TEAM WORK: as the crow flies, "Wider Than the Sky"
Title: Wider Than the Sky
Author: wintercreek
Team: Work
Prompt: as the crow flies
Pairing(s): McKay/Sheppard
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Summary: In which Ancient ideas for practical security are unimaginably weird, the security and structural integrity of field pack straps could probably use some more rigorous testing, and John and Rodney reach a new level of relationship security without ever really having much out-and-out discussion.
Notes: Set ambiguously mid-season four.
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**
"I wouldn't touch that, if I were you," Rodney said.
But it's too late and John's hand is on the trigger point, pressed into the curved V blazoned on the pad, and a blue light engulfs him. There's a sound in his ears like an ocean in a seashell; he can dimly see Rodney's mouth moving, Teyla's eyes widening. They're getting taller, or he's shrinking. Then the sound stops and his ears clear. His vision is hazy when he looks forward and oddly flat. He can see further to either side than he could before, and he wonders what kind of device is designed to move someone's eyes around. He turns his head and his team's boots come into view. John tilts his head, looking up toward their faces.
Rodney's mouth is still moving. "-the actual fuck?!" he finishes.
Ronon's hand moves slowly and inexorably to his forehead.
John opens his mouth to ask what's happened and is stopped dead by the realization that he no longer has lips. Or teeth. His tongue feels strange and his mouth is made of something stiff. When he tries to lift a hand to his face he gets a flash of glossy black feathers; when he turns his head further he can see that he's got wings. Crap. He's a bird.
"What the actual fuck?!" John tries to say, stealing McKay's words, but it comes out as "Awh, awh awhk!" Super. He's a crow. This day couldn't get more irritating.
He wonders if he can fly, if his body knows how, and he tries to gather himself the way birds do. He starts to overbalance and flails, wings instinctively stabilizing him. Holding very still, John looks up at his team.
Rodney is saying something rapid fire and Teyla looks worried as she nods. No help there. John turns to Ronon and tilts his head further to the side, making eye contact as best he can. Ronon gives him a considering look.
"Trying to fly?" he asks.
John nods his bird head, bobbing like a moron and hoping Ronon gets it.
Ronon folds his arms and looks skyward, then looks back at John. "Don't over think it."
So John thinks, fly, fly, up, fly and feels his legs pushing off as though someone else is controlling them. He beats his wings, and the part of his mind that has only human references thinks it feels kind of like rowing. It doesn't matter what it feels like: he's leaving the ground behind, catching an updraft. He feels like laughing, like cheering, like shouting and punching the sky, and the caw that comes out instead is triumphant. He's not sure, but he thinks he should be more worried about how good this feels.
- v - V - v -
Before Teyla had recovered from John's rash departure, she was distracted by Rodney's overreaction.
"What?! Wait, you moron!" Rodney yelled, shaking his fist at the bird as it flew away. Teyla wasn't sure what the fist shaking was supposed to accomplish.
"Of all the stupid, impulsive, just, just Sheppard things to do! It's not like we needed that naquadah. Surely the most important thing we can do with our afternoon is chase after Sheppard and indulge his Ancient technology fetish. 'Oh, I wonder what this does?'" Rodney said, flailing. "'I think I'll go ahead and let the old, untested, possibly failing equipment change me into something unknown, without any indication of whether I'll be able to change back!' And he left behind all his gear," he added, throwing a look at the pile of John's clothes and pack.
Teyla had learned to accept Rodney's sarcasm as his coping method, but she still didn't understand what good all his motion did. He wasn't much for physical exertion under other circumstances. She put out a tentative hand. "Rodney," she started, trying to settle him down so he could think, instead of wasting all his energy in his panic.
Rodney turned to look at her, then shook his head. "Don't 'Rodney' me, Teyla, not now. This whole thing is so stupid. Who ties the security system on their mine to a transformation device? I mean, who does that?" He looked past her to Ronon. "And you! What the hell was that? Encouraging him to fly away, like you know anything about anything." He pressed his hands to his face, still muttering.
"Hey," Ronon said softly. "Stop."
"Stop?!" Rodney shrieked, hands flailing at the sky. "When John is out there, somewhere, probably being hunted and eaten for all we know, and even if we could find him we don't know how to change him back. And-"
Ronon grabbed Rodney by the shoulders. "McKay. Rodney. Calm down."
Teyla could see Rodney shaking, a fine tremor that hadn't been visible while he was in motion.
"Don't you understand?" he asked Ronon, quiet and desperate. "If I calm down I'll lose my nerve."
And before Ronon could say anything else, before Teyla could figure out what he meant, before anything they could do, Rodney broke out of Ronon's grip and strode to the console. He slammed his hand down on the same pad John had touched, eyes squeezed tightly closed.
There was the same strange blue light from before; when it cleared, another one of those odd black birds was standing where Rodney had been. "Well," Teyla said.
The bird - Rodney - made an irritable noise. "Awh, awhk," he said. He flapped awkwardly up on to his pack and pecked at an outer pocket. When neither she nor Ronon moved, he squawked again.
"You want something from the pocket?" Teyla asked, moving to open it. "You should have told us your plan before you became a bird," she chided him. Not knowing what Rodney was after, she laid the life signs detector, powerbar, TI-83 calculator, computer cables and EpiPen on the ground. Then, as Rodney turned to peck at the LSD she realized what he meant. "Of course! Your transmitter."
Rodney's beak made a clicking noise on the screen of the LSD. Teyla picked it up, checked that it displayed four dots and not two, and nodded to Rodney. She could not have said how, but he seemed pleased as he took off.
- v - V - v -
John catches a thermal and glides, letting his bird's brain make the minor adjustments his wings need to keep him flying level. There's less room for worry in here, somehow, like the uncomplicated joy he gets from flight just crowds everything out. The sun is warm on his feathers, the air cool in his nares. Some crow impulse tugs him north and west, so he lets himself follow it. John has no way of knowing if it's instinct or something the Ancients programmed in to the transformation, but he doesn't care much.
Flying always makes him feel good like this, even when it's in a plane. Puddlejumpers are better, of course, but being a bird is the best yet. It seems like he can't handle complex thought while he's transformed, so he can't think about whether he'll be able to change back. Not that he hasn't tried - just that the ideas slide away from him. He thinks of Rodney and sees his face, feels a surety that Rodney will figure out this transformation business, will come and find him, but without any nuance or concern. Ditto for thinking of being human again: no anxiety, just the sense that things will work out. It's kind of nice.
His time sense is all screwed up as a bird, so there's no way of saying how long he flies. It doesn't seem like long, but flight time always feels shorter than it is to John. He tilts in the air, half to do a little swooping and half to check for landmarks he might recognize. There's a ravine under him, wide enough that he'd need a bridge to cross it in human form, and deep. There's a river at the bottom, glinting with the sun. Pretty, his birdbrain notes.
Just beyond the ravine is something that shines silver in the afternoon light. John arrows down to it compelled by the shininess and by something deeper. As he lands on the perch that juts out from the large metal box, he feels something missing. Something he knows should be there, even if his limited brain won't let him identify it.
Cocking his head to look at things is almost natural now. John looks at the console next to him with one eye, then turns around to look at it with the other. Across the console there's the same curved V he remembers from the first console; on the ground in front of it is another pad with a stick figure of a human sketched on it. John caws, amused. He sidles carefully along the perch, flutters down, and steps on the human image.
Abruptly, John found himself in human form again. And buck-naked. He sighed heavily. The Ancients were geniuses, sure, but they were terrible with practicalities. At least, he thought ruefully, the day was warm.
There were only two controls obvious on top of the console, the pads with the curved V - a rudimentary bird in flight, John now realized - and a recessed button, the same color as the console's case. Experimentally, he stepped off the human button and laid his hand on the bird button.
The transition to bird form is still jarring, still full of a rushing sound and a shrinking sensation. John has a brief moment to think how odd it is that he can become a human again in a moment with no intermediary stage but becoming a bird requires him to actually experience the change. Then he's bird-minded again as well as bird formed. His crow body wants to take off, at first, until he looks at the console again. Great. Now there are two nagging feelings occupying his consciousness: a sense of something missing, still, and now a sense of something undone.
When another crow lands next to John, it only takes a second before he realizes it's Rodney. The sense of something missing subsides. In fact, John's crow brain says Mate, mate, mate! Disconcerted, John walk-hops over to the human button.
Once he was human again, John expected to feel the usual conflicting mess, pleasure that Rodney had found him mixed with indignity that Rodney had thought he'd needed rescuing, damped down under military restraint. He didn't. His brain was still full of the relieved feeling of recognition, all tied up with a human gratitude, and right there at the front of his mind. Rodney hadn't willingly used any sort of Ancient transmogrification device since his near-ascendance last year. That he did now-
John pushed the thought away, letting himself be distracted by the sight of Rodney as a bird. Carefully avoiding the bird button, John walked around the console to the perch. He was naked again, but the early evening was still warm. It felt nice.
Rodney tilted his head, apparently checking John out.
"Yeah, yeah," John muttered. "Why don't you transform back, and we'll see how we like the looks of each other in broad daylight? And you can tell me what your plan is, O genius-level bird brain."
Cawing peevishly, Rodney edged over to the console and flapped down to the human button. Almost instantly, Rodney appeared and crossed his human arms, looking away from John. "Bird brain?" he sniffed.
It didn't help matters that they were both naked. "It's a joke, Rodney," John protested, ducking his head and rubbing the back of his neck. "C'mon, let's figure out what we're supposed to do." The vestigial bird reaction to Rodney as a mate hadn't gone away yet, and John's very human reaction was noting that in broad daylight Rodney still looked good.
Rodney stepped off the transformation button and then carefully looked over his own body and John's. "Everything where it should be? Nothing lost in, er, transition?"
John shrugged. "Seems okay to me. I went from bird to human and back to bird once before you arrived. Just a matter of hopping from button to button."
"Oh thank goodness," Rodney said in one long exhale, wrapping himself around John.
John raised a tentative hand to pat Rodney's back. "Hey, uh. It's okay."
"Do you know how many ways this old, poorly-thought-out, unmaintained, not-even-designed-for-our-precise-species could mess things up?" Rodney rebuked him, somewhat muffled by John's shoulder. "Did you even think about that before you succumbed to the temptation of the shiny button? Seriously, you could have wound up in a bird shape forever. Or with feathers on your elbows! Or only half a brain!"
"Uh," John replied. "No, not really. But it turned out all right, and I'm sorry I freaked you out, okay?"
Rodney nodded against John's neck. "Okay."
"Okay," John sighed. "Now, can we figure out this console thingy?"
- v - V - v -
Rodney hmmed.
"That's the fifteenth 'hmm,' Rodney. Are you making progress?" John asked.
"You can't rush these things," Rodney told him, waving a hand. "When you do, everyone has to turn into birds." He paused to let that sink in, then continued, "I think I've got this worked out now." He pressed the recessed button on top, then a similarly recessed switch on the side of the console, and the panel slid up and away to reveal a standard interface.
John came over and peered at it. Rodney knew he'd never figure it out, but it was nice of him to take an interest.
"It deactivates the security system on the naquadah mine! This is the most wacky paranoid thing we've seen yet - it's not only a guarantee that only those with the gene can access the mine, it's probably also supposed to ensure that only those who know what to look for can get to this console at all. It's a good thing I'm a genius," he concluded, smiling.
John looked suitably impressed. "So you can call off the laser guard dogs, and then we can do the bird trick again, get the naquadah and go home?"
Rodney's stomach sank. "Well. Let's not get ahead of ourselves. We might not need to be birds again, you know."
"Did you fly over the same ravine I did?" John asked, raising an eyebrow.
"All this transformation business is creepy!" Rodney cried. "And stop bothering me. I still have to work out how to turn off the system." It didn't take him very long to figure out, naturally, so he studied some of the irrelevant controls too. There was nothing wrong with making it look harder so John would be more appreciative of all his work.
He pulled up the security system's control, let the scanner verify his DNA, and turned off the system on the mine. The other systems elsewhere on the planet he left active; there was no point in turning them off until they knew what they were guarding, and where. The console uttered a confirmation chirp. Rodney grinned and waved his hand at the transformation module with a "So there!" flourish.
With a noise that always meant trouble, the console powered down.
"Rodney, what did you do?" John looked concerned.
Rodney flailed his hands. "I don't know! I turned off the security system, and then the whole thing died!"
"Can you turn it back on?" John asked. "This isn't just a trick to avoid being birds again, is it?"
"No, it's not a 'trick,'" Rodney snapped. "And-" He hit the recessed button again. Nothing. The scanner didn't respond to him, the transformation panel refused to slide back out. His shoulders slumped. "It's dead."
John's heavy sighs were getting tiresome, but Rodney couldn't blame him for this one. "I guess we walk."
"Teyla and Ronon are coming, at least," Rodney pointed out. "They're following the transmitter."
"Hope they remember to bring our clothes, or at least our boots," John muttered, striking out in what Rodney assumed was the direction of the ravine. At least, he hoped it was the direction of the ravine. Whatever navigation sense he'd had as a bird was gone gone gone as a human.
- v - V - v -
Following the LSD without falling down was harder than it looked. Ronon realized now that he'd never given McKay enough credit. He hadn't quite tripped, but it had been a near thing. And when he'd handed the device off to Teyla, she'd almost walked into a tree.
Fortunately, they'd both noticed the big fucking ravine in plenty of time.
It wasn't really that wide, but it was deep, and the river at the bottom looked fast. Sheppard and McKay were already at the edge on the far side, gesturing at Teyla and Ronon as they neared their edge. "Rope line?" Ronon asked Teyla.
She considered the ravine. "Yes, I think so. It's not too wide, and if we empty out one of these packs it should do well for a harness."
Ronon nodded in confirmation. They dumped their loads of gear, and Ronon turned to pulling Sheppard's clothes back out of his pack while Teyla picked up one of Rodney's boots.
"John! Rodney!" Teyla called. "Can you secure a rope if we toss one end to you?"
"Sure," Sheppard called back. "That tree close enough?"
Ronon heaved a boot across the ravine with a light rope attached. "We'll find out."
Sheppard got the rope anchored in short order and gave the boot to McKay, not that one boot would do him any good. Ronon heard McKay plaintively say, "Soon? Aren't they going to send our clothes across first?"
"Nope. Apparently not," Sheppard answered him. "It's more efficient this way."
Teyla had Sheppard's empty pack slung on the line; with a strong launch she was able to slide it most of the way across the ravine. Ronon lifted his end of the line and shook it, hard, until the pack was close enough for Sheppard to pull in.
"Strap in, Rodney," Sheppard said.
Even at a distance, Ronon could see McKay eyeing the pack. "Strap in?" he repeated dubiously.
"Fasten yourself in. It'll hold you up while you cross the ravine." When McKay still didn't move, Sheppard continued, "Wear the pack so you don't fall. You can hang in its straps and pull yourself across, hand over hand."
"You want me to what?" McKay squawked. And then, turning toward the ravine, he added, "Hey, avert your eyes!"
Sheppard sighed and turned an entertaining shade of red. Ronon smirked to himself.
"It's not like I haven't seen it before, Rodney," Sheppard protested. "Anyway, I-"
"Not you," McKay said. "Teyla! She's ogling me!"
"What?" Sheppard looked across the ravine to Teyla and Ronon. Ronon turned and gave McKay an appraising look.
Teyla called back, "Rodney, I can't see anything in detail at this distance."
"I can," Ronon said. "Nice ass, McKay."
"Okay, you know what? Not helping," Sheppard told him. "How's this: I'll go over first, and when I send the pack back I'll include your pants. Take it or leave it."
"Take it!" McKay said quickly. "Now go, go, and get me my pants." Ronon stifled a chuckle.
Sheppard looked awkward crossing the ravine. His arms had to be burning, and there was no way that pack was comfortable like that. Ronon admired the way he was getting the job done, though, and held the line as steady as he could. When Sheppard was close enough, Teyla hauled him in and everyone breathed easier.
Sheppard talked Ronon in to tossing the second of McKay's boots into the pack with his pants. It seemed like misplaced priorities to worry about clothes when McKay was still technically stranded, but sometimes humoring him helped and he did seem happier with pants and shoes. The pack creaked ominously when McKay settled his weight on it, barely audible across the ravine. Sheppard looked up from his pile of clothes, pulling his own pants on quickly.
McKay had actually made it halfway across when the waist strap gave way and left him hanging by his armpits.
"McKay!" Sheppard yelled, pulling off his belt. "Catch!" He tried to toss an end to McKay and although it was obviously too short Ronon could see where he was going with the idea.
McKay looked panicked, but he did try to grab Sheppard's belt. It wasn't long enough to reach.
Ronon pulled off his own belt and turned to Teyla, who was already unbuckling hers. By the time Sheppard turned to them, wild-eyed, they'd already buckled their belts together and left an end hanging for the third belt. Sheppard's hands shook as he fastened his belt on to their chain.
It wasn't anything that would hold up long, but Sheppard gave it a quick, testing tug and seemed satisfied.
This time McKay caught the belt-chain, grabbing it with both hands and holding on, white-knuckled, with his eyes closed. Ronon concentrated on keeping the rope line as taut and steady as he could, smoothing the way for McKay. Sheppard pulled, and Teyla pulled, and when McKay was within reach they both grabbed him and hauled him to safety, their belts still firmly in his hands.
Ronon cut the rope with his knife and untangled it from the pack, letting it drop into the ravine. No one spoke until they'd walked well away from the edge.
McKay's hands shook as he pulled on a shirt, took off his boots and put them back on once he had socks. Sheppard watched him the whole time, looking frantic and twitchy. Ronon looked away, not wanting to see too much.
- v - V - v -
"There's something about being properly clothed and standing on solid ground that just makes everything better, don't you think?" Rodney said, walking back to the stargate. "Still, let's never do any of that again."
"Okay," John agreed heartily.
Rodney looked at him carefully. John had been very quiet on the edge of the ravine, but John was often quiet. "I think we can send someone back for the naquadah," Rodney continued tentatively.
"Yes," Teyla replied. "The security system is off now, right, Rodney?"
"As far as I can tell." Rodney shrugged. "We should send someone back right away, before anyone else discovers that the mine is disarmed, but I don't think any future teams are going to have to have avian adventures. Zelenka can supervise. It'll be good for him to get off world, the slacker."
They all fell silent again, coming down from the adrenaline rush of the day. Teyla and Ronon kept up their pace, but Rodney dropped back a bit and was gratified to see John hanging back with him. "So, ah, that was really stupid. I mean, the whole thing was - some days I can't believe that the Ancients were any better than undergraduates, you know? - but especially the part where you just suddenly became a bird and flew away."
John scowled at him.
"And I thought- It was like I couldn't think of anything but all the bad things that could happen to you. Worrying about you overrode my self-preservation instincts! Do you realize how serious that is?" Rodney stopped walking, remembering the need to find John that had been stronger than all his caution and fear for Ancient transmogrification machines. "Do you?"
"Yeah, Rodney," John said, his face softening. "I think I do."
Rodney had a sudden flash of John's face, the look he had when Rodney's pack straps started to give way and the shaking of his hands as he unfastened the belt chain, after. "Well, good," he said, and started walking toward the 'gate again. Ronon and Teyla were waiting there already. "Because this relationship only has room for one person who takes foolish risks, so try to make them risks that don't make me act like an idiot too."
"Less idiocy, huh?" John said. "I'll see what I can do." They'd reached the edge of the 'gate's splash zone, and as they stepped up Teyla finished dialing. Rodney muttered, "Moron," affectionately as he leaned in to kiss John in the blue light of an active Stargate. If it had worked that way, Rodney would have tipped them through the gate, lips still pressed together, and kissed him for about 12.7 light years. But it didn't, so instead they parted and walked through as usual, and Rodney knew that, if he had to, he'd do it all again.
**
Poll
Author: wintercreek
Team: Work
Prompt: as the crow flies
Pairing(s): McKay/Sheppard
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Summary: In which Ancient ideas for practical security are unimaginably weird, the security and structural integrity of field pack straps could probably use some more rigorous testing, and John and Rodney reach a new level of relationship security without ever really having much out-and-out discussion.
Notes: Set ambiguously mid-season four.
Once you've read the story, please take a moment to vote in the poll below. Ratings go from 1 (low) to 9 (high), so all you need to do is enter a single number in that range into each text entry box. You'll be able to see the Prompt and Team (Genre) information in the header above.
More details about the voting procedure can be found here.
**
"I wouldn't touch that, if I were you," Rodney said.
But it's too late and John's hand is on the trigger point, pressed into the curved V blazoned on the pad, and a blue light engulfs him. There's a sound in his ears like an ocean in a seashell; he can dimly see Rodney's mouth moving, Teyla's eyes widening. They're getting taller, or he's shrinking. Then the sound stops and his ears clear. His vision is hazy when he looks forward and oddly flat. He can see further to either side than he could before, and he wonders what kind of device is designed to move someone's eyes around. He turns his head and his team's boots come into view. John tilts his head, looking up toward their faces.
Rodney's mouth is still moving. "-the actual fuck?!" he finishes.
Ronon's hand moves slowly and inexorably to his forehead.
John opens his mouth to ask what's happened and is stopped dead by the realization that he no longer has lips. Or teeth. His tongue feels strange and his mouth is made of something stiff. When he tries to lift a hand to his face he gets a flash of glossy black feathers; when he turns his head further he can see that he's got wings. Crap. He's a bird.
"What the actual fuck?!" John tries to say, stealing McKay's words, but it comes out as "Awh, awh awhk!" Super. He's a crow. This day couldn't get more irritating.
He wonders if he can fly, if his body knows how, and he tries to gather himself the way birds do. He starts to overbalance and flails, wings instinctively stabilizing him. Holding very still, John looks up at his team.
Rodney is saying something rapid fire and Teyla looks worried as she nods. No help there. John turns to Ronon and tilts his head further to the side, making eye contact as best he can. Ronon gives him a considering look.
"Trying to fly?" he asks.
John nods his bird head, bobbing like a moron and hoping Ronon gets it.
Ronon folds his arms and looks skyward, then looks back at John. "Don't over think it."
So John thinks, fly, fly, up, fly and feels his legs pushing off as though someone else is controlling them. He beats his wings, and the part of his mind that has only human references thinks it feels kind of like rowing. It doesn't matter what it feels like: he's leaving the ground behind, catching an updraft. He feels like laughing, like cheering, like shouting and punching the sky, and the caw that comes out instead is triumphant. He's not sure, but he thinks he should be more worried about how good this feels.
- v - V - v -
Before Teyla had recovered from John's rash departure, she was distracted by Rodney's overreaction.
"What?! Wait, you moron!" Rodney yelled, shaking his fist at the bird as it flew away. Teyla wasn't sure what the fist shaking was supposed to accomplish.
"Of all the stupid, impulsive, just, just Sheppard things to do! It's not like we needed that naquadah. Surely the most important thing we can do with our afternoon is chase after Sheppard and indulge his Ancient technology fetish. 'Oh, I wonder what this does?'" Rodney said, flailing. "'I think I'll go ahead and let the old, untested, possibly failing equipment change me into something unknown, without any indication of whether I'll be able to change back!' And he left behind all his gear," he added, throwing a look at the pile of John's clothes and pack.
Teyla had learned to accept Rodney's sarcasm as his coping method, but she still didn't understand what good all his motion did. He wasn't much for physical exertion under other circumstances. She put out a tentative hand. "Rodney," she started, trying to settle him down so he could think, instead of wasting all his energy in his panic.
Rodney turned to look at her, then shook his head. "Don't 'Rodney' me, Teyla, not now. This whole thing is so stupid. Who ties the security system on their mine to a transformation device? I mean, who does that?" He looked past her to Ronon. "And you! What the hell was that? Encouraging him to fly away, like you know anything about anything." He pressed his hands to his face, still muttering.
"Hey," Ronon said softly. "Stop."
"Stop?!" Rodney shrieked, hands flailing at the sky. "When John is out there, somewhere, probably being hunted and eaten for all we know, and even if we could find him we don't know how to change him back. And-"
Ronon grabbed Rodney by the shoulders. "McKay. Rodney. Calm down."
Teyla could see Rodney shaking, a fine tremor that hadn't been visible while he was in motion.
"Don't you understand?" he asked Ronon, quiet and desperate. "If I calm down I'll lose my nerve."
And before Ronon could say anything else, before Teyla could figure out what he meant, before anything they could do, Rodney broke out of Ronon's grip and strode to the console. He slammed his hand down on the same pad John had touched, eyes squeezed tightly closed.
There was the same strange blue light from before; when it cleared, another one of those odd black birds was standing where Rodney had been. "Well," Teyla said.
The bird - Rodney - made an irritable noise. "Awh, awhk," he said. He flapped awkwardly up on to his pack and pecked at an outer pocket. When neither she nor Ronon moved, he squawked again.
"You want something from the pocket?" Teyla asked, moving to open it. "You should have told us your plan before you became a bird," she chided him. Not knowing what Rodney was after, she laid the life signs detector, powerbar, TI-83 calculator, computer cables and EpiPen on the ground. Then, as Rodney turned to peck at the LSD she realized what he meant. "Of course! Your transmitter."
Rodney's beak made a clicking noise on the screen of the LSD. Teyla picked it up, checked that it displayed four dots and not two, and nodded to Rodney. She could not have said how, but he seemed pleased as he took off.
- v - V - v -
John catches a thermal and glides, letting his bird's brain make the minor adjustments his wings need to keep him flying level. There's less room for worry in here, somehow, like the uncomplicated joy he gets from flight just crowds everything out. The sun is warm on his feathers, the air cool in his nares. Some crow impulse tugs him north and west, so he lets himself follow it. John has no way of knowing if it's instinct or something the Ancients programmed in to the transformation, but he doesn't care much.
Flying always makes him feel good like this, even when it's in a plane. Puddlejumpers are better, of course, but being a bird is the best yet. It seems like he can't handle complex thought while he's transformed, so he can't think about whether he'll be able to change back. Not that he hasn't tried - just that the ideas slide away from him. He thinks of Rodney and sees his face, feels a surety that Rodney will figure out this transformation business, will come and find him, but without any nuance or concern. Ditto for thinking of being human again: no anxiety, just the sense that things will work out. It's kind of nice.
His time sense is all screwed up as a bird, so there's no way of saying how long he flies. It doesn't seem like long, but flight time always feels shorter than it is to John. He tilts in the air, half to do a little swooping and half to check for landmarks he might recognize. There's a ravine under him, wide enough that he'd need a bridge to cross it in human form, and deep. There's a river at the bottom, glinting with the sun. Pretty, his birdbrain notes.
Just beyond the ravine is something that shines silver in the afternoon light. John arrows down to it compelled by the shininess and by something deeper. As he lands on the perch that juts out from the large metal box, he feels something missing. Something he knows should be there, even if his limited brain won't let him identify it.
Cocking his head to look at things is almost natural now. John looks at the console next to him with one eye, then turns around to look at it with the other. Across the console there's the same curved V he remembers from the first console; on the ground in front of it is another pad with a stick figure of a human sketched on it. John caws, amused. He sidles carefully along the perch, flutters down, and steps on the human image.
Abruptly, John found himself in human form again. And buck-naked. He sighed heavily. The Ancients were geniuses, sure, but they were terrible with practicalities. At least, he thought ruefully, the day was warm.
There were only two controls obvious on top of the console, the pads with the curved V - a rudimentary bird in flight, John now realized - and a recessed button, the same color as the console's case. Experimentally, he stepped off the human button and laid his hand on the bird button.
The transition to bird form is still jarring, still full of a rushing sound and a shrinking sensation. John has a brief moment to think how odd it is that he can become a human again in a moment with no intermediary stage but becoming a bird requires him to actually experience the change. Then he's bird-minded again as well as bird formed. His crow body wants to take off, at first, until he looks at the console again. Great. Now there are two nagging feelings occupying his consciousness: a sense of something missing, still, and now a sense of something undone.
When another crow lands next to John, it only takes a second before he realizes it's Rodney. The sense of something missing subsides. In fact, John's crow brain says Mate, mate, mate! Disconcerted, John walk-hops over to the human button.
Once he was human again, John expected to feel the usual conflicting mess, pleasure that Rodney had found him mixed with indignity that Rodney had thought he'd needed rescuing, damped down under military restraint. He didn't. His brain was still full of the relieved feeling of recognition, all tied up with a human gratitude, and right there at the front of his mind. Rodney hadn't willingly used any sort of Ancient transmogrification device since his near-ascendance last year. That he did now-
John pushed the thought away, letting himself be distracted by the sight of Rodney as a bird. Carefully avoiding the bird button, John walked around the console to the perch. He was naked again, but the early evening was still warm. It felt nice.
Rodney tilted his head, apparently checking John out.
"Yeah, yeah," John muttered. "Why don't you transform back, and we'll see how we like the looks of each other in broad daylight? And you can tell me what your plan is, O genius-level bird brain."
Cawing peevishly, Rodney edged over to the console and flapped down to the human button. Almost instantly, Rodney appeared and crossed his human arms, looking away from John. "Bird brain?" he sniffed.
It didn't help matters that they were both naked. "It's a joke, Rodney," John protested, ducking his head and rubbing the back of his neck. "C'mon, let's figure out what we're supposed to do." The vestigial bird reaction to Rodney as a mate hadn't gone away yet, and John's very human reaction was noting that in broad daylight Rodney still looked good.
Rodney stepped off the transformation button and then carefully looked over his own body and John's. "Everything where it should be? Nothing lost in, er, transition?"
John shrugged. "Seems okay to me. I went from bird to human and back to bird once before you arrived. Just a matter of hopping from button to button."
"Oh thank goodness," Rodney said in one long exhale, wrapping himself around John.
John raised a tentative hand to pat Rodney's back. "Hey, uh. It's okay."
"Do you know how many ways this old, poorly-thought-out, unmaintained, not-even-designed-for-our-precise-species could mess things up?" Rodney rebuked him, somewhat muffled by John's shoulder. "Did you even think about that before you succumbed to the temptation of the shiny button? Seriously, you could have wound up in a bird shape forever. Or with feathers on your elbows! Or only half a brain!"
"Uh," John replied. "No, not really. But it turned out all right, and I'm sorry I freaked you out, okay?"
Rodney nodded against John's neck. "Okay."
"Okay," John sighed. "Now, can we figure out this console thingy?"
- v - V - v -
Rodney hmmed.
"That's the fifteenth 'hmm,' Rodney. Are you making progress?" John asked.
"You can't rush these things," Rodney told him, waving a hand. "When you do, everyone has to turn into birds." He paused to let that sink in, then continued, "I think I've got this worked out now." He pressed the recessed button on top, then a similarly recessed switch on the side of the console, and the panel slid up and away to reveal a standard interface.
John came over and peered at it. Rodney knew he'd never figure it out, but it was nice of him to take an interest.
"It deactivates the security system on the naquadah mine! This is the most wacky paranoid thing we've seen yet - it's not only a guarantee that only those with the gene can access the mine, it's probably also supposed to ensure that only those who know what to look for can get to this console at all. It's a good thing I'm a genius," he concluded, smiling.
John looked suitably impressed. "So you can call off the laser guard dogs, and then we can do the bird trick again, get the naquadah and go home?"
Rodney's stomach sank. "Well. Let's not get ahead of ourselves. We might not need to be birds again, you know."
"Did you fly over the same ravine I did?" John asked, raising an eyebrow.
"All this transformation business is creepy!" Rodney cried. "And stop bothering me. I still have to work out how to turn off the system." It didn't take him very long to figure out, naturally, so he studied some of the irrelevant controls too. There was nothing wrong with making it look harder so John would be more appreciative of all his work.
He pulled up the security system's control, let the scanner verify his DNA, and turned off the system on the mine. The other systems elsewhere on the planet he left active; there was no point in turning them off until they knew what they were guarding, and where. The console uttered a confirmation chirp. Rodney grinned and waved his hand at the transformation module with a "So there!" flourish.
With a noise that always meant trouble, the console powered down.
"Rodney, what did you do?" John looked concerned.
Rodney flailed his hands. "I don't know! I turned off the security system, and then the whole thing died!"
"Can you turn it back on?" John asked. "This isn't just a trick to avoid being birds again, is it?"
"No, it's not a 'trick,'" Rodney snapped. "And-" He hit the recessed button again. Nothing. The scanner didn't respond to him, the transformation panel refused to slide back out. His shoulders slumped. "It's dead."
John's heavy sighs were getting tiresome, but Rodney couldn't blame him for this one. "I guess we walk."
"Teyla and Ronon are coming, at least," Rodney pointed out. "They're following the transmitter."
"Hope they remember to bring our clothes, or at least our boots," John muttered, striking out in what Rodney assumed was the direction of the ravine. At least, he hoped it was the direction of the ravine. Whatever navigation sense he'd had as a bird was gone gone gone as a human.
- v - V - v -
Following the LSD without falling down was harder than it looked. Ronon realized now that he'd never given McKay enough credit. He hadn't quite tripped, but it had been a near thing. And when he'd handed the device off to Teyla, she'd almost walked into a tree.
Fortunately, they'd both noticed the big fucking ravine in plenty of time.
It wasn't really that wide, but it was deep, and the river at the bottom looked fast. Sheppard and McKay were already at the edge on the far side, gesturing at Teyla and Ronon as they neared their edge. "Rope line?" Ronon asked Teyla.
She considered the ravine. "Yes, I think so. It's not too wide, and if we empty out one of these packs it should do well for a harness."
Ronon nodded in confirmation. They dumped their loads of gear, and Ronon turned to pulling Sheppard's clothes back out of his pack while Teyla picked up one of Rodney's boots.
"John! Rodney!" Teyla called. "Can you secure a rope if we toss one end to you?"
"Sure," Sheppard called back. "That tree close enough?"
Ronon heaved a boot across the ravine with a light rope attached. "We'll find out."
Sheppard got the rope anchored in short order and gave the boot to McKay, not that one boot would do him any good. Ronon heard McKay plaintively say, "Soon? Aren't they going to send our clothes across first?"
"Nope. Apparently not," Sheppard answered him. "It's more efficient this way."
Teyla had Sheppard's empty pack slung on the line; with a strong launch she was able to slide it most of the way across the ravine. Ronon lifted his end of the line and shook it, hard, until the pack was close enough for Sheppard to pull in.
"Strap in, Rodney," Sheppard said.
Even at a distance, Ronon could see McKay eyeing the pack. "Strap in?" he repeated dubiously.
"Fasten yourself in. It'll hold you up while you cross the ravine." When McKay still didn't move, Sheppard continued, "Wear the pack so you don't fall. You can hang in its straps and pull yourself across, hand over hand."
"You want me to what?" McKay squawked. And then, turning toward the ravine, he added, "Hey, avert your eyes!"
Sheppard sighed and turned an entertaining shade of red. Ronon smirked to himself.
"It's not like I haven't seen it before, Rodney," Sheppard protested. "Anyway, I-"
"Not you," McKay said. "Teyla! She's ogling me!"
"What?" Sheppard looked across the ravine to Teyla and Ronon. Ronon turned and gave McKay an appraising look.
Teyla called back, "Rodney, I can't see anything in detail at this distance."
"I can," Ronon said. "Nice ass, McKay."
"Okay, you know what? Not helping," Sheppard told him. "How's this: I'll go over first, and when I send the pack back I'll include your pants. Take it or leave it."
"Take it!" McKay said quickly. "Now go, go, and get me my pants." Ronon stifled a chuckle.
Sheppard looked awkward crossing the ravine. His arms had to be burning, and there was no way that pack was comfortable like that. Ronon admired the way he was getting the job done, though, and held the line as steady as he could. When Sheppard was close enough, Teyla hauled him in and everyone breathed easier.
Sheppard talked Ronon in to tossing the second of McKay's boots into the pack with his pants. It seemed like misplaced priorities to worry about clothes when McKay was still technically stranded, but sometimes humoring him helped and he did seem happier with pants and shoes. The pack creaked ominously when McKay settled his weight on it, barely audible across the ravine. Sheppard looked up from his pile of clothes, pulling his own pants on quickly.
McKay had actually made it halfway across when the waist strap gave way and left him hanging by his armpits.
"McKay!" Sheppard yelled, pulling off his belt. "Catch!" He tried to toss an end to McKay and although it was obviously too short Ronon could see where he was going with the idea.
McKay looked panicked, but he did try to grab Sheppard's belt. It wasn't long enough to reach.
Ronon pulled off his own belt and turned to Teyla, who was already unbuckling hers. By the time Sheppard turned to them, wild-eyed, they'd already buckled their belts together and left an end hanging for the third belt. Sheppard's hands shook as he fastened his belt on to their chain.
It wasn't anything that would hold up long, but Sheppard gave it a quick, testing tug and seemed satisfied.
This time McKay caught the belt-chain, grabbing it with both hands and holding on, white-knuckled, with his eyes closed. Ronon concentrated on keeping the rope line as taut and steady as he could, smoothing the way for McKay. Sheppard pulled, and Teyla pulled, and when McKay was within reach they both grabbed him and hauled him to safety, their belts still firmly in his hands.
Ronon cut the rope with his knife and untangled it from the pack, letting it drop into the ravine. No one spoke until they'd walked well away from the edge.
McKay's hands shook as he pulled on a shirt, took off his boots and put them back on once he had socks. Sheppard watched him the whole time, looking frantic and twitchy. Ronon looked away, not wanting to see too much.
- v - V - v -
"There's something about being properly clothed and standing on solid ground that just makes everything better, don't you think?" Rodney said, walking back to the stargate. "Still, let's never do any of that again."
"Okay," John agreed heartily.
Rodney looked at him carefully. John had been very quiet on the edge of the ravine, but John was often quiet. "I think we can send someone back for the naquadah," Rodney continued tentatively.
"Yes," Teyla replied. "The security system is off now, right, Rodney?"
"As far as I can tell." Rodney shrugged. "We should send someone back right away, before anyone else discovers that the mine is disarmed, but I don't think any future teams are going to have to have avian adventures. Zelenka can supervise. It'll be good for him to get off world, the slacker."
They all fell silent again, coming down from the adrenaline rush of the day. Teyla and Ronon kept up their pace, but Rodney dropped back a bit and was gratified to see John hanging back with him. "So, ah, that was really stupid. I mean, the whole thing was - some days I can't believe that the Ancients were any better than undergraduates, you know? - but especially the part where you just suddenly became a bird and flew away."
John scowled at him.
"And I thought- It was like I couldn't think of anything but all the bad things that could happen to you. Worrying about you overrode my self-preservation instincts! Do you realize how serious that is?" Rodney stopped walking, remembering the need to find John that had been stronger than all his caution and fear for Ancient transmogrification machines. "Do you?"
"Yeah, Rodney," John said, his face softening. "I think I do."
Rodney had a sudden flash of John's face, the look he had when Rodney's pack straps started to give way and the shaking of his hands as he unfastened the belt chain, after. "Well, good," he said, and started walking toward the 'gate again. Ronon and Teyla were waiting there already. "Because this relationship only has room for one person who takes foolish risks, so try to make them risks that don't make me act like an idiot too."
"Less idiocy, huh?" John said. "I'll see what I can do." They'd reached the edge of the 'gate's splash zone, and as they stepped up Teyla finished dialing. Rodney muttered, "Moron," affectionately as he leaned in to kiss John in the blue light of an active Stargate. If it had worked that way, Rodney would have tipped them through the gate, lips still pressed together, and kissed him for about 12.7 light years. But it didn't, so instead they parted and walked through as usual, and Rodney knew that, if he had to, he'd do it all again.
**
Poll