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1.
The four of them didn’t exactly click right off the bat.
Of course, John was the military commander by default – and he’d shot the first one - and he’d practically single-handedly sicced the Wraith on Teyla’s entire world, and McKay just seemed to hate everything that interfered with his Very Important Work - even though he could’ve just turned down a place on the team when he’d offered - so John had to admit, in hindsight, that from the very beginning it’d been a recipe for disaster.
Their first trip as a team off-world, McKay ignored a direct order and landed them all in jail. Granted, it was a straw-hut jail, but Ford went a little overboard with the C4 and they ended up burning half the village down – scratch that address from the database – and Teyla got a spear through the shoulder when she tried to apologize.
And the second mission wasn’t that much better, mainly because McKay almost shot Ford when the kid had jokingly buzzed in his ear as he’d drifted off into a light nap by the fire. So. Lesson learned. Don’t tease the scientist about his deadly allergies.
During their first month in the field, they’d broken possible relations with a grand total of seven worlds, injured and/or killed an unspecified number of hostile natives – key word being hostile, though, so Elizabeth really couldn’t blame them – and John thought it might’ve been his worst idea ever to force a mouthy, borderline egomaniacal astrophysicist, an alien warrior woman with strong thighs and high ideals, and an explosive-happy, barely post-pubescent marine into a close-knit team for the purposes of diplomatic ventures.
He was really regretting it on PX5-M3T, actually, since the priest was frowning at McKay’s sarcastic comments about primitive footwear, and Ford was rolling his eyes, and Teyla was trying her level best to turn the elder’s attention towards her and the possibility of trading medicine for honest-to-god almost-corn, and it was clear that they just didn’t work.
“Enough,” the priest said finally, lifting one hand. His eyes were bewildered as his gaze bounced between them. “How is it that you have reached such a great age without undergoing the Rite of Ulsa?”
John blinked at him and McKay snorted, but just as he opened his mouth to no doubt say something deeply offending and cause all manner of villagers to attack them with their tiny pitchforks, the priest went on, “You must find your places within your people before there is any more talk of trade.”
And then he turned and walked away, the rest of the village gate-greeting party falling in behind him, leaving the four of them gaping.
“There isn’t anything wrong with us,” Rodney snapped, indignant, crossing his arms over his chest.
John shot him a look, then shouted, “Wait,” jogging after them. “Wait, how—?”
“The Rite of Ulsa,” the priest slowly spun to face them again, eyes glinting with suspicious amusement - and suddenly the whole day was looking up, because the man was obviously more intrigued by them than annoyed - “is the only way. It will define you as whole so that you may become productive individuals.”
“Okay, yeah, we’ll do that,” John enthused, nodding, because Elizabeth would probably roast them alive if they came back empty handed again.
“Oh joy,” McKay groused under his breath, stalking after the now-smiling villagers. “Assimilation. I’m so happy I let you talk me into fieldwork, Major. I’ve always wanted to be part of a cult.”
“Shut up, Rodney,” John growled. He wasn’t exactly thrilled with it either, but they’d deal.
“I hope polygamy is one of the perks, because otherwise the robes aren’t worth it. And if you start talking about yourself in third person and claim to be the messiah, I’ll stage a coup with Ford and tell Elizabeth you were torn apart by rabid raccoons.” Then McKay brightened, half his mouth curving up. “Do you think we’ll get a feast?”
2.
After Major Sheppard missed two check-ins, Elizabeth dispatched Stackhouse’s team and hovered anxiously in the control room, playing nervous mother hen to her recalcitrant chicks.
When the sergeant’s IDC came back through the gate, she leaned forward onto the console, hands fisted, white knuckles pressing into the unforgiving metal, and asked, “Sergeant, did you find Major Sheppard?”
“Yes, ma’am,” a hint of confusion threaded through his voice, “but I think you should see this for yourself.”
3.
When Elizabeth stepped out into the clearing, sun hitting her face in slanting, orange-warm rays, there was a flurry of bays in the distance. And then a rangy blue-gray wolf-like animal shot out of the tree line and started loping straight for her.
She heard the telltale clicks as the few marines behind her lifted their guns, but Stackhouse barked, “Stand down,” and a blur of black streaked across the field to tackle the blue-gray wolf, snarling as they rolled over each other in the mid-high grass.
“Oh my,” Carson breathed from beside her.
“I’m almost certain that’s Major Sheppard and Teyla, ma’am,” Stackhouse said, sounding pained, and no wonder.
“Wolves?” she asked faintly, and then a tall man in deep red robes boomed, “Welcome!” and “You have come to witness the Rite?” and stepped forward to clasp Elizabeth’s hands in greeting.
Stunned, speechless, Elizabeth nodded jerkily.
“Good, good.” He grinned, big teeth flashing, and for a split-second Elizabeth had the irrational compulsion to bare her neck.
She shook the thought away and extricated her fingers from his grip as politely as possible, unaccountably grateful when Stackhouse shifted closer. “I’m Dr. Elizabeth Weir,” she said finally, clearing her throat. “What exactly—” She broke off as several high-pitched yowls echoed across the field, watching as the wrestling pair in the middle sprang apart, coming to their feet with tails up and ears alert, answering the howls with even louder ones of their own.
A large white wolf emerged from the forest, yipping – griping, really, and there was no way that wasn’t Rodney – and a darker gray one, all legs and lolling tongue, trotted gamely after him.
Ford.
Elizabeth grimaced and turned back to the robed man, keeping her tone smooth and calm, because she really wanted her people back without the extra fur. “I’d appreciate an explanation...” She trailed off expectantly.
“You may call me Peynan,” he supplied happily. “And your curiosity will certainly be appeased, Dr. Weir. Please, follow me. I believe a celebration feast is in order, as there is no doubt the Rite will prove successful.”
Standing her ground, though, Elizabeth started, “About this Rite, Peynan—”
“Come.” Peynan curled a big hand around the back of her neck, and she instantly stiffened.
Stackhouse actually growled under his breath.
Laughing, the elder dropped his hold and nodded differentially towards the sergeant, then grinned down at Elizabeth. “Your pups were squabbling,” he offered amiably. “We felt such dissention was detrimental to any ally agreement between our worlds, and Major Sheppard agreed to take part in the Rite that guides children onto the Path.”
Elizabeth pursed her lips. “A coming of age ritual?” That turns people into wolves, she didn’t say out loud, because even though her eyes saw it, her mind really didn’t want to accept it. She never thought exploring a whole new galaxy meant opening up the possibility of transfiguration, and if that was possible, honestly, what other weird things were they bound to discover?
“They must earn each other’s respect, establish a hierarchy of command,” Peynan explained patiently, an indulgently fond gleam in his eyes. “It is the way of all children as they prepare to step forward into their adult roles, for there are no leaders without those who are willing to follow, and no one will follow a man who has not acknowledged the importance of submission.”
Okay. Elizabeth nodded, fighting off hysterical laughter, because her head scientist had his ears flattened and eyes narrowed, tail straight out, and Lieutenant Ford was on his back, squirming in the dusty-dirt, ignoring the white wolf’s obvious upset, and Major Sheppard had his legs splayed, tail wagging, barking playfully as Rodney backed steadily away from him, and even to her untrained eye the whole dynamic seemed screwed up. Teyla, small and dark, looked ready to pounce on anything that moved too fast.
“How long are they likely to stay like this, then?” Carson finally piped up, and Peynan smiled serenely.
“As long as it takes.”
4.
Jamie Markham’s family had always raised dogs. Staffy bull terriers, mainly, with hard heads and barrel chests and the sweetest temperaments you could ever hope for.
Wolves weren’t dogs, of course – and they weren’t really earth wolves, either, but bigger, with shorter snouts and thicker coats and sharper teeth - but the way Sheppard would press his bulk up into Ford, a challenge in his stiff legs, was familiar play. They’d grapple with their muzzles locked, husky growls in their throats, and then Ford would back off and chuff and grovel and Sheppard always looked so damn smug about it, Jamie had to chuckle.
After a week, Doc McKay was still prickly, and the whole camp was under strict orders not to feed him – or any of them, for that matter – but at meal times he’d give them baleful stares and throaty whines, and he wouldn’t exactly beg so much as demand, canines bared and eyes threatening painful, horrible, bloody deaths, and occasionally one of the marines would go insane from the little growls and glares and chuck a powerbar at him, just to get him to go away.
But the natives told them that they had to learn to hunt together, share food, and until the team got it right no one was going home.
Jamie liked having watch at dusk.
They were most active as the sky washed purple and blue, and Teyla stretched out of her nap in the sun, licking her maw, a shake shivering down her body as she yawned away a lazy afternoon. She trotted towards the major, her hackles rising as he spotted her, twisted out of his sprawl, taking his little hop of joy as a challenge, and Jamie’d never thought of Teyla as feral before – strong and kind and, yes, a little wild maybe, underneath - but there really wasn’t any other word for her in animal form, all the battle-ready fierceness buried in her genes spiraling nearly out of control.
With a snort, Stackhouse dropped to the ground next to Jamie and tossed him an Athosian sweet fruit; pear-shaped, but ten times as sugary, and the pulpy granules always left tiny, stinging cuts across the roof of his mouth.
“So, Jamie-boy,” Stackhouse said, biting into the orange almost-kiwi he’d kept for himself. “Know anything about wolves?”
“Not much,” Jamie answered, shrugging.
Stackhouse jostled his arm, then said slyly, “That priest guy told me dominance is likely asserted by the one’s who’ll mate.”
Jamie gave him a horrified stare. “As wolves?” he asked, because he really didn’t want to witness any canine humping. Not that he hadn’t seen it before – it was sort of inevitable with a family-owned kennel – but he didn’t need to know that much about his CO’s sex life.
“No idea. Wouldn’t mind it myself, though,” he said with an absent leer, gaze locked on Teyla as she circled Major Sheppard, and Jamie rolled his eyes.
“The doc could give Teyla a run for her money,” Jamie pointed out, since Doc McKay as a wolf was downright ornery, and after a stunned moment, Stackhouse clapped his back with a guffaw. Jamie turned bright red, realizing what he’d accidentally implied. “I didn’t mean that,” he grumbled.
And then Ford came racing out of the forest with a long howl, and Jamie snapped to attention, because Ford never went anywhere without Doc McKay. Or, really, Doc McKay couldn’t go anywhere without the lean lieutenant trailing after him, no matter how many snaps and snarls the white wolf sent his way. Jamie was pretty sure that was an unspoken order from Sheppard.
The three wolves were gone, slipping soundlessly past the tree line before Jamie could get to his feet.
Stackhouse stood up next to him and cursed under his breath. “That can’t be good,” he said, before calling out to Lee and Sanchez.
“Peynan said not to get involved,” Jamie reminded him, but he was already hefting his P-90, following Stackhouse out into the field.
“Yeah, well, Peynan can bite my ass,” Stackhouse growled, and started running.
5.
When John woke up, his mouth tasted like dead bunnies. He also kind of wanted to lick himself. And he wanted to lick McKay, because somewhere in his mind he knew it would drive him absolutely crazy, and getting McKay riled was one of his top five favorite activities of all time. Still. He was lucid enough to know that wanting to lick himself – and his hip just itched like a motherfucker and his teeth would feel so good – or lick McKay, or Teyla for that matter, was not normal.
And then he heard soft giggles and a suspicious click-snick, and his pillow seemed more warm and fleshy than fluffy and he tried really, really hard to recall if there’d been some sort of alien orgy the night before. The last thing he remembered was sipping a syrupy milk mixture and inhaling so much wood smoke his nostrils had burned.
“Okay, wow, breasts.”
John blinked his eyes open to see McKay burrowed up close to Teyla’s naked chest, then blinked again. Alien orgy it is, he thought, and kinda regretted not being able to remember.
Teyla yawned, caught his eyes and froze, and then McKay’s thigh brushed up against his abdomen and McKay froze, and then a thin arm snaked over his shoulder and John froze, because oh Christ, that was Ford, and if this was some sort of alien orgy, where the hell were all the nubile young natives?
The snickering grew loud enough for John to recognize Zelenka. On Atlantis barely two months and he already knew that was a bad sign.
“Lieutenant,” John rasped out, voice hoarse, and he felt Ford jerk away from him with a near-panicked, “Sir?”
“Anyone want to clue me in on what’s going on?” he asked, and if he sounded a little desperate, well. He figured he had just cause.
“You made us join a cult,” McKay accused him hotly, struggling up into a sitting position, and then he yelped, “Ow, ow, ow, ow,” and hissed, “Damn it,” through his teeth, and John noticed the bandage wrapped tightly around his stomach, tinged red on his side.
Teyla’s voice was surprisingly calm when she pointed out that they were in the infirmary on Atlantis, curled up on the floor, blankets layered underneath them, and when Beckett finally kicked Zelenka and Simpson and Corrigan out – and confiscated the camera, thank god – the good doctor explained that apparently they’d been wolves for just over a week, and that John had pretty much torn the throat out of a bear that’d attacked McKay. That was probably why his mouth tasted like rotting carcass. Well, other than the fact that apparently he’d actually been eating dead bunnies. And some ring-tailed rat monkeys. And once, Beckett informed him from his handy-dandy clipboard of notes, the biggest toad Stackhouse had ever seen.
“So we didn’t join a cult?” Ford asked, sounding almost as if he wished they had, and thank the lord he was no longer sprawled over John.
John was still kind of trapped between McKay and Teyla’s legs, but he decided not to draw any attention to that fact by moving.
Captain Lovell hovered anxiously over McKay, admonishing him not to pull at his stitches.
McKay’s face scrunched up in discomfort and he muttered, “If I could only bend like that,” under his breath, staring longingly down at his side, and John sympathized, because again. Teeth must’ve been really great for itching.
Of course, then he remembered he had hands, complete with opposable thumbs, and he scratched absently at his hip before reaching out and dragging his fingernails just under McKay’s bandage. And when McKay gave him a pointed look, John just shrugged.
6.
“It really was just a colossal waste of time,” McKay groused, stabbing one of the cut pieces of meat off John’s plate. “I mean, I don’t feel any more respect for you.” He cocked his head, chewing thoughtfully. “Possibly less. Markham said he’d never seen an animal lick himself that much.”
John scowled and made a note to speak to the sergeant about his big fat mouth.
Teyla grinned at him, dark eyes sparkling, and a bruise on his lower back throbbed. Their sparring sessions had taken on a violent edge, and he marveled at how she could keep all that strength bottled up in such a serene package.
“He licked all of us, McKay,” Ford interjected, amused, and John thought he was handling that knowledge pretty well.
John was still a little freaked. It was ten times worse than finding out you were an affectionate drunk.
McKay waved Ford’s words off, then jabbed his fork at John. “And apparently all you wanted to do was play—”
“We were dogs, McKay,” John drew out defensively. What dog wouldn’t want to play? And, yes, lick himself?
“Wolves,” McKay corrected, snatching the last of Ford’s bread, “or a reasonable alien equivalent to them,” and John realized that there never had been any problems with the team.
He just hadn’t really been one of them before.
Hell, once you’ve ripped out a bear larynx with your teeth for someone – and publicly practiced embarrassingly frequent grooming habits – there wasn’t much of a reason left to hold anything back.
He grinned across at McKay.
McKay narrowed his eyes at him. “What?”
“Nothing,” John drawled, eyebrows arched.
“Right.” McKay snorted. “Out with it.”
He shrugged, fiddling with his spoon. “You play around with that personal shield yet?”
“Haven’t had much of a chance, what with being a wolf,” he stressed, but his eyes seemed bright and interested, and John had this really cool idea...