"I cannot believe you're letting them do this."

Ronon folded his arms across his chest, not blinking as he watched the fight unfold in front of him. He might have jabbed his elbow against McKay's shoulder in the process.

"Ow! Just because some people in this room get off on violence--"

"Be quiet," Ronon said.

"--doesn't mean everyone around you is wired in an equally screwed up manner, least of all me." Rodney rubbed his arm a good four inches below the point where Ronon had actually made contact. "That hurt."

Despite the irritation of being ignored, Ronon didn't consider repeating himself. People either listened to you or they didn't. McKay didn't.

In the center of the salle, Teyla took advantage of a mistimed step to land a blow on Sheppard's weak side. Sheppard recovered, but not smoothly. Teyla scored one more hit before Sheppard steadied himself and retreated out of range.

With a flicker of a smile, Teyla eyed Ronon, her breath coming hard but without strain, her bare feet slapping lightly against floor. Before Ronon could shift his weight, her attention slid back to Sheppard. She watched him circle the room with a lazy stride and waited for him to make another approach.

Ronon took advantage of the pause in the fight to glance at McKay. Mistake. Acknowledgment only gave the man an excuse to continue.

"It's completely barbaric, is what it is," McKay hissed. "Door's right there. Aren't you supposed to be one of those code-of-honor-I-do-nothing-I-don't-want-to-do warrior types? Let those two play games if they want, but don't just stand there and watch."

"You go," Ronon suggested.

McKay huffed and slouched against the wall.

Sheppard sidestepped around the perimeter of the ring, sauntering through the slicks of colored light thrown on the floor by the stained glass windows. Except for his eyes, his face was as calm and smooth as river stone. The quiver of his right biceps, almost hidden under the sleeve of his shirt, as he held one stick at the ready was the only sign of tension Ronon could find.

Ronon had initially, watching the first of these matches months ago, thought Sheppard's style to be overly conservative. He'd since revised his opinion after watching the man work with his troops, after observing him in the field. Sheppard wasn't conservative: he was a minimalist.

He was, however, sufficiently impatient to take Teyla's bait. Quickly, so quickly, Sheppard darted low and cut across with one of his sticks as he attempted to intercept Teyla's right hand with the other.

But not quickly enough: even McKay flinched as Teyla deflected the block, vaulted over the attack, and spun to deliver a punishment to Sheppard for his audacity.

Ronon had never held much respect for the art of defense until he'd watched Teyla use it as a weapon.

The slits in Teyla's skirt parted like a fruit under a knife as she dropped into a crouch, her thighs gleaming with sweat. If she won, Ronon would spend another night licking the salt off her skin, from ankle to knee to thigh, until she decided it was time to release the tie at her waist, giving him permission to mouth his way up her legs to feel the scrape of her damp hair over his lips, where he would wait patient, patient until she told him it was time to use his tongue....

McKay's snarl shook him out the memory. "This is so wrong I don't know where to begin. Were you beaten as a child? Shoved into your locker on a regular basis?"

"No more than usual," Ronon murmured.

"Oh, that's comforting. I feel so much better now."

A series of blows were exchanged in a flicker of sticks, but none achieved more than the clatter of wood striking wood. The two parted once again, but it seemed to Ronon that Sheppard held himself more loosely, as if he'd confirmed something he'd been trying to puzzle through.

Then Sheppard caught his eye, and Ronon shivered. It wasn't the quite look of an officer surveying the troops -- the quirk of the eyebrows was too insolent -- but it was still a look that searched for flaws: signs of distraction, inattention, of boredom. Ronon straightened his shoulders and tried not to look Sheppard directly in the eye.

Sheppard had come close to winning last week, and even closer the week before. Ronon checked himself before he could dwell on what would happen to him tonight if this was the day Sheppard found a flaw in Teyla's defense. If this was the day he'd taste the salt drying on Sheppard's skin, so pale and so hidden away, not at all like Teyla's casual display.

No. It was not the duty of a soldier to wonder from where his orders would next fall, but to hold himself ready to respond, regardless. There'd been some rust to scrape away, as might be expected from seven years without the forms of discipline, but Ronon was slowly remembering what it meant to be a soldier.

Sheppard paused to wipe the back of his arm over his face, slicking his hair away from his forehead. He was, Ronon was certain, only feigning weariness. Sheppard's eyes were too focused, too bright with the energy of the fight for him to be fading now. Backstepping, he led Teyla away from the center of the circle.

They'd nearly completed a circuit of the room, with Teyla tracking Sheppard's every step, before Ronon realized what Sheppard was trying to do. Unfortunately for Teyla, she didn't realize it at all. Not until she shadowed Sheppard through a patch of orange light streaming from the window over Sheppard's head and, thanks to the difference in their heights and the angle at which she held her face, was momentarily blinded.

Ronon breathed deeply as Teyla shouted with the shock of a blow that reverberated down her crossed sticks. On its heels came a slice that knocked her off her feet. With a hush of air, Sheppard's sticks jolted to stillness just above Teyla's throat.

"Aha!" Sheppard crowed, panting heavily. "Took me long enough."

Sheppard couldn't match Teyla's speed, nor her flexibility, but she suffered from having fought all her life on solid ground: she too often forgot about the third dimension. Ronon would have to remember that.

"There is always a first time for everything." Teyla accepted Sheppard's outstretched hand and let him pull her to her feet. "There is not, however," she said, with a look towards Ronon that went right through his body, "always a second time."

"Oh, please." McKay looked like a spooked apola when he rolled his eyes like that. "If the melodrama were only slightly thicker, I could choke to death and not have to witness this."

Sheppard looked vaguely affronted. "What's his problem?" he asked Ronon as he slung a towel over his shoulder.

Ronon shrugged. "Jealous."

"What?" Rodney blinked. "What did you say?"

Sheppard grinned, dark and cutting, as he looped a finger through the thong looped around Ronon's throat. "Maybe next week, Rodney."

Ronon didn't fight the urge to bare his teeth as he trailed Sheppard out the door.