Predatory, by Frostfire

[frostfire-17.livejournal.com]

Title: Predatory
Author: Frostfire
Rating: R for language
Spoilers: Poisoning the Well
Summary: More issues, Steve's and others'
Notes: This is a companion piece to My Soul From Out That Shadow, kind of more of a look at John's behavior. It was going to be John POV, but then...this happened instead. ...Sorry? Also, I would like to take this moment to rail against the English language for having no plural form of "you". Also also, virtual cookie to anyone who spots the Sports Night reference.
Thanks very very much to my wonderful beta, tinnny, who made this into a much better story than it was. Any mistakes remaining are of course all mine. Unlike SGA. And now, without further ado:

You hate this.

The first day, you thought you were going nuts. Shapes swirling through the bluish semidarkness, figures moving through doors, in and out of the cell, charging straight at you— Even though the Major had warned you, and the Sergeant was standing right there, snapping at you to stay at attention, Private, it isn’t real! Hold your fire, repeat, hold your fire! you still almost couldn’t keep your feet planted, couldn’t believe that the prisoner wasn’t escaping right before your eyes.

It got easier, after awhile, just like ignoring a drill sergeant screaming come on, you pussies, can’t you run faster than that? with four miles under your belt and the straps of the regulation pack cutting into your shoulders till you were sure they were bleeding. And eventually the prisoner—they never call him anything else, and sometimes you wonder why they can’t just come out and say life-sucking alien—the prisoner stopped trying, which was a relief. Because maybe it got easier, but it was never easy, and you were always worried that by training yourself not to react to the illusions, you might be too slow if something real happened.

But the illusions stopped. And it was a relief…but now you think it’s almost worse, because now you don’t have anything to do but stare at him.

And he stares back.

You really, really hate this.

The prisoner doesn’t look anything like human, not with the skin and the hair and the teeth and the eyes, and basically everything except for the position and shape of basic body parts. Looks and moves nothing like anyone back home.

But the way those weird cat eyes stare always makes you think of the time—the only time—you went to one of your sister’s parties. Seventeen and stupid and sure you could handle yourself—and even if everyone else was in their twenties, you knew your sister hung out with other girls and pansies, nobody who’d give you any trouble—until you ran into a group of guys, drinking and blocking the bathroom door, who looked you up and down like you were a girl. Like you were a girl for sale. And you spent a few paralyzed minutes staring at them, wondering how the hell you were going to get away if they decided you’d make a nice piece of ass, while your brain screamed you fucking idiot! Because you were finally realizing that not all gay guys could be pansies who took it up the ass—after all, someone had to give it to them, didn’t they?

And then Evie showed up and bitched the guys out for scaring her kid brother, and dragged you away. And you yanked your arm out of her grip and told her you didn’t need protection from a bunch of fucking queers, and she yelled at you and kicked you out, and that was the end of it. But you never really forgot the hungry way they’d looked at you.

The prisoner looks at you like that.

You try not to think about it too hard. The prisoner’s an alien and he’s hungry. You’re all just food to him. Moving, talking, meals on legs.

You’d way rather think of yourself as a steak dinner than a piece of ass.

It’s hard to avoid it, though. Nothing to do but stare at the prisoner, with his too-perfect posture, weird eyes, pointy teeth, and ridiculous little beard that, for some reason, just doesn’t make him any less…intimidating.

You really aren’t supposed to call things scary in the military.

He’ll talk to you, sometimes. Sergeant Bates says to ignore him—which, well, duh, Sergeant—but it’s kind of hard to just turn off your ears. Especially when they’re hearing things about how sweet it’s going to be when the prisoner finally shoves his hand against your chests and pulls your lives out one year at a time—

It’s hard not to hear it.

The door slides open, and you let out a quiet sigh. You’re a fucking coward, but you’re always relieved when the officers come in. Lieutenant Ford can always hold the prisoner’s attention—and he just stands there, he barely looks nervous, how does he do that?—and the Major—

Well, the Major does more than just hold the prisoner’s attention.

He’s here now, sauntering up to the edge of the cell and leaning forward, hands behind his back. “Hi, Steve.”

The prisoner freezes, just for a second, then straightens. “What do you want today, Major Sheppard?” He’s standing in the middle of his cell, shoulders back and chin up, looking like he owns the universe. His eyes are fixed on you, back to the Major—but. Sheppard’s the one being stared at.

“I thought we could chat,” says Sheppard. “Maybe share some childhood memories. And if we get bored, there’s always charades.”

It’s your job to watch the prisoner. You watch him all shift, every shift, and you know how he stands, how he looks at people he wants to eat, and every single weird meditative position he’s got for his fingers. And right now, you can see that Steve’s thinking he wants to try and drill through the force field, if it’ll get him to the Major and his bored suggestions.

Sergeant Bates has told you not to think of the prisoner as ‘Steve’, because giving him a name humanizes him, “and that thing isn’t human. Remember that.”

Right, Sergeant. Like you’re going to forget.

Steve’s calmed himself down a bit.

“Why do you insist on playing these games, Major Sheppard?”

The Major lifts an eyebrow. “I like spending time with you, Steve. Also, I want you to get angry enough to give me information.” He pauses. “Has anyone ever told you that with your hair like that, you look like a zombie Legolas?”

You keep the snort back, but just barely. It’s true. It’s really, really true.

Steve’s almost vibrating.

Then he takes a breath, gives the Major a blank look, and touches his claws together. He lifts his head and sets his shoulders with intent. It looks exactly like the beginning of a marathon standing session, one of the ones where you’ll leave for the day, and when you come back for your next shift, there he is, exactly where he was yesterday.

But—not today, you don’t think.

Sheppard maybe doesn’t think so either, because he starts pacing around the cell, talking intermittently, watching Steve’s face.

And it’s strange. Because the way Steve looks at the Major—well, it’s like he looks at you, but more. Hungrier. Angrier. Like he’d go through a crowd of angry World Cup fans without blinking, if the Major was on the other side. If you were Sheppard, you’d be hauling your ass out the door before the life got sucked out of it—but Sheppard, he doesn’t do that. He—well, he does everything but unbutton his shirt and garnish his chest with a sprig of parsley.

Right now he’s smiling, drawling remarks about how they might have a volunteer to feed Steve in exchange for information—oh, but maybe they don’t, they’re not sure if they’re going through with it yet, it’s a difficult decision, and does Steve think they should set up a TV in the room? He could watch Buffy reruns while he wasn’t ogling everyone’s chests, and live vicariously through the vampires.

It’s insane. It’s like, if you’d been at Evie’s party and done whatever the non-shower equivalent is of dropping the soap.

Only difference is Steve’s behind bars and an Ancient force field, so Sheppard can be as provocative as he wants, and Steve can’t do anything. And now the Major’s moved on to just leaning against the bars, staring straight at Steve’s face. His back’s to you, and you can see—his posture. He’s not just provocative, he’s…provocative.

And Steve…

He hasn’t answered any of the questions or responded to any of the comments. His breathing’s sped up. His eyes are flickering to and away from Major Sheppard. And you can see it. He’s going to break.

And Bates is right, kind of. The prisoner’s suddenly stopped being this…intimidating life-sucking alien entity, and become Steve, who watches Major Sheppard with desperate hungry eyes, can’t trust himself to say anything, and hates it that the Major can drive him absolutely fucking nuts and he can’t do anything about it.

Except Bates is wrong, too, because the prisoner was freaking you out, but Steve…Steve, you can maybe deal with.

The Major pushes away from the bars and starts pacing around the cell again, and you see his face. He knows exactly what he’s doing, oh yeah. And it’s—strange. You’re seeing it, how Steve’s going nuts about the Major, and how it’s different than the way he looks at you. Like, he can’t help himself, and the Major can. He isn’t in charge, and the Major is. Which makes the hunger pathetic, instead of intimidating.

You’ve never—this is something that girls do, use this kind of thing against people. You’re drooling at them as they drape themselves over your bed wearing nothing but one of your dress shirts, and before you know it, Pierre’s? Uh, sure, we can go there on Friday, and you’re shelling out a hundred and fifty bucks for your next dinner.

You never even thought about a guy using it before—but you were never in a galaxy full of life-sucking aliens before, were you?—and Sheppard’s presenting Exhibit A, right now. Steve’s clenching his fists, which is not a good sign for his control—and Sheppard reaches up and rubs his chest, like he has an itch.

And that’s it. The force field flashes blue in the gloom, and Sheppard smiles as Steve bounces off, snarling.

 “Well, Steve, I’d love to stay and have some coffee and maybe a danish, but I need to go work on plans for killing every one of your people. Same time tomorrow?”

All Steve manages is a growl. Sheppard smiles, waves, and leaves. Steve watches him hungrily until the door’s shut behind him.

It isn’t over. Steve stares at the door, still breathing visibly, fists clenched, then spins around to pace the cell, three steps, turn, three steps, turn. His hair fans out behind him when he pivots at each wall. Zombie Legolas—you choke back an entirely inappropriate laugh.

You can’t—you’re still processing. You wonder if, the next time Steve looks at you, you’ll be able to see his hunger as a weakness, and not a strength.

You have some time. He always spends a while calming down before he starts trying to eat you with his eyes again. And the while gets longer every day.

End

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_minxy_/]

Oh you crazy kid. I can't believe you used a free pass to get me to read John/STEVE! lol. Although, calling it slash doesn't really describe what it is, in that sort of obsessive fascination. Awesome. My Soul from Out That Shadow made really good use of dissociative sense of self-- like the military trains grunts in basic to refer to themselves in the third person, to put the many before the individual. Nice and disorienting, so when you come up it seems reasonable that North is South and you're reading Steve slash.

And actually entirely awesome that you go through a grunt's POV for Predatory. Awesome because this is an over sexed kid who could recognise taunting and teasing for exactly what it is, could be surprised by it, and also could have known Steve well enough--one of the only people to have known Steves' reactions well enough-- to really see how effective Sheppard was. I liked how you brought it back to just how much that Private has observed, that he's cataloguing how long it takes Steve to unwind, that he's slowly wrapping his brain around his enemy. Smart kid.

Yup, shoulda known you'd point me here. Glad you did, because this is entirely and completely cracked, but also? Made of awesome. How creative of you, man! Nice. Will probably have to rec this, you know.

[frostfire-17.livejournal.com]

eee! thank you thank you! Yay for feedback. And, come on, why wouldn't you want to read obsessive!Steve/John? Come on.

I'm so glad you liked it, though. I did not lie when I said this is among my favorites of my stories. I love my OC, I love the second person, I love Steve, I love John, and I love it when other people love it too. *g* So there's my self-indulgent statement for the day.

And again, yay! Thank you!

[elliejane.livejournal.com]

Hey, found this because of _minxy_ and I really liked it. I almost never find myself reading OC's, especially not as the POV character, but after a little stumblng I really, really got into it. Excellent stuff :)

[raiining.livejournal.com]

This was a great fic. The whole time I kept seeing John from ... damn, what episode was that? The one where he's watching Ronon fight with Marines, leaning against a dummy and looking like the crazy hot gay man whose worshipped by those around him. It was awesome how much I felt that while reading this fic, while never feeling as if it were going too far. You kept everything very well balanced, which, writing from a third character POV, looks like it may be very hard to do.

You never even thought about a guy using it before--but you were never in a galaxy full of life-sucking aliens before, were you?--and Sheppard's presenting Exhibit A, right now. Steve's clenching his fists, which is not a good sign for his control--and Sheppard reaches up and rubs his chest, like he has an itch.

Nice. Very nice. :)

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I loved this a lot. I adore wraith fics anyway, and this one was very delicious. The sprig of parsley, John rubbing his chest. It's somehow so John. And the dynamic between the you-character and the wraith and John, that triangulation, was really well done.

[vccv.livejournal.com]

This...this was fricking awesome. I loved the second person voice. I loved that it came from an outside source. I thought it was brill that you used the Private's view to show us exactly who Sheppard is, and what he can and will do to get the job done. We can see why the men follow Sheppard, even when they're not sure what the hell he's doing. I adored the Pierre comment. And the 'scratching an itch' comment. The first was such a light bulb moment for the Private, and I could actually picture Sheppard tauntingly scratching his own chest. Again, fricking awesome. Thanks for sharing!

Nice Job!

[gaigingal.livejournal.com]

Hey - you can write: and darn well too!

Just to freak you out, you IS plural.. The singular is thee, which isn't really in common use in modern English. Go figure...

Anyhoo, keep up the good work (i.e. Shep fic) (^_^).../

[sor-bet.livejournal.com]

Wow, this fic was amazing. I was totally IN the story...does that make any sense? I can't even describe how clear it all was in my mind's eye, how my real world went away and everything was just Sheppard and the Marine and Steve.

The little details, like the memory of the party, really made the character come alive. I loved the way Sheppard's behavior gave him some strength, took away some of his fear, even though that might not have been Sheppard's intent, necessarily.

Very cool fic!

[keerawa.livejournal.com]

This is well and truly fascinating.

[outsideth3box.livejournal.com]

This is a wonderful fic. I loved watching Sheppard "work on" Steve from an outsider POV.

Also, I specifically didn't read any comments because I thought the Sports Night reference might be discussed and I didn't want to be spoiled. But! Sports Night! I love that show so much! I have the whole thing on DVD. I am fairly certain I remember a scene where Dan was griping about how a woman could get him to do anything as long as she was wearing one of his dress shirts.

Am I even close?

Anyway, great piece.

[frostfire-17.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it so much. And in fact, you are right on the nose! The dress shirt thing was lifted directing from Sports Night; Dan did gripe, and Natalie actually pulled it on Jeremy (offscreen, of course). Good for you! :)

[professorkatze.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking he needs this on his door: John Sheppard, Intergalactic Cock-tease. Because it is SO TRUE and oh how Steve suffers. XD

Shep wins, and so do you!

[tamda.livejournal.com]

Wow, wonderful job of capturing a Predator from the perspective of the Prey.

Because that is what we start off as. The hamster looking wide eyed at the feral tom-cat trapped in a cage. Drawing the sexual parallels was smoothly and beautifully done, bringing some real depth to the levels of want and hunger, fear on a base level.

They aren't just killed and eaten, this Predator in a box will take their life, moment at a time.

And John, John makes it all human. He plays the best bait for the predator and then lays it on so thick he's all but rolled in catnip and laid belly up for the beast in the cage. And in doing so, shown our little Lieutenant that he is not prey when the beast is in a box. Because when the beast is in a box, it too is prey.

And god but I have to add this to memories, because it's captured all sorts of lovely under tones.

[trillingstar]

I just watched this ep for the first time, and rustler sent me here, apparently to wallow about in the second person minor character POV and be alternately creeped out and amused. *g*

I particularly enjoyed the backstory that you created for our anonymous soldier, and hanging out in his head works well as a bridge between me - hardcore civilian! - and Steve - terrifying alien! I loved his process of figuring out how to deal with his fear, following Sheppard's example of ridicule, and finally how he recognizes the seduction - Sheppard as the predator, here. More of an illustration of Sheppard, really, than the Wraith. Well done.

[madpoet.livejournal.com]

Unbelievable! It's so hot!