SGA: Heteronormativity... (het, PG-13) 4/4
Title: Heteronormativity, Gender Construction, and Nonverbal Signalling in Intercultural Communication: A Comedy
Author: mad_maudlin
Fandom: Stargate: Atlantis
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Through season 4
Warnings: Mensa AU, but not related to my Major Zelenka fics in any way, shape or form.
Summary: In which Teyla may be plotting something, Keller may be delusional, Ronon may be cheating and John may in fact be the girl. No pudding cups or Marines were injured in the production of this fanfic.
Heteronormativity, Gender Construction and Nonverbal Signaling in Intercultural Communication: A Comedy
By Mad Maudlin
The first woman John ever loved was named Darla Fenstermacher. John had been in the tenth grade, and uncertain about what time zone he was in half the time, let alone who was president after Woodrow Wilson, but he'd been quite certain that Darla had the most beautiful hair in the known universe, and a smile that made John's heart perform exotic palpitations, et cetera et cetera. Even her braces were sexy. He'd asked her out, once, and she'd laughed and explained she was dating the captain of the lacrosse team, and that had all ended with six dead mackerels in the lacrosse captain's car and John expelled from the first of five high schools in North America.
The second woman John had loved was Nancy Gilligan, and he was fairly certain she was perfect. Perfect body, perfect face, perfect brain, perfect sense of humor, just, everything. Too perfect, possibly, to be allowed, and every time they dated or talked he kept waiting for her to do something or say something or turn out to be something disappointing, one of those dull oh, huh moments he was so used to having with people he tried to socialize with. The longer it went when that didn't happen, the more John started to believe that maybe it meant something, maybe he was on to something, maybe he'd found someone who actually fit with all the weird-shaped parts of him. He'd pawned a small fortune in console gaming equipment and bought a ring and then spent another month working up the gumption to actually ask.
The day he'd finally planned to do it, though, she'd served him with a restraining order. The words "creepy stalker" entered into it. John never did get his GameCube back, but he eventually recovered his pride.
The point was that John had loved two women, loved them completely (or as completely as a fourteen-year-old could) and totally, utterly, completely blown it with both of them. He would never call himself a person of faith, exactly, but he'd read all the appropriate mythic literature and tended to expect certain patterns in the world-Atlantis was always on the verge of exploding, his mother went insane at least every six months, the speed of light through a vacuum in normal space was a constant and after three strikes you are out. And Teyla, Teyla was there-Teyla would always be there, she had to be-and so if he did this thing, it was all or nothing, no half-assing it. Which meant he could absolutely not screw this up.
-\--\--\-
He found Teyla in the gym, alone, beating a punching bag with her sticks. Whatever the fuzzy crap was that was inside those things was actually leaking out a little, so John thought he was allowed to say she was literally beating the stuffing from it. She stopped and turned to face him when he came in, though, and said, "John. Hello."
"Hi," John said.
And somehow the six things he'd actually planned on saying (including sorry I ran out on you last night and we've got some things to talk about, the latter said in the kind of grave voices he associated mentally with Rod and his father) did not ever make it out of his brain. Instead he blurted, "Are you insane?"
Teyla raised an eyebrow at him.
"I mean, look at me!" John continued, gesturing in a way that he hoped encompassed his body, personality and psychological baggage all at once. "Have you even met me? Like a billion other men in Atlantis and I'm the one you decide you want to date?"
"I have met you," Teyla said, getting that little line between her eyebrows. "And yes, I…wish to 'date' you."
"Well, yeah," John said. "I kind of, um, got that. Eventually."
Teyla tilted her head slightly to one side, and she might've gripped her bantos a little tighter, but John didn't consider himself an entirely reliable observer at that point. "Are you angry?" she asked.
"No! What? Of course not. Why would you think-okay, the screaming entrance, yeah, sorry." John swallowed. "Sorry about, um, running away in terror last night, too."
"Terror?"
He flinched. "Well, you know, you're…and I'm…and this is kind of…are you sure you got the right guy here? You weren't looking for, like, Rod? Or Lorne?"
Teyla exhaled slowly and tucked her bantos into the waistband of her skirt. Then she walked up to John and put her hand on his arm. "You have been my first and greatest friend in the city of the Ancestors," she said quietly. "You returned me to my people and found me my freedom."
John was fairly certain every drop of blood in his body was either in his face or his groin at that point, and every nerve ending had been temporarily rerouted to his right elbow, and he was so going to screw this up. "I'm going to screw this up," he said.
"Screw what up?" Teyla asked.
"This," John said, pointing. "Us. I'm, um, really bad at…people."
"I know this," Teyla said, and that tiny smile was back. John realized he could get used to those tiny little smiles.
"You know me," John said, because after three years and multiple kidnappings, assaults, and medical crises, she really did, "and you still want to, you know…?"
"Yes," Teyla said, and then she did. She had to kind of pull him down by the collar, granted, but her lips were soft and she smelled all sweaty and she kissed like there was no air in the room but him, like they were falling into a sun, like everything potentially looming over their shoulders was temporarily suspended and for that one moment, right there, in a sun-gilded gymnasium on Atlantis everything could be perfect.
Somebody once told John he kissed like a gagging goldfish, but Teyla seemed to have no complaints.
-\--\--\-
The nice thing about spending so much time on other planets was, it was always the harvest festival somewhere. Among the Athosian colonies, that was kind of Serious Business, and council members were expected to put in an appearance for politics' sake, which meant Rod's social calendar was surprisingly full. "Of course I don't expect you all to come along every time," he said every time, or close to it, "though it always does look good, you know, keeping that two-way street open, showing respect for the Council's laws and customs. Elizabeth and I are really the only ones required to come, so if you all have other plans…"
About half the time, John skipped the festival and watched movies in his lab. Another, oh, twenty percent of the time, he didn't go for some other reason, like he was turning into a bug or he had to completely repair four damaged puddlejumpers that Major Lorne had somehow thought it was a good idea to use as decoys against a Hive ship for some damn thing. When he did go, it usually involved getting spectacularly drunk on ruus wine, making himself sick on those little fruity nut tarts, and getting bundled off to the "special" tent to sleep it off before anyone else had even gotten red in the face. That usually meant the next two or three festivals were spent in his lab with something he'd pirated off BitTorrent, until the memory faded enough for him to try again. He generally blamed the whole vicious circle on the tarts.
So when Rod announced word of another Very Important Festival on some planet called Erryx, John tuned him out entirely, in favor of looking at Teyla, because he could do that now, and she wasn't going to punch him. In fact, sometimes she looked back, and got that tiny smile that he was really starting to feel a separate sub-obsession for all its own. (Rod said this was better than John hiding from Teyla, but he did not sound particularly emphatic about it.)
This time, though, Teyla didn't look at him or smile tiny smiles. She listened to Rod, then turned to John with the hand-on-the-arm touch that was becoming a second favorite to the tiny smile. "Would you like to go?"
"Go where?" John asked. Rod slapped himself on the forehead.
"The harvest festival on Erryx," Teyla said. "I wish to go."
"Okay," John said. Thankfully, before Rod hit himself or anyone else again, John got it. "Wait, is this like a dating thing?"
Tiny smile! Score! "Yes, John."
"So with Sumner that's five," Rod said briskly, and looked at Ronon. "What about you and Melena? Seven's a very auspicious number for harvest festivals, you know, and we want to make a good impression since this is our first visit."
"Can't," Ronon said. "We got plans."
Rod just shrugged. "I'll ask Carson and…hm…maybe Colonel Carter would like to come? The Phoenix ought to be here in time, and she hasn't met the council yet…"
John couldn't care less about Rod's ex-girlfriends, or much else that did not directly relate to Teyla at that moment. In fact, he didn't even notice when the meeting officially broke up until Teyla got up to leave, because before she did she touched him on the wrist-just a light brush. He figured it was the closest thing he was going to get in terms of public displays of affection, being that Teyla was Teyla and he was…himself, but it still made him grin like a crazy person as she left for some regularly-scheduled asskicking with Sora. (Because John could maybe kind of get into the bantos thing, but not where anybody could see him, and Sora still scared him to death.)
As John watched Teyla walk away, Rod said with a little sigh, "You know, one would swear she was stealing IQ points every time she did that."
"You are bitter and jealous because you still haven't gotten to second base with Katie Brown," John said gleefully.
"Oh, yes, I'm deeply bitter. How would you even know, anyway? She's a very private person." Rod closed his laptop and started bundling up cables, while John tuned him out in favor of thinking about Teyla. "You know, technically you shouldn't be on the same offworld team if you're in a relationship," Rod continued, regardless. "SGC's policy, not mine. Not that I'm trying to replace you, but technically, since I'm aware of the situation I'm supposed to take steps…" he paused. "Take steps to ensure the continued domination of the Tau'ri by our secret avian overlords, the grackles. To begin with, you must be shot and then have a sex-change operation. Your hair will be donated to science. And I'm taking away all your WOW achievements.
"Oh, dear god," he added, which is what finally got John's attention again. "I've created a monster, haven't I?"
"You said it was better than hiding from her," John pointed out.
"Obviously I spoke too soon." Rod paused. "You explained to her yet that you're not the girl in this relationship?"
"Get with it, Rod," John retorted, smirking. "I've always been the man."
-\--\--\-
So they did a mission where some priestesses tried to trade fifty pounds of magic mushrooms for Ronon, and then they had a nice friendly talk with some Travelers about the wonderful world of naqadah mining, and John got called in to free Lorne's team from a malfunctioning jumper before they asphyxiated. You know, Atlantis.
And then it was time for the feast. John allowed that it was a little girly for him to spend over an hour before gate time debating what to wear, because he'd always just worn his uniform to these things, except they'd never been dates before (or Dates, as he was suddenly tending to think of them, because they were with Teyla and thus deserved Extra Emphasis) so did that mean he had to wear, like shirts with buttons now? What about shaving? He definitely needed to shave, and even thought about putting on some cologne, until he realized the closest thing he had to cologne was aftershave that smelled like a wet dog, so he had to dunk his head under the tap to clean that off and ended up soaking his only reasonably clean collared shirt, so, yeah, uniform anyway. He at least made sure it was a totally clean one.
It turned out to be a wise decision, since when he arrived in the gate room Teyla was wearing normal clothes too-scary leather coat, boots, knife, etc. She was wearing a little pendant on a necklace that John wasn't used to seeing, but he didn't think that qualified as dressing up in any sense, so he was safe. Gate room was definitely way too public for displays of affection, so he just grinned at her, and got himself a tiny smile in return. Sumner, who alone among the party was geared up with a tac vest and rifle, like after the feast he had to go assassinate the president of Russia or something, rolled his eyes at John and Teyla and then paced near Katie Brown, who whimpered a little whenever he got too close; John didn't know what had possessed Rod to invite her but he hoped like hell she could hold her ruus wine.
Rod and Elizabeth were telling Colonel Carter about the feast protocols, but when Rod spotted John he grinned and called out, "All right, everyone here? Everyone remember to pack their toothbrush?" He clapped his hands together briskly and then gave Chuck a thumbs-up. "Remember, first check-in won't be until local sunrise, so don't wait up!"
That was one of the other fun things about spending so much time on other planets: they left Atlantis mid-afternoon and arrived on Erryx at sunset. The locals had helpfully lined the clearing around the Gate with colorful paper lanterns, and the chilly air smelled of wood smoke and wax. Two gawky teens with similarly colorful masks and fake spears barred the path to the settlement. "Who comes through the Ring?" one of them said loudly. "What are you, and whence came you?"
Rod held up both hands and said, "We are of Lantea, the youngest children of Old Athos, invited here by our brothers and sisters to share the gifts of this land. We offer you a payment for our safe passage." Elizabeth passed the kids Mars bars, and they stepped aside to let the whole lot of them through. Once they were on the path-also marked by the same lanterns-Rod started explaining the anthropologist's theories about the origin of these customs to Carter and Katie. John, meanwhile, used the deepening shadows as an excuse to take Teyla's hand. She didn't react to it, but she didn't object, either, and she kept a firm grip on him all the way to the camp. John couldn't help but grin, but if nobody actually saw it, did that mean he simultaneously was and wasn't the girl?
The settlement wasn't real big, when they finally got there, but every tent was decked out with the paper lanterns and garlands made of dried-up tava vines dyed gold and green and ochre. The locals and their other guests were already gathered around some medium-sized bonfires, and the straw men were up-these had freaked John the fuck out when he first saw them, but Rod and the anthropologists insisted it was a common harvest tradition in lots of cultures, and (at least Rod had) banned John from showing any Athosians in the city The Wicker Man for months. The Athosians just used tava vines and straw and branches, so it wasn't like they could fit anybody inside them anyway; the exact number and type of straw men was never the same at any festivals John had been to, and here they had one actual person-shaped one, one shaped kind of like a horse, and one that John just couldn't identify at all (unless somebody had given these Athosians an NES emulator and a port of Qbert.)
Teyla let go of his hand as soon as they got within the bubble of light formed by the settlement, and as they headed to the first group bonfire Rod took a deep breath and started to ream out the usual string of introductions. "Greetings, brothers and sisters! I'm Dr. Rodney McKay of Lantea, the Speaker of my people, and this is our leader, Dr. Elizabeth Weir, our hunt-master, Colonel Marshall Sumner," (hunt-master being the closest thing to military commander in the Athosian culture-they were a "make trade, not war" kind of people,) "a hunt, uh, mistress of our people, Colonel Samantha Carter, two scholars, Dr. Katie Brown and Dr. John Sheppard, and our good friend Teyla Emmagen, daughter of Tagan. We are well met on this night of good fortune and we bring gifts and good wishes for our brothers and sisters of Erryx."
He managed all of this in one breath. Rod was kind of scarily good at this.
John didn't bother keeping track of all the sons-of and daughters-of who introduced themselves back, not at first, because he was too busy bumping foreheads and smiling for the good of Atlantis and trying to keep Teyla, if not next to him, at least in his line of sight. In retrospect, it occurred to him that a diplomatic event might not have been the best site for a first date, but it was too late to talk her into a picnic or something and he might as well make the most of the situation. Maybe once the drinking started they could find an empty tent and-
"-and Dr. John Sheppard," Rod was saying to another group of people, and Sumner physically yanked him over to bump heads, "and our good friend Teyla Emmagen, daughter of Tagan. We are well met on this night of good for-"
Athosians didn't normally interrupt people-they were pretty laid back like that-but somebody elbowed his way past an old lady and said, "Teyla Emmagen? Did you say Teyla, daughter of Tagan?" It was a guy, a not real tall guy (though, John allowed, except for Halling none of the Athosians were real tall, and Halling's mother apparently wasn't Athosian originally) with a scruffy beard and piercing eyes who looked almost, but not quite, exactly like Male Model #7 from Half-Life 2. He was wearing one of the long badass leather coats and a bronze chain around his neck and generally looked like a VIP, and he was looking around at the Lantean delegation, peering at Carter and Katie like one of them was going to pull off a wig and yell Surprise!
But then Teyla pushed her way forward, pushed right past John like he wasn't even there, and said "Kanaan?" in a funny choky sort of voice. And then she was hugging this guy, hugging him and pressing foreheads together-not just the "hi, howya doing?" bump, but standing together with their forearms clasped and giggling and smiling, and not a tiny ones, either.
Obviously, John realized, Male Model #7 had to die.
Teyla turned back to the Lanteans (still smiling, she was not allowed to still be smiling) and said, "My friends, this is Kanaan Emmagen, son of Marta. We knew one another as children; this night we are well-met indeed."
"I had not heard you still lived," Kanaan said in a husky voice that John felt was Not On. (He also suspected Kanaan was looking down Teyla's top.) "I thought-we all believed you dead, Teyla."
"I was like one dead," Teyla said. "But these people of Lantea brought me back to life."
Kanaan smiled widely at the rest of them. "Then we are all well-met, brothers and sisters. I am leader of this settlement, and I bid you welcome on this night of good fortune and plenty."
Oh, great. Not only had Teyla found her long-lost boyfriend, he was the guy in charge. John wondered how hard it would be to find mackerel in Pegasus, and where he could hide them in a tent.
Kanaan welcoming them must've been the cue to get the party started, though, because the musicians brought out their instruments and people began to bring the food out of their tents. Somebody offered John a bowl of ruus wine, but he had a feeling that if he took it, it would sooner or later end up on Kanaan's head. Same with the fruity nut tarts, which suddenly seemed very aerodynamic. He watched Teyla walk beside the guy, who wasn't even that handsome, and also he was short, and remembered bitterly that he'd asked why him out of all the guys on Atlantis, but hadn't thought to include the Athosian diaspora in his analysis. And now he was going to have to watch her smile at Kanaan, and touch Kanaan, and eat food with Kanaan, and he couldn’t even bail and go home because Athosians had this thing about using the stargate on certain festival nights, which was that they didn't, so unless he faked a massive allergic reaction or something, those kids with the blunt sticks wouldn't let him near the DHD. And if he did fake a massive allergic reaction, he'd probably get strangled by Rod, Sumner and Elizabeth, individually or as a group.
So he settled for lurking under a tree near one of the smaller bonfires and scowling at this Kanaan guy, because scowling was something he did really well. (He'd once made an undergrad in a 100-level course faint with a well-placed look. That, and her diabetes. But mostly John's scowling.) That kept at least some of the party-goers away, though at one point Colonel Carter came over with a tart and a skewer of roast beast and tried to make small talk. It went a little something like this.
"Hey, Dr. Sheppard, are you feeling all right?"
"Meh."
"You know, I read your latest set of project reports. That crystal analysis is producing some really good results. How'd you get through all that data so quickly?"
"I beat my research team."
"Excuse me?"
"I beat them. With pointy sticks."
Carter raised an eyebrow at John, then followed his eyes all the way over to where Teyla was still looking at Kanaan, and still smiling a little bit-not the tiny smile John stubbornly thought of as his own, but still, smiling. "Okay," Carter said. "Am I sensing a bit of a problem here?"
"No problem," John insisted.
"No?"
"Nope. Just need to find a place to hide the mackerels."
That got rid of her plenty fast. She left the roast beast behind, though, by wedging the skewer into a knothole of the tree, so John ate it, as a preemptive strike against any attempt by Rod to, you know, make him participate. Then he sat down on a protruding root, which was really pretty uncomfortable, but it was better than standing 'til dawn. He pushed up his glasses, folded his arms across his chest, and went into a full-blown glower of the sort he hadn't deployed since he'd been writing his thesis.
As a side effect of his glower, however, John was sober much later into the proceedings than normal, and so he actually got to see when the straw men got lit. The person was first, going up in a column of fire that seemed to claw at the stars; the horse-thing was next, and then Qbert, though that one took a little while to get going. Teyla came and found him then, probably because Kanaan was busy lighting large fires. (If Teyla wanted fire, John could build her a nuclear device big enough to burn a planet. Probably.) "I have not seen you," she said, and her eyes were sparkling in the light of the burning straw men and she was smiling, but it wasn't his smile, it was the same one she gave Kanaan and thus didn't count.
"Not hungry," John said.
Either what he said or the way he said it knocked the smile off Teyla's face, and John thought viciously, good. She studied him and said slowly, "The dancing will begin soon."
"That's nice," John said. "You go have fun."
Teyla turned and left. John wondered if it hurt to hold her back that straight.
The dancing took place in the triangle of space between the three burning straw men, which was probably a safety hazard of some kind, but it also provided the best light. There wasn't any general pattern to it-some people danced solo, some in couples, some in groups, and the musicians were allowed to totally change the piece in mid-stream if they felt like it. At some point Rod volunteered to go up, but Katie was apparently too nervous to dance in front of a crowd, so he and Elizabeth did a kind of vigorous waltz that mutated into a foxtrot when the music did. Later, Carter and Elizabeth and, somehow, Sumner, all demonstrated the Electric Slide, and then about six elderly men got up and started doing something with brooms that looked vaguely obscene from John's distance, and probably was, by the way people were hooting and shouting.
He blamed the porn brooms for distracting him; either that, or Kanaan and Teyla had gone to Ninja School together, because suddenly the asshole was there, with a bowl of wine, smiling at John like he hadn't just totally stolen Teyla away. "You look lonely, my friend," Kanaan said.
"Really? 'Cause I'm not." John pretended to be engrossed by the porn broom dance, even though some of the crowd had shifted and he couldn't really see.
Kanaan offered John the wine, but when John totally ignored him, just shrugged. "You are John, yes?"
"Mmmhmm. John Sheppard, son of Maureen, hi."
"Teyla has told me much about you."
Oh, of course she had. What else do you discuss with your long-lost boyfriend but the guy you apparently liked almost, but not quite, as much? "I'll bet."
"She says you helped to rescue her from the Wraith."
Yeah, a little thing like that, and she'd sounded so grateful about it back in the gym, funny how it could slip a person's mind when there was a hotter, shorter, more-authority-having guy around. A guy from her own people, who apparently knew how to talk to girls and how not to act like one. "Yeah," John said when he remembered he hadn't answered yet. "We all helped."
Kanaan looked to the dance area, where the porn brooms were winding down. "Will you join in the dancing?"
"Not really a dancing kind of guy," John said. "But you go have fun. Tell Teyla I said hi, if you see her."
"I will." Kanaan looked at John for a moment, seemingly confused, but then left the wine on the crunchy grass and went back to the crowd.
John wasn't sure what compelled him to follow Kanaan at a short distance. Witchcraft, maybe. Evil spirits. It was basically Halloween here, after all, even if the Earth calendar date was like December. Whatever it was, he grabbed the wine bowl and then pushed his way into the circle surrounding the dance floor, uncomfortably close to the burning Qbert.
Teyla and a couple other women had taken the floor and were stomping out something rhythmic and sedate in the center, with lots of swishy arm movements. Teyla wasn't quite in step with the other two, and she wasn't smiling, but she looked kind of serene in the firelight, the way she had in the gym, and just like in the gym John kind of wanted to reach out and grab her and kiss her like the end of the world. Because she'd kissed him, back there, so didn't that mean she wanted it? Hadn't she picked him first? He watched her do a spin that sent her coattails flying out behind her and wondered maybe if she really had been trying to kill him all along, only instead of poison she was really using angst. That wasn't supposed to be fatal after the age of sixteen, though.
Then the music changed, to something with lots of screechy pipes and a strong drumbeat, and four or five men came on the floor. The women didn't really change what they were doing except to adapt to the new tempo, but the men started some kind of crazy jumpy stompy thing, spinning like drugged-out dervishes and occasionally shouting "HOOAH!" like overexcited Marines. Kanaan was one of them, and he even did a fucking back flip in the middle of the mat, and then suddenly they were all doing flips and cartwheels and somersaults-it made John think of human popcorn, with the three women rotating steadily in the middle of it all.
Until the men suddenly stopped, and rushed at them. There was a moment of confused chaos, and all John could think was, At least Teyla will kill them swiftly. But then Teyla's head poked above the scrum, followed by her shoulders, and John realized that Kanaan had hoisted her onto his back and was now marching her around the dance area. The other two women were similarly accosted, but for a moment all John could see was Teyla, clinging to Kanaan's shoulders with her head tilted back and smiling that serene smile at the fire and the stars.
He suddenly remembered the wine in his hand, and drank down the entire bowl. He didn't remember a whole lot else after that.
-\--\--\-
Of all the things John could've seen upon waking with the hangover from hell, the dour face of Marshal Sumner was not high on his list of favorites. "Rise and shine, Janey," Sumner said, and poked John in the stomach with his toe. "We're moving out in fifteen."
"Don't call me Janey," John said, and tried to pull his blanket over his head. Then he realized he didn't have a blanket; he was covered with a long Athosian coat, not Teyla's. His head felt furry on the inside and sore, but more importantly, his face ached in a deeply troubling way. He was also missing his glasses, his shoes, and (upon investigation under the coat) his boxers, but mysteriously, not his pants.
Something had clearly gone very, very wrong.
"I said, we're moving out in fifteen," Sumner declared after a moment or two. "It's up to you whether you're coming with." He dropped something on the floor by John's head and then stomped out of the tent, leaving the flap open with his cold drafts and violently bright sunlight.
The something turned out to be a colorful scarf, and wrapped inside it were: John's glasses, a blister pack of Tylenol, a plastic baggie containing six partially crushed Pepto-Bismol tablets, a packet of moist towelettes, his toothbrush and toothpaste, a small make-up mirror and a pair of those clip-on sunglass thingies. When John managed to extricate himself from the coat, he found he wasn't in the drunk tent, but somebody's dwelling tent; one sleeping pallet was still unrolled on the floor near his, and there was a cradle standing against the wall. His boots had been put near the door, and they looked so shiny he was positive he'd either stepped in manure or puked on them, and the tent owner had been kind enough to clean them while he was passed out. He also found a basin and a pitcher of clean water, and set about trying to make himself functional (there was clearly no way he could be presentable, when he woke up with missing underpants) before Sumner abandoned him here to fend for himself through the winter.
He was brushing his teeth when a woman came into the tent, holding a bundled of blankets under one arm. "Oh, it's good that you are awake," she said. "I feared that you would be too winesick to travel through the Ring this morning. Many of our young men are."
John wasn't sure he still technically counted as a young man, and that might have been part of the problem. He spat out his toothpaste into the basin and realized he had no idea who this lady was. "Um. Thanks, uh…?"
"Gerna," she said, and put the bundle in the crib, where it started squalling.
"Gerna. Thanks for not leaving me in the drunk tent." He got up the nerve to look at himself in the make-up mirror and winced; his eyes were so bloodshot he looked like he had pinkeye, and one side of his face was bruised and scratched, like he'd gotten punched by somebody wearing a ring. A lot of the council members wore ceremonial rings. Shit.
"Kanaan insisted on it," Gerna said, and pulled something from the fire-thick slices of bread, now toasted on one side. "Will you take food before you leave?"
John had eaten about half the Pepto tablets already and his stomach still felt like it was on strike, particularly when he heard Kanaan was behind his comfy sleeping arrangements. "Better not risk it."
"Just as well." Gerna put the toast on a plate and then started rocking the fussy baby. John put on his glasses and the clip-ons and made his escape.
The others were waiting for him at the path to the gate with his stuff, and the wheel of reaction shots ranged from vague horror (Katie) to contempt (Sumner) to pity (Carter) to concern (Elizabeth and Rod). Teyla was there, but she wasn't even looking John in the eye. Shit. Struck out.
Rod handed John his backpack and used the opportunity to sneak in a quick pat on the shoulder. "Feeling…well, not okay, but you're not too sick, are you?"
"I'll live," John managed to mutter. "Can we go now?"
They marched back to the gate in silence, and John felt about as small as the little paper lanterns now laying scorched and crushed on the forest floor. (Maybe it was still possible for him to die of angst.) He headed straight back to his quarters upon return to the city and tried to sleep off the rest of the hangover, but horrible mental images of what he may or may not have done kept floating through his head. Eventually he got up the will to open up a laptop and maybe email Rod to arrange his exile, but surprisingly, he found a message from Elizabeth in his inbox. It read:
John,
I realized you might be a little fuzzy about what happened last night, so let me reassure you that you didn't do yourself or the Athosians any harm. As far as I saw, you just drank too much wine, did the Macarena for about fifteen minutes, and then wandered off into the woods by yourself. A couple of local men brought you back, but you accused one of them of a 'bad touch' and ended up in a slap fight with his mother (who I estimated to be about seventy). When it was clear you were down for the count, Kanaan and his wife took you back to their tent to sleep it off. I'm fairly certain the councilors found it funny.
If you do remember anything else that happened, quite honestly, I don't want to know. Rod, Marshall and I have agreed that this wasn't part of any pattern of behavior and there's no need to make specific mention of it in our reports on the matter. Colonel Carter also asked me to pass along, 'Thanks for the complement, and yes, it is natural,' in case you remember what that means.
Then there was her signature line. John read it twice, looked at his face again, and then went back to bed for the rest of the day. Maybe angst couldn't be fatal, but stupidity? Definitely.
-\--\--\-
By morning of the next day, John had had time to process exactly how badly he had screwed up. In fact, he had spent several hours examining his screwedness, seeking out all its hidden depths and facets, getting to know it like a friend. He considered the full range of his options, which included resignation (not constructive), request for transfer (also pointless), suicide (hell no), defecting to the Genii (and what was wrong with him when that seemed like an option at all?) or maybe just stowing away in the cargo hold of the Phoenix until they were too far from Atlantis to turn back. Oh, or he could try to apologize. That ranked slightly higher than both suicide and defection, but only just.
But by morning he had also ruled out various forms of running away, which left apology as the last candidate standing. Which meant he had to figure out how to apologize, which meant he needed to talk to somebody who knew about relationships and people and acting like a grownup. He decided to seek out Keller, since she could also probably put a band-aid on his face for him (since, though they looked reasonably manly, the scratches really did sting when he shaved. And had been inflicted by a seventy-year-old woman). He found her sitting in the cafeteria starting into a cup of coffee, googly eyes and all. "Hi, he said, and sat down across the table. "I very urgently need to talk to you."
"Hi, John," Jennifer said vaguely. She started to sip her coffee but put the cup down before it got all the way to her mouth.
"Yes. Hi. Can we focus here?" John snapped his fingers a few times and didn't even get a startle reaction. Huh. "Are you feeling okay?"
She finally looked up at him. "Did you know that Satedans practice polyamory?"
John could only stare at her for a few moments in horror and slow comprehension. "Okay," he finally managed to say, "so, uh, obviously you're working on your own sort of a situation here…"
"Nobody told me," Keller said, a little plaintively. "I didn't know."
"I, uh, don't think anybody knew," John said. "If that helps. I don't think we wanted to know, really. But listen, I need to ask you something about Teyla…"
"I didn't even know I was bi," Jennifer said, and did that almost-but-not-really-sipping motion again.
At that point John left the mess hall. He was having more than enough trouble coping with his own alien sex life at the moment. Jennifer could just…talk to Heightmeyer or something. Maybe take up knitting.
Ronon was obviously out as a second option, which left him with Rod or Heightmeyer, and as little as he wanted to be reminded of the debacle on Erryx, Rod did know Teyla the better of the two. Besides, all John's sessions with Heightmeyer had been kind of frosty ever since he tried to weasel out of one by claiming to have converted to Scientology. (Apparently she was not a Tom Cruise fan.) So John put in a token appearance in his lab to make sure Eldon and Abdirova weren't dismantling furniture or burning things, then went to Rod's lab, where Ladon Radim was throwing darts at something that looked disturbingly like a plushie Wraith doll. "Morning, Dr. Sheppard," he said.
"Um, hi," John said. "Is that a plushie Wraith doll?"
Ladon threw the last dart with considerable force. "Colonel Sumner knit it for me," he said. "It's therapeutic. Are you looking for Rod?"
"Yeah," John said, while thinking rather resentfully that the only things Sumner ever knit him were usually various styles of sweater in pastel colors with the buttons on the wrong side. "You know if he's coming in today?"
"He should be in at any time." Ladon pulled out all the darts but the one securing the doll to the board (through its face) and offered one to John. "Care to throw?"
"Maybe another time. Um." John thought furiously for something not related to Wraith voodoo. "Is it true you're writing a book about the expedition?"
"I started one," Ladon admitted. "But the topic sort of wandered. Now I'm calling it How to Win Friends and Influence Aliens."
And thank God, Rod arrived then, or John might've fled anyway. Well, technically he did flee anyway, because he didn't want to talk about his sex life in front of Ladon, but he was able to grab Rod by the collar and pull him into a storage room instead of just, you know, hiding. "We need to talk."
"Yeah, we do," Rod agreed heartily.
"I need to apologize," John added.
"Absolutely right," Rod said. "Who are we starting with?"
That made John freeze. "Um. Teyla? Who else is there?"
Rod leaned against a wall and raised an eyebrow. "Well, I think Sam actually found it amusing, but Katie's going to need therapy."
"What'd I do?" John demanded. "Elizabeth said I didn't do anything. Jesus Christ, does she have my underwear?"
Rod grimaced. "No, Jesus, calm down. I didn't know anything about any underwear. Did Elizabeth not mention the drinking game while she was playing Dumbledore with you?"
"Drinking game?" John did not remember any drinking games. Most Athosian drinking games involved tongue twisters in Ancient anyway, so he was pretty sure he could never have played them.
Rod nodded, folding his arms. "You tried to make Sam and Katie play Never Have I Ever with ruus wine. Except most of your statements were about, well, sex. Specifically, sex with me, actually. If I didn't already know you were insane, I might be demanding an apology myself, and as it is we're all going to be doing some serious repression for the foreseeable future."
That actually was not the worst thing John could've imagined, and frankly he'd never liked Katie or her weird buggy eyes and so he didn't feel all that bad about traumatizing her. That only left Teyla. "So what do I say to Teyla?" he asked.
Rod sighed, and sat down on a crate. "Well, it might help to start by explaining what the squirrels that power your brain were doing during the whole adventure. Was I hallucinating when you two agreed that this in fact counted as a date?"
"She was the one who was all smiling and touching on Kanaan!" John said. "Who I did not know was married at the time, I'd like to point out."
"You were jealous?" Rod asked, sounding somewhat surprised.
"Well, duh." John flopped down on a box, which crumpled under him; luckily it was just plastic pipettes for the chemistry and biology labs on the second floor and not, like, nitroglycerin. He found himself a more sturdy crate as he explained, "I mean, she was all touching on him, and smiling at him, and she hugged him…."
"She told me they were best friends before she was taken," Rod said. "They'd both thought the other was dead all these years."
"Well, how was I supposed to know that?" John protested. "I mean, okay, how did she flirt with me? Smiling, touching, food. How did she flirt with him? Smiling, touching…I bet she gave him food."
"She didn't," Rod said. "And she wasn't flirting with him. You know, considering we've lived here for over three years, you really don't have a clue about Athosian culture, do you?"
John suspected he was about to get a lecture on it, but didn't see any way around that. "What do you mean?"
Rod sighed. "Were you too busy plotting his untimely demise, or did you happen to notice that Kanaan's surname is Emmagen too?"
"So what?" John said. "There's lots of Emmagens. Halling's an Emmagen. I thought it was like Korea, you know, 'cause half the people in Korea are named Kim. I read that once."
"It's not like Korea," Rod said slowly. "Emmagen signifies a kinship grouping, sort of like a clan, which means unless they were…well, I wouldn't say the last men in Pegasus, but if the Athosian population was reduced to a fraction of their current numbers, maybe then Teyla could marry within Emmagen. As it stands, they've got colonies on thirty planets, so even if Teyla weren't ridiculously fixated on you, it would be taboo to marry within her kinship group."
John thought about this for a minute. "Are you saying Kanaan is Teyla's cousin?"
"No," Rod said, "but if you want to pretend I did, that works, too."
John leaned back and whacked his head on a light fixture, then decided he kind of deserved that. "I didn't know," he muttered, then frowned, because he sounded a little bit too much like Keller just there.
"No, you didn't," Rod agreed, "because for you, culture is something that happens to other people."
"I'm not good at this!"
Rod moved over to sit next to John, in a friendly kind of way. "No, you're not," he agreed. "But Teyla likes you anyway, God only knows why. Remember that this isn't the first time you've embarrassed the hell out of her in front of her people, or offended her, or done something utterly ridiculous in front of her because you are socially retarded. Either she's equally insane or she's got the patience of a saint, so I'm certain that with enough groveling and prostration, you can eventually get her forgiveness."
John thought about this. "D'you think I should bring chocolate?"
Rod shrugged. "Can't hurt."
"What about flowers?"
"Might be going overboard," Rod said. "Remember when we brought her those get-well flowers and she tried to eat them?"
"That was the first year," John said. "She knows what they mean now."
"Well, just make sure you don't pick anything poisonous. And apologize to Katie while you're down there."
-\--\--\-
John did get flowers (non-poisonous, verified as such by Parrish since Katie was actively avoiding him), and since the Phoenix had brought nonperishable foodstuffs he also got chocolates and Oreos and the good pudding cups. He also talked Abdirova into getting him candles, because everything was better with candles, or at least that's what he thought. Maybe he should run his plan by Rod before executing it. No, he could totally do this. He was a man. This was manly of him. He would figure out what definition of manhood he was playing by later.
He got a little hung up on the question of location, because getting Teyla to come to his quarters seemed weird when he was the one apologizing, but he didn't think he could bring lit candles to her place with the food and the flowers, and lighting them after he got there seemed weird. Then again, if he lit them at his place he'd have to call her over the radio to come, because he couldn't just leave lit candles standing around-well, maybe if he put them in mugs or something, but that didn't seem romantic, and anyway they weren't that big so there was a chance they'd melt before he found Teyla and talked her back to his place. But going to get her and then lighting the candles when he got back seemed just as awkward as taking them to her place, unless he rigged up some kind of auto-ignition system and tied it in to the door controls so they'd light on their own when he got Teyla inside (assuming he got Teyla inside) and so he started playing around with the idea just to see if it was worth the effort, and he was debating the efficacy of electrical versus chemical ignition when somebody knocked on his door.
It was Teyla. She had a plate of steaks in her hands. "Hello," she said.
"Um. Hi." John looked at the steaks, which were definitely red meat and at least an inch thick. There were like six of them. He didn’t have a clue what that meant. "You want to come in?"
"Yes," she said. "I think we must talk."
He decided at the last second to light the candles, fumbling with matches while she stood in the middle of the room with the platter of steaks. Then he offered her the food, which was in a crumpled and sticky plastic grocery sack (Menard's) that had somehow made its way to the Atlantis mess hall, and the flowers, which were in a bucket. "Um. I brought you these. And stuff."
"These are from the first hunting of the colony on Erryx," Teyla said. "Kanaan gifted me with them, and I wish to share with you."
Okay. Teyla brought him meat. John stared at the platter, and she stared at the flowers and the Menard's bag, and eventually it occurred to John that she'd come here to talk, and now that she was here, he could start with the apologizing. "Let's sit down," he declared, and put everything on the floor.
Teyla put the meat on the floor too, and then sat cross-legged on the ground, so John felt like he had to sit on the ground too. He did give her a pillow, but she held it in her lap. "May I speak first?" she asked.
John shrugged. "If you-I mean, I'm in the one who needs to do all the apologizing, but if you want to, you know, yell at me for a while first, I think that's your prerogative, and then I'll start."
"I do not wish to yell at you," Teyla said, and she shut her eyes. "I think I owe you an apology as well. I was so eager to see Kanaan that I…neglected you."
"Not your fault," John said, thought he was also perversely pleased that she was acknowledging it. "I mean, he's like your friend and stuff, right?"
"He was," she said. "But you are my friend now-more than a friend-and I was rude to you. I am sorry."
Oddly enough, it was easier to make the words come out after she'd said them. "Sorry I got drunk and ruined the festival," he said. "I, uh, it wasn't the most constructive way to, you know, deal. Kanaan probably thinks I'm some crazy jealous asshole." And he's kinda right.
Except Teyla suddenly got that amazing tiny smile and said, "Actually, between your cool conduct towards him and your discussion with Colonel Carter and Dr. Brown about Rod's sexual habits, I believe Kanaan now thinks you are kineydu--I believe your people say 'gay.'"
"What?" John blurted, forgetting the part where this was supposed to be mature adult (and occasionally manly) discussion. "I just can't fucking win, can I?"
"If we return to Erryx, I will be certain to correct him," Teyla assured him.
And so there was the apology part done. John looked at the steaks and the bag of candy. "You want to, um, eat those now? Or we can put them in the fridge until later."
Teyla took a deep breath. "There is something else I must say."
Oh shit. Strike three. John was doomed to eternal loneliness. "You don't have to say it," he blurted. "Just, um, close the door on your way out? Only it does that itself. So maybe just leave quietly. I don't know."
Teyla blinked. "I am not leaving."
"You're not?" John tried not to let himself crumple with relief. "I mean, um, of course you're not. I should stop interrupting you like a jackass. Go on."
She didn't speak for a moment, and John berated himself with thoughts of cucumbers and icebergs to avoid filling the silence for her. Eventually, Teyla said, "I was a Runner for many years, and while I ran not even my thoughts were my own. I thought of nothing but my own survival-I dared not think of anything else. My people and my past were became nothing but painful shadows, and the limit of my future was the span of my supplies or the length of a night-nothing more."
Then she went silent again, and John could think of blizzards and Johnny Cash all he wanted, he couldn't just not say something to that. "That's not your life anymore, though," he told her. "You're with us, now."
"I am with you," Teyla said, and her brow creased. "But…I am with you but not of you. I still misunderstand your customs. Ronon tried to explain to me this thing called 'footsie,' for example, and I only managed to injure you."
John decided that "footsie" was going on the same list as "virile," and probably "polyamory" too, so he didn't have to think about any of them ever again. He tried to concentrate on Teyla. "It wasn't, I mean, you didn't…so you don't get us." He tried to smile are her. "Most of the time I don't get my people, either. It happens."
"It does," Teyla said, but she didn't sound like she was making a joke. "John, I was barely more than a child when the Wraith culled our colony. Sometimes, when I am among my people…as I was during the harvest festival…I feel that I know them, that I am in my place, that I am home. But other times-many, many other times-I walk among Athosians and feel myself a stranger. My own people feel to me as alien as yours."
And she was frowning, and what was worse, she was slouching, and that violated one of John's universal constants-three strikes you're out, and Teyla stands up straight. He panicked blindly for a moment, but then from somewhere deep in his brain, something (a thing that sounded vaguely like Rod) kicked him, and he crawled across the floor so he was sitting next to Teyla instead of opposite her. He felt weird putting a hand on her back, but she leaned into him just a little when he did, so he dared let his whole arm lay across her shoulders. How was it he never noticed how tiny she was? He licked his lips a couple of times, and eventually managed to say, "So I didn't get kidnapped by space vampires as a kid. But, um, you know my mom was…kind of weird, right?"
"I believe your usual phrase is 'batshit insane,'" Teyla said.
"Yeah, that too." John found a bit of bare skin near the collar of Teyla's shirt and brushed his thumb over it. It felt nice, and she didn't object, so he did it again. "And my dad, he didn't really want anything to do with me, he had his other, normal people family. So I just went where my mom went, and sometimes we did some pretty weird stuff and…the point is, I'm not exactly normal myself. So, um, I don't know where I was going with this." He breathed deep, exhaled, and swallowed, trying to focus. "I guess I kind of understand not belonging to anybody. Because I don't, really. I'm not kidding about not understanding my people, I just decided a while ago not to care."
"And do you not care?" Teyla asked quietly.
John shrugged as best he could with her under his arm. "Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't."
Teyla reached up, and for a minute he thought she was going to push his hand off, but instead she laced her fingers with his. "It was hard, to learn to think again beyond the next day and the next meal, to rely upon others and let them rely upon me. It was hard to admit…to imagine…I have wanted this for some time, John, but I did not know how to say it to you, or whether it was even possible. If you would want it. If I was whole enough to have it."
"We're both kind of fucked up people," John admitted. "But did you notice we're talking about our feelings and stuff? I don't think you've talked this much to me like ever."
And to his surprise, Teyla laughed out loud. For a horrible moment he thought she was laughing at him, you know, in the bad way, but then she put an arm around his waist and he immediately decided that her laugh was the best thing ever and he needed to hear it more often. Her eyes, when she looked up at him, were sparkling. "Then this is possible?"
"This is totally possible," John said. "Only I think we need to make it clear that I am not the girl in this relationship."
Teyla raised her eyebrow. "I would think that is quite obvious."
"You," John told her, "would be surprised."
-\--\--\-
So they ate steaks and pudding for dinner, and John put on The Matrix, because it was handy and had lots of fighting in it. They didn't end up paying much attention to it anyway.
And in the morning, after they'd cleaned up themselves and the candle wax and pudding cups, they met Rod and Ronon in the mess for breakfast. Ronon was smiling altogether too smugly, and John noticed that at another table, Melena was showing Keller how to cast on for knitting. They might've been playing footsie under the table, too.
Rod looked at John and Teyla and sighed loudly. "So just for reference, am I the only one who did not get laid last night?"
"That is entirely your own problem," John declared, and across the table, Teyla smiled a tiny smile.
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Author: mad_maudlin
Fandom: Stargate: Atlantis
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Through season 4
Warnings: Mensa AU, but not related to my Major Zelenka fics in any way, shape or form.
Summary: In which Teyla may be plotting something, Keller may be delusional, Ronon may be cheating and John may in fact be the girl. No pudding cups or Marines were injured in the production of this fanfic.
Heteronormativity, Gender Construction and Nonverbal Signaling in Intercultural Communication: A Comedy
By Mad Maudlin
The first woman John ever loved was named Darla Fenstermacher. John had been in the tenth grade, and uncertain about what time zone he was in half the time, let alone who was president after Woodrow Wilson, but he'd been quite certain that Darla had the most beautiful hair in the known universe, and a smile that made John's heart perform exotic palpitations, et cetera et cetera. Even her braces were sexy. He'd asked her out, once, and she'd laughed and explained she was dating the captain of the lacrosse team, and that had all ended with six dead mackerels in the lacrosse captain's car and John expelled from the first of five high schools in North America.
The second woman John had loved was Nancy Gilligan, and he was fairly certain she was perfect. Perfect body, perfect face, perfect brain, perfect sense of humor, just, everything. Too perfect, possibly, to be allowed, and every time they dated or talked he kept waiting for her to do something or say something or turn out to be something disappointing, one of those dull oh, huh moments he was so used to having with people he tried to socialize with. The longer it went when that didn't happen, the more John started to believe that maybe it meant something, maybe he was on to something, maybe he'd found someone who actually fit with all the weird-shaped parts of him. He'd pawned a small fortune in console gaming equipment and bought a ring and then spent another month working up the gumption to actually ask.
The day he'd finally planned to do it, though, she'd served him with a restraining order. The words "creepy stalker" entered into it. John never did get his GameCube back, but he eventually recovered his pride.
The point was that John had loved two women, loved them completely (or as completely as a fourteen-year-old could) and totally, utterly, completely blown it with both of them. He would never call himself a person of faith, exactly, but he'd read all the appropriate mythic literature and tended to expect certain patterns in the world-Atlantis was always on the verge of exploding, his mother went insane at least every six months, the speed of light through a vacuum in normal space was a constant and after three strikes you are out. And Teyla, Teyla was there-Teyla would always be there, she had to be-and so if he did this thing, it was all or nothing, no half-assing it. Which meant he could absolutely not screw this up.
-\--\--\-
He found Teyla in the gym, alone, beating a punching bag with her sticks. Whatever the fuzzy crap was that was inside those things was actually leaking out a little, so John thought he was allowed to say she was literally beating the stuffing from it. She stopped and turned to face him when he came in, though, and said, "John. Hello."
"Hi," John said.
And somehow the six things he'd actually planned on saying (including sorry I ran out on you last night and we've got some things to talk about, the latter said in the kind of grave voices he associated mentally with Rod and his father) did not ever make it out of his brain. Instead he blurted, "Are you insane?"
Teyla raised an eyebrow at him.
"I mean, look at me!" John continued, gesturing in a way that he hoped encompassed his body, personality and psychological baggage all at once. "Have you even met me? Like a billion other men in Atlantis and I'm the one you decide you want to date?"
"I have met you," Teyla said, getting that little line between her eyebrows. "And yes, I…wish to 'date' you."
"Well, yeah," John said. "I kind of, um, got that. Eventually."
Teyla tilted her head slightly to one side, and she might've gripped her bantos a little tighter, but John didn't consider himself an entirely reliable observer at that point. "Are you angry?" she asked.
"No! What? Of course not. Why would you think-okay, the screaming entrance, yeah, sorry." John swallowed. "Sorry about, um, running away in terror last night, too."
"Terror?"
He flinched. "Well, you know, you're…and I'm…and this is kind of…are you sure you got the right guy here? You weren't looking for, like, Rod? Or Lorne?"
Teyla exhaled slowly and tucked her bantos into the waistband of her skirt. Then she walked up to John and put her hand on his arm. "You have been my first and greatest friend in the city of the Ancestors," she said quietly. "You returned me to my people and found me my freedom."
John was fairly certain every drop of blood in his body was either in his face or his groin at that point, and every nerve ending had been temporarily rerouted to his right elbow, and he was so going to screw this up. "I'm going to screw this up," he said.
"Screw what up?" Teyla asked.
"This," John said, pointing. "Us. I'm, um, really bad at…people."
"I know this," Teyla said, and that tiny smile was back. John realized he could get used to those tiny little smiles.
"You know me," John said, because after three years and multiple kidnappings, assaults, and medical crises, she really did, "and you still want to, you know…?"
"Yes," Teyla said, and then she did. She had to kind of pull him down by the collar, granted, but her lips were soft and she smelled all sweaty and she kissed like there was no air in the room but him, like they were falling into a sun, like everything potentially looming over their shoulders was temporarily suspended and for that one moment, right there, in a sun-gilded gymnasium on Atlantis everything could be perfect.
Somebody once told John he kissed like a gagging goldfish, but Teyla seemed to have no complaints.
-\--\--\-
The nice thing about spending so much time on other planets was, it was always the harvest festival somewhere. Among the Athosian colonies, that was kind of Serious Business, and council members were expected to put in an appearance for politics' sake, which meant Rod's social calendar was surprisingly full. "Of course I don't expect you all to come along every time," he said every time, or close to it, "though it always does look good, you know, keeping that two-way street open, showing respect for the Council's laws and customs. Elizabeth and I are really the only ones required to come, so if you all have other plans…"
About half the time, John skipped the festival and watched movies in his lab. Another, oh, twenty percent of the time, he didn't go for some other reason, like he was turning into a bug or he had to completely repair four damaged puddlejumpers that Major Lorne had somehow thought it was a good idea to use as decoys against a Hive ship for some damn thing. When he did go, it usually involved getting spectacularly drunk on ruus wine, making himself sick on those little fruity nut tarts, and getting bundled off to the "special" tent to sleep it off before anyone else had even gotten red in the face. That usually meant the next two or three festivals were spent in his lab with something he'd pirated off BitTorrent, until the memory faded enough for him to try again. He generally blamed the whole vicious circle on the tarts.
So when Rod announced word of another Very Important Festival on some planet called Erryx, John tuned him out entirely, in favor of looking at Teyla, because he could do that now, and she wasn't going to punch him. In fact, sometimes she looked back, and got that tiny smile that he was really starting to feel a separate sub-obsession for all its own. (Rod said this was better than John hiding from Teyla, but he did not sound particularly emphatic about it.)
This time, though, Teyla didn't look at him or smile tiny smiles. She listened to Rod, then turned to John with the hand-on-the-arm touch that was becoming a second favorite to the tiny smile. "Would you like to go?"
"Go where?" John asked. Rod slapped himself on the forehead.
"The harvest festival on Erryx," Teyla said. "I wish to go."
"Okay," John said. Thankfully, before Rod hit himself or anyone else again, John got it. "Wait, is this like a dating thing?"
Tiny smile! Score! "Yes, John."
"So with Sumner that's five," Rod said briskly, and looked at Ronon. "What about you and Melena? Seven's a very auspicious number for harvest festivals, you know, and we want to make a good impression since this is our first visit."
"Can't," Ronon said. "We got plans."
Rod just shrugged. "I'll ask Carson and…hm…maybe Colonel Carter would like to come? The Phoenix ought to be here in time, and she hasn't met the council yet…"
John couldn't care less about Rod's ex-girlfriends, or much else that did not directly relate to Teyla at that moment. In fact, he didn't even notice when the meeting officially broke up until Teyla got up to leave, because before she did she touched him on the wrist-just a light brush. He figured it was the closest thing he was going to get in terms of public displays of affection, being that Teyla was Teyla and he was…himself, but it still made him grin like a crazy person as she left for some regularly-scheduled asskicking with Sora. (Because John could maybe kind of get into the bantos thing, but not where anybody could see him, and Sora still scared him to death.)
As John watched Teyla walk away, Rod said with a little sigh, "You know, one would swear she was stealing IQ points every time she did that."
"You are bitter and jealous because you still haven't gotten to second base with Katie Brown," John said gleefully.
"Oh, yes, I'm deeply bitter. How would you even know, anyway? She's a very private person." Rod closed his laptop and started bundling up cables, while John tuned him out in favor of thinking about Teyla. "You know, technically you shouldn't be on the same offworld team if you're in a relationship," Rod continued, regardless. "SGC's policy, not mine. Not that I'm trying to replace you, but technically, since I'm aware of the situation I'm supposed to take steps…" he paused. "Take steps to ensure the continued domination of the Tau'ri by our secret avian overlords, the grackles. To begin with, you must be shot and then have a sex-change operation. Your hair will be donated to science. And I'm taking away all your WOW achievements.
"Oh, dear god," he added, which is what finally got John's attention again. "I've created a monster, haven't I?"
"You said it was better than hiding from her," John pointed out.
"Obviously I spoke too soon." Rod paused. "You explained to her yet that you're not the girl in this relationship?"
"Get with it, Rod," John retorted, smirking. "I've always been the man."
-\--\--\-
So they did a mission where some priestesses tried to trade fifty pounds of magic mushrooms for Ronon, and then they had a nice friendly talk with some Travelers about the wonderful world of naqadah mining, and John got called in to free Lorne's team from a malfunctioning jumper before they asphyxiated. You know, Atlantis.
And then it was time for the feast. John allowed that it was a little girly for him to spend over an hour before gate time debating what to wear, because he'd always just worn his uniform to these things, except they'd never been dates before (or Dates, as he was suddenly tending to think of them, because they were with Teyla and thus deserved Extra Emphasis) so did that mean he had to wear, like shirts with buttons now? What about shaving? He definitely needed to shave, and even thought about putting on some cologne, until he realized the closest thing he had to cologne was aftershave that smelled like a wet dog, so he had to dunk his head under the tap to clean that off and ended up soaking his only reasonably clean collared shirt, so, yeah, uniform anyway. He at least made sure it was a totally clean one.
It turned out to be a wise decision, since when he arrived in the gate room Teyla was wearing normal clothes too-scary leather coat, boots, knife, etc. She was wearing a little pendant on a necklace that John wasn't used to seeing, but he didn't think that qualified as dressing up in any sense, so he was safe. Gate room was definitely way too public for displays of affection, so he just grinned at her, and got himself a tiny smile in return. Sumner, who alone among the party was geared up with a tac vest and rifle, like after the feast he had to go assassinate the president of Russia or something, rolled his eyes at John and Teyla and then paced near Katie Brown, who whimpered a little whenever he got too close; John didn't know what had possessed Rod to invite her but he hoped like hell she could hold her ruus wine.
Rod and Elizabeth were telling Colonel Carter about the feast protocols, but when Rod spotted John he grinned and called out, "All right, everyone here? Everyone remember to pack their toothbrush?" He clapped his hands together briskly and then gave Chuck a thumbs-up. "Remember, first check-in won't be until local sunrise, so don't wait up!"
That was one of the other fun things about spending so much time on other planets: they left Atlantis mid-afternoon and arrived on Erryx at sunset. The locals had helpfully lined the clearing around the Gate with colorful paper lanterns, and the chilly air smelled of wood smoke and wax. Two gawky teens with similarly colorful masks and fake spears barred the path to the settlement. "Who comes through the Ring?" one of them said loudly. "What are you, and whence came you?"
Rod held up both hands and said, "We are of Lantea, the youngest children of Old Athos, invited here by our brothers and sisters to share the gifts of this land. We offer you a payment for our safe passage." Elizabeth passed the kids Mars bars, and they stepped aside to let the whole lot of them through. Once they were on the path-also marked by the same lanterns-Rod started explaining the anthropologist's theories about the origin of these customs to Carter and Katie. John, meanwhile, used the deepening shadows as an excuse to take Teyla's hand. She didn't react to it, but she didn't object, either, and she kept a firm grip on him all the way to the camp. John couldn't help but grin, but if nobody actually saw it, did that mean he simultaneously was and wasn't the girl?
The settlement wasn't real big, when they finally got there, but every tent was decked out with the paper lanterns and garlands made of dried-up tava vines dyed gold and green and ochre. The locals and their other guests were already gathered around some medium-sized bonfires, and the straw men were up-these had freaked John the fuck out when he first saw them, but Rod and the anthropologists insisted it was a common harvest tradition in lots of cultures, and (at least Rod had) banned John from showing any Athosians in the city The Wicker Man for months. The Athosians just used tava vines and straw and branches, so it wasn't like they could fit anybody inside them anyway; the exact number and type of straw men was never the same at any festivals John had been to, and here they had one actual person-shaped one, one shaped kind of like a horse, and one that John just couldn't identify at all (unless somebody had given these Athosians an NES emulator and a port of Qbert.)
Teyla let go of his hand as soon as they got within the bubble of light formed by the settlement, and as they headed to the first group bonfire Rod took a deep breath and started to ream out the usual string of introductions. "Greetings, brothers and sisters! I'm Dr. Rodney McKay of Lantea, the Speaker of my people, and this is our leader, Dr. Elizabeth Weir, our hunt-master, Colonel Marshall Sumner," (hunt-master being the closest thing to military commander in the Athosian culture-they were a "make trade, not war" kind of people,) "a hunt, uh, mistress of our people, Colonel Samantha Carter, two scholars, Dr. Katie Brown and Dr. John Sheppard, and our good friend Teyla Emmagen, daughter of Tagan. We are well met on this night of good fortune and we bring gifts and good wishes for our brothers and sisters of Erryx."
He managed all of this in one breath. Rod was kind of scarily good at this.
John didn't bother keeping track of all the sons-of and daughters-of who introduced themselves back, not at first, because he was too busy bumping foreheads and smiling for the good of Atlantis and trying to keep Teyla, if not next to him, at least in his line of sight. In retrospect, it occurred to him that a diplomatic event might not have been the best site for a first date, but it was too late to talk her into a picnic or something and he might as well make the most of the situation. Maybe once the drinking started they could find an empty tent and-
"-and Dr. John Sheppard," Rod was saying to another group of people, and Sumner physically yanked him over to bump heads, "and our good friend Teyla Emmagen, daughter of Tagan. We are well met on this night of good for-"
Athosians didn't normally interrupt people-they were pretty laid back like that-but somebody elbowed his way past an old lady and said, "Teyla Emmagen? Did you say Teyla, daughter of Tagan?" It was a guy, a not real tall guy (though, John allowed, except for Halling none of the Athosians were real tall, and Halling's mother apparently wasn't Athosian originally) with a scruffy beard and piercing eyes who looked almost, but not quite, exactly like Male Model #7 from Half-Life 2. He was wearing one of the long badass leather coats and a bronze chain around his neck and generally looked like a VIP, and he was looking around at the Lantean delegation, peering at Carter and Katie like one of them was going to pull off a wig and yell Surprise!
But then Teyla pushed her way forward, pushed right past John like he wasn't even there, and said "Kanaan?" in a funny choky sort of voice. And then she was hugging this guy, hugging him and pressing foreheads together-not just the "hi, howya doing?" bump, but standing together with their forearms clasped and giggling and smiling, and not a tiny ones, either.
Obviously, John realized, Male Model #7 had to die.
Teyla turned back to the Lanteans (still smiling, she was not allowed to still be smiling) and said, "My friends, this is Kanaan Emmagen, son of Marta. We knew one another as children; this night we are well-met indeed."
"I had not heard you still lived," Kanaan said in a husky voice that John felt was Not On. (He also suspected Kanaan was looking down Teyla's top.) "I thought-we all believed you dead, Teyla."
"I was like one dead," Teyla said. "But these people of Lantea brought me back to life."
Kanaan smiled widely at the rest of them. "Then we are all well-met, brothers and sisters. I am leader of this settlement, and I bid you welcome on this night of good fortune and plenty."
Oh, great. Not only had Teyla found her long-lost boyfriend, he was the guy in charge. John wondered how hard it would be to find mackerel in Pegasus, and where he could hide them in a tent.
Kanaan welcoming them must've been the cue to get the party started, though, because the musicians brought out their instruments and people began to bring the food out of their tents. Somebody offered John a bowl of ruus wine, but he had a feeling that if he took it, it would sooner or later end up on Kanaan's head. Same with the fruity nut tarts, which suddenly seemed very aerodynamic. He watched Teyla walk beside the guy, who wasn't even that handsome, and also he was short, and remembered bitterly that he'd asked why him out of all the guys on Atlantis, but hadn't thought to include the Athosian diaspora in his analysis. And now he was going to have to watch her smile at Kanaan, and touch Kanaan, and eat food with Kanaan, and he couldn’t even bail and go home because Athosians had this thing about using the stargate on certain festival nights, which was that they didn't, so unless he faked a massive allergic reaction or something, those kids with the blunt sticks wouldn't let him near the DHD. And if he did fake a massive allergic reaction, he'd probably get strangled by Rod, Sumner and Elizabeth, individually or as a group.
So he settled for lurking under a tree near one of the smaller bonfires and scowling at this Kanaan guy, because scowling was something he did really well. (He'd once made an undergrad in a 100-level course faint with a well-placed look. That, and her diabetes. But mostly John's scowling.) That kept at least some of the party-goers away, though at one point Colonel Carter came over with a tart and a skewer of roast beast and tried to make small talk. It went a little something like this.
"Hey, Dr. Sheppard, are you feeling all right?"
"Meh."
"You know, I read your latest set of project reports. That crystal analysis is producing some really good results. How'd you get through all that data so quickly?"
"I beat my research team."
"Excuse me?"
"I beat them. With pointy sticks."
Carter raised an eyebrow at John, then followed his eyes all the way over to where Teyla was still looking at Kanaan, and still smiling a little bit-not the tiny smile John stubbornly thought of as his own, but still, smiling. "Okay," Carter said. "Am I sensing a bit of a problem here?"
"No problem," John insisted.
"No?"
"Nope. Just need to find a place to hide the mackerels."
That got rid of her plenty fast. She left the roast beast behind, though, by wedging the skewer into a knothole of the tree, so John ate it, as a preemptive strike against any attempt by Rod to, you know, make him participate. Then he sat down on a protruding root, which was really pretty uncomfortable, but it was better than standing 'til dawn. He pushed up his glasses, folded his arms across his chest, and went into a full-blown glower of the sort he hadn't deployed since he'd been writing his thesis.
As a side effect of his glower, however, John was sober much later into the proceedings than normal, and so he actually got to see when the straw men got lit. The person was first, going up in a column of fire that seemed to claw at the stars; the horse-thing was next, and then Qbert, though that one took a little while to get going. Teyla came and found him then, probably because Kanaan was busy lighting large fires. (If Teyla wanted fire, John could build her a nuclear device big enough to burn a planet. Probably.) "I have not seen you," she said, and her eyes were sparkling in the light of the burning straw men and she was smiling, but it wasn't his smile, it was the same one she gave Kanaan and thus didn't count.
"Not hungry," John said.
Either what he said or the way he said it knocked the smile off Teyla's face, and John thought viciously, good. She studied him and said slowly, "The dancing will begin soon."
"That's nice," John said. "You go have fun."
Teyla turned and left. John wondered if it hurt to hold her back that straight.
The dancing took place in the triangle of space between the three burning straw men, which was probably a safety hazard of some kind, but it also provided the best light. There wasn't any general pattern to it-some people danced solo, some in couples, some in groups, and the musicians were allowed to totally change the piece in mid-stream if they felt like it. At some point Rod volunteered to go up, but Katie was apparently too nervous to dance in front of a crowd, so he and Elizabeth did a kind of vigorous waltz that mutated into a foxtrot when the music did. Later, Carter and Elizabeth and, somehow, Sumner, all demonstrated the Electric Slide, and then about six elderly men got up and started doing something with brooms that looked vaguely obscene from John's distance, and probably was, by the way people were hooting and shouting.
He blamed the porn brooms for distracting him; either that, or Kanaan and Teyla had gone to Ninja School together, because suddenly the asshole was there, with a bowl of wine, smiling at John like he hadn't just totally stolen Teyla away. "You look lonely, my friend," Kanaan said.
"Really? 'Cause I'm not." John pretended to be engrossed by the porn broom dance, even though some of the crowd had shifted and he couldn't really see.
Kanaan offered John the wine, but when John totally ignored him, just shrugged. "You are John, yes?"
"Mmmhmm. John Sheppard, son of Maureen, hi."
"Teyla has told me much about you."
Oh, of course she had. What else do you discuss with your long-lost boyfriend but the guy you apparently liked almost, but not quite, as much? "I'll bet."
"She says you helped to rescue her from the Wraith."
Yeah, a little thing like that, and she'd sounded so grateful about it back in the gym, funny how it could slip a person's mind when there was a hotter, shorter, more-authority-having guy around. A guy from her own people, who apparently knew how to talk to girls and how not to act like one. "Yeah," John said when he remembered he hadn't answered yet. "We all helped."
Kanaan looked to the dance area, where the porn brooms were winding down. "Will you join in the dancing?"
"Not really a dancing kind of guy," John said. "But you go have fun. Tell Teyla I said hi, if you see her."
"I will." Kanaan looked at John for a moment, seemingly confused, but then left the wine on the crunchy grass and went back to the crowd.
John wasn't sure what compelled him to follow Kanaan at a short distance. Witchcraft, maybe. Evil spirits. It was basically Halloween here, after all, even if the Earth calendar date was like December. Whatever it was, he grabbed the wine bowl and then pushed his way into the circle surrounding the dance floor, uncomfortably close to the burning Qbert.
Teyla and a couple other women had taken the floor and were stomping out something rhythmic and sedate in the center, with lots of swishy arm movements. Teyla wasn't quite in step with the other two, and she wasn't smiling, but she looked kind of serene in the firelight, the way she had in the gym, and just like in the gym John kind of wanted to reach out and grab her and kiss her like the end of the world. Because she'd kissed him, back there, so didn't that mean she wanted it? Hadn't she picked him first? He watched her do a spin that sent her coattails flying out behind her and wondered maybe if she really had been trying to kill him all along, only instead of poison she was really using angst. That wasn't supposed to be fatal after the age of sixteen, though.
Then the music changed, to something with lots of screechy pipes and a strong drumbeat, and four or five men came on the floor. The women didn't really change what they were doing except to adapt to the new tempo, but the men started some kind of crazy jumpy stompy thing, spinning like drugged-out dervishes and occasionally shouting "HOOAH!" like overexcited Marines. Kanaan was one of them, and he even did a fucking back flip in the middle of the mat, and then suddenly they were all doing flips and cartwheels and somersaults-it made John think of human popcorn, with the three women rotating steadily in the middle of it all.
Until the men suddenly stopped, and rushed at them. There was a moment of confused chaos, and all John could think was, At least Teyla will kill them swiftly. But then Teyla's head poked above the scrum, followed by her shoulders, and John realized that Kanaan had hoisted her onto his back and was now marching her around the dance area. The other two women were similarly accosted, but for a moment all John could see was Teyla, clinging to Kanaan's shoulders with her head tilted back and smiling that serene smile at the fire and the stars.
He suddenly remembered the wine in his hand, and drank down the entire bowl. He didn't remember a whole lot else after that.
-\--\--\-
Of all the things John could've seen upon waking with the hangover from hell, the dour face of Marshal Sumner was not high on his list of favorites. "Rise and shine, Janey," Sumner said, and poked John in the stomach with his toe. "We're moving out in fifteen."
"Don't call me Janey," John said, and tried to pull his blanket over his head. Then he realized he didn't have a blanket; he was covered with a long Athosian coat, not Teyla's. His head felt furry on the inside and sore, but more importantly, his face ached in a deeply troubling way. He was also missing his glasses, his shoes, and (upon investigation under the coat) his boxers, but mysteriously, not his pants.
Something had clearly gone very, very wrong.
"I said, we're moving out in fifteen," Sumner declared after a moment or two. "It's up to you whether you're coming with." He dropped something on the floor by John's head and then stomped out of the tent, leaving the flap open with his cold drafts and violently bright sunlight.
The something turned out to be a colorful scarf, and wrapped inside it were: John's glasses, a blister pack of Tylenol, a plastic baggie containing six partially crushed Pepto-Bismol tablets, a packet of moist towelettes, his toothbrush and toothpaste, a small make-up mirror and a pair of those clip-on sunglass thingies. When John managed to extricate himself from the coat, he found he wasn't in the drunk tent, but somebody's dwelling tent; one sleeping pallet was still unrolled on the floor near his, and there was a cradle standing against the wall. His boots had been put near the door, and they looked so shiny he was positive he'd either stepped in manure or puked on them, and the tent owner had been kind enough to clean them while he was passed out. He also found a basin and a pitcher of clean water, and set about trying to make himself functional (there was clearly no way he could be presentable, when he woke up with missing underpants) before Sumner abandoned him here to fend for himself through the winter.
He was brushing his teeth when a woman came into the tent, holding a bundled of blankets under one arm. "Oh, it's good that you are awake," she said. "I feared that you would be too winesick to travel through the Ring this morning. Many of our young men are."
John wasn't sure he still technically counted as a young man, and that might have been part of the problem. He spat out his toothpaste into the basin and realized he had no idea who this lady was. "Um. Thanks, uh…?"
"Gerna," she said, and put the bundle in the crib, where it started squalling.
"Gerna. Thanks for not leaving me in the drunk tent." He got up the nerve to look at himself in the make-up mirror and winced; his eyes were so bloodshot he looked like he had pinkeye, and one side of his face was bruised and scratched, like he'd gotten punched by somebody wearing a ring. A lot of the council members wore ceremonial rings. Shit.
"Kanaan insisted on it," Gerna said, and pulled something from the fire-thick slices of bread, now toasted on one side. "Will you take food before you leave?"
John had eaten about half the Pepto tablets already and his stomach still felt like it was on strike, particularly when he heard Kanaan was behind his comfy sleeping arrangements. "Better not risk it."
"Just as well." Gerna put the toast on a plate and then started rocking the fussy baby. John put on his glasses and the clip-ons and made his escape.
The others were waiting for him at the path to the gate with his stuff, and the wheel of reaction shots ranged from vague horror (Katie) to contempt (Sumner) to pity (Carter) to concern (Elizabeth and Rod). Teyla was there, but she wasn't even looking John in the eye. Shit. Struck out.
Rod handed John his backpack and used the opportunity to sneak in a quick pat on the shoulder. "Feeling…well, not okay, but you're not too sick, are you?"
"I'll live," John managed to mutter. "Can we go now?"
They marched back to the gate in silence, and John felt about as small as the little paper lanterns now laying scorched and crushed on the forest floor. (Maybe it was still possible for him to die of angst.) He headed straight back to his quarters upon return to the city and tried to sleep off the rest of the hangover, but horrible mental images of what he may or may not have done kept floating through his head. Eventually he got up the will to open up a laptop and maybe email Rod to arrange his exile, but surprisingly, he found a message from Elizabeth in his inbox. It read:
John,
I realized you might be a little fuzzy about what happened last night, so let me reassure you that you didn't do yourself or the Athosians any harm. As far as I saw, you just drank too much wine, did the Macarena for about fifteen minutes, and then wandered off into the woods by yourself. A couple of local men brought you back, but you accused one of them of a 'bad touch' and ended up in a slap fight with his mother (who I estimated to be about seventy). When it was clear you were down for the count, Kanaan and his wife took you back to their tent to sleep it off. I'm fairly certain the councilors found it funny.
If you do remember anything else that happened, quite honestly, I don't want to know. Rod, Marshall and I have agreed that this wasn't part of any pattern of behavior and there's no need to make specific mention of it in our reports on the matter. Colonel Carter also asked me to pass along, 'Thanks for the complement, and yes, it is natural,' in case you remember what that means.
Then there was her signature line. John read it twice, looked at his face again, and then went back to bed for the rest of the day. Maybe angst couldn't be fatal, but stupidity? Definitely.
-\--\--\-
By morning of the next day, John had had time to process exactly how badly he had screwed up. In fact, he had spent several hours examining his screwedness, seeking out all its hidden depths and facets, getting to know it like a friend. He considered the full range of his options, which included resignation (not constructive), request for transfer (also pointless), suicide (hell no), defecting to the Genii (and what was wrong with him when that seemed like an option at all?) or maybe just stowing away in the cargo hold of the Phoenix until they were too far from Atlantis to turn back. Oh, or he could try to apologize. That ranked slightly higher than both suicide and defection, but only just.
But by morning he had also ruled out various forms of running away, which left apology as the last candidate standing. Which meant he had to figure out how to apologize, which meant he needed to talk to somebody who knew about relationships and people and acting like a grownup. He decided to seek out Keller, since she could also probably put a band-aid on his face for him (since, though they looked reasonably manly, the scratches really did sting when he shaved. And had been inflicted by a seventy-year-old woman). He found her sitting in the cafeteria starting into a cup of coffee, googly eyes and all. "Hi, he said, and sat down across the table. "I very urgently need to talk to you."
"Hi, John," Jennifer said vaguely. She started to sip her coffee but put the cup down before it got all the way to her mouth.
"Yes. Hi. Can we focus here?" John snapped his fingers a few times and didn't even get a startle reaction. Huh. "Are you feeling okay?"
She finally looked up at him. "Did you know that Satedans practice polyamory?"
John could only stare at her for a few moments in horror and slow comprehension. "Okay," he finally managed to say, "so, uh, obviously you're working on your own sort of a situation here…"
"Nobody told me," Keller said, a little plaintively. "I didn't know."
"I, uh, don't think anybody knew," John said. "If that helps. I don't think we wanted to know, really. But listen, I need to ask you something about Teyla…"
"I didn't even know I was bi," Jennifer said, and did that almost-but-not-really-sipping motion again.
At that point John left the mess hall. He was having more than enough trouble coping with his own alien sex life at the moment. Jennifer could just…talk to Heightmeyer or something. Maybe take up knitting.
Ronon was obviously out as a second option, which left him with Rod or Heightmeyer, and as little as he wanted to be reminded of the debacle on Erryx, Rod did know Teyla the better of the two. Besides, all John's sessions with Heightmeyer had been kind of frosty ever since he tried to weasel out of one by claiming to have converted to Scientology. (Apparently she was not a Tom Cruise fan.) So John put in a token appearance in his lab to make sure Eldon and Abdirova weren't dismantling furniture or burning things, then went to Rod's lab, where Ladon Radim was throwing darts at something that looked disturbingly like a plushie Wraith doll. "Morning, Dr. Sheppard," he said.
"Um, hi," John said. "Is that a plushie Wraith doll?"
Ladon threw the last dart with considerable force. "Colonel Sumner knit it for me," he said. "It's therapeutic. Are you looking for Rod?"
"Yeah," John said, while thinking rather resentfully that the only things Sumner ever knit him were usually various styles of sweater in pastel colors with the buttons on the wrong side. "You know if he's coming in today?"
"He should be in at any time." Ladon pulled out all the darts but the one securing the doll to the board (through its face) and offered one to John. "Care to throw?"
"Maybe another time. Um." John thought furiously for something not related to Wraith voodoo. "Is it true you're writing a book about the expedition?"
"I started one," Ladon admitted. "But the topic sort of wandered. Now I'm calling it How to Win Friends and Influence Aliens."
And thank God, Rod arrived then, or John might've fled anyway. Well, technically he did flee anyway, because he didn't want to talk about his sex life in front of Ladon, but he was able to grab Rod by the collar and pull him into a storage room instead of just, you know, hiding. "We need to talk."
"Yeah, we do," Rod agreed heartily.
"I need to apologize," John added.
"Absolutely right," Rod said. "Who are we starting with?"
That made John freeze. "Um. Teyla? Who else is there?"
Rod leaned against a wall and raised an eyebrow. "Well, I think Sam actually found it amusing, but Katie's going to need therapy."
"What'd I do?" John demanded. "Elizabeth said I didn't do anything. Jesus Christ, does she have my underwear?"
Rod grimaced. "No, Jesus, calm down. I didn't know anything about any underwear. Did Elizabeth not mention the drinking game while she was playing Dumbledore with you?"
"Drinking game?" John did not remember any drinking games. Most Athosian drinking games involved tongue twisters in Ancient anyway, so he was pretty sure he could never have played them.
Rod nodded, folding his arms. "You tried to make Sam and Katie play Never Have I Ever with ruus wine. Except most of your statements were about, well, sex. Specifically, sex with me, actually. If I didn't already know you were insane, I might be demanding an apology myself, and as it is we're all going to be doing some serious repression for the foreseeable future."
That actually was not the worst thing John could've imagined, and frankly he'd never liked Katie or her weird buggy eyes and so he didn't feel all that bad about traumatizing her. That only left Teyla. "So what do I say to Teyla?" he asked.
Rod sighed, and sat down on a crate. "Well, it might help to start by explaining what the squirrels that power your brain were doing during the whole adventure. Was I hallucinating when you two agreed that this in fact counted as a date?"
"She was the one who was all smiling and touching on Kanaan!" John said. "Who I did not know was married at the time, I'd like to point out."
"You were jealous?" Rod asked, sounding somewhat surprised.
"Well, duh." John flopped down on a box, which crumpled under him; luckily it was just plastic pipettes for the chemistry and biology labs on the second floor and not, like, nitroglycerin. He found himself a more sturdy crate as he explained, "I mean, she was all touching on him, and smiling at him, and she hugged him…."
"She told me they were best friends before she was taken," Rod said. "They'd both thought the other was dead all these years."
"Well, how was I supposed to know that?" John protested. "I mean, okay, how did she flirt with me? Smiling, touching, food. How did she flirt with him? Smiling, touching…I bet she gave him food."
"She didn't," Rod said. "And she wasn't flirting with him. You know, considering we've lived here for over three years, you really don't have a clue about Athosian culture, do you?"
John suspected he was about to get a lecture on it, but didn't see any way around that. "What do you mean?"
Rod sighed. "Were you too busy plotting his untimely demise, or did you happen to notice that Kanaan's surname is Emmagen too?"
"So what?" John said. "There's lots of Emmagens. Halling's an Emmagen. I thought it was like Korea, you know, 'cause half the people in Korea are named Kim. I read that once."
"It's not like Korea," Rod said slowly. "Emmagen signifies a kinship grouping, sort of like a clan, which means unless they were…well, I wouldn't say the last men in Pegasus, but if the Athosian population was reduced to a fraction of their current numbers, maybe then Teyla could marry within Emmagen. As it stands, they've got colonies on thirty planets, so even if Teyla weren't ridiculously fixated on you, it would be taboo to marry within her kinship group."
John thought about this for a minute. "Are you saying Kanaan is Teyla's cousin?"
"No," Rod said, "but if you want to pretend I did, that works, too."
John leaned back and whacked his head on a light fixture, then decided he kind of deserved that. "I didn't know," he muttered, then frowned, because he sounded a little bit too much like Keller just there.
"No, you didn't," Rod agreed, "because for you, culture is something that happens to other people."
"I'm not good at this!"
Rod moved over to sit next to John, in a friendly kind of way. "No, you're not," he agreed. "But Teyla likes you anyway, God only knows why. Remember that this isn't the first time you've embarrassed the hell out of her in front of her people, or offended her, or done something utterly ridiculous in front of her because you are socially retarded. Either she's equally insane or she's got the patience of a saint, so I'm certain that with enough groveling and prostration, you can eventually get her forgiveness."
John thought about this. "D'you think I should bring chocolate?"
Rod shrugged. "Can't hurt."
"What about flowers?"
"Might be going overboard," Rod said. "Remember when we brought her those get-well flowers and she tried to eat them?"
"That was the first year," John said. "She knows what they mean now."
"Well, just make sure you don't pick anything poisonous. And apologize to Katie while you're down there."
-\--\--\-
John did get flowers (non-poisonous, verified as such by Parrish since Katie was actively avoiding him), and since the Phoenix had brought nonperishable foodstuffs he also got chocolates and Oreos and the good pudding cups. He also talked Abdirova into getting him candles, because everything was better with candles, or at least that's what he thought. Maybe he should run his plan by Rod before executing it. No, he could totally do this. He was a man. This was manly of him. He would figure out what definition of manhood he was playing by later.
He got a little hung up on the question of location, because getting Teyla to come to his quarters seemed weird when he was the one apologizing, but he didn't think he could bring lit candles to her place with the food and the flowers, and lighting them after he got there seemed weird. Then again, if he lit them at his place he'd have to call her over the radio to come, because he couldn't just leave lit candles standing around-well, maybe if he put them in mugs or something, but that didn't seem romantic, and anyway they weren't that big so there was a chance they'd melt before he found Teyla and talked her back to his place. But going to get her and then lighting the candles when he got back seemed just as awkward as taking them to her place, unless he rigged up some kind of auto-ignition system and tied it in to the door controls so they'd light on their own when he got Teyla inside (assuming he got Teyla inside) and so he started playing around with the idea just to see if it was worth the effort, and he was debating the efficacy of electrical versus chemical ignition when somebody knocked on his door.
It was Teyla. She had a plate of steaks in her hands. "Hello," she said.
"Um. Hi." John looked at the steaks, which were definitely red meat and at least an inch thick. There were like six of them. He didn’t have a clue what that meant. "You want to come in?"
"Yes," she said. "I think we must talk."
He decided at the last second to light the candles, fumbling with matches while she stood in the middle of the room with the platter of steaks. Then he offered her the food, which was in a crumpled and sticky plastic grocery sack (Menard's) that had somehow made its way to the Atlantis mess hall, and the flowers, which were in a bucket. "Um. I brought you these. And stuff."
"These are from the first hunting of the colony on Erryx," Teyla said. "Kanaan gifted me with them, and I wish to share with you."
Okay. Teyla brought him meat. John stared at the platter, and she stared at the flowers and the Menard's bag, and eventually it occurred to John that she'd come here to talk, and now that she was here, he could start with the apologizing. "Let's sit down," he declared, and put everything on the floor.
Teyla put the meat on the floor too, and then sat cross-legged on the ground, so John felt like he had to sit on the ground too. He did give her a pillow, but she held it in her lap. "May I speak first?" she asked.
John shrugged. "If you-I mean, I'm in the one who needs to do all the apologizing, but if you want to, you know, yell at me for a while first, I think that's your prerogative, and then I'll start."
"I do not wish to yell at you," Teyla said, and she shut her eyes. "I think I owe you an apology as well. I was so eager to see Kanaan that I…neglected you."
"Not your fault," John said, thought he was also perversely pleased that she was acknowledging it. "I mean, he's like your friend and stuff, right?"
"He was," she said. "But you are my friend now-more than a friend-and I was rude to you. I am sorry."
Oddly enough, it was easier to make the words come out after she'd said them. "Sorry I got drunk and ruined the festival," he said. "I, uh, it wasn't the most constructive way to, you know, deal. Kanaan probably thinks I'm some crazy jealous asshole." And he's kinda right.
Except Teyla suddenly got that amazing tiny smile and said, "Actually, between your cool conduct towards him and your discussion with Colonel Carter and Dr. Brown about Rod's sexual habits, I believe Kanaan now thinks you are kineydu--I believe your people say 'gay.'"
"What?" John blurted, forgetting the part where this was supposed to be mature adult (and occasionally manly) discussion. "I just can't fucking win, can I?"
"If we return to Erryx, I will be certain to correct him," Teyla assured him.
And so there was the apology part done. John looked at the steaks and the bag of candy. "You want to, um, eat those now? Or we can put them in the fridge until later."
Teyla took a deep breath. "There is something else I must say."
Oh shit. Strike three. John was doomed to eternal loneliness. "You don't have to say it," he blurted. "Just, um, close the door on your way out? Only it does that itself. So maybe just leave quietly. I don't know."
Teyla blinked. "I am not leaving."
"You're not?" John tried not to let himself crumple with relief. "I mean, um, of course you're not. I should stop interrupting you like a jackass. Go on."
She didn't speak for a moment, and John berated himself with thoughts of cucumbers and icebergs to avoid filling the silence for her. Eventually, Teyla said, "I was a Runner for many years, and while I ran not even my thoughts were my own. I thought of nothing but my own survival-I dared not think of anything else. My people and my past were became nothing but painful shadows, and the limit of my future was the span of my supplies or the length of a night-nothing more."
Then she went silent again, and John could think of blizzards and Johnny Cash all he wanted, he couldn't just not say something to that. "That's not your life anymore, though," he told her. "You're with us, now."
"I am with you," Teyla said, and her brow creased. "But…I am with you but not of you. I still misunderstand your customs. Ronon tried to explain to me this thing called 'footsie,' for example, and I only managed to injure you."
John decided that "footsie" was going on the same list as "virile," and probably "polyamory" too, so he didn't have to think about any of them ever again. He tried to concentrate on Teyla. "It wasn't, I mean, you didn't…so you don't get us." He tried to smile are her. "Most of the time I don't get my people, either. It happens."
"It does," Teyla said, but she didn't sound like she was making a joke. "John, I was barely more than a child when the Wraith culled our colony. Sometimes, when I am among my people…as I was during the harvest festival…I feel that I know them, that I am in my place, that I am home. But other times-many, many other times-I walk among Athosians and feel myself a stranger. My own people feel to me as alien as yours."
And she was frowning, and what was worse, she was slouching, and that violated one of John's universal constants-three strikes you're out, and Teyla stands up straight. He panicked blindly for a moment, but then from somewhere deep in his brain, something (a thing that sounded vaguely like Rod) kicked him, and he crawled across the floor so he was sitting next to Teyla instead of opposite her. He felt weird putting a hand on her back, but she leaned into him just a little when he did, so he dared let his whole arm lay across her shoulders. How was it he never noticed how tiny she was? He licked his lips a couple of times, and eventually managed to say, "So I didn't get kidnapped by space vampires as a kid. But, um, you know my mom was…kind of weird, right?"
"I believe your usual phrase is 'batshit insane,'" Teyla said.
"Yeah, that too." John found a bit of bare skin near the collar of Teyla's shirt and brushed his thumb over it. It felt nice, and she didn't object, so he did it again. "And my dad, he didn't really want anything to do with me, he had his other, normal people family. So I just went where my mom went, and sometimes we did some pretty weird stuff and…the point is, I'm not exactly normal myself. So, um, I don't know where I was going with this." He breathed deep, exhaled, and swallowed, trying to focus. "I guess I kind of understand not belonging to anybody. Because I don't, really. I'm not kidding about not understanding my people, I just decided a while ago not to care."
"And do you not care?" Teyla asked quietly.
John shrugged as best he could with her under his arm. "Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't."
Teyla reached up, and for a minute he thought she was going to push his hand off, but instead she laced her fingers with his. "It was hard, to learn to think again beyond the next day and the next meal, to rely upon others and let them rely upon me. It was hard to admit…to imagine…I have wanted this for some time, John, but I did not know how to say it to you, or whether it was even possible. If you would want it. If I was whole enough to have it."
"We're both kind of fucked up people," John admitted. "But did you notice we're talking about our feelings and stuff? I don't think you've talked this much to me like ever."
And to his surprise, Teyla laughed out loud. For a horrible moment he thought she was laughing at him, you know, in the bad way, but then she put an arm around his waist and he immediately decided that her laugh was the best thing ever and he needed to hear it more often. Her eyes, when she looked up at him, were sparkling. "Then this is possible?"
"This is totally possible," John said. "Only I think we need to make it clear that I am not the girl in this relationship."
Teyla raised her eyebrow. "I would think that is quite obvious."
"You," John told her, "would be surprised."
-\--\--\-
So they ate steaks and pudding for dinner, and John put on The Matrix, because it was handy and had lots of fighting in it. They didn't end up paying much attention to it anyway.
And in the morning, after they'd cleaned up themselves and the candle wax and pudding cups, they met Rod and Ronon in the mess for breakfast. Ronon was smiling altogether too smugly, and John noticed that at another table, Melena was showing Keller how to cast on for knitting. They might've been playing footsie under the table, too.
Rod looked at John and Teyla and sighed loudly. "So just for reference, am I the only one who did not get laid last night?"
"That is entirely your own problem," John declared, and across the table, Teyla smiled a tiny smile.
Part One
Part Two
Part Three