A Man of Many Talents, Part 1

by Setcheti

 

 

Disclaimer:  This is fan fiction, and no profit was made from the writing thereof.

 

Author’s Note:  A long time ago in a city far far away…okay, that one’s overused.  But way back when I started The Carson Diaries, at a time when I was still watching the series in order from my recorded episodes and just before I’d reached the point past which I’d decided not to watch any more…there was this episode teaser on SciFi.  It showed Wraith on Atlantis, inside the city, and nobody knew how they’d gotten there.  (I never did see the actual episode.)  Add that to Dr. Zelenka’s accent…and this was the result.  One of my reviewers has told me that he actually has a first name on the show now, but he didn’t have one when I was watching it and I like the name Petar, so Petar Zelenka is how he’ll stay for me.

 

First the Wraith had been coming, and now they were here.

 

There were Wraith in the city.  No one was sure how the Wraith had gotten in the city, they weren’t even sure when the Wraith had gotten in the city or how long they’d been there before the attack had begun.  Solely from the inside, thank goodness; McKay had cobbled something together through some unreal combination of sheer genius and pure luck and gotten the shield up before the Wraith ships had arrived.  Zelenka still hadn’t figured out how he’d done it.

 

And Petar Zelenka wasn’t used to not being able to figure things out.  Until he’d met Rodney McKay, anyway.  Saying that McKay and anything to do with him ended up being twice as complicated and three times more confusing than expected would have been putting it mildly.  The chief astrophysicist and head of the science teams for the Atlantis mission wasn’t an enigma by any means, in fact the man was almost amusingly easy to read – for Zelenka, anyway – but it was because of that trait that a person would get such shocking glimpses of how complicated McKay really was.

 

Zelenka was a complicated person himself, although not nearly so easy to read as McKay, and he’d been enjoying the process of discovery…until now.  The part of McKay that was a self-sacrificing hero wasn’t the one the Czech scientist liked to see emerge.  Especially since Zelenka was one of the people who’d just been ordered to run off to safety while McKay the Hero stayed behind to slow down the approaching Wraith.  Most likely by being eaten by them, since everyone knew that the bullets in the little pistol McKay had with him weren’t going to do much more than make the monsters angry.

 

But what horrified Zelenka even more than that…was that all the other scientists had immediately bolted without the slightest hesitation, without so much as a backward glance.  And that McKay had obviously expected them to leave him there to face the Wraith alone.

 

Zelenka didn’t think that was a good idea.  Rodney McKay might think he was some sort of Rambo compared to the rest of the scientific staff on Atlantis, but just under a year of tagging after Major Sheppard on and off world hadn’t made him the man’s equal in the field by a long shot – it hadn’t even made him the equal of a regular soldier.  All McKay had going for him right now was determination and a desire to keep what was left of his staff alive, even if that meant sacrificing himself to slow the enemy down so they could escape to the dubious safety of some other part of the city.

 

Zelenka didn’t think anyone except for himself and Dr. Beckett realized just how deeply the nanite incident had affected the astrophysicist; after losing half his staff to the microscopic mechanical killers, McKay had become just short of fanatical about protecting his people.  Even Sheppard wasn’t so driven, but because Sheppard was driven he apparently hadn’t recognized yet that they had a problem.

 

Watching McKay stand there firing his already half-empty gun into the first approaching Wraith before shifting the gun in his hand to use like a club once the bullets were gone, Zelenka knew that the problem was about to meet a very fatal solution…unless he himself did something about it.  Which he was planning to do, because he wasn’t going to stand here and watch Rodney McKay die, or run away so he wouldn’t see it happen.

 

A very unusual smile stretched across his face, one that would have shocked the man he was planning to save with its viciousness.  Just a little bit closer, Mr. Life-Sucking Monster.  I’ve got a surprise for you…

 

The Wraith came into the room in a rush, an aqua-blue blur of fluid motion that didn’t bother to use the weapon it was holding.  McKay ducked away from it and scored a solid hit to the facemask it was wearing with the butt of his gun; he hadn’t accounted for how fast it would recover, though, and before he could duck again the Wraith had caught him with a backhanded blow that knocked him across the room.  He slid down the far wall with a groan and was still, leaving a smear of blood streaking down in his wake. 

 

The Wraith pulled off its cracked mask and tossed it aside, then advanced on the fallen defender with a hungry, openmouthed grin.  Or at least, it was advancing until Zelenka stepped between it and McKay.  “I don’t think so,” he told it mildly, taking off his glasses and tucking them into his shirt pocket.  A dangerous golden sparkle appeared in his eyes.  “I don’t suppose you vould like to surrender to me, by any chance?”

 

The Wraith’s grin widened, sharklike.  “I do not play with my food,” it told him as its hand shot out for his chest.

 

Zelenka moved faster and caught the hand by the wrist, much to the Wraith’s surprise.  “I do,” he replied, tightening his hold and giving the captured wrist a quick, powerful, snapping twist that made the Wraith howl.  He dropped the now-broken appendage and smiled.  “Vould you like to play some more?  I’m not bored yet.”

 

The Wraith roared and lashed out at him with its good hand, trying for another blow like the one that had felled McKay.  Zelenka didn’t even try to duck; he just stood there, smiling, and shrugged off the blow as though it were no more than a pat on the cheek.  Then he retaliated with a slap that sent the Wraith staggering backwards, and followed up before it could recover with a shove that put the monster up against the wall and another quick grab and twist that broke its other arm at the elbow.  The Wraith’s next roar was cut off by his hand wrapped around its throat.  “You’re too noisy,” the scientist scolded.  “And you vere going to feed off my friend over there after you hurt him, and you vanted to feed off me as vell.  I think that in this situation turnabout vould be fair play, don’t you?”

 

Zelenka’s grin widened…and his canines lengthened and sharpened as the spark in his eyes turned muddy brown to the rough gold of an old coin.  Shifting his grip on the muscular neck, he leaned in close and sank his fangs deep into the Wraith’s flesh.  He pulled back almost immediately, though, spitting out a mouthful of black liquid and making a face that was at once disgusted and disappointed.  “Now see, you aren’t even good to eat – and I vas so hoping you would prove adequate to supply my dietary requirements.  You’re of less than no use to me now, except to supply varning to your fellow monsters.”  He released the Wraith’s throat only to smash his hand into its chest, watching its eyes widen as he grabbed hold of something pulsing with life inside of it and squeezed ever so gently.  “Hmm, I think that vill do, yes,” he commented, and then ripped out the organ and held it up for the Wraith to see before tossing it away and returning his grip to the monster’s throat.  “But just in case your regenerative abilities happen to extend this far…”

 

The Wraith dropped to the floor with its throat crushed and its neck broken, dead with a look of piscine surprise on its face.  Zelenka stepped back and watched it for a moment, making sure it stayed dead, and then turned back to the man he’d been protecting.  McKay was a quiet heap on the floor on the room’s opposite side, surrounded by broken equipment and scattered papers.  Zelenka stalked over to him much the same way the Wraith had, nostrils flaring as he took in the fresh, warm scent of the blood that was smeared down the wall like a gruesome arrow.  Wiping gore from the Wraith off his hand, he pressed two fingers against the astrophysicist’s neck to check his carotid pulse and sighed with relief when he found it slow but strong.  “You, my friend, are going to have one hell of a headache when you vake up,” he scolded the unconscious man.  “Most likely one hell of an ache everyvhere else, too, if I’m not mistaken.” 

 

Zelenka thought for a minute.  They needed to get out of here before more Wraith came, and he needed to find Beckett, but he was almost certain he’d heard a crack when McKay had hit the wall and he needed to know where it had come from.  He wasn’t entirely sure he’d be able to tell if something was broken unless it was fairly obvious, but he gave it a try anyway and managed to tentatively ascertain that some of the man’s ribs didn’t feel quite so solid as he thought they should.  Zelenka swore softly.  He might have been able to get away with carrying the astrophysicist draped over his shoulder and had no one think too much about it, but if McKay had broken ribs carrying him like that could kill him – and seeing him effortlessly holding the larger man in his arms was going to raise some eyebrows, and more than a few questions as well.

 

He looked back at the dead Wraith with the gaping hole in its chest and the still-quivering part he’d ripped out of it lying discarded nearby on the floor.  Not that that wasn’t going to raise some questions of its own once someone saw it, and although he might have been able to lie and say he didn’t know how it got that way…he really didn’t want to.  Zelenka was used to hiding what he was, but right now Atlantis needed what he was; he didn’t think the Wraith could feed off him any more than he could feed off them, and he was also faster and stronger than they were.  He smiled his vicious, predatory smile again.  And he had to admit, the look of surprise on the monster’s face as he was killing it had been enjoyable.  He’d be happy to kill as many of them as he could get his hands on while he still had the element of surprise on his side.

 

His mind made up, Zelenka tore off a piece of McKay’s shirt and tied it into place to stem the bleeding from the back of the man’s head; the smell was making his mouth water, and he couldn’t afford to be distracted right now.  Later on, once this latest mess was cleaned up, he’d have to talk with Beckett about finding a way to supplement his diet since feeding normally here was out of the question.  And with that thought he lifted the injured scientist into his arms, cradling him carefully against his chest, and jogged off down the same corridor the rest of the science team had been sent through.  It was time to surprise some people.