![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tielan posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
sga_flashficTITLE: The Pinocchio Syndrome
AUTHOR: Tielan
PAIRING: Sheppard/Teyla
RATING: PG-13
NOTES: Oh. My. God. I wrote this in the last three hours in terror that the challenge would end before I got it done. No time so no beta, so sorry! The Quandem project is not my idea, but I really like it. And I don't think it's quite trashily romantic enough, but what the hey, I wrote it for this, so you're getting it!
SUMMARY:
When Teyla Emmagen signed up for the Quandem project, she wasn't sure what she expected. But the intel that she got back from the systems they connected her to was useful - and more than useful. She wasn't so sure that she needed the AI interface, though. He called himself John and was programmed far more forward than she liked in a guy. Still, intel was intel when slip-running against the Wraith, so she put up with his bizarre sense of humour, his Old Earth references, and his cocky manner - at least until she found herself actually liking the personality.
Then she discovered that they hadn't connected her to an AI interface; they'd connected her to a man - to John Sheppard, ex-military ops, now anchor to Teyla's recep.
To make matters worse, there's trouble brewing out on the slip, and more than just her relationship with John is about to change...
The Pinocchio Syndrome
She was sitting in the Atlantis bar with her friends when they first noticed the guy watching her.
Liz had paused in recounting her latest diplomatic foray into the Gennii empire when Kate shifted slightly, drawing all eyes to her.
"Teyla?" Kate said, the start of a smile on her mouth. "Don't look now, but there's a guy at the bar who's been watching you for the last fifteen."
"Ishtar!" Sam hissed as the daringly-dressed blonde promptly turned around in her chair. "Don't stare!" She rolled her eyes as Janet covered her smile.
"I don't know," said Liz from where she sat beside Kate. "He's worth staring at."
"More than worth staring at," Ishtar said, grinning broadly when she turned back.
"Careful now," Janet teased, "Or we'll tell Teal'c."
Ishtar smirked and tossed her head. "Well, he is definitely staring at you, Teyla. Go on, stare back!"
Deciding that subtlety was long since lost, Teyla turned her head to look at the bar with its brightly coloured display of bottles and glasses.
The Atlantis bar was reasonably full tonight, filled with the personnel of four or five different sections, brought together at Stargate Central. It was one of the reasons for tonight: one of the few nights when the women could meet up and catch up in person instead of through the Webworks.
But Teyla had no trouble identifying the man who'd been staring. Dark hair, pale skin, eyes warm with laughter lines, mouth curved at the corners; long face, athletic build, handsome in a careless way.
She could also see the gleam of amusement as he regarded her with the knowing look of a man who'd caught the eye of a pretty woman - or a whole group of them - and was both amused and appreciative of the attention. Before she could turn away, he lifted his glass in silent toast to her, and the other woman broke into laughter.
Teyla looked away, hoping that her darker skin and the understated lighting hid her flush. Liz was right: the man was worth staring at. That did not make her self-consciousness at the boldness any less. "I do not know him," she said. "At all."
"Would you like to?" Janet asked wickedly.
"You should go over there and confront him," said Ishtar.
Teyla glanced around at her friends. All were smiling, although their expressions indicated varying degrees of avidity in her situation. "I do not know him," she repeated, "and I would not feel comfortable speaking with a stranger."
"But--"
"Ishtar," Sam said, the warning plain in her voice.
The blonde woman rolled her eyes. "I would."
"Yes, but you're not Teyla."
"Well, maybe Teyla wants to--"
Impulsively, Teyla turned to look back at the man, but a group of guys had just sidled up to their table and were blocking the view of the bar.
By the time she could get a clear view, the stranger was gone.
--
Hey, beautiful.
Teyla quirked a smile as she palmprinted into her building. Hello, John. When they'd first given her the implant, they'd told her to interact with the anchor like any other person. It would make things easier for both of them.
Good night out with the girls? John was programmed with a slight drawl, and in moments like these, she could almost picture him leaning back in a chair in some imaginary room in the complex, talking to her by cell.
She flashed him her memories of the night; the conversation, the drinks, the gossip, the shop talk, and the stranger who'd watched her from the bar. For some reason, she'd found herself thinking of him for the rest of the evening. Even the not-so-subtle invitation from one of the guys from the Sateda section had been turned down, although she wasn't sure why. Ronan was a handsome man and a known quantity. They would have enjoyed each other for the night and walked away with no regrets.
So you have a secret admirer? John sounded amused. You didn't want to meet him?
It is not a case of not wanting to, Teyla said as she navigated the corridor down to her quarters. It is a case of not knowing anything about him. As she paused outside her rooms, she sent the query: Can you run an ID on him?
If he'd had eyebrows to raise, she could imagine them lifting, right now. You want me to run an illegal filesearch on a complete stranger? Teyla, I'm shocked!
There was a kind of glee in his tone, and she could only imagine that he was amused - in as much as an AI could know amusement. I hope you're not finding this funny.
Would I do that? Whoever had programmed his sarcasm had overdone the subroutine, but Teyla had learned to let it pass. It wasn't as though John belonged to her, anyway.
While she waited for his answer, she let herself into her quarters. They were nothing special - she was outside them more often than she was in - slip-running, practising, socialising, or even simply training. She had no need of special quarters although she could have asked for them. Other slip-runners had taken up that option, but Teyla was content with simplicity.
She'd stripped down to her underwear when John replied. Teyla, he's not showing up on the standard personnel files of Stargate Central. And he's not assigned to any of the sections.
A floater?
Well, I wouldn't say that, John replied, sounding injured. Isn't he a bit too good-looking to be a floater?
Teyla smiled, I imagine that floaters have as much right to be attractive as any other group in society.
So you thought he was attractive?
Maybe. She pulled on a sleeping tunic and began plaiting back her hair.
Oh, come on, admit it. You thought he was gorgeous.
I wouldn't use the word gorgeous. That is your word.
Then what word would you use?
Teyla considered this. Handsome.
Handsome? For a moment, John sounded as though he didn't know whether to smirk or scoff. Well, I suppose that's not so bad.
She rolled her eyes. John's programmer obviously had been blessed with a quirky sense of humour. And you can't find him anywhere on the files?
He's not assigned to any of the sections and he's not in the personnel files of Central. There was a pause. You really liked him?
Teyla grinned as she climbed into bed and pulled the quilt over her. Jealous?
Why would I be jealous of him? John demanded.
Why indeed? Teyla lay back and stared up into the darkness. It had been a good day, and she was tired. I'm going to sleep, John.
Dream of electric sheep.
He had some of the oddest sayings she'd ever heard. From the sound of it, Old Earth had been a very strange place. Get out of my head.
Sleep well, beautiful.
Teyla slept well.
--
John sat back in his quarters after disconnecting the link with Teyla.
Her teasing question echoed in his ears. Jealous?
Technically, it should be impossible to be jealous of yourself. Stupid. But the man he'd been out in the bar had a real, physical attraction to her, as compared to the purely cerebral contact she had with him through their Quandem link.
No man liked being thought of as a computer, but he'd found it easier than confessing he was as human as she. That might take the conversation into areas John wasn't comfortable discussing, such as why he hadn't told her the instant he found out she thought he was an AI, or, worse yet, why he hadn't told her the first time he found himself along for the ride during one of her sexual experiences.
He drank down the last bit of water in the bottle and tossed the empty at the dispenser.
"He shoots, he scores! The crowd goes wild!" With one booted foot, he pushed himself off and spun gently around in his chair as the rollers slid across the floor until they hit the mat by the bed.
John figured he really did need to get out more. Get a life as the General was always telling him. Not that the General could talk.
He kicked the chair back over to the terminal desk and lay down, horizontally across his bed. Two thumps marked his boots falling to the ground as he toed them off.
The foray out into Central was unusual for him; he rarely left the compound anymore and most people didn't know he existed.
His friends were dead; that last mission out in to the Afghani territories had been fatal for them all. John had figured he was just taking a little longer to die than his men. He certainly hadn't been thought fit to command anyone else after that and resigned himself to pushing paperwork until his liver gave out from the alcohol.
Then O'Neill had come to him, sat him down, and offered him the Quandem link. With nothing to lose, John took it.
He was told he'd be given a 'recep' - a receptive to his anchor - a field operative whose brain patterns matched his own, who could feed him intel from the field as he fed her intel from the systems.
He got Teyla.
The Wraith were both hungry and deadly, and the slip-runners were the outermost defences for the Millekwa and Pegasi systems. Slip-runners were generally thought to be half-insane anyway; anyone who ran the slip on even a semi-regular basis had to be crazy.
Teyla loved it.
And John found himself caring about Teyla.
She dragged him out of his solitude and back into the world, forcing him to see the possibilities. She thought of him as an AI, but treated him as a person. And she shared a lot of her life with him - things he knew she wouldn't have told him if she'd known he was a real person - memories of her father and of her people, her thoughts and feelings, her hopes and fears.
There were times when he felt like a bit of a voyeur, only too aware that she didn't think he was human, that she was disadvantaged when it came to their interaction. He shared nothing with her: what did an AI have to share? And she gave him everything.
John stripped and climbed into bed. He nearly reached out to Teyla, wanting to touch her mind just one more time, and pulled back at the last moment.
Tonight had been good. In a way. He'd wanted to see her with his own eyes, not just the stillpics he'd found in the files. And she'd been...beautiful. More beautiful in motion than in the posed stillpics, staring at the camera with her serene, neutral expression.
No surprise that the other women had noticed him staring - he hadn't exactly been subtle.
And he was both relieved and regretful that she hadn't come over to speak with him.
But what could he have said? Hey, Teyla, I'm your anchor, John. Nice to meet you in the flesh. She'd have wiped the floor with him.
At least she would have known he was real.
Rodney called it 'Sheppard's Pinocchio syndrome', and sounded insufferably smug about it. Then again, Rodney was always insufferably smug.
Teyla had no idea.
That was probably what stung the most; that she hadn't clued in that he wasn't just an AI. Then again, he hadn't disabused her of the notion, too amused by it at first, and then finding it difficult when he woke up one night with her orgasm in his mind and a raging hard-on in his pants. How did a guy explain that?
So, yeah. He was pretty screwed up. But he hadn't needed a recep to show him that.
He wanted her to know that he was real - to really see him. John-her-anchor, not as handsome-guy-staring-in-a-bar. Okay, so not just as handsome-guy-staring-in-a-bar.
John sighed as he climbed into bed.
One of these days, he'd tell her. Maybe.
Of course, his inner commentator snarked, And then you'll be a real boy?
Shut up and go to sleep! He told himself.
He shut up and went to sleep.
--
AUTHOR: Tielan
PAIRING: Sheppard/Teyla
RATING: PG-13
NOTES: Oh. My. God. I wrote this in the last three hours in terror that the challenge would end before I got it done. No time so no beta, so sorry! The Quandem project is not my idea, but I really like it. And I don't think it's quite trashily romantic enough, but what the hey, I wrote it for this, so you're getting it!
SUMMARY:
When Teyla Emmagen signed up for the Quandem project, she wasn't sure what she expected. But the intel that she got back from the systems they connected her to was useful - and more than useful. She wasn't so sure that she needed the AI interface, though. He called himself John and was programmed far more forward than she liked in a guy. Still, intel was intel when slip-running against the Wraith, so she put up with his bizarre sense of humour, his Old Earth references, and his cocky manner - at least until she found herself actually liking the personality.
Then she discovered that they hadn't connected her to an AI interface; they'd connected her to a man - to John Sheppard, ex-military ops, now anchor to Teyla's recep.
To make matters worse, there's trouble brewing out on the slip, and more than just her relationship with John is about to change...
The Pinocchio Syndrome
She was sitting in the Atlantis bar with her friends when they first noticed the guy watching her.
Liz had paused in recounting her latest diplomatic foray into the Gennii empire when Kate shifted slightly, drawing all eyes to her.
"Teyla?" Kate said, the start of a smile on her mouth. "Don't look now, but there's a guy at the bar who's been watching you for the last fifteen."
"Ishtar!" Sam hissed as the daringly-dressed blonde promptly turned around in her chair. "Don't stare!" She rolled her eyes as Janet covered her smile.
"I don't know," said Liz from where she sat beside Kate. "He's worth staring at."
"More than worth staring at," Ishtar said, grinning broadly when she turned back.
"Careful now," Janet teased, "Or we'll tell Teal'c."
Ishtar smirked and tossed her head. "Well, he is definitely staring at you, Teyla. Go on, stare back!"
Deciding that subtlety was long since lost, Teyla turned her head to look at the bar with its brightly coloured display of bottles and glasses.
The Atlantis bar was reasonably full tonight, filled with the personnel of four or five different sections, brought together at Stargate Central. It was one of the reasons for tonight: one of the few nights when the women could meet up and catch up in person instead of through the Webworks.
But Teyla had no trouble identifying the man who'd been staring. Dark hair, pale skin, eyes warm with laughter lines, mouth curved at the corners; long face, athletic build, handsome in a careless way.
She could also see the gleam of amusement as he regarded her with the knowing look of a man who'd caught the eye of a pretty woman - or a whole group of them - and was both amused and appreciative of the attention. Before she could turn away, he lifted his glass in silent toast to her, and the other woman broke into laughter.
Teyla looked away, hoping that her darker skin and the understated lighting hid her flush. Liz was right: the man was worth staring at. That did not make her self-consciousness at the boldness any less. "I do not know him," she said. "At all."
"Would you like to?" Janet asked wickedly.
"You should go over there and confront him," said Ishtar.
Teyla glanced around at her friends. All were smiling, although their expressions indicated varying degrees of avidity in her situation. "I do not know him," she repeated, "and I would not feel comfortable speaking with a stranger."
"But--"
"Ishtar," Sam said, the warning plain in her voice.
The blonde woman rolled her eyes. "I would."
"Yes, but you're not Teyla."
"Well, maybe Teyla wants to--"
Impulsively, Teyla turned to look back at the man, but a group of guys had just sidled up to their table and were blocking the view of the bar.
By the time she could get a clear view, the stranger was gone.
--
Hey, beautiful.
Teyla quirked a smile as she palmprinted into her building. Hello, John. When they'd first given her the implant, they'd told her to interact with the anchor like any other person. It would make things easier for both of them.
Good night out with the girls? John was programmed with a slight drawl, and in moments like these, she could almost picture him leaning back in a chair in some imaginary room in the complex, talking to her by cell.
She flashed him her memories of the night; the conversation, the drinks, the gossip, the shop talk, and the stranger who'd watched her from the bar. For some reason, she'd found herself thinking of him for the rest of the evening. Even the not-so-subtle invitation from one of the guys from the Sateda section had been turned down, although she wasn't sure why. Ronan was a handsome man and a known quantity. They would have enjoyed each other for the night and walked away with no regrets.
So you have a secret admirer? John sounded amused. You didn't want to meet him?
It is not a case of not wanting to, Teyla said as she navigated the corridor down to her quarters. It is a case of not knowing anything about him. As she paused outside her rooms, she sent the query: Can you run an ID on him?
If he'd had eyebrows to raise, she could imagine them lifting, right now. You want me to run an illegal filesearch on a complete stranger? Teyla, I'm shocked!
There was a kind of glee in his tone, and she could only imagine that he was amused - in as much as an AI could know amusement. I hope you're not finding this funny.
Would I do that? Whoever had programmed his sarcasm had overdone the subroutine, but Teyla had learned to let it pass. It wasn't as though John belonged to her, anyway.
While she waited for his answer, she let herself into her quarters. They were nothing special - she was outside them more often than she was in - slip-running, practising, socialising, or even simply training. She had no need of special quarters although she could have asked for them. Other slip-runners had taken up that option, but Teyla was content with simplicity.
She'd stripped down to her underwear when John replied. Teyla, he's not showing up on the standard personnel files of Stargate Central. And he's not assigned to any of the sections.
A floater?
Well, I wouldn't say that, John replied, sounding injured. Isn't he a bit too good-looking to be a floater?
Teyla smiled, I imagine that floaters have as much right to be attractive as any other group in society.
So you thought he was attractive?
Maybe. She pulled on a sleeping tunic and began plaiting back her hair.
Oh, come on, admit it. You thought he was gorgeous.
I wouldn't use the word gorgeous. That is your word.
Then what word would you use?
Teyla considered this. Handsome.
Handsome? For a moment, John sounded as though he didn't know whether to smirk or scoff. Well, I suppose that's not so bad.
She rolled her eyes. John's programmer obviously had been blessed with a quirky sense of humour. And you can't find him anywhere on the files?
He's not assigned to any of the sections and he's not in the personnel files of Central. There was a pause. You really liked him?
Teyla grinned as she climbed into bed and pulled the quilt over her. Jealous?
Why would I be jealous of him? John demanded.
Why indeed? Teyla lay back and stared up into the darkness. It had been a good day, and she was tired. I'm going to sleep, John.
Dream of electric sheep.
He had some of the oddest sayings she'd ever heard. From the sound of it, Old Earth had been a very strange place. Get out of my head.
Sleep well, beautiful.
Teyla slept well.
--
John sat back in his quarters after disconnecting the link with Teyla.
Her teasing question echoed in his ears. Jealous?
Technically, it should be impossible to be jealous of yourself. Stupid. But the man he'd been out in the bar had a real, physical attraction to her, as compared to the purely cerebral contact she had with him through their Quandem link.
No man liked being thought of as a computer, but he'd found it easier than confessing he was as human as she. That might take the conversation into areas John wasn't comfortable discussing, such as why he hadn't told her the instant he found out she thought he was an AI, or, worse yet, why he hadn't told her the first time he found himself along for the ride during one of her sexual experiences.
He drank down the last bit of water in the bottle and tossed the empty at the dispenser.
"He shoots, he scores! The crowd goes wild!" With one booted foot, he pushed himself off and spun gently around in his chair as the rollers slid across the floor until they hit the mat by the bed.
John figured he really did need to get out more. Get a life as the General was always telling him. Not that the General could talk.
He kicked the chair back over to the terminal desk and lay down, horizontally across his bed. Two thumps marked his boots falling to the ground as he toed them off.
The foray out into Central was unusual for him; he rarely left the compound anymore and most people didn't know he existed.
His friends were dead; that last mission out in to the Afghani territories had been fatal for them all. John had figured he was just taking a little longer to die than his men. He certainly hadn't been thought fit to command anyone else after that and resigned himself to pushing paperwork until his liver gave out from the alcohol.
Then O'Neill had come to him, sat him down, and offered him the Quandem link. With nothing to lose, John took it.
He was told he'd be given a 'recep' - a receptive to his anchor - a field operative whose brain patterns matched his own, who could feed him intel from the field as he fed her intel from the systems.
He got Teyla.
The Wraith were both hungry and deadly, and the slip-runners were the outermost defences for the Millekwa and Pegasi systems. Slip-runners were generally thought to be half-insane anyway; anyone who ran the slip on even a semi-regular basis had to be crazy.
Teyla loved it.
And John found himself caring about Teyla.
She dragged him out of his solitude and back into the world, forcing him to see the possibilities. She thought of him as an AI, but treated him as a person. And she shared a lot of her life with him - things he knew she wouldn't have told him if she'd known he was a real person - memories of her father and of her people, her thoughts and feelings, her hopes and fears.
There were times when he felt like a bit of a voyeur, only too aware that she didn't think he was human, that she was disadvantaged when it came to their interaction. He shared nothing with her: what did an AI have to share? And she gave him everything.
John stripped and climbed into bed. He nearly reached out to Teyla, wanting to touch her mind just one more time, and pulled back at the last moment.
Tonight had been good. In a way. He'd wanted to see her with his own eyes, not just the stillpics he'd found in the files. And she'd been...beautiful. More beautiful in motion than in the posed stillpics, staring at the camera with her serene, neutral expression.
No surprise that the other women had noticed him staring - he hadn't exactly been subtle.
And he was both relieved and regretful that she hadn't come over to speak with him.
But what could he have said? Hey, Teyla, I'm your anchor, John. Nice to meet you in the flesh. She'd have wiped the floor with him.
At least she would have known he was real.
Rodney called it 'Sheppard's Pinocchio syndrome', and sounded insufferably smug about it. Then again, Rodney was always insufferably smug.
Teyla had no idea.
That was probably what stung the most; that she hadn't clued in that he wasn't just an AI. Then again, he hadn't disabused her of the notion, too amused by it at first, and then finding it difficult when he woke up one night with her orgasm in his mind and a raging hard-on in his pants. How did a guy explain that?
So, yeah. He was pretty screwed up. But he hadn't needed a recep to show him that.
He wanted her to know that he was real - to really see him. John-her-anchor, not as handsome-guy-staring-in-a-bar. Okay, so not just as handsome-guy-staring-in-a-bar.
John sighed as he climbed into bed.
One of these days, he'd tell her. Maybe.
Of course, his inner commentator snarked, And then you'll be a real boy?
Shut up and go to sleep! He told himself.
He shut up and went to sleep.
--
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-19 02:22 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-19 02:26 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-19 02:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-19 03:11 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-19 03:13 am (UTC)I liked it very much, and would really love to read more ^_^
(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-19 03:14 am (UTC)Haaah. :D This was pretty neat. I loved the idea of it. Reminded me, vaguely, of Anne McCaffrey's B&B books, in the whole AI/RealBoy angsty thing.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-19 09:37 am (UTC)I knew this reminded me of something and I couldn't work out what. Love this books and love this.
More please.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-19 03:19 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-19 04:36 am (UTC)this is just... neat. Our people, slightly skewed world. It would be very interesting to see this expanded. (I'm an AU whore, in case that hasn't been made blindingly obvious)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-19 05:01 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-19 10:15 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-19 01:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-19 02:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-19 03:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-19 06:55 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-19 11:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-22 04:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-23 10:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-30 12:16 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-30 01:19 am (UTC)There's a longer original fiction that I want to write about a Teyla-analogue and a John-analogue, but whether it gets anywhere is a different matter. It's a bloody big plotbunny!
Thank you for sending feedback - even so long after this was written!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-30 04:38 pm (UTC)I had never really thought about John and Teyla, mostly because I'd never found stories about them that I found engaging, but you just added another ship to my list.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-30 06:38 pm (UTC)There isn't a lot of fic out there about John and Teyla, I'm afraid. I wish there was more.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-08 06:23 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-08 06:34 am (UTC)Incidentally, how did you get here? Because this story was written over a year ago and all of a sudden people are checking it out again...
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-08 05:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-08 08:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-04-02 04:22 pm (UTC)