SGa Fic - John's Very Bad Days
Title: Echoes Tag: John's Very Bad Days
Rating: PG for language and owies.
Characters: John, Team
Summary: Poor John, just can't catch a break. Edited but not beta'd, so apologies for any errors I may have missed. For parisindy. Last of the episode tags... for now ;)
Echoes Tag: John's Very Bad Days
It was while flying in low over the mainland that John was hit with an intense pain, like a narrow-bladed knife being shoved through his ear into his skull. Riding the tail of that pain was vertigo that flipped up down, down up and all around knocked John for one hell of a loop.
It was during the brief moment when he was lulled into thinking the world was righting itself that he realized the ground was coming up to meet him, fast. Too fast for his addled brain to scream the command for him to pull up in time to actually pull up.
The impact with the ground rattled him like dice in a Yatzee cup, battering him into tenderize meat. Pain ripped up his leg but the scream that should have followed was halted by a blow to his chest shoving the air from his lungs. The 'jumper bounced, skidded, and flipped three-sixty degrees sideways before coming to one vicious halt, slamming him chest-first - again - into the console.
Darkness inevitably followed, thankfully.
Too bad for John, it didn't last. He awoke to throbbing: in his head, his chest, his leg - his leg being the loudest - and a churning in his gut promising retribution if he dared move.
He dared to move, because he'd crashed, needed to assess the situation, but more importantly needed to call for help. He opened his eyes to soft gray light, just not soft enough not to stab into his brain. He inadvertently reared his head back with a grunt, and that's when his stomach rebelled. He lurched to the side just as the puke arrived, making the protest in his chest louder than his leg.
When the puking finally past, John slumped onto the console, panting through the various pains making him long to be back in oblivion.
A routine scouting mission: he'd just had to say yes to a routine scouting op to map out landing sites for future mainland missions. That was the problem with being grounded for a few days and bored to tears - it made him too eager, ready to jump on the nearest mission no matter how mundane if it meant getting out and about. Beckett had been insufferably insistent about everyone waiting until their ears were fully healed before resuming any duties, which had meant no listening to music or loud noises of any kind. Atlantis had never been so quiet. Because of lingering problems, reading and playing video games had been next to impossible.
Atlantis had also never been so boring.
The minute - the very second - Carson had given John a clean bill of health, he'd scoured the duty roster for any at-home missions in need of doing.
So he only had himself to blame. Carson had warned him an infection might pop up. Although John doubted even Carson had expected it to materialize out of the blue only hours after delivering the warning.
Now that was what John would call cruel irony.
The 'jumper's systems were still online according the steady thrum in the back of John's skull and a few winking lights on the console. He slapped the distress switch, winced and wondered how such a pathetic sound as skin smacking a solid surface could be so agonizing - another knife to the ear. Yes, he probably could have used the comm if it was still working, but to keep the rest of his stomach contents contained, he needed to keep his mouth shut. It was what the beacon was designed for, anyway: small enough not to be picked up outside the planet, strong enough for Atlantis to receive, and no one had to talk if they didn't want to.
“Atlantis to Colonel Sheppard, do you copy?”
John winced with a moan. Apparently, the rest of Atlantis hadn't gotten the memo about the purpose of the beacon. He sighed, and thought it sounded a little like a whimper.
“Copy,” he dared to blurt. More like groan hoarsely His stomach contents stayed put.
The technician, who obviously wasn't chuck, asked, “Colonel Sheppard, can you state the nature of your emergency?”
“Crashed.”
“Are you injured?”
“Yeah.”
“Can you state the nature of your injury?”
John would have rolled his eyes if he knew it wouldn't have hurt. What was this, twenty questions? Just send the damn rescue already! “No.”
“Are you unable to?”
For a moment, John entertained the wish that Rodney were here to bitch for him. Because he wasn't, John tried to inflect as much sarcasm into his reply as possible. “Um... yeah.”
There followed a muffled conversation (more like argument) on the other side - the tech who wasn't Chuck (because Chuck knew better than to piss around with injured people over the radio) and someone else, someone who sounded not unlike Rodney McKay.
“Sheppard.” Strike that, it was McKay. “A rescue team's being thrown together. They'll be on their way, soon.”
John heaved a great sigh of relief. “Thanks.”
“And what the hell did you do to the 'jumper to make it crash?”
Then he growled.
Pain has a way of manipulating time like it was putty: stretching it, shrinking it, making hours feel like days, minutes like months, seconds like minutes and all around surreal. John drifted, not quite out of consciousness but enough to make him think an hour went by when it was only five minutes, then five minutes when it was, in fact, an hour. He knew, because his arm was splayed on the console and tilted just enough for him to see his watch. It wasn't the most comfortable position, especially for his chest and lungs, but to so much as shift quadrupled the discomfort by bringing his head and leg in on it, then his stomach if he pushed things.
And Heaven forbid if he twitched his leg, where little men with fiery pokers waited to send him to hell. His ear felt like it was stuff with an alternating line of cotton, thorns, cotton and thorns. To move his eyes was to move the world, bringing his stomach one step closer to another heave.
So went his existence in the 'jumper as he waited for rescue.
Suddenly, unseen pressure pushed into his ear, driving in the knife.
It began to rain, one drop spitting against the window, followed by another, then another. Then the sky opened up and dumped its deluge, a solid sheen of water like a silver wall that was going to delay the rescue team. John exhaled miserably and grimaced when his ribs cramped.
Minutes/hours/days later - though according to his watch it was precisely two hours - the 'jumper arrived. But they couldn't get in without John lowering the ramp, which meant moving his arm. His arm was fine. However, it was attached to his shoulder, the muscles of the shoulder attached to muscles in his chest and his arm positioned in just the right way for his chest muscles to be put to use.
It hurt.
The ramp lowered, opening a way for the deluge to come spattering in against John's back, which made him realize that he had landed at an angle.
Rescue surrounded him, dripping wet from the brief exposure to the rain. A chorus of “Don't worry, sir, we got you,” accompanied many hands gripping him, slipping a brace around his neck, a board behind his back, moving him and making his body scream. It should have been enough for John to black out, but for some reason it wasn't. He couldn't see, but he could sure as hell hear, shoving the knife in deeper.
“Careful, now, careful!” Carson, that was Carson, close enough for his voice to be a second knife joining the first.
Keep it down was what John wanted to say. “Kimdun,” was what came out of his mouth.
Carson just patted his shoulder. “Easy lad. We got you.”
Then he was moving and, boy oh boy, wasn't that a field day for his head. They must have been using something to keep the rain off him, because though he was being spattered he wasn't being drenched. When he lurched to the side to puke without any warning, they had to stop, letting a little more rain soak into his clothes. So now he was wet and cold on top of everything else. And they wouldn't give him a blanket once arriving to the working 'jumper, because Carson needed access to his entire body.
That meant exposing more of him to cooler air when they cut open his shirt and pant leg. It felt like forever, but after all the poking, prodding and touching things that hurt too bad to be touched until John wanted to shoot something, he was finally covered.
They still wouldn't let him lose consciousness.
------------------------------
John hobbled down the hall, wincing with each step. He'd taken his pain medication but the medication was taking its sweet time about kicking in. His leg throbbed, but his chest throbbed louder. X-rays and the scanner may have cleared him of broken ribs, but it sure as hell didn't feel like “just severely bruised.” That had been four days ago, four days spent in a bed suffering through a bastard of an ear infection that had made the slightest move of his head a nightmare.
“It's the whales' fault,” Rodney had said. The man was actually capable of speaking in whispers. “One of them was hanging around the mainland, probably hunting or something, and being kind of loud about it.” He'd sounded contrite on saying this, as though it were somehow his fault. Except it wasn't, because crap happened, loud whales included.
John was only now back on his feet - relatively speaking - and hating every minute of it. But neither could he stand the thought of another minute cooped up in his room, staring at the same metallic walls. It had been time for a change of scenery, even if that scenery was to be the mess hall during the duration of his dinner.
He just hoped he recuperated during said duration. The short trip was sucking him dry of energy, and his chest was feeling oddly heavy, though he chalked it up to the bruising.
John was careful to give wide berth to a flight of stairs. Passer-bys didn't use the same caution. Someone lost their balance, who grabbed onto someone else, who pulled away stumbling and ran right smack into John. John went flying face-first toward the stairs, releasing the crutches and reaching out to stop his fall. His hand hit first, sending shock-waves up pain up his arm. His chest followed, radiating more pain from the center out. He lay there, staring, remembering how to breathe in a way that didn't hurt as people and voices surrounded him in a storm of colors and sound, most of the sound involving apologies.
He was back in the infirmary faster than he could blink (because it took a while to remember how to do that as well). He was X-rayed, scanned, scanned again until the verdict was finally in.
Carson delivered it with an exasperated sigh. “Well, Colonel, looks like you busted up your wrist. And are now the proud owner of two cracked ribs. Looks like it's a wheelchair for you. But at least your ear infection's cleared up.
Whoopty-friggin-doo.
-----------------------------
It was Teyla's turn to fetch John for dinner, and she seemed to be taking her sweet time about it. Not that John was going to complain. After all, she could just leave him sitting there like Rodney had threatened to, yesterday, after John had bitched at him. But he'd needed to bitch, damn it - Rodney had been forty minutes late.
Crap, he hated this: not being able to stand, to move, let alone push his own damn wheelchair. It was the next worst thing to being in a cage.
Actually, he'd been in a cage. At least you could still move in a cage.
Teyla finally arrived, all smiles - the knowing smile of someone with a secret.
“You look chipper,” John said, forcing himself not to sound so petulant.
Teyla said nothing, simply positioned herself behind the chair to start rolling him along. But as soon as they reached the door to the mess hall, they passed it right by.
“Uh, Teyla...”
“You will see,” was all she said.
Their destination ended up being the rec room, where interesting smells wafted, intriguing John's stomach. The doors opened to the Ancient-made coffee table covered by a cloth and various dishes of various foods: a bowl of French fries, another of cole slaw, another of those pinkish fruits that John loved but were difficult to trade for, a liter of soda and a platter of bacon cheeseburgers - honest to goodness bacon cheeseburgers with real bacon, not the pseudo crap that looked like it had been put through a meat grinder and remolded into the general shape of bacon (John could tell just by smelling it.) Everything else was junk food - chips, pretzels, popcorn and a package of Gummi Bears.
Ronon was on the couch, a plate already in hand, which he set down as soon as John and Teyla entered. Rodney was fiddling with the DVD system.
“So what's this?” John asked. Both Ronon and Teyla helped him out of the chair and onto the couch without any discomfort on his part to show for it.
“Respite,” Rodney said. He clapped his hands together and rubbed them with a triumphant grin and a barked, “Finally! It's ready.”
“We felt you were in need of something pleasant,” said Teyla, dishing him up each food item then setting the plate on his lap.
“Since you figured out how to stop that solar flare from killing us,” said Ronon, then stuffed a huge bite of burger into his mouth.
Rodney moved fast in dishing up his own plate, plopping down next to John when said plate looked ready to buckle under the strain. “Which, even I have to admit, was fairly genius.”
John arched an eyebrow. “Fairly?”
“Yes, fairly.”
Teyla settled down more delicately on John's other side. “It has been a rough few days. It is time to focus on more enjoyable things.”
The Ancient screen blinked on to Back the Future.
“Not Free Willy?” John asked innocently.
Rodney narrowed his eyes but said nothing.
John grinned.
The End
Rating: PG for language and owies.
Characters: John, Team
Summary: Poor John, just can't catch a break. Edited but not beta'd, so apologies for any errors I may have missed. For parisindy. Last of the episode tags... for now ;)
Echoes Tag: John's Very Bad Days
It was while flying in low over the mainland that John was hit with an intense pain, like a narrow-bladed knife being shoved through his ear into his skull. Riding the tail of that pain was vertigo that flipped up down, down up and all around knocked John for one hell of a loop.
It was during the brief moment when he was lulled into thinking the world was righting itself that he realized the ground was coming up to meet him, fast. Too fast for his addled brain to scream the command for him to pull up in time to actually pull up.
The impact with the ground rattled him like dice in a Yatzee cup, battering him into tenderize meat. Pain ripped up his leg but the scream that should have followed was halted by a blow to his chest shoving the air from his lungs. The 'jumper bounced, skidded, and flipped three-sixty degrees sideways before coming to one vicious halt, slamming him chest-first - again - into the console.
Darkness inevitably followed, thankfully.
Too bad for John, it didn't last. He awoke to throbbing: in his head, his chest, his leg - his leg being the loudest - and a churning in his gut promising retribution if he dared move.
He dared to move, because he'd crashed, needed to assess the situation, but more importantly needed to call for help. He opened his eyes to soft gray light, just not soft enough not to stab into his brain. He inadvertently reared his head back with a grunt, and that's when his stomach rebelled. He lurched to the side just as the puke arrived, making the protest in his chest louder than his leg.
When the puking finally past, John slumped onto the console, panting through the various pains making him long to be back in oblivion.
A routine scouting mission: he'd just had to say yes to a routine scouting op to map out landing sites for future mainland missions. That was the problem with being grounded for a few days and bored to tears - it made him too eager, ready to jump on the nearest mission no matter how mundane if it meant getting out and about. Beckett had been insufferably insistent about everyone waiting until their ears were fully healed before resuming any duties, which had meant no listening to music or loud noises of any kind. Atlantis had never been so quiet. Because of lingering problems, reading and playing video games had been next to impossible.
Atlantis had also never been so boring.
The minute - the very second - Carson had given John a clean bill of health, he'd scoured the duty roster for any at-home missions in need of doing.
So he only had himself to blame. Carson had warned him an infection might pop up. Although John doubted even Carson had expected it to materialize out of the blue only hours after delivering the warning.
Now that was what John would call cruel irony.
The 'jumper's systems were still online according the steady thrum in the back of John's skull and a few winking lights on the console. He slapped the distress switch, winced and wondered how such a pathetic sound as skin smacking a solid surface could be so agonizing - another knife to the ear. Yes, he probably could have used the comm if it was still working, but to keep the rest of his stomach contents contained, he needed to keep his mouth shut. It was what the beacon was designed for, anyway: small enough not to be picked up outside the planet, strong enough for Atlantis to receive, and no one had to talk if they didn't want to.
“Atlantis to Colonel Sheppard, do you copy?”
John winced with a moan. Apparently, the rest of Atlantis hadn't gotten the memo about the purpose of the beacon. He sighed, and thought it sounded a little like a whimper.
“Copy,” he dared to blurt. More like groan hoarsely His stomach contents stayed put.
The technician, who obviously wasn't chuck, asked, “Colonel Sheppard, can you state the nature of your emergency?”
“Crashed.”
“Are you injured?”
“Yeah.”
“Can you state the nature of your injury?”
John would have rolled his eyes if he knew it wouldn't have hurt. What was this, twenty questions? Just send the damn rescue already! “No.”
“Are you unable to?”
For a moment, John entertained the wish that Rodney were here to bitch for him. Because he wasn't, John tried to inflect as much sarcasm into his reply as possible. “Um... yeah.”
There followed a muffled conversation (more like argument) on the other side - the tech who wasn't Chuck (because Chuck knew better than to piss around with injured people over the radio) and someone else, someone who sounded not unlike Rodney McKay.
“Sheppard.” Strike that, it was McKay. “A rescue team's being thrown together. They'll be on their way, soon.”
John heaved a great sigh of relief. “Thanks.”
“And what the hell did you do to the 'jumper to make it crash?”
Then he growled.
Pain has a way of manipulating time like it was putty: stretching it, shrinking it, making hours feel like days, minutes like months, seconds like minutes and all around surreal. John drifted, not quite out of consciousness but enough to make him think an hour went by when it was only five minutes, then five minutes when it was, in fact, an hour. He knew, because his arm was splayed on the console and tilted just enough for him to see his watch. It wasn't the most comfortable position, especially for his chest and lungs, but to so much as shift quadrupled the discomfort by bringing his head and leg in on it, then his stomach if he pushed things.
And Heaven forbid if he twitched his leg, where little men with fiery pokers waited to send him to hell. His ear felt like it was stuff with an alternating line of cotton, thorns, cotton and thorns. To move his eyes was to move the world, bringing his stomach one step closer to another heave.
So went his existence in the 'jumper as he waited for rescue.
Suddenly, unseen pressure pushed into his ear, driving in the knife.
It began to rain, one drop spitting against the window, followed by another, then another. Then the sky opened up and dumped its deluge, a solid sheen of water like a silver wall that was going to delay the rescue team. John exhaled miserably and grimaced when his ribs cramped.
Minutes/hours/days later - though according to his watch it was precisely two hours - the 'jumper arrived. But they couldn't get in without John lowering the ramp, which meant moving his arm. His arm was fine. However, it was attached to his shoulder, the muscles of the shoulder attached to muscles in his chest and his arm positioned in just the right way for his chest muscles to be put to use.
It hurt.
The ramp lowered, opening a way for the deluge to come spattering in against John's back, which made him realize that he had landed at an angle.
Rescue surrounded him, dripping wet from the brief exposure to the rain. A chorus of “Don't worry, sir, we got you,” accompanied many hands gripping him, slipping a brace around his neck, a board behind his back, moving him and making his body scream. It should have been enough for John to black out, but for some reason it wasn't. He couldn't see, but he could sure as hell hear, shoving the knife in deeper.
“Careful, now, careful!” Carson, that was Carson, close enough for his voice to be a second knife joining the first.
Keep it down was what John wanted to say. “Kimdun,” was what came out of his mouth.
Carson just patted his shoulder. “Easy lad. We got you.”
Then he was moving and, boy oh boy, wasn't that a field day for his head. They must have been using something to keep the rain off him, because though he was being spattered he wasn't being drenched. When he lurched to the side to puke without any warning, they had to stop, letting a little more rain soak into his clothes. So now he was wet and cold on top of everything else. And they wouldn't give him a blanket once arriving to the working 'jumper, because Carson needed access to his entire body.
That meant exposing more of him to cooler air when they cut open his shirt and pant leg. It felt like forever, but after all the poking, prodding and touching things that hurt too bad to be touched until John wanted to shoot something, he was finally covered.
They still wouldn't let him lose consciousness.
------------------------------
John hobbled down the hall, wincing with each step. He'd taken his pain medication but the medication was taking its sweet time about kicking in. His leg throbbed, but his chest throbbed louder. X-rays and the scanner may have cleared him of broken ribs, but it sure as hell didn't feel like “just severely bruised.” That had been four days ago, four days spent in a bed suffering through a bastard of an ear infection that had made the slightest move of his head a nightmare.
“It's the whales' fault,” Rodney had said. The man was actually capable of speaking in whispers. “One of them was hanging around the mainland, probably hunting or something, and being kind of loud about it.” He'd sounded contrite on saying this, as though it were somehow his fault. Except it wasn't, because crap happened, loud whales included.
John was only now back on his feet - relatively speaking - and hating every minute of it. But neither could he stand the thought of another minute cooped up in his room, staring at the same metallic walls. It had been time for a change of scenery, even if that scenery was to be the mess hall during the duration of his dinner.
He just hoped he recuperated during said duration. The short trip was sucking him dry of energy, and his chest was feeling oddly heavy, though he chalked it up to the bruising.
John was careful to give wide berth to a flight of stairs. Passer-bys didn't use the same caution. Someone lost their balance, who grabbed onto someone else, who pulled away stumbling and ran right smack into John. John went flying face-first toward the stairs, releasing the crutches and reaching out to stop his fall. His hand hit first, sending shock-waves up pain up his arm. His chest followed, radiating more pain from the center out. He lay there, staring, remembering how to breathe in a way that didn't hurt as people and voices surrounded him in a storm of colors and sound, most of the sound involving apologies.
He was back in the infirmary faster than he could blink (because it took a while to remember how to do that as well). He was X-rayed, scanned, scanned again until the verdict was finally in.
Carson delivered it with an exasperated sigh. “Well, Colonel, looks like you busted up your wrist. And are now the proud owner of two cracked ribs. Looks like it's a wheelchair for you. But at least your ear infection's cleared up.
Whoopty-friggin-doo.
-----------------------------
It was Teyla's turn to fetch John for dinner, and she seemed to be taking her sweet time about it. Not that John was going to complain. After all, she could just leave him sitting there like Rodney had threatened to, yesterday, after John had bitched at him. But he'd needed to bitch, damn it - Rodney had been forty minutes late.
Crap, he hated this: not being able to stand, to move, let alone push his own damn wheelchair. It was the next worst thing to being in a cage.
Actually, he'd been in a cage. At least you could still move in a cage.
Teyla finally arrived, all smiles - the knowing smile of someone with a secret.
“You look chipper,” John said, forcing himself not to sound so petulant.
Teyla said nothing, simply positioned herself behind the chair to start rolling him along. But as soon as they reached the door to the mess hall, they passed it right by.
“Uh, Teyla...”
“You will see,” was all she said.
Their destination ended up being the rec room, where interesting smells wafted, intriguing John's stomach. The doors opened to the Ancient-made coffee table covered by a cloth and various dishes of various foods: a bowl of French fries, another of cole slaw, another of those pinkish fruits that John loved but were difficult to trade for, a liter of soda and a platter of bacon cheeseburgers - honest to goodness bacon cheeseburgers with real bacon, not the pseudo crap that looked like it had been put through a meat grinder and remolded into the general shape of bacon (John could tell just by smelling it.) Everything else was junk food - chips, pretzels, popcorn and a package of Gummi Bears.
Ronon was on the couch, a plate already in hand, which he set down as soon as John and Teyla entered. Rodney was fiddling with the DVD system.
“So what's this?” John asked. Both Ronon and Teyla helped him out of the chair and onto the couch without any discomfort on his part to show for it.
“Respite,” Rodney said. He clapped his hands together and rubbed them with a triumphant grin and a barked, “Finally! It's ready.”
“We felt you were in need of something pleasant,” said Teyla, dishing him up each food item then setting the plate on his lap.
“Since you figured out how to stop that solar flare from killing us,” said Ronon, then stuffed a huge bite of burger into his mouth.
Rodney moved fast in dishing up his own plate, plopping down next to John when said plate looked ready to buckle under the strain. “Which, even I have to admit, was fairly genius.”
John arched an eyebrow. “Fairly?”
“Yes, fairly.”
Teyla settled down more delicately on John's other side. “It has been a rough few days. It is time to focus on more enjoyable things.”
The Ancient screen blinked on to Back the Future.
“Not Free Willy?” John asked innocently.
Rodney narrowed his eyes but said nothing.
John grinned.
The End