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“Perfect. Just what we needed to top off the day—getting eaten by alien cats,” McKay grumbled. On cue, another yowl rang through the trees.
“Thought you were a cat person.” John shifted his grip on his P90 and peered through the brush. He hadn’t caught sight of one of the animals yet, just heard their chilling caterwauling. Ronon shook his head when he glanced towards him. No signs of them nearby.
“These…” McKay’s voice trailed off as a low, moaning yowww sounded, much closer than before. A lithe shape burst from the thick ferns drooping over the side of the overgrown path and streaked across to the other side. The damn thing was fast. It was small—the size of a bobcat, maybe. Still… “Stay alert. Let’s go.” John backed up a few paces, keeping an eye on the place where it’d disappeared. Dead leaves slid under his boots, and he caught a branch that hung out into the path with his left hand to correct himself.
He hadn’t noticed the dark scales, the serpentine shape coiled there. As soon as he heard the hiss, he shrank backward, but it was too late. The snake’s fangs caught in his sleeve, and he pulled it with him when snatched his arm back. It landed on the ground writhing. Scales whispered against dry detritus. Before it could get its bearings, a pulse of energy hit it and it went limp. Stunned. Ronon’s finger lingered on the trigger of his blaster, ready to stun it again.
“Did it get you?” McKay’s eyes were wide.
John shoved his sleeve back, searching for the bite. He didn’t feel anything, but the hope that it hadn't managed to penetrate skin was dashed almost as soon as it appeared. The tiny set of marks were about halfway up his forearm, and a drop of blood welled up from one as he watched. “Dammit.”
“How bad is it?”
“It’s not deep.”
“You startled it,” Teyla said from where’d she come to crouch on the ground, inspecting the snake carefully. “It must have struck in self-defense.”
“Well… likewise,” he grimaced, regarding the stunned bundle of scales.
“It’s not the venomous kind, right?” McKay again, blue eyes flashing anxiously.
“With our luck? What do you think?”
“Does it hurt?”
John shook his head. “Not yet, at least.” There was a feeling if he concentrated on it. Not pain. A faint tingling. It could be a matter of time before the site started to swell and throb. He unzipped his vest to strip off the jacket underneath.
“What are you doing?” McKay asked as he replaced the vest. His eyes narrowed. “You’re not supposed to use tourniquets on snakebites anymore. Medical science has always been—ah.”
John shot him a look as he finished tying the improvised sling. “Let’s go. We’re losing light.” The cat-creatures didn’t appear dangerous, but the night drew all sorts of wildlife out to hunt. And he wanted to get back to Atlantis as soon as possible, get the bite checked out. He stared up through the trees while Teyla helped McKay stuff the snake in a pack. Patches of dusky purple sky stared back, and a few stars were already faintly visible.
The walk back to the Jumper was taking a lot longer than he’d remembered it. John wiped the back of his hand across his forehead again. Despite the cool breeze that rustled the branches above them and their unhurried pace, sweat dripped down the back of his neck and dampened his shirt. Pins and needles raged, spreading steadily as time wore on. They pricked in his fingers and, oddly enough, his lips. It was probably safe to say the snake was the venomous kind, after all. Vague memories of snakebite first-aid swam through his mind. It was best to limit movement as much as possible. Slow the spread of the venom.
Periodically, McKay turned to stare at him warily, keeping his distance as if John was contagious. Ronon stalked ahead of them, and Teyla had taken up the rear of the group, watching their six. Consequently, she didn’t miss it when he stumbled under a sudden wave of vertigo.
“John?”
“Is…” he paused and licked his lips before starting over again. “I’m starting to feel something.”
She didn’t look surprised by his admission, but a shadow flitted over her expression.
Unable to resist butting in, McKay said, “Anyone else remember Sheppard saying we’d be back in Atlantis before noon?”
“I believe this is the third time you’ve reminded us, Rodney.” Teyla scanned their surroundings, ever-alert.
“I’m just saying, if we hadn’t stayed behind so long because he thought he’d found another weapon to play with—”
“I seem to recall you being interested in the device as well.”
John smirked.
“Okay, maybe a little, at first. But it ended up being useless, like I said it would. And now we're floundering through a jungle," John snorted at the overkill descriptor, “in the dark, with who knows how many more venomous snakes lying in wait—” It was Ronon’s turn to scoff, but McKay ignored them and plunged on, committed to his rant. “—not to mention the oversized predators howling and circling us like vultures. Plus…”
“You worry too much,” Ronon said.
“Plus, Sheppard could drop dead at any moment.”
“‘M fine,” John said, frowning at the way his tongue refused to cooperate, slurring his speech. He was painfully aware it didn’t help his case.
McKay went uncharacteristically silent, and he didn’t miss the glance Ronon exchanged with Teyla. For a long while, the only sounds were the haunting cries of the cat-creatures and the crunching of leaves underfoot as they walked.
It was getting harder to walk in a straight line. His muscles responded less and less, and the pins and needles pricked relentlessly. When he tried to curl his lax fingers inwards, he could only manage a pathetic twitch. It made him think of Iratus bugs, except none of the terrible pain was there this time. The world kept spinning, warping the path ahead. He felt almost drunk, swaying and staggering. Above, the stars winked tauntingly. Teyla hovered closely as his coordination deteriorated, a constant presence.
He tried not to think about it. About whether his muscles would freeze altogether. John forced himself to swallow, haltingly. He doubted he could speak at all now. How long did he have? The venom could stop his heart, his lungs… Could Carson even do anything for him? They didn’t have antivenom, and though he didn’t know much about it, he doubted it was something that could just be made at a moment’s notice.
The scent of sun-baked earth jerked him out of his spiraling reverie. He forced his head up with a wince. The movement set another surge of twitches through his sore shoulders. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but all the sling had done so far was exacerbate the ache in his shoulders. A field of grass ahead blurred into an ocean of rippling gold. This was the field where he’d landed the Jumper. John let out a breath of relief. His chest caught on the inhale. Running out of time.
The thought spurred him on. He continued walking determinedly, his focus narrowing to the next step, and the step after that. Teyla put a steadying hand on his shoulder, anchoring him through a renewed bout of dizziness that sent him tripping over his own feet. Something on the ground gave way, and his ankle twisted under him, but he kept his footing. Somehow. At least the numbness was good for something. After a few moments, Teyla drew back again. He almost nodded his thanks, except that probably would’ve disrupted his already precarious balance, so he plodded on without acknowledging it.
John couldn’t feel his feet at all anymore, and his legs were losing feeling at a frightening rate. Sound was muffled by his increasingly labored breaths and the pounding of blood in his ears, but he still heard McKay ask Teyla about him. I’m still here, he thought irritably, managing a Rononesque growl in reply. Each step dragged, weighed, like his bones had been replaced by lead. He forced another, and another, pressing on stubbornly.
And then, his leg refused to respond, mid-stride. It happened so quickly he wasn’t sure what had happened for a second. Even as he tilted forwards alarmingly, shadows and flashes of color blurring and stretching around him, his body wouldn’t react. Someone yelped, and a pair of arms wrapped around him, preventing his imminent face-plant. Teyla. “Help,” she said, and John tried, but she hadn’t been speaking to him. Ronon appeared at his side in time to support him as his knees buckled. Frustration and shame welled at the indignity of the situation, at his useless, flopping limbs and his inability to control them. His shoulders twitched and spasmed, though even that was involuntary.
“McKay!” Ronon’s voice boomed, uncomfortably close.
“On it,” was all McKay answered. Hazily, he tracked McKay breaking into a run, disappearing into the grass in the direction of the Jumper. Ronon and Teyla followed him, slowed by their burden somewhat, but they still managed a decent pace; to John’s narrowing eyesight, it was almost too fast. He let his eyes close halfway, hoping to quell the sensation of everything spinning around him. The tightness in his chest wasn’t easing, even now that he was being carried.
A jolt brought him back to awareness. Blacks and grays and bright light told him he was in the Jumper. Teyla’s face swam into view. Faint pressure squeezed his right hand, the one free from the sling. “Rodney is flying the Puddle Jumper to the gate. We will be home soon.” She smiled reassuringly. John wanted to smile back. Her grip on his hand tightened. She understood.
A spark flashed across his vision. It wasn’t alone. Bright specks crowded the black in the corners. He was suffocating, slowly, surely. His lungs were expanding less with each breath, and the tight feeling was now a dull ache.
Teyla’s eyes widened when she finally noticed him gaping for air like a fish on dry land. “John, hold on,” she pleaded.
“What’s wrong? Sheppard?”
“Sheppard!”
There was more yelling after that, but the white spots were eating too fast, multiplying and spreading, and he couldn’t pay attention to anything else, not anymore. They reminded him of the stars outside. Had the sky been so black before? John couldn’t remember. He faded away, into the night sky filled with blazing stars.
It was bitterly, awfully cold in space. John was floating there, in velvet, endless dark. Silence enveloped everything. If he wasn’t freezing, it would’ve been blissfully comfortable. Would’ve stayed here forever. But it was too cold, and the silence was starting to ring—no, not ring… it was beeping softly…
He woke up listening to the steady rhythm of the monitors in the infirmary. His eyelids felt heavy, so he left them shut as he thought back. The cat-creatures. The snake. His team, helping him as the venom paralyzed him. Panic shot through his chest as he realized he still couldn’t breathe, still couldn’t move.
“Can you hear me, John?” Teyla was there, speaking softly over the speeding monitor. Some of the fear fled, and he forced the rest down. He was breathing, but not on his own. There was something in his throat. A machine, breathing for him. “Ronon just left,” Teyla continued. “It is late. Everything is all right.” John clung to her voice, trying to block out the uncomfortable experience of the ventilator. “Doctor Beckett says you will be fine, too. You just need to rest.”
She kept talking, though, filled him in on the current goings-on of Atlantis, of their team, of her people on the mainland. He was grateful that she did, that she stayed with him until he drifted into the dark again.
Vexed muttering pulled John back to wakefulness, and the first thing he noticed was the absence of the ventilator. Squinting against the light that flooded into his eyes when he cracked them open, he turned his head in the direction of the grumbling. His muscles felt sore and fatigued, but they obeyed him. He grinned at McKay, who was hunched over his tablet on a stool by his bedside. A cafeteria tray containing empty wrappers lay abandoned on a neighboring bed. McKay glanced up distractedly, then started, clearly not expecting John to be staring back at him.
“Shi—Sheppard,” he amended.
“Hi, Rodney.”
“Hi. You took your sweet time waking up, by the way. My—”
“How long?” It sounded and felt like someone had taken sandpaper to his throat.
“Hm? Ah. Two days.”
“Felt longer,” John said. All McKay offered in exchange was a puzzled expression. He let his gaze wander across the deserted infirmary, stopping when he noticed the small glass tank, bare save for what looked like a bit of driftwood, wrapped in—
“Is that…?”
“Yeah.” McKay followed his gaze to the snake.
“You guys kept it alive?”
“For now,” he replied, wrinkling his nose in distaste. “I guess it’s picky about envenomating anything but humans. The zoologists haven’t found anything to tempt it.” McKay turned to face John again, lips twisting wryly. “Teyla thinks we should take it back. Set it free.”
“Huh.” John thought he could see motion in the tank, a sinuous shape, shifting and slithering, though he couldn’t tell for sure from this distance. Absorbed in watching the tank, he missed Teyla and Ronon’s entrance. It was hard to hear either of them coming even if he was trying to.
“Hey,” Ronon said in greeting, shoving McKay’s empty tray to the side and making a space for himself to sit on the empty bed. Teyla dragged another stool over.
“Hey.” John gave a little wave, ridiculously pleased by the ability. “Come to bring me some food? McKay isn’t much of a sharer.” He’d said it jokingly, but come to think of it, he wouldn’t mind some water…
“It is good to see you feeling better,” Teyla said warmly.
“Mm. He’s awake, at least.” McKay slouched on the stool. “Beckett’s got him off-duty for another week.”
“A week?” He pushed himself upwards to sit straight, muscles twinging. “Why so long?”
“Something about monitoring for complications,” McKay answered. “Tuned the rest out.”
Ronon shrugged as John’s searching eyes found him.
“You need the rest,” Teyla said. “It is a good thing.”
“Enjoy sleeping in,” McKay suggested, looking a little wistful.
“Sure. Been looking forward to some time off,” John said, trying to convince himself as he said it. “Seven days.” He leaned his head back. Closed his eyes, and for a second, he was lost in the dark, with empty nothingness teasing at him. Fabric bunched in his fist as he clenched it in the blankets, just to remind himself he could. Underlying the noise of monitors and hushed voices, he could hear the faint, ever-present hum of the city, and his team surrounded him, their presence familiar, grounding. He caught himself smiling, and turned his attention back to them.
“So, anything else I missed?”