Title: Familiar
Author: SGAtlantisLight
Characters: John, Rodney
Relationships: McKay/Sheppard
Rating: PG
Warnings: Very AU. Very. And also crack.
Spoilers: Did I mention AU? So, no, nothing remotely resembling a spoiler
Excerpt: If it weren't for the horns and the little black bat wings and the forked tail flicking in annoyance, he could easily have mistaken the demon standing in the middle of the room for a man.
Disclaimer: Undoubtedly I own them, and a whole lot of other things, in some universe, but not this one.



The black-robed wizard lit the final candle and stood back. He blew out a breath, trying to calm himself. His old master had warned him that demons could smell fear and would take advantage of it mercilessly. He had to stay in control.

Desperate times called for desperate measures. The invading Wraith definitely qualified these as desperate times.

He consulted the Ancient tome and spoke the summoning carefully, adding the name of the particular demon that he had researched.

There was a flash and the smell of sulphur. Within the carefully-drawn pentagram, a figure appeared. It had worked. Or, well, he thought it had. He wasn't entirely sure.

The two stared at each other silently for a moment.

If it weren't for the horns and the little black bat wings and the forked tail flicking in annoyance, he could easily have mistaken the demon standing in the middle of the room for a man. Pale skin, remarkably blue eyes, short-cut light brown hair, and a wide crooked mouth. He jumped as the creature made a circular motion with its hands, but nothing happened.

"You can't cast spells within the pentagram," he said to it.

The creature rolled its eyes and let out an exasperated sigh. "I wasn't casting a spell, I was trying to get you to get on with it."

He blinked. "What?"

"You know-- the stupid, 'I bind you to my service' thing. You were planning on doing that, right? I'm assuming this isn't just a social summons because you wanted to say, 'Hi.'"

"Oh, yes, right. I was just... you know, expecting something..."

"Taller?"

"Well, yeah, a little," he admitted.

"Scarier?"

"Um. Maybe, though I'd kind of hoped for, uh..."

"Female?"

He felt his face burning. "Well, I did sort of think... I mean, the demonology books seemed to indicate..."

"Sorry to disappoint you. So, if you're not going to do the mumbo-jumbo thing, I'm leaving."

"Oh! No! I need you. I mean, we need you. They all said you were the best and most intelligent, and we really need the help."

The demon preened. "Yes. I'm the most intelligent being on both the material and spiritual planes."

"So. I... Jahn the Shepherd--"

"'Shepherd'? You're not even a proper necromancer?"

"It's my family's occupation. Only, Lady Elizabeth the Weird discovered I had the gift, so I was apprenticed to the Marshall Summoner."

"Oh. I see." The demon motioned him to continue.

"Right. I, Jahn the Shepherd, bind you, Merodis-rodnee-mickay to my service and--"

"Just as an aside, when you get done, I prefer Rodnee. That whole Merodis thing? It's been several centuries."

"Oh. Sure. Um... And require you to obey my commands and bring no harm to myself or my associates, as long as I shall live or for a period of ninety-nine years."

The demon nodded. "Right. Okay, that was just... I have no words for how disappointingly sloppy this whole thing was. This pentagram? Couldn't hold an imp at bay. And that binding was way too little, too late. Go back to being a shepherd, Jahn-boy."

Jahn shut his eyes and steeled himself, awaiting the inevitable destruction.

"What by the hells are you doing?"

Jahn risked opening one eye. "Um. Waiting for you to kill me and take my immortal soul?"

Rodnee waved his hand airily. "Please. So unoriginal. I'll admit to being annoyed at the interruption, but it was at least mildly entertaining. And you have the sense to appreciate my genius." He stepped over the line of the pentagram and wandered around the lab, peering into jars and scanning the titles of the tomes Jahn had collected or inherited from the Marshall Summoner. "Daneel son-of-Jack? Don't tell me you seriously thought he was a good source of information?"

"Um..." Jahn said, watching the demon in confusion. This so wasn't going like he'd expected. He just never saw these things coming.

"Oh, never mind." Rodnee picked up some parchments with experimental notes, then turned and studied him. "So, did you have a spell go awry or is your hair supposed to do that?"

Jahn reached up and touched his hair. "What? What's it doing?" He didn't feel anything out of place.

"The whole 'I just got out of bed from a night with a young, blonde apprentice' look. Most necromancers I've met keep their hair short, so it's easier to clean out the gore when some experiment goes south."

Jahn frowned and shrugged. The Marshall Summoner had complained about his hair, too, but he didn't think talking back to the demon wandering around his lab was a good idea.

"Hmm," Rodnee said, reading through the parchments in his hands. "Interesting research, but I think you've made a mistake here."

"What?" Jahn asked, walking over to look before he realised what he was doing.

"Here." Rodnee jabbed at the parchment. "You've got Van Helsing's Equation wrong."

"Oh, that. No, it's not wrong. It's not Van Helsing's Equation. It's my own extrapolation of it, but taking into account etheric motion."

"Really? Surely the effects are neglible, though, since the motion is so infinitesimal."

"I thought so, too, until I started graphing it," Jahn said. "It's amazing, but the impact of even a minor change can he huge. Here, just look..." He shuffled through the parchments on the table. "I think you must have it."

Rodnee paged through the parchments till he came to the one covered in lines and colourful splotches. "Oh. Wow. Interesting." He snapped his fingers and a cup appeared in his hand, steam rising from the dark liquid within. He sipped, then looked up to see Jahn staring at the drink. "Did you want one?"

"Oh. I... I don't think so."

Rodnee shrugged. "Suit yourself." He set the cup down and paged through more of the parchments, studying Jahn's scrawl. "So, I take it you're more of a specialist in motion and travel spells than necromancy?"

"I'd like to be," Jahn admitted. "But we've got a war on with the Wraith and the Marshall Summoner was killed and Prince Jack of Niall needed necromancers more than he needed travel mages."

Rodnee looked at him, a strange light in his eyes, and Jahn suddenly remembered what, exactly, he was dealing with. "You know what? You interest me, Jahn the Shepherd. I'd like to make you a deal."

Jahn ran a tongue nervously over his lips. "And wh-what would happen to me if I don't like this deal?"

Rodnee shrugged. "I'll probably have to kill you. Such a waste, but we can't be having mortals summoning us willy-nilly without consequences. You understand."

"Yeah. I guess." Jahn swallowed hard. "What's the deal?"

"I stay here and help you with your little Wraith problem so long as I get to contribute to your research."

"That's all?" Jahn asked suspiciously.

"Yep," Rodnee answered. "Oh, well, except for the usual 'soul for all eternity' kind of things."

"Oh." Jahn thought about it. He'd probably already lost his soul for all eternity anyway and at least this way he got to live a little longer, maybe find some way to escape. "Okay."

Rodnee nodded, nose already back in Jahn's parchments.

The demon snapped his fingers and Jahn found himself clutching a parchment. His eyes fell on the title-- 'Surrender of Immortal Soul'-- and scanned through the document, pausing over one particular clause. "Um. You didn't say anything about sexual exclusivity..."

Rodnee blinked up at him. "Oh, sorry. I thought that was a given." He grinned, his eyes glinting again, which was doing strange things to Jahn's nether regions. "I've never had any complaints. My mother was a succubus, after all."

Jahn swallowed, but accepted the quill Rodnee held out to him.

As soon as he had signed, he found himself pushed against the table, Rodnee's mouth taking his with a strange heat, tail twined around Jahn's leg under his robe. His mind seemed to slip sideways as Rodnee brought wide, hot hands to bear.

Jahn realised it would probably take a lifetime to find an escape from his deal with the devil.

But somehow, he didn't mind.