SGA fic - No Atheists in Foxholes

[kriadydragon]

Title: No Atheists in Foxholes
Rating: PG-13 for violence, injury, language
Characters: Sheppard, OC
Disclaimer: I don't own SGA.
Summary: Leon Weaver doesn't like soldiers. Huge thanks, as always, to my beta wildcat88. Written for x_erika-x who got most of her prompts except for "night" ^^;.

No Atheists in Foxholes

Leon Weaver had never looked at a soldier as more than a robot programmed to bark orders, threaten you with empty promises, act tough, look scary, make life difficult with pointless security matters and regard you as the bane of their existence.

And kill.

Soldiers were not your friends, they were not your brothers, and they did not care about you beyond keeping you alive, because it was their asses on the line if they didn't. The reasoning didn't go any deeper than that.

So it shouldn't have mattered that Sheppard was a pilot who had probably never seen the light of combat until coming to the Pegasus Galaxy. Yes, all the talk around Atlantis tried to tell him otherwise but one) people tend to exaggerate and two) they believed strongly that sucking up made a difference in life. And maybe it did, but it was a pathetic way to exist. Weaver had never once in his young life sucked up to anyone. Everything he had - his position in life, his degrees in archeology and his place on the expedition - he had earned. And he was only twenty-five.

The stories also told about super-bowl parties months after the fact, the requisition of various video game consoles, and the overall lax handling of military protocol.

The Atlantis personnel weren't the suck ups; Sheppard was. Which was all fine and great and wonderful until that same soldier was leading you into unknown territory then dragging you back out when the crap hit the fan.

What really sucked was that the so-called friendly villagers, whom Sheppard had failed to charm and who were now chasing them through putrid swampland, had dogs. Not dogs per se, more like something crossed between a dog, a boar and a giant flea, with scrawny limbs, a snout, tusks and an armor-plated back. Leon could hear their high-pitched howls all around them. There was no losing the bastards, even in this cesspool, where most of the plant life was the color of vomited spinach.

The shrieking howls sounded like they were right on top of them. Sheppard pulled Leon's arm tighter across his shoulder. The arrow through Leon's leg must have had some kind of numbing agent because Leon couldn't feel a damn thing below his knee.

“Brace yourself, Weaver,” Sheppard said, “because this is gonna suck.”

Sheppard made the short hop from the small bank into the algae-carpeted, stagnant river. They sloughed through viscous mud and Leon didn't want to know what else over to the far side of the bank. The water only came to mid-calf, but the crap lining the bottom was hell-bent on sucking them down. They pushed their way on burning legs several yards from where they'd been, then climbed out, slipping on a slime-covered bank. Out of the water, they were able to move faster.

The shrieks went back to being all around them rather than right smack behind. Okay, so that was pretty damn smart for a... what did some of the grunts liked to call Sheppard? A zoomie? But it wasn't going to last and Leon knew it. They had two miles of this dump between them and the 'gate, and three hours before Atlantis dialed to check in. The rest of Sheppard's team had gone on ahead while Sheppard laid cover fire and dragged Leon from the fracas. Except the team had gone in the direction that was said to be the long way around, full of rocky hills, narrow passages and, no doubt, more villagers dogging their trail. It wasn't a question in Leon's mind as to whether they were all covering ground at the same rate - of course they were.

What Leon wanted to know was what had pissed the villagers - Leon had yet to be able to pronounce their name, so he stuck with villagers - what had pissed the villagers off so bad to sic the guard dogs on them. That's what Leon hated about 'gate travel: the locals that cried blasphemy and burn 'em at the stake if you so much as yawned.

Sheppard forced them back through the river, and just their stupid luck the area they crossed was a hairsbreadth from being quicksand. The colonel was breathing just as heavy as Leon when they made it to the other side. Sheppard's clothes were soaked through with sweat and humidity; Leon felt ready to rip his own skin off for the same reason. They continued to crisscross, travel a couple of yards on dry (relatively speaking) land then crisscross again. It would stall the dogs, yes, but it was wearing the both of them out; each climb from the river was more of a struggle than the last. On the next climb, Sheppard dropped to his knees, sucking in air like he'd been suffocating.

Leon could sympathize. The air was thick, like breathing through thin, wet cotton and so still Leon felt it pressing against him from all directions. That Sheppard looked like he needed a week of sleep - shadows under the eyes and not that much color to his skin - killed whatever confidence Leon may have had. Leon had overheard the big guy, Ronon, say something about how Sheppard didn't sleep that well off-world.

Leon wanted to scoff and think “coward,” except he couldn't blame the guy. Life-sucking aliens on one side, hair-trigger locals with stupid, inexplicable beliefs on the other - sleeping wasn't much of an option.

“You should rest, Colonel,” Leon said when Sheppard made no move to get up. If Sheppard didn't have any strength left to move, then they were both screwed.

“And give them time to catch up?” Sheppard said on a gasping laugh. “Not gonna happen.” He pulled himself and Leon onto shaking legs, then pushed forward at half-speed - not that they'd been tearing up the ground like the Roadrunner to begin with.

The flea-hounds were quick, determined and gaining fast. It put crisscrossing the river out of the question when their next cross soaked them waist high then higher when the mud pulled them under. They broke the surface with a gasp and lost more time because of it.

“We're screwed,” Leon coughed. He expected reprimand and orders to buck up. What he got was Sheppard's dry, bitter chuckle.

“Yeah, ain't Pegasus Galaxy life grand like that? Think positive, Weaver. At least we're still alive and in a position to come up with hair-brained schemes to get us out of this.”

They clamored and flopped their way onto the next shore like drowned rats.

“Been trying,” Leon panted.

Sheppard, yanking Leon to his feet, staggered into the nearest tree for support. “And what have you come up with?”

“Bupkiss.”

Sheppard chuffed. “People still say bupkiss?”

“Obviously, Colonel,” Leon said dryly.

“Stop calling me Colonel. Repetitiveness is annoying. Call me Sheppard or John.”

Leon sighed. The colonel was making friendly small talk. They were running for their lives in a stinking swamp from alien dogs, and Sheppard was making small talk.

“Fine. Whatever,” Leon grunted.

They stumbled forward, the flea-dogs right back on top of them - or at least it felt like it - when Sheppard stopped next to a gnarled tree that looked like something Dr. Seuss would come up with if he were on acid.

“You ever climb trees as a kid?” he asked.

“Not with a bum leg,” Leon said.

Sheppard eyed the tree as though he planned to make it his new best friend. “I think this sucker can accommodate. I'll help. So get your ass up there. I'll even make it an order if that'll motivate you.”

“Seeing as how I'm not one of your marines, not really. The flea-dogs on my ass are motivation enough,” Leon said. Sheppard chuckled - he sounded like a donkey when he did.

Leon hobbled up onto a moss-covered hump of ground, Sheppard providing support with both hands on his arm. Sheppard was right; the branches were low and cork-screwed, providing easy steps to climb into the upper-branches where the thick, broad-leaf foliage acted as a blind.

“Stay there. Don't move; don't make a sound. That definitely is an order whether you like it or not.” And with that, Sheppard took off, back the way they had come. In a fit of alarm Leon opened his mouth to call out what the hell Sheppard was up to and why the hell he was leaving. He checked himself and clicked his jaw shut before that could happen. Those flea-dogs could hear a pin drop for all Leon knew.

But Sheppard had left him, had run off half-cocked straight toward death, doing the complete opposite of what all soldiers were in this galaxy to do. Sheppard was going to get himself killed and leave Leon to die.

The stories also liked to say that Sheppard could be a lunatic at times. Most of these stories were from the scientists, mostly Dr. McKay. Leon had always assumed he'd meant whenever Sheppard was flying.

The thick air popped and rattled with P-90 fire. Leon heard a whining yelp. Sheppard returned not long after, his heavy breaths preceding him as he charged along the narrow shore out of sight through thick, tubed shrubs and low hanging branches. He wasn't gone long, only about ten seconds when he tore back, passed the twisty tree toward the dogs. Crap, the guy really was insane.

The rustle of heavy leaves pulled Leon's attention to a tree not far from his. Something was climbing it, something big.

Something with a P-90 and a vest flashing between the gaps in the foliage. Then the rustling stopped and the leaves stilled. The swamp was as close as a swamp could get to quiet, if you ignored all the croaks, chirps and distant ascending and descending wails - like howler monkeys pretending to be tornado alarms.

Within all that natural sound, Leon's ears caught the odd sound that hadn't been there before - snuffling, snorting and frenetic panting.

There was a pop close enough to make Leon cringe, a yelp, people babbling in an alien language. Another pop and this time the yelp was human. Leon was high up enough to see, in the distance, shrubs and young trees shaking and parting as the hunting party moved through. He saw those same plants go still when Sheppard fired his weapon, then the enemy's path go erratic as they searched for their attacker.

None of the party came anywhere near where Leon was hiding.

It took a while for the hunting party to take the hint, but eventually they did. Plant life shook and bent as the villagers turned tail and fled. Only when the shrieks of flea-dogs were whistles in the distance did Sheppard reappear and help Leon as he inched his way to the ground.

Leon smirked. “Not so tough when they're the ones being hunted.”

Sheppard, however, wasn't as enthused. “No one really is. But seeing as how they reacted to Rodney translating that old guy's Ancient tattoos as though he'd called all their mothers a whore, then I can only imagine what killing 'em will do. They'll be back, and there'll be a hell of a lot more of them.” They hobbled down the hump and back along the shore.

“That's why they're pissed? Because Dr. McKay translated Ancient?”

Okay, so, maybe Leon had been a little premature in his anger when Sheppard had made them talk to the locals before skipping off to the ruins. Leon must have been absorbed in the Ancient written on all the pots when Rodney did his translating trick.

“Apparently,” Sheppard said between heaving breaths. “Nobody but their eldest scholars is allowed to read the words of the Ancestors. Oh, and ignorance isn't an excuse. It never is, because of course every off-worlder is supposed to be able to read minds.”

“They really think that?”

“Most of the folk who spit on ignorance is bliss pretty much act that way. Hell, you should have been here when we visited the Selorans. Ronon's hair offended them. When we ran to their neighbors for help, Rodney's hair offended them. Rodney's. Can you believe it?”

Though he didn't have the breath for it, Leon still managed to force out a quick chuckle. “My first off-world mission, back in the Milky Way, I was assisting Daniel Jackson. They gagged Colonel Mitchell when he started whistling. He's no longer allowed on that planet unless his mouth is tied up.”

They had a good, breathless chortle over that one - Sheppard's a tad on the wheezing side. The snap of a branch brought it to an abrupt halt. Sheppard had to release Leon in order to spin around, raising his weapon.

“What the hell was--”

A black, armored body slammed into his chest and his body into the solid ground. A flea-dog the size of a friggin' pony tore through Sheppard's vest with claws like scythes and into his shoulder with teeth as long as Leon's small finger. It was fast and sudden and made Leon fumble to pull the hand gun he'd always loathed from its holster. He fired, only for the bullets to bounce off the chitinous armor.

The underbelly. Everything armored had a soft underbelly. Leon dropped to his knees, not giving a damn about his bum leg, jammed the barrel of his weapon into the side of the thing's soft neck and fired. Black skin exploded in a spatter of black ichor all over Leon and Sheppard. The thing reared its head away on a dying gurgle. Instead of making life convenient by dropping to the side, it collapsed on top of Sheppard.

Sheppard's breaths were short but fast, loud and sandpaper rough.

“Get... g-get...” he wheezed. Leon, panting, shaking and queasy, bent close to hear.

“Get?”

“Get... d'mn thing... off...”

Leon snapped upright. “Oh, crap! Sorry! Sorry.” He normally wasn't this obtuse, but giant man-eating flea-dogs were distracting. He heaved, grunted and heaved some more against a body as heavy as it looked. He went with the more optimal method of incremental shoves until the thing slid off the colonel, the shore and into the water with a soupy gurgle instead of a splash.

Sheppard sucked in a breath, then cried out, hand scrabbling over his shredded vest and shirt to his chest. The colonel was a mess. The claws had ripped through everything and found skin. Blood oozed from rows of lacerations on his chest and thighs, and his shoulder looked like torn-up meat.

Leon swallowed thickly; he could see bone, or maybe it was tendons. Crap, he hoped it was tendons. He fumbled through his vest pockets for the field bandages then wrapped them around Sheppard's shoulder. He pulled the bandage tight; Sheppard grunted, the sound fading into a whimper.

Leon followed with opening the colonel's vest and outer shirt, giving him room to breathe. Leon wasn't a virgin to injuries. He'd seen off-world action about four times before coming to Pegasus. But he'd never been in the thick of it, not like this, where the worst injuries were found. When things got bad, the soldiers barked and the civilians took cover. Leon and his fellow PhDs would hunker in a cave, trying not to stare as grunts stopped the bleeding of fellow grunts. They never asked for help, never wanted help, and that had been fine by Leon.

He'd always ignored the little voice that teased, “It's only a matter of time before you're the one getting your hands bloody.” Crap, he hated irony.

Leon helped Sheppard up enough to wrap more bandages around him and slow the bleeding. Sheppard didn't cry out, but he did squeeze his eyes shut and bite his lip. While Leon wrapped, his hand brushed across a lump in Sheppard's side. He paused long enough to lift the black T-shirt.

Leon damn near lost his lunch. Unless Sheppard had some kind of growth under his skin, his ribs were most definitely broken.

“Damn,” he breathed.

“That... bad... huh?” Sheppard wheezed.

“I hope not, Colonel.”

“Back to... calling me Colonel...”

Leon shrugged, feeling numb and hoping it wasn't the drug. He snapped out of it to finish bandaging the claws marks. Thank goodness for small favors; he hadn't seen anything resembling bones through the mess of blood pooling in the cuts.

“It's... okay to be... sick...” Sheppard breathed.

Leon blinked at him. “Huh?”

Sheppard lifted a shaking hand to point a shaking finger at Leon's face. “Look... green...”

“Oh. I'm fine.”

“Don't want you... puking... me...”

Leon scowled. “I'm fine, Col-- Sheppard.” But when he looked at Sheppard, at the man's weak smile, he realized Sheppard was just messing with him.

The man was injured and possibly dying, and he had the tenacity to tease.

Then Sheppard wheezed, “Know. Geeks... always tougher... th'n look.”

“Was that meant as a compliment?”

Sheppard's head dipped, ever so slightly, in a nod. “Tell you about... Gaul... and Grodin... sometime...”

Leon said nothing. He'd heard about Gaul and Grodin, and others besides.

Sheppard's breath went suddenly still.

“Hide,” he said.

Leon paused tying off the last bandage and stared. “Huh?”

“Hide... Weaver. That's an... order...” Sheppard's hand, still wrapped around his P-90, shoved the larger weapon into Leon's arms. “Go.”

“What?”

“Hide!”

Leon flinched. “But...”

“Now!”

Leon scrabbled to his feet and backward. He tripped, landing ass-first on a log that he pulled himself behind, pressing himself into the ground. He could see Sheppard through a gap between the dirt and the log.

A villager stepped out of the woods onto the shore, yanking back a smaller flea-dog. He was dressed in brown pants and a green leather jerkin like some kind of dirty Robin Hood. Most of his face was hidden behind a beard and stringy wet hair that about reached his hips. He approached Sheppard as though Sheppard would leap up and rip his throat out. The flea-dog had no such compunctions.

“Knew I... missed one...” Sheppard gasped.

The hunter tilted his head to one side. He kicked the flea-dog and it stopped snarling and tearing at the ground. It slunk then cowered behind its master.

“There was another,” the hunter said, searching. He sounded confused, even panicked about it. He crept up to Sheppard, placed his foot on his chest, and pressed.

There was no possible way for Sheppard not to cry out, though not for lack of trying.

“Where is the other?” the hunter asked.

“Other?” Sheppard croaked.

The hunter pressed harder. Sheppard's next cry was pinched, broken and ended on a choke.

“Tell me!”

Sheppard sucked in a breath that rasped. “Go to... hell...”

“Tell! Me!”

“Go. To. Hell!”

The hunter pressed until Sheppard couldn't even scream.

Oh, hell no.

Leon didn't think about it; he popped himself up like a Jack-in-the-box and fired, across the hunter's chest then down to the flea-dogs unprotected face. Both convulsed and dropped. Leon gaped.

He'd just killed a man. A living human being, and he'd just ended his life.

Lurching to the side, Leon finally puked.

I killed a man.

The area as secure as it could get, and his stomach purged, Leon hurried on trembling legs back to Sheppard's side.

Sheppard wheezed, “I... ordered...”

“You ordered me to hide. I hid. Besides, not a soldier, remember?” Because soldiers didn't puke when they killed people. He eased Sheppard up against his chest so that the colonel could breathe easier. Sheppard's chest stuttered with a sharp inhale. The exhale was a cough that filled the air with a fine mist of blood.

Internal bleeding, probably from a punctured lung. Just friggin' great.

“Now will you accept that we're screwed?” Leon growled.

Sheppard coughed more blood. “Been through... worse.”

Leon grimaced. He believed it, easy. He just hoped Sheppard wasn't in more of a telling mood; that was as far as Leon wanted to know.

“You... should... go...” Sheppard forced out.

Listen to the man, Leon. “Not gonna happen.”

“Will... order...”

You are being stupid. Go!“Civilian, remember? Orders bounce off me and stick to you.”

Sheppard's body jerked in a sickly gasp that may have been a chuckle. There was no pissing this guy off.

“You... have chance...” Sheppard said. He looked up at Leon. He was in pain; he was pleading, as though he would die a happy man if Leon would just take off and survive.

It pissed Leon off. Soldiers were robots, who barked orders and made life miserable. They weren't supposed to get hurt, bleed, show pain. They weren't supposed to friggin' give a damn and let you know they gave a damn.

And that made Leon give a damn. He didn't want to give a damn; it was going to get him killed.

Leon said so tight his throat hurt, “Didn't quite catch that last part, Colonel.”

Sheppard shuddered, yet smiled around blood-stained teeth. “Enough... w'th Colonel...”

Leon's jaw twitched. Crap, he wanted to hit Sheppard so bad. Please, you stupid bastard, don't die.

The forest whispered around them, growing into rattles as one by one hunters crept like their flea-dogs toward them. With one hand, Leon raised the P-90.

He was about to kill more people, all for one guy. Those people would probably kill him before he had the chance. What the hell was wrong with him?

“Word to the wise, folks,” he said, going for bad-ass, sounding hysterical. “I'm in a really bad mood right now so if you have any kind of intelligence, which I doubt, then I'd suggest you back off.”

They didn't. They moved closer, those without dogs lifting their bows and arrows.

“Your funeral,” Leon said and let the P-90 rip back and forth without aim.

Red blaster fire and the extra staccato of more P-90s joined it. It was enough fire to allow Leon a wide-eyed glance over his shoulder at Ronon, the copper-haired woman, Dr. McKay, Major Lorne and a squad of marines charging to the rescue from the back of a 'jumper hovering over the river.

“How the hell did you get here so fast!” Leon shrilled.

“McKay found a short cut,” Ronon said, shoving his blaster into its holster. Leon looked back at the enemy, now a pile of bodies on the ground.

“Yes, me,” said McKay, bringing up the rear. He was all smiles, the kind of smile you just wanted to wipe off his face. One look at Sheppard took care of it for Leon. “What the hell happened to Sheppard!”

“What does it look like?” Leon said flatly. He let Ronon scoop Sheppard into his arms, helped by lifting the colonel and maneuvering him so Ronon could slip his arms through without causing Sheppard too much pain. The copper-haired woman - Teyla, that was her name - helped Leon up after Sheppard was taken.

“I think he punctured a lung,” Leon said. “He's coughing up blood.”

“Do not worry. We have brought a medic with us,” Teyla said. She looked at Leon with a sad face, exhaustion and copious amounts of gratitude. “Thank you for protecting him.”

Leon shrugged. “Uh... yeah, sure.”

Teyla smiled, then helped him to the 'jumper. They hopped onto the lowered ramp, into the clean, open air of the interior, to leave the crap hole behind.

---------------------------

Leon had been right - the poison immobilized; it didn't kill, and because the arrow had gone straight through not enough of the poison had entered his blood stream to be effective. Keller kept him in the infirmary for observation all the same.

So Leon was there when Sheppard came out of surgery, scrub-top free but most of his body mummified with bandages. He had a chest-tube draining fluids, but had been lucky enough not to require a ventilator. The skin the bandages didn't cover - below his right collarbone - was black and blue and bright with hell-red scratches.

Then Sheppard's team surrounded him and there was nothing left to see.

That night, after Sheppard's team left, Leon awoke to someone hissing his name, and turned his head to see Sheppard - eyelids at half-staff - staring at him.

Leon blinked in surprise. “Colonel?”

Sheppard's mouth pulled in a lax smile. “S'tp calling... that.”

“You all right, Col-- you all right? Need a nurse of something?”

Sheppard shook his head. “No.” He regarded Leon with more concern than any soldier had ever regarded Leon with. “You 'kay?”

Leon frowned at him. “I had an arrow in my leg removed. Of course I'm not okay.”

Sheppard snorted lightly. “Sound like.... M'kay.”

“But I'll live,” Leon ground out, to deflect the low blow.

“Good,” Sheppard said. “Not what... I meant.”

Leon was about to demand what the hell Sheppard had meant when Sheppard cut him off.

“Killing’s... not easy...” he said.

“For me,” Leon said, scowling. “Maybe for you it is, but I didn't come here to kill people.”

“Neither... did I...” Sheppard said.

“It's your job,” said Leon.

“My job's... to protect. Killing... that's just...” he exhaled a shuddering breath. “Can't always avoid it.” He opened his eyes, and the way he stared at the ceiling made him seem almost frail. “Don't like it. Gotta do what... I gotta do to keep... everyone safe.”

But he didn't like it. Leon nodded, though Sheppard wasn't looking his way. Then Sheppard was looking his way.

“You 'kay?” he asked.

Leon twisted his mouth, remembering the man he'd killed, remembering the blood that had stained the guy's chest as he dropped; the twitching, convulsing, going perfectly still. Leon's gut twisted and he said in a rough voice, “No. But, then, that's what shrinks are for, right?”

Sheppard snorted. “Shrinks not so bad.”

“I've learned to love 'em,” said Leon. “Well, the one here since talking to her is pretty much free of charge.” He cleared his throat. “Does it-- does it make you sick, when you have to...”

“Try not to think about it,” Sheppard said. “Sometimes... yeah.” He grinned. “S'okay to be sick.”

Leon graced him with a withering look that didn't last long. He sighed. It still annoyed him that he was giving a damn. “Thanks, by the way. For getting me out of there, alive.”

“S'my job,” Sheppard slurred.

“Yes, well... You do it well. It should be acknowledged is all. Now go to sleep before a nurse makes us all miserable.”

“Goo'point,” Sheppard said, smiling as his eyes slid shut.

Okay, so not all soldiers were robots.

The End