fic: "Inversions" by tielan, for the 'Slave' challenge
TITLE: Inversions
AUTHOR: tielan
SUMMARY: "in·ver·sion n. An interchange of position of adjacent objects in a sequence, especially a change in normal word order, such as the placement of a verb before its subject."
CATEGORY: gen (*shock*), AU, darkfic
NOTES: Only the second one explicitly invokes the challenge key, however, it will make little sense without the other two in the triptych. I wrote this in about 3 hours and it's unbeta'd due to the closing time of the challenge. It was going to be a lot darker, but the characters wouldn't comply. Stubborn, aren't they?
Inversion I: Easier To Submit
"Not another interruption," Rodney snaps.
She hesitates at the door, tension all through her shoulders. The man leaning in the doorway beyond the scientist shakes his head ever so slightly, hazel eyes flashing in warning. Now is not a good time.
Now is the only time.
Elizabeth Weir reminds herself that she's a diplomat, that she's accustomed to suspicion, distrust, resentment of her presence. Somehow, it doesn't seem to count for much, now that they're partway across the universe in a galaxy far from home.
She reminds herself that she's the leader of this expedition, that General O'Neill gave authority to her.
She forgot that she was accustomed to acceding to Rodney's demands and pressures. He has a way about him and she has a habit about her; it's easier to give in than to fight. She's always had to fight the men in her life, from her father to her colleagues to Simon.
She's tired of fighting.
"The Gennii aren't going to trade with us."
"And why do you think that is?"
The question is pointed - and a trap. He doesn't ask for opinions; he states the way things are and will not be moved from them. "Because they don't think we're offering them enough to make it worth the exchange."
"We're not going to offer them any more than that," Rodney says brusquely. "We haven't got the supplies as it is."
She's tempted to snap back at him that she knows perfectly well that they don't have the supplies. As the leader of this expedition - however nominal - she keeps track of what they have and what they don't. She knows their situation as well as he does - if not better.
But she doesn't.
"We're going to need food supplies sooner or later."
"But not at the cost of our technology," he says, his fingers still moving over the keys of his laptop.
"Rodney," she puts all her entreaty into his name, hoping that he'll listen long enough for her to get her message through. He looks up, and again she is startled by the blueness of his eyes. He is not handsome, but he has a charisma of a kind - and for him, it is enough. "There isn't any point in having the technology if we don't have anything to eat."
He glares at her. "Then find someone who will trade with us!"
"It's not that simple!"
"It is that simple! You're making things difficult for yourself, Elizabeth. And you're interrupting me." He glances at the man still watching from the other doorway, the young features impassive. "Sheppard, go and work something out with her, will you? I don't have time for this."
And that simply, she is dismissed.
Bitterness rises in her mouth, and her words are acid as Major Sheppard 'ushers' her from the doctor's presence. "Work something out with me?" She's never asked how Rodney controls the military on this project; she only knows that Colonel Sumner's death was an unexpected blessing to him.
The smile he gives her is brief and thin. "You should be grateful. He didn't say I should work something out on you."
Delicate as a butterfly's wings, but sharp-edged as a precision scalpel, his words slice into her.
She holds back a shudder as his breath traces the curls over her ear.
She keeps walking.
-fin-
Inversion II: Steel And Velvet
The lash of her voice cuts into his psyche like a whip.
"Excuses are unacceptable, Sheppard." He doesn't cringe at the tone of her voice: he is beyond that, stronger than that.
He will show neither fear, nor submission before her. John Sheppard is no slave.
Or so he tells himself as he is divested of his weapons. "They're not willing to trade," he grits out. "I can't do anything about that."
A slashing gaze silences him. Her eyes are the same colour as the waters that swirl around this city - just as changeable in her moods, and just as dangerous in their depths. He's learned the price of defiance - to his cost.
Physically, she's his inferior - he could take her out in a moment. But she knows his weaknesses and will use them without mercy. And he can't lift his hand against a woman; much as he would like to, he can't overcome that part of his training.
"There's always something to be done," she says, clear and calm, and as arrogant as the expression of the man who hovers just beyond her shoulder, smugly pleased at John's slap on the wrist.
"Not in this case," he says, certain of what he knows. "We don't have the personnel to take them over, we don't have the resources to give them what they want, and if you wanted to lie to them, then you should have led the delegation yourself!"
She stops, and he stifles the urge to flinch. "Are you challenging my decisions?"
He backs down and chooses his words with a little more care. "I'm suggesting that I might not be the best person for this kind of job." The words sting even when said by him.
Her expression eases. "Maybe," she admits. "But you're the only one I have."
Their military presence is severely reduced, whittled down by the repeated encounters with the Wraith. Their attempts to fight back have been hampered by a lack of personnel to carry them out - the scientists can come up with ideas, but there is only a handful of military personnel to act upon them.
Her admission gives him boldness to make a suggestion he might otherwise have avoided mentioning. "We'd have a better chance if we left the city--"
"No." No room for equivocation, no space for doubt. Here they would stay.
"Elizabeth, we don't have the resources--"
"And out there, we won't have the city." It always comes back to this. "We won't have the Stargate, we won't have the Ancients' technology, and we don't have a reason for this expedition."
Damn scientists and diplomats. John doesn't say it out loud because he values his hide, but they're stuck. Trapped. Atlantis can look after itself, but the expedition is running out of resources. They can't go home, they haven't got the ZPM. They can't stay here, running the city takes more energy and effort than they have; and protecting it will be an absolute bastard of a job.
But the scientists won't leave, and Elizabeth won't give the miltary permission to leave, and if there's one thing John Sheppard understands, it's that breaking the rules should be the very last resort. He learned that when he came out of Afghanistan without his friends.
"Elizabeth?" McKay appears at her shoulder, a screen-board held firmly in the crook of his arm. "Oh, Sheppard. How did the embassage go? Tell me, did you muscle in there like you owned the place the way you usually do?"
McKay might think he's witty; in truth, he's just lucky. John might hesitate to hit a woman; he has no such reservations about the scientists who get in his way. And McKay is always in the way, the serpent at Weir's shoulder, insisting that they can't leave, they can't go, they have to stay.
She listens to him where she doesn't listen to John.
"Rodney, not now. I'll see you in a minute." Her hands turn him about and propel him towards her office. She deals with the scientist in private, while John's humiliation is to be publicly seen. "We have a problem, Major."
No kidding.
Her eyes are green today; with hints of ruthless blue as she steps close to him and regards him. "I want you to think about what went wrong today, and how to make sure it doesn't happen again."
The words are like sand in his mouth, but he spits them out. "Yes, ma'am."
"And I want you to get back to me with alternatives."
"Yes, ma'am."
She's exquisitely beautiful, but her fist is steel within a velvet glove. John is no slave, but there are times when it damn well feels like it.
And he has nowhere else to go.
-fin-
Inversion III: The Way Things Are Not
Radek warns him that it won't go down well.
Rodney isn't surprised. Nothing he says around here goes down well. Certainly not at the topmost levels of this expedition.
"Out of the question," is Sheppard's immediate response. He doesn't even wait for Elizabeth's response; doesn't look at her for any cues. He has vetoed it and so it must be.
Rodney waits for the answer with a patience he has learned in the last six months of this expedition. It doesn't come easy to him, and there are days when he comes so close to saying all the things he'd really like to say to Sheppard's face. And doesn't.
Finally, she looks up. "It's not feasible, Rodney." Her voice is soft beside the harsh negatives of the Major's words. "It requires more pilots than we have."
He stares at her. "But we've got plenty of pilots," he says. "All those people who took the ATA--"
"They've got the ATA gene," says Sheppard, flat and hard. "They're not pilots."
"They could be, if you taught them."
The other man's expression doesn't soften. "If I taught them?"
Rodney knows where this will end, but he ploughs on nevertheless. "You or one of the other pilots."
"Teach scientists to fly?"
Even in Siberia, things were never this bad. For one, the scientists were firmly in charge, and the military was a secondary presence. The way things should have been here in Atlantis.
The way things most definitely are not.
Rodney points out the obvious. "It's just aerodynamic theory, Major--"
"And instinct and co-ordination and extremely dangerous--"
"Major, which part of 'this sensor array is extremely important and could be of strategic use in defending Atlantis' didn't you understand?"
"The bit where you want to hijack my 'jumpers--"
"Your 'jumpers?"
"--to fly out to a hunk of scrap metal in the sky--"
"I'm guessing you didn't hear the words 'strategic' and 'defence' in my statement."
"--which you think you can repair - in spite of the fact that you haven't been able to repair a single other thing in this city!"
Rodney has nothing to say to that. Yes, the scientific teams have tried to get things working and largely failed. But the accusation that they haven't been able to get anything working hurts. They've gotten all the things that were back on Earth working - the chair, the drones. They've gotten the city's computer systems working - that was something.
"John." Her voice doesn't quite rein him in, but it's enough.
Rodney grits his teeth. "Look, I've told you about it in terms of our defence ability," he says with a semblance of calm. "We won't know the possibilities until we get up there!"
"And possibly lose several other pilots?"
"John!" Elizabeth turns to him. "I'm sorry, Rodney," she says. "But we can't risk any more losses."
"If we don't get these up--""
Her voice is soft, but firm. "Rodney."
He schools his expression to what he hopes is neutrality. It's probably closer to sulky thwartedness, but it's all he can manage. "This could save Atlantis."
"Or it could lose us even more personnel." She shakes her head. "No."
He has an imagination, he can guess why the pendulum has swung so firmly in favour of the military. In fact, he's more than willing to put a name to it, too.
John Sheppard.
If it wasn't for Sheppard...
He swallows down his anger and stalks away.
Radek was right.
- fin -
FEEDBACK: None goes nowhere, but a little goes a long way!
AUTHOR: tielan
SUMMARY: "in·ver·sion n. An interchange of position of adjacent objects in a sequence, especially a change in normal word order, such as the placement of a verb before its subject."
CATEGORY: gen (*shock*), AU, darkfic
NOTES: Only the second one explicitly invokes the challenge key, however, it will make little sense without the other two in the triptych. I wrote this in about 3 hours and it's unbeta'd due to the closing time of the challenge. It was going to be a lot darker, but the characters wouldn't comply. Stubborn, aren't they?
Inversion I: Easier To Submit
"Not another interruption," Rodney snaps.
She hesitates at the door, tension all through her shoulders. The man leaning in the doorway beyond the scientist shakes his head ever so slightly, hazel eyes flashing in warning. Now is not a good time.
Now is the only time.
Elizabeth Weir reminds herself that she's a diplomat, that she's accustomed to suspicion, distrust, resentment of her presence. Somehow, it doesn't seem to count for much, now that they're partway across the universe in a galaxy far from home.
She reminds herself that she's the leader of this expedition, that General O'Neill gave authority to her.
She forgot that she was accustomed to acceding to Rodney's demands and pressures. He has a way about him and she has a habit about her; it's easier to give in than to fight. She's always had to fight the men in her life, from her father to her colleagues to Simon.
She's tired of fighting.
"The Gennii aren't going to trade with us."
"And why do you think that is?"
The question is pointed - and a trap. He doesn't ask for opinions; he states the way things are and will not be moved from them. "Because they don't think we're offering them enough to make it worth the exchange."
"We're not going to offer them any more than that," Rodney says brusquely. "We haven't got the supplies as it is."
She's tempted to snap back at him that she knows perfectly well that they don't have the supplies. As the leader of this expedition - however nominal - she keeps track of what they have and what they don't. She knows their situation as well as he does - if not better.
But she doesn't.
"We're going to need food supplies sooner or later."
"But not at the cost of our technology," he says, his fingers still moving over the keys of his laptop.
"Rodney," she puts all her entreaty into his name, hoping that he'll listen long enough for her to get her message through. He looks up, and again she is startled by the blueness of his eyes. He is not handsome, but he has a charisma of a kind - and for him, it is enough. "There isn't any point in having the technology if we don't have anything to eat."
He glares at her. "Then find someone who will trade with us!"
"It's not that simple!"
"It is that simple! You're making things difficult for yourself, Elizabeth. And you're interrupting me." He glances at the man still watching from the other doorway, the young features impassive. "Sheppard, go and work something out with her, will you? I don't have time for this."
And that simply, she is dismissed.
Bitterness rises in her mouth, and her words are acid as Major Sheppard 'ushers' her from the doctor's presence. "Work something out with me?" She's never asked how Rodney controls the military on this project; she only knows that Colonel Sumner's death was an unexpected blessing to him.
The smile he gives her is brief and thin. "You should be grateful. He didn't say I should work something out on you."
Delicate as a butterfly's wings, but sharp-edged as a precision scalpel, his words slice into her.
She holds back a shudder as his breath traces the curls over her ear.
She keeps walking.
-fin-
Inversion II: Steel And Velvet
The lash of her voice cuts into his psyche like a whip.
"Excuses are unacceptable, Sheppard." He doesn't cringe at the tone of her voice: he is beyond that, stronger than that.
He will show neither fear, nor submission before her. John Sheppard is no slave.
Or so he tells himself as he is divested of his weapons. "They're not willing to trade," he grits out. "I can't do anything about that."
A slashing gaze silences him. Her eyes are the same colour as the waters that swirl around this city - just as changeable in her moods, and just as dangerous in their depths. He's learned the price of defiance - to his cost.
Physically, she's his inferior - he could take her out in a moment. But she knows his weaknesses and will use them without mercy. And he can't lift his hand against a woman; much as he would like to, he can't overcome that part of his training.
"There's always something to be done," she says, clear and calm, and as arrogant as the expression of the man who hovers just beyond her shoulder, smugly pleased at John's slap on the wrist.
"Not in this case," he says, certain of what he knows. "We don't have the personnel to take them over, we don't have the resources to give them what they want, and if you wanted to lie to them, then you should have led the delegation yourself!"
She stops, and he stifles the urge to flinch. "Are you challenging my decisions?"
He backs down and chooses his words with a little more care. "I'm suggesting that I might not be the best person for this kind of job." The words sting even when said by him.
Her expression eases. "Maybe," she admits. "But you're the only one I have."
Their military presence is severely reduced, whittled down by the repeated encounters with the Wraith. Their attempts to fight back have been hampered by a lack of personnel to carry them out - the scientists can come up with ideas, but there is only a handful of military personnel to act upon them.
Her admission gives him boldness to make a suggestion he might otherwise have avoided mentioning. "We'd have a better chance if we left the city--"
"No." No room for equivocation, no space for doubt. Here they would stay.
"Elizabeth, we don't have the resources--"
"And out there, we won't have the city." It always comes back to this. "We won't have the Stargate, we won't have the Ancients' technology, and we don't have a reason for this expedition."
Damn scientists and diplomats. John doesn't say it out loud because he values his hide, but they're stuck. Trapped. Atlantis can look after itself, but the expedition is running out of resources. They can't go home, they haven't got the ZPM. They can't stay here, running the city takes more energy and effort than they have; and protecting it will be an absolute bastard of a job.
But the scientists won't leave, and Elizabeth won't give the miltary permission to leave, and if there's one thing John Sheppard understands, it's that breaking the rules should be the very last resort. He learned that when he came out of Afghanistan without his friends.
"Elizabeth?" McKay appears at her shoulder, a screen-board held firmly in the crook of his arm. "Oh, Sheppard. How did the embassage go? Tell me, did you muscle in there like you owned the place the way you usually do?"
McKay might think he's witty; in truth, he's just lucky. John might hesitate to hit a woman; he has no such reservations about the scientists who get in his way. And McKay is always in the way, the serpent at Weir's shoulder, insisting that they can't leave, they can't go, they have to stay.
She listens to him where she doesn't listen to John.
"Rodney, not now. I'll see you in a minute." Her hands turn him about and propel him towards her office. She deals with the scientist in private, while John's humiliation is to be publicly seen. "We have a problem, Major."
No kidding.
Her eyes are green today; with hints of ruthless blue as she steps close to him and regards him. "I want you to think about what went wrong today, and how to make sure it doesn't happen again."
The words are like sand in his mouth, but he spits them out. "Yes, ma'am."
"And I want you to get back to me with alternatives."
"Yes, ma'am."
She's exquisitely beautiful, but her fist is steel within a velvet glove. John is no slave, but there are times when it damn well feels like it.
And he has nowhere else to go.
-fin-
Inversion III: The Way Things Are Not
Radek warns him that it won't go down well.
Rodney isn't surprised. Nothing he says around here goes down well. Certainly not at the topmost levels of this expedition.
"Out of the question," is Sheppard's immediate response. He doesn't even wait for Elizabeth's response; doesn't look at her for any cues. He has vetoed it and so it must be.
Rodney waits for the answer with a patience he has learned in the last six months of this expedition. It doesn't come easy to him, and there are days when he comes so close to saying all the things he'd really like to say to Sheppard's face. And doesn't.
Finally, she looks up. "It's not feasible, Rodney." Her voice is soft beside the harsh negatives of the Major's words. "It requires more pilots than we have."
He stares at her. "But we've got plenty of pilots," he says. "All those people who took the ATA--"
"They've got the ATA gene," says Sheppard, flat and hard. "They're not pilots."
"They could be, if you taught them."
The other man's expression doesn't soften. "If I taught them?"
Rodney knows where this will end, but he ploughs on nevertheless. "You or one of the other pilots."
"Teach scientists to fly?"
Even in Siberia, things were never this bad. For one, the scientists were firmly in charge, and the military was a secondary presence. The way things should have been here in Atlantis.
The way things most definitely are not.
Rodney points out the obvious. "It's just aerodynamic theory, Major--"
"And instinct and co-ordination and extremely dangerous--"
"Major, which part of 'this sensor array is extremely important and could be of strategic use in defending Atlantis' didn't you understand?"
"The bit where you want to hijack my 'jumpers--"
"Your 'jumpers?"
"--to fly out to a hunk of scrap metal in the sky--"
"I'm guessing you didn't hear the words 'strategic' and 'defence' in my statement."
"--which you think you can repair - in spite of the fact that you haven't been able to repair a single other thing in this city!"
Rodney has nothing to say to that. Yes, the scientific teams have tried to get things working and largely failed. But the accusation that they haven't been able to get anything working hurts. They've gotten all the things that were back on Earth working - the chair, the drones. They've gotten the city's computer systems working - that was something.
"John." Her voice doesn't quite rein him in, but it's enough.
Rodney grits his teeth. "Look, I've told you about it in terms of our defence ability," he says with a semblance of calm. "We won't know the possibilities until we get up there!"
"And possibly lose several other pilots?"
"John!" Elizabeth turns to him. "I'm sorry, Rodney," she says. "But we can't risk any more losses."
"If we don't get these up--""
Her voice is soft, but firm. "Rodney."
He schools his expression to what he hopes is neutrality. It's probably closer to sulky thwartedness, but it's all he can manage. "This could save Atlantis."
"Or it could lose us even more personnel." She shakes her head. "No."
He has an imagination, he can guess why the pendulum has swung so firmly in favour of the military. In fact, he's more than willing to put a name to it, too.
John Sheppard.
If it wasn't for Sheppard...
He swallows down his anger and stalks away.
Radek was right.
- fin -
FEEDBACK: None goes nowhere, but a little goes a long way!