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TITLE: Nexus
SUMMARY: Once, they were both human, with traces of Other - he of the Ancestors, she of the Wraith. Now, he is Iratus - precursor to the Wraith, and Teyla is still human with traces of Other.
CATEGORY: AU, drama, angst, PWLP (porn with a little plot).
RATING: NC-17
DISCLAIMER: These characters don't belong to me, I'm just having fun with them. I'll put them back where I found them and clean up all traces of nefarious doings. Promise!
NOTES: Written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
agriope23 in the ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
sga_beya Secret Santa 2007 challenge (well done, girls!). I probably should have gone with a Christmassy theme, but this story has been bubbling around for a while and it just began writing itself...at least in the beginning!
I'll post the rest of Fly The Stars tomorrow or Monday. :D
Nexus
The cramps began this morning, like rivets in her belly. Unlike the Earth females, this does not portend the onset of her bleeding, but the midpoint of her cycle; however, it still pains her.
Teyla drinks tea for the pain, preferring her own people's remedies over Carson's chemistry. She appreciates all that the Lanteans have done, all that they know, but a part of her secretly thinks that her own people's way - low-key, quiet, cyclic - is better.
Still, the Lanteans have what her own people do not: a way to defeat the Wraith that have plagued the galaxy so long. She keeps that thought in mind as she drinks the tea and holds easy conversations with the people who greet her in the mess hall.
Those easy conversations cease as John stalks into the hall and a muted quiet descends like the falling night. People are not so rude as to pick up their trays and leave, but there is less chatter and more concentration on the food. The tenor of the room has changed, and if Teyla can feel it, John can, too.
Anger surges through her, hot resentment that curls her fingers as John's fingers scrape the table top. She breathes slowly and carefully, controlling the urges he inspires within her merely through his proximity, and looks into the cat-slit eyes. "Good morning, John."
"Teyla." His eyes glitter as he looks at the teapot and the spare cup that sits empty by her. When she moves to pour the tea, he touches her wrist, and the rough scrape of leathery skin stings a delicate ache into blossom between her thighs. "I'll do that."
She did not always respond to him so immediately. Once, they were team-mates and friends, casual and easy. Now, they are still team-mates, still friends, but there are times when she looks up and finds him watching her with an intensity that both terrifies and excites her.
Once, they were both human, with traces of Other - he of the Ancestors, she of the Wraith.
Now, he is Iratus - precursor to the Wraith, and Teyla is still human with traces of Other.
Sometimes she feels what he feels.
"Are we still up for sparring later?" His question comes after the first cup is downed, after he has slid a slice of the Lantean toast from her plate, knowing she brought enough for both of them.
She pauses as she layers the honey over peanut butter and bites into both spreads and the toast. Sweetness bursts across her tongue, flavours rich and smooth and addictive, but she considers his question through the pleasure of breakfast. The cramps are easing, but there is no assurance they will be gone by evening. "Yes," she decides. "If you have time?"
"Why wouldn't I?" There is an edge in the casual question, like the piercing point of his claws scraping over the table's surface.
"The new arrivals in Atlantis." Whatever his appearance now, John is still ranked the military commander in Atlantis, and in charge of the military newcomers to the city.
Teyla knows Elizabeth argued long and hard for retention of John as military leader; in spite of the bruises at her throat - or perhaps because of them - the leader of the city is determined to continue working with John. If John's appearance shocks or revolts Elizabeth, she is careful to keep it from John. Others are not so controlled.
At least the marines do not seem to find it difficult to take orders from one more beast than man in appearance. They seem loyal enough, but then, they knew John when he was human.
John shrugs. "Caldwell's due down this morning for a conversation with Elizabeth and I. By the time he's done, I may not have new arrivals to arrange anymore." The smile is not a nice one, but is painfully familiar on his lips.
"Do you not have the saying 'Do not count your sheep before they are hatched?'"
This time the smile is genuine. "It's counting chickens before they're hatched, Teyla. We count sheep jumping over fences to get to sleep." His eyes narrow. "And you already knew that."
She is the one to smile now. "I do not believe you have anything to fear on that score, John."
"I'm not afraid," he says. But she can feel the churning uncertainty in his belly in the sensitised connection between her mind and body and his.
Teyla smiles and stands, only to pause as John leans forward and grasps her wrist. The texture of his fingertips - slightly rough - sends the hair on her arms erect, and the thud of her heart is echoed in the shadowy ache between her thighs.
"We're on tonight," he says, and he's close enough that she can taste his scent on the air and quiver, see the light in his eyes and yearn. "I'll make time."
When he lets her go, Teyla's nerves tingle with delicate desire, but she retains her self-possession and walks from the room, leaving him with the tea and the tray.
--
John attacks high and fast, pushing his advantage in strength. Teyla only just manages to dodge the attack and slide away. He follows it up with a swipe of one solid leg. She evades him and manages to get a solid whack in on his thigh - a warning against the unorthodox move.
"Was that supposed to be a rap on the knuckles?"
"If you wish to take it that way."
His smiles come easier than they did before, but there's a glittering edge to them. "And what are you warning me against?" His attack is lightning fast and she blocks, parries, and dodges, while always trying to get in a hit of her own.
Sweat beads on her brow as her muscles begin to ache a little. The cramps are nothing more than a faint ache now, nothing that will interrupt her concentration, but she tires a little more easily during these times - she always has. It simply did not matter before.
It matters now.
Light scatters across leathery skin and defined muscle as John moves into sunlight. Teyla's eyes narrow in reaction, and she stretches out other senses, focusing on him with everything in her. For a few moments she can see him in her mind, knows that he is coming towards her, that his right hand is swinging out high and that his left is repelling her attack...
Staves clash and clatter with the noise of their conflict, and Teyla breaks from the hyperconscious state and parries and defends with a rushing sensation in her ears.
Everything is as usual.
Then one flick of his stave disarms her right, and he traps her left behind her back with a stave at her throat. Rough knuckles brush lightly against her bare collarbone and Teyla stills as a quivering pit opens in her belly.
Beating John has become much more difficult since his conversion. His instincts are more than equal to hers, and she only just manages to hold her own. The slightest distraction, the tiniest leniency and he can have her disarmed and at his mercy.
"Concede?"
"If you insist."
He hauls her up, and his knuckles brush against her skin as he lets her up, an unconscious caress but one that catches her breath and warms her cleft. "I won't insist since you're already down."
"So kind," she tells him, and slips her hand from his. Her fingertips accidentally brush across his wrist, and her flesh tingles. A wild urge rises in her - the urge to take his wrists and drag him down to the mats, set his hands on her naked skin, set her mouth and hands to drive him wild.
She does not give in to it, but crosses the room to get her water bottle.
Her dreams will be heated tonight.
Water slides cool down her throat, and she wets her hands and traces a damp line with her fingers over her forehead and down her throat, and speaks of the matters of the city. "So, did your chickens hatch, after all?"
"Huh? Oh." John draws alongside her a moment later and his claws close around his own water bottle. "It seems to be business as usual." He drinks only a little before screwing on the cap. "Seems like the IOA wanted to replace me, but a lot of people argued against it. Their main concern is that I might turn out to be some kind of Wraith radar. They're gonna do some tests to be sure, but on the whole..." He shrugs. "Guess I get to keep my position."
"They trust you."
He shrugged. "Not as much as they used to." And he resents it, as would anyone.
Teyla remembers being distrusted. She understands why suspicion fell upon her people at first, but she does not forget the sting of anger and betrayal at Sergeant Bates' accusation. John trusted her as few others seemed to; in the months since, she has become accepted and acceptable.
Now the situation has changed; 'the wheel has turned,' as the Lantean saying goes. John is distrusted for nothing more than his appearance and physiology, for the lumps and scales that cover his body and the slit-pupilled eyes that look out at Atlantis and the Pegasus galaxy.
He has the faith and trust of his team, even Ronon, who has taken Atlantis and all its peculiarities in his stride. He has the trust of the Lanteans who knew him before the Iratus virus. He has his own mind if not the body he is accustomed to.
He is still John Sheppard.
"We trust you."
"We?"
"Your team."
The mouth curves slightly. "I know. It counts for a lot."
"And you are still in command in Atlantis," she reminds him. The International Oversight Advisory might have tried to replace him, but they have been stymied - doubtless by the people on Earth who are only names to Teyla: General O'Neill, General Hammond, General Landry.
They trust who John Sheppard is.
"Yeah, there is that." He sets down his bottle, leaning over to snag the handle of his sports bag and moving into her personal space. "So, you up for more sparring today?"
Teyla's hand draws back from the instinctive reach she made for his shoulder as his scent filled her nostrils, a distraction to her sense and senses. Her fingers itch to slide across his nape, caress the nubbled ridge that runs from his ear down his throat, to rub her bare skin against hide as soft as leather and offer both mouth and body up to him to be taken.
Her self-control is not always as absolute as she might wish it, but this time, it holds.
"Are you prepared to lose?"
The curve of his mouth grows more pronounced. "There's a first time for everything," he murmurs, smiling.
--
Teyla wakes from her dreams in the aftermath of pleasure, her legs tangled in the quilting wadded between her thighs, her skin hot and damp in the cool night.
She lies in her sheets and shifts her hips slightly, sighing bitterly at the slide of fibre in her cleft. In her dream, it was John's fingers stroking her, his mouth on her skin as she rose to meet his touch and splintered in release. In her room, it is only the sheets and herself--
Air stirs, a whisper of scent and sound, and Teyla's hand steals out to draw the covers up over her bare breasts as she half-sits up. The light brush of the material against her nipples catches her breath, and she hears the answering sigh as he emerges from the shadows.
"John."
"Hey." The casual greeting does little to reassure her - not the way he moves through the darkness, like a feline hunting prey on the plains.
"What are you doing here?"
"You were dreaming."
Heat rushes over her skin. In the darkness, his voice is stripped bare, as naked as Teyla sits up in her sheets. Her heart thumps against her breastbone, a thundering in her blood as he comes to her on bare feet.
"Many people in the city dream."
Teyla hates the quiver in her voice as he sits down beside her. She cannot help it anymore than she can help the quiver in her flesh as he leans in towards her until his mouth is by her jaw, his nose resting against her cheek.
"But I don't dream along with them," John murmurs. His breath stirs hairs along her skin, and his fingers close around the sheet edge, gently drawing it away from her skin.
"They were just dreams." Teyla holds herself achingly still as his nose traces her jaw up to her ear, as her mouth hovers over the ridge down his throat. Her body yearns for this, but she is afraid of what she might lose in giving herself to him - a part of her soul that she has kept separate. "John..."
"I can smell you." His mouth brushes her skin in a caressing kiss and she lets her lips brush one of the nubs on his throat. This time, it is John who shivers. "I felt you come in my head - you cried out for me, all soft and breathy. Teyla..."
Something brushes across her pubic hair - ridged fingers sliding delicately over her. The knifethrust of desire impales her on its point, then John's mouth is hard on her skin, her hands are fierce on his shoulders, and Teyla is a seething bundle of need and want and give and have.
Caution is thrown away as she brushes her lips down his throat. Each nub upon the ridge is sucked upon gently and his hands mould her curves, their leathery softness erotic as a whiplash. The creeping musk of desire is thick on her tongue and in her nostrils as her breasts brush his chest. His breath hitches in his throat and John leans back, easing her out of the sheets and into his lap, into his hands, into his mouth, so gravity presses her into him.
"I dreamed about this," he rasps, cupping, fondling, stroking, driving her senses wild. "You don't know how often I dreamed about this..."
Teyla shifts in his arms, against his body, seeking the pressure she craves. Her thighs straddle his hips, revelling in the solid heat of his groin as her fingers tug at his shirt. "Take it off, John." And when he hesitates, she yanks at it, hears the satisfying rip of material, feels the gratifying pulse of heat from the skin laid bare. "Did you dream of this, too?"
"God, no," he breathes as she leans down to his mouth. "I wouldn't have dared..."
His words are lost in her mouth, a fierce melding that stokes desire to a fever pitch until Teyla finds herself matching each hungry kiss with an aching thrust of her hips against his.
Somewhere, in her mind, she can feel John. The need in him is as bright and brilliant as Rodney's intelligence and as cutting as one of Ronon's knives, and overlaid by the pleasure and gratification in the taste and scent and feel of her. Somewhere, far beyond her senses, she catches a lurking fear that claws his insides, even as his fingers scrape her nipple, moulding, plucking, rolling.
Teyla convulses, every nerve bright as a night star, every sense blind with the overload. She clings to John as the orgasm rolls through her, prolonged by the undulating motion of his hips against her core. He muffles her pants with his lips and in his kisses, she tastes exultant satisfaction at her surrender to sensation.
Yes.
When breath returns, John is tracing her throat with his mouth and toying with her breast. "Enjoy yourself?"
She smiles and stretches, "Very much so." Teyla rubs her cheek against his temple - one part of him that is still human flesh. "Are you ready to enjoy yourself, John?"
His hands slide around her back as he shifts his hips beneath her. "I already am, Teyla."
--
Teyla's body feels heavy, languorous in the aftermath of orgasm.
Beneath her, John's fingers drift over her skin as his mouth nuzzles her jaw and throat. The rasping caress of his tongue tingles across her skin and she shivers.
"Cold?"
"No." Teyla brushes her lips up the ridge of his throat, and grins when he arches beneath her hips. She strokes her hand down his chest and belly and feels him shiver, tense. In her mind, the sense of him grows still, resisting the urge to draw back and retreat, and Teyla wonders. John was more than willing to play as long as he was dominant, but now that the tables have turned, he hesitates.
As her hand finds its way down his chest and across the ridges of his belly and John quivers, Teyla begins to realise why.
She fingers him through the cloth of his pants. He is hard - not just with desire, but with the peculiar physiology of the Iratus, the skin that is more hide than flesh, the faintest suggestion of ridged striations beneath her hand.
His thigh twitches.
His hand steals over hers as she fingers the button of his waistband. "You don't want to do that," he rasps, and his bitterness flares in her senses, like acid. "I'm not...I'm not what I was..."
Teyla lifts her head to look him in the eye and does not withdraw her hand. "So you are good to get off with, but not to please?"
John's breath catches and he looks away, but his gaze swings back a moment later, and the glitter in his eyes is as much fear as aching desire. "You haven't seen me yet, Teyla."
"Then show me." She makes it a dare, a challenge that terrifies, even as it excites.
As he rises from the bed, light plays across his hide, a glitter of not-quite-scales. Ragged scraps are stripped to the floor with a jingle of dogtags - the remnant of his shirt. Then he removes his trousers and steps out of them, his eyes never leaving her face.
The Iratus virus changed most of his body before the effect was halted; now, while he retains his mind, his body is clearly Other, in colour and texture.
Teyla surveys him like an owner regarding her property. Within her, a slow hunger rises, a genetic memory of a primal need that chains both male and female to the bed and each other for long heated hours. "Come here."
John comes, his face full of fear and hope, and when Teyla pulls him back down to the bed and closes her hand around his erection, he groans against her mouth. Parts of him are hide and bony ridge; but what Teyla holds in her hand is soft - soft as well-treated leather, even the ridges that she strokes with her fingertips.
He thrusts his hips in and out of her hand as his fingers mould her curves. "Are you sure you want this, Teyla?"
She holds his gaze, kneeling between his thighs. The ache in her cleft is exquisite and terrible, and she leans back, drawing him with her, excited and fearful and trusting. "Yes."
John takes her slowly, propped up on his elbows, and Teyla hisses at the slowness with which he thrusts. Full and filled, pierced and aching, she clutches at the sheets as she meets his movements, panting.
"Why?" The question comes unexpectedly between them, and Teyla slides one hand over his shoulder, cupping his nape as he moves in and out of her, controlled enough to ask, "Why me?"
"You must ask?"
"You could have any man in the city if you wanted. Ronon. Rodney. The marines..." John draws himself out and rises up against her again. "One of the marines watches you and he wants you so bad I can taste it when he watches..."
"Are you jealous?"
"No," he snarls, but his next thrust is hard and deep and fast and a whimper of pleasure escapes her mouth as his thrust rubs her core and her body tingles all over.
"Yes," she manages and sees fire flare in his eyes. Her head lolls back as her fingers drag on the mattress and she clenches around him, helpless as his hips shove deeper, rougher, harder, losing control.
"No..."
Teyla laughs, her whole body on fire from his possession, her soul singing with the delight of his possessiveness. "John..." The breathlessness builds within her, and his mouth seals hers off, kissing, teasing, yearning, claming...
"You're mine," Teyla hears and she's not sure if it's in her ears or her head. But the rhythm of his body and hers overwhelms her and there's a moment when the only thing she can hear is the rushing of blood as her body jerks in blind release.
She's all nerve, all sensation; he's all texture and passion against her - in her.
Mine.
The possessive thought rolls through her as pleasure bursts in every cell of her being, light and colour and sound and touch, and the man who continues to drive her on with every stroke of his hips. Teyla moans against John, her fingers dig into his shoulders, clinging as he continues to take her, fill her, possess her, until there is nothing left to take or give, and he pants himself out in her arms, pressing her down into the mattress.
His thoughts beat against hers, desperate and drowning: My mate. Mine. Always, mine!
Silence fills the room like water in the ocean, but for the hoarse sound of John's breath against her throat, the pounding thunder of her blood beneath her skin.
Teyla feels wanton, irrevocably sensuous beneath John's body. Her nerves tingle as she shifts beneath him, sliding her hands down his shoulders and back. Her breasts rub against his hide with a soft tingle of remnant sensation, and she wants to purr with pleasure.
After a while, John lifts his head from her throat. "I'm squashing you." He begins to shift off her.
"Yes. But," she adds, stilling him with her hands, "I like it."
"Teyla..."
She lays a finger on his mouth, rough skin against her touch. "John."
He nibbles at the side of her finger, then bends to lick along her jaw, little raspy flicks of his tongue that set off delicate flames of excitement in her body. Teyla digs her heels into the mattress and uses the leverage to shift under the weight of his body, a sensuous slide of skin against hide, the scales and ridges of his body against her softness. His head lifts and his eyes have a softness in them, huge and lambent in the darkness.
His eyes are no longer human, but his emotions are human enough.
He's a man in a creature's body, with all a man's weaknesses: ego, pride, insecurity, and more. But Teyla knows he is a man with a man's strengths: protectiveness, tenderness, an enthusiasm that is boyishly sweet - and so much more.
"The marine who admires me," she murmurs. "If I wanted him, do you think I would hesitate to have him?"
Against her hips, his fingers clench. "You'd better not."
She rolls them over, so he lies beneath her and watches his eyes roam over her skin. "I do not endure what I do not want, John."
He props himself up on one elbow. "But are you going to want this in the morning?" He cups one breast in a leathery palm and watches her face. Fear eats at him - his own dislike of what he has become mingled with his fear of rejection. The man who is and the man who was.
Teyla knows better than to reassure him with words. She leans into his touch, shifting over him with a renewed ache of desire. The Iratus mates for hours on end; the Wraith Queen takes her pleasure until the male can bear no more; Teyla is only human but she wants more now. "Will you remain and find out?"
Fingertips mould her nipple and she closes her eyes to savour the sensation and knows his satisfaction in her response.
Sometimes he feels what she feels.
Then the world spins and turns, and when it stops, John is atop her again, his mouth hovering over her lips. "I suppose I might as well stay," he murmurs. The dry humour warms her heart as his caresses heat her blood - he is not certain, but he will trust.
Trust is enough.
And, as it turns out, he does remain the night, and she wants him in the morning.
- fin -
Final Notes: As it turns out, I seem to have developed this whole AU idea in my head, relating to how the characters in Atlantis respond to Conversion!John. I doubt it'll get written, but it's nice to have and possibly come back to at a later stage! Thank you for reading and I hope you'll leave feedback!
SUMMARY: Once, they were both human, with traces of Other - he of the Ancestors, she of the Wraith. Now, he is Iratus - precursor to the Wraith, and Teyla is still human with traces of Other.
CATEGORY: AU, drama, angst, PWLP (porn with a little plot).
RATING: NC-17
DISCLAIMER: These characters don't belong to me, I'm just having fun with them. I'll put them back where I found them and clean up all traces of nefarious doings. Promise!
NOTES: Written for
agriope23 in the sga_beya Secret Santa 2007 challenge (well done, girls!). I probably should have gone with a Christmassy theme, but this story has been bubbling around for a while and it just began writing itself...at least in the beginning!I'll post the rest of Fly The Stars tomorrow or Monday. :D
Nexus
The cramps began this morning, like rivets in her belly. Unlike the Earth females, this does not portend the onset of her bleeding, but the midpoint of her cycle; however, it still pains her.
Teyla drinks tea for the pain, preferring her own people's remedies over Carson's chemistry. She appreciates all that the Lanteans have done, all that they know, but a part of her secretly thinks that her own people's way - low-key, quiet, cyclic - is better.
Still, the Lanteans have what her own people do not: a way to defeat the Wraith that have plagued the galaxy so long. She keeps that thought in mind as she drinks the tea and holds easy conversations with the people who greet her in the mess hall.
Those easy conversations cease as John stalks into the hall and a muted quiet descends like the falling night. People are not so rude as to pick up their trays and leave, but there is less chatter and more concentration on the food. The tenor of the room has changed, and if Teyla can feel it, John can, too.
Anger surges through her, hot resentment that curls her fingers as John's fingers scrape the table top. She breathes slowly and carefully, controlling the urges he inspires within her merely through his proximity, and looks into the cat-slit eyes. "Good morning, John."
"Teyla." His eyes glitter as he looks at the teapot and the spare cup that sits empty by her. When she moves to pour the tea, he touches her wrist, and the rough scrape of leathery skin stings a delicate ache into blossom between her thighs. "I'll do that."
She did not always respond to him so immediately. Once, they were team-mates and friends, casual and easy. Now, they are still team-mates, still friends, but there are times when she looks up and finds him watching her with an intensity that both terrifies and excites her.
Once, they were both human, with traces of Other - he of the Ancestors, she of the Wraith.
Now, he is Iratus - precursor to the Wraith, and Teyla is still human with traces of Other.
Sometimes she feels what he feels.
"Are we still up for sparring later?" His question comes after the first cup is downed, after he has slid a slice of the Lantean toast from her plate, knowing she brought enough for both of them.
She pauses as she layers the honey over peanut butter and bites into both spreads and the toast. Sweetness bursts across her tongue, flavours rich and smooth and addictive, but she considers his question through the pleasure of breakfast. The cramps are easing, but there is no assurance they will be gone by evening. "Yes," she decides. "If you have time?"
"Why wouldn't I?" There is an edge in the casual question, like the piercing point of his claws scraping over the table's surface.
"The new arrivals in Atlantis." Whatever his appearance now, John is still ranked the military commander in Atlantis, and in charge of the military newcomers to the city.
Teyla knows Elizabeth argued long and hard for retention of John as military leader; in spite of the bruises at her throat - or perhaps because of them - the leader of the city is determined to continue working with John. If John's appearance shocks or revolts Elizabeth, she is careful to keep it from John. Others are not so controlled.
At least the marines do not seem to find it difficult to take orders from one more beast than man in appearance. They seem loyal enough, but then, they knew John when he was human.
John shrugs. "Caldwell's due down this morning for a conversation with Elizabeth and I. By the time he's done, I may not have new arrivals to arrange anymore." The smile is not a nice one, but is painfully familiar on his lips.
"Do you not have the saying 'Do not count your sheep before they are hatched?'"
This time the smile is genuine. "It's counting chickens before they're hatched, Teyla. We count sheep jumping over fences to get to sleep." His eyes narrow. "And you already knew that."
She is the one to smile now. "I do not believe you have anything to fear on that score, John."
"I'm not afraid," he says. But she can feel the churning uncertainty in his belly in the sensitised connection between her mind and body and his.
Teyla smiles and stands, only to pause as John leans forward and grasps her wrist. The texture of his fingertips - slightly rough - sends the hair on her arms erect, and the thud of her heart is echoed in the shadowy ache between her thighs.
"We're on tonight," he says, and he's close enough that she can taste his scent on the air and quiver, see the light in his eyes and yearn. "I'll make time."
When he lets her go, Teyla's nerves tingle with delicate desire, but she retains her self-possession and walks from the room, leaving him with the tea and the tray.
--
John attacks high and fast, pushing his advantage in strength. Teyla only just manages to dodge the attack and slide away. He follows it up with a swipe of one solid leg. She evades him and manages to get a solid whack in on his thigh - a warning against the unorthodox move.
"Was that supposed to be a rap on the knuckles?"
"If you wish to take it that way."
His smiles come easier than they did before, but there's a glittering edge to them. "And what are you warning me against?" His attack is lightning fast and she blocks, parries, and dodges, while always trying to get in a hit of her own.
Sweat beads on her brow as her muscles begin to ache a little. The cramps are nothing more than a faint ache now, nothing that will interrupt her concentration, but she tires a little more easily during these times - she always has. It simply did not matter before.
It matters now.
Light scatters across leathery skin and defined muscle as John moves into sunlight. Teyla's eyes narrow in reaction, and she stretches out other senses, focusing on him with everything in her. For a few moments she can see him in her mind, knows that he is coming towards her, that his right hand is swinging out high and that his left is repelling her attack...
Staves clash and clatter with the noise of their conflict, and Teyla breaks from the hyperconscious state and parries and defends with a rushing sensation in her ears.
Everything is as usual.
Then one flick of his stave disarms her right, and he traps her left behind her back with a stave at her throat. Rough knuckles brush lightly against her bare collarbone and Teyla stills as a quivering pit opens in her belly.
Beating John has become much more difficult since his conversion. His instincts are more than equal to hers, and she only just manages to hold her own. The slightest distraction, the tiniest leniency and he can have her disarmed and at his mercy.
"Concede?"
"If you insist."
He hauls her up, and his knuckles brush against her skin as he lets her up, an unconscious caress but one that catches her breath and warms her cleft. "I won't insist since you're already down."
"So kind," she tells him, and slips her hand from his. Her fingertips accidentally brush across his wrist, and her flesh tingles. A wild urge rises in her - the urge to take his wrists and drag him down to the mats, set his hands on her naked skin, set her mouth and hands to drive him wild.
She does not give in to it, but crosses the room to get her water bottle.
Her dreams will be heated tonight.
Water slides cool down her throat, and she wets her hands and traces a damp line with her fingers over her forehead and down her throat, and speaks of the matters of the city. "So, did your chickens hatch, after all?"
"Huh? Oh." John draws alongside her a moment later and his claws close around his own water bottle. "It seems to be business as usual." He drinks only a little before screwing on the cap. "Seems like the IOA wanted to replace me, but a lot of people argued against it. Their main concern is that I might turn out to be some kind of Wraith radar. They're gonna do some tests to be sure, but on the whole..." He shrugs. "Guess I get to keep my position."
"They trust you."
He shrugged. "Not as much as they used to." And he resents it, as would anyone.
Teyla remembers being distrusted. She understands why suspicion fell upon her people at first, but she does not forget the sting of anger and betrayal at Sergeant Bates' accusation. John trusted her as few others seemed to; in the months since, she has become accepted and acceptable.
Now the situation has changed; 'the wheel has turned,' as the Lantean saying goes. John is distrusted for nothing more than his appearance and physiology, for the lumps and scales that cover his body and the slit-pupilled eyes that look out at Atlantis and the Pegasus galaxy.
He has the faith and trust of his team, even Ronon, who has taken Atlantis and all its peculiarities in his stride. He has the trust of the Lanteans who knew him before the Iratus virus. He has his own mind if not the body he is accustomed to.
He is still John Sheppard.
"We trust you."
"We?"
"Your team."
The mouth curves slightly. "I know. It counts for a lot."
"And you are still in command in Atlantis," she reminds him. The International Oversight Advisory might have tried to replace him, but they have been stymied - doubtless by the people on Earth who are only names to Teyla: General O'Neill, General Hammond, General Landry.
They trust who John Sheppard is.
"Yeah, there is that." He sets down his bottle, leaning over to snag the handle of his sports bag and moving into her personal space. "So, you up for more sparring today?"
Teyla's hand draws back from the instinctive reach she made for his shoulder as his scent filled her nostrils, a distraction to her sense and senses. Her fingers itch to slide across his nape, caress the nubbled ridge that runs from his ear down his throat, to rub her bare skin against hide as soft as leather and offer both mouth and body up to him to be taken.
Her self-control is not always as absolute as she might wish it, but this time, it holds.
"Are you prepared to lose?"
The curve of his mouth grows more pronounced. "There's a first time for everything," he murmurs, smiling.
--
Teyla wakes from her dreams in the aftermath of pleasure, her legs tangled in the quilting wadded between her thighs, her skin hot and damp in the cool night.
She lies in her sheets and shifts her hips slightly, sighing bitterly at the slide of fibre in her cleft. In her dream, it was John's fingers stroking her, his mouth on her skin as she rose to meet his touch and splintered in release. In her room, it is only the sheets and herself--
Air stirs, a whisper of scent and sound, and Teyla's hand steals out to draw the covers up over her bare breasts as she half-sits up. The light brush of the material against her nipples catches her breath, and she hears the answering sigh as he emerges from the shadows.
"John."
"Hey." The casual greeting does little to reassure her - not the way he moves through the darkness, like a feline hunting prey on the plains.
"What are you doing here?"
"You were dreaming."
Heat rushes over her skin. In the darkness, his voice is stripped bare, as naked as Teyla sits up in her sheets. Her heart thumps against her breastbone, a thundering in her blood as he comes to her on bare feet.
"Many people in the city dream."
Teyla hates the quiver in her voice as he sits down beside her. She cannot help it anymore than she can help the quiver in her flesh as he leans in towards her until his mouth is by her jaw, his nose resting against her cheek.
"But I don't dream along with them," John murmurs. His breath stirs hairs along her skin, and his fingers close around the sheet edge, gently drawing it away from her skin.
"They were just dreams." Teyla holds herself achingly still as his nose traces her jaw up to her ear, as her mouth hovers over the ridge down his throat. Her body yearns for this, but she is afraid of what she might lose in giving herself to him - a part of her soul that she has kept separate. "John..."
"I can smell you." His mouth brushes her skin in a caressing kiss and she lets her lips brush one of the nubs on his throat. This time, it is John who shivers. "I felt you come in my head - you cried out for me, all soft and breathy. Teyla..."
Something brushes across her pubic hair - ridged fingers sliding delicately over her. The knifethrust of desire impales her on its point, then John's mouth is hard on her skin, her hands are fierce on his shoulders, and Teyla is a seething bundle of need and want and give and have.
Caution is thrown away as she brushes her lips down his throat. Each nub upon the ridge is sucked upon gently and his hands mould her curves, their leathery softness erotic as a whiplash. The creeping musk of desire is thick on her tongue and in her nostrils as her breasts brush his chest. His breath hitches in his throat and John leans back, easing her out of the sheets and into his lap, into his hands, into his mouth, so gravity presses her into him.
"I dreamed about this," he rasps, cupping, fondling, stroking, driving her senses wild. "You don't know how often I dreamed about this..."
Teyla shifts in his arms, against his body, seeking the pressure she craves. Her thighs straddle his hips, revelling in the solid heat of his groin as her fingers tug at his shirt. "Take it off, John." And when he hesitates, she yanks at it, hears the satisfying rip of material, feels the gratifying pulse of heat from the skin laid bare. "Did you dream of this, too?"
"God, no," he breathes as she leans down to his mouth. "I wouldn't have dared..."
His words are lost in her mouth, a fierce melding that stokes desire to a fever pitch until Teyla finds herself matching each hungry kiss with an aching thrust of her hips against his.
Somewhere, in her mind, she can feel John. The need in him is as bright and brilliant as Rodney's intelligence and as cutting as one of Ronon's knives, and overlaid by the pleasure and gratification in the taste and scent and feel of her. Somewhere, far beyond her senses, she catches a lurking fear that claws his insides, even as his fingers scrape her nipple, moulding, plucking, rolling.
Teyla convulses, every nerve bright as a night star, every sense blind with the overload. She clings to John as the orgasm rolls through her, prolonged by the undulating motion of his hips against her core. He muffles her pants with his lips and in his kisses, she tastes exultant satisfaction at her surrender to sensation.
Yes.
When breath returns, John is tracing her throat with his mouth and toying with her breast. "Enjoy yourself?"
She smiles and stretches, "Very much so." Teyla rubs her cheek against his temple - one part of him that is still human flesh. "Are you ready to enjoy yourself, John?"
His hands slide around her back as he shifts his hips beneath her. "I already am, Teyla."
--
Teyla's body feels heavy, languorous in the aftermath of orgasm.
Beneath her, John's fingers drift over her skin as his mouth nuzzles her jaw and throat. The rasping caress of his tongue tingles across her skin and she shivers.
"Cold?"
"No." Teyla brushes her lips up the ridge of his throat, and grins when he arches beneath her hips. She strokes her hand down his chest and belly and feels him shiver, tense. In her mind, the sense of him grows still, resisting the urge to draw back and retreat, and Teyla wonders. John was more than willing to play as long as he was dominant, but now that the tables have turned, he hesitates.
As her hand finds its way down his chest and across the ridges of his belly and John quivers, Teyla begins to realise why.
She fingers him through the cloth of his pants. He is hard - not just with desire, but with the peculiar physiology of the Iratus, the skin that is more hide than flesh, the faintest suggestion of ridged striations beneath her hand.
His thigh twitches.
His hand steals over hers as she fingers the button of his waistband. "You don't want to do that," he rasps, and his bitterness flares in her senses, like acid. "I'm not...I'm not what I was..."
Teyla lifts her head to look him in the eye and does not withdraw her hand. "So you are good to get off with, but not to please?"
John's breath catches and he looks away, but his gaze swings back a moment later, and the glitter in his eyes is as much fear as aching desire. "You haven't seen me yet, Teyla."
"Then show me." She makes it a dare, a challenge that terrifies, even as it excites.
As he rises from the bed, light plays across his hide, a glitter of not-quite-scales. Ragged scraps are stripped to the floor with a jingle of dogtags - the remnant of his shirt. Then he removes his trousers and steps out of them, his eyes never leaving her face.
The Iratus virus changed most of his body before the effect was halted; now, while he retains his mind, his body is clearly Other, in colour and texture.
Teyla surveys him like an owner regarding her property. Within her, a slow hunger rises, a genetic memory of a primal need that chains both male and female to the bed and each other for long heated hours. "Come here."
John comes, his face full of fear and hope, and when Teyla pulls him back down to the bed and closes her hand around his erection, he groans against her mouth. Parts of him are hide and bony ridge; but what Teyla holds in her hand is soft - soft as well-treated leather, even the ridges that she strokes with her fingertips.
He thrusts his hips in and out of her hand as his fingers mould her curves. "Are you sure you want this, Teyla?"
She holds his gaze, kneeling between his thighs. The ache in her cleft is exquisite and terrible, and she leans back, drawing him with her, excited and fearful and trusting. "Yes."
John takes her slowly, propped up on his elbows, and Teyla hisses at the slowness with which he thrusts. Full and filled, pierced and aching, she clutches at the sheets as she meets his movements, panting.
"Why?" The question comes unexpectedly between them, and Teyla slides one hand over his shoulder, cupping his nape as he moves in and out of her, controlled enough to ask, "Why me?"
"You must ask?"
"You could have any man in the city if you wanted. Ronon. Rodney. The marines..." John draws himself out and rises up against her again. "One of the marines watches you and he wants you so bad I can taste it when he watches..."
"Are you jealous?"
"No," he snarls, but his next thrust is hard and deep and fast and a whimper of pleasure escapes her mouth as his thrust rubs her core and her body tingles all over.
"Yes," she manages and sees fire flare in his eyes. Her head lolls back as her fingers drag on the mattress and she clenches around him, helpless as his hips shove deeper, rougher, harder, losing control.
"No..."
Teyla laughs, her whole body on fire from his possession, her soul singing with the delight of his possessiveness. "John..." The breathlessness builds within her, and his mouth seals hers off, kissing, teasing, yearning, claming...
"You're mine," Teyla hears and she's not sure if it's in her ears or her head. But the rhythm of his body and hers overwhelms her and there's a moment when the only thing she can hear is the rushing of blood as her body jerks in blind release.
She's all nerve, all sensation; he's all texture and passion against her - in her.
Mine.
The possessive thought rolls through her as pleasure bursts in every cell of her being, light and colour and sound and touch, and the man who continues to drive her on with every stroke of his hips. Teyla moans against John, her fingers dig into his shoulders, clinging as he continues to take her, fill her, possess her, until there is nothing left to take or give, and he pants himself out in her arms, pressing her down into the mattress.
His thoughts beat against hers, desperate and drowning: My mate. Mine. Always, mine!
Silence fills the room like water in the ocean, but for the hoarse sound of John's breath against her throat, the pounding thunder of her blood beneath her skin.
Teyla feels wanton, irrevocably sensuous beneath John's body. Her nerves tingle as she shifts beneath him, sliding her hands down his shoulders and back. Her breasts rub against his hide with a soft tingle of remnant sensation, and she wants to purr with pleasure.
After a while, John lifts his head from her throat. "I'm squashing you." He begins to shift off her.
"Yes. But," she adds, stilling him with her hands, "I like it."
"Teyla..."
She lays a finger on his mouth, rough skin against her touch. "John."
He nibbles at the side of her finger, then bends to lick along her jaw, little raspy flicks of his tongue that set off delicate flames of excitement in her body. Teyla digs her heels into the mattress and uses the leverage to shift under the weight of his body, a sensuous slide of skin against hide, the scales and ridges of his body against her softness. His head lifts and his eyes have a softness in them, huge and lambent in the darkness.
His eyes are no longer human, but his emotions are human enough.
He's a man in a creature's body, with all a man's weaknesses: ego, pride, insecurity, and more. But Teyla knows he is a man with a man's strengths: protectiveness, tenderness, an enthusiasm that is boyishly sweet - and so much more.
"The marine who admires me," she murmurs. "If I wanted him, do you think I would hesitate to have him?"
Against her hips, his fingers clench. "You'd better not."
She rolls them over, so he lies beneath her and watches his eyes roam over her skin. "I do not endure what I do not want, John."
He props himself up on one elbow. "But are you going to want this in the morning?" He cups one breast in a leathery palm and watches her face. Fear eats at him - his own dislike of what he has become mingled with his fear of rejection. The man who is and the man who was.
Teyla knows better than to reassure him with words. She leans into his touch, shifting over him with a renewed ache of desire. The Iratus mates for hours on end; the Wraith Queen takes her pleasure until the male can bear no more; Teyla is only human but she wants more now. "Will you remain and find out?"
Fingertips mould her nipple and she closes her eyes to savour the sensation and knows his satisfaction in her response.
Sometimes he feels what she feels.
Then the world spins and turns, and when it stops, John is atop her again, his mouth hovering over her lips. "I suppose I might as well stay," he murmurs. The dry humour warms her heart as his caresses heat her blood - he is not certain, but he will trust.
Trust is enough.
And, as it turns out, he does remain the night, and she wants him in the morning.
- fin -
Final Notes: As it turns out, I seem to have developed this whole AU idea in my head, relating to how the characters in Atlantis respond to Conversion!John. I doubt it'll get written, but it's nice to have and possibly come back to at a later stage! Thank you for reading and I hope you'll leave feedback!
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I really like how you've given him a slightly primal slant in his personality in this. It's still John, but there is this part that is driven by more baser instincts. Really good, because so many fics written off of this particular piece of character development pitch it as only a physical change.
I totally adore the strong Teyla characterization as well. Too many fics of this ilk would have the woman, no matter how strong a character they are normally, become submissive. You can tell I don't read too many John/Teyla fics, can't you?
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*pokes in direction of bug!AU*
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This is partly a personal philosophy of mine: the body influences the mind. We define who we are, our range, our space, by the dimensions and appearance of our body. Our physicality can influence our mentality (depression can be worked at physically through medication, as well as psychologically through examining the root causes of the situation and working through issues). I can't see Bug!John, with all the Iratus chemicals in him, just being "Lt. Col. John Sheppard" - to say nothing of how he would feel when people react to the bug and not to him.
...sorry. This is a soapbox topic for me!
I wish I could say that all J/T fic depicted Teyla as strong in some sense, no matter the situation, unfortunately, women as submissive sexual partners is something deeply ingrained in the romance genre. It can get frustrating at times.
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Oh dear....
Thanks for reading, though! The sharing-of-minds thing was influenced by
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I think one of the reasons that I don't read much het fic is the tendency towards that particular ingrained feature of most romantic literature. That and the tendency towards MarySueism.
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Thanks for the link, btw. *heads over to read*
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I loved where you went, how you didn't back off from any details, loved it all. It was hot, hot, hot. Sensing each other's or someone else's want is one of my favorite kinks. And it is not just the sex, thou, as I said -- hot, OK? But also the sense of being isolated, different from others, alone with yourself, and finding someone to share that feeling with. Thank you for the link, I really enjoyed it.
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You know I really don't care all that much for reaction of the Lanteans to changed John
But that's the interesting part of John's change! People's reactions, how do they cope with what he's done, what he can do? They can resist a certain amount of prejudice, but the intrinsic and gut reactions to him would be visual and visceral.
Which is one more reason why the whole bug!John angle fascinates me. Other than the hot shared-mind sex with Teyla, of course. :D
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You're right, of course, prejudice against feelings for someone different,
that adds to the tension of the relationship between him and Teyla, makes it so interesting.
Which is one more reason why the whole bug!John angle fascinates me. For similar reasons I like(d) the tension between Teyla and Michael, thou the idea of her having some sort of beast inside squicks me.
What I meant to say is that I (did) find the PWP of the story so good, I don't mind that plot part wasn't finished/written yet. *g* I hope that clarifys my remark.
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I liked the tension between Michael and Teyla - but I see it as more of a hate-revenge thing on his side and a pity-compassion thing on hers.
While there was an opportunity for something back before he discovered what he was, I think that pretty much everything after Michael has made it impossible for there to be anything between them - even, you know, if Michael wasn't an unrepentant member of the race that's hunted and killed Teyla's people all her life.
A non-sexual connection between them - that, I can definitely see. A connection of empathy from Teyla's POV - her being able to understand why Michael's angry and bitter, even if she doesn't condone or like what he's done. And Teyla's pretty much the closest thing to Michael that we know of in human terms - someone who isn't entirely human herself.
Eeeee. See, you should never get me discussing Teyla-meta - particularly regarding her Wraithgene. I will happily go on for hours!
:)
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I really like how you've given him a slightly primal slant in his personality in this. It's still John, but there is this part that is driven by more baser instincts. Really good, because so many fics written off of this particular piece of character development pitch it as only a physical change.
I totally adore the strong Teyla characterization as well. Too many fics of this ilk would have the woman, no matter how strong a character they are normally, become submissive. You can tell I don't read too many John/Teyla fics, can't you?
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*pokes in direction of bug!AU*
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This is partly a personal philosophy of mine: the body influences the mind. We define who we are, our range, our space, by the dimensions and appearance of our body. Our physicality can influence our mentality (depression can be worked at physically through medication, as well as psychologically through examining the root causes of the situation and working through issues). I can't see Bug!John, with all the Iratus chemicals in him, just being "Lt. Col. John Sheppard" - to say nothing of how he would feel when people react to the bug and not to him.
...sorry. This is a soapbox topic for me!
I wish I could say that all J/T fic depicted Teyla as strong in some sense, no matter the situation, unfortunately, women as submissive sexual partners is something deeply ingrained in the romance genre. It can get frustrating at times.
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Oh dear....
Thanks for reading, though! The sharing-of-minds thing was influenced by
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I think one of the reasons that I don't read much het fic is the tendency towards that particular ingrained feature of most romantic literature. That and the tendency towards MarySueism.
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Thanks for the link, btw. *heads over to read*
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I loved where you went, how you didn't back off from any details, loved it all. It was hot, hot, hot. Sensing each other's or someone else's want is one of my favorite kinks. And it is not just the sex, thou, as I said -- hot, OK? But also the sense of being isolated, different from others, alone with yourself, and finding someone to share that feeling with. Thank you for the link, I really enjoyed it.
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You know I really don't care all that much for reaction of the Lanteans to changed John
But that's the interesting part of John's change! People's reactions, how do they cope with what he's done, what he can do? They can resist a certain amount of prejudice, but the intrinsic and gut reactions to him would be visual and visceral.
Which is one more reason why the whole bug!John angle fascinates me. Other than the hot shared-mind sex with Teyla, of course. :D
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You're right, of course, prejudice against feelings for someone different,
that adds to the tension of the relationship between him and Teyla, makes it so interesting.
Which is one more reason why the whole bug!John angle fascinates me. For similar reasons I like(d) the tension between Teyla and Michael, thou the idea of her having some sort of beast inside squicks me.
What I meant to say is that I (did) find the PWP of the story so good, I don't mind that plot part wasn't finished/written yet. *g* I hope that clarifys my remark.
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I liked the tension between Michael and Teyla - but I see it as more of a hate-revenge thing on his side and a pity-compassion thing on hers.
While there was an opportunity for something back before he discovered what he was, I think that pretty much everything after Michael has made it impossible for there to be anything between them - even, you know, if Michael wasn't an unrepentant member of the race that's hunted and killed Teyla's people all her life.
A non-sexual connection between them - that, I can definitely see. A connection of empathy from Teyla's POV - her being able to understand why Michael's angry and bitter, even if she doesn't condone or like what he's done. And Teyla's pretty much the closest thing to Michael that we know of in human terms - someone who isn't entirely human herself.
Eeeee. See, you should never get me discussing Teyla-meta - particularly regarding her Wraithgene. I will happily go on for hours!
:)
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