Fragility

She can beat him in hand to hand, but he touches her as though she's fragile. Shoulder and spine and hip slide beneath his hand.

Teyla gently exhales.

He will kill a man who threatens what he treasures, but he shivers as her mouth skims collarbone, breastbone, belly.

"Teyla--"

"Shh, John." She uses his name, knowing he needs to hear it from her lips for the same reason he left the lights on, for the same reason he wouldn't let her take off his dogtags, for the same reason they're here in his room.

Perhaps she should resent his fear that she might use him to replace Kanan. But he cannot understand the differences between himself and the other man she loved and lost - so elemental, so defining.

He smells of the chemicals used in his clothing, in his deodorant. He tastes of the fruity, nutrient water handed out among the mess hall this evening. And his skin is soft beneath her hands, soft over the lean muscle, soft in the fingers that slide their way across her flesh, tingling.

His callouses are skin deep, not soul-deep.

Teyla touches John with a reverence that he doesn't comprehend, having come from a society that lives out of the constant shadow of death. She sits naked in his sheets and drifts her fingers over his skin, and wonders at this man that fate has brought to her twice, once as ally, now as lover.

She made a choice once before, and had Kanaan taken from her.

This time, she makes the choice again, and she will not give it up lightly.

Neither will he, so it seems. Although John is hesitant to touch and slow to react, he shivers under her hands and responds quite ardently when finally persuaded to let go of his fears.

Still, in his touch, there is something...hesitant. He cups her, caresses her, touches her as though she's fragile.

It is only when he is moving within her, his face lifted up so he can watch her take pleasure from him, that Teyla fixes her eyes upon his face and understands the fragility is not in her.

- fin -