Time Stamp Meme Responses #1
Here's the first three time stamp prompt responses - rest to follow...um, soon. Ish. Maybe.
For -la-la-la who wanted to know what Sheppard did while Lorne was off-world in Less Like Freedom:
Meanwhile, Back On Atlantis...
Lorne had been gone for two days, chilling out (John hoped) with the botanists, when Ronon sat down opposite John in the mess and said, “Clark.”
“Yeah?” John asked, trying to place the name. “The marine biologist who came on the Daedalus at the start of the year?”
“Yep.” Ronon stole John’s muffin, which John considered fair payment (especially since it was poppy seed and he hated the way the seeds stuck in his teeth). “Couple of different people said so.”
John didn’t doubt the truth of what Ronon was saying; he had no idea how Ronon did it, but he got all the gossip in the city within hours of it starting, and what he didn’t hear, he knew how to find out. It was just that Clark hadn’t ever been off-world in his eight months in the city, had had minimal contact at best with the marines and Lorne; John couldn’t imagine why he’d want to start that kind of rumor. “Thanks, buddy. I owe you one.”
Ronon paused between bites of muffin. “Lorne’s a good guy. Everyone talking about him was making him unhappy. About time someone sorted it out.”
“Yeah,” John agreed, feeling weirdly guilty. Better late than never.
*
Clark had to know why he’d been summoned to John’s office, but he was doing a good job of hiding it when he walked in, nearly five minutes late; head up, shoulders back, giving off intelligent, twenty-something years old, three masters and a PhD confidence so hard John thought he should have felt it coming.
“Take a seat,” he offered. “How’re you getting on in Atlantis, Dr Clark?”
“Very well, thank you,” Clark said with a small smile. John remembered him, vaguely, from arrival day, the startled expression on his face when the marines had explained that no, they wouldn’t be carrying his bags for him. “We’ve been doing some really interesting work with the -“
“Yeah, honestly?” John said, leaning forward, elbows on his desk, and letting a little bit of the threat show through. “I’m more interested in what you’ve been doing outside of work.”
“Outside of work?” Clark parroted. It was a good act, apart from the way he was pulling at the edge of his right thumb nail.
“Yes, outside of work. Like starting up the rumor that’s been going around about two of my men.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Clark said.
“Dr Clark, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, down in Marine Biology, but over the last couple of months, we’ve lost our expedition leader, set up two new major research stations on other planets and gone through a large scale change to the military regulations, so I’m sure you’ll understand me when I say that I’m a busy man.” John smiled, putting an edge into it and watching with satisfaction as Clark dropped his gaze for a second. “I’ve got a lot to do and not a lot of time in which to get it done, so I’ll get straight to the point. I know you started up this rumor, and you know I’m telling the truth -“
“It’s hardly a rumor if it’s true,” Clark interrupted, meeting John’s eyes again.
John didn’t sigh, but it was a near thing. “I would have thought, as hooked into the rumor mill as you apparently are, that Sergeant Grayson’s repeated statements that nothing happened would have reached you by now.” Grayson, at least, had been easy to deal with; a quiet word, a quick threat of unspecified but implicitly unpleasant duty, and he’d happily agreed to shut up about it. “Regardless, I’m not interested in hearing why you thought this was a good idea, or even where you got the idea from.”
“Isn’t the point of this new policy that everyone can be open about their sexuality?” Clark asked. Brilliant marine biologist or not, he clearly wasn’t the brightest button in the box. “If he’s not ashamed, why should he bother about what people say?”
“How would you like having everyone talk about your private life, Doctor, after you’d spent the last fifteen years making sure nobody did?” John gave it a few seconds to sink in, not that it seemed to be doing so. “Here’s what I got you here to say: stop spreading rumors about my men. Stop spreading rumors about anyone in the city, anyone connected to the city, or anyone at all. Stop spreading this rumor in particular. Continue, and you’ll get a look firsthand at just what the marines will do to protect their own.”
“Major Lorne’s not even a marine,” Clark said, once again missing the point spectacularly.
“Major Lorne is a member of Atlantis’ military forces, one of the people responsible for keeping you safe, and my second in command. Without a civilian leader in the city, I have the final say on everything from duty assignments to who gets to stay. Am I making myself clear?”
“You’re threatening me,” Clark said. “I could report you to the IOA for this.”
“I am,” John said, still smiling. Clark was starting to look a little unnerved. “And you could. But you won’t. Want to know why?” Clark didn’t say anything. “You won’t, because I’ve been serving on a team with Rodney McKay for eight years now. Between us, Major Lorne and I have saved his life more times than you’ve sat in a lecture theatre, and believe me, Doctor, if I ask him, he will quite happily destroy any prospects you might have for an academic career anywhere in this galaxy or any other.”
He paused, watching the realization of just how deadly Rodney could be to a man’s career spread over Clark’s face. Clark didn’t need to know that Rodney, caught up in the latest breakthrough in creating ZPMs, wasn’t even aware that the rumor existed.
“Is that clear?” He got a glare in response, and upped the brightness of his grin a little. “So glad we had this little chat, Doctor. Don’t let me keep you any longer.” He waited until Clark was reaching for the door crystal. “And Doctor? You might like to know that we finalize the passenger manifest for the next Daedalus run to Earth at the end of the week. It’s with Captain Fields until then.”
Clark didn’t slam the door, but John suspected this was only because doors on Atlantis couldn’t be slammed.
*
He didn’t see much of either Ronon or Teyla for the rest of the day, which was unusual, but probably explained why no-one even mentioned Lorne’s name that evening in the mess. When he mentioned this, Ronon shrugged and Teyla smiled; John took that to mean he was right, and didn’t ask.
When he went back to his office, he found a packet of good coffee and a half dozen green and pink lollipops (his favorites) sitting in the middle of his desk. There wasn’t a note or anything, but everyone knew that Zelenka hoarded coffee for when he needed to bribe Rodney, and that Keller kept the lollipops for the Athosian kids.
John tucked the coffee into the bottom desk drawer to wait for Lorne’s return, stuck a lollipop in the corner of his mouth, and wandered out into the city, grinning.
For skieswideopen who wanted six months after Spaces in the Light:
Home Fires
It’s partly Cam’s fault, for not turning on a light, but he’s not in the mood to be reasonable, falling over a box after an achingly long day running frighteningly young recruits through their paces at the alpha site.
“Sheppard! Are you trying to kill me? Because you’re well on the way to succeeding.”
He throws his bag and jacket on the arm chair, flipping on a lamp as he goes by and listening to sounds of movement. His knee’s already begun to stiffen up from the drive home, and it twinges as he moves into the kitchen, grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge and smiling at the plastic box of pasta which wasn’t in there in the morning; that has to be a good sign.
It was hardly worth turning the lamp on; he turns it off again as he leaves the room, limping down the corridor and into what is still, technically, his bedroom, though he hasn’t had the bed to himself in nearly six months.
Nor will he tonight, he realizes. The lamp on his side of the bed - the only one, since he isn’t supposed to be sharing it with anyone - is on, throwing soft light over the rumpled covers and the bedraggled head poking out of them.
John blinks up at him and smiles slowly. “You’re home,” he says, watching Cam lower himself carefully to sit on the side of the bed, and Cam knows he’s grinning like an idiot, but he doesn’t care. Hearing John Sheppard call this place home will never, ever get old. “How was your day?”
Cam groans at the memory, and the thought of doing it all again tomorrow. “Fine,” he lies, rolling his eyes because he knows it will make John smile. “Until I got home and nearly killed myself falling over a box.”
“Sorry,” John says insincerely. “I was going to unpack it, honestly.”
“You’ve been saying that since you moved in here,” Cam points out. “At least put it in the other room so I don’t keep tripping on it.”
“Yes, dear,” John says.
Cam moves to swat him round the side of his head, but somehow he loses the impetus before he makes contact, and ends up running his hand through John’s hair instead. “How about you? You doing okay?”
“M’fine,” John says, still sleepy. His skin’s warm against Cam’s hand; he must have been in bed for a while. “Slept most of the day. Shelley brought us pasta.”
That explains the box in the fridge, but at least there was some missing, which means John actually ate. “Still tired?”
“Mm.” John presses into Cam’s hand like a cat, familiar and necessary, and Cam takes a deep breath, pushing down the remembered fear. The drug the Antricians had given John to keep him awake while they held him captive for the three days it took SG-1 to get to him left him exhausted when it burnt through his system. Lam kept him in the infirmary, the first night, keeping an eye on his bruises, his sprained wrist, and made small talk with Cam, who couldn’t seem to move away, freaked out by the dead sleep John had fallen into, unable to relax until he woke up for half an hour, nineteen hours later.
It’s been four days, long enough that it’s starting to wear off, but Cam can’t shake the memories off bursting into that cell and finding John wide-eyed and manic, barely able to recognize them.
“Hey,” John says, wrapping his good hand round Cam’s wrist. “I’m fine. Shelley stayed for an hour and I didn’t even doze off once. Lam wants me in to be signed back onto active duty day after tomorrow. Quit worrying.”
“Yes, dear,” Cam parrots back automatically, and John sighs.
“Lie down,” he says, flopping gracelessly over to pull out a corner of the twisted bedding. Apparently, he’s a mobile sleeper when he’s alone. “Tell me about your day. I’m bored here.”
“Day-time TV not exciting enough for you?” Cam asks, standing up to remove his shirt and jeans. He showered at the mountain, so he’s pretty much ready to go straight to bed, and whatever his mom says, his teeth aren’t going to rot if he doesn’t brush them for one night.
“There was a guy on Jerry Springer who was certain he’d been kidnapped by aliens who wanted to perform deranged sex acts on him,” John says, his eyes on Cam as he fumbles with the last buttons on his shirt and shoves his jeans off. “How come we never meet the aliens who want to perform deranged sex acts on us?”
“Just unlucky, I guess,” Cam says. John holds up the corner of the covers and he slides in, unable to stop the sigh of relief as he relaxes back into the soft mattress and the warmth left by John’s body. Even the ache in his bad leg seems to ease.
John rolls over, carefully holding his sprained wrist up, and settles into Cam’s side, twisting to kiss him. “Missed you,” he says.
They’ve been living together for nearly six months now, since Cam’s bad experience with the memory device, when he woke up the next morning to John looking solemnly at him and saying, “Yes. Okay.” He still knows what John means though; he kept turning round to share a joke, and remembering that the person he wanted to share it with wasn’t there.
“You’ll be back in a couple of days,” he says. “More excitement than you’ll know what to do with.”
“Good.” John shifts again, resting his still-bandaged wrist on Cam’s stomach, his fingers curling over Cam’s ribs. “Can’t let you lot have all the fun.”
“We’ll do our best not to,” Cam agrees. That won’t be hard, not really; he loves his team, but he feels like an outsider without John there.
“So tell me about the training runs,” John says. “Find anyone good that we can poach?”
Cam wraps an arm round John’s back, warm and cozy in their bed, and does exactly that.
For tesserae_ who wanted to see an early meeting between Cam and John from the Return'verse:
Party Time
The apartment, Cam decided an hour into the party, really wasn’t big enough for all the people in it. None of the base apartments were; they were barely bigger than a generously sized shoe box, which meant the bare minimum of furniture, and a lot of people standing up, drinks in hand, the music straining to be heard over all the voices.
Cam leant against the kitchen doorway, half-drunk bottle of water in hand - no alcohol, not with the pain killers Anderson insisted he keep taking - and looked round the crowded living room again, trying to pick out Holland, the guest of honor at his own birthday party, and the man responsible for Cam’s presence there in the first place, having talked it up as a way to meet some people on his new posting.
Trouble was, even with the windows open, the apartment was too hot, and the press of all these strangers was starting to freak Cam out in a way it never would have before. Knowing it would wear off with time didn’t help him right now, unfortunately.
He took another swallow of water and gave up looking for Holland. Someone had said the guy’s girlfriend was in town for the week - he’d probably gone back to his own place with her and no-one had noticed his absence.
Cam squeezed round a group of people he was fairly sure were mechanics and out into the tiny corridor. The other two doors were closed - bathroom and bedroom, he figured - making it fairly clear that whoever the apartment belonged to didn’t want people in his bedroom. Maybe he’d make an exception for Cam; he could at least plead extenuating circumstances due to lingering injury and trauma.
Decision made, he slipped into the bedroom, breathing a sigh of relief when the closed door cut off most of the sound of people outside. Without the press of bodies, it was cooler in here; outside the open window, the sun was starting to set, casting the whole room in a pink glow.
A pink glow that showed a neatly made bed, a chest of drawers and a small bedside table holding a standard issue lamp and a heavy-duty looking paperback. Apart from the guitar tucked in one corner, the place could have been waiting for the newest occupant to move in. Whoever owned this place must have put everything away for the party; either that or he was a compulsive neat-freak to rival even Cam’s college room-mate.
He went over to the open window, enjoying the breeze on his over-heated skin, and looked out at the road in front, the identical apartment block on the other side. There were no signs of life out there; presumably most people were on duty or in the apartment behind him.
The sound of the door opening made him jump, and he turned quickly. The man pulling the door closed with himself on the same side as Cam looked about his own age, dressed in jeans and a blue t-shirt, dark hair sticking up in every direction. Had to be a pilot - no-one else would get away with hair like that.
He smiled when he saw he had Cam’s attention. “Thought I saw someone come in here.”
“Sorry,” Cam offered, figuring he was meeting the apartment’s resident, and about to be kicked back in with the rest of the guests. “Just wanted a few minutes peace and quiet.”
“Too many people?” the guy asked, making a sympathetic face. “I don’t know how he makes so many friends. Especially when he never sticks around for his own party.”
“You noticed too, huh?” Cam risked a smile, since the guy didn’t seem bothered at finding him there.
“Yeah.” He came over to stand beside Cam, looking down at the empty street, his bare arm brushing Cam’s. He told himself firmly that he wasn’t feeling the heat of the other man’s skin through his own shirt sleeve. “Commandeers my apartment, brings along a bunch of people he knows much better than I do, and then goes off to see his girl.”
“People can be so inconsiderate,” Cam said, grinning at the mock-wounded tone and actually feeling himself begin to relax for the first time in weeks.
“Tell me about it,” he grumbled. “He’s coming back over to clean up though.”
“That’s nice of him,” Cam said, pretty sure he was supplying the set-up line.
Sure enough, his companion turned to him, grinning. “Oh, he doesn’t know that yet. He’s forgotten I have late duty tomorrow, and I know where he lives. Plenty of time to pound on his door till he gets over here. Plus, his girlfriend likes me.”
Cam would bet she did - between the looks and the smile and the relaxed line of friendly small-talk, most people probably liked him.
They watched the sun set in silence, Cam trying not to sneak too many quick looks at the guy’s profile. He’d promised himself he wasn’t going to do this and risk his career… except that he’d really had a spectacularly crappy last couple of months, culminating in being reassigned away from the team he’d been with for over a year.
“So why are you hiding in here?” the guy asked after a while, half-turning to look at Cam. He really was very pretty, as much as that shouldn’t apply to a guy. “Instead of out there meeting new people.”
“Maybe I already know them all,” Cam suggested.
He shook his head. “You don’t. I know them all, and I’ve never seen you before. I’d remember if I had.”
“I’m that memorable, huh?” Cam asked, fighting down the flush that wanted to start at the compliment. It was a pretty blatant line, which meant he probably hadn’t been as subtle with the looks as he’d meant to be.
“That’s one word for it,” the guy said. He smiled, weirdly shy, one hand landing on Cam’s arm, gently enough that it didn’t even hurt the still over-sensitive skin hidden under the material.
“What’s another one?” Cam asked, alarmed to hear his own voice come out low and rough. He didn’t even know the guy’s name, for Pete’s sake. That didn’t stop him copying his gesture, lightly tugging him round so they were face to face, pressed into the tiny space of the window.
“I’ll let you know,” he said, and his other hand closed round Cam’s shoulder, pulling him closer, so careful that Cam realized he must be aware Cam was still recovering from injuries. He had just time to wonder how he knew that, before the guy’s eyes closed, and he pressed his mouth to Cam’s, kissing him very, very gently, like he was giving Cam the chance to pull away, or to say no.
He wasn’t that stupid, not when every inch of his skin was tingling with the unexpected contact.
Outside, something thumped, and a voice shouted, “Sheppard, where the hell are you?”
The guy - Sheppard, apparently - broke the kiss with a groan, resting his head against Cam’s shoulder for a moment. “Sorry,” he said, his voice muffled in the material of Cam’s shirt. “If I don’t go out, they’ll come looking for me in here. Place isn’t that big.”
“Sure,” Cam said. “Can’t shirk your hosting duties.”
“Apparently not.” Sheppard took a step back, his expression regretful. “Hide out in here as long as you need,” he said. “They can be a bit overwhelming.”
“Thanks,” Cam said, pulling up a smile.
Sheppard kept looking at him, till the same voice shouted for him again. “Coming,” he yelled back with a rueful grin. “See you later, okay?”
“Yeah,” Cam agreed. “Later.”
Sheppard had disappeared by the time he’d gotten up the nerve to go back out there again. When Cam was finally ordered to report back for active duty, a week later, he heard through the rumor mill that both Sheppard and Holland had been recalled to the States for training.
The next time he saw Sheppard, it was two years later, and Sheppard was married.
Which wasn’t exactly what Cam had been hoping for.
For -la-la-la who wanted to know what Sheppard did while Lorne was off-world in Less Like Freedom:
Meanwhile, Back On Atlantis...
Lorne had been gone for two days, chilling out (John hoped) with the botanists, when Ronon sat down opposite John in the mess and said, “Clark.”
“Yeah?” John asked, trying to place the name. “The marine biologist who came on the Daedalus at the start of the year?”
“Yep.” Ronon stole John’s muffin, which John considered fair payment (especially since it was poppy seed and he hated the way the seeds stuck in his teeth). “Couple of different people said so.”
John didn’t doubt the truth of what Ronon was saying; he had no idea how Ronon did it, but he got all the gossip in the city within hours of it starting, and what he didn’t hear, he knew how to find out. It was just that Clark hadn’t ever been off-world in his eight months in the city, had had minimal contact at best with the marines and Lorne; John couldn’t imagine why he’d want to start that kind of rumor. “Thanks, buddy. I owe you one.”
Ronon paused between bites of muffin. “Lorne’s a good guy. Everyone talking about him was making him unhappy. About time someone sorted it out.”
“Yeah,” John agreed, feeling weirdly guilty. Better late than never.
*
Clark had to know why he’d been summoned to John’s office, but he was doing a good job of hiding it when he walked in, nearly five minutes late; head up, shoulders back, giving off intelligent, twenty-something years old, three masters and a PhD confidence so hard John thought he should have felt it coming.
“Take a seat,” he offered. “How’re you getting on in Atlantis, Dr Clark?”
“Very well, thank you,” Clark said with a small smile. John remembered him, vaguely, from arrival day, the startled expression on his face when the marines had explained that no, they wouldn’t be carrying his bags for him. “We’ve been doing some really interesting work with the -“
“Yeah, honestly?” John said, leaning forward, elbows on his desk, and letting a little bit of the threat show through. “I’m more interested in what you’ve been doing outside of work.”
“Outside of work?” Clark parroted. It was a good act, apart from the way he was pulling at the edge of his right thumb nail.
“Yes, outside of work. Like starting up the rumor that’s been going around about two of my men.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Clark said.
“Dr Clark, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, down in Marine Biology, but over the last couple of months, we’ve lost our expedition leader, set up two new major research stations on other planets and gone through a large scale change to the military regulations, so I’m sure you’ll understand me when I say that I’m a busy man.” John smiled, putting an edge into it and watching with satisfaction as Clark dropped his gaze for a second. “I’ve got a lot to do and not a lot of time in which to get it done, so I’ll get straight to the point. I know you started up this rumor, and you know I’m telling the truth -“
“It’s hardly a rumor if it’s true,” Clark interrupted, meeting John’s eyes again.
John didn’t sigh, but it was a near thing. “I would have thought, as hooked into the rumor mill as you apparently are, that Sergeant Grayson’s repeated statements that nothing happened would have reached you by now.” Grayson, at least, had been easy to deal with; a quiet word, a quick threat of unspecified but implicitly unpleasant duty, and he’d happily agreed to shut up about it. “Regardless, I’m not interested in hearing why you thought this was a good idea, or even where you got the idea from.”
“Isn’t the point of this new policy that everyone can be open about their sexuality?” Clark asked. Brilliant marine biologist or not, he clearly wasn’t the brightest button in the box. “If he’s not ashamed, why should he bother about what people say?”
“How would you like having everyone talk about your private life, Doctor, after you’d spent the last fifteen years making sure nobody did?” John gave it a few seconds to sink in, not that it seemed to be doing so. “Here’s what I got you here to say: stop spreading rumors about my men. Stop spreading rumors about anyone in the city, anyone connected to the city, or anyone at all. Stop spreading this rumor in particular. Continue, and you’ll get a look firsthand at just what the marines will do to protect their own.”
“Major Lorne’s not even a marine,” Clark said, once again missing the point spectacularly.
“Major Lorne is a member of Atlantis’ military forces, one of the people responsible for keeping you safe, and my second in command. Without a civilian leader in the city, I have the final say on everything from duty assignments to who gets to stay. Am I making myself clear?”
“You’re threatening me,” Clark said. “I could report you to the IOA for this.”
“I am,” John said, still smiling. Clark was starting to look a little unnerved. “And you could. But you won’t. Want to know why?” Clark didn’t say anything. “You won’t, because I’ve been serving on a team with Rodney McKay for eight years now. Between us, Major Lorne and I have saved his life more times than you’ve sat in a lecture theatre, and believe me, Doctor, if I ask him, he will quite happily destroy any prospects you might have for an academic career anywhere in this galaxy or any other.”
He paused, watching the realization of just how deadly Rodney could be to a man’s career spread over Clark’s face. Clark didn’t need to know that Rodney, caught up in the latest breakthrough in creating ZPMs, wasn’t even aware that the rumor existed.
“Is that clear?” He got a glare in response, and upped the brightness of his grin a little. “So glad we had this little chat, Doctor. Don’t let me keep you any longer.” He waited until Clark was reaching for the door crystal. “And Doctor? You might like to know that we finalize the passenger manifest for the next Daedalus run to Earth at the end of the week. It’s with Captain Fields until then.”
Clark didn’t slam the door, but John suspected this was only because doors on Atlantis couldn’t be slammed.
*
He didn’t see much of either Ronon or Teyla for the rest of the day, which was unusual, but probably explained why no-one even mentioned Lorne’s name that evening in the mess. When he mentioned this, Ronon shrugged and Teyla smiled; John took that to mean he was right, and didn’t ask.
When he went back to his office, he found a packet of good coffee and a half dozen green and pink lollipops (his favorites) sitting in the middle of his desk. There wasn’t a note or anything, but everyone knew that Zelenka hoarded coffee for when he needed to bribe Rodney, and that Keller kept the lollipops for the Athosian kids.
John tucked the coffee into the bottom desk drawer to wait for Lorne’s return, stuck a lollipop in the corner of his mouth, and wandered out into the city, grinning.
For skieswideopen who wanted six months after Spaces in the Light:
Home Fires
It’s partly Cam’s fault, for not turning on a light, but he’s not in the mood to be reasonable, falling over a box after an achingly long day running frighteningly young recruits through their paces at the alpha site.
“Sheppard! Are you trying to kill me? Because you’re well on the way to succeeding.”
He throws his bag and jacket on the arm chair, flipping on a lamp as he goes by and listening to sounds of movement. His knee’s already begun to stiffen up from the drive home, and it twinges as he moves into the kitchen, grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge and smiling at the plastic box of pasta which wasn’t in there in the morning; that has to be a good sign.
It was hardly worth turning the lamp on; he turns it off again as he leaves the room, limping down the corridor and into what is still, technically, his bedroom, though he hasn’t had the bed to himself in nearly six months.
Nor will he tonight, he realizes. The lamp on his side of the bed - the only one, since he isn’t supposed to be sharing it with anyone - is on, throwing soft light over the rumpled covers and the bedraggled head poking out of them.
John blinks up at him and smiles slowly. “You’re home,” he says, watching Cam lower himself carefully to sit on the side of the bed, and Cam knows he’s grinning like an idiot, but he doesn’t care. Hearing John Sheppard call this place home will never, ever get old. “How was your day?”
Cam groans at the memory, and the thought of doing it all again tomorrow. “Fine,” he lies, rolling his eyes because he knows it will make John smile. “Until I got home and nearly killed myself falling over a box.”
“Sorry,” John says insincerely. “I was going to unpack it, honestly.”
“You’ve been saying that since you moved in here,” Cam points out. “At least put it in the other room so I don’t keep tripping on it.”
“Yes, dear,” John says.
Cam moves to swat him round the side of his head, but somehow he loses the impetus before he makes contact, and ends up running his hand through John’s hair instead. “How about you? You doing okay?”
“M’fine,” John says, still sleepy. His skin’s warm against Cam’s hand; he must have been in bed for a while. “Slept most of the day. Shelley brought us pasta.”
That explains the box in the fridge, but at least there was some missing, which means John actually ate. “Still tired?”
“Mm.” John presses into Cam’s hand like a cat, familiar and necessary, and Cam takes a deep breath, pushing down the remembered fear. The drug the Antricians had given John to keep him awake while they held him captive for the three days it took SG-1 to get to him left him exhausted when it burnt through his system. Lam kept him in the infirmary, the first night, keeping an eye on his bruises, his sprained wrist, and made small talk with Cam, who couldn’t seem to move away, freaked out by the dead sleep John had fallen into, unable to relax until he woke up for half an hour, nineteen hours later.
It’s been four days, long enough that it’s starting to wear off, but Cam can’t shake the memories off bursting into that cell and finding John wide-eyed and manic, barely able to recognize them.
“Hey,” John says, wrapping his good hand round Cam’s wrist. “I’m fine. Shelley stayed for an hour and I didn’t even doze off once. Lam wants me in to be signed back onto active duty day after tomorrow. Quit worrying.”
“Yes, dear,” Cam parrots back automatically, and John sighs.
“Lie down,” he says, flopping gracelessly over to pull out a corner of the twisted bedding. Apparently, he’s a mobile sleeper when he’s alone. “Tell me about your day. I’m bored here.”
“Day-time TV not exciting enough for you?” Cam asks, standing up to remove his shirt and jeans. He showered at the mountain, so he’s pretty much ready to go straight to bed, and whatever his mom says, his teeth aren’t going to rot if he doesn’t brush them for one night.
“There was a guy on Jerry Springer who was certain he’d been kidnapped by aliens who wanted to perform deranged sex acts on him,” John says, his eyes on Cam as he fumbles with the last buttons on his shirt and shoves his jeans off. “How come we never meet the aliens who want to perform deranged sex acts on us?”
“Just unlucky, I guess,” Cam says. John holds up the corner of the covers and he slides in, unable to stop the sigh of relief as he relaxes back into the soft mattress and the warmth left by John’s body. Even the ache in his bad leg seems to ease.
John rolls over, carefully holding his sprained wrist up, and settles into Cam’s side, twisting to kiss him. “Missed you,” he says.
They’ve been living together for nearly six months now, since Cam’s bad experience with the memory device, when he woke up the next morning to John looking solemnly at him and saying, “Yes. Okay.” He still knows what John means though; he kept turning round to share a joke, and remembering that the person he wanted to share it with wasn’t there.
“You’ll be back in a couple of days,” he says. “More excitement than you’ll know what to do with.”
“Good.” John shifts again, resting his still-bandaged wrist on Cam’s stomach, his fingers curling over Cam’s ribs. “Can’t let you lot have all the fun.”
“We’ll do our best not to,” Cam agrees. That won’t be hard, not really; he loves his team, but he feels like an outsider without John there.
“So tell me about the training runs,” John says. “Find anyone good that we can poach?”
Cam wraps an arm round John’s back, warm and cozy in their bed, and does exactly that.
For tesserae_ who wanted to see an early meeting between Cam and John from the Return'verse:
Party Time
The apartment, Cam decided an hour into the party, really wasn’t big enough for all the people in it. None of the base apartments were; they were barely bigger than a generously sized shoe box, which meant the bare minimum of furniture, and a lot of people standing up, drinks in hand, the music straining to be heard over all the voices.
Cam leant against the kitchen doorway, half-drunk bottle of water in hand - no alcohol, not with the pain killers Anderson insisted he keep taking - and looked round the crowded living room again, trying to pick out Holland, the guest of honor at his own birthday party, and the man responsible for Cam’s presence there in the first place, having talked it up as a way to meet some people on his new posting.
Trouble was, even with the windows open, the apartment was too hot, and the press of all these strangers was starting to freak Cam out in a way it never would have before. Knowing it would wear off with time didn’t help him right now, unfortunately.
He took another swallow of water and gave up looking for Holland. Someone had said the guy’s girlfriend was in town for the week - he’d probably gone back to his own place with her and no-one had noticed his absence.
Cam squeezed round a group of people he was fairly sure were mechanics and out into the tiny corridor. The other two doors were closed - bathroom and bedroom, he figured - making it fairly clear that whoever the apartment belonged to didn’t want people in his bedroom. Maybe he’d make an exception for Cam; he could at least plead extenuating circumstances due to lingering injury and trauma.
Decision made, he slipped into the bedroom, breathing a sigh of relief when the closed door cut off most of the sound of people outside. Without the press of bodies, it was cooler in here; outside the open window, the sun was starting to set, casting the whole room in a pink glow.
A pink glow that showed a neatly made bed, a chest of drawers and a small bedside table holding a standard issue lamp and a heavy-duty looking paperback. Apart from the guitar tucked in one corner, the place could have been waiting for the newest occupant to move in. Whoever owned this place must have put everything away for the party; either that or he was a compulsive neat-freak to rival even Cam’s college room-mate.
He went over to the open window, enjoying the breeze on his over-heated skin, and looked out at the road in front, the identical apartment block on the other side. There were no signs of life out there; presumably most people were on duty or in the apartment behind him.
The sound of the door opening made him jump, and he turned quickly. The man pulling the door closed with himself on the same side as Cam looked about his own age, dressed in jeans and a blue t-shirt, dark hair sticking up in every direction. Had to be a pilot - no-one else would get away with hair like that.
He smiled when he saw he had Cam’s attention. “Thought I saw someone come in here.”
“Sorry,” Cam offered, figuring he was meeting the apartment’s resident, and about to be kicked back in with the rest of the guests. “Just wanted a few minutes peace and quiet.”
“Too many people?” the guy asked, making a sympathetic face. “I don’t know how he makes so many friends. Especially when he never sticks around for his own party.”
“You noticed too, huh?” Cam risked a smile, since the guy didn’t seem bothered at finding him there.
“Yeah.” He came over to stand beside Cam, looking down at the empty street, his bare arm brushing Cam’s. He told himself firmly that he wasn’t feeling the heat of the other man’s skin through his own shirt sleeve. “Commandeers my apartment, brings along a bunch of people he knows much better than I do, and then goes off to see his girl.”
“People can be so inconsiderate,” Cam said, grinning at the mock-wounded tone and actually feeling himself begin to relax for the first time in weeks.
“Tell me about it,” he grumbled. “He’s coming back over to clean up though.”
“That’s nice of him,” Cam said, pretty sure he was supplying the set-up line.
Sure enough, his companion turned to him, grinning. “Oh, he doesn’t know that yet. He’s forgotten I have late duty tomorrow, and I know where he lives. Plenty of time to pound on his door till he gets over here. Plus, his girlfriend likes me.”
Cam would bet she did - between the looks and the smile and the relaxed line of friendly small-talk, most people probably liked him.
They watched the sun set in silence, Cam trying not to sneak too many quick looks at the guy’s profile. He’d promised himself he wasn’t going to do this and risk his career… except that he’d really had a spectacularly crappy last couple of months, culminating in being reassigned away from the team he’d been with for over a year.
“So why are you hiding in here?” the guy asked after a while, half-turning to look at Cam. He really was very pretty, as much as that shouldn’t apply to a guy. “Instead of out there meeting new people.”
“Maybe I already know them all,” Cam suggested.
He shook his head. “You don’t. I know them all, and I’ve never seen you before. I’d remember if I had.”
“I’m that memorable, huh?” Cam asked, fighting down the flush that wanted to start at the compliment. It was a pretty blatant line, which meant he probably hadn’t been as subtle with the looks as he’d meant to be.
“That’s one word for it,” the guy said. He smiled, weirdly shy, one hand landing on Cam’s arm, gently enough that it didn’t even hurt the still over-sensitive skin hidden under the material.
“What’s another one?” Cam asked, alarmed to hear his own voice come out low and rough. He didn’t even know the guy’s name, for Pete’s sake. That didn’t stop him copying his gesture, lightly tugging him round so they were face to face, pressed into the tiny space of the window.
“I’ll let you know,” he said, and his other hand closed round Cam’s shoulder, pulling him closer, so careful that Cam realized he must be aware Cam was still recovering from injuries. He had just time to wonder how he knew that, before the guy’s eyes closed, and he pressed his mouth to Cam’s, kissing him very, very gently, like he was giving Cam the chance to pull away, or to say no.
He wasn’t that stupid, not when every inch of his skin was tingling with the unexpected contact.
Outside, something thumped, and a voice shouted, “Sheppard, where the hell are you?”
The guy - Sheppard, apparently - broke the kiss with a groan, resting his head against Cam’s shoulder for a moment. “Sorry,” he said, his voice muffled in the material of Cam’s shirt. “If I don’t go out, they’ll come looking for me in here. Place isn’t that big.”
“Sure,” Cam said. “Can’t shirk your hosting duties.”
“Apparently not.” Sheppard took a step back, his expression regretful. “Hide out in here as long as you need,” he said. “They can be a bit overwhelming.”
“Thanks,” Cam said, pulling up a smile.
Sheppard kept looking at him, till the same voice shouted for him again. “Coming,” he yelled back with a rueful grin. “See you later, okay?”
“Yeah,” Cam agreed. “Later.”
Sheppard had disappeared by the time he’d gotten up the nerve to go back out there again. When Cam was finally ordered to report back for active duty, a week later, he heard through the rumor mill that both Sheppard and Holland had been recalled to the States for training.
The next time he saw Sheppard, it was two years later, and Sheppard was married.
Which wasn’t exactly what Cam had been hoping for.