Author:
For: scarletts_awry
Fandom: SGA
Pairing: Cadman/Teyla
Rating: G
Setting: S3
Words: 1271
Request: dancing, no traditional romance or fluff
Summary: Sometimes Laura really hates off-world missions.
Sometimes Laura really hates off-world missions. She misses the days when she was jealous of those walking through the Gate. But now, she's filling in for Ronon, who's out with a broken leg, and they're stuck on Planet Bad Ren Fair #24, making Laura remember just why she stopped dating geeks.
"Dance?" Teyla raises her eyebrow. She's taken charge of their group. Apparently, the people here frown on too much hair gel, or maybe it was McKay's mouth.
Laura really wants to laugh. But she's afraid she'll end up in the cage with McKay and Sheppard. The cage currently dangling over the edge of the town square. She hears echoes of McKay's bitching and Sheppard looks like he's trying to sleep, propped against the bars.
"Yes," says the town magistrate. He reminds Laura of King Kandy with his ruddy cheeks and big belly. "Dance is the way to make amends."
"And you will let them go?" Teyla asks.
"I will judge your dance."
Laura nods at Teyla and holds her hand for Teyla's gun. Someone starts playing a lute.
And Teyla starts. She lifts her hand above her head and glides across the square. Her hips sway back and forth to the sound. And Laura thinks she's in love. Okay, maybe not love, but definitely lust at Teyla's lithe frame and her dance that looks similar to way she handles sticks - smooth and confident - not afraid of who might be watching her.
Laura took tap lesson for 8 years and hated it. But she loved watching beautiful women dance. Teyla's nothing if not beautiful.
The music starts to wind down and Teyla swirls, her hair falling on her shoulders. The people in the square began to clap and cheer for her. Laura's just waiting for some court jester to prance out in the middle and ladies-in-waiting to faint. Maybe she's just seen too many crappy Shakespeare in the park plays.
"Silence," the magistrate declares, bringing his hands up. "You have performed very well, Teyla Emmagan. Let the one with the big mouth go. The leader will stay until I have been fully pleased."
Laura doesn't want to know what would fully please the magistrate. But she, Teyla, and Rodney are ushered away from the town square and into lodging. Laura's keeps her guard up and her weapon close by.
*****
"You took tap." Rodney shoves what looks like instant mash potatoes into his mouth. The magistrate has 'granted' them another dance performance in order to free Sheppard and doesn't want to see Teyla again.
Laura snorts. "Yeah, for eight years, which I sucked gloriously. It was my mom's dream."
"Am I supposed to be impressed by your childhood trauma? Please, my mom made me go to Jesus camp instead of physics camp when I was 8. A summer spent as pure torture thinking how Jamie McCallum was going to win the fall's science fair."
"Rodney." Teyla sighs and places her spoon in her soup bowl. "I do not see how this is helping our current predicament. Clearly, one of you will have to dance."
Laura can still see Teyla's hips moving back and forth to the lute. Teyla always seems just a step away from her. Laura really needs to keep her head on and not daydream about her co-worker.
"I brought my iPod," Rodney offers and hands it to Laura.
"I'm not dancing to They Might Be Giants or 'White and Nerdy.'"
"Weird Al is a master of the parody." Rodney glares at her.
"I am sure Laura can find something suitable on your iPod." Teyla rises from her seat and moves toward the bed. The single large bed in their captive suit. "For tonight, I am getting some rest. Wake me when it is my turn for watch."
"Great. You had to go and piss her off," Rodney hisses.
Laura continues to thumb through the music selection. "I didn't piss her off. You did, jackass." Rodney's taste in music is a little more varied than she'd given him credit for. She still might find something acceptable to dance to.
"Don't make me pull rank."
"Please." Laura snorts and watches Rodney roll his eyes. Times like these she wishes she didn't feel like Rodney was her older brother pulling her pigtails. Not that Laura's worn pigtails since she was five.
*****
"And this device will play music?" The magistrate holds the iPod in his hand, looking at it like a magical gem.
"Yes, magistrate." Teyla points to the speakers that Rodney rigged from broken Ancient vending machines. "The sound will come from there."
Laura's ready to get this over and done with. She's itching for the music to start. And with the opening bars of Shakira's "Hips Don't Lie," Laura still surprised she found this in McKay's collection.
Her hips began to move with the beat. Laura might miss the dance clubs on Earth, but she never thought she'd be putting her moves together for a crowd. It fell somewhere between her 21st birthday drunk on margarita public humiliation fest and what she'd always thought performing as a stripper would feel like. She wishes for tequila.
Laura has to focus. Her eyes lock on Teyla's. If she can tune everyone else out as she boogies, her butt can shake and her arms can go up in the air. She even finds herself mouthing the words, "I don't really know what I'm doing" as her body moves lower. Laura is dancing for no one but herself and Teyla.
Three minutes and 38 seconds is an eternity, and she understands why a pole would be handy. A pole would give her a prop. She bends down and pulls a scarf off one of the ladies-in-waiting. Laura dances over to Teyla and wraps it loosely over her neck. She leans close enough so her body almost touches Teyla's.
Laura grins as she rolls her shoulders away and moves back toward the center of the square as Shakira sings, "No fighting," signaling the ending of the song. And Laura breaks eye contact with Teyla.
The crowd's silent, and then slowly, the magistrate brings his hands up and claps. He's laughing and clapping. The town joins in. "You have satisfied the requirement. We will let your team leader free."
People are already lowering Sheppard's cage. Sheppard looks far too relaxed for someone who's spend the last 36 hours as a prisoner. Though considering how Sheppard's mission reports usually read, this must've been like a vacation to Disney Land.
Laura can't wait to get off this planet.
*****
The first time Laura sees Teyla after her dance is a week later; it's not that she's been avoiding Teyla. Atlantis is a very big city. But Teyla and her have a meditation date.
Date.
That's the wrong word.
"Hello, Laura," Teyla greets her as she enters Teyla's quarters. She's lighting candles. "I have a question for you. And I do not mean to seem rude, but have you been avoiding me?"
Laura sighs. "Perhaps a little. That dance was a little..."
"Beautiful?" Teyla suggests.
Laura flushes. She didn't find it particularly thrilling, and she was in nowhere near as eloquent as Teyla had been. "You too," she says. "I mean, your dance."
Teyla turns on her stereo and it's Shakira. "I hope you do not mind." She steps forward and places a kiss on Laura's lips. A tease, a taste of what Laura wants. "As I said, you were beautiful."
"How'd you know?"
"I saw it in your eyes. And your hips," Teyla teases.
Laura touches Teyla's face and pulls her in for another kiss.