Adrift Part Four
Title: Adrift
Author: Westdean
Pairing: Carson/John
Rating: PG13
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Slash
Spoilers: Set after The Tower but with spoilers of the "blink and you will miss them variety" up to The Return: part 1.
Prompt: Written for cosmonaut_elf as part of the ICAW ficathon
She requested a John/Carson pairing. Serious hurt/comfort. Serious, serious Carson whumping. The two of them getting stranded. Lots of blood and rain. John realising that he loves Carson (sort of first time). Written at speed (for me) and therefore probably incorrect in all sorts of canon facts but I don't care because writing this almost broke my brain.
Authors Note: Written unapologetically in British English and betaed to match by my lovely Dons, Geeks and Medics.
All music tracks are from the album Ringleader of the Tormentors by Morrissey.
~SGA~
Part Four
Later Carson found himself being given a sort of a guided tour of the complex. His captors were so sure of his inability to escape that they were happy to show him everything. This did nothing to raise the Scot's sinking spirits - it was clear that they thought he would be staying here for the rest of his life.
Next to the main store was a kind of workshop. Here were stored the artefacts that the gang considered the most valuable - basically anything that they thought they might get to work and therefore sell. Tattoo proved to be a very methodical leader when it came to making money and everything was neatly stored and labelled.
Carson was made to understand that he would be principally working here.
They even showed him the shield device, complete with ZPM and a newly installed one at that. He realised that he had found the missing ZPM - stolen by this mercenary gang to replace their depleted one. The irony was lost on him.
Beckett was carefully observant, trying to gain as much knowledge about these people as possible, his very survival depended on it. And to learn as much about his surroundings as he could. He had already spotted a Wraith beacon among the smaller stuff in the workroom and was on the lookout for anything that might help him to escape or contact Atlantis.
Then came the moment he had been dreading, as they gathered in the workroom, a tangible air of expectation among his captors. Tattoo pushed forward a scanner that appeared to be in good condition - there would be no excuse for broken tech if it did not turn on.
Carson had had a little time to think about what he was going to do. Survive, he had decided, keep himself alive and hope that Atlantis figured out where he was. So he would cooperate.
He looked at the scanner and then at the men around him.
“You're right in thinking that I can turn this equipment on... sometimes. It's because I've got a gene, a part of my blood,” he was trying to think of ways to explain, “that works with the machines. But it's not strong - I can't always do it.”
“We'll be the judge of whether you are just not trying hard enough,” was the ominous reply from Eye-Patch (God, he wished he knew their names but he had only heard them call each other by expletives so far), “turn it on.”
“It's not a cantrip you know, just a bit of biology.” But he had lost them. The gang members around him had the same expression on their faces as a batch of newly arrived marines wore at the compulsory STD'S of the Pegasus Galaxy lecture.
Carson took a deep breath, closed his eyes and touched the scanner, praying to any deity that might be passing that the bloody thing would turn on. The murmur about him suggested that it had. He opened his eyes, almost giddy with relief, to see the device blinking at him - Ancient text scrolling across the screen.
“What does it do?”
“How should I know?... Ooooof.” The air was driven from his lungs by a blow to the stomach.
“Wrong answer - what does it do?”
Two years of studying Ancient had given him some grasp of the medical texts but this? He tried his best, leaning on the workshop counter trying to protect his sore muscles.
“I think.. it's a materials composition scanner - it tells you what things are made of.”
Tattoo was pleased. “You've just earned yourself a meal. Get him out of here.”
~SGA~
It was the start of a very strange routine. Beckett found himself being taken to the workshop most days, always in a state of anxiety at what might happen. If he was successful at activating something - there would be a reward - a change of clothes, use of a razor, warm water.
But, as he had feared, sometimes he could get nothing to work - the machinery was clearly broken, the gang too optimistic. Other times Carson was not sure if it was the tech or himself. It did not matter what the reason was, they were very free with casually beating him. He now felt permanently bruised, a couple of ribs were always complaining - he was never sure how far they were going to go before believing him, when he was unable to turn on a particular device.
And he had no choice but to continue to try and cooperate. He had been unable to work out any way of escaping from this place. The gang were too careful, they seemed to have covered every option.
Carson was trying to hold onto the hope that any minute now he would be rescued. But weeks were going by. He knew the effort that Atlantis would have put into looking for him - he could picture John and his team, what they would have tried to do. And no-one had come. He tried to fight the growing doubt in his mind.
He held onto his medical wing jacket even though it grew grubbier as time passed, trying to keep it clean it with a bit of water. It represented Atlantis for him, the hope that they were still coming. It was bad enough that he had to watch his watch going around on Eye-Patch's wrist.
He also began to understand more of this strange place. He was not allowed to see much but managed to learn a little about the planet.
Rain was the principal feature. He could have found the daily downpour comforting, a reminder of home, but the rain pattern was wrong. It didn't fall soft and steady through a day and a night or sweep in like a howling gale of Winter, something to listen to from the side of a warm fire. It fell like a flood from the sky, intense and hard, an assault on the ears and senses, causing streams of water to run down the walls of his prison, and then would suddenly stop, leaving a permanent mist to hang in the air.
He tried to understand the people who held him. They were violent and mercenary and totally focused on getting rich. One thing was clear. They were not the ones who had started this - it could have conceivably been going on for centuries - the plundering and reselling of Ancient artefacts.
The current generation had been finding things tough, pickings had been thin and the increase in culling had made searching dangerous. They muttered wistfully of knowing of others that had made vast fortunes from this trade - enough to buy themselves a planet.
The two leaders had been there the longest - recruiting a few carefully selected others when gaps occurred among the ranks.
They were hungry for wealth - it was clear that they had found people with the gene before but had “carelessly” lost them. Carson, having been at the receiving end of their treatment could only too easily imagine how.
So Carson just worked on survival, biting down a retort or angry reaction when yet again one of the gang members took out his frustration on him.
That couldn't last and it didn't.
It was Eye-Patch of course who provoked him, twisting his arm roughly when the latest Ancient gizmo refused to give the smallest sign of life.
“Do you get off on violence or something?” he couldn't help muttering, as he shook off his arm angrily. Eye-Patch snarled with rage and the last thing that Carson was aware of for sometime was the sight of the man's fist swinging towards him.
He woke many hours later, lying on his bed, his head pounding unmercifully, one of his own bandages binding his forehead, a layer of extra blankets covering him.
He was treated a bit more carefully after that. It wasn't difficult to work out that they had lost their last gene-holder to a similar act of violence and, from the muttering directed at Eye-Patch by the others, that he had been responsible.
Instead, his perceived lack of cooperation was punished by the withdrawal of food and water. Not that it was plentiful to begin with. These men understood the art of managing prisoners - keep them weak and keep them cold. Carson knew what they were doing when they fed him not quite enough and not often enough or left him with a single blanket against the damp and chill but he could do nothing to fight the steady weakening of his body.
He had steeled his mind against that other prisoner bane of coming to depend on your captors for comfort or companionship but it never materialised. They never let him know their names and never used or asked for his. Contact was minimal - only when they needed him or when they were serving his basic needs did he see anyone.
This was probably the worst aspect of his captivity, apart from the unpredictability of his fate. Coming from a big family as he did, and having found himself at the heart of a bustling community in Atlantis, this cut him deeply. He spent long hours in his cell unable to prevent himself desperately missing his friends on Atlantis, and regretting all the things he had never got round to saying to them.
It was not in his nature to successfully combat the coldness that marked the way in which he was being treated. And one day he found out why.
Part Five