TITLE: The Magic Man
AUTHOR: custardpringle
BETA: machingmonkey
RATING: PG-13
CATEGORIES: Romance, angst, supernatural
SPOILERS: Brief mention of "The Storm" and "The Eye"
PAIRING: John/Rodney, of course
SUMMARY: John gets some good advice . . . and a shove in the right direction.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Look! I'm alive! (Despite the educational system's considerable efforts to the contrary . . .)
I own nothing except my Essential Blue Oyster Cult CD. (The plot bunny and the title come from their song "Shooting Shark.") Please don't sue me.
John gaped at Elizabeth in shock, sure he hadn't heard right. "You want me to replace Bates?"
"That's what I said." She folded her hands calmly on the desk in front of her. "The Nariel have made it quite clear that they will not continue negotiations unless one of our leaders is present. According to Dr. Beckett, Bates is too concussed to go back. Which leaves you."
"Elizabeth, the last time you sent me to negotiate for food with a bunch of so-called peaceful farmers, they invaded Atlantis and nearly got us all blown to hell." John cocked his head. "Can't we send Ford and have him pretend to be me, or something? People seem to like him better."
The corners of Elizabeth's mouth twitched upwards, but she shook her head. "You probably won't have to actually negotiate—otherwise, I'd go myself. I gather that it's more of a ceremonial gesture to indicate our approval of whatever agreement our negotiators make. And, from what I hear, they've been doing quite well."
"Until Bates had his unfortunate accident with a tree root," John finished. "So, essentially, I get to sacrifice part of my downtime because he's a klutz, right?"
She smiled for real this time. "I'll give you—and the rest of your team—an extra day off to make up for it. Just please go. We really need this food."
John nodded slowly—diplomacy really wasn't his thing, but he knew just as well as she did how important this was. "Fine, I'll go. I'll even try to stay out of trouble this time."
Elizabeth sighed. "I suspect that's the best I can ask of you, isn't it?"
An hour later, John was on Narien. Nice place, as planets went. Plenty of trees, something Bates had found out the hard way. And lots and lots of nice golden crops, of course; the Nariel lived in a cluster of thatched huts at the edge of a huge expanse of farmland, right on the border between field and forest.
The people were nice, too; apparently their crops had done too well this year, a rare thing, and they'd been looking for a way to dispose of the excess other than letting it sit around and rot. Messengers had been dispatched to other villages, but the closest of these was, well, not all that close. Once they'd gotten over their shock at seeing people come through their Stargate, the Nariel had been ecstatic to find people who wanted their surplus crop. Nonetheless, they were tough bargainers, and by the time John got there they'd cheerfully accepted a goodly quantity of medical supplies in payment for allowing Atlantis to take the stuff off their hands.
John arrived in the late afternoon, Nariel time, and as far as he could tell the negotiations were more or less over. All he had to do was sit there and smile dutifully and listen to Bates' team dickering over relatively minor details. Once that had been dealt with, the Nariel announced that the exchange itself would be made first thing tomorrow morning; the crops they'd promised would have to be taken from storage and packed up for transport, and it was too late in the day by now to accomplish all of that before sundown.
In the meantime, there was the requisite celebratory feast, which was also not too bad a time. John had never gotten on too well with Bates' team—all three of them were at least as dour as their CO—but he managed to tolerate them for the evening. The local food, which was some of the best he'd ever eaten and a more-than-welcome change from military rations, helped a lot. Even once the actual meal had ended, they ended up sitting around for a long time, just socializing. John could've even sworn he saw Bates' second smile once, but he figured he'd imagined it.
This had gone on for about an hour when John noticed the old man for the first time. He was sitting in a far corner, a little away from everyone else, and staring intently at John. John looked straight back at him, and the old man's gaze shifted away almost immediately. Still, it made John uncomfortable, and he quietly excused himself and left. People had been gradually trickling away for some time, and no one seemed to mind his departure.
Each of the visitors had been provided with his own tent and a reasonably comfortable mattress, and John was contentedly settling down for the night when the flap of his tent was jerked open. A face appeared in the opening—a small Nariel girl, about six or seven years old, whom John had never seen before. She looked like she was terrified out of her wits. "The Knower—" she stammered, and gulped, starting over. "The Knower sent me to say he wishes to speak to you."
John walked over and crouched down to look into her face. "Did he say why?" he asked gently, wondering who the Knower might be. Someone important, obviously, but none of the Nariel had mentioned him in conversation before.
"No." The girl glanced back over her shoulder as if afraid the Knower would be creeping up behind her. "He said only that I was to bring you to him as soon as possible."
John stood up and ducked through the opening to join her outside. "Is he really that scary?" he asked, following the girl as she headed towards the woods.
The girl looked up at him and nodded. Her face was solemn. "He is the Knower," she said, as if that would explain everything. "He can do and see things no one else can"
"All right." They'd entered the woods now, and John decided he'd better focus on watching out for tree roots so as not to end up like Bates. He'd do whatever he had to—within reason—to get this trade to succeed. If that included sucking up to the local shaman, then that was what he'd do, even though he wasn't exactly sure he believed in any of it. Enough food was riding on this to feed the entire population of Atlantis for a month.
The Knower's hut was set by itself, well into the woods, but otherwise it seemed exactly like the others in the village. The girl knocked on the door twice, timidly, and then fled, leaving John alone before he even had a chance to thank her. After he'd waited almost a minute, the door swung open, seemingly of its own accord. John stared at it for a second, and then walked inside. The door closed silently behind him.
The hut looked pretty much normal on the inside, too. There were no bleached skulls hanging from the ceiling, no strange smells, and no bubbling cauldrons—just a very old-looking man sitting on a stool in the middle of the room, hunched over the small fire. An enormous wooden trunk stood against the wall next to him, but that was the only thing even remotely out of place.
"I remember you," John said suddenly. "You were the one who was watching me at the feast tonight."
The Knower glanced up as if only noticing for the first time that he wasn't alone. "John Sheppard." His voice was surprisingly clear, not shrill and cracked like John would've expected from someone anywhere near as old as this man looked. He gestured slightly towards another stool which sat unoccupied in a corner. "Sit."
John didn't move for a moment. "How do you know my name?"
The old man shrugged. "How could I not know it? I am the Knower, am I not?"
Still skeptical—come to think of it, the Knower could have heard his name just about anywhere—but interested despite himself, John picked up the stool and plopped it down by the fire, seating himself so that he faced the other man through the flames. "That's it? You just . . . know things?"
"If you wish to simplify it that far, then yes."
John nodded slowly, absorbing the information. "Then I'm guessing there's something more. You didn't have me brought here just because you know my name."
The Knower stared into the fire for several seconds. "To begin with," he said at last, "I see another man. He is in your thoughts almost constantly, almost as easy for me to find as your own name."
"Another man." John was startled to find that his voice had gone slightly hoarse. He cleared his throat awkwardly. "Really."
A tiny smile flickered across the old man's face; he hadn't been fooled for an instant, of course. "His name is Rodney McKay."
"Yes. Yes, it is." John's throat tightened a little more—the slightest thought of Rodney seemed to do that to him lately—but anger began to well up inside him as well. Whatever weird powers this Knower might possess, he had no right to be worrying about any of this. "And what exactly makes my sexual frustrations your concern?"
"Is that all it is?" The Knower met John's gaze calmly through the flames. "Just a sexual frustration?"
John searched for a reply to that, but he couldn't find one without saying something he really didn't want to admit aloud. Not even to this man, who obviously knew it in any case.
The old man nodded slightly. "As I thought."
"Look." John was rapidly losing patience. "Is there something you wanted to tell me that I don't already know?"
"There is. When I look at you—" For the first time, the old man seemed unsure of himself, even nervous, but he spoke again after only a few seconds' pause. "I can see his death."
"Rodney's death?" John swallowed hard. "I don't understand . . ."
"I will show you." The Knower stood up, indicating to John to do the same—they were, it turned out, almost exactly the same height—and extended a hand.
John glanced warily at it and then slowly raised one of his own. Their fingertips touched.
Without warning, the Knower was gone. John wasn't alone, though, because Ford and Teyla were there, all three of them fully geared up. They were standing inside a small domed chamber with a large control panel on one wall. Other than them, there was no one else in the room.
Except that there should've been. He was pretty certain that they'd left Rodney in this room and told him in no uncertain terms to stay there.
Something white was glinting on a nearby shelf, and Ford walked over and picked up the scrap of paper that lay there. "Went into the next room," he read. "There's no signature, but it's definitely his handwriting."
There was a hallway leading out of the other side of the room. John crossed to it; he could glimpse more machinery in the room at the other end. "Rodney?" he called out, receiving only silence in return. He was about to step through the doorway when something a few yards in caught his eye: a pile of grayish dust maybe a foot high. It looked a little—a lot, actually—like ashes. Like something had been very thoroughly combusted.
A large cannonball plummeted into John's gut. He grabbed the first thing that came to hand—a Power Bar—and dropped it just inside the corridor. Nothing happened for a second or two, and then the whole space was filled with a blinding flash of light. When it faded, the package was gone, replaced by a much smaller mound of ash.
"Oh, crap." John's knees buckled, and he latched on to the wall for support. "Crap. Oh God, no . . ."
"What?" Teyla asked from directly behind him.
"Fucking Ancients and their fucking security systems," John said weakly, and pointed at the small heap of dust at his feet. "That used to be a Power Bar. And that," he continued, raising his arm to point at the larger pile, "used to be—"
He couldn't even finish the sentence; he ran outside and threw up violently while Teyla and Ford, both of whom also looked pretty green, radioed back to Elizabeth. He couldn't even go back inside; he just leaned against an outer wall and trembled, his face buried in his hands, because he'd lost Rodney for good now. Rodney was dead, without even a corpse to show for it, and—although he wasn't quite sure how or why—it was his fault.
And he'd never had a chance to kiss him, not even once.
The Knower withdrew his hand and sat back down again.
Gasping for breath, John stumbled backward, nearly tripping over his stool before he managed to properly reseat himself. It took a while before he could speak again, and then it came out a rough whisper. "What happened to him?"
"I cannot tell you exactly," the old man said. "I can only see his future where it crosses yours. But I know this: what I showed you just now happened because you tried too hard not to care for him. You were so intent on hiding your feelings that you left him to fend for himself when you should not have."
John found a thread of hope in that sentence and clung to it. "So, this . . . vision . . . whatever the hell it is. It's not necessarily going to come true?"
"There is a chance, yes," the Knower admitted gravely. "But only if you confess your feelings to him. Otherwise—" He shook his head sadly.
When John woke up the next morning, he lay perfectly still for several minutes, staring up at the roof of his tent. He didn't want to think about what the Knower had shown him last night, didn't want to think about that pile of ash sitting on the ground Nor did he want to imagine what would happen if he ever admitted what he felt for a man who'd never even looked twice at him. They had a decent friendship going, at least, and John knew he'd lose even that if he confessed his real intentions.
Nonetheless, if the Knower was right, it seemed he was going to have to make that choice—and it wasn't even much of a choice, really.
Eventually he got up, dressed, and left the tent in search of breakfast. Along the way, he ran into Bren, a man he remembered meeting at yesterday's negotiations. John asked a question on a whim, pretending simple curiosity.
"The Knower?" Bren looked startled for a second, and then laughed. "He can certainly do something, although no one can say what. He tells fortunes, mostly, and is right surprisingly often. But he's been wrong almost as many times. The younger children fear him, it is true, but they learn otherwise soon enough. Why do you ask? Has he been telling yours?"
"Yeah, he did, actually. Nothing important, though," John lied. "I'm more interested right now in where we can get some food."
It was all a lot less credible in the light of day, anyhow. For all he knew, the Knower was just a crackpot who happened to be an extraordinarily good guesser. Anyone could've told him John's name, of course, and it wasn't all that hard to believe he'd heard something about Rodney as well in the few days Bates and his team had already been here. As for the rest—the so-called vision, and the old man knowing John's feelings for Rodney—hypnosis, probably, and for all he knew there could've been something funky in the food to boot.
As Bren led him off, John allowed himself a quiet sigh of relief. He saw no reason to make an ass out of himself based solely on the word of an old man who probably had no psychic powers at all.
He was going to keep his feelings safely inside himself, where they belonged. Letting them out would only hurt both himself and Rodney.
To be continued, of course. What do you take me for?