The Human Body VIII: Getting Under Your Skin, Part 5 (Sheppard/Beckett)
Title: The Human Body VIII: Getting Under Your Skin, Part 5
Author: smallwaldo
Rating: R
Pairing: Sheppard/Beckett
Words: 2462 (this part)
A/N: This is both the "Instinct" and "Conversion" chapter of the series. This part beta'd by kyrdwyn. Thanks! :)
Summary: "He turned me into a [bug]! ... I got better."
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
He fell asleep again as dawn was just creeping up over the horizon, but only slept for another hour or two. He was anxious and restless again and he was really getting tired of feeling that way.
He dragged himself out of bed and into the shower. As the water cascaded over him, he found himself compulsively checking every bit of skin that itched or felt odd. He didn’t see anything weird, but he felt completely out of sorts. Hyper, unfocused and yet oddly fixated on things. He wanted to move and running didn’t seem like the answer. It hadn’t worked yesterday.
There was something else crawling under his skin. A feeling he couldn’t name, an instinct he couldn’t follow because he didn’t know what it was driving him to do.
It was still early but he headed down to the gyms to see if there was anyone to wrestle or spar with.
Luck was with him. Teyla was down there going over forms and moves, gracefully moving across the floor, her sticks arcing and spinning as she went. He watched her finish the set of moves she was doing and then entered the room. He’d never noticed before, but the long split skirt she wore with a tight crop top was very revealing. He’d never really paid attention to what she wore when she kicked his ass with sticks, but that morning he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off her long legs and flat stomach.
She nodded to him as she finished her form. “Colonel.”
John nodded in response taking a pair of sticks from the pile near the window. “Want a sparring partner?” It briefly crossed his mind that he really didn’t care if she wanted a partner or not. He wanted to spar so they would. He shook his head, not sure where that thought had come from. Of course he’d leave if she wanted to continue her workout alone. Why had he thought, even briefly, that what she wanted wouldn’t matter?
He was saved from having to figure it out when she said, “Of course.”
John took his place opposite her and bowed as was customary. “I didn’t expect to find you down here today, what with that head injury you had yesterday.” John circled with her, waiting for her to make the first move.
“I told you then, as I will tell you now, I am fine. It was a minor injury.” Teyla found her opening and struck out. John parried the blow easily. She raised an eyebrow. “I might ask you the same thing. How is your arm?”
John carefully kept his eyes on her as he showed her his elbow. “Perfectly fine. Which is, you know… weird. But it’s fine.” When she glanced at his arm, he struck out quickly and took her to her knees. She nodded in defeat and let John pull her to her feet.
They took their starting positions again. Teyla was more ready than she had been previously to defend herself against his improving abilities. Somehow she hadn’t noticed that he had improved so greatly recently. They both crossed their sticks over their chests and nodded to each other, signaling the start of the next round.
This time John didn’t wait for her to strike first. He’d beaten her once and he’d never done that before. He found that he rather liked the feeling. He attacked quickly, giving no quarter. He found it amazingly easy to see her moves coming and countered each of them deftly. She tried to go low and take him out at the legs, but he spun around her, his sticks keeping her at bay, using her momentum to keep her moving forward while he stepped around her, completely out of her range. He put some distance between them as she stood again, reconsidering her plan of attack.
He smiled, pleased with himself. “Not bad, huh?”
“Yes, yes, you’re doing very well.” Teyla looked less pleased than he expected her to. For someone who once told him “it is not for the winning that we practice,” she looked pretty pissed to be losing.
He charged again, this time driving her back, not letting her catch her breath or control the engagement even for a second. When she was nearly to the wall he brought his stick straight down over her head. Only the fact that Teyla was as quick as she was kept her from ending up with a compounded concussion, because, he realized as he stepped back, he had had no intention of pulling that blow.
Teyla recovered and pulled herself up straight, looking more and more concerned. John grinned inside. He liked that for once that he had her on the defensive. He had no more problems with getting his ass kicked by a girl than he did with getting his ass kicked by someone else, but it was always preferable not to get his ass kicked.
“You have been practicing,” Teyla observed.
John shrugged, “Not really.” He found himself uncomfortably aware of the way her body shone with sweat and her breathing was harsh in his ears. He wasn’t sure he’d ever even given her a run for her money before, let alone worn her out. He suddenly remembered that stupid expression kids used when talking about beating up someone a foot shorter than themselves. ‘I could beat you up with one hand tied behind my back.’
He made it a point to be sure she was looking as he tossed on stick to the floor and put his left hand behind his back. He swung the other one around a few times noticing that his thoughts kept scattering and flaking off into odd directions. His vision doubled then returned to normal.
At first she came at him with only one stick, keeping them evenly matched. But as John easily deflected each blow she brought up the other hand. He was still able to push her back. When she began to push back he became angry. For no reason he could readily understand he threw every rule of engagement he knew out the window and put his stick across her chest and shoved her back into the wall.
She looked distinctly uncomfortable by that turn of events and John found her apprehension exciting.
“You are showing a considerable leap in abilities, Colonel Sheppard,” Teyla said as he pinned her in place.
No shit, Sherlock, was the first thing that crossed his mind. The second was that he had no idea why that was true. The third thing was that she smelled really good.
“You can call me John when we’re off the clock,” he told her, deliberately staying in her personal space, giving her no way to get out.
“Very well… John,” she repeated obediently. She reminded John of those movies where the hostage said whatever the guy with the gun told her to, just to stay alive, not because she believed it. He never thought he’d have that kind of power over a woman as strong as Teyla. Most days she could kick his ass without breaking a sweat, but now… now she seemed to be quite in his control.
“There you go,” he told her. He’d never cast himself as the bank robber or hostage taker or whatever. Normally he despised the guys in the black hats. But now he had an inkling of how they felt - of the thrill the power gave them. How intoxicating, how exciting it was to know that he had complete control over the situation and that no one could take that power from him.
“Should we continue or do you -“
John wasn’t aware of making the conscious decision to throw his remaining baton to the floor so that he’d have both hands to grab Teyla’s head and kiss her. Hard. Even as he held her still, he knew that something was wrong. She was too short, too small. Even though he knew that most days she could beat the crap out of him, she felt too delicate. He wasn’t supposed to be kissing her. He knew that, but he didn’t stop until she managed to get her hands up and shove him back a few steps.
They must have both been stunned by the situation since she didn’t crack his skull open with the two sticks she still held.
“I’m not really sure just what happened.” He replayed the moment over in his head trying to figure out when exactly he’d decided that kissing Teyla - kissing Teyla against her will - was a good idea. His vision was splitting and doubling again, and then into fourths before coalescing. He shook his head, trying to straighten out his vision as well as understand why he’d done a really stupid thing just then.
“Colonel?” Teyla sounded both concerned and apprehensive.
He really couldn’t blame her for either emotion. “That was interesting.” Actually it was mortifying - but he didn’t think he’d make things any better by saying that to a woman. It sure as hell wasn’t what he’d call ‘nice.’ Not like kissing Carson was nice. This was just… wrong. In every way. He’d never in his life come on to someone like that. Hell, that wasn’t a come on - that was an attack. What the fuck was wrong with him?
“Colonel Sheppard, report to the infirmary.”
He barely registered the page as his head spun around over what had just happened.
John looked and felt completely confused. He’d have to be eight days dead for him not to have noticed that Teyla was a beautiful woman, but he’d never found himself attracted to her before. He wasn’t even sure if he’d found her attractive as he’d grabbed her and kissed her. It was like some kind of automatic response to her proximity, something he’d had no control over.
He shuddered to think how many bones she’d have broken - even with his newly found skills - if the page hadn’t interrupted them. He hadn’t planned to kiss her, yet he had. What else might he have done if he hadn’t been shocked back to himself. “Are you okay?”
Her answer of “Doctor Beckett will be expecting you,” didn’t make him feel any better. He just nodded and backed away a few more steps.
Finding that he suddenly couldn’t look Teyla in the eye any more, he headed for his things on the bench by the window. He couldn’t face Carson right now. Not after what he’d just done. Not when he honestly had no idea what the fuck had possessed him. He grabbed his radio. “Carson, I’m in the gym. I’m gonna shower real quick. Can I meet you in fifteen minutes?” He needed some distance, some time, to understand what he was feeling and hope like hell he didn’t have another out of body experience like the one that had led to him kissing Teyla.
“Aye, but make it quick. We need to run a few more tests.”
John rolled his eyes and attempted to inject just a tad bit of his regular humor into his reply. “Oh yeah, that’s certainly going to get me to run straight down to the infirmary.”
“Fifteen minutes, Colonel,” Carson warned. “Or I’m sending your own marines after you.”
John took heart that Carson wasn’t panicking about getting him straight to the infirmary and wasn’t above making a few jokes cum not so idle threats of his own. “I hear you,” he answered, pulling his earpiece back out and heading off for the showers nearby.
~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~
John was feeling a little bit better - at least more in control of himself - as he entered the infirmary. Carson was waiting near the door and led him quickly up to his office. John raised an eyebrow; they weren’t going to do tests in Carson’s office. “I thought you needed to do some tests.”
“Aye, I’m going to need a little more blood, but I wanted to talk to you wee bit first.”
Carson’s palpable anxiety was making John nervous. The little pessimist that lived in him was already wailing, ‘Oh my god, I’m going to die!’ but the same odd feeling of disconnectedness told him that that was unlikely - he didn’t feel like he was dying - and to stop being a drama queen. “That’s the last thing anyone ever wants to hear from his doctor,” he said sincerely.
Carson gave him a weak smile. “How have you been feeling?” He led John to sit next to him on the couch.
“A little flighty, actually. But you know, all the excitement yesterday… And I didn’t sleep too well, which I’m sure isn’t helping. But not too bad. I kicked Teyla’s ass in the gym this morning.” He tried to sound proud of himself, but found that he was just on the verge of saying what else he’d done to Teyla and that took any joviality out of his words quickly. He couldn’t tell Carson what he’d done. Especially given that his instinct to kiss people senseless apparently didn’t kick in around the man he’d been involved with for the past several months.
Carson let himself squeeze John’s hand. “We found some abnormalities in your blood work. Carolyn Biro’s running a few tests to confirm what think we saw; she should have the results for us in just a few minutes.”
“I should be surprised by that, but I’m really not. I feel… off. I should have figured that something was wrong. I guess I just didn’t want there to be. I don’t hurt,” he said quickly, looking at Carson hoping that that would bring them both some relief. “In fact my reflexes are faster, my stamina seems to have improved…”
Carson nodded. “Don’t overdo it just because you can. Your muscles aren’t used to running eight laps around the catwalks.”
John made a face. “Ronon has a big mouth.”
“He was worried. He said you were acting odd.”
“He’s a sore loser. He always beats me when we run. Last night I ran rings around him.”
“And this morning you sparred with Teyla and won?” Carson asked, knowing that these kinds of facts simply added to his own anxiety about what Carolyn would find.
John nodded, but before he could add anything Carson reached for his earpiece. “Alright, we’ll be right there.”
John looked a question at him.
“I have to tell Elizabeth what we’ve found. Carolyn has your results and Elizabeth is waiting downstairs.” He stood and offered John a hand.
John took it, but as he stood he pulled Carson in and gave him a hug. “I trust you.”
If it were possible, Carson looked even more despondent upon hearing that.