HB: Keep Your Head Above Water, Part 1/3 (Irresistible)
Title: The Human Body: Keep Your Head Above Water, Part 1/3
Author: smallwaldo
Rating: R
Pairing: Sheppard/Beckett
Words: 4441
Warnings:: This story focuses on the recovery from non-consentual sex.
A/N: This is the first part of the Irresistible chapter. You know the part where John's in the cell and Lucius makes that remark about all six wives at once? That was when I realized that he was totally a sexual predator. maisfeeka, ladykoori and kyrdwyn all offered invaluable beta advice on this one. In fact this story is literally 10,000 words longer than it was originally going to be because of their feedback. (Seriously, I thought I was done at 3500 words. They went, Uh... no.)
Summary: “Did he talk you into doing something you didn’t want to do? ... Like getting you into bed with him?”
It had come to John’s attention that while Rodney was smart, he was not terribly clever. The subtleties of being subtle were completely lost on the man.
Hence the fact that it was unreasonably easy to trap him into admitting that he had kept some of that potion Lucius had used on everyone. He’d seen Rodney sniffing around the vial, so he’d just put that together with some grumbling Rodney’d been doing about having lost a jump drive somewhere in his quarters and viola. “I better get back to clean your quarters before the next scout.” He knew he could count on the very chagrinned members of his team along with Carson and Elizabeth to deal with Rodney.
But as he loped down the hall something else began to nag at him. He’d been teasing Elizabeth about the way she’d literally hung on Lucius, and he’d been implying that she and possibly Teyla were still feeling the effects of the drug and longing for Lucius’ touch.
So why had Carson answered him?
He made a left where he normally would have gone straight for his own rooms and let himself into Carson’s quarters. He knew that with the humiliation of the whole situation, Carson would come home to hide his head in the sand for a while, until something else made for better fodder for the gossip tree.
He grabbed a beer from the fridge and tossed his vest on the bed before collapsing on the couch. He really didn’t like where his thoughts were taking him. He stared at Carson’s bed - neatly made with Carson’s book on his pillow. Nothing seemed out of place, but John had a feeling that that may have not been the case while Lucius had been in the city.
Carson came in and barreled right past him as he headed for the balcony doors. He froze, one hand on the glass, and turned back, John’s presence finally registering. “Uh… hello.” Carson seemed unsure of what to say.
“Hey there. I was waiting for you.” John put on his carefully polished air of nonchalance, stretching his feet out and letting his arm drape across the back of the sofa.
“So I see,” Carson dropped his hand, leaving the balcony shut, and instead went to open the window near the bed.
“You okay?” John asked. Carson was still acting skittish and nervous.
“Oh, fine. I’ve just been feeling a tad bit claustrophobic lately. Well, not claustrophobic exactly… I don’t want the air to get too stale.” Carson dropped onto the side of the bed.
“Afraid the pheromones will build up?” John asked quietly.
Carson shrugged, realizing how stupid that sounded.
John put a hand out. “Come here a minute.”
Carson looked over at him, but didn’t move.
“Please?”
Carson let out a sigh and moved to sit with John on the sofa.
“In all likelihood,” John began, “I’m being paranoid as hell and making something out of nothing. At least I hope I am.”
“But?” Carson put in for him.
John took a second to study Carson’s posture. He looked like someone awaiting verdict at a trial. Or maybe someone who expected to be left by their partner. John sighed himself, realizing he wasn’t making this easier on either of them by stalling.
“When I was teasing Elizabeth about wanting Lucius out there… Why did you answer me?”
Carson stood quickly and began pacing, running his hand through his hair. “Oh, that was nothing. It was just that he was… I mean you were saying… you know, that we may have still been under his influence or something…”
John snagged Carson’s arm when Carson’s pacing took him within reach again. He tugged Carson down next to him. “Did he talk you into doing something you didn’t want to do?” He tried to keep his voice gentle and tried to keep Carson close without crowding him.
“Oh, you mean like bring him back to Atlantis so everyone could be at his beck and call? Like go on an off-world mission to a planet full of Wraith to get an herb for him so he could continue manipulating us? Like -“
“Like getting you into bed with him?” John cut him off, needing to get to the heart of the matter before Carson could make things even worse by verbalizing the list of things he blamed himself for.
Carson jumped up again. “Of course not, what would make you say that?” he asked, the quiver in his voice betraying him.
John didn’t try and pull him back. “Because I think he may have done the same thing to Teyla and possibly Elizabeth.” He hadn’t actually thought it through until that second, but when Lucius had had him in that cell, he had commented about his six wives, and he realized now, that was when the idea of Lucious as a sexual predator had taken root. And now as he sat there becoming more and more convinced that he was right, John felt himself going tense, wanting to beat the shit out of that charlatan.
He took several deep breaths, willing himself to relax before Carson could interpret his hostility as anger at him and not anger at Lucius.
Carson hadn’t answered him and was still pacing. “Carson?”
“It wasn’t - He didn’t - It wasn’t like he -“
John frowned at the way Carson couldn’t actually finish a sentence. “Like he raped you? ‘Cause I’m starting think that’s exactly what it was.”
Carson backed up until he was leaning on the wall near the open window. “It wasn’t like that. I mean, it wasn’t as if I told him not to,” he finally whispered. “I’m sorry. I know that last year after I found out about that Mara lass, I lay down the law about seeing others. I didn’t… I wasn’t…”
John wanted to go to him and wrap him up in his arms, but he knew by Carson’s posture that that wouldn’t be welcome at that point. So he focused his energy on putting all the warmth and support he could into his words. “What I did last year was just stupid. Yeah, she was throwing herself at me, but I could have pushed her away. I didn’t. You didn’t have a choice. You think that because he didn’t physically overpower you and pin you to the bed that you had a choice in the matter? He had you stoned on interstellar roofies. You weren’t able to consent. You get that, right?”
Carson just shrugged and stared at the floor. John wondered for a minute if he was making things worse. Maybe it was easier for Carson to think he’d stepped out than that he’d been raped. But he knew that eventually Carson would have to stop lying to himself and deal with this - they both would - so it was better to just have it out and open between them so they could deal with it and be done with it.
He stood up and moved to the bed, sitting down near where Carson stood, but not touching him. “Did he hurt you?”
Carson shook his head and then leaned back so that he was staring at the ceiling, the back of his head against the wall, his arms crossed tightly over his chest. “In retrospect, as sex goes it was pretty awful,” he gave John a slight grin, but still looked sad, “I guess I’ve gotten pretty used to having a partner who’s in as much for me as himself. He was all hands and…” Carson shivered and then regrouped, “At the time,” he said so softly John could barely hear him. “I thought I was so fortunate to have his attention. It literally never entered my mind that I was in a relationship with someone I love and that I was going to screw that up over him. Or if it did, I didn’t care. I’m not even sure which anymore.”
John held out a hand, hoping Carson would take it, but willing to accept that he might not. There was a long pause before Carson uncrossed his arms and took John’s hand. He wouldn’t let John pull him over to him, but he squeezed John’s hand in his. “I’m not mad at you. I’ll kill that bastard if I ever see him again, but I’m not mad at you. You were drugged. And I know you’re pretty creeped out by everything now, but you haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Why doesn’t it feel that way?” Carson asked flatly.
“Because no one likes being a victim,” John said softly and then tugged on their clasped hands again. This time Carson sat next to him on the edge of the bed and leaned his head on John’s shoulder. “It was out of your control. It wasn’t your fault.”
Carson nodded against him. “Perhaps.” There was a long silence, more comfortable than not. After they’d watched the sun slip down a few more degrees through the balcony windows, Carson finally said quietly, “You’re right about one thing, though.”
John arched an eyebrow, surprised at the capitulation. “About what?”
“If he did it to me, he probably did it others.”
John’s scowl grew as he thought about Teyla, Elizabeth, Radek and others being at the mercy of that herb-enhanced freak.
“I should make sure Kate calls us all in when she gets back on the Daedalus next week."
John could see that Carson looked distinctly ill at the idea of sharing what had happened to him with a member of his own staff. “Good idea. But until she gets back, you could always talk to me.” He hoped that maybe if they could talk through Carson’s own guilt about the whole situation before Heightmeyer got back, it wouldn’t be so bad when he finally had to go in there.
John let the conversation drop at that point. It was enough that he’d gotten Carson to admit what had happened. Enough, for now, that John knew that he needed to tread lightly and carefully until Carson had had some time to put this whole miserable experience behind him.
After a while John pulled out a deck of cards and they played a game of gin, the sounds of the cards hitting the table the only noise. Normally they talked while they played, what John had seen in the field, how Carson’s research was going, local gossip; but that afternoon neither of them felt much like trying to make light of what had been happening recently. John made a few abortive attempts at conversation but eventually gave up when he only got monosyllabic answers from Carson.
John won by a couple of points and as Carson put the cards away he suggested they go get dinner.
They ran into Elizabeth, Rodney and Radek in the mess hall. Once again, conversation was stilted and an awkward. John wanted to be able to tease them about their willingness to do whatever weird-ass things Lucius requested, but it wasn’t funny anymore. In light of what happened to Carson, and likely others, none of it was funny anymore.
The awkwardness of it all, the frustration at not having seen what was happening began to grate on John’s nerves. After he’d finished eating he excused himself and told Carson he was going for a run. Part of him felt guilty for leaving Carson alone, but he knew that the danger was gone - he’d dropped the sorry son of a bitch off in his little backwater hamlet full of vengeful women himself - but his protective instincts still told him to stay close to Carson, to be sure.
He consoled himself with the idea that maybe Carson could start finding out who else had been assaulted so they could begin helping each other patch things together. No one was going to admit to having been lured into that psychopath’s bed with him sitting there. Not after as glibly as he’d been treating the whole thing that afternoon when he’d gotten back.
He changed into a pair of sweats and grabbed a water bottle before heading up into the rafters and catwalks where he could run and think and not be bothered.
He was just hitting his stride, the sound of his boots hitting the metal planks giving rhythm to his whirling thoughts. He was debating the pros and cons of asking Elizabeth for permission to go back and pull that bastard back in so that he could sit in a cell and rot for a few hundred years. He was just about to discard the idea since he was sure that Carson and the others wouldn’t want to have him anywhere within the same solar system as they were when he heard another set of footsteps coming up from behind him. The steps were heavier than his and a little faster, just enough to totally ruin the meditative pattern his own footfalls made.
He stopped and leaned against a strut, taking a long pull off his water bottle. Ronon was gaining on him quickly, but slowed as he caught up. “I wasn’t expecting company. What brings you up here?”
Ronon paced a small section of the catwalk, arms crossed, face tight. He seemed unsure of what to say.
“Ronon? You okay?” John pressed. He shivered at the thought of what Ronon would do if Lucius had pressed himself on Ronon the way he had Carson. There would be no stopping the Runner from hunting the man down and carrying through on the threat he’d started to make in the gateroom earlier.
“I’m fine.”
“You look pissed.”
Ronon glanced up at Sheppard for the first time. “So do you.”
John sagged down to squat against the strut. “I’m starting to find out exactly how much damage Lucius caused.”
Ronon leaned on the railing opposite him. “So am I.” He started pacing again. “Look, I don’t think I’m supposed to tell you this, but I’m not sure what else to do.”
John raised an eyebrow. He wasn’t sure he’d ever heard the other man admit to being at a loss.
“Remember him saying that he had six wives?” Ronon asked starting to pace again.
“I remember him saying he wanted to make Teyla number seven,” John said as he realized that this was going exactly where he’d hoped it wasn’t.
Ronon didn’t say anything, he just ran his hand into the metal catwalk support. Barely opening his hand in time to turn the punch into an open-hand slap and avoiding broken knuckles.
John stood up and moved to stand closer to him, to try and look him in the eye. “She’s not the only one,” he said softly.
Ronon squinted at him. “You weren’t under his influence.”
“Not me,” John said and he could see the minute Ronon understood what he meant.
“Is he okay?” Ronon said without elaborating or checking to be sure they were talking about the same person.
John shrugged. “He says he is, but who the hell knows.”
Ronon turned and leaned on the banister, John wondered if he was making sure there was no one down there to hear him. “So does she. But I don’t think she’d admit to being hurt if her arm were severed from her body.”
“Get her to talk to Carson,” John advised. “Maybe it’ll help them both.”
“She doesn’t like people thinking she’s weak.”
“No one does. But it wasn’t like he beat her up and held her down. She was under the influence. It’s not her fault.” John was starting to wonder how many times he’d have to repeat that.
Ronon nodded again, but didn’t say anything for a long moment. “You gonna run some more?”
John nodded, “I’m only about a quarter of the way through my usual routine. You want to tag along?”
Ronon pulled his hair back and fastened it with one of the thongs around his wrist. “Race you to the south pier,” he called out and then sprinted down the catwalk without looking to see if John was following.
~~~***~~~***~~~
Ronon beat him to the pier by more than a minute, but waited until John got there before heading back for the central tower. They walked back talking about anything and nothing, especially nothing that had to do with Lucius Lavin and his raging hormones and pheromones.
John wasn’t surprised when Ronon went straight to Teyla’s quarters. He went back to his own quarters to clean up and get a fresh change of clothes before heading back over to Carson’s.
Carson was in a pair of flannel pajama bottoms and an old t-shirt when John arrived. He looked shocked to see John standing there when he opened the door.
“Hey.”
Carson stepped back, letting John in. “I thought you’d gone for the night.”
Nothing like getting to the point John wasn’t sure how to address. “I figured I’d leave that up to you. Do you want me to stay tonight or would you feel better if I went back to my quarters?”
John wasn’t surprised when Carson just turned his back on him and muttered something in a voice too low for John to hear. He was standing by the open window again when he turned back to look at John. With a huge sigh he finally said clearly, “Do what you like. I’m tired and I just want to go to bed.”
John canted his head and studied him for a minute before moving in to sit on the couch. “I could crash over here, if you think that’ll make you feel better,” he suggested, trying for a middle ground.
Carson muttered again.
“I can’t hear you, Carson,” he said softly.
“I said, ‘what would make me feel better is if you’d stop treating me like I’m going to break if you touch me.’”
John ran his fingers through his hair. He resisted the impulse to jump up and hug Carson - he knew that would simply seem patronizing now. He wondered if he could have screwed this up any more if he’d tried. “I’m sorry. That’s not what I wanted you to think. But you keep standing by that window like you’re afraid I’ll get too close. I didn’t want to freak you out.”
“Any more than I already am?” There was actually far less bitterness than John had expected in the comment.
“Why don’t you just tell me what you want tonight and we’ll both stop trying to second guess each other,” John suggested.
Carson held out a hand and John moved quickly to take it, but not any closer. “Will you stay tonight? Please? I’d like to think that this isn’t going to change everything between us.”
John did move to hold him then. “It won’t. I promise. There may need to be a few changes in the short run, but in the long run, I’m going to be right here. Okay?”
Carson nodded against John’s chest and John kissed the top of his head.
“Ready to go to sleep?”
“Aye.”
John pulled the quilt and sheet back and held it while Carson crawled in. He hit the lights and crawled in next to him. He settled on his side, tucked up close to Carson, who lay on his back. He kissed his temple and laced his fingers through Carson’s. “While I was running tonight I ran into someone else who was out trying to burn off some steam.”
Carson looked over at him, waiting for him to finish.
“You aren’t the only one this happened to,” John told him gently.
“I doubted I was. In a way I’d hoped - I’d never wish this on anyone - but in another way, there’s a kind of twisted relief knowing that I wasn’t the only one he targeted that way.” Carson knotted the sheet in his free hand, looking at it and not John as he spoke.
“I think as we move on we’re going to find that this guy was a serial predator.” John pulled him in close, turning him so that he could tuck Carson’s back against his chest. “I want you to lean on anyone you have to while you get your brain around this, okay?”
Carson shuffled over to face John. “I think as long as I know that it won’t change anything between us, I’ll be okay. I spent a fair part of this afternoon worried that you’d be angry… that you’d leave, either because you blamed me for being unfaithful or because of some misguided sense of protecting me.”
John snuggled him in close. “I’m right here. And I will be for as long as you’ll let me.”
“Get comfortable then,” Carson said as he tugged the blanket up and closed his eyes.
~~~___~~~___~~~
John’s hopes that the issue was sufficiently put to bed were shattered the next day. He woke up to find Carson up and gone. There were two little red pills and a note to come by the infirmary six hours after he’d taken them if he needed more. John sniffled and swallowed the pills dry. He wondered if his stuffiness had made him snore and if that had chased Carson out of the room so early.
He shrugged and trudged off to the shower figuring they could talk when he stopped by for more decongestant later.
John wished he was surprised to find that Carson was in his lab with orders not to be disturbed when John stopped by after lunch. Leslie handed him his pills and a cup of water and promised to tell Carson to contact him when he finally came out. Though, Leslie told him, Carson hadn’t come out of there all morning and he’d been pretty terse with anyone who dared to go in.
John rolled his eyes knowing exactly why Carson was in such a foul mood, but not having any immediate ideas as to what to do about it. He decided not to aggravate the situation and just wait him out.
He waited for four days. They saw each other in meetings and Carson was cordial enough and John had managed (through carefully orchestrated stalking) to catch him in the infirmary instead of his lab just as his meds were wearing off. He knew there were some serious problems when Carson simply handed over the drugs without actually stopping to notice that John’s cold had completely cleared up.
Deciding it was time to step things up, John went to Elizabeth.
“So… I have a few days leave time stored up,” he said, leaning on her doorjamb.
Elizabeth glanced up at him. “Good morning to you too,” she said sarcastically.
“Sorry,” John backpedaled. “Good morning. I have a few leave days stored up,” he said again.
“Something like two hundred and fifty days. I know you’ve never taken vacation here, but didn’t you ever take them at home?” Elizabeth twirled her computer stylus around on her thumb with one hand and gestured to a seat across from her desk with the other.
“Oh, yes. Because both Antarctica and Afghanistan are both so well known for their spas and golf courses.” John dropped into the chair.
Elizabeth returned his lazy smile. “Things are pretty calm here right now, so I really don’t have any objections, but where are you going to go?”
“Just to the mainland. Few days of camping, just getting away for a bit.” John sprawled out in the chair trying to look relaxed, but he knew Elizabeth well enough to know that the real questions were coming. He just wasn’t entirely sure how he planned to answer them when they go there.
“Going by yourself?”
And there they were. “I thought I’d get Carson out of here for a while. He’s been cranky since that whole thing with Lucius.”
Elizabeth leaned back in her chair. “He’s been in here twice now apologizing for that whole mess. I can’t seem to make him understand that just because he fell prey first that that doesn’t make this his fault.”
John leaned forward, “Yeah, I know. I ran into Doctor Biro at lunch yesterday. She says he’s been pretty hard on his staff. I figured maybe getting him out letting him just get away from everyone and all the talk and teasing and stuff…” John shrugged.
“Is there something else?” Elizabeth pressed, leaning forward, her elbows on her desk.
John shifted nervously in his chair. “If I say ‘yes’, can we just leave it at that?”
“Will getting him away from here help with that?”
John passed a hand through his hair. He hated this sort of verbal tap dancing, but he knew damn well that there would be no point in getting Carson to go to the mainland with him if the discussion started off with Carson pissed that he’d betrayed his secret to Elizabeth. “It would be helpful if, say, Rodney blew up a lab or something while we were gone so people had something else to discuss when we got back. He’d really like this whole sordid mess with Lucius to go away now. Failing that, I think it might help if he went away for a while.” John looked at Elizabeth seriously, “Unless you have a better idea.”
“I don’t think I know the whole story - and I’m not asking, I’m sure if you could tell me you would and I trust that you wouldn’t let a matter of base security go unaddressed - so I don’t think I’m qualified to be making suggestions. How long do you think you’ll need?”
Caught slightly off guard by Elizabeth’s quick capitulation, John blinked for a second before finally saying, “Three nights? We’ll be back on Tuesday?”
Elizabeth nodded. “Keep a radio at hand in case we need either of you or the jumper. If it looks like stretching things out a day or two more would be useful just check in.”
“Colonel phone home,” John said in his best E.T. voice as he pushed himself out of his chair. “Thanks Elizabeth.”
“I’d say ‘have fun’, but something tells me this isn’t that kind of trip.”
John wasn’t sure at first if Elizabeth was making an oblique sexual remark - and given the situation that idea made his skin crawl a little - or if she was just talking about a few duty-free days in the woods. He decided to take it as the latter before realizing that either way, she was right - this wasn’t that kind of trip. He wasn’t sure what it was going to take to break Carson out of his funk, but he was fucking determined to do it. “Yeah, something tells me it really won’t be.”
The Human Body: the stories so far...
Somewhere in Season 1: HB I: A Pain in the Ass
The Siege (3): HB II: Put Your Head on My Shoulder
The Intruder: HB III: A Slip of the Tongue, Part 1, Part 2
Runner: HB IV: Getting Into Your Genes
Duet: HB V: Killing Off a Few Liver Cells
Condemned: HB VI: Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes
Trinity: HB VII: Got Your Back
Instinct/Conversion
Aurora
The Lost Boys/The Hive
Epiphany
Critical Mass
Grace Under Pressure: Heart to Heart, Part 1| Part 2
Grace Under Pressure: AU ending More than Just a Sympathetic Ear
The Tower: HB VIII: Do We Need a Rabbit?
The Long Goodbye
Coup d'Etat
Michael: HB IX: Delete
Inferno
Allies
Season 3
No Man's Land
Misbegotten
Irresistible