[I saw three ships]
To: La Princesse
From:
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Threesome: Ronon Dex/John Sheppard/Teyla Emmagan
Title: The Limitations of Force
Requested Element: Sparring and/or fighting
Notes: Set during "Lost Boys," so there are spoilers up through the S2 hiatus.
Summary: John never sees these things coming.

Where force is necessary, there it must be applied boldly, decisively and completely. But one must know the limitations of force; one must know when to blend force with a manoeuvre, a blow with an agreement.

—Leon Trotsky


John is walking down the dark, narrow corridor toward the alcove Ford assigned him as sleeping quarters, focused on Ford's incredibly stupid plan to try to blow up a hive ship in the morning and on his own, hopefully far smarter, plan to get his team back to Atlantis instead, when Ronon comes out of nowhere. The enzyme in Ronon's system makes him strong, fierce, and he pins John to the stone wall with apparent ease, his mouth closing over John's, hot and demanding. John blames his own lack of resistance on surprise—both the where the fuck did he come from kind, and the shock of feeling Ronon's lean, muscular frame pressing against him, hard length of what could only be a serious boner digging into his hip.

John's tactical assessment of their situation never included this as a potential scenario. Even with the added information that Ronon's apparently sexually omnivorous, he's still not sure he would've expected it, though he doesn't know how much of that is failure of analytical ability and how much is the giant blind spot he seems to have when it comes to someone subtly (or even not-so-subtly) showing interest in him.

It isn't like he's missed the build-up of sexual tension the enzyme has sparked in his teammates, either; it's just that he figured Ronon and Teyla would take their foreplay to its natural conclusion. It isn't the ideal solution, but they aren't in the ideal situation, either, and John's hands are kind of tied.

Well, not so much tied at the moment as pinned—very firmly, in fact—to the rough stone above his head.

He doesn't try to free himself, mostly (he tells himself) because he's no match for the super-strength of Ronon hopped up on the enzyme, but that doesn't explain the way his hips want to thrust against the solidity of Ronon's thigh, nor the way his mouth opens under Ronon's, hot and wet and needy. He'd think that Ford's been lying and that he's drugged, too, because he doesn't remember ever responding this quickly or easily to anyone, male or female, except that he can't imagine why Ford would want to slip him alien roofies. Besides, if he's honest with himself, it's not like he hasn't already noticed how hot Ronon is, even if the military's made him an expert at repressing those kinds of thoughts as soon as they occur.

They're just getting a good rhythm going, John's dick behaving like the rest of him, responding on automatic to the stimulus and not caring who's providing it, when suddenly Ronon's falling away from him, collapsing to the ground. John blinks, lets his arms drop to his sides, and tries to pull himself together enough to figure out what the hell happened.

Apparently, Teyla is what happened. Ronon's picking himself up off the ground, slow enough that John would worry that he was injured, except this is Ronon and John suspects it's just a ruse to get Teyla off her guard. It's not going to work. John could tell him that, if only he could figure out how to put together a complete sentence, but as it is he's still panting, his entire body simultaneously tingling and mourning the loss of Ronon's touch.

Teyla's eyes say she's spoiling for a fight. "You take far too many liberties with things that do not belong to you, Ronon Dex."

And that's just the push John needs to find his voice, "Hang on," he says, keeping his tone calm, "It's okay, Teyla."

"No, John, it is not," she says without looking at him, and her use of his first name gives him at least some insight into where her head's at right now. Ronon lunges and she dodges at the last second, but her fist connects somewhere vulnerable, because Ronon goes down, his breath escaping from him in a cross between a whimper and a wheeze, and she spins around to face John. "It is not okay."

He's about to reassure her when suddenly she's on him and he's pinned to the wall again, his hands alongside his thighs this time, and he can't focus on anything other than the soft press of her breasts and the way she's grinding her hips against him, encouraging him to shift one leg between hers.

He does it, and he knows it's fucked up, but she feels incredible, all that restrained power suddenly let loose on him, the heat of her blazing through his BDUs and making his dick throb. Besides, he needs time to figure out how to get them all through this situation with no one ending up permanently damaged, and it's pretty obvious to him that pulling rank isn't going to work on either of them. If Ronon and Teyla can come to blows over lettuce, for fuck's sake, what are they going to do in a situation where their libidos are involved? Not that he's entirely convinced that the lettuce incident wasn't really all about libido, anyway, but he is sure that this time it's a lot more intense and all three of them have more to lose.

Her mouth presses against his, rough and completely lacking in finesse, and he groans. Jesus, it's difficult enough to keep it all together without the distractions. She's making it almost impossible for him to think. He really, really didn't expect this; up until now, Teyla has seemed at least reasonably self-possessed, even under the influence of the enzyme.

Then suddenly history's repeating, except Teyla's the one buckling and falling to the floor as Ronon looks on, smug. "I had him first," he says with a grin that dares Teyla to argue—or better yet, fight—with him.

And really, that's about as far as John can let it go, because he's not about to be a prize for the winner of a bare-knuckle match, even if his dick thinks it's a good idea. He's careful when he moves toward them, his jaw still aching a little from the earlier encounter with Ronon's elbow, but he steps up and opens his mouth. He's not quite sure what he's going to say, so the words that come out surprise him: "Hey, hey, easy there. There's plenty of me to go around."

If their expressions are anything to go by, the words surprise Ronon and Teyla, too.

Then Ronon shakes his head. "I don't share," he says, his eyes blazing a slow, burning trail down John's body and up again, and John bites the inside of his cheek to keep from opening his mouth and saying anything else, because obviously the rational part of his brain is on vacation, or possibly it just shut down completely when Ronon first pinned him to the wall.

"Nor do I," Teyla says, circling around Ronon, not even sparing John a glance. She doesn't need to, though, because John can still clearly remember the feel of her, grinding herself against his thigh, her breath hot against his neck.

They're obviously going to beat one another half to death, the eventual winner hauling John away like the spoils of war, and fuck but that thought shouldn't be as hot as it is. He really needs to find a way to avoid the violent portion of the night's entertainment at least, because his plan kind of hinges on all of them being in top condition—or at least the best condition possible, given the circumstances. Maybe he can find a way to redirect their overdeveloped sense of competition so that no one gets hurt.

Licking his lips, John says, "Actually, I'm not sure just one of you can handle me." It's a gamble, a huge fucking gamble, but if it pays off then they'll stop focusing on beating each other up and start focusing on sexual one-upmanship. John refuses to consider that a bonus, even when the idea makes his pulse speed up and his breath quicken.

"I'll make you beg," Ronon says, speaking to John even though he doesn't take his eyes off Teyla. Maybe it's the confidence in his voice or the look in his eyes, but John believes he can do it.

Teyla pauses in her circling and her glance flicks over John, takes in the signs of arousal that John's sure are pretty blatant by this point—his dick is fully hard and pressing against the buttons of his BDUs, and he can feel heat suffusing his face—then moves back to Ronon. "I will draw from you a climax so intense it will render you unconscious," she announces and John bites back the moan that wants to escape, because he doesn't doubt Teyla's skills or determination, either.

Instead, he takes a deep breath and says, "Talk is cheap. Why don't you demonstrate, and let me decide who's the best?" And Jesus, he can't believe he's trying to set himself up as the sole judge in a fucking competition; there's something embarrassingly frat-boy about the idea, something that makes his fingers itch for the neck of a beer bottle.

After a second, Teyla nods. "Yes," she says, "that would be an acceptable method of settling the dispute."

Ronon's still silent, though, so John pushes a little, "Ronon?"

A quick nod, and then Ronon's leading them to the nearest alcove—John's, as it happens—tugging his sweater over his head as he goes. Once they're inside, John starts to work on his own vest, but Teyla slaps his hands away and, reaching around him from behind, unfastens it herself. John's breath catches as her fingernails trail lightly down his bare arms, and then Ronon's on his knees in front of John, working at the buttons of John's BDUs and John starts to wonder if this is all a hallucination. A really good hallucination.

Teyla's hands slide down John's chest and stomach to slip under the waistband of his boxers as Ronon moves to unlace his boots. Her fingertips skate over him, and he tries to arch a little, to push his already-leaking dick further into her hands. He's not quite sure why he's not just touching himself, pressing the flat of his palm against his dick to soothe the ache, but somehow it seems like that'd be against the rules of whatever game it is the three of them are playing.

John's boots are off and tossed behind Ronon in a matter of seconds, and then Ronon's removing his own boots and shimmying out of his pants, revealing acres and acres of sleek, tanned skin. Ronon's dick is long and thick and John can't seem to stop looking; he's never sucked off a guy who's uncut and part of him wonders how different it would be.

Teyla's hands are sliding up under the hem of John's tee-shirt, her nails just this side of painful as they drag up and across his nipples, making him gasp and shudder. She tugs the tee-shirt off over his head, then sinks her teeth into his shoulder hard enough to make his knees buckle, but Ronon's there, holding him up, pressing against the aching hardness of his dick with one big hand.

John gives up on the idea of trying to remain coherent, of trying to steer the situation away from competition and toward something a little less aggressive, because Teyla and Ronon are playing him like…like some musical instrument that he's too far gone to think up at the moment. And they're both virtuosos, too, because he didn't even notice when they swapped places. Now, though, Teyla's kneeling in front of him and stripping off his boxers while Ronon's standing behind him, the unmistakable press of his dick hard and hot against the small of John's back, and John hopes like hell Teyla's not going to go down on him, because it would be unbelievably embarrassing if he shot his wad this early in the game and fuck but he's close.

She doesn't though. Instead, she stands to strip off her own clothes, and John lets his eyes close and his head drop back against Ronon's shoulder, taking several slow, deep breaths and trying to get himself back under control, trying not to think about Teyla's tits or about how it would feel to slide home inside her, slick and hot and just right. He doesn't expect to suddenly feel her mouth on his dick, and he really doesn't expect her to press forward until he can feel the back of her throat, can feel it constricting as she swallows around him. He comes with a groan. Ronon easily takes even more of his weight, waiting until Teyla's pulled back before letting him slide to his knees, steering him gently down onto the straw pallet rather than the stone floor. Being embarrassed will take too much effort, John decides.

"Lie down," Teyla orders softly.

John complies, a little less gracefully than he'd like because his muscles have apparently been replaced with jello. Lying on his side with his head propped on his hand, he watches Ronon fetch something—a clear glass vial of liquid that John suspects is probably oil, and he had no idea Ronon was so well prepared—until Teyla plants her toes on his shoulder and pushes him, a little roughly, onto his back.

Looking up at her from this angle, measuring the length of her legs and the soft curve of her belly and breasts, he's surprised to find that he's starting to get hard again, and maybe he is under the influence of something, because he's thirty-eight for fuck's sake; he hasn't had this short a recovery period in years. Maybe it's just the situation, though, because this whole thing is hitting kinks he never knew he had, making him want things he's never seriously wanted before. Then Teyla steps smoothly across him, planting one foot on either side of his shoulders and for a brief second he's looking up at lush bronze thighs and crisp auburn curls, and then she sinks to her knees and….

"Fuck," he says, the word lost in the hot muskiness of her, but no less heartfelt for that. He wraps his arms around her thighs for leverage, shifts a little to make the angle better, and breathes in deeply, the smell of a wet, ready pussy sending electricity arrowing to his dick and leaving him hard to the point of aching. Teyla shifts, too, spreading her thighs a little wider until she's pressing down against him, barely leaving him breathing room, and he gets the unspoken message: he'd better make it good.

Nothing like a little incentive.

There's a low rumble of laughter from Ronon, and then large, warm hands are sliding down his hips, skimming across his dick and cupping his balls. John groans into Teyla, fucking her a little desperately with his tongue as Ronon guides his legs up, thighs apart, and slides oil-slick fingers into him with no preamble. Even though he knows it's counterproductive, John can't help tensing at the invasion, but Ronon's free hand is rubbing gentle circles on his hip, soothing him through the worst of the burn until suddenly it's not simply okay but amazing as Ronon twists his wrist and does something with his fingers that makes John's dick jump and his back arch, and then it's Teyla's turn to laugh softly. John would be offended except that it's more a sound of joy than anything else.

And maybe he's been affected by their competitive attitudes, because he realizes he wants to make her lose control, wants to turn her laughter into something more needy, more primal. He holds her open with his fingertips, finding the firm nub of her clit and giving it an experimental flick with his tongue, feeling the faint shiver that courses through her. Another flick and another shiver, and then he starts working it in earnest, alternating flicks with a gentle sucking that leaves her trembling and grinding down against him, her mouth open and her breath coming in rough gasps. He loses track of what he's doing more than once, distracted by the almost-perfect sensation of Ronon finger-fucking him and the aching heaviness of his dick, but still it doesn't take long before he's got Teyla making breathy moans and then she tenses above him, shudders, and he can feel her coming.

After a moment he hears her breathing even out again and she looks over her shoulder to Ronon. "Now?" she asks, and apparently Ronon nods, because she rises gracefully to her feet and John lets his arms fall to his sides, feeling surprisingly bereft.

Ronon's kneeling between John's legs, eyes dark and intense. He slides his fingers out of John and sits back on his heels, pouring more oil from the vial into his palm and then stroking himself slowly, his dick glistening with it, and it's not like John didn't know this was coming. Still, it's one thing to know you're heading toward sex and another thing entirely to be seconds away from having a dick up your ass.

Licking his lips, Ronon says, "Come here," and John is moving towards him before he's even really thought about it. Kneeling in front of Ronon, he leans forward and pulls him in for a kiss, opening his mouth wide and sharing the tangy-sweet taste of Teyla. Ronon growls in the back of his throat, the sound making something low in John's gut turn hot and liquid, and John pulls back a little. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Teyla standing beside the pallet, and the idea of her watching this, watching as he's slowly impaled on Ronon's dick….

"You going to fuck me or what?" he says against Ronon's mouth, and even to his own ears his voice sounds whiskey-and-cigarettes rough.

Ronon growls again and manhandles him around, shifting him with an embarrassing ease, and then shoves him forward onto his hands and spreads his knees wide. John braces himself, waiting for the first agonizing thrust, but instead of pain there's just brief pressure and then an oh-so-slow sense of being filled until he can feel Ronon's hips pressed up against him and he suddenly realizes that it's done: Ronon's all the way inside him. The idea is almost unbearably hot.

Teyla steps into John's line of sight. "Do you think you can support both our weight?" she asks, and Ronon kind of snorts, then—one arm wrapped tight around John's ribs—hauls John backward until he's splayed across Ronon's lap, thighs spread wide, and leaning back against Ronon's chest.

John turns his head and gently bites Ronon's jaw. Ronon responds with a deep, open-mouthed kiss that takes all of John's attention until the moment when he sees Teyla's arm reach across his field of vision, and then he and Ronon are tumbling backwards, Ronon landing on his ass with a soft grunt and the impact driving Ronon's dick even deeper into him so that he lets out a surprised gasp. He's opening his mouth to ask Teyla what the fuck when he feels her hand on him, and then she's settling down onto his lap, his dick sinking into her wet heat, and suddenly there's an overload of sensation. He's stretched and filled and surrounded and it's the hottest, dirtiest feeling ever and he's loving every second of it.

His arm automatically goes around Teyla's waist, pulling her closer, and she reaches over him to hold onto Ronon, the position putting her tits right in his face, which is pretty much a fantasy come true. He cups one in the palm of his hand, taking her nipple between his teeth and tugging gently as she slowly fucks herself on him, her pussy tight and slick and hot.

He's trying to pay attention to Teyla's reactions, trying to catalog the moans and breathy sighs she makes, but every time she moves, every time she slides home around him, it shifts him on Ronon's dick so that it's almost like getting fucked except for the part where it's both distracting and supremely unsatisfying. Teyla's close, though; he can hear it in her voice, see it in the curve of her neck and the sweat that sheens her skin, so he slides his free hand down between them and finds her clit with his thumb. He rubs it in tiny circles until she cries out, and then he can feel her shuddering, can feel her pussy clenching around him as she comes.

Once Teyla's trembling stops, Ronon says, "Hold on," and John barely has time to pull her to him before Ronon's shifting them—all three of them, like it's no effort at all, and Jesus, he knows the Wraith enzyme increases strength and stamina but this is seriously whacked. The next thing he knows, Teyla's on her back underneath him and Ronon's propped above him and they're miraculously all still in medias res, which is even more whacked.

It takes a few seconds for them to get the finer points of repositioning down, but then Ronon's pulling back and snapping his hips forward, his thrust pushing John into Teyla, and it becomes a complex exercise in applied geometry that works more smoothly than it has any right to. From his place in the middle, it takes minimal effort on John's part to help keep their sexual perpetual-motion machine going, which is probably a really good thing, since he's about a minute away from not being able to remember his own name.

Less than a minute, it turns out, as Teyla shifts just right and comes, starting a chain-reaction of orgasms that pretty much fulfills her promise from earlier as John's world goes fuzzy and gray for a few seconds. Ronon's the last one to come, and apparently he wasn't just blowing smoke, either, because every inch of John's body is hypersensitive and he's whispering into Teyla's neck, "Oh, God, please," as Ronon thrusts one last time before sliding out and rolling off to the side. After a minute, John follows his example, ending up in the middle of the pallet between Teyla and Ronon as Teyla drags the thin blanket over the three of them and curls up against John's side, with her head on his shoulder.

At least they'd managed to get through the evening without bloodshed. John puts a check mark in the "success" column of his mental tally. His last thought as he drifts off into sleep is that tomorrow had better go off just as planned, because there's no way he can make a habit of this; he getting too fucking old for all-night orgies.

[fin]