sga drabble wip: 12 arms to hold you
Title: 12 Arms To Hold You
Pairing: pre John/Rodney
Word count: 2200
Ratings/Warnings: SFW. This story may be unsafe for people with triggers. ( skip) Animal transformation, inability to communicate, privacy intrusion.
Summary: "Dr. McKay turned into-- he looks like an octopus."
*
By the time John makes it to the marine biology labs, it's all over but the floating.
"It's supposed to be a healing device," Marie explains.
"It's always supposed to be something, but every time, it's just a big pile of trouble," says John. "What happened?"
"Dr. McKay turned into-- he looks like an octopus." Marie always was the rip-off-the-Bandaid type.
"I jumped with him into the water," says Ronon, and tilts his head to show off the sucker-marks. "He panicked anyway."
"Ouch," John sympathizes.
"I had a stunner," Ronon grumbles, "I should've just shot him."
-
John buckles in for wacky Ancient weirdness. "Okay. Show me."
Rodney's pretty much an octopus, or rather, a dodecopus. He bobs forlornly around the tank, twelve suckered tentacles lashing.
John presses two fingers against the cool glass. Rodney unwinds two tentacles, lining them up with John's fingers. John adds a third fingertip and Rodney responds with another tentacle.
"I think he's still McKay," says John. "Can you hear me, buddy? Let's do one for yes, two for no, three for... the situation can't be adequately represented in simplistic binary terms, jackass."
Rodney quickly changes from one tentacle to three.
-
"You can hear me," John tells dodecopus-Rodney.
Hesitation, then one tentacle against the glass: Yes.
"You can hear me, but... what. Not very well?"
Yes.
John's no physicist, but hey, even he knows water conducts sound better than air. So the problem must be physiological. "Should we talk louder?" he half-shouts.
No, Rodney thumps against the glass emphatically.
"Quieter?"
Three tentacles, and then lots of tentacle-waving; it's mesmerizing. Rodney talks with his hands a lot normally. Now as a dodecopus, his body seems to be ninety percent flailing limbs.
"Slow down," says John, "I don't speak octopus."
-
Rodney's tentacles churn through the water, his whole balloon-like body portraying rage. Finally he presses the tips of all twelve tentacles to the glass, one at a time.
"Oh hey," John feigns slowness. "I guess more than eight tentacles means you're not technically an octopus, huh."
Seems like dodecapi probably can't froth at the... mouthish part; if they could, Rodney would totally be doing it now.
"If he could reach you, you'd be covered in these," says Ronon, as Marie examines his sucker-bruises.
"But he can't," John grins, waving at Rodney.
Rodney splashes hard, soaking him.
-
"Hey," says John, wounded. "I was mandated to distract you while the eggheads try to figure out what you are and how to get you back. I'm just following orders."
John suspects Rodney's subsequent gestures are tentacle sign language for That'd be a first.
"You'll be okay. Just relax, they've got it covered. Right, Dr. Chun?" John calls to the head of marine biology. They need to hurry up and figure out what he is and more importantly, what he eats.
"He's essentially what he looks like," she answers, "a cephalopod, similar to Amphioctopus marginatus."
"That clears that up," says John.
-
"He's exponentially bigger, of course," Dr. Chun continues excitedly, "and the hyponome is even more muscular than we'd expect in proportion to his size."
John recognizes the full flush of a major geekout and cuts her off. "What can we do for him while he's like this? Can he eat?"
"Of course!" She seems almost offended on Rodney's behalf. "The problem is that Amphidodecopus rodneyolatus-- we've taken the liberty-- originated in Lantea's oceans."
"And we're not on Lantea anymore."
"We had to mimic Lantea's marine environment to allow him to breathe properly," Dr. Chun says. "Food will be another challenge."
-
"No wonder he strangled you a little," John claps Ronon on the back. "The ocean here probably tasted funny to him."
"Better for him than air," Ronon says pointedly, with a narrow look at Rodnopus. "If I hadn't grabbed him and jumped in, he would've suffocated."
"Well, I appreciate it," says John. "Swift thinking."
"We think that Dr. McKay's diffuse nervous system doesn't enable him to hear us clearly through the glass," says Dr. Chun. "We're working on a submergible speaker."
"I could just hop in," John volunteers. "I'm already soaking."
"That might be helpful..."
"Can I bring my surfboard?"
-
An hour later, John's in a wetsuit and snorkeling gear, one foot dangling in the water. "Any tips for handling dodecapi? Are they ticklish?"
"I'm sure you'll be fine, Colonel," says Chun. "He's still Dr. McKay."
"Yeah, but he's eight limbs over his usual allowance," John says. "I don't wanna piss him off."
"You will," says Ronon.
John can't argue with that, so he shrugs and takes the plunge.
Whoa.
The tank is partly built into the wall, and thickly glassed, distorting the view. From outside, John hadn't realized how big it really is-- how big Rodney is now: enormous.
-
Rodney's tentacles whip and curl restlessly around John. Each tentacle is longer than John is tall, and the main bulb of Rodney's body in the middle of it... John could probably swim up inside there.
And wow, is that ever a creepy thought. He tries to forget it immediately.
Up close like this, the whole thing's a lot more real. Rodney's cephalopod body is incredibly foreign. The pursed, banded eyes and pulsing siphon bear no resemblance to Rodney's human eyes and mouth.
John can see through the translucent membranes of the flesh, and Rodney's "head" is empty. John almost panics.
-
John never panics. John's faced down Genii guns, Replicator probes and Wraith queens, and he's felt fear-- Christ, has he ever-- but he's never panicked.
It's just... this is Rodney, Rodney McKay, and he doesn't have a brain. The atavistic horror of the thought has John pinwheeling underwater.
Two of Rodney's tentacles nudge John back to the surface.
John shudders a little, instinct urging him to recoil, but he listens to his senses instead of his hindbrain.
The tentacles have a soft, crepey texture, the suckers underneath firm and ridged. They feel gossamer, but they bear John up, surprisingly strong.
-
"Jesus, Rodney, are you okay?" John blurts.
One tentacle wraps around John's wrist, and three others touch the glass side of the tank.
Right. The situation can't be adequately represented in simplistic binary terms, jackass.
"Can you hear me better when I'm in here?" John asks.
Yes.
"Good. Radek and the engineers are slaving over the doohickey that landed you here."
Rodney hesitates. Yes, he signals, then three tentacles again.
"I know, this sucks. You probably would've rather been a cat. Or at least a mammal." John considers. "Maybe a bear. That wouldn't even be much of a change."
-
After Rodney retaliates-- for such soft limbs, tentacles can manage an awfully firm prod in the ribs-- John says, "Okay, now the bad news."
No.
"Sorry, pal. The marine biologists aren't sure what you can eat. To find out, they're going to have to, well. Examine your beak."
Rodney's tentacles swirl madly. Six of them curl protectively around the nexus of his limbs.
"It's that or starve. Will you let Chun do it?"
Rodney doesn't signal. A minute later, he slowly drifts to the surface and upends himself, opening his arms.
Chun leans and probes Rodney's beak. It looks... sharp.
-
The beak thing possibly bothered Rodney; he seems subdued for a while. But once the marine biologists bring in fish, he perks up.
The fish are still alive and wriggling. John decides to hop out of the tank for this part.
Curiosity compels him to stick around and watch through the glass, though. Cephalopod Rodney has eating habits just as flagrant as human Rodney's, but now he has the marine biologists enabling him.
"Dr. McKay, could you contract your mantle around the buccal mass?"
"I think I can see the caecum through the skin on this side."
John skips lunch.
-
After eating, Rodney drifts around a little, but soon he's bored and agitated, reaching over the side of the tank to try to snag a tablet. The marine biologists hastily move everything out of his reach.
John frowns. "Find an expendable tablet and give it to him."
Rodney tries dangling out tentacles to hold the tablet up to the glass, but he can't seem to see it that way. He lifts his eyes from the water and holds it above him, but from the thrashing of his other tentacles, John can tell that's not working either.
"Sorry, pal," he sympathizes.
-
Rodney holds out the tablet, one tentacle cinched around it. John takes it back. It's damp but no worse for wear.
"Chances are he can't see the screen with his current eye structure," says Chun.
"Or he didn't understand it," says Dr. Panagakos. "There's nothing yet to indicate that he's retained his human consciousness. Of course we won't understand specifically what kind of eye he has without dissection, which unfortunately, I'm told, isn't an option..."
John jumps back just in time as Rodney slings water out of the tank, deluging Panagakos.
"There you go," John says. "He's definitely still McKay."
-
Ronon comes back from lunch with Teyla.
"The engineers are lagging," Ronon says.
"Working with Rodney may've given you the wrong idea about how long science usually takes," John chances a guess.
"They have projected an image of the marine biology lab onto the wall," says Teyla. "Dr. Cassorla said they were playing a game called 'Pin the tentacle on the science tyrant.'"
"Oh really," says John dangerously.
Then he sees what Teyla's carrying: booze, candy, cigarettes. It looks like she confiscated most of the engineering lab's stash.
"Strangely, no one seems to want to play any longer," she says.
-
John's glad to hear Teyla whipped the engineers into line, but he doesn't relax until Zelenka returns from the Alpha Site inspection and takes over in the labs.
Unfortunately, six hours later, Zelenka has nothing new to report. "I'm afraid we must take it apart, and that will be time-consuming. I've projected two days. Very delicate device. Why couldn't Rodney have a mishap with something simple?"
"I'll pass along your complaint," John says dryly, and checks with the linguists.
Dr. Pask says, "If only there were a consistent term in Ancient for 'Ascension device.'"
"I hear that," says John.
-
"The Ancients believed that transformation into one of several animals could provide insight to aid an individual's quest for ascension," Dr. Pask explains. "Based on our research so far, Dr. McKay is now in the form of a creature called a caruek. The device chooses this form for anyone whose disposition is primarily cerebral."
"Right... and what's it say about reversing this transformation?"
"If we'd learned that, we would have commed right away," Pask chides gently. "We're trying, Colonel Sheppard, but the Ancients' language is layered in centuries of context and allusions."
"I know you're doing your best," John apologizes.
-
John drags his feet returning to the marine biology lab.
"Everyone's working hard," he says. "But so far not a lot of progress to report."
Rodney droops in the water, his limbs drifting.
"Is he okay?" John asks Dr. Chun.
"He's healthy," she says. "But I think he's bored."
Yes, Rodney signals.
"Sorry, Dr. McKay," she says. "If you'd allocated our department more resources, we could've had a bigger Lantean habitat to put you in now."
Rodney folds and assembles four tentacles into a recognizable rendition of the finger.
"That's professional," says John, and gets the tentacle-finger too.
-
"He seems to retain his personality and as far as we can tell, his faculties," says Chun. "But even if he were completely given over to the cephalopod form, I think he'd still be sick of this empty tank. Many known species of octopodes get very restless. They'll even leave their tank if they're left unoccupied too long."
The two of them look at the tank, and the lab full of delicate, breakable equipment, and Rodney, whose skin looks even more delicate as a dodecopus than he claims it is normally.
"Okay," John cracks his knuckles. "Commencing Operation Entertain Rodney."
-
Chun has plenty of ideas for things to keep Rodney engaged, but most of them are predicated on the assumption that Rodney's mostly gone cephalopod. John doesn't believe that, but he suits up and brings a couple of big screwtop jars into the tank with him anyway.
As he expects, Rodney reacts to the jars with scorn. He fills one with water, lifts it out of the tank and threatens to tip it on Chun.
"Knock it off, Rodney! She's trying to help!" says John.
Rodney probably can't roll his eyes in this body, but it looks like he's trying.
-
Rodney backs down from biting the hand that feeds, bringing the jar back and shoving it unceremoniously into a corner.
"Come on, pal," John cajoles. "Chun needs to get an idea of your dexterity."
After a storm of limb-waving, grudgingly, Rodney screws the tops on and off the jars. Then he fixes one banded eye on John and wiggles the tip of a tentacle against the glass of the tank.
"Shit, we're idiots," John says.
Rodney taps Yes repeatedly and very emphatically.
John swims to the side and looks down at Chun. "Are there any bath crayons on Atlantis?"
- (From here, drabbles are post-competition rewards for votes!)
So now the chemists are in on the action, formulating bath crayons that'll be safe for Rodney and write legibly on the glass-like walls of the tank.
Once Rodney can communicate, John won't have any reason to stick around. He's surprised no one's mentioned yet that he's not exactly bringing any unique talents to bear.
Though Rodney seems curious about his new body now. He hesitantly winds a tentacle-tip around John's ankle. Soon John's snorkeling alongside him, offering a hand, a foot, the other hand for Rodney to tap, showing he can both see and find each target.
-
Chun talks John through the strangeness into familiarity with Rodney's cephalopod form. The crinkly delicate skin covers powerful ropey limbs. Chun has Rodney squeeze a stress ball, and Rodney cinches it almost in half.
Rodney's pale and speckled tan; John wonders if human-Rodney has freckles. His chromatophores shift colors wherever John touches, mimicking the pinkish bronze of John's own skin. There's something strangely intimate about it, the hue bleeding from John to cephalo-Rodney.
John has to hop out eventually, waterlogged, with grooves on his face from the snorkeling mask. "I'll be back tomorrow, pal."
Rodney signals, Yes.
-
The next day, John brings his wetsuit to marine biology, so he can stay in the water for longer stretches. Also, Rodney kept nudging his belly, and John suspects he was mocking John's dark, substantial body hair.
Or maybe he was worried about it. John's not sure what's oxygenating that water, or if hair could clog up the works.
Teyla's in the tank when he arrives. "Hello, John! There has been little progress, but Rodney seems to be in better spirits this morning."
"That's great!" John ignores a pang, proud the team's rallying around Rodney.
Also, Teyla in a swimsuit. Wow.
-
John drops into the tank with Teyla and Rodney carrying a buoyancy-neutral ball from Chun. "Another dexterity test, buddy," he says. "We're going to try to keep this away from you; you try to capture it."
Rodney brings all his limbs up to touch his head, surprisingly readable body language for exasperation. He's clearly aware they're not "testing dexterity," just keeping him busy.
But then he whips out a tentacle and snatches the ball right out of John's hand, so John figures it's on. He wrestles the ball back from Rodney-- fighting his tentacles feels weird, but it's fun.
-
Playing keepaway with Rodney teaches them a few more things about his dodecopus form. His eyesight is keen, his spatial memory remarkable: he can turn away from the ball as it floats by and fling an arm back to grab it unseen.
Teyla gets the ball. Rodney reaches for her; she says, garbled by bubbles, "John, swim up!"
Rodney reacts with sudden agitation. They stop playing; Teyla says, "Perhaps he was better able to understand me because I was underwater, or because his limb touched my throat as I spoke."
Yes, Rodney signals, tentacles flapping.
"Really?" John asks. "Try me."
-
TBC
Pairing: pre John/Rodney
Word count: 2200
Ratings/Warnings: SFW. This story may be unsafe for people with triggers. ( skip) Animal transformation, inability to communicate, privacy intrusion.
Summary: "Dr. McKay turned into-- he looks like an octopus."
*
By the time John makes it to the marine biology labs, it's all over but the floating.
"It's supposed to be a healing device," Marie explains.
"It's always supposed to be something, but every time, it's just a big pile of trouble," says John. "What happened?"
"Dr. McKay turned into-- he looks like an octopus." Marie always was the rip-off-the-Bandaid type.
"I jumped with him into the water," says Ronon, and tilts his head to show off the sucker-marks. "He panicked anyway."
"Ouch," John sympathizes.
"I had a stunner," Ronon grumbles, "I should've just shot him."
-
John buckles in for wacky Ancient weirdness. "Okay. Show me."
Rodney's pretty much an octopus, or rather, a dodecopus. He bobs forlornly around the tank, twelve suckered tentacles lashing.
John presses two fingers against the cool glass. Rodney unwinds two tentacles, lining them up with John's fingers. John adds a third fingertip and Rodney responds with another tentacle.
"I think he's still McKay," says John. "Can you hear me, buddy? Let's do one for yes, two for no, three for... the situation can't be adequately represented in simplistic binary terms, jackass."
Rodney quickly changes from one tentacle to three.
-
"You can hear me," John tells dodecopus-Rodney.
Hesitation, then one tentacle against the glass: Yes.
"You can hear me, but... what. Not very well?"
Yes.
John's no physicist, but hey, even he knows water conducts sound better than air. So the problem must be physiological. "Should we talk louder?" he half-shouts.
No, Rodney thumps against the glass emphatically.
"Quieter?"
Three tentacles, and then lots of tentacle-waving; it's mesmerizing. Rodney talks with his hands a lot normally. Now as a dodecopus, his body seems to be ninety percent flailing limbs.
"Slow down," says John, "I don't speak octopus."
-
Rodney's tentacles churn through the water, his whole balloon-like body portraying rage. Finally he presses the tips of all twelve tentacles to the glass, one at a time.
"Oh hey," John feigns slowness. "I guess more than eight tentacles means you're not technically an octopus, huh."
Seems like dodecapi probably can't froth at the... mouthish part; if they could, Rodney would totally be doing it now.
"If he could reach you, you'd be covered in these," says Ronon, as Marie examines his sucker-bruises.
"But he can't," John grins, waving at Rodney.
Rodney splashes hard, soaking him.
-
"Hey," says John, wounded. "I was mandated to distract you while the eggheads try to figure out what you are and how to get you back. I'm just following orders."
John suspects Rodney's subsequent gestures are tentacle sign language for That'd be a first.
"You'll be okay. Just relax, they've got it covered. Right, Dr. Chun?" John calls to the head of marine biology. They need to hurry up and figure out what he is and more importantly, what he eats.
"He's essentially what he looks like," she answers, "a cephalopod, similar to Amphioctopus marginatus."
"That clears that up," says John.
-
"He's exponentially bigger, of course," Dr. Chun continues excitedly, "and the hyponome is even more muscular than we'd expect in proportion to his size."
John recognizes the full flush of a major geekout and cuts her off. "What can we do for him while he's like this? Can he eat?"
"Of course!" She seems almost offended on Rodney's behalf. "The problem is that Amphidodecopus rodneyolatus-- we've taken the liberty-- originated in Lantea's oceans."
"And we're not on Lantea anymore."
"We had to mimic Lantea's marine environment to allow him to breathe properly," Dr. Chun says. "Food will be another challenge."
-
"No wonder he strangled you a little," John claps Ronon on the back. "The ocean here probably tasted funny to him."
"Better for him than air," Ronon says pointedly, with a narrow look at Rodnopus. "If I hadn't grabbed him and jumped in, he would've suffocated."
"Well, I appreciate it," says John. "Swift thinking."
"We think that Dr. McKay's diffuse nervous system doesn't enable him to hear us clearly through the glass," says Dr. Chun. "We're working on a submergible speaker."
"I could just hop in," John volunteers. "I'm already soaking."
"That might be helpful..."
"Can I bring my surfboard?"
-
An hour later, John's in a wetsuit and snorkeling gear, one foot dangling in the water. "Any tips for handling dodecapi? Are they ticklish?"
"I'm sure you'll be fine, Colonel," says Chun. "He's still Dr. McKay."
"Yeah, but he's eight limbs over his usual allowance," John says. "I don't wanna piss him off."
"You will," says Ronon.
John can't argue with that, so he shrugs and takes the plunge.
Whoa.
The tank is partly built into the wall, and thickly glassed, distorting the view. From outside, John hadn't realized how big it really is-- how big Rodney is now: enormous.
-
Rodney's tentacles whip and curl restlessly around John. Each tentacle is longer than John is tall, and the main bulb of Rodney's body in the middle of it... John could probably swim up inside there.
And wow, is that ever a creepy thought. He tries to forget it immediately.
Up close like this, the whole thing's a lot more real. Rodney's cephalopod body is incredibly foreign. The pursed, banded eyes and pulsing siphon bear no resemblance to Rodney's human eyes and mouth.
John can see through the translucent membranes of the flesh, and Rodney's "head" is empty. John almost panics.
-
John never panics. John's faced down Genii guns, Replicator probes and Wraith queens, and he's felt fear-- Christ, has he ever-- but he's never panicked.
It's just... this is Rodney, Rodney McKay, and he doesn't have a brain. The atavistic horror of the thought has John pinwheeling underwater.
Two of Rodney's tentacles nudge John back to the surface.
John shudders a little, instinct urging him to recoil, but he listens to his senses instead of his hindbrain.
The tentacles have a soft, crepey texture, the suckers underneath firm and ridged. They feel gossamer, but they bear John up, surprisingly strong.
-
"Jesus, Rodney, are you okay?" John blurts.
One tentacle wraps around John's wrist, and three others touch the glass side of the tank.
Right. The situation can't be adequately represented in simplistic binary terms, jackass.
"Can you hear me better when I'm in here?" John asks.
Yes.
"Good. Radek and the engineers are slaving over the doohickey that landed you here."
Rodney hesitates. Yes, he signals, then three tentacles again.
"I know, this sucks. You probably would've rather been a cat. Or at least a mammal." John considers. "Maybe a bear. That wouldn't even be much of a change."
-
After Rodney retaliates-- for such soft limbs, tentacles can manage an awfully firm prod in the ribs-- John says, "Okay, now the bad news."
No.
"Sorry, pal. The marine biologists aren't sure what you can eat. To find out, they're going to have to, well. Examine your beak."
Rodney's tentacles swirl madly. Six of them curl protectively around the nexus of his limbs.
"It's that or starve. Will you let Chun do it?"
Rodney doesn't signal. A minute later, he slowly drifts to the surface and upends himself, opening his arms.
Chun leans and probes Rodney's beak. It looks... sharp.
-
The beak thing possibly bothered Rodney; he seems subdued for a while. But once the marine biologists bring in fish, he perks up.
The fish are still alive and wriggling. John decides to hop out of the tank for this part.
Curiosity compels him to stick around and watch through the glass, though. Cephalopod Rodney has eating habits just as flagrant as human Rodney's, but now he has the marine biologists enabling him.
"Dr. McKay, could you contract your mantle around the buccal mass?"
"I think I can see the caecum through the skin on this side."
John skips lunch.
-
After eating, Rodney drifts around a little, but soon he's bored and agitated, reaching over the side of the tank to try to snag a tablet. The marine biologists hastily move everything out of his reach.
John frowns. "Find an expendable tablet and give it to him."
Rodney tries dangling out tentacles to hold the tablet up to the glass, but he can't seem to see it that way. He lifts his eyes from the water and holds it above him, but from the thrashing of his other tentacles, John can tell that's not working either.
"Sorry, pal," he sympathizes.
-
Rodney holds out the tablet, one tentacle cinched around it. John takes it back. It's damp but no worse for wear.
"Chances are he can't see the screen with his current eye structure," says Chun.
"Or he didn't understand it," says Dr. Panagakos. "There's nothing yet to indicate that he's retained his human consciousness. Of course we won't understand specifically what kind of eye he has without dissection, which unfortunately, I'm told, isn't an option..."
John jumps back just in time as Rodney slings water out of the tank, deluging Panagakos.
"There you go," John says. "He's definitely still McKay."
-
Ronon comes back from lunch with Teyla.
"The engineers are lagging," Ronon says.
"Working with Rodney may've given you the wrong idea about how long science usually takes," John chances a guess.
"They have projected an image of the marine biology lab onto the wall," says Teyla. "Dr. Cassorla said they were playing a game called 'Pin the tentacle on the science tyrant.'"
"Oh really," says John dangerously.
Then he sees what Teyla's carrying: booze, candy, cigarettes. It looks like she confiscated most of the engineering lab's stash.
"Strangely, no one seems to want to play any longer," she says.
-
John's glad to hear Teyla whipped the engineers into line, but he doesn't relax until Zelenka returns from the Alpha Site inspection and takes over in the labs.
Unfortunately, six hours later, Zelenka has nothing new to report. "I'm afraid we must take it apart, and that will be time-consuming. I've projected two days. Very delicate device. Why couldn't Rodney have a mishap with something simple?"
"I'll pass along your complaint," John says dryly, and checks with the linguists.
Dr. Pask says, "If only there were a consistent term in Ancient for 'Ascension device.'"
"I hear that," says John.
-
"The Ancients believed that transformation into one of several animals could provide insight to aid an individual's quest for ascension," Dr. Pask explains. "Based on our research so far, Dr. McKay is now in the form of a creature called a caruek. The device chooses this form for anyone whose disposition is primarily cerebral."
"Right... and what's it say about reversing this transformation?"
"If we'd learned that, we would have commed right away," Pask chides gently. "We're trying, Colonel Sheppard, but the Ancients' language is layered in centuries of context and allusions."
"I know you're doing your best," John apologizes.
-
John drags his feet returning to the marine biology lab.
"Everyone's working hard," he says. "But so far not a lot of progress to report."
Rodney droops in the water, his limbs drifting.
"Is he okay?" John asks Dr. Chun.
"He's healthy," she says. "But I think he's bored."
Yes, Rodney signals.
"Sorry, Dr. McKay," she says. "If you'd allocated our department more resources, we could've had a bigger Lantean habitat to put you in now."
Rodney folds and assembles four tentacles into a recognizable rendition of the finger.
"That's professional," says John, and gets the tentacle-finger too.
-
"He seems to retain his personality and as far as we can tell, his faculties," says Chun. "But even if he were completely given over to the cephalopod form, I think he'd still be sick of this empty tank. Many known species of octopodes get very restless. They'll even leave their tank if they're left unoccupied too long."
The two of them look at the tank, and the lab full of delicate, breakable equipment, and Rodney, whose skin looks even more delicate as a dodecopus than he claims it is normally.
"Okay," John cracks his knuckles. "Commencing Operation Entertain Rodney."
-
Chun has plenty of ideas for things to keep Rodney engaged, but most of them are predicated on the assumption that Rodney's mostly gone cephalopod. John doesn't believe that, but he suits up and brings a couple of big screwtop jars into the tank with him anyway.
As he expects, Rodney reacts to the jars with scorn. He fills one with water, lifts it out of the tank and threatens to tip it on Chun.
"Knock it off, Rodney! She's trying to help!" says John.
Rodney probably can't roll his eyes in this body, but it looks like he's trying.
-
Rodney backs down from biting the hand that feeds, bringing the jar back and shoving it unceremoniously into a corner.
"Come on, pal," John cajoles. "Chun needs to get an idea of your dexterity."
After a storm of limb-waving, grudgingly, Rodney screws the tops on and off the jars. Then he fixes one banded eye on John and wiggles the tip of a tentacle against the glass of the tank.
"Shit, we're idiots," John says.
Rodney taps Yes repeatedly and very emphatically.
John swims to the side and looks down at Chun. "Are there any bath crayons on Atlantis?"
- (From here, drabbles are post-competition rewards for votes!)
So now the chemists are in on the action, formulating bath crayons that'll be safe for Rodney and write legibly on the glass-like walls of the tank.
Once Rodney can communicate, John won't have any reason to stick around. He's surprised no one's mentioned yet that he's not exactly bringing any unique talents to bear.
Though Rodney seems curious about his new body now. He hesitantly winds a tentacle-tip around John's ankle. Soon John's snorkeling alongside him, offering a hand, a foot, the other hand for Rodney to tap, showing he can both see and find each target.
-
Chun talks John through the strangeness into familiarity with Rodney's cephalopod form. The crinkly delicate skin covers powerful ropey limbs. Chun has Rodney squeeze a stress ball, and Rodney cinches it almost in half.
Rodney's pale and speckled tan; John wonders if human-Rodney has freckles. His chromatophores shift colors wherever John touches, mimicking the pinkish bronze of John's own skin. There's something strangely intimate about it, the hue bleeding from John to cephalo-Rodney.
John has to hop out eventually, waterlogged, with grooves on his face from the snorkeling mask. "I'll be back tomorrow, pal."
Rodney signals, Yes.
-
The next day, John brings his wetsuit to marine biology, so he can stay in the water for longer stretches. Also, Rodney kept nudging his belly, and John suspects he was mocking John's dark, substantial body hair.
Or maybe he was worried about it. John's not sure what's oxygenating that water, or if hair could clog up the works.
Teyla's in the tank when he arrives. "Hello, John! There has been little progress, but Rodney seems to be in better spirits this morning."
"That's great!" John ignores a pang, proud the team's rallying around Rodney.
Also, Teyla in a swimsuit. Wow.
-
John drops into the tank with Teyla and Rodney carrying a buoyancy-neutral ball from Chun. "Another dexterity test, buddy," he says. "We're going to try to keep this away from you; you try to capture it."
Rodney brings all his limbs up to touch his head, surprisingly readable body language for exasperation. He's clearly aware they're not "testing dexterity," just keeping him busy.
But then he whips out a tentacle and snatches the ball right out of John's hand, so John figures it's on. He wrestles the ball back from Rodney-- fighting his tentacles feels weird, but it's fun.
-
Playing keepaway with Rodney teaches them a few more things about his dodecopus form. His eyesight is keen, his spatial memory remarkable: he can turn away from the ball as it floats by and fling an arm back to grab it unseen.
Teyla gets the ball. Rodney reaches for her; she says, garbled by bubbles, "John, swim up!"
Rodney reacts with sudden agitation. They stop playing; Teyla says, "Perhaps he was better able to understand me because I was underwater, or because his limb touched my throat as I spoke."
Yes, Rodney signals, tentacles flapping.
"Really?" John asks. "Try me."
-
TBC