Five Ways Ronon Loses His Dreads



1. Burn


One of Ronon's first thoughts is, he's not surprised. It's just like Michael to booby-trap his base.

Another one of Ronon's first thoughts is, ow.

He can't really tell what order he has these thoughts; his brain is scrambled inside his head and he knows the sticky wetness in his ears isn't gray matter but it sure feels like it. He doesn't know how long he's been out, how long he's been lying here trying to force himself into consciousness, but gradually he becomes aware of Sheppard groaning somewhere near him, of the yelling from his radio, of the sounds of settling concrete and falling debris.

He's not hurt much for all that the building fell on him; he seems to be tucked into a narrow space next to a large beam. The way Sheppard sounds, he wasn't so lucky.

Then Ronon realizes he wasn't lucky at all, as suddenly he's hit with a sharp, caustic smell and his scalp and shoulder start to prickle ominously. He manages to turn his head a little; the smell sears into his nose and eyes and he can feel his skin start to burn.

"Fuck!" he shouts as he starts desperately wriggling away. Sometimes Earth words are just appropriate.

By the time he's out of the coffinlike space and crawling in Sheppard's direction, his scalp and shoulder are on fire and his head feels oddly wobbly on his neck.

"You were supposed to stay put 'til they dig us out." Sheppard looks a little gray around the edges; he's pressing one arm tightly into his ribs but his eyes go wide when he sees Ronon. "What the hell happened to you?"

"Something's eating my skin," Ronon tells him, unable to hide the desperate, high note in his voice.

Sheppard gestures with his chin to the small bare space next to him and fumbles with his free hand for his canteen. "Gotta flush it."

Ronon crabwalks to get close to Sheppard, but he can't keep himself from pointing out, "Might take a while to get to us."

"I'd rather you kept your skin," Sheppard mumbles as he carefully shifts to accommodate Ronon, who lies alongside Sheppard's legs, head to hip.

The water is sweet, blessed relief, flowing over his scalded skull, and Sheppard's hand is cool where it rests on his face, keeping him still. The shoulder is another matter, as Sheppard doesn't notice it until the water's almost gone, but it feels minor now that his head isn't on fire.

"Better?"

"Mmm," Ronon grunts and settles his shoulders, pushing back against Sheppard's knee when it doesn't pull away. "How's it look?"

Sheppard hums a little. "It's...fine. It looks okay."

Rolling back to glance up sends an angry spike of pain between Ronon's eyes, but he does it anyway, and Sheppard doesn't meet his gaze. "My hair's gone, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Sheppard replies, then bites his lip. "Most of it. Sorry."

Ronon rolls forward again, resting his forehead against a cool bit of metal. "'S fine." It is, really; Ronon's become nothing but practical and he'd rather be alive.

They lie in silence for a long while, long enough for Ronon to drift a bit, before Sheppard brings him back by musing, "Your hair probably saved your life."

"Wha?" Ronon mumbles, willing the world to come back into focus; oh, yeah. Concussed.

"You were out for a while. Probably lying in that stuff the whole time. If it'd been me..." Sheppard trails off with a couple of painful-sounding coughs, his leg shaking against Ronon's back.

"You woulda been fine," Ronon says. "Your hair wouldn't take shit from a little acid."

Sheppard wheezes out a laugh, then coughs and shoves into Ronon's shoulder. "Don't...can't...laughing...ow..." he gasps.



2. Wraith


Ronon wakes to a cold knife blade against his temple and the rank smell of Wraith. The male leans in with a sick parody of a smile when it sees Ronon's awake.

"De'sha'a," it hisses as the knife slides against Ronon's skin. Ronon growls and tries to lunge forward, but he's held fast in the cocoon. The Wraith steps back with a leering, openmouthed grin and holds up one of Ronon's dreadlocks.

"All Hives will celebrate your death, De'sha'a," it says, tucking the lock into its belt and striding off down the corridor. Ronon howls his anger after it.

Sheppard's pet Wraith had called him that once, while he followed it to McKay's lab. So you are the De'sha'a, the Long Prey.

Good to know I have a reputation, he'd replied, wishing he could put a hole in the thing's head.

The next male comes with a drone to hold Ronon's head while it cuts a dreadlock from behind his ear. Ronon struggles anyway, and curses loudly, promising fire and death at the backs of the Wraith as they walk away.

He struggles and shouts at the next three, too. In the silence between them, Ronon hangs in the cocoon, pulling and twisting with all his might to try to get some leverage for his hands, his feet, anything, with absolutely no luck.

Finally it occurs to him that the Wraith are enjoying his anger as much as the trophies they're taking from his head.

He vows not to give them the satisfaction, and it's a near thing, but he manages to stay still and quiet when the next male comes to take a lock. Ronon loses track of how much time passes, but he keeps count of the locks.

He doesn't realize rescue's found him until Sheppard comes skidding to a stop in front of the cocoon. "Holy fuck, Ronon?" he asks.

Ronon growls, "Get me out of here."

As Sheppard starts cutting away the cocoon, McKay comes barreling around the corner, only to stop as abruptly as Sheppard had. "What the—Ronon, where's your hair?"

"Wraith took it," he tells McKay, who sets his mouth in an angry line Ronon knows well. Sheppard's got the same look as he pulls Ronon out of the cocoon and hands over his gun.

Ronon reaches up and runs his hand over the hacked-off landscape of his scalp. One lone dreadlock still hangs from the crown, and the world whites out for a moment of incandescent rage. He'd thought the Wraith had taken everything from him when they'd made him a Runner, and again when he'd seen the ruins of Sateda, but this...this—this is somehow more personal, an erasure of years, more a violation than a tracker in his back. His father had first rolled his dreadlocks, Melena had woven a ribbon into the one at his nape; he'd carried beads from his brothers, from his platoon; their whisper was hope and determination and company while he ran.

Ronon reaches up and cuts off the last lock with a vicious swipe of his knife.

"What do you say we blow them into little tiny pieces, hm?" McKay asks, offering Ronon a detonator.



3. Frustration


Ronon turns over on the bed, pulling his head up and tossing the mass of hair onto the other side of the pillow in a well-practiced gesture. As he rolls around, trying to get himself comfortable, he growls. The damn dreads are so much longer now; he hasn't lost the ends to frost or trees or Wraith in years.

He tosses again, and something in his neck twinges unhappily, and finally, Ronon has had enough. He gets up, digs around until he finds the scissors Jennifer had left him for cutting bandages, and heads into the bathroom. He knows he's been spending too much time with McKay when he catches himself grumbling aloud and realizes he's been doing it ever since he got out of bed.

He starts with the ones on top, right up front, and leaves a long handlength behind so his head doesn't feel completely bare. The dreads drop to the floor with a quiet rustle, occasionally clinking when a bead lands just right.

When he's done, Ronon scratches his fingers across his scalp, testing the unresisting glide of his new hair. He shakes his head from side to side, swaying like a grot waking from hibernation.

He drops off to sleep with a smile on his face.



4. Paint


"They want us to what?" Rodney shouts. Ronon hasn't heard his voice hit that register since he got an arrow in the ass.

Teyla schools her face and voice into vast serenity, a warning signal if ever there was one. "We must apply the paint to our hair before we may proceed. Anyone who enters the village or temple must be so...adorned."

Ronon leans over to get a look at the four pots huddling on the low table, and he pulls back quickly. "Smells like fnarl."

"Maybe we should just, not go?" Rodney asks hopefully. "Those energy readings weren't anything, really, we could just call it right n—"

"You said the energy readings were exciting, McKay," John interrupts him and reaches out to grab one of the brushes on the table. He pokes experimentally at the goo in one of the pots. "And I quote: These energy readings are exciting! We're talking ZPM-level exciting, Colonel! You were bouncing."

"I do not bounce!" Rodney huffs.

John bounces up on the balls of his feet in illustration and smirks. "Like a schoolgirl." Ignoring Rodney's indignant squawk, he grabs the pot and points his brush at Teyla. "Shall we?" She sits down, her back to John so he can apply the paint to her hair.

Ronon claps Rodney on the shoulder, then shoves the biggest pot into his hand. "Suck it up," Ronon says and settles himself on a stool. "Sooner you get started, sooner we're done."

In the face of Ronon's acceptance, Rodney swallows his complaints. Rodney's considerably more efficient at coating Ronon's dreads than John is dealing with Teyla's hair, so they end up finished at the same time. Ronon doesn't even let Rodney sit down, painting the hair on his head with just a few quick strokes.

By the time they're finished, they all smell like fnarl. John's hair is even spikier and is a bright cobalt blue, Teyla's is a deep purple that oddly suits her, Rodney's is a blaze orange Ronon's only ever seen on Earth and Ronon's dreads are a vibrating yellow-green.

The temple is even better than Rodney had originally advertised, as the villagers have no need for their newly-online ZPM and hand it over freely. Ronon has to pound between Rodney's shoulderblades to keep him breathing.



The infirmary is stifling with the thick scent of fnarl, and Ronon can see everyone else trying to keep polite expressions on their faces. The rest of his team is as colorful as they were when he last saw them two hours ago, in spite of thorough decontamination and enthusiastic scrubbing.

Well, enthusiastic on Ronon's part, at least. And judging by the way Rodney's hair is competing with John's for antigravity, on Rodney's part, too.

"Jesus," Lorne mutters softly as he enters, although he tries to cover it with a cough.

"As far as I can tell, it's not harmful," Jennifer tells them. "It just—won't come off."

"How is it not harmful?" Rodney shrieks. "They turned us into Muppets!"

John snorts his laughter. "Smelly, smelly Muppets," he mutters helplessly between giggles. "Fnarly Fraggles."

Ronon and Teyla share a look, and then a shrug when Jennifer and Lorne dissolve into giggles, too.

Rodney actually stomps his foot and waves his hands around his head. "I can't work like this! You can't work like this!" He points at John. "Your hair was bad enough before!"

"What about my hair?" John goes from happy to irritated in the space of a (shallow) breath.

"With the—" Rodney points and flails. "And the—God! If I don't get rid of this smell I'm going to vomit on your shoes."

Jennifer sobers quickly at Rodney's threat. "I'm sorry, Rodney, but there's nothing I can do, short of shaving your head."

Rodney and Teyla and John go a little pale, but Ronon says, "Do it." He agrees with Rodney; he can't live like this.

"You mean, like bald?" Rodney says softly.

"Well, it's not like you've got much to lose," John points out wickedly.

"Colonel Caldwell will be flattered by your imitation," Rodney snarls back.

"Gentlemen, if you don't mind," Teyla interrupts smoothly, "I would like to go first."



5. Ritual


When Teyla asks them to be fathers to her child, Ronon cuts the first lock, at the nape of his neck. It's good luck, and anticipation, and a promise, an old Satedan ritual he'd given up on ever having the chance to celebrate. He tucks the lock behind one of the little decorative plaques in Teyla's quarters while she's at the infirmary for a checkup, so the child might feel protected and safe.

When Teyla tells them she's having a son, Ronon cuts the second lock, the neighbor of the first. It's joy, and gratitude, and a prayer for health. He burns it at sunrise on the very edge of the East Pier, that the child might grow tall and straight.

When Teyla grabs his hand so he can feel the thump of a tiny foot under her skin, Ronon cuts the third lock, from behind his left ear. It's pride, and home, and bittersweet sorrow for the niece Ronon felt but never met. He buries it on the mainland, so the child's roots might grow strong and deep.

When Ronon first holds their son, wide-eyed after his entrance into the world, he doesn't bother to change the course of his tears. John and Rodney don't, either, and Teyla beams at them all.

That night, while everyone else sleeps, Ronon settles Sennot in his lap. As he cuts the rest of his locks free, he speaks softly, telling the child all of his hopes for his future, removing the weight of the past that brought them together. They are starting anew, the both of them.

Ronon pledges himself to his son, heart and body and soul, until his head is as bare as the baby's.