"Wanna get out of here?"
"Yes, please." Teyla answered crisply. She seemed more subdued now, and John wondered if she'd gotten over her rotten mood.
The truth was, Teyla had made up her mind. As frustrated and angry with John as she was for drinking the talik, there was no way she was going to let him stumble off into the night in the arms of some other woman. Her heart could not endure the idea of pacing her own quarters through the night, imagining him off doing Ancestors-knew-what with some eager, vulgar tramp. She would take John back to her tiny room and let him work off his talik-inebriation with her. Of course, she would serve up a generous helping of guilt in the morning, allowing him to think that she had only been rescuing him from an awkward entanglement with another slave and other unsavory results of spending the night with some seedy flirt.
They stood and walked toward the slave-laborers' living quarters on the other side of the compound. Although they weren't draped all over each other as most couples were, John walked closely enough to her so that those watching would have no doubt as to what Teyla's sleeping arrangements would probably be. He sneaked a glance back as they left the eating area, and spotted more than few disappointed male faces and even a few angry mutters from those who had clearly been biding their time, waiting to see how the pairings of the night would pan out.
John and Teyla passed the long rows of benches, some still full of necking couples, some of the tables already being used by those who didn't seem able to wait to get back to a room to participate in the night's festivities.
Now that they passed the torch-lit eating area into the brightly moonlit night, they could make out the rows of living quarters. The men's quarters were situated on one side of a high mud brick wall, along which grew a row of shade trees. The women's quarters were on the other side of the row of shade trees, behind another wall. The sleeping quarters were partitioned off, forming three-sided rooms with a burlap-type curtain covering the front of the sleeping space.
At this point on their stroll away from the eating area at the end of a typical work day, John would veer off toward the men's side of the compound. Teyla was ready for this. She had made her plan and resolved to follow through with it, as much as her heart revolted at the idea of making love to John in his state—it was not really him, and she felt bitter that the one thing she had longed for years was now going to happen in such a sullied, debased way. But she felt even more dismayed by the alternative, and lifted her chin in determination. She swerved closer to John and slipped an arm around his waist, turning him in the direction of her sleeping quarters.
John's eyebrows nearly hit his hairline. "Unprecedented" wasn't a strong enough word to describe this, but he certainly wasn't going to start off with a complaint. He'd known for years that if ever Teyla crooked her finger at him, he'd come running, but in honesty, he never believed it would happen. His mind raced for a reason for Teyla's unfathomable behavior, but the only explanation he could fumble toward was that she didn't want to walk to her quarters by herself with the mood in the camp as it was and wanted others to think she was not without a "talik companion." He tried to take her actions with a grain of salt and walked along with her silently.
Teyla slid in closer to John and ran her hand up from his waist, feeling the lean muscle of his torso, then back down to the top edge of the waistband of his pants. How much clearer do I have to make this? she wondered. She had already been impressed by John's restraint despite the talik urges he must be feeling, but she had chalked it up to his military control. She had assumed he would already be running his hands all over her, now that she had made it clear he was welcome in her room.
At the sensation of Teyla's hand running up and down his side, John thought, What the...? Is Teyla coming on to me? How could he interpret this any other way? He knew she hadn't drunk the talik, so he was dumbfounded by her unspoken invitation. But he continued to allow her to lead him toward her quarters. When they'd first arrived at the farm, she had managed to finagle and scheme her way into a room at the very end of the barracks away from the other slaves, with a few unoccupied rooms between her and the rest of the slaves, so she could have some privacy. In the moonlight, John could see they'd reached Teyla's quarters, and they paused in front of the rough curtain covering the cell. She turned to face him, her arm around his back, pulling him closer and staring up at him expectantly.
Why is he not, well, "jumping me," as my Atlantis friends would say? How much more of a hint does he need? Surely the talik was in full effect now, and he should be shoving her up against side of the building and succumbing to the talik lust. Instead he was looking down at her in the moonlight, an unreadable expression on his face; although she thought she detected a hint of surprise there. That made her blood boil even more. So he is surprised that I am the one that is offering to be his talik mate? That meant he was expecting to find another one! The idea made her both furious and determined in equal measure. She shifted around in the dust at their feet, turning him to face the opposite way, and shoved him up against the outer wall of the barracks.
Of course a part of Teyla was excited. She had always wanted this... always wanted to make love to John, to physically express the profound well of emotion she carried for him. But a deeper level of her was cringing in pain. This is not how I want him. I want him to want me for who I am, for my person, for what I mean to him. Not because of some cursed love juice. But she swallowed her sorrow and instead brought her considerable force of seduction to bear on the man that she had always desired. As soon as his back hit the wall, she pressed the length of her body against his own, thigh to thigh, pelvis to pelvis, stomach to stomach, breasts to chest, and lifted her face up to gaze at him fiercely. She made sure her intent was clear on her face... she was going to have him, take him tonight, and there was little he could do to change that.
John was speechless, dumbfounded, awe-struck, shocked, appalled... he tried to come up with a few more adjectives to distract himself from the feel of the bare warm flesh of Teyla's thigh against his leg. He'd never been more confused... hadn't she just spent the evening irritated with him? Why the sudden change? And not just a change from earlier this evening... sudden as in ever. Never in the last few years had she shown this level of physical interest in him. Sure, there'd been the gentle flirting between them, the brushing against each other that set his heart racing, the laughing over the off-color jokes she told him she'd heard around the city. But he'd always known the flirting was not meant for him. Not him, John Sheppard. He was just her friend, her close teammate, and hers was a friendly affection that would have spilled out to whatever close male friend had been on hand. He knew he was not the kind of man that made Teyla Emmagan light up inside.
Now he was having a hard time keeping up with this sudden reversal. But Teyla's expression left no doubt as to whether she was serious about this... she was quite serious about this. Whatever "this" was. Her belly pressed so tightly against his already growing erection—what! It's not like I could help it! She was running her hands all over me. I'm only human!—her arm was around his back, nails digging into his shoulder blade. The feel of her warm breath washed over his lips that were parted in surprise... he wasn't going to stand there like a dimwit and let this opportunity go.
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