Fic: Stranger Things (you are not alone) (John/Cameron/Derek, PG-13)
Title: Stranger Things (you are not alone)
Author: Maren
Pairing: John/Cameron/Derek
Rating: PG-13
Note: Written for notexotic for the SCC Flash Fiction Challenge who asked for John/Cameron/Derek with a family-vibe.
Stranger Things (you are not alone)
She watches them sleep.
John falls asleep on his side with one hand fisted under his cheek, his lips slightly parted so that when he blinks awake he has to wipe away the hint of wetness the seeps from his mouth. The rest of the night his adolescent body sprawls as much as possible across the mattress, twisting the sheets and blankets and kicking them to the floor more often than not. He is restless energy in his sleep, a constant buzz of theta waves and circulating hormones.
She knows what John dreams, even before he does.
The other side of the large bed, the one closest to the door, is consumed by Derek. He sleeps on his back, and though his brain waves are deeper, slower, he is one stray noise away from awake. He is always on guard, even though she is here, protecting them.
She never sleeps. But sometimes she pretends.
*
John stopped going to school when his mother died. He called it “dropping out”. It was a strange phrase; there’d been no dropping involved. He had simply quit attending.
She had dropped out too. She would have preferred to keep going, if it had been her choice. Derek said machines didn’t have preferences, shouldn’t have choices, but he had been recovering from a wound from the last escape from Cromartie so she knew not to correct him. There were things Derek thought he knew about machines that she knew to be wrong, things that he believed because it made it easier to hate.
She is a machine, but she is different than Cromartie. She is here to do more than destroy. She is here to keep John alive. She is here to put things back together again. She is the thing John made, the product of the hands of the man sent back to the boy.
She knows what it is to see beauty, to feel it. When Sarah died she could taste John’s grief thick in the air and she felt that too. Sometimes she has preferences. Sometimes she wants things.
Sometimes she wants them.
*
In the late afternoon, she dances.
In the last house they stayed at she had a room of her own, a room empty of furniture except for a cheap full-length mirror screwed to the wall. The new apartment is smaller, only one bedroom, so she dances in the empty dining room with the setting sun washing over her through the filter of the thin curtains. There’s no mirror here, but it doesn’t matter. She closes her eyes, feels the music spark in every pathway, and she moves without needing to see.
Derek used to stand in the doorway in the last house and watch her with haunted eyes. The dark weight of his gaze was like a living thing on her skin and she didn’t have to open her eyes to know when he was there.
This is wrong, he said, the first time he touched her.
Derek’s hands and mouth on her body felt beautiful, no matter how wrong it might be. When he would have stopped she urged him ahead, took his retreating hand and pressed it over her breasts. He seemed to like it, and she did too. She kept her eyes open.
He watches her with less haunted eyes now. She knows that now there are things he feels worse about.
*
John cooks and Derek washes up after the meal. They eat large quantities of meat and drink beer out of bottles.
The first time John grabbed a beer to drink with dinner it was a week after his mother died. Derek cocked an eyebrow but didn’t say anything. John had not stopped at one that night.
After he vomited the contents of his stomach into the toilet, Derek gave him two aspirin from the medicine cabinet and made John drink a full glass of water. She watched as Derek led John back to his bed and carefully stripped him down to his boxers.
John passed out. Derek sat on the floor next to his bed and watched him with a quiet sadness darkening his eyes.
She sat next to Derek, mimicked his body so that her knees were bent and her arms were looped around them. They sat that way in silence for a long time. She remembers the feeling of Derek’s arm brushing against hers.
John doesn’t drink that much anymore. She thinks it would be okay if he did, on occasion.
They’ll take care of him.
*
She cleans the weapons after they’re used and an extra time on days when it rains.
It’s mindless work. She can disassemble, clean, and assemble any firearm on the market in minutes with her eyes closed.
She uses the guns more frequently since Sarah was buried. So does Derek. Humans are expendable if it means saving John. They don’t tell him everything. They don’t give him the names of everyone that dies so he can live. It would only hurt him and she does not want to hurt him.
I know what you’re doing with Derek.
That had hurt him, without either of them meaning to. Then John had kissed her. His lips were wet against hers, firm but hesitant like he believed she would stop him.
She didn’t. Not then, and not since. It wasn’t the first time John’s lips had been on hers. It hasn’t been the last.
*
She watches them sleep. She doesn’t sleep, but sometimes she pretends.
The space between them is small. The sheets are rumpled and the heat of their bodies, combined, seeps into her skin.
Her skin is not real, not like theirs, but she is real. She exists. John Connor exists, every hormonal quaking inch of him pressed against her hip. Derek Reese exists, quiet and intense and steady at her side. He will protect John with his life, and sometimes when he forgets, he tries to protect her too.
They’re a family now.
It feels beautiful.
Author: Maren
Pairing: John/Cameron/Derek
Rating: PG-13
Note: Written for notexotic for the SCC Flash Fiction Challenge who asked for John/Cameron/Derek with a family-vibe.
Stranger Things (you are not alone)
She watches them sleep.
John falls asleep on his side with one hand fisted under his cheek, his lips slightly parted so that when he blinks awake he has to wipe away the hint of wetness the seeps from his mouth. The rest of the night his adolescent body sprawls as much as possible across the mattress, twisting the sheets and blankets and kicking them to the floor more often than not. He is restless energy in his sleep, a constant buzz of theta waves and circulating hormones.
She knows what John dreams, even before he does.
The other side of the large bed, the one closest to the door, is consumed by Derek. He sleeps on his back, and though his brain waves are deeper, slower, he is one stray noise away from awake. He is always on guard, even though she is here, protecting them.
She never sleeps. But sometimes she pretends.
*
John stopped going to school when his mother died. He called it “dropping out”. It was a strange phrase; there’d been no dropping involved. He had simply quit attending.
She had dropped out too. She would have preferred to keep going, if it had been her choice. Derek said machines didn’t have preferences, shouldn’t have choices, but he had been recovering from a wound from the last escape from Cromartie so she knew not to correct him. There were things Derek thought he knew about machines that she knew to be wrong, things that he believed because it made it easier to hate.
She is a machine, but she is different than Cromartie. She is here to do more than destroy. She is here to keep John alive. She is here to put things back together again. She is the thing John made, the product of the hands of the man sent back to the boy.
She knows what it is to see beauty, to feel it. When Sarah died she could taste John’s grief thick in the air and she felt that too. Sometimes she has preferences. Sometimes she wants things.
Sometimes she wants them.
*
In the late afternoon, she dances.
In the last house they stayed at she had a room of her own, a room empty of furniture except for a cheap full-length mirror screwed to the wall. The new apartment is smaller, only one bedroom, so she dances in the empty dining room with the setting sun washing over her through the filter of the thin curtains. There’s no mirror here, but it doesn’t matter. She closes her eyes, feels the music spark in every pathway, and she moves without needing to see.
Derek used to stand in the doorway in the last house and watch her with haunted eyes. The dark weight of his gaze was like a living thing on her skin and she didn’t have to open her eyes to know when he was there.
This is wrong, he said, the first time he touched her.
Derek’s hands and mouth on her body felt beautiful, no matter how wrong it might be. When he would have stopped she urged him ahead, took his retreating hand and pressed it over her breasts. He seemed to like it, and she did too. She kept her eyes open.
He watches her with less haunted eyes now. She knows that now there are things he feels worse about.
*
John cooks and Derek washes up after the meal. They eat large quantities of meat and drink beer out of bottles.
The first time John grabbed a beer to drink with dinner it was a week after his mother died. Derek cocked an eyebrow but didn’t say anything. John had not stopped at one that night.
After he vomited the contents of his stomach into the toilet, Derek gave him two aspirin from the medicine cabinet and made John drink a full glass of water. She watched as Derek led John back to his bed and carefully stripped him down to his boxers.
John passed out. Derek sat on the floor next to his bed and watched him with a quiet sadness darkening his eyes.
She sat next to Derek, mimicked his body so that her knees were bent and her arms were looped around them. They sat that way in silence for a long time. She remembers the feeling of Derek’s arm brushing against hers.
John doesn’t drink that much anymore. She thinks it would be okay if he did, on occasion.
They’ll take care of him.
*
She cleans the weapons after they’re used and an extra time on days when it rains.
It’s mindless work. She can disassemble, clean, and assemble any firearm on the market in minutes with her eyes closed.
She uses the guns more frequently since Sarah was buried. So does Derek. Humans are expendable if it means saving John. They don’t tell him everything. They don’t give him the names of everyone that dies so he can live. It would only hurt him and she does not want to hurt him.
I know what you’re doing with Derek.
That had hurt him, without either of them meaning to. Then John had kissed her. His lips were wet against hers, firm but hesitant like he believed she would stop him.
She didn’t. Not then, and not since. It wasn’t the first time John’s lips had been on hers. It hasn’t been the last.
*
She watches them sleep. She doesn’t sleep, but sometimes she pretends.
The space between them is small. The sheets are rumpled and the heat of their bodies, combined, seeps into her skin.
Her skin is not real, not like theirs, but she is real. She exists. John Connor exists, every hormonal quaking inch of him pressed against her hip. Derek Reese exists, quiet and intense and steady at her side. He will protect John with his life, and sometimes when he forgets, he tries to protect her too.
They’re a family now.
It feels beautiful.