Fic: Defense Mechanism, 4/6 (nc-17)
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
“The preliminary tests are in,” Carson breathed excitedly to Caldwell. “We may have a viable alternative cure with the Sukarian plant."
“What are our odds?”
Carson paused. “70/30, at best. But I've conducted three tests on samples of Elizabeth’s blood, as well as two additional ones on Colonel Sheppard’s blood work. All indications are positive with only small irregularities.”
Caldwell paused, then nodded his assent. “Do it.”
Carson turned back quickly to his team, already dispatching a dozen different instructions simultaneously. It had been seven days - seven very long days, but they had finally managed to do the impossible. He could scarcely believe it.
“Bring Dr. Weir to the infirmary quick-”
“Negative, Doctor,” Caldwell overrode. “Administer the treatment at the brig. It’s more secure.”
Carson’s lips thinned. “My instruments and supplies are here. If anything goes wrong, she needs to be-”
“Then make sure nothing goes wrong,” Caldwell cut in. “She’s too dangerous. Take all the supplies and instruments you need, but Dr. Weir doesn’t move from the brig at all.”
Holding back another protest, Carson ruefully turned back to his teammates and nodded in compliance. He watched them take off to gather supplies, and the entire time Carson kept thinking how eager he would be to have Elizabeth back in charge. Caldwell was a good man, and no doubt a strong soldier. But he didn’t appreciate Carson’s input as much as Elizabeth, and there were times where the military needed to heed to medical concerns rather than the other way around. It was one of the many reasons the IOA had placed a civilian in charge in the first place.
Ten minutes later, Carson had half his staff accompany him to the brigs. All but Caldwell actually ventured inside, though. Major Lorne was on guard duty today, and Elizabeth was resting on her single cot in the corner of the brig. When he approached her, he noticed that she had her head turned away from the florescent lighting. The nocturnal habits of the Iratus Bug were completely taking over.
“Major,” Carson called to Lorne. “Dim the lights, please?”
Lorne hesitated, looking to Caldwell. After a beat, Caldwell nodded and Lorne killed the brightest florescent lights in the room, leaving them bathed in the softer illumination of some of the regular lighting. When Carson and the others turned back to the cell, they were all startled to see Elizabeth had risen, standing in front of the cell doors without having made a single sound in her approach. Her inhuman reflects were only one of the many things disconcerting about her.
She was 80% through a complete transformation. Her entire face was nearly unrecognizable with bluish scales, and yellow-tinted irises highlighted her eyes. The gaze was nearly as alien, barely a hint of the intelligent woman that he knew. She still wore her customary red shirt and black pants, but they hugged her curves differently. Her stomach was slimmer, her hips wider, and the scales swept up her forearm and disappeared under her clothes.
“Elizabeth,” Carson greeted, tightly. Though he’d never admit it, a part of him was thankful for Major Lorne’s presence behind them, and equally so of the stunner in his possession. “Step back from the cage, love. I’ve come here to help.”
Elizabeth stared with dead eyes. He prayed there was enough of her left inside that she’d recognize them, but it was an uphill battle. She glanced to Caldwell, then to Lorne.
She finally returned Carson's gaze. “More tests?”
Carson released a tense exhale he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. She was still lucid. "No. No more tests. We’re here to cure you.”
“Cure?” she repeated, the indifferent mask replaced by hope. “You found a cure?”
“Yes, love. We’ve found a cure. You’re going to be all right.”
After a beat, Elizabeth retreated two steps, just enough for Carson and the others to slid open the doors and enter. She looked confused, but slowly sat down on the bed in an apparent act of submissiveness. Though much of her cognitive ability and verbal skills were deteriorating, it heartened Carson to confirm that Elizabeth was still in control of herself.
“Lie back down,” Carson instructed, and then, as was routine, they bound her to the bed with restraints that would hold a man twice her size down without difficulty.
Caldwell stepped forward. “What are the side-effects to this treatment?”
“We’re about to find out,” Carson answered tersely. “Please, step back and allow me to work.”
After a beat of hesitation, Caldwell retreated to the far wall, allowing Carson to set up properly. He set out three injections that he needed to administer to her, in the precise order that would construct the perfect medication cocktail.
“All right,” Carson said, bracing himself with a deep breath. “Let’s begin.”
John felt like he was going out of his mind.
‘I’m scared’, she breathed to him, and he wanted so badly to reach for her.
‘Shh, Elizabeth. You’re safe.’
Too aware of the events unfolding in the cell adjacent to his, he tried to leash his emotions. Elizabeth’s fear was nearly choking. He tried to keep her calm; Carson and the others were only there to help her. He knew that it was his voice in her head, through their shared telepathy, that managed to keep Elizabeth so docile.
‘A cure,’ she told him.
‘Just let them treat you,’ John acknowledged.
His eyes darkened, inhaling her scent and the stench of her fear. He couldn’t let anything bad happen to her. It had been three days of sharing thoughts, one mind feeding into another, and John felt joined with Elizabeth in a way that he didn’t think he could put into words. It went beyond words. Thoughts, sensations, urges - they shared everything. Right now, he could tell Elizabeth’s instincts were telling her to fight, to struggle, but John was in better control of his baser instincts. Just barely.
The stem cell treatments were working for John. He wasn’t fully cured; the scales still covered a considerable portion of his body, and that codeine feeling was still riding high. But, bit-by-bit, he was slowly becoming the man he used to be. The thing that kept him tethered to his more primitive urges was Elizabeth, and this psychic bond they shared. He wasn’t willing to give that up, not yet, not until he knew that she would be all right.
And now, Carson had come through on the cure. John wasn’t sure what happened after they returned to normal, but he wasn’t thinking about that now. He just wanted Elizabeth safe. Animal instinct still ruled him when it came to that. She needed to be safe.
He wouldn’t allow otherwise.
Carson held up the first syringe, explaining to Elizabeth, “There a three injections I need to administer daily, over six days. This is the first injection, and it’s going to sting a wee bit.”
Elizabeth held still, eying the injection like it was going to be the death of her. Carson tried smiling reassuringly, but twice he broke the needle trying to pierce her tough skin. He finally got it in on the third try, and decompressed the plunger, watching the liquid green medication slip into her veins.
“A-1 complete,” Carson noted, reaching for the following injection. “Moving onto A-2.”
Elizabeth jolted, and Carson’s eyes flew back to her. At first, it seemed to be a stray body movement, but quickly her body began to writhe, jerking and convulsing with unnatural spasms. The restraints strained against her hold, her body curving upwards and she sent out a high-pitched noise that no human could ever make. Shrill and long, Carson clamped his hands over his ears, the noise so high in frequency that he feared his ear drums would shatter.
“What’s going on?” Caldwell yelled from the corner.
“I don’t know!” Carson replied. “This isn’t supposed to be happening! Something must be wron-”
Elizabeth pushed off against the restraints, the bindings beginning to tear. Lorne and Caldwell were instantly on either side of her, holding her down, but the high-pitched shriek continued. It the midst of the chaos, Carson didn’t realize that John was answering the call with another scream. He didn’t hear the noise from the cell one room over, as John started thrashing against the bars of his own brig.
Carson had his attention on other things.
“Hold her down!” Carson yelled. “I must inject a sedative to calm her down!”
“Hurry!” Caldwell urged.
As if Carson needed the prompting.
Together with Lorne and Caldwell, Carson managed to get the sedative administered. After a few more beats of struggling, Elizabeth whimpered and grew still. When he reclined back, Carson was already rethinking over his work and he wondered where things had gone wrong. Maybe the basis of the analysis was incorrect? They should have been working from scratch, not trying to duplicate a treatment that was proving nearly impossible to dupli-
There was a huge crash from behind them. Startled, the men looked up. Something clanged against the wall, and then an inhuman yell echoed from the hallway.
“John,” Elizabeth murmured, tossing in her slumber. “Help.”
Carson looked up to trade looks with the two men.
“Oh, shit,” Lorne declared, rather astutely.
The outside door busted open.
Things happened after that - so fast that Carson could barely follow it. Lorne and Caldwell drew their firearms and shots rang out. A blur whizzed passed, someone screamed, and then Carson was thrown to the ground. Carson felt something brush by him. He saw another flash of blur - something was on the ceiling. Then Carson was hit - with what, by who - he never saw. He was knocked unconscious before he ever caught a clear sight of John’s encroaching attack.
When he finally struggled awake minutes later, he found himself lying on the ground with the unconscious form of Lorne next to him. Caldwell was already awake, wincing as he fought to rise upright.
Elizabeth and John were nowhere in sight.
“Atlantis, this is Caldwell,” he choked out, raggedly, reaching for his earpiece. “We have a level one breach. Repeat, level one breach. Colonel Sheppard and Dr. Weir have escaped. They’ve proven themselves hostile.” He paused, glancing to the fallen guards in the hallway, then to Lorne, then briefly connected with Carson’s gaze. “Use any force necessary to subdue them.”
“Colonel!” Carson called. “You can’t use deadly force against them! It’ll just-”
“They leave us no choice,” Caldwell barked.
John was already halfway across the city.
He had dropped down three levels, carrying Elizabeth’s unconscious form over his left shoulder. The weight had barely slowed him down, and he had moved easily, swiftly, avoiding any people in the hallways. He finally maneuvered to an isolated room, then eased Elizabeth to the ground, checking her over with concerned eyes. She was breathing. She was unconscious. Beyond that, John couldn’t think enough to figure out what was wrong with her. Adrenaline and testosterone flooded his system, and John scanned the surroundings, looking for any threat.
“Atlantis, this is Caldwell. We have a level one breach. Repeat, level one breach. Colonel Sheppard and Dr. Weir have escaped. They’ve proven themselves hostile. Use any force necessary to subdue them.”
John had simply snarled at that.
Now, he watched intently as search parties began to move through the city. Any force necessary. Even so far gone, John knew exactly what those words meant. He couldn’t risk it. Elizabeth was unconscious and vulnerable, and the mate within him demanded that he protect his Queen. Whatever advances and progress his treatment had managed thus far seemed to pale in comparison to the flood of hormones now ruling him. Animal instinct took over.
Let them come, he thought angrily.
After mapping the search parties’ progress, he returned to Elizabeth's unconscious form. He reached out to brush a lock of hair away from her face, noting the new appearance of bluish scales all along her skin that he hadn't seen the last time he'd laid eyes on her. It sharpened the angles of her features, and she was beautiful, singularly the most breathtaking thing he had ever seen. Entranced, it was just another few moments of staring at Elizabeth’s profile before the hormones started to abate, clearing the haze of fight-or-flight from his system.
He needed to get her somewhere safe. Somewhere free of harm and pain. He needed to protect her.
He needed to get her outside of Atlantis.
“Colonel Caldwell!” Carson called urgently, but Caldwell kept his brisk pace towards the gateroom without breaking stride. “Colonel, I must insist you reconsider your tactics!”
Caldwell ignored this. Carson knew he was butting in where his input wasn’t wanted. He didn’t care. John and Elizabeth’s lives were at stake, and he was so close to curing both of them. The current treatment didn’t work the way he’d hoped, but he could still salvage it!
Carson tried reason. "Colonel Sheppard simply overreacted to the distress of Elizabeth, nothing more. We cannot kill them because of that."
“Sit report!” Caldwell ordered one of his men, ignoring Carson.
“Sir, four-man teams have spread out over two quadrants of the city, and we’re dispatching another four teams to cover the other half. No positive visuals have been made of the targets yet.”
“Those targets are Colonel Sheppard and Dr. Weir,” Carson reminded the technician with a glare, then turned back to Caldwell. “They’re just scared and pinned down. Further aggression towards them won’t help. Elizabeth is unconscious, and John is just one man!”
Caldwell met his stare evenly. “The last time Colonel Sheppard waged guerrilla warfare within this city, he killed over 60 men. And as I recall from the report, it was also because Dr. Weir’s life had been threatened. I would prefer we didn’t have a repeat performance.”
Carson clamped his mouth shut, because as much as he hated to admit it, Caldwell was right. John knew exactly how to strike out against enemies within this city; it sent a shiver up Carson’s spine just thinking about the Genii attack. The current circumstances were unfolding in a harrying way, and Carson struggled to come up with alternatives to salvage this bloody mess.
“I know what you're thinking," Caldwell intervened. "But our security is compromised, and I can’t imagine anyone that knows this place better than Sheppard and Weir."
“Maybe we can-”
“Sir, we’ve got unauthorized activity!”
“Where?”
The technician looked up with growing alarm. “Here.”
A puddle-jumper lowered down from the upper floor where the jumper bay was located. As the Jumper came level with the Gate, Carson watched as the solid metal front disappeared to reveal John at the cockpit. Elizabeth was probably slumped unconscious in the backseat of the rear compartment.
Caldwell reached for the radio. “Colonel Sheppard, stand down!” Instead, John activated the dialing sequence from the jumper. “Shut it down!” he ordered the technician.
“I can’t! The jumper’s in control!”
The Gate spun, locking onto to the symbols and then the event horizon whoosed to life. A few of Caldwell’s men fired at the jumper, but it was futile. John maneuvered the jumper through the gate and disappeared. A moment later, the wormhole disengaged and silence descended over the gateroom.
“What planet did he choose?” Carson asked the technician.
“It doesn’t matter,” Caldwell cut in, knowingly. “Sheppard isn’t going to wait around. He’ll jump three different planets before we can even get to the first. They’ll be long gone.”
Carson paled. Long gone, untraceable, and still mutating.
It took hours before John reached a place he thought secure enough to rest for the night. He landed the jumper on the alcove near the forest of P3S-X63. This was the same planet where an Iratus Bug had attached to his neck over a year ago. He disengaged all systems except the invisible cloak, then strode to the rear compartment where Elizabeth was still asleep.
Elizabeth was resting on her side, sprawled across the left bench with her hair cascading over her face. He brushed back strands of her hair and she murmured something indistinct, the low whine filled with pain. There was a sickening feeling of helplessness that built with each hour she refused to respond. The treatment, John realized. It wasn’t helping her. She’d been tossing and turning in a painful slumber ever since leaving Atlantis. If the effects didn’t wear off soon, John didn’t know what he’d do. Going back to Atlantis wasn’t an option. He wouldn’t take her back to a place where she would only suffer.
After a long stretch of silence, he shifted to take his place on the bench behind her. He spent a few moments rearranging himself behind Elizabeth in the space between her and the wall. The bench was barely big enough. He tucked an arm around her waist, drawing their bodies tightly together front to back. His breath was steady against her neck, and she smelled like an intoxicating blend of the woman he knew and the Queen he would soon obey without hesitation. He could hear her heartbeat, echoed with a soft thud when his hand splayed across her chest.
Hours drifted by, and eventually John joined her in a restless slumber.
Elizabeth snapped awake, and for a freefalling second, she didn't know where she was. Then she heard breathing, recognizing the warm body she was curled up against. She let out her breath, staring up at the ceiling of the jumper bay as she collected her thoughts through a confused haze of jumbled memories. She was shaking and cold all over, but the arm around her waist tightened briefly and her nose filled with John's familiar musk.
When he finally opened his eyes, Elizabeth was studying him. She half-turned toward him, but the small space on the bench didn’t afford any room for her to lie flat on her back. They stared at one another for a long moment, and then Elizabeth looked away, to the farthest wall.
‘What happened?’ she asked.
He waited a beat before answering. ‘You were hurting. I got you out of there.’
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Elizabeth chided, and her voice sounded harsh, rasping with days of disuse. “They’re going to hunt us now. Hunt you.”
“They don’t know where we are.”
“You didn’t have to save me,” she insisted, but her voice was low, a whisper, and she hated that tears were gathering in her eyes. “They’ll kill you for this. That didn’t need to happen.”
He tugged her chin so that she looked at him. “They won’t.”
“You were safe. You were getting better.”
He shook his head. “You weren’t.”
“Should have let me die,” she whispered. “Better for the both of us.”
She was throwing his words back at him, and John flinched, closing his eyes. A tear escaped her eyes, cascading down her cheek. She knew that he understood this feeling, had struggled with it himself just a week prior when there had been no cure for him. Even so far gone, the retrovirus was something neither of them wanted.
“We’re together now,” he breathed back. “Together.”
She shook her head again and closed her eyes, and the silence stretched between them. She wanted to pretend to fall asleep, but she knew it was too hard to fool John. Even now, the telepathic bond between them moved in a soft undercurrent. Her body was sore, aching with stiffness and the aftereffects of Carson’s botched cure, but her mind was clearly the more troubled.
After a beat, John seemed intent on distracting her. His hand slid down casually over her stomach, then lower between her legs. She almost wasn’t aware, but then he was undoing her pants and a sudden heat jolted her. Before she could react, he already was stroking her clit, rough friction that made her gasp. God, she needed this. Her entire body was suddenly on fire with the need of it. He kept stroking, using the pad of his thumb to rub urgently against her clit, and then he pushed two fingers inside, knuckle deep.
Elizabeth cried out and raised her hips, and then his thumb resumed pace over her clit, working counterpoint to his fingers as they invaded her over and over again.
’Together,’ John growled through their link, sounding low and dark. ‘Mated.’
An orgasm worked high, stealing her breath. Sharp, alien noises escaped her lips, an indistinct call that was neither human nor familiar, but her focus was too narrowed on John’s hands. She pushed her hips back into the cradle of his and found a steady rhythm against John’s hardening erection. Callused, strong fingers penetrated and crooked inside her, sending spots of colors dancing across her vision. His thumb rubbed urgently against her, until his mind echoed inside hers, goading her with a singular thought of come for me, c’mon, come for me.
The words pushed her over the edge, and she cried out as her muscles spasmed. The scent of her covered the air, and John held her body against his as she broke apart under the orgasm, shuddering. She slumped back heavily into John’s arms.
She wasn’t nearly satisfied because this bond had been building between them for days, and she wanted to explore more and satiate John’s needs over and over again until they were both boneless and spent. But she was still tired, and her body ached, even in the aftermath of an orgasm. John sensed this; he curbed his own appetite, simply pressing a small kiss to her collarbone before tugging her underwear back into place.
‘Sleep,’ he instructed.
He threw his jacket over her shoulders for warmth, spooning back against her in silence. She felt cocooned and safe, but that undercurrent of fear was still there, hidden beneath the surface. John had given up everything to protect her. She couldn’t allow that to continue. She made a decision, then. One that was painful and hard, but the right choice to make.
She just wished she'd had more time with John.
It was early still, not even dawn yet, when John murmured, stirring. The chill of the frigid air hit him as soon as he woke up, but it took a few seconds for other things to register. When it did, his eyes snapped open and he found that he was alone. Elizabeth was nowhere in sight and alarm surged through him. A few minutes of searching left him with the impression that she had left long ago.
He panicked, thinking over the possibilities. He left the jumper and strode through the forest on foot, following whatever traces he could find. Her footsteps were obscured by recent rain and sliding mud, and he struggled to make sense out of the strange circumstances. Did something happen to her? Had someone taken her?
Had she left?
The walk towards the Stargate would take some time, but Elizabeth wasn’t worried about the journey. She was worried about John’s reactions when he awoke. He would come looking for her. It was as inevitable as breathing, but Elizabeth hoped she’d crossed enough ground by now that tracking was nearly impossible. The fresh rain that had fallen an hour prior would help cover her scent, but she wasn’t underestimating him.
This world was just like a dozen other planets in the Pegasus Galaxy. The environment around her was dark and silent, and there were more than a few predators that hunted through the forest but none were as deadly as Elizabeth. She stepped lightly across the green moss ground and, on one occasion, scared off a pack of wild animals with one long, hard stare.
Dawn approached, lighting the sky and she flinched against the glare. She drew her jacket tighter around her body, moving quickly over a fallen tree trunk when she heard it - the crack of a tree branch, the crunch of footsteps. She had no more than a second to affirm her suspicions before John came hurdling through the forest and pinned her back against the tree.
She tried to move but his hold on her was solid. He leaned down, bringing them face-to-face, and tree bark dug into her back. The hold should have hurt - would have, in her old body - but Elizabeth didn’t even flinch. The animalistic part of his alter ego was in control, but then again, so was hers. She flashed a warning look, but when John sniffed the air around her and nuzzled her neck with the scrape of his stubble and scales, she felt her body warm.
‘You left,’ he teased, tone dark and low. ‘Am I going to have to tie you up to keep you safe?’
Elizabeth took a second to respond. ‘I left for both of us. Caldwell won’t hurt you if I turn myself in first.’
‘Not going to happen.’
She struggled for a second against his hold, and it infuriated her that even now, even in these forms, he was still stronger. The males were always the protectors of their kind; the females only ruled. Now, if only someone would remind John of that fact. It seemed his knack for disobeying orders went deeper than DNA. She shouldn’t have been surprised.
‘No cure,’ he reminded her. ‘You can’t go back there with no cure, and wait to be locked up. We don’t belong in cages.’
“I don’t belong in this body,” Elizabeth hissed aloud.
‘I do,’ he answered, darkly, and it took a second for her to realize the double-entendre.
He cupped her face and kissed her in one motion. His tongue pushed inside her mouth, stroking slowly across the roof of her mouth, making her whimper, then he took her tongue deeper inside his mouth. Elizabeth moaned, and one of his hands fell to knead her ass while he pressed his growing erection into her stomach. He sucked her bottom lip, took it between his teeth before he released it with a soft pop.
His body was all over hers, not even an inch between them and Elizabeth couldn’t think straight when he was like this. He undid her pants with a fluid flick of his wrist, and shoved aside her underwear, not even bothering to drag the material off. He thumbed her clit again and groaned when he found her already wet. Her body quivered and he smiled. "You like that? Yeah, you do."
There was something about those words that was all John Sheppard, the man. As much as they were both apparently ruled by the animistic need to fuck until they were senseless, a layer under that, he was still in control. So was she. She shifted away, trying to regain her coherency enough to realize that this was his plan. Seduce and fuck her into compliance - into staying with him. It was rudimentary, but proving affective.
He lifted her shirt off in such a rapid move that her hands were left in the air by her head, ready to be pinned down again only mili-seconds after his release. He caught both wrists in one hand and restrained them above her head, then used his other hand to shove down his pants and underwear so that he freed himself. Her pheromones and body’s reactions seemed to side with him on this one, but the cognizant part of Elizabeth surfaced, just barely.
“John, wait, slow down,” she tried, and broke off into a cry when he rubbed against her clit urgently.
He could see every inch of her changing body with the crisp morning daylight streaming through the tree branches. It afforded him the opportunity to study her, and she could see the heavy swell of lust and affection in his eyes.
“So beautiful,” he breathed.
He cupped her sex with one hand, then bent to take one of her breasts into his mouth. Her skin was almost entirely alien, body lean and muscles taut. It was more sensitive too, because a single flick of his tongue over her nipples had Elizabeth bucking against his hold. He clamped his mouth over the swell of her breast and sucked, and Elizabeth screamed, writhing against him. He rose to her neck, kissing and suckling hard enough to leave a mark. Every single nerve was alive and tingling, caught on a current of pleasure.
‘Like that?’ he asked, watching her with a look that promised her whatever sinful pleasure she wanted. ‘What do you want? Tell me what you want.’
‘John, I-’
‘Because if this isn’t it, I’ll stop. I’ll serve my Queen.’ He kissed her, stealing her breath for a second before he let go. ‘I’ll stop right now and you’ll never see me again.’ He pressed his mouth against her neck and mumbled against her skin. ‘Just tell me what you want.’
‘You,’ she pleaded with him, too far gone. ‘Want you inside me.’
His eyes darkened with full awareness of what he was doing to her, to her self-control, but Elizabeth didn’t care anymore. Her body pressed back against the tree bark, and he was still mouthing kisses and scraping blunt teeth against her skin when he brought his cock to her opening. He pushed inside and Elizabeth’s muscles clenched at the invasion. He retreated, almost completely and then thrust again. He rolled his hips in slow hard circle, touching every inch of her with the hard length of his dick. She moaned as he ground into the wet heat, quickly establishing a rhythm that brutally demanded her orgasm.
“Not going anywhere,” he breathed against her throat. “Say it. You’re not going anywhere.”
That was cruel of him to do, because his hands like that, body moving against hers, there was almost nothing she wouldn’t promise him. He knew it too, goading her incoherency by slamming into her harder. John kissed her, grunting against her lips with each stroke of his cock. “Say it,” he urged savagely. “Say it.”
Yesyesyes, she was right there. She needed him to move just so and ecstasy would break out across her body. She needed it so badly.
“Mine,” he mumbled against her lips. “Say it.”
She finally gave in, mindlessly relinquishing control, mumbling his name mixed in with yes, oh god, and yours only yours until she was bucking against him, trying to get him to move harder, faster. John gripped her hips with one hand, still holding her wrists together above her head with the other, and slightly bent his knees and slammed his cock inside her. A high-kreening sound escaped her lips, and she came, colors bursting behind her closed eyes.
“Fuck, Elizabeth,” he grunted against her, feeling her muscles clench.
John released her wrists and grabbed her shoulder for leverage and pounded her with desperate jerks of his hips. Then he came, body clenched then shuddering, crying out as he emptied inside her.
They were still for a while, as they caught their breath again. He withdrew from Elizabeth, moving to the side and she instinctively sought him again. They ended up spooning together on the ground. She used his outstretched arm as a pillow, fitting her body neatly against his, back to his front, and was almost dozing off. Her body was sleek with sweat, fully satiated, and she could barely move. She wondered what they looked like, two mutating bodies lying naked in each other’s arms. A month ago, this would have blown her mind.
Though as it was, the sex had pretty much taken care of that.
“This planet,” he said, eventually, “A year ago, I was bitten by the Iratus Bug here. Do you remember that?”
She glanced back. “I do.”
“I have a plan.”
Part 5
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
“The preliminary tests are in,” Carson breathed excitedly to Caldwell. “We may have a viable alternative cure with the Sukarian plant."
“What are our odds?”
Carson paused. “70/30, at best. But I've conducted three tests on samples of Elizabeth’s blood, as well as two additional ones on Colonel Sheppard’s blood work. All indications are positive with only small irregularities.”
Caldwell paused, then nodded his assent. “Do it.”
Carson turned back quickly to his team, already dispatching a dozen different instructions simultaneously. It had been seven days - seven very long days, but they had finally managed to do the impossible. He could scarcely believe it.
“Bring Dr. Weir to the infirmary quick-”
“Negative, Doctor,” Caldwell overrode. “Administer the treatment at the brig. It’s more secure.”
Carson’s lips thinned. “My instruments and supplies are here. If anything goes wrong, she needs to be-”
“Then make sure nothing goes wrong,” Caldwell cut in. “She’s too dangerous. Take all the supplies and instruments you need, but Dr. Weir doesn’t move from the brig at all.”
Holding back another protest, Carson ruefully turned back to his teammates and nodded in compliance. He watched them take off to gather supplies, and the entire time Carson kept thinking how eager he would be to have Elizabeth back in charge. Caldwell was a good man, and no doubt a strong soldier. But he didn’t appreciate Carson’s input as much as Elizabeth, and there were times where the military needed to heed to medical concerns rather than the other way around. It was one of the many reasons the IOA had placed a civilian in charge in the first place.
Ten minutes later, Carson had half his staff accompany him to the brigs. All but Caldwell actually ventured inside, though. Major Lorne was on guard duty today, and Elizabeth was resting on her single cot in the corner of the brig. When he approached her, he noticed that she had her head turned away from the florescent lighting. The nocturnal habits of the Iratus Bug were completely taking over.
“Major,” Carson called to Lorne. “Dim the lights, please?”
Lorne hesitated, looking to Caldwell. After a beat, Caldwell nodded and Lorne killed the brightest florescent lights in the room, leaving them bathed in the softer illumination of some of the regular lighting. When Carson and the others turned back to the cell, they were all startled to see Elizabeth had risen, standing in front of the cell doors without having made a single sound in her approach. Her inhuman reflects were only one of the many things disconcerting about her.
She was 80% through a complete transformation. Her entire face was nearly unrecognizable with bluish scales, and yellow-tinted irises highlighted her eyes. The gaze was nearly as alien, barely a hint of the intelligent woman that he knew. She still wore her customary red shirt and black pants, but they hugged her curves differently. Her stomach was slimmer, her hips wider, and the scales swept up her forearm and disappeared under her clothes.
“Elizabeth,” Carson greeted, tightly. Though he’d never admit it, a part of him was thankful for Major Lorne’s presence behind them, and equally so of the stunner in his possession. “Step back from the cage, love. I’ve come here to help.”
Elizabeth stared with dead eyes. He prayed there was enough of her left inside that she’d recognize them, but it was an uphill battle. She glanced to Caldwell, then to Lorne.
She finally returned Carson's gaze. “More tests?”
Carson released a tense exhale he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. She was still lucid. "No. No more tests. We’re here to cure you.”
“Cure?” she repeated, the indifferent mask replaced by hope. “You found a cure?”
“Yes, love. We’ve found a cure. You’re going to be all right.”
After a beat, Elizabeth retreated two steps, just enough for Carson and the others to slid open the doors and enter. She looked confused, but slowly sat down on the bed in an apparent act of submissiveness. Though much of her cognitive ability and verbal skills were deteriorating, it heartened Carson to confirm that Elizabeth was still in control of herself.
“Lie back down,” Carson instructed, and then, as was routine, they bound her to the bed with restraints that would hold a man twice her size down without difficulty.
Caldwell stepped forward. “What are the side-effects to this treatment?”
“We’re about to find out,” Carson answered tersely. “Please, step back and allow me to work.”
After a beat of hesitation, Caldwell retreated to the far wall, allowing Carson to set up properly. He set out three injections that he needed to administer to her, in the precise order that would construct the perfect medication cocktail.
“All right,” Carson said, bracing himself with a deep breath. “Let’s begin.”
John felt like he was going out of his mind.
‘I’m scared’, she breathed to him, and he wanted so badly to reach for her.
‘Shh, Elizabeth. You’re safe.’
Too aware of the events unfolding in the cell adjacent to his, he tried to leash his emotions. Elizabeth’s fear was nearly choking. He tried to keep her calm; Carson and the others were only there to help her. He knew that it was his voice in her head, through their shared telepathy, that managed to keep Elizabeth so docile.
‘A cure,’ she told him.
‘Just let them treat you,’ John acknowledged.
His eyes darkened, inhaling her scent and the stench of her fear. He couldn’t let anything bad happen to her. It had been three days of sharing thoughts, one mind feeding into another, and John felt joined with Elizabeth in a way that he didn’t think he could put into words. It went beyond words. Thoughts, sensations, urges - they shared everything. Right now, he could tell Elizabeth’s instincts were telling her to fight, to struggle, but John was in better control of his baser instincts. Just barely.
The stem cell treatments were working for John. He wasn’t fully cured; the scales still covered a considerable portion of his body, and that codeine feeling was still riding high. But, bit-by-bit, he was slowly becoming the man he used to be. The thing that kept him tethered to his more primitive urges was Elizabeth, and this psychic bond they shared. He wasn’t willing to give that up, not yet, not until he knew that she would be all right.
And now, Carson had come through on the cure. John wasn’t sure what happened after they returned to normal, but he wasn’t thinking about that now. He just wanted Elizabeth safe. Animal instinct still ruled him when it came to that. She needed to be safe.
He wouldn’t allow otherwise.
Carson held up the first syringe, explaining to Elizabeth, “There a three injections I need to administer daily, over six days. This is the first injection, and it’s going to sting a wee bit.”
Elizabeth held still, eying the injection like it was going to be the death of her. Carson tried smiling reassuringly, but twice he broke the needle trying to pierce her tough skin. He finally got it in on the third try, and decompressed the plunger, watching the liquid green medication slip into her veins.
“A-1 complete,” Carson noted, reaching for the following injection. “Moving onto A-2.”
Elizabeth jolted, and Carson’s eyes flew back to her. At first, it seemed to be a stray body movement, but quickly her body began to writhe, jerking and convulsing with unnatural spasms. The restraints strained against her hold, her body curving upwards and she sent out a high-pitched noise that no human could ever make. Shrill and long, Carson clamped his hands over his ears, the noise so high in frequency that he feared his ear drums would shatter.
“What’s going on?” Caldwell yelled from the corner.
“I don’t know!” Carson replied. “This isn’t supposed to be happening! Something must be wron-”
Elizabeth pushed off against the restraints, the bindings beginning to tear. Lorne and Caldwell were instantly on either side of her, holding her down, but the high-pitched shriek continued. It the midst of the chaos, Carson didn’t realize that John was answering the call with another scream. He didn’t hear the noise from the cell one room over, as John started thrashing against the bars of his own brig.
Carson had his attention on other things.
“Hold her down!” Carson yelled. “I must inject a sedative to calm her down!”
“Hurry!” Caldwell urged.
As if Carson needed the prompting.
Together with Lorne and Caldwell, Carson managed to get the sedative administered. After a few more beats of struggling, Elizabeth whimpered and grew still. When he reclined back, Carson was already rethinking over his work and he wondered where things had gone wrong. Maybe the basis of the analysis was incorrect? They should have been working from scratch, not trying to duplicate a treatment that was proving nearly impossible to dupli-
There was a huge crash from behind them. Startled, the men looked up. Something clanged against the wall, and then an inhuman yell echoed from the hallway.
“John,” Elizabeth murmured, tossing in her slumber. “Help.”
Carson looked up to trade looks with the two men.
“Oh, shit,” Lorne declared, rather astutely.
The outside door busted open.
Things happened after that - so fast that Carson could barely follow it. Lorne and Caldwell drew their firearms and shots rang out. A blur whizzed passed, someone screamed, and then Carson was thrown to the ground. Carson felt something brush by him. He saw another flash of blur - something was on the ceiling. Then Carson was hit - with what, by who - he never saw. He was knocked unconscious before he ever caught a clear sight of John’s encroaching attack.
When he finally struggled awake minutes later, he found himself lying on the ground with the unconscious form of Lorne next to him. Caldwell was already awake, wincing as he fought to rise upright.
Elizabeth and John were nowhere in sight.
“Atlantis, this is Caldwell,” he choked out, raggedly, reaching for his earpiece. “We have a level one breach. Repeat, level one breach. Colonel Sheppard and Dr. Weir have escaped. They’ve proven themselves hostile.” He paused, glancing to the fallen guards in the hallway, then to Lorne, then briefly connected with Carson’s gaze. “Use any force necessary to subdue them.”
“Colonel!” Carson called. “You can’t use deadly force against them! It’ll just-”
“They leave us no choice,” Caldwell barked.
John was already halfway across the city.
He had dropped down three levels, carrying Elizabeth’s unconscious form over his left shoulder. The weight had barely slowed him down, and he had moved easily, swiftly, avoiding any people in the hallways. He finally maneuvered to an isolated room, then eased Elizabeth to the ground, checking her over with concerned eyes. She was breathing. She was unconscious. Beyond that, John couldn’t think enough to figure out what was wrong with her. Adrenaline and testosterone flooded his system, and John scanned the surroundings, looking for any threat.
“Atlantis, this is Caldwell. We have a level one breach. Repeat, level one breach. Colonel Sheppard and Dr. Weir have escaped. They’ve proven themselves hostile. Use any force necessary to subdue them.”
John had simply snarled at that.
Now, he watched intently as search parties began to move through the city. Any force necessary. Even so far gone, John knew exactly what those words meant. He couldn’t risk it. Elizabeth was unconscious and vulnerable, and the mate within him demanded that he protect his Queen. Whatever advances and progress his treatment had managed thus far seemed to pale in comparison to the flood of hormones now ruling him. Animal instinct took over.
Let them come, he thought angrily.
After mapping the search parties’ progress, he returned to Elizabeth's unconscious form. He reached out to brush a lock of hair away from her face, noting the new appearance of bluish scales all along her skin that he hadn't seen the last time he'd laid eyes on her. It sharpened the angles of her features, and she was beautiful, singularly the most breathtaking thing he had ever seen. Entranced, it was just another few moments of staring at Elizabeth’s profile before the hormones started to abate, clearing the haze of fight-or-flight from his system.
He needed to get her somewhere safe. Somewhere free of harm and pain. He needed to protect her.
He needed to get her outside of Atlantis.
“Colonel Caldwell!” Carson called urgently, but Caldwell kept his brisk pace towards the gateroom without breaking stride. “Colonel, I must insist you reconsider your tactics!”
Caldwell ignored this. Carson knew he was butting in where his input wasn’t wanted. He didn’t care. John and Elizabeth’s lives were at stake, and he was so close to curing both of them. The current treatment didn’t work the way he’d hoped, but he could still salvage it!
Carson tried reason. "Colonel Sheppard simply overreacted to the distress of Elizabeth, nothing more. We cannot kill them because of that."
“Sit report!” Caldwell ordered one of his men, ignoring Carson.
“Sir, four-man teams have spread out over two quadrants of the city, and we’re dispatching another four teams to cover the other half. No positive visuals have been made of the targets yet.”
“Those targets are Colonel Sheppard and Dr. Weir,” Carson reminded the technician with a glare, then turned back to Caldwell. “They’re just scared and pinned down. Further aggression towards them won’t help. Elizabeth is unconscious, and John is just one man!”
Caldwell met his stare evenly. “The last time Colonel Sheppard waged guerrilla warfare within this city, he killed over 60 men. And as I recall from the report, it was also because Dr. Weir’s life had been threatened. I would prefer we didn’t have a repeat performance.”
Carson clamped his mouth shut, because as much as he hated to admit it, Caldwell was right. John knew exactly how to strike out against enemies within this city; it sent a shiver up Carson’s spine just thinking about the Genii attack. The current circumstances were unfolding in a harrying way, and Carson struggled to come up with alternatives to salvage this bloody mess.
“I know what you're thinking," Caldwell intervened. "But our security is compromised, and I can’t imagine anyone that knows this place better than Sheppard and Weir."
“Maybe we can-”
“Sir, we’ve got unauthorized activity!”
“Where?”
The technician looked up with growing alarm. “Here.”
A puddle-jumper lowered down from the upper floor where the jumper bay was located. As the Jumper came level with the Gate, Carson watched as the solid metal front disappeared to reveal John at the cockpit. Elizabeth was probably slumped unconscious in the backseat of the rear compartment.
Caldwell reached for the radio. “Colonel Sheppard, stand down!” Instead, John activated the dialing sequence from the jumper. “Shut it down!” he ordered the technician.
“I can’t! The jumper’s in control!”
The Gate spun, locking onto to the symbols and then the event horizon whoosed to life. A few of Caldwell’s men fired at the jumper, but it was futile. John maneuvered the jumper through the gate and disappeared. A moment later, the wormhole disengaged and silence descended over the gateroom.
“What planet did he choose?” Carson asked the technician.
“It doesn’t matter,” Caldwell cut in, knowingly. “Sheppard isn’t going to wait around. He’ll jump three different planets before we can even get to the first. They’ll be long gone.”
Carson paled. Long gone, untraceable, and still mutating.
It took hours before John reached a place he thought secure enough to rest for the night. He landed the jumper on the alcove near the forest of P3S-X63. This was the same planet where an Iratus Bug had attached to his neck over a year ago. He disengaged all systems except the invisible cloak, then strode to the rear compartment where Elizabeth was still asleep.
Elizabeth was resting on her side, sprawled across the left bench with her hair cascading over her face. He brushed back strands of her hair and she murmured something indistinct, the low whine filled with pain. There was a sickening feeling of helplessness that built with each hour she refused to respond. The treatment, John realized. It wasn’t helping her. She’d been tossing and turning in a painful slumber ever since leaving Atlantis. If the effects didn’t wear off soon, John didn’t know what he’d do. Going back to Atlantis wasn’t an option. He wouldn’t take her back to a place where she would only suffer.
After a long stretch of silence, he shifted to take his place on the bench behind her. He spent a few moments rearranging himself behind Elizabeth in the space between her and the wall. The bench was barely big enough. He tucked an arm around her waist, drawing their bodies tightly together front to back. His breath was steady against her neck, and she smelled like an intoxicating blend of the woman he knew and the Queen he would soon obey without hesitation. He could hear her heartbeat, echoed with a soft thud when his hand splayed across her chest.
Hours drifted by, and eventually John joined her in a restless slumber.
Elizabeth snapped awake, and for a freefalling second, she didn't know where she was. Then she heard breathing, recognizing the warm body she was curled up against. She let out her breath, staring up at the ceiling of the jumper bay as she collected her thoughts through a confused haze of jumbled memories. She was shaking and cold all over, but the arm around her waist tightened briefly and her nose filled with John's familiar musk.
When he finally opened his eyes, Elizabeth was studying him. She half-turned toward him, but the small space on the bench didn’t afford any room for her to lie flat on her back. They stared at one another for a long moment, and then Elizabeth looked away, to the farthest wall.
‘What happened?’ she asked.
He waited a beat before answering. ‘You were hurting. I got you out of there.’
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Elizabeth chided, and her voice sounded harsh, rasping with days of disuse. “They’re going to hunt us now. Hunt you.”
“They don’t know where we are.”
“You didn’t have to save me,” she insisted, but her voice was low, a whisper, and she hated that tears were gathering in her eyes. “They’ll kill you for this. That didn’t need to happen.”
He tugged her chin so that she looked at him. “They won’t.”
“You were safe. You were getting better.”
He shook his head. “You weren’t.”
“Should have let me die,” she whispered. “Better for the both of us.”
She was throwing his words back at him, and John flinched, closing his eyes. A tear escaped her eyes, cascading down her cheek. She knew that he understood this feeling, had struggled with it himself just a week prior when there had been no cure for him. Even so far gone, the retrovirus was something neither of them wanted.
“We’re together now,” he breathed back. “Together.”
She shook her head again and closed her eyes, and the silence stretched between them. She wanted to pretend to fall asleep, but she knew it was too hard to fool John. Even now, the telepathic bond between them moved in a soft undercurrent. Her body was sore, aching with stiffness and the aftereffects of Carson’s botched cure, but her mind was clearly the more troubled.
After a beat, John seemed intent on distracting her. His hand slid down casually over her stomach, then lower between her legs. She almost wasn’t aware, but then he was undoing her pants and a sudden heat jolted her. Before she could react, he already was stroking her clit, rough friction that made her gasp. God, she needed this. Her entire body was suddenly on fire with the need of it. He kept stroking, using the pad of his thumb to rub urgently against her clit, and then he pushed two fingers inside, knuckle deep.
Elizabeth cried out and raised her hips, and then his thumb resumed pace over her clit, working counterpoint to his fingers as they invaded her over and over again.
’Together,’ John growled through their link, sounding low and dark. ‘Mated.’
An orgasm worked high, stealing her breath. Sharp, alien noises escaped her lips, an indistinct call that was neither human nor familiar, but her focus was too narrowed on John’s hands. She pushed her hips back into the cradle of his and found a steady rhythm against John’s hardening erection. Callused, strong fingers penetrated and crooked inside her, sending spots of colors dancing across her vision. His thumb rubbed urgently against her, until his mind echoed inside hers, goading her with a singular thought of come for me, c’mon, come for me.
The words pushed her over the edge, and she cried out as her muscles spasmed. The scent of her covered the air, and John held her body against his as she broke apart under the orgasm, shuddering. She slumped back heavily into John’s arms.
She wasn’t nearly satisfied because this bond had been building between them for days, and she wanted to explore more and satiate John’s needs over and over again until they were both boneless and spent. But she was still tired, and her body ached, even in the aftermath of an orgasm. John sensed this; he curbed his own appetite, simply pressing a small kiss to her collarbone before tugging her underwear back into place.
‘Sleep,’ he instructed.
He threw his jacket over her shoulders for warmth, spooning back against her in silence. She felt cocooned and safe, but that undercurrent of fear was still there, hidden beneath the surface. John had given up everything to protect her. She couldn’t allow that to continue. She made a decision, then. One that was painful and hard, but the right choice to make.
She just wished she'd had more time with John.
It was early still, not even dawn yet, when John murmured, stirring. The chill of the frigid air hit him as soon as he woke up, but it took a few seconds for other things to register. When it did, his eyes snapped open and he found that he was alone. Elizabeth was nowhere in sight and alarm surged through him. A few minutes of searching left him with the impression that she had left long ago.
He panicked, thinking over the possibilities. He left the jumper and strode through the forest on foot, following whatever traces he could find. Her footsteps were obscured by recent rain and sliding mud, and he struggled to make sense out of the strange circumstances. Did something happen to her? Had someone taken her?
Had she left?
The walk towards the Stargate would take some time, but Elizabeth wasn’t worried about the journey. She was worried about John’s reactions when he awoke. He would come looking for her. It was as inevitable as breathing, but Elizabeth hoped she’d crossed enough ground by now that tracking was nearly impossible. The fresh rain that had fallen an hour prior would help cover her scent, but she wasn’t underestimating him.
This world was just like a dozen other planets in the Pegasus Galaxy. The environment around her was dark and silent, and there were more than a few predators that hunted through the forest but none were as deadly as Elizabeth. She stepped lightly across the green moss ground and, on one occasion, scared off a pack of wild animals with one long, hard stare.
Dawn approached, lighting the sky and she flinched against the glare. She drew her jacket tighter around her body, moving quickly over a fallen tree trunk when she heard it - the crack of a tree branch, the crunch of footsteps. She had no more than a second to affirm her suspicions before John came hurdling through the forest and pinned her back against the tree.
She tried to move but his hold on her was solid. He leaned down, bringing them face-to-face, and tree bark dug into her back. The hold should have hurt - would have, in her old body - but Elizabeth didn’t even flinch. The animalistic part of his alter ego was in control, but then again, so was hers. She flashed a warning look, but when John sniffed the air around her and nuzzled her neck with the scrape of his stubble and scales, she felt her body warm.
‘You left,’ he teased, tone dark and low. ‘Am I going to have to tie you up to keep you safe?’
Elizabeth took a second to respond. ‘I left for both of us. Caldwell won’t hurt you if I turn myself in first.’
‘Not going to happen.’
She struggled for a second against his hold, and it infuriated her that even now, even in these forms, he was still stronger. The males were always the protectors of their kind; the females only ruled. Now, if only someone would remind John of that fact. It seemed his knack for disobeying orders went deeper than DNA. She shouldn’t have been surprised.
‘No cure,’ he reminded her. ‘You can’t go back there with no cure, and wait to be locked up. We don’t belong in cages.’
“I don’t belong in this body,” Elizabeth hissed aloud.
‘I do,’ he answered, darkly, and it took a second for her to realize the double-entendre.
He cupped her face and kissed her in one motion. His tongue pushed inside her mouth, stroking slowly across the roof of her mouth, making her whimper, then he took her tongue deeper inside his mouth. Elizabeth moaned, and one of his hands fell to knead her ass while he pressed his growing erection into her stomach. He sucked her bottom lip, took it between his teeth before he released it with a soft pop.
His body was all over hers, not even an inch between them and Elizabeth couldn’t think straight when he was like this. He undid her pants with a fluid flick of his wrist, and shoved aside her underwear, not even bothering to drag the material off. He thumbed her clit again and groaned when he found her already wet. Her body quivered and he smiled. "You like that? Yeah, you do."
There was something about those words that was all John Sheppard, the man. As much as they were both apparently ruled by the animistic need to fuck until they were senseless, a layer under that, he was still in control. So was she. She shifted away, trying to regain her coherency enough to realize that this was his plan. Seduce and fuck her into compliance - into staying with him. It was rudimentary, but proving affective.
He lifted her shirt off in such a rapid move that her hands were left in the air by her head, ready to be pinned down again only mili-seconds after his release. He caught both wrists in one hand and restrained them above her head, then used his other hand to shove down his pants and underwear so that he freed himself. Her pheromones and body’s reactions seemed to side with him on this one, but the cognizant part of Elizabeth surfaced, just barely.
“John, wait, slow down,” she tried, and broke off into a cry when he rubbed against her clit urgently.
He could see every inch of her changing body with the crisp morning daylight streaming through the tree branches. It afforded him the opportunity to study her, and she could see the heavy swell of lust and affection in his eyes.
“So beautiful,” he breathed.
He cupped her sex with one hand, then bent to take one of her breasts into his mouth. Her skin was almost entirely alien, body lean and muscles taut. It was more sensitive too, because a single flick of his tongue over her nipples had Elizabeth bucking against his hold. He clamped his mouth over the swell of her breast and sucked, and Elizabeth screamed, writhing against him. He rose to her neck, kissing and suckling hard enough to leave a mark. Every single nerve was alive and tingling, caught on a current of pleasure.
‘Like that?’ he asked, watching her with a look that promised her whatever sinful pleasure she wanted. ‘What do you want? Tell me what you want.’
‘John, I-’
‘Because if this isn’t it, I’ll stop. I’ll serve my Queen.’ He kissed her, stealing her breath for a second before he let go. ‘I’ll stop right now and you’ll never see me again.’ He pressed his mouth against her neck and mumbled against her skin. ‘Just tell me what you want.’
‘You,’ she pleaded with him, too far gone. ‘Want you inside me.’
His eyes darkened with full awareness of what he was doing to her, to her self-control, but Elizabeth didn’t care anymore. Her body pressed back against the tree bark, and he was still mouthing kisses and scraping blunt teeth against her skin when he brought his cock to her opening. He pushed inside and Elizabeth’s muscles clenched at the invasion. He retreated, almost completely and then thrust again. He rolled his hips in slow hard circle, touching every inch of her with the hard length of his dick. She moaned as he ground into the wet heat, quickly establishing a rhythm that brutally demanded her orgasm.
“Not going anywhere,” he breathed against her throat. “Say it. You’re not going anywhere.”
That was cruel of him to do, because his hands like that, body moving against hers, there was almost nothing she wouldn’t promise him. He knew it too, goading her incoherency by slamming into her harder. John kissed her, grunting against her lips with each stroke of his cock. “Say it,” he urged savagely. “Say it.”
Yesyesyes, she was right there. She needed him to move just so and ecstasy would break out across her body. She needed it so badly.
“Mine,” he mumbled against her lips. “Say it.”
She finally gave in, mindlessly relinquishing control, mumbling his name mixed in with yes, oh god, and yours only yours until she was bucking against him, trying to get him to move harder, faster. John gripped her hips with one hand, still holding her wrists together above her head with the other, and slightly bent his knees and slammed his cock inside her. A high-kreening sound escaped her lips, and she came, colors bursting behind her closed eyes.
“Fuck, Elizabeth,” he grunted against her, feeling her muscles clench.
John released her wrists and grabbed her shoulder for leverage and pounded her with desperate jerks of his hips. Then he came, body clenched then shuddering, crying out as he emptied inside her.
They were still for a while, as they caught their breath again. He withdrew from Elizabeth, moving to the side and she instinctively sought him again. They ended up spooning together on the ground. She used his outstretched arm as a pillow, fitting her body neatly against his, back to his front, and was almost dozing off. Her body was sleek with sweat, fully satiated, and she could barely move. She wondered what they looked like, two mutating bodies lying naked in each other’s arms. A month ago, this would have blown her mind.
Though as it was, the sex had pretty much taken care of that.
“This planet,” he said, eventually, “A year ago, I was bitten by the Iratus Bug here. Do you remember that?”
She glanced back. “I do.”
“I have a plan.”
Part 5