SGA Fic - The Storyteller
Title: The Storyteller
Rating: PG-13
Characters: John, OC
Warnings: Language, violence, abuse
Summary: "Tell me one of your stories, Sheppard." OC point of view.
A/N: Written for sharpes_hussy for help_pakistan. It's not the idea I originally told you about as that one refused to fly, so I hope you enjoy this one. See end of story for the prompt. A big shout out to wildcat88 for the beta.
The Storyteller
“Tell me one of your tales, Sheppard,” Glindof said, smoothing the pale green poultice over the shallow lacerations on Sheppard's back. Sheppard panted beneath Glindof's gnarled hands, fast and shallow, the old man's fingers sliding through blood and over the individual bones of the younger man's ribcage. Efficiency accomplished more than being gentle, but that did not mean Glindof could not at least try to be gentle.
The damaged back jumped when Sheppard coughed a weak laugh. “Finished the one about the galaxy far, far away, right?” he rasped.
Glindof smiled. “You did.”
“Then let me tell you about the one with the ring of power.”
It was a struggle for Sheppard to talk, the pain and exhaustion cracking his voice. But it was a necessity, a means of focus for John as Glindof worked the poultice into the wounds. Second Captain Zilf's whip was not a powerful weapon, not in that skinny fool's hands, but it was quick and sharp and the pain a flame that refused to be quenched.
“So... there was this little guy... named... Bilbo... Bag-- son of a bitch!”
“I am sorry, John. Please try to continue.”
Sheppard was also bruised. Third Captain Zindow's fault; the man had no patience and a fist like a rock. Glindof did not need to see through Sheppard's skin to know about the cracks in his bones.
Poor boy. He was a good man, quick-witted, quick-tongued but cursed with the grace of a lumbering Satedan ox, his long fingers and legs a hindrance as though he were only now learning how to use them. He had come to the ship (purchased for half price, Glindof had heard) a scrawny, dirty, lanky thing, blank-faced to make Glindof think he was empty headed. Which he wasn't. He was careful, cautious, and timid when the masters were present. When the masters weren't present, he told wonderful stories that made Glindof laugh. It had been a long time since anyone had made him laugh.
And that made it very difficult not to get attached to the boy. But Glindof supposed there was no real harm to it. Slaves came and went, bought on a whim not because they were needed, but because they were wanted: for status, for the sake of owning something, for boredom, and in the case of Seela the engineer, because dirty and scrawny or not, they had pretty eyes. A waste of a good coin, in Seela's case. She could look at John, beat him, but she could not touch him beyond that. The captain did not tolerate accidental pregnancy and Seela was not a careful girl.
Glindof was used to nothing lasting on The Starchaser. John came and he would go, just like all the others. When it happened Glindof would hardly notice. He never did, even with those he had become attached to.
Glindof covered the lacerations with strips of cloth that would hold the poultice in place. The double benefit of the poultice would keep the wounds clean as well as numb, and it worked quickly. Sheppard's voice became less strained and his breathing deeper and more even.
“Finished,” Glindof said, interrupting John just as the character Bilbo decided to pity the creature Gollum rather than kill it. “Let's get you up, John. Get the new shirt on you.” The Starchaser never wanted for clothes for its slaves. Culls might be slowing but there were still plenty of worlds to scavenge, and Captain Telroy dared to push his ship to the breaking point to be the first to claim the pickings.
Glindof aided John in his pained climb to his knees, then into the ragged and stained brown shirt that would be an agony of itching for John once the bandages were removed. He kept a tight hand on John during the climb to their feet, then all the way to the back of the cell and John's cot.
“On your front,” Glindof said, supporting John as he stretched out on his stomach. “That's it. You rest, now.”
“Don't want to hear the rest of the story?” John asked, voice slurred.
Glindof, chuckling, patted him on the shoulder. “I'm a man who's practiced a lot of patience, John. It can wait.” By the Ancestors, he hoped it waited. Seela would have little or nothing to do with John, having grown bored of him and his pretty eyes. But the first and second captains, and the pilot Aleesh, viewed John's clumsiness as sport. Aleesh especially enjoyed running him ragged just to see him trip and hear his stammered apologies. Then he would be beaten, because all slaves had to learn, and Glindof would have to put the poor boy back together again.
When Glindof was satisfied that Sheppard was indeed asleep, he left the cell that was his and Sheppard's sleeping quarters, and resumed his duties. Today, he was to clean out the cooling unit on deck three, then mop the corridors on deck five. It was messy business, coating him in coolant and grime, but because his third task was to prepare the late hour meal it provided him automatic permission to use the shower unit.
He found John in the galley, listlessly cutting binik root while holding his back as straight and still as possible. The bruise on his cheek told of his rude awakening, and his heavy-lidded eyes of having slept for very little. Better than no rest at all.
Glindof still asked, “Feel any better?” The younger slaves always made him feel fatherly.
Sheppard lifted his shoulder, which meant so-so, and so-so, Glindof had come to learn, usually meant no change at all.
Glindof cut Sheppard a slice of cheese and bread. Meal time for the slaves came after meal time for the crew, but what the crew did not know would hurt neither Sheppard nor Glindof. Glindof had worked for the captain long enough to learn of the shortcuts that made life easier.
Once Sheppard had eaten and was less listless, Glindof said, “I believe you have a story to finish.”
Sheppard grinned and talked while he cut and Glindof prepared the meat. It was a shorter story than the last, and over before the meal was close to ready.
“There's more,” Sheppard said, dumping the vegetables into the stew. “Kind of a continuation but with new characters. I could tell you that one. It's a hell of a lot longer.”
Glindof, stirring, shook his head in amused bewilderment. “I've traveled to many worlds, John. Heard many stories but never any the like of yours.” There had been the story of the adventuring man armed with only a whip and a gun, and one about a fish known as a shark, bigger than a man and ravenous for human flesh.
“Are any of them true?” Glindof asked.
“So far?” John said. “No, not really. Although we do have big friggin' sharks on our world.”
Sheppard didn't like to talk about his world, like it was something secret. He would grow uncomfortable whenever Glindof asked about it, eyes darting as though searching for unseen ears that may be listening. It made Glindof curious, but not one to pry, he did not push the matter. Sheppard could be such a skittish creature.
While the crew dined on roast meat and stew, it was Glindof's and Sheppard's duty to keep the tin cups filled with wine. Dangerous business for such a simple task. The second and third captains were cruel enough without wine in them, but even the kinder of the crew would turn a blind eye in favor of amusement.
“You have no taste, Seela,” said Frin, the captain's wife. “In men or slaves.” Sheppard had tripped over his own feet, spilling wine on Zilf's side of the table. Frin watched in disgust as Sheppard cleaned it up using only a rag while Zilf cursed him, punctuating his words with a fist to John's back. “He's probably as bad beneath the blankets as he is serving the drinks.”
Seela kicked John's legs out from under him when he came close enough. The girl had a temper as heated as the engines.
Glindof and John cleaned up. The scraps were few, but they finished them off, sitting on the grimed grating of the kitchen floor as they did. The pipes hissed steam overhead. The humidity made their clothes stick to their skin.
“But this Mid-el Earth is not your world?” Glindof asked.
John said in between licking his bowl clean, “Kind of based on our world but, no, it's not. What about you?”
“What about me?” Glindof asked. He did not eat as desperately as John, but then John's body had as much to learn as his mind.
John continued licking, though there was nothing left. “Don't you have any stories from your world?”
“I have stories,” Glindof said, leaning back against the rusty cupboard. “Not as entertaining as yours. My world is mostly a dream, these days. Same with the stories. I would only get them wrong.”
John seemed troubled by this. “You don't remember anything about your world?”
“I remember standing by a river, tossing a net. It was the season of heat, I recall, when the skies were blue, the ground green and the air warm. It was a simple village, because I remember the huts being made from mud and sticks.” Glindof smiled, a melancholy response, and chuckled without humor. “I'm an old, old man, John.” He tossed his spoon into the bowl, listened as it clattered, metal against metal. “That world is long gone by now, culled or enslaved or killed by disease.” With a knobby knuckle he tapped the cupboard behind him. It thudded hallow. “This is my world, now. The stories are even less entertaining,”
Glindof and John went to clean the halls of deck four. It was only when they were done and the majority of the crew asleep that they could go and rest. By then, John had finished the story of the ring of power.
Going to the cell, they passed a drunken Zindow stumbling away from Aleesh's room, his right eye bruised and swollen.
He shoved John into the wall hard enough for John to crumple. Zindow laughed, kicked John's hip then called him a stupid little bastard. John cowered, covering his head with his arms. Glindof Zindow left alone because the old man was the captain's, and abusing him had lost its appeal long ago. Given time, they would get just as bored with John, if he lived that long. Glindof was hopeful; John was such a thin, quiet, docile creature when around the crew, taking their bitterness in stride.
But John wasn't the captain's
“Come on, John,” Glindof said, taking John by the arm and helping him to his feet. They shuffled back to the cell. Once there, he settled John on his stomach on the pallet, then dragged his weary bones to his own pallet on the other side. Exhaustion didn't allow for any stories tonight.
-----------------------
The time for planetfall was close, which meant cleaning the small, bulky transport ships in the bay. There were only three left, small enough to fit through an Ancestor ring in case of emergencies, but large enough to carry cargo.
“Which planet?” John asked curiously. When Glindof said Genii, John lost interest.
The captain and chosen crew departed in the transports, leaving Zilf in charge. It kept Zilf busy, and with Zindow and Seela part of the ground team, allowed John and Glindof to clean the coolants in peace. But the return of the ground team meant cargo to relocate, a hyper Seela giving John grief and a surly Milt. He was a big one, Milt, normally quiet and unassuming, regarding both John and Glindof as little more than pieces of the ship. But he hated going planetside and hated even more dealing with cargo. Seela's attempts to poke John in his flat stomach, and Johns' attempts to dodge, put him in Milt's way. Milt retaliated, elbowing John hard between the shoulder blades. John fell in a sprawl then curled in a ball to protect his body.
“Stupid little bastard,” Milt mumbled, but left John alone. Seela kicked John, but compared to what Milt could have done, it was a lesser evil.
When the cargo was out of the way, Glindof and John gave the transports another cleaning.
“You all right, John?” Glindof asked, scouring the tarnished hull of Transport One with a scrub brush.
When John didn't answer, Glindof turned.
John stood there, staring at Transport Two.
“John?” Glindof pressed.
“There was a guy,” John said. “Used to fly these ships called choppers. Disobeyed orders to save some people and ended up in the coldest, farthest place anyone could go.” He picked up his scrub brush, dunked it in the soapy water and started washing, wincing every so often. He was quite thorough, washing every inch inside and out, climbing the transport like a tree rat despite his pains.
“But the ironic thing is,” Sheppard continued from inside the cockpit. “He actually kind of liked it there. No command, no one to rescue - just him and the sky. Then, this one day, he ends up saving this general... high ranking soldier guy. As a reward, the general invites him into this secret facility, where there's this magic chair. The guy sits in the chair because, hey, it's just a chair so what's the harm, right? But he sits in it, and the next thing he knows, he's looking at the stars and everyone is getting real excited. Afterwards, because he made the chair light up, this woman invites him to step through this ring to another set of stars. Takes him a while to decide because there's a chance he might never return, but it's not like he had anything better to do, so he eventually says yes. Next thing he knows, he's on another world, an alien world surrounded by alien stars. All because he sat in a chair.”
John fell silent. Glindof glanced back, arching a bushy white eyebrow. “Don't tell me that's the end of the story.”
“Not by a long shot,” John said, scrubbing hard the curved transport wing.
“What happened to him?”
“Lots of stuff. Made friends, fought monsters, got captured covering his friend's escape. Kind of the story of his life.”
“And after he was captured?”
John stilled. “I'll get back to you on that.”
It was time to prepare the mid-time meal, anyway. John told Glindof another story, this one about the man who traveled through the ring. He touched a crystal and a demon hid inside him, passing from person to person through touch. When it was clear the demon was out to kill, and when it entered the friend of the man's, the man entered the mind of his friend and fought the demon.
“But it was the guy's friend who figured out how to stop it by using lightning. When it was weak, the guy tossed it out of his head and back into the crystal.”
Glindof chortled. “John, there will never come a time when I tire of your stories. I swear you make them up as you go. What a mind!”
The mid-time meal was less hard on John, the crew sober since wine was only ever served in the evenings. When the meal ended and John and Glindof cleaned, John told Glindof more about the man, how he was nearly changed into a creature and almost killed his friends, about the smart friend who had been possessed by a lesser demon, a woman friend taken by the half-Wraith called Michael, a man whom the Wraith had tried to make their slave but failed. He told many stories of the man as they ate, as they cleaned the halls, as they made their way to bed.
Laying in the dark on his pallet, hands tucked under his head, Glindof could not stop thinking about the stories. He asked, “This man and his friends have lived a hard life among the stars. Do you think he regretted stepping through the ring?”
Sheppard didn't answer.
--------------------
“Not that one, fool! The larger one!” Seela spat, throwing the wrench in the direction of John's head. John barely ducked it, his shoulder blade taking the brunt rather than his skull. He kept his head down and shoulders hunched as he fetched Seela the correct tool - ever the cowed drudge, poor John. But he was still Seela's, and though Glindof had offered to aid her in the engine repairs to give John respite, John had insisted on doing his duty.
“She'd just beat me for not helping,” he had said, his smile crooked and self-deprecating.
Glindof was in charge of the heavy lifting since Seela did not trust John's clumsy hands. He tugged on recalcitrant screws, lifted weighty panels that made him grunt, and lugged the jugs of coolant within Seela's reach. John retrieved tools and acted as an extra pair of hands to make the work go faster.
When they finished, John was barely recognizable under all the filth. A second wrench thrown at his back had made it difficult for him to stand straight.
“I have told you it gets easier.” Glindof said.
John, grunting as they moved on to their next task of cleaning the toilets, nodded. “Yeah. More than once. No offense but I'll believe it when I see it.”
Glindof smiled sadly. “They will grow bored of you in time.”
“Doubt I'll be around that long.”
Glindof sighed. “John--”
“Glindof.”
Cowed, timid, skittish and yet at times surprisingly obstinate.
Glindof stopped, his hand on John's shoulder stopping him as well. They looked at each other.
“I am old, John,” Glindof said. “My time far more limited than yours. If they wish to have a servant who knows the ways of this ship as well as I then they will have to leave you be. Give it time. You will see. The bad will not last, and then your life will be good here.”
John regarded Glindof as though he were mad.
“It's not as though you have a choice, John,” Glindof said. He patted the young man's shoulder, just once, and continued cleaning.
“Did I ever tell you about how the man who stepped through the ring ended up trapped in a world where time moved fast?”
Glindof smiled.
----------------------
John tripped, running into Zindow and spilling wine on him. Zindow beat him, punching and kicking his back, but so drunk that most of his aim was off, sparing John worse damage. John was bruised, but when Glindof was able to tend to him in their cell he did not find any breaks that were not already there.
“Gets easier... my ass...” John rasped. Many of the blows had been to his stomach, leaving him nauseous and unable to eat for the night. He lay on his pallet on his side, curled with his arms against his gut.
All Glindof could do was sit by him and keep his hair out of his sweat-slicked and bloody face.
“It is said that the good only comes after the bad is as terrible as it can get,” Glindof said.
John breathed a twisted laugh. “In other words, it has to get worse before it gets better.”
Glindof raised an eyebrow. “You put it in better words.” When John's body relaxed and no longer showed signs that it might purge his stomach empty, the old man covered John with the thin, tattered blanket.
“There is talk of making planetfall soon,” he said, just to be conversational. He doubted John would be up for stories tonight.
“Oh, yeah? Which world?”
“The inhabitants call it New Athos.”
The muscles of John's body re-knotted. Glindof thought he would purge, but heard only odd, choking hiccups that might have been a sob or a laugh.
-----------------------
“Glindof, wake up.”
Glindof fluttered his eyes open, then widened them when a hand clamped over his mouth. He blinked rapidly in the gloom until his eyes adjusted enough to discern John's angled features.
“Don't talk,” John said. “Just listen. It's time to go.” He removed his hand from Glindof's mouth.
“Go?” Glindof whispered. He saw John's thin body glide like a serpent to his pallet, where he knelt and pulled something out from beneath the mattress.
“Go,” said John. “Follow me.”
Glindof did, sleep and a stiff body making him slow. He asked, “Is there some chore I was not told of?” But John did not answer. It was not until they were out of the holding cell, in the corridor where there was light enough to see, that Glindof witnessed something flash metallic in John's hand.
He gaped. “John, why do you have a knife? Where did you get that!”
John turned on him, hissing for silence.
Except it was not John, not this thing, this wild, feral looking thing with ice in its eyes and a knife in its hand. Glindof fell silent, barren of words. He followed John, who moved like a stalking animal, tense and curved, pressing the shape of his spine into the threadbare shirt. It was to the engine room they went, its quiet rumble vibrating Glindof's bones. He watched, shocked, as John took tools from the locker to make various adjustments to the engine.
“John, what--? You can't..? What if Seela--?” but words remained lost to him, dread choking him. It was late, yes, but time meant nothing to some of the crew. If any of them were wandering the halls, looking for a place to tryst, to drink... and the engine room was deep in the heart of the ship, as private a place as one's cabin but closer. If--
“Let's go,” John's voice said in Glindof's ear, making him jump. But he followed. He followed John through the quiet halls, their bare feet making no noise. He followed, and he didn't know why, because this was madness, whatever “this” was.
“John, please. What are you doing?” Glindof whispered.
“We're getting out of here,” John replied. They turned the corner.
Zindow, tall and angry with wine, met them coming the other way. They stopped; he stopped, his face flushing blood red with fury.
“You stupid little bastard,” Zindow growled.
What followed should not have been possible. John - small, thin, timid John, always bruised, bones always broken - and Zindow, big and furious and violent. Zindow lunged for John like an enraged bull. John stepped to the side, ducking beneath Zindow, using his momentum to flip him onto his back. It was not easy for John, causing him to cry out in defiance and pain. Zindow landed, the breath knocked from him, and John twisted his arm until the knife Zindow had pulled sometime during the attack fell to the floor.
John pressed his own knife to Zindow's throat. Time seemed to stop. Glindof held his breath, watching, waiting for the blade to dig into the skin, draw blood. And John would do it, any moment now. Glindof could see it in his eyes, the way they burned, cold melting beneath a fire so raging, an anger so hot, it shook John's body as though he would explode with it.
Any moment, and Zindow's blood would stain the grated floor.
Then John said, “No,” forced through gritted teeth. “No,” strained, like a man holding on with everything he had. John pulled the knife away only to smash the hilt into Zindow's skull. It was such a quick action, and yet Glindof saw every detail, the shape of the blade, the rounded end of the hilt, and knew the knife to be one of Zindow's.
“Come on,” John said coolly, moving on. Glindof hurried after.
“John...” he said, his words still stuck in his throat. They took the stairs four levels down, all the way to the darkened bay. John twisted the switch that activated the lights, momentarily blinding them, but he continued on to the nearest transport.
“John, you do not know how to fly!” Glindof said in a high-pitched burst of terror.
John replied, “Watch me,” and climbed into the cockpit of Transport One. He looked down at Glindof. “Coming?”
Glindof stared at him. Then the words came, flowing from his mouth without thought.
“How did you get that knife? When? How!”
And John smiled, crooked and ironic and obstinate. “It pays to be a klutz. So, you coming or not?”
Glindof climbed the ladder into the passenger chair at the back. He buckled himself in as the glass covering hummed closed. It sealed with a hiss of air.
“John, you cannot do this. You need clearance to depart. They will give chase, shoot us...”
The engines rumbled to life, shaking Glindof to his center. The transport jolted off the floor, hovering then turning to face the hangar doors. Three blasts from the weapons blew a hole into the doors large enough for the transport to slip through with some difficulty. Alarms blared and debris flew from the bay into the darkness of space.
John pushed the transport forward. Glindof's heart stuck in his throat.
“John, please!”
“It's all right,” John said, confident. “I know what I'm doing.” Bright blue globes of weapons fire from The Starchaser skimmed past them, each one closer than the last. But John weaved through them with the ease of a someone weaving cloth. He angled right, filling the screen with the blinding blue edge of the planet of New Athos.
“They will trap us on the planet!” Glindof wailed.
“No, they won't,” John said, grunting with each sharp turn, each twist and drop making them an impossible target. “I messed with their engines. It won't be long before they have to land and I'm gonna make sure they end up far from where we need to be. They'll be the ones trapped.”
The planet vanished from the screen when John pulled a hard left, reappearing after a hard right, then filling their view when John dropped.
Then, silence. The weapons fire ceased. John slowed, easing the ship around as he angled in for planetfall. The small ship shuddered as they crossed into the atmosphere.
They landed so smoothly Glindof barely felt it. The cockpit opened, the cool planet air smelling of grass and distant cooking fires. John clamored out first, dropping to the ground with one hand pressed against his upper flank.
Glindof followed, not knowing what else to do. He felt numb, so numb he did not feel his feet touch the ground, raising a cloud of seeds and insects. He turned and stared, just stared, at golden grass, a field of it, bordered by tall needled trees. Birds sang, insects buzzed. He saw, heard, but he could not feel.
“It'll be a while before they get the engines fixed,” John said. “The Athosians should be just within the trees over there.” He pointed to their right. “I saw smoke columns and they always stay close to the 'gate. Glindof?”
Glindof blinked and looked at John. John, squinting, shaded his eyes with his hand. His other hand stayed pressed to his side.
“Glindof, buddy? You okay?”
Glindof's mouth opened. Words poured out.
“What have you done?”
John's head reared back. “Huh?”
Then, Glindof could feel. He felt too much, felt fire and ice, anger and terror expand inside him until he thought he would burst, and he lunged. Grabbing John by his shirt front, he slammed him into the hull of the transport, shook him and slammed him again, screaming over and over.
“What have you done, what have you done!” He saw John's hand cradling his flank and blood oozing between the fingers. He ripped it away, placed his own hand over the spot and squeezed, fingers digging into broken ribs and an open wound until John cried out in agony.
“They will kill us, John! They will kill me! I cannot go back, I cannot! Why have you done this, why!” Glindof sobbed. “Why!” And threw John to the ground. He turned, walking swiftly away, putting space between him and John because if he didn't, he knew he would only kill the man.
But he had not taken ten steps when he whirled on his heels and screamed, “Why!”
For a fleeting moment, he saw the John he knew - the timid, cowering creature shrinking away from shaking fists balled and ready to strike.
“What the hell are you talking about?” John squeaked, then struggled to his feet. “I just freed your sorry ass!”
“Why! Why would you do that?”
“Why wouldn't I do that? You were a damn slave to those people, Glindof. They were bastards!”
“They were my home!”
John's jaw clicked shut.
Glindof swiped furiously at his eyes that had become blurry and wet. “They were my home. They took care of me. They kept me alive. They are what I know, John. They are all I know. This...” He swept his arm at their surroundings. “What do I know of this? What...” His throat closed off, and he had to turn, putting his back to John. He had to tear his fingers through what was left of his hair or else choke the man. He shook so hard he thought he might fall apart, and wished he would.
Silence surrounded them as best as it could, despite the wind whispering through the grass and the birdsong. It filled Glindof with more sorrow, anger and terror until tears fell down his face, soaking into his beard. He let them.
He could not go back.
“I'm sorry.”
Glindof sucked in a sharp breath.
“I didn't know. And it's not like... I mean... it's not like you said no...”
It was paltry, a pathetic excuse clawing weakly at reason and penance, a thing to be scoffed.
But it was truth that was a blow to the gut.
Glindof could have said no. For the life of him, he could not fathom why he had not.
“I'm sorry,” John said again, meaning it.
Glindof wiped his eyes dry and turned to him, the scrawny, dirty bruised liar, standing hunched with his hand pressed to the wound. Glindof wanted to hate him, that liar, that storyteller.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“John Sheppard,” John said. He licked his cracked lips. “Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard. Lieutenant Colonel's a rank. Like general, only below that.”
Glindof wanted to hate him. Instead, he approached him, reaching out. John staggered warily back.
“I want to look,” Glindof said flatly, pointing at John's side.
Swallowing, John inched cautiously forward until Glindof was able to lift his shirt. The wound was long and deep, having sliced between two ribs, and though the blood had slowed it had poured freely in great amounts.
“It will need to be closed with thread,” Glindof said.
John nodded. “Athosian village isn't far.”
It was, however, far enough that it was not long before Glindof was forced to support John as they made their way through the field and woods. Glindof did not know what welcome to expect; The Starchaser crew had nothing good to say about anyone they traded with. But on entering the village it surprised Glindof to see nothing but concern as the villagers surrounded them, taking a limp John from Glindof's hands. They ushered him after John into a skin tent, where an impossibly tall, angular man who called himself Halling laid John out on a wooden cot. They stripped John of his shirt, cleaned his wound and covered it with ointments and strips of cloth. During that time Halling left to contact John's people.
John passed out during the cleaning, leaving Glindof alone with strangers. They brought him food, water and many questions but anger and fear had fallen back to numb, and words were lost to him once again. They left him alone to watch John sleep.
“You liar,” he said, without anger, without humor, without anything.
John's people came: a woman with copper hair, a giant, and a shrill little man who paled the moment he laid eyes on John.
“What the hell happened to him? He's skin and bones!”
And yet that man of skin of bones had fought Zindow and won.
Another woman pushed her way through with a bag. Inside the bag were tools she used on John, and what those tools told her did not make her happy.
“He's lost a lot of blood. We need to get him back, now.”
Two men in dark clothes and carrying weapons came bearing a stretcher. The giant moved John with the care one would use on a child, and as the young man was carried out, the three stayed close.
“You're the one with John?” the woman asked, smiling kindly. Startled, Glindof could only nod.
“Would it be all right if I checked you, make sure you're all right? You can come with us or I can do it here...”
Glindof didn't know why, but he chose to come with them. It may have been a mistake. The place they entered when they crossed the ring was large and beautiful and full of clean, kind people and it frightened him. They brought him to a room full of large machines that moved and hummed, dressed him in flimsy clothes and confined him to a bed. They asked him questions about John: who took him, who had him, why he was hurt. Simple enough questions, yet impossible for him to answer. All he wanted to do was vanish.
The bed they had put him in was next to John's. The boy looked better, still skinny and bruised but clean and bandaged and without the stress of pain.
Glindof, however, did not feel any different, and knew he wouldn't until all the people left. Solitude took its time coming. The two men and woman remained stubbornly by John's side until the healer woman chased them off to go eat. There were wires attached to John, trailing to machines, one of which beeped incessantly like a mechanical heart. Glindof glared at it, then at John.
“What now, boy?” he spat. “What plans have you made for an old man not long for this world? Am I to be your slave? Theirs?” He snorted, shaking his head. “You lying little bastard.”
The machine skipped a beat.
“When... have I... lied?”
Glindof frowned, narrowing his eyes at John. John's head lolled to the side, heavy eyelids parted showing barely a sliver of white and hazel. Yet for all the younger man's weakness, he still managed to raise a questioning eyebrow. Obstinate.
“You were not who you were,” Glindof said.
John's chest jumped, then he chuckled, amused and bitter. “Yeah... that made a lotta sense.”
Glindof clenched his fist. “Don't laugh at me, boy. You played me for a fool.”
“I played... the crew... for a fool. All part of the... plan.” His tight smile faded. “Never lied, though. Not to you.” When the smile returned, it was soft, wistful even.
And then it hit Glindof, finally hit him, and his eyes widened.
Lieutenant Colonel, a rank just under general.
“You'll be all right, Glindof,” John said. “I promise you will. I'll make sure of it. S'only fair, you know? All things considered. You'll be all right.”
Glindof stared at John as the fear, anger, cold and numb drained from him, melting his body into the bed. He chuckled, amazed.
“I believe you.”
----------------------
Glindof stood on the shore of the river, the babbling water in front of him, the noise of the Athosian village behind him, his hands tugging at the net he had tossed into the water.
Footsteps kicked and crunched through the forest debris behind Glindof, stopping when those feet reached the shore.
“Glindof,” John said.
“Storyteller,” Glindof replied. He studied John out of the corner of his eye. Still a scrawny creature, John, but standing tall, confident, relaxed.
“Doing good?” John asked.
“I am content,” Glindof said, gathering the net and giving it another, wider toss. “Who knew I would remember a skill from my childhood?”
“Like riding a bike,” John said. Which, of course, made no sense.
The river glittered under the warm sun like stars. Glindof started gathering the net made heavier by his catch. John helped him pull it in.
“John,” he said. “The man who stepped through the ring. You never told me. Did he regret his choice?” He looked at the man.
John smiled, tilting his face to the sky, breeze tugging at his hair. “No.”
Glindof smiled back.
The End
Prompt: Open prompt, which is a lot harder to tackle than it should be. I wanted to write something that showed Sheppard's clever side, since both Sharpes_hussy and I are big fans of clever and underestimated Sheppard. My initial plan had been to write a bounty hunter AU, but my brain had insisted on canon only, so a slave fic it was.
Rating: PG-13
Characters: John, OC
Warnings: Language, violence, abuse
Summary: "Tell me one of your stories, Sheppard." OC point of view.
A/N: Written for sharpes_hussy for help_pakistan. It's not the idea I originally told you about as that one refused to fly, so I hope you enjoy this one. See end of story for the prompt. A big shout out to wildcat88 for the beta.
The Storyteller
“Tell me one of your tales, Sheppard,” Glindof said, smoothing the pale green poultice over the shallow lacerations on Sheppard's back. Sheppard panted beneath Glindof's gnarled hands, fast and shallow, the old man's fingers sliding through blood and over the individual bones of the younger man's ribcage. Efficiency accomplished more than being gentle, but that did not mean Glindof could not at least try to be gentle.
The damaged back jumped when Sheppard coughed a weak laugh. “Finished the one about the galaxy far, far away, right?” he rasped.
Glindof smiled. “You did.”
“Then let me tell you about the one with the ring of power.”
It was a struggle for Sheppard to talk, the pain and exhaustion cracking his voice. But it was a necessity, a means of focus for John as Glindof worked the poultice into the wounds. Second Captain Zilf's whip was not a powerful weapon, not in that skinny fool's hands, but it was quick and sharp and the pain a flame that refused to be quenched.
“So... there was this little guy... named... Bilbo... Bag-- son of a bitch!”
“I am sorry, John. Please try to continue.”
Sheppard was also bruised. Third Captain Zindow's fault; the man had no patience and a fist like a rock. Glindof did not need to see through Sheppard's skin to know about the cracks in his bones.
Poor boy. He was a good man, quick-witted, quick-tongued but cursed with the grace of a lumbering Satedan ox, his long fingers and legs a hindrance as though he were only now learning how to use them. He had come to the ship (purchased for half price, Glindof had heard) a scrawny, dirty, lanky thing, blank-faced to make Glindof think he was empty headed. Which he wasn't. He was careful, cautious, and timid when the masters were present. When the masters weren't present, he told wonderful stories that made Glindof laugh. It had been a long time since anyone had made him laugh.
And that made it very difficult not to get attached to the boy. But Glindof supposed there was no real harm to it. Slaves came and went, bought on a whim not because they were needed, but because they were wanted: for status, for the sake of owning something, for boredom, and in the case of Seela the engineer, because dirty and scrawny or not, they had pretty eyes. A waste of a good coin, in Seela's case. She could look at John, beat him, but she could not touch him beyond that. The captain did not tolerate accidental pregnancy and Seela was not a careful girl.
Glindof was used to nothing lasting on The Starchaser. John came and he would go, just like all the others. When it happened Glindof would hardly notice. He never did, even with those he had become attached to.
Glindof covered the lacerations with strips of cloth that would hold the poultice in place. The double benefit of the poultice would keep the wounds clean as well as numb, and it worked quickly. Sheppard's voice became less strained and his breathing deeper and more even.
“Finished,” Glindof said, interrupting John just as the character Bilbo decided to pity the creature Gollum rather than kill it. “Let's get you up, John. Get the new shirt on you.” The Starchaser never wanted for clothes for its slaves. Culls might be slowing but there were still plenty of worlds to scavenge, and Captain Telroy dared to push his ship to the breaking point to be the first to claim the pickings.
Glindof aided John in his pained climb to his knees, then into the ragged and stained brown shirt that would be an agony of itching for John once the bandages were removed. He kept a tight hand on John during the climb to their feet, then all the way to the back of the cell and John's cot.
“On your front,” Glindof said, supporting John as he stretched out on his stomach. “That's it. You rest, now.”
“Don't want to hear the rest of the story?” John asked, voice slurred.
Glindof, chuckling, patted him on the shoulder. “I'm a man who's practiced a lot of patience, John. It can wait.” By the Ancestors, he hoped it waited. Seela would have little or nothing to do with John, having grown bored of him and his pretty eyes. But the first and second captains, and the pilot Aleesh, viewed John's clumsiness as sport. Aleesh especially enjoyed running him ragged just to see him trip and hear his stammered apologies. Then he would be beaten, because all slaves had to learn, and Glindof would have to put the poor boy back together again.
When Glindof was satisfied that Sheppard was indeed asleep, he left the cell that was his and Sheppard's sleeping quarters, and resumed his duties. Today, he was to clean out the cooling unit on deck three, then mop the corridors on deck five. It was messy business, coating him in coolant and grime, but because his third task was to prepare the late hour meal it provided him automatic permission to use the shower unit.
He found John in the galley, listlessly cutting binik root while holding his back as straight and still as possible. The bruise on his cheek told of his rude awakening, and his heavy-lidded eyes of having slept for very little. Better than no rest at all.
Glindof still asked, “Feel any better?” The younger slaves always made him feel fatherly.
Sheppard lifted his shoulder, which meant so-so, and so-so, Glindof had come to learn, usually meant no change at all.
Glindof cut Sheppard a slice of cheese and bread. Meal time for the slaves came after meal time for the crew, but what the crew did not know would hurt neither Sheppard nor Glindof. Glindof had worked for the captain long enough to learn of the shortcuts that made life easier.
Once Sheppard had eaten and was less listless, Glindof said, “I believe you have a story to finish.”
Sheppard grinned and talked while he cut and Glindof prepared the meat. It was a shorter story than the last, and over before the meal was close to ready.
“There's more,” Sheppard said, dumping the vegetables into the stew. “Kind of a continuation but with new characters. I could tell you that one. It's a hell of a lot longer.”
Glindof, stirring, shook his head in amused bewilderment. “I've traveled to many worlds, John. Heard many stories but never any the like of yours.” There had been the story of the adventuring man armed with only a whip and a gun, and one about a fish known as a shark, bigger than a man and ravenous for human flesh.
“Are any of them true?” Glindof asked.
“So far?” John said. “No, not really. Although we do have big friggin' sharks on our world.”
Sheppard didn't like to talk about his world, like it was something secret. He would grow uncomfortable whenever Glindof asked about it, eyes darting as though searching for unseen ears that may be listening. It made Glindof curious, but not one to pry, he did not push the matter. Sheppard could be such a skittish creature.
While the crew dined on roast meat and stew, it was Glindof's and Sheppard's duty to keep the tin cups filled with wine. Dangerous business for such a simple task. The second and third captains were cruel enough without wine in them, but even the kinder of the crew would turn a blind eye in favor of amusement.
“You have no taste, Seela,” said Frin, the captain's wife. “In men or slaves.” Sheppard had tripped over his own feet, spilling wine on Zilf's side of the table. Frin watched in disgust as Sheppard cleaned it up using only a rag while Zilf cursed him, punctuating his words with a fist to John's back. “He's probably as bad beneath the blankets as he is serving the drinks.”
Seela kicked John's legs out from under him when he came close enough. The girl had a temper as heated as the engines.
Glindof and John cleaned up. The scraps were few, but they finished them off, sitting on the grimed grating of the kitchen floor as they did. The pipes hissed steam overhead. The humidity made their clothes stick to their skin.
“But this Mid-el Earth is not your world?” Glindof asked.
John said in between licking his bowl clean, “Kind of based on our world but, no, it's not. What about you?”
“What about me?” Glindof asked. He did not eat as desperately as John, but then John's body had as much to learn as his mind.
John continued licking, though there was nothing left. “Don't you have any stories from your world?”
“I have stories,” Glindof said, leaning back against the rusty cupboard. “Not as entertaining as yours. My world is mostly a dream, these days. Same with the stories. I would only get them wrong.”
John seemed troubled by this. “You don't remember anything about your world?”
“I remember standing by a river, tossing a net. It was the season of heat, I recall, when the skies were blue, the ground green and the air warm. It was a simple village, because I remember the huts being made from mud and sticks.” Glindof smiled, a melancholy response, and chuckled without humor. “I'm an old, old man, John.” He tossed his spoon into the bowl, listened as it clattered, metal against metal. “That world is long gone by now, culled or enslaved or killed by disease.” With a knobby knuckle he tapped the cupboard behind him. It thudded hallow. “This is my world, now. The stories are even less entertaining,”
Glindof and John went to clean the halls of deck four. It was only when they were done and the majority of the crew asleep that they could go and rest. By then, John had finished the story of the ring of power.
Going to the cell, they passed a drunken Zindow stumbling away from Aleesh's room, his right eye bruised and swollen.
He shoved John into the wall hard enough for John to crumple. Zindow laughed, kicked John's hip then called him a stupid little bastard. John cowered, covering his head with his arms. Glindof Zindow left alone because the old man was the captain's, and abusing him had lost its appeal long ago. Given time, they would get just as bored with John, if he lived that long. Glindof was hopeful; John was such a thin, quiet, docile creature when around the crew, taking their bitterness in stride.
But John wasn't the captain's
“Come on, John,” Glindof said, taking John by the arm and helping him to his feet. They shuffled back to the cell. Once there, he settled John on his stomach on the pallet, then dragged his weary bones to his own pallet on the other side. Exhaustion didn't allow for any stories tonight.
-----------------------
The time for planetfall was close, which meant cleaning the small, bulky transport ships in the bay. There were only three left, small enough to fit through an Ancestor ring in case of emergencies, but large enough to carry cargo.
“Which planet?” John asked curiously. When Glindof said Genii, John lost interest.
The captain and chosen crew departed in the transports, leaving Zilf in charge. It kept Zilf busy, and with Zindow and Seela part of the ground team, allowed John and Glindof to clean the coolants in peace. But the return of the ground team meant cargo to relocate, a hyper Seela giving John grief and a surly Milt. He was a big one, Milt, normally quiet and unassuming, regarding both John and Glindof as little more than pieces of the ship. But he hated going planetside and hated even more dealing with cargo. Seela's attempts to poke John in his flat stomach, and Johns' attempts to dodge, put him in Milt's way. Milt retaliated, elbowing John hard between the shoulder blades. John fell in a sprawl then curled in a ball to protect his body.
“Stupid little bastard,” Milt mumbled, but left John alone. Seela kicked John, but compared to what Milt could have done, it was a lesser evil.
When the cargo was out of the way, Glindof and John gave the transports another cleaning.
“You all right, John?” Glindof asked, scouring the tarnished hull of Transport One with a scrub brush.
When John didn't answer, Glindof turned.
John stood there, staring at Transport Two.
“John?” Glindof pressed.
“There was a guy,” John said. “Used to fly these ships called choppers. Disobeyed orders to save some people and ended up in the coldest, farthest place anyone could go.” He picked up his scrub brush, dunked it in the soapy water and started washing, wincing every so often. He was quite thorough, washing every inch inside and out, climbing the transport like a tree rat despite his pains.
“But the ironic thing is,” Sheppard continued from inside the cockpit. “He actually kind of liked it there. No command, no one to rescue - just him and the sky. Then, this one day, he ends up saving this general... high ranking soldier guy. As a reward, the general invites him into this secret facility, where there's this magic chair. The guy sits in the chair because, hey, it's just a chair so what's the harm, right? But he sits in it, and the next thing he knows, he's looking at the stars and everyone is getting real excited. Afterwards, because he made the chair light up, this woman invites him to step through this ring to another set of stars. Takes him a while to decide because there's a chance he might never return, but it's not like he had anything better to do, so he eventually says yes. Next thing he knows, he's on another world, an alien world surrounded by alien stars. All because he sat in a chair.”
John fell silent. Glindof glanced back, arching a bushy white eyebrow. “Don't tell me that's the end of the story.”
“Not by a long shot,” John said, scrubbing hard the curved transport wing.
“What happened to him?”
“Lots of stuff. Made friends, fought monsters, got captured covering his friend's escape. Kind of the story of his life.”
“And after he was captured?”
John stilled. “I'll get back to you on that.”
It was time to prepare the mid-time meal, anyway. John told Glindof another story, this one about the man who traveled through the ring. He touched a crystal and a demon hid inside him, passing from person to person through touch. When it was clear the demon was out to kill, and when it entered the friend of the man's, the man entered the mind of his friend and fought the demon.
“But it was the guy's friend who figured out how to stop it by using lightning. When it was weak, the guy tossed it out of his head and back into the crystal.”
Glindof chortled. “John, there will never come a time when I tire of your stories. I swear you make them up as you go. What a mind!”
The mid-time meal was less hard on John, the crew sober since wine was only ever served in the evenings. When the meal ended and John and Glindof cleaned, John told Glindof more about the man, how he was nearly changed into a creature and almost killed his friends, about the smart friend who had been possessed by a lesser demon, a woman friend taken by the half-Wraith called Michael, a man whom the Wraith had tried to make their slave but failed. He told many stories of the man as they ate, as they cleaned the halls, as they made their way to bed.
Laying in the dark on his pallet, hands tucked under his head, Glindof could not stop thinking about the stories. He asked, “This man and his friends have lived a hard life among the stars. Do you think he regretted stepping through the ring?”
Sheppard didn't answer.
--------------------
“Not that one, fool! The larger one!” Seela spat, throwing the wrench in the direction of John's head. John barely ducked it, his shoulder blade taking the brunt rather than his skull. He kept his head down and shoulders hunched as he fetched Seela the correct tool - ever the cowed drudge, poor John. But he was still Seela's, and though Glindof had offered to aid her in the engine repairs to give John respite, John had insisted on doing his duty.
“She'd just beat me for not helping,” he had said, his smile crooked and self-deprecating.
Glindof was in charge of the heavy lifting since Seela did not trust John's clumsy hands. He tugged on recalcitrant screws, lifted weighty panels that made him grunt, and lugged the jugs of coolant within Seela's reach. John retrieved tools and acted as an extra pair of hands to make the work go faster.
When they finished, John was barely recognizable under all the filth. A second wrench thrown at his back had made it difficult for him to stand straight.
“I have told you it gets easier.” Glindof said.
John, grunting as they moved on to their next task of cleaning the toilets, nodded. “Yeah. More than once. No offense but I'll believe it when I see it.”
Glindof smiled sadly. “They will grow bored of you in time.”
“Doubt I'll be around that long.”
Glindof sighed. “John--”
“Glindof.”
Cowed, timid, skittish and yet at times surprisingly obstinate.
Glindof stopped, his hand on John's shoulder stopping him as well. They looked at each other.
“I am old, John,” Glindof said. “My time far more limited than yours. If they wish to have a servant who knows the ways of this ship as well as I then they will have to leave you be. Give it time. You will see. The bad will not last, and then your life will be good here.”
John regarded Glindof as though he were mad.
“It's not as though you have a choice, John,” Glindof said. He patted the young man's shoulder, just once, and continued cleaning.
“Did I ever tell you about how the man who stepped through the ring ended up trapped in a world where time moved fast?”
Glindof smiled.
----------------------
John tripped, running into Zindow and spilling wine on him. Zindow beat him, punching and kicking his back, but so drunk that most of his aim was off, sparing John worse damage. John was bruised, but when Glindof was able to tend to him in their cell he did not find any breaks that were not already there.
“Gets easier... my ass...” John rasped. Many of the blows had been to his stomach, leaving him nauseous and unable to eat for the night. He lay on his pallet on his side, curled with his arms against his gut.
All Glindof could do was sit by him and keep his hair out of his sweat-slicked and bloody face.
“It is said that the good only comes after the bad is as terrible as it can get,” Glindof said.
John breathed a twisted laugh. “In other words, it has to get worse before it gets better.”
Glindof raised an eyebrow. “You put it in better words.” When John's body relaxed and no longer showed signs that it might purge his stomach empty, the old man covered John with the thin, tattered blanket.
“There is talk of making planetfall soon,” he said, just to be conversational. He doubted John would be up for stories tonight.
“Oh, yeah? Which world?”
“The inhabitants call it New Athos.”
The muscles of John's body re-knotted. Glindof thought he would purge, but heard only odd, choking hiccups that might have been a sob or a laugh.
-----------------------
“Glindof, wake up.”
Glindof fluttered his eyes open, then widened them when a hand clamped over his mouth. He blinked rapidly in the gloom until his eyes adjusted enough to discern John's angled features.
“Don't talk,” John said. “Just listen. It's time to go.” He removed his hand from Glindof's mouth.
“Go?” Glindof whispered. He saw John's thin body glide like a serpent to his pallet, where he knelt and pulled something out from beneath the mattress.
“Go,” said John. “Follow me.”
Glindof did, sleep and a stiff body making him slow. He asked, “Is there some chore I was not told of?” But John did not answer. It was not until they were out of the holding cell, in the corridor where there was light enough to see, that Glindof witnessed something flash metallic in John's hand.
He gaped. “John, why do you have a knife? Where did you get that!”
John turned on him, hissing for silence.
Except it was not John, not this thing, this wild, feral looking thing with ice in its eyes and a knife in its hand. Glindof fell silent, barren of words. He followed John, who moved like a stalking animal, tense and curved, pressing the shape of his spine into the threadbare shirt. It was to the engine room they went, its quiet rumble vibrating Glindof's bones. He watched, shocked, as John took tools from the locker to make various adjustments to the engine.
“John, what--? You can't..? What if Seela--?” but words remained lost to him, dread choking him. It was late, yes, but time meant nothing to some of the crew. If any of them were wandering the halls, looking for a place to tryst, to drink... and the engine room was deep in the heart of the ship, as private a place as one's cabin but closer. If--
“Let's go,” John's voice said in Glindof's ear, making him jump. But he followed. He followed John through the quiet halls, their bare feet making no noise. He followed, and he didn't know why, because this was madness, whatever “this” was.
“John, please. What are you doing?” Glindof whispered.
“We're getting out of here,” John replied. They turned the corner.
Zindow, tall and angry with wine, met them coming the other way. They stopped; he stopped, his face flushing blood red with fury.
“You stupid little bastard,” Zindow growled.
What followed should not have been possible. John - small, thin, timid John, always bruised, bones always broken - and Zindow, big and furious and violent. Zindow lunged for John like an enraged bull. John stepped to the side, ducking beneath Zindow, using his momentum to flip him onto his back. It was not easy for John, causing him to cry out in defiance and pain. Zindow landed, the breath knocked from him, and John twisted his arm until the knife Zindow had pulled sometime during the attack fell to the floor.
John pressed his own knife to Zindow's throat. Time seemed to stop. Glindof held his breath, watching, waiting for the blade to dig into the skin, draw blood. And John would do it, any moment now. Glindof could see it in his eyes, the way they burned, cold melting beneath a fire so raging, an anger so hot, it shook John's body as though he would explode with it.
Any moment, and Zindow's blood would stain the grated floor.
Then John said, “No,” forced through gritted teeth. “No,” strained, like a man holding on with everything he had. John pulled the knife away only to smash the hilt into Zindow's skull. It was such a quick action, and yet Glindof saw every detail, the shape of the blade, the rounded end of the hilt, and knew the knife to be one of Zindow's.
“Come on,” John said coolly, moving on. Glindof hurried after.
“John...” he said, his words still stuck in his throat. They took the stairs four levels down, all the way to the darkened bay. John twisted the switch that activated the lights, momentarily blinding them, but he continued on to the nearest transport.
“John, you do not know how to fly!” Glindof said in a high-pitched burst of terror.
John replied, “Watch me,” and climbed into the cockpit of Transport One. He looked down at Glindof. “Coming?”
Glindof stared at him. Then the words came, flowing from his mouth without thought.
“How did you get that knife? When? How!”
And John smiled, crooked and ironic and obstinate. “It pays to be a klutz. So, you coming or not?”
Glindof climbed the ladder into the passenger chair at the back. He buckled himself in as the glass covering hummed closed. It sealed with a hiss of air.
“John, you cannot do this. You need clearance to depart. They will give chase, shoot us...”
The engines rumbled to life, shaking Glindof to his center. The transport jolted off the floor, hovering then turning to face the hangar doors. Three blasts from the weapons blew a hole into the doors large enough for the transport to slip through with some difficulty. Alarms blared and debris flew from the bay into the darkness of space.
John pushed the transport forward. Glindof's heart stuck in his throat.
“John, please!”
“It's all right,” John said, confident. “I know what I'm doing.” Bright blue globes of weapons fire from The Starchaser skimmed past them, each one closer than the last. But John weaved through them with the ease of a someone weaving cloth. He angled right, filling the screen with the blinding blue edge of the planet of New Athos.
“They will trap us on the planet!” Glindof wailed.
“No, they won't,” John said, grunting with each sharp turn, each twist and drop making them an impossible target. “I messed with their engines. It won't be long before they have to land and I'm gonna make sure they end up far from where we need to be. They'll be the ones trapped.”
The planet vanished from the screen when John pulled a hard left, reappearing after a hard right, then filling their view when John dropped.
Then, silence. The weapons fire ceased. John slowed, easing the ship around as he angled in for planetfall. The small ship shuddered as they crossed into the atmosphere.
They landed so smoothly Glindof barely felt it. The cockpit opened, the cool planet air smelling of grass and distant cooking fires. John clamored out first, dropping to the ground with one hand pressed against his upper flank.
Glindof followed, not knowing what else to do. He felt numb, so numb he did not feel his feet touch the ground, raising a cloud of seeds and insects. He turned and stared, just stared, at golden grass, a field of it, bordered by tall needled trees. Birds sang, insects buzzed. He saw, heard, but he could not feel.
“It'll be a while before they get the engines fixed,” John said. “The Athosians should be just within the trees over there.” He pointed to their right. “I saw smoke columns and they always stay close to the 'gate. Glindof?”
Glindof blinked and looked at John. John, squinting, shaded his eyes with his hand. His other hand stayed pressed to his side.
“Glindof, buddy? You okay?”
Glindof's mouth opened. Words poured out.
“What have you done?”
John's head reared back. “Huh?”
Then, Glindof could feel. He felt too much, felt fire and ice, anger and terror expand inside him until he thought he would burst, and he lunged. Grabbing John by his shirt front, he slammed him into the hull of the transport, shook him and slammed him again, screaming over and over.
“What have you done, what have you done!” He saw John's hand cradling his flank and blood oozing between the fingers. He ripped it away, placed his own hand over the spot and squeezed, fingers digging into broken ribs and an open wound until John cried out in agony.
“They will kill us, John! They will kill me! I cannot go back, I cannot! Why have you done this, why!” Glindof sobbed. “Why!” And threw John to the ground. He turned, walking swiftly away, putting space between him and John because if he didn't, he knew he would only kill the man.
But he had not taken ten steps when he whirled on his heels and screamed, “Why!”
For a fleeting moment, he saw the John he knew - the timid, cowering creature shrinking away from shaking fists balled and ready to strike.
“What the hell are you talking about?” John squeaked, then struggled to his feet. “I just freed your sorry ass!”
“Why! Why would you do that?”
“Why wouldn't I do that? You were a damn slave to those people, Glindof. They were bastards!”
“They were my home!”
John's jaw clicked shut.
Glindof swiped furiously at his eyes that had become blurry and wet. “They were my home. They took care of me. They kept me alive. They are what I know, John. They are all I know. This...” He swept his arm at their surroundings. “What do I know of this? What...” His throat closed off, and he had to turn, putting his back to John. He had to tear his fingers through what was left of his hair or else choke the man. He shook so hard he thought he might fall apart, and wished he would.
Silence surrounded them as best as it could, despite the wind whispering through the grass and the birdsong. It filled Glindof with more sorrow, anger and terror until tears fell down his face, soaking into his beard. He let them.
He could not go back.
“I'm sorry.”
Glindof sucked in a sharp breath.
“I didn't know. And it's not like... I mean... it's not like you said no...”
It was paltry, a pathetic excuse clawing weakly at reason and penance, a thing to be scoffed.
But it was truth that was a blow to the gut.
Glindof could have said no. For the life of him, he could not fathom why he had not.
“I'm sorry,” John said again, meaning it.
Glindof wiped his eyes dry and turned to him, the scrawny, dirty bruised liar, standing hunched with his hand pressed to the wound. Glindof wanted to hate him, that liar, that storyteller.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“John Sheppard,” John said. He licked his cracked lips. “Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard. Lieutenant Colonel's a rank. Like general, only below that.”
Glindof wanted to hate him. Instead, he approached him, reaching out. John staggered warily back.
“I want to look,” Glindof said flatly, pointing at John's side.
Swallowing, John inched cautiously forward until Glindof was able to lift his shirt. The wound was long and deep, having sliced between two ribs, and though the blood had slowed it had poured freely in great amounts.
“It will need to be closed with thread,” Glindof said.
John nodded. “Athosian village isn't far.”
It was, however, far enough that it was not long before Glindof was forced to support John as they made their way through the field and woods. Glindof did not know what welcome to expect; The Starchaser crew had nothing good to say about anyone they traded with. But on entering the village it surprised Glindof to see nothing but concern as the villagers surrounded them, taking a limp John from Glindof's hands. They ushered him after John into a skin tent, where an impossibly tall, angular man who called himself Halling laid John out on a wooden cot. They stripped John of his shirt, cleaned his wound and covered it with ointments and strips of cloth. During that time Halling left to contact John's people.
John passed out during the cleaning, leaving Glindof alone with strangers. They brought him food, water and many questions but anger and fear had fallen back to numb, and words were lost to him once again. They left him alone to watch John sleep.
“You liar,” he said, without anger, without humor, without anything.
John's people came: a woman with copper hair, a giant, and a shrill little man who paled the moment he laid eyes on John.
“What the hell happened to him? He's skin and bones!”
And yet that man of skin of bones had fought Zindow and won.
Another woman pushed her way through with a bag. Inside the bag were tools she used on John, and what those tools told her did not make her happy.
“He's lost a lot of blood. We need to get him back, now.”
Two men in dark clothes and carrying weapons came bearing a stretcher. The giant moved John with the care one would use on a child, and as the young man was carried out, the three stayed close.
“You're the one with John?” the woman asked, smiling kindly. Startled, Glindof could only nod.
“Would it be all right if I checked you, make sure you're all right? You can come with us or I can do it here...”
Glindof didn't know why, but he chose to come with them. It may have been a mistake. The place they entered when they crossed the ring was large and beautiful and full of clean, kind people and it frightened him. They brought him to a room full of large machines that moved and hummed, dressed him in flimsy clothes and confined him to a bed. They asked him questions about John: who took him, who had him, why he was hurt. Simple enough questions, yet impossible for him to answer. All he wanted to do was vanish.
The bed they had put him in was next to John's. The boy looked better, still skinny and bruised but clean and bandaged and without the stress of pain.
Glindof, however, did not feel any different, and knew he wouldn't until all the people left. Solitude took its time coming. The two men and woman remained stubbornly by John's side until the healer woman chased them off to go eat. There were wires attached to John, trailing to machines, one of which beeped incessantly like a mechanical heart. Glindof glared at it, then at John.
“What now, boy?” he spat. “What plans have you made for an old man not long for this world? Am I to be your slave? Theirs?” He snorted, shaking his head. “You lying little bastard.”
The machine skipped a beat.
“When... have I... lied?”
Glindof frowned, narrowing his eyes at John. John's head lolled to the side, heavy eyelids parted showing barely a sliver of white and hazel. Yet for all the younger man's weakness, he still managed to raise a questioning eyebrow. Obstinate.
“You were not who you were,” Glindof said.
John's chest jumped, then he chuckled, amused and bitter. “Yeah... that made a lotta sense.”
Glindof clenched his fist. “Don't laugh at me, boy. You played me for a fool.”
“I played... the crew... for a fool. All part of the... plan.” His tight smile faded. “Never lied, though. Not to you.” When the smile returned, it was soft, wistful even.
And then it hit Glindof, finally hit him, and his eyes widened.
Lieutenant Colonel, a rank just under general.
“You'll be all right, Glindof,” John said. “I promise you will. I'll make sure of it. S'only fair, you know? All things considered. You'll be all right.”
Glindof stared at John as the fear, anger, cold and numb drained from him, melting his body into the bed. He chuckled, amazed.
“I believe you.”
----------------------
Glindof stood on the shore of the river, the babbling water in front of him, the noise of the Athosian village behind him, his hands tugging at the net he had tossed into the water.
Footsteps kicked and crunched through the forest debris behind Glindof, stopping when those feet reached the shore.
“Glindof,” John said.
“Storyteller,” Glindof replied. He studied John out of the corner of his eye. Still a scrawny creature, John, but standing tall, confident, relaxed.
“Doing good?” John asked.
“I am content,” Glindof said, gathering the net and giving it another, wider toss. “Who knew I would remember a skill from my childhood?”
“Like riding a bike,” John said. Which, of course, made no sense.
The river glittered under the warm sun like stars. Glindof started gathering the net made heavier by his catch. John helped him pull it in.
“John,” he said. “The man who stepped through the ring. You never told me. Did he regret his choice?” He looked at the man.
John smiled, tilting his face to the sky, breeze tugging at his hair. “No.”
Glindof smiled back.
The End
Prompt: Open prompt, which is a lot harder to tackle than it should be. I wanted to write something that showed Sheppard's clever side, since both Sharpes_hussy and I are big fans of clever and underestimated Sheppard. My initial plan had been to write a bounty hunter AU, but my brain had insisted on canon only, so a slave fic it was.