Sheppard/McKay story: Solitary (R)
Title: Solitary
Author: esteefee
Pairing: Sheppard/McKay
Rating: R (for oblique ref to violence)
Wordcount: 4,733
Spoilers: Tiny ones for Conversion, The Siege, Outcast
Categories: ER, H/C
Warnings: None necessary. Let me know if I'm mistaken.
Summary: Four days in solitary gives a guy time to think. Unless he's an idiot.
ETA: If you haven't seen this chibi by chkc, it's thematically er resonant. And I love it.
A/N: Also on AO3.
Solitary
by esteefee
There are some people who think being imprisoned in a six foot by eight foot slime-covered cell on a backwater planet at the edge of the Pegasus Galaxy is a catastrophe that merits a lot of moaning and bitching about the cold and the damp and the missed opportunities for working on grand poobah theories or proving the Reese's Pieces Hypothesis or what have you, but John prefers to think of it as a terrific opportunity to take a break and catch up on all the shut-eye he's missed out on. As long as his jailers feed him his twice-daily stale bread and scummy gruel and keep the roughing up to a bare minimum, he's cool.
It isn't his fault he's stuck here. John will do a lot for Atlantis-take a bullet, turn into a bug, ride a nuke into a hiveship-but he's really, really not willing to have his team bend over for a ritual that includes, from what he gathered from Teyla's horrified double-speak, a holy enema.
Fortunately, Ronon had his back on that, and double-fortunately McKay wasn't on the mission to shriek hysterically. However, Teyla and Ronon had proved once again that youth beat age any old day when it came to a flat out, panicked, four-mile sprint to the Gate with disappointed Celebrants nipping at their heels, and John got lassoed of all things and now he's in jail-
"Hello! Hello Dad! Hi, I'm in jail! Say hi to Mom, from j-j-jail!"
How proud they would be. John's parents had always said he would come to "no good end," but he'd never anticipated being stuck in the hoosegow quite this often. As near as he can figure it, this makes his thirty-seventh stay behind bars of one kind or another.
John wonders if there's a record. If there is, he's pretty sure he can beat it.
:::
The thing about dealing with being in prison: it's all about organizing your schedule. Most people don't really know how to spend their time productively when they are incarcerated. Just for example, they might waste their first hour or so stomping back and forth and waving their hands around while raving (pretty entertainingly, actually) about how this is typical, just typical, they could be back on Atlantis furthering precious science with the precious contents of their precious brains, blah-blah-blah, and by the way, Colonel, as usual it's all your fault.
John's first hour, instead, is spent analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of his holding cell. For strengths: the bars are made of re-purposed Ancient metal, which means pretty goddamned strong. John doesn't know where the inhabitants got hold of it-probably from local ruins-but they shift disconcertingly between familiar shades of green and blue, and are set in crumbling, mold-ridden cement. Unfortunately, the only tool John has on his person is his Swiss Army knife, which his captors somehow missed tucked in the knee pocket of his BDU pants. The corkscrew is good for digging at the base of the bars, but it could take days just to loosen one of them enough to wiggle at him mockingly.
He's really hoping he'll be rescued before then. Probably they're trying the negotiation thing first, since this town really isn't armed heavily or much of a threat. It would be a damned shame to open fire on a bunch of what are essentially civilians, which is how John got into this mess in the first place, so he's really hoping that if the talks fall through Lorne is on stand-by with a unit armed only with stunners and enough C-4 to come blast him out. Peaceable-like.
In the meantime, John is going over the rota schedule in his head, lying on his cot and staring at the dirty pictures previous guests have carved on the bunk above. Cocks and breasts and pussies and Wraith in an uncomfortable juxtaposition. He pulls out his pocketknife and starts in on his own carving.
The walls are thick, and he can't hear any other prisoners while he works. Either they don't have a lot of crime in this town, or they keep the prisoners really segregated. It nice and quiet here, really. It's a pleasant change. Most people don't have an appreciation for quiet. There is, after all, absolutely nothing wrong with silence. Silence is golden, he's heard it said. So it really puzzles John why some people might actually complain about it and get all huffy and tell other people they have to 'communicate' more, saying things like, I thought you didn't have family, and, Sometimes it's like pulling teeth, I swear to God, and, You idiot, that's it-I've had it! and bust up a pretty good thing.
John just doesn't get it at all.
He finishes carving his ZPM and starts in on his puddlejumper.
:::
Lunch comes with an offer to commute his sentence if he will consent to the holy enema, but John tells the guard where to stuff it, appropriately enough, and the guy leaves, but not without giving John a pretty nice whack with the baton that he only partially blocks.
Turns out silence really is golden after all.
Rubbing his arm, he sits down with his tray of water, hardtack, and scummy soup. The soup has something crunchy and disgusting in it that normally would be fun to bring to the surface and try to taunt someone with, but not today, so John just munches it in silence.
After that, per schedule, it's time for calisthenics. John strips his shirt and BDU pants to spare them from getting sweaty and works out in just his boxers, doing push-ups, crunches, lunges, and back-boards until his muscles are trembling, all the while hearing sarcastic comments about bad prison movies and feeling blue eyes following him eagerly.
John shakes his head and cools down with some stretches that Teyla taught him and that he's embarrassed to find really help with his old-man joints.
After that, he uses the crapper, puts his clothes back on and gets back to work on his carvings. His Johnny Cash is really coming along.
:::
Day Two proceeds pretty much like Day One, except they lead him down to a shower room and give him a spare pair of underwear, rough and gray. He uses the soap in the shower and his pocketknife to scrape some of the stubble off his face, and manages to give himself a pretty nasty cut on his jaw line. He encounters two other prisoners who come in just as he finishes his shower-both of them are mean-looking sons of bitches, but he flashes them a lazy smile and that, in combination with his knife and his bloody jaw, seem sufficient to make them back off.
Neither of the two guards waiting outside seem to notice or care when he walks out again still bleeding a little. If that's how it's going to be, he's doubly glad for the knife, once again safely tucked in the knee pocket of his BDU pants.
He gets a surprise visit in the afternoon by his not-so-friendly neighborhood guard who is carrying, incongruously, a digital camera, Earth-made. John is so boggled for a second he almost laughs when the guard fumbles with it, but he doesn't want to earn another swipe of the baton, and after more fumbling the guard manages to push the right buttons and get a probably hugely unflattering picture of John-he's assuming for proof of life-before walking out again.
At least it means they're working to get John out of here.
He's tired of messing with the Johnny carving-there's something wrong with it, anyway. Johnny looks a little sinister, almost, with one eye too small and tilted sideways where John's knife slipped. It's hard to play prime/not-prime with yourself; ditto, chess. He's already drafted a formal proposal that they arm all gate teams with hand-held stunners to prevent future occurrences of this kind.
And if he jerks off any more, his dick will fall off.
He hears bootsteps coming down the hall and dinner arrives, but the guard doesn't offer him another chance to commute his sentence. He also doesn't offer any news about the negotiations-not a word-just takes John's old tray and offers the new one, and leaves as silently as he arrives.
John realizes he hasn't spoken a word to anyone in days except to tell the guard where to shove his enema yesterday.
Doesn't matter. The problem with talking, as near as he can figure it, is that it just gives people ammunition to use against you in future battles. And there are always future battles, especially with volatile personalities. John's a strategist. He wouldn't still be alive if he weren't. So that's a pretty good argument right there, and he would use it if he were inclined to talk about things. But he isn't.
Satisfied, he nods to himself and does his evening calisthenics.
:::
By Day Three he isn't feeling so calm about things. His shower buddies show up too early, while he's still naked and slick with soap, and things get a little dicey. He has to cut one of them, the one he calls Huey, and Dewey scores a couple of pretty good blows to his ribs and lower back, but he leaves both of them on the brown tile of the shower floor.
The guard takes him back to his cell and he lies on his cot with a soft groan. Right about now it would be nice to hear some bitching about, Great, what has he done to himself this time, and, Always have to be an idiotic hero-type, or even, I'll bet Teyla wouldn't get her ass kicked so easily, and then to have someone fluttering around him uselessly before a warm body presses in next to him to help him with the shivers of aftershocks, the adrenaline crash that always hits and makes him feel embarrassingly shaky for a while. John wouldn't even have to ask, is the thing. He never has to at times like these, which is a huge relief.
Other times he can feel these gaps, like openings, and he can feel the pull and he knows he has to step up, but when he opens his mouth it's like all the words have been sucked out of the room into a void. His mind goes blank, like they're hiding from him, even, because wouldn't he say them if he could? It's not like he's trying to be an asshole. Don't some people get that?
John yanks the thin blanket from underneath himself and pulls it over his shoulders.
:::
His mom taught him 'don't go away mad,' but after she died he changed it to 'just go away,' and left his dad still frothing about MBAs versus MSs and Harvard vs. Stanford, and never being the good son and how he'd always known John would turn out a loser.
John always knew too. It seemed like the first words he remembered from his parents were why couldn't he be more like Davey? Why was he such a bad boy? And he remembered their fights about how to raise him properly, and how his mom would sneak into his room afterward to give him a kiss on the forehead and whisper that he had to try a little harder for her sake, Please, Johnny.
So he'd gone away mad, all right, straight into the AFROTC and then the Air Force, but he liked to think he learned some things along the way, especially after the funeral when Dave showed him the papers from his father's correspondences, how Patrick Sheppard tried to obtain John's contact information, at first with politely-worded letters and then progressively not-so-polite. Finally, the letter straight from O'Neill stating John had been promoted to Lt. Colonel and had been posted in a classified location, but that O'Neill assured him John was healthy and serving his country in a vitally important role and that his father should be proud.
As if.
O'Neill had promised to deliver any message to John uncensored, but whether his father hadn't wanted to communicate in that way, or if he'd never had the opportunity, John doesn't know. He'll never know.
So that's why, before John left on this mission, he wrote that note and left it, with his last Kit-Kat Dark, on Rodney's desk in his empty room.
Probably it isn't enough. Nothing John does is ever enough. But he's gotten a little bit better at trying.
:::
Day Four, and John is ready to go out of his freaking mind. He turns the other way on his cot and carves Ronon's blaster, and then a noose. The tip of the short blade is getting dull but he doesn't want to damage the big, sharp one. He gets off the bed and tries to pick the lock of his cell with the corkscrew again but is no more successful than he was the last four times, so he goes back to digging at the foundation of the bar that's set widest next to the wall. He'd need to remove at least two to get out, so it's pretty hopeless, but then he doesn't have much else to do with his time.
There's part of a song running through his head, one of Cash's, and it goes like this:
Nobody knows
Nobody sees
Nobody knows but me.
Huey and Dewey aren't in the showers today, which is good because John is pissing pink and doesn't much feel like dancing.
For some reason his lunch has meat in it of some kind, and it's tasty, really tender, almost like beef, except the pieces are wrapped around small bones, like those of a bird or big lizard. John thinks it would be good to trade for, except chances for trading with these people seem pretty slim if they have such weird demands just to make friends.
He's too stiff to work out hard, just some wall push-ups and lunges, and when he's done he changes into his striped boxers that he washed yesterday in the shower and left to dry on the top bunk. They smell a little musty but they'll do. He's getting a little smelly himself anyway, even with the showers, and his clothing itches, and he just wants to go home and get yelled at and be told he's an asshole for worrying people.
He's just lying there thinking about that, and what he would say maybe, if he got the chance-what he didn't say in the note, because that was too risky, just leaving a note lying around, even though he didn't sign it, when he hears the footsteps of the guard and someone else.
"There you are. I see you're making good use of your time."
John closes his eyes for a second and then opens them again and rolls off the cot, trying to make it look smooth and effortless even though he's stiffened up like nobody's business.
"Hey, Rodney."
"Hey, yourself."
The guard opens the gate and steps aside, gesturing.
"This one's another silent type," Rodney says. "Well, are you coming?"
"Just like that?" It's hard to believe. Also, John's a little disappointed no explosives are involved.
"Just like that, Colonel." Rodney rubs his hands together. "Now, if you don't mind. I believe there's strudel tonight."
John shakes his head and leads the way down the long corridor. He gives a wave to Huey and Dewey in their cell, who shout curses at him. Huey hocks a loogie and Rodney dodges, saying, "Oh, charming. Friends of yours?"
John gives him a tight grin and keeps walking, eyes on the turn in the hallway that leads to the showers, except this time the guard points right instead of left, through a door that he unlocks, and then up a flight of dark, narrow stairs and through another door, the key grinding in the mechanism, and suddenly John is outside in the open air.
Outside. God.
The door shuts behind him and Rodney with a sudden clang, and John takes a deep breath and looks up at the dim, sleet-gray sky.
Rodney is shifting next to him impatiently. "Yes. Well. As much as I'm enjoying this little reenactment of The Shawshank Redemption, the jumper's waiting along with Colonel Carter, et alia."
"Who else? How did you guys swing this, anyway?"
Rodney gestures and they start walking. "Funny story: after days of negotiations in which we were getting nowhere at all, Ronon and Lorne started up again urging us to go in, guns blazing. But of course, Sam couldn't stomach shooting up a town full of unarmed civilians, and we couldn't seem to locate your SCT-turns out whatever they mix into their cement absolutely stymies transmissions, so we had no idea where you were being kept or where we'd have to start shooting. Then one of the anthropologists, Dr. Smithers, offered to, er, participate in the ritual that got your shorts in a bunch to begin with-"
"You are kidding me."
"I wish. Oh, how I wish. So, Sam brought us all over here, along with a bunch of your marines, just in case, and explained to the head honcho, Lieref-that's some sort of title-Lieref Ananda, that anthropology is the study of cultures, and that Dr. Smithers is an expert who would be glad to partake in the ritual to learn of their culture, and perhaps that would be sufficient to gain your release? And get this, it turns out they made it up! They heard from somewhere that Lanteans quote lack respect for other planets' cultures end-quote and that's why they asked you to do that stupid ritual. If you guys had said yes they would have laughed and clapped you on the arm and offered you a feast. Instead, they took it as vindication or something. But, oh ho! Just because some soft scientist volunteers to have a nozzle stuck up his ass, all of a sudden we're all fast friends."
John's grinding his teeth.
"Of course," Rodney says, shooting him a glance, "it might also have something to do with them learning we have a whole field devoted to learning about other cultures."
"So that's why I was stuck in solitary for four days? Because of some fucking rumor?"
Rodney clears his throat. "Well, yes."
It burns. It burns and makes him feel helpless at the same time. John doesn't say anything else while they walk back to the jumper, even though he can feel the pull by his side, like Rodney is gravity and John's refusing to fall. The past four days have sealed him into a bubble. He doesn't say anything at all when Sam nods at him and says she's relieved to see he's all right, or when Ronon claps him on the back or when Teyla greets him. He sits on the bench for the quick hop through the gate, and then brushes everyone off to walk to the infirmary alone for his check up, everything too bright and harsh and loud.
Keller scans him and demands a urine sample, then gives him some pills to take for his kidneys, and also a piss container, saying he has to measure both his input and output for the next couple of days. Big fun. John goes back to his quarters and shaves, going carefully around his scabbed cut, then takes a hot shower and puts on a clean T-shirt and jeans.
He rescues his pocketknife from his pants before stuffing his smelly clothing underneath his dirty laundry so they won't stink up his quarters.
Then he sits down and writes up his report, which doesn't take long considering he did nothing for four days. Nothing at all.
When he's done, he dorks around in indecision for all of three minutes before calling himself a fucking coward and kicking his own ass out the door.
:::
Rodney isn't in his quarters or in the labs, which sucks, because John's already tried the radio.
"Hey, Radek. You seen Rodney around?"
Zelenka looks up, the light from his laptop reflecting off his glasses. "Dr. McKay is, as you say, sulking. Is not clear to me why, when you, Colonel, are no longer incarcerated. Congratulations. These past few days he is like bear with snout trapped in beehive. So I assume this is why. But perhaps not. He mumbles something about cloak on puddlejumper three and-" Zelenka makes a wooshing noise.
"Thanks, Doctor Z."
"Do not mention it." Radek peers at him over his glasses. "And please, do not mention it."
"You got it."
When John reaches the darkened jumper bay he's disappointed for a second because it looks like Rodney's already taken three out for a spin. But then he hears muttering and a thunk and a "Damn it. Of all the idiotic arrangements-" and John smiles to himself because, of course, who would be the one person in this galaxy John could find even if he were invisible?
John walks carefully until he finds the edge of the ramp and steps up into sudden light and the interior of the jumper.
"Hey," he says.
"Jesus Christ!" Rodney says, dropping what looks like the Ancient version of a spanner wrench. It makes a musical jangle as it hits the deck. "How about a little warning, Colonel?"
"You're not wearing your radio, McKay."
"I am so-" Rodney raises his hand to his ear. "Oh."
"Yeah."
Rodney looks away. "I'm surprised to see you, and not just because I thought I was invisible. You insisted you be left alone-in fact, I distinctly heard the words, 'I can find the damned infirmary on my own,' muttered at some point, although not directed to me, because by then you were already twenty feet down the hallway and moving fast."
Sometimes it doesn't seem like McKay even needs air to talk at all.
"Yeah, well, I'm-I get that way sometimes."
Rodney looks up and they stare at each other for a long moment. This time John is the first to wimp out and look away. "Look," he says, because it's now or lose his momentum, "I had a lot of time to think while I was in that place." He shrugs. "Wasn't like there was much to do."
He half expects Rodney to interrupt him with a snide comment about doing pull-ups from his bed-frame like Linda Hamilton in T2, but Rodney is silent. John shoots him a wary glance.
Rodney is still sitting there next to the open panel, spanner clutched tightly in one hand.
"So..." John clears his throat, trying to get past the ball of gunk. "Thing is...what I wanted to say..." He rubs the back of his neck, wishing for a surprise culling beam. "I missed you."
Whew, he thinks, and whoa, did it. That wasn't so bad. Well, it sucked, but bullet wounds are worse, and itch a lot more afterward.
He finally looks at Rodney, who is staring at him cockeyed. "If you-forgive me, but let me get this straight, just so I understand correctly-you were in solitary confinement for four days," Rodney's voice starts rising, "thinking about this, about what you wanted to say to me," and-whoa, the spanner wrench is starting to take on a really ominous look in Rodney's hand, "and this is the full, unexpurgated content of what you come up with after four days of deep, thorough introspection? You missed me?"
John is going to shove that spanner right up Rodney's ass. Possibly. "Well," he drawls instead, "there was some other stuff, but that was the important part, yeah."
"I-I just-"
"I missed you! I wished you were there! Except, not really, because it sucked. Okay? Plus," John folds his arms, "I left you my last Kit-Kat. And a note."
"Oh, the note. By all means, let's not forget the note. 'Sorry. I'll try to do better.'"
"And there you go!" John gestures. Duh!
"Oh, dear God." Rodney claps his hand over his eyes.
"Look, it's not like this is some big fucking surprise here, McKay. I didn't pull a bait 'n' switch on you."
Rodney chuckles a little wryly. "No, that's fair. Truth in advertising."
Something eases in John's chest. Maybe it's just the stiffness from his injuries loosening up. He sits down on the starboard bench and leans back with an involuntary groan.
"Are you sure you're all right? Did Keller clear you?"
"She wants me to piss in a container for the next couple of days."
"What?" The jangling sound comes again-Rodney must've dropped the wrench-and suddenly he's there sitting next to John, warmth all along his side, just like John imagined in his cell, having that solid body next to his. Rodney's hand floats over John's shoulder and comes to rest on his waist. "What happened?"
This is usually where John says, 'It's nothing. I'm fine.' And he actually opens his mouth to say it, but something short-circuits right when the words are on his tongue, like a breaker tripping; or maybe more like a relay switch, because John hears himself say, "It was those two guys from the other cell, Huey and Dewey. We had a little run-in in the showers."
And John ends up telling Rodney the whole freaking story-about being lucky enough to still have his Swiss Army knife, and carving the ZPM and the puddlejumper and Johnny Cash on the bunk, and how corkscrews do not work as lock-picks, and for some reason Rodney is smiling now and he says they should all carry lock-pick sets in their knee-pockets. And then John tells him about the dust-up in the showers and how he's pissing pink, which makes Rodney get alarmed and insist on taking John back to his quarters with his big, soft bed, over John's half-hearted protests.
Because he's back in Rodney's bed, which-John doesn't get why, really. He hasn't told Rodney anything important. Not anything Rodney really wants to hear.
Rodney wants to help him undress, but that's just a little weird when it's not for sex, so John joins in until Rodney bats his hands away, saying, "Just let me, for God's sake. Some of us might have been missing you, too, you know? All we got were a couple of lousy pictures-whoever took them was not a natural photographer-and you looked so, well, alone-"
John doesn't say, Well, yeah, that's what solitary confinement usually means, because all of a sudden it hits him-how fucking lonely it was, and how badly he really, he really-
"I really fucking missed you," he says hoarsely, gripping Rodney's arms, maybe a little too hard, but so glad to feel him there under his hands. It's so much easier to say this time, but it hurts more, too, right in the gut, right in the heart, and he's grateful when Rodney's arms go around him and he can just rest his forehead on Rodney's shoulder and let it run through him until it aches just a little bit less. He feels Rodney's hand, warm on the back of his neck, thumb ruffling up his hair, and a shudder runs through him that he can't hide; almost doesn't want to. When he raises his head, Rodney's lips are there, smooth and soft, parting to let him in, and John kisses him back, tongue slipping in to remember the hot silk of Rodney's mouth.
"Let's get you in bed," Rodney says quietly some time later. John goes with it, raising his arms slowly, holding in a gasp when his ribs and back protest the pull. He hears Rodney's grumble of dismay and feels a light touch on his bruised ribs as he strips his shirt, and then Rodney takes off his pants and shoes, too, nudging him down until there's nothing but softness underneath him. As soon as Rodney strips and joins him on the bed, John yanks him closer.
"Right here, yes, yes. Stop it: I'm being cautious!" Rodney grouches, and won't let John pull him on top of him, even though it's what John's been craving for days.
"You know," John says, because usually he doesn't have to ask, and finally Rodney is there, one leg over John's thigh and knee tucked under his other leg; Rodney's hip pinning his, and arm splayed over John's chest, with Rodney's chin nuzzled in the gap of John's shoulder and John's hand wrapped over Rodney's forearm.
"Thanks," John says, hoping Rodney knows he means it. "Thanks a lot."
Rodney mumbles something that could be, You're welcome, could be, Don't be an idiot.
Doesn't matter. John doesn't care about the words.
End.
ETA: There is now a comment-fic companion piece from Rodney's POV.
Author: esteefee
Pairing: Sheppard/McKay
Rating: R (for oblique ref to violence)
Wordcount: 4,733
Spoilers: Tiny ones for Conversion, The Siege, Outcast
Categories: ER, H/C
Warnings: None necessary. Let me know if I'm mistaken.
Summary: Four days in solitary gives a guy time to think. Unless he's an idiot.
ETA: If you haven't seen this chibi by chkc, it's thematically er resonant. And I love it.
A/N: Also on AO3.
Solitary
by esteefee
There are some people who think being imprisoned in a six foot by eight foot slime-covered cell on a backwater planet at the edge of the Pegasus Galaxy is a catastrophe that merits a lot of moaning and bitching about the cold and the damp and the missed opportunities for working on grand poobah theories or proving the Reese's Pieces Hypothesis or what have you, but John prefers to think of it as a terrific opportunity to take a break and catch up on all the shut-eye he's missed out on. As long as his jailers feed him his twice-daily stale bread and scummy gruel and keep the roughing up to a bare minimum, he's cool.
It isn't his fault he's stuck here. John will do a lot for Atlantis-take a bullet, turn into a bug, ride a nuke into a hiveship-but he's really, really not willing to have his team bend over for a ritual that includes, from what he gathered from Teyla's horrified double-speak, a holy enema.
Fortunately, Ronon had his back on that, and double-fortunately McKay wasn't on the mission to shriek hysterically. However, Teyla and Ronon had proved once again that youth beat age any old day when it came to a flat out, panicked, four-mile sprint to the Gate with disappointed Celebrants nipping at their heels, and John got lassoed of all things and now he's in jail-
"Hello! Hello Dad! Hi, I'm in jail! Say hi to Mom, from j-j-jail!"
How proud they would be. John's parents had always said he would come to "no good end," but he'd never anticipated being stuck in the hoosegow quite this often. As near as he can figure it, this makes his thirty-seventh stay behind bars of one kind or another.
John wonders if there's a record. If there is, he's pretty sure he can beat it.
:::
The thing about dealing with being in prison: it's all about organizing your schedule. Most people don't really know how to spend their time productively when they are incarcerated. Just for example, they might waste their first hour or so stomping back and forth and waving their hands around while raving (pretty entertainingly, actually) about how this is typical, just typical, they could be back on Atlantis furthering precious science with the precious contents of their precious brains, blah-blah-blah, and by the way, Colonel, as usual it's all your fault.
John's first hour, instead, is spent analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of his holding cell. For strengths: the bars are made of re-purposed Ancient metal, which means pretty goddamned strong. John doesn't know where the inhabitants got hold of it-probably from local ruins-but they shift disconcertingly between familiar shades of green and blue, and are set in crumbling, mold-ridden cement. Unfortunately, the only tool John has on his person is his Swiss Army knife, which his captors somehow missed tucked in the knee pocket of his BDU pants. The corkscrew is good for digging at the base of the bars, but it could take days just to loosen one of them enough to wiggle at him mockingly.
He's really hoping he'll be rescued before then. Probably they're trying the negotiation thing first, since this town really isn't armed heavily or much of a threat. It would be a damned shame to open fire on a bunch of what are essentially civilians, which is how John got into this mess in the first place, so he's really hoping that if the talks fall through Lorne is on stand-by with a unit armed only with stunners and enough C-4 to come blast him out. Peaceable-like.
In the meantime, John is going over the rota schedule in his head, lying on his cot and staring at the dirty pictures previous guests have carved on the bunk above. Cocks and breasts and pussies and Wraith in an uncomfortable juxtaposition. He pulls out his pocketknife and starts in on his own carving.
The walls are thick, and he can't hear any other prisoners while he works. Either they don't have a lot of crime in this town, or they keep the prisoners really segregated. It nice and quiet here, really. It's a pleasant change. Most people don't have an appreciation for quiet. There is, after all, absolutely nothing wrong with silence. Silence is golden, he's heard it said. So it really puzzles John why some people might actually complain about it and get all huffy and tell other people they have to 'communicate' more, saying things like, I thought you didn't have family, and, Sometimes it's like pulling teeth, I swear to God, and, You idiot, that's it-I've had it! and bust up a pretty good thing.
John just doesn't get it at all.
He finishes carving his ZPM and starts in on his puddlejumper.
:::
Lunch comes with an offer to commute his sentence if he will consent to the holy enema, but John tells the guard where to stuff it, appropriately enough, and the guy leaves, but not without giving John a pretty nice whack with the baton that he only partially blocks.
Turns out silence really is golden after all.
Rubbing his arm, he sits down with his tray of water, hardtack, and scummy soup. The soup has something crunchy and disgusting in it that normally would be fun to bring to the surface and try to taunt someone with, but not today, so John just munches it in silence.
After that, per schedule, it's time for calisthenics. John strips his shirt and BDU pants to spare them from getting sweaty and works out in just his boxers, doing push-ups, crunches, lunges, and back-boards until his muscles are trembling, all the while hearing sarcastic comments about bad prison movies and feeling blue eyes following him eagerly.
John shakes his head and cools down with some stretches that Teyla taught him and that he's embarrassed to find really help with his old-man joints.
After that, he uses the crapper, puts his clothes back on and gets back to work on his carvings. His Johnny Cash is really coming along.
:::
Day Two proceeds pretty much like Day One, except they lead him down to a shower room and give him a spare pair of underwear, rough and gray. He uses the soap in the shower and his pocketknife to scrape some of the stubble off his face, and manages to give himself a pretty nasty cut on his jaw line. He encounters two other prisoners who come in just as he finishes his shower-both of them are mean-looking sons of bitches, but he flashes them a lazy smile and that, in combination with his knife and his bloody jaw, seem sufficient to make them back off.
Neither of the two guards waiting outside seem to notice or care when he walks out again still bleeding a little. If that's how it's going to be, he's doubly glad for the knife, once again safely tucked in the knee pocket of his BDU pants.
He gets a surprise visit in the afternoon by his not-so-friendly neighborhood guard who is carrying, incongruously, a digital camera, Earth-made. John is so boggled for a second he almost laughs when the guard fumbles with it, but he doesn't want to earn another swipe of the baton, and after more fumbling the guard manages to push the right buttons and get a probably hugely unflattering picture of John-he's assuming for proof of life-before walking out again.
At least it means they're working to get John out of here.
He's tired of messing with the Johnny carving-there's something wrong with it, anyway. Johnny looks a little sinister, almost, with one eye too small and tilted sideways where John's knife slipped. It's hard to play prime/not-prime with yourself; ditto, chess. He's already drafted a formal proposal that they arm all gate teams with hand-held stunners to prevent future occurrences of this kind.
And if he jerks off any more, his dick will fall off.
He hears bootsteps coming down the hall and dinner arrives, but the guard doesn't offer him another chance to commute his sentence. He also doesn't offer any news about the negotiations-not a word-just takes John's old tray and offers the new one, and leaves as silently as he arrives.
John realizes he hasn't spoken a word to anyone in days except to tell the guard where to shove his enema yesterday.
Doesn't matter. The problem with talking, as near as he can figure it, is that it just gives people ammunition to use against you in future battles. And there are always future battles, especially with volatile personalities. John's a strategist. He wouldn't still be alive if he weren't. So that's a pretty good argument right there, and he would use it if he were inclined to talk about things. But he isn't.
Satisfied, he nods to himself and does his evening calisthenics.
:::
By Day Three he isn't feeling so calm about things. His shower buddies show up too early, while he's still naked and slick with soap, and things get a little dicey. He has to cut one of them, the one he calls Huey, and Dewey scores a couple of pretty good blows to his ribs and lower back, but he leaves both of them on the brown tile of the shower floor.
The guard takes him back to his cell and he lies on his cot with a soft groan. Right about now it would be nice to hear some bitching about, Great, what has he done to himself this time, and, Always have to be an idiotic hero-type, or even, I'll bet Teyla wouldn't get her ass kicked so easily, and then to have someone fluttering around him uselessly before a warm body presses in next to him to help him with the shivers of aftershocks, the adrenaline crash that always hits and makes him feel embarrassingly shaky for a while. John wouldn't even have to ask, is the thing. He never has to at times like these, which is a huge relief.
Other times he can feel these gaps, like openings, and he can feel the pull and he knows he has to step up, but when he opens his mouth it's like all the words have been sucked out of the room into a void. His mind goes blank, like they're hiding from him, even, because wouldn't he say them if he could? It's not like he's trying to be an asshole. Don't some people get that?
John yanks the thin blanket from underneath himself and pulls it over his shoulders.
:::
His mom taught him 'don't go away mad,' but after she died he changed it to 'just go away,' and left his dad still frothing about MBAs versus MSs and Harvard vs. Stanford, and never being the good son and how he'd always known John would turn out a loser.
John always knew too. It seemed like the first words he remembered from his parents were why couldn't he be more like Davey? Why was he such a bad boy? And he remembered their fights about how to raise him properly, and how his mom would sneak into his room afterward to give him a kiss on the forehead and whisper that he had to try a little harder for her sake, Please, Johnny.
So he'd gone away mad, all right, straight into the AFROTC and then the Air Force, but he liked to think he learned some things along the way, especially after the funeral when Dave showed him the papers from his father's correspondences, how Patrick Sheppard tried to obtain John's contact information, at first with politely-worded letters and then progressively not-so-polite. Finally, the letter straight from O'Neill stating John had been promoted to Lt. Colonel and had been posted in a classified location, but that O'Neill assured him John was healthy and serving his country in a vitally important role and that his father should be proud.
As if.
O'Neill had promised to deliver any message to John uncensored, but whether his father hadn't wanted to communicate in that way, or if he'd never had the opportunity, John doesn't know. He'll never know.
So that's why, before John left on this mission, he wrote that note and left it, with his last Kit-Kat Dark, on Rodney's desk in his empty room.
Probably it isn't enough. Nothing John does is ever enough. But he's gotten a little bit better at trying.
:::
Day Four, and John is ready to go out of his freaking mind. He turns the other way on his cot and carves Ronon's blaster, and then a noose. The tip of the short blade is getting dull but he doesn't want to damage the big, sharp one. He gets off the bed and tries to pick the lock of his cell with the corkscrew again but is no more successful than he was the last four times, so he goes back to digging at the foundation of the bar that's set widest next to the wall. He'd need to remove at least two to get out, so it's pretty hopeless, but then he doesn't have much else to do with his time.
There's part of a song running through his head, one of Cash's, and it goes like this:
Nobody knows
Nobody sees
Nobody knows but me.
Huey and Dewey aren't in the showers today, which is good because John is pissing pink and doesn't much feel like dancing.
For some reason his lunch has meat in it of some kind, and it's tasty, really tender, almost like beef, except the pieces are wrapped around small bones, like those of a bird or big lizard. John thinks it would be good to trade for, except chances for trading with these people seem pretty slim if they have such weird demands just to make friends.
He's too stiff to work out hard, just some wall push-ups and lunges, and when he's done he changes into his striped boxers that he washed yesterday in the shower and left to dry on the top bunk. They smell a little musty but they'll do. He's getting a little smelly himself anyway, even with the showers, and his clothing itches, and he just wants to go home and get yelled at and be told he's an asshole for worrying people.
He's just lying there thinking about that, and what he would say maybe, if he got the chance-what he didn't say in the note, because that was too risky, just leaving a note lying around, even though he didn't sign it, when he hears the footsteps of the guard and someone else.
"There you are. I see you're making good use of your time."
John closes his eyes for a second and then opens them again and rolls off the cot, trying to make it look smooth and effortless even though he's stiffened up like nobody's business.
"Hey, Rodney."
"Hey, yourself."
The guard opens the gate and steps aside, gesturing.
"This one's another silent type," Rodney says. "Well, are you coming?"
"Just like that?" It's hard to believe. Also, John's a little disappointed no explosives are involved.
"Just like that, Colonel." Rodney rubs his hands together. "Now, if you don't mind. I believe there's strudel tonight."
John shakes his head and leads the way down the long corridor. He gives a wave to Huey and Dewey in their cell, who shout curses at him. Huey hocks a loogie and Rodney dodges, saying, "Oh, charming. Friends of yours?"
John gives him a tight grin and keeps walking, eyes on the turn in the hallway that leads to the showers, except this time the guard points right instead of left, through a door that he unlocks, and then up a flight of dark, narrow stairs and through another door, the key grinding in the mechanism, and suddenly John is outside in the open air.
Outside. God.
The door shuts behind him and Rodney with a sudden clang, and John takes a deep breath and looks up at the dim, sleet-gray sky.
Rodney is shifting next to him impatiently. "Yes. Well. As much as I'm enjoying this little reenactment of The Shawshank Redemption, the jumper's waiting along with Colonel Carter, et alia."
"Who else? How did you guys swing this, anyway?"
Rodney gestures and they start walking. "Funny story: after days of negotiations in which we were getting nowhere at all, Ronon and Lorne started up again urging us to go in, guns blazing. But of course, Sam couldn't stomach shooting up a town full of unarmed civilians, and we couldn't seem to locate your SCT-turns out whatever they mix into their cement absolutely stymies transmissions, so we had no idea where you were being kept or where we'd have to start shooting. Then one of the anthropologists, Dr. Smithers, offered to, er, participate in the ritual that got your shorts in a bunch to begin with-"
"You are kidding me."
"I wish. Oh, how I wish. So, Sam brought us all over here, along with a bunch of your marines, just in case, and explained to the head honcho, Lieref-that's some sort of title-Lieref Ananda, that anthropology is the study of cultures, and that Dr. Smithers is an expert who would be glad to partake in the ritual to learn of their culture, and perhaps that would be sufficient to gain your release? And get this, it turns out they made it up! They heard from somewhere that Lanteans quote lack respect for other planets' cultures end-quote and that's why they asked you to do that stupid ritual. If you guys had said yes they would have laughed and clapped you on the arm and offered you a feast. Instead, they took it as vindication or something. But, oh ho! Just because some soft scientist volunteers to have a nozzle stuck up his ass, all of a sudden we're all fast friends."
John's grinding his teeth.
"Of course," Rodney says, shooting him a glance, "it might also have something to do with them learning we have a whole field devoted to learning about other cultures."
"So that's why I was stuck in solitary for four days? Because of some fucking rumor?"
Rodney clears his throat. "Well, yes."
It burns. It burns and makes him feel helpless at the same time. John doesn't say anything else while they walk back to the jumper, even though he can feel the pull by his side, like Rodney is gravity and John's refusing to fall. The past four days have sealed him into a bubble. He doesn't say anything at all when Sam nods at him and says she's relieved to see he's all right, or when Ronon claps him on the back or when Teyla greets him. He sits on the bench for the quick hop through the gate, and then brushes everyone off to walk to the infirmary alone for his check up, everything too bright and harsh and loud.
Keller scans him and demands a urine sample, then gives him some pills to take for his kidneys, and also a piss container, saying he has to measure both his input and output for the next couple of days. Big fun. John goes back to his quarters and shaves, going carefully around his scabbed cut, then takes a hot shower and puts on a clean T-shirt and jeans.
He rescues his pocketknife from his pants before stuffing his smelly clothing underneath his dirty laundry so they won't stink up his quarters.
Then he sits down and writes up his report, which doesn't take long considering he did nothing for four days. Nothing at all.
When he's done, he dorks around in indecision for all of three minutes before calling himself a fucking coward and kicking his own ass out the door.
:::
Rodney isn't in his quarters or in the labs, which sucks, because John's already tried the radio.
"Hey, Radek. You seen Rodney around?"
Zelenka looks up, the light from his laptop reflecting off his glasses. "Dr. McKay is, as you say, sulking. Is not clear to me why, when you, Colonel, are no longer incarcerated. Congratulations. These past few days he is like bear with snout trapped in beehive. So I assume this is why. But perhaps not. He mumbles something about cloak on puddlejumper three and-" Zelenka makes a wooshing noise.
"Thanks, Doctor Z."
"Do not mention it." Radek peers at him over his glasses. "And please, do not mention it."
"You got it."
When John reaches the darkened jumper bay he's disappointed for a second because it looks like Rodney's already taken three out for a spin. But then he hears muttering and a thunk and a "Damn it. Of all the idiotic arrangements-" and John smiles to himself because, of course, who would be the one person in this galaxy John could find even if he were invisible?
John walks carefully until he finds the edge of the ramp and steps up into sudden light and the interior of the jumper.
"Hey," he says.
"Jesus Christ!" Rodney says, dropping what looks like the Ancient version of a spanner wrench. It makes a musical jangle as it hits the deck. "How about a little warning, Colonel?"
"You're not wearing your radio, McKay."
"I am so-" Rodney raises his hand to his ear. "Oh."
"Yeah."
Rodney looks away. "I'm surprised to see you, and not just because I thought I was invisible. You insisted you be left alone-in fact, I distinctly heard the words, 'I can find the damned infirmary on my own,' muttered at some point, although not directed to me, because by then you were already twenty feet down the hallway and moving fast."
Sometimes it doesn't seem like McKay even needs air to talk at all.
"Yeah, well, I'm-I get that way sometimes."
Rodney looks up and they stare at each other for a long moment. This time John is the first to wimp out and look away. "Look," he says, because it's now or lose his momentum, "I had a lot of time to think while I was in that place." He shrugs. "Wasn't like there was much to do."
He half expects Rodney to interrupt him with a snide comment about doing pull-ups from his bed-frame like Linda Hamilton in T2, but Rodney is silent. John shoots him a wary glance.
Rodney is still sitting there next to the open panel, spanner clutched tightly in one hand.
"So..." John clears his throat, trying to get past the ball of gunk. "Thing is...what I wanted to say..." He rubs the back of his neck, wishing for a surprise culling beam. "I missed you."
Whew, he thinks, and whoa, did it. That wasn't so bad. Well, it sucked, but bullet wounds are worse, and itch a lot more afterward.
He finally looks at Rodney, who is staring at him cockeyed. "If you-forgive me, but let me get this straight, just so I understand correctly-you were in solitary confinement for four days," Rodney's voice starts rising, "thinking about this, about what you wanted to say to me," and-whoa, the spanner wrench is starting to take on a really ominous look in Rodney's hand, "and this is the full, unexpurgated content of what you come up with after four days of deep, thorough introspection? You missed me?"
John is going to shove that spanner right up Rodney's ass. Possibly. "Well," he drawls instead, "there was some other stuff, but that was the important part, yeah."
"I-I just-"
"I missed you! I wished you were there! Except, not really, because it sucked. Okay? Plus," John folds his arms, "I left you my last Kit-Kat. And a note."
"Oh, the note. By all means, let's not forget the note. 'Sorry. I'll try to do better.'"
"And there you go!" John gestures. Duh!
"Oh, dear God." Rodney claps his hand over his eyes.
"Look, it's not like this is some big fucking surprise here, McKay. I didn't pull a bait 'n' switch on you."
Rodney chuckles a little wryly. "No, that's fair. Truth in advertising."
Something eases in John's chest. Maybe it's just the stiffness from his injuries loosening up. He sits down on the starboard bench and leans back with an involuntary groan.
"Are you sure you're all right? Did Keller clear you?"
"She wants me to piss in a container for the next couple of days."
"What?" The jangling sound comes again-Rodney must've dropped the wrench-and suddenly he's there sitting next to John, warmth all along his side, just like John imagined in his cell, having that solid body next to his. Rodney's hand floats over John's shoulder and comes to rest on his waist. "What happened?"
This is usually where John says, 'It's nothing. I'm fine.' And he actually opens his mouth to say it, but something short-circuits right when the words are on his tongue, like a breaker tripping; or maybe more like a relay switch, because John hears himself say, "It was those two guys from the other cell, Huey and Dewey. We had a little run-in in the showers."
And John ends up telling Rodney the whole freaking story-about being lucky enough to still have his Swiss Army knife, and carving the ZPM and the puddlejumper and Johnny Cash on the bunk, and how corkscrews do not work as lock-picks, and for some reason Rodney is smiling now and he says they should all carry lock-pick sets in their knee-pockets. And then John tells him about the dust-up in the showers and how he's pissing pink, which makes Rodney get alarmed and insist on taking John back to his quarters with his big, soft bed, over John's half-hearted protests.
Because he's back in Rodney's bed, which-John doesn't get why, really. He hasn't told Rodney anything important. Not anything Rodney really wants to hear.
Rodney wants to help him undress, but that's just a little weird when it's not for sex, so John joins in until Rodney bats his hands away, saying, "Just let me, for God's sake. Some of us might have been missing you, too, you know? All we got were a couple of lousy pictures-whoever took them was not a natural photographer-and you looked so, well, alone-"
John doesn't say, Well, yeah, that's what solitary confinement usually means, because all of a sudden it hits him-how fucking lonely it was, and how badly he really, he really-
"I really fucking missed you," he says hoarsely, gripping Rodney's arms, maybe a little too hard, but so glad to feel him there under his hands. It's so much easier to say this time, but it hurts more, too, right in the gut, right in the heart, and he's grateful when Rodney's arms go around him and he can just rest his forehead on Rodney's shoulder and let it run through him until it aches just a little bit less. He feels Rodney's hand, warm on the back of his neck, thumb ruffling up his hair, and a shudder runs through him that he can't hide; almost doesn't want to. When he raises his head, Rodney's lips are there, smooth and soft, parting to let him in, and John kisses him back, tongue slipping in to remember the hot silk of Rodney's mouth.
"Let's get you in bed," Rodney says quietly some time later. John goes with it, raising his arms slowly, holding in a gasp when his ribs and back protest the pull. He hears Rodney's grumble of dismay and feels a light touch on his bruised ribs as he strips his shirt, and then Rodney takes off his pants and shoes, too, nudging him down until there's nothing but softness underneath him. As soon as Rodney strips and joins him on the bed, John yanks him closer.
"Right here, yes, yes. Stop it: I'm being cautious!" Rodney grouches, and won't let John pull him on top of him, even though it's what John's been craving for days.
"You know," John says, because usually he doesn't have to ask, and finally Rodney is there, one leg over John's thigh and knee tucked under his other leg; Rodney's hip pinning his, and arm splayed over John's chest, with Rodney's chin nuzzled in the gap of John's shoulder and John's hand wrapped over Rodney's forearm.
"Thanks," John says, hoping Rodney knows he means it. "Thanks a lot."
Rodney mumbles something that could be, You're welcome, could be, Don't be an idiot.
Doesn't matter. John doesn't care about the words.
End.
ETA: There is now a comment-fic companion piece from Rodney's POV.