Any Time (1/1)
Title: Any Time
Author: somehowunbroken
Fandom: SGA/SG1
Characters: John, Cam (gen)
Word Count: 3,252
Rating: R/language and some non-gory violence
Notes: For susnn , who bought me in the help_pakistan auction. Hope you like it!
Other notes: Many, many, many thanks to both clwilson2006 and theeverdream . Without both of their help, this would be just terrible. No lie. They're awesome.
“Get down!”
John swore and dove at Cam’s shouted warning, narrowly avoiding being speared in the chest by... a boomerang, maybe? He wasn’t sure and didn’t really care, as long as it wasn’t sticking out of his torso. He twisted as he fell, landing and rolling and standing back up a few feet away, swinging the butt of his P90 around into the head of the guy who had thrown the boomerang. He crumpled ungracefully to the ground. John didn’t take the time to celebrate, instead turning and sweeping his gun around the area.
Jackson and Teal’c were back-to-back, striking out with uncanny speed and accuracy at the men rushing at them. It was a weird combination, to be sure, but it was clear to anyone with eyes that after fourteen years in the field, Jackson had become more than the geeky scientist he’d been at the beginning. John grinned as Jackson’s left hook caught a native unawares, spinning him around and into a nearby tree, which finished the job. Maybe there was hope for McKay yet.
Sam and Vala were darting around the field, Sam with some sort of device and Vala with a gun, looking fiercely unlike the happy, bubbly woman he’d met the day before. She was cutting down enemies with an almost brutal efficiency, spraying bullets and clearing the way for Sam, who was poking frantically at the device, swinging it this way and that. Supposedly, the device could detect some other sort of device, and apparently Device Two was really, really important for some reason. John wasn’t sure; there was a distinct possibility that he’d zoned out for the second half of the briefing. Also maybe the first.
John continued his sweep of the field, finally locating Cam. When the other two teams had broken off, they’d paired together, which was just fine with John. He and Cam had known each other for years, going back to their days at the Academy, and if John was going to be fighting alongside anyone else on this planet (or any other, really), Cam would be his choice. They’d gotten separated along the way, though, and he was damn lucky that Cam had been looking in his direction when that boomerang had been thrown, or he’d have been in pretty rough shape. John started picking his way across the field, back towards Cam, who was dealing with a few enemies of his own.
“Mitchell, down!” John called, raising and sighting his gun as one of the natives came barreling out of the forest in Cam’s blind spot. Cam didn’t hesitate, just dove for the ground, and John squeezed off two shots. The man crashed to the ground as John reached Cam’s side, hauling him to his feet.
“Even?” Cam asked, brushing at the dust on his jacket.
“For now,” John grinned back. He wasn’t about to bring up that time in Qatar if Cam seemed to have forgotten about it. He opened his mouth to suggest that they maybe tell Sam to step it up a little when he saw Cam’s face shift, change, and Cam raised his gun, opened his mouth.
John never heard what Cam was going to say, didn’t see what he was going to do, because at that moment he felt something crack against the back of his skull and everything faded to black.
-0-
The infirmary swam into focus and out again, and John blinked hard. When he reopened his eyes, the ceiling stayed in place and the walls stopped spinning. Mostly.
“John?” a voice came from his left. John tried to turn his head and found, dazedly, that the effort was too much; his eyes slid shut and he winced. “Hey, John, can you hear me?”
Yes, he thought, but for some reason couldn’t translate that to speech. He felt a hand grab his. “Squeeze my hand if you can hear me.”
John put all of his might into the action. His fingers twitched against the hand holding his.
“Good, that’s good,” he heard, but that had taken a lot of effort, and he drifted away again.
-0-
John came to more slowly this time, hearing the sounds of the infirmary before he opened his eyes. The lights were dimmed, and though the beeps and whirs of machines greeted his ears, John couldn’t hear any voices. He cautiously turned his head, feeling relieved when he was able to do so, and took in the walls, the window, the door.
He was in an isolation room.
“Hey.” Well, not so isolated, after all; John focused on the chair in the room, down towards the end of his bed, where Cam was leaning forward. “You gonna stay with me this time?”
John blinked back fuzzily to opening his eyes, someone squeezing his hand, passing out again. “For now,” he managed.
Cam’s face split into a grin. “Good. Lam thought I was the boy who cried wolf last time, ‘cause you were out again before she could get over to check on you.”
John tried to smile, felt his lips crack, and stopped. “What happened?”
Cam’s face darkened. “You came running back towards me,” he said slowly. John remembered a man barreling from the forest, yelling for Cam to duck, shooting the attacker.
“Yeah,” he prompted.
“Neither of us saw the guy behind you till he was already there,” Cam said next. “He clonked you in the head with one of those boomerang things. You went down.” He paused. “Hard.”
John raised a hand to touch at the back of his head. It didn’t hurt, even though he could feel the knot beneath his hair. Lam must have given him the good drugs. “How long have I been here?”
Cam shrugged one shoulder. “Two days.”
John frowned. Two days was a lot of time to lose.
“I’ve been popping in and out,” Cam said in a tone of voice that actually said I’ve been here the whole time. “Lam said it might bring you round faster if someone was here. Y’know, talking to you.”
“Thanks,” John offered, not really sure how to respond. Cam just nodded, though, so the answer must have been acceptable. “When can I go?”
Cam grinned as he stood. “Let me get the doctor,” he said as he walked to the door. “She’ll let you know.”
-0-
Lam’s examination had been thorough, and made John long for Carson and the well-stocked infirmary on Atlantis. The Ancient technology there far surpassed Earth’s own, and the infirmary experience was much easier to handle when tests involved small scanners instead of being jostled from X-rays to an MRI machine. She frowned when she finally finished.
“What’s the damage?” John asked, not even trying for charming. The drugs were beginning to wear off, and he could already feel the dull ache everywhere that promised to develop into full-blown throbbing any minute now.
“You’re in bad shape, Colonel Sheppard,” Lam informed him crisply. “You went down hard enough to fracture your skull and got a nice concussion besides, and that’s not counting the broken ribs or stress fractures in your legs.”
“My legs?” John frowned down at the lumps under the sheets, then lifted the white cotton up to stare down at the tight bindings he hadn’t yet noticed around the lower portions of both legs. The drugs must have been pretty strong for him to have missed that.
“Yes,” Lam continued, as if she hadn’t noticed his distraction. “You’re lucky you weren’t injured further, Colonel. If those ribs had broken a little more severely…” She pressed her lips together and shook her head. John knew from the location of the pain and the tape around his chest that he’d broken his third rib, probably the fourth as well, and Lam was probably right; if they’d broken in a little more, he’d have punctured a lung. He took as deep a breath as he could manage and yeah, it hurt, but that was the ribs; he could breathe normally.
“Lucky,” he finally agreed, leaning back into the pillow as the ache in his head became a roar. “That’s me. Lucky kind of guy.”
Lam smiled at him and rolled her eyes, like she was used to this flippant kind of attitude from her patients. Glancing at Cam caught him covering a smirk, and John realized that yeah, she probably was used to patients like him.
“So when can I go?” John asked, trying to be unobtrusive about stretching his broken leg - hurt like a bitch - and flexing the muscles in his torso - same. Lam rolled her eyes at him again.
“Not for a while, I’d say,” she informed him. “You can’t walk around on those fractures, and you can’t use crutches with your ribs like that. You’re stuck here until you’ve healed, at least a little. It’ll likely be a few weeks before you’re fit for light duty again.”
John scowled and opened his mouth to argue, but before he could, Cam cut in. “He can stay with me, Doc.”
Lam turned to face him. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah,” Cam nodded. “I’ve got a spare bedroom. He won’t even have to stay on the couch.”
“He’s right here,” John pointed out, trying not to whine. There was no way in hell he wanted to stay here, but Cam had a job, a life, and he didn’t need to be sitting around watching after John’s sorry ass while he was laid up.
“Okay,” Lam decided, as if John hadn’t even spoken. “I’ll get the papers ready. Colonel Mitchell, I’ll send one of the nurses in with a schedule and some instructions.”
Cam nodded as Lam exited the room. John narrowed his eyes. “What if I don’t want to go?”
Cam just grinned. “If you’d rather stay here, I’ll let you,” he said cheerily. “But I’ve got a DVR, and there’s three Bowl games on it for just such an occasion.”
“You don’t have to take care of me,” John insisted. “I can handle it.”
“Not right now, you can’t,” Cam informed him mildly. “Let me help, John.”
John sighed. Staying in the infirmary for the foreseeable future would be sheer torture, he finally decided. At least Cam had promised him a Bowl game. “Fine.”
-0-
It was difficult, John mused, to get around with busted legs and broken ribs. In fact, it was damn near impossible.
Cam lived on the ground floor of his building in a complex near Cheyenne Mountain. John had teased him mercilessly in the past about his choice of apartments, wondering aloud if Cam was purposely avoiding stairs, or if it was just subconscious. He was grateful, though, because navigating up even a few steps would be hell right now, and John honestly wasn’t sure he’d be able to handle it. Cam didn’t bring it up, either, which John figured was a testament to how bad he really looked. Or not, on the other hand; Cam was a far nicer guy than John himself was.
Cam was in charge of moving things around. John knew he wouldn’t be much help in this condition. He’d drop and break something, or get in the way, or injure himself further; rather than risk the issues, he stayed back while Cam brought John’s bag in and pushed the furniture in the second bedroom around until John was able to navigate his chair through with ease. Rearranging complete, the two headed back out to the living room.
“Hungry?” Cam asked while John contemplated attempting to lever himself onto the couch. John smiled and grabbed for the phone.
“Yeah, I’m cooking. Pizza or Chinese?”
Cam grinned at him. “Predictable, Sheppard,” he teased. “Whichever you want is fine with me. Order me something.” He wandered towards the kitchen as John dialed the phone.
John was in the midst of transferring himself from the chair to the couch when he suddenly realized that he wasn’t actually well enough to do so. The realization came in the form of him crashing to the ground in an undignified heap, gasping as pain lanced through… everything. Cam came bolting in from the kitchen to find him on the floor, eyes squeezed shut, definitely not crying.
“Jesus, John,” Cam swore as he dropped to the floor. “Anything worse?”
John was grateful, really grateful, that Cam knew enough not to ask the stupid questions - does it hurt? Are you okay? What happened? - because he’d been there, too, much worse than this, and knew better. John took a moment to reevaluate his injuries, testing the soreness in his legs and chest before shaking his head.
“Don’t think so,” he gritted out. “I think I’ll take one of those painkillers, though.”
“Yeah,” Cam said, leaning back against the couch. “That’s probably a good idea.”
They sat together, not talking or doing anything, really, until the bell rang. Cam rose and went to the door, grabbing the boxes as John wondered how, exactly, he was going to get off the floor. The answer came a moment later when Cam reappeared and tossed the pizza on the coffee table. He leaned over John and grabbed him carefully beneath the arms.
“Hold on,” Cam instructed, and John reluctantly looped his arms around the back of Cam’s neck. “This is gonna hurt, so, deep breath.” John opened his mouth to comment, but Cam was already standing, and fuck, he was right, that hurt.
And then he was leaning back into the deep cushions of Cam’s couch, forcing his breathing to stay steady and calm, as if he was going to fool Cam. Cam, who was looking at him closely, who reached into his pocket and drew out a bottle, who tapped out a pill and handed it over without a word. John swallowed it dry and closed his eyes, tipping his head back against the couch.
“Pizza,” Cam said from somewhere above him. John forced his eyes open and took the plate that Cam offered, finishing the entire slice and feeling somewhat proud of himself for it. He refused a second slice and dozed while Cam finished eating and cleaning up.
The next thing he knew, John was in a house, sitting in the kitchen, chatting with a friendly woman who kept smiling at him and handing him slices of apple from a dish while she arranged others in a pie shell. “Eat up,” she told him. “Apples are good for you.”
John took another slice and chewed on it thoughtfully. It was good, tart and firm, the perfect apple for a pie. The woman dusted the apples layered in the dish with a powder that smelled like Christmas, spicy and warm, before lifting another crust from somewhere beside her and draping it expertly over the top of the pie.
“He likes you, you know,” the woman told him, and John froze mid-apple slice, the sticky juice running down his chin. “You need to tell him.”
“I don’t want to hurt him,” John finally responded. “I can’t.”
“Then you especially need to tell him,” the woman said sternly, but her eyes were kind. “Tell him now, before he gets too attached to you.”
“I’m attached to him,” John tried to tell her, but she shook her head.
“If you’re going to be his friend and only his friend, you need to let him know that.” Her fingers were deftly pinching the edges of the pie together, poking a pattern in the top with a fork, and brushing a glaze over the top as she sat it in the oven.
“Yeah,” John deflated. “I guess it’s the right thing to do.”
Suddenly he remembered: this was Cam’s mom, and he had this conversation with her years ago, the first time Cam brought him back to the farm. It was at least twenty years ago, and as he recalled that the image in front of him shifted. Momma Mitchell’s face grew lined and her hair faded to gray as she stooped to remove the pie from the oven. It smelled wonderful.
“You’re his best friend, John,” Momma told him. “You have been for decades. You’re the only one who accepts all of him, just as he is.”
“He’s my best friend, too,” John reminded her, and she smiled at him gently as she cut into the pie. “Just as he is.”
Momma set the plate in front of him and John looked down. The scoop of vanilla ice cream she’d added to the side was melting from the heat of the pie, swirling with the apple’s juices on the plate. “You helped him, John. Let him help you.”
The images flashed though John’s head: Cam in the hospital, everything broken, John reading him sports statistics even though he was unconscious. Waiting in the hallway with the Mitchells, who put him on the list of Cam’s family so he was allowed to continue visiting. Covering for Ethan and Cam when he’d come to visit, inventing stories and distracting nurses while they visited together. Reading the entirety of Moby Dick aloud while Cam lay in bed, eyes screwed shut, devastated over the accident and Ethan leaving him and depressed as hell.
Not letting Cam die.
“Yeah,” he said eventually. “Okay.”
Momma smiled at him and reached out, grabbing his arm and shaking it. John frowned at her and she shook harder, and when John blinked, Momma slipped away and Cam was leaning over him on the couch in his apartment.
A dream, John thought. Even dream-Momma gave good advice.
“You with me?” Cam was saying, and John focused back on the here and now.
“Yeah,” he finally responded, and Cam sat back, a look of relief crossing his features.
“Good,” Cam replied. “I wasn’t looking forward to explaining that I not only let you fall on the floor, but that I didn’t immediately bring you in for another checkup.”
John grinned. “Painkillers,” he reminded Cam. “Dozed off. M’fine.”
“Fine,” Cam snorted. “Right, sure.”
“Will be,” John tried to point out, wondering if he could get away with not moving from the couch, doubting Cam would let him sleep there. Sure enough, Cam was shaking his arm again, so John forced his eyes back open.
“Bed,” Cam informed him. He hesitated. “I’m gonna help you back into the chair, okay?”
John thought about it for a second, remembered dream-Momma, and nodded. Cam’s arms came back around him and John dutifully wrapped his own arms around Cam’s back, and it didn’t hurt so much time (score one for the painkillers, John thought dazedly). Cam rolled him down the hall and right up next to the bed, leaning back down to help him transfer without asking again.
Cam shuffled around for a few minutes, tucking blankets in around him, setting up a glass of water on the nightstand. John watched as much of it as he could but soon settled back into the pillows he’d been propped on, just listening to his friend move around the room. He noticed the lights dim beyond his eyelids and opened his eyes as Cam carefully pulled the door shut.
“Cam,” he called out, and Cam paused in the doorway, poking his head back in. “Thanks.”
Cam smiled at him fondly, like John might smile at Torren when he did something that the adults found funny without the child knowing why. “Of course, John,” he replied, leaning on the doorframe. “Any time.”
And the thing of it was, John thought as he closed his eyes again, it was true for both of them. Any time.
Author: somehowunbroken
Fandom: SGA/SG1
Characters: John, Cam (gen)
Word Count: 3,252
Rating: R/language and some non-gory violence
Notes: For susnn , who bought me in the help_pakistan auction. Hope you like it!
Other notes: Many, many, many thanks to both clwilson2006 and theeverdream . Without both of their help, this would be just terrible. No lie. They're awesome.
“Get down!”
John swore and dove at Cam’s shouted warning, narrowly avoiding being speared in the chest by... a boomerang, maybe? He wasn’t sure and didn’t really care, as long as it wasn’t sticking out of his torso. He twisted as he fell, landing and rolling and standing back up a few feet away, swinging the butt of his P90 around into the head of the guy who had thrown the boomerang. He crumpled ungracefully to the ground. John didn’t take the time to celebrate, instead turning and sweeping his gun around the area.
Jackson and Teal’c were back-to-back, striking out with uncanny speed and accuracy at the men rushing at them. It was a weird combination, to be sure, but it was clear to anyone with eyes that after fourteen years in the field, Jackson had become more than the geeky scientist he’d been at the beginning. John grinned as Jackson’s left hook caught a native unawares, spinning him around and into a nearby tree, which finished the job. Maybe there was hope for McKay yet.
Sam and Vala were darting around the field, Sam with some sort of device and Vala with a gun, looking fiercely unlike the happy, bubbly woman he’d met the day before. She was cutting down enemies with an almost brutal efficiency, spraying bullets and clearing the way for Sam, who was poking frantically at the device, swinging it this way and that. Supposedly, the device could detect some other sort of device, and apparently Device Two was really, really important for some reason. John wasn’t sure; there was a distinct possibility that he’d zoned out for the second half of the briefing. Also maybe the first.
John continued his sweep of the field, finally locating Cam. When the other two teams had broken off, they’d paired together, which was just fine with John. He and Cam had known each other for years, going back to their days at the Academy, and if John was going to be fighting alongside anyone else on this planet (or any other, really), Cam would be his choice. They’d gotten separated along the way, though, and he was damn lucky that Cam had been looking in his direction when that boomerang had been thrown, or he’d have been in pretty rough shape. John started picking his way across the field, back towards Cam, who was dealing with a few enemies of his own.
“Mitchell, down!” John called, raising and sighting his gun as one of the natives came barreling out of the forest in Cam’s blind spot. Cam didn’t hesitate, just dove for the ground, and John squeezed off two shots. The man crashed to the ground as John reached Cam’s side, hauling him to his feet.
“Even?” Cam asked, brushing at the dust on his jacket.
“For now,” John grinned back. He wasn’t about to bring up that time in Qatar if Cam seemed to have forgotten about it. He opened his mouth to suggest that they maybe tell Sam to step it up a little when he saw Cam’s face shift, change, and Cam raised his gun, opened his mouth.
John never heard what Cam was going to say, didn’t see what he was going to do, because at that moment he felt something crack against the back of his skull and everything faded to black.
-0-
The infirmary swam into focus and out again, and John blinked hard. When he reopened his eyes, the ceiling stayed in place and the walls stopped spinning. Mostly.
“John?” a voice came from his left. John tried to turn his head and found, dazedly, that the effort was too much; his eyes slid shut and he winced. “Hey, John, can you hear me?”
Yes, he thought, but for some reason couldn’t translate that to speech. He felt a hand grab his. “Squeeze my hand if you can hear me.”
John put all of his might into the action. His fingers twitched against the hand holding his.
“Good, that’s good,” he heard, but that had taken a lot of effort, and he drifted away again.
-0-
John came to more slowly this time, hearing the sounds of the infirmary before he opened his eyes. The lights were dimmed, and though the beeps and whirs of machines greeted his ears, John couldn’t hear any voices. He cautiously turned his head, feeling relieved when he was able to do so, and took in the walls, the window, the door.
He was in an isolation room.
“Hey.” Well, not so isolated, after all; John focused on the chair in the room, down towards the end of his bed, where Cam was leaning forward. “You gonna stay with me this time?”
John blinked back fuzzily to opening his eyes, someone squeezing his hand, passing out again. “For now,” he managed.
Cam’s face split into a grin. “Good. Lam thought I was the boy who cried wolf last time, ‘cause you were out again before she could get over to check on you.”
John tried to smile, felt his lips crack, and stopped. “What happened?”
Cam’s face darkened. “You came running back towards me,” he said slowly. John remembered a man barreling from the forest, yelling for Cam to duck, shooting the attacker.
“Yeah,” he prompted.
“Neither of us saw the guy behind you till he was already there,” Cam said next. “He clonked you in the head with one of those boomerang things. You went down.” He paused. “Hard.”
John raised a hand to touch at the back of his head. It didn’t hurt, even though he could feel the knot beneath his hair. Lam must have given him the good drugs. “How long have I been here?”
Cam shrugged one shoulder. “Two days.”
John frowned. Two days was a lot of time to lose.
“I’ve been popping in and out,” Cam said in a tone of voice that actually said I’ve been here the whole time. “Lam said it might bring you round faster if someone was here. Y’know, talking to you.”
“Thanks,” John offered, not really sure how to respond. Cam just nodded, though, so the answer must have been acceptable. “When can I go?”
Cam grinned as he stood. “Let me get the doctor,” he said as he walked to the door. “She’ll let you know.”
-0-
Lam’s examination had been thorough, and made John long for Carson and the well-stocked infirmary on Atlantis. The Ancient technology there far surpassed Earth’s own, and the infirmary experience was much easier to handle when tests involved small scanners instead of being jostled from X-rays to an MRI machine. She frowned when she finally finished.
“What’s the damage?” John asked, not even trying for charming. The drugs were beginning to wear off, and he could already feel the dull ache everywhere that promised to develop into full-blown throbbing any minute now.
“You’re in bad shape, Colonel Sheppard,” Lam informed him crisply. “You went down hard enough to fracture your skull and got a nice concussion besides, and that’s not counting the broken ribs or stress fractures in your legs.”
“My legs?” John frowned down at the lumps under the sheets, then lifted the white cotton up to stare down at the tight bindings he hadn’t yet noticed around the lower portions of both legs. The drugs must have been pretty strong for him to have missed that.
“Yes,” Lam continued, as if she hadn’t noticed his distraction. “You’re lucky you weren’t injured further, Colonel. If those ribs had broken a little more severely…” She pressed her lips together and shook her head. John knew from the location of the pain and the tape around his chest that he’d broken his third rib, probably the fourth as well, and Lam was probably right; if they’d broken in a little more, he’d have punctured a lung. He took as deep a breath as he could manage and yeah, it hurt, but that was the ribs; he could breathe normally.
“Lucky,” he finally agreed, leaning back into the pillow as the ache in his head became a roar. “That’s me. Lucky kind of guy.”
Lam smiled at him and rolled her eyes, like she was used to this flippant kind of attitude from her patients. Glancing at Cam caught him covering a smirk, and John realized that yeah, she probably was used to patients like him.
“So when can I go?” John asked, trying to be unobtrusive about stretching his broken leg - hurt like a bitch - and flexing the muscles in his torso - same. Lam rolled her eyes at him again.
“Not for a while, I’d say,” she informed him. “You can’t walk around on those fractures, and you can’t use crutches with your ribs like that. You’re stuck here until you’ve healed, at least a little. It’ll likely be a few weeks before you’re fit for light duty again.”
John scowled and opened his mouth to argue, but before he could, Cam cut in. “He can stay with me, Doc.”
Lam turned to face him. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah,” Cam nodded. “I’ve got a spare bedroom. He won’t even have to stay on the couch.”
“He’s right here,” John pointed out, trying not to whine. There was no way in hell he wanted to stay here, but Cam had a job, a life, and he didn’t need to be sitting around watching after John’s sorry ass while he was laid up.
“Okay,” Lam decided, as if John hadn’t even spoken. “I’ll get the papers ready. Colonel Mitchell, I’ll send one of the nurses in with a schedule and some instructions.”
Cam nodded as Lam exited the room. John narrowed his eyes. “What if I don’t want to go?”
Cam just grinned. “If you’d rather stay here, I’ll let you,” he said cheerily. “But I’ve got a DVR, and there’s three Bowl games on it for just such an occasion.”
“You don’t have to take care of me,” John insisted. “I can handle it.”
“Not right now, you can’t,” Cam informed him mildly. “Let me help, John.”
John sighed. Staying in the infirmary for the foreseeable future would be sheer torture, he finally decided. At least Cam had promised him a Bowl game. “Fine.”
-0-
It was difficult, John mused, to get around with busted legs and broken ribs. In fact, it was damn near impossible.
Cam lived on the ground floor of his building in a complex near Cheyenne Mountain. John had teased him mercilessly in the past about his choice of apartments, wondering aloud if Cam was purposely avoiding stairs, or if it was just subconscious. He was grateful, though, because navigating up even a few steps would be hell right now, and John honestly wasn’t sure he’d be able to handle it. Cam didn’t bring it up, either, which John figured was a testament to how bad he really looked. Or not, on the other hand; Cam was a far nicer guy than John himself was.
Cam was in charge of moving things around. John knew he wouldn’t be much help in this condition. He’d drop and break something, or get in the way, or injure himself further; rather than risk the issues, he stayed back while Cam brought John’s bag in and pushed the furniture in the second bedroom around until John was able to navigate his chair through with ease. Rearranging complete, the two headed back out to the living room.
“Hungry?” Cam asked while John contemplated attempting to lever himself onto the couch. John smiled and grabbed for the phone.
“Yeah, I’m cooking. Pizza or Chinese?”
Cam grinned at him. “Predictable, Sheppard,” he teased. “Whichever you want is fine with me. Order me something.” He wandered towards the kitchen as John dialed the phone.
John was in the midst of transferring himself from the chair to the couch when he suddenly realized that he wasn’t actually well enough to do so. The realization came in the form of him crashing to the ground in an undignified heap, gasping as pain lanced through… everything. Cam came bolting in from the kitchen to find him on the floor, eyes squeezed shut, definitely not crying.
“Jesus, John,” Cam swore as he dropped to the floor. “Anything worse?”
John was grateful, really grateful, that Cam knew enough not to ask the stupid questions - does it hurt? Are you okay? What happened? - because he’d been there, too, much worse than this, and knew better. John took a moment to reevaluate his injuries, testing the soreness in his legs and chest before shaking his head.
“Don’t think so,” he gritted out. “I think I’ll take one of those painkillers, though.”
“Yeah,” Cam said, leaning back against the couch. “That’s probably a good idea.”
They sat together, not talking or doing anything, really, until the bell rang. Cam rose and went to the door, grabbing the boxes as John wondered how, exactly, he was going to get off the floor. The answer came a moment later when Cam reappeared and tossed the pizza on the coffee table. He leaned over John and grabbed him carefully beneath the arms.
“Hold on,” Cam instructed, and John reluctantly looped his arms around the back of Cam’s neck. “This is gonna hurt, so, deep breath.” John opened his mouth to comment, but Cam was already standing, and fuck, he was right, that hurt.
And then he was leaning back into the deep cushions of Cam’s couch, forcing his breathing to stay steady and calm, as if he was going to fool Cam. Cam, who was looking at him closely, who reached into his pocket and drew out a bottle, who tapped out a pill and handed it over without a word. John swallowed it dry and closed his eyes, tipping his head back against the couch.
“Pizza,” Cam said from somewhere above him. John forced his eyes open and took the plate that Cam offered, finishing the entire slice and feeling somewhat proud of himself for it. He refused a second slice and dozed while Cam finished eating and cleaning up.
The next thing he knew, John was in a house, sitting in the kitchen, chatting with a friendly woman who kept smiling at him and handing him slices of apple from a dish while she arranged others in a pie shell. “Eat up,” she told him. “Apples are good for you.”
John took another slice and chewed on it thoughtfully. It was good, tart and firm, the perfect apple for a pie. The woman dusted the apples layered in the dish with a powder that smelled like Christmas, spicy and warm, before lifting another crust from somewhere beside her and draping it expertly over the top of the pie.
“He likes you, you know,” the woman told him, and John froze mid-apple slice, the sticky juice running down his chin. “You need to tell him.”
“I don’t want to hurt him,” John finally responded. “I can’t.”
“Then you especially need to tell him,” the woman said sternly, but her eyes were kind. “Tell him now, before he gets too attached to you.”
“I’m attached to him,” John tried to tell her, but she shook her head.
“If you’re going to be his friend and only his friend, you need to let him know that.” Her fingers were deftly pinching the edges of the pie together, poking a pattern in the top with a fork, and brushing a glaze over the top as she sat it in the oven.
“Yeah,” John deflated. “I guess it’s the right thing to do.”
Suddenly he remembered: this was Cam’s mom, and he had this conversation with her years ago, the first time Cam brought him back to the farm. It was at least twenty years ago, and as he recalled that the image in front of him shifted. Momma Mitchell’s face grew lined and her hair faded to gray as she stooped to remove the pie from the oven. It smelled wonderful.
“You’re his best friend, John,” Momma told him. “You have been for decades. You’re the only one who accepts all of him, just as he is.”
“He’s my best friend, too,” John reminded her, and she smiled at him gently as she cut into the pie. “Just as he is.”
Momma set the plate in front of him and John looked down. The scoop of vanilla ice cream she’d added to the side was melting from the heat of the pie, swirling with the apple’s juices on the plate. “You helped him, John. Let him help you.”
The images flashed though John’s head: Cam in the hospital, everything broken, John reading him sports statistics even though he was unconscious. Waiting in the hallway with the Mitchells, who put him on the list of Cam’s family so he was allowed to continue visiting. Covering for Ethan and Cam when he’d come to visit, inventing stories and distracting nurses while they visited together. Reading the entirety of Moby Dick aloud while Cam lay in bed, eyes screwed shut, devastated over the accident and Ethan leaving him and depressed as hell.
Not letting Cam die.
“Yeah,” he said eventually. “Okay.”
Momma smiled at him and reached out, grabbing his arm and shaking it. John frowned at her and she shook harder, and when John blinked, Momma slipped away and Cam was leaning over him on the couch in his apartment.
A dream, John thought. Even dream-Momma gave good advice.
“You with me?” Cam was saying, and John focused back on the here and now.
“Yeah,” he finally responded, and Cam sat back, a look of relief crossing his features.
“Good,” Cam replied. “I wasn’t looking forward to explaining that I not only let you fall on the floor, but that I didn’t immediately bring you in for another checkup.”
John grinned. “Painkillers,” he reminded Cam. “Dozed off. M’fine.”
“Fine,” Cam snorted. “Right, sure.”
“Will be,” John tried to point out, wondering if he could get away with not moving from the couch, doubting Cam would let him sleep there. Sure enough, Cam was shaking his arm again, so John forced his eyes back open.
“Bed,” Cam informed him. He hesitated. “I’m gonna help you back into the chair, okay?”
John thought about it for a second, remembered dream-Momma, and nodded. Cam’s arms came back around him and John dutifully wrapped his own arms around Cam’s back, and it didn’t hurt so much time (score one for the painkillers, John thought dazedly). Cam rolled him down the hall and right up next to the bed, leaning back down to help him transfer without asking again.
Cam shuffled around for a few minutes, tucking blankets in around him, setting up a glass of water on the nightstand. John watched as much of it as he could but soon settled back into the pillows he’d been propped on, just listening to his friend move around the room. He noticed the lights dim beyond his eyelids and opened his eyes as Cam carefully pulled the door shut.
“Cam,” he called out, and Cam paused in the doorway, poking his head back in. “Thanks.”
Cam smiled at him fondly, like John might smile at Torren when he did something that the adults found funny without the child knowing why. “Of course, John,” he replied, leaning on the doorframe. “Any time.”
And the thing of it was, John thought as he closed his eyes again, it was true for both of them. Any time.