greenconverses | fic: Five Kisses John or Teyla Don't Remember (and one they do) (Reply)

One.

John’s weight is heavy on her shoulders, even more so because he is dragging his feet and flailing his free arm in every direction.

“I wanna go back. Why can’t we go back, Teyla?” he slurs, his warm, moist breath fanning her cheek. “I wasn’t…wasn’t finished yet. Where are we goin’?”

“Back to your quarters,” Teyla responds with measured patience. “You are drunk.”

“I’m not drunk,” John denies as he stumbles over his feet and nearly pitches head first into the floor. “I haven’t been drunk since…since a loooong time ago.”

Teyla decides that she will no longer allow her people to trade alcohol with the Atlantis expedition. The Earthlings (and Ronon) simply do not have the tolerance for Athosian drink and she does not enjoy playing caretaker during a celebration.

They stop at his quarters and she waves her hand in front of the control crystals. John laughs and mimics her motions as the door slides open sluggishly, as if sensing his inebriation.

“Very drunk,” she amends.

The lights in his room are dim and Teyla trips over one of John’s silly Earth toys (a skateboard, she thinks) lying near the entrance. John snickers and she wishes he wasn’t so helpless so she could hit him for his carelessness. She settles for shoving him onto his bed.

“You’re pretty,” he says as she sits at the foot of his bed and slaps his hands away when he reaches for her. “Pretty, pretty, pretty…”

She starts to unlace his boots, listening to him babble. John is much more touchy and personable when he is intoxicated – Teyla finds that she likes his stoic, sober personality much better. When his boots are off and on the floor beside the bed, she scoots up beside him and start to unzip his jacket.

“I like you, do you know that?” John continues, reaching for a strand of her hair and twirling it around his fingers. “I like you a lot.”

“I am aware of your feelings, John. We are friends, after all.”

“Nonono,” he shakes his head and sits up as best he can. “I like you more than that. I like you like this – ”

She turns her head and John’s lips catch hers. His kiss is sloppy, wet, and he tastes faintly of the last bitter drink he had that night. She does not push him away, but does not particularly enjoy it either – John is also a much better kisser when he is sober.

He at least has the decency to pull away before he gags and vomits all over her best shoes.

Teyla sighs and hopes, for the sake of his pride, he does not remember this in the morning.

Two.

Her elbow comes out of the darkness and slams into his chin with overwhelming force. He stumbles and she ploughs into him, ramming his body into the craggy cave wall. Ribs crack on impact, his head spins, and he hisses in pain as he slumps down the wall to the floor.

Above him, Teyla laughs triumphantly.

“Stupid,” she says, reaching down and ripping the P-90 from his grip. He hears it clatter against stone a few feet away. “You should have never come after me.”

“Teyla, what – ”

Her fingers grasp at his scalp.

“I did not give you permission to speak, John,” She pulls his head forward and then slams it back into the rock. “I have been waiting for this moment for a very long time and I do not need it ruined by your pitiful attempts at speech.”

Using his pain to her advantage, one of her hands pins his arms above his head. She straddles him with Teyla’s legs and grinds into him with Teyla’s hips. She leans in close enough for him to see a foul smirk twisting Teyla’s lips and a wild gleam in Teyla’s eyes in the gloom of the cave.

She can’t be Teyla. John doesn’t want her to be Teyla.

“This is what you wanted, isn’t it, John?” Teyla says, trailing rough fingers down the column of his neck. They catch on the first clasp of his tak vest and she unsnaps it, moving quickly to the next. “Or is it Colonel Sheppard since we are…on the clock? But I suppose it does not matter what I call you, so long as you are squealing in pleasure, yes?”

“Teyla, knock it off!” John growls, trying to buck her off. “I don’t know what’s wrong you – ”

She grabs him by the chin and pinches the skin until it breaks and bleeds.

“There is nothing wrong with me.”

She captures his mouth, hard and swift, tasting and feeling just as he remembers, and John wills his body not to respond. He gasps when she bites his lip and he tastes coppery blood as her tongue plunders. Her fingers wind around his neck and her grip tightens until there’s no air coming in or out –

She pulls away and John desperately splutters for breath, his haze-covered eyes hardly registering her wicked grin.

“You have no idea how long I have wanted to do this,” she hisses, delighted. Her fingers flex around his neck and he stiffens instinctively. “You have taken everything from me and now I will take your dignity and your life.”

Before she can lower her mouth again, she is hit from behind with the familiar blue light of a Wraith stunner. Her eyes roll back in her head and she gasps, slumping forward. Her grip loosens and John shoves her limp body aside with all the strength he has left in him.

He hears footsteps approach and he is washed light from a P-90.

“John?” Teyla asks slowly, leveling her gun at him. John notices a stunner on her belt and the strange gleam in her eye. “Are you all right?”

“How…how do I know its really you?” He rasps, throat sore. He clambers to his feet, clutching the cave for support, and the muzzle of Teyla’s gun follows his motion.

She grins, the same one that alighted the other’s lips, and cocks her P-90.

“You don’t.”

Three.

When the last flustering nurse leaves and the lights of the infirmary are muted to the accepted evening level, Teyla throws her covers aside and rises from her bed, mindful of her scratches and the creak of her bruised bones

She treads softly toward his bed, brushing aside the curtain that separates him from the rest of the infirmary, and wondering how many times she has done this since she met John Sheppard.

John is still and pale in his bed. The number of machines hooked into him, monitoring his heart and keeping him alive, make him look like the tangled mechanical man that injured him so severely in the first place.

Teyla finds she is slowly beginning to share the Earthlings’s dark opinion of the Ancestors and their abandoned technology.

She leans over and sweeps black hair away from marble skin. If he had not pushed her aside and taken the machine man’s blows, she would be in a similar condition or worse. She wishes he would stop sacrificing himself – someday he won’t survive and she does not know what she will do without a bedside to hold a vigil beside.

He shifts suddenly and she pauses, staring intently at his face for a sign of waking. He mumbles under his breath but does not stir.

Teyla smiles and places a gentle kiss on his forehead.

“Be well soon, John.”

Four.

John decides something equally strange and awkward is afoot when he wakes up on a forest floor dressed in medieval armor and Dr. Rodney McKay, PhD, is standing over him, wearing a ridiculous minstrel outfit and tights.

“Ah, good sir knight! You awaken at last!” he exclaims, clapping his hands together in a decidedly non-McKay fashion. “The Mage will be greatly pleased.”

“Rodney…?” John asks, sitting up on his elbows. “What’s going on?”

“You speak with a strange accent, sir knight. Of which country do you originate?” John stares at Rodney in silent horror and the other man smacks himself in the forehead ruefully. “Oh, forgive my lack of manners, sir knight! I am Meredith, high minstrel of the Lantean court. And you are…?”

It is then that John decides that this could quite possibly be the worst mission ever.

Later, after Meredith the Minstrel helps him to his feet, takes him to see the Mage (who happens to be Ronon Dex in an ugly, star-covered bathrobe four inches too short for him), and he discovers that he’s just been inserted to his own, messed up version of a classic fairy tale, does John decide that this is the Mission. From. Hell.

Fucking Ancients and their stupid virtual story telling machines.

“All right, all right,” John says, waving away Mage Dex’s floating plates of inedible snacks. “So, either someone’s going to have to run this story by me again or I need to be pinched because this – Ow! What the hell?”

Meredith tucks his hand back in his stupid outfit, sheepish, and Mage Dex heaves a deep, rumbling sigh.

“Sir Sheppard, we really do not have time for these pleasantries,” he says and John goggles him. Since when does Ronon use polysyllabic words like pleasantries? “You have all the information you need to complete this task. I am sure Mage Kolya’s spies have already alerted him to your presence in our land and, undoubtedly, he has begun strengthening the fortifications around the lady’s castle. If you linger any longer, even my magic will not be enough to save you from his treachery. Kolya desires the Lady of Lantea and the power held within our castle – he will not let you succeed.”

The fact that Kolya managed to worm his way into a messed up version of Sleeping Beauty tells more about John’s psyche than he cares to admit. Heightmeyer is going to have a field day with his team when they return.

“Yes, I understand that part. Foil the evil villain’s plan – that I can do.” John replies, unable to slouch like he wants to in his armor. “But kissing a strange girl who’s been sleeping in a castle for God knows how long? Seriously?”

“It is the only way to break Kolya’s enchantment, Sir Sheppard,” Meredith pipes up. “Mage Dex and I are the foremost experts on the lady’s curse in the land. A kiss from the one who loves the lady true will break her enchantment.”

“But how do you know that I’m the one?”

Dex and Meredith exchange glances.

“I have seen you in my visions during my meditations and I was the one who cast the counter spell to withhold death from the lady,” Dex says dryly. “You are the one, John Sheppard, and if I am wrong, I shall eat my hat.”

John hates all-knowing, smart-ass mages.

Especially when this smart-ass mage sends him off to an enchanted castle with a magical sword that’s most likely been copyrighted nine ways to Sunday and only Meredith the Singing Minstrel as company.

At least Meredith is a much better with a sword than Rodney could ever be (John too, but as the hero of the story, he can’t exactly admit that) and is just a smart as his real world counterpart. When they reached the castle grounds, John and Meredith made it past most of Kolya’s attempts at traps without sustaining serious injuries.

Too bad Meredith also retained his inability to avoid anything remotely resembling technology.

“I TOLD YOU NOT TO TOUCH ANYTHING!”

They had barely made it into the keep of the castle when a shiny Ancient-looking device caught Meredith’s eye and he reached out to activate before John had a chance to warn him. The result of Meredith’s magpie-like tendencies?

A fifteen foot, spike covered, fire breathing, flying fucking dragon.

John is never making Earth cultural references around mind raping Ancient machines again.

“YOU’RE THE KNIGHT!” Meredith shouts, throwing himself behind a boulder that had been part of a turret five minutes ago. The dragon lets out an ungodly shriek as it circles above the courtyard “SLAY IT!”

John doesn’t have the heart to tell him that the USAF didn’t cover dragon slaying in basic training.

The dragon shrieks again and dives at Meredith like a hawk going after a hare. John barely has time to sprint across the courtyard and tackle the frightened man out of the way of the dragon’s talons. There’s another roar, Meredith screams like the girl he’s named after, and the dragon’s tail sweeps out and catches John in the side, sending him flying across the yard.

Lucky this a virtual environment because there is no way he would’ve been able to get up after a throw like that in the normal world, but his ribs still protest painfully and his head swims with vertigo. The ground thunders underneath him and the dragon’s thick torso looms over him. John’s head clears and before he really knows what he’s doing, his sword is out of his scabbard and implanted in the dragon’s belly.

The dragon howls and thrashes in pain, nearly twisting the sword out of his hands. He holds on and gives the sword a good wrench, widening the wound and showering himself with blood and guts. The sword comes loose as the dragon staggers and John rolls out from under it before it collapses on the ground.

He gets to his feet. His sword drags as he walks over to the panting and twitching dragon. The dragon whines and John stabs it through the head.

Meredith the Minstrel, who’s exactly as useless as Rodney in a fight, gapes – open mouthed and wide eyed – as John limps toward him, gore covered, and gives him a good whack upside the head.

“Don’t. Touch. Anything.” John hisses. “Ever.”

“Y – Yes, Sir Sheppard! Of course!”

The fact that Meredith actually agrees with him exhausts John more than the fight with the dragon did.

“C’mon,” he says tiredly, wrapping a blood covered arm around Meredith’s shoulders and leaning into him, “Let’s go save this princess of yours.”

“She is yours, actually – ”

“Meredith. Shut up.”

When they enter the castle, John expects to find the Lady of Lantea in the highest room in the tallest tower.

What he gets is a gauzy curtain covered altar at the top of the main staircase on the ground level foyer. At least his fairy tales are convenient, if not completely fucked to hell.

Meredith mutters something under his breath, most likely praises to the Lady herself, and his eyes are bright and misty.

“Oh, crap. You’re not going to cry, are you?”

Meredith glares but says nothing.

Disappointed, John rolls his eyes and ascends the altar steps. He tenses as the curtains draw back magically and he wishes, not for the first time, that he had his P-90 instead of this stupid sword. Then, he gets his first look at the Lady of Lantea and a shock runs through him.

“Teyla!”

He drops his sword and sprints up the rest of the steps, heart pounding in his chest. He can’t believe he forgot about Teyla, that he didn’t even consider she could be involved in all this.

“Sir Sheppard!” Meredith calls, but John hardly hears him. All he cares about is Teyla.

He throws himself at the altar, planting his hand on the hard edges, and frantically searching for signs of life. His blood runs cold when he realizes she’s lying completely still in her resplendent blue dress and she isn’t breathing. He panics, hardly believing fairy tale Kolya would be such a bastard to kill her just to –

He hears footsteps behind him and he whirls around just a Meredith hits the last stair.

“Rodney, she’s…she’s dead! Kolya murdered her and – and…fuck, I didn’t even – ”

Meredith approaches John and gently puts his hand on John’s armor-plated shoulder.

“She’s alive, Sir Sheppard,” he says, “Do you recall? She’s just sleeping.”

John does remember and he turns, finally catching the faint, up/down motion of her chest. Relief hits him so hard that it buckles his knees and he falls on the altar beside her. He rips a bloody gauntlet from one hand with his teeth and reaches to caress her cheek, fingers trembling against her warm skin.

“Oh, thank God,” he murmurs and, completely oblivious to Meredith, he kisses her.

John really doesn’t expect to her to wake up. All that nonsense about true love’s first kiss. Teyla definitely isn’t romantically inclined to him and John…John gave up on love years ago. But maybe there’s hope yet.

When he feels her stir beneath him after a long moment, he pulls away, lips tingling unexpectedly. At the same time, John feels an inexplicable tug at his navel and his vision fuzzes.

Teyla blinks once, long lashes against tan skin, and opens her eyes, turning her head in his direction. A slow, lazy smile spreads across her lips. She reaches out a hand and touches his cheek.

“John,” she says and he knows that he’s going to be dreaming about this moment for the rest of his life.

“Teyla,” he replies and bends his head again.

There’s another, slightly more persistent tug and Teyla’s face fades into darkness.

They don’t even get a happily ever after.

Five.

“You are very lucky,” Joza says, guiding Teyla by the arm down the breezy garden corridor. “Few of the outside world are allowed to participate in our Festival of the Goddess. Your people must have done something extraordinary to be permitted this honor.”

Teyla wonders if Joza will consider fixing the Goddess’s Shroud, the name for the Ancestor shield device protecting her village, extraordinary. The rest of the team had not, most likely because they had not been under the threat of eminent death at the time, but had accepted the village’s thanksgiving offering on Doctor Weir’s advice.

She does not ask Joza’s opinion on the matter and instead says, “We are grateful to be included in your sacred events, yet…I am afraid no one has explained the particulars of this Festival to me.”

The elderly women who had bathed and dressed her chatted aimlessly and made sour expressions when she had asked questions. Teyla hopes Joza will be slightly more understanding of her situation. Joza, however, lets out a high-pitched, shrill laugh and glances down her nose at Teyla.

“Surely a woman of your age must know of the Gift of the Goddess?”

Teyla fights to keep her expression curious (she cannot be much older than this silly girl!) and Joza rolls her eyes. She makes an obscene gesture with both hands and Teyla’s eyebrows rise into her hairline.

“O – Oh,” she replies, an enlightened blush spreading across her cheeks. “So the Festival of the Goddess…?”

“Is a celebration of the Goddess’s gift to her children,” Joza explains seriously. “An untied woman and man of the proper age share a night together, and come away fulfilled and enlightened. It is the Goddess’s dearest and greatest wish that, in such a terrible world, each one of our people can have a night of uninterrupted pleasure.”

Teyla imagines her teammates are getting the same lecture in various locations around the palace and it comforts her to know that the others must be as nervous as she. She hopes Rodney and John are not causing trouble – they are getting better at adapting to the strange customs of other worlds and accepting each obstacle thrown in their path.

“Here we are. Your partner will be waiting inside and will be aware of what is expecting of him.” Joza says, stopping in front of two ornate doors and pulling a golden key from her bosom. “The Goddess has set only two rules in place. First, neither of you must speak. Second, your only light can be that of the Goddess’s moon. Defy these rules and you defile the ceremony and the sacred heart of our Goddess.”

“I understand,” Teyla responds, locking away her nerves and emotions deep inside. She cannot afford to let her fears and other attachments ruin the ceremony.

Joza opens the first door and Teyla steps inside cautiously. She catches a glimpse of a tall, dark haired man standing beside the bed before the door slams shut and the chamber is cast into darkness, save for the small window allowing in the pale moonlight.

It takes Teyla a moment to adjust to the darkness and by that time, she hears his approaching footsteps and stiffens instinctively. He stops inches from her and she hears his deep breathing. A hand touches her face a moment later, calloused palm caressing her cheek, and she sighs, leaning into him and offering her consent.

His kiss is soft and hesitant, and his rough stubble bites into her skin. He tastes of spice and male strength, and Teyla tries not to think of another man who kisses just like this.

Their night is sensual and slow in the moonlight. He teases her into wild abandon and brings her to shuddering release many, many times.

She catches the barest glimpse of his face when he hovers above her and hardly hears the warm timbre of his voice when he groans with pleasure. She feels the scars scattered on his muscled body and his hands are exquisite torture. She remembers clinging to a metal necklace in the height of passion and burying her hands in thick hair.

Teyla remembers everything about him and she desperately wants to purge him from her mind. He is too much like the one she cannot let herself have.

In the morning, she wakes to sunlight and an empty bed. She finds the rest of her teammates in a small lounge, and they all act awkward toward her and each other. There are no secrets between them for once.

However, John does not look at her without anger and hurt in his expression for a week afterward.

Teyla does not know if he’s angrier with her or himself.

One.

It happens when she least expects it.

They are sprawled on the couch in one of the seldom-used recreation rooms on a lazy Saturday afternoon, watching a children’s movie about wizards and magic. John is lying on his side, Teyla on her back. His head is tucked into her shoulder and her hands rest around the protective arm curled around her waist.

He has not said anything about the movie for some time and Teyla turns to ask him about the wizard named Harry, only to find John asleep against her. His breathing is slow and deep, expression soft. She reaches to brush stray hairs from his forehead and he burrows his head further into the crook of her neck, muttering against her skin.

Teyla smiles and realizes with a sinking heart that she has fallen for John Sheppard.

It is a strange and incredibly unwelcome feeling. She has been taught from a young age not to let this sort of attachment happen. Marriages on Athos are not made because of the reasoning of the heart. Her people are practical and do what is best for their continued survival. Each Athosian child knows not to become too attached to a childhood playmate or a handsome schooling partner…or a capable and intelligent ally from another galaxy.

Knowledge cannot stop the heart, however, and Teyla has had her share of heartaches. But none have been quite as powerful and painful as her heartache for John Sheppard. It hurts even more to know this feeling is shared between them.

Teyla does not know why she and John must do this to each other. There is a small part of her that withers each time she opens herself up to him, when she allows herself to believe they can have a relationship.

They both know it can never be; they have their separate obligations to their peoples and Teyla could never consider breaking up AR-1’s team dynamic for such a selfish reason as a relationship. Yet, they still persist with this madness, finding spare moments like this Saturday afternoon to prolong their agony.

She will tell him of her feelings eventually, just not today. She is not ready for such a proclamation and she doubts he is as well. She will tell him soon, preferably not at his deathbed.

Teyla runs her hands through John’s hair and he stirs against her.

“Mmm,” he mutters sleepily, “’s it time to get up already?”

“Perhaps. I believe the movie is almost over,” she replies, shifting closer to him. “We may have to find another sort of entertainment.”

He cracks an eye open in interest.

“What did you have in mind?”

Teyla threads her hands through his hair and kisses him on the forehead. He stiffens but does not protest when her lips touch his nose, then each cheek, and then his mouth. She lingers on his lips and when she pulls away, he’s pulling her back and then they’re kissing, actually kissing. John somehow gets on top of her and his hands are caressing her bare stomach as he kisses her senseless…

…and something deep inside Teyla remembers doing all of this before.