Five Moments of a Life He Doesn't Let Himself Think About, Sheppard/Nancy, 'Pre-Canon'
Title: Five Moments of a Life He Doesn’t Let Himself Think About
Summary: John Sheppard’s not proud of the life he had with Nancy.
Characters: John Sheppard, Nancy Estevez & James McGinley
Pairing: John/Nancy
Rating: PG-15
A/N: Set pre-canon. The shaping of John Sheppard
Twenty-One Years Old
Afterwards, he thinks that maybe it wasn’t a bad idea. The hotel room - any substitute for the room he has at his father’s other New York mansion - is dim but not dark and he can see the carnage of their heated collision everywhere he looks. The books he’d been reading only hours before lay strewn across the floor, swept from the small table he’d been studying at, the chair he’d been seated in knocked over on its side; clothing hung from doorknobs and drawer handles, ceiling lights and lamps. Her hair tickles his neck as he breathes, the long auburn locks twitching as he breathed. It wasn’t soft, like he expected, the years of premature dying having worked up a coarseness to it that itched his skin. Her skin was still slick with sweat, hours after their session and when he looks down at her, the light dancing in from the window highlights her shoulder blades and masks the curve of her waist.
He tries to slide out from under her but she groans and murmurs and he stills, afraid she might wake up. When she settles, he tries again and finds the air much cooler out of her grasp. He reaches for the boxers strewn at the foot of the bed and slides them on before reaching for the discarded condom, wrapping it in the foil as he moved to the bin to toss it.
James had been right; she had been good fun and just what he needed. John had had to pretend he didn’t know James had been sent by his father, under orders to set up John and Nancy. The old man had been trying to push him on her for years and as a last ditch effort to attempt to please his father, he’d acquiesced and agreed to meet her.
“Come on, Sheppard, it’ll be fun.”
Sheppard looked up from the pages in front of him, numbers lingering in his vision even as he closed his eyes to rid them. He’d been studying for hours, his mind a blur with numbers and equations and theories. He blinked up at his friend and frowned at him.
“Where?”
James sighed and rolled his eyes, his hands coming out, palm up in exasperation. The pair had been friends for as long as John could remember and he knew the other man’s presence at Princeton was a result of his father wishing to keep tabs on him. He looked back to the books in front of him, wondering how much time he’d wasted trying to study for the MENSA test he knew he wasn’t going to accept, even if he passed. He rolled his shoulders and closed his eyes, wishing for a moments reprieve from the study side of student life.
“To Karbon,” James said and John snorted. Karbon was the last place he wanted to go; last time he’d been there, he’d been involved in a bit of rough and tumble and he was sure he wouldn’t be allowed back in. “Nancy knows the guys on the door, said she can get us in for free if we get there before eleven.”
John raised his own exasperated eyebrow, narrowing his gaze on James.
“Stop trying to push this girl on me, man,” he said, annoyed and turned back to the pages before him. “I don’t appreciate it and it looks bad for her.”
James grunted and dropped onto the bed, the frame creaking under his enormous weight. As a lineman for the college team, he was a big guy, most of his weight and muscle gained in the last year of school; three years later and he still wasn’t used to the extra weight.
“For some reason she likes you, man.” John rolled his eyes, remaining stubbornly mute. “Just meet her once and if you don’t like her at least you’ll have a reason not to see her again. If you do, then you can pay for my rent next month.”
John scoffed a laugh at that and turned to his friend, leaning back casually in his chair.
“You’ll stop this if I go tonight?” James’ nod was tight and short. John replied with his own nod and stood, moving to the chest at the far side of the room. “I’ll be ready in twenty.”
James nodded and stood, moving to the fridge at the other end, reaching in to pull out a bottle of beer. He smirked over to John.
“Remember you have your mane to tame; I’ll be watching TV.”
John flicked a gesture to his friend and moved off into the bathroom, glancing furtively to the open books on the table.
Screw MENSA. It was his father’s idea anyway.
At the doorway, he watches her as she sleeps, her head tucked into the pillow, the sheets falling from her body and allows his eyes to rove her form. She is pretty, he concedes, and she is funny. She’s at Princeton, too, so John knows she has at least some intelligence behind her green eyes and not just an insatiable lust for him. She’d ridden him so hard that he was sure the bed would break and he had come harder than he had in a very long time. He can feel his body reacting to his thoughts and he pushes off from the wall. At the fridge, he winces as she makes noise at the brightness of the small light. He tries to block most of it with his body, stilling as he listens for the sound her breathing evening out.
The bottle of water condenses in his hand, the cool outer liquid dripping down his fingers and over the back of his palm. He presses it to his chest and lets the water run down to his waist band. He feels his body calm at the coolness and he sighed. The last thing he wanted to do was freak her out by waking her up for a quickie before he sent her on her way.
Without opening the bottle, he set it down on the small table and moved to pick up the scattered books and chair. He flicks through the pages of the accounting book before tossing it noiselessly onto the table. The others, equally as boring and as he moves to lift the chair, he catches sight of Nancy once again. His reaction to the sight startles him and he finds that he can’t look away. The amber glow of the street lights below illuminate her tanned skin in a diaphanous glow, her relaxed features almost smiling in her slumber.
He catches himself and flicks his gaze away, setting the chair on its feet before moving off to the bathroom. There, he closes the door and flicks on the light, watching his reflection in the mirror. He’d had his hair shaved only weeks before but already it had grown back, relentless in its quest to make his life hell. He runs his fingers through it, watching as the cow licks erupt, standing on end on his short hair. Surprisingly, he didn’t look rough; the scraggly growth having been shaved off before leaving the house.
Splashing cold water on his heated skin, he shivers at the contact, breathing in sharply at the contact. He’d gotten into this with the sole intention of getting him out of her system. He wasn’t looking for a relationship; he doesn’t know what he wants - from anything. From life, from her, from college. He does what he’s told, what his father thinks is right and all he knows is that... he shakes his head and avoids his reflection. He doesn’t like to think that he’s a pawn in his father’s games. He knows he is - he has always known. He just doesn’t like to remember.
And now... Now he finds that he may actually want to do something that his father has urged for years and he doesn’t want to do it; he doesn’t think he can but he knows his father will see it as another concession John has made for the greater good. He knows that others will think that too.
That maybe Nancy will as well and he can’t do that to her.
He knows what he has to do; what he had been intending to do when he’d slid out of bed minutes before. But he finds that now he doesn’t want to. That to let her leave (to push her away) is the right thing to do. To not give into his indulgent nature is the right thing to do.
He slips out of the bathroom, leaving the light on in hopes that the brightness will rouse Nancy from her slumber. He makes deliberate noises as he moves back to the kitchen, opening his bottle of water and drinking from it nervously. Behind him, he can hear her shuffle, her light breathing permeating the room. He glances at her over his shoulder, catches her running her hand through her mussy hair and he finds his body reacting to the heavy sway of her loose breasts at the movement.
He looks away and lowers his eyes, the words he should be saying stuck in his throat. When he turns around, he can see the question in her eyes and he feels guilt kick him in the gut. She had known that this would happen; that the likely outcome of the night was him letting her leave (tossing her out, his mind supplies but he pushes that thought away) and he finds the words disappearing down his throat. When he meets her eyes, catching the vulnerability even from his distance the words disappear completely.
“John?” She asks quietly, the questions thinly veiled.
He glances to the side, searching for the words again, for the courage to do what he needs to do. But when he looks back at her, still naked and on show for him, tempting him, luring him he finds them stubbornly absent.
When he slides in behind her, his hands gliding up her waist and into her hair, he’s turned on by her pleased smile. He doesn’t think about how this is wrong, or that it’s not the right thing to do, just that he enjoys it.
Because John Sheppard has never been good at doing what is right.
Part Two: Twenty-Three Years Old