Kangaroo Fic: Conception, staring John and Cam
Title: Conception
Author: Tzzzz
Rating: NC17
Pairing: Sheppard/McKay, Sheppard/Mitchell
Genre: mpreg
Summary: John and Cam, then and now. Follows Tables Turned, Once There Was a Man Named Holland, Not a Henry, The Kangaroos and the Bees, and What Rodney Wants.
Conception
This wasn't good. This really wasn't good. "Give me a minute?" John asked, escaping into his tiny bathroom and collapsing down onto the toilet. "John, you stupid fuck. What they hell were you thinking?" What was he going to say? He had no idea what to say. Things have finally been going well, at least as well as could be expected considering he'd gone and gotten himself knocked up. He still had Atlantis. He had a team that would stand behind him. He finally had Rodney after years of wanting and not allowing himself to have.
But there was Cam, pacing angrily in John's too-small room. John was a moron that he didn't see this coming. It got on the paperwork. Confidential, sure, but the SGC was like a small town and Cam never had problems making friends. He was the complete opposite of John that way. Of course he would find out. John had just hoped that it would all go away, neonate and all, and then maybe he could get his goddamned life back. But after everything, how could he possibly expect that things would work out for him? They never had and they never would and he was just being a pompous, deluded asshole if he dared hope otherwise.
"Shit." He ran his fingers through his hair, immediately regretting it, knowing that it would just make him look like more of a goddamned slut, which is what got him into trouble in the first place. Cam was a good guy. If John was being honest with himself, he knew that all along Cam deserved the truth. John could cloak his selfishness in the greater good all he wanted but as two people, two people who had been lovers if only once, they owed each other honesty at the very least.
John had no idea how long he sat there, head in his hands, the stupid slit throbbing as though it sensed Cam's proximity, but it was long enough that he startled with the polite knock on the door. "John? Are you okay in there?"
John sighed, giving the toilet a flush even though they both knew it was a thinly veiled excuse for hiding. "Coming."
Cam did look worried when John exited. Of course he did. Cam was just that kind of guy - the kind that would be worried about John even as he was spitting mad at him. "So, you want to tell me what's going on here, John?" he drawled, resigned, but still angry.
John collapsed down onto the bed, feeling suddenly exhausted. "What do you want me to tell you, Cam? We got drunk. We fucked. I've got an empty purse and a waiting seed and I don't want it."
"So you're going to bind? You're just going to let our baby die, John?" Cam looked beyond hurt. He looked honestly baffled. He knelt down in front of John, giving him the patented 'Cameron Mitchell, too damned sincere for my own good' stare. If Cam was about to propose, John would cock-punch him and his stupid pleb values. But instead Cam put a hand on John's thigh. His touch was firm, exactly the kind of comfort John needed - nothing like a caress. "I know it was just a drunken night, but we're friends. You should've told me. And you know it. And don't even try to give me any of that traditional noble bullshit about not getting anyone's hopes up before the transfer."
John nodded, transfixed by the intensity in Cam's stare.
"How in the hell am I supposed to help you if you don't tell me?"
"I don't need your help," John choked out, when he was feeling like he was drowning, not for lack of life preservers. Teyla wanted to take charge of the team while he went back to Earth. Ronon wanted to fight a war with the bureaucrats to keep him on Atlantis. Rodney wanted to carry the kid and let John fill his pouch too. And now Cam was here, playing the stupid white knight to John's black sheep like always, and the thing was, even though he loved and trusted his team more than anything, this was Cameron Fucking Mitchell, all hope and apple pie, and John couldn't help leaning forward into his arms and belying the million denials he had stored up. "What do you want me to do, Cam?"
"Hey," Cam whispered, pulling John down off the bed and practically into his lap. He was John's age, but broad-shouldered and strong. And John did feel protected in the circle of his arms, even if that made him a weak little shit, in way over his head. "I'm going to be there for you. I promise."
"I know you are." He'd told Ronon that Cam was needed elsewhere as much as John was, but maybe John needed him just a little too. "But your job, Cam. SG-1."
"Saved the world for years before I came along and will keep doing it after. Sam and Daniel have the brains, Teal'c has the brawn and the political contacts. Vala has ... something. I'm just the pushy manager who demanded they do a reunion show. I'm completely and utterly replaceable. It may not be what I planned, but I am damn proud to have a family with you and that comes first, before playing space cowboy."
John nodded. Cam was a good man. John might actually be proud to raise a child with him too. But Cam played by the rules. He was the Air Force's golden boy for a reason. He was a round peg that fit all the holes like the hundreds of other cogs that could do the same thing. Maybe without all the heart that Cam put into it, but while the work Cam was doing was undeniably critical to future of the Milky Way, Cam didn't necessarily need to be the one to do it.
"But what about Atlantis?" John asked.
"Atlantis can live without you for your labor window and then we can hire a surrogate. If I were a carrier, you know I'd offer to incubate myself, but--"
"No," John couldn't very well refuse Rodney's offer and then contract out to a stranger. "If we do this, then I want to carry, full term. It's not fair to ask anyone else to do it for me." And if he was going to have a kid, a possibility that he hadn't even fully contemplated yet, he wanted to be there when it emerged from the pouch the first time. He wanted to feel its heartbeat against his body and give it his milk and take it around showing it all the wonderful things in the world those first few formative months when babies looked out their carrier's pouches with so much wonder.
"Then Atlantis can live without you for a year. I know you've done a standup job of running the place, but it's not as though they don't have a truckload of imperials with ATA genes just like yours ready to ship out at any second."
"But that's why they sent me."
"They sent you because General O'Neill was very impressed that you managed to avoid a rogue drone and help him with his labor in the middle of a snow drift and charm your way into a piece of alien technology without clearance. It probably reminded him of something he would've done before he settled down to start his little retirement family. Yes, you're at the highest level of affinity for ancient tech, but you know there are others. What could happen in a year?"
"We'll have a baby." That was the part John was really worried about, he realized. He done the gestation and the labor before. He wasn't particularly bothered by waddling around like a bloated whale either. He'd probably just get to play a lot of video games and read comic books anyhow. But then after the baby emerged, it'd be a baby and he couldn't, in good conscience, keep a baby on Atlantis.
Cam nodded, his hand sliding so effortlessly over John's pouch slit that John barely noticed before Cam said, "That's the whole point of this, remember?"
"The neonate was conceived because we were drunk and stupid, Cam. How does that make us qualified to raise a child together?"
"People who haven't stared down a Prior or blown up a Wraith hive ship have been doing it for centuries. Besides, we've known each other a long time, John. We're good together."
John let Cam hold him close and deliver a completely sappy and undeserved kiss to his forehead. "Yeah, I guess we are." He squeezed Cam tight, holding on to the one life preserver that he felt at least a little justified hanging on to. Cam had been there too, after all, and had been in just as good a position as John to use a condom.
"There's always a chance it won't be viable," John pointed out.
"There's always that," Cam replied, but he looked like he didn't like that possibility at all. John could say that it wouldn't matter, because he wasn't doing it, but Cam was a good guy who'd sacrificed as much as John, if not more, for his country, his planet, and John couldn't look into those stupidly sincere, hopeful eyes and crush his heart when he deserved all the world could give him.
"We're going to have a baby," John whispered, leaning against Cam's side, forcing himself to relax even when a feeling of dread settled down around his heart, ready for a siege.
"Our baby is going to be beautiful," Cam agreed.
John didn't reply.
***
TWO AND A HALF MONTHS EARLIER
"Well, look what the cat dragged in," Cam gave John a wolf-whistle, and John gave him a glare.
"Can it, Shaft. You try taking a group of accident-prone kids who wouldn't even be basically competent on ritalin out into the wilderness with trees and swamps and invisible things for them to trip on and see how you come out." He was sounding a little too much like Rodney, John realized. He wasn't sure if absence truly did make the heart go fonder or if his new team was just so awful that he was actually praying for the days of McKay.
"You don't have Vala," Cam retorted.
"And you're not covered head to toe in orange tar because your botanist managed to copy a bunch of saber-tooth cats and get stuck in a tar pit. There aren't even any plants in a tar pit!"
"Point," Cam agreed, smirking like an idiot and provoking John's death-glare. "Your life is much more horrible than mine. What do you say I make it up to you? I have some paperwork to fill out and an archeologist to wrangle. I'll give you an hour to shower and go through medical and then we can grab a beer."
John contemplated it. He liked Cam. They'd known each other for years and Cam was practically the only friendly face around here these days other than a few of John's old marines who got assigned even shittier jobs than he did. Last John had heard they'd sent Lorne on some two month long mining operation and Miller to run joint operations with the Russians. And they had John's go-to-girl, Teldy, running cultural sensitivity training. Like that wasn't a fucking slap to the face.
If he was going to make it on this stupid planet with his stupid new team and no Ronon and no Teyla and no Rodney, then he might as well try to be friendly about it. He treated Cam to his "don't spook the natives" smile, even though the man definitely didn't deserve it. "Look at me, Cam. Make that two hours."
"Aww, Shep, orange is your color." John flipped him the bird but found himself blushing a little beneath five inches of orange tar. One good thing about not being the boss was that he didn't have those pesky fraternization regs to worry about anymore. While he wasn't ready to commit to unpacking his boxes, let alone a relationship, it felt good to be noticed by someone other than an ascended ancient or a princess who was under the mistaken impression that she could actually get anything out of his sperm.
"Nineteen-hundred, topside. I'll even let you drive the mustang."
John grinned.
***
God, Cam's car was beautiful. Sure it couldn't break orbit or fire drones at hostile commuters or travel through a gate, but it had a gorgeous body, and John just knew he could make it purr. "You have good taste, Shaft," John noted. After the comment in the locker room he'd elected to wear a pair of jeans that he knew hugged him in all the right places, a white button-down, and his old uniform leather jacket with the patches torn off. He grinned at Cam eyeing him, but startled when suddenly Cam was in his personal space, one hand cupping his check in a caress that might be a prelude to a kiss.
"What happened to you?"
Oh, the bruise. John chuckled, stepping back out of Cam's concerned grasp. "Friendly fire."
"You grope a nurse or something?"
"No, after Wallace walked into the tar pit, Babbis decided to face plant in to grab him, and I was stuck trying to pull him out by his ankles before he drowned in the stuff. He panicked, kicked me in the face."
"Ouch. But they are your team."
"My team is in the another galaxy."
"Maybe if you thought of them as your team, these guys would shape up. You know, the power of positive thinking." Cam was always such a goddamned optimist. John remembered fondly the days when he'd come over just to piss Leo off with his aww-shucks half-full glass. Cam might be nice on the surface, but he had a naughty side, and baiting Leo, the perpetual pessimist, had always been part of it.
"Bullshit. Now, hand over the keys."
Cam grinned. "Are you sure you should be driving with your face all swollen like that?"
John rolled his eyes, whining, "Give me the damned keys, Cam."
Cam pulled them out of his pocket, a mischievous twinkle in his eye. "Come and get them."
"Oh, that's how you want to play it," John replied before tackling him. Cam pulled away, yanking the keys behind his back and making John reach around, practically embracing him as he grabbed for them. When he'd successfully gotten a hold on them, Cam was close in, close enough to turn John around and press him up against the hood of the car, the keys smashed between them.
"Whatcha gonna do now, flyboy?" Cam asked, leaning in close enough for John to see his breath on the cold Colorado air, just inches between them. They'd always played like this, fiercely competitive over everything from football bets to basketball to who drove the fastest car, but something had changed - a tension in the air that John hadn't felt before.
He gave Cam his most seductive smile. Cam had weight and a better position, but John had charm and he wasn't afraid to use it. He leaned in close, like he was ready to kiss, distracting Cam enough to poke him in the ribs, haul him off and jump in the driver's seat.
"Cheater!" Cam declared, but with no animosity in it.
John grinned, revving the engine. "So, are there any good bars around here?" He'd gone with Carson to a good steakhouse, and with his team to the Macaroni Grill, confirming them as the lamest group of space explorers ever, but truthfully, he'd been spending most of his free weekends visiting Rodney in Nevada, so he didn't get the chance to explore.
"Yeah, and I'll take you to all of them. I promise. But, seeing as how I don't want people to think I've been abusing that pretty face, or dying your neck orange, we should probably go back to my place."
"Really?" John snuck a glance in the rearview mirror. His skin did have a little bit of a tint. "Shit, I look like I'm trying to be a sesame street character."
"I always thought you looked a little like Bert," Cam commented.
"And I thought my day couldn't get any worse."
Cam smirked a little, looking far too cool, even in the passenger's seat of his gorgeous mustang. "We'll head back to my place and try to make it better, then."
John wasn't entirely sure that was possible, but he trusted Cam to almost an absurd degree, so John followed his directions to a small house in a nondescript suburb, the soft rumble of the mustang's engine relaxing away some of the tensions of the day.
What Cam's place lacked in architectural distinction it made up for in a flat-screen TV, monster speakers, and every gaming system on the market - the important things. "Awesome," John remarked, accepting a beer right off the bat. It was a drinking kind of day.
Cam flipped on ESPN so they could catch up on college basketball and patted the space next to him on a small but incredibly comfortable leather couch. North Carolina was losing, much to Cam's resentment and dismay, and John rooted for UConn just to annoy him. They hadn't even been sitting down five minutes when the doorbell rang. "I ordered pizza while I was waiting for you in the parking lot," Cam explained. "You still like pineapple and anchovies, right?"
John was too busy laughing to remember that Cam hadn't noticed he was either bruised or tinted orange before he'd decided against a bar and ordered the pizza, "I was gestating at the time." Cam had been pulled for what John now knew was the F-302 project just before he and Leo had made the announcement. "In fact, it was the cooks telling me that I was either pregnant or just plain crazy that made me go for a checkup."
"Well, you did a damned good job waxing poetic about the subtle sweetness of the pineapple complementing the saltiness of the anchovies to fool me. I got pepperoni too, so we're safe."
With the pizzas, Cam brought them another two beers each. John's tolerance had been pretty shot, living in Atlantis where the moonshine fucked you up too much to be useful in a crisis and beer runs were few and far between, but he wasn't one to turn down a man's hospitality, so he finished both off in the time it took to fill up on pizza.
Cam shouted at the TV a lot, and John joined in with him, laughing a little too much and shouting a little too loud as the beer buzz worked its magic. Cam got up to grab him another bottle before the last quarter, sitting down a little closer than before. With the alcohol and the pizza warm in his belly and the only immediate problems being UConn's gap in their defense, John realized all of a sudden that he'd forgotten about his awful day. Yeah, there probably wasn't enough beer in the world to wipe away the deep ache that he felt for the loss of Atlantis, or his resentment of Earth and all the stupid people who had no idea what the real problems in the universe were, but feeling Cam's energy and warmth beside him, he could at least forget about his idiot team and their Marx Brothers style of offworld exploration.
"Thanks," John said, leaning a little against Cam's shoulder, which was right there. Since when had Cam even put his arm around him? "This is as good an end as I could imagine to a really crappy day."
Cam smiled back, casually taking a swig of his beer, pale blue eyes twinkling. Cam had really pretty eyes. How had John not noticed that before? They were the same seemingly endless puddles of blue as Rodney's, but they were sharp and startling, and really, really pretty. "Fuck, I think I'm drunk on four beers."
"Drunk?" Cam asked, giving John's shoulder a squeeze. "Or tipsy?"
John's mind couldn't seem to make itself up, or maybe he couldn't make up his mind. "Um, maybe just very tipsy."
"Have another?"
John grinned. "Sure, why not? Wallace and Babbis are more orange than would be acceptable if we actually run into any people on our next mission, so I have the next few days to sleep it off."
"The next few days? So does that mean you want another beer or a handle of whiskey?"
John laughed, even though he wasn't entirely sure that was particularly funny. "Not a handle, but I haven't had any good bourbon in a while."
"You know me too well, Shep." Cam disappeared unexplainably and reappeared holding a tumbler with at least four fingers of the cool amber liquid John remembered Cam always had squirreled away when they were stationed together.
"Are you trying to get me drunk, Shaft?" John asked, eyeing the bourbon skeptically.
Cam shrugged. "I thought you were trying to get yourself drunk. I'm just facilitating whatever ritual you want to use to deal with almost drowning in a swamp of orange tar."
"It looked like Fanta," John wrinkled his nose in disgust before taking a few good swallows from his glass. "You're a good friend, then. A good facilitator."
Cam laughed. "Glad I could be of assistance."
John downed some more of his drink before his thoughts started to wander. He was a maudlin, reflective drunk, and he should know better than to let Cam see it, but here it was and if Cam hadn't judged him for all the other stupid shit John had pulled since they knew each other, he wasn't going to judge for this. "Cam?"
"Yeah?" Cam had his arm around John again, but it felt good. It felt nice - safe and warm and protected, like some of Cam's perfect golden boy aura could rub off on him like pixie dust.
"Why SG-1?" John had ended up commander in Atlantis by accident, with all the pressure and the stress and the weirdness. He loved his job, but he'd gone more to get even further away from his problems than Antarctica than because that kind of responsibility was what he wanted. But Cam had known the giant shitstorm that would land in his lap and he'd volunteered.
"Because I was already fighting that war. Protecting Earth against the Goa'uld and then the Ori - that was my job, but I spent two years training on space fighter-jets only to go down in a ten minute battle knowing only that the stakes were enormous without having any idea of our odds of saving the planet. I wanted SG1 because if I'm going to be fighting a war, I want to be on the front lines with the best people I can find by my side, getting the job done so we don't have to wait until the enemy is at our doorstep next time."
"Okay, okay, enough with the recruitment speech. What I mean is: someone else could be doing that. Why were you so determined, when you had your pick of positions to take walking through the gate pretending to order around people with far more experience then you when you could be flying cool planes and having no worries when you weren't." John had forgotten that he was sometimes a mean drunk as well.
"I know I can do the job and I want to serve. That's it. And now that I'm doing it, I like it. I know you can understand that."
John nodded. Sure, he could understand that. "I miss it."
The arm around him gave John a squeeze. "I know you do."
"It might have been an accident that I ended up there, but it felt good to be doing something that really mattered for a change, with good people. I loved Atlantis."
"And Atlantis loved you," Cam replied. "But the city's in good hands now and you're here. Time to at least make the best of it."
John nodded. Cam was right. Cam was always fucking right, and John hated him for it sometimes. Cam would never do anything stupid like what happened with Leo. Cam wouldn't get shipped out to Antarctica or wake the Wraith or any of the other dumb shit John got up to because he actually liked the rules. He believed in them. When someone asked him to jump he really did ask, "how high?" And if John had done that at least he'd be back on first contact now instead of training a group of klutzes who couldn't fight their way out of a paper bag.
"How in the hell am I supposed to do that?" John slurred, finishing off his bourbon and raising the glass in question.
"Suck it up with your team until Landry gets a better feel for you and transfers you back to first contact. I'll find a way to let you come on a mission with us so Sam and Daniel can be impressed enough to remind O'Neill that they've demoted you from base commander to babysitter, which is just plain unfair."
"You'd do that for me?"
"Of course. John, we're friends. I'll take good care of you."
"Thanks, buddy," John replied, perplexed when Cam pulled him in a little closer. He was really well on the way to drunk now. In fact, he was drooling a little bit on Cam's shoulder, his eyelids getting heavy and his movements jerky and slow. He slumped further into Cam. Cam was comfortable - solid and strong and warm.
"You could also start by unpacking your stuff."
"How'd you know that?" John couldn't remember telling him that.
Cam rolled his eyes. "I know you."
"Fine. I'll unpack."
"Buy some furniture."
"That too. You can help."
"Fine by me."
"Anything else you wanna order me to do? You know I'm not good at taking orders." John turned his head to give Cam a stern look, suddenly noticing the honest affection in Cam's gaze. It felt nice. It wasn't Atlantis, but at least someone cared about him.
Cam leaned in closer, whispering, "You could start working on your relationships?"
"What relationships?" Landry would probably always hate him, and O'Neill didn't seem to give a shit. And John's team already loved him, they were just completely unqualified to be within a hundred feet of a gate.
"You know." Cam was really close now, so John could stare right into those gorgeous blue eyes. And there was a hand on his cheek, rubbing at his stubble. Since when had that happened? And then Cam's lips were on his and oh, he really never saw these things coming. Sure they'd been flirting a little all night, but John had thought it was just friendly banter, another level of their competitive game.
And then he stopped thinking, because Cam's mouth was warm and his lips soft and enticing and John couldn't help but open up and let him in. Cam was a damned good kisser, just like everything else. His tongue moved in to massage John's with a rhythm that was unquestionably sexual, one hand running through John's hair to hold him there as Cam just took his mouth.
John was entranced for much longer than he probably should have been, but the alcohol had numbed everything but the bolt of pure lust that shot through him, from the tightening in his balls to that ache inside him that let him know just how badly he wanted this man. Fuck the quiet reserve he'd kept on Altantis, and the sorrowful celibacy of after Leo had died. Cam was here and he was perfect by anyone's standard and John was drunk and he wanted and there was no reason why he shouldn't take. "Jesus, Cam, you're good at that," John mumbled into yet another passionate kiss, rising up to meet Cam's challenge this time, bitting at his lips and then kissing the sting better with a sweet soothing kiss afterwards. He was pushing, running his hands up and down Cam's tight white t-shirt and over the hard nipples he could feel pebbled beneath the soft cotton.
Before he knew it, John had pressed Cam back against the seat of the couch and it seemed like the next logical conclusion to move to straddle him, not caring that he knocked over a few empty beer bottles on the coffee table in the process. Cam was achingly hard as John undulated his hips against him, gasping into his mouth with the pleasure of it. "I want you so bad," Cam said. "From the second I saw you, I wanted you."
John wasn't paying attention, though, focused as he was on his arousal. He was so hard it was almost painful, and he could feel his internal muscles clenching in anticipation of having Cam inside him. "I want you to fuck me," he replied, leaning back to pull Cam's shirt off and suck on one of the perfectly pert little nipples on the perfect pecs on the fucking perfect chest that belonged to fucking perfect Cameron Mitchell, who was standing up, cradling John's ass as he carried him, stumbling a little, towards the bed. And because he was Cameron Mitchell, John wasn't concerned for even a second that he'd drop him. "So fucking hot," John mumbled into Cam's neck as he kissed a hickey there. "I bet you fuck like a stallion."
Cam snorted. "That line normally work for you, Shep?" He tossed John down onto the bed, pulling off John's pants before John was even aware what was happening, the world going hazy around him except for the distant sounds of Cam stripping, and the intense breaks in the alcohol induced fugue with each touch, every rough caress.
"Oh, god, yes. I don't care. Just fuck me now. Please," he begged. But it had been a long time since John had been with a man. He could scratch his itch with women just fine, but men were just too damned painful. But maybe he'd underestimated the power of being with a man, because right now his body was screaming for Cam. Every second Cam wasn't touching him was like fire dancing down his nerves. He needed this.
There wasn't any prep. John didn't need any. He wanted Cam that very second. He yanked Cam down on top of him, wrapping his legs around him and drawing him into a sloppy kiss. Cam didn't seem to mind, bracing himself and then just shoving in, the way John had always wanted a man to do. Leo had always been so careful with him, as though John needed to be prepped like a pleb, instead of just taking the way imperials had been fucking since the dawn of time.
John was aware that somewhere in his alcohol soaked brain that this should have hurt, but it didn't. He felt his muscles clamp tight around Cam as he gasped. Of course Cam would hit John's prostate on the first stroke. "Right there," he groaned, grabbing onto Cam tighter. "Oh, god, Cam, right there." And Cam obliged him, setting up a punishing pace even as the kisses he placed on John's lips were gentle, almost sweet.
John pulled his legs up to tighten even more around Cam's waist. His penis was no longer hard - too much to drink, but he didn't care. He was fast approaching orgasm anyhow, feeling the rush of precum that would be leaking out the tip if he were doing the fucking spilling inside him, lubricating his channel enough for Cam to speed up his thrusts even faster than his already inhuman pace. John cried out as his prostate was squeezed dry with each delicious thrust. He whined, writhing and gripping the sheets beneath him until he was whimpering, the feeling of a different kind of orgasm washing over him, all of his muscles clenching, fluid dropping slowly out the tip of his flaccid penis while his vision whited out from pleasure. He was barely aware of Cam shouting out his own orgasm, collapsing down onto John with a groan, nuzzling his neck and whispering, "Thank you," over and over again.
"Thank you," John whispered back. He hadn't come like a noble in such a long time - since he and Leo had stopped using condoms. Deep somewhere in John's muddled thoughts a small amount of worry built up, but John was too busy passing out to notice.
Next: The Good of the One
Author: Tzzzz
Rating: NC17
Pairing: Sheppard/McKay, Sheppard/Mitchell
Genre: mpreg
Summary: John and Cam, then and now. Follows Tables Turned, Once There Was a Man Named Holland, Not a Henry, The Kangaroos and the Bees, and What Rodney Wants.
Conception
This wasn't good. This really wasn't good. "Give me a minute?" John asked, escaping into his tiny bathroom and collapsing down onto the toilet. "John, you stupid fuck. What they hell were you thinking?" What was he going to say? He had no idea what to say. Things have finally been going well, at least as well as could be expected considering he'd gone and gotten himself knocked up. He still had Atlantis. He had a team that would stand behind him. He finally had Rodney after years of wanting and not allowing himself to have.
But there was Cam, pacing angrily in John's too-small room. John was a moron that he didn't see this coming. It got on the paperwork. Confidential, sure, but the SGC was like a small town and Cam never had problems making friends. He was the complete opposite of John that way. Of course he would find out. John had just hoped that it would all go away, neonate and all, and then maybe he could get his goddamned life back. But after everything, how could he possibly expect that things would work out for him? They never had and they never would and he was just being a pompous, deluded asshole if he dared hope otherwise.
"Shit." He ran his fingers through his hair, immediately regretting it, knowing that it would just make him look like more of a goddamned slut, which is what got him into trouble in the first place. Cam was a good guy. If John was being honest with himself, he knew that all along Cam deserved the truth. John could cloak his selfishness in the greater good all he wanted but as two people, two people who had been lovers if only once, they owed each other honesty at the very least.
John had no idea how long he sat there, head in his hands, the stupid slit throbbing as though it sensed Cam's proximity, but it was long enough that he startled with the polite knock on the door. "John? Are you okay in there?"
John sighed, giving the toilet a flush even though they both knew it was a thinly veiled excuse for hiding. "Coming."
Cam did look worried when John exited. Of course he did. Cam was just that kind of guy - the kind that would be worried about John even as he was spitting mad at him. "So, you want to tell me what's going on here, John?" he drawled, resigned, but still angry.
John collapsed down onto the bed, feeling suddenly exhausted. "What do you want me to tell you, Cam? We got drunk. We fucked. I've got an empty purse and a waiting seed and I don't want it."
"So you're going to bind? You're just going to let our baby die, John?" Cam looked beyond hurt. He looked honestly baffled. He knelt down in front of John, giving him the patented 'Cameron Mitchell, too damned sincere for my own good' stare. If Cam was about to propose, John would cock-punch him and his stupid pleb values. But instead Cam put a hand on John's thigh. His touch was firm, exactly the kind of comfort John needed - nothing like a caress. "I know it was just a drunken night, but we're friends. You should've told me. And you know it. And don't even try to give me any of that traditional noble bullshit about not getting anyone's hopes up before the transfer."
John nodded, transfixed by the intensity in Cam's stare.
"How in the hell am I supposed to help you if you don't tell me?"
"I don't need your help," John choked out, when he was feeling like he was drowning, not for lack of life preservers. Teyla wanted to take charge of the team while he went back to Earth. Ronon wanted to fight a war with the bureaucrats to keep him on Atlantis. Rodney wanted to carry the kid and let John fill his pouch too. And now Cam was here, playing the stupid white knight to John's black sheep like always, and the thing was, even though he loved and trusted his team more than anything, this was Cameron Fucking Mitchell, all hope and apple pie, and John couldn't help leaning forward into his arms and belying the million denials he had stored up. "What do you want me to do, Cam?"
"Hey," Cam whispered, pulling John down off the bed and practically into his lap. He was John's age, but broad-shouldered and strong. And John did feel protected in the circle of his arms, even if that made him a weak little shit, in way over his head. "I'm going to be there for you. I promise."
"I know you are." He'd told Ronon that Cam was needed elsewhere as much as John was, but maybe John needed him just a little too. "But your job, Cam. SG-1."
"Saved the world for years before I came along and will keep doing it after. Sam and Daniel have the brains, Teal'c has the brawn and the political contacts. Vala has ... something. I'm just the pushy manager who demanded they do a reunion show. I'm completely and utterly replaceable. It may not be what I planned, but I am damn proud to have a family with you and that comes first, before playing space cowboy."
John nodded. Cam was a good man. John might actually be proud to raise a child with him too. But Cam played by the rules. He was the Air Force's golden boy for a reason. He was a round peg that fit all the holes like the hundreds of other cogs that could do the same thing. Maybe without all the heart that Cam put into it, but while the work Cam was doing was undeniably critical to future of the Milky Way, Cam didn't necessarily need to be the one to do it.
"But what about Atlantis?" John asked.
"Atlantis can live without you for your labor window and then we can hire a surrogate. If I were a carrier, you know I'd offer to incubate myself, but--"
"No," John couldn't very well refuse Rodney's offer and then contract out to a stranger. "If we do this, then I want to carry, full term. It's not fair to ask anyone else to do it for me." And if he was going to have a kid, a possibility that he hadn't even fully contemplated yet, he wanted to be there when it emerged from the pouch the first time. He wanted to feel its heartbeat against his body and give it his milk and take it around showing it all the wonderful things in the world those first few formative months when babies looked out their carrier's pouches with so much wonder.
"Then Atlantis can live without you for a year. I know you've done a standup job of running the place, but it's not as though they don't have a truckload of imperials with ATA genes just like yours ready to ship out at any second."
"But that's why they sent me."
"They sent you because General O'Neill was very impressed that you managed to avoid a rogue drone and help him with his labor in the middle of a snow drift and charm your way into a piece of alien technology without clearance. It probably reminded him of something he would've done before he settled down to start his little retirement family. Yes, you're at the highest level of affinity for ancient tech, but you know there are others. What could happen in a year?"
"We'll have a baby." That was the part John was really worried about, he realized. He done the gestation and the labor before. He wasn't particularly bothered by waddling around like a bloated whale either. He'd probably just get to play a lot of video games and read comic books anyhow. But then after the baby emerged, it'd be a baby and he couldn't, in good conscience, keep a baby on Atlantis.
Cam nodded, his hand sliding so effortlessly over John's pouch slit that John barely noticed before Cam said, "That's the whole point of this, remember?"
"The neonate was conceived because we were drunk and stupid, Cam. How does that make us qualified to raise a child together?"
"People who haven't stared down a Prior or blown up a Wraith hive ship have been doing it for centuries. Besides, we've known each other a long time, John. We're good together."
John let Cam hold him close and deliver a completely sappy and undeserved kiss to his forehead. "Yeah, I guess we are." He squeezed Cam tight, holding on to the one life preserver that he felt at least a little justified hanging on to. Cam had been there too, after all, and had been in just as good a position as John to use a condom.
"There's always a chance it won't be viable," John pointed out.
"There's always that," Cam replied, but he looked like he didn't like that possibility at all. John could say that it wouldn't matter, because he wasn't doing it, but Cam was a good guy who'd sacrificed as much as John, if not more, for his country, his planet, and John couldn't look into those stupidly sincere, hopeful eyes and crush his heart when he deserved all the world could give him.
"We're going to have a baby," John whispered, leaning against Cam's side, forcing himself to relax even when a feeling of dread settled down around his heart, ready for a siege.
"Our baby is going to be beautiful," Cam agreed.
John didn't reply.
***
TWO AND A HALF MONTHS EARLIER
"Well, look what the cat dragged in," Cam gave John a wolf-whistle, and John gave him a glare.
"Can it, Shaft. You try taking a group of accident-prone kids who wouldn't even be basically competent on ritalin out into the wilderness with trees and swamps and invisible things for them to trip on and see how you come out." He was sounding a little too much like Rodney, John realized. He wasn't sure if absence truly did make the heart go fonder or if his new team was just so awful that he was actually praying for the days of McKay.
"You don't have Vala," Cam retorted.
"And you're not covered head to toe in orange tar because your botanist managed to copy a bunch of saber-tooth cats and get stuck in a tar pit. There aren't even any plants in a tar pit!"
"Point," Cam agreed, smirking like an idiot and provoking John's death-glare. "Your life is much more horrible than mine. What do you say I make it up to you? I have some paperwork to fill out and an archeologist to wrangle. I'll give you an hour to shower and go through medical and then we can grab a beer."
John contemplated it. He liked Cam. They'd known each other for years and Cam was practically the only friendly face around here these days other than a few of John's old marines who got assigned even shittier jobs than he did. Last John had heard they'd sent Lorne on some two month long mining operation and Miller to run joint operations with the Russians. And they had John's go-to-girl, Teldy, running cultural sensitivity training. Like that wasn't a fucking slap to the face.
If he was going to make it on this stupid planet with his stupid new team and no Ronon and no Teyla and no Rodney, then he might as well try to be friendly about it. He treated Cam to his "don't spook the natives" smile, even though the man definitely didn't deserve it. "Look at me, Cam. Make that two hours."
"Aww, Shep, orange is your color." John flipped him the bird but found himself blushing a little beneath five inches of orange tar. One good thing about not being the boss was that he didn't have those pesky fraternization regs to worry about anymore. While he wasn't ready to commit to unpacking his boxes, let alone a relationship, it felt good to be noticed by someone other than an ascended ancient or a princess who was under the mistaken impression that she could actually get anything out of his sperm.
"Nineteen-hundred, topside. I'll even let you drive the mustang."
John grinned.
***
God, Cam's car was beautiful. Sure it couldn't break orbit or fire drones at hostile commuters or travel through a gate, but it had a gorgeous body, and John just knew he could make it purr. "You have good taste, Shaft," John noted. After the comment in the locker room he'd elected to wear a pair of jeans that he knew hugged him in all the right places, a white button-down, and his old uniform leather jacket with the patches torn off. He grinned at Cam eyeing him, but startled when suddenly Cam was in his personal space, one hand cupping his check in a caress that might be a prelude to a kiss.
"What happened to you?"
Oh, the bruise. John chuckled, stepping back out of Cam's concerned grasp. "Friendly fire."
"You grope a nurse or something?"
"No, after Wallace walked into the tar pit, Babbis decided to face plant in to grab him, and I was stuck trying to pull him out by his ankles before he drowned in the stuff. He panicked, kicked me in the face."
"Ouch. But they are your team."
"My team is in the another galaxy."
"Maybe if you thought of them as your team, these guys would shape up. You know, the power of positive thinking." Cam was always such a goddamned optimist. John remembered fondly the days when he'd come over just to piss Leo off with his aww-shucks half-full glass. Cam might be nice on the surface, but he had a naughty side, and baiting Leo, the perpetual pessimist, had always been part of it.
"Bullshit. Now, hand over the keys."
Cam grinned. "Are you sure you should be driving with your face all swollen like that?"
John rolled his eyes, whining, "Give me the damned keys, Cam."
Cam pulled them out of his pocket, a mischievous twinkle in his eye. "Come and get them."
"Oh, that's how you want to play it," John replied before tackling him. Cam pulled away, yanking the keys behind his back and making John reach around, practically embracing him as he grabbed for them. When he'd successfully gotten a hold on them, Cam was close in, close enough to turn John around and press him up against the hood of the car, the keys smashed between them.
"Whatcha gonna do now, flyboy?" Cam asked, leaning in close enough for John to see his breath on the cold Colorado air, just inches between them. They'd always played like this, fiercely competitive over everything from football bets to basketball to who drove the fastest car, but something had changed - a tension in the air that John hadn't felt before.
He gave Cam his most seductive smile. Cam had weight and a better position, but John had charm and he wasn't afraid to use it. He leaned in close, like he was ready to kiss, distracting Cam enough to poke him in the ribs, haul him off and jump in the driver's seat.
"Cheater!" Cam declared, but with no animosity in it.
John grinned, revving the engine. "So, are there any good bars around here?" He'd gone with Carson to a good steakhouse, and with his team to the Macaroni Grill, confirming them as the lamest group of space explorers ever, but truthfully, he'd been spending most of his free weekends visiting Rodney in Nevada, so he didn't get the chance to explore.
"Yeah, and I'll take you to all of them. I promise. But, seeing as how I don't want people to think I've been abusing that pretty face, or dying your neck orange, we should probably go back to my place."
"Really?" John snuck a glance in the rearview mirror. His skin did have a little bit of a tint. "Shit, I look like I'm trying to be a sesame street character."
"I always thought you looked a little like Bert," Cam commented.
"And I thought my day couldn't get any worse."
Cam smirked a little, looking far too cool, even in the passenger's seat of his gorgeous mustang. "We'll head back to my place and try to make it better, then."
John wasn't entirely sure that was possible, but he trusted Cam to almost an absurd degree, so John followed his directions to a small house in a nondescript suburb, the soft rumble of the mustang's engine relaxing away some of the tensions of the day.
What Cam's place lacked in architectural distinction it made up for in a flat-screen TV, monster speakers, and every gaming system on the market - the important things. "Awesome," John remarked, accepting a beer right off the bat. It was a drinking kind of day.
Cam flipped on ESPN so they could catch up on college basketball and patted the space next to him on a small but incredibly comfortable leather couch. North Carolina was losing, much to Cam's resentment and dismay, and John rooted for UConn just to annoy him. They hadn't even been sitting down five minutes when the doorbell rang. "I ordered pizza while I was waiting for you in the parking lot," Cam explained. "You still like pineapple and anchovies, right?"
John was too busy laughing to remember that Cam hadn't noticed he was either bruised or tinted orange before he'd decided against a bar and ordered the pizza, "I was gestating at the time." Cam had been pulled for what John now knew was the F-302 project just before he and Leo had made the announcement. "In fact, it was the cooks telling me that I was either pregnant or just plain crazy that made me go for a checkup."
"Well, you did a damned good job waxing poetic about the subtle sweetness of the pineapple complementing the saltiness of the anchovies to fool me. I got pepperoni too, so we're safe."
With the pizzas, Cam brought them another two beers each. John's tolerance had been pretty shot, living in Atlantis where the moonshine fucked you up too much to be useful in a crisis and beer runs were few and far between, but he wasn't one to turn down a man's hospitality, so he finished both off in the time it took to fill up on pizza.
Cam shouted at the TV a lot, and John joined in with him, laughing a little too much and shouting a little too loud as the beer buzz worked its magic. Cam got up to grab him another bottle before the last quarter, sitting down a little closer than before. With the alcohol and the pizza warm in his belly and the only immediate problems being UConn's gap in their defense, John realized all of a sudden that he'd forgotten about his awful day. Yeah, there probably wasn't enough beer in the world to wipe away the deep ache that he felt for the loss of Atlantis, or his resentment of Earth and all the stupid people who had no idea what the real problems in the universe were, but feeling Cam's energy and warmth beside him, he could at least forget about his idiot team and their Marx Brothers style of offworld exploration.
"Thanks," John said, leaning a little against Cam's shoulder, which was right there. Since when had Cam even put his arm around him? "This is as good an end as I could imagine to a really crappy day."
Cam smiled back, casually taking a swig of his beer, pale blue eyes twinkling. Cam had really pretty eyes. How had John not noticed that before? They were the same seemingly endless puddles of blue as Rodney's, but they were sharp and startling, and really, really pretty. "Fuck, I think I'm drunk on four beers."
"Drunk?" Cam asked, giving John's shoulder a squeeze. "Or tipsy?"
John's mind couldn't seem to make itself up, or maybe he couldn't make up his mind. "Um, maybe just very tipsy."
"Have another?"
John grinned. "Sure, why not? Wallace and Babbis are more orange than would be acceptable if we actually run into any people on our next mission, so I have the next few days to sleep it off."
"The next few days? So does that mean you want another beer or a handle of whiskey?"
John laughed, even though he wasn't entirely sure that was particularly funny. "Not a handle, but I haven't had any good bourbon in a while."
"You know me too well, Shep." Cam disappeared unexplainably and reappeared holding a tumbler with at least four fingers of the cool amber liquid John remembered Cam always had squirreled away when they were stationed together.
"Are you trying to get me drunk, Shaft?" John asked, eyeing the bourbon skeptically.
Cam shrugged. "I thought you were trying to get yourself drunk. I'm just facilitating whatever ritual you want to use to deal with almost drowning in a swamp of orange tar."
"It looked like Fanta," John wrinkled his nose in disgust before taking a few good swallows from his glass. "You're a good friend, then. A good facilitator."
Cam laughed. "Glad I could be of assistance."
John downed some more of his drink before his thoughts started to wander. He was a maudlin, reflective drunk, and he should know better than to let Cam see it, but here it was and if Cam hadn't judged him for all the other stupid shit John had pulled since they knew each other, he wasn't going to judge for this. "Cam?"
"Yeah?" Cam had his arm around John again, but it felt good. It felt nice - safe and warm and protected, like some of Cam's perfect golden boy aura could rub off on him like pixie dust.
"Why SG-1?" John had ended up commander in Atlantis by accident, with all the pressure and the stress and the weirdness. He loved his job, but he'd gone more to get even further away from his problems than Antarctica than because that kind of responsibility was what he wanted. But Cam had known the giant shitstorm that would land in his lap and he'd volunteered.
"Because I was already fighting that war. Protecting Earth against the Goa'uld and then the Ori - that was my job, but I spent two years training on space fighter-jets only to go down in a ten minute battle knowing only that the stakes were enormous without having any idea of our odds of saving the planet. I wanted SG1 because if I'm going to be fighting a war, I want to be on the front lines with the best people I can find by my side, getting the job done so we don't have to wait until the enemy is at our doorstep next time."
"Okay, okay, enough with the recruitment speech. What I mean is: someone else could be doing that. Why were you so determined, when you had your pick of positions to take walking through the gate pretending to order around people with far more experience then you when you could be flying cool planes and having no worries when you weren't." John had forgotten that he was sometimes a mean drunk as well.
"I know I can do the job and I want to serve. That's it. And now that I'm doing it, I like it. I know you can understand that."
John nodded. Sure, he could understand that. "I miss it."
The arm around him gave John a squeeze. "I know you do."
"It might have been an accident that I ended up there, but it felt good to be doing something that really mattered for a change, with good people. I loved Atlantis."
"And Atlantis loved you," Cam replied. "But the city's in good hands now and you're here. Time to at least make the best of it."
John nodded. Cam was right. Cam was always fucking right, and John hated him for it sometimes. Cam would never do anything stupid like what happened with Leo. Cam wouldn't get shipped out to Antarctica or wake the Wraith or any of the other dumb shit John got up to because he actually liked the rules. He believed in them. When someone asked him to jump he really did ask, "how high?" And if John had done that at least he'd be back on first contact now instead of training a group of klutzes who couldn't fight their way out of a paper bag.
"How in the hell am I supposed to do that?" John slurred, finishing off his bourbon and raising the glass in question.
"Suck it up with your team until Landry gets a better feel for you and transfers you back to first contact. I'll find a way to let you come on a mission with us so Sam and Daniel can be impressed enough to remind O'Neill that they've demoted you from base commander to babysitter, which is just plain unfair."
"You'd do that for me?"
"Of course. John, we're friends. I'll take good care of you."
"Thanks, buddy," John replied, perplexed when Cam pulled him in a little closer. He was really well on the way to drunk now. In fact, he was drooling a little bit on Cam's shoulder, his eyelids getting heavy and his movements jerky and slow. He slumped further into Cam. Cam was comfortable - solid and strong and warm.
"You could also start by unpacking your stuff."
"How'd you know that?" John couldn't remember telling him that.
Cam rolled his eyes. "I know you."
"Fine. I'll unpack."
"Buy some furniture."
"That too. You can help."
"Fine by me."
"Anything else you wanna order me to do? You know I'm not good at taking orders." John turned his head to give Cam a stern look, suddenly noticing the honest affection in Cam's gaze. It felt nice. It wasn't Atlantis, but at least someone cared about him.
Cam leaned in closer, whispering, "You could start working on your relationships?"
"What relationships?" Landry would probably always hate him, and O'Neill didn't seem to give a shit. And John's team already loved him, they were just completely unqualified to be within a hundred feet of a gate.
"You know." Cam was really close now, so John could stare right into those gorgeous blue eyes. And there was a hand on his cheek, rubbing at his stubble. Since when had that happened? And then Cam's lips were on his and oh, he really never saw these things coming. Sure they'd been flirting a little all night, but John had thought it was just friendly banter, another level of their competitive game.
And then he stopped thinking, because Cam's mouth was warm and his lips soft and enticing and John couldn't help but open up and let him in. Cam was a damned good kisser, just like everything else. His tongue moved in to massage John's with a rhythm that was unquestionably sexual, one hand running through John's hair to hold him there as Cam just took his mouth.
John was entranced for much longer than he probably should have been, but the alcohol had numbed everything but the bolt of pure lust that shot through him, from the tightening in his balls to that ache inside him that let him know just how badly he wanted this man. Fuck the quiet reserve he'd kept on Altantis, and the sorrowful celibacy of after Leo had died. Cam was here and he was perfect by anyone's standard and John was drunk and he wanted and there was no reason why he shouldn't take. "Jesus, Cam, you're good at that," John mumbled into yet another passionate kiss, rising up to meet Cam's challenge this time, bitting at his lips and then kissing the sting better with a sweet soothing kiss afterwards. He was pushing, running his hands up and down Cam's tight white t-shirt and over the hard nipples he could feel pebbled beneath the soft cotton.
Before he knew it, John had pressed Cam back against the seat of the couch and it seemed like the next logical conclusion to move to straddle him, not caring that he knocked over a few empty beer bottles on the coffee table in the process. Cam was achingly hard as John undulated his hips against him, gasping into his mouth with the pleasure of it. "I want you so bad," Cam said. "From the second I saw you, I wanted you."
John wasn't paying attention, though, focused as he was on his arousal. He was so hard it was almost painful, and he could feel his internal muscles clenching in anticipation of having Cam inside him. "I want you to fuck me," he replied, leaning back to pull Cam's shirt off and suck on one of the perfectly pert little nipples on the perfect pecs on the fucking perfect chest that belonged to fucking perfect Cameron Mitchell, who was standing up, cradling John's ass as he carried him, stumbling a little, towards the bed. And because he was Cameron Mitchell, John wasn't concerned for even a second that he'd drop him. "So fucking hot," John mumbled into Cam's neck as he kissed a hickey there. "I bet you fuck like a stallion."
Cam snorted. "That line normally work for you, Shep?" He tossed John down onto the bed, pulling off John's pants before John was even aware what was happening, the world going hazy around him except for the distant sounds of Cam stripping, and the intense breaks in the alcohol induced fugue with each touch, every rough caress.
"Oh, god, yes. I don't care. Just fuck me now. Please," he begged. But it had been a long time since John had been with a man. He could scratch his itch with women just fine, but men were just too damned painful. But maybe he'd underestimated the power of being with a man, because right now his body was screaming for Cam. Every second Cam wasn't touching him was like fire dancing down his nerves. He needed this.
There wasn't any prep. John didn't need any. He wanted Cam that very second. He yanked Cam down on top of him, wrapping his legs around him and drawing him into a sloppy kiss. Cam didn't seem to mind, bracing himself and then just shoving in, the way John had always wanted a man to do. Leo had always been so careful with him, as though John needed to be prepped like a pleb, instead of just taking the way imperials had been fucking since the dawn of time.
John was aware that somewhere in his alcohol soaked brain that this should have hurt, but it didn't. He felt his muscles clamp tight around Cam as he gasped. Of course Cam would hit John's prostate on the first stroke. "Right there," he groaned, grabbing onto Cam tighter. "Oh, god, Cam, right there." And Cam obliged him, setting up a punishing pace even as the kisses he placed on John's lips were gentle, almost sweet.
John pulled his legs up to tighten even more around Cam's waist. His penis was no longer hard - too much to drink, but he didn't care. He was fast approaching orgasm anyhow, feeling the rush of precum that would be leaking out the tip if he were doing the fucking spilling inside him, lubricating his channel enough for Cam to speed up his thrusts even faster than his already inhuman pace. John cried out as his prostate was squeezed dry with each delicious thrust. He whined, writhing and gripping the sheets beneath him until he was whimpering, the feeling of a different kind of orgasm washing over him, all of his muscles clenching, fluid dropping slowly out the tip of his flaccid penis while his vision whited out from pleasure. He was barely aware of Cam shouting out his own orgasm, collapsing down onto John with a groan, nuzzling his neck and whispering, "Thank you," over and over again.
"Thank you," John whispered back. He hadn't come like a noble in such a long time - since he and Leo had stopped using condoms. Deep somewhere in John's muddled thoughts a small amount of worry built up, but John was too busy passing out to notice.
Next: The Good of the One