Ronon's gruff voice fills the office,
".. got here, didn't see any people. McKay tripped on a root. There was some rocks. We came back. End of mission report."
The recorder clicks off and there is silence.
Lorne dutifully files his reports, emails them to Woolsey, and then taps his fingers on the desk.
This time it's clear. He's 100% stuck in some sort of time loop or time fluctuation type thing. It's not something he has personally experienced before, but he knows that stargates are finnicky pieces of equipment, and wormholes tend to get odd around certain natural occurring phenomena. That's the only reasonable explanation.
Well, not the only one, but the most plausible, for sure. Could just be some sort of alternate universe or dream-like sleep, or it could be Todd. Todd does seem to feature prominently in each redoing of his day. But he wouldn't do this… Would he?
This time around, Lorne is prepared, and he stays calm and collected. He radios Lieutenant Rivers and tells him to be at the gate room at 19:00 promptly to collect Todd upon arrival and escort him to an available meeting room. The wraith visitor is to be provided with Fanta and a TV to watch. He suggests a documentary of Lt. Rivers' choice.
Once that's done, he informs Woolsey of the change in plans, goes to the hangar and takes a puddle jumper. He pilots it out the mainland, then cloaks and doubles back, landing it on one of the extended sections of the west pier. By this point, he remembers the one loop where him and Todd snuck out here with stolen gloves to have a mock water balloon fight, so he's confident the area will be completely empty and no one will notice any sudden increase in activity. He heads into one of the industrial warehouses, this specific one home to large sheets of electro-conductive panels similar to the ones used to make some of Atlantis's corridors. And then he hides.
Part of him feels the childlike excitement of playing hide and seek, and the thrill of knowing no one will find you. Another part feels like a coward. But this is an experiment. All he has to do is wait it out and see what happens when the loop completes. He's not fully certain how long the full loop will take, but he knows its somewhere around 5 hours or so. He brought a book (Parallel Worlds by Michio Kaku) and finds a supervisor's office on the mezzanine level with the perfect amount of light and a wall of windows providing a clear view across the entire warehouse.
He is just getting to the good part when he catches motion out of the corner of his eye. He crouches down instinctively. Turning off the light now would just draw attention, so he makes his way to one side of the room and stands in a shadowy corner. From this vantage point he can see someone (obviously Todd) burst through the double doors at the far end of the building. Rivers is tailing him and trying to talk him out of whatever it is Todd is doing. Lorne glances at his watch, it is 19:06. It's about a 4 minute walk from the gateroom to here. That means Todd was able to somehow find him within 2 minutes of his arrival.
Todd is halfway across the warehouse now, and closing in on him. He suddenly looks up and makes direct eye contact, which is impossible because the distance is at least 100 feet, and Lorne knows he's not visible in his dark corner.
So much for this plan of 'ignore and avoid', he thinks. He's gonna have Rivers' ass for this.
It can't be much longer than 30 seconds before Todd is inside the office with him. Rivers catches up to the wraith and shoots Lorne a pleading look.
"Major Lorrrne, are you avoiding me?" Todd says, sounding offended.
"Hey there Todd, no, not at all, I just come here to read." Lorne retorts with a shrug, holding up his book. He won't be caught dead admitting to the wraith that he was trying to run away from him.
Rivers chimes in with a "Sorry Sir, he was very insistent to come see you." Lorne smiles at his subordinate but it lacks his usual empathy and warmth, and Rivers shrinks back further behind Todd. Lorne dismisses him and sits back down in the chair, sighing, once Rivers is out of sight.
"How did you even find me Todd? I took extra precautions. Did you get ahold of a tablet and use the life signs scanner?"
"No need, Evan. It's quite simple. The closest expansion would be, let's just say I could smell you."
As if to show what he meant, Todd inhales and his sensory pits flare.
"Now, please explain why you did not greet me as previously arranged. Taking extra precautions to not be found suggests willful avoidance."
"Why does it matter? I mean, I guess I wanted to see what would happen.."
Todd inclines his head as if perfectly understanding the reasoning behind it.
"But Todd, I left you your favorite drink and a TV, I mean, you're here to see Sheppard not me, so I thought this would be fine."
"Evannnn, I desire your companionship." Todd's gaze lingers meaningfully on Lorne's face, as if trying to hint at something he found obvious. His bright yellow eyes glow in the dim light of the room.
After a long pause, Evan breaks the silence.
"Well, I got a jumper out back, wanna go for a ride?"
"Only if you let me drive."
"Gotta have the ATA gene, buddy."
"Well, I may have perhaps modified other similar craft to work with Wraith DNA before."
Todd smiles innocently. If not for his teeth, he would probably whistle. "It would also be a great opportunity to test if my modification of Beckett's ATA gene therapy was successful."
Lorne gives him a dirty look. Todd is too smart and innovative for his own good. "Fine, but you'll owe me."
"Deal."
The wraith looks quite smug on the entire walk to the jumper, but his gene therapy appears to only partially work, so he spends a few minutes fiddling with the crystals until the jumper is in the air. Todd purrs in delight. For all his many years, a new toy makes him seem like a child again (or maybe for the first time? Was Todd ever a child?)
Lorne fidgets in the passenger seat: he's used to being the driver. But he grudgingly accepts that Todd is a great pilot and he's in good hands, so he tries to lean back and relax. He has no clue where they're going, but Todd is keeping them to New Lantea's atmosphere, so it must be on the mainland? Ten minutes later, Todd is landing them on what looks like a remote island, and Lorne is intrigued. They have had their base of ops on this planet for a few years, but he's never been here before and it seems pretty isolated. There's a small rocky beach, a wide grassy area, and beyond that, dense shrubs leading into a few clumps of trees. That seems to be the extent of the island as far as Lorne can see. It seems blissfully isolated, so at least no fighting off flying snakes.
Todd parks the jumper and they step out, facing the beach and the ocean. The sound of the waves is very soothing and Evan doesn't even notice when Todd stands far too close to him. Maybe he's still tired though? He remembers taking a nap. The island is beautiful and reminds Evan of his love of painting. He wishes he had a canvas and his paints here, so he could capture the tranquility. All that's missing is an old row boat to complete the picture.
Lorne looks at Todd. "What now?"
"Hmmm..?"
"I mean, this is beautiful, but what are we doing here?"
"I thought you might need a break, Major Lorne."
Todd is, as always, vague and confusing.
"So.. uh... We just hang out?"
"Indeed."
Lorne shrugs and goes to the jumper to get a spare blanket and a few MREs and sets up a picnic equivalent on the grass, prepping two bags of Beef Ravioli. Todd lays on his back and folds his hands under his head as a pillow. The major digs around in the jumper some more and finds an old unopened bottle of wine that had fallen behind one of the seats. It's a classy 2006 Yellowtail cab, and he takes it back to their picnic and pops the cork into the bottle with his knife. Lorne offers the bottle to Todd.
"No cups, Evan?"
"No, we don't have any. Just drink straight from the bottle."
Todd props up on his elbow, raises a brow ridge and accepts the bottle, taking a swig. He blinks slowly and Lorne assumes that means he approves. The major watches the wraith lick his lips and he grabs the bottle and takes several large gulps. The wine is cheap but decent, and it burns a bit when it reaches his stomach. He plucks out a plump piece of ravioli and thinks this is the perfect picnic. Todd has a few raviolis as well and murmurs his approval. It's by far the best of the MRE options. By the time they finish the snack, Lorne has almost polished off the wine as well, but he's military, he can hold his liquor. Todd barely had more than a cup, but it seems to hit him much harder. He's laying on his side on the blanket, looking at Lorne like he wants to devour him.
"Evan, what is this curious beverage.. and why does it seem to inhibit my internal temperature regulation?"
"It's a fermented juice from a fruit grown on Earth. The process creates alcohol, which makes people intoxicated." Lorne answers with a chuckle.
"But I can tell that you're fine," the wraith pouts. "I don't detect any change in body temperature at all.
"Yeah, my body processes it pretty quick and I've got a lot of practice. Wait, you can sense body temperature changes?"
"That is the primary function of the sensory pits."
Evan wonders why the wine is making Todd so drunk when they had beer together before, in the original loop, and that was ok. But it's not like he can ask the wraith about it, and even so, he wouldn't remember. Maybe it's the different levels of alcohol concentration, or it has to do with the grapes? Lorne finishes the bottle and lays down too, pillowing his right arm under his head. Todd is still staring at him, his eyes glazed and content, his hair a large puddle of white between them.
The major isn't quite sure when they got to this point of comfort with each other. He thinks it was probably the glove heist and subsequent water balloon fight that sealed the deal. Or, maybe after, when Todd demanded that he fix his hair, and then asked him to stay, holding him until their time ran out. Lorne reaches out his hand and puts it on Todd's hair. It's not as soft as when he brushed it for the wraith, but the blow-dryer probably had a part to play in that. He laughs and says, "it was softer when I did it" and Todd nods in response, but Evan isn't sure what that means. The wraith brings his hand up to pinch some of the human's hair and roll it between his fingers.
"Yours isn't soft at all, it's got some residue."
Lorne laughs. "It's a gel that helps it stay in place."
"How unusual." Todd shimmies his body closer like a snake and runs his whole hand through the major's hair, his eyes glowing in mischief. He tries pressing on it from different sides as well. "No matter what, it returns to it's previous shape. I thought your hair follicles simply defied gravity constraints."
Lorne is distracted by the hand petting him and doesn't answer. It's been a really long time since he's had such casual physical contact with someone. His team of course does hugs and stuff like that, but this was more, and the wraith's attentions were warming a part of him that he put away ages ago. His breath quickened and his pulse increased and Todd must be able to tell, by the way his sensory pits flared lightly.
Lorne finds himself staring at Todd's facial tattoo, the graceful way the double line arches over his brow ridge: one solid, continuing into the starburst pattern, one broken by the path of it's brother. His fingers itch to touch the greyish skin, and he thinks fuck it, why not, this day is just going to restart so I might as well indulge and later he will remember this as the moment where everything spiraled out of control.
Todd's skin is smoother than expected, but about the same temperature. Lorne traces the line of black with his fingertip from where it starts on the nose, over the eye and around, until he's cupping Todd's cheek. Meanwhile, Todd's long nails are scratching his head in miraculous ways. Evan closes his eyes and relaxes into the sensation.
This time, the silence between them isn't awkward.
Evan remembers how much Todd enjoyed his massage, and reaches into the mass of white hair to massage the wraiths scalp. It occurs to him that he, a human, is here alone with Todd, by all accounts a very dangerous wraith, nobody knows where they are, and they're doing the literal definition of heavy petting. What would Sheppard say.
The thought of his CO brings up a flood of jealousy and Lorne can't hold himself back.
"Todd, do you do this kind of stuff with Col. Sheppard?"
"It's different.."
"How is it different?"
"Sheppard and I, we are like a binary star system. Because of the bond we share, we are brothers."
Lorne feels like it's part of an answer, but not the entire answer.
"So do you wish it was him, here, instead of me?" The major asks dejectedly. He always was a bit of a masochist, loved asking questions he knew the answer to which would guarantee he got hurt.
"No." The wraith's hushed breath ghosts over Lorne's face and suddenly he's realizing just how close together they actually are, essentially embracing each other, and when did Todd undo the clasps of his jacket? Todd's unique scent fills the major's senses and his light explorative touches are making the human feel like he's burning up, and when Todd says "only Evan Lorrrne" in his lilting purring voice, Evan closes the gap between them and presses his lips to Todd's.
The kiss is sweet and chaste, just a light brushing of lips at first, but it strokes a fire that threatens to consume him.
Evan suddenly feels like a teenager, anxious greedy hands grabbing and hungry mouth insisting, asking for more. He's not sure if Todd knows how to kiss, or if wraith even do that sort of thing, but Todd is definitely matching him in desperation, grabbing and pulling him closer until their bodies are flush. Evan licks at the seam of Todd's closed lips until the wraith grants him access, and cautiously explores deeper, seeking out the tongue.
When they break apart, it's because Lorne is out of breath. Todd looks visibly upset at the loss of contact, but waits patiently to see if the human reengages. Evan is clearly meant to set the pace here. And Evan can only really think one thing, fuck it, why not?.
When he slips a hand under the hem of the wraith's shirt to caress his well toned side, Evan feels the move of muscles under the heated skin and it feels way more intoxicating than the wine was. Todd rolls, props himself up on his elbows above the smaller human, and Evan is enveloped in his scent, protected from the world by the thick curtain of hair for a moment until Todd shifts down, nudges Evan's face over and whispers against the pulse point in his neck, "Evan.. it's almost time.."
Evan can barely reply when Todd licks his neck. What is he, a vampire?
"Time for what?"
"You know... Time for us to go..."
The wraith then bites his neck, just a bit, not enough for the sharp points to pierce the delicate skin, and drags his teeth down the column of Evan's neck. Unable to hold out, the major lets out a strangled moan and writhes under Todd, earning an appreciative rumbling purr from the wraith.
As one hand drifts lower, Todd says, "No, me and Sheppard never do this..."