NOTES: For the stickandsnark challenge over on LJ. The requestor wanted Teyla/Rodney, off-world, and "aliens made them do it". I'm not terribly fond of "aliens made them do it" sex challenges, so I kinda corrupted it. There's no sex, and only a smidge of UST - it's mostly friendship.
Bound By Daylight And Dusk
"No." It was a flat-out refusal, a definite negation, an absolute denial.
Rodney thought he'd made himself quite clear on this matter.
Teyla, on the other hand, clearly felt there was room to negotiate. "The Cunaxans will consider it a great service."
"I don't care what they consider it," Rodney snapped. "Get Sheppard to help you. Or Ronon."
He didn't look up from the...well, he'd hesitate to call them computer banks, since they were nothing like Lantean or Earth technology, although apparently it had once contained knowledge of the Ancestors according to the headman. Of course, the fact that dozens of generations had passed since the Cunaxans had used this technology wasn't assisting Rodney's attempts to revive it.
Neither was Teyla's request.
Her answer was given in reasonable tones as she brushed a wisp of hair from her eyes and surveyed the run-down set of consoles, none of which Rodney was presently able to persuade to work. "They do not know the song, Rodney. You do."
He scowled at the tiny coloured bars that indicated the power output - or complete lack of said output - and tapped the connections he was trying to make. Rodney hated it when Teyla was reasonable. If she was irrational or demanding, he could just brush her off, but reasonable was hard to resist. Of course, Teyla was very reasonable most of the time. Which could and did tend to make things difficult for Rodney when he wished to be intractable.
It was difficult to be intractable in the face of Teyla's requests.
Difficult, but not impossible.
"No," he told her, flatly as he tried another configuration for the power.
There was no change in the coloured bars and he grumbled beneath this breath as he poked and prodded at the screen on the wall that faded in and out, even as he watched. Over on the wall, there were slots that looked like they'd held some kind of power cells a while back - at least, the dirt-encrusted patterns on the insides of the slots suggested that there'd been spaces for crystal power sources, but the crystals were long gone.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Teyla shake her head and begin to move away.
She was nearly at the door, silhouetted against the eye-watering brightness of the desert sands. "Where are you going?"
"To prepare myself to sing."
Rodney's brows drew together. "You're still going to do it? I thought it was a duet!"
"It is a duet," came the answer. "However, it can be sung alone, and even one voice lifted is better than none. And if the song does not possess the depth it should, they will not know," she smiled faintly, then paused with one hand on the doorframe. "I will send Ronon to you when it is time for the ceremony - unless you wish to continue your work here."
He was going to regret this, Rodney just knew he was.
"Don't bother," he huffed as he put the tablet down. "I'll do the duet." Her surprise was both pleasant and slightly annoying - did she really think he'd leave her in the lurch?
Of course, he had been intending to leave her to it, but that was mostly because he didn't do singing. And humming along with Teyla while she sang was very different to what she intended.
Oh, god, what had he gotten himself into?
When he looked up, Teyla was watching his moment of panic. She crossed over to him and touched him on the arm. "Thank you, Rodney."
He took refuge in chatter as they walked out of the room, Teyla leading them...somewhere. Possibly to the quarters where the Cunaxans had decided to install them for the course of the evening.
"I mean, I could let you do it yourself, but I'm not getting anything done here anyway. And you need accompaniment, because it won't sound right otherwise." He hesitated, realising what he'd just implied. "I mean, you're a good singer, but the song's supposed to be a duet and--"
"Rodney."
"If they're going to be grateful for it, then they might as well hear it properly."
Teyla gives him a small sideways glance as they continue down the corridor. "They will be appreciative."
"You think so?"
"How could they not if you are performing?"
He huffs and rolls his eyes. "Oh, very funny."
--
Rodney would like to be able to say that aliens made him do it.
Sadly, the only person who asked him to stand up in front of most of the Cunaxan people and sing is the person standing beside him in the dark green outfit that bronzes her skin.
And she only made the request. There was a little persuasion, but no threats, no strong-arming, no weapons pointed at him.
He did this of his own accord.
It's almost a more terrifying realisation than the realisation that there are hundreds of eyes watching his every breath - watching the way he tugs at the muddy-brown-with-green-trim tunic that is possibly too tight around his waist. Thank God the feast isn't until afterwards or he'd stumble off the stage and be sick.
Now is not a good time to remember that another of the reasons he never became a concert pianist - other than because his piano teacher thought he had no soul for the music and he quit when he was twelve - was that he got terrible stage fright when he actually had to perform.
It would probably have been best to mention this to Teyla when they were rehearsing.
Oh, God, this is going to suck.
He concentrates on breathing as Teyla starts the song. Her voice is exquisitely clear, and she sings with all the feeling that Rodney doesn't have.
All right. Music is mathematics, and you can do math. Sheppard can do math. So you can surely just...
Rodney nearly misses his entry.
He nearly misses his note.
It's Teyla who catches his eye, and the flaming light of the candelabra in the corner gives her hair highlights like glistening caramel sauce and picks out the warm brown of her irises as she turns towards him, still singing.
Her gaze acts as the grounding station for the lightning bolt of sudden belief that he can do this. Rodney feels like an idiot as he comes in on time, and if he starts a bit wobbly then he still manages to keep the tune and even remembers the words.
He didn't think much about the lyrics during rehearsal. They were just syllables hanging around in his head, easily sung without needing actual meaning attached to them.
But now he's singing them as he looks into Teyla's eyes, and he can hear her voice in his head, translating the words for him as they listened to the playback after he recorded it on his laptop.
"We are bound together,
day and night,
sun and sky,
journey and destination.
In the night, he is there by my side,
in the silence, we are as one.
When the Wraith attack, we are together;
When the trades are made, we barter true;
When the dawn comes, we will see it together.
The sun rises and sets,
on one I trust with my heart."
Translated into English, it sounds stupid.
In the original Athosian tongue, it works.
So Rodney tries to forget the exactitude of what he's singing and the audience out there - including Sheppard and Ronon who are probably smirking behind their faces - and concentrates on Teyla and where the music is going - namely, the end.
Then, somewhere between the point where he forgets that he's singing in front of an audience and the end of the song, Rodney realises that this kind of rightness in music is what drew him to it in the first place.
It's like the moment when he's just made a breakthrough in thinking, when the solution is there before him, perfect in its symmetry and fitting the problem, the 'click' when everything comes together and the whole is greater than the sum of Rodney's parts.
Suddenly, he's so very pleased that he agreed to sing this with Teyla that he could kiss her.
He doesn't, of course. Not in the middle of the song.
When the song finishes on a flourish - Teyla's trill, not Rodney's - he feels a rush of disappointment like a fist in the belly. It's over and gone - the ephemeral sensation of being part of a bigger whole that Rodney would never admit to being addicted to, but he is - he really, really is...
It makes him light-headed enough that he grabs Teyla's hand as she turns to face the audience. And then there's the nodding of heads and the cheering of voices - the Cunaxan version of applause.
The light-headedness gives way to a kind of claustrophobia as they move through the crowds to the slightly-less busy area and the people reach out to touch them on their shoulders and arms.
"Please tell me they're feeling me up for a good reason," Rodney says in her ear, staying close behind and fighting back the urge to push people away.
Teyla half-smiles. "They wish to share in the spirit that we gave to the song."
As another hand touches his shoulder and Rodney squirms away, he mutters, "Fine. They can share in the spirit of the song. I give it to them freely and willingly. Now, can they just stop touching me?"
They break out of the crowds to the edge of the tabled segment of the festival ground, where the aristocracy and the guests sit - among them, Sheppard and Ronon.
Sheppard's talking to the woman sitting next to him - he'll probably have her on his lap by the end of the night - but Ronon's watching them. Watching Rodney.
And Rodney hopes that he hasn't done anything to annoy Carson lately, because he has the feeling that, when Ronon finishes with him, he's going to need medical attention.
"It is a sign that you performed very well," Teyla is telling him, having stopped just on the edge of the dais. "That we performed very well." Her smile is slow and not sensual at all, but Rodney suddenly feels very hot beneath the collar of his shirt.
"I... Well... That's..." Suddenly, Rodney feels like he's back out in front of the crowd out there - hot and embarrassingly self-conscious. He can't even seem to make his mind work enough to spit out a complete sentence.
Come on, Rodney. You're an intelligent man, you can get out more than a grunt!
"We were good."
He flushes when Teyla stands on tiptoes and kisses him, a soft slide of her lips across his cheek. "We were," she agrees.
And then she leads him back to their table and their team-mates.
- fin -