Clutching Straws

John found the guys drawing straws in the shower rooms.

Sergeant Michaels was the one to spot him first. A nudge of his neighbour produced six innocent faces - Major Lorne's among them. "Sir."

"Major." John eyed the hands the men were hiding behind their back. "Something I should know about?"

Lorne's face was a study in careful neutrality. "Not really, sir."

"Major." He drew the syllables out, imitating more than one senior officer he'd worked with. There was a certain weight to it, the gentle warning of 'I'm not angry yet, but if you don't come clean, you'll regret it' tones.

"Sir." Lorne didn't allow himself to be drawn in.

Okay, so the indirect route hadn't worked. Time for the direct. "What are you doing?"

"Drawing straws, sir." The Major was really good at this.

Sheppard arched a brow, caught the hint of amusement in the other officer's eyes, and narrowed his own. "And why are you drawing straws?"

It was like pulling teeth. Or getting a straight answer out of McKay when he was distracted with something. There were some nervous glances around the circle, but nobody offered anything.

"Am I going to have to make it an order?"

"It's the enzyme they put you on - put your team on - sir." Michaels said at last. "Teyla, Ronan, Dr. McKay... Dr. Beckett said that getting them off it is going to be difficult."

John remembered that 'conversation' with the Doc. It had mostly featured Beckett expostulating at him about his idiocy in risking the sanity of his team-mates in order to talk Ford down from the ledge on which the young man had been balancing. John had argued back, but the usually-quiet doctor was in full-flow regarding everything from John's scatological history to his fitness to command people.

Even Elizabeth hadn't been able to stop the Doc - not that she seemed entirely unhappy with Beckett's dressing-down. His team's disappearance had resulted in a fair amount of panic on her behalf, and the rumours were running the gauntlet about just how personal things were between the leader of the expedition and the military commander.

John could answer that quite well. Things weren't personal between them. They weren't allowed to be.

"Yeah, Beckett mentioned that," was all he said. "That doesn't explain why you're drawing straws."

There was another look between the men.

"We're seeing who Teyla gets to use as a...punching bag."

"You're seeing who...?" Words failed him for a moment. "She's got Ronan."

"Actually, sir, she doesn't." Lorne looked momentarily grim. "She and Ronan agreed that they'd probably rip each other apart if left to fight each other."

John could agree with that. He remembered Ronan grabbing Teyla's food, her instinctive response. For a moment, he'd been reminded of a couple of kids squabbling over who got the last piece of cake - before Ronan hauled her over the table and they prepared to fight - over a mouthful of food.

Both Teyla and Ronan were deadly when they wanted to be; the Pegasus galaxy was a harsh teacher. Against someone they knew to be capable of killing, they wouldn't hold back, and that could be fatal for both.

"So," Lorne continued, "he's working it off jogging through the city and she's punching the living daylights out of a bag in the gym."

John looked around the circle of faces. Six military men; four marines, two Air Force - all regulars in Teyla's sparring club. "One of you was going to walk in there and face her."

"Sort of." Lorne shrugged, although there was something like embarrassment in his expression as he did so. "Give her someone to take it out on."

"I don't suppose any of you stopped to consider your physical condition after she finished taking it out on you?"

There were a couple of chuckles, quickly stifled when Lorne gave them the eye. John studied the major, squarely, noting the man's expression and the flush that was beginning across the man's cheekbones.

"I like to think we considered that, sir."

"Obviously not hard enough," John said, harshly. He huffed, irritated. "Look, I'm the one who got her into this, I'll do it."

The expressions of the men weren't encouraging. Lorne in particular had a look about him that said he didn't like where this was going. "Are you sure, Colonel? I mean...she wasn't looking all that calm when we brought you back, and the Doc said it was going to get worse before it got better."

John walked over to his locker and shucked off his jacket as he reached for his gym gear. "I can handle it," he said.

"Sheppard--"

"I can handle it, Major."

Lorne looked like he wanted to argue, but he nodded once. "Yes, sir."

The guys filed out, although John caught a couple of sideways glances, and one smirk before Lorne hustled them out.

Getting beaten up by Teyla hadn't been on his list of things to do today, but then, being captured by a former team-mate high on Wraith enzyme and involved in a complicated - and stupid - plan to destroy a Wraith hiveship hadn't been on his list of things to do in the last month, either.

If Teyla was going to take her issues out on anyone, then it was damn well going to be him.

--

John walked through the city, meeting almost no-one on his way towards the gym. Almost. He came across a handful of scientists sitting around in one of the rec-rooms. A quick step backwards confirmed what he'd first thought he saw - they were mostly personnel who worked with Rodney.

"Everything okay?"

Zelenka looked up from his computer tablet. "We are fine, Colonel."

John didn't have much interaction with the scientists on the project, but he was relatively sure that being 'fine' didn't involve getting their work done in the rec-room. "You sure?"

"Other than being driven out from the lab, we are fine."

"Driven out?"

"Dr. McKay is...restless," said one of the women dryly.

"It is...difficult...to work with him," ventured the little Asian woman with the big glasses.

Zelenka rolled his eyes. "It is always difficult to work with Rodney. However, it is presently impossible. Dr. Weir is presently calming him down. She suggested we take ourselves elsewhere."

"Right, uh..." John hesitated over what he could say. "Well, I'll be off, then."

As he headed off, back towards the gym, he hoped he'd only imagined Zelenka's irritation. The man had a decidedly testy attitude - although, given that he worked with Rodney so much, that probably wasn't surprising. Come to think of it, what did that say about John?

He paused in the corridor, then shook himself. He had a team-mate to help.

It seemed as though Elizabeth had gotten calming duty as well. John grimaced. She'd probably be better for Rodney than he would - and he'd be better at dealing with Teyla's physicality than Elizabeth. God knew what Ronan was going to do.

Ronan was used to running solo - that was what he'd done for seven years.

The thing was that he didn't have to deal with this alone anymore. That was what Atlantis was for.

John huffed to himself. One thing at a time. He had enough on his plate with Teyla all hyped up and ready to kick ass. Probably his ass. Hopefully his ass.

Better his ass than his balls.

This was going to hurt. John just knew it.

His thoughts were only confirmed when he saw the state of the gym.

She hadn't quite trashed it, but more than a few things were broken. Staves, short and long, the punching bag looked decidedly the worse for wear, and John wasn't going to think about what had happened to the dummy - weren't those things supposed to spring back into shape?

And then he saw Teyla.

Her skin glowed with silver overtones, a sheen of perspiration coating her body as she swirled through her sticks, a blur of deadly motion that didn't stop as John paused on the threshold of the gym.

"You should not be here."

Which said it all, really. "Yeah, hi," he said. "Well, it was me or one of the other guys, and I figured you'd be more angry at me than them."

He received a quirk of an eyebrow before she turned in the next slash-and-parry against an invisible opponent. "Really?" The sarcasm would have done McKay proud. John made a mental note to ask the scientist to tone it down; Ronan was showing signs of picking it up as well.

"Yeah, really." John tossed his bag to the side and held onto his staves. He had a feeling he'd need them if push came to hit. "Look, I kept you on the drugs for a reason--"

The staves whirled to her sides and there was a moment when he honestly thought she'd go for him. As it was, he couldn't look away from her eyes, from the ferocity in her expression. "You knew what it was doing to us; you saw it for yourself, and yet you didn't stop it."

"We needed Ford to believe that we were on his side."

"You needed Aiden to believe we were on his side," she said, "for all the good it did! He saw through you, Colonel - and Ronan and I were left on the drug!" The knuckles of her hands were white; John could almost see the wood buckling beneath the pressure of her fingers. "You took the control from us, Colonel - you took our choice from us! Even Rodney had little say in whether or not he wanted the drug, but you made things easier for you."

He felt his spine stiffen. "That's my right as the commanding officer of the team."

"The right to gainsay our wishes?"

"I didn't see Ronan arguing too hard about it!"

"Ronan will not argue about it," said Teyla, wisps of her hair curling around her face. "He enjoyed the feeling of power - as did everyone Aiden converted to use of the enzyme."

"And you didn't?"

Her answer was a moment coming. She curled her arms around her body, the sticks close to her sides, as she shuddered. "Do you know what it is to lack control, Colonel? Do you know the feeling of helplessness - of being unable to control what lies within you?"

Not the way she did.

Driven by the threat of the Wraith from her childhood, Teyla knew not to try to control her surroundings. Instead, she controlled the only thing she could control: herself.

Twice now, that control had been taken from her with vicious results. First when the Wraith took over her mind in the lead-up to the siege, then when John had made the decision to leave her on the enzyme.

He could have reduced her dosage and Ronan's. He hadn't. He'd thought he had everything under control, that his plan was good and would work - the same arrogance that Ford had shown when explaining his own plan - the same lack of consideration for the consequences.

Except that Ford had been on the enzyme and John hadn't.

What did that say about him?

"Teyla--"

She didn't give him time to explain himself, to apologise, to do anything. Instead, she struck.

He blocked. Only just. Then his world became a whirl of instinct and energy as she struck again and again, driving him back with a passion that leaked through her carefully-maintained control. Beckett had said that the withdrawal results could be devastating. John wondered if the Doc had any idea just how devastating it would get.

This wasn't the fury of a woman betrayed by a friend she trusted; this was insanity, a need to purge something from her soul.

John hoped he wasn't the thing she was trying to purge. He wasn't sure he'd survive it if he was. In the meantime, he lost himself in the flow of the fight; trying to balance between the casual mockery of their usual sparring interaction and the manic intensity of Teyla's energy under the enzyme's influence.

He failed.

She had his legs swept out from beneath him and his shoulder blades kissing cold floor within a few minutes. Frankly, John was relieved he'd held out that long.

But he didn't like the look in her eyes. The stave in her hand drifted down to his throat, and John met her gaze and didn't scuttle backwards. "Look, I apologise for what happened." For all the good it would do; they both knew it was inadequate to apologise for the withdrawal pangs she was now suffering. "What else do you want from me?"

Something came across her face then. Something feral. Something hungry.

It crawled down John's spine like a finger, gently traced - like the stave that drifted from his throat, to his ear, tracing the lobe in a caress. And primal messages drifted to parts of him that wanted to respond of their own accord, without any interference from his mind.

Just over six weeks ago, he'd pinned her, kissed her. Against her will, riding the wave of the retrovirus in his bloodstream. A momentary thought became action, purely on instinct.

What Teyla had in her now was a different kind of instinct - behavioural, not biochemical - but the results could be the same if she couldn't fight it.

John wasn't sure he wanted her to fight it. The fatigue trousers she wore hid nothing of the long line of her thighs, the cut of her top displayed the smooth grace of her arms, and John was very aware of her. Too aware. Wasn't that one reason why he continued to spar with her, why he'd kissed her?

Are you sure, Colonel?

Lorne's words came back to him as the stave end traced back down the side of his neck and into the throat of his shirt. Had this been the reason for the smirks in the locker room? The speculation that Teyla's need to work the enzyme out of her system might turn sexual?

John figured he'd have a few words with those six men when he got out of this - if he got out of this.

The stave had paused over the hollow in his throat, and he reminded himself that she was angry with him. She mightn't even want sex - she might just want to kill him.

Given the choice, John would rather the sex. Really.

Teyla shuddered again, and the staves went flying across the room. She made a noise that was partway between a growl and a moan of pain, then she was up and gone, fleeing the room and him.

John climbed to his feet and started after her, then stopped just outside the gym, wincing. It wasn't quite a pulled muscle, but his back was pretty stiff. He'd landed hard, after all.

He sighed. It was getting late and he was tired. The idea of just going to bed was incredibly tempting, but he couldn't quite bring himself to do it. Teyla was right. By leaving her on the drug, he had left her to keep going in a state where she wasn't entirely in control of her actions.

And his conscience was a bitch.

--

John headed back towards the central city - the opposite direction to where Teyla had just run. If he was going to find her, he was going to need help.

Fifteen minutes later, he had a life-signs detector in his hand and was calibrating it as McKay had taught him. He could tweak it enough to ignore all personnel with the ATA gene - which left about half the personnel in the city. Then, it was just a game of slow elimination.

The sleeping quarters were out. So were the labs and the central city with the gateroom. John ignored the regular guardwalks, the rec area, and the mess hall. In her current state of mind, Teyla wouldn't want to be around people - she'd barely tolerated him as it was.

He finally tracked her down to one of the piers down by the water.

More correctly, he found a pile of Teyla's clothing on the pier and Teyla swimming through the water in nothing but her skin.

John didn't know whether to watch or to turn his back. "Teyla--"

She swam up to the edge of the pier, holding onto the edge with one hand while the other raked through her hair. John was careful not to look any further down than the tanned shoulders that broke through the water's surface. "Colonel, your apology is accepted. There is no need for any further monitoring."

"I say there is."

"And your word is the only word that counts." Yeah, she'd been on a team with McKay for too long.

John tried again. "Teyla, I know what it's like to be out of control. I know how you feel."

She hauled herself out of the water and faced him, hands fisting at her sides as she stepped closer. "Then why did you let it continue?"

"Because I was focused on the mission!" He snapped at her, using anger to keep guilt - and other emotions and feelings - at bay. "The only way we were going to get out of there was with Ford's approval and the only way that was going to happen was by going along with his plan."

The water from her hair ran in rivulets over her bare shoulders. John didn't dare let his eyes drift any further down, although his subconscious was relentlessly cataloguing the details he really wasn't looking at.

"And yet he repealed part of that plan for Rodney."

"McKay needed to concentrate in order to carry out his part," John said through gritted teeth. "He couldn't do that on the drug."

"And Aiden did not offer to reduce the dosage for Ronan or I?"

He was tempted to lie. It would be so easy to say that Ford hadn't made the offer. And then he saw the look in her eyes. "You know he did," he said.

"I do," she breathed. "He told us."

"Look, I thought it might give you an edge when it came to the plan."

"Yet you say that it was never your intention to carry through Aiden's plan," Teyla replied. "Colonel--" She broke off as another shudder ran through her. John's eyes dipped down for a moment before he resolutely dragged them back up to her face. But the curves and hollows of her body remained etched in his mind.

She ducked past him, reached out to grab her clothing, and John turned towards her, automatically. The evening light gleamed across the smooth, wet skin, and something hitched in his throat - and his pants. Then he turned away, reminding himself that he was trying to mend a friendship, not get distracted.

"I'm not going to make excuses for what I did," he flung over his shoulder, keeping her on the edge of his peripheral vision. "I did what I thought was best!"

"But you are not the one who has to live with the consequences," she replied, pulling on her top.

"I'm the leader of the team, Teyla."

"And you have never disagreed with your orders?" The scorn in her voice scorched like fire. "You have never felt that your superiors acted over your head, without your well-being in mind?"

She had him there. John managed to grit out an answer. "That's not the way the military works on Earth."

He heard her turn. "But that is the way I have seen it work in Atlantis."

When he dared to look around, she was clothed again - barefoot, but covered. "It doesn't always work that way, Teyla."

"And I say again, you do not have to live with the consequences." Her whole body twitched, shuddering in the throes of whatever withdrawal symptoms she was experiencing, and John took a step forward, touching her skin.

Even after the cold ocean and the falling night, her flesh burned against his fingertips, manic energy skittering through her.

Teyla gasped at his touch, and jerked away. John stifled the brief squirm of something like regret as she put a careful distance between them. "Colonel, go away. This is not a conversation that must be had now."

"Then when?"

She wouldn't meet his eyes.

"Teyla..."

And then she looked up at him.

Hunger and passion and frightening need; fear and desire and shuddering want - it was all there in her eyes as she looked at him, like a blow to the gut. As John had been stripped down to his more basic instincts by the retrovirus, so the enzyme was peeling off the refined layers of her nature and showing the elemental aspects beneath.

He'd always been attracted to her, but that attraction came secondary to their work together as a team, an unacknowledged rule between them.

She was this close to breaking that rule.

John was that close to letting her break it.

The moment stretched out between them, tense with the things they'd never said or done - only touched upon. Then, without even putting her boots, Teyla was back on the run, vanishing into the velvet night.

John exhaled slowly, not sure if he was trembling because of desire or fear. At this moment, it would've been good to have the buggy thing still going. At least he could have kept up with her.

Then again, with the retrovirus in his system, he wouldn't have kept his eyes - or his hands - off her.

Memory was an unfortunate thing. An imagination was even worse.

He wished he didn't remember the taste of her in his mouth: surprise, resistance, and the start of raw fear. He wished he'd kissed her once, afterwards, when he was John Sheppard again - not John-all-buggy - just to replace those memories.

And he wished - he really, really wished - he didn't have to carry her boots back to the city.

--

There was a lone dot in the gym when he checked the life-signs detector again. There were two dots further out in the city, but John decided that the one in the gym was more likely to be Teyla. He really didn't want to interrupt a couple trying to get some private time with each other.

He wasn't so sure he wanted to interrupt Teyla.

"Which part of 'this is not a conversation to be had now' did you not understand, Colonel?" She didn't even turn around as he stepped into the gym and put her boots down on the floor.

"You've been hanging around Rodney too long, Teyla," he said. "His sarcasm's wearing off onto you."

Her hands fell to her sides as she turned a little, just showing him the shell of her ear, the curve of her cheek, the tip of her nose. "You should not be here."

"Haven't we already had this conversation?"

She turned away. "It does not seem to be enough to have you leave me alone."

"Somehow, I don't think there's anything that could persuade me to leave you alone right now." The words were no sooner out of his mouth when he realised how that must sound. "I mean--"

John wasn't given a chance to answer.

She pressed him back against the wall, one hand holding his arm against his chest, the other curved about his throat. He could feel the restlessness burning beneath her skin, the tension in her muscles as she held him there. He could feel his own body's response to the heat rising off her - the growing ache in his groin as the physical signs of desire manifested itself.

Teyla looked up at him, a ferociously heated expression in her eyes. "Do not tempt me, John," she breathed. "Go back to the city. Now." And with a slight push to emphasise her words, she let him go and turned away.

John caught her arm, felt her stiffen and freeze. "No."

Something shuddered over her. "Please," she murmured, keeping her head turned away. "You do not want--"

"You can't tell me what I want and don't want," he said, heatedly.

"You don't want this," she told him.

John did. And he didn't. But he did. And in a way, he felt he owed her this. But there was so much more to it than just duty and a responsibility to a trusted friend.

"I found Major Lorne and five other men drawing straws to see which of them would come out here and deal with you," John told her. The memory of Lorne's protests made him irrationally angry; the flush across the other man's cheekbones, the peculiar expression John had caught on the Major's face. "They guessed this might happen."

"And they didn't warn you?" Now Teyla turned. "Colonel, I will not be gentle. I do not want gentleness." She shuddered. "Not now."

John knew what he was doing. He knew all the reasons he shouldn't do it. He knew what she could do to him, what his compliance might do to her, what sex would do to them.

If she'd been around McKay long enough for the sarcasm to transfer, maybe John had been around enzyme-hyped Ford too long - long enough for the recklessness to set in.

Then again, who was he kidding? He'd always been reckless.

He slid his hand up her arm, caressing the smooth, warm skin without shame. "So don't be gentle."

Between them, the silence dragged out, painfully pregnant, tense with her struggle. She wrenched her arm from his hand. "No. I will not lose control again. I will not."

"Then choose it," he told her. "You can control what's in you, Teyla. If you couldn't, I wouldn't be standing."

Teyla ran her hands through her hair as she paced. "And you want this to happen?"

"I can't say it hasn't crossed my mind," he said, then adding, "and I haven't got the stamina to fight all night."

Teyla turned and her eyes burned into him with mordant humour. "Then you won't have the stamina to last all night in bed, either."

"Try me." He made the words a challenge, casting out the lure and waiting for her to take the bait. "You won't lose control."

She'd stilled now, her shoulders heaving in slow regular breaths. "And the lapse of my judgement in deciding to have sex with you is not a loss of control in itself?"

"It's your decision," he said. "Not mine.

"Are there not rules against sex between people working together?"

"Yes." John acknowledged that. "But, in case you haven't noticed," he said softly, "I've never been one for keeping the rules."

He knew the moment she gave up the fight.

He knew it because she slammed into him, driving him back into the wall. Her mouth was in his, her hands circling his throat, and the gym beyond them blurred. John was sure of the floor beneath his feet, the wall against his back, and the woman who was claiming him, hard and fast and fierce - beyond that, he couldn't say.

Skin blazed and senses sung as she dragged her mouth down his throat and across his collarbone, the merest hint of teeth scraping across his flesh. He gasped at the bite - wickedly sensual against his nerves - and her head reared back to look him in the eye.

"You can still say 'no'," she told him, although her hands curled beneath his collar.

"Yes," he agreed, slightly hoarsely. "I can."

He didn't.

John didn't say 'no' when they slid to the floor of the gym and her hips rocked on his until he had to roll them over and slow her down.

"If you don't go a little slower, I won't be much good to you," he warned, then hissed as the movement of her fingers at his belt dragged fabric across his erection in very distracting ways.

It was nothing compared to the distraction of her hands actually on his skin. "I don't want slow," she breathed.

Later, John reflected that it was a wonder neither of them had fabric burns from stripping so fast.

Clothed, she was beautiful; naked, she was magnificent. And he should have expected she'd like it on top.

"Last chance," he told her as Teyla poised herself over him. The curve of her waist beneath his hands was silky smooth, and he ran his hand up her side purely for the tactile pleasure of it.

In answer, she slid onto him, hot and wet. A moan escaped his lips as she told him, "That should have been my question."

The feel of her was maddening, the way she shifted. "Shit, Teyla!" The way she flexed her muscles around him... John's body was completely afire - and he wasn't on the drug. God only knew what it was doing to her. His fingertips trailed down her skin as she rode him, relentless and driven.

Somewhere in the midst of it all - between the friction of her body on his erection and the tickle of her hair tracing his chest - John wondered if he should have mentioned protection. Then thought was lost in the rhythm of sex as she arched on him, flinging her head back, an expression of ecstasy on her face.

He reached out one hand, shivering on the verge of his own orgasm, and trailed a finger down her cheek, her throat, down the curve of her breast to the dusky nipples that he'd tasted before, over the curve of her waist and down to the long, lean thigh that rests on his hip.

Dark eyes flew open at his touch, and Teyla looked down at him, lips parted in pleasure and the faintest hint of a wicked grin. She ground her hips into his, pubic bone pressing down on pubic bone. The change in angle triggered his own orgasm, shuddering through him with relief and pleasure.

And that was just the first time.

Somewhere between then and dawn, John lost count. It wasn't that many times, it was just that his brain - and his body - was overloaded, strung out, drugged on the taste, touch, scent, sight, sound of her.

Somewhere between then and dawn, the effects of the withdrawal eased back.

The last time was almost leisurely. As slow as they could go short of falling asleep - and they were close to sleep. Pleasure was a shiver that writhed down John's spine as he rocked inside Teyla, a tiny frisson of something like exquisite pain.

Outside, the sky was shading to pale grey as they lay on the floor of the gym. In the soft predawn light, the occasional damp streak across polished wood betrayed their actions of the night.

They really shouldn't have done this, John's sex-exhausted mind said. He just couldn't get up the energy to care.

Damn, but it had been good.

And if he didn't want every marine and his superior officer knowing that John Sheppard had finally screwed Teyla Emmagen, then he'd need to find the energy to get himself - and her - to their respective quarters.

She was half-asleep beneath him, her hands resting lightly on his hips, head lolling to one side.

A tiny smile played at her lips, and John eased himself up and kissed one corner of her mouth and watched the smile deepen. "Hey, Teyla?"

"Hmm?"

"Time to go to bed."

Her eyelids rose gradually and she tilted her head towards the windows. "Morning," she said.

"Yep," he said. "Come on, I'll get you to your quarters."

For a moment, he didn't think she was going to move, then she sighed and shifted. John rolled off her, regretting the cold. It had been a couple of years since he'd had a steady girlfriend who stayed over. He'd forgotten how much he liked waking up to curves and warm skin.

He dressed quickly, already starting to feel cold in the pre-dawn air. Then he pushed open the windows of the gym, letting in the sea air. In a couple of hours, the musky scent of sex would be completely gone from the room - or so he hoped.

Teyla dressed more slowly, and in the end, he guided her to her quarters, stumbling a little himself as they moved through the city, avoiding the guards.

He came very close to crawling into her bed, next to her. His own seemed too far away. But as she sat on the edge of the bed and smiled up at him in sleepy beauty, John felt the prick of his conscience. She hadn't avoided his touch on the way back to the sleeping quarters, but she hadn't encouraged it either. His mind blurrily tried to guess where they'd go from here.

He gave up.

"Bed now," he told her. "Talk later." And, because she looked surprisingly sweet in her drowsiness, he bent and kissed her lightly.

Not going to get to do this again.

She smiled a little, but was probably asleep before the doors slid shut behind him. God knew, John found his own bed and had just enough energy to shuck off his boots before he was asleep, too.

When the alarm woke him for his on-duty shift, he was bad-tempered and sleep-deprived, neither of which made for a happy John Sheppard.

On the other hand, he'd gotten Teyla through the withdrawal - and gotten laid in the process. He supposed he could think of it as a good night's work. Now he had to put in a good day's work, too. Weren't there rules about that kind of stuff?

He stumbled into the communal locker rooms and under one of the shower heads, scrubbing himself head to toe.

There were a few fading marks on his skin. Teyla was right: she hadn't been in a mood to go gently. But John had made sure that she was aware of what she was doing - and that she was in control. He'd given her the option and she'd taken it.

Damn, but she'd taken it.

There probably wasn't a flat surface in the gym he could safely look at for a while without remembering something of last night. And that was going to be a test in and of itself - to say nothing of looking her in the eye again today.

Once she'd woken up, of course.

By the time he stepped out of the shower, John was fully awake. Grumpy and tired - which was the same as bad-tempered and sleep-deprived but sounded more dismissible - but awake.

He nodded at the guys who passed him on the way in to prepare for their shifts. Shift-change in Atlantis was always the busiest time in the locker rooms.

Living in Atlantis was pretty much like living on any military base. The scientists complained about their lack of privacy, but John hadn't had a home in several years now. Atlantis might mean sharing a bathroom, but most of the guys were okay to live with, and only the people with good voices sang in the showers.

Towel around his waist, John began shaving himself over one of the sinks.

In the mirror, he saw Lorne before the Major leaned against the next sink over, resting his butt against the edge.

"Sir."

John gave him a measuring sidelong glance. "Major."

"Rough night?"

"You could say that." He scraped off bristle and foam with practised strokes. "Aren't you glad it wasn't you, now?" He glanced at the man out of the corner of his eye, saw the faint flush that tinged the other man's cheeks.

Still, the man had guts. And John would be keeping a very weather eye on Marc Lorne. "Is she okay?"

"I haven't checked on her yet," he said. "I figured she'd still be sleeping since she was kicking my ass until pretty late last night." Of course, then she'd screwed the living daylights out of him. And he still wasn't entirely sure she'd forgiven him for leaving her on the drug and taking her control from her.

Another figure moved through the locker rooms in the reflection of John's mirror, and John turned. "Ronan."

"Colonel." The big man seemed to be moving with his usual stalking grace. "Major."

"Ronan," Lorne said, raising his voice. "How're you this morning?"

He got a brief grin and a terse reply. "Better." Ronan dumped his towel on bench and began pulling off his singlet vest.

"Been to see Beckett yet?" John asked, whuffing foam out of the corner of his mouth.

Ronan tugged the vest off and folded it to the side. "Mostly clean," he said. "Another couple of days and it'll be out."

That sounded okay. "How do you feel?"

The big guy shifted a little as though testing how his body worked. "Itchy," he said simply.

"But you don't have the urge to beat the crap out of me?" John raised an eyebrow and got another brief grin in return.

"Not right now, no." The Satedan continued to strip unselfconsciously, and John turned back to his mirror and the rest of his shave.

At least it seemed that Ronan wasn't resenting John's decision. Then again, Ronan and Teyla were very different people and personalities. A lot of the personnel in Atlantis forgot that, looking at their clothing and their down-to-earth behaviour and figuring that they were both from Pegasus so they must think the same and act the same. Hell, sometimes John forgot it.

He'd just cleaned the last of the foam from his jaw when he caught Ronan's tilt of the head in the mirror, and the lazy smirk. "What?"

"You won't like it."

His eyes narrowed as he turned around. "Tell me anyway."

This grin was wolfish, bared teeth and all. "Find a better explanation for the marks on your back than Teyla beating the crap out of you."

John glanced over his shoulder in the mirror and winced. There were several long scoremarks running redly down his skin. They stood out in vivid technicolour in the blue-grey lights and scenery of the Atlantis men's locker rooms. "Thanks," he said sourly.

Ronan shrugged, still grinning. "You're welcome." He sauntered off to the showers, whistling an oddly harmonic tune.

John watched him go. Yeah, McKay was definitely a bad influence.

Then he paused and tilted his head. It was harder to tell on the tanned skin, but were those...nail marks in Ronan's shoulder?

He turned to Lorne who was staring too. The Major held up his hands. "I'm not game to ask."

If it came down to it, neither was John.

--

John's team was arguing quietly among themselves when he approached with his tray for dinner.

"I was not!" Rodney protested.

Ronan simply glanced sideways at Teyla and arched one eyebrow.

"You were, Rodney," she said. "You were aggravated and so you attempted to attack Ronan."

"I would never--" The scientist broke off as Ronan smirked. John had uncomfortable memories of that smirk in the mirror of the locker rooms. "Oh, now, that's just--"

"Having fun, kids?" The spare seat had been left opposite Teyla, and John took it. He took care not to notice that she wriggled backwards a little in her seat, avoiding the touch of his legs as he sat in close to the table.

"Lots of fun," Ronan said with a brief grin.

"Well, don't let me stop you." He glanced over at Teyla, caught her eye and the quirk of her smile before she looked back at Rodney.

Rodney regarded John sourly. "It's all very well for you," he snapped. "You weren't drugged so you didn't have a chance to do anything embarrassing."

John wasn't so sure about that. Two days later, Teyla was still behaving as though nothing had happened between them and it was pissing him off. Not that he was expecting her to fall into his arms and swoon, just that he'd expected some kind of acknowledgement of the other night, and gotten nothing.

It didn't look like anyone else had gotten wind of what happened. Lorne still gave him the occasional thoughtful look, and when Ronan caught him watching Teyla read through a manual Carson had given her on basic first aid, the other man just clapped him on the shoulder and smirked.

But other than that, nothing.

He listened to Rodney and Ronan argue as he watched Teyla pick beans out of her salad with her fingers. John remembered those fingers tracing him in patterns of torment that night. So did his body - and responded accordingly.

Whoa there, Nellie.

"How about I teach you how to attack someone who has something you want?"

"Why should I learn that?"

"So the next time you're drugged and want your powerbar back, you can actually get it?"

"Oh, come on, when are we likely to get drugged again?"

They all looked at Rodney.

"Let's see," John said. "So far, we've been attacked by the Wraith, held hostage by the Gennii, betrayed by the Olesians, and drugged out by our own former team-mate. And that's the short, short version of the last eighteen months. What do you think, Rodney?"

Rodney rolled his eyes. "Okay. But not just after dinner."

"I never said it had to be after dinner," Ronan answered, amused. "Whenever you're free." And with another of those smirks that John was coming to hate, he stood with his tray and headed back towards the returns area.

"What Ronan doesn't appreciate is that the application of my mind is best funnelled towards intellectual pursuit," Rodney grumbled between bites of chocolate brownie. "Not this...physical stuff."

Teyla picked at her food and exchanged glances with John.

"Rodney, I taught you how to shoot."

"Oh, yes. And look how good I am at that."

"You're better than you were before," John pointed out.

Rodney mumbled something about experiments and urgent reports through brownie crumbs, picked up his tray and left.

John looked at Teyla. "Did you get what he said?"

"I believe he said something about the superiority of his intellect."

"Intellect won't help him the next time someone wants to beat him up."

"And that is something Ronan can show him," Teyla said. She began putting her cutlery together in a way that indicated she was about to leave.

To hell with that.

John stuck out a leg, pressing against her beneath the table. Her gaze flew up to meet his. "You're avoiding me."

"I am not--" She paused and looked down, then up again, her arms resting either side of her tray. "I do not regret what happened the other night, Colonel."

"Good," John said. "Neither do I." He was going to have some interesting dreams for a while, but it wasn't anything he hadn't had before. "So, if neither of us regret it, why are you leaving me here to eat my dinner alone?"

"Because we are on duty to clean up the gym this evening," she said. "And I had things that I wished to do beforehand."

John ran through the rosters in his mind and realised that she was right. "Oh."

She continued to pack up her tray, glancing at him every now and then. "I do forgive you for your lapse in judgement, Colonel."

He looked up, alarmed. She'd said she didn't regret the other night, so what was she--? Oh, Ford and the enzyme. "Yeah, look, Teyla, about that..."

"Major Lorne told me you have a saying. 'Everyone makes mistakes.'" She tilted her head a little and regarded him with a faint smile. "Even you cannot avoid that."

"No," he said. "It was a bad judgement call." And probably the closest he was going to get to apologising.

"The enzyme or the other night?"

He glared at her. "You know which."

She smiled and continued to pack up her tray. "I will see you in the gym later. John." He felt her leg press lightly against his, sending a soft frisson of sensual awareness down his spine.

And so saying, she stood and walked away leaving John to his dinner and a soft quivering feeling in his gut.

Definitely no regrets.

- fin -