Comment fic version four
4,953 words of comment_fic from the last two weeks or so. There are... several fandoms in here. Some that I probably won't ever write again, but the prompts struck my fancy. Because of the lack of sane.
Break: John/Ronon, one planet too many destroyed by the Wraith
John's always wondered how Ronon would break.
It's been kind of obvious from the moment he kidnapped John and Teyla on that planet - the one where Ford had gotten himself captured, the one where everything about the game had changed - that Ronon's four seconds away from losing it. John doesn't blame the guy, not really; he kind of goes batshit every time he loses a Marine offworld, and Ronon has lost his entire planet, except for the handful living in some sort of refugee camp. John can't even imagine the population of Earth reduced to three hundred people.
So yeah, he's expecting Ronon to lose it, but it's that back-of-the-mind kind of expectation, the kind that you know is coming but never really think you're going to see.
It's kind of a surprise, then, when they gate to another random address in the database and walk through and everything's fine for about five seconds. Then they notice the smoke and ashes and odd stillness, and there's a bit more quiet, and just as John's about to sigh and suggest they look for survivors, Ronon just - breaks.
There's screaming in a language John's never heard, couldn't begin to translate, but he knows what it means anyway, and the Ronon's running towards the remains of the village, gun out, yelling something over and over again as he ducks into house after house.
John stands with Teyla and Rodney on he Gate platform, stuck between shock and something else, something painful, as Ronon trips, falls, leaps back up, continues. John takes a half-step forward but Teyla catches his arm, and when he glances down at her, she's watching Ronon with tears in her eyes.
"Let him," she murmurs.
John watches as Ronon enters the last house in the town. He watches, and watches, and watches.
Ronon doesn't come out.
-0-
Mission to: M4T-03X
Team: AR-1
Objective: First contact
Report: Village at the Gate destroyed by Wraith. Dex checked the village; no survivors.
Recommendations: Fly-over with a Jumper to check for life signs, but don't expect much.
Injuries sustained: Dex broke most of his fingers. No other injuries.
-0-
"Who was it?"
John's not expecting Ronon to answer, not really. He hasn't said anything since John went into the last house and found him beating the shit out of a wall, blood on his fists. John had stood to the side silently, just watching, until Ronon had slowed and finally stopped, hanging his head down.
His hands have been bandaged, and it's been two days. The new psychologist says to give him time, but John just needs - he's not sure, but he needs something other than this silence.
"They were good to me," Ronon says abruptly, and John almost sags in relief before the words set in.
They were good to me. When he was Running. When he had nobody. When he needed compassion.
"It's not your-"
"I know," Ronon cuts him off roughly. "Not after this long, it's not. But-"
But it still sucks. It's still horrible. Yeah, John gets that.
It's going to be his breaking point, some day.
Magnetism: Tesla/Magnus, They watched so many people die over the years
They've watched so many people die over the years.
The first was the worst; watching as John became the Ripper, watching him slit the throat of that poor girl, and Nikola can feel the instant the life leaves her. The scent of blood is strong, but it doesn't call to him, not this time.
He imagines that this is when he saw John die as well, though he's seen that again and again throughout his life.
Then there was the boy in Mumbai, the one who protected his Abnormal sister from neighbors who thought her a devil. That had given them both flashbacks, Helen not being able to save her John, and Nikola gets her out of there as quickly as he can.
Adam is her first kill, which makes it almost - special, he thinks, though she disagrees as she trembles in his arms. Adam needed to die, though. He had to, had to, and he murmurs it to her like he'd do for no other, hoping that she'll hear him, knowing that he doesn't know how to help her this time.
The War is different, because they see death so often that it becomes virtually meaningless. Death tolls are measured in the hundreds, in the thousands, and none of them mean a damn thing. Until, until, and that's the thing of it; there's always an until, and this time it's Nikola's: until it's his bunkmate, a man he'd considered almost a friend, and when he shows up at Helen's Sanctuary with William's blood still on his hands and shirt she merely opens the door and her arms and he lets her take care of him for once.
Nikola finds an odd sort of glee in his own death, because of course it's nothing like death at all; it's freedom. He knows that she can see the bizarre irony in it, even if she shakes her head while she should be laughing.
Then it's Nigel, though, and the shadows in both of their faces deepen a little. Now it's personal between them and Death, and they both put their best work into perfecting the mechanisms keeping James alive.
There are more and more over the years, some meaning more and some meaning less, but then it's so much all at once - James, Ashley, and John's not so dead as he was, and Nikola feels like his own loss is so much more a death than what he'd faked years before - and Helen keeps crumbling around herself, and if he not-so-subtly bases more of his work from the Sanctuary than he did before, well. Nobody will suspect anything, not now, not with so much on the line, and he'll just keep distracting them until Helen maybe doesn't need him any more.
He wonders, sitting alone and waiting for news from the Hidden City, what it is that keeps drawing them back to each other, and he has to snort out a laugh as he thinks magnetism because that's too much, even for him.
He's playing with his new power - not that he'd call it that, not really - when he feels it, the spark of something in the back of his head that feels like the electricity that had once loved him, and he thinks of Helen in the same instant, and this time, it might be her, and he's stuck halfway around the world and there's not a damn thing he can do about it.
Except there is, there has to be, he thinks as he grabs his long coat and heads out into the night, because he won't sit idly by and watch as she's taken from him, too. They've got a lot of other things to see before that happens.
Hidden: Lorne/Parrish, Lorne hides the bruises under his uniform, but Parrish knows where they are - he put them there.
He doesn't wince when he sits, but his posture is even more perfect than usual, and he moves a little slowly. When Sheppard glances at him, one eyebrow raised - should I be worried? - Evan just smirks at him and rolls his shoulders and bites the inside of his cheek because fuck, he's sore. Between the rope burn on his wrists and ankles and thighs and the pale purple of the bruises covering his ass, there's a lot to remind him of exactly what it is that he'd gotten up to last night.
And with whom, because this is a science briefing, and David's head of Botany since Katie went back to Earth, so he's sitting across from Evan with his too-wide innocent eyes and bright smile and his foot beneath the table, tapping against the inside of Evan's calf as his fingers drum on the table.
Fingers that were doing entirely different things last night, things that Evan really shouldn't be thinking about in a senior staff meeting, things like tying strong, sure knots in the rope or stroking up his side or landing sharply on his ass again and again or pushing inside him slowly, slowly, until he was writhing in his bindings and begging, God, please, David-
Yeah, he decides a little hazily, no thinking about those things, not here, not now. But he shifts and the rope burns pull and the pain flares in the bruises on his ass, and David slips him a little smirk, and Evan can't concentrate on anything else.
Remember/Forget: 5 years after the events of the film they bump into each other. (Breakfast Club)
She's beautiful, she's gorgeous, she's exactly like he remembers her, hair like a flame and smile bordering between sweet and dangerous. She's wearing a pink dress - of course she is, of course she is - and there are sunglasses and big diamond earrings and a purse the exact same shade as the ribbon around her waist.
She's dragging a kid around by the hand, one that doesn't look anything like her, and his heart kind of jumps into his throat a little, because he still thinks it's hers for a second, until she tugs impatiently on the little boy's hand and says "C'mon, Robbie, your mom's waiting," and the kid whines, "Claire, I don't wanna."
She rolls her eyes and pulls on the kid's arm again, and he follows after her, and it's silly that he thought the kid was hers; he's easily seven or eight, and she'd have mentioned having a kid back then. And people didn't have kids that young, not really, at least not in their town. He'd have known.
He almost trips on his feet in his hurry to walk towards her, still wearing his work shirt and nametag, and she's almost to the doors before he cuts in front of her.
"Hey," he says, smile a little nervous, and she looks at him and smiles at him and says hey back, and then her eyes flick to his nametag and back to his face, and she says, "Did you need something from me, Brian?"
And he stammers and apologizes and moves back, out of her way, and she drags the kid through the doors and disappears into the parking lot, and she hadn't recognized him, hadn't remembered him at all.
Excellent: Voldemort/Quirrell, roller-skate date (A Very Potter Musical, yes, I have weird vices)
"Please try to be careful!"
"My feet are on backwards," Voldemort pointed out to his other half. "It's more difficult than you'd think."
"Yes, sorry, sorry," Quirrell responded. "Just - turn! Left, left, left!"
Voldemort felt the wall brush Quirrell's arm as he tried to turn them left and was mostly successful. He let their body slide to a halt. "I have excellent turning skills," he told Quirrell triumphantly. "Add that to the list of things I'm better at than Potter is, Quirrell."
"Yes, my Lord," Quirrell said admiringly. "Most impressive."
"It really is," Voldemort agreed, and he started them forward again. "How many things is that on the list now?"
"Thirty-nine, my Lord."
"Excellent," Voldemort cackled. "Excellent indeed."
In Charge: Cameron Mitchell/John Sheppard, Dark AU, John is the Emperor of most of the Pegasus Galaxy. Cam was sent by Earth to stop (or help) him.
Cam just stares at the man staring back at him, smirk firmly in place, and doesn't know why he feels like he's losing control of the situation; he clearly had never been in charge here, anyway.
He's about to open his mouth to say something - anything - when an alarm rings, and Major - no, scratch that, Emperor Sheppard's face closes off entirely. "Sorry," he says as he stands and makes his way out of his little office. "Gotta go."
"What is that?" Cam asks, astonished that the noise seems to be loud enough to wake the dead yet quiet enough that he doesn't have to shout to be heard, all at the same time.
"Invasion," Sheppard bites out, already striding through his control room. "Chuck!"
A young man with sandy hair glances up, face grim. "It's not good," he says, tapping on a few keys. A display pops up on a screen, and Sheppard narrows his eyes at it for a few moments before nodding at the young man and walking down to the Gate room.
"Is there anything I can do to help?" Cam asks, following Sheppard down the stairs.
Sheppard stops. "You want to help? After you just spent the last four days trying to convince me to leave my home and go back to a planet that wants to string me up for war crimes that nobody here thinks I've committed?"
Cam flushes. He'd worded it differently, but he recalls this about Sheppard from before he'd been stranded in the Pegasus Galaxy, that he has a way of seeing the heart of the matter through the polite bullshit heaped on top. "Well, I'm here," he says, "and there's some sort of invasion. Think of it as me saving my own ass, if you have to."
Sheppard stares at him. "We're not being invaded."
"Then what-" Cam gestures around them, bewildered. Sheppard starts down the steps again.
"M8D-390," Sheppard says as he turns and turns again and lands himself in an armory, where he starts barking to Marines and people who had been civilians when the Expedition had first been sent. "One of the Wraith cells found a planet under our protection."
"You're going?" Cam says without thinking. It's a stupid question, because Sheppard is gearing up, but Sheppard just smirks at him
"I'm kind of an action Emperor," he tosses off, and then he hands Cam a flak jacket and a P90 and a grin. "Wanna see?"
Cam does.
-0-
Sheppard moves with precision, every motion carefully planned, everything perfectly orchestrated. When his strike force - himself, Cam, three Marines (though they're not Marines any more, not really, not since they'd told Earth that they'd rather stay with Sheppard) and a tall lanky scientist with a deadly accurate shot that the Marines all call Doc - arrives on the planet, they're able to find the Wraith quickly enough, and it's not long before they have the group pinned in the village.
"David," the scientist says shortly to Cam when he asks. "You're Mitchell, here to arrest John."
It's another thing Cam's noticed since he got here - the Marines are the only ones who call him Major or Sheppard. All of the civilians in the base call him by his first name, and Cam's not sure what to make of it.
"I think Earth has some facts wrong," Cam says as he aims in the general direction of the Wraith, hiding behind a house across the way and occasionally popping out to shoot back. Cam concentrates on the spot he last saw one of their big ugly heads, and when he sees one and starts to sight, there's a sudden pressure on his shoulder, a deafening report from just in front of him, and the Wraith falls. When Cam glances to his side, shocked, David's reloading.
"Could have been a sharpshooter, with reflexes like that," Cam tells him, and he means it as a compliment, but David's mouth twists.
"There's a reason I didn't," he says, but he doesn't offer any explanation, and Cam figures he's not owed one.
-0-
They get there in time to save most of the people on the planet, but not all of them. Cam gets to see the other side of Sheppard’s role in Pegasus - he's seen the shooting and some of the politicking, but Sheppard and these people - his people - it's something else. They're grateful, even though there's at least a quarter of the settlement destroyed and fifteen people missing. They're offering Sheppard things in thanks, which he's declining pretty gracefully, and he manages to talk to some of the elders alone to arrange for aid to be sent from Atlantis to help with rebuilding and treatment. In the end, they bring two kids back with them anyway, for Dr. Beckett to treat in the infirmary.
"I don't know what I'm supposed to think," Cam admits as they're leaving the infirmary. "I've heard a lot about you, Sheppard, but the myth and the man don't line up very well."
"Should I be flattered?" Sheppard asks with a smirk, but there's a hint of seriousness in it.
"I'm not sure," Cam replies slowly. "I - look, Sheppard, I'm supposed to get on the Daedalus with you in the morning and bring you with me to face trial on Earth, and trust me when I say that I can make it happen." Sheppard meets his gaze evenly, and Cam has sudden vision of all of the Lanteans rising up against him. He has no doubt that they would, if he tried it.
"I'm not gong to," he says, more quietly, and stops in the corridor. "I - look, I'd like to hang around. I can give them an excuse, tell them something, and they'll leave and do their resupply and come back out here. Two months, tops. You really have no reason to trust me, but I'm asking you to give me a chance here."
Sheppard stares at him for a few minutes. "You're probably committing career suicide," he says finally, and Cam grins.
"They like me," he says lightly. "And I'm good enough at telling them what they want to hear from me. They'll let me stay without raising a fuss, if you're okay with it."
"I wouldn't be if I didn't remember you," Sheppard says, and there's that tiny bit of shared history, three years of being in some of the same classes at the Academy, but if it's going to be enough Cam's glad of it. "Never heard of you being less than honest."
"I do try," Cam begins, but Sheppard cuts him off with a glance, and Cam can see part of why it was so easy for him to rise to the power he's starting to believe Sheppard never asked for.
"Try anything and you won't be here when they come back for you," Sheppard says in the same serious tone. "I can make it look like an accident. It's easy to get killed by the Wraith around here."
"I'll keep that in mind," Cam responds. He has no doubt that Sheppard means it, or that he has the ability to carry out his threat.
"You do that," Sheppard says, and as he walks away, Cam finds himself wondering what, exactly, he thinks he's doing.
Could Be Worse: Steve/Danny, living in a military compound surrounded by zombies isn't so bad when you've got your little girl & your... your... Steve with you
"Thirteen," Grace crows triumphantly, and Danny tries to hide his smile as Steve sighs dramatically and slumps his shoulders. "Thirteen times in a row, Steve, I win and you loooooooose!"
Her laughter is bright enough to light the room up, and Danny shoots Steve a grateful smile as Grace bounds over to him. "I win again, Danno," she tells him, beaming. "Steve is bad at poker."
"I saw that, Monkey," he replies with a smile of his own as he scoops her from the ground. Steve is anything but bad at poker, but Gracie doesn't need to know that.” What did you win this time?"
"Peppermint candy," she replies triumphantly, fishing the candy from a pocket. "Steve says it's the very last one."
Steve's said that about a hundred different things, and Grace still pretends to believe him, even when he keeps finding "just one more." He does it to make her smile, she believes him to make him smile, and these are Danny's two favorite people in the world, making each other smile, so he smiles, too.
He's not sure if she doesn't hear it or is just used to it by now, but Grace doesn't even flinch when the banging comes, the sound of a body hitting the fortified door that's the only thing holding back the creatures. The creatures that had once been the residents of Hawaii, now infected by some disease that turns them into monsters.
"Zombies," Steve had said when Gracie had run into their bedroom one night last week, screaming about monsters like she hadn't since she was four. Danny had laughed it off, but he hadn't even hesitated when Steve told him to pack Grace and the rations bags into the Camaro, had tried not to wince as neither of them could get through to Chin or Kono or the Governor or Rachel, to Step-Stan, nobody. Steve had finally called Mary, still tucked away on the mainland, and had clearly been about to cry with relief when his sister answered.
"Stay put," he'd said. "We'll come when we can."
And so now they're here, the three of them, probably the only thee people left in this pineapple-infested hellhole, except now it's infested with something less prickly and more happy to eat his brains.
"Guess I'll just have to keep practicing," Steve says, breaking into Danny's thoughts as he comes up and tosses an arm around the two of them, smiling at Gracie. "We've got time, right?"
"Plenty of time," Grace agrees as she wiggles in Danny's arms, the silent signal for him to put her down. She grabs Steve's hand in one of her own and Danny's with the other and drags them both over to the table. "You be on his side," she orders Danny.
"There's no sides in poker, Gracie," Danny points out.
"There is now," Grace replies. "He needs the help."
And there's more laughter and there's squawked protests and yeah, it's the zombie apocalypse, but it could be worse.
Stay: Steve/Danny, Steve and Danny spend Valentine's Day locked in the closet in the middle of a case.
"I really don't want to say it-"
"Then don't."
"-but honestly, Steven, you could rally not have picked a worse time for this. I mean, not that I ever really want to be trapped in a closet with you, but right now, I mean, today of all days-"
"Danno, shut it for a minute, will you?"
"-I'm supposed to pick Grace up from school, and I was gonna take her for a nice dinner, y'know, Danno and Gracie, no Rachel or Step-Stan, just the two of us together. And instead, here I am-"
"Danny-"
"-in a closet, no less-"
"Danny-"
"-with one Lieutenant Commander Steven J. McGarrett, who, no matter how hard I try, and believe you me, I am trying, does not look like my daughter at all. Not even a little bit. And I keep asking myself-"
"Danny-"
"-why it is that I get into these insane situations with you, why I didn't just transfer back to HPD when that first case was over-"
Steve reaches out with the hand not holding a gun, thankfully, and drags Danny's face to his, cutting Danny off mid-tirade as he presses their mouths together. It's quick and hard and a little desperate, and when Steve lets go, there's this tiny little silence, and then-
"Yeah, pretty much that's why I stayed."
Gifts: John/Cam, Sending Valentine's Day gifts through the gate.
It's not like they can be overt, and it's partially a pain in the ass, partially fun. The first year that John's in Atlantis, of course, there was nothing, because of that whole cut-off-from-Earth thing, but the second year, Cam sends through a football, and when he gets back to his office, there's a box with a perfect sphere in it, made of light blue metal. He can't get it to turn on with his gene and he isn't about to let the scientists at it, so he uses it as a decoration in his office.
The third year John's in Atlantis, Cam sends him a book about Doug Flutie with the third chapter torn out, carefully replaced with letters Cam's been writing him. John sends a book that Cam can't read at all - and Jackson's seen it, says he's never seen the language, and Cam's pretty sure he'd kill to get his hands on it. He doesn't say anything about the book to anyone else, just sets it on his bookshelf between a manual on proper report-writing and something that Vala picked up on P9T-935 that's brown and yellow and orange.
The fourth year, Cam sends John socks, because John's that guy who's always cold but would never say anything. John sends him a metal hoop, about three inches in diameter, the purpose of which Cam cannot figure at all.
The fifth year, Cam's just getting ready to send his gift through - he'd figured out how to get one of Momma's pies fresh and packaged and ready to send - but the Gate opens from the other side first, and Cam's expecting something else he can't explain, maybe a leather string tied to a rock or something, but instead John steps through the Gate, smiling like the sun.
Cam just holds out the box with the pie in it stupidly, watching as John walks over and takes it from him and peeks inside. His smile broadens and he tugs on Cam's hand. "Your office," he orders, "let's go," and Cam follows him down the hallway.
When they're halfway through the pie - honey apple, one of Momma's specialties, and it's always been John's favorite - John stops and opens a pocket in his tac vest. He pulls out a thin cord, pale blue, and reaches for Cam's wrist, where he wraps it again and again and again until it's nearly an inch wide, and when he tucks the edges away it's seamless, almost like a second skin. Cam rolls his wrist experimentally, and the thing moves right along with him, shifting and stretching as it needs.
"Cool," Cam says, smiling. John grins and tugs a little at the wristband he always wears, and Cam sees a quick flash of metallic blue before the black slides back into place. "Gotta ask you, though. What's with the other stuff?"
John gives him a blank look and then starts to laugh. "I don't even know," he says, looking down at the pie box. "We could never get the ball to turn on, nobody can translate that book, and the ring-thing from last year was sitting in my desk when I remembered I had to send you something. This is the first real present sort of thing I've found for you."
"Garbage?" Cam clarifies, wondering if he should be mad, because he's really just amused. "You've been sending me - I've been keeping your garbage for years?"
"It's the thought that counts?" John tries, and Cam bursts into laughter, because really, what else is there to do?
"You're something else," he says, and John smiles.
Change: Danny(/Steve), one day he just... doesn't wear the tie anymore; it's not much of a change, but it's big for him
It's not that big a change, not that big a concession overall. He's not eating pineapples on his pizza or anything; really, Danny thinks as he rolls his sleeves to his elbow and buttons them into place, nobody's even going to notice.
"Holy shit, hell has frozen over," Steve deadpans not ten seconds later as he walks into Danny's office. "What, are all of your ties at the dry-cleaner's?"
"Ha," Danny replies. "Also, ha. I'll even go so far as to give that one a third ha, Steven. You're truly hilarious this morning."
"You've been here for two years," Steve says. "I think you've left the tie off maybe three times since then, and none of those times have been to work."
Danny blinks, because- "What, you keep a mental catalogue of what I wear? Seriously, you know how many times in the past two years I haven't worn a tie?"
"No, I mean-"
"Because that's a little creepy, a little weird, I'm not going to lie to you here," Danny continues. "That's - why are you smiling at me like that?"
"You like it here," Steve pronounces grandly, like he's figured out some grand mystery. "You like it here and you're getting used to it."
"Maybe I'm just tired of spending such a high percentage of my paycheck at the dry-cleaner's, did you think of that?"
"You," Steve reiterates, poking Danny in the chest, "like it here."
"I am getting used to it here," Danny concedes, and that's all he's giving Steve, honest to God, that's it. "I have ruined more ties since I moved here than I did in the first thirty-four years of my life, thank you very much, and it's difficult to buy ones here that don't have palm trees and pineapples on them, and trust me, I'd rather go without than be personally offended by my own neckwear for ten hours a day. On a good day. With my luck, I'd wear the pineapple one on the day that you and I get locked in some sort of shipping container or something, and I'd be stuck wearing it for six days."
"Anything but that," Steve says dryly as he walks over to inspect Danny's tieless state, and seriously, why does Danny even like this island?
Steve leans in and brushes his lips across Danny's as he rubs his thumb in the hollow of Danny's neck that's usually covered by the tie. "I like it," he offers as he pulls back. And, okay, maybe that's why Danny likes it here.
It sure as hell isn't because of the pineapples.
So yes! Comment fic, I has it.
Break: John/Ronon, one planet too many destroyed by the Wraith
John's always wondered how Ronon would break.
It's been kind of obvious from the moment he kidnapped John and Teyla on that planet - the one where Ford had gotten himself captured, the one where everything about the game had changed - that Ronon's four seconds away from losing it. John doesn't blame the guy, not really; he kind of goes batshit every time he loses a Marine offworld, and Ronon has lost his entire planet, except for the handful living in some sort of refugee camp. John can't even imagine the population of Earth reduced to three hundred people.
So yeah, he's expecting Ronon to lose it, but it's that back-of-the-mind kind of expectation, the kind that you know is coming but never really think you're going to see.
It's kind of a surprise, then, when they gate to another random address in the database and walk through and everything's fine for about five seconds. Then they notice the smoke and ashes and odd stillness, and there's a bit more quiet, and just as John's about to sigh and suggest they look for survivors, Ronon just - breaks.
There's screaming in a language John's never heard, couldn't begin to translate, but he knows what it means anyway, and the Ronon's running towards the remains of the village, gun out, yelling something over and over again as he ducks into house after house.
John stands with Teyla and Rodney on he Gate platform, stuck between shock and something else, something painful, as Ronon trips, falls, leaps back up, continues. John takes a half-step forward but Teyla catches his arm, and when he glances down at her, she's watching Ronon with tears in her eyes.
"Let him," she murmurs.
John watches as Ronon enters the last house in the town. He watches, and watches, and watches.
Ronon doesn't come out.
-0-
Mission to: M4T-03X
Team: AR-1
Objective: First contact
Report: Village at the Gate destroyed by Wraith. Dex checked the village; no survivors.
Recommendations: Fly-over with a Jumper to check for life signs, but don't expect much.
Injuries sustained: Dex broke most of his fingers. No other injuries.
-0-
"Who was it?"
John's not expecting Ronon to answer, not really. He hasn't said anything since John went into the last house and found him beating the shit out of a wall, blood on his fists. John had stood to the side silently, just watching, until Ronon had slowed and finally stopped, hanging his head down.
His hands have been bandaged, and it's been two days. The new psychologist says to give him time, but John just needs - he's not sure, but he needs something other than this silence.
"They were good to me," Ronon says abruptly, and John almost sags in relief before the words set in.
They were good to me. When he was Running. When he had nobody. When he needed compassion.
"It's not your-"
"I know," Ronon cuts him off roughly. "Not after this long, it's not. But-"
But it still sucks. It's still horrible. Yeah, John gets that.
It's going to be his breaking point, some day.
Magnetism: Tesla/Magnus, They watched so many people die over the years
They've watched so many people die over the years.
The first was the worst; watching as John became the Ripper, watching him slit the throat of that poor girl, and Nikola can feel the instant the life leaves her. The scent of blood is strong, but it doesn't call to him, not this time.
He imagines that this is when he saw John die as well, though he's seen that again and again throughout his life.
Then there was the boy in Mumbai, the one who protected his Abnormal sister from neighbors who thought her a devil. That had given them both flashbacks, Helen not being able to save her John, and Nikola gets her out of there as quickly as he can.
Adam is her first kill, which makes it almost - special, he thinks, though she disagrees as she trembles in his arms. Adam needed to die, though. He had to, had to, and he murmurs it to her like he'd do for no other, hoping that she'll hear him, knowing that he doesn't know how to help her this time.
The War is different, because they see death so often that it becomes virtually meaningless. Death tolls are measured in the hundreds, in the thousands, and none of them mean a damn thing. Until, until, and that's the thing of it; there's always an until, and this time it's Nikola's: until it's his bunkmate, a man he'd considered almost a friend, and when he shows up at Helen's Sanctuary with William's blood still on his hands and shirt she merely opens the door and her arms and he lets her take care of him for once.
Nikola finds an odd sort of glee in his own death, because of course it's nothing like death at all; it's freedom. He knows that she can see the bizarre irony in it, even if she shakes her head while she should be laughing.
Then it's Nigel, though, and the shadows in both of their faces deepen a little. Now it's personal between them and Death, and they both put their best work into perfecting the mechanisms keeping James alive.
There are more and more over the years, some meaning more and some meaning less, but then it's so much all at once - James, Ashley, and John's not so dead as he was, and Nikola feels like his own loss is so much more a death than what he'd faked years before - and Helen keeps crumbling around herself, and if he not-so-subtly bases more of his work from the Sanctuary than he did before, well. Nobody will suspect anything, not now, not with so much on the line, and he'll just keep distracting them until Helen maybe doesn't need him any more.
He wonders, sitting alone and waiting for news from the Hidden City, what it is that keeps drawing them back to each other, and he has to snort out a laugh as he thinks magnetism because that's too much, even for him.
He's playing with his new power - not that he'd call it that, not really - when he feels it, the spark of something in the back of his head that feels like the electricity that had once loved him, and he thinks of Helen in the same instant, and this time, it might be her, and he's stuck halfway around the world and there's not a damn thing he can do about it.
Except there is, there has to be, he thinks as he grabs his long coat and heads out into the night, because he won't sit idly by and watch as she's taken from him, too. They've got a lot of other things to see before that happens.
Hidden: Lorne/Parrish, Lorne hides the bruises under his uniform, but Parrish knows where they are - he put them there.
He doesn't wince when he sits, but his posture is even more perfect than usual, and he moves a little slowly. When Sheppard glances at him, one eyebrow raised - should I be worried? - Evan just smirks at him and rolls his shoulders and bites the inside of his cheek because fuck, he's sore. Between the rope burn on his wrists and ankles and thighs and the pale purple of the bruises covering his ass, there's a lot to remind him of exactly what it is that he'd gotten up to last night.
And with whom, because this is a science briefing, and David's head of Botany since Katie went back to Earth, so he's sitting across from Evan with his too-wide innocent eyes and bright smile and his foot beneath the table, tapping against the inside of Evan's calf as his fingers drum on the table.
Fingers that were doing entirely different things last night, things that Evan really shouldn't be thinking about in a senior staff meeting, things like tying strong, sure knots in the rope or stroking up his side or landing sharply on his ass again and again or pushing inside him slowly, slowly, until he was writhing in his bindings and begging, God, please, David-
Yeah, he decides a little hazily, no thinking about those things, not here, not now. But he shifts and the rope burns pull and the pain flares in the bruises on his ass, and David slips him a little smirk, and Evan can't concentrate on anything else.
Remember/Forget: 5 years after the events of the film they bump into each other. (Breakfast Club)
She's beautiful, she's gorgeous, she's exactly like he remembers her, hair like a flame and smile bordering between sweet and dangerous. She's wearing a pink dress - of course she is, of course she is - and there are sunglasses and big diamond earrings and a purse the exact same shade as the ribbon around her waist.
She's dragging a kid around by the hand, one that doesn't look anything like her, and his heart kind of jumps into his throat a little, because he still thinks it's hers for a second, until she tugs impatiently on the little boy's hand and says "C'mon, Robbie, your mom's waiting," and the kid whines, "Claire, I don't wanna."
She rolls her eyes and pulls on the kid's arm again, and he follows after her, and it's silly that he thought the kid was hers; he's easily seven or eight, and she'd have mentioned having a kid back then. And people didn't have kids that young, not really, at least not in their town. He'd have known.
He almost trips on his feet in his hurry to walk towards her, still wearing his work shirt and nametag, and she's almost to the doors before he cuts in front of her.
"Hey," he says, smile a little nervous, and she looks at him and smiles at him and says hey back, and then her eyes flick to his nametag and back to his face, and she says, "Did you need something from me, Brian?"
And he stammers and apologizes and moves back, out of her way, and she drags the kid through the doors and disappears into the parking lot, and she hadn't recognized him, hadn't remembered him at all.
Excellent: Voldemort/Quirrell, roller-skate date (A Very Potter Musical, yes, I have weird vices)
"Please try to be careful!"
"My feet are on backwards," Voldemort pointed out to his other half. "It's more difficult than you'd think."
"Yes, sorry, sorry," Quirrell responded. "Just - turn! Left, left, left!"
Voldemort felt the wall brush Quirrell's arm as he tried to turn them left and was mostly successful. He let their body slide to a halt. "I have excellent turning skills," he told Quirrell triumphantly. "Add that to the list of things I'm better at than Potter is, Quirrell."
"Yes, my Lord," Quirrell said admiringly. "Most impressive."
"It really is," Voldemort agreed, and he started them forward again. "How many things is that on the list now?"
"Thirty-nine, my Lord."
"Excellent," Voldemort cackled. "Excellent indeed."
In Charge: Cameron Mitchell/John Sheppard, Dark AU, John is the Emperor of most of the Pegasus Galaxy. Cam was sent by Earth to stop (or help) him.
Cam just stares at the man staring back at him, smirk firmly in place, and doesn't know why he feels like he's losing control of the situation; he clearly had never been in charge here, anyway.
He's about to open his mouth to say something - anything - when an alarm rings, and Major - no, scratch that, Emperor Sheppard's face closes off entirely. "Sorry," he says as he stands and makes his way out of his little office. "Gotta go."
"What is that?" Cam asks, astonished that the noise seems to be loud enough to wake the dead yet quiet enough that he doesn't have to shout to be heard, all at the same time.
"Invasion," Sheppard bites out, already striding through his control room. "Chuck!"
A young man with sandy hair glances up, face grim. "It's not good," he says, tapping on a few keys. A display pops up on a screen, and Sheppard narrows his eyes at it for a few moments before nodding at the young man and walking down to the Gate room.
"Is there anything I can do to help?" Cam asks, following Sheppard down the stairs.
Sheppard stops. "You want to help? After you just spent the last four days trying to convince me to leave my home and go back to a planet that wants to string me up for war crimes that nobody here thinks I've committed?"
Cam flushes. He'd worded it differently, but he recalls this about Sheppard from before he'd been stranded in the Pegasus Galaxy, that he has a way of seeing the heart of the matter through the polite bullshit heaped on top. "Well, I'm here," he says, "and there's some sort of invasion. Think of it as me saving my own ass, if you have to."
Sheppard stares at him. "We're not being invaded."
"Then what-" Cam gestures around them, bewildered. Sheppard starts down the steps again.
"M8D-390," Sheppard says as he turns and turns again and lands himself in an armory, where he starts barking to Marines and people who had been civilians when the Expedition had first been sent. "One of the Wraith cells found a planet under our protection."
"You're going?" Cam says without thinking. It's a stupid question, because Sheppard is gearing up, but Sheppard just smirks at him
"I'm kind of an action Emperor," he tosses off, and then he hands Cam a flak jacket and a P90 and a grin. "Wanna see?"
Cam does.
-0-
Sheppard moves with precision, every motion carefully planned, everything perfectly orchestrated. When his strike force - himself, Cam, three Marines (though they're not Marines any more, not really, not since they'd told Earth that they'd rather stay with Sheppard) and a tall lanky scientist with a deadly accurate shot that the Marines all call Doc - arrives on the planet, they're able to find the Wraith quickly enough, and it's not long before they have the group pinned in the village.
"David," the scientist says shortly to Cam when he asks. "You're Mitchell, here to arrest John."
It's another thing Cam's noticed since he got here - the Marines are the only ones who call him Major or Sheppard. All of the civilians in the base call him by his first name, and Cam's not sure what to make of it.
"I think Earth has some facts wrong," Cam says as he aims in the general direction of the Wraith, hiding behind a house across the way and occasionally popping out to shoot back. Cam concentrates on the spot he last saw one of their big ugly heads, and when he sees one and starts to sight, there's a sudden pressure on his shoulder, a deafening report from just in front of him, and the Wraith falls. When Cam glances to his side, shocked, David's reloading.
"Could have been a sharpshooter, with reflexes like that," Cam tells him, and he means it as a compliment, but David's mouth twists.
"There's a reason I didn't," he says, but he doesn't offer any explanation, and Cam figures he's not owed one.
-0-
They get there in time to save most of the people on the planet, but not all of them. Cam gets to see the other side of Sheppard’s role in Pegasus - he's seen the shooting and some of the politicking, but Sheppard and these people - his people - it's something else. They're grateful, even though there's at least a quarter of the settlement destroyed and fifteen people missing. They're offering Sheppard things in thanks, which he's declining pretty gracefully, and he manages to talk to some of the elders alone to arrange for aid to be sent from Atlantis to help with rebuilding and treatment. In the end, they bring two kids back with them anyway, for Dr. Beckett to treat in the infirmary.
"I don't know what I'm supposed to think," Cam admits as they're leaving the infirmary. "I've heard a lot about you, Sheppard, but the myth and the man don't line up very well."
"Should I be flattered?" Sheppard asks with a smirk, but there's a hint of seriousness in it.
"I'm not sure," Cam replies slowly. "I - look, Sheppard, I'm supposed to get on the Daedalus with you in the morning and bring you with me to face trial on Earth, and trust me when I say that I can make it happen." Sheppard meets his gaze evenly, and Cam has sudden vision of all of the Lanteans rising up against him. He has no doubt that they would, if he tried it.
"I'm not gong to," he says, more quietly, and stops in the corridor. "I - look, I'd like to hang around. I can give them an excuse, tell them something, and they'll leave and do their resupply and come back out here. Two months, tops. You really have no reason to trust me, but I'm asking you to give me a chance here."
Sheppard stares at him for a few minutes. "You're probably committing career suicide," he says finally, and Cam grins.
"They like me," he says lightly. "And I'm good enough at telling them what they want to hear from me. They'll let me stay without raising a fuss, if you're okay with it."
"I wouldn't be if I didn't remember you," Sheppard says, and there's that tiny bit of shared history, three years of being in some of the same classes at the Academy, but if it's going to be enough Cam's glad of it. "Never heard of you being less than honest."
"I do try," Cam begins, but Sheppard cuts him off with a glance, and Cam can see part of why it was so easy for him to rise to the power he's starting to believe Sheppard never asked for.
"Try anything and you won't be here when they come back for you," Sheppard says in the same serious tone. "I can make it look like an accident. It's easy to get killed by the Wraith around here."
"I'll keep that in mind," Cam responds. He has no doubt that Sheppard means it, or that he has the ability to carry out his threat.
"You do that," Sheppard says, and as he walks away, Cam finds himself wondering what, exactly, he thinks he's doing.
Could Be Worse: Steve/Danny, living in a military compound surrounded by zombies isn't so bad when you've got your little girl & your... your... Steve with you
"Thirteen," Grace crows triumphantly, and Danny tries to hide his smile as Steve sighs dramatically and slumps his shoulders. "Thirteen times in a row, Steve, I win and you loooooooose!"
Her laughter is bright enough to light the room up, and Danny shoots Steve a grateful smile as Grace bounds over to him. "I win again, Danno," she tells him, beaming. "Steve is bad at poker."
"I saw that, Monkey," he replies with a smile of his own as he scoops her from the ground. Steve is anything but bad at poker, but Gracie doesn't need to know that.” What did you win this time?"
"Peppermint candy," she replies triumphantly, fishing the candy from a pocket. "Steve says it's the very last one."
Steve's said that about a hundred different things, and Grace still pretends to believe him, even when he keeps finding "just one more." He does it to make her smile, she believes him to make him smile, and these are Danny's two favorite people in the world, making each other smile, so he smiles, too.
He's not sure if she doesn't hear it or is just used to it by now, but Grace doesn't even flinch when the banging comes, the sound of a body hitting the fortified door that's the only thing holding back the creatures. The creatures that had once been the residents of Hawaii, now infected by some disease that turns them into monsters.
"Zombies," Steve had said when Gracie had run into their bedroom one night last week, screaming about monsters like she hadn't since she was four. Danny had laughed it off, but he hadn't even hesitated when Steve told him to pack Grace and the rations bags into the Camaro, had tried not to wince as neither of them could get through to Chin or Kono or the Governor or Rachel, to Step-Stan, nobody. Steve had finally called Mary, still tucked away on the mainland, and had clearly been about to cry with relief when his sister answered.
"Stay put," he'd said. "We'll come when we can."
And so now they're here, the three of them, probably the only thee people left in this pineapple-infested hellhole, except now it's infested with something less prickly and more happy to eat his brains.
"Guess I'll just have to keep practicing," Steve says, breaking into Danny's thoughts as he comes up and tosses an arm around the two of them, smiling at Gracie. "We've got time, right?"
"Plenty of time," Grace agrees as she wiggles in Danny's arms, the silent signal for him to put her down. She grabs Steve's hand in one of her own and Danny's with the other and drags them both over to the table. "You be on his side," she orders Danny.
"There's no sides in poker, Gracie," Danny points out.
"There is now," Grace replies. "He needs the help."
And there's more laughter and there's squawked protests and yeah, it's the zombie apocalypse, but it could be worse.
Stay: Steve/Danny, Steve and Danny spend Valentine's Day locked in the closet in the middle of a case.
"I really don't want to say it-"
"Then don't."
"-but honestly, Steven, you could rally not have picked a worse time for this. I mean, not that I ever really want to be trapped in a closet with you, but right now, I mean, today of all days-"
"Danno, shut it for a minute, will you?"
"-I'm supposed to pick Grace up from school, and I was gonna take her for a nice dinner, y'know, Danno and Gracie, no Rachel or Step-Stan, just the two of us together. And instead, here I am-"
"Danny-"
"-in a closet, no less-"
"Danny-"
"-with one Lieutenant Commander Steven J. McGarrett, who, no matter how hard I try, and believe you me, I am trying, does not look like my daughter at all. Not even a little bit. And I keep asking myself-"
"Danny-"
"-why it is that I get into these insane situations with you, why I didn't just transfer back to HPD when that first case was over-"
Steve reaches out with the hand not holding a gun, thankfully, and drags Danny's face to his, cutting Danny off mid-tirade as he presses their mouths together. It's quick and hard and a little desperate, and when Steve lets go, there's this tiny little silence, and then-
"Yeah, pretty much that's why I stayed."
Gifts: John/Cam, Sending Valentine's Day gifts through the gate.
It's not like they can be overt, and it's partially a pain in the ass, partially fun. The first year that John's in Atlantis, of course, there was nothing, because of that whole cut-off-from-Earth thing, but the second year, Cam sends through a football, and when he gets back to his office, there's a box with a perfect sphere in it, made of light blue metal. He can't get it to turn on with his gene and he isn't about to let the scientists at it, so he uses it as a decoration in his office.
The third year John's in Atlantis, Cam sends him a book about Doug Flutie with the third chapter torn out, carefully replaced with letters Cam's been writing him. John sends a book that Cam can't read at all - and Jackson's seen it, says he's never seen the language, and Cam's pretty sure he'd kill to get his hands on it. He doesn't say anything about the book to anyone else, just sets it on his bookshelf between a manual on proper report-writing and something that Vala picked up on P9T-935 that's brown and yellow and orange.
The fourth year, Cam sends John socks, because John's that guy who's always cold but would never say anything. John sends him a metal hoop, about three inches in diameter, the purpose of which Cam cannot figure at all.
The fifth year, Cam's just getting ready to send his gift through - he'd figured out how to get one of Momma's pies fresh and packaged and ready to send - but the Gate opens from the other side first, and Cam's expecting something else he can't explain, maybe a leather string tied to a rock or something, but instead John steps through the Gate, smiling like the sun.
Cam just holds out the box with the pie in it stupidly, watching as John walks over and takes it from him and peeks inside. His smile broadens and he tugs on Cam's hand. "Your office," he orders, "let's go," and Cam follows him down the hallway.
When they're halfway through the pie - honey apple, one of Momma's specialties, and it's always been John's favorite - John stops and opens a pocket in his tac vest. He pulls out a thin cord, pale blue, and reaches for Cam's wrist, where he wraps it again and again and again until it's nearly an inch wide, and when he tucks the edges away it's seamless, almost like a second skin. Cam rolls his wrist experimentally, and the thing moves right along with him, shifting and stretching as it needs.
"Cool," Cam says, smiling. John grins and tugs a little at the wristband he always wears, and Cam sees a quick flash of metallic blue before the black slides back into place. "Gotta ask you, though. What's with the other stuff?"
John gives him a blank look and then starts to laugh. "I don't even know," he says, looking down at the pie box. "We could never get the ball to turn on, nobody can translate that book, and the ring-thing from last year was sitting in my desk when I remembered I had to send you something. This is the first real present sort of thing I've found for you."
"Garbage?" Cam clarifies, wondering if he should be mad, because he's really just amused. "You've been sending me - I've been keeping your garbage for years?"
"It's the thought that counts?" John tries, and Cam bursts into laughter, because really, what else is there to do?
"You're something else," he says, and John smiles.
Change: Danny(/Steve), one day he just... doesn't wear the tie anymore; it's not much of a change, but it's big for him
It's not that big a change, not that big a concession overall. He's not eating pineapples on his pizza or anything; really, Danny thinks as he rolls his sleeves to his elbow and buttons them into place, nobody's even going to notice.
"Holy shit, hell has frozen over," Steve deadpans not ten seconds later as he walks into Danny's office. "What, are all of your ties at the dry-cleaner's?"
"Ha," Danny replies. "Also, ha. I'll even go so far as to give that one a third ha, Steven. You're truly hilarious this morning."
"You've been here for two years," Steve says. "I think you've left the tie off maybe three times since then, and none of those times have been to work."
Danny blinks, because- "What, you keep a mental catalogue of what I wear? Seriously, you know how many times in the past two years I haven't worn a tie?"
"No, I mean-"
"Because that's a little creepy, a little weird, I'm not going to lie to you here," Danny continues. "That's - why are you smiling at me like that?"
"You like it here," Steve pronounces grandly, like he's figured out some grand mystery. "You like it here and you're getting used to it."
"Maybe I'm just tired of spending such a high percentage of my paycheck at the dry-cleaner's, did you think of that?"
"You," Steve reiterates, poking Danny in the chest, "like it here."
"I am getting used to it here," Danny concedes, and that's all he's giving Steve, honest to God, that's it. "I have ruined more ties since I moved here than I did in the first thirty-four years of my life, thank you very much, and it's difficult to buy ones here that don't have palm trees and pineapples on them, and trust me, I'd rather go without than be personally offended by my own neckwear for ten hours a day. On a good day. With my luck, I'd wear the pineapple one on the day that you and I get locked in some sort of shipping container or something, and I'd be stuck wearing it for six days."
"Anything but that," Steve says dryly as he walks over to inspect Danny's tieless state, and seriously, why does Danny even like this island?
Steve leans in and brushes his lips across Danny's as he rubs his thumb in the hollow of Danny's neck that's usually covered by the tie. "I like it," he offers as he pulls back. And, okay, maybe that's why Danny likes it here.
It sure as hell isn't because of the pineapples.
So yes! Comment fic, I has it.