Crack fic at last
As new commander of SG-1, Cameron suddenly has ten times as
much paperwork to wade through before he can actually do his job.
He gets that it's a necessary evil, but most of it is so-Jesus Christ, so utterly mind-numbing. He does it as fast as he can, gets it out of the way, but there's always more.
Jackson's been unsympathetic. "I think Jack mostly just didn't do it," he says, raising an eyebrow in the door of Cameron's office while Cam tears his hair out. "I don't know. It doesn't look that bad."
The man's job is paperwork. Cameron tunes him out.
In his estimation, about one percent of the things he has to read and/or fill out are actually important. About another one percent are interesting. Most of those overlap.
But the problem is, that one percent, give or take, is absolutely vital. General-then-Colonel O'Neill must have had some psychic sense that let him sniff out the good stuff, because people would have come and found him if he'd left it undone.
So in the middle of equipment requisition forms and assignments for leave and requests for mission confirmation, he gets things like the new treaty with the Jaffa Nation, the official policy as regards evil beings from another galaxy, and the occasional personal message from subordinates. That stuff makes it all worthwhile, so he plows through it all and spends entire nights dreaming of using Goa'uld mothership cannons on great, sticky, tangled masses of red tape.
When he was first starting out, like in the first day or two, he got the reports on the Atlantis mission, but he was too busy moving through the shock of not actually commanding the SG-1 he’d expected to really pay attention. Also, he was harboring some latent resentment toward the Atlantis mission for trying to steal away Dr. Jackson.
But a few weeks later, when things have settled down a little, when it’s become clear they're going to be dealing with the Ancients, and/or beings very like them, and when he’s remembering that it was a little unprofessional to skip over reports because he was pissed, he digs them back up and starts going over all of them.
And it’s right there at the beginning, first report after a year-long hiatus. Colonel Marshall Sumner dead, Major John Sheppard in command.
Cameron blinks at the report for a second or two, but the words don't change.
And for some eternal moment, he's caught between no wonder they nearly died forty-seven different times and no wonder they're all still alive.
~~~
Afghanistan was hot and unpleasant, but if you'd signed up for the U.S. Air Force any time in the last twenty years, you knew you were going somewhere hot and unpleasant. Cam was sucking it up.
It wasn’t like he’d never been to the Middle East before. He’d even picked up a little Arabic, some Farsi. Which was more than he could say for some of the guys over his head, and might have had something to do with the total lack of competence-but he wasn’t thinking about the last time he’d been stationed out here. Stewing over something that wasn’t his fault, something that was utterly unavoidable-well, he knew that wasn’t constructive, and it didn't do anything but make him a less valuable officer. Second-guessing himself, everyone above him-if he was going to function, he had to trust people to do their jobs.
Within reason.
This base was a staging ground for the flyboys, and Cameron saw a few familiar faces in the corridors. His unit was off-duty after the trip out, and they probably wouldn't be flying their first mission for a few days, so they had some downtime. Late the first day, he found the mess without a problem, slid into a table with his tray, sat back and very carefully kept himself in the here and now. He could remember how to like it here, maybe. He could do his job, absolutely.
Yeah, he told his brain, it's hot, it's dry, it's full of dirt-poor innocent people and oil-rich fuckers. Doesn't mean it's the same assignment as before. You can do some good here. Stay cool.
“Mind if I sit?”
He glanced up. Another major. Slouch, easy smile, looked like a slacker but you never could tell, especially out here. “Sure.”
“John Sheppard,” said the guy, dropping his tray down and throwing a leg over the bench.
“Cameron Mitchell,” said Cam. “Just got here. You?”
“Feels like centuries,” said Sheppard. “More like two months if you sit down and count, though. How're things back home?”
“Crazy,” said Cameron. “Defensive measures. Liberals screaming about rights. Conservatives screaming right back. You know.”
Sheppard took a bite, made a face. “Beats powdered potatoes. Listen, we play some basketball a few times a week, any time you want to join us…” He lifted his eyebrows.
“I’ll pass that on.” Fergie would want to play basketball. “Be fun. We’ll kick your asses.”
“Hey,” said Sheppard. “Little bit of a premature judgment there, Mitchell. I’ll have you know-” But he never got to finish, because the base commander was suddenly there, standing over their table, looking grim. Cameron frowned slightly, ran through his mental checklist. He hadn't screwed up any procedures, no difficulties coming in, so this had to be for-
“Sheppard,” said Colonel Deslauries. “Come with me.”
Sheppard bent his head just slightly, enough so that the eye-roll was out of the colonel's sight. “Yes, sir,” he said, and Jesus, Cameron hadn’t seen anybody that obviously insubordinate since his personal command nightmare, Private Michaels.
The colonel got a little grimmer, which was understandable given the blatant sarcasm, and nodded at Cam. “Mitchell.”
"Sir," said Cam, and resisted the urge to say, I wasn't hanging out with him, he came over here, I don't know him, not my problem. He thought he’d be passing on that basketball offer.
Sheppard sauntered after the colonel, still slouching. The slacker pose was definitely real.
Yeah, Cam would be staying away. That guy was a career-killer for sure.
***
Life settled down, pretty much low-key; mission briefings, training, hanging around with Fergie, nothing he wouldn’t have expected. He saw Sheppard around every once in a while, playing basketball, working out, generally hanging, never actually working. His buddies called him “Shep”. The colonel called him borderline insubordinate and kept on threatening to pull him up on charges. Cameron kept his nose out of it and flew two missions without freezing up. Fergie had stopped looking at him like he was going to break into pieces, and Cam was starting to relax. No problem. Middle East, the sequel, was looking way better than Middle East, the original series.
“Hey, Cam, what’s your problem with Sheppard?” asked Fergie in the weight room a couple weeks in, just after the major had left the room.
“Problem?” Cameron concentrated on his sit-ups. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Uh-huh. You turn into this mass of tension every time he comes into a room. Seriously, you guys have some issues, or what? I thought you didn’t know him.”
Cameron sighed and let himself fall back to the floor. “I don’t know. He bugs me.”
“I wouldn’t have thought a little non-regulation would bug you.” Ferguson dropped down on his stomach next to Cam, propped his chin on his arms.
“He’s more than non-regulation. He’s got no respect.” Cameron threw an arm over his eyes. “I don’t know, Ferg. Chalk it up as a personality conflict.”
Ferg lifted his eyebrows. “Fine. You want to get out of here, get some food?”
“Sure, let me grab a shower.”
In the mess, they ran into Sheppard again, passing by him on the way to the line. “Ferguson,” said Sheppard. And, “Hey, Mitchell.” He grinned.
“Sheppard,” said Cameron, and bit his tongue.
***
By a month in, Cameron had seen enough of Sheppard that he was starting to wonder how the man had kept his commission. But he figured, if Sheppard was the only thing he had to worry about, he was coming out ahead.
“You know, Cam, you’re really doing good out here,” said Fergie one evening, sending the mutual-property baseball across Cameron’s room.
Cam caught it. “Well, thank you, Ferguson. I’ve been really worried about your opinion.”
Truth was, he had, and he breathed out a quiet sigh of relief. Good to have his personal mental health diagnosis confirmed.
“Seriously, I’m glad. Before I was sure how it was gonna be, I was having mother-hen moments. Starting to freak myself out. But-you’re fine.” Fergie caught the baseball. “Course, this is discounting your unnatural dislike of a certain Major John Sheppard.”
Cameron sent a look at the ceiling. “You don’t like him either.” Fergie had latched onto the couple of irritated comments Cam had made, and decided that Cam had a neurosis.
“He’s a perfectly fine officer.”
“Aside from that whole minor insubordination thing.”
Fergie grinned. “Aside from that. How do you suppose he’s lasted this long, attitude like that?”
The posture and the general flirty air had established Cameron’s personal running theory, that Sheppard had slept his way up. But he wasn’t sharing that, so he shrugged. “Friends in high places?”
It was also his theory as to why he couldn't just ignore the guy-he hated people who used sex appeal like that, playing defense with their bodies, but he could never make himself ignore them, either. Like watching a train wreck.
It was like Sheppard exuded a low-level electromagnetic field. Everyone's head turned when he walked in. Charisma, or something. Hormones.
“Actually, I heard that his daddy was some big-shot colonel, back in the day.”
Right. “Yeah, whatever. Leave the Sheppard thing alone already. Come on, we’ve got a briefing in ten minutes.”
They got themselves together and headed out, and Cameron repeated the words to himself on the way to the briefing room. Leave the Sheppard thing alone already.
Except every time they passed in the hall, or saw each other in the mess, Sheppard would flash that lazy grin and say, “Hey, Mitchell,” in a low, amused voice. Like they were friends, like they had some sort of in-joke.
It drove him up the wall. But whatever, he was all grown up and a Major in the Air Force, and he could handle one irritating guy. He could suck it up and keep his brain on other things.
That worked especially well when, out on the mission the next day, he had a flashback in the cockpit.
Thank God, it didn't screw up the mission, didn't even last more than a second, nothing went wrong at all, but when he got back, he was shaking. One second there, where he wasn’t here and now, he was back being ordered to hit his target and right after, if he’d just waited five seconds it wouldn’t have happened-
He avoided Ferg when they got back, stumbled back to his room and dropped on his bunk, stared at the ceiling. Spent a little while praying, trying to calm himself, center himself. Eventually dragged himself up and went to the debriefing, kept himself quiet and in-order, nothing to see here, sir. The colonel wasn't one of the touchy-feely get-to-know-you-son officers; he let Cameron’s subdued panic pass by without a second glance.
Ferg was busy getting grilled about a move he’d pulled that would have been risky if he were any less than the best pilot they had. Ferg didn’t take risks like that, and Cameron knew it, but the colonel didn’t and he was going to by God make sure they didn’t have any crazy flyboys screwing up their missions. Cam suffered through it, and when it was over he went from the debriefing room to the can and threw up.
“Hey, Mitchell, you okay?” said Sheppard when he came out, leaning against the wall in his fucking rentboy pose.
“Fine,” Cam said shortly, and went over to wash his hands, splash water on his face.
“You sure?” and when Cameron turned, Sheppard was watching him, intent.
“I'm sure,” he said. “Look, Sheppard, could you stop-” He stopped himself, not all that confident about his ability to phrase stop trying to be my friend in a way appropriate to two members of the U.S. military.
Sheppard seemed to take it as an invitation to stop with the questions, and held up his hands. “I was just asking,” he said, and made for the door.
Cameron rubbed his face. Sheppard was-weird. Somehow too friendly, but that wasn’t a crime last time Cameron had looked. Sex on legs, but no charges for that either, and Cameron wasn’t even supposed to notice that kind of thing. An insubordinate asshole, but not to Cameron himself, so he didn't have anything to complain about.
He really needed to give this up. It wasn’t like no one had ever rubbed him the wrong way before, and he was professional enough to work with them right through it if he had to, get himself away from them if he didn’t.
Get the hell away it was, then. Unresponsive had not given Sheppard the message. Next up was hostile. When he had the energy.
Cameron went back to his bunk and curled up for the rest of the day. When he woke up the next morning, he felt better.
Fergie caught him later that day. “Don’t tell me I spoke too soon.”
“I’m fine,” said Cameron.
“Don’t know if I believe you.”
“I’m fine,” he said, and he was going to make that the truth.
He flew another mission with no problems, and started to relax. Also, Sheppard had finally gotten the message, it looked like, and backed off, which helped with the relaxing thing. Life was moving in a positive direction again.
***
A few Sheppard-free, flashback-free days later, he was on his way to the hangar to take a look at his plane when Sheppard burst into the corridor, taking up about twice his usual space in murderous energy, followed by a couple of his buddies. They looked nervous, worried, calling, “Shep-hey, Shep,” as Sheppard stalked down the hall in front of them. “It sucks. Thompson's a good guy, but it's nobody's fault-it's their fucking fault, is what it is-”
Sheppard put up with this for fifteen feet or so, didn't even seem to be hearing them, until he spun around without warning, up and angry and in their faces, and snarled, “It is Base Command's fucking fault, and I swear to fucking God, I will-”
“Sheppard,” said another one of the buddies, coming up next to him, and Sheppard stopped and seemed to realize what he was saying. Took a couple of breaths. He turned around again, started back down the corridor at full stalk, but at least he wasn't yelling insubordination where anyone could hear him.
Cameron had stepped aside to let Sheppard and his murderous rage pass out of range, but when Sheppard reached him, he paused. Cam could feel his body radiating the heat of too many hours in an enclosed space with only the adrenaline for company. Calmly and quietly and enunciating too clearly, Sheppard said, “Mitchell. Want to take a walk?”
And it wasn't a question, it wasn't even a request, he should have just told the guy to screw himself, but he knew that look. He'd felt that look, and it was white and blank and scary, seen from the inside. He fell into step behind Sheppard, with one look back at the buddies, who were slumping back against the wall and swearing softly to themselves.
Sheppard took his furious energy to his quarters, opened the door and stood aside to let Cameron in first, shut it behind them, and shoved Cameron up against the wall, all heat and sweat and ready for violence.
Cameron took a breath. This was not a good situation, but he wasn't the one in danger and he knew it. “What happened?”
“Fucking Base Command,” said Sheppard, and kissed him.
One surprised second where he wondered if Sheppard had slept his way up after all, and then he was dealing with a tongue in his mouth and a thigh shoved between his legs, and he had to jerk his head back and try, “Sheppard. I'm not into this, I don't do this-”
But Sheppard leaned forward and licked across his mouth, slowly, and whispered, “Bullshit. You’ve been looking at me.”
Cameron dragged in air and started, “I-”
“Base sent us out to bomb a transport,” said Sheppard in a low voice, and bit Cameron's jaw, hard and sharp and shouldn't-be-sexy.
And Cameron-shut up. Sheppard needed to deal. He didn't like the guy, but he understood needing to deal. He'd done some crazy shit himself, after. And Sheppard was so much more of a lit fuse than Cameron-he was suddenly afraid, deeply, viscerally afraid, which he wouldn’t have thought he-wouldn’t have expected-really afraid of what would happen to Sheppard if Cameron walked out of this room.
“No big deal,” said Sheppard, biting down his neck and sliding his hands up under Cam's T-shirt, “no problem, ground defenses, truck moving weapons and supplies. Milk run.”
Cameron shivered under Sheppard's hands-they weren't doing anything, just running slowly up his stomach, his chest, around to his back-
“Bullshit,” Sheppard whispered, and thrust his tongue into Cameron's mouth, and this time Cameron gave it up and kissed him back.
When he came up for air, he'd taken Sheppard's face in his hands, stubble under his palms, and the muscles working as Sheppard started whispering furiously, “We got there, flew in, and they had fucking planes, parked right there on the highway, where a fucking eyewitness would have seen them, right out in the open, like they didn't have a fucking thing to be worried about-” Sheppard yanked Cameron's T-shirt over his head and kissed him again.
“Not a fucking thing,” he said when he pulled back, and started licking his way down Cameron's chest.
Cameron's hands migrated into Sheppard's hair, clenching as he pictured it, flying in, bored and ready, knowing there were too many of you for this little target, confident and buzzing and on top of the world-not his own attitude, not something Cameron ever wanted to feel, something he worked against feeling, but-and Sheppard's mouth was on his stomach, his fingers working at Cameron's pants.
“Fucking piece-of-shit planes, but there were enough of them. Thompson got clipped, shrapnel in his cockpit. Fucking piece of glass in his eye, he'll never fly again,” and Sheppard had his pants open while Cameron was hit with the horror of that-happened all the time, but oh, Jesus, you never lost the fear of being grounded forever.
Sheppard locked eyes with him, shared the moment of poor bastard, how fucking dare they, and then he ducked his head and started sucking.
Cameron hadn't had his dick sucked in-Jesus, he couldn't remember. A long time, and being in the military was enough to make you wish you did guys just so you could, and if it was like this, he wasn't going to be able to keep himself from wanting to.
Sheppard's mouth was hot, and wet, and Cameron was only just able to keep himself from thrusting hard-once, twice, he kept his hips back against the wall, but the third time, Sheppard moved forward and down and Jesus Christ, Sheppard wanted it. Wanted to feel Cameron thrusting against him, which-yeah. He could understand, he could, and so he firmed his grip on Sheppard's head and went for it, taking it.
Shoving against the back of Sheppard's throat, and really, he'd wanted to do this since he saw that first slacker smile, wanted to teach him a-no. Cameron dragged in a breath and didn't let himself go there again.
By the time he felt the insistent pressure against his hands, Sheppard was making these little choked noises that sent sparks off in front of Cameron's eyes, and he had to pry his fingers out of the sweat-drenched hair.
Sheppard fell back, sprawled on his ass on the floor looking up, mouth red and wet while Cameron gasped above him, and Sheppard wiped his glistening mouth and swallowed and said, "You up for it?"
Only one thing Sheppard could be asking for with his legs splayed out like that, but by the time Cameron had enough oxygen in his brain to answer, Sheppard had already flashed that goddamned grin and gone over to his bedside table, pulling out condoms and lube. He shot a look at Cameron, and started to strip.
Cameron took a deep, shuddering breath and tried to think. Two options. Leave right now, or stay and fuck Sheppard. He-didn't think he could leave. He could still almost pay attention, and he didn’t believe the grin. Sheppard was ready to break, and better he did it in here than at the colonel.
Good enough excuse for you? The remnants of his brain were not buying it, but…but.
He didn't stumble once on the way over to the bed.
Sheppard handed him the stuff and splayed himself out on his stomach, almost vibrating with suppressed-something. Anger, grief, whatever made him snap like that when Cameron shoved a slick finger into him.
Cameron was-almost detached, not really believing what he was doing, that he was really fucking this man he hardly knew, on base, on-duty, fingers up another man's ass in preparation for an act that was illegal in a lot of states. Wasn't something he'd ever actually done, something he'd ever thought he'd do-liar, whispered his brain-but Sheppard needed it and Cameron wanted it and he'd somehow ended up where he could do it. Sheppard's body was tighter than a woman's, but nothing to his finger, to his two fingers, to three. He's done this before. Cameron couldn't stop the thought and couldn't tell if it turned him on or got him angry or both.
He took a breath. Let he who only knows about this from porn magazines he saw as a kid keep his fucking mouth shut. He remembered, bright glossy pictures and utterly filthy articles, himself half-horrified, halfway to coming. He’d thrown them away after a week of burning guilt, but he hadn’t forgotten, and he was getting flashes of pictures, snatches of articles, as he tore open the condom wrapper with shaky fingers.
When he pushed inside, Sheppard made a quick broken noise and pushed back, too fast, until Cameron was in all the way and biting his tongue to keep himself sane. He pulled back, careful, and put his hands on Sheppard's hips, keeping him in place when he thrust in again. Sheppard whined high in his throat, and Cameron waited for swearing, more fast-voiced whispers, something, but after a second, Sheppard just bent his head and waited. He pulled back and thrust again. So fucking tight.
It took him a few minutes, but he built up a rhythm, not too fast but deep and thorough, and his tongue was bleeding from all the times he'd bitten it to keep himself back from the edge. But Sheppard was making noise almost continuously, ragged and high like he wouldn't have thought the guy was capable of, as he arched his back under Cameron's thrusts.
When he knew he wasn't going to be able to keep it back much longer, he sped it up, going faster, harder, letting Sheppard angle his hips to get the best angle and really driving it in-if he was even pretending this was for Sheppard, he needed to get him to-Sheppard needed to come first, with Cameron fucking him, because as far as he could tell that was the entire point of this cracked-out excuse for a mental health exercise, fuck Major John Sheppard's brains out so he didn't have enough left to get himself cashiered, and Cameron drew in a breath and figured out how to do it. He slid one of his hands from Sheppard's hips around to his dick, wrapped his hand around it, thrust in hard and jerked, and Sheppard convulsed under Cameron's chest and came into his hand.
And oh Jesus, he hadn't known the male body did that during orgasm, but Cameron's vision whited out entirely when Sheppard clenched around him, and then finally he was coming and coming.
When Cameron dragged himself out of his stupor, Sheppard was lying drugged-out and panting on his stomach, not responding to stimuli. Cameron got rid of the condom and spent a couple seconds trying to figure out what to do next.
Eventually, he leaned over and said, “You going to be okay?”
Sheppard blinked open surprisingly clear eyes and said, “What do you care? You don't even like me.”
That caught him by surprise, and he couldn't think of anything to say for a second. “Well-look, Sheppard, I'm concerned, okay? I don't want you to trash your career.” Which actually would have been a lie about half an hour before. He wasn't thinking about that at the moment.
Sheppard raised an eyebrow. “Well, then,” he said precisely, “I'll be fine. Thank you for your concern.”
That was so obviously a dismissal, and Cameron's brain was too fuck-stupid to think of a good reply, that he just nodded and found his shirt and left the room.
***
He spent the next few days catching his metaphorical breath, trying to figure out what had happened and totally, totally failing. His brain was caught between slept with a man and slept with Sheppard, and couldn’t decide which one to freak out about. Short-circuit was imminent, and he spent a lot of time in his room, staring at the ceiling.
He saw Sheppard once, the next day. He got the grin and the “Hey, Mitchell,” like nothing at all had changed.
Eventually he chalked it up as a one-time thing and decided that freaking out about it would waste more energy than he had. He was already out of excuses with Fergie. Time to get back to normal and forget about it.
***
But after that, he paid even more attention to Sheppard, couldn’t help himself, couldn’t keep his eyes off the man, and started to notice things he hadn't before. Like, Sheppard was one of the worst officers he'd ever seen when it came to relating to his superiors, but he was one of the best when it came to his subordinates. He could be a fucking brilliant soldier when he was with people he’d let into his personal fan club, but if he didn’t trust someone, he was an interpersonal nightmare.
It was-frustrating. Major Sheppard would lay down his life for the men under his command, but he was too densely stubborn to figure out that most of the time he didn't have to. And his people skills were freaking schizophrenic.
Sheppard spent hours in the infirmary with Thompson, talking to him, reading to him, telling him stories, staying carefully neutral and subordinate, as far as Cameron could hear over the base grapevine. And then he went into the colonel’s office and somehow didn’t get court-martialed, which Cameron was starting to think he could take personal responsibility for. Sheppard was keeping himself muted, careful, but when you were John Sheppard, that was enough to get you almost court-martialed.
Eventually he started to back off entirely about the Thompson thing, and Cameron breathed a sigh of relief at a good officer staying in where he could help the country, and started paying a little less attention.
Except for-
One-time thing. Right. But he’d never done anything like that before, even aside from never having done anything with a guy. Never had sex quite that insane, never been afraid that if he did the wrong thing his partner would go off the deep end. Even later that day, it had started seeming-not real. Removed. Like a really intense wet dream. And now he had to deal with Sheppard, who on the one hand behaved exactly like he always had to Cameron, and was just as irritating and just as too-friendly, but on the other hand wore the face and the body of this person who had slid down Cameron’s body mouthing a pilot’s epitaph.
He thought, sometimes, that he might pull Sheppard into an empty room somewhere and spill the story of his own crazy mix of shame and anger, bad intelligence sending the bombs down on innocent refugees, sure, but it was his own fingers on the trigger, his own failure to protect and serve-but. He didn’t want Sheppard angry on his behalf, and he didn’t want Sheppard to not care, and he didn’t want to be friends, and he didn’t-he really didn’t-want to have sex with him again. And when he asked himself, so what do you want? he drew a blank. So he kept the impulse under control.
He spent a lot of time staring at his ceiling, wondering at God. Why this? Why now? Why him?
He didn’t have an answer, and God wasn’t sharing.
He tried to just put it behind him. That had about as much success as he’d expected it would.
***
Tenth mission. Big round number, big round dogfight. The planes were fucking everywhere, they lost a man almost before they knew what was going on, and Cameron was insane, pulling G’s, firing shots he couldn’t possibly make, yelling death threats at the fuckers who’d killed Jenkins and God knew how many others by now, spinning through the sky and killing as many of them as he could.
He threw himself at a clump, firing blind-he had the advantage, he could risk shooting when they’d need to worry about hitting their own, but he was going to die and he knew it five seconds after he started in. Stupid, stupid, committing suicide like this, but it was too late to pull out and then he was surrounded by planes-
“Motherfucker!” came over the radio, and Fergie was there, blowing in just in front of him, two planes gone and another one exploding as punctuation, and suddenly Cameron could breathe and think and shoot, and he was going to live.
And then he looked up, and all the dots on his screen were friendlies. “Shit. We did it. I don’t-Fergie, you see that?”
Silence.
He knew it before he tried again. “Ferg?”
“I-” he heard over the radio, and it felt like he was falling, the relief taking over his system. “I don’t-”
When he brought his plane around, he could see the hole in Ferg’s cockpit, the blood on the glass.
***
Ferg was going to live.
He’d never fly again.
Symmetry there, somehow, except this wasn’t anyone’s fault but Cam’s.
He stayed by Ferguson as long as they’d let him, waited outside when they kicked him out, dragged himself to the debriefing and somehow didn’t throw up on the table in front of the colonel when he said, Nothing you could have done, Major, remember that. Your men will be remembered. He was back outside the infirmary as soon as they were done. The world was silent, blank. He wanted to punch something. Anything.
He tried the infirmary wall. The nurses came out and made him stop.
When they finally let him in, Fergie was blinking up at him from the bed, white as snow. “Hey, Cam,” he said. “How’s it hanging?”
Cameron swallowed hard. “Fergie,” he said. “I-fuck, I-”
“Hey, it’s gonna be okay,” said Fergie. “It’s okay.”
Liar, Cameron thought, but he nodded and sat down next to the bed.
He stayed until the nurses made him leave again, went back to his room, slept for not-long-enough. Woke up and stared at the ceiling.
Went to the can. Threw up.
This is the wrong place for me, he thought, hugging the toilet bowl. But there were only two ways away, out and up. Out was not an option, if only because he couldn’t face his dad and say he was okay afterwards, and he hated the pain that his dad felt whenever Cameron wasn’t okay. His dad had had enough pain of his own.
Up needed him to be here first. So-deep breaths. Work through it. He’d…suck it up.
He almost collided with Sheppard in the corridor, not sure if he was going to see Fergie or to kill himself in the gym for awhile, and thought angry thoughts at God for always shoving the guy at him whenever he had a post-traumatic vomiting episode. He turned, ready to avoid, and-“Hey, Mitchell,” said Sheppard, mouth curving.
“Shut the hell up, Sheppard,” he muttered. So not in the mood.
Sheppard turned. “You got a problem?”
Cameron had never been the kid who followed this path into a fight, but he was at the end of his rope and his record here was perfect so far and it was Sheppard, which was enough. “Yeah, I got a problem,” he said. “You. The way you pretend we’re buddies. The way you act.” Like they were both less and more than they really were. “The way you gel your hair. Whatever. Get out of my face.”
Sheppard’s face darkened. “You have a problem with me, Mitchell, we’ll settle it. I’m off-duty at 1700.”
“See you then,” said Cameron, and stalked off.
Fifteen minutes later, mouth rinsed out and lying with a damp washcloth over his eyes, he was regretting every second of the conversation. Talk about counterproductive. Talk about insane, two of the most senior officers on-base getting into a fistfight. Sheppard was as likely to be worried about that as he was about the latest shoe fashions, but Cameron had just decided on up, and this was not the way to get there.
He took a breath. The anger had been good, distracting, necessary. There were consequences, fine. He’d deal with those at 1700.
Sheppard knocked on his door at five after, like he knew that Cameron wouldn’t come looking for him. Cameron let him in, stayed outside his personal space. “Sheppard. Hey.”
“Mitchell,” said Sheppard. “You’re backing down.”
It wasn’t a question. Cameron breathed in and said, “I’m sorry about earlier. I was out of line, pissed off at something else.”
But Sheppard was shaking his head. “No,” he said, “no. You don’t back out that easily.”
Cameron took a step backwards, not sure about the territory here and not wanting to take risks. “What, you have a sudden burning desire to fight me?” and he almost, almost said fuck instead. “This is new.”
“No,” said Sheppard, “it’s really not,” and shoved him back.
Cameron had a quick minute of déjà vu, but got over it when Sheppard punched him instead of kissing him. He brought up his hands, quick, and said, “Hey-hey, what is this? What is this about? What is getting you so fucking angry-you’re never angry-” except for the obvious, and Cameron didn’t think that Major Mitchell getting pissy in the hallway was quite on par with one of Sheppard’s men being half-blinded-
“You, you’re so fucking smart, aren’t you,” said Sheppard, backing off just a step, looking ready to lunge in again any second. “You’ve got the base command and the high command and Jesus Christ on your side, and you couldn’t step wrong if they pushed you, and ice wouldn’t melt in your mouth.”
“I-what-?” He didn’t know where this was coming from, hadn’t known Sheppard felt like that, and how the hell was he supposed to, when all he ever got was Mitchell and that lazy smile. And one afternoon’s mind-blowing sex. “I’m not a golden boy, Sheppard. I screw up,” oh hell yes he did, “I get mad, I-”
“-have a real high opinion of yourself, don’t you?” And now Sheppard was smiling at him, calm, under control again. Cameron was a glass house when it came to showing your real feelings, but if he’d been in charge, Sheppard would have been put in therapy a long while ago.
“What do you want, Sheppard?” Cameron resisted the urge to shove his palms against his eyes, resisted the urge to just give in and fight him. He was really, really starting to just want to pound Sheppard’s face in-
Sheppard took a breath. “Nothing,” he said, and started to turn.
“No. Oh, no.” Cameron grabbed his shoulder. “You came here tonight. Either punch me or talk.”
Sheppard punched him.
-Yeah. “Should’ve seen that one coming,” Cameron muttered to himself, working his jaw.
Sheppard glared. “You done with the amateur psychology?”
Holding his face, holding still, holding back, Cameron nodded.
“Great,” said Sheppard, and left.
***
Fergie wouldn’t talk about the dogfight. He wouldn’t let Cam take responsibility, he wouldn’t even let Cam bring it up. Cameron tried twice, and each time Fergie called the nurses to kick him out. Finally, Cameron left it alone and talked about nothing, basketball and video games and the other guys in their unit. But Fergie slept a lot, and Cameron always tried to be there when he woke up, so that was a lot of dead hours. He tried-if he was going to shut up about this, he needed to repress like a champion. He wouldn’t forget it, but he’d move past it, if that was what Fergie wanted.
In order to keep his mind off the chunk of shrapnel he’d put in Ferg’s brain, Cameron thought about Sheppard.
The idea that he would think about Sheppard to distract himself from something else was both counterintuitive and perfectly logical; once the guy got inside Cameron’s head, he never left without a fight. So Cameron spent a couple of sleepless nights by Fergie’s bedside, watching him sleep, running over the confrontation in the hall and the evening in his room. Eventually he gave it up and admitted that he had a fixation on Sheppard. And it was starting to look like Sheppard had some kind of fixation on him.
“Thanks, brain,” he muttered at 0200, slumped in the plastic chair, arm thrown over his eyes. “That helps a lot.”
It would have helped if Sheppard wasn’t such an irritating little asshole.
It occurred to him a little later that, in addition to maybe possibly probably wanting to fuck him again, what he really wanted was to command this man. Sheppard had-something, something that made people want to follow him, something that kept him in the service despite the insubordination, and yeah, handling him would be like playing chess on a mined board, but-a commander with what it took could do so much, with John Sheppard.
***
They shipped Fergie back to the States. Cameron walked with the stretcher to the plane, said some things he didn’t remember, watched the plane fly away. Then he went back to his room and let himself cry like a kid, racking sobs into his pillow.
Eventually, he got up, went on duty, and started putting himself back together.
***
One day the week after that, he got off-duty, walked to the gym, got himself some gloves and nodded at Sheppard. “Let’s go.”
Sheppard took a step back, steadied the heavy bag, and stood relaxed, gloves at his sides. “You want what, exactly?”
“Come on.” Cameron stepped back, onto the mat.
Sheppard spent a second watching him, and then nodded. “All right.” He stepped up and dropped into a crouch, waited a beat, and took a jab. Nothing like the furious punching in Cameron’s room-careful, controlled, prepared.
Cameron fought back-he was bigger, but Sheppard was faster, and they were pretty evenly matched. Which worked, which was good-all he really needed for this was to have more stamina than Sheppard. Which, well, could go either way.
They pulled their punches, and the fight went on for awhile, until they were both drenched, and Cameron’s hands were burning hot inside the gloves, and Sheppard had turned down three separate invitations from his buddies to head off and do something else.
He kept flashing back to either night, both nights, with Sheppard punching him and Sheppard kissing him, and once, after Sheppard had gotten in a good blow to his head, both at the same time.
It felt good to fight, to attack something with his fists, after spending so much time beating his brain against his life. And he had a plan, kind of, which felt great, having a real objective for once.
He wasn’t trying to get Sheppard into bed again. He just wanted-whatever was going on here to clear up, to go away. Because as much as he wanted to work with Sheppard-above him if he could swing it, after a promotion-he couldn’t, not with this thing here, not with this problem, attraction, repulsion, what-the-hell-ever, he couldn’t spend time with Sheppard and expect to be able to think.
When they were both almost staggering, dripping sweat onto the mats, dragging in air with huge gasps, Cameron coughed once and managed, “Sheppard, I need-I need to be able to work with you.”
Instant tension. “Why?” and it was hard to drawl while panting, but Sheppard managed it somehow. “We don’t work together, last I checked.”
“Fine,” said Cameron, because he was pretty sure what his fate would be if he mentioned anything that had been running through his head. “I need to be able to ignore you. And right now I can’t.”
Sheppard shook his head. “I don’t get it,” he panted. “I’ve been treating you-” he glanced around, but anybody who’d been interested had wandered off a while ago, “-exactly the same.”
“That’s it, that’s what it is,” said Cameron. “Exactly the same. The way that drove me nuts before and still drives me nuts now, because as far as I’ve seen you don’t act exactly the same after-” and he’d wanted a crescendoing finish, but he couldn’t shout out the end of that sentence here. And he sounded enough like a girl already.
That seemed to disarm Sheppard, just for a few seconds, until he looked up, shook his head, and said quietly, “I really hate you, you know that?”
“No, I don’t-Sheppard!” Cameron jogged after him, caught up, and couldn’t think of anything to say. Sheppard ignored him. They walked.
And eventually, they were at Sheppard’s quarters, where Sheppard stopped and looked at him, eyebrow raised. Obvious message: well, are you leaving?
Cameron took a breath, and said, “May I come in?”
And just for a second, Sheppard looked angry. But just as fast, it disappeared, and Sheppard shrugged. “Fine.”
Cameron followed him in, and when the door had closed, ran his hands back through his hair and said, “You-hate me.”
Sheppard closed his eyes and sighed. After a second he opened them and, enunciating in that careful precise way that Cameron was pretty sure meant he was really angry, he said, “You’re perfect. The base commander loves you. Your unit loves you. The guy they just shipped home loves you, even though you fucking sent him there. Your plane’s fucking mechanics love you. You’re practically a recruitment poster.”
Jesus. Fixation, no kidding-and swamping the realization was the sudden relief, that someone would recognize that it was his fault Fergie was in that hospital bed. “Look, Sheppard,” said Cameron, and reached out before he remembered that that was stupid, his hand catching on one sweat-drenched shoulder.
Faster than he could react, faster than he would have thought Sheppard could move after the workout they’d had, he was spun around and back against the wall and déjà vu and Sheppard was kissing him. And just as fast, Sheppard jerked back, but Cameron brought his hands up to pull him back in. And because he was tired of whatever they were doing, tired of not knowing what the hell was going on, really fucking tired of white hospital beds and not talking and sharp jagged pain, he leaned forward and opened Sheppard’s mouth with his tongue.
It was faster than the last time, clothes off before he stopped and thought, Sheppard’s hands all over his body. Hand fetish, he thought, dizzy with it, inhaling sex and sweat. Jesus. He shoved Sheppard back to the bed, down onto it, which Sheppard put up with for about thirty seconds before he flipped them over. And then Sheppard’s mouth was moving down his body, no time to object to being on his back. When Sheppard started sucking him, he let his eyes fall closed and his head go back.
It was better than the last time, better than any time, Sheppard had obviously done this many many many times before, because oh Jesus he was good at it-and then the mouth was gone, and Cameron was concentrating hard on not whining. It was good that Sheppard had stopped, he told himself, good, because he didn’t want to come already-didn’t-
Sheppard was back down again. And what-
“No,” he heard himself say faintly. “No, Sheppard, I don’t do that.” He breathed, tried to keep a hold on his brain. “Don’t-do that.”
Sheppard’s mouth moved-smiling, Jesus, and that really brought the teeth forward, didn’t it? Cameron swallowed and didn’t move. Sheppard’s finger slipped in a little farther.
“Stop,” he tried, but Sheppard didn’t, Sheppard wasn’t going to. And Cameron was just getting ready to sit up and pull him off, because he liked it but he didn’t like it that much, when Sheppard’s finger hit-
Prostate gland, he told himself. You get it checked up at the doctor’s. It’s uncomfortable and-Jesus fucking Christ-embarrassing. His vision was blacking out.
Sheppard was working in another finger now, and Cameron needed to lose the hand fetish now, yesterday-“Jesus,” he heard himself say. “God.”
Sheppard pulled off long enough to say, “Good, isn’t it?” and twisted his fingers, sending a jolt through Cameron that he couldn’t even pretend was from the blowjob. Two fingers, in hard, and Sheppard ducked his head back down and the sucking plus the fingers was too much, way way too much, and Cameron came with his hips arching up off the bed.
When he could see again, Sheppard was just turning back to him, not looking like he’d been bothered by the sudden orgasm down his throat.
Cameron thought he’d get mad about the fingers later.
Sheppard crawled back up onto the bed, brushed his hands down over Cameron’s thighs, his limp dick, down between his legs, brushing over places that made Cameron jerk slightly, sensitive. He touched the hole, slipped a finger back in. It went in easily, and Cameron couldn’t even really protest, too blissed-out, too full of the proof that yeah, this was good. The second finger went back in.
He didn’t clue in until the third finger. They’d gone in so easily because now Sheppard was using lube instead of just spit, and-“No way,” said Cameron. “I don’t-”
Sheppard had really well-timed fingers. Cameron lost the words when he was sucking in his breath.
“You’ll like it, Cameron, don’t worry,” said Sheppard, and Cam’s hazy wondering about why the fuck Sheppard was suddenly using his first name kept him busy while Sheppard worked him over onto his stomach.
The fingers pulled out, slowly, and he tried not to feel empty and utterly, utterly failed. Sheppard leaned over him, hard, ready-and said low in his ear, “Tell me you want me to fuck you.”
Cameron dragged in air, quick. “I-” He stopped.
“I don’t rape people,” said Sheppard. “You have to tell me. Do you want this.”
Uniquely Sheppard way to do it, Cameron thought, dizzy. Catch them up in the rush of the moment, and only ask permission when it’s too late. “Yeah,” he said, ragged. “Yeah. Do it.”
Sheppard let out his breath, fingers clenching on Cameron’s hips, and pushed in, slow.
It hurt, slow aching pain, too much of a strain on muscles that weren’t used to it, but Cameron breathed deep and lowered his head and took it. And after a second, under the pain, it felt-God. Not like he was used to sex feeling, but-his brain was going to short out.
Sheppard gave him a second, a little time to get used to it, then pulled out and thrust back in, and it was the same, it was too much, he couldn’t handle this-
But he could, and he did, and he somehow didn’t pass out as Sheppard worked up a rhythm, fucking him deep and hard and Jesus fucking Christ he’d never known about this. He wasn’t even hard, and he was having the most intense sex of his life. God, God, it felt amazing. Insane.
Sheppard leaned forward a little, changing the angle, and said in Cameron’s ear, “You are so fucking tight.”
He couldn’t stand it, he wasn’t handling it, tears were leaking out of his eyes, and Sheppard shuddered and came.
For awhile, he lay boneless, until Sheppard rolled off of him and moved around a little, then came back to the bed and leaned down. Cameron looked up, saw and filed the look on Sheppard’s face, and then pulled him down and kissed him. If he was going to listen to what that expression was telling him, he was going to get this first.
“Out,” said Sheppard when he pulled back. “Goodbye.”
“This didn’t help either of us,” said Cameron, pulling on his clothes. “Nothing’s changed.”
“Well, maybe you should have thought of that before you invited yourself in,” said Sheppard, and sprawled onto the bed, still naked. “Have a nice day.”
“I want us to be able to get along,” said Cameron, speaking slowly and clearly.
“I kind of just want you gone,” said Sheppard. “From this room, from this base, from this geographical area. Can you manage that?”
“I’ll see what I can do,” said Cameron, and meant it.
Sheppard had fucked him, and meant it. In every sense. He got that, and he needed to let everything else the hell go.
***
Four days later, Sheppard went out on a mission, and came back in free-fall, sailing down toward court-martial, trailing KIAs behind him.
***
Cameron saw him just before he left, running into him in the corridor, the space behind him conspicuously free of buddies. The buddies were dead, and Sheppard was taking the fall, all the way down to the bottom of the world.
Cameron had had a meeting with the base commander that morning. He’d flown fourteen flawless missions and one that was labeled a success in the official report, and his unit was being transferred back to the States for special training. They’d be an elite force by the time they were done, said the colonel, smiling, one of the top in the nation, and Cameron was headed straight for lieutenant colonel, fast.
He should have been used to the world working like this by now. But he moved through it all like a dream, and he couldn’t think of anything to say to Sheppard, who glared at him from under the shadow of blank space just behind, and headed down the corridor toward Antarctica.
***
Cameron stares down at the Atlantis file. John Sheppard in command.
All that simmering intensity, focused on one thing.
If he’s really gotten himself together-Atlantis will survive, no question. More than that, Atlantis will beat the living hell out of the Pegasus Galaxy. Cameron can’t see much standing in the way of John Sheppard’s concentrated will.
He rereads the file, fourth time through. Christ Almighty.
He isn’t sure if he’s happy or furious that he hadn’t known about this in the hospital, before General O’Neill came to see him, before the Daedalus left.
end
He gets that it's a necessary evil, but most of it is so-Jesus Christ, so utterly mind-numbing. He does it as fast as he can, gets it out of the way, but there's always more.
Jackson's been unsympathetic. "I think Jack mostly just didn't do it," he says, raising an eyebrow in the door of Cameron's office while Cam tears his hair out. "I don't know. It doesn't look that bad."
The man's job is paperwork. Cameron tunes him out.
In his estimation, about one percent of the things he has to read and/or fill out are actually important. About another one percent are interesting. Most of those overlap.
But the problem is, that one percent, give or take, is absolutely vital. General-then-Colonel O'Neill must have had some psychic sense that let him sniff out the good stuff, because people would have come and found him if he'd left it undone.
So in the middle of equipment requisition forms and assignments for leave and requests for mission confirmation, he gets things like the new treaty with the Jaffa Nation, the official policy as regards evil beings from another galaxy, and the occasional personal message from subordinates. That stuff makes it all worthwhile, so he plows through it all and spends entire nights dreaming of using Goa'uld mothership cannons on great, sticky, tangled masses of red tape.
When he was first starting out, like in the first day or two, he got the reports on the Atlantis mission, but he was too busy moving through the shock of not actually commanding the SG-1 he’d expected to really pay attention. Also, he was harboring some latent resentment toward the Atlantis mission for trying to steal away Dr. Jackson.
But a few weeks later, when things have settled down a little, when it’s become clear they're going to be dealing with the Ancients, and/or beings very like them, and when he’s remembering that it was a little unprofessional to skip over reports because he was pissed, he digs them back up and starts going over all of them.
And it’s right there at the beginning, first report after a year-long hiatus. Colonel Marshall Sumner dead, Major John Sheppard in command.
Cameron blinks at the report for a second or two, but the words don't change.
And for some eternal moment, he's caught between no wonder they nearly died forty-seven different times and no wonder they're all still alive.
~~~
Afghanistan was hot and unpleasant, but if you'd signed up for the U.S. Air Force any time in the last twenty years, you knew you were going somewhere hot and unpleasant. Cam was sucking it up.
It wasn’t like he’d never been to the Middle East before. He’d even picked up a little Arabic, some Farsi. Which was more than he could say for some of the guys over his head, and might have had something to do with the total lack of competence-but he wasn’t thinking about the last time he’d been stationed out here. Stewing over something that wasn’t his fault, something that was utterly unavoidable-well, he knew that wasn’t constructive, and it didn't do anything but make him a less valuable officer. Second-guessing himself, everyone above him-if he was going to function, he had to trust people to do their jobs.
Within reason.
This base was a staging ground for the flyboys, and Cameron saw a few familiar faces in the corridors. His unit was off-duty after the trip out, and they probably wouldn't be flying their first mission for a few days, so they had some downtime. Late the first day, he found the mess without a problem, slid into a table with his tray, sat back and very carefully kept himself in the here and now. He could remember how to like it here, maybe. He could do his job, absolutely.
Yeah, he told his brain, it's hot, it's dry, it's full of dirt-poor innocent people and oil-rich fuckers. Doesn't mean it's the same assignment as before. You can do some good here. Stay cool.
“Mind if I sit?”
He glanced up. Another major. Slouch, easy smile, looked like a slacker but you never could tell, especially out here. “Sure.”
“John Sheppard,” said the guy, dropping his tray down and throwing a leg over the bench.
“Cameron Mitchell,” said Cam. “Just got here. You?”
“Feels like centuries,” said Sheppard. “More like two months if you sit down and count, though. How're things back home?”
“Crazy,” said Cameron. “Defensive measures. Liberals screaming about rights. Conservatives screaming right back. You know.”
Sheppard took a bite, made a face. “Beats powdered potatoes. Listen, we play some basketball a few times a week, any time you want to join us…” He lifted his eyebrows.
“I’ll pass that on.” Fergie would want to play basketball. “Be fun. We’ll kick your asses.”
“Hey,” said Sheppard. “Little bit of a premature judgment there, Mitchell. I’ll have you know-” But he never got to finish, because the base commander was suddenly there, standing over their table, looking grim. Cameron frowned slightly, ran through his mental checklist. He hadn't screwed up any procedures, no difficulties coming in, so this had to be for-
“Sheppard,” said Colonel Deslauries. “Come with me.”
Sheppard bent his head just slightly, enough so that the eye-roll was out of the colonel's sight. “Yes, sir,” he said, and Jesus, Cameron hadn’t seen anybody that obviously insubordinate since his personal command nightmare, Private Michaels.
The colonel got a little grimmer, which was understandable given the blatant sarcasm, and nodded at Cam. “Mitchell.”
"Sir," said Cam, and resisted the urge to say, I wasn't hanging out with him, he came over here, I don't know him, not my problem. He thought he’d be passing on that basketball offer.
Sheppard sauntered after the colonel, still slouching. The slacker pose was definitely real.
Yeah, Cam would be staying away. That guy was a career-killer for sure.
***
Life settled down, pretty much low-key; mission briefings, training, hanging around with Fergie, nothing he wouldn’t have expected. He saw Sheppard around every once in a while, playing basketball, working out, generally hanging, never actually working. His buddies called him “Shep”. The colonel called him borderline insubordinate and kept on threatening to pull him up on charges. Cameron kept his nose out of it and flew two missions without freezing up. Fergie had stopped looking at him like he was going to break into pieces, and Cam was starting to relax. No problem. Middle East, the sequel, was looking way better than Middle East, the original series.
“Hey, Cam, what’s your problem with Sheppard?” asked Fergie in the weight room a couple weeks in, just after the major had left the room.
“Problem?” Cameron concentrated on his sit-ups. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Uh-huh. You turn into this mass of tension every time he comes into a room. Seriously, you guys have some issues, or what? I thought you didn’t know him.”
Cameron sighed and let himself fall back to the floor. “I don’t know. He bugs me.”
“I wouldn’t have thought a little non-regulation would bug you.” Ferguson dropped down on his stomach next to Cam, propped his chin on his arms.
“He’s more than non-regulation. He’s got no respect.” Cameron threw an arm over his eyes. “I don’t know, Ferg. Chalk it up as a personality conflict.”
Ferg lifted his eyebrows. “Fine. You want to get out of here, get some food?”
“Sure, let me grab a shower.”
In the mess, they ran into Sheppard again, passing by him on the way to the line. “Ferguson,” said Sheppard. And, “Hey, Mitchell.” He grinned.
“Sheppard,” said Cameron, and bit his tongue.
***
By a month in, Cameron had seen enough of Sheppard that he was starting to wonder how the man had kept his commission. But he figured, if Sheppard was the only thing he had to worry about, he was coming out ahead.
“You know, Cam, you’re really doing good out here,” said Fergie one evening, sending the mutual-property baseball across Cameron’s room.
Cam caught it. “Well, thank you, Ferguson. I’ve been really worried about your opinion.”
Truth was, he had, and he breathed out a quiet sigh of relief. Good to have his personal mental health diagnosis confirmed.
“Seriously, I’m glad. Before I was sure how it was gonna be, I was having mother-hen moments. Starting to freak myself out. But-you’re fine.” Fergie caught the baseball. “Course, this is discounting your unnatural dislike of a certain Major John Sheppard.”
Cameron sent a look at the ceiling. “You don’t like him either.” Fergie had latched onto the couple of irritated comments Cam had made, and decided that Cam had a neurosis.
“He’s a perfectly fine officer.”
“Aside from that whole minor insubordination thing.”
Fergie grinned. “Aside from that. How do you suppose he’s lasted this long, attitude like that?”
The posture and the general flirty air had established Cameron’s personal running theory, that Sheppard had slept his way up. But he wasn’t sharing that, so he shrugged. “Friends in high places?”
It was also his theory as to why he couldn't just ignore the guy-he hated people who used sex appeal like that, playing defense with their bodies, but he could never make himself ignore them, either. Like watching a train wreck.
It was like Sheppard exuded a low-level electromagnetic field. Everyone's head turned when he walked in. Charisma, or something. Hormones.
“Actually, I heard that his daddy was some big-shot colonel, back in the day.”
Right. “Yeah, whatever. Leave the Sheppard thing alone already. Come on, we’ve got a briefing in ten minutes.”
They got themselves together and headed out, and Cameron repeated the words to himself on the way to the briefing room. Leave the Sheppard thing alone already.
Except every time they passed in the hall, or saw each other in the mess, Sheppard would flash that lazy grin and say, “Hey, Mitchell,” in a low, amused voice. Like they were friends, like they had some sort of in-joke.
It drove him up the wall. But whatever, he was all grown up and a Major in the Air Force, and he could handle one irritating guy. He could suck it up and keep his brain on other things.
That worked especially well when, out on the mission the next day, he had a flashback in the cockpit.
Thank God, it didn't screw up the mission, didn't even last more than a second, nothing went wrong at all, but when he got back, he was shaking. One second there, where he wasn’t here and now, he was back being ordered to hit his target and right after, if he’d just waited five seconds it wouldn’t have happened-
He avoided Ferg when they got back, stumbled back to his room and dropped on his bunk, stared at the ceiling. Spent a little while praying, trying to calm himself, center himself. Eventually dragged himself up and went to the debriefing, kept himself quiet and in-order, nothing to see here, sir. The colonel wasn't one of the touchy-feely get-to-know-you-son officers; he let Cameron’s subdued panic pass by without a second glance.
Ferg was busy getting grilled about a move he’d pulled that would have been risky if he were any less than the best pilot they had. Ferg didn’t take risks like that, and Cameron knew it, but the colonel didn’t and he was going to by God make sure they didn’t have any crazy flyboys screwing up their missions. Cam suffered through it, and when it was over he went from the debriefing room to the can and threw up.
“Hey, Mitchell, you okay?” said Sheppard when he came out, leaning against the wall in his fucking rentboy pose.
“Fine,” Cam said shortly, and went over to wash his hands, splash water on his face.
“You sure?” and when Cameron turned, Sheppard was watching him, intent.
“I'm sure,” he said. “Look, Sheppard, could you stop-” He stopped himself, not all that confident about his ability to phrase stop trying to be my friend in a way appropriate to two members of the U.S. military.
Sheppard seemed to take it as an invitation to stop with the questions, and held up his hands. “I was just asking,” he said, and made for the door.
Cameron rubbed his face. Sheppard was-weird. Somehow too friendly, but that wasn’t a crime last time Cameron had looked. Sex on legs, but no charges for that either, and Cameron wasn’t even supposed to notice that kind of thing. An insubordinate asshole, but not to Cameron himself, so he didn't have anything to complain about.
He really needed to give this up. It wasn’t like no one had ever rubbed him the wrong way before, and he was professional enough to work with them right through it if he had to, get himself away from them if he didn’t.
Get the hell away it was, then. Unresponsive had not given Sheppard the message. Next up was hostile. When he had the energy.
Cameron went back to his bunk and curled up for the rest of the day. When he woke up the next morning, he felt better.
Fergie caught him later that day. “Don’t tell me I spoke too soon.”
“I’m fine,” said Cameron.
“Don’t know if I believe you.”
“I’m fine,” he said, and he was going to make that the truth.
He flew another mission with no problems, and started to relax. Also, Sheppard had finally gotten the message, it looked like, and backed off, which helped with the relaxing thing. Life was moving in a positive direction again.
***
A few Sheppard-free, flashback-free days later, he was on his way to the hangar to take a look at his plane when Sheppard burst into the corridor, taking up about twice his usual space in murderous energy, followed by a couple of his buddies. They looked nervous, worried, calling, “Shep-hey, Shep,” as Sheppard stalked down the hall in front of them. “It sucks. Thompson's a good guy, but it's nobody's fault-it's their fucking fault, is what it is-”
Sheppard put up with this for fifteen feet or so, didn't even seem to be hearing them, until he spun around without warning, up and angry and in their faces, and snarled, “It is Base Command's fucking fault, and I swear to fucking God, I will-”
“Sheppard,” said another one of the buddies, coming up next to him, and Sheppard stopped and seemed to realize what he was saying. Took a couple of breaths. He turned around again, started back down the corridor at full stalk, but at least he wasn't yelling insubordination where anyone could hear him.
Cameron had stepped aside to let Sheppard and his murderous rage pass out of range, but when Sheppard reached him, he paused. Cam could feel his body radiating the heat of too many hours in an enclosed space with only the adrenaline for company. Calmly and quietly and enunciating too clearly, Sheppard said, “Mitchell. Want to take a walk?”
And it wasn't a question, it wasn't even a request, he should have just told the guy to screw himself, but he knew that look. He'd felt that look, and it was white and blank and scary, seen from the inside. He fell into step behind Sheppard, with one look back at the buddies, who were slumping back against the wall and swearing softly to themselves.
Sheppard took his furious energy to his quarters, opened the door and stood aside to let Cameron in first, shut it behind them, and shoved Cameron up against the wall, all heat and sweat and ready for violence.
Cameron took a breath. This was not a good situation, but he wasn't the one in danger and he knew it. “What happened?”
“Fucking Base Command,” said Sheppard, and kissed him.
One surprised second where he wondered if Sheppard had slept his way up after all, and then he was dealing with a tongue in his mouth and a thigh shoved between his legs, and he had to jerk his head back and try, “Sheppard. I'm not into this, I don't do this-”
But Sheppard leaned forward and licked across his mouth, slowly, and whispered, “Bullshit. You’ve been looking at me.”
Cameron dragged in air and started, “I-”
“Base sent us out to bomb a transport,” said Sheppard in a low voice, and bit Cameron's jaw, hard and sharp and shouldn't-be-sexy.
And Cameron-shut up. Sheppard needed to deal. He didn't like the guy, but he understood needing to deal. He'd done some crazy shit himself, after. And Sheppard was so much more of a lit fuse than Cameron-he was suddenly afraid, deeply, viscerally afraid, which he wouldn’t have thought he-wouldn’t have expected-really afraid of what would happen to Sheppard if Cameron walked out of this room.
“No big deal,” said Sheppard, biting down his neck and sliding his hands up under Cam's T-shirt, “no problem, ground defenses, truck moving weapons and supplies. Milk run.”
Cameron shivered under Sheppard's hands-they weren't doing anything, just running slowly up his stomach, his chest, around to his back-
“Bullshit,” Sheppard whispered, and thrust his tongue into Cameron's mouth, and this time Cameron gave it up and kissed him back.
When he came up for air, he'd taken Sheppard's face in his hands, stubble under his palms, and the muscles working as Sheppard started whispering furiously, “We got there, flew in, and they had fucking planes, parked right there on the highway, where a fucking eyewitness would have seen them, right out in the open, like they didn't have a fucking thing to be worried about-” Sheppard yanked Cameron's T-shirt over his head and kissed him again.
“Not a fucking thing,” he said when he pulled back, and started licking his way down Cameron's chest.
Cameron's hands migrated into Sheppard's hair, clenching as he pictured it, flying in, bored and ready, knowing there were too many of you for this little target, confident and buzzing and on top of the world-not his own attitude, not something Cameron ever wanted to feel, something he worked against feeling, but-and Sheppard's mouth was on his stomach, his fingers working at Cameron's pants.
“Fucking piece-of-shit planes, but there were enough of them. Thompson got clipped, shrapnel in his cockpit. Fucking piece of glass in his eye, he'll never fly again,” and Sheppard had his pants open while Cameron was hit with the horror of that-happened all the time, but oh, Jesus, you never lost the fear of being grounded forever.
Sheppard locked eyes with him, shared the moment of poor bastard, how fucking dare they, and then he ducked his head and started sucking.
Cameron hadn't had his dick sucked in-Jesus, he couldn't remember. A long time, and being in the military was enough to make you wish you did guys just so you could, and if it was like this, he wasn't going to be able to keep himself from wanting to.
Sheppard's mouth was hot, and wet, and Cameron was only just able to keep himself from thrusting hard-once, twice, he kept his hips back against the wall, but the third time, Sheppard moved forward and down and Jesus Christ, Sheppard wanted it. Wanted to feel Cameron thrusting against him, which-yeah. He could understand, he could, and so he firmed his grip on Sheppard's head and went for it, taking it.
Shoving against the back of Sheppard's throat, and really, he'd wanted to do this since he saw that first slacker smile, wanted to teach him a-no. Cameron dragged in a breath and didn't let himself go there again.
By the time he felt the insistent pressure against his hands, Sheppard was making these little choked noises that sent sparks off in front of Cameron's eyes, and he had to pry his fingers out of the sweat-drenched hair.
Sheppard fell back, sprawled on his ass on the floor looking up, mouth red and wet while Cameron gasped above him, and Sheppard wiped his glistening mouth and swallowed and said, "You up for it?"
Only one thing Sheppard could be asking for with his legs splayed out like that, but by the time Cameron had enough oxygen in his brain to answer, Sheppard had already flashed that goddamned grin and gone over to his bedside table, pulling out condoms and lube. He shot a look at Cameron, and started to strip.
Cameron took a deep, shuddering breath and tried to think. Two options. Leave right now, or stay and fuck Sheppard. He-didn't think he could leave. He could still almost pay attention, and he didn’t believe the grin. Sheppard was ready to break, and better he did it in here than at the colonel.
Good enough excuse for you? The remnants of his brain were not buying it, but…but.
He didn't stumble once on the way over to the bed.
Sheppard handed him the stuff and splayed himself out on his stomach, almost vibrating with suppressed-something. Anger, grief, whatever made him snap like that when Cameron shoved a slick finger into him.
Cameron was-almost detached, not really believing what he was doing, that he was really fucking this man he hardly knew, on base, on-duty, fingers up another man's ass in preparation for an act that was illegal in a lot of states. Wasn't something he'd ever actually done, something he'd ever thought he'd do-liar, whispered his brain-but Sheppard needed it and Cameron wanted it and he'd somehow ended up where he could do it. Sheppard's body was tighter than a woman's, but nothing to his finger, to his two fingers, to three. He's done this before. Cameron couldn't stop the thought and couldn't tell if it turned him on or got him angry or both.
He took a breath. Let he who only knows about this from porn magazines he saw as a kid keep his fucking mouth shut. He remembered, bright glossy pictures and utterly filthy articles, himself half-horrified, halfway to coming. He’d thrown them away after a week of burning guilt, but he hadn’t forgotten, and he was getting flashes of pictures, snatches of articles, as he tore open the condom wrapper with shaky fingers.
When he pushed inside, Sheppard made a quick broken noise and pushed back, too fast, until Cameron was in all the way and biting his tongue to keep himself sane. He pulled back, careful, and put his hands on Sheppard's hips, keeping him in place when he thrust in again. Sheppard whined high in his throat, and Cameron waited for swearing, more fast-voiced whispers, something, but after a second, Sheppard just bent his head and waited. He pulled back and thrust again. So fucking tight.
It took him a few minutes, but he built up a rhythm, not too fast but deep and thorough, and his tongue was bleeding from all the times he'd bitten it to keep himself back from the edge. But Sheppard was making noise almost continuously, ragged and high like he wouldn't have thought the guy was capable of, as he arched his back under Cameron's thrusts.
When he knew he wasn't going to be able to keep it back much longer, he sped it up, going faster, harder, letting Sheppard angle his hips to get the best angle and really driving it in-if he was even pretending this was for Sheppard, he needed to get him to-Sheppard needed to come first, with Cameron fucking him, because as far as he could tell that was the entire point of this cracked-out excuse for a mental health exercise, fuck Major John Sheppard's brains out so he didn't have enough left to get himself cashiered, and Cameron drew in a breath and figured out how to do it. He slid one of his hands from Sheppard's hips around to his dick, wrapped his hand around it, thrust in hard and jerked, and Sheppard convulsed under Cameron's chest and came into his hand.
And oh Jesus, he hadn't known the male body did that during orgasm, but Cameron's vision whited out entirely when Sheppard clenched around him, and then finally he was coming and coming.
When Cameron dragged himself out of his stupor, Sheppard was lying drugged-out and panting on his stomach, not responding to stimuli. Cameron got rid of the condom and spent a couple seconds trying to figure out what to do next.
Eventually, he leaned over and said, “You going to be okay?”
Sheppard blinked open surprisingly clear eyes and said, “What do you care? You don't even like me.”
That caught him by surprise, and he couldn't think of anything to say for a second. “Well-look, Sheppard, I'm concerned, okay? I don't want you to trash your career.” Which actually would have been a lie about half an hour before. He wasn't thinking about that at the moment.
Sheppard raised an eyebrow. “Well, then,” he said precisely, “I'll be fine. Thank you for your concern.”
That was so obviously a dismissal, and Cameron's brain was too fuck-stupid to think of a good reply, that he just nodded and found his shirt and left the room.
***
He spent the next few days catching his metaphorical breath, trying to figure out what had happened and totally, totally failing. His brain was caught between slept with a man and slept with Sheppard, and couldn’t decide which one to freak out about. Short-circuit was imminent, and he spent a lot of time in his room, staring at the ceiling.
He saw Sheppard once, the next day. He got the grin and the “Hey, Mitchell,” like nothing at all had changed.
Eventually he chalked it up as a one-time thing and decided that freaking out about it would waste more energy than he had. He was already out of excuses with Fergie. Time to get back to normal and forget about it.
***
But after that, he paid even more attention to Sheppard, couldn’t help himself, couldn’t keep his eyes off the man, and started to notice things he hadn't before. Like, Sheppard was one of the worst officers he'd ever seen when it came to relating to his superiors, but he was one of the best when it came to his subordinates. He could be a fucking brilliant soldier when he was with people he’d let into his personal fan club, but if he didn’t trust someone, he was an interpersonal nightmare.
It was-frustrating. Major Sheppard would lay down his life for the men under his command, but he was too densely stubborn to figure out that most of the time he didn't have to. And his people skills were freaking schizophrenic.
Sheppard spent hours in the infirmary with Thompson, talking to him, reading to him, telling him stories, staying carefully neutral and subordinate, as far as Cameron could hear over the base grapevine. And then he went into the colonel’s office and somehow didn’t get court-martialed, which Cameron was starting to think he could take personal responsibility for. Sheppard was keeping himself muted, careful, but when you were John Sheppard, that was enough to get you almost court-martialed.
Eventually he started to back off entirely about the Thompson thing, and Cameron breathed a sigh of relief at a good officer staying in where he could help the country, and started paying a little less attention.
Except for-
One-time thing. Right. But he’d never done anything like that before, even aside from never having done anything with a guy. Never had sex quite that insane, never been afraid that if he did the wrong thing his partner would go off the deep end. Even later that day, it had started seeming-not real. Removed. Like a really intense wet dream. And now he had to deal with Sheppard, who on the one hand behaved exactly like he always had to Cameron, and was just as irritating and just as too-friendly, but on the other hand wore the face and the body of this person who had slid down Cameron’s body mouthing a pilot’s epitaph.
He thought, sometimes, that he might pull Sheppard into an empty room somewhere and spill the story of his own crazy mix of shame and anger, bad intelligence sending the bombs down on innocent refugees, sure, but it was his own fingers on the trigger, his own failure to protect and serve-but. He didn’t want Sheppard angry on his behalf, and he didn’t want Sheppard to not care, and he didn’t want to be friends, and he didn’t-he really didn’t-want to have sex with him again. And when he asked himself, so what do you want? he drew a blank. So he kept the impulse under control.
He spent a lot of time staring at his ceiling, wondering at God. Why this? Why now? Why him?
He didn’t have an answer, and God wasn’t sharing.
He tried to just put it behind him. That had about as much success as he’d expected it would.
***
Tenth mission. Big round number, big round dogfight. The planes were fucking everywhere, they lost a man almost before they knew what was going on, and Cameron was insane, pulling G’s, firing shots he couldn’t possibly make, yelling death threats at the fuckers who’d killed Jenkins and God knew how many others by now, spinning through the sky and killing as many of them as he could.
He threw himself at a clump, firing blind-he had the advantage, he could risk shooting when they’d need to worry about hitting their own, but he was going to die and he knew it five seconds after he started in. Stupid, stupid, committing suicide like this, but it was too late to pull out and then he was surrounded by planes-
“Motherfucker!” came over the radio, and Fergie was there, blowing in just in front of him, two planes gone and another one exploding as punctuation, and suddenly Cameron could breathe and think and shoot, and he was going to live.
And then he looked up, and all the dots on his screen were friendlies. “Shit. We did it. I don’t-Fergie, you see that?”
Silence.
He knew it before he tried again. “Ferg?”
“I-” he heard over the radio, and it felt like he was falling, the relief taking over his system. “I don’t-”
When he brought his plane around, he could see the hole in Ferg’s cockpit, the blood on the glass.
***
Ferg was going to live.
He’d never fly again.
Symmetry there, somehow, except this wasn’t anyone’s fault but Cam’s.
He stayed by Ferguson as long as they’d let him, waited outside when they kicked him out, dragged himself to the debriefing and somehow didn’t throw up on the table in front of the colonel when he said, Nothing you could have done, Major, remember that. Your men will be remembered. He was back outside the infirmary as soon as they were done. The world was silent, blank. He wanted to punch something. Anything.
He tried the infirmary wall. The nurses came out and made him stop.
When they finally let him in, Fergie was blinking up at him from the bed, white as snow. “Hey, Cam,” he said. “How’s it hanging?”
Cameron swallowed hard. “Fergie,” he said. “I-fuck, I-”
“Hey, it’s gonna be okay,” said Fergie. “It’s okay.”
Liar, Cameron thought, but he nodded and sat down next to the bed.
He stayed until the nurses made him leave again, went back to his room, slept for not-long-enough. Woke up and stared at the ceiling.
Went to the can. Threw up.
This is the wrong place for me, he thought, hugging the toilet bowl. But there were only two ways away, out and up. Out was not an option, if only because he couldn’t face his dad and say he was okay afterwards, and he hated the pain that his dad felt whenever Cameron wasn’t okay. His dad had had enough pain of his own.
Up needed him to be here first. So-deep breaths. Work through it. He’d…suck it up.
He almost collided with Sheppard in the corridor, not sure if he was going to see Fergie or to kill himself in the gym for awhile, and thought angry thoughts at God for always shoving the guy at him whenever he had a post-traumatic vomiting episode. He turned, ready to avoid, and-“Hey, Mitchell,” said Sheppard, mouth curving.
“Shut the hell up, Sheppard,” he muttered. So not in the mood.
Sheppard turned. “You got a problem?”
Cameron had never been the kid who followed this path into a fight, but he was at the end of his rope and his record here was perfect so far and it was Sheppard, which was enough. “Yeah, I got a problem,” he said. “You. The way you pretend we’re buddies. The way you act.” Like they were both less and more than they really were. “The way you gel your hair. Whatever. Get out of my face.”
Sheppard’s face darkened. “You have a problem with me, Mitchell, we’ll settle it. I’m off-duty at 1700.”
“See you then,” said Cameron, and stalked off.
Fifteen minutes later, mouth rinsed out and lying with a damp washcloth over his eyes, he was regretting every second of the conversation. Talk about counterproductive. Talk about insane, two of the most senior officers on-base getting into a fistfight. Sheppard was as likely to be worried about that as he was about the latest shoe fashions, but Cameron had just decided on up, and this was not the way to get there.
He took a breath. The anger had been good, distracting, necessary. There were consequences, fine. He’d deal with those at 1700.
Sheppard knocked on his door at five after, like he knew that Cameron wouldn’t come looking for him. Cameron let him in, stayed outside his personal space. “Sheppard. Hey.”
“Mitchell,” said Sheppard. “You’re backing down.”
It wasn’t a question. Cameron breathed in and said, “I’m sorry about earlier. I was out of line, pissed off at something else.”
But Sheppard was shaking his head. “No,” he said, “no. You don’t back out that easily.”
Cameron took a step backwards, not sure about the territory here and not wanting to take risks. “What, you have a sudden burning desire to fight me?” and he almost, almost said fuck instead. “This is new.”
“No,” said Sheppard, “it’s really not,” and shoved him back.
Cameron had a quick minute of déjà vu, but got over it when Sheppard punched him instead of kissing him. He brought up his hands, quick, and said, “Hey-hey, what is this? What is this about? What is getting you so fucking angry-you’re never angry-” except for the obvious, and Cameron didn’t think that Major Mitchell getting pissy in the hallway was quite on par with one of Sheppard’s men being half-blinded-
“You, you’re so fucking smart, aren’t you,” said Sheppard, backing off just a step, looking ready to lunge in again any second. “You’ve got the base command and the high command and Jesus Christ on your side, and you couldn’t step wrong if they pushed you, and ice wouldn’t melt in your mouth.”
“I-what-?” He didn’t know where this was coming from, hadn’t known Sheppard felt like that, and how the hell was he supposed to, when all he ever got was Mitchell and that lazy smile. And one afternoon’s mind-blowing sex. “I’m not a golden boy, Sheppard. I screw up,” oh hell yes he did, “I get mad, I-”
“-have a real high opinion of yourself, don’t you?” And now Sheppard was smiling at him, calm, under control again. Cameron was a glass house when it came to showing your real feelings, but if he’d been in charge, Sheppard would have been put in therapy a long while ago.
“What do you want, Sheppard?” Cameron resisted the urge to shove his palms against his eyes, resisted the urge to just give in and fight him. He was really, really starting to just want to pound Sheppard’s face in-
Sheppard took a breath. “Nothing,” he said, and started to turn.
“No. Oh, no.” Cameron grabbed his shoulder. “You came here tonight. Either punch me or talk.”
Sheppard punched him.
-Yeah. “Should’ve seen that one coming,” Cameron muttered to himself, working his jaw.
Sheppard glared. “You done with the amateur psychology?”
Holding his face, holding still, holding back, Cameron nodded.
“Great,” said Sheppard, and left.
***
Fergie wouldn’t talk about the dogfight. He wouldn’t let Cam take responsibility, he wouldn’t even let Cam bring it up. Cameron tried twice, and each time Fergie called the nurses to kick him out. Finally, Cameron left it alone and talked about nothing, basketball and video games and the other guys in their unit. But Fergie slept a lot, and Cameron always tried to be there when he woke up, so that was a lot of dead hours. He tried-if he was going to shut up about this, he needed to repress like a champion. He wouldn’t forget it, but he’d move past it, if that was what Fergie wanted.
In order to keep his mind off the chunk of shrapnel he’d put in Ferg’s brain, Cameron thought about Sheppard.
The idea that he would think about Sheppard to distract himself from something else was both counterintuitive and perfectly logical; once the guy got inside Cameron’s head, he never left without a fight. So Cameron spent a couple of sleepless nights by Fergie’s bedside, watching him sleep, running over the confrontation in the hall and the evening in his room. Eventually he gave it up and admitted that he had a fixation on Sheppard. And it was starting to look like Sheppard had some kind of fixation on him.
“Thanks, brain,” he muttered at 0200, slumped in the plastic chair, arm thrown over his eyes. “That helps a lot.”
It would have helped if Sheppard wasn’t such an irritating little asshole.
It occurred to him a little later that, in addition to maybe possibly probably wanting to fuck him again, what he really wanted was to command this man. Sheppard had-something, something that made people want to follow him, something that kept him in the service despite the insubordination, and yeah, handling him would be like playing chess on a mined board, but-a commander with what it took could do so much, with John Sheppard.
***
They shipped Fergie back to the States. Cameron walked with the stretcher to the plane, said some things he didn’t remember, watched the plane fly away. Then he went back to his room and let himself cry like a kid, racking sobs into his pillow.
Eventually, he got up, went on duty, and started putting himself back together.
***
One day the week after that, he got off-duty, walked to the gym, got himself some gloves and nodded at Sheppard. “Let’s go.”
Sheppard took a step back, steadied the heavy bag, and stood relaxed, gloves at his sides. “You want what, exactly?”
“Come on.” Cameron stepped back, onto the mat.
Sheppard spent a second watching him, and then nodded. “All right.” He stepped up and dropped into a crouch, waited a beat, and took a jab. Nothing like the furious punching in Cameron’s room-careful, controlled, prepared.
Cameron fought back-he was bigger, but Sheppard was faster, and they were pretty evenly matched. Which worked, which was good-all he really needed for this was to have more stamina than Sheppard. Which, well, could go either way.
They pulled their punches, and the fight went on for awhile, until they were both drenched, and Cameron’s hands were burning hot inside the gloves, and Sheppard had turned down three separate invitations from his buddies to head off and do something else.
He kept flashing back to either night, both nights, with Sheppard punching him and Sheppard kissing him, and once, after Sheppard had gotten in a good blow to his head, both at the same time.
It felt good to fight, to attack something with his fists, after spending so much time beating his brain against his life. And he had a plan, kind of, which felt great, having a real objective for once.
He wasn’t trying to get Sheppard into bed again. He just wanted-whatever was going on here to clear up, to go away. Because as much as he wanted to work with Sheppard-above him if he could swing it, after a promotion-he couldn’t, not with this thing here, not with this problem, attraction, repulsion, what-the-hell-ever, he couldn’t spend time with Sheppard and expect to be able to think.
When they were both almost staggering, dripping sweat onto the mats, dragging in air with huge gasps, Cameron coughed once and managed, “Sheppard, I need-I need to be able to work with you.”
Instant tension. “Why?” and it was hard to drawl while panting, but Sheppard managed it somehow. “We don’t work together, last I checked.”
“Fine,” said Cameron, because he was pretty sure what his fate would be if he mentioned anything that had been running through his head. “I need to be able to ignore you. And right now I can’t.”
Sheppard shook his head. “I don’t get it,” he panted. “I’ve been treating you-” he glanced around, but anybody who’d been interested had wandered off a while ago, “-exactly the same.”
“That’s it, that’s what it is,” said Cameron. “Exactly the same. The way that drove me nuts before and still drives me nuts now, because as far as I’ve seen you don’t act exactly the same after-” and he’d wanted a crescendoing finish, but he couldn’t shout out the end of that sentence here. And he sounded enough like a girl already.
That seemed to disarm Sheppard, just for a few seconds, until he looked up, shook his head, and said quietly, “I really hate you, you know that?”
“No, I don’t-Sheppard!” Cameron jogged after him, caught up, and couldn’t think of anything to say. Sheppard ignored him. They walked.
And eventually, they were at Sheppard’s quarters, where Sheppard stopped and looked at him, eyebrow raised. Obvious message: well, are you leaving?
Cameron took a breath, and said, “May I come in?”
And just for a second, Sheppard looked angry. But just as fast, it disappeared, and Sheppard shrugged. “Fine.”
Cameron followed him in, and when the door had closed, ran his hands back through his hair and said, “You-hate me.”
Sheppard closed his eyes and sighed. After a second he opened them and, enunciating in that careful precise way that Cameron was pretty sure meant he was really angry, he said, “You’re perfect. The base commander loves you. Your unit loves you. The guy they just shipped home loves you, even though you fucking sent him there. Your plane’s fucking mechanics love you. You’re practically a recruitment poster.”
Jesus. Fixation, no kidding-and swamping the realization was the sudden relief, that someone would recognize that it was his fault Fergie was in that hospital bed. “Look, Sheppard,” said Cameron, and reached out before he remembered that that was stupid, his hand catching on one sweat-drenched shoulder.
Faster than he could react, faster than he would have thought Sheppard could move after the workout they’d had, he was spun around and back against the wall and déjà vu and Sheppard was kissing him. And just as fast, Sheppard jerked back, but Cameron brought his hands up to pull him back in. And because he was tired of whatever they were doing, tired of not knowing what the hell was going on, really fucking tired of white hospital beds and not talking and sharp jagged pain, he leaned forward and opened Sheppard’s mouth with his tongue.
It was faster than the last time, clothes off before he stopped and thought, Sheppard’s hands all over his body. Hand fetish, he thought, dizzy with it, inhaling sex and sweat. Jesus. He shoved Sheppard back to the bed, down onto it, which Sheppard put up with for about thirty seconds before he flipped them over. And then Sheppard’s mouth was moving down his body, no time to object to being on his back. When Sheppard started sucking him, he let his eyes fall closed and his head go back.
It was better than the last time, better than any time, Sheppard had obviously done this many many many times before, because oh Jesus he was good at it-and then the mouth was gone, and Cameron was concentrating hard on not whining. It was good that Sheppard had stopped, he told himself, good, because he didn’t want to come already-didn’t-
Sheppard was back down again. And what-
“No,” he heard himself say faintly. “No, Sheppard, I don’t do that.” He breathed, tried to keep a hold on his brain. “Don’t-do that.”
Sheppard’s mouth moved-smiling, Jesus, and that really brought the teeth forward, didn’t it? Cameron swallowed and didn’t move. Sheppard’s finger slipped in a little farther.
“Stop,” he tried, but Sheppard didn’t, Sheppard wasn’t going to. And Cameron was just getting ready to sit up and pull him off, because he liked it but he didn’t like it that much, when Sheppard’s finger hit-
Prostate gland, he told himself. You get it checked up at the doctor’s. It’s uncomfortable and-Jesus fucking Christ-embarrassing. His vision was blacking out.
Sheppard was working in another finger now, and Cameron needed to lose the hand fetish now, yesterday-“Jesus,” he heard himself say. “God.”
Sheppard pulled off long enough to say, “Good, isn’t it?” and twisted his fingers, sending a jolt through Cameron that he couldn’t even pretend was from the blowjob. Two fingers, in hard, and Sheppard ducked his head back down and the sucking plus the fingers was too much, way way too much, and Cameron came with his hips arching up off the bed.
When he could see again, Sheppard was just turning back to him, not looking like he’d been bothered by the sudden orgasm down his throat.
Cameron thought he’d get mad about the fingers later.
Sheppard crawled back up onto the bed, brushed his hands down over Cameron’s thighs, his limp dick, down between his legs, brushing over places that made Cameron jerk slightly, sensitive. He touched the hole, slipped a finger back in. It went in easily, and Cameron couldn’t even really protest, too blissed-out, too full of the proof that yeah, this was good. The second finger went back in.
He didn’t clue in until the third finger. They’d gone in so easily because now Sheppard was using lube instead of just spit, and-“No way,” said Cameron. “I don’t-”
Sheppard had really well-timed fingers. Cameron lost the words when he was sucking in his breath.
“You’ll like it, Cameron, don’t worry,” said Sheppard, and Cam’s hazy wondering about why the fuck Sheppard was suddenly using his first name kept him busy while Sheppard worked him over onto his stomach.
The fingers pulled out, slowly, and he tried not to feel empty and utterly, utterly failed. Sheppard leaned over him, hard, ready-and said low in his ear, “Tell me you want me to fuck you.”
Cameron dragged in air, quick. “I-” He stopped.
“I don’t rape people,” said Sheppard. “You have to tell me. Do you want this.”
Uniquely Sheppard way to do it, Cameron thought, dizzy. Catch them up in the rush of the moment, and only ask permission when it’s too late. “Yeah,” he said, ragged. “Yeah. Do it.”
Sheppard let out his breath, fingers clenching on Cameron’s hips, and pushed in, slow.
It hurt, slow aching pain, too much of a strain on muscles that weren’t used to it, but Cameron breathed deep and lowered his head and took it. And after a second, under the pain, it felt-God. Not like he was used to sex feeling, but-his brain was going to short out.
Sheppard gave him a second, a little time to get used to it, then pulled out and thrust back in, and it was the same, it was too much, he couldn’t handle this-
But he could, and he did, and he somehow didn’t pass out as Sheppard worked up a rhythm, fucking him deep and hard and Jesus fucking Christ he’d never known about this. He wasn’t even hard, and he was having the most intense sex of his life. God, God, it felt amazing. Insane.
Sheppard leaned forward a little, changing the angle, and said in Cameron’s ear, “You are so fucking tight.”
He couldn’t stand it, he wasn’t handling it, tears were leaking out of his eyes, and Sheppard shuddered and came.
For awhile, he lay boneless, until Sheppard rolled off of him and moved around a little, then came back to the bed and leaned down. Cameron looked up, saw and filed the look on Sheppard’s face, and then pulled him down and kissed him. If he was going to listen to what that expression was telling him, he was going to get this first.
“Out,” said Sheppard when he pulled back. “Goodbye.”
“This didn’t help either of us,” said Cameron, pulling on his clothes. “Nothing’s changed.”
“Well, maybe you should have thought of that before you invited yourself in,” said Sheppard, and sprawled onto the bed, still naked. “Have a nice day.”
“I want us to be able to get along,” said Cameron, speaking slowly and clearly.
“I kind of just want you gone,” said Sheppard. “From this room, from this base, from this geographical area. Can you manage that?”
“I’ll see what I can do,” said Cameron, and meant it.
Sheppard had fucked him, and meant it. In every sense. He got that, and he needed to let everything else the hell go.
***
Four days later, Sheppard went out on a mission, and came back in free-fall, sailing down toward court-martial, trailing KIAs behind him.
***
Cameron saw him just before he left, running into him in the corridor, the space behind him conspicuously free of buddies. The buddies were dead, and Sheppard was taking the fall, all the way down to the bottom of the world.
Cameron had had a meeting with the base commander that morning. He’d flown fourteen flawless missions and one that was labeled a success in the official report, and his unit was being transferred back to the States for special training. They’d be an elite force by the time they were done, said the colonel, smiling, one of the top in the nation, and Cameron was headed straight for lieutenant colonel, fast.
He should have been used to the world working like this by now. But he moved through it all like a dream, and he couldn’t think of anything to say to Sheppard, who glared at him from under the shadow of blank space just behind, and headed down the corridor toward Antarctica.
***
Cameron stares down at the Atlantis file. John Sheppard in command.
All that simmering intensity, focused on one thing.
If he’s really gotten himself together-Atlantis will survive, no question. More than that, Atlantis will beat the living hell out of the Pegasus Galaxy. Cameron can’t see much standing in the way of John Sheppard’s concentrated will.
He rereads the file, fourth time through. Christ Almighty.
He isn’t sure if he’s happy or furious that he hadn’t known about this in the hospital, before General O’Neill came to see him, before the Daedalus left.
end