Well," Keller started to answer as Woolsey turned a baleful eye in her direction. "With everything else that's been happening, I haven't really had the chance to engage in further research, I—"

"You see," Woolsey sat back, his hands resting on either side of the stack of files in front of him, "this is exactly the kind of thing that proves my point."

"And your point is?" Sheppard folded his arms in lazy defiance.

"Colonel Sheppard, the activities pursued by this expedition have, to date, been entirely too reactive. We need to refocus our attention on the current needs of base; prioritize our efforts by those that will most effectively alleviate our needs and, above all, defend the personnel and technology of Atlantis against hostile—"

"It isn't just about Atlantis any more," Sheppard argued, glancing toward Halling. "Take a look around you."

"That's as may be," Woolsey began, but Halling interrupted when he paused for breath.

"It is true, Mister Woolsey, that when the people of your expedition woke the Wraith; once more when you helped the people of Hoff refine their virus to be employed against them, and then again when you tampered with the programming of the machines you call the Replicators, your people subsumed everyone into your troubles." He held up his hand to prevent Woolsey from interrupting. "While neither I, nor my Athosian brothers and sisters hold you to blame for these things, I do believe you now have a responsibility to help defend all the people of this galaxy against the threats they now face."

Woolsey's face darkened as he seemed to be gathering words in defense against what Sheppard knew to be the truth.

"Halling's right," Sheppard said, irritably, trying to bring the argument to an end. "Look, we don't have time for this. Daedalus' sensors confirm Rodney's information – that Michael launched several ships before his cruiser blew. He was on one of them, I'm telling you, and he woulda had Teyla with him. Our priority now is finding out where those ships went so that we can finish what we started and get out there to rescue Teyla. She's counting on—"

“I'm sorry, Colonel Sheppard, but I can't authorize another rescue mission," Woolsey said, quietly, but firmly authoritative. "The loss of life has been too great already, and we can't waste any more time—"

"Waste!" Halling's chair flew across the room as the usually quiet and placid Athosian jumped to his feet. "Waste? How dare you!" He started to come around the table toward Woolsey in a manner that was anything but placid. Sheppard had to confess to being more than a little disappointed when Ronon quickly put himself between the two men.

"Take it easy, Halling, he didn't mean it like that," Ronon said in a soft growl, and with a look at Woolsey that was equally as, if not more, threatening than Halling's demonstration.

Halling angrily pushed Ronon's hand away from his chest. "He meant it exactly that way," he said, and then looking past Ronon to address Woolsey once more, added, "Teyla Emmagan is the leader of my people. We have shown nothing but friendship and loyalty to the people of your expedition, Teyla more than any other, Mister Woolsey. If our assistance, if our friendship truly means so little to you that you would leave her to the mercy of one such as Michael, then in her place I shall make sure that you must suffer our presence no more!"

Trembling visibly, as though the outburst had left him drained, Halling said not another word, but turned and left the briefing room. The automatic doors were nothing but a sigh behind him and Sheppard was certain that Halling would have been more satisfied if he could have slammed the door behind him.

Miran boiled with impotent rage, held immobile by the press of villagers who, not wanting to let go of their daughters and sisters until they had no choice otherwise, had surged to form a tight semi circle behind the line of women who stood forward for The Choice.

He could barely see where Lisstha stood with her arms wrapped around herself. She stood between a younger woman to one side and another, like herself, to the other.

Flanked by protective guards, the Hag walked slowly down the line of women. Every now and then she would reach out to squeeze a pinch of a woman's arm, or to turn her head from one side to another, much as would a farmer checking cattle or beasts of burden. When she did, the women did their best not to cringe, but each of them did none the less. Mostly, however, the Hag waved a small, flattish box in front of each one and paused before moving on.

Miran held his breath when she reached Lisstha. As if she felt the lack of breath in his lungs, Lisstha turned her head to peer in his direction and recoiled only slightly when the ages-old hands reached out to test her young flesh.

He knew it was deliberately meant as a taunt; that the old witch had seen him with Lisstha when she stepped into the clearing. Following hard on that realization his rage sparked and once more caught aflame as he understood that, given what she must have witnessed, the crone would more than likely settle her choice on Lisstha, right or wrong. The inertia that held him snapped and he pushed his way forward.

"No!" he cried even as the old Haradian woman announced her choice.

"This one," she said.

"You can't, she—"

"Will stand as the one chosen from your village," one of the bodyguards snapped.

"Please, Miran," Lisstha wept as she spoke, "I'll go, I—"

"It was your last time, Lisstha," he pleaded, with her, with the villagers, even with the Hag herself, "her last time!"

"Her fate," the crone whispered, already retreating with one of her guards.

"Ensure that she is brought to the stone at the proper time," the remaining guard ordered, as he too withdrew.

The senior staff meeting had degenerated into chaos after Halling's angry departure. Both McKay and Sheppard had followed him, whilst Ronon had only been discouraged from taking out his gun and shooting Woolsey when Jennifer had physically put herself between the big Satedan and the new base commander.

"Leave it, Ronon," she said softly, pressing one of her hands against his chest, much as he had done Halling. The other she pressed against his hand that had already closed around the grip of his weapon. "He isn't worth it."

Ronon shook off her contact and stormed from the room, hardly placated by her words. For several moments afterwards there was near silence in the room. She quickly gathered her papers, nervous and wanting to leave.

Before she could, Woolsey said, "Thank you, Doctor Keller."

"Believe me, Mister Woolsey," she answered with a good deal of hostility in her own voice, "I didn't do it for you, and if I were you, after a thoughtless comment like that, you'd be better to just stay out of everyone's way."

"Much as I appreciate the advice, Doctor," Woolsey answered with a calm irritation that reminded her uncomfortably of her father, "I'm not here to be liked."

"Good," she started, gathering up the rest of her paperwork. "Teyla is a good friend to the people of this base, so making comments like that is going to make certain that you won't be."

"It wasn't just a comment, I assure you," he countered, "It's a standing order."

"Well," she began to head to the door, "I'm sure you'll realize sooner or later that you'll have to… to… un-order it."

"Look, Doctor Keller," Woolsey moved a little in front of her to stop her departure. "Teyla has been with Michael for weeks now. There's no telling what he's done, or will do, or even if she's still alive."

"You heard what Colonel Sheppard said," she argued, even though she knew she should just walk around the man and leave, as the others had done. "He will have taken Teyla with him and—"

"You don't know that," Woolsey said, "He was perfectly happy to leave others behind."

"—and he didn't hurt the others."

"Didn't he?" Woolsey said. As she watched his eyes narrow in suspicion, Jennifer felt her stomach tightening in worry. Was he fishing, or did he already know?

"No," she lied, "he didn't do anything to either of them, in fact, he healed Doctor McKay's wounded arm quite expertly and from what Rodney said, had tried to help Major Lorne too."

"My point is—"

"No, my point, Mister Woolsey, is that I have patients to attend to and don't have time to stand around and argue with you about things that may or may not have happened."

Without waiting for him to answer and make her tell yet more lies, Jennifer pushed past him and slipped between the opening doors.

"There's something you're hiding, Doctor," Woolsey's voice followed her through the doorway, "And rest assured, when I find out—"

Too angry to be intimidated she spun around and slapped her hands against the sides of the closing doors, halting their progress.

"You'll what, Mister Woolsey?" she snapped, "Fire me?"

"Well—"

"Everybody needs a doctor, and on this base, I'm it. And as far as medical decisions go, they're mine as well."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Woolsey asked sounding as puzzled as he was irritated.

"Just…" she turned away quickly as she felt her face starting to flush with color, in guilt, "Just stay out of my infirmary," she snapped and then stormed away.

The meeting hall was awash with villagers as it always was after the visit from the Haradian Hag. Families huddled together in happy relief and elders served chunks of bread and hot tea from massive cauldrons hung over the central fire.

It seemed to Lisstha, who stood with her family apart from the others, that they always forgot that such times left one family facing a loss. Today that fell to her and along with the fear of what was to happen to her she felt crushed by the weight of guilt for all the times that she and her family had behaved as the others were now.

A brief scuffle by the doorway of the hall drew Lisstha from her dark thoughts. Her heart sank still further however when she saw Miran. He was standing at the front of a small group of men, all of them trying to push their way into the hall.

"Turn back, Miran." One of the villagers stepped forward again to block Miran's path. "Your kind is not welcome here.

"My kind?" Miran spread his arms and turned full circle before the villagers, who were gathering now to make an audience for his foolishness. "When last I looked, Agrig, I was still of the village; still just like you."

"Not since you've been preaching rebellion," Agrig answered looking around at the villagers for support. A brief murmur answered his searching, but Lisstha found it hard to tell if it was one of assent or disagreement.

"Rebellion?" Miran spat the word in disbelief, then added in a voice of appeal, "What I advocate is for us to defend ourselves." He walked forward then, pushing past Agrig to take the center of the hall as his own. "Far too long we have let the Haradians rule us with fear; take our young women; make us take in—"

"Have a care, Miran," another of the villagers stepped up to face him. Lisstha recalled the man clearly. He was Ynek, and before this last year she would have expected he would have been one of those men standing behind Miran. Early in the last year, however, he had taken to wife one of the others the Haradians brought, from time to time, to their village, and now Ynek and his wife had an infant daughter.

"It is not the outsiders I blame, Ynek," Miran answered earnestly, "your wife and others like her have been an asset to our village."

Lisstha considered Miran's words on many levels. What he said was true and, whilst his words soothed and appeased Ynek's growing temper, knowing Miran as she did she was sure that he did not mean them in quite the positive way that Ynek had heard them.

With the Haradians taking many of their young women, and the others rejecting love and marriage in the wake of the fear which had crushed even her own strong spirit, births had begun to decline. The village had started to die. If it were not for the outsiders that were brought, it would probably already be gone. Lisstha began to wonder just why the Haradians needed the women of her village quite so much as to go to so much trouble.

"We cannot hear your words, Miran," Ynek told him, "You know what will happen if we try to defy the Haradians. We all know."

"It is a threat, Ynek, and a threat alone that has kept us subjugated for generations," Miran said. The frustration was clear in his voice.

"You don't know that. You can't." One of the older men stepped forwards, still cradling his grown daughter at his side. "There are histories of what happened before, when our grandfathers defied the Hag and brought destruction on the village.

"Tales," Miran said and turned to face the man. "And with no more certainty of truth than the threat of the demons the Haradians say they will bring."

"It is not the demons we need fear," one of the elders spoke up, "the Haradians themselves are more than capable of destroying us, and demons can be banished. No, it is the attacks that will come from the Haradians that would undo our lives if we stand against tradition now."

"It is not tradition," Miran said angrily. "It is slavery."

"No, Miran. We cannot take the risk. The tradition this year will stand and I am sorry for your loss." The elder glanced at Lisstha. She looked away, trying to banish tears from her eyes. Had she then hoped that Miran would persuade them to defend her right to stay with her people?

"Wait," Miran tried once more, "there is more." He turned to face all of the villagers now, his expression fervent. "I have been visited."

"Visited?" One of the women frowned in puzzled concern, and looked over at her husband to add his voice to the question.

"What do you mean, 'visited'?" the man asked.

"An angel," Miran said, "He came to me and offered us a way to bring help to the village if the Haradians come. Don't you see…? A sequence of sacred drawings on the altar beside the Ring of the Ancestors that will summon help to our cause. With help we do not need to submit to the Haradians any more."

"How can you be so sure he is not one of the demons the Haradians can bring if we do not do as they command?" another of the villagers asked fearfully. "You should beware of speaking with creatures beyond our ken."

"He was no demon, Marton," Miran said confidently, "He has offered us freedom and asks nothing in return. He recognizes it is wrong to be slaves to any others. He gave me a device," he held up a small black box. It did not look like anything of use to Lisstha. "He said that once the Ancestors' Ring shows the blue of the light, we should hold the nub and speak into this to summon the others that will help us."

Lisstha sighed. Now he was speaking madness. His grief at the thought of losing her had scrambled his mind.

"Miran, please stop," she stepped away from her mother's arms and came to him then. "Can you not hear the madness in your words? How much do you think this hurts me? That you cannot see past your own sadness to the safety my leaving will bring to the village. I do not want this memory to take with me, Miran. I have loved you, and will always, no matter what befalls me when I leave, but I do not want to remember you insane with your grief."

"Lisstha speaks sense, Miran." The elder stepped away from a quiet conference he had been having with a number of the village husbands. "We all of us understand your grief, but for your own safety, my friend, I fear we have no choice but to secure you until you can find your right mind again… find your balance."

"Grieve for me, please," Lisstha said softly, "But do not insult what I do with talk of things that cannot be."

He watched from the shadows between two buildings as they led Miran away. Perhaps he had been wrong in his choice of whom he would use to bring about that which was desired. Perhaps he had not seen the rashness in the man – only the way he was driven in his love for the girl. If Miran could not persuade his fellow villagers to act, then he would have to try a more direct intervention, as he could not afford to fail in his own mission.

#stargate atlantis #chain of command #virtual season 5 #angst #tradition #politics #conflict #canon typical violence

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citykept · 1 year

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I’m just sayin’… we deserved an even more international atlantis expedition.

like, give me expeditionary teams like sheppard’s with team members from different countries. with different languages and customs. who approach what they find in different ways and who have to learn from one another.

give me atlantis as a city beginning to thrive. improvised sports and casually competitive teams. give me people sharing music and doing art and learning each others’ languages…

people hanging out and drinking whatever alcoholic beverages they take a liking to in the cultures they visit. hell, people cooking and sharing their favorite cultural foods and laughing as they fail to adapt pegasus galaxy ingredients.

give me a vibrant and dynamic community k thx

#also let teyla actually be the leader of the athosians in more than name k thx #I need to be working. I’m crying over sga instead #mobile ooc tag

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damegalantea · 2 years

Text

button holes in the sky

A reservoir of a sticky, black, oily liquid was recently discovered near your base camp. In an effort to unearth more of this substance for study, the expedition team accidentally causes it to leak into the river that you’ve been using as your water source. With your crew members falling ill from this tainted water, you’re in dire need of fresh water. Dark thunderclouds bring the promise of rain, and you take on the perilous task of flying near the clouds to collect rainwater. [ Grants Flying +1 ]

@housegautier

“Come, Sylvain,” Ingrid chided as she happily led the way from their camp on Acis’s back. The pegasus nickered at Sylvain’s horse behind him and Ingrid adjusted her reins, thinking she would have no sass from either of the boys today.

“How can you dawdle at a time like this? This is our country’s history being uncovered bit by bit! Aren’t you even the least bit excited?”

Ingrid could admit for her part at least, face flush with the cold afternoon winds and her own ardor, that perhaps she was a bit too excited. But to think the Academy would let mere students on an expedition like this! She was just so grateful, and for once her love of Faerghus and its history was free of political machinations; surely, even Sylvain could appreciate that.

Still, as Ingrid and Sylvain follow their small group to the ruins it quickly becomes clear the reason they set up camp so far away. Even the pathways stick with the tarry, swamp-like substance and Acis takes to skies despite himself. Ingrid huffs, and orders him back down to where Sylvain and a few other students speak with one of the researchers who seems to have had a bit of a fright.

“I – I don’t know what happened! We had our men excavating the site just fine but then the murk seemed to shoot up from the ground and, now, well…”

Ingrid watched him nod toward the contaminated river and her face set into a frown. Just as it did so too did the skies crackle, but while some might have seen that as an ill omen all Ingrid could feel was relief as she felt the air change and moisture take hold.

“You’d best check with the mages and historians before you make any more progress with… that. We should send word back to the camp not to drink the water. But first…”

Ingrid hopped off Acis, taking her flask and saddlebag with her, and walked over to Sylvain, holding out a hand for his empty flask with an expectant expression.

“First the two of us will gather what rain water we can. Right, Sylvain?”

#housegautier #.support.sylvain #thread | button holes in the sky

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rodneymckays · 3 years

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stargate episodes that should have been, part 43: carson episode! he and cadman are having relationship problems. when your first kiss involves rodney mckay, and you are not rodney mckay, nor are you dating rodney mckay, issues may occur. carson mentions this to teyla, who suggests he go see heightmeyer. so he does, and she says some pretty helpful stuff. meanwhile cadman mentions the same thing to lorne, who instead of having a good idea like teyla, suggests that she talk to zelenka because the problem is rodney’s fault and zelenka is the one who fixes problems that are rodney’s fault. zelenka’s advice is to “send carson a message via carrier pigeon. of course, there are no carrier pigeons on atlantis. and if there were, they would be confused by the planet’s magnetic field and geography being different from earth. perhaps a native alternative…” later, radek mentions to rodney that carson and cadman seem to be having problems. mckay takes it upon himself to give them a day to have the Perfect date (which, on atlantis, is an uninterrupted date) and tells carson to just trust him on this one. the rest of the episode is carson and cadman’s date while terrible things keep happening elsewhere in the city and everyone frantically trying to keep carson and cadman from finding out.

this is simultaneously the cutest and the funniest. and lorne's logic is entirely sound. too bad zelenka's love advice involves PIGEONS (altho im sure he won many a young lass' heart that way 😂 ) .

the chaos of the entire expedition trying to put out fires everywhere, without carson's knowledge especially, would be a sight to behold. like, imagine a gate team came back from a mission and they've got the pegasus version of poison ivy rashes. and the marines in the gate room are like, 'welp, we gotta call the doc' and mckay, already beyond frazzled, and watching in horror, is like 'NO no.' and (sadly) bribes doctor biro with The Good Chocolate to take care of it (biro would've done it for carson regardless, but free chocolate from mckay is her due).

#carson beckett #asks

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ragingpancake · 3 years

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As I Lay Sleeping: Ch. 2 - Sanctuary

Chapter 1

“It’s about time you woke up.” The sun is bright and harsh from the moment John steps outside and he has to lift a hand to help shield his face from its glow. The voice is familiar, he thinks, or it should be and it washes over him like an old song with words he can’t remember, just the melody. “You heard it, didn’t you?” A question, sure, but John thinks she already knows the answer and it’s unsettling because when he lowers his hand, eyes finally adjusted to the light, he peers into hazel eyes and realizes that she knows him. “He said that this would happen. That when it was time, she would call to you.” She holds his gaze for a moment, and she looks hopeful, like she’s just waiting for some spark of recognition, but it never comes. Her face falls just a fraction before she smiles, and he feels so wholly unworthy of that in this moment that it leaves him shifting from one foot to the next a little uncomfortably. “Well, that’s okay,” she says gently, diplomatically. “Rodney said that it was possible this would happen too. Tell me, what exactly do you remember, John?”

Nothing. He remembers a whole lot of nothing and he thinks, based on the look she’s giving him, she already knows that. “Listen, I’d really like to stay and chat, but I’ve got somewhere I need to be.” “Oh really?” She asks, eyebrow raised. “And where’s that?” Okay, she’s got him there. “I can help you, John. That’s why I’m here, to do just that. To help you try to remember. But in order for me to do that, you’re going to have to trust me a little.” Trust. It feels foreign to him, but in the same way that he knows that she’s familiar, he knows that he can trust her. Like maybe he has, before. He thinks back to the voice that spoke to him in the hut, the one that she seems to know. Had she heard it too, then? “Elizabeth,” he says and for a second, her eyes light up and she gives him a smile so genuine that something shifts inside of him. “Yes, that’s right. Very good, John. I’m Elizabeth and a very long time ago, we used to work together. On Atlantis.” Atlantis. Home. Those two words are synonymous with each other, John knows, and it’s the first thing since he woke up that he can be sure of. “Why am I here?” He asks. “Where exactly is here?” Elizabeth gestures for him to follow and from where he’s standing, it’s not like he’s got much of a choice. He has no idea where –-or who—he is, and she seems to be the only one who can provide him with some answers. At least for now, where she goes, he has no choice but to follow. --- They don’t walk for very long. She leads him down to the tree line he hadn’t noticed when he’d first stepped out into the light. There’s a large tree, and it looks like maybe it’s a place she comes often. There are a few logs that she leads him over to and as she sits, she gestures for him to do the same. “Your name,” she says, “is Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard of the United States Airforce. We met when you joined the Atlantis Expedition.” She pauses for a moment and he tries to remember, but it’s all still blank. “You were my military commander, leader of our Alpha Gate Team and you were... well, you were my friend.” She gives a small smile, one that seems sad. “We’ve been through a lot together, John. The Pegasus Galaxy, as beautiful as it is, came with plenty of dangers that we were not prepared for. Dangers that we never even saw coming.” “Immediately after arriving in Atlantis, you and a team led by Colonel Marshall Sumner traveled to a nearby planet through what we call a Stargate. It was there that for the first time, we encountered the Wraith. It was then that we... well. I suppose for many, that would’ve been the beginning of the end. But not for you.” Elizabeth is quiet for a moment, lost in her own thoughts like she’s a million miles away. “Elizabeth?” He prompts. “We lost a lot of good people,” she says and her voice is hoarse, thick with emotion. When she glances back up at him, there are unshed tears in her eyes, but she swipes them away almost angrily. “We spent nearly three years fighting the Wraith, doing what we could to protect the people of Atlantis—to protect Earth but it wasn’t... It was never going to be enough.” “Three years after waking the Wraith, after fighting them off of our doorstep more times than we could count, they were bearing down on us. We evacuated the city, got as many people out as we could.” “But we didn’t win.” John doesn’t need his memory to know that; he can see it written all over her face. “No,” she agrees. “No, we did not win. But we didn’t lose, either. Not yet.” John’s not sure what she means by that but before he gets a chance to ask, she’s speaking again. “We are on M7-X732, otherwise known as the Planet of the Cloister,” she says. “It had been abandoned for about a year before we brought you here.” In the sky, the sun is fading and there’s a chill that fills the air. He can feel it, but Elizabeth doesn’t even seem to notice. “You were mortally wounded during the last stand in Atlantis, John. Rodney had come up with a plan in the eleventh hour, like he

always did. The Wraith had woken because we’d inadvertently woken their Queen. They wake when she wakes, they slumber when she slumbers. He needed more time though. You were the one to give it to him and you nearly paid for it with your life.” Hazel eyes flicker to meet his. “That was nearly one hundred years ago.” “That’s not possible,” John rasps and Elizabeth gives him the smallest of smiles. “I can assure you, John, had you not lost your memories, you would know very well that it is. Anything is possible when it comes to Rodney.” She gestures around them. “You got trapped here once. A time dilation field. By the time Rodney had figured it out, you’d spent six months with the people of the Cloister and it was a world where we knew you’d be safe.” “This doesn’t make sense. None of this makes sense.” “I know,” Elizabeth says. “And I’m sorry for that.” She reaches for him then, thin fingers curling around his wrist. “You were put into Stasis, John. The intention was to keep you there until the very last moment, to give you the time you needed to heal. Rodney ensured that no one would find this place, that you would be left undisturbed until it was time for you to wake.” “Wake for what? You said he figured it out, right? This Rodney guy. What do you need me for?” “As we speak, Rodney is back on Atlantis in a Stasis pod of his own. It was a design we took from the Aurora, a sort of shared consciousness so to speak. A virtual reality. For the last one hundred years, he’s shared a reality with the hibernating Wraith Queen, keeping her from waking, keeping the hives from waking.” “He’s losing, John. She’s figured it out, Rodney always knew she would, but he’d hoped it would give you enough time to heal.” “I don’t-- what am I supposed to do?” He can’t even remember his own favorite color, how was he supposed to remember how to find Atlantis, how was he supposed to remember what to do? “Find him,” Elizabeth says. “Find them. Even now, if Rodney’s theories were right, there are sixty hive ships in hibernation just outside of Lantea’s orbit. Find Atlantis. Control the chair. Destroy them all while they sleep.” Well, doesn’t sound like that’s asking for too much. Given the fact that, you know, these things apparently almost killed him a century ago. “And what if I can’t do what you’re asking? If I couldn’t do it before, what makes you think I can do it now?” “When you and Rodney made your last stand, you two were alone, John.” Elizabeth stands and for a moment, turns her back to him. “Spread across four worlds, you will find sarcophagi containing exactly what you need. It would be reckless to try to return to Atlantis now, without your weapons, without your memories. Find each sarcophagus and save our home.” She turns and John is taken aback by how much older she looks now. How... frail she appears. “And what... what about you?” She gives him a rueful smile. “I’ve done my part, John. I’ve watched and I’ve waited for a very long time; I’m very tired now.” She sits down on the log and John pitches forward off of his own, gripping her shoulders gently to keep her upright. “Elizabeth...” “It’s alright.” A wrinkled hand comes up to rest on his cheek and it’s so familiar that John closes his eyes, savoring it for half a second. “I would tell you to be brave, but that’s all you’ve ever been.” “I don’t know where to go,” he says, and there’s panic rising in his chest with each passing moment as she fades away. “Climb the mountain. Go through the cave. I’ll keep the door open long enough for you to pass through. Let... Let Atlantis guide you.” It’s time to go, John. The voice in his head is gentle, mournful and he wonders if Elizabeth can hear it too. He shifts on his knees and he reaches for her, guiding her into his arms carefully before he lays her down against the soft grass. “I’m so sorry, Elizabeth,” because he knows, somehow in his heart, that it’s his wakening that’s caused this. Hazel eyes meet his one last time as a peaceful smile touches her

lips. “When you... find Rodney,” she manages, voice so soft that he almost can’t hear, “tell him... I always knew... it would work.” And then, in much the same way as it was when he awoke in that hut, John Sheppard is alone.

AN: I took some liberties with a few things, mostly the time dilation field and you know, the whole One Wraith Queen to rule them all thing, but I figured since it's an AU... well. Forgive me, please.

#fic: as i lay sleeping #sga/breath of the wild #sga au #john sheppard #rodney mckay #elizabeth weir #ronon dex #teyla emmagan #carson beckett #aiden ford #sga fic #fandom: sga #mcshep #pairing: mcshep #warning: character death

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valdomarx · 3 years

Text

Number Theory

On another version of Atlantis, John is a mathematician who is better with numbers than with people. But he's going to have to learn to get on with his team and their bossy leader, Rod, if he wants to survive here.

Stargate Atlantis, McShep, mensa!verse, 9k, rated E.

Also on AO3.

Dr. John Sheppard straightens his glasses, pulls his lab coat around himself, and makes one final, futile attempt to tame his hair.

He takes a last look around the SGC, bustling with scientists and marines and boxes of supplies, and wonders how everybody seems to know their place and what to do already.

Then he steps through a wormhole and into another galaxy.

Atlantis is stunning. Terrifying, and dangerous, and liable to kill them all, but stunning all the same.

He protests that there’s no need for a mathematician on an offworld team, but the head of science insists. John sourly suspects this Rod guy enjoys watching him wheeze and stumble every time they have to run for their damn lives.

But it turns out it’s useful for a field team to have someone around who can crack codes and work computers. And John hates field work less than he expected to, despite the unpredictability and the peril and all that awful running.

Sometimes, like when he breaks the encryption on a Wraith code in the nick of time and diverts an enemy ship away from its path toward Atlantis, he even feels a tiny bit like a hero.

Other than his team duties, though, Atlantis isn’t that much different from Caltech or MIT or the Air Force base at Wright-Patterson, or any of the other places he’s worked.

Everyone knows each other, except for him. Everyone bands together to look out for each other, and he stares in from the outside. Eating in the mess hall is like being catapulted back to high school.

So he makes himself at home in his lab. It’s quiet there, and there’s a plentiful supply of coffee, and there are only a couple of other mathematicians who occasionally pass through and largely leave him alone.

They’re next door to the noisy, boisterous science labs, where all the cool civilians hang out. But that’s fine. He gets used to ignoring them the same way he ignores the marines.

It’s just him and his numbers.

And sometimes, inexplicably, Rod or Teyla or Ronon, who will come by and sit at his desk and drink his coffee. He never understands what they’re hoping to achieve, but he doesn’t mind as long as they don’t touch anything.

Teyla appears in the doorway, staring at his whiteboard. It’s covered top to bottom with equations, and he’s had to stick up bits of paper around the walls to fit more on.

“Rod requested that I see how your work is going,” she says, voice giving nothing away.

He grits his teeth against the annoyance of the interruption. “It would be going faster if I could work unimpeded.”

She ignores the petulant note in his voice, squinting closer at the whiteboard. “What is this?”

“This is number theory. It’s the underlying basis for mathematics.”

Teyla raises an eyebrow. “And this is different from what Rod does?”

He sneers. “Very different. That’s just theoretical physics.”

“You do not respect Rod’s chosen field?” She seems genuinely curious.

“It’s fine, for, you know,” his lip curls, “an applied science.”

“I see. So this work can help us locate Wraith hive ships?”

He shifts his weight. “Well. I might need to, uhh, collaborate with Rod on that. I provide the conceptual models and he does the,” he waves dismissively, “practical calculations.”

“It seems that you two accomplish more when you work together.”

He scoffs. “I wouldn’t go that far. But he’s useful as an assistant, I suppose.”

When they learn there are three Wraith hive ships on their way to destroy the city, there isn’t much time for personal conflicts. They have a long-shot strategy: They’ve sent an emergency distress message in the vague hopes of rescue from Earth. But the Wraith ships are almost here and they need a plan now.

“Use the jumpers,” John suggests, because it’s obvious.

Rod snaps his fingers. “Yes! Put a nuclear warhead on board, fly the jumper right down the hives’ throats, and detonate.”

Elizabeth blanches. “That’s a suicide run.”

“No, no.” John thinks out loud. “Not if we can remote pilot the jumper.”

“Using the control chair!” Rod chimes in. “Sheppard, you’re a genius.”

John is so focused on the threat he forgets to preen over that.

It doesn’t take long for them to hook up the jumper to the chair and start running tests. Just as well, because death from above is coming imminently.

He knows something is wrong the moment Rod’s face falls while he’s poking at the cables running to the chair.

“McKay...” he says, voice low but insistent.

“I know! I know. Just give me a minute.” Rod disappears back into a bundle of cables. “I can fix this.”

Everything is suddenly, startlingly clear. The remote control won’t work, at least not in time. Someone will have to fly the jumper personally.

He and Rod both have the ATA gene, and both the same dubious piloting skills. But there’s not much skill required in flying directly into a hive, is there?

One of them has to do this.

“So long, Rod.” He turns and runs from the chair room to the jumper bay, not bothering to notify anyone of his plans.

“Sheppard! Sheppard!”

He hears Rod yell after him but he can’t think about that now. He has a job to do.

He gets beamed out by the Daedalus at the last moment. The battle is ugly, but the city and the expedition makes it out mostly intact.

Afterwards, Rod drags him into a conference room and yells at him for an hour about his reckless behavior.

John couldn’t give a shit. He has no regrets about his actions.

He gives an insouciant shrug. “Why the earful? It worked, didn’t it?”

“Because I am your team leader, and you didn’t even ask me for permission before nominating yourself for a suicide run!”

“That’s what this is about? Your precious chain of command? Grow up.”

Rod rounds on him and gets up on the balls of his feet. “There are people here who care about you, you dick!”

John blinks at the non sequitur. The idea that anyone would care more about him than about the city and everyone else in it is laughable. “Then they’re idiots,” he snaps and walks out.

Rod can write him up for that in one of the reports he so enjoys filing.

It would be nice if he could say that he learns and grows. That he makes friends. That he gets accepted by his peers and makes a home in the Pegasus galaxy.

But that’s not how this story goes. Not yet, anyway.

He does manage to make himself useful. He invents a new cryptographic algorithm to keep their computers and communications secure from Wraith interference. Elizabeth even gives him a grateful nod when he presents it to her, and says thank you.

He makes some progress on a quantum chaos approach to the Riemann hypothesis, not that anyone here understands that or how profoundly ingenious his work is.

And it turns out that many of the Ancient systems here are based on binary, just like computers on Earth, so he’s able to help Rod parse some of the more complex code. The two of them spend hours poking through the Ancient operating system, Rod fluttering around and theorizing aloud while John sits quietly in the corner, chewing on a pen and thinking.

It’s more fun than he would have expected.

And then, inevitably, he fucks up to a new and truly epic degree. He and Rod find the Ancient’s Project Arcturus, their great hope for extracting vacuum energy from subspace, and he convinces himself he can get it to work.

He’s self-aware enough to know he’s making poor choices, but not mentally strong enough to do otherwise. Because yes, of course virtually unlimited power is tempting, and of course discovering the last great experiment of the Ancients is thrilling. But he's a cautious person. He's not one to take unnecessary risks.

And yet the moment Rod turns to him with that look of delight, saying he's impressed, clapping him on the shoulder like he's done something wonderful, John is just gone. He ignores safety limits and all common sense, and he pushes and pushes and pushes for them to power up the generator, as if his wishes for it to work could make it so.

He wipes out most of a solar system with his hubris, not to mention nearly killing them both, and he's furious down to his bones because he can't figure out why he would have done something so stupid.

Bad enough to fail so spectacularly at your work that you devastate an entire star system, worse to have burned whatever credibility you may have built with your team, but worst of all to have to walk every day among people who know all about your inadequacy.

He's in the queue for the mess and a couple of the marines behind him are sniggering, one of them making a not-very-quiet crack about Sheppard’s ego being a weapon of mass destruction. John is staring straight ahead and pretending to ignore them, but the blood is pumping furiously in his ears and he's gripping his tray so tightly that his knuckles turn white.

“You got something to say?” Suddenly Ronon is there, all six-foot-three-million-pounds of him, glaring down at the sniggering marine like he might crush his skull with his bare hands. “If you’ve got something to say to Sheppard, you can say it to me as well.”

The marine backs away, hands held high and spluttering apologies.

Ronon throws an arm around John’s shoulder and walks him to a table so they can sit and eat.

John stares down at his food and wills the panic to subside. “Thanks,” he mutters once his breathing has settled.

“No worries, bud,” Ronon says and steals a piece of carrot off John’s plate. “So, how’s that bomb design you were working on coming along? You know I love a big boom.”

John tells him how his models have predicted the highly energetic variety of naquadah they’ve discovered could be harnessed into more efficient field explosives, and Ronon nods along as if this is all fascinating.

In that moment, John knows he would die for this man without hesitation.

Perhaps the worst part about the Arcturus incident is how unbearably nice Rod is about the whole thing. He tells John that it was both of their decision, that he doesn't blame him, that sometimes these things happen when dealing with advanced technology.

But John can see the disappointment in his eyes and hear the judgement in his voice. He gets a sick, twisting feeling in his stomach when he thinks about it, and that must be Rod's fault.

Rod picks a bad time to come visit the lab.

"Sheppard," Rod leans against the door frame. "I need your report on the Arcturus mission."

The sick feeling in his gut deepens. He hasn't written the report yet. "Bet you’re enjoying making me catalogue my failures."

"What? No. I just need you to submit a report so I can turn it over to Elizabeth."

"I see. You're looking for someone to blame, right? Going to write about how I pushed you and it's all my fault?"

"Of course not," Rod steps closer and there isn't enough air in the room. "I wouldn't do that. What's going on with you?"

He can't bear the look of concern on Rod's face, which he surely doesn't deserve and will surely evaporate soon enough. "Maybe I've had enough of you reminding me of my screw ups via the excuse of paperwork."

Rod's voice sharpens. "Don't blame me because you're feeling guilty. I can't deal with that for you."

The reminder of his lacking emotional skills stings and he lashes out. "Don't try to therapize me. You're hardly in the position to be doling out life advice." It's a mean, petty thing to say, but he's feeling vindictive.

Rod's eyes narrow. "What's that supposed to mean?"

John's pulse is notching up and his face is getting hot, the last of his short temper fraying away.

“You’re a people pleaser, Rod!” He realizes he’s yelling. He doesn’t care. “Everything you do is to make other people like you.”

“And what’s wrong with that?” Rod puffs up. “I try to be a decent human being. I try to think about others and support them. Why shouldn’t I?”

“Because it’s fake! It’s all bullshit. Do you even have a personality of your own, or do you just reflect whatever the last person who smiled at you wants?”

Finally, the cracks in the facade of nice begin to show. “Making an effort to treat those around you with consideration isn’t demeaning!” He gets up in John’s face, waving a finger at him. “Not that you’d know, because you never consider anyone other than yourself.”

“At least I’m honest,” he spits, and it’s venomous. “At least I know who I am. Do you? Do you have any idea who you’d be if you weren’t so absorbed in distracting everyone from your flaws?”

He sees the barb hit its mark. Rod stumbles back like he’s been physically shoved, his face crumpling.

“God, you’re an asshole.” It’s not even angry. It’s small, and quiet, and John is suddenly acutely aware of how much taller he is than Rod, how much he towers over him.

Rod turns on his heel and walks away, and John knows that means he’s won. But he doesn’t feel the usual curl of smug satisfaction he gets when he puts someone in their place.

Instead, he just feels empty.

Whatever. It’s not his problem that Rod is having some kind of breakdown. Why should he care that Rod is skulking around the base looking small and miserable? He only said what they both know to be true.

If Rod wants to be a dick about it, that’s on him. If he’s going to remove John from the team, that’s fine. There’s nothing that John can do about it anyway.

He gets back to work, running simulations of ZPM power levels and how long they can expect to sustain the city under different circumstances, given that they won’t be enjoying unlimited power any time soon. He likes modelling, and he knows this work is important.

But for some reason he can’t focus. His gut keeps churning and his temples ache and he’s haunted by the word worthless, worthless, worthless.

When his lab door chimes at well past midnight, he’s ready to tell whoever it is to fuck right off. In fact, the excuse to yell at someone sounds great right now.

But when he opens the door to find Rod standing there, twisting his hands anxiously, he’s too shocked to even be snitty. He’d assumed that Rod and he were done, that it was only a matter of time before he was kicked off the team.

But here Rod is, mouth downturned and saying, “You were right, okay?”

John notes the sad wobble of Rod’s chin and bites back the urge to say something dismissive. “About what?”

“About me. I do try to please everyone. I do want everyone to like me.”

It sounds pathetic, said out loud like that, John thinks but doesn’t say.

Rod is still going. “But it’s not what you think. It’s not some ego trip. When I was younger, I used to be -” He lets out a huff of air. “- very different. I said whatever I wanted to whoever I wanted, and I didn’t care if everyone hated me for it.”

John tries to imagine an angry, mean Rod. His brain can’t picture it.

“I pushed people away because I was afraid they’d reject me. I was always alone and I got very good at telling myself I liked it that way.”

An uncomfortable feeling of familiarity crawls up the back of John’s spine, and he ruthlessly quashes it.

“That changed when I went to the SGC. The people there… They believed in me. They wanted my help, and they wanted to help me. I learned that if I was going to work there, to do important work, then I was going to need connections. And to make connections, I had to think about others, and try to be what they needed. It wasn’t only about me any more.”

Something in the preachy tone of Rod’s voice sets John on the defensive, and his shoulders begin to rise, counterarguments springing to his lips.

“Wait, stop -” Rod lays a hand on his shoulder, and all the aggression leeches out of him. “I don’t want to fight with you. I’m just trying to explain.”

The earnest look Rod is giving him makes his skin itch.

“I care about everyone here. Including you, John. Perhaps I try too hard sometimes, but that’s only because you all matter to me. I don’t want to let you down.”

Rod is talking in plurals, but John gets the impression he’s speaking to him personally. It’s too weighty, to be handed that kind of sincerity without warning.

“I do...” He coughs and looks at his feet, “I do care about the people here as well. I might not be demonstrative about it but I’m not…” he searches for the right word, “... indifferent.”

He doesn’t say the other words he’s thinking, which are cold, callous, heartless, the things people always call him.

Rod’s hand is still on his shoulder, heavy and warm, and he squeezes gently. “I know you do. I just wish that sometimes you’d let other people see that too.”

John tries. He really does. Ronon tells him that he needs to get out of the lab more, so he resolves to make time to socialize. He doesn’t really know how to do that, but Teyla quietly slides him a copy of the city’s social activity schedule and suggests he goes through the list.

Painting with Major Lorne - no.

Choir with the medical staff - sounds awful.

Extra combat training - absolutely not.

Mensa club - now there’s a possibility.

“Join us for FUN and FRIENDS,” the tiny advert reads. “All welcome (as long as your IQ is over 150).”

That he can do. He joins the club.

It's him and Kusanagi from R&D and Parrish from botany, plus a couple of the gate techs and one of the nurses from medical. Every Thursday night, they get together to solve puzzles and play chess. It's dorky and awkward but it's kind of nice, actually, and the people there don't seem to dislike him.

He thinks maybe he's getting better at this whole people thing.

And then Rod leaves, and everything goes to shit.

It starts off with a crisis, like there always is around here, exotic particles exploding out of a containment chamber which isn’t containing anything. There’s chaos, but there’s also data, so it doesn’t take long before he and Rod are turning to each other as the explanation clicks for both of them at the same time: An experiment to generate vacuum energy being conducted in a parallel universe.

“We can’t do anything from this side,” John reasons. “The bridge is one-way.”

“The inhabitants of the other universe might not even know what the effects here are. We need to go there directly and get them to shut it down,” Rod says, firm and sure. “It’s the only way.”

“But how could we-”

Rod snaps his fingers. “The Ancient shield. That’ll protect whoever travels there.”

“Right. Let me run some calculations.”

His head is buried in his computer when Rod comes running back in with the shield in his hand.

“Fire it up whenever you’re ready,” Rod orders. “I’ve got the shield to protect me.”

John’s head whips up. “You? You’re going?”

“Of course me! Come on, the chance to visit an alternate reality? Who could resist that?”

Icy cold water settles at the pit of John’s stomach. “That’s a one-way trip.”

Rod shrugs, like that’s nothing. “If that’s the cost to save our universe, it’ll be worth it.”

Something like rage explodes inside John’s head. “Absolutely not! I should be the one to go.” He searches desperately for a reason. “You’re needed here.”

Rod gives him a small, sad smile and says, “So are you.”

“That’s bullshit, McKay, and you know it. I’m not letting you do this.”

“Tell you what, let’s flip a coin for it.”

And that’s about as reasonable as he can hope for, so he turns his back to dig a coin out of his lab coat pocket.

That turns out to be a mistake.

“Be safe, John,” Rod says, then he activates the shield and steps into the containment chamber.

That bastard.

He spends three days thinking that Rod is gone for good.

He can’t… He can’t think, and he can’t sleep, and he’s angry all the time. When Zelenka asks for his help running calculations on the spacetime tear above the city John bellows at him, calls him incompetent, and says they might as well just accept that the city is going to be torn apart. Then he stays up all night doing the calculations anyway, because it’s better than lying in bed and staring at the ceiling for another interminable evening.

He doesn’t bother eating, or showering, because what’s the point if they’re all going to die within a week? There’s a restless, raging scratching under his skin and it’s not like he hasn’t faced the possibility of death before, but this feels bleak and empty and insurmountable in a way he simply can’t deal with.

And then the rift mends itself, and Rod returns on a beam of light, and everyone acts as if they’re back to normal now and that brush with annihilation was just one of those quirky things that happen in the Pegasus galaxy.

But it eats at John, that feeling of powerlessness, that rippling anger of a problem he couldn’t solve.

Rod slides back into life in the city like it was nothing but another mission, and everyone rushes to say how brave he was, what a hero, how selfless he is, and John’s blood boils.

Rod swings by John’s lab with his usual breezy demeanor.

“Hey Sheppard! Wanna grab some dinner?”

The incongruity of Rod in his doorway, smiling casually like this is just another Tuesday, sends something hot and sharp spiking through his brain. “No,” John snarls. “Busy.”

“Okay. How about tomorrow?”

“Busy then too.”

Rod gives a self-deprecating little smile, and John wants to wipe it off his face. “Too busy to make an hour for your team?”

“A team?” he spits. “Is that what we are?”

Rod pales, finally taking in how furious John is. “Of course we are. I thought, since I’m back now, we could -”

“Oh, so you stride back in and decide to grace us with your presence, and we’re supposed to be thankful for that?”

“John, what -”

“You left!” he explodes. He’s shocked by his own vehemence. “You left us all. You weren’t planning to come back and you just left.”

Rod takes half a step forward, his face doing something complicated. “John, listen. I never wanted to-”

“Go fuck yourself!” He shoves at Rod’s shoulders, hard enough to keep him at a distance. He needs space; he needs quiet; this is all too much. “We don’t want you here anyway. You should have stayed in that other dimension. I’m sure it was great there.”

“That’s not-”

“Shut up, McKay.” He tunes his voice to the iciest, most dismissive tone he has. “You should have stayed gone.”

He enjoys a mean spark of satisfaction at the way Rod’s face falls, then he storms out of the lab.

Fuck that guy anyway.

Everyone on the base keeps looking at John like he’s volatile, as if he’s about to blow at any minute. Even his team starts handling him with kid gloves, like he’s fragile, and he hates it so much he could scream.

He meticulously constructs the bubble of hostility which has long been his go-to when he needs people to leave him alone. He snaps and snarls, and perfects a glare so hostile that no one dares approach him.

It’s restrictive inside that bubble, but at least it’s stable. At least he gets to decide the reason why people are going to hate him.

A few days later, Teyla strides into his lab wearing her patented “take no shit” expression.

“John,” she says, and the false cheery brightness of her tone has him scared already. “You will join me for tea.”

This is not, he recognizes, a request. He begins to mumble excuses but she cuts him off without hesitation. “You will come to my quarters, and we will drink a mug of tea together.” She crosses her arms. “Now.”

There are battles you can win, and ones you cannot. This is most certainly the latter, so he meekly follows her as she sweeps out of the lab and back to her quarters.

Once inside, Teyla forces him into a chair with an excessively firm hand.

“Sit,” she orders.

It’s easier to do as she says.

She carefully prepares the tea and warms the earthenware mugs, strong hands making practiced, confident movements. John watches the motions as she pours the tea and slides a mug over to him.

“Drink,” she orders, and again it’s easier to obey.

The tea is soapy and bland, but he fears her retribution enough not to mention that. He sips as they sit in silence. She regards him heavily over her mug.

Eventually she reaches some kind of conclusion.

“You are a valued member of our team, John.” Her face is impassive but her words are warm. “We would not see harm come to you.”

“That’s. Uhh. Good.”

“But your behavior of late has been,” she narrows her eyes, “ill-advised.”

John opens his mouth to defend himself, because it’s not as if Teyla could understand what’s been going on. But she holds up a hand which stops him short.

“I do not care to listen to your justifications. But you should know that if you continue on the path you have been on, it will be to the detriment of us all.”

John feels like he’s been pulled into the principal’s office to be scolded like a schoolboy. He didn’t care for that shit when he was ten, and he certainly doesn’t care for it now.

“If that was all,” he pushes the mug away and gets to his feet, “I’ll be on my way.”

“Wait.” Teyla’s hand shoots out with a warrior’s accuracy and closes around his wrist. “I am concerned for the team, yes. But I am also concerned for you. I would like to think that we are…” she tilts her head, “friends. And I should like for you to be happy.”

John is embarrassed to find a lump forming in his throat. He’s never truly had a friend before, and that someone of Teyla’s stature and courage would consider him as such has him flabbergasted. He suddenly wants, very badly, for her to think well of him.

“I’ll try harder,” he says. “I’ll try to be better.”

She releases his wrist and gives him a generous smile.

“That is all any of us can do.”

He starts small.

He saves up a few of the precious Earth-imported cookies they get for dessert in the mess sometimes and brings them to the next Mensa club night. Kusanagi beams and says that was very thoughtful of him, and Parrish splits a chocolate chip cookie with him while they speed-solve sudokus.

The next day he types up a report about the team’s most recent mission with as much detail as he can remember, and he makes special note of how brave Rod and Teyla and Ronon were.

He saves it to a flash drive and takes it to Elizabeth himself.

“What’s this?” she asks as he hands it over.

“Mission report,” John says, eyes fixed on a tapestry hanging behind her desk.

“Submitting a report without having to be asked five times first? Who are you and what have you done with Dr. Sheppard?”

Anger flashes for a moment, because he’s trying here and she doesn’t need to remind him of his past failings. But he looks down and sees she’s smiling. It’s a joke. She’s joking around with him.

Huh. Okay. That’s unfamiliar, but he doesn’t hate it.

“Maybe I’ve slipped in from an alternate dimension,” he says, and even though that’s not very funny Elizabeth laughs anyway, and that makes something glow inside him.

He grudgingly admits to himself that there does seem to be a pattern developing: when he makes an effort to connect with people here and, god help him, be nice to them, then they are happy and so is he. When he yells and pushes people away, they are sad and he is angry.

It’s sort of obvious, really, and he would be embarrassed that it’s taken him so long to figure that out, but humans are bizarre and complicated and not at all like numbers.

He has a hypothesis and now he needs to test it. He should try being more considerate to those closest to him and see if that improves everyone’s moods. If only he could figure out how to do that without the entire experience being mortifying.

He’ll work on Ronon first, he determines. Ronon has always looked out for him and they have a sort of unspoken bond. Finding something nice to do for him should be simple enough.

He decides on a data-driven approach. He takes to following Ronon around, looking for inspiration, trotting after him with a small notebook in hand to record his observations. Ronon finds the whole thing hilarious.

Ronon spends approximately 40% of his free time in the gym, which certainly is a lot, and a further 30% in the mess. Another 10% of the time he goes running around the city, and the remainder of his time is spent visiting with Teyla, stopping by the science labs to tease Rod, or visiting John.

“You like people,” John observes one day, when Ronon is warming up for a combat session with some of the marines. He’s added up the figures and plotted the data into neat hand-drawn scatter plots and histograms. “You spend almost all of your time around other people.”

Ronon’s lips tighten for a second, and then he relaxes. “Yeah, I do. For a long time it wasn’t safe for me to be around anyone, and I hated it.” He looks around the bustling gym and nods. “Now I don’t have to be alone any more. I’ll never fail to appreciate that.”

John squints and scribbles that down in his notebook too. “You like spending time with people even if they’re -” He glances over at the marines, loud and bossy and distastefully laddish, “- strange? Or mean?”

Ronon grins at him. “Even then, yeah.”

“But you go running on your own. Is that what you prefer?”

Ronon stiffens slightly. “No. It reminds me of running from the Wraith. But it’s important to stay fit, and no one here likes running with me.”

Ahah! The perfect opportunity. John bounces on the balls of his feet. “I’ll go with you.”

“What, seriously?”

“Sure. It sounds fun.”

It is not fun. Running is brutal, and he is terrible at it, but Ronon smiles the whole time and he keeps telling John what a great job he’s doing.

By the time they’ve completed one lap of the route, sweat is pouring off John and his lungs are fit to burst.

“Go get some rest,” Ronon says, slapping him on the back hard enough to make him stumble. “I’m going to do another couple of laps.”

“Same time tomorrow?” he asks between heaving breaths.

“You really want to do this again?”

“You run every day, right? So I will too.”

Ronon stops for a moment, then hauls John into a giant bear hug, apparently not caring that he’s sweaty and gross, and says, “Thanks, man.”

John is a little awed by how easily he expresses his approval, and how much it means to be on the receiving end of it.

He’s noticed on trade missions that the Athosians greatly value textiles, which they weave from plant fibers and dye bright colors. On his next trip to the mainland he slips away to ask the village elder Charin about the rugs which are spread throughout her tent.

She seems surprised by his interest but happy to show off her collection. She tells him how Athosians give rugs as gifts to celebrate relationships and achievements, and then she shows him how they're made.

He trades a whole month's worth of credits for supplies, and when he returns to Atlantis he spends hours each evening delicately weaving yarn through a wooden frame, building up a soft, textured rug. When it's done it's a little lumpy, but it has four clear bands of bright color running through it to represent their team.

He carries the rug to Teyla's quarters and fidgets outside her door.

"John." Teyla squints at him as she opens the door. "You appear nervous."

"I made this for you," he says and thrusts the rug at her. "Charin told me you're supposed to make them for family. This one has stripes for the four of us on the team. Sorry if it's not very good."

Tesla takes the rug and presses a hand to her chest as she examines it. A slow, warm smile spreads across her face.

"It is beautiful. You have my thanks, John. This means more to me than you know."

He has an uncomfortable flutter of emotion and he can't quite meet her eye. He focuses on the wall behind her instead.

"You are as family to me as well," she says, and steps forward to press their foreheads together in the Athosian way.

The frank sentimentality of her manner makes him squirm, but he sort of likes it.

Rod is trickier. He is not a person who cares much for stuff, and he always waves off supply runs from Earth, saying he has everything he needs.

But he has been complaining lately that the unstable nature of Lantea's sun has been interfering with some of his measurements. John has an idea that can help with that, even if it does involve working with grubby experimental data.

Once he's ready he invites Rod to join him in the control chair room.

"I did some modeling," he says quickly when Rod arrives. He doesn't bother with a greeting. "To predict solar influence on the Lantea system and help with your experimental readings."

Rod's eyes light up. "You modeled a star for me?"

"I thought it might be," he shrugs one shoulder, trying not to look too anxious about whether Rod will find it weird, "useful."

He plugs a flash drive into a socket on the chair platform and guides Rod into the chair.

"How does it work?" Rod is bouncing with excitement, the same look of delight on his face as when he finds a new piece of technology.

John indulges in a small, proud smile, and says, "Think about where we are in the solar system."

Rod leans back in the chair and its power hums on. Overhead, the holographic display bursts into life showing Lantea and its star, along with all the other planets and comets and asteroids filling the system, with notations on their size and mass and trajectory.

Rod whips the model around, running it backward and forward through time, watching the orbits of the planets dance.

Then Rod zooms in to see the sun up close and gasps. John has linked the model to the city's long range sensors so the display can simulate the star's fluctuations in real time, and as they watch its surface bubbles and releases a tendril of plasma which reaches out into space.

The display follows the plasma as it propagates out through the system, moving first through the asteroid field and then meeting the planet, interacting with the magnetosphere and lighting up the planet's atmosphere with an aurora of dancing colors.

The soft lights of the display are reflected in Rod's eyes, wide and joyful and curious, and the sight makes something like pain but not twist in John's chest.

"This is incredible." Rod pokes further through the interface, looking at zipping comets and distant moons. He sits up and the chair's power fades off. "Thank you."

Heat creeps across John's cheeks, and he busies himself unplugging the drive. "I wanted to do something… nice."

Rod stands and walks over to him, taking the drive from his fingers. But he doesn't let go, keeping hold of his hand. "This is very nice," he says, startlingly close.

And then something very strange happens, and Rod is leaning in and kissing him. John is distracted from the soft press of his lips by absolute bafflement at this turn of events and he freezes up.

Rod steps away and John stares at him, desperately trying to figure out how to respond. "You kissed me," he ends up on, which does have the merit of being true.

Rod rubs the back of his neck. "Sorry. I thought that's what you were going for. Was it not?"

John's brow wrinkles. His thoughts are whipping past at a million miles an hour.

That hadn't been his intention - he'd assumed that Rod was straight, not that he'd given it much thought - not that someone like Rod would be interested in him even if he wasn't - but there's something compelling about the concept, something intangible sitting on the edges of his perception. He can't quite see the shape of it.

"I need more data," he decides. "Kiss me again."

Rod breaks into a charmed smile. "I can do that."

This time when Rod leans in he's ready for it. Their mouths meet carefully, tentatively, and he angles his head so they line up better.

Oh. Interesting. The data is looking positive.

"Hmm." John draws back to breathe and consider. "Yes. That's good. Let's do that some more."

“An excellent plan," Rod says, putting his arms around John's waist to pull him closer and kiss him deeper.

Rod tastes incredible. Or maybe he just tastes of stale coffee and power bars, but John’s senses are so heightened that every sensation feels earth shattering, and he's starving for more. His hands scrabble at Rod’s collar, at his arms, at the hem of his shirt, trying to touch everything in a mad dash. He’s determined to get as much of whatever this is as he can before it comes to a crashing halt.

“Hey. Hey,” Rod’s hands are on top of his own, and he’s pulling away like John knew he would. John folds into himself, ready to turn his back as he listens to this is a mistake or we both know this isn’t going to work out or I’d never feel that way about you.

“If we’re going to do this…” Rod is giving him one of those lopsided smiles, soft and genuine. “I’d like to do it properly.”

John, still braced for rejection, has no idea what that means.

“Let me take you to bed,” Rod says, wobbly and uncertain and hopeful, of all things.

“Oh.” He could do that. They could do that. An ocean of unexpected possibilities opens up, glittering and unfamiliar and enticing. “Okay.”

Rod takes his hand and leads him back to his quarters. John’s palm is sweaty but his steps feel light as air.

Kissing Rod is excellent. Doing so while lying on Rod's bed is even better, and at some point they both lose their shirts and then there’s even more skin to explore and the comforting scent of Rod all around him.

It's what's next that's stressing him out, because while he's aware of the theoretical steps involved in sex, he doesn't exactly have practical experience to draw on.

There's the ever-present worry that he's missing something, that there's something he ought to know, like there's a handbook for this which everyone got a copy of except for him.

"You good?" Rod is looking at him with those very, very blue eyes. "You went away there for a minute."

His cheeks are blazing, but it seems important to set expectations. "I've never done this before," he admits.

"You mean with a man?"

He squirms. "With anyone."

He waits for Rod to laugh at him, but he merely looks contemplative. "Were you not interested, or…?"

"It never seemed that important, you know? Just another of those things that everyone else did except for me, like going to parties, or having friends, or spending Christmas with family."

Rod's face softens with sympathy.

"And even if I wanted to sometimes, it didn't matter, because who would want this?" He indicates himself with a disparaging hand. He knows what he looks like: too thin, too lanky, messy hair that will never keep a style. He's no one's ideal. "I'm not even sure why you’d be interested."

"God." Rod reaches for him and takes his face in his hands. "You really have no idea, do you?" Rod carefully removes his glasses, sets them aside, and says, "You're gorgeous," like he really means it.

Taking off his glasses makes John feel more vulnerable than taking off his clothes. Suddenly his shield is gone and there's the world, and Rod, and it's all very close and immediate and a little disorienting.

"Hey." Rod pets his face, soft and gentle, "It's okay. We can go slow."

He makes an effort to pull himself together. "I won't be very good at this."

"You don't have to be good." Rod traces his lips with a finger. "You just have to be you."

And that’s mystifying, frankly. But he’ll give it a go for Rod.

They kiss some more, and he relaxes into it, lets Rod take the lead, lets him explore his mouth until he’s boneless and breathless. He breaks for air and is lightheaded, the room almost spinning, but he wants more.

Then Rod is kissing along his jawline, and down his neck, and oh, when Rod’s lips brush against a spot near his throat his entire body tenses and twitches, and Rod makes a curious, happy noise and does it again. It’s a hair away from overwhelming but he likes it, he likes it a lot, and then Rod gently runs his teeth over that spot and John’s hips twitch off the bed entirely of their own volition.

“Sorry,” he says quickly, but Rod doesn’t look put off. In fact, he just grins, says, “Don’t be, I like it,” then pushes John back onto the bed and mouths at that spot some more.

His skin is hot all over and he’s shaking, and god, this is all going to be over embarrassingly fast and they haven’t even gotten all of their clothes off yet.

“Rod,” he says, and it comes out as a whine. “Will you -” He gestures vaguely at the bulge in the front of his jeans and hides his face in the pillow, too bashful to let Rod see him.

Rod pauses from his engrossment in John’s neck to breathe hot words into his ear instead. “Is that what you want?” he asks, and John is fit to burst already. How is Rod so good at this?

“Please,” he says, mumbling into the pillow. Everything is too much and not enough, and he wants, he wants, he wants. “Please, Rod, please -”

“Okay, of course I will, it’s okay.” Rod strokes his flank, petting him like a skittish horse, and that should be mortifying but it’s exactly what he needs. “I’d like to see you though,” he says, and reaches over to touch John’s chin.

John lets himself be turned, lets Rod roll him over so they’re facing each other and their eyes meet. That’s almost overwhelming too, but Rod looks so pleased he thinks he might be able to manage it, and then Rod is kissing him and unzipping his pants and oh, oh, oh.

Rod wraps a hand around his cock and John just melts, like every brain cell he possesses has decided to pack up for the night. He can't even bring himself to blush because Rod is touching him right there and it’s so good, it’s so good, and all he wants is more.

Rod handles him confidently, exploring what he likes: a bit faster, a bit slower, a bit more pressure, a bit less. If John could speak he’d tell him that it doesn’t matter, right now he likes everything, anything, whatever Rod wants to do to him he’d take it happily.

But Rod is a scientist, and he loves his data just as much as John does, so he does some experimentation and finds the ideal speed John likes, and the angle, and then he squeezes gently around the head and John’s orgasm explodes behind his eyes like bright, white light.

He floats for a while, like a spring that’s been twisted and twisted and finally bursts free, and he’s vaguely aware of Rod stroking his face. It’s nice, every muscle in his body slack and comfortable for once instead of clenched down tight.

“You good?” Rod asks, and John can’t help but smile.

“Very,” he mumbles, mouth lax and lazy.

Rod drops a kiss on his temple, and there’s something so casual and caring about that it makes John’s heart squeeze.

“You mind if I get myself off?” Rod asks and heat races up the back of John’s neck. He does not mind that one bit.

“Should I. Um.” He ought to offer, right? That was the polite thing. But, “I don’t really know what to do,” he admits.

Rod smiles softly at him and says, “How about you kiss me?”

And yes, John is definitely on board with that, he can do that. He puts an arm around Rod’s shoulders and pulls him closer, then kisses him: carefully at first, peppering soft pecks to his lips, and then deeper, lips sliding over each other as they grow more heated, and then finally wild and messy, slipping his tongue into Rod’s mouth while Rod pushes his pants down and works himself over.

He feels Rod’s fist bumping up against his thigh, faster and faster as he speeds up his hand, and John can’t help but glance down. He watches in fascination at the way the head of Rod’s cock peeks through his hand on each stroke, red and hard and leaking from the tip. Reflexively, he licks his lips.

Rod is making these soft groaning noises which have John entranced, like he wants to spend every spare minute he has learning how to coax them out of him. And then Rod is biting his lip, and twitching, and staring at him open-mouthed and breathing hard.

“Can I come on you?” he asks, and something in John’s brain short-circuits.

“Yes,” his mouth says for him. “Rod, god, yes.”

He can’t stop staring at the movement of Rod’s hand and, emboldened by a force he didn’t know he had in him, he reaches down to wrap his hand around Rod’s. He lets Rod guide their movements, adding a soft pressure from his fingers so they can bring him off together.

“John,” Rod sighs, full of warmth and contentment, and then he’s relaxing and coming. Fluid splatters across John’s thighs and he did that, he made Rod feel good, and that feels like the best gift of all.

Rod is soft around the edges now, smudgy like a charcoal painting, and when John asks, “Was that okay?” he pulls him closer and nuzzles into his neck, covering both of their bodies and their clothes hopelessly in come, and says, “That was perfect.”

John wakes up sticky, rather too hot, and filled with a roiling, anxious feeling. The bed is too small and Rod is too close, and his heart rate picks up as he looks fuzzily around the room.

He should go. He should just go, right now, before Rod wakes up and they have to talk about this and he says something wrong and ruins everything.

He’s squinting and patting at the bedside table, looking for his glasses, when he feels movement behind him.

“Morning.” Rod drops a soft kiss on his shoulder. Then he rolls over, John’s glasses in his hand, and opens them up and pops them onto his face. He slides them up John’s nose, smiles, and says, “There you are.”

And oh. All that panic seems further away once he has the armor of his glasses back, and now he can see the pillow crinkles imprinted into Rod’s cheek. He seems less like an agent of impending judgement and more like Rod, just Rod, Rod who knows him and has seen him at his worst and still, for whatever baffling reason, seems to like him.

“Hi,” he manages, and Rod beams like that was exactly the right thing to say.

“Coffee?” Rod offers. “Or shower first?”

As rare as it is for John to turn down coffee, he really is unpleasantly sticky. Deal with that problem first, he decides. “Shower,” he says, grateful that he’s not required to string together more than single words.

“Sure.” Rod gives his ass a cheeky pat as he rises, then throws him a towel.

He showers quickly and efficiently, but as he steps out and wraps a towel around himself he spots a purpling bruise on the side of his neck in the mirror. He stops to trace it with his fingers, remembering the feeling of Rod’s mouth there, hot and demanding.

“Ahh.” Rod stands in the doorway to the bathroom. “Sorry about that. I got a bit carried away.” There’s a flush on his cheeks, and he looks nervous.

John tilts his head, looks at the mark from another angle. There it is: incontrovertible evidence that he's wanted. What a fascinating concept. “Don’t be. I like it.”

“Oh.” Rod’s eyes go very round and the blush deepens. “That’s good. That’s. Ahh. Very good. I’ll just -”

Rod drops the towel from around his waist and makes for the shower, and John gets an eyeful of his half-hard cock, and then, as he walks past, an ass he has the sudden urge to sink his fingers into. A heat that’s beginning to feel familiar creeps up his neck, and he wants -

What the hell, he thinks, and he tosses his own towel aside to follow Rod back into the shower, delighting in his yelp of surprise when he slides up behind him.

“Shep! Think fast!”

John manages to get his hands up just in time to prevent the power bar from hitting him in the face.

“Thought you might want a snack before the mission,” Ronon says with a wink. “Just in case we have to run anywhere.”

“Hey, I’m getting better at that! I’ll catch up with you one day.”

“Sure you will.” Ronon checks the straps on John's tac vest like he always does, then says, "Looking good, buddy," and ruffles his hair.

John used to hate that, but he's given up trying to tame his hair and now he lets it stick up in whatever direction it wants. It's weird but it works.

Teyla bumps her shoulder against his as they walk toward the gate room. "What do you have for us today, John?"

“Remember that strange energy signal Major Lorne’s team picked up last week? I was able to map its topography through space and pinpoint its likely origin, and Rod took a look at the electromagnetic readings and he thinks it might be a power source -”

“So we are going to investigate the signal on P2X-884?”

“Bingo.”

Rod is standing in front of the gate like he belongs there. He claps his hands. "Ready for another thrilling adventure in the Pegasus galaxy?"

"Maybe we'll get to hunt some Wraith," Ronon says, entirely too cheerfully.

"Or discover some hideous alien parasite," Teyla joins in with a gruesome smirk.

"Or accidentally blow something up," John supplies, because that's usually how their luck goes.

"Sounds delightful." Rod grins and yells up to the gate techs, "Dial her up."

As the gate engages with a whoosh and a glow of blue light, Rod reaches out to graze his fingers against John's: a reminder, and a promise. Out of the corner of his eye, John catches his smile.

He stands a little taller, knowing his team has his back, and steps through the wormhole.

#mcshep #stargate atlantis #my writing #i will NOT shut up about mensa!john i LOVE him

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the-evil-authoress · 3 years

Text

GX Month Day 21: “Crystal Bond”

Everyone has a special bond with their deck, but arguably no one more so than the Crystal Beast wielder himself, Johan/Jesse Anderson! Show off that colorful bond today.

This was gonna be longer, and require another apology up front, but then my brain took a vaca before getting the actual angsty part so here ya go - pain free! (mostly)

I won...?

The adrenaline of that final combo wears off and he stands in stunned silence as his opponent climbs back to their feet. His ears are ringing. He honestly hadn’t expected to get this far.

“Little King.” Athena’s voice snaps him out of it; he turns to the warrior spirit smiling proudly at him and realizes his ears aren’t ringing- the crow is cheering, screaming someone’s name-

His name, the one he chose before entering this tournament.

Smiling, Jesse throws his hands in the air.

Athena walks next to him as Jesse exits the duel arena. He feels wired and giddy, like he could step right off the ground and float through the air. His fairies chatter animatedly, praises and congratulations and reminiscing moments from the duel.

Jesse jerks to stop in the hall. There it is again; that weird...pull, like something is calling out to him. He barely takes a step toward the source when-

“Ah, Jesse-boy! Just the person I was looking for!”

His shoulders hike to his ears with an embarrassing yelp as he spins to face the speaker. ‘Jesse-boy’? Who the heck- Oh. Oh god. Maximillion Pegasus?! “Me?” he squeaks, gawking at the living legend before him.

“Yes, you.” Is it wrong to think the man’s expression looks something like a kid in a candy store? Because it does and it’s kinda weirding Jesse out. “I have something rather special for you, I believe. If you’d come with me.”

Jesse glances at Athena who nods her head. Well, if Athena doesn’t think this is a terrible idea, how bad could it be?

Pegasus leads him down the hallways at a brisk pace, talking animatedly all the while. “A few years ago, I created a new set of cards based on some artifacts from one of my expeditions. But as soon as the cards were complete, they sealed themselves in stone!”

To anyone else, Pegasus would probably sound like a madman; but to Jesse - glancing back at the duel spirit following them - this sounds entirely in the realm of possibility. “Couldn’t you just break it?”

“I tried. I broke one of my best chizzles,” Pegasus says. “And that’s when I heard a voice - ‘You are not the one we seek’. I’m afraid I don’t have you gift,” - Jesse’s shoulders tense as the man turns to smile at him once more - “but I do have some affinity for magic and the spirits.”

“That would make sense,” Jesse says, slowly relaxing. It would be weird if the creator of this game had no idea about its secrets, but Jesse’s never met anyone else who could see duel spirits. “Why are you telling me all this? Why are you here?” Any event where Pegasus makes an appearance will usually announce the man as a guest to the entire crowd.

“A fortunate coincidence! I was in the area from some other business and decided to check out the skill of the locals. I was not disappointed.” Pegasus almost sounds smug. “As for you, Jesse-boy, I tend to keep these cards with me in case I run into the person they seek. Today, a light shone from the cards when you took the field.”

Hold up. Is he saying these ‘special cards’ chose Jesse or something?

“So I want to see if they’ll break their seal for you.” Stopping before an unmarked door, Pegasus unlocks it with a key and pushes it open.

Seven card shaped gemstones sit on display on the single table, forming a rainbow. Jesse’s heart leaps as he realizes this is the source of the feeling he’s been getting all day. Something about their uniform edges strikes him as wrong, but the colors are undeniably familiar.

“Go on,” Athena whispers. “They’ve been waiting for you.”

But why me? Jesse wants to ask except his heart is in his throat and his body reacts before his brain can, reaching out to touch the nearest crystal card. The crystal shell cracks and crumbles under his fingertip, setting off a chain reaction from the other cards as all seven shed their shells in a colorful burst of light.

“Rubii!”

Jesse jerks as the purple cat-like creature leaps toward his face - carbuncle, she’s a carbuncle, his brain supplies - landing on his shoulder to nuzzle his cheek with an odd sounding purr. A pegasus shakes himself like a dog while a large cat stretches her legs before rubbing affectionately against Jesse’s.

“Finally. It’s been too long.”

A tortoise peers curiously out of his shell. A white tiger prowls the room. An eagle flaps his wings before perching on the table. A mammoth trumpets his awakening and Jesse’s hands fly over his ear. He knows all of them, their presence washing over him and settling somewhere deep inside him like it was always supposed to be there but something’s missing.

“This set isn’t complete, I’m afraid.” Jesse spins back toward Pegasus, only just now remembering his presence in the room. “From what information I can gather, there’s an eighth card, a dragon, that can only be summoned by possessing all seven gems. But its soul was sealed in stone and hidden somewhere centuries ago.”

Something inside Jesse aches. Ruby presses herself more firmly against the side of his face. Amethyst growls.

“But I’ve got my best team looking for it, and I won’t rest until that dragon is found!” Pegasus announces with enough enthusiasm to power a whole city block.

“Please remember to sleep,” Sapphire murmurs.

“Ey, if man wants to run himself ragged lookin’ for Rainbow, who are we to stop him?” Cobalt shrugs.

Jesse smiles despite himself. “Thanks, but...remember to sleep.”

Pegasus laughs. “Of course. Now then, I think I’ve taken enough of your time.”

Oh shit! Dad will be wondering where he is! Jesse gathers the Crystal Beast cards and Pegasus hands him the rest of the support for his new deck - weird to think of it that way, he’s been playing pretty much the same deck since he started dueling - and Jesse makes a break down the hall only for watapon to screech at him and headbutt him in the right direction.

“I see that hasn’t changed.” Topaz chuckles.

“Johan.”

Jesse jerks to a halt. Athena doesn’t use his name often, which means this must be important.

“It’s time for me to move on.”

“Move on?”

“My task is done, little King,” Athena says, voice as gentle and firm as it's ever been as Jesse stares up at the spirit that’s been his guidepost for years. What doesn’t she mean ‘move on’? “You have the ones who were always meant to be at your side now.” She nods her head at the new deck box clutched in Jesse’s hands.

His grip tightens automatically. “But-” Athena was his first duel spirit, someone he looked up to from the moment he opened that first pack of cards. He built his whole deck around her! How is he supposed to-

“Now I must find my true place.” She turns to look over he shoulder and Jesse forces himself to follow her line of sight. At the end of the hall next to a cross section, a little girl in pigtails stares at the two of them, eyes wide and mouth partially open, a monster plushie clutched tightly in one arm.

Jesse jerks, looking quickling back at Athena. “Can she see you?”

“Yes.”

Jesse looks back at the girl as his heart swells and clenches in the same instant. The first person he’s ever encountered who can see duel spirits too and Athena is asking him to-

Fingers tight around the deck box that houses the Crystal Beasts, Jesse swiftly swaps it with the one on his belt, hold it close while he steels himself, and approaches the little girl. Crouching in front of her, he holds out the box full of fairies. “Hey, can you hold onto this for me?”

The girl’s eyes widen. She reaches for the deck with tiny hands as if expecting Jesse to yank it back. When he doesn’t, her eyes light up with glee and she spins on her heel to run down the adjacent hall. “Mama, mama!”

A shaky breath. Jesse stands as she disappears with the only deck he’s ever played. So this is it. With a regal bow, Athena turns to follow the girl, and Jesse swipes a stray tear from his cheek. Ruby nuzzles his face.

“I’ll be okay,” he mumbles, automatically reaching to pet the ghostly creature.

#gxmonth2021 #jesse anderson #johan andersen #crystal beasts #ygo gx #yugioh gx #yu gi oh gx

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itwoodbeprefect · 3 years

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rewatched sga 1x04 thirty-eight minutes! thoughts under the cut!

this is an episode i already rewatched very recently, when i was wildly hopping back and forth through the show (but mostly in seasons 2-5), but i’ll watch it again now for context.

love the start of this episode, which is so in the middle of the action i always have a second of “wait, did i skip something?”

teyla correctly guesses that the bug that’s on john’s neck is related to the wraith! SHE is the one that makes the connection because SHE is the one that knows the most about this universe! THIS IS WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT when i say that the expedition needs the athosians, oof.

also though, it’s both really great to see that teyla is (especially here, early on) so often the one with very important key insights that (help to) solve the expedition’s problem of the week, and honestly a little sad, because the earth humans just. don’t seem to learn from that to respect the athosians a little more, maybe, mayhaps. they respect teyla, yes, but (and i’m getting ahead of myself a little here because i’m expanding on bits of this after i’ve also already watched the next episode, which deals with the earth vs. athosian clash a lot) they kind of... only seem to take from all of her extremely valuable contributions that she as an individual can be an asset to them, instead of viewing it in a broader context. (but yeah, definitely getting ahead of myself here.)

ZELENKA. ZELUMPKA

kavan-ugh

this episode has a very cool format!! the jumping back and forth!! the bits of information we’re fed through people starting to give long explanations and then being cut off, making us puzzle it all together a little!!

throughout the entire ordeal rodney keeps being distracted by what is happening with john and that’s good on every level. just makes sense, because they’re in a tiny space, and it’s also potentially shippy, and it’s also just a sign that rodney most certainly does care - though at the same time also one of how early on this all still is, because i do feel rodney ends up getting better at working through a crisis. (though it’s also like. very often john who keeps rodney focused, so in that context it makes sense rodney keeps getting distracted if john is, uh, otherwise occupied. with, like, dying.)

teyla is wearing earth gear in this episode and i think that’s the first time we see that? but she does seem to have her own shirt under the jacket, which, idk, feels interesting. she’s putting on this uniform over her pegasus identity.

the elizabeth vs. halling bits where she denies his request for last rites for teyla (that’s not just coming from him, but from a group of athosians), even though the radio is totally free so they could have talked to teyla without obstructing the earth efforts at that moment... are always so uncomfortable to me. elizabeth says she doesn't want to make the people on the ship think they will die because earth people value life and will keep trying to save everyone, etc etc, and that’s fine but it’s. such a sad way for this all to go down. i love elizabeth most of the time but these bits are most definitely not my favorites - like, she’s in love with the ancients but she doesn’t have enough respect for the living pegasus culture to find a way to make this work for everyone. i never fully know if i think this is an interesting flaw in her character or if i just want to blame it on the writers, who have a certain perspective that elizabeth is now an unfortunate mouthpiece for.

(and getting ahead of myself again here, but then later after the rescue efforts paid off there’s THAT NOD she gives halling across the room and that’s just fdjkfd nahhhh. you did not earn that nod. you don’t have some cool understanding now, you were just disrespectful to him and his culture and his religion and this, now, feels a hair’s breadth from gloating over how your perspective was right all along, even though this outcome!!! does not mean!!! that it couldn’t have ended differently!!! and i do think elizabeth means well and is not trying to be a dick, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t. i have extremely mixed feelings about all of this.)

for a lighter thought, markham and stackhouse’s biggest roles in sga are the episode that they spend being dematerialized and i think that’s very iconic of them.

at one point john is talking to carson and is like “i need to move to help rodney with the mechanical problem!” and that’s so very john of him. he’s actively at death’s door and still doing his level best to be a control freak about a different life-threatening problem.

i PROMISE i’m not trying to rag on elizabeth (i do like her!!! when she’s not in this episode), but this quote, when she’s making a point to kavanaugh: “we are cut off from earth, which makes atlantis almost like a colony, doesn't it? (...) well i'm governor of that colony.” it’s just laden with so, so, so much oof.

anyway, this episode has a lot of team!!! gate team one!!! team cooperation!!! at some point ford is updating atlantis on the status in the jumper and he’s like “doctor mckay- [pointed pause in which he looks at rodney] doctor mckay is still hopeful he can come up with a solution” and then rodney GETS BACK TO WORK and that’s good, i like a lot of things about that and what it says about how these characters and this team works.

john comes up with the solution to his own near death experience, which is also very john of him. bonus points for the plan being one in which john dies. sets a trend for a surprising amount of the rest of the show, even though he doesn’t usually actually end up dead for a little bit when those plans are carried out, like he does here.

grodin, gosh, he’s so present in these early episodes, and it makes me sad that he’s one of those characters that just end up fading away eventually.

TEYLA’S RAINBOW WRAP AROUND SHIRT at johns bedside is !!!!!!! so good, omfg.

john, telling everyone what he was supposedly going to say when he was about to die: “take care of each other.” rodney, a little smug: “and indeed we did.” fdjkfd these lonely men are still adjusting to having a family, but sometimes they are very :D about it and that’s very cute.

#stargatezing #sga #*#stargate atlantis #love the episode hate the politics #though in a way it's like. a good primer for what follows

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sodomitecastiel · 2 years

Note

Okay, I feel like we could put Bobby as a Weir mirror. He'd leave Rufus behind, pulled by the draw of new knowledge that could be used to protect so many people. Rufus would be pissed, but ultimately he knew who he was shacking up with. It's not a chance Bobby can turn down.

And then he becomes fiercely protective of his team. He stays back at Atlantis, unless shit is really going down, and he has to step into the fight directly. Mostly he's just managing logistics and making sure they can learn as much as possible.

Of course he's unhappy when Dean and Sam start dragging Pegasus natives into Atlantis, but he can see how much of an asset they could be, and he learns to 1. Trust dean's instinct and 2. Allow a healthy amount of disobedience, mostly because the trust and respect goes both ways.

ok i was resisting putting bobby at the head of the expedition because he doesn’t strike me as someone who loves the limelight, but you won me over. i love this

#nathaniel.txt #answered #stargatenatural

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project-sekai-updates · 25 days

Text

#エイプリルフール限定

特別チームを紹介✨

『我らペガサス探検隊！チーム』帰る方法を探して、セカイを探検するチームです。みんなで元気いっぱい歌って歩けば、恐竜だって怖くない！？

youtu.be/Lfuew1ENMX0

[Google Translated Vers.]

#April Fools Limited

Introducing the special team✨

“We are the Pegasus expedition! team" A team exploring the world in search of a way to return home. If we all sing and walk energetically, even dinosaurs won't be scary! ?

#mod minori #official #project sekai #jp sekai #source: twitter

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tired-college-student-writing · 4 years

Text

#WaynesAngel

The Maribat AU by @ozmav and @maribat-archive is all I can think about atm, so enjoy more of this

Summary- After Grayson posts a video on the wrong twitter, Damian feels like he should lose his social media privileges, and possibly his hand.

Part 1

Part 4

Part 5 (HERE)

This was a impusle write as I was trapped in a car for over 50 hours in three days. Please do not ask for another chapter.

_________________________________________

Wayne’s Angel @FashionInGotham

Why is it weird that I’ve never met a Bat before? It’s not like Damian or the Waynes have ever seen Ladybug or Chat Noir or the Miraculous Team in Paris, and they’ve been in Paris a lot more than I’ve been in Gotham #confusion #AMERICAEXPLAIN

Jason Todd Lives @BestTodd

@FashionInGotham Whomst the Fuck is Ladybug and Chat Noir?? Also, Miraculous Team Sounds like some magical girl anime Cass watches

Call me Cass @CainYouBelieve

@FashionInGotham @BestTodd 🖕🏼

Wayne’s Angel @FashionInGotham

@FashionInGotham @BestTodd @CainYouBelieve They’re the Paris superheroes, they showed up almost five years ago to fight the little bitch of a villain, Hawkmoth and his stupid peacock assistant, Mayra.

Dick Grayson @AFlyingGrayson

@FashionInGotham @BestTodd @CainYouBelieve @ FashionInGotham WHAT?! Paris has heroes??

Wayne’s Angel @FasionInGotham

@FashionInGotham @BestTodd @CainYouBelieve @ FashionInGotham @AFlyingGrayson Oh yeah, I forgot that the mayor was trying to keep it a secret from the rest of the world #MyB But yeah Ladybug and Chat Noir have been there the longest but there’s also Abeille, Viperion, Ryuko, Pegasus, King Monkey, Bunnyx, and Badulf

Chloe raised an eyebrow at her friend as she saw the tweet thread that was quickly going viral, “You realize my dad is going to flip about this.”

“He deserves it,” Adrian pipped up from where he was painstakingly painting Kagami’s nails a deep burgundy.

The other teen heroes hummed in agreement as Chloe huffed.

“Well Yeah, but I was hoping to do it with a little extra flair than a twitter thread.”

Alix snorted as she finished up Kim’s banana yellow toes, drawing a crude smiley face on his big toe with bright blue, “She’s dating the youngest kid of the most influential family in the world and has like 100 million followers. Plus she called Hawkmoth a little bitch and it already has 90k likes. I call that flair.”

It was a surprise when Nathanial had had his freak out during his second battle, against a Crimson Peacock event no less, and had called her Lady Marinette in front of the other temporary heroes, but had lead to many nights like the one they were having now. Onesies of each other’s heroes’ identities donned as they lounged around Chloe’s room, simply enjoying each other’s company after a long patrol. Chloe and Adrian had demanded they have a spa night, which is why everyone was either giving or receiving mani-pedis while they waited for their face masks to finish. It was nice, to have so much support outside of the masks, especially as they entered their final year in Lychee.

Marinette rolled her eyes, “It’s only 98 million, Alix, and plus I figured four months after I made this account was long enough to make the slip up seem genuine. We need to catch Hawkmoth soon, or else this entire mess will get a lot more complex.”

They all frowned as they realized the truth behind her words. They were all facing hard decisions if they couldn’t pin the man down, not like they hadn’t already sacrificed so much to continue the battle. Max had already turned down graduating early and a full ride to MIT, citing his desire to graduate with his friends before moving across the globe. Luka had been invited to tour with Jagged, only to politely decline, telling the pouting rockstar that he wanted to do some soul finding first. Kim had given up a summer training camp with the French Olympic team. Alix had given up going on an expedition with her dad and brother, missing out on the chance to explore the dunes of Egypt. Marinette had turned down three internships at this point, one from Audrey Bourgeois, One from Raven Baxter, and lastly and most devastatingly, one from Edna Mode.

They needed to end this, before the overwhelming feeling of their futures slipping right between their fingers got them akumatized.

Tim Drake Offical @TJDrake

Seeing the demon spawn panic when he realized @FasionInGotham isn’t any safer from maniacs in Paris then she is in Gotham is strangely endearing and vaguely terrifying #whyismyfamilylikethis

Duke of Hazard @DoneWithTheRich

@TJDrake Like you and Barb aren’t frantically searching for anything you can find on the Miraculous Team and these weird-ass butterfly dude.

Call me Cass @CainYouBelieve

@TJDrake @DoneWithTheRich Bugout.com, It’s in French but informative.

Tim Drake Offical @TJDrake

@TJDrake @DoneWithTheRich @CainYouBelieve How did you find this before Barbs and me????

Call me Cass @CainYouBelieve

@TJDrake @DoneWithTheRich @CainYouBelieve @TJDrake Alfred.

The news swept up the story in an instant and suddenly the whole world was demanding to know what the Parisian Mayor had been thinking and why the Justice League hadn’t been involved.

It wasn’t long until the entire Miraculous Team was seated in front of the Louvre. Countless new agencies from around the world were present, eager to hear the story of the sickeningly young-looking heroes, but the one video that received the most views was the shaky camera videos that were uploaded to Marinette’s Twitter, as they shortened the two-hour-long Press conference into manageable clips that highlighted the most important points.

Wayne’s Angel @FasionInGotham

Full Lineup, Damn. Haven’t seen that since the last time we had a Scarlet Moth incident. For those who need context, this is like seeing the entire founding Justice League together to us Parisians.

The clip attached showed A panning shot as they introduced all of the heroes. Ladybug and Chat Noir sat in the center of the long table flanked by Vipirion, plucking his lyre absentmindedly, Abeille, glaring down her nose at the reporters, a beaming King Monkey waving excitedly, and an eerie serious Bunnyx sitting as still as a statue to their right, on their left was fierce-looking Ryuko looking ready to slice anyone who got too close, the calculating Pegasus, mumbling under his breath, and lastly the timid Badulf, struggling to keep his red bangs out of his eyes.

Wayne’s Angel @FasionInGotham

LMAO RYUKO #DRAGONQUEENSLAY

Don’t question Paris’ Heroes like that, they’re feisty.

The clip showed a British reporter demanding to know why the heroes hadn’t contacted the Justice League previously to gain their assistance in taking down the dangerous threat that was Hawkmoth.

You could Ladybug’s eye twitch at the condescending question, but before she could answer Ryuko leaned forward to the mic situated in front of her with a glint in her eyes.

“I apologize for my English,” She started, “I am not as versed in the language as some of my teammates. To answer your question on why we haven’t had the League’s help is because Green Lantern is a fuck.”

Silence filled the gathering before Chat, King Money and Bunnyx burst into giggles, the rest of the heroes struggling to keep a straight face. The media was staring at them dumbfounded until Ladybug finally leaned forward.

“I’m sorry for the outburst,” She started, lips still trying to twitch upwards, “But as Ryuko said we did ask for help. About five months into our heroship Chat and I received an answer from the League after trying for three months to contact them. The ‘help’ came in the form of Green Lantern coming and assessing the situation. Unfortunately for us, Hawkmoth is smart and when the neon green monstrosity of a hero flew in he laid low instead of attacking when a Leaguer was present. Without an attack and no physical damage present as one of my powers allows me to restore all damage done to Paris or its citizens, He decided we were powered children that were trying to get in the spotlight.”

“Getting lectured on wasting the League’s time and resources before he flew off really put a damper on us asking again,” Chat added in, toxic green eyes narrowed and laser-focused on the reporter, “So we handled it ourselves, gaining our own allies as we needed them. But please continue telling us how the League could have helped sooner if only we had asked for help.”

Clip after clip, ten of them total were uploaded into the thread. Explaining the worst battle the heroes had ever faced, the strength of their enemy, what the villain and his assistance could and would do, the worst attacks, the easiest wins, the ways that Ladybug and Chat chose their allies, but the last two clips seemed to get the largest reaction out of the audience, both at the press conference and the internet.

Wayne’s Angel @FashionInGotham

Not gonna lie, seeing my tormentors get put on blast by all of the Heroes is very vindictive #IsthatMean? #MaybeSo

“You’ve seemed to have shifted your support away from one local blog, to another over any official news agency,” One of the nicer reporters at the events said, “Is there a particular reason? And why the sudden shift two years ago?”

Chat’s face was strangely pinched, “Oh you mean why we switched from giving exclusives to the LadyBlog to BugOut? It’s quite simple. We go to the news sources we trust to take the information we are willing to give without worrying about ratings as their top priority. We tried going to Nadja Chamack at first, the local news anchor that we all hold a great deal of respect for, but the producers threatened her to get a ‘highly-rated’ interview. It led to her asking questions Ladybug and I thought were counterproductive to the reason we were invited to the interview and was trying to turn us into celebrities instead of allowing us to do the jobs we needed to. It was a similar reason we stopped going to Alya Cesaire, the Ladyblog editor.”

Ladybug took over here, “Miss Cesaire has the ability to be a very good journalist, but as her blog grew in popularity, so did her need for highly viewed content, this caused her to not only start posting more rumors and speculation than anything we’ve ever said but also to stop fact-checking with us things she heard. Even after talking to her about removing the content that was blatantly untrue and was told no due to the high ratings it had received we realized that we simply couldn’t work with her anymore.”

Abeille piped up in a low regal voice that was dripping with venom, “It really didn’t help that when we started interviewing with Aurora Beaureal from BugOut, shortly after my introduction, Miss Cesaire began a smear campaign against her, claiming she was faking her sources and videos publicly on her blog. Luckily we were able to shut that down quickly enough but it didn’t stop Miss. Cesaire from running into battle to distract us, and frankly, harass us for answers even after we told her no. It’s lead to more than one incident where she, other civilians, and even ourselves have been hurt.”

“Either way,” Chat took over again, “We want to support local news sources but only when they are willing to listen to our boundaries and work with us instead of trying to push issues.”

“Does that mean that info we found on the Ladyblog is not to be believed?” Another reporter called out.

“I would take anything after the first post about Lila Rossi with a grain of salt,” Ladybug said, only for King Monkey to snort and lean towards the mic.

“Yeah and if Lila Rossi is mentioned at all in the post just assume everything in that post is fake. Miss. Rossi is a known liar and problem for us.”

“Can you give us an example?”

Ladybug sighed before explaining, “The first time I heard of Miss. Rossi was an interview on the Ladyblog of her claiming to be my best friend. Now I very much value the secrecy I and my team have created for ourselves because it protects our friends and families, but even a lie about knowing me in such a public setting is dangerous because Hawkmoth and Mayra have proven that they aren’t above underhanded tactics to try and get the upper hand in our fights. I went looking for the girl to explain why she can’t say such things for her own safety, only to find her telling a boy that she possessed the Fox Miraculous in a public park. I will admit I called her out in a way that wasn’t very nice but either claim was enough to put her in danger, but both were painting a target on her back and it scared me that someone would do something to impress a boy. After that, she was akumatized for the first time and since then it has gotten even worse despite me apologizing the second I cured the Akuma. Some of her lies are enough to count as Slander if any of the celebrities she lied about knowing saw the posts, but no amount of persuasion seems to get her to stop.”

Wayne’s Angel @FasioninGotham

Watching their powers without the looming threat of an Akuma/Amok is a blessing. They look so cool! #Love #Miraculous

The clip started with the heroes standing in front of the table, grouped differently than before. Off to one side King Monkey, Viperion and Bunnyx stood, Viperion holding a microphone.

“While we would love to an demonstrate our powers as requested,” He explained, “Our powers are not really good for demonstrations. Mine is known as Second Chance.”

He raised his hand and pulled the slider across his bracelet as he named it, a flash of pale teal light admitting from it, “When activated like I just did, it allows me to return to the point of activation at any time before I detransform in fifteen minutes as many times as I wish with only myself remembering the previous changes I have made.”

Without even acknowledging the startled whispers from the crowd, he handed the microphone to King Monkey, who offered a cheeky smile.

“So my power is called Uproar. It allows me to create a toy-like object that when it comes into contact with someone causes all of their abilities to malfunction.”

He goes to pull his staff from where it was strapped to his back only for Vipirion to stop him. A silent exchange passed between the pair before the taller hero nodded and handed the microphone off to Bunnyx.

“Viperion and I have a similar reason for our powers being hard to show off, only his is a little more versatile,” She started in a voice devoid of any emotion, swinging her pocket watch slightly, “I have the power Burrow. It allows me, and anyone I chose to take with me, access to a pocket dimension where I can travel to any point in time or space that I chose, past, present, or future. While you might see me fight during any battle I can make it to, my power is a last-ditch effort, as I would have to travel back in time to change the past if I do this assume the future is unsavable.”

The hush that falls over the crowd was quickly broken by Ryuko tapping her group’s microphone to draw attention to the opposite side of the stage where she stood with Abeille, Badulf, Pegasus, Chat, and Ladybug.

“I believe it’s best to not dwell on any one of our powers,” She told them, “Our powers are scary and knowing that they can be taken from us at any time and used for nefarious purposes keep all of us up at night, but we ask you to trust us to use them only for good.”

She waited a moment for the crowd o calm down before giving her own explanation, “My ability is known as the Three Dragons, the Water Dragon, the Wind Dragon, and the Lightning Dragon.”

She handed off the microphone to Pegasus, before calling forth the Wind Dragon and bursting into a group of clouds that swiftly blew around the stage before traveling over to the Louvre Pyramid and watching as the heroine reformed at the top, offering a small wave before the call for Water Dragon could be heard and a large dome of water formed over the entire courtyard.

Before she could call for her last form the snake hero grabbed the microphone, “Lightning Dragon is a bad idea, Ryuko.”

The heroine didn’t even question him, instead, vaulting off of the pyramid, the crowed gasped only for her to effortlessly land next to Bunnyx in a crouch, brushing herself off as she rose and turned her gaze to the horse miraculous user, who quickly explained his power before calling forth Voyage.

His cry caused blue light to circle his arm and he sent it towards the top of the still-present water dome, with a controlled flick of his arm.

The heroes didn’t even blink as the crowd filled with cries as the Eiffel Tower fell through the portal, Ladybug’s yoyo whipping out to direct it’s decent, the entire courtyard shaking as the 10k ton structure landed.

“I’m up next!” Chat called out with a large grin, while the reporters didn’t seem to know if they should pay attention to the moved monument or the hero. His explanation was short since they were many videos of him using it but that didn’t stop the international reporters from screaming as Cataclysm swirled around his hand eating away at the Eiffel Tower, leaving a pile of rust in the crater

“Is-Is this much property damage necessary?”

Abeille shrugged, “No, but once we get to Ladybug, it’ll make more sense. Either way my turn.”

An unpleasant chill went up the world’s spine as she demonstrated how she could freeze all voluntary movement of her target on Chat Noir, who was still as a statue the second her stinger touched him.

Ladybug quickly took the mic and began explaining her powers. The world watched in amazement at her pulling a red and black spotted camera from thin air before she launched it into the air with a cheer of “Miraculous Ladybug!”

Suddenly a glowing swarm of ladybugs formed and tore through the air, covering Chat Noir, releasing from Venom, before healing the crater and rust from nearby, dissolving the water dome in the same instance.

If there hadn’t been so many people present the world wouldn’t have believed that so much damage was just repaired in the span of ten seconds, but staring at the unimpressed Parisians around them the world finally seemed to grasp the reality of the situation.

These children were past what one would even expect from metas, from aliens and superhumans like they had seen around the world already. These were heroes that were harnessing the very forces that made up the universe and fighting them at the same time. Bunnyx wasn’t exaggerating when she mentioned that sometimes there would be apocalyptic endings to their fights.

Instead of letting the knowledge stew Badulf step forwarded, twisting the microphone as he explained his power of illusions for the reporters.

With a short tune on his flute suddenly the group of heroes was gone, All that remained was a Sign thanking them all for coming. Even after the illusion faded the heroes were nowhere to be found, having used the final demonstration as the perfect cover to sneak away so that no one could follow them.

Wayne’s Angel @FasionInGotham

I must say I was not expecting such an outpour of love for all of Our heroes but damn am I pleased by it. Ladybug is our big name but the others are honestly way underloved in Paris, especially Chat who’s been there since the beginning. #MiraculousTeam

Quick Poll Who’s your favorite, everyone? Mine’s Chat Noir

Ryuko (19%)

Abeille (12%)

Ladybug (14%)

Bunnyx (8%)

Viperion (12%)

Chat Noir (15%)

Pegasus (5%)

King Monkey (5%)

Badulf (10%)

Call me Cass @CainYouBelieve

@FashionInGotham I like Badulf, he’s the newest correct?

Wayne’s Angel @FashionInGotham

@FashionInGotham @CainYouBelieve Yup! He’s only been around for four months, but he’s a pretty great fox!

Tim Drake Official @TJDrake

Fun Fact: I just heard Alfred swear for the first time while watching the press conference and it was to call Hawkmoth and Mayra an arsehole FLOB and his fucking Slag.

Never been more terrified,

Based on the faces around me neither has any of the other Waynes #AlfredisTerrifying

Wayne’s Angel @FashionInGotham

Why am I the go to person for everything Mircualous Team? BugOut.com is a great source if you want more info.

Still Queen Bee @BuzzBuzz

@FashionInGotham Probably cause you're most famous Parsian? Or cause you were a miraculous user once?

Jason Todd Lives@BestTodd

@FashionInGotham @BuzzBuzz IM SORRY?? DID YOU JUST SAY MARIGOLD HAD ONE OF THOSE MAGIC FUCKING GEMS???

Wayne's Angel @FasionInGotham

@FashionInGotham @BuzzBuzz @BestTodd That didn't come up in the conference did it? A few of the old users of miraculous got outed as heros so LB doesn't call on them anymore, but keeps tabs on them since HM and Mayra will try and emotionally malipulate them into getting akumatized. A few of us bonded over it.

Still Queen Bee @BuzzBuzz

@FashionInGotham @BuzzBuzz @BestTodd @FashionInGotham Its common knowledge in Paris, Mari, me and our other friend @NotaModel all had miraculous at one point, but HawkBitch found out so we can't ever use a miraculous again sadly. I had the Bee, Mari had the Mouse and Ari had the Snake

Dick Grayson @AFlyingGrayson

Why is Damian staring at a wall and not responding? What broke him? #Help???

Dick Grayson @AFlyingGrayson

@AFlyingGrayson Nevermind #HecouldnthaveanormalGF? #HolyShitMari

Wayne's Angel @FasionInGotham

So I can no longer say I've never seen a Bat before, just saw Signal and Red Robin, I think???

Gonna be real tho, I was expecting to see them in Gotham, NOT PARIS #wtf #Whyaretheyhere????

Marinette had barely sent the tweet before her phone was ringing.

"Are you being serious?" Adrian asked, in lieu of a greeting, "At least two of the Batfam is here?"

"Yeah," She whispered a bit numbly, eyes still focused on the roof she had watched them disappear from mere moments ago. It was far enough away that if she had been a normal human she wouldn't have heard them, but she wasn't a normal human, "Hey Adrian, Don't tell the team what I'm about to say, okay?"

"Are you okay, bugaboo?"

"Questionable," She didn't even bother rebuking the nickname, "I think I might be dating a Bat."

______________________________________

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